The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 361 Today, I want to be my own hero

Bullets rained down, and the gentle slope of the Bawang Temple and the trees everywhere reduced the advantage of the flintlock over the matchlock.

Because everyone couldn't line up in an orderly manner, they could only fire at each other.

Wu Wenhui reloaded very quickly. Weapon innovations often occur to people like them, who are rich and have free time, and are in urgent need of more powerful weapons to increase the survival rate of their precious lives on the battlefield.

The bullets of the rifle in Wu Wenhui's hand have evolved from round bullets to pointed bullets. If he is given some time, the Minié bullets that can greatly increase the firing rate of rifled guns are likely to appear in the East first.

Fierce exchange of fire took place on every hillside in front of the Eight Kings Temple. The Xing Tang army had the advantage in weapons, while the Qing army had the advantage in numbers.

When the fifth shot was fired, the Qing army's lead bullets were whizzing past him. Wu Wenhui looked back and saw a yellow flag raised on the battlefield. This was a signal to retreat, so he immediately began to retreat with the hunters around him.

The Qing army thought they had repelled the Xing Tang army, and under the leadership of their officers, they began to gather upwards, shouting and yelling, hoping to break through a point first and then capture the Xing Tang army's position.

Chen Tianbao took a deep breath. All the soldiers in their company were squatting in the trench. Only after the captain, who was observing from a distance, blew a sharp copper whistle did they all stand up from the trench.

"Boom!" A thunderous sound of firing rang out, and hundreds of flintlock rifles fired almost at the same time. Then Chen Tianbao put down the flintlock rifle in his hand, picked up a spear, and rushed out first.

This was the method they summed up to deal with the situation. When they reached this distance, they did not engage in a shootout with the Qing army. Instead, after a round of volleys, they would directly pick up their swords and guns to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

Even though the Qing army had suffered several losses, it still had not come up with an effective way to deal with the situation.

"Kill the Tartars!" Chen Tianbao roared angrily. He ran faster than any of the generals and was the first to crash into the dense formation of the Qing army.

He pierced the Qing army captain in the front with his spear, and then pushed the spear shaft like a bull, continuously pushing the captain down, directly breaking the Qing army's formation.

"Kill the Tartars!" The entire hillside was filled with the roars of the Xing Tang Army. They were in a high position and followed Chen Tianbao's footsteps and suddenly crashed into the Qing army's formation.

The front of the Qing army was full of musketeers. Their vision was obscured by the black smoke, and they thought that the Xingtang Army was still retreating. Therefore, they were anxious to occupy the Xingtang Army's positions, and many musketeers had not finished reloading.

This time, they suddenly encountered the enemy's melee soldiers and suffered a great loss.

Chen Tianbao had already changed into two swords in his hands at this moment. He stabbed and chopped in the crowd, and had already killed seven or eight people. Every time he chopped, he would let out a strange cry, and the Qing army would flee in all directions.

Seeing this, Wang Pu threw his sword to his grandson beside him and said to Wang Hu, "Guerrilla Wang, you lead the troops yourself and make sure to kill all those bandits!"

On the hillside, seeing that the Qing army's hand-to-hand combat troops were about to come up, Qianzong Mo Gong immediately ordered the guards to ring the gong for retreat.

Chen Tianbao was still hacking and killing people the previous second, but he immediately came to his senses when he heard the sound of the gong. He roared loudly, took some of his comrades who were more excited, turned around and ran towards the position.

Wang Hu and hundreds of hand-to-hand combat soldiers had just chased to the middle of the mountain when they saw the Xing Tang army retreating. They continued to chase for more than ten steps out of inertia, but immediately met with tragedy because Wu Wenhui and his men came up again.

Seeing that the Qing army was charging in a dense formation, they decisively switched to smoothbore rifles. Rich young masters were so arrogant that they could choose weapons according to their needs at any time.

In particular, their marksmanship is extremely accurate. You should know that among the second generation of Xing Tang nobles who have begun to form, those who are not good at marksmanship and cannot fire three smoothbore rifles in a minute will be regarded as waste and abandoned by the small circle.

Therefore, they did not need volleys at all. Simply firing from their smoothbore rifles was enough to inflict heavy casualties on the Qing army. Sixty or seventy people fell in two or three minutes.

Wang Hu had no choice but to retreat and let the musketeers continue to attack from above, but the young masters quickly switched to rifled rifles.

