The arc of power cannot be stringed, and there will be no peace in the past. Blood flows across the rivers and valleys, and jackals and wolves are boiling.

The emperor came from the north and drove away and withered. He suddenly fought under the beams, but crossed the desert.

"Sending Fan Twenty-san Shiyu to the judge of Hanzhong"

Tang Dynasty: Du Fu

——I am the dividing line—

But the first thing to speak before these infantry and cavalry brigades was the cavalry and artillery teams that were scattered on the banks of the Han River and rushed to rush into the sky. In a blink of an eye, iron balls roaring through the air hit the city of Nanzheng one after another. Among the officials who rushed around the city to fight, a bunch of earth and gravel wrapped around the broken limbs were blown up, which also made their momentum of attack suddenly stutter.

Then, the Taiping Cavalry led by Li Hanzhi was already flawlessly squeezing into it. In an instant, the people and horses neighed and roared and screamed, and the human body was constantly struggling and rolled in the crowd, cut off, and the bloody arms and heads were cut off; or they were squealed and slashed and stomped down, and stomped under the horse's hooves.

In just a moment of meeting, several formations of officers who rushed to the east gate of Nanzheng City were already killed by the two groups of Taiping cavalry who had taken the lead and broke into several pieces that could not be looked after. They were like pigs and sheep being driven away by swords and guns, and instinctively fled under the city wall, seeking sheep and sheep building behind the sheep and horse wall built in moats;

However, in the midst of panic, they pushed and trampled the horse-rejected, trapped pits and ditches that had been arranged by the city, and stuffed them down, overturned, and filled them. However, the Taiping Army's cavalry and infantry battalion also followed. Just outside the range of the crossbows on the wall, they were all dismounted from the formation to the wings stretched out from left to right, and fired fire guns were installed on specially trained mount saddles.

The next moment, they rushed out to the city gate and launched a row of troops to support them, with half a month of arcs interlaced, and the people who were hitting head-on were swaying and swelling. Then a few soldiers carrying special equipment also set up the flying fire thunder and bamboo and wood guide rails on the horses after their array, and many lengthened smoke trails rose up;

After slowly passing many particularly tortuous arcs, the smoke and clouds fell near the city gate and exploded, affecting and covering the officials who could not dodge or had nowhere to dodge. Left a piece of bloody wounded or burning and rolling human bodies. The so-called confrontation and response troops were naturally defeated, and the city gates that were again confined and cries were separated from the outside.

At this time, the main formation of the Shu army from the north of the city was also flooded across the country under the guidance of the three-legged golden crow of Xichuan and the "gao"-character flag. Just as the defeat of the pioneer troops and the failure of the attack in the city had no effect at all, they still stepped on the drum beats and stepped in unison with their morale.

Even the Taiping Cavalry, led by Li Hanzhi, who was hovering outside and reorganizing the team, had several tentative attacks to restrain and harass the means of restraining and harassing. Under the neat and dense strong bows and crossbows from the main formation of the Shu army, they were repeatedly shot and gained nothing. Instead, they were constantly squeezed and driven to the edge of the battlefield.

Then, as if a single move was moving, even the soldiers of the cavalry and infantry battalion began to re-mount their horses amid the sound of suona and whistles, and when the Shu army was barely approaching the range, they retreated from a wider frontal battlefield.

As these cavalry and infantry soldiers dispersed from the two wings like a receding tide, they exposed the Shannan Expedition Army's main formation, which was already lined up in the inner and half of the outside, and was still carrying out civil engineering operations in front of the formation while the sand was constantly flying.

At this moment, the defenders standing on the head of Nanzheng City could see the blue-gray tone with dark and shallow colors, which was like a shimmering Taiping Army array; and the Xichuan Army Horse Array that was replaced with bright light yellow and orange-red robes and armor; it was like two giant beasts with different magnificent and ferocious roars, watching each other vigilantly and constantly approaching.

If the lineup of the Shu army is like a burning red flame, or a towering standing in the mountains that are soaked in late autumn; the formation of the Taiping army is like a deep and waveless lake or a sea wave supported by the breeze, which contains and nurtures the huge terror and power that cannot be triggered by the vast tide.

As the two armies became closer and closer, the murderous and coerciveness soared upwards, which made the defenders on the city unconsciously hold their breath, and it seemed that they were being suppressed by some invisible force, and they felt a little breathless. Then, the sound of drums that beat the city again from the city was like some sudden addition of the battlefield catalyst, awakening the two giant beasts against each other.

Among the Huang-Red Shu army, many dense flames suddenly shot up, which were the long-range weapons that developed in the cold weapon era; many winch crossbows, large wooden single crossbows, large bamboo pole crossbows, and Fuyuan crossbows radiating at the same time; however, the fireworks and dust from the blue Taiping Army array was not weak, and the fireworks and dust shot from large and small cannons like rolling thunder was rolling.

As the sound of cannons shook the sky, Ge Congzhou, the general responsible for watching the battle and command on the high chariot in the Taiping Army formation, also breathed out a breath of turbid air in a complicated manner. As a middle- and high-level military general who had the opportunity to stand alone, he naturally had various aspirations and expectations for strategizing in the middle, and using his strange plans and wisdom, the brave generals were slightly more likely to win the battle.

However, in fact, since the Taiping Army's firearmed troops have exceeded 10,000, the daily combat mode has easily changed from quantitative change to qualitative change; and has become a somewhat boring three-pronged axe that is repeated over and over again. The only difference is the difference in facing the enemy, which makes the order of these three axes adjust.

