The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 487 You are no match for guns and cannons, but we are your ancestors when it comes to swords and knives

General Xi'an revived and lit a smoke signal at the highest point of Macun Hill, but this was not a warning, but a sign that he could not hold on any longer.

The important reason for all this is that the Xing Tang Army's fighting style is different from any enemy they have encountered.

The Xing Tang Army did not launch a group charge, but instead used small groups of elite troops to conduct infiltration operations. They were equipped with a large number of advanced weapons and had hot air balloons in the sky to spy on the Qing army's movements.

On the other hand, the Qing army's firepower was much worse than when the main force was not destroyed. Only a small number of heavy smoothbore guns modified from dove-foot guns and some mountain-splitting cannons and nine-section cannons could cause damage to the Xing Tang army.

Therefore, as soon as the war started, it entered a rhythm that the Qing army was very uncomfortable with. The entire battle of Macun was a small-scale, high-intensity repeated battle.

Therefore, the Qing army, which was lagging behind in training, weapons, morale and even manpower, could not hold out after only three days of fighting.

In Linqing City, seeing the smoke rising from Macun, the Qing army commander Iletu held an emergency discussion with his generals and they all agreed that they had no choice but to go to the rescue.

This is not a question of whether the outpost will be lost, but a question of whether morale may collapse if they have to watch thousands of elite soldiers in Ma Village being wiped out.

"The Han army's fighting power is too terrifying. Ma Village's defense is so complete, but it only lasted three days. Even if we go out in full force, I'm afraid we won't have much chance of winning."

Deputy General Dong Guo, commander of the Han Army's Bordered Yellow Banner, hesitated for a moment, but still spoke to the commander-in-chief Yiletu.

Yiletu didn't look at Dong Guo, his eyes drifting off into the distance. "Fighting means death, defending also means death. The Hu people don't have a hundred-year destiny. We bannermen have lived a life of superiority for over a hundred years. What else is there to be dissatisfied with?"

Dong Guo felt depressed. Even a bannerman like Yiletu had lost confidence. Could this war still be fought?
On the eleventh day of the fourth lunar month, Mo Zibu arrived at the front line of Macun, and cheers were heard everywhere.

However, Mo Zibu did not order the capture of Ma Village, because this village had decent defenses and the soldiers had decent combat effectiveness. It was just a place to be surrounded and attacked for reinforcements, and the enemy would have to be rescued before they could be attacked.

On the second day, the Xingtang Army's fleet on the canal, led by six or seven sand ships, defeated the Qing Army's small fleet.

The Xing Tang Army's sand ships could be equipped with four to six six-pound cannons, while the Qing army did not even have enough cannons to deploy at key points like Macun, so how could they have extra cannons to install on the ships?

So it was no surprise that they were easily defeated.

After repelling the Qing Dynasty's small inland fleet, the Xing Tang Army began to build a pontoon bridge on the Wei River with great fanfare, and more troops and logistical supplies were continuously transported over.

At this time, the Qing army from Linqing Prefecture slowly set out from Linqing Prefecture and came to rescue Macun.

The sound of horse hooves rang out, and the earth seemed to be shaking. A group of marching divine soldiers immediately stopped in panic.

A large number of farmers who were obviously pulled out of the fields looked at each other in panic, including the grassroots officers around them.

These people had received decent training on a daily basis, but had never been on a battlefield. It was normal for them to panic when they heard the rhythmic sound of horse hooves and saw the overwhelming cavalry in the distance.

At this moment, the yellow flags in the divine army team waved a few times, and a cavalryman wearing yellow battle robes and holding lances and sabers also galloped away from the divine army team.

The divine soldiers who were just in panic suddenly burst into cheers. Seeing the usually majestic cavalry rushing out, the divine soldiers were filled with desire for victory.

Zuoge (Rakoczi Zog) raised a blue and white flag, and the two cavalry companies on the left wing of the Changshui Hu Cavalry Regiment immediately attacked.

They were scattered far apart, waving many flags and shouting non-stop, making a very loud noise.

Sure enough, six or seven hundred divine cavalrymen were basically attracted to them. The two sides chased each other, raising dust, which blocked the vision of each other's cavalrymen to varying degrees.

I don't know how many times they circled in the dust. The Changshui Hu cavalry tried not to use their pistols, and only used their spears and sabers to fight with the divine cavalry.