Both sides fired bursts of fire again. The accuracy and range of the bird guns were far inferior to those of the rifled guns. After a few minutes, the bird gunners of this battalion left behind more than 40 corpses and retreated again.

"Fuck you! This time the hand-to-hand combatants are following the musketeers. If anyone of them runs backwards, I'll chop him down with my sword!"

Wang Hu was furious. He was the grandson of the general and was a tyrannical person. The soldiers in the army were quite afraid of him, so they immediately reorganized the team.

But Lord Mo had seen it clearly from above. "Order the grenadiers to the front lines. No hand-to-hand combat this time. Only muskets and fire bombs."

Wang Hu personally held a rattan shield and a sword at the back. Anyone who dared to run back would be killed.

With him staring at him, the melee soldiers in front of him didn't dare to turn around, let alone look back, and the musketeer in front was pushed back by the melee soldiers and could only move forward numbly.

One hundred and sixty or seventy meters, which was not even within the range of the musketeers, the Xing Tang army's rifled muskets opened fire, and the Qing army fell one after another.

A soldier holding a musket suddenly had a mental breakdown. He threw down his weapon, turned around and ran back.

Following his lead, seven or eight people also turned around and ran.

Wang Hu leaped out of the formation with a big stride, waved his rattan shield, and knocked the first musketeer who escaped to the ground. Then he took the spear of his personal soldier and stabbed the musketeer to the ground with one spear.

Wang Hu deliberately did not stab the vital parts, but instead nailed the musketeer to the ground, leaving him crying and struggling while spitting blood foam.

"Whoever dares to retreat again will suffer this fate!"

The seven or eight people who were originally running back after the musketeer immediately returned to the formation. With the enemy in front of them and the supervision team behind them, they could only speed up and rush forward.

When the battle reached its most intense moment, people on both sides kept falling down, and the Qing army was able to achieve an exchange ratio of almost four to one with the Xing Tang army.

Wu Wenhui lost half of his ear, and blood was dripping all over his right shoulder. His good friend, the nephew of Jeddah Junbo Ye Fengchang, was hit by three bullets in the chest. Blood was flowing on the ground, and his eyes were still wide open on his pale face.

Tears blurred Wu Wenhui's eyes. He had no time to wipe them away. He just tried hard to close his eyelids and squeeze out the tears so that he could see more clearly.

The Qing army's musketeers were getting closer and closer, and both sides could see each other's faces. The infantry in the Xingtang army's trenches suddenly fired a volley, and with a bang, a large number of Qing army's musketeers fell down.

Wang Hu's brows were overjoyed, but the rising black smoke suddenly obscured his vision. He thought that the Xing Tang army would rush down and fight hand-to-hand again, so he ignored the musketeers who were retreating crying.

Wang Hu drew his knife and said, "Green Camp men, it's time to earn a living and raise the flag!"

Among the officers and soldiers under Wang Pu’s command, there were a large number of Han army bannermen who had left the banner in the past two or three decades, as well as their descendants.

It is indeed very cruel for them to leave the flag, but it is not a one-shot death.

Most of the time, the Qing court would still arrange some positions for them in the Green Camp soldiers in Zhili, so that even if they became ordinary soldiers, they would not completely lose their income.

Therefore, these people who had just been expelled from the ranks of traitors by the Qing Dynasty, upon hearing Wang Hu's words about striving for a future and raising the flag, immediately began to charge like crazy.

Then they miscalculated. This time there was no hand-to-hand charge at all. Instead, the Xing Tang army continued to fire. After the second round of volleys, they immediately started firing in bursts.

But the Qing army still did not retreat, and rushed to a place about thirty or forty meters away with howling. Wang Hu, holding a rattan shield and a waist knife, saw a Xingtang army infantryman wearing a flying saucer helmet behind the breastwork.

He shouted loudly and was about to pounce, but at this moment, a black object with flames flew towards him.

Wang Hu instinctively knocked it with his rattan shield, "Bang!"

This is a fucking bomb!
Wang Hu screamed, and half of the rattan shield was blown off immediately, along with Wang Hu's left face, which was almost completely blown apart, with white teeth exposed from the side.
This guy wasn't dead yet, and adrenaline was urging him to try to climb over the breastwork, but more bombs were thrown over a second time, and this time they exploded right under him.

In an instant, both of Wang Hu's legs were blown off, and his crotch was covered in blood and flesh by the flying iron chips and porcelain fragments.

"Oh my mother, oh my mother!" Wang Hu dropped the half-broken rattan shield and the sword in his hand and screamed miserably, but his jaw was blown off and he could only make some confused sounds.

