The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 518: Magical Battle, Right? I Have It Too
Normally, a battle involving 70,000 to 80,000 people would often take several months of confrontation.

Even if a decisive battle is decided, it will take several rounds of tug-of-war before the loser finally collapses.

The fact that the rebel army at Cuijiabao on the south bank of the Yellow River collapsed so quickly can only mean one thing: they could not even reach the level of the rebels from Jinchuan and Jiarong Tibetans, let alone the fighting power of the White Lotus Rebellion in Sichuan and Hubei that followed.

The reason why such a big incident occurred in history was actually because Tsarist Russia instigated it and the three Central Asian khanates provided strong funding in order to expand their strategic maneuvering space.

As a result, the Ma family gunners in Jinjibao were better equipped than Zuo Zongtang's Hunan Army, and they were taught by instructors from Central Asia.

In history, if General Liu Jintang had not been so powerful, it would be hard to say what the outcome would have been.

On February 12, Wang Wubing captured Cuijiabao and captured the rebel leaders, the Qi brothers, and more than 60 core leaders. In order to avoid any further trouble, Wang Wubing dragged them all to the bank of the Yellow River and killed them all with a knife.

The body was thrown into the Yellow River, leaving only the head. The brain and other easily rotten flesh were hollowed out, then dried with lime and salt, ready to be sent to the two capitals of the north and the south.

Under Wang Wubing's ruthless attack, the rebel army on the south bank of the Yellow River completely collapsed. They retreated to Hezhou in a hurry and disbanded their armed organizations, hoping to return to civilian status to escape punishment.

Some stubborn ones retreated to Xunhua Hall, Bayanrongge Hall (Hualong, Qinghai) and other places, and reunited with the local rebel army and some Qinghai Eleuth Mongols who were preparing to fight against the court.

After Wang Wubing occupied Cuijiabao, he did not continue to fight against the rebel army. Instead, he left 4,000 people to guard the fortress. He led more than 10,000 people to attack and recapture Ganzhou.

The city of Ganzhou was captured by the rebel army, causing a large number of casualties among the people. We cannot let these people escape.

Moreover, there are still a large number of people struggling in Suzhou and Anxi Prefecture (Dunhuang) west of Ganzhou, and they must be rescued.

On the contrary, after the battle of Cuijiabao, the rebel army of Lanzhou Prefecture was just barely surviving, and there was plenty of time to deal with them.

The fighting on the south bank of the Yellow River is over, but the fighting on the north bank will take some time.

After all, the people here are not a mob like those on the south bank. Their level should be comparable to that of the White Lotus Rebellion in Sichuan and Hubei in history, when there were thousands of matchlock rifles alone.

At the same time, Li Xianwen was a freak in combat. He paid attention to the mobility of the army. Well, this was also a characteristic of their Li family.

But at the same time, he was extremely cautious during the battle.

Li Xianwen likes to keep testing and biting the enemy, and only when he is sure that the enemy is indeed weak will he rush forward and deliver a fatal blow.

Therefore, the formation that Li Xianwen set up at Yanchangbao on the north bank of the Yellow River was to place 4,000 Black Flag Army cavalry on both wings to deter the rebel army from spreading out their formation, forcing them to concentrate on the front.

This is too terrible. Most of the rebels have matchlock guns, and they need to pull a piece of matchlock as a fuse to fire each shot.

For convenience, and because they had to carry so much stuff, many soldiers wrapped long fuses around their bodies.

If they were arranged in a dense formation like flintlock rifles, it would be easy for the fuse on the person next to them to be ignited, which would be a lot of fun.

As a result, the chaotic army was squeezed in the middle, but the musketeers sent to the front were sparse, and a hand-to-hand combat soldier had to be sandwiched between two musketeers to avoid accidents as much as possible.

Li Xianwen led 5,000 White Lotus Sect soldiers at the forefront, and behind them were 3,000 archers from the Yansui Army.

At the end of the 18th century, archers sound a bit too magical, right? But in fact, if you are not fighting against top powers like Britain, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria, you can take out a few thousand archers, which are very useful.

It is not easy to gather these archers, but fortunately the men in northern Shaanxi can still barely perform this trick.

This place is located at the junction of grassland and farming. Hunting in addition to farming is a necessary skill for every man in northern Shaanxi, because at least half of the family's annual animal protein intake depends on the bow and arrow in hand.

