Song Dynasty Cannon Fodder Counterattack Record

Chapter 294 Suide War ([-])

After Wuzang Yepang withdrew his troops, Li Buqi led the troops and continued to Suide the next day.

Zhao Sheng thinks this is the most correct choice.Because the cavalry of the Song army did not have the upper hand, they could not fight the Xixia people on an equal footing. The biggest advantage of the Song army was gunpowder weapons.Suide is a place where there is no hidden error and people must be rescued.

Wei Mingshan later said that Wuzang Yepang did not expect that the Song army would continue to kill Ben Suide even after realizing that the Xixia army was superior.However, the Song army's killing of Xiang Suide is undoubtedly the most beneficial to Ye Pang, because the Song army will not be able to strengthen the 3 combat strength of Huaining and Suiping villages if they leave Huaining village. There are only more than [-] people at most. The superiority of troops is more obvious.After learning that the Song army continued to attack Suide along the Huaining River, Ye Pang decided to face the Song army in an open area south of Suide, in order to maximize the advantages of the cavalry rush and the number of troops.

On the morning of March 27, both armies met south of Suide, on a rare flat land in northern Shaanxi, in an expected encounter situation.

The terrain is open, and Li Buqi commanded all the Song troops to divide into four large square formations with regiments as units, and Liu Shunqing's infantry brigade strengthened a part of the crossbowmen and equipped all the artillery to attack the Xixia army formation.

The infantry brigade slowly advanced towards the Xixia infantry group with three phalanxes surrounded by artillery. After reaching the effective range of the 5.5 mm artillery, it stopped advancing, arranged the artillery in an orderly manner, and then bombarded the Xixia people. The 12 5.5mm cannons and the 3 7.5mm cannons focused their fire with astonishing power, which immediately caused panic and confusion among the Xixia infantry.

Ye Pang saw that the battle had once again turned into a one-sided massacre, so he had to send the most elite crossbowmen of Xixia forward to try to suppress the Song army's artillery.The Xixia crossbowmen of the brigade braved the dense shells and pushed forward in an attempt to reach the effective range to send crossbows at the Song army.Xixia’s strong crossbowmen have always been elite troops directly controlled by the emperor, but the manufacturing process of Xixia’s strong crossbows is still a little worse than that of the Song Dynasty. He was shot by the Song Army's crossbow before, causing many casualties.But the elite troops are elite troops. Although they suffered a lot of casualties, they still insisted on advancing amidst the fierce battle drums. When they fought against the Song army, it seemed to be a tie.

Seeing that the protruding Song army was attracted by the crossbowmen and dispersed into several small phalanxes in order to reduce casualties, Ye Pang immediately ordered the infantry to attack from the front, the cavalry to charge on both wings, and the Poxi army to support them, preparing to eat this part first and leave the brigade Song Jun.

As the horn sounded, the brigade of Xixia cavalry rolled towards Liu Shunqing's wings like dark clouds.Liu Shunqing immediately commanded the troops to form several hollow phalanxes to prepare to meet the enemy cavalry.Li Buqi also ordered the formation to move forward to shorten the distance with Liu Shunqing's brigade.

The impact of more than ten thousand cavalry made the ground tremble, and the most elite iron kite cavalry of Xixia rushed to the front.There are less than [-] iron kites in total, and they are all composed of Xixia Xungui's sons. Needless to say, they are brave and brave.In wartime, both men and horses wear heavy armor, even the god arm bow may not be able to do anything about it, and when they charge, the men and horses are connected together, and when they charge into the enemy's formation, even if they die, they will not fall off their horses. terrible.

If it was in the past, the iron kite was almost invincible, but now no matter how powerful the armor is, it is useless in front of the matchlock gun with a caliber of 2 mm and a barrel of 1.3 meters.Of course, the arquebus also has big problems. It has a short range and slow reloading. There is almost only one chance to fire against the cavalry. Therefore, the duel between the iron kite and the arquebus is actually a duel of courage.

Seeing the essence of the problem, Li Buqi adopted a strict elimination system when training musketeers. Only the brave and tough can be selected, and he also specially let cavalry and musketeers train together so that musketeers can get used to enduring cavalry. The pressure to rush forward and shoot again, now it looks like his hard work has paid off.When the iron kites rushed to less than 50 meters away from the Song Army phalanx, the first row of matchlock guns fired together with the muzzle guns.At such a short distance, the hit rate of the matchlock gun increased sharply, and the horses neighed in front of the Song army's formation, and people turned their backs.

The disadvantage of the heavy armored cavalry is that the horses cannot run at full speed. The Song army still has the opportunity to let the second row of musketeers shoot freely, and knock down another group of cavalry. Someone was knocked upside down by the iron kite's war horse rushing across the triangle spikes, or smashed to the ground by the rolling horse.

The moment they bought with their lives gave the gunners time to aim.Most of the musketeers strictly abide by the regulations of the code of conduct—shooting horses and not people—in the sound of bang bang bang bang, the iron kite horse’s head and the vest around the horse’s neck were easily pierced, and the galloping movement came to an abrupt end , The horse with its broken bones rolled over the yellow ground with its owner.Then these firecrackers thrust the firecrackers into their waists, pulled out the long-handled axes behind them, and rushed behind the spearmen to slash at the iron kite that hit them.

