The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 458 They Are Not Our Enemies
"Boom!" Mao Xiangsheng felt his scalp go numb and his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably. He crawled on the ground, tightly pressed against the ground, not even daring to breathe.

It was not until Mao Xiangxin beside him touched him that the two brothers climbed up fearfully, hunched their backs, and pretended to roar a few times, as if they were attacking very hard.

"Ugh!" But as soon as he looked up, Mao Xiangsheng saw a scene that made him shudder.

The path leading to Xuantian Temple was a mess of blood and flesh. You couldn't even tell whether the clumps of flesh twitching gently on the ground were human or something else.

Many of them were fellow villagers from the same village. No matter how fierce and powerful they had been before, they were turned into meaningless pieces of meat in front of that terrible cannon.

"Wujia Chongdi, Niubei Chongdi, hurry up, it's time for you to attack." A guerrilla in a weird official robe waved his sword and shouted.

"Everyone has been eating Third Master's white rice for months. Now it's time to fight to the death. If anyone dares to retreat, I'll chop him to death with a single blow!"

Wujia Chong and Niubeichong are both in Xiangyin County. Master Mao San was a juren and was the richest family in Xiangyin County.

Among the 5,000 militiamen in Xiangyin, at least 2,000 were organized by Mr. Mao Santai. They were either tenants of the Mao family or had only a few acres of land and basically relied on the Mao family for their livelihood.

Therefore, after hearing the words of the guerrilla general, even though they were frightened just now, the hundreds of brave soldiers from Wujia Chong and Niubeichong still began to gather nervously and slowly move upwards.

Mao Xiangsheng breathed a sigh of relief. Their Gutang Village had already charged through once and was safe for the time being. The two brothers hid behind a big tree and watched others charge anxiously.

The crackling sound of muskets rang out, and three or four people from the Wujia Chong militia, who were already moving slowly upwards due to nervousness, fell down in an instant. They all rushed back in a swarm.

"You bastard, if anyone retreats again, all the paddy fields rented by your family will be taken away!" The guerrilla was furious. He stepped forward with his waist knife and chopped at the militia of Wujia Chong several times in the air.

The two militias were helpless as the land they rented was the life of their entire family, so after retreating a dozen steps, they rushed forward again with collective howling under the leadership of the two captains.

As if frightened by their momentum, the two militia groups rushed up thirty or forty steps without firing a single musket.

Seeing the people around him start to shout excitedly, Mao Xiangsheng closed his eyes in fear, because he had already seen something.

These muskets didn't kill many people. To really kill people, you still had to use artillery. So the Xing Tang army above would often use muskets to fire a few times, and then pretend that the firepower was out, to lure their side closer.

Finally, of course, the artillery opened fire.

Sure enough, just when Mao Xiangsheng closed his eyes, the familiar roar of artillery sounded, and this time it was not solid bullets but shotgun shells.

In an instant, more than two hundred shotgun shells sprayed out rapidly from a high altitude, and the entire forest was shrouded in the strange humming sound.

The twenty or thirty brave men in the front were turned into minced meat without a sound.

Some shotgun shells even penetrated the human body, causing the people behind to scream in pain.

After the cannons opened fire, dense musketry sounds rang out again, and black smoke completely covered the opposite position. The two militias suffered even heavier casualties and could no longer hold on and turned around to run.

At the same time, a sharp bamboo whistle sounded, and Mao Xiangsheng was startled. This was the sign that the Xingtang Army was about to launch a charge. Without any hesitation, he pulled Mao Xiangxin and crawled down the mountain.

The guerrilla had long been keeping an eye on Mao Xiangsheng, the sneaky and cunning guy. He raised his sword and was about to chop down at Mao Xiangsheng's back.

But there was a loud bang, the guerrilla screamed, and his head was thrown violently, with blood and brain matter scattered all over the ground. It turned out that the light infantry of the Xing Tang Army had been keeping an eye on him for a long time.

Moreover, this scene was not only happening here. Militia groups were being defeated on three sides of the Xuantian Temple Fort.

A militia composed of more than 20,000 young men from Xiangyin and Linxiang surrounded Li Quan's 1,000 men and fought for three or four days. Apart from suffering thousands of casualties, nothing changed.

On the other hand, in Lukoupu, although the vanguard commander Tian Yonglu was killed by artillery before the army approached, this did not seriously undermine the morale of the Hunan militia.

Because Tian Da martial artist Chun Chun was an outsider, and was used by Chen Huizu to interfere, the local militia and tyrants had long been dissatisfied with him.

When people look down on another person, they tend to exaggerate his shortcomings and ignore his strengths.