After the Mongols' archery skills deteriorated and both the Mongolian and Han peoples were subdued by the Qing Dynasty, they even often went deep into the grasslands to hunt.

Behind these 8,000 people are the 8,000 soldiers of the Beijing Camp’s Fenwu Army. They are the main force that will make the final decision.

The battle started on the two wings first. Su Forty-three and Han Sange were still a little smarter than Qi Yuxian. They could see the danger, so they wanted to drive away the Black Flag Army's cavalry from the beginning so that they could deploy their formation.

But unfortunately, they were not facing the kind of rubbish bannermen from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period. The bannermen who could be selected into the Black Flag Army now were basically the remnants of the battles of Jinchuan, Dajinchuan and Beihe.

They could not defeat the Xing Tang Army because they had thousands of Han people behind them, as well as two large steel bases in Foshan, Guangdong and Halong Bay, Guangnan. The annual production of flintlock rifles in the country had reached 180,000, and the production of gunpowder was even more terrifying.

With a backbone like Emperor Mo, the Banner people will have an exchange ratio of one to ten with the Han people, and the Banner people will definitely be the ones to be exterminated.

So it’s not that the Bannermen cannot win a battle, but that they are not qualified to fight a battle with the Han people.

For example, in the Battle of Beihe, the two sides had an almost one-to-one exchange ratio, but after the Xing Tang Army achieved this result, although they suffered heavy losses, they were still in high spirits.

However, the bannermen from Agui down were all in grief, knowing that the Qing Dynasty was finished, and morale plummeted to the bottom.

This is the advantage of population, and this is called demographic dividend.

And these Han people in the northwest who betrayed their teachers and ancestors naturally had no qualifications to revive the Tang army.

At the same time, the worries of the bannermen were relieved, and the combat effectiveness of these elite soldiers trained by Qianlong was immediately restored.

Therefore, when the rebel army attacked on both flanks, the Black Flag Army, under the command of Hailancha, led 4,000 cavalrymen such as Hadang'a and Mukden'a to retreat a short distance.

They waited until the chaotic army stretched out its route before accelerating and attacking.

Arrows rained down all of a sudden. After two waves of arrows ended, they immediately rushed forward and attacked with bayonets and knives. The chaotic army didn't even have time to reload their muskets before they were killed and retreated in a panic.

After trying twice, Su Forty-three realized that it was a complete dream to use his infantry to drive out the cavalry, so he also released his cavalry.

But this time, it was even worse. Su Forty-three's cavalry consisted of mere horse-riding nomads. The strong cavalry archery traditions of Hexi and Longyou during the Han and Tang dynasties had long since been lost. Released, these nomadic nomads were brutally beaten by the Black Flag Army and driven directly from the chaotic enemy. Not only did Su Forty-three fail to expand his strategic space, but he also wiped out the very cavalry that could have protected his escape, something Li Xianwen was most worried about.

At this point, the only option left for the rebel army was to advance and form up according to the positions preset by Li Xianwen.

What was even more troublesome was that after Su Forty-three had sent away all of his more than 2,000 cavalry, the extremely experienced Hai Lancha took a look and directly pulled out four three-pound field guns equipped to the Black Flag Army.

The Black Flag Army kept bombarding the flanks. If you dare to send out infantry to drive them away, I will charge at you. If you don't send out infantry, I will keep bombarding the flanks. This really hurt the rebel army.

"Brother Qi, what should we do? Should we go up?"

On the front, a large number of White Lotus leaders, both big and small, surrounded Qi Lin'er. This time they were obviously pushed to the front to be cannon fodder, with only 5,000 people charging against tens of thousands of enemies.

"Not going? Damn it, do you think the emperor is so easy to talk to? If we don't go, the people across from us will be the example.

If we don't go up, the head-cutting soldiers of the Fenwu Army behind us will dare to shoot us directly with the flintlock rifles in their hands.

Don't overthink it, just fight hard, the emperor's land and official positions are not that easy to get!"

"That's right!" A fellow from Handan, still wearing some weird Taoist robes, squinted his eyes and said:

"We are going to seize our land and even our wives from these rebels. If we don't fight, will the emperor give them to us for free?"

