The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 743 Oops, now I'm like Ma Su

Even someone like Mo Ziling, who didn't know much about military affairs, knew that the Persian-Bukhara-Khiva coalition was doomed when he saw the coalition forces of Persia, Bukhara and Khiva stationed hundreds of thousands of people on the hill.

It cannot be said that this decision is wrong, it can only be said that this style of play is outdated.

In the past, if the troops were deployed like this, allowing the enemy to attack one by one while they defended from a high position and used their field of vision to provide precise reinforcements, it would cause great trouble and casualties to the attacking side.

Because the means of attack at that time were mostly to fight hand-to-hand with armor, swords and shields raised, at most there were some matchlock guns, and they also had the advantage of being in a superior position.

If a war really breaks out using this kind of weapons and equipment, the attacker will definitely suffer great pain, as was the case in the Qing-Myanmar War in history.

The Burmese stretched for dozens of miles and set up dozens of hilltop fortresses for the Qing army to attack one by one. Although the Qing army had much higher military strength, it still suffered a very painful defeat.

But in Dayu, if they wanted direct fire, they only needed one horse and three artillerymen to push a three-pound field gun around, and if they wanted indirect fire, it would take even more.

There is a twelve-pound mortar that can be carried by three people, can be moved by one person holding it, and Grandpa Qi's tiger squat cannon that fires small picric acid explosive bombs.

Especially Grandpa Qi’s tiger squat cannon, which is actually modified according to the latest mortar, equipped with Dayu’s latest generation of bombs filled with picric acid.

This type of bomb already has propellant and tail fins, which greatly improves its hit rate and its performance is no less than that of the early mortars during the Russo-Japanese War.

Apart from the high cost of the tail-fin shells and the instability of picric acid, which is prone to explosion, there are not many disadvantages.

As a member of the main assault team, the lord of Changde Fort in Changshun County, Zhenxiguan Prefecture, and the current assault team leader, Army Lieutenant Pingwu (Ping Xiaogoro) has two such Grandpa Qi's tiger squat cannons in his hands.

"Captain, you have to be careful. Don't underestimate this bomb because it's small. It's the famous Widowmaker bomb. When the Imperial Guards brought it from Nanjing, they transported it in batches to prevent it from exploding.

Despite their caution, it is said that hundreds of bombs exploded along the way, and over 200 civilians were killed or injured during the transport.

A volunteer from Daibei looked at Pingwu and his fellow soldiers who were casually moving the picric acid bombs with a little awe.

Pingwu then remembered that when he received the artillery shells just now, the chief of chorus had indeed given him special instructions.

"Everyone, be careful. Don't let the bombing kill you instead of hitting the enemy." Pingwu warned seriously, then grinned.

"They went to such great lengths to transport it from Nanjing, so it must be of great use. With this thing, let's teach the Qarlugs in the mountains a lesson."

What Pingwu didn't know was that these picric acid explosive bombs using propellant and tail horse were more than just useful, they were a groundbreaking invention.

The emergence of propellant at least meant the advent of guncotton, and with propellant, modern bullets with primers were about to come out.

In other words, Dayu has now reached the threshold of percussion rifles and rifled cannons. Once it begins to evolve, it will immediately leave everyone far behind.

On the hill, the troops placed in the front by the Persian King Agha Muhammad Shah were not ordinary troops, but his guards, the red-headed soldiers from Turkmenistan.

Ever since the Persians, the main ethnic group in Persia, lost their martial virtues, the Turkmen red-headed soldiers have become the military pillar of successive Persian dynasties.

Even this importance has made the concept of the Red Head Army far beyond the geographical concept of Central Asia.

These are the descendants of the Oghuz people of the Tang Dynasty who migrated westward continuously over hundreds of years and integrated with other nomadic and farming peoples to form a relatively unified ethnic group.

They were spread across the Caucasus, eastern Asia Minor and northern Syria, including Georgians, who converted to Islam under their influence.

When the Safavid dynasty of Persia rose to power with the help of the Safavid sect more than two hundred years ago, these red-headed tribes had already believed in Islamic Sufism for decades. They regarded the founder of the sect, Safavid, as their faith and firmly believed that he would be resurrected and lead all believers out of suffering.

Later, these red-headed tribes deified Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, as Abu Muslim, an Islamic saint during the Abbasid Revolution hundreds of years ago, further deviating from the inherent Islamic worship of the Prophet Muhammad.

