Although the attack was thwarted, Yuxi Timur knew that the situation was already on the verge of attack, and if he gave up the attack this time, it would be difficult to organize an attack of such a scale with his current morale, then he would really sit back and wait. So he ordered another attack, but the Song army had now stabilized from the initial chaos, adjusted its deployment, and arranged artillery positions.

In order to open the breakthrough, the Yuan army had to use a dense formation to attack the Song army's defensive line, but their formation was tight, and in the roar of artillery, as soon as the cannon passed, the Mongol Yuan army fell to pieces; What made the soldiers of the Song army cry and laugh was that the crowd tactics of the Yuan army made the power of muskets with low hit rates to the extreme, and hundreds of muskets fired a salvo, and Meng Yuan fell in a row, which can be called a bullet.

The Yuan army also knew that artillery was the greatest threat to them, Wan Yan Qi led a group of 100 elite soldiers to destroy the artillery position of the Song army, he believed that as long as they could penetrate the front, those unarmed artillery must not be the opponent of the strong bow and long knife in their hands, as long as they were scattered, the follow-up troops would be able to break through the Song army's position when the artillery stopped firing.

After another attack was repulsed, Wan Yan took advantage of the smoke of gunpowder on the battlefield to disperse, and the opportunity when his vision was blocked, he did not retreat, and led his troops to lurk in a depression. When the Song army took advantage of the opportunity to repair the fortifications and transfer the casualties between the battles, they suddenly attacked and rushed into the Song army's position from a destroyed horse rejection. Their goal was to aim at the artillery position, so they did not love to fight, and whenever they encountered an interception by the Song army, they sent several men to entangle with the enemy, and the brigade tried to avoid the Song army's heavy artillery positions that were directly attacking the defense line.

Compared with the range of modern heavy artillery, which is more than a dozen kilometers, the so-called heavy artillery that Zhao Yu 'invented' is no different from the gap between an assault rifle and a toy water gun. But it is still a big killer on the battlefield now, a treasure in the eyes of the generals of various departments, and artillery is also a current technical branch, and it is not easy to train a qualified artilleryman, so the heavy artillery positions are generally arranged in a safer position in the depth of the defensive line.

There is nothing wrong with this arrangement tactically, which ensures the safety of the artillery positions and is also conducive to giving full play to the advantages of the long range and great power of heavy artillery. However, it is precisely because of this that the artillerymen have developed the habit of poor protection awareness, they are in the middle and rear of the formation, and they are heavily protected by heavy troops around them, and the enemy has no weapons that can threaten them. Even if the enemy breaks through the defensive line, they will be warned in advance and have time to withdraw from the battlefield.

At the same time, due to the limitations of the current artillery manufacturing technology and materials, the quality of the artillery is not stable, even if it is tested before leaving the factory, there is still a possibility of explosion, especially when the battle is fierce and the firing is frequent. Moreover, a large number of shells will be piled up around the artillery, and once an accident occurs, it will not only destroy the artillery and kill people, but also affect the surrounding people, so no unit is willing to be neighbors with them, making the vigilance around the artillery position relatively lax.

I have never had anything happen to me on weekdays, and it has become a habit over time. Today, the battle was fierce, and after the artillery on the position was fired, some of them washed the chambers, removed the gunpowder residue, extinguished the sparks, and cooled the artillery. Part of the population carried shells, cleared the field, and prepared for the next battle. Although they were not front-line combat units and needed to charge into battle, each artillery squad was also equipped with three muskets as self-defense weapons, but everyone thought it was inconvenient to carry muskets on their backs, so they put their guns aside.

There was a sudden commotion in front of them, and the artillerymen did not think so, because there were often cases on the battlefield where the remnants of the enemy could not retreat, or they were dizzy and strayed into the enemy's position. But suddenly, several arrows flew and hit several artillerymen at the side of the gun emplacement, and the wounded let out a terrible howl of pain.

At this time, the artillerymen realized that a group of enemy troops had rushed towards them, but they found that they had no weapons on them, and at most a long-handled brush for brushing the barrel of the cannon, and then they remembered to take the musket on the side. But when they ran to pick up their guns, the enemy had already rushed closer, and only had time to fire a shot, but they did not have time to reload, and were either wounded by bows and arrows or slashed by knives.

Wan Yan Qi rushed through the forward defense line of the Song army, broke into the artillery position, and killed the artillery with his bare hands, only to find that there were only more than 20 people left around him. He knew that with their little men, he would not be able to stop the Song army's counterattack, so he could only send a signal for his side to take the opportunity to attack again, while trying to delay time.

Wan Yan Qi knew that using the captured artillery was the best way to deal with the Song army, but everyone had no idea what to do in the face of this big killing weapon, including himself, they didn't know how to operate it, and it was even the first time they saw the true face of the artillery. Since it can't be used, of course, it can only be destroyed, so that it can't be launched, reducing the threat to one's own side. But after a few slashes, only a few shallow scratches appeared on the big iron bump, and his own knife shattered.