After saying that, the Taoist waved his hand and asked the people behind him to carry over several large buckets of water with some debris floating in it.

"Drink, brethren, this is our life!"

Qi Lin'er nodded, and was the first to scoop up a bowl of water and drink it. Then his whole body began to tremble involuntarily, as if he had been electrocuted. Then he suddenly shouted in a voice that he could not normally make:

"Hometown of the Vacuum, Mother of No Birth, Maitreya has descended to the world, possessed by divine weapons, invulnerable to swords and spears!"

"Invulnerable to swords and guns, invulnerable to swords and guns!" As soon as Qi Lin'er finished speaking, his close associates also shouted loudly in a strange manner.

When the believers around heard this, they rushed over. They took ladles and earthenware bowls and drank the so-called talisman water one after another. Then their faces turned red and they shouted loudly, as if they were really possessed by gods or Buddhas.

On the opposite side, a group of Ahongs were cheering loudly, and nonsense such as "Allah", "Ahuba", "Kill all the Kafirs" began to be heard.

What a scene of gods and demons dancing wildly. After the pre-swing, or perhaps it should be called after the chanting, both sides suddenly began to accelerate and rushed towards each other.

However, when they were ninety meters away, the White Lotus' flintlock soldiers could no longer withstand the pressure, and they fired their flintlocks in a relatively coordinated manner.

The battlefield was filled with smoke and a large number of soldiers fell down. Seeing the opposite side opening fire, they stopped and the musketeers of the rebel army began to fight back.

Tens of thousands of people on both sides kept firing at each other from a distance of eighty or ninety meters, but they just didn't rush up to fight hand-to-hand. It seems that no matter what they believe in, the real fear is fear of death.

At this time, the three thousand archers of the Yansui Army also began to move forward, and waves of arrows fell from the sky in the form of parabolas.

Well, actually the killing power is not that strong. It is almost a hundred meters away, and the bows and arrows in the hands of the Yansui Army are not very powerful, and the power of the projectiles is just so-so.

But you can't stand against the chaotic soldiers gathered together without armor, and they have already suffered a great loss because their matchlock guns cannot beat their flintlock guns, and now they are shot by bows and arrows, and they can't hold on any longer.

Someone shouted, and the army began to charge.

Li Xianwen saw everything clearly through a telescope from a high place. He immediately ordered the artillery mounted on the high place to open fire, bombarding the chaotic army from three or four hundred meters away.

Our Duke Xia appears to be an honest man only in front of Emperor Mo, but he actually has a black heart.

At this distance, if we use artillery to bombard the White Lotus Sect at this time, we might accidentally hit them as well.

But this is the effect Li Xianwen wants.

Qi Lin'er and others broke out in a cold sweat when they saw the chaotic army being beaten horribly by the artillery. They knew that if they didn't go up after the artillery stopped, the artillery might hit them.

Therefore, as soon as the artillery fire stopped, Qi Lin'er shouted "Mother of the Unborn, bless me" and then rushed forward. The White Lotus Sect members also followed suit, shouting and charging forward.

The situation of the chaotic army became even more chaotic. Under the combined attack of flintlock rifles, bows and arrows, and artillery, their front row was in complete chaos and could not withstand the impact of the White Lotus Sect members at all.

Especially the White Lotus Sect members in front, they were very worried about whether the magic water they drank would be useful.

But when they rushed forward to fight, the opponents seemed to have lost their souls. After unable to resist for a few times, they started to run away.

This was so exciting that many White Lotus Sect members really thought they were invulnerable to swords and guns and had the help of gods and Buddhas. They fought more and more fiercely, as if they had endless energy.

This kind of semi-religious army is very powerful once the wind is in their favor. Soon, their 5,000 people defeated the more than 30,000-strong chaotic army in the front.

Li Xianwen waved his hand again, and the Yansui Army also began to charge with hand-to-hand weapons.

The result was that the chaotic army retreated again and again, and was forced back several miles before they could barely stabilize their position.

"My lord, are we going to launch an attack?" The commander of the Fenwu Army, Major General Ruan Youzheng, was jealous and wanted to go up and reap the benefits.

But Li Xianwen shook his head and pointed at the chaotic army on the opposite side and said, "It's still early. They haven't collapsed yet. It's not time for you to attack yet."

(End of this chapter)