At 5:20 a.m., a faint light appeared in the eastern sky.

Under the command of the junior officers, the soldiers fed the horses the uneaten bread, folded the cloth wrapped in the bread and put it in their pockets, and stuffed the water bladders into the small bags hanging from the horses' necks. After putting away the sundries, the soldiers checked each other's equipment, bent down to untie their boots and fasten them anew.

I stood on a small mound and looked to the east, where there were faint shadows fighting, and there seemed to be shouts of killing.

A few minutes later, Li Yunrui Pegasus arrived and shouted under the mound: "Lieutenant Colonel, Jiannu has discovered us!" ”

I nodded and said to Fang Hai beside me, and he blew the whistle and conveyed the order to attack. I pulled my flare gun from my waist and aimed it at the sky and pulled the trigger.

A few kilometers away at the camp at Liushakou, Huang Stone had already gathered all the surviving soldiers. Of the more than 400 soldiers of the Rock Battalion who were personally led by him, less than 200 were still able to move at this time. A dozen of the seriously wounded, who had survived until now, were now lying on their sides in the open space in the center of the camp, smiling at the others. In the midst of them, a pack of yellow explosives dropped from a hot air balloon had set the fuse.

Seeing a red spark rising from the western sky, Huang Stone raised his flare gun with a serious face, and also fired a red signal flare.

Seeing the signal coming from the east, I rode down the hill and came to the grass on the south side of the hill. There, the cavalry battalion of Changsheng Island, which had already been lined up, was silently looking to the east, looking at the Jiannu cavalry that had faintly appeared. In front of them, He Baodao was already dressed in military uniform, and he drew his knife and shouted: "Cavalry battalion, draw your sword!" ”

The pitch-black sky suddenly turned white. Flares dropped from hot air balloons in the sky opened parachutes, and magnesium and aluminum powder burned, emitting thousands of degrees of heat and the glow of more than 300,000 candles.

Against the white bright light, I stretched out my hand to block my forehead and looked at the Jiannu cavalry approaching two miles away. They have not been exposed to flares, and naturally they are even less likely to be mentally prepared. Under the sudden bright light, the cavalry, which had been approaching in an orderly manner, quickly disorganized, and the flags were crooked in the chaotic crowd.

The black-cloaked cavalrymen of the Immortal Island had undisguised themselves, revealing their breastplates flowing with white light. More than 500 knights adjusted their ranks by the light, knee to knees, shoulder to shoulder, holding the reins in their left hand and holding their sabers in their right hands, forming three horizontal formations about fifteen meters apart. The silver-white cuirass and sabers reflected a terrifying chill, and the platoon commanders on either side of the column held their flags aloft. The cold wind of dawn blew the red flag fiercely, and the red tassels above the heads of the cavalry were also swaying with the wind.

He Baodao's legs lightly clamped the horse's belly, and the red horse under his crotch strode forward nimbly, leading its owner past the warriors.

"Comrades! The general is ahead! Defeat Jiannu and rescue the general! ”

I frowned, ran to He Baodao's side, and reached out to pull him. He looked at me suspiciously, and I took a deep breath and shouted at the cavalry,

"For the sake of the motherland, defeat Jiannu!"

"Recover Liaodong and return my rivers and mountains!"

"For the Motherland! Defeat Jiannu! ”

"Recover Liaodong! Give me back the rivers and mountains! ”

Amid the roar of thousands of soldiers in the cavalry battalion and dragoon battalion, a trumpeter blew the horn. He Baodao, who had a calm face, personally led the team, and the three rows of cavalry began to trot on horseback, slowly approaching Jiannu in the distance.

In the rear, Zhu Guobin led some soldiers in better condition to get on their horses, with pistols in their waists, sabers in their right hands, bows and arrows on their horses, and horses on both wings to cover them. The remaining 400 or so soldiers loaded their rifles on their horses, and I led the team to approach Jiannu.

While leading the dragoons forward, I kept an eye out for the attack of the cavalry battalion. Now the cavalry was still more than a mile away from the Jiannu forward, and the cavalry had been controlling the speed of the horses to prevent these excited animals from running wild prematurely and consuming their physical strength.

After entering the wartime state, He Baodao temporarily put away his dissatisfaction with my revised slogan. He needs to accurately judge the distance at this moment to ensure that he can engage the enemy at the highest speed of the charge. Now that the distance between the two sides is relatively long, they have to keep a slow pace to about 300 meters, and the charge at a distance of 300 meters is their most proficient subject, and the difficulty is only how to maintain a dense formation as the speed gradually increases.

The bright light in the east gradually became apparent, and the white of the fish belly occupied a corner of the sky. The hot air balloon in the sky dropped another round of flares, which happened to shine above He Bao's knife. Under the light directly above, a dozen company platoon commanders on both sides moved to five meters in front of each platoon. They did not carry sabers, but were armed with mounted guns with pennants, which were held above their heads so that the whole platoon of cavalrymen could see them. From time to time, these junior officers turned their heads to observe the position of the whole team, and the other front-row cavalrymen observed the positions of their respective company platoon commanders, controlling their horse speed, and the entire cavalry array advanced straight to the rear.

