PS: Well, I apologize to everyone. In the previous chapter, there is "Liu Zongmin also led Lao Huihui, Ge Liyan and other soldiers and horses to the north in the starry night, and more than 10,000 light horsemen have arrived in Luoyang." This is a pure clerical error, it should be Nanyang. I'm sorry everyone.

Wulichuan is located in the western part of Henan Province, which is precisely the key point of the transition zone from plains to hilly mountains. Several big roads leading to Shaanzhou and Tongguan pass through here, here is more than 100 miles away from Lushi County, bordering Tanghe and Zhuyangguan in the east, adjacent to Shuanghuaishu and Shishiping Township in the west, adjacent to Wayaogou Township in the south, and Hengjian Township in the north with Bear's Ear Ridge - Laojieling as the boundary.

Wulichuan is located at the southern foot of Bear's Ear Mountain, the main ridge of Bear's Ear Mountain winds in the north of the town, and many mountains and valleys extending to the south of the main ridge in the north, forming a high terrain in the north and low in the south, and there are two main ditches in the north: Yutang ditch and Waxuezi; The south is northwest and southeast, five miles long, about two miles wide Wulichuan Basin, the land is fertile.

Luo Hu's Zhenshan Battalion blocking position was set up at this choke point.

Not only is all the Zhenshan battalions here, but Luo Hu's brother, Zhang Nai, who is also from the boy scouts in the camp, is also under the order of Li Zicheng's general, leading the artillery battalion to accept Luo Hu's command in Wulichuan.

"Little Huzi, the father has an order, everything is up to you, you just have to assign it!" Although he is also Li Zicheng's adopted son, Zhang Nai's age and military achievements are much stronger than Luo Hu's, but there are not so many problems in the camp at the moment, and everything is premised on winning the battle.

"Brother Naizi, then I won't be polite to you! My soldiers were blocking the attack in the front, the musketeers and spearmen were in the center, and the cavalry was on the flanks, ready to attack at any time, and divide the ranks of officers and soldiers to eat in one bite. Your artillery battalion will set up gun emplacements at the rear of the army formation and on the hills on both sides. Hit his deaf grandson with a cannonball! Let's also let him suffer a lot in front of this Tongguan! ”

Speaking of this, the eyes of the two little guys couldn't help but be full of flames of revenge and pleasure, and it was also a happy thing in life to be able to make Sun Chuanting, one of the culprits in the battle with the camp Tongguan, also be wiped out in front of Tongguan.

At that moment, Zhang Nai led the officers in his battalion to meet the terrain nearby and dig artillery positions. Erection of artillery. On the top of each cannon, a wooden frame was carefully erected, which was covered with oilcloth and grass, for fear that it would be difficult for the cannon to ignite in the continuous autumn rain.

In the autumn rain, the roads were muddy and slippery, and Rao was Zhang Nai, who even used the horses of his own soldiers to tow artillery, which was also a drop in the bucket. Before all the artillery could be pushed into place, more than 20 heavy artillery pieces and more than 100 large Buddha Lang machines were opened in front of the formation. Sun Chuanting's army, the forward rangers, had already appeared in the field of vision.

Immediately followed by hundreds of forward rangers was the forward appointed by Sun Chuanting, a team of 10,000 new troops!

Looking at the Ming army marching dozens of miles in the cold and biting autumn rain, the formation had already been scattered and messy, the flags were crooked, and there were constant complaints and curses and bitter voices in the ranks, and the generals around Zhang Nai couldn't hold it back.

"Little Master Zhang, if our artillery fires a salvo, we can send this group of dogs to the western sky!"

Zhang Nai was also quite excited. looked at Luo Hu with a deliberative look, "Brother." You see? ”

"Brother Naizi, don't worry! The group of officers and soldiers in front of him are only forwards, if they fight too hard, Sun Lao'er will have time to adjust his deployment and change the marching route. At present, the team of Father Shuai and Cao Shuai has not yet been deployed in place, we have to attract Sun Lao'er's attention in front of this Wulichuan! Let him feel. As long as we work harder, we can be defeated, and he will be able to escape back to his old nest in Shaanxi! ”

Looking at the Ming army team on the mountain road in the distance, Zhang Nai swallowed a mouthful of saliva with some greed, "Damn." Cheap them too! ”

"Brother Naizi, don't worry! When you finish fighting Sun Lao'er, his train soldiers will be all your subordinates! You're fighting too hard now, and those big and small cannons are going to be destroyed. ”

The two brothers teased Sun Chuanting and went to prepare.

