18th century total war

342 Rolling Combat

"My Cao family has been favored by the emperor, how can I escape at this time?

Now is the time to serve the Holy One and be loyal to the country!
As long as we repel the English barbarians, we will have achieved great success! "

"My lord, those bannerman masters have all escaped, and I'm afraid it's not a good thing for us to make contributions here.

Your Excellency, please be careful and guard against how the banner masters in Guangdong City confuse right and wrong. "

After hearing this, Cao Xing was taken aback, pondered for a moment and said:
"No, once the Humen Fort falls, you and I won't be able to walk away, and I can't be sorry for the cultivation of the Holy Majesty. Shouldn't we thank the court for our Cao family to be able to have today?"

"My lord.

The masters of the banner people have all run away. This world belongs to the banner people. We Han people are just slaves and there is no need to work hard here.

If you win the battle, you may not be able to share the credit with the adults. If you lose the battle, the Cao family behind us will probably be implicated. "

"Humph!

The British barbarians only rely on the advantage of artillery. After we landed, we have the Humen Fort, and we have a lot of troops. Why should we be afraid?
There is justice in this world, but I don't believe that even if we win this battle, the banner masters above won't get any credit at all.

I believe in His Majesty's wise eyes! "

"grown ups……"

"I've made up my mind, there's no need to persuade me anymore, you go and gather all the soldiers, I want to call the soldiers before the battle!"

While Cao Xing was busy taking over the abandoned green battalion soldiers, Colonel Kentucky had already sat on the small sampan and stood at the bow with his hands behind his back. Behind him were white soldiers in red coats, white trousers and three-cornered hats. He rowed hard and leaned towards the shore.

Since Colonel KFC is not leading the regular 'Central Army', the military hat is still the traditional three-cornered hat of the last century.

Today, with Levi's successive victories on the European continent, the triangular cap has long been eliminated.

Tall military hats without too many sides to block the line of sight gradually became popular.

This kind of military cap was first popular among grenadiers, and then became popular among regular armies of various countries after it gradually became more ornate.

The triangular military hat has become a standard issue for second-line troops and colonial armies.

In other words, the chain of discrimination in the European military in this era is that the tall military hat despises the triangular military hat...

Of course, there are also countries that do not abide by this European tradition, such as the United States of America, which is regarded as a bumpkin by European countries, and the regular army still insists on the triangular military cap (mainly because there is no money to change it!)...

On the battlefield where the line infantry was shot in line, the triangular military cap was okay for line infantry, but if they wanted to throw bombs, they definitely needed to wear a tall military cap without many corners, otherwise it would be easy to hurt people and themselves when throwing bombs.

Colonel KFC is well aware of the virtues of those Indian soldiers. This battle is very important to Colonel KFC and the entire expeditionary force. Only victory is not allowed!
Otherwise, if the first battle is defeated, the London government will have to re-evaluate the military strength of the Far East Empire. By then, this expedition that is laboring people and money (the Indian people are laboring, and the wealth of the Indian people is hurting) may not be able to continue.

To put it bluntly, the London government launched this war in the Far East, just wanting to make a lot of money and add another huge source of income, so that the Manchu and Qing courts would give up high tariffs, open more commercial ports, and let Britain, which is making great strides in the industrial revolution, Goods can find a suitable dumping place!
As the Industrial Revolution in the British Isles took longer, surplus productivity became a problem.

British capitalists obviously will not cut production capacity cruelly, they will just hold a magnifying glass and keep looking for new dumping places on the world map.

Of course, another major reason for the excess productivity of British goods lies in the Livy government's series of victories on the European continent.

The tyrant Livy was not polite to the London government. Although the two sides were already at peace and there was no trade blockade, Livy's government had been using trade protection as an excuse to impose high tariffs on British goods, making British goods under the control of the Livy government. Within the Roman Empire, there was no competitiveness at all!

Today, British goods can only be sold to the Russian Empire and the small Nordic countries on the European continent.

Even the Kingdom of Prussia, which was also undergoing an industrial revolution, had no need for British goods.

However, the Russian Empire, which has always been very poor, traded with the United Kingdom in a way of barter, exchanging the grain of the Russian Empire for British goods, not real money!
Therefore, the British government cannot dump commodities in the Russian Empire, and the Russian Empire, which is full of serfs, has no consumption power...

