A bolt-off sound rumbled.

At first, the sound was very slow, like a huge bee buzzing, and then the sound gradually became bigger and stronger, like a muffled thunder in the sky.

With his rich experience in fighting with the Ming army many times, Oboi suddenly realized that this was not thunder, it was the roar of artillery.

He held the restless mount and looked up around, and soon he found the shell.

It was a very obvious shell, and Oboi could even recognize it at a glance that it was a shrapnel shell. This shell had its own mark. When they flew in the sky, they would fly to the sky with obvious tail flames and fireworks, drawing a curve. If it were at night, this shell would be as conspicuous as a broom star.

Moreover, this kind of shrapnel is indeed like a broom star, making people feel disgusted.

Unlike ordinary artillery, his ballistics are not straight, but with a large arc, which is more like the traditional throwing! No! Wrong! Car stones, but shells are much more powerful than throwing stones. They will fly over the dense array, then explode in the air, killing countless people in an instant.

The shrapnel carried a fireworks track and drew an arc and flew from one side of the hillside.

Oboi quickly calculated in his heart that the shell was not an ordinary shrapnel, but a large shrapnel. This means that there was a heavy howitzer on the mountain, perhaps a Ganondu. But what made Oboi uneasy was that the Han army had always gathered and used in such heavy artillery, and according to the rules, the heavy artillery group must be assigned to the division level.

Having heavy artillery means that there may be a heavy artillery group here, and having a heavy artillery group means that there are at least one Han army with more than one division here.

Oboi's cold sweat came down. How could there be a large Han army here? Even if there is only one division's troops, it will be a nightmare.

The Han army today is not the Ming army in the past. They are far more than the Ming army in the past, and even a few points better than the Chu army in the past.

There are usually at least 15,000 divisions in the Han army.

They had 30,000 troops, but they might not have fought more than 15,000 Han troops. And Obai had a worse expectation in his heart that a large army of the Han army suddenly appeared here, so they were likely to have more than one division.

"Prince, we are in vain. This is Liu Jiye's large army. They surrounded him." Oboi shouted loudly to Haoge.

Haoge looked unbelievable, "How is this possible? How could Liu Jiye come around behind us? Didn't Duoduo say that Liu Jiye's troops have not been mobilized?"

"It must be that Duoduo's information was wrong. It was a heavy shrapnel, which means there were heavy artillery here, and it was very likely that there would be a group of heavy artillery. There were heavy troops of the Han army intercepted him. Let's retreat."

"Retreat?" Haoge gritted his teeth, "Where to retreat?"

"Retract the Chaohe Camp and unite with Duoduo and his troops to resist Liu Jiye's attack." Oboi suggested.

Haoge was hesitating, not because he couldn't take the face back, but because he thought of another possibility. Since Liu Jiye quietly transferred a heavy army to encircle and intercept it, the Ming army on the Great Wall was probably already launched an attack at this time.

"Duoduo is afraid that he will be unable to protect himself at this moment."

Haoge thought about it and felt that he still couldn't go back.

"We are afraid we will be completely surrounded when we go back. The only way to do this is to put it to death and survive. Pass my order, prepare to break through and break eastward!"

Oboi's predictions were accurate. Liu Jun's Han army was the first to set artillery as a professional army in this era, and the army that attaches the most importance to artillery in this era. At the same time, they were also the army with the largest number of artillery in the world in this era. The artillery they equipped was far ahead of the entire era.

The first shrapnel bombarded and fell into the marching Qing army, blowing down a lot.

This is just the beginning, and that shell is actually only equivalent to a test shot calibration range.

As the deafening war drums sounded, the horn sounded.

Thousands of large and small cannons equipped by the 50,000 army began to rush together on the preset artillery array. One after another, one after another.

Heavy artillery battalion, field artillery battalion, long cannon, short cannon, cannon howitzers, mortars, light and heavy artillery of various calibers, one after another, dense shells flew over the heads of the Qing army in the valley and fell.

Faced with the bombardment of countless artillery shells, Haoge led the Qing army to gallop, trying to rush over quickly with the speed of the war horses. After rushing for only one mile, Haoge found that the artillery fire in front not only did not weaken, but became even more fierce.