When the battle was at its most intense, the officers of the Changshui Hu cavalry began to blow the copper whistles in their mouths, and the cavalrymen who heard the copper whistles also began to blow them.

After about ten seconds, when almost everyone heard the sound of the copper whistle, they suddenly ran in the direction of Zog.

The divine cavalry that was chasing them did not notice anything wrong and continued to chase them out of inertia.

But after they crossed the designated position, the 800 Changshui Hu cavalry led by Zog suddenly took action.

They used three hundred cuirassiers as the vanguard, and with lightning speed, they formed a relatively neat formation and suddenly rushed into the center of the pursuing divine cavalry.

In an instant, the unorganized divine cavalry was immediately split into two. Then the Changshui Hu cavalry did not engage in a chaotic battle, but after being cut off, they gathered together again and continued to attack.

The scene on the battlefield began to become extremely bloody. The divine cavalry, which had been stunned in the initial fierce attack, was in chaos, and suffered heavy casualties from the constant attacks of the Changshui Hu cavalry.

At this point, the commander of the divine army finally noticed that something was wrong. He sent out a team of senior sisters, all composed of women, to carry a fairy lady, singing and dancing as they shuttled through the team.

When the divine soldiers saw the solemn and majestic fairy lady on the sedan chair and heard the music that they were very familiar with, they immediately calmed down.

They shouted slogans and, under the command of their officers, advanced in an orderly manner towards the Changshui Hu cavalry, attempting to rescue the cavalry that was about to be defeated.

Seeing the opposing infantry approaching in formation, Zog gave up on attacking the divine cavalry and did not choose to defeat them. Instead, he focused on dealing with the divine infantry.

Under the command of flags and the sound of drums and music, four hundred of the one thousand Changshui Hu cavalry immediately dismounted and formed a line infantry holding brown bass muskets.

The divine cavalry had already scattered in fear, leaving only the infantry to fight the enemy alone.

Thick smoke rose as three volleys of musketry unleashed an overwhelming force, each collective explosion resembling an artillery barrage. The divine soldiers' equipment was actually quite poor. After all, this was during the Qianlong Emperor's reign, not the later Second Crow era, when matchlock muskets were extremely rare in the civilian population.

After losing the three handicraft bases in Guangdong, Jiangnan and Wuchang, Hubei, the Arsenal of the Ministry of War in Beijing, which was responsible for the production of military equipment, and the Gun and Cannon Manufacturing Department under the Imperial Household Department, did not even have enough iron, let alone large-scale production.

This led to a phenomenon that among the nearly 200,000 troops of the Qing Dynasty, there were only more than 10,000 matchlock rifles and a small number of flintlock rifles, which was similar to the 10,000-strong Beijing Camp Army of Dayu.
Lacking the knowledge of muskets in real life, they naturally panicked and responded poorly when they encountered one.

The three-round volley of 400 bullets killed and wounded more than a hundred of the divine soldiers who were arranged in dense formation.

This is an extremely terrifying damage ratio, almost equivalent to a decisive battle within 60 meters among line infantry.

The soldiers in the front row of the divine soldiers collapsed instantly. They ran backwards crying, but the small number of musketeers behind them continued to move forward.

These own people were huddled together in a very chaotic manner, and the gunfire did not stop. Under the order of free fire, the four hundred line infantrymen were like a hedgehog that continuously fired deadly spikes, causing heavy casualties to the divine soldiers.

The most crucial thing is that the Changshui Hu Cavalry Regiment has an artillery company with three three-pound cannons. Although they are not very powerful, they can still cause great damage when attacking the gathered divine soldiers.

This vanguard of more than 6,000 divine soldiers was thus entangled by a thousand Changshui Hu cavalry.

Their cavalry had been defeated and could not play much of a role. At the same time, if they wanted to fight against the Changshui Hu cavalry, they had to form a formation, otherwise they would be dispersed by the cavalry.

But once they formed a battle formation, the four hundred line infantrymen and three three-pound cannons continuously fired deadly projectiles, smashing the immobile infantry phalanx into pieces with broken limbs flying everywhere.

In this deadly environment of being blocked from both ends, more than a thousand of the six thousand divine soldiers were killed or injured in just one hour. Even though the fairies and the senior sisters dressed in colorful clothes kept encouraging them, they were basically on the verge of collapse.