After three rounds of bombs and another round of volleys of gunfire, the Qing army left behind more than 200 corpses, suffered heavy casualties, and retreated again.

Wang Pu saw it from a distance, tears of heartache streaming down his face. This was the most outstanding of his grandsons, the hope of the younger generation of the entire Wang family. The Second Hakka Regiment was guarding the other side, and the battle was even more brutal because the terrain here was not so open and everyone was crowded on a very narrow gentle slope.

Guns flashed and bombs rained down.

The Xing Tang Army moved three four-pound cannons that could fire buckshot and two sixteen-pound mortars down from the Eight Kings Temple and bombarded the passage with them. They also fired large rifles and tiger-crouching cannons one after another.

The Qing Dynasty was not to be outdone. They pulled up all the mountain-splitting cannons weighing dozens to over a hundred kilograms that could fire shotgun shells, small mountain-splitting cannons, small sub-cannons, Weiyuan cannons, and the banjiu cannons weighing thirty or forty kilograms, which should be called heavy smoothbore rifles.

The battle was so fierce at one point that the Longmen Regiment had to continuously dispatch a large number of personnel to help with the defense.

This was the most difficult battle fought by the Qing army. Fukangan felt that it was not so difficult even to fight against Jinchuan. Such a small hill was not at the same level of steepness as Jinchuan, but he just couldn't take it.

Ye Xianchun also felt that it was difficult. Judging from the current casualties, whether it was the Tây Sơn Army, the Bắc Hồi Army or the Burmese Army, no one knew how many times they had collapsed, but the Qing army could still continue to attack.

On the third day, all the shells on the Eight Kings Temple had been fired, and the Xing Tang Army had very little gunpowder left.

The Xing Tang Army underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Qing army. They did not bring enough gunpowder, artillery shells, lead blocks, and bombs, or they did not have enough time to bring so much.

The same was true for the Qing army. They had basically no usable firearms, and the nearest supplies had to be transported from Liangjiang Prefecture. They could not find civilian laborers, and their transportation capacity was extremely low. Distant water could not quench immediate thirst.

Chen Tianbao kept his mouth tightly shut, and together with three of his comrades, used bayonets to poke a Qing soldier who had climbed over the breastwork into a hive on his face. The Qing soldier, who was wearing a face armor inlaid with white flags, was still waving his long sword wildly in pain.

Seeing this, Chen Tianbao quickly picked up a large stone soaked in blood and smashed it on the guy's head, killing him.

"Chen Tianbao, I see. You bastard, you're not going to die. Kneel down and swear an oath. I'll ask you for a favor."

During the break in the battle, Bai Zong whispered that his legs were covered in blood and flesh from being shot by lead bullets. It was all thanks to Chen Tianbao that he was carried back, otherwise he would have died long ago.

The fatal wound was in the chest. Just now, another armored soldier from the White Banner flipped over. Bai Zong cut the soldier's throat at the cost of having all four fingers on his left hand broken and being stabbed seven or eight times in the chest.

Chen Tianbao knelt down without hesitation. Bai Zong suddenly vomited blood and said intermittently:
"You must...help me see to it. The woman can remarry, but...don't let my son change his last name. I only have this one son, and I need to tell him, tell him that his father died bravely in battle and was a good man."

Chen Tianbao, who had always been heartless, burst into tears, but his voice was already hoarse and he could no longer cry.

"Don't worry, General Bai. I will make sure you know that you are a great hero, a hero who killed eleven Tartars alone!"

As he spoke, he pulled out Bai Zong's dog tag from his robe on his chest, and then reached out to stroke Bai Zong's wide-open eyes.

"Sai Sai's mother, Lin Bei is not dead yet!" Mr. Bai cursed with a smile, and took a bomb in his right hand which still had fingers.

"I now order you to retreat to the last line of defense!"

The remaining thirty or so people in the company bowed to the captain in unison, supporting each other as they retreated to the last line of defense.

Soon, several Eight Banners soldiers turned over. They looked at the still breathing Bai Zong and stabbed him with their knives. Bai Zong opened his mouth full of blood and smiled silently.

"Boom!" All three armored soldiers were knocked to the ground, spitting blood. The closest one had both hands blown off.

"That's the enemy general. He's a talented general. If we kill him, the enemy army will be defeated. If we succeed, I will personally go to the Emperor to raise your flag. If you die, I will let both of your sons raise their flags!"

