Taiping Inn

The army led by Xu Zaiyuan soon met the vanguard of the Liaodong army in Lu County. The leader of the Liaodong army was Jing Xiu. Xu Zaiyuan and Jing Xiu were not strangers. Jing Xiu often traveled between Jinzhou and Youzhou, and even bought a house in Jinyang Prefecture. He had friendships with many Jinzhou merchants. Read М

After the two sides met, they immediately deployed their troops.

Everyone talks about how great the Liaodong cavalry is. In many people's impressions, the Liaodong army and the Golden Horde army are mainly cavalry. So when this battle started, the Liaodong cavalry should charge, and the court officials and troops should defend.

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But the fact is just the opposite. The firearms of the imperial court are of poor quality and often explode, making the soldiers fear firearms like a tiger. The firearms tactics that were once used to defeat the Golden Horde have been lost for the most part. On the contrary, the more than 10,000 cavalrymen in Xu Zaiyuan's hands are still quite powerful.

On the contrary, although Jing Xiu did not carry heavy artillery, he mainly used firearms, and the firearms were mainly bird guns. The so-called "bird gun" is a matchlock gun, which has no outstanding technical features. The Shenji Camp has begun to equip bird guns on a large scale as early as the Ming Yong period.

The key is that the barrel of the bird gun needs to be made of fine iron. This kind of fine iron requires ten pounds of crude iron to smelt one pound. Only the barrel made of such fine iron can be strong and durable and will not explode when shooting. When making it, usually fine iron is rolled into two iron tubes, one large and one small, with the large one wrapping the small one so that the two are tightly attached, and then a steel drill is used to drill a gun barrel with a smooth and straight inner wall. The drilling process is very precise. Each person can only drill about one inch a day, and it takes about a month to drill a gun.

The word "bird" in the word "bird gun" does not mean that it is specially used to shoot birds, but the muzzle is as big as a bird's beak, so it is called a bird gun, also known as a bird-beak gun. After being improved, it can be used even in windy or humid weather.

In addition, Liaodong also imitated some Rumi guns and thunder guns. The prototype of Rumi guns is the tribute fire gun of Rumi State. It has a longer range, faster firing speed and greater power than bird guns. Thunder guns are equipped with five gun barrels, and the gun plate can be rotated to fire five gun barrels in sequence, firing eighteen bullets in one breath. Just because the technology was not yet mature, these two types of firearms were not equipped in the army on a large scale, and were only used in a small range.

On the other hand, the imperial court, the Arms Bureau and the Weapons Bureau were severely deducted, and the craftsmen were treated poorly. Although they had the technology, the materials were not up to standard, and inferior materials were used as good ones. The bird guns they made often exploded. Many soldiers of the Wei Dynasty would rather use bows and arrows than fire guns, which made the firearms level of the Wei Dynasty's official army step back and was even worse than the early years of the founding of the country. Not to mention the Rumi gun and the Thunder gun.

So the situation when the two sides fought became that the Wei Dynasty's official army quickly assembled cavalry and prepared to charge, while the Liaodong army formed a chariot formation, placed chevaux de frise, and arranged gunmen in three sections, with cavalry on both wings.

A large group of cavalrymen in fiery red armor gathered together, about 5,000 people, with flags flying, like a sea of ​​fire, equipped with long and short weapons on horseback, bows and horn bows. Compared with the Golden Horde Cavalry, the armor and weapons of the Wei Cavalry were better, but they were inferior in the number of horses, and could not drive the horses to charge first to consume the ammunition of the Liaodong Army and shorten the charge distance.

Xu Zaiyuan planned to disrupt the formation of the Liaodong Army with horse archery and then break through the formation, so the cavalrymen were quickly sorting out the arrows in their pots, in sharp contrast to the Liaodong Army checking lead bullets and gunpowder. In addition to the regular armored cavalry, Xu Zaiyuan also sent thousands of armored infantrymen, holding swords and shields, to follow behind the cavalry, both to cooperate in combat and to strengthen the momentum.

On the other hand, Liaodong was silent black, like a dark sea, most people were silent, and only the voices of generals at all levels issuing orders came one after another.

With the sound of the horn, the cavalrymen rode slowly. Because they were not within the range of the muskets and artillery, they just controlled their horses to walk slowly and did not charge.