The large and small artillery of the Ming army that was generously allocated to Zhang Nai in advance by Luo Hu was not in the vanguard team at this time. Because of the slow pace of the march, Sun Chuanting unified them in the rear army and followed his Chinese army.

At the moment, the marching sequence of the Ming army is like this. The 10,000 new troops who had rushed to Wulichuan were the forwards, the Niu Chenghu headquarters of the Lintao general army was the rear team, and the 10,000 new army troops were marching closely with the Niu Chenghu troops, and behind them was the main barracks of the Zheng Jiadong headquarters of the Guyuan general soldiers.

Sun Chuanting's own Chinese army, in addition to commanding the remaining tens of thousands of new troops, also had Lu Guangzu, the deputy general of Lintao Town, and Hui Xian, the deputy general of Yulin Town, accompanied the army. The headquarters of Gao Jie, the general army of Shaanxi, is responsible for the rear of the palace as the rear team of the whole army.

Sun Chuanting has promised in person that as long as the whole army returns to Tongguan, the inscription of the promotion of him to the general of the seal will be sent immediately!

The procession, which was dozens of miles long, was like a giant python with broken scales and armor, squirming little by little along the mountain road with difficulty and slowness, and there were soldiers who slipped and fell to the mud, and the horses were not much better, and occasionally there was a mournful cry in the long line, that is, a horse accidentally fell into a ravine by the side of the road, or was crushed by a rut in a deep ditch and broke a horse's leg.

A short, intense cannon fire interrupted the dreary atmosphere that had condensed over the marching procession.

Niu Chenghu tried to open his tired eyelids, this kind of ghost weather urged him to wrap an oilcloth poncho outside his cloak, and the monotonous march made him drowsy.

"What's going on?"

"Handsome! The brothers in front reported that there were thieves blocking the advance of the army! It's at war! ”

"Defeated!" Niu Chenghu, who was half-asleep and half-awake with his newly married aunt's wife, scolded and wrapped the poncho on his body tightly, "Pass the order, everyone rest, and wait until the battle in front is over!" ”

The soldiers and horses of Lintao Town immediately stopped in place, the infantry sat on the relatively dry ground to rest, and the cavalry dismounted and leaned against the trees to breathe for a while. The auxiliaries of the battalions were kicked out of the marching column and went to the nearby woods in search of some firewood and grass to burn the fire and water.

However, General Soldier Niu forgot to inform the rear troops that there was a blockade from Luo Hu's department in front. The team is still marching towards Wulichuan in an endless stream!

For a large corps of more than 100,000 troops, whether it is combat, marching, or camping, it is extremely high to test the level of the commander in controlling the troops and commanding the troops, and at the same time, it is also extremely demanding on the relationship between the various departments that are constantly disciplined internally.

However, these are exactly what the various departments of the Ming army lack at present. Frankly. In this retreat to Tongguan with a bit of rout, there was no incident of various units fleeing the road, snatching the baggage mules and horses of friendly troops, and abandoning the commander to go first, which already shows that Sun Chuanting and Sun Inspector have the ability to control the army in their hands. At the same time, it also shows that the results of his military training in Shaanxi during this period are extraordinary.

When Sun Chuanting was blocked from moving forward with the brigade and realized that something was wrong, the messenger who came to report the military situation also arrived.

"Doge! In front of Wulichuan Town, there was an ambush set up by the thief Luo Hu's department, and the forward of our army was blocked, and there were heavy casualties! The adjutant general was hit by a blow, and only more than 2,000 people escaped back out of 10,000 horses! ”

"What?!" Sun Chuanting was almost so frightened that he was about to fall off his horse. He has been working hard for so long, recruiting the children of good families in Guanzhong in northern Shaanxi as an army, and he has been practicing diligently day and night, and in the past, he thought that the Southern Guangdong Army and Liaodong Tartars, who are known as the elite soldiers in the world, may not be able to fall behind, how can it be that it has lost so many in just over an hour, and there are only more than 2,000 people left in 10,000 people?

"Someone! Get ahead of the road! Ben Governor wants to go and see! At the sound of the order, hundreds of pro-army commanders rode westward, constantly shouting at the soldiers and officers who had blocked the road to get out of the way. Don't stand in the way of the Overseer.

