I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 148 Crazy Gambler (Part )
"Beep beep..."

The cavalry's trumpeter was blowing military orders with all his might, and the Republic's cavalry controlled their horses and trotted forward steadily.

Sergeant Pierre was at the front of the line. He observed the enemy's distance: seven hundred steps... six hundred steps... five hundred steps.

it's time.

Almost in the next second, when Pierre thought of this, the officer on his right raised the flag and waved it forward.

This is the signal to spur the horse forward and gallop.

The charge distance of cavalry using sabers and pistols is 300 steps, while the charge distance of the First Cavalry Company where Pierre is located is 500 steps, which is 200 steps more than the former.

The reason is simple. Compared with the light cavalry who use muskets and sabers to fight, the medium-armored shock cavalry equipped with lances and breastplates have a golden distance of 500 steps for their lance charge. If they are too close, they will not have enough momentum, and if they are too far, their horsepower will be exhausted.

Led by Sergeant Pierre, the first company began to trot. The cavalrymen in the front row placed the butt of their lances against the copper groove of the rear bridge of the saddle. The three-meter-long basswood spear barrels slid down their right arms into their armpits, like steel vultures with folded wings. Their breastplates flashed a cold light in the sun, like a moving torrent of steel.

The cavalry from the third row onwards were not equipped with lances, but instead with long pointed swords and knightly shields.

The cavalrymen at the front were called the death platoon. Their pay was 1.5 times that of other cavalrymen, and their death rate was also the highest.

It was simply because the Death Platoon's cavalry had a heavy mission. They served as the spearhead, and no matter what lay ahead, they had to charge forward and use their lances and their bodies to knock away obstacles.

When the cavalry of the death row tears open the enemy formation, the cavalry equipped with swords and shields behind them will rush forward to widen the gap and tear the enemy formation apart.

If this is not possible, you will have to jump off your horse and fight the enemy to the death on foot.

Behind the cavalry company, a large number of mounted infantry and heavy infantry had rushed to the battlefield.

The tactics of the First Company are very classical. They come from the Age of Chivalry and are named "Hammer". They are completely different from the modern cavalry tactics that are popular in Bohemia and the Rethelian Empire. Even the Kingdom of Minisia has not used them for a long time.

The reason is simple: the casualty rate caused by the implementation of this "iron hammer" tactic on the current battlefield and the quality requirements for the cavalry using it are too high.

Pierre, who was riding a horse, did not think too much. When the enemy was four hundred steps away, his good eyesight allowed him to see the various flags in the neat formation of the enemy in front of him, as well as the confusion of armor styles.

Unlike the classical period, modern warfare emphasizes uniformity. The more consistent the soldiers' uniforms and armor are, the higher their combat effectiveness.

On the contrary, the more fancy and inconsistent the armor is, the more it represents a ragtag army cobbled together from different places.

Therefore, Pierre immediately concluded that his enemy was not strong. At the same time, he also noticed that although the latter's formation was neat, the horizontal depth of the front-row spearmen was not thick, with only three rows, which was very thin and it was also a hollow square formation.

Can this withstand our attack?

"This is a great opportunity."

Pierre said this to himself, casting aside unnecessary thoughts.

Three hundred steps.

There were muffled thunder-like noises and flashes of fire coming from the front. The enemy's light artillery deployed at two angles in the large square formation of spears opened fire. Dense lead shotgun shells whizzed through the air and smashed into the front of the cavalry formation with a whistling sound of death.

The basswood lances of the cavalry on Pierre's left exploded one after another. After the explosion, the young cavalryman's face let out a muffled groan, but he still maintained the posture of charging with his lance between his legs.

The young man might have been injured, but he was lucky, because behind him, several war horses were blown into pieces of blood and rolled on the ground with their masters behind them, wailing.

The cavalrymen behind continued to charge without hesitation, their horses' hooves trampling heavily and densely on their fallen colleagues. In a short while, those who fell were trampled into meat paste.

However, the murderer remained unmoved, as if this was just a minor incident on the battlefield.

"Keep in formation, don't panic!"

Pierre shouted.

One hundred and fifty steps.

At this time, the flintlock soldiers at the two corners of the enemy's large square formation opened fire in unison. There were a large number of them, about three or four hundred people. The sound of the volley was so shocking that it seemed as if the whole earth was shaking.

In the flickering firelight, dense lead bullets poured out like raindrops, instantly covering the charging cavalry column.

Pierre could feel the bullets whizzing past his ears, like the whispers of death. He gripped the reins tightly and leaned forward slightly, minimizing his exposure to enemy fire. His horse maintained a steady pace, seemingly oblivious to the danger around him. Pierre knew that every second could mean the difference between life and death.