The productivity explosion brought about by the first industrial revolution was not all products, mainly the textile industry.

The Russian Empire had a limited number of nobles and free citizens, so how many textile products could they consume?

However, the trade between the British Isles and the Russian Empire has prevented the British Isles from suffering a food crisis. Even though the Irish have always been at the bottom of the discrimination chain in the British Isles, not many people were starved to death.

Most of them died of illness due to the decline in health caused by continuous work in factories and lack of money to see a doctor.

Factories in this era have no environmental protection measures, and many toxic substances produced in the production process will enter the workers' bodies without hindrance.

In addition, there are no holidays, and more than ten hours of work are required in a day. Many workers can only work in the factory for a few years before receiving lunch...

This is also the fundamental reason why after the outbreak of the first industrial revolution, the average life expectancy of human beings did not increase even though productivity increased a lot.

Of course, the Roman Empire across the strait was not much better, but the British capitalists squeezed their own nationals, while the Roman Empire squeezed prisoners of war and slave labor.

The first batch of soldiers who landed were all white soldiers. Although these white soldiers were ridiculed by the British Central Army in the Indian subcontinent, their combat effectiveness had already been experienced in frequent battles.

Coupled with the fact that Colonel KFC personally leads the team, morale has been at its peak.

The previous naval battle showed them the weakness of these Qing troops with pigtails and braids.

With a muffled bang, Colonel KFC landed lightly on the ground, stepped on the soft sand, raised his command knife inlaid with an ivory pendant, and shouted wildly: "Everyone, rally to me!"

Soon, a Union Jack flag appeared next to Colonel KFC, which was obviously more effective than his shouting.

The soldiers in red and white trousers who landed in the shallows quickly gathered beside Colonel KFC.

Form a horizontal row of guns.

Cao Xing, who was above, looked at the gathering speed of these British barbarians, and the expression on his face suddenly became heavy.

He is different from other green battalion officers, he knows the soldiers!

That's right, not all the officers of the current green battalion know the soldiers, and the knowledge of the soldiers here does not include talking about soldiers on paper!

This is mainly due to the corruption of the Green Camp system and the Qing court.

Selling officials and nobles has already become the norm in the Qing court at this time. Many green camp officials are bought by wealthy gentry, and they know how to fight wars.

And the system of the Green Camp's succession of fathers and sons has also made the Green Camp's military system extremely rigid. After all, you can't expect all the officers in the Green Camp to be able to educate qualified successors. Don't have too many stories about tiger fathers and dogs...

If you want to know the soldiers, you must go to the barracks to direct the training of the troops, which is hard work.

People are lazy, who wouldn't want to have fun in a brothel listening to a ditty and hugging a beautiful girl?
What's the fun in watching a group of rough men training under the scorching sun in the military camp?
They don't need to fight anyway!
It was this kind of corruption that led to peasant uprisings under the Qing government, which swept through many cities at every turn. It was not that the peasant armies were so powerful, but that the Qing army was too scumbag.

Looking at Europe at the same time, apart from the French Revolution, which country was overthrown by mud legs?

Even the French Revolution was won by an army led by a group of capitalists and liberal aristocrats!

Of course, this is also related to the perennial wars in the European continent.

The Peasant Rebel Army really couldn't stand up to those regular troops who had experienced many battles, and they couldn't even stand face to face...

Colonel KFC is now leading such a group of veterans.

They may not have a sense of honor (if they have a sense of honor, they will not travel across the ocean to India as mercenaries to make money), but their combat skills are absolutely leveraged.

But soon, Cao Xing was not worried about the British barbarian army that was gathering on the beach.

Because the British fleet that had wiped out the Qing court navy was approaching the Humen Fort, Cao Xing immediately felt the pain of his previous navy colleagues.

Pieces of solid iron balls hit the turret, even though the turret was made of stone, which was relatively strong, but every time it brought a large piece of rubble.

When Cao Xing saw a guard soldier next to him with a piece of rubble as big as a fist embedded in his face, he no longer dared to stand on a high place to command, and he took his guards down to hide from the artillery... …

As soon as the commander left, the morale of the Green Battalion soldiers, who had already been stunned by the British artillery bombardment, dropped to the bottom. Soon, there was not a single living Green Battalion soldier on the fort.