In fact, it was Sun Chuanting himself who arrived. It may not be possible to see any doorway.

The tactics used by Luo Hu are worthless, to put it bluntly, but they rely on terrain and features to maximize the lethality of artillery, firecrackers, and cavalry.

Luo Hu divided the 8,000 firecrackers in the Zhenshan camp into two teams, one team of 6,000, and lined up in the middle of the road. Two thousand for a team. The soldiers, all equipped with flintlocks, were used as mobile reserves in the hands of his commander-in-chief.

"Huzi, is this okay? Now this rain is getting more and more annoying! Or will my cannons scatter them first, and your musketeers will go up again? Brother is afraid that your fire gun will not catch fire! ”

"Brother Naizi, don't worry! I was also afraid that the ordinary fire gun would not catch fire, so I sent it to the front. It's all the best firecrackers! Luo Hu pointed to the six thousand firecrackers who had already lined up in four groups across the road.

In order to prevent the gunpowder from being ignited, the firecrackers all wore large hats made of huge bamboo strips, which prevented rain and extinguished the firerope. On both sides of their formation, there were two thousand sword and shield soldiers and pikemen acting as guards, because Luo Hu's fire guns could not get so many socket spurs for a while, so many fire guns could not be installed with spurs, so Luo Huo simply concentrated the sleeve spurs of the whole army into the hands of the two thousand fire guns. Therefore, this hand-to-hand combat can only be biased towards others.

A little farther on either side, in the already barren fields, two or three thousand horsemen stood with the reins in their hands. They were ready to rush to the front of the battle at any time to meet the infantry brothers.

"Brother Naizi, you order to go down, and after a while, after the two rounds of fire guns I have here, the big Buddha machine you arranged on the top of the mountain will fire. The more chaotic and rotten the forward team of the official army, the better! After a round, stop and rest. My firecrackers will play two more rounds! Then the swordsmen, shields, and pikemen rushed forward to engage the remnants of the enemy. At the same time, the cavalry will rush behind the ranks of officers and soldiers, cut off their retreat, and then cut them into small pieces and destroy them! ”

Seeing that the ranks of the righteous army were blocking in front of the avenue, the hundreds of rangers who were the pioneers of the whole army were also quite courageous, and even with a shout, they rushed forward on horseback. In the midst of the rain, hundreds of fierce horses and riders on their horses swooped down like dragons in the water towards the thousands of firecrackers lined up on the official road without evidence.

"First column, go up!" Wan Xizi, the deputy general of the Zhenshan battalion, just issued the order.

"Hah! Ha! Ha! Three tiger roars, the first column of more than 1,500 musketeers stepped forward in unison, each raised the musket in his hand, carefully shielded the rain with a huge hat, to prevent problems with gunpowder and ignition rope.

Seeing that the cavalry had already rushed a hundred paces, Wan Xizi roared. "Fire!"

The recruits, who had already been frightened by the momentum of hundreds of cavalry swooping down on the narrow road, subconsciously opened fire according to the commander's order, and with the pull of the trigger, a brief smoke formed above their heads, and in the blink of an eye, it was extinguished by the rain.

More than 100 fierce horses that rushed ahead were knocked over by the oncoming projectiles, and they lay on their sides. The fallen war horse not only broke the rider on horseback, but also created a huge obstacle for the cavalry behind.

In the blink of an eye. Half of the hundreds of vanguard rangers were knocked over, and the rest had to turn their horses around and go back to report the news.

The ignition rope used by the Zhenshan battalion is different from gunpowder, and the gunpowder has to be carefully seen whether the gunpowder of the Nanyue army can be used, so as not to explode when the charge is obtained. The fuse rope is a color that was purchased from Long Shengxing. They are all boiled with yellow wax with lime, which can ensure that a little spark will not be extinguished even on a stormy day.

Seeing that the Ming army rangers were retreating, the firecrackers did not pursue, but quickly retreated and went to the rear of the team to check the firecrackers. Reload your ammunition and get ready to step forward again.

Those Ming cavalry who were knocked to the ground, and the ownerless war horses who were screaming in the four fields, naturally had auxiliary soldiers to go forward to collect and rectify and clean up the battlefield.