Therefore, when the news of Tian Yongluo being beaten to death came, especially since he was indeed beaten to death because he ran too fast with only a thousand people, it gave people a handle to fabricate the story.

Therefore, the local tycoons in Hunan were spreading rumors that Tian Yonglu was killed by a sharpshooter while showing off his martial arts skills in front of the battlefield, and it had nothing to do with the combat effectiveness of the two armies.

Afterwards, the local tyrants of Baoqing Prefecture quickly took back control of their militia and continued to advance along this road towards the intersection.

After a brief resistance, Wang Wuchu took the initiative to abandon Pengjia Chong and retreat, because he had basically figured out the equipment and combat effectiveness of the militia. He was afraid that if he hit them too hard, these people would retreat back to Yueyang City.

Sure enough, Wang Wuchu's initiative to give up gave great confidence to the local tyrants who had just laughed at Tian Yongluo. They were more certain of their judgment that Tian Yongluo was not defeated head-on, but was killed by a precise sniper.

On the 22nd day of the fourth lunar month, the Hunan militia, which had been dragging its feet, had basically arrived. They divided into three sides and blocked the intersection tightly.

On the other side of Lukoupu, Wang Wubing gave up the flat ground on the right side of Lukoupu and moved the entire team to the slope on the left.

The Xing Tang Army strictly followed the operating standards, dug three trenches, and then used the soil from the three trenches to build three breastworks.

Eleven field guns were also set up for cross-fire, and the slopes on the front that could be used for attack were also destroyed, so that the enemy could only deploy a maximum of 2,000 people to attack at one time.

At the same time, there are zigzag trenches between the three horizontal trenches that can connect with each other, which not only can avoid artillery fire, but also allows grenadiers to drop bombs in a relatively safe environment.

On the Hunan Brave side, Chen Huizu set up his main commander's tent not far from the Xingtang Army's position to demonstrate his fearless spirit.

However, in contrast to his fearless spirit, the militia's equipment was extremely poor.

Historically, when Zeng Guofan formed the Hunan Army, each battalion had only one mountain-splitting cannon and dozens of muskets for a thousand men, and the rest had to rely on swords and spears.

But that was seventy or eighty years later, when the First Opium War forced China to open its borders, the Qing government's control was greatly reduced, and the people were able to get some guns and cannons.

The equipment in Hunan is even worse now. Chen Huizu has mobilized 80,000 people, but there are only ten larger artillery pieces. These ten artillery pieces are for defending Changsha, and they are heavy and difficult to move.

There were not many other small cannons such as mountain-splitting cannons, only thirty or forty of them, some of which had been stored for a long time and were no longer usable. There were more than four thousand muskets, which seemed like a lot, but they were owned by a total of eighty thousand people.

Therefore, the 80,000 warriors were basically only equipped with swords, spears, and rattan shields. They had no good way to attack, and could only rely on their numbers, charging forward with swords and spears, relying entirely on hand-to-hand combat. No, they couldn't even fight immediately, because they had been busy setting up camp for two or three days.

In the commander-in-chief's tent, Chen Huizu was very upset because he lost his trusted general Tian Yongluo. At the same time, he also lost control of the 20,000 militiamen in Baoqing Prefecture, which was even more disadvantageous to him.

At this moment, he looked at the group of local tyrants below, and seemed to be secretly dissatisfied, so he simply made up his mind.

"This battle is extremely important to us. The ones paving the way are none other than Mo Guangzhong's Yuan Cong Guards, the elite of the Yu Kingdom's elite troops. Now that they are offering to help us, it is our golden opportunity.

If we can defeat these 5,000 people at the intersection, the situation will be beyond Mo Guangzhong's control. Even if he doesn't want to compromise with us, he will have to compromise.

I suggest that the militia from Liling, Liuyang and Pingjiang serve as the vanguard.

The order of the militias from Xiangxiang, Changsha Shanhua, Xiangtan and Yiyang.

The militias from Xinghua and Baoqing will be the rear guard, and everyone must be determined to fight to the death."

When the local militia leaders heard the orders issued by Chen Huizu in Mandarin, they were somewhat reluctant.

Hunan is actually quite patchwork. Language and culture-wise, Changsha, most of Yueyang, Yiyang, Hengyang, and other areas are all Hunan New Xiang dialect areas.

Most areas of Baoqing Prefecture and Yongzhou Prefecture speak the traditional old Hunan dialect.

Yongshun Prefecture (Zhangjiajie area) and Yuanzhou Prefecture (Huaihua and Fenghuang area) in western Hunan belong to different Southwestern Mandarin dialects.