People kept falling in the cavalry ranks, their horses neighed and fell to the ground, and their blood dyed the ground red.

However, the momentum of the cavalry charge did not slow down, but even accelerated a bit. Pierre's eyes were fixed on the front. The enemy's large square formation was already close at hand. He could clearly see the tension and fear on the faces of the enemy soldiers and even hear their rapid breathing.

After the enemy's musketeers opened fire with a volley, they immediately turned around and ran towards the phalanx of pikemen together with the artillerymen carrying light artillery. This was a wise move.

Because when the cavalry sprinted at full speed, it would only take them more than ten seconds to reach the distance of 150 steps.

The next second after the musketeers ran quickly and hid in the large square formation, Pierre had already rushed to the front of the square formation. He and the cavalrymen in front, behind, and on both sides raised their lances forward and charged madly at the spears of the Han and Tang warriors in the front row.

……

The players of the temporary infantry regiment did not underestimate the power of the cavalry charge. The horizontal formation composed of three rows of lances and halberds might be enough to block the charge of saber light cavalry, but it was far from enough for the shock cavalry equipped with lances.

It's a bit embarrassing to say, but when the black and white bear standing in the front row was approaching with the sound of its hooves like thunder, he could sense the approach of death through the vibration of the ground, and his pupils under the visor were shrinking violently.

There is no doubt that even though he knew he was playing a game, he was still scared.

The fingers of Monokuma, who was gripping the duck egg-thick gun barrel, were cramping, and he even felt a little dizzy from holding his breath too much.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

This was the unconscious cry of a player to his left.

"Da da da……"

The strange rhythmic sound attracted the attention of Monokuma. He couldn't help but turn his head to the right and saw that the body of his buddy was shaking, causing the parts of his armor to collide and rub against each other.

It turns out other players are also afraid.

Monokuma thought so.

But no matter how scared they were, no one in the front row ran away.

Are the players too brave?
That's not the case, but the infantry commander used his authority to lock the player's legs. Until he died or gave the next order to disband the formation, the black and white bear could not take the initiative to leave the small box under his feet.

Isn’t this a bit undemocratic?

Subconsciously, Monokuma thought of this question, but the next second he had no time to think further about this idea because the cavalry from the opposite side crashed into him.

What happened next was like a modern traffic accident where a car hits a pedestrian.

The shock cavalry charging at full speed carried an impact force that could knock over Japanese cars, while the long spears inserted obliquely into the ground relied only on the body's own weight and soil resistance to resist them. It was undoubtedly a pipe dream to expect to win.

The moment the spear shaft touched the horse's plate armor breastplate, it bent into a bow shape, and the sound of wood fibers bursting was duller than thunder.

Black and White Bear only felt his eyes go dark, and after the big gun in his hand shook, he was driven backwards by the impact force from his arm.

After he fell, when his helmet collided with the boots of his companions in the second row, Monokuma's ears heard the dull sound of wet wood being split by the giant axe, mixed with the "crack" sound of the horse's jaw being crushed.

After this moment, the world in his eyes seemed to be pressed into a meat grinder.

The broken gun barrel turned into wooden spikes, spraying backwards with fragments of human tissue. The visor of a player in the back row holding an axe gun turned black, and a sudden warmth poured in from the observation hole.

That wasn't sweat, it was the blood of the front-row players and half a severed arm.

Almost instantly, the Han and Tang warriors in the front row were wiped out. At the same time, because of their sacrifice, more than a dozen tall war horses rolled to the ground, and the cavalry behind them also took off into the air.

Some cavalrymen flew over the heads of three rows of spearmen and fell on the open ground, creating pits in the earth and turning into a ball of flesh wrapped in deformed breastplates, with blood and dust flying everywhere.

There were also some cavalrymen who did not forget to contribute to the Republic before their death. They fell among the spearmen, turned into human bowling balls, crashed into the latter's dense formation, and tore bloody gaps in the originally tight formation.

A Han and Tang warrior was hit by the flying corpse of a cavalryman, his breastplate instantly dented, and the "crackling" sound of broken ribs could be clearly heard.

His body was thrown like a rag doll, landing heavily at the feet of the third row of spearmen, the blood gushing from his mouth staining his companions' boots red. Another cavalryman thrust his lance before hitting the ground, the tip of the spear spinning through the air and accurately embedding itself in the neck of an axe wielder.

The player didn't even have time to scream before his head flew backwards. Blood gushed out from the torn part like a fountain, splashing onto the faces of his companions.

