"put"

Kong Youde, who stood in the middle of the artillery formation in the middle of the Qing army, gave the order and lined up at the end of the artillery formation. More than 20 most far-range red cannons started one after another. The battle between the Ming and Qing armies finally began.

Deafening loud noises continued, just like the Thunder God ringing the war drum in the sky. As soon as the thick white smoke rose, it was blown away by the strong wind in the wilderness.

Kong Youde, who was responsible for commanding the cannons, divided more than 300 cannons into three layers. The front row was the 500-pound Bolang machine cannon with a relatively close range. More than 200 cannons were divided into two places, nearly two miles apart between them. Two thousand infantrymen with two yellow flags and five hundred horses lined up in the array to protect the artillery array so as to prevent the Ming army infantry from breaking into the artillery array.

The second row was nearly a hundred small-cap Red-Bai cannons weighing thousands of pounds. These cannons with a range of two miles and the Folang machine cannons in the front row were brought by Kong Youde when he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, some were captured by the Ming army, and some were copied by Huang Taiji's orders to be imitated by the captive Han craftsmen.

With the sound of the Red Cannon, more than twenty projectiles rose into the air, and the speed visible to the naked eye drew elegant arcs in the blue sky, smashing towards the Ming army array that was advancing three miles away.

Sun Chuanting, who was on the car in the back formation, had long observed the Qing army's front artillery array with a monocular telescope. Under his command, the large array of the Yongwei Camp and the Vehicle Camp was changed to a vertical formation with a team of thousands of people, and there was a large space between the two columns. This could minimize the killing effect of artillery attacks.

During this period, since firearms did not completely dominate, there was no popular straggler line. This column that broke the traditional array method appeared on the battlefield for the first time. This creativity was of course instructed by Zhu Youjian.

In this large-scale battle field with cold weapons as the main focus, maintaining a formation is very important. If one or two thousand people are arranged in a scattered line, although the killing caused by shells will be reduced, once the formation is connected, so many people will not be able to form an array in chaos. The result will definitely lead to defeat in the battle. Therefore, it is the most basic common sense when forming a formation and fighting in cold weapons.

A simple comparison is that a chopstick can easily be broken, but what if dozens of chopsticks gather together

However, the column method of Yongwei Battalion is based on the battalion. Once the battle occurs, it can form a square formation to fight the enemy in a short time.

There was a powerful firepower from the chariot camp in front as cover, which gave the infantry in the rear sufficient time to arrange the array.

After hearing the loud bang of the cannon, although the Ming soldiers, who were extremely familiar with the damage effects of the shells, were still moving forward in a row under the habit of obeying orders that they developed in their daily calendar.

The more than 20 projectiles came with a slight whistling sound in the blink of an eye. Some hit the slowly moving car camp, and some hit the infantry column of the Yongwei camp behind.

Not to mention in this world, even in later generations, cannons with various auxiliary aiming equipment are very difficult to strike moving targets, not to mention in this era of smooth-bore running that is completely blind.

The Qing army cannons were quite powerful when they were fired, but the gunner's aiming method was based on vision. The attack of the projectile was mainly based on the surface. As for whether it was hit in the end, it all depends on luck.

The Ming army infantry, who was facing the direction of the projectile, watched the projectile rush towards him. The old soldiers who were quick to respond quickly avoided the route of the projectile falling behind. Some soldiers with less experience had no time to avoid it or forgot to avoid it because of fear, so they could only close their eyes with great fear and leave it to fate.

A small half of the more than 20 projectiles landed in front of the chariot route. They bounced on the ground several times and stopped, causing no damage to the Ming army, but five or six of the remaining ones hit several side vans.

One of the projectiles hit the body of the ganniu who was pulling the cart, and suddenly smashed the body of the ganniu weighing 700 to 800 pounds into two sections. The side van suddenly tilted to one side. Fortunately, the gunner did not get on the car. After the projectile hit the target, the kinetic energy quickly disappeared. After rolling for a few times, it stopped, and did not cause secondary damage to the Ming army behind the car.

Some projectiles hit the main body of the carriage directly. In a moment, the carriage was smashed into pieces. The broken wood flying around was stabbed and wounded several soldiers following the car like sharp arrows, and the screams of pain followed.

A projectile hit the Folang machine cannon in the carriage. With a sound like a bell ringing, the projectile that had lost most of its kinetic energy jumped to one side. When it fell, it smashed the head of a Ming soldier. The Folang machine cannon was smashed and then tilted to one side. The wooden bracket was shaken and broken.

The other seven or eight projectiles flew over the chariot camp toward the infantry column behind. For a moment, flesh and blood flew across this large area, screaming endlessly. At least fifty or sixty soldiers fell in pools of blood, and the columns around the casualties suddenly became turbulent.

Although the Yongwei Battalion has participated in many major wars and many soldiers have fought with the Qing army several times, the Ming army has always suppressed the Qing army with powerful firepower, and it is the first time that he was forced to be bombarded by the Qing army when he cannot fight back. Under this sense of fear of the unknown, some soldiers involuntarily accelerated their pace, while others slowed down because of their timidity, which also led to a considerable chaos in some columns.

Immediately afterwards, dozens of small red cannons of the Qing army were fired. The gunners who had cast the last row of red cannons quickly ran towards the artillery array in front, preparing to set off small red cannons with ammunition prepared.

There are too few gunners on the Han Army Flag. There are only less than one hundred gunners in total with more than 300 artillery pieces. This method can only be used to maintain the sustainability of firepower.

Cultivating a gunner is not easy. At that time, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, spent a lot of money to hire several artillery instructors from the Portuguese army through Portuguese merchants in Macau. It took nearly a year to teach more than 100 gunners. In the end, most of these people followed Kong Youde across the sea and surrendered to Huang Taiji.

"Speedly"

Sun Yingyuan, who was standing in the front line, observed the movement of the Qing army's artillery formation and gave a decisive and loud order. A trumpet beside him immediately blew the trumpet, and a long and sharp voice penetrated through the rumbling cannon. The driver who heard the command forced his inner fear and waved his whip to drive away. The bull, whose ears were blocked, couldn't help but step out his four hooves and speeded up his pace.

The Qing army's second round of artillery fired more densely, and the number of casualties caused to the Ming army was also increasing exponentially. Five or six side vans were concentrated and lost their combat effectiveness. Nearly 200 infantrymen in the Yongwei Battalion in the back formation were injured or killed.

Mao Yuanyi, the deputy general of the Yongwei Battalion who was in charge of commanding the infantry, took several personal soldiers to cross the open space between the columns, rushed to the front row of the infantry column, and then ordered the personal soldiers to raise their flag high in order to lead the soldiers forward.

As the black and white-shaped flag of "南" with white characters fluttered in the wind, the soldiers who were somewhat panicked under the shelling saw the general's flag, the already somewhat shaken morale suddenly stabilized, and the depressed morale became high again.
Chapter completed!