Nanming Engineer

Chapter 343
Following the sound of the military order, nearly a hundred horse-drawn two-wheeled carts came in a file from behind, along the gap between the phalanxes, and rushed to the front of the Kuizhou army. Immediately, five or six sergeants in white robes jumped off, lifted the short board on the side of the car body, and began to lift the black iron guys down one by one in a hurry.

The Qing army had a panoramic view of the movements of the Ming army, and Li Ben, who had been staring at this side, raised his eyebrows deeply.

"A van? I haven't seen it for a while." He narrowed his eyes and grimaced, disapprovingly: "When Sun Chengzong was still in Liaodong, he saw this thing. The old man believed in this kind of thing. Wait for him to step down. After Gao Di succeeded, he retreated to Shanhaiguan, and no one wanted to use the car camp in Liaodong. I didn’t expect to see a van here again today.”

"At the military gate, the van is easy to defend. Standing there is a wall. I'm afraid it will be a little troublesome." A general around him came up and said that the van was equipped in the Ming army since the Jiajing period. There are very few people who don't come out of it.

Li Ben smiled deeply, waved his hands confidently, and snorted: "It's okay, the van is good, but it's heavy. Look, the Ming army has a row in front of the formation, and there are no left, right, and rear. They can only defend against it." Stay in the front and wait for my army to attack. When the Ming army was in a panic, Wang Pingfan's iron cavalry rushed in from the left and right, and even the best sidecar is just a display."

He paused and then said: "Besides, I doubt whether these Ming troops can make good use of the sidecars. They are hiding behind, which can only prove that they are timid and afraid of fighting and do not dare to fight us face to face. The Ming army is weak." , it can be seen that once the dead soldiers' camp is killed, the Ming army may collapse and flee, which shows that there is no good or bad weapon, it just depends on whether the person who uses it can use it well."

The cronies were convinced and nodded.

Li Benzhen waved his hand and shouted loudly: "Blow the drum three times and order the shield chariot to advance slowly!"

The orderly agreed loudly, and rushed back. The sound of the drums standing behind suddenly became more intense, and the drums sounded like raindrops three times in a row. Push down and move forward slowly.

"The van, hehe, I want to see if I can stop the attack of my Liaodong army." Li Ben had a dark face and a cruel smile. Unique hobby - killing.

The enemy must be killed if he resists, and if he resists, he must be killed. In short, meeting Li Benzhen on the battlefield is not a pleasant thing.

The shield cart was advancing forward, and the creaking axle friction sound was like the footsteps of the devil approaching in hell. The archer following the shield cart put the wolf fang arrow on the bowstring and was ready to go. He was holding a long or short weapon. The soldier's eyes were red, his body was hunched as much as possible to reduce the exposed body area, and he followed the archers forward.

However, the Ming army on the opposite side showed no sign of moving. The officers and soldiers of the chariot battalion standing at the forefront were busy wielding shovels, digging shallow pits one after another in the yellow earth.

The flag erected on the hill fluttered with the wind without wavering.

The more Li Benshen looked at it, the more interesting he became. He smacked his lips and said a little strangely: "What are the Ming army doing? Those iron bumps look like a squatting tiger cannon, but they are a bit bigger. So what if it is a squatting tiger cannon? This cannon has a small caliber, It has a short range and hits iron flakes and stones. It cannot penetrate the shield of the shield car at all. The damage effect is limited and it is impossible to stop my powerful soldiers. Does the Ming army just count on this thing? That would be too stupid!"

The officers and soldiers of the car battalion turned a blind eye to the approaching Qing army, and concentrated on doing their own work. After digging the shallow pit, the soldiers on each van worked together to slowly put the tail of Hong Tianlei into the shallow pit. In the pit, fix it with iron nails. The distance between the guns is about two feet wide. Then unload the gunpowder packs from the car and put them a little far behind the gun position. About ten packs are unloaded from each car. After the gunpowder, the driver waved his whip and retreated along the way he had come.

Only the artillery and gunners are left in place. These passages are all passages waiting for the next infantry to march, and they cannot be blocked by vans.

Li Benshen's mouth was opened wide, and he could hardly close it in surprise.

"The Ming army withdrew the sidecars?" He thought incredulously: "Is it really just a means of transportation? Isn't it a line of defense to defend against our army's attack?"

After a brief surprise, he burst out laughing, pointing in front of him almost from ear to ear: "What the Ming army did was bold at best, but stupid as a pig at worst! As everyone knows, firearms are ferocious, but The skill of using it is that the high city is huge, it is condescending, and you don’t need to move frequently, so you can naturally use the strength of the firearm. However, in field battles, firearms are heavy and heavy, how can they be used like the Ming army on the opposite side? Let’s not talk about the shooting power of the tiger squatting cannon, let’s hit it once It takes a long time before the second shot is fired, and it is so stupid to put it in front of the formation, neither can repel our army's attack, but also hinder the way of our own soldiers and horses to attack from behind!"

He finally stopped his laughter, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and shouted loudly: "No need to wait, these stupid generals of the inferior army are wasting their time if they wait any longer. Send the order! Beat the second tong drum." , blow the marching bugle! Speed ​​up!"

"Boom boom boom!"

"Woo~~~~!"

Raindrop-like drum beats and deep horn sounds sounded at the same time. The drum beats were as fast as sparks and the trumpets were breathtaking. The morale of the Qing army rose amidst the sound of drums and horns. The speed of the shield cart suddenly accelerated, and the sergeant pushing the cart made a muffled sound. Pushing the cart, the dead soldiers in the dead soldiers battalion opened their blood-red eyes and roared, and the shouts of killing were overwhelming.

