open sea

Chapter 1436 The Hedgehog
The first day of fighting on the Creek Field was over.

The two armies fought from the morning until the evening. The battle was difficult. Yang Ce's troops were once surrounded by the enemy, but the waiting reinforcements did not arrive for a long time.

From noon onwards, Yang Ce's Han Musketeers joined ten companies of the Spanish phalanx to form a hedgehog-like phalanx, which made the Scots unable to speak.

It is no longer enough to rely on the diluted front of the Han musketeers to follow the long line of the Nanyang bird musketeers to deal with this kind of conflict. It is still necessary to rely on the deep and dense phalanx of the Spanish phalanx to deal with the encirclement.

After being surrounded, the trick of retreating and shooting can no longer be used, and the formation can only be formed in place.

When the enemy approached, they blocked it with a forest of spears; when the enemy retreated, they fired more than a thousand muskets.

In the afternoon when the battle was most intense, the corpses outside the phalanx paved a road of dozens of steps, and the latest circle of corpses of highlanders even made the musketeers no longer need forks when shooting.

Externally, the musketeers stepped forward, piled up parapets with corpses to block the arrows and set up muskets; internally, the phalanx army built fortifications under Yang Ce's strict order, and dug trenches outside the phalanx.

When the enemy attacked, they took up weapons to fight. When the enemy retreated, they dug the soil with their hands and helmets. The dug soil was buried in the center of the square formation, and a square mound was piled up.

With 4000 soldiers, without cavalry protection or artillery assistance, they stood firm against the [-] enemy. From morning to evening, they were unable to splash water and remained motionless.

Generally speaking, despite the great strength of the Scottish army, Yang Ce's Spanish troops fought closely with them. There were even two well-equipped sword-and-shield infantry who stepped on their own side to meet the enemy when the phalanx was in contact with the enemy. The spear leaps into the enemy line.

With a steel sword and a small steel shield, he fell from the sky, stabbed more than ten people to death, and retreated completely.

They are the most elite fighters in Spain and the backbone of the phalanx. They wear Milan armor and use Toledo steel swords. Their salary is much higher than that of musketeers and spearmen. You can pull up a mercenary squad.

In history, the biggest pain caused by the British-Spanish naval battle to Spain was not the huge battleships, but the tens of thousands of sword and shield infantry who sank into the sea as landing infantry on the battleships, so that this force disappeared in history.

In today's Spanish drills, a regular Spanish sword-and-shield infantry is a figure who is attached to the cavalry and performs short-distance shock missions.

Even though it lasted a whole day and night fell and the enemy retreated to the north like a tide, Yang Ce was not at ease. The hearts of the army had dispersed. The commanders of the various Spanish companies complained about the casualties of their subordinates and that the Ming army did not come to the rescue on time, so that they fell into despair. A hopeless and lonely struggle.

During the battle, they were able to repel the enemy's countless attacks, but it was impossible to wipe out any formation of the enemy that charged. They left some corpses and retreated to the north. It would not take long before they could regroup and launch an attack filled with anger. new shock.

Everyone was tired of coping. When the enemy army retreated in the evening, the spearmen no longer had the strength to lift their spears, and the musketeers could only sit on the spot leaning on their weapons, barely using the dry food they carried to satisfy their hunger.

Everyone is full of fear for the arrival of tomorrow.

They can't survive tomorrow. Tomorrow, the enemy's artillery should be transferred to the battlefield. They have neither artillery that can confront the enemy, nor cavalry that can pull out the artillery positions.

The large phalanx has a strong defensive ability and can block multiple enemies with a dense formation. The soldiers' good armor and heavy musket configuration can also destroy the morale of the archers in a confrontation. However, their mobility is extremely poor, and they are especially afraid of shelling.

There is one more critical issue. The Spanish musketeers in the phalanx have run out of ammunition. The standard baggage they go out to fight is to carry 25 lead bullets on their bodies. Now everyone has only three or four bullets left. When we fight tomorrow morning, these The gunpowder ran out.

In fact, in the afternoon, Yang Ce's phalanx had the opportunity to defeat the frontal enemy from the north. The frontal Scottish archers suffered the greatest musket fire during the battle. fear.

Under the impact of the sword and shield infantry, the two Spanish companies broke out of the front line and chased them north for nearly fifty steps. This directly caused the morale of the entire front of the enemy to collapse, and people rushed to escape north.

It's a pity that the bad thing was on the channel that Yang Ce thought was an advantage at first.

The Scottish soldiers retreated all the way until the canal was congested and trampled. Seeing that the enemy army was about to be defeated by them, Yang Ce even ordered the entire large square formation to pursue northward to completely disperse the enemy army.

But I didn't know what happened in the canal, the turbulent crowd was opened against the opposite direction, and dozens of infantrymen with highland broadswords pushed back from the crowd and rushed back.

The people were still the same as before, the only difference was that they lost the sackcloth around their legs, and rushed back naked, flicking birds, brandishing broadswords and roaring. The Spanish soldiers didn't even know what happened, and they were frightened instinctively. step back.

Until they returned to the phalanx, many people still didn't understand how they were scared back by the enemy when they had the upper hand.

The company officers discussed with Yang Ce to let them retreat south, but the Scots lit a bonfire not far from the phalanx camp and surrounded them tightly.

Now they have no scouts, and if they act carelessly at night, they will fall into the enemy's siege.

More people tend to stay here until dawn, and wait until the morning to charge south to break through.

But in the middle of the night, exciting news was received from both the northeast and the southwest.

"Wei Jinzhong's cavalry in the east can arrive early tomorrow morning. They defeated [-] enemies in the east and beheaded more than a thousand enemies; General Ying found in the southwest that several combined troops of more than [-] enemies wanted to attack our army's flanks, but they were also intercepted. .”

Following the information from the two friendly forces, the battlefield became clear in Yang Ce's mind. The enemy's total strength was close to [-], and they attacked in three ways.

Not only must the siege of Yang Ce's troops be completed tactically, but also the siege of the entire Ming army near London must be completed strategically.

But its left wing has now been intercepted by Wei Jinzhong. Although it has not been completely wiped out, defeating it once and killing more than a thousand enemies can at least delay its marching speed for two or three days. Moreover, even if it is reorganized, it will be a fearful army. .

And its right wing was blocked by Yingming. Although Yingming's messenger didn't say anything about the actual situation of the battle, it seemed that Yingming also had the upper hand, otherwise there would be no spare power to help.

In this way, although in essence Yang Ce still has to use his two or three thousand wounded soldiers to fight against tens of thousands of enemy troops, and only Wei Jinzhong's cavalry can come to support them, but the generals of the Western Kingdom under his command are all very high-spirited. few.

No one complained that the Ming army did not come to help, and the morale of the troops has also been greatly improved. Everything will depend on tomorrow.

Their guest army has become a key node in a normal battle.

If Yang Ce collapses first, the entire London campaign will be a complete failure. They may retreat to Puli to continue fighting, or they may even lose Puli.

If Yang Ce can hold out until the reinforcements arrive and complete the siege for the main force of Scotland, Daming will defeat England's painstakingly assembled army and take the entire territory of England.

(End of this chapter)