Chapter 53 Expedition to the Joy of the Lot-1
Behind the trench was a wide, low breastwork, no more than three feet high, and behind the breastwork was a trench dug out after sunset. Usually covered with branches and dead grass, the castle could not be found, just when the Goryeo army began to jump down the trench and storm the central artillery fortress. Two hundred sergeants were squatting in the trenches. Under the cover of thick smoke and the breastwork, neither the lookout post coming to the far city or the Goryeo soldiers who rushed into battle found them. Most of the arrows of the Goryeo archers were aimed at the central fort where the six guns were placed, and the scattered arrows could hardly hurt the sergeants hiding behind the breastwork, and the two hundred pikemen in iron armor crouched quietly in the trenches, waiting for the order to stand up.
In contrast, the central artillery barrier of the defensive line attracted the vast majority of enemy arrows. In the more than 1,000 Goryeo troops in front of the battle, there were seven or eight hundred archers, all of whom were elite soldiers who had been guarding the north all the year round and had fought with the savage Jurchen tribe. The cavalry in front braved the cannon fire and arrow rain to charge, and the few archers who followed behind could still fire arrows to counterattack. There were already gunners with arrows falling to the ground, stray arrows with a whooshing sound broke through the air, and the surrounding soldiers raised their shields to block arrows for him, Zhao Xingde was not moved at all, but secretly regretted that there were too few archers on his side.
Cui Xianxi's eyes were fixed on the back of the fort, and the soldiers in armor and shields surrounded a general, and at this moment, the eyes of the two met. "Boom-" "Boom-" "Boom-" Several cannon shots rang out, almost cracking the eardrum. The artillery no longer needed to be aimed, and the shells directly entered the Goryeo army, and immediately swept out several criss-crossing flesh alleys. Some of the infantrymen who rushed into battle were so frightened that they lay on the ground, some were hunched up, and some even turned around and fled.
"Kill!" Choi Hyun-hee yelled viciously again, "Rush forward!" "Kill!" From the offensive to the present, the number of enemy artillery and the frequency of firing are clear. Although the artillery is powerful, at this distance, the war horse rushes away, and the artillery has no time to fire again. Cui Xianxi slammed the horse's belly and urged the war horse to jump off the trench. Behind Cui Xianxi, most of the cavalry generals who were in the battle were from the martial arts team, and more than 100 cavalrymen were the elite of the Goryeo Kingdom. Although the cannonballs and arrows were completely different, the Goryeo cavalry still followed the habit of charging forward, bowing his body behind the horse's neck, clenching his saber and riding spear, and urging the horse to run at full speed. The enemy's artillery forts were almost close at hand. The gunners only wore a single coat and thin armor, which was difficult to resist the iron hoof, as long as the cavalry could rush into the artillery camp and slash and stab the guns, they could lock in the victory! The horses galloped at maximum speed, and dozens of horsemen rushed up the slope to the breastwork almost at the same time.
The iron hooves hit the noodles heavily, tumbling and rolling like golden thunder, and like dozens of drums beating at the same time, grabbing people's hearts. The charge of the cavalry overwhelmed everything on the battlefield at this moment. The troops and horses under the command of Cui Xianxi were originally camped in the northeast, and the Goryeo Kingdom has been trying to expand its territory to the north, and the Jurchen tribes on both sides of the Yalu River have also been resisting, and the two sides have fought intermittently for nearly ten years, the Jurchen tribes have rebelled from time to time, and the harassment of the communication lines and baggage supplies of the Goryeo army has almost never stopped, and the various crusades and retaliations launched by the Goryeo army have also been used by various means. In today's situation, for these cavalry, it seems that they have broken through a difficult Jurchen tribe again, and it is time to rush into the village and return blood for blood! The gunners were still scrambling to scrub their breeches, the cavalrymen straightened up and raised their blades, and some seemed to have a cruel smile on their lips.
The iron hooves roared, and the earth trembled. Just before the Goryeo cavalry climbed the low breastwork, two hundred pikemen were still crouching in the trenches with grim faces. There were millions of Ding Zhuang who practiced spears in the Xia Guotuan's training army, and it was extraordinary that he was able to become a spearman in the military government. Fight for a long time while wearing full armor, change formations on complex terrain, and have no fear in the face of armored cavalry charges. Now, the pikemen were just crouching quietly in the trenches, waiting for the order to strike.
"Stand up! Pick up! With a roar. In the trench, only the sound of ironclad plates was heard, and two hundred pikemen jumped up from the ground, climbed the breastwork, as if they appeared out of thin air, and suddenly the spears stabbed downward, "Kill!" The five or six Korean cavalry that rushed to the front did not have time to react before they crashed into a dense row of spears. The Goryeo cavalry rushed up the breastwork from the trench below, and the slope neutralized most of the cavalry's momentum, and at the slowest speed, they encountered the spears that suddenly stabbed down in the face, although the remaining momentum still bent the spears with excellent toughness, but the stabbed horses all staggered and fell, and none of them could rush through the pikeman's defense.
As the pikemen in the first row drew their guns back, the pikemen in the second platoon stepped forward, and the spears stabbed downward, stabbing down a dozen more horses that were desperately trying to rush up the breastwork. The spear used by the Xia Guobu army is much longer than the ordinary riding spear, Cui Xianxi's horse pistol has not yet stabbed the opponent, the chest of the mount under the crotch has been stabbed several blood holes, the war horse screamed, the blood spurted, the strength has been exhausted, as if the castration is not exhausted, fell forward on the slope, Cui Xianxi also fell off the horse, he was still pressed under the war horse, desperately struggling, before he could stand up, several spears swept over his head, but he heard a few snorts, a few steps away There was a war horse stabbed down by the pikeman, As if by appointment, the armored pikemen concentrated on keeping the height of the assassination at the horse's chest, killing the horse and making it impossible for anyone to stand up.