When they were about a mile away from the chariot formation, the Wei cavalry began to gradually accelerate. At the same time, in order to avoid being killed by firearms, the distance between the front, back, left and right continued to widen. The smoke and dust raised by the horses' hooves gave people a great sense of oppression. As the saying goes, when there are more than 10,000 people, there is no limit. When a horse charges the formation, it occupies the position of several people. Thousands of cavalrymen charging the formation are more frightening than tens of thousands of infantrymen. At a glance, it seems that the mountains and plains are full of armies, the sound of hooves is like thunder, and the momentum is like a flood. Many new recruits who have not seen war will be frightened and collapse at the first touch.

However, the vanguard army led by Jing Xiu is no longer new recruits, but old soldiers who have fought bloody battles with the Golden Horde Cavalry many times. Five thousand cavalrymen can't make them shake or fear.

Under the full force of the cavalry, the short distance of one mile, not to mention passing in a flash, does not take much time.

Under the rolling hooves, the ground seemed to be shaking.

Although Jing Xiu did not carry heavy artillery this time, he carried a large number of light artillery, mainly tiger squat cannons, which had a short range. Almost at the moment when the cavalry began to charge, large groups of white smoke rose from the car camp in Liaodong, with flashes of fire.

This kind of light artillery is not as good as the new artillery. It still uses solid bullets, about the size of an adult man's fist, like a large musket, with greater power. Wherever the iron ball passes, the iron armor will be like paper, and a huge bloody hole will be torn out, and there is no reason to survive. After landing, it will also form a "ricochet" effect. The shells bounce and roll on the hard ground. Most people who are hit by it will not die, but the injuries are terrible.

More than 20 light artillery pieces fired at the same time. Although the cavalry had intentionally kept a distance, they still could not avoid casualties. A cavalryman was hit in the chest by an iron bullet. No breastplate was effective. There was a hole immediately. One could even see the scene behind him through the hole. After the shell passed through the cavalryman, it continued to move forward and smashed another horse's head. The cavalryman on horseback was thrown out directly. Before he could get up from the ground, the cavalrymen who followed closely behind him overwhelmed him. In this case, once he fell off his horse, he would be trampled to death in 99% of cases.

At the same time, the horse corpses and the fallen cavalrymen also indirectly acted as tripwires, causing several cavalrymen in the rear to be unable to stop and were directly tripped to the ground, creating a certain chaos, forcing the cavalrymen in the rear to slow down and bypass him.

As for the cavalryman who was "pierced through the heart" by the shell at the beginning, he fell backwards, but his feet were still hanging in the stirrups. He saw the galloping warhorse dragging a bloody corpse, which was extremely terrifying.

At such a close distance, with flesh and blood, facing the high-speed rotating shells, it is almost a matter of grazing and death. Wherever the shells pass, the limbs, head, or torso are as if wiped out of thin air.

It takes more than ten years, or even decades, to train a master of the Xiantian realm, but it takes a year or a few months to train a gunner. In terms of power, the two are not much different. The Xiantian realm masters are more flexible, but the cost is completely incomparable. The silver money spent on recruiting and supporting a Xiantian realm master is enough to cast several cannons. The large-scale use of firearms has caused military masters to gradually withdraw from the front battlefield. Night camps or inns are the place where such masters can use their skills.

A round of artillery fire reduced the number of the Wei cavalry by nearly 100 people, but the Wei cavalry was less than half a mile away from the chariot formation.

Inside the camp, the second round of artillery fire was ready, but it was no longer a tiger crouching cannon, but a small cannon loaded with shotgun shells, which was almost flat shooting, with a shorter range, but fan-shaped killing, which could shoot people and horses into sieves.

At the same time, shouts came from the camp: "Fire gun soldiers, get ready!"

After the cavalry, which was like mercury pouring out of the ground, entered the range, the cavalry began to prepare to bend their bows and arrows, and the sentry in the camp also waved his hands vigorously, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Fire!"

More than 30 small cannons spewed out large amounts of gunpowder and fire.

These cannons were filled with lead bullets and coarse iron sand. Thirty cannons fired at the same time, like a violent storm of iron bullets that instantly covered the front of the entire chariot formation. Being swept by these iron rains, people and horses were covered with dense and thick blood holes.

There was a shrill neighing of men and horses, like the harvest of rice in autumn. The charging cavalry at the front suddenly fell to the ground, leaving a very glaring blank on the battlefield.