Through the smoke of gunfire, they found that one array after another appeared in front of them.

Haoge was surprised to find that the Han army in front did not line up in a tight square formation, but small formations one by one, with only a few hundred people in each formation. These small formations were one by one, but there were more than ten steps in the middle. From a distance, it seemed as if countless mushrooms suddenly appeared in the open river valley area.

"Why did the Han army set up such a formation? Do they want to use such a small infantry formation to deal with our cavalry charge?" Haoge has fought for many years, fought with the Mongols, Ming troops, Koreans, and Jurchen tribes in Haixi. No matter which opponent they fight, in his impression, cavalry is the strongest group of troops, especially when the cavalry gathers enough numbers, it can completely level everything and is unstoppable.

If infantry wants to deal with cavalry, they can only rely on the city. If they are in the field, they must establish camps or set up chariot camps. Use chariot formations to protect infantry. At least, infantry should try to gather into large arrays, set up horses in front, and then use long spears and large shields to form a protective layer.

Overall, such infantry is actually only able to protect themselves and have no power to counterattack.

But now, the Han army has actually set up such an unprecedented formation in front of their 30,000 light cavalry. What kind of formation is this? Mushroom formation?

Can this formation block the cavalry?

Why didn’t the Han army gather into a large formation and their cannons? Why didn’t they be placed in front of or on both sides of the formation? Didn’t the Chu army fight like this before?

In addition, what about the cavalry of the Han army? As far as he knows, although there are not many cavalry of the Han army, there are still many.

Haoge felt like a monk was confused.

Perhaps the commander of the army was a civil official who was completely a layman, otherwise such a formation should not be set up. A small mushroom formation of two or three hundred people came to die, could they block the impact of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty?

The only thing that made Haoge feel a little uncomfortable was that the Han army's small mushroom formation seemed to be a little too much. Looking around, there were clusters of small mushrooms everywhere.

"Roar over and flatten them!" Haoge shouted with his sword.

Liu Jun stood on a hillside not far away, looking at the battlefield.

"Your Majesty, Haoge did not retreat, he chose to charge eastward to break through the encirclement." Zhang Guodong said to Liu Jun, "I didn't expect that Haoge is still a bit bloody."

"It's just reckless, brave but not resourceful. He really thought my hollow gun array was so easy to break? Don't you know that this hollow formation was specially prepared for the cavalry. This time, they must let them see what the new era's tactics are. They will be ordered to open fire with all their might. I want the Qing cavalry to approach the infantry's hollow formation and the formation will be dispersed."

"Don't be stingy with shells. Even if they bombard them, try to break up their formations. If they disrupt their charge formations, the impact of the cavalry will be greatly reduced. They are not opponents of the hollow infantry formations."

Hollow infantry formation, a kind of battle formation specially designed for the musket era, especially the huge hollow formation composed of countless small hollow formations set up by Liu Jun, which is also a meat grinder for the cavalry.

Compared with horizontal infantry or vertical infantry, hollow formations can better defend against the impact of cavalry and can also kill cavalry more powerfully. In particular, this large formation containing countless small hollow formations will make the Han army's large formation like a huge sponge, easily attracting the charge of the Qing cavalry.

The biggest reliance of cavalry is impact force. Without impact force, their power will be reduced by more than half.

The gap between each small hollow array is not a flaw, but the real killer move.

When the cavalry rushed into the Han army formation, facing the circles of bayonets and muskets, they would continue to rush through the gaps with the intention. This is the instinct of war horses and the instinct of knights.

When they rushed in, they found that there were hollow formations like hedgehogs everywhere. They had nowhere to stumble, so they could only rush forward constantly, and then were stabbed by guns behind the infantry behind the hollow formation with muskets.

To deal with hollow infantry formations, cavalry alone is completely insufficient.

Even in the age of muskets, cavalry was no longer the main force of the battlefield. They could not defeat infantry alone.

"If it were you, how would you deal with my hollow infantry formation?" Liu Jun asked Zhang Guodong.

"Your Majesty once told me that the age of firearms is no longer an era of defense, but an era of attack. Soldiers no longer need heavy armor, and armor will be gradually eliminated in the future. Artillery will replace cavalry and become the darling of the battlefield, but in the final analysis, the real main force on the battlefield in the future will still be infantry holding rifles."

