"Charcoal" is Niulu Zhangjing, who was under the command of King Kong Youde. His surname was Cao. No one knew his original name. Because he looked dark, everyone called him Charcoal or Cao Chartan.

He was originally from the Liao Dynasty, and later fled to Shandong with his family. When he was eighteen years old, he served as a soldier under Kong Youde. From the beginning, he served as a musketeer. The Portuguese musketry invited by the Ming Dynasty from Hao'ao taught him how to use turtledoves step by step.

How to use the foot fire gun. At that time, he was young and learned quickly. He completely mastered the Portuguese gun skills. He could hit a human-sized target from a hundred steps away with perfect accuracy!

However, in the eyes of the Ming Emperor, this skill was not as valuable as a scholar, and he could not earn much military pay at all. He was also very angry with the Shandong people (at that time, many refugees from Liaodong fled to Shandong, and had no food and clothing, so they naturally did a lot of sneaky things.

). When we sent troops to the front line of Liaodong and entered Wuqiao Town in Cangzhou, Shandong people went on strike because of insufficient supplies. One brother couldn't help but steal a chicken from the house of Wang Xiangchun, an official who had retired at home. He caused trouble.

From stealing chickens to killing people, and finally to a mutiny! Charcoal turned from an officer and soldier of the Ming Dynasty to a rebel, and later went to sea to seek refuge with Donglu, who had a blood feud with his family.

What he never expected was that all the land, money, wives, servants and official positions that he did not get from the Emperor of Heaven were all obtained by the Tartar Emperor!

The reason why the Tatar emperor was so generous was because he valued his ability to wield fire guns. If anyone thought that Donglu relied on his proficiency with bows and horses to conquer all directions, it would be a big mistake.

In fact, starting from Tianming Khan Nurhaci, the Donglu attached great importance to firearms. Starting from the sixth year of Tianming, Nurhaci ordered the Han officials and Han craftsmen who surrendered to them to cast cannons. By the eighth year of Tianming, the artillery team of the Later Jin Army was complete.

, you can go out with the army!

In the fourth year of Tiancong (1630), Houjin began to trial-produce Hongyi cannons, and even cast one. In Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming led the firecrackers and artillery trained by the Portuguese, carrying a large number of turtle-dove-foot firecannons.

After joining Houjin with Hongyi Cannon, Houjin's firearms force became quite powerful.

If we ignore the factors of Foshan's private iron industry and imports from Hao'ao, and simply compare the firearms produced by the government-run handicraft industries of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Later Jin Dynasty), the Qing Dynasty (Later Jin Dynasty) obviously has a huge advantage.

After all, under the strict supervision of Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, Dorgon and others, it was rare to use explosive cannons and blunderbuss to fool them, and they would be beheaded!

The reason why Duolong and Geng Zhongming suffered in the battle at Dagukou was because they did not carry firecrackers (Geng Zhongming's tribe had firecrackers, but because of the heavy rain for days before, Geng Zhongming left the firecrackers in Yongping)

.Furthermore, most of the muskets used by Zhu Cihong's new army to defeat the enemy were made in Hao'ao and Foshan, and were by no means the explosives commonly used by the Ming army.

After the Battle of Dagonkou, Dorgon, the regent of the Qing Dynasty, paid even more attention to firearms!

As soon as he entered Beijing, he immediately ordered people to search for craftsmen who could make guns and cast cannons, and asked them to surrender to the two white flags as slaves. At the same time, Dorgon also issued an order to the Kingdom of Korea, asking them to donate bird guns and send fire guns.

Soldiers went to Beijing to help in the war.

In addition, Dorgon also ordered each banner Han army to increase the number of fire gun soldiers as much as possible. Cao Mutan also rose to prominence because of this order and became Niulu Zhangjing, responsible for commanding and training 300 fire gun soldiers of the Zhenghong Banner Han army.

soldiers.

Now Cao Mutan and Cao Zhangjing are even more motivated! He is now a noble official of the Eight Banners! Shouldn't he still work hard to train troops for Prince Dorgon in the spirit of "an official is a father"?

After five months of rigorous training, Cao Mutan's 300 red-banner Han army brothers have all trained! One hundred of them wield turtle-dove-footed fire blunderbuss, one hundred wield bird blunderbuss, and one hundred wield swords and cards.

Responsible for covering the musketeers. The two types of musketeers are not only capable of loading and launching projectiles skillfully, but they can also cooperate skillfully with the swordsmen and fight together.