Cui Xianxi didn't dare to stand up rashly, he found that these foot soldiers had a whole piece of bright light armor on their chests, an iron mask under an iron helmet, a fish scale armor drape, a belly guard, and a leg skirt, all of them were covered in iron armor, and they were not afraid of ordinary arrows at all. "Tiefutu, is it a Jurchen? Where did the ordinary Jurchen tribe get so many iron armors, isn't it that the Jin army has gone south, and they haven't defeated the Liao State yet, so they have come to provoke our dynasty again? The thought of lightning flashed through his mind. Cui Xianxi has been crusading against the Jurchen tribe all year round. He knew that the northern Jin Kingdom was rising, and the Yalu River Jurchens had coveted Baozhou for a long time. The ancestors of the Khitan people lived by nomadism, so the Liao army was the best at riding and archery, and the Jurchen army lived in villages in the mountains and forests, and there was a place to defend, and the soldiers wore heavy armor as much as possible, and the battle was not as flexible and erratic as the Liao army, but it was much tougher. A stunned Goryeo rider next to him had just stood up. On the chest wall "Kill!" Before the rider could react, he was pierced through the chest by two spearheads, and he couldn't even block the cow leather armor covered by the fish scale armor. As another row of spears pushed on the corpse, the front row of spears was drawn, blood splattered wildly, and the rider fell limply to the ground.
"It turned out to be Han Chinese! Isn't there no Han army in Liao? Cui Xianxi understands Chinese, and this continuous outburst of "kill!" The word made him puzzled while in a cold sweat. He could only desperately pull his left leg out from under the horse, and then draw out the saber that was conducive to melee combat, and climb up the slope, hoping that these pikemen would not notice him, and they would be able to jump into it and slash and slash, and most of the Goryeo cavalry generals who escaped from death had the idea of fighting, although there were more than 100 horsemen charging towards the enemy formation, but they were divided into order, and each time they hit the gun formation, only five or six horsemen, more than ten horses, and the cavalry behind saw the encounter in front of them, and their hearts were timid, and the war horses were slightly afraid of the sharpness of the spear, and the four hooves also slowed down, just for a while, The foot soldiers behind also rushed up, and within twenty paces of the spear formation, the slopes and trenches, the cavalry and infantry were six or seven hundred men huddled together. The breastwork defended by the two hundred spearmen was in jeopardy.
At this moment, the artillery, which had been silent for a moment, roared again, this time the shells from the two flanks flew almost straight down the slope of the inner side of the trench. The entire power of the five or six pound shells was almost borne by the Goryeo army, which was huddled together. Everywhere the heavy shells passed, the ground was littered with stumps and entrails. The archers on both flanks kept firing their bows as fast as they could, and they did not need to aim, but simply fired their arrows in the direction of the chest trenches, and there was a good chance that they would hit the enemy. "Beautiful!" Gao Su and Liu Zhijian on the north and south forts shouted almost at the same time, when they were building fortifications, Zhao Xingde told them every day that the side fire was powerful, and now they can be regarded as knowledge. However, four three-inch guns fired a salvo on both sides of the trench, and the shells penetrated less than ten men before they were exhausted, and could not penetrate the middle of the trench where the crowd was most dense. The Goryeo soldiers took the opportunity to rush forward. The people on the slope were crowded and crowded, and the front could not hold their feet at all, and after being stabbed to death, they pressed on the spears, and the soldiers behind stepped on the corpses of their comrades and attacked upward. The sergeants had to put down their spears, draw their swords, and engage in a scuffle with the Goryeo soldiers.
The battle in front was in full swing, Du Blowing Horn frequently looked at Zhao Xingde's side, and finally saw the herald making gestures, Du Blowing Horn was overjoyed and ordered: "The whole team is out of battle!" "The hundred sword and shield men who were waiting for the enemy between the main artillery base and the trench defense line immediately formed a formation and pressed towards the center of the defensive line. Xia Guo's sword and shield hand has practiced the art of sword and shield melee all his life, but at this moment, he is in formation, shoulder to shoulder, holding the shield in front, and when he encounters the enemy, he will go out of the gap with a cold knife. Seeing the sword and shield team coming up, the pikemen avoided on both sides. The Goryeo soldiers who were caught in the melee had already been disorganized, and before they had time to form a battle to resist, many of them fell in pools of blood. The Goryeo soldiers rushed and killed for a long time, and when they fought to this point, they had consumed a lot of morale and strength, and at this moment they were pushed back step by step by the shield wall of the new army of Du Fujiao, and many people fell down from the chest wall to the trench.
It was at this time that the artillery of the flank batteries rang out again. Because of the close distance of the enemy and the small number of artillery, Liu Zhijian and Gao Su coincidentally ordered the artillery crew to load two shells for each round. Although the time to storm the trench was not long, the Goryeo army on both flanks was almost completely killed and wounded after continuous artillery fire and bows and arrows. This time, the shells of the three-inch cannon passed through the sparse crowd and finally hit the center of the entire trench defense, bringing with them clumps of flesh and screams and wails. At this point in the bloody battle, the morale of the Goryeo army finally collapsed, and many soldiers went crazy, discarding their blades and fleeing back, but the generals who commanded the army did not stop them, but joined the ranks of the rout.