Eastern areas such as Liling and Liuyang belong to the Gan dialect area, and their culture is closer to that of western Jiangxi.

The southernmost part has deep roots in language and culture with Guilin, Guangxi.

Therefore, Chen Huizu's arrangement is to push Liling and Liuyang, which are closer to the culture of western Jiangxi, to the forefront.

Let Changsha and Yueyang, which are famous for the New Hunan dialect films, take the second tier.

His own fellow villagers, the militia from Baoqing Prefecture and the northern part of Yongzhou Prefecture who spoke the old Hunan dialect, served as reserve and supervisory forces.

Therefore, after the order was issued, the voices of the people below became louder and louder, and they became more and more dissatisfied.

Chen Huizu had no way to suppress the situation by force and could only coordinate and communicate constantly. Dozens of local tyrants from all over Hunan started arguing with each other, and some of them were even about to start a fight in the big tent.

The leaders of the 80,000 Hunan Brave Warriors acted like gangsters running a temple.

Although they were both from Hunan, Chen Huizu's ability was far inferior to Zeng Guofan's.

Zeng the Barber used Confucian culture of loyalty and filial piety combined with rent to exercise personal control. Furthermore, he had been in Hunan for a long time and held a high prestige. People from all over the country respected him. This was in no way comparable to someone like Chen Huizu, who had gone to Beijing at the age of four or five.

Therefore, although Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army was not very good at fighting at the beginning, it had strict military discipline, unity, and could withstand failure, which was a world apart from Chen Huizu's Hunan Bravery.

After arguing for a long time, Chen Huizu finally reached an agreement after threats and compromises.

Chen Huizu agreed to mobilize all the musketeers in the Hunan Brave Army to cooperate with the militia in Liling, Liuyang and Xiangtan in a coordinated attack.

By this time, it was already very late, and the soldiers outside were clamoring for dinner. Chen Huizu couldn't stand the noise, so he changed the time of the attack to tomorrow morning, and let them eat and rest first.

But just as the Xiangyong army had finished preparing the meal and had not yet started eating, the Xingtang army stationed at the intersection selected 500 light infantrymen and suddenly launched an offensive.

The Hunan Brave Camp stretched for seven or eight miles. The Liling Militia, who were at the forefront, had just served their meals when bullets were fired from all directions. They screamed in agony.

The Liling militia had never experienced such intensity. Their few muskets could not reach the Xingtang Army, and their camps were not set up, so there were not many places to hide.

At the same time, the light infantry of the Xing Tang Army's Yuan Cong Guards were veterans of hundreds of battles, and their shooting skills were extremely accurate. After fighting for only a dozen minutes, hundreds of Liling militia members were killed. Unable to withstand the damage, they even abandoned their positions and fled.

Chen Huizu quickly ordered each battalion to organize elite troops to assist, and the Xing Tang army fought and retreated, leading them into the range of artillery.

More than 2,000 Hunan braves rushed forward shouting, but were bombarded by six field guns, suffering more than 300 casualties and retreating again.

Afterwards, the light infantry moved forward and fired a cold shot. If the Hunan Braves came up again, they would lead them under the artillery position again.

At the end of the battle, Wang Wubing even pushed two three-pound field guns forward to provide support.

The multiple gunfire and artillery bombardments forced Chen Huizu to give orders, ordering the Liling militia to abandon the half-built camp and retreat half a mile to move the camp back.

Even the location of the big tent that Chen Huizu had just decided on had to be moved back a bit.

This was a typical mob, with no cavalry, no field artillery, no rifles, and not even line infantry.

They only had a small number of matchlock guns and a large number of hand-to-hand weapons. The officers and soldiers were basically farmers. They had never been on the battlefield and had no idea how to fight.

"With just these two moves, they are not even as good as the Zheng army in Beihe. How dare they ask for such a high price!" Wang Wuchu said speechlessly.

Wang Wubing shook his head, not sure whether to deny or feel regret. "This isn't their fault. The Tartars and the landlords have oppressed them so deeply that their level of military strength has regressed to a thousand years ago."

Wang Wubing sighed deeply, "Defeat them as soon as possible. This kind of fratricide makes me sick.

Our enemies are not these common people, but the Tartars and the traitorous landlords who collaborate with them to exploit their own people!"

However, even though he said that he was disgusted, Wang Wubing still hardened his heart and continued to organize elite soldiers to launch a wave of assaults at night. The first few battalions of the Hunan Braves were almost blown up again, and the morale of the army suffered a severe blow.

　This is my good friend's ancestor. He hopes that in a parallel universe, he will be born as a king in New Zealand.

　　In addition, there will be three updates today to make up for what was missed yesterday.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)