The night cavalry and werewolves, who had previously served as scouts, followed the rear of the cavalry battalion in groups of three or five, forming a loose fourth row. They will serve as rangers and destroy the remaining slaves who have survived the wall charge.

By the time the cavalry battalion began to accelerate, we had been pulled away by more than three hundred meters. More than 500 healthy horses charged collectively, and more than 2,000 horses' hooves hit the ground, and the vibration was clearly felt even by me.

The Houjin cavalry in the distance also adapted to the glow of the flares. They blew their horns, and the cavalry rushed towards He Bao's sword in a scattered formation. More than a hundred cavalry on both flanks were scattered, as if they wanted to bypass the cavalry group of He Baodao and attack the queue I was in.

Hundreds of horsemen were divided into the Houjin brigade, and the horses ran to the middle of the two cavalry groups, and threw the cavalry battalion with bows and arrows. This is a common kite flying tactic used by the Mongols. In the time of Genghis Khan, the Mongols would generally use a thousand-man squad to form a wide arc-shaped straggler front to harass the enemy formation, and the commander would control the skirmishers' battles to lure the enemy army out of battle or waver. The clusters in the rear will find the opponent's weak position and carry out concentrated assaults, which will cause the entire enemy formation to collapse.

However, the Jurchens are a fishing and hunting people, and there is still some gap between them and the nomads on the steppe. Although the Jiannu also claimed to be skilled in the face of the Ming Kingdom, their current performance could only be regarded as troublemaking. The scattered rangers ranged from fifty to a hundred meters from the front of He Baodao, and the light arrows fell into the cavalry battalion in a clear parabola.

The cavalry battalion on Changsheng Island was the first unit in the Dongjiang Army sequence to receive arms assistance, and it had been a few years since the last cavalry was equipped with cuirass. In the cavalry battalion on this trip, all the knights were equipped with steel helmets, cuirasses, arm guards, and leg guards, and carried twenty pounds of plate armor on their backs. In the face of this kind of luxurious armor, even if Houjin's foot bow uses heavy arrows, it can only be penetrated by sticking to the face.

The cavalrymen put down the iron masks on their helmets and looked through the gaps in their masks at the Houjin cavalry that was getting closer and closer. The light arrows fired by the rangers struck the armor with a crisp sound.

He Baodao stared coldly at a ranger in front of him, who noticed that he was carrying a flag on his back and had been targeting himself from the beginning, shooting himself three or four arrows in a row. Now the two are only more than thirty meters apart, and He Baodao can almost see each other's eyes. He decided that if the two armies were still in front of him when they collided, he would cut off the other party's skull.

A minute later, He Baodao waved his flag and gave the order to charge.

The three rows of cavalry urged the horses at the same time, and the thunderous sound of horses' hooves became more and more intense, so that all the knights in the formation could not hear any other sounds. The distance between the two sides was quickly reduced to about 200 meters. Due to the reason of the opposite, He Baodao regarded the distance as only one hundred meters. This is an insignificant space in a cavalry charge. The flat array was like a moving horse wall, and the rangers in front of them did not have much room to maneuver, so they hurried to retreat in front of the dense cavalry.

The Houjin cavalry appeared in the eyes of He Baodao in its entirety, and the iron armor of the soldier array shone brightly. Their weapons were mostly spears and broadswords, but some were armed with maces and clubs, and they were also jogging in a tight array. However, this kind of strict order is only compared to the ordinary Ming army, their cavalry is wider apart, and the strength is not evenly distributed, and there is a garrison behind the left, center, and right formations, and after starting to jog, it is slightly scattered.

He Baodao's blood surged, put down the riding gun, and shouted: "Attack at full speed!" ”

There was a loud trumpet sound from the cavalry phalanx, and the officers of the third platoon turned their cavalry guns in a circle and leaned forward forty-five degrees. The cavalrymen heard the sound of the horn and at the same time beat their horses and accelerated. The rumbling sound of horses' hooves was like thunder running from far and near in the sky, and the red tassels on the rows of bright helmets were beating, like countless flickering red flames.

Under the advance, the distance between the first row of cavalry and Jiannu was only 100 meters, and everyone blushed, their eyes were locked on the target in front of them, and their right hand held the saber and pointed straight forward, forming a neat row of knife lines.

He Baodao opened his mouth wide, and against the oncoming wind, he shouted with all his might: "Charge! ”

The last round of horns sounded, and more than 500 people roared at the same time: "Kill! ”

The sound of a horn was also heard from Jiannu on the opposite side, and he also raised his spear and raised his broadsword, and both sides were rapidly approaching, bringing death and pain to each other. The soldiers of Changsheng Island from all over Liaodong and the Jurchens who came out of the primeval forest finally had to fight to the death in the land of southern Liaoning.

The dense formation made both sides have no way to retreat, and there is no room to dodge, killing and being killed are only in the moment when the horse's body is staggered. At this time, individual combat skills and horsemanship were useless, and the courage of men was most manifested in cavalry battles. A lot of people, a lot of war novels think of this as a man's romance, and I'm going to fuck the romance. It's a life-and-death confrontation where everyone has to choose between killing each other and being killed by the other, there is no peaceful option.