open sea

Chapter 1195 Digging a Pit
The sound of gunfire meant that the scouts had been discovered, and the news would soon reach the ears of the enemy troops on the west bank. Fortunately, at this moment, Yuan Zizhang's troops had advanced ten miles away from the enemy camp.

He was afraid that the enemy would turn around and attack, and he expected the enemy to flee. As long as the French army started to retreat, even if they found a way to restrain the Beiyang army, they would fall behind in marching speed and be annihilated in the harassing and chasing attacks that continued to eat away.

Because in the pursuit of Kanggulu by the French army on the east bank in the early morning, Yuan Zizhang discovered that the simple and efficient linear tactics of the Beiyang Banner Army had terrible drawbacks. Annihilation of the army: Their sweeping momentum is based on the iron law that all living beings are equal under the gun.

Just last night, in order to guard against the heavy bow of the plate-armored iron stupa, Billund found a way to defend.

He asked the knights to pursue him, dismounted when he was about to cross the bridge, and mixed with the small infantry phalanx to form foot knights, everyone armed with short soldiers and large shields as the front line to rush in.

If it weren't for the six general Zhenshuo cannons at the bridgehead, his assault would have been successful.

At medium and short distances, the shotgun bursts can pose enough threats to knights wearing plate armor, but if these knights hold up their shields, the threat distance of the birdgun will become extremely close. As long as the knights get close to this distance, even With thorns, it is also difficult for the Banner Army to kill knights and heavy infantry.

The blunderbuss exist for the threat of killing horses and light infantry, not against knights.

This tactic cost a lot to Biron. The knights were likely to be approached and killed with muskets during close combat. At least two hundred knights were invested in such a battle. Once they failed, the price would be extremely high.

But for Yuan Zizhang?He valued the flag army under his command far more than Billund valued the knights.

In other words, the Beiyang Banner Army, the leader of the regular army of the Ming Dynasty, was as important to the generals as the nobles in this land valued the knights.

They perform almost the same functions on the battlefield. The best troops can kill the lowest enemies one-sidedly, so it is obviously unwise to use your own best troops to fight the enemy's best troops. .

But the sky did not follow people's wishes. The Beiyang Banner Army advanced rapidly. The Jurchen scouts who were supposed to retreat slowly were completely defeated and fled. Terrified, Yuan Zizhang and Wang Youlin had a vague awareness of the battle situation between the two sides in the minds of the fugitives who gathered information from various sources.

The scouts touched the edge of a marching team of the French army. They thought they were dealing with a few scattered musketeers, but after the sneak attack failed, the musketeers immediately returned fire. After the main force was frightened, they dispatched light cavalry and knight squads to pursue them all the way. The stragglers in the army were unstoppable, and more than a dozen people were killed on the spot, and more people were frightened by the massive march that followed, and they all broke up one after another.

Fighting skirmishers, the relatively poorly equipped Baishan Battalion infantry archers and French decree knights are obviously the two most unbalanced combat forces.

At this point, Yuan Zizhang stopped marching, Liu Wang Youlin gathered the scattered Jurchen archers, and sent his riders to gallop to the highlands to the west to observe the enemy's situation with binoculars, while leading his troops to quickly maneuver towards favorable terrain.

When Yuan Zizhang led his troops to the highlands, Li Dai, who led the horse army ahead, had found out the enemy's situation: "At least two enemy troops are close to each other three or four miles away. The infantry is wearing armor and distributing weapons. Afterwards, many idlers, etc., it seems that the luggage has arrived, and it may be the nearby merchants."

Li Dai said that a scout with binoculars in his waist came forward to report: "A group of more than ten enemy cavalry is approaching General Wang, who is gathering the defeated army to the east, and the charge is blocked by the tiger squatting cannon."

Yuan Zizhang didn't know that the enemy army on the west bank had changed their generals. The supreme commander was changed from Earl Shire to Marshal Mattion, who was familiar with Chen Jiujing's defense. The morale of the army has been greatly improved. He took a few hundred households to a hill suitable for observation, looked at the enemy formation and said: "The morale of the enemy army that has been supplied is very strong. It seems that they are forming an formation."

There were two more cannon shots in the distance. Yuan Zizhang was not worried about Wang Youlin's [-]-banner army. A group of cavalry wanted to attack them while he was gathering the rout. Withdrew to the infantry phalanx.

The horse lying on the ground covered in blood holes knows best what it feels like to be smashed by a three-door tiger on the way to the charge.

This kind of small cannon with its own nail frame was quickly carried by infantry and ran all over the ground. It must be remembered by the majestic knight master more than ten years after being sprayed.

Yuan Zizhang, who watched the enemy line several times carefully with a telescope, finally breathed a sigh of relief, but then he turned his head solemnly and said to several subordinates: "Although some women's family members don't look like a convoy, but they have indeed transported two For a small Franco cannon with no wheels, the big and small ones can take three hundred paces, and the big ones can take five hundred paces."

After all, Yuan Zizhang said with certainty: "After the formation, they will focus on protecting the two cannons. We don't have cannons that can hit that far. Only the twelve arrows of Shenwei mechanism can hit that far. We must preemptive strikes."

In fact, this distance is enough for Yuan Zizhang to be able to tell that they are two Franco cannons. It is basically impossible to accurately describe the caliber, so it is simply bigger.

He was transferred to Dongyang, and the Second World War in Mingxi was over, so he didn't know about the Spanish caravan joining the war with the army. Daming's inertial thinking also made him not think that serious merchants could sell artillery.

The supply team that appeared behind Matteon's army was a group of merchants who provided supplies for the French army and lent two Franc cannons and two barrels of gunpowder at a price of one-tenth of the spoils after the victory.

Perhaps this should not be called a sale in general, but an investment.

Ever since I heard that the Earl of Shire was blocked in the war in the south of Poitier, this caravan came all the way from the western port with artillery and food. There is nothing easier than making a fortune in war, and everyone is happy when they win. , If you lose, not only will you lose everything, but you may even lose your life.

At this moment, the spears and armors placed on the carts were put on by the legionnaires. Soldiers composed mainly of Swiss, German, and French mercenaries and supplemented by conscripts arranged two square formations according to the pre-war plan. Some of the light cavalry guarded the two chariots equipped with Franco cannons in front of the formation, and some lined up on the two wings. stopped.

In front of them, Wang Youlin's [-] households of the Banner Army guarded more than [-] Jurchen archers, and slowly retreated towards the Chinese army in repeated formations, and finally stopped in front of the Chinese army's right. Yuan Zizhang, who was on the high ground, had ordered The artillerymen took twelve arrows of Shenwei machine guns and set them on fire, but they saw Wang Youlin's banner army calmly took out their engineering shovels and dug a horse trap on the spot.

(End of this chapter)