The enemy's front-line cavalry suffered heavy losses, but they did manage to break through the formation of the three rows of spearmen. The sword and shield cavalry charging from the rear continued to advance without hesitation, trampling on the corpses of their comrades, and the bones under their horses' hooves made a teeth-grinding sound of breaking.

They crossed the makeshift roadblocks made of flesh and steel and rushed into the large square formation.

Black and White Bear is lucky, he is still alive.

When he struggled to get up from the ground, his helmet was deformed and the blood flowing from his forehead blurred his vision.

Black and White Bear took off his helmet and wiped his face. His palms were covered with sticky blood plasma and unknown pieces of flesh. His ears were filled with screams, the sound of horse hooves and the collision of metal, but these sounds seemed to be separated by a thick curtain, appearing distant and distorted.

Black and White Bear looked down at his hands. His knuckles were torn and blood was flowing down the spear shaft. His spear had long been broken, with only half of the wooden shaft still in his hand. He subconsciously fumbled for the sword at his waist, but found that the scabbard was empty... He didn't know whether it was lost in the collision or knocked away by the flying broken bones.

Monokuma looked up and saw nothing in front of him. When he turned around, he found that the enemy was behind him, charging and crushing the flintlock players who only had bayonets.

The emergence of the hollow square was largely to counter the advantage of cavalry over infantry.

The phalanx has no sides, all four sides are frontal, with no obvious flank or rear weaknesses. Even if the cavalry uses its mobility to roam the battlefield, it cannot easily break through by going around from behind or attacking from the flank. At the same time, the musketeers hiding in the phalanx can take the opportunity to fire outward and shoot at the approaching enemies.

If the cavalry wanted to launch an attack on the hollow phalanx, as long as they were determined and not afraid of sacrifice, they would be able to break through the phalanx's horizontal defense and rush into its interior.

It is at this time that the strength of the hollow square is revealed. The cavalrymen entering it will find that they not only need to face the resistance of musketeers equipped with bayonets and transformed into short spear infantry, but also have to slow down the speed of their horses, which are already slow.

The spear and halberd soldiers in the horizontal rows on the left and right sides of the phalanx would also turn inward, attacking the cavalry from the left, right, front and back, squeezing the enemy's space for movement, dragging the battle into a melee, and creating an advantageous exchange ratio with the enemy cavalry.

As long as the casualty ratio exceeds, or is close to, one to one, then the infantry is making a profit.

The current battle between the players' hollow phalanx and the Republic's shock cavalry, Monokuma feels that the situation will develop like the above, with the latter falling into the quagmire of the hollow phalanx.

However, the actual development was somewhat different from what Monokuma had speculated.

First of all, the elite level of the Republic's cavalry was somewhat beyond the players' expectations. After their front-line cavalry suffered heavy casualties, the charge speed of the sword and shield cavalry at the back did slow down, but it did not stop.

Their warhorses were like ferocious carnivores, charging forward bravely among the group of musketeer players, occasionally baring their big white fangs and biting everywhere.

Although the musketeer players are equipped with bayonets, the length and power of their bayonets seem insignificant under the impact of cavalry.

The collective charge of dozens of war horses knocked rows of musketeers to the ground. Although the bayonets pierced the horses or cavalrymen, these injuries seemed insignificant under the breastplates and their madness.

A musketeer player tried to stab a warhorse in the abdomen with a bayonet, but was knocked away by the horse's large chest, and the bayonet only left a shallow wound on the horse's abdomen.

Another player bravely stepped forward and tried to stab the enemy on horseback from the side, but the cavalryman's sword, driven by the impact of the horse, slashed his chest hard, knocking him to the ground.

Then the cavalry's hooves behind him ruthlessly trampled over his body, and the sound of bones breaking could be clearly heard.

Seeing this scene, Monokuma felt a chill in his heart. He realized that these cavalrymen relied not only on their impact, but also on their combat skills and coordination, which far exceeded the players' expectations.

The cavalrymen wielded their swords and shields flexibly on horseback, and each swing accurately hit the player's vital points, while the musketeers' counterattacks seemed pale and powerless, and they couldn't even take out their flintlock pistols to fight back.

People were crowded together and some people were firing randomly. The bullets basically hit their own people's backs and did not hit the sword and shield cavalrymen on horseback.

What's worse is that the interior of the hollow square did not form an effective pincer attack on the enemy cavalry as Monokuma had imagined.

Although the spear and halberd soldiers turned inward and tried to squeeze the cavalry's space for movement, on the one hand, due to too few rehearsals and lack of tacit coordination between the players, the squeezing and advancing of the left and right horizontal rows were inconsistent, and even the formation was not neat.