This actually has a very strong Christian apocalyptic complex, mixed with the shamanism and even Tengri beliefs brought by the Oghuz people from the grasslands. It is in great conflict with the teachings of Muslimism and is therefore regarded as heresy.

But this heretic was too powerful, and even became the biggest reliance of the industrialists.

The Red-Headed Army, which believed in Sufism and Abu Muslim's Sufism, once controlled all aspects of Persia's politics, military, and culture.

Among them, the previous Afsharid Dynasty of Persia and the current Qajar Dynasty established by Agha Muhammad Shah were simply established by the leaders of the Red Head Tribe.

Simply put, the Red Guards were more powerful than the Roman Guards and Ottoman Guards, who had a Praetorian Guard election law. They were the real controllers of Persia, and the Persians were just unspoken slaves under their rule.

These Red Heads had close ties with the three Transoxiana Khanates, namely Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand, which also believed in the Sufi mystical sect.

This is also the important reason why Agha Muhammad Shah took such a great risk to fight against Dayu. He wanted to use the opportunity to avenge the Kokand people to drive out Dayu, unify all the Sufi spheres of influence, and become the savior of Sufism.

The King of Persia was actually an empty shell and nothing insignificant. What Agha Muhammad Shah really wanted was to become a demigod in the hearts of the Red Head Army and the Sufi mystical sect, like Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Empire two hundred years ago, and to be a demigod who could replace the Prophet Muhammad.

Having said so much, whether it is a demigod or a prophet, if Agha Muhammad Shah wants to become one, he must show his strength and fight for it with blood and fire.

The six hundred red-headed soldiers from the Turkmen Sargur tribe who set up camp on the first hill were the relatives of Agha Muhammad Shah. They were the most powerful fighters to achieve his semi-god foundation.

On the white hot air balloon, a green smoke bomb symbolizing safety was ignited and thrown down, and thick green smoke drifted everywhere.

Hailancha laughed three times. "These Oghuz people only have one old cannon that is older than the Bukhara State. They are nothing to be afraid of."

"Tell Xu Tianpei, Pingwu, and Jin Quanri that their three assault teams should take turns to attack fiercely. We must capture this fortress within today.

If the goal is not achieved by the end of the afternoon, all members of the three teams will be given a serious warning, and then I will take over personally.

If I can capture this stronghold within one hour, that is, at the end of the You hour, all of them will be stripped of their military ranks and reduced to dead soldiers. At the next battle, charge into the battle with swords in hand!

. . . .

"You scumbag, you look down on people." Xu Tianpei muttered with some dissatisfaction after receiving the order.

Seeing that the other two didn't hear him, the younger brother of the White Lotus hero Xu Tiande shouted again, "There's not enough space for so many people on the hillside. Let's take turns with the three teams."

"Then our team will definitely be the first to attack. Please ask the two brothers to send the tiger squat gunners to assist me." Pingwu naturally grabbed the qualification to launch the first attack.

He was the senior officer with the highest military rank, so the other two had no way of competing with him and could only agree.

On the hill, Babayan, the Red Army commander of the stronghold, looked at everything in front of him with great pride.

It took them only two days to clear the hillside until no grass grew, and they also installed a cannon that they had obtained after the fall of the Dzungar Khanate.

This cannon is definitely not the old cannon that Hailancha said is older than the Bukhara Emirate, but it is indeed not an advanced cannon. It is a 250-jin mountain-splitting cannon captured by the Qing army from the Dzungar Khanate.

It is also well maintained and can fire shotgun shells, making it a pretty good weapon among the Red Army.

"There's no time to dig trenches. All troops, in skirmish line, slowly approach and lure the enemy into firing. If they don't fire, the riflemen will shoot their officers. Remember not to get too close. I doubt that gun can fire grapeshot!"

Pingwu straightened his red military uniform and issued a combat order. One hundred soldiers immediately dispersed and crouched as they moved up the hillside.

On the gatehouse of the wooden fort on the hillside, Babayan of the Red Army grinned proudly. There were three horizontal trenches one meter deep and three meters wide in front of the gatehouse, and there were earth walls in front of the trenches. It was definitely not that easy to attack.

And even if these peach blossom stone men could take these trenches, they would be within the shooting range of the musketeers on the gate tower, and the cannons could bombard them at will. He didn't believe that the peach blossom stone men could withstand such heavy casualties.

"Bang, bang, bang!" A burst of gunfire rang out. The red-headed soldier in the front trench was staring blankly below. Suddenly, his head shook slightly, and blood splattered on the faces of his comrades beside him.