Some iron kites also fired their hand guns, but because of the sparseness, some people were on the bumpy horse with a gun in one hand and a matchlock in the other, and hurriedly hit the iron guns to nowhere.

The ground was full of dead horses, and the iron kite had to slow down to avoid tripping over the corpses.When the tall target loses speed in front of the musketeer, it is the best target.The musketeers and musketeers looked for their targets behind the spearman and the big axeman, and fired at the targets on the heads of the spearman and the big axeman, especially the arquebus, almost putting their muzzles on the ground. The enemy's helmets were fired, and every time a shot was fired, almost a head was blown to pieces.

Some iron kites and Xixia cavalry galloped along the sides of the Song army, looking for an opportunity to attack.Soon they realized that this was not a good idea, and they kept flying lead and crossbow arrows from the Song army's unattacked phalanx to harvest their lives.The cavalry of the Song army also appeared on the flanks of the Xixia cavalry. These Song army cavalry also used hand guns, but they did not need to hold the gun in one hand and ignite the fire in the other.

With one hit, the speed of the Xixia cavalry's attack was temporarily restrained, and the Song army cavalry did not love to fight, and immediately turned back to the big formation.

After seeing the cavalry of the Song Army dispatched, Ye Pang immediately sent cavalry to intercept it in an attempt to entangle the cavalry of the Song Army.But I didn't expect that the Song Army cavalry didn't engage in much contact at all. After firing a round of guns, they withdrew, and the Xixia cavalry had no time to intercept them.However, the general who led the cavalry saw that the Song Army's formation was throwing crossbow arrows to help the Song Army in front intercept the cavalry attacking the Song Army, and immediately chased the Song Army's cavalry and rushed to the Song Army's formation, trying to fish in troubled waters.

The cavalry of the Song army did not enter the formation of the Song army, and the cavalry of the Xixia army was less than a hundred steps away from the formation of the Song army. The Song army had not yet turned their crossbows on them, which made the Xixia general think that his speculation was about to succeed.Then he saw the soldiers at the front of the Song Army running back, revealing a row of equipment behind them.Aware of the great danger, his eyes widened immediately, but it was not easy to stop the galloping horse, and he rushed forward dozens of steps in a blink of an eye.From such a distance, he could hear the continuous sound of bang bang, and then saw black shadows flying towards him almost in a line.Then there was another burst of explosions and gunpowder smoke, and the soldiers who rushed to the front seemed to hit the wall and fell off their horses.

This time, all the ballistas and torsion trebuchets were launched with three kilograms of mud balls. If they hit people and horses, their flesh and blood would fly all over the place. If they didn't hit people and horses, they would shatter into more than a dozen pieces when they fell to the ground. The mud balls splashed in all directions, enough to injure people and horses.Under this burst of mud balls and a muzzle gun attack, more than 200 of the [-] Xixia cavalry formed in a wide frontal column formation immediately stained the battlefield with blood.

Suffered such tragic casualties, but it did not make the Xixia cavalry hesitate.Because the momentum of the impact has been achieved, whoever dares to stop will be trampled into a pulp by the horses rushing from behind.They screamed wildly and rushed towards Song Jun.

A rain of arrows rose from the front of the Song army, and many riders were hit.They are not iron kites, they only have light armor on their bodies, and the Song archers greet their unarmored horses. These cavalry went bankrupt on the way to attack.

Facing the rain of arrows, he rushed over, but in front of him were the weapons of the Song people, blocking them like repelling horses.Fortunately, there was a gap in the middle of the Song army's formation, and the front cavalry rushed in without hesitation, brandishing bones and iron bars in an attempt to disrupt the Song army's formation from the side.But unlike the situation they imagined that the Song people would panic because they rushed into the formation, the Song people's phalanx was full of carbine-repelling guns and big axemen, and the gunmen waited for the opportunity to shoot at them. The gap in this phalanx was a A trap, most of the Xixia cavalry who got into this gap failed to escape.

Yao Lin, who joined the army, reported: "Nine catapults and ballistas were damaged, and it is estimated that less than half of them cannot be repaired."

Li Buqi just nodded lightly: "Get the trebuchet and ballista ready, and continue to attack!"

With artillery, ballistas and trebuchets, which are slow to fire, inefficient, and require a lot of manpower, are tasteless to Li Buqi, so Li Buqi no longer feels bad about using them as refusals.

After repelling the Xixia cavalry attack, Li Buqi ordered to continue advancing.

Liu Shunqing's army was like a small boat in a precarious situation. The phalanxes on the left and right flanks were washed away, but they were finally pushed down. Continue to fight in the formation.

He didn't hide his face and his face was ugly.It's fine that the iron kite didn't completely break through the Song army's formation, and it suffered a disgraceful loss. He estimated that it would be good if one third of the charging iron kite came back.The strong crossbowmen sent out first couldn't withstand the rain of arrows from the Song army in the end, and retreated, but he still had a big move.He didn't believe that Song Jun could catch his big move.

In order to ensure that Liu Shunqing's troops were defeated first, Wuzang Yepang once again mobilized infantry and cavalry to attack Li Buqi's main formation in an attempt to entangle Li Buqi.

(End of this chapter)