"Don't fire! Don't fire! Keep moving forward"

Cao Mutan shouted at the top of his voice, urging the 300 soldiers under his command to form a somewhat loose three-row horizontal formation, and slowly pressed forward against the Dashun army who was firing randomly in front.

On the right side of the three-column horizontal formation he commanded, there was another three-column horizontal formation with Zhenghongqi. The two horizontal formations formed exactly the same formation. Both had swords in front, and heavy turtledove-footed fire guns in the middle.

The bird blunderbuss is placed at the end. Among them, the swordsmen are all slaves of the Han army under the Zhenghong Banner. The ones holding the bird blunderbuss, the turtle-dove-footed fire blunderbuss are the main soldiers.

Because the Eight Banners' gun soldiers did not have paper shell ammunition and used matchlock guns that easily ignited gunpowder, the formation was not too dense. Two three-row formations of 300 people spread out over a large area. From a distance,

There was still a little bit of chaos.

However, their morale was extremely high, and despite the firepower of the Dashun Army, they moved forward without even frowning!

The Dashun army facing them was not the elite of the old battalion, but the Ming army that had defected and surrendered during Li Zicheng's march to Beijing at the beginning of the year. After Li Zicheng returned to Taiyuan, he sorted them out, replaced unreliable generals, and mixed in

A small number of veteran soldiers were recruited to serve as the backbone. They were also paid on a monthly basis and had a relatively sufficient supply of military rations.

But even so, their morale is still not as good as the Han army under the red flag.

Because the Eight Banners and the Han Army are also Eight Banners! They have all the treatment that the Eight Banners should have! There are plenty of flag fields, banner slaves, Beijing household registration and real estate in the inner city of Beijing!

And these benefits can be hereditary! They had a share in the Qing Dynasty, and the strength of the Eight Banners soldiers in the early Qing Dynasty was guaranteed by the system!

As the artillery soldiers of the Eight Banners and Han Army approached step by step, the Pingxingguan garrison, which was already low in morale, began to waver. They did not know at first that they were Tatars, and they thought it was the Ming army from Datong who was looking for trouble!

Because Kong Youde played a little clever trick and deliberately advanced under the banner of the Ming Army. In addition, the Ming Army mostly used red as its uniform color, which was close to the color of the Zhenghong Banner. Therefore, the guard at Pingxingguan was fooled and attacked in a confused manner.

.

As soon as I attacked, I realized something was wrong!

It’s the Tatars who are coming!

These Dashun soldiers who were transferred from the Ming army were more or less phobic. Knowing that their opponents were Tatars, their calves became weak! So their fire rifle soldiers began to shoot indiscriminately, but in fact, they were not very useful.

Most of the fire cannons are three-eyed cannons that can only be used within twenty steps. If it can be fired at close range, it may have some power, but if it is far away, it will not hit anything at all!

However, as the enemy approached step by step, this group of shun soldiers had already seen the bird cannons and turtle dove leg fire cannons carried on the shoulders of the Tatar soldiers in the rear row.

What should I do if the Tatars have powerful fire blunderbuss?

"Stop!"

Cao Mutan roared loudly. He was walking in front of the Sword Soldiers, and he was followed by a flag bearer, holding a red military flag. Hearing his roar, the soldier holding the flag immediately waved the flagpole in his hand, and behind him

The soldiers who were following them all stopped when they saw it. Cao Mutan moved to the left side of the horizontal formation with his flag bearer escort.

At the same time, there was no need for Cao Mutan to continue to give orders. Dadan Zhangjing, who was leading the team, ordered the sword players to kneel down on one knee to make room for the soldiers behind them who were holding turtle-dove-foot muskets. And the turtle-dove-foot muskets in the second row

The musket soldier leveled the loaded musket, placed it on the stand, and aimed at the enemy who was already in confusion.

"hair!"

Cao Mutan, who had just taken his position, roared again, and the flag bearers beside him simultaneously lowered the red flag. Then there was a roar of firecrackers, and the Dashun officers and soldiers who were thirty or forty steps away suddenly fell down.

Before they could reorganize their ranks, Cao Mutan's two rows of fire musket soldiers had completed the rotation, and the bird musket soldiers moved up to the second row. They had no stand, so they directly held the fire muskets flat with their hands and aimed forward.

"Fat!" Cao Mutan ordered again, and then there was another roar of firecrackers and smoke filled the air!
Chapter completed!