His comrade didn't react at all, and his face was still confused. He stretched out his hand and wanted to wipe the blood off his face, but another long bullet (Miné bullet) also flew towards him.

With a snap, the long bullet shattered two fingers of the red-headed soldier, and then fiercely drilled into his eye socket.

The eyeball, vitreous body and other mucus were squeezed out of the eye socket instantly under the high-speed impact, making a bursting sound.

Fortunately, the bullet tip was soft, so it did not penetrate the skull, allowing the red-headed soldier to successfully escape.

However, his tragic scene of rolling on the ground and crying in the trench greatly shook the morale of the red-headed soldiers. A bearded officer, crouching down, hurried over, trying to control the red-headed soldier and stop him from making such a creepy scream.

But just as he raised his head and was about to scold, a long bullet hit again.

With a bang, a gorgeous flower of blood burst out from the right temple of the bearded officer, and then he fell heavily into the trench.

And as luck would have it, he just happened to hit the red-headed soldier who was already rolling on the ground, which made the red-headed soldier even more terrified and scream even louder.

What was more serious was that the death of the bearded officer left the first trench completely without anyone in command.

Immediately afterwards, after three or four more people were killed or injured, these red-headed soldiers either hid in the trenches and refused to come out, or hid behind simple earth walls and dared not raise their heads.

Pingwu was quick-witted and immediately ordered a group of three gunners in tiger-crouch position to step forward. After a simple measurement of the trajectory, the second shell hit the trench with extreme accuracy.

In an instant, the pale green gunpowder suddenly exploded, and half of the trench seemed to be burned by the fire of hell.

There was no trace of the red-headed soldier in the center, either torn apart by the violent explosion or instantly burned into pieces of flesh by the flames that could not be extinguished by picric acid.

The red-headed soldiers who were not at the center of the explosion were not much better off. The violent explosion splashed a large amount of rubble, making them scream.

Several red-headed soldiers who were affected by the picric acid explosives rolled on the ground in panic, trying to put out the pale green flames on their bodies, but they were unable to do so and could only howl and cry even more as they burned.
boom!
The third shot came again, but this time it was not very accurate, and the deflected shell fell on the earth wall in front of the trench.

However, although not many people were killed in the explosion, the scene was even more terrifying. After the explosion, sand and rocks flew everywhere, accompanied by a bad smell and shrill screams, which immediately set off the atmosphere of the battlefield.

A large number of red-headed soldiers seemed to be dragged into hell at this moment.

Woo!
boom!
The fourth shell came, and this time there was no mistake. It exploded in another trench. The red-headed soldiers who had no experience in dealing with explosive bombs did not build turns and special grooves in the trench to avoid artillery, so an entire row was blown up.

Finally, someone couldn't bear the tragedy anymore and got up and ran, but he was exposed as soon as he moved. As soon as he raised his head, a long bullet killed him.

"We can't fight anymore! We can't fight anymore! They have artillery that one person can carry and run with, cannonballs that can draw the fire of the Hellfire Demons, and muskets that can kill ten Chabels. We can't win!"

Someone shouted that chebel was an ancient Persian unit of length, meaning a distance of one hundred footsteps.

But it is different from the Chinese step length. A Persian chebel is only about 24 or 25 meters per hundred steps, so ten chebels are about 240 or 250 meters.

"Don't be afraid, let's run together. They can't kill us all." Someone else shouted immediately, and as soon as the words fell, the Red Army in the first trench began to move.

Indeed, rifles do not have such a fast rate of fire, and the rifles in the hands of Pingwu's subordinates are still the Ke Di 1782 type, which cannot be compared with the latest Mo Ye 1793.

At this moment, the Tiger Crouching Cannon fired four shots in a row. It was afraid of exploding, and of course it was most afraid of the instability of the picric acid bomb, so it did not dare to fire again.

As a result, about 60% of the remaining seventy or eighty Red Army soldiers in the trenches escaped successfully.

On the gate tower of the fortress, Commander Babayan watched all this in amazement. After thinking about it over and over again, he couldn't find a way to break the opponent's style of play.

Only now did he understand the advanced equipment of the legendary Peach Blossom Stone Man.

"Drive everyone in the first trench to the second trench and tell them that if anyone dares to retreat, I will kill them all and make sure they die on the battlefield."

Babayan didn't have any good solutions, but he still had the ability and courage to force his subordinates to die, and this was the only thing he could do now.

But what he didn't expect was that Pingwu was faster than him. Before Babayan's personal guards could drive the people away, Pingwu's riflemen arrived.