Zhang Guodong pointed at the battlefield, "Your Majesty, even if I lead these cavalry, I have no chance of winning this battle. The only countermeasure is to retreat, rather than rushing into the hollow array meat grinder in the fire."

Zhang Guowei, the Minister of War, asked in surprise, "Can the cavalry really not be able to defeat the infantry? Haoge led 30,000 cavalry, many of which were elite Eight Banners."

Zhang Guodong said confidently, "War is the right time, place and harmony between people. To put it bluntly, it involves the battlefield geography, weather conditions, military equipment, training, commander experience, and the soundness of the command system, and even the morale of the army."

"In combination, whoever takes more favorable conditions will have a better chance of winning. In this battle, in terms of military strength, we have 50,000 troops and 30,000 troops in the Qing army. And we waited for the effort. The Qing army came from afar and was attacked by our army. Secondly, this battlefield was chosen by us. Although it was still open here, there was a river on one side and mountains on both sides. It was actually a narrow valley area. Our artillery was located on the mountains on both sides, facing high ground, easy to defend but difficult to attack. Although the Qing army was a cavalry, this terrain was actually the most unsuitable for them to unfold and could not circumvent the side."

"There is also the crushing of equipment. This time we carried thousands of cannons, not to mention the mountain dutch and other light cannons equipped by each battalion company. Our infantry is now equipped with advanced flintlock guns, and is equipped with a lot of handguns and grenades. What about the Qing army? Although they are cavalry, they are almost all in the era of cold weapons. They have very few cannons and are still very backward. There are almost no firearms."

Liu Jun nodded to Zhang Guodong with appreciation.

"Everything is right, but there is another most important point. The Qing army will definitely be defeated in this battle because they have no infantry."

Zhang Guowei was stunned, "The Qing army would be defeated because they had no infantry?" What is the reason?

"Any military formation will have flaws and shortcomings. For example, vertical arrays are the easiest to maintain formation, but they are most afraid of artillery attacks. When encountering artillery bombardment, the damage will be the greatest. When horizontal attacks are the least afraid of artillery fire, but the most difficult to maintain formation, the attack firepower will be weakened."

"Similarly, our hollow formation is most useful for cavalry, but if the Qing army did not only have a single cavalry charge, but the infantry and cavalry assisted in combat, and the cavalry charge, and then the hollow formation would be difficult to resist. If the opponent's infantry and cavalry were also equipped with artillery coordination, then the victory or defeat would be difficult to predict."

Zhang Guowei said, "You must match the line infantry, right? "

Liu Jun nodded, and the line infantry, that is, musketeers. Only musketeers can fight against the hollow formation musketeers of the Han army. Ordinary infantry, who are about to be dispersed from Xu Yuan, will be unable to get close to them.

"Then we don't have to worry. Even if the Tartar cavalry is equipped with infantry, they don't have musket infantry. Their infantry is still heavily armored infantry riding horses, wearing thick armor, holding big swords, bows and arrows, moving slowly, riding horses and then dismounting to fight. In the past, this tactic was very useful when dealing with the army of the previous dynasty, but now, facing the new firearm troops of our empire, this kind of stupid iron-shell heavy infantry is completely dead rake and is useless at all."

Liu Jun put down the Qianli Jing and no longer had to stare at him. He had already expected the end of the battle.

"Tell me the order to let the cavalry go around the rear of the Qing army and block the valley when they came. This time, we will catch turtles in a jar, and not let a single Tartar go. I will wipe out all the 30,000 Qing troops."

The emperor had such a big appetite. He led 50,000 people, but he wanted to wipe out 30,000 Qing cavalry. Zhang Guowei exclaimed secretly that if he had heard a Ming general dared to speak like this a few years ago, he would have squirted him hard and sprayed his saliva on his face. It was really a lie.

But now, when these words came from the emperor, Zhang Guowei had no doubts at all.

He looked at the battlefield. The Qing army was still approaching the infantry that seemed very fragile under the fire. The Qing army ran wildly and shouted angrily. In front of them, the hollow formations of small infantry were like rocks facing the surging waves. No matter how powerful the waves were, I would remain unmoved! (To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!