Before the horses, swords, guns, armor and armor were counted one by one, the Ming army of the brigade was killed.

Looking coldly at the corpses of the Ming officers and soldiers lying in the muddy water, the adjutant general led by the new army was very calm, and just issued one order after another to adjust the deployment. Order your men and horses to enter the attack position. There were nearly 1,000 cavalry in front of the formation, tied to their armor. Needless to say, the weapons were put in order.

In front of their procession, there were several layers of archers, more than a thousand strong bows were stretched out by the archers, and arrows made of steel were drawn from the quiver and placed on the bowstring twisted from raw cowhide. Behind the archers, there was a dense group of hand-to-hand fighters armed with shields and broadswords.

A letter cannon rang out. A war drum was beaten, and a guerrilla personally waved his knife to take the lead, holding a knife in one hand and leading his subordinates and his own soldiers to rush forward with a flag in the other.

"Don't be afraid of the thieves' guns, for it's useless to rush near! This kind of heavy rain weather. The fire gun is not good for ignition! Half to boost morale, half to reassure himself, the guerrilla fighter shouted loudly.

As their assault forward got closer and closer to the array of firearms in the Zhenshan battalion, a sharp suona sound sounded from the Shaanxi formation, "Shoot the arrow!" ”

Thousands of bowstrings rattled almost simultaneously, and the rain of arrows was so dense that it felt like the sky was darkening for a moment.

"Dodge the arrows!"

This round of arrow rain caused more than 100 firecrackers lined up on the mountain road in front of them to be shot through by sharp arrows immediately. He pinned his body to the red soil, and in the blink of an eye, the blood that flowed from his body made the red soil even more scarlet.

"Carry away the dead and wounded brothers! Queue up! Those who dare to run around, slash! ”

The charging new army had already rushed through the area where the cavalry had been beaten and lay down, and the guerrilla saw that the opposite side had not yet fired fire, and he was immediately emboldened.

"Brothers, follow Lao Tzu! The thief's firebolt is useless on a rainy day! Go up! With a big blade, he was the first to die! ”

"The day he is the first!"

More than 2,000 people shouted in unison, ready to take advantage of this God-given good weather to use the big swords and spears in their hands to teach this group of thieves who tried to block their way home, and by the way, make a military merit on them and make a small fortune!

One hundred steps, eighty steps, seventy steps, sixty steps. The flag held high in the guerrilla's hand became the best object in Wan Xizi's eyes, and he used it to observe how far away the Ming army's stormtroop formation was from him.

Sixty steps! Yes, there is!

"Fire!"

More than 1,500 firebolts once again fired a crisp blast on this mountain basin. The charging wave composed of more than 2,000 Ming troops was suddenly stagnant!

Projectiles flew sideways, blood and flesh were broken, stumps and bones were broken, and wailing and wailing filled people's eyes and impacted people's eardrums.

Didn't you say that the fire of the rogue didn't catch fire on a rainy day? Why is it still so fierce and sharp when launched?

Without waiting for these Ming officers and soldiers to react, the second column of firecrackers also stepped forward, pulled the trigger, ignited the ignition powder in the medicine pool, and fired the projectile out of the gun!

The second column of muskets was released, and the musketeers immediately assembled and retreated, going to the rear to do what they had to do.

"! Bullying Lao Tzu didn't bring artillery! ”

The lieutenant who led the team was so angry that his teeth were about to be crushed. He pointed out a few of his cronies in the past, each with a team of people, ready to attack in turn like a spinning wheel, "We don't believe it!" How fast his firecracker can hit! ”

This lieutenant also knows a lot about firearms. The arquebus is more like a flintlock pistol. Its shooting steps are much more complicated, there are about a few steps such as pouring medicine, charging, pressing fire, loading, and loading the fire rope, and the skilled shooter usually only fires once a minute, and some firecrackers with poor psychological quality are in a hurry when they arrive on the battlefield. It's good to be able to shoot a shot in two minutes.

And two minutes is enough to decide the life and death of an army.

"Kill!"

The denser ranks of the Ming army were assembled and rushed towards the queue of the Zhenshan battalion.

"Brother Naizi, you can give an order and let the brothers on the mountain open fire!"

Zhang Nai was overjoyed and ordered his personal general to wave the red flag. Signal the artillery battalions in the mountains.

As the red flag waved, the artillery on the hill rang out! (To be continued.) )