Especially with this mutual attack and defense, the Shu army has the relative advantage of scale and the geographical advantage of Guanluo City, while the Taiping Army has occupied the benefits of equipment and sufficient logistics support. In the case of mutual confrontation and stalemate, except for the personal protection camp and surprise troops (reserve team) controlled by Ge Congzhou, there is basically no room for the main general to play more personal characteristics and advantages to win the long-term.

Therefore, he could only maintain sufficient caution and meticulousness, and in the repeated specific encounters and battles, he used as much as possible to eliminate and consume some of the enemy's vitality. However, the secret intelligence from the city of Nanzheng gave him a chance to break the deadlock.

The Xichuan Jieshu Gao Renhou, who likes to build joint camps with relative superior forces and is also good at using the troops to run and support to maintain flexible defense tactics; and has repeatedly blocked and repelled the Taiping Army's key breakthroughs; at this moment, in order to quickly take over the turmoil in Nanzheng City, he only brought a small half of the troops of the Xichuan Army in Baocheng.

This was enough to make him set up a suspicious formation while cooperating with a small number of three detachments to cooperate with a large number of auxiliary soldiers and husbands recruited on the spot, put on the uniforms of similar soldiers and soldiers, and put on the banner of regular military orders, and sank the local heroes with great fanfare. While concentrating all the power and materials in his hands between Baocheng and Nanzheng, he embarked on this desperate military adventure.

Of course, Ge Congzhou did not expect to defeat or defeat him in one go. This "kind envoy" with a reputation as Xichuan; but as the saying goes, "It is better to cut off one of his fingers than to hurt his five fingers". As long as he can severely damage or even annihilate some of his existing troops, it is enough to change the current Taiping Army in Xingyuan Prefecture, the Taiping Army is relatively limited in its troops and insufficient in offensive power, and most of the time it can only be in a defensive situation.

Just as Ge Congzhou was thinking about gains and losses, the blood and flesh were flying in front of each other's formation, and the corpses kept appearing in the array. However, it was obvious that the Taiping Army's artillery team was better at long-range shooting and killing, which made the strong bows and crossbows in the Shu army obviously lacked their strength due to continuous damage and casualties, and accelerated the speed of starting to rush forward.

However, the flying fire thunder that rose in the air again, as well as the tiny oil tanks thrown out by small catapults and gunpowder tanks filled with iron slag and shattered pots; they once again descended among the first generals of the Shu army, and a brief scattered fire was formed on the middle line of the battlefield; then, the Shu army generals who rushed out again, which had become very sparse, were pouring rain of lead emitted by several rows of muskets.

Soon, these were like being combed by dense grates, and there were only two or three kittens left behind the Shu army, and the sound of golden drums came again. Then, with the fire and smoke marks that were constantly being extinguished, many yellow-headed soldiers holding large shields were trotting during the sparse loading of barrage, and rushed to a distance of only twenty or thirty steps.

Then before the next round of ping-pong approaching radiation, the shield suddenly fell to the ground and bent down. Although several figures fell down between the wood chips and fragments, with the front row of victims using their bodies as the shield, the remaining yellow-headed soldiers suddenly dropped the shield and roared and rushed over the last distance, and then hit the tip of the crouching white soldiers' spear lifted obliquely.

Suddenly, many yellow-headed soldiers pierced their chests and thighs, and their voices were shrill that made blood and organs flow all over the ground. However, some brave men took the opportunity to rush into the white soldiers' spears and fought one after another. At this time, the whistle sounded from the back row of the white soldiers again, and a row of explosive bombs was thrown out, which exploded among the yellow-headed soldiers who followed up.

The sharp fragments and iron slags wrapped in the gray smoke and the waves of air were immediately dripping blood from the back and sideways, and the gunmen who were equipped with sharp spikes were driven out of the white soldiers on the spot, and then knocked them down one after another in the ignition light that was approaching the radius.

However, the sudden rain of arrows fell from the sky once again pierced the figures of the enemy and us, nailing them to the ground; but the Shu army's main formation that was slowly advancing, the Shenji crossbowmen who had reached a sufficient distance began to launch arrows to cover them; then, they summoned the artillery team that was raising high and bending in the Taiping Army formation, and even more precise and concentrated projection, and were successively smashed out one after another of blood waves and red pits with broken limbs and broken bodies.

The sound of drums and whistles on the edge of the battlefield was once again loud, but the small number of Taiping Cavalry who were wandering outside finally found the opportunity to launch a decisive assault on the baggage of the Shu army's rear formation and the equipment teams where many large crossbows were located. In the meantime, they threw the arson bombs into the surplus formation while galloping.

Then there was a loud sound of golden plates, but the support soldiers and horses that detoured from other gates in the city held high the banner of the Shence Army and rushed into the flank of the Taiping Army, which was in full swing. However, they were intercepted by the hollow formation composed of a recent battalion and flatbed vehicles, with a bunker and a musket bombardment. They were bombarded by several cannon firing balls that suddenly appeared in the array, and retreated one after another.

This battle lasted for most of the day and I saw the sky dark; I saw that the enemy and we were tired and were still fighting fiercely. Suddenly, there was a burst of noise and exclamation from the city where the east gate of Nanzheng came from; then the flag representing the Dasanguan Camp and the Xiongwu Army was suddenly cut off and fell down, and a somewhat damaged Taiping Green Flag was planted again.

And this is like pouring a handful of ice water on the hot battlefield. In an instant, the Shu army, which was struggling to fight with noble character and means, was amid a burst of noise and exclamations higher than the other; a morale collapse that could be seen with the naked eye...
Chapter completed!