Fortunately, the leader of the divine soldiers in the distance saw the danger here and assembled a cavalry of 1,100 people to come to the rescue, which barely resolved the crisis.

Similar battles were constantly taking place on the road from Linqing Prefecture to Macun. The Xing Tang Army had a total of 7,000 cavalrymen, who were divided into six teams. They defeated the Qing army that was leaving the city and made them unable to advance, suffering heavy casualties.

On April 16, the Qing army took three or four days to walk the 15 kilometers to the designated location. Although there were many people, their morale was extremely low. There were about 2,000 people killed.

But after reaching the designated location, the Qing army's nightmare really began.

Under the command of the professional counterpart Reinstein, the Dayu cavalry defeated all the Qing cavalry troops one after another within two days, and then cut off the connection between the Qing troops leaving the city and Linqing City.

Goodness! Is this a rescue or a fight?
On April 20, the Qing army commander Yiletu completely gave up struggling. He had few cavalry left, and several elite infantrymen who had attacked were also beaten back.

Well… the good news is that Ma Cun was rescued, but the bad news is that the main force of the army was surrounded along with Ma Cun’s army.

Mo Zibu personally went to the front line at this moment and made the final strategic mobilization. The 38,000 Xing Tang troops and more than 10,000 civilians worked together to trap the 130,000 Eight Banners soldiers and divine soldiers in Macun.

At this time, the Xing Tang army was not in a hurry at all. Instead, they did not take the initiative to attack, and did not even besiege the enemy to death.

Because Mo Zibu knew very well that the Qing army was doomed and they had nowhere to escape. If they really chose to break out, they would directly become the spoils of the Xing Tang Army cavalry.

In this way, the Xingtang Army did not attack, and the Qing Army did not dare to break out. They awkwardly set up camps everywhere around Macun.

However, as a result, the Qing army not only failed to bring enough food as planned, but also soon faced a water crisis.

Because the Xing Tang army dumped a large amount of cattle, horse, pig and other animal feces from the upper reaches of the Wei River, the flow of the Wei River is relatively slow, and once the sewage arrives, it is very difficult to disperse.

After resisting for four days, the Qing soldiers who drank a small amount of Wei River water began to fall ill. The Qing commander Yiletu finally couldn't hold it anymore and ordered the soldiers to break out separately.

Mo Zibu personally commanded the three-pronged attack, preventing them from returning north, and completely ignoring those going south.

Because the Qing army and the divine soldiers were unfamiliar with the area and had no mass base in the south, and they couldn't even speak the language, they had no way to hide.

The battle lasted from early morning to afternoon. The Qing army and the divine soldiers organized waves of collective charges of two to three thousand people, but they all suffered heavy casualties in the heavy fire from flintlock rifles and field artillery.

The Qing army also knew that if they could not repel the Xing Tang army, it would be meaningless to retreat southward. Therefore, encouraged by their officers, they persisted for another three days, and then they finally waited for a rainy day.

Iletu took out the last of the food and water for the Qing army to have a full meal, and then launched an attack on a rainy day.

But he underestimated the Xing Tang army. In the heavy rain, Mo Zibu personally wore a golden helmet and armor, and held a long sword to boost morale.

"The descendants of the Eastern Tartars still believe that they were able to enter the Pass thanks to their proficiency in archery and horsemanship, but in reality, they relied on the shameless traitors who served as their vanguard.

Today, I ask you to defeat the enemy with swords and spears, and I want to tell all ethnic groups in the world that as long as we Han people are free of traitors, we will be a nation that no one can defeat!
When it comes to guns and cannons, we are the most powerful, and when it comes to swords and knives, we are their ancestors!"

Tens of thousands of officers and soldiers cheered loudly and took the initiative to attack in the rain, and their combat effectiveness was even higher than that of using hot weapons.

The Qing army was directly killed in the heavy rain, most of them fled south, and a small number returned to Macun to fight stubbornly.

At this point in the battle, except for the northwest centered on the Guanzhong Plain, there was no other force in the entire Chinese continent that could compete with Dayu, not even on the surface.

After more than ten years of construction, Dayu, which has an army of more than 200,000, an annual output of 190,000 flintlock rifles, and more than 400 artillery pieces of various types, has become an extremely powerful presence in the entire East.

(End of this chapter)