Colonel Kentucky, on the other hand, led less than a thousand white soldiers, held the Mi Ziqi flag, walked across the beach with high morale, and walked towards the Humen Fort. The muzzle of the black hole is aimed at them!

The artillerymen of the Green Battalion above were scared away!
It wasn't until Colonel KFC's flag bearer passed the order flag and told the fleet flying the Union Jack flag on the ocean to stop bombarding that the disaster of the Green Camp stopped.

However, when they poked their heads out, Colonel KFC's soldiers had already put their guns in front of their eyes.

The steep terrain advantage of the Humen Fort was just wiped out by the British naval artillery!
When the disgraced Cao Xing saw that his geographical advantage was gone, he sent people to gather all the green soldiers who were hiding, and his chest was filled with unbridled pride and loyalty to the Qing Dynasty.

He pulled out his ancestral sword and shouted loudly in front of a group of Green Battalion soldiers with dejected faces, many of whom didn't even know where to throw their weapons:
"Brothers, it's time to be loyal to the Holy One and to the Qing Dynasty. Go ahead and kill all the red-haired ghosts!"

Driven by Cao Xing's cronies, more than 1000 Green Camp soldiers (some of whom deserted when the Humen Fort was bombarded), armed with blunderbuss, spears, shields, waist knives, fists and other weapons, fought like The rabble generally charged towards Colonel KFC's military formation.

The green camp bird shoots as soon as it is raised, without estimating the shooting distance, and even aiming is just for show...

Those with bows and arrows shot arrows with their backs facing the sky, but these soft bows couldn't shoot very far!
The green battalion soldiers were equipped with soft bows not because the Qing court's cold weapon manufacturing skills were not good, but because the hard bows were placed in their hands, and they couldn't be drawn!
The soft bows of this era generally refer to the bows and arrows that can be drawn by grown men, while the hard bows require extraordinary arm strength or systematically trained professional archers to draw.

When the Manchus entered the customs, naturally everyone could draw a hard bow, and even many banner slaves were able to use it proficiently. After all, this is the skill of eating. If you don’t practice bow and arrow well, you will lose your head!
But now...

During the Qianlong period, there was an archery competition held by the banner people and nobles. Most of the descendants of Zhu Jiaming, who knelt down and called daddy in the Ming Dynasty, could not even hit a fixed target five meters away!

As for the hard bow, as long as it can be opened by half, it is considered qualified. As a result, such a low requirement has eliminated a large number of people...

Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers, it’s really an old lady celebrating the New Year - every year is worse than the last...

In fact, after the Eight Banners soldiers took control of the Central Plains and established the northern world, the older generation of Eight Banners soldiers entered a retirement mode, and their successors, because they did not go through hard battles, have reduced their combat effectiveness to the same level as the regular army in the late Ming Dynasty.

The southern part of the Ming Dynasty basically relied on the remaining power of the Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers to drive traitorous warlords like Wu Sangui to defeat it.

Why did the San Francisco Rebellion become so violent?
It is because during the San Francisco rebellion, the older generation who could fight in the Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers could already receive pensions, while the younger generation was used to the support of hardcore crops, and was too lazy to practice martial arts and suffer!

Practicing martial arts is much harder than going to the gym!
In the 21st century, there are only a handful of people who can persist in going to the gym to lose weight, let alone martial arts, which is several times more tiring than fitness?

Therefore, we really can’t blame the Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers for spending too much money. They are just ordinary people. If anyone could just lie at home and eat royal food, what motivation would they have to go to work and clock in?

Even in the 21st century, if the state distributes unemployment benefits free of charge and continues to do so, it is guaranteed that a large number of young men and women who do not go to work will be born.

Li Wei learned a good lesson about American imperialism during the epidemic in his previous life. Just because of the relief money, it attracted a frenzy of resignations!
The Eight Banners of the Manchu Empire are actually a group that can receive relief funds stably. It is strange that they do not eat, drink and have fun all day long.

The answer is obvious. The effective range of a soft bow, even with the best upward firing angle, cannot be compared to that of a smoothbore gun.

In history, those with a range of two to 300 meters are the top of the hard bows that ordinary people can't pull!
If an ordinary archer can hit a target within 50 meters, that is enough to be called a regular army!

Facing the unthreatening long-range attack of the Qing army, the soldiers of Colonel KFC raised their guns in a leisurely manner.

(End of this chapter)