"The elite battalion of the Chinese army begins to advance. Wait for the dead soldiers to break through the opening, and then cover up and kill them! The rear army will be ready. When the Chinese army moves, they will follow. The task of chasing and defeating the Ming army will be left to them." Li Ben In a deep voice, he handed down the orders one by one, and the soldiers rushed to all directions, carrying his words everywhere.

There are 2000 elite soldiers in his Chinese Army Battalion, all of whom are veterans of many battles and wear heavy armor. main force.

The rear army is weaker, and the armor worn by the soldiers is inlaid with iron leaves, which is mainly used for chasing and cleaning the battlefield after defeating the enemy in the front.

The Guan Ning cavalry led by Wang Pingfan, guarding the left wing of the army, also began to move slowly after seeing the movement of the Chinese army. The [-] cavalry gathered together, and secondly, there is enough distance to increase the speed of the horse to a value that can be impacted by making a detour.

Thousands of people moved, and the loess filled the sky.

Wang Huan blinked, reached out to rub away the dust that accidentally got into his eyes, and looked calmly forward and to the left.

The speed of the Qing army on the front increased significantly, from a slow pace to a trot. The heavy shield vehicle, driven by human power, jumped forward on the uneven ground, like a running rhinoceros.

Behind these rhinos, the clearing troops of the brigade were moving forward as a whole. This black magnet finally began to activate its own power. It would be like a fired bullet, slamming into anything that dared to block it.

The cavalry of the Qing army on the left is also moving slowly. Judging from its direction, it should be aiming at the cavalry on its own left wing.

"Can't you calm down?" He murmured to himself lightly: "Are you going to take action?"

"My lord, the three battalion chiefs sent someone to tell that the Thunderbolt is ready and ready to launch at any time." Ma Wannian hurried forward, bowing behind Wang Huan to report.

"Tell Ding Guodong not to head-on with the Qing cavalry, first go around the formation, wait for the Qing infantry to die, and then follow my plan." Wang Huan looked to the front of the formation, where the black iron bumps were firmly fixed. They were firmly erected on the ground, and if you look carefully, you can also find that the fuze wires on Hong Tianlei's body have also been signed. Inside, that was used to light the fire.

Ma Wannian immediately ordered a soldier to deliver orders to Ding Guodong.

Wang Huan used his eyes to measure the distance between the shield car and Hong Tianlei. Years of outdoor life made his eyesight very poisonous.

"It's almost there, the distance is just right." Wang Huan's eyes flashed brightly, and he shouted decisively: "Wave the flag and fire the cannon!"

At this moment, the distance between Hong Tianlei, who was half buried in the soil, and the first approaching shield car was only sixty zhang.

Some of the Qing archers following the shield car had strong self-control and had already begun to shoot 45 degrees into the sky. Naturally, they were not accurate at this distance. The archers were just shooting to scare the opponent.

Hong Tianlei's gunners wore light rattan armor and white robes, and stood firmly on the gun positions, watching their Baihu remain motionless, while Baihu looked at Qianhu, and Qianhu stared at the girl on the hill. A red flag representing the firing of cannons.

Spikes fell from the sky with a whistling sound, pierced the ground, and hit the ground for three points. Occasionally, they shot the gunners of the Ming army. Although the rattan armor could remove part of the force, the heavy arrows It will still penetrate the armor block and shoot people.

The wounded were immediately carried down by the soldiers rushing up from behind. The gunner who hadn't been hit by the arrow didn't even look at the wounded Paoze. The order to fire.

Finally, the red flag on the hill moved, and a strong personal guard supported it, shaking it like crazy.

"fire!"

"fire!"

"fire!"

Hundreds of households in the thirty artillery battalions roared almost at the same time, and at the same time they struck hard with their arms that were almost aching.

In order to prevent misunderstanding, they did not dare to lower the raised hand without authorization, and just kept holding it.

The red-hot iron rods were pulled out of the charcoal basin with sparks one after another, and approached the fire gate of Rang Tianlei, the fuze soaked in sulfur water "squeaked" and burned, and rushed into the system quickly.

There was a huge roar, comparable to the sound of cannons fired by red-clothed cannons in the wilderness, one thunder after another exploded in the flames, accompanied by a burst of green smoke, nearly a hundred explosives weighing ten catties flew onto the ground. sky.

A gray tumble of bundles appeared in the sky, visible to the naked eye, flying towards the Qing troops rushing towards them.

"What is that?" The Qing soldiers, who pressed their entire bodies against the back panel of the shield car and tensed their muscles nervously in preparation for the attack of iron slag and gravel from the Tiger Crouching Cannon, lost all their strength and became inexplicable. , they looked into the air, and they had never seen those tumbling bedrolls.

Li Benshen and Wang Pingfan on horseback were also very strange. They thought that after the roar of the tiger crouching gun, there would be a large piece of iron slag and stones sweeping across the front of the shield car, and both of them had a rough estimate of how many casualties it would cause. Unexpectedly, the Ming army actually fired some strange things into the sky with a tiger squat cannon.

The things fired by the Ming army drew parabolas in the sky, passed over the solid shield vehicle, and "cracked" and landed in the camp of archers and dead soldiers behind.

Those things were not iron bullets. The Qing army that was hit rolled a somersault on the ground. Some of them were unlucky and broke a few bones, but most of them stood up intact and looked at the ground strangely. The boxy gunpowder pack.

At this moment, the sparking fuse on the medicine package burned to the end.

(End of this chapter)