At the same time, the cavalry's mobility allowed them to flexibly move within the phalanx. Their horses charged left and right through the crowd, and the cavalry's sword and shield combination gave them an absolute advantage in close combat.

Soon, these cuirassiers crushed the musketeers, passed through them, used them as shields, blocked the advance of the axemen on both sides, and then crashed into the three rows of spearmen behind the large square.

Then, because the three rows of spearmen were caught off guard and did not expect the poor performance of the musketeers in the formation, they were not prepared to meet the enemy and failed to withstand the charge of the sword and shield cavalry.

As a result, the sword and shield cavalry easily crushed through the three columns of players, forcing open several paths for them to escape.

"You're riding a horse!"

Black and White Bear cursed angrily. Feeling humiliated, he ignored the pain in his body. He picked up a blood-stained spear from the ground and staggered to his feet.

"Formation, formation, formation again... Where's the commander? Why isn't this idiot issuing orders?!"

"he died!"

A spearman player who had to lean on his axe to stand steady and who appeared to have a broken leg answered.

"I just saw him fall off his horse. He must have been shot to death with a pistol."

Speaking of this, the player even felt a little gloating.

"This idiot captain is still riding a horse at this time. He must have been mistaken for an enemy by some blind person."

"grass!"

Black and White Bear cursed in frustration, saying that the leader's death was so untimely.

There was no time to worry about it. Since the enemy cavalry had escaped from the predicament, they would definitely charge again. Even if they didn't, the second wave of enemy cavalry and infantry were rushing over a few hundred meters ahead, and they would be in danger.

"Form a line! Quickly, mount your horses and form a line! The enemy is coming!"

Black and White Bear took over the command and shouted loudly. After hearing the order, the other players obeyed subconsciously, temporarily restored discipline, and quickly rearranged themselves into a new hollow square formation.

At this time, the cavalrymen who had rushed through the player's large square formation head-on did not turn back and attack the hollow square formation again as Monokuma had imagined.

Instead, they rode forward without looking back, charging towards the trenches where the barbed wire had not yet been moved back.

Black and White Bear had no time to think about what these cuirassiers were going to do, because the second wave of enemy cavalry and infantry had already arrived, and their artillery shells, musket bullets, and sabers were about to hit their heads.

……

"Amazing."

Chris, standing on the wall of Bolas Fortress, held a telescope. He was watching the enemy's all-in, and was even more amazed at the Republic cavalry who had shot through the large formation of players head-on.

Awesome, these cavalrymen are really awesome.

Although those thousand-plus players had shortcomings such as insufficient training and lack of coordination, these 150 cavalrymen were really amazing to be able to crush them all.

However, Chris, who was sighing, did not know that Lieutenant General Dalek, who was also observing the battlefield on the opposite side, was so heartbroken that he bit his lips with his teeth.

Because after charging through the hollow square, at least one-quarter of the 150 cavalrymen were left inside the square. Although they took the lives of perhaps more than 200 enemy infantrymen, the casualty ratio was 1 to 4 or 1 to 5.

However, Lieutenant General Dalek was not pleased with this number, nor did he feel that he had made a profit.

Because these 150 shock cavalrymen are under the command of Lieutenant General Dalek, and even the sharpest blades of the Bagnian Republic. They are the elite among the elite cavalrymen.

Now, one fifth of the troops were permanently lost in one charge, and the pain was so severe that Lieutenant General Dalek's hands were shaking as he held the telescope.

The most crucial thing was that the tragic sacrifice and fierce charge of the cuirassiers were unable to defeat the more than a thousand infantrymen who were colorful and looked like a ragtag force. The latter were still able to maintain their formation and prepare to resist the attack of the Republican infantry behind them.

This was too terrible and too unexpected for Lieutenant General Dalek.

Even if the cuirassiers succeed in taking the gap in Prince Chris's trench defenses, if the infantry who should have followed quickly are blocked by these enemies and cannot support the former in time, then will the sacrifices caused by their charge be meaningful?

No, this shouldn't be the case. The troops behind must defeat the resistance of the infantry as soon as possible!
"Send a signal to the follow-up troops, order the dragoons to charge, order the artillery to fire, and order the infantry to speed up. We must defeat the enemy's infantry resistance in front of the formation as soon as possible!"

　PS: Some readers suggested that I should thank those who rewarded me.

　　Ah, this is indeed my negligence, it’s my team’s fault, I’m sorry.

　　Thanks to all the readers in February, the Fourteenth Alibaba... Xiaox Niu... Xiaonong Ta Ta... Book Friend 20240704222753469... Book Friend 20240704222753469... Lord Black Dragon - and other readers for their rewards.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)