Wan Yan Qi gathered the people around him to try to overturn the cannon, but the heavy cannon body, coupled with the sand belt that was ballasted to reduce the impact of the artillery fire on the recoil, made them unable to do so despite several efforts. Just when they were helpless, suddenly a group of Song cavalry quickly rushed towards them, and he realized that Song reinforcements had arrived.

The perimeter of the artillery position was flat and empty, there was nowhere to avoid it, and they had already entered the hinterland of the Song army's position, and the pursuing Song army had also gathered, and there was nowhere to escape if they wanted to. Wan Yan Qi knew that the time of death had come, so he shouted and greeted him with a knife, but before he could raise his knife, he saw a horse galloping over, and a black-faced Song Army officer with a hideous face sat on it. The speed of his horse did not decrease, and the saber in his hand flicked upward, and he felt a chill on his neck, and the head of the person rolling in the air clearly saw a blood mist spewing out of his neck.

Wanyan Qi's head was thrown in front of the battle, but this still did not shake the determination of Yuxi Timur, and he frantically ordered the various troops to take turns to attack the Song army's position. The battle lasted for a day and a night, and the Meng Yuan army launched a total of more than ten charges, but all of them were repulsed, and the corpses were piled up on the river beach, and even the messy corpse piles blocked the charge of the follow-up army, forcing them to divide their hands to move the corpses. However, as soon as they appeared, the Song army's platoon guns would shoot over, and the pile of corpses would be a little higher.

By dawn the next day, the divisions were exhausted and unable to fight again, and the two wings were also flanked by the Song army, so Yuxi Timur had to order to withdraw from the battle. And the Song army also seemed to be difficult to fight again, and did not take the opportunity to pursue and kill, but only restored the lost position under the cover of artillery fire, and they returned to the original point.

Yuxi Timur inspected all departments, and after a day of fierce fighting, his side lost more than 30,000 killed and wounded. Among them, seven commanders were killed, hundreds of centurions and ten-commanders were killed, and less than one of the centurions who participated in the attack were alive. At this time, the Southern Expeditionary Army had already lost more than half of it, and he realized that it would be difficult for him to protect himself, let alone launch another attack.

In the following days, the Song army did not launch a decisive battle, but continued to compress the encirclement through encroachment tactics. Feeling that the losses in his forces were heavy and it was difficult to maintain a long front, Timur had to shrink his defenses and gather the remnants into a narrow area of less than ten miles. He also realized that the Song army's move was also to avoid unnecessary casualties, and adopted the tactics of besieging but not attacking, so as to exhaust their food and grass, so that they would be defeated without a fight.

The general trend has gone, and Timur is in a terrible mood, and he can't drink in the tent all day long, ignoring everything. But there are still 30,000 remnants of the army sleeping in the wilderness, and although it is already early spring, it is still cold. But they were enclosed in a small area, their supplies had been exhausted, and there was nowhere to replenish them, and all the trees around them had been burned to ashes. In order to keep out the cold, the soldiers began to tear down the tents, carts and other things to keep warm, and these things were quickly depleted. Without food, they could kill horses to satisfy their hunger, but when there was no fuel, they had to eat raw horse meat, and people died every day in the extreme cold.

Seeing that there was no way to enter the heavens and no way to enter the earth, the trapped Yuan army had no morale and began to flee. At this time, the generals did not dare to be restrained by harsh military law, and they were also worried about causing a mutiny and being counter-killed. The commander was no longer on the council, but Hatusun and Sesana did not want to be trapped here, so they secretly planned to break through and return to Jiangbei. They knew that Yangzhou would have fallen without reinforcements, Huaidong was afraid that it had changed hands, and the Yangtze River ferry was captured by Song sailors. With their current situation, they turned back the same way, and they couldn't break through the encirclement of the Song army at all, which was tantamount to asking for their own death.

So the two discussed for a long time and decided to continue to break through to the east, they knew that the imperial court had set up a sea route in the south of the Yangtze River to transport grain to 10,000 households, and set off from Liujiagang to go to the sea to Zhigukou. Although the Song army has now occupied it, but the port is still in use, they want to break through and go to Liujiagang to get supplies, grab the ships to go to sea, and return to the Central Plains by sea, so as to avoid many obstacles on the way.

The date of the breakout was chosen by the two on the night of Shangyuan, which was an important festival of the Southern Dynasty, and they must have been negligent in protection, so they could take the opportunity to break through. And they also knew that the loss of the commander would be severely punished, and as long as Yuxi Timur was alive, he could at least reduce the responsibility for the defeat, so they thought about breaking through with him.

But people are not as good as heaven, and the two of them each contacted their respective ten thousand households to act in unison, but after their intention to break through was soon discovered, the Song army began to deploy troops to intercept it. The various divisions fled in confusion, and they lost their way in a panic under the pursuit of the Song army, and actually returned to the way they came. Seeing that it was dawn, I could only settle down in Jiading City temporarily......

。 m.