This was even more tragic. A large number of red-headed soldiers, including Babayan's personal guards, who were forced to enter the second trench were killed directly on the hillside without any shelter.

Their bodies rolled to the second trench like gourds, putting great pressure on the already tense red-headed soldiers in the second trench, so that few people noticed that the Western Army soldiers were approaching.

This time, there were no tiger squat cannons, but dozens of bombs.

Trenches and breastworks are useless if you don't have enough firepower and courage.

In this straight trench with no bends or indentations to avoid artillery fire, the power of the bombs with shrapnel was maximized. In an instant, 180 to 190 people in the second trench were killed and dozens of people were injured.

In the chaos, the people in the second trench also began to retreat in panic.

"Fire, fire!" Babayan panicked. He knew that he could not let the frightened fleeing soldiers attack the third, and last, trench.

However, after his order was given, the red-headed soldiers in the third trench did not obey it because they all came from the same tribe and were relatives, many of them were blood relatives, so how could they bring themselves to do such a thing?

In this way, the Western Army soldiers followed closely behind the first and second groups of fleeing Red-headed soldiers, and relying on bombs and bayonets, they quickly broke down the third trench.

Lian Pingwu rushed to the front line. Holding a katana, he called on a large number of his fellow Japanese comrades to move forward.

These dwarfs first threw a wave of bombs recklessly, and then pounced on and stabbed before the sound of the explosion completely disappeared.

Amidst the huge smoke and panic, the red-headed soldiers had no mind or ability to resist and were only concerned with escaping for their own lives.

After nearly four hundred years of continuous evolution, the Red Head Army has long lost the bravery of its ancestors. Although they can still control Persia, it is only because the Persians are even more useless.

Babayan was so angry when he saw that the third trench was broken. He looked back at the mountain-splitting cannon.

"Damn it! Equip yourself with grapeshot! When these peach blossom stone men get close, let them taste the power of the peach blossom stone cannon!"

Babayan loudly ordered the artillerymen, and several Red Army gunners from northern Syria began to fill the muzzles with pigeon egg-sized shotgun shells relatively skillfully.

Then, a roaring sound of breaking through the air was heard, and then the area around the mountain-splitting cannon seemed to be struck by thunder. Violent tremors were accompanied by flying sand and rocks, and the bent barrel of the mountain-splitting cannon flew high.

On the ground, a big hole was blown out where the mountain-splitting cannon was originally placed.

It turned out that the Pingwu mortar, which required three people to carry and five people to fire, had long been eyeing this mountain-splitting cannon. Guided by the hot air balloon, they quickly aimed at this place.

Babayan raised his head in despair. His instinct urged him to run, but his soul told him that he could not run away.

Sure enough, in just twenty seconds, the next huge solid mortar shell hit the gate tower of the fort. Babayan and his command system disappeared with a bang along with the gate tower of the fort.

"Damn, this is too easy!" Xu Tianpei sighed. They broke in with just one charge?

"Mr. Xu, if not now, when will you take action?" Jin Quanri's eyes were filled with jealous desire for military merit.

Xu Tianpei also woke up as if from a dream, and immediately two teams rode out to reinforce Pingwu.

Inside the fort, Western Army soldiers armed with samurai swords, goose-feather knives, and bayonets chased and killed the red-headed soldiers who were running around. Occasionally, there were a few who wanted to resist, but it was of no use at all.

Everywhere there were red-headed soldiers falling down with screams, and behind them were Western Army soldiers shouting and fighting fiercely.

Even Hailancha, who was in charge, was excited. He immediately arranged for reinforcements. The soldiers were in high spirits and broke through four forts in a row before evacuating with some regret in the dark night.

In this battle, in just half a day, Hailancha's two thousand men killed more than a thousand red-headed soldiers and seized a large amount of weapons and food.

At the same time, the Western Army troops attacking from other directions all achieved great victories and captured a large number of outer strongholds of the Persian-Bukhara-Khiva coalition forces.

This forced the coalition forces into a desperate situation.

After losing all the strongholds close to the Jinsha River (Zerafshan River), the coalition forces lost their convenient access to drinking water and suddenly became Ma Su on Jieting Mountain.

Li Xianwen laughed heartily, pointing at the Bobshi coalition forces camped in a chain for more than ten miles on the distant mountain and said with a smile:
"Don't let the men continue their assault. We will set up cannons on the hills we occupy and bombard them. When they run out of water, they will naturally come down to fight."

(End of this chapter)