Fukangan pointed at Mo Gong under the red flag with a golden sun and said to a gunner of the Han army flag. The gunner nodded vigorously, then took two people with him, carried a 40-jin small submachine gun and quietly mixed in the crowd and approached.

Mo Gong didn't pay any attention and was still directing and organizing the defense. Suddenly, he heard a loud bang and a flash of fire not far away. He was struck by lightning and fell over.

"Captain Qian!" Three personal soldiers rushed over crying and hurried to check on Lord Mo.

Mo Gong's consciousness became blurry for a moment, and the severe pain caused his whole body to tremble. The strength and heat in his body were rapidly dissipating.

"Don't cry!" Mo Gong roared, finding strength from nowhere. "Hold me, both of you, and help me up!"

The personal guards knew that the situation was extremely critical. Two of them helped Mo Gong up, trying their best to hold back their tears, and asked Mo Gong to stand behind them, while the third personal guard hid behind and tried his best to steady Mo Gong's body.

The worried soldiers cheered when they saw that Mo Gong was fine.

Just as the Qing soldier who was plotting against them was about to fire the second shot, several soldiers risked their lives to rush over and hacked them into a pulp with their swords.

Seeing that even the sneak attack failed, the morale of the Qing army was greatly reduced and they were beaten back again.

"Old Song, I can't take it anymore." Looking at the deputy captain Song Jun, Mr. Mo slowly opened his clothes. Half of his intestines fell out from the place soaked in blood.

The previous shot did not hit him directly but grazed him, but the 450-pound shell still took away a large area of his right abdomen, completely exposing his internal organs.

"Let me sit down and don't let the soldiers find me. Old Song, you lead them to hold on and don't let the king down.

Tell the king that although I am not from the Leizhou Mo family but from the Qiongdao Mo family, I have always regarded him as my uncle."

Song Jun fought back his tears, "Don't worry, General Qian, as long as I, Song Jun, am here, the Tartars will never be able to take over the Eight Kings Temple!"

"Second brother, just wait, I will avenge you!" The one who was facing Mo Gong's personal soldiers just now was his cousin, and he had three bombs loaded on his body.

"Second brother, wait for me, let's go on the road together!"

Wang Pu, with gray hair and beard, bit his braid in his mouth and charged forward personally. This guy was very skilled in martial arts. Three years ago, when he suppressed Wang Lun's uprising in Shandong, he killed more than 20 volunteers by himself with a big knife. Because of this, he was appreciated by Emperor Qianlong and promoted all the way.

Now, both sides were running out of gunpowder, and Wang Pu felt that his martial arts could come in handy.

He walked forward quickly and knocked down a Xing Tang army soldier with one sword. Seeing the deputy commander so brave, the morale of the surrounding Manchu and Han soldiers was greatly boosted.

But at this moment, a soldier from the Xing Tang Army, who looked deader than dead, with a half-broken knife stuck in his thigh, suddenly jumped up from the pile of dead bodies and knocked Wang Pu to the ground from behind.

Wang Pu's personal soldiers rushed forward to drag him away, and Wang Pu also drew out the dagger from his waist and stabbed him repeatedly.

"Tartar, I'll fuck your mother!" Mo Gongxing howled, and with a loud bang, the broken limbs flew into the air, and the flesh and blood turned into minced meat and fell to the ground.

"Kill the Tartars!" All the soldiers were inspired. Chen Tianbao and Wu Wenhui jumped out side by side. The few hundred remaining people seemed to have regained all their vitality at this moment. They rushed towards the Qing army, looking down on them with unstoppable force.

The Qing army was completely frightened. No matter whether it was the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners or the Solon and Barhu people outside the Great Wall, not to mention the Green Camp soldiers, few dared to resist and they all turned around and ran away.

Fu Kang'an watched all this in amazement. He sat down on the ground in despair, muttering, "It's over, it's all over this time!"

Song Jun was in tears. He looked back and saw Mo Gong sitting on a big rock leaning against the slope with his head tilted to one side. He had gone to heaven.

"Tartar, I'll fuck your mother!" Song Jun wiped his tears, picked up a big knife, and rushed down with a roar.

The sound spread everywhere. The soldiers of the Xingtang Army, who had been fighting hard for three days and nights with almost no rest, burst out with extremely strong fighting power at the last moment.

There were less than two thousand of them, chasing and killing six or seven thousand Qing soldiers. No matter how Fukangan deployed them, the Qing army could not recover from the extreme panic and was defeated.

(End of this chapter)