To the south! To the south!

Under the scorching sun, countless soldiers wearing Daming coats or rattan armor were rolling south. This is a plain area, and it has been developed by various regimes in southwest China, and there are no tall trees to use for shade, so the sun shines directly on the soldiers, making them sweaty.

On 17 August, three days before Zhu Yang left Mengyang City, the front army of the Burmese army set out from Jiangtou City and headed south along the Dajinsha River (Irrawaddy River) under the leadership of Yan Wu, the commander of the Golden Tooth Guard, the chief sword of Mengyang Qianhu, and the Dao Fengfu of the Great Marquis, and went straight along the Dajinsha River (Irrawaddy River) to Taigong City, which belonged to Burma.

Yan Wu sat on the back of the elephant and looked at the soldiers walking beside the elephant. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, the Ming Dynasty pacified Yunnan, set up the Golden Tooth Guard in Yongchang, and the Mongolian Guanyin Bao was the commander of the Golden Tooth Guard and changed his name to Li Guan, and assisted by Chu Jie and Yan Wu, the military generals of the Ming Army in Yunnan, and they took root in Yongchang since then.

Yan Wu looked at the group of men and horses who were approaching him. They were wearing Daming coats and were soldiers of the Golden Tooth Guard and the Yongping Guard. These two Wei and the other Wei Teng Chongwei of Yongchang were both mixed Han and Yi, but they are generally considered to be Han troops.

Yan Wu looked at the army in rattan armor a little farther away. They were the army of Meng Yang or the Great Marquis, wearing rattan armor all over their bodies, and their helmets were also made of rattan armor, which looked very similar to the legendary rattan armor soldiers who were burned by Zhuge Liang.

Although the rattan armor was very afraid of fire, because its protection was enough to be compared with the iron armor, Zhu Yang wanted a batch of rattan armor to equip part of the army. However, rattan armor was not easy to make, and these local officials did not have much inventory, and they were reluctant to sell it to him. Zhu Yang used a batch of iron spear heads to exchange for 3,000 pairs of rattan armor and equipped part of the army. However, these Fujian armor Ming troops were all in the middle army, not the front army, and some changes were also made to distinguish them from the native soldiers.

Yan Wu looked back again. Just behind the elephant he was riding, several other elephants were marching with heavy gun wagons. At present, the technical level of artillery in the world is very low, and the weight of cannons with a range of more than one mile is more than 1,000 catties.

But he found an animal in Yunnan that was more suitable for pulling artillery wagons: elephants. Adult Oriental elephants can weigh up to five or six tons and can pull several tons of cargo, which is just right for pulling artillery wagons. Although they eat more, elephants can forage for their own food in the wild, making them ideal for pulling artillery wagons.

He was thinking about it, when Dao Yubin, who was sitting on another elephant next to him, said to him: "General Yan, thirty miles ahead is Jiangtou City. ”

"The soldiers were ordered to rest in place for a while. Cavalry units intercepted all Burmese civilians in sight. Yan Wu commanded.

"General Yan, why don't you let the soldiers enter Jiangtou City in one go and then rest?" Dahou Zhizhou Dao Fengfu got down from the elephant he was riding, walked to Yan Wu's elephant and asked.

Yan Wu also got down from the elephant, pointed to the soldiers and said: "They got up early in the morning and marched, and now they are too tired to give full play to their advantages when fighting with the Burmese, so they must rest for a while." ”

"But now Jiangtou City is empty and unprepared, let's rest here, we will make the enemy army prepared." Dao Yubin said.

"Even if we don't rest and go straight to Jiangtou City, we will still let them be prepared. Besides, in such a short period of time, they can't prepare anything. ”

"And," Yan Wu said, pointing to the cannon behind him, "we have a cannon." According to the results of the investigation, there were no cannons in Jiangtou City, and when these dozen or so cannons rang out, nothing could be fired. ”

Yan Wu has so much confidence in defeating Jiangtou City because of these cannons dragged by elephants. In order to ensure victory, Zhu Yang dispatched six cannons with a range of about three miles from 1,000 jin to 2,000 jin and 12 small cannons with a range of about one mile from 500 to 1,000 jin, of which the front army was divided into three cannons and nine small cannons. Although they didn't know if there were any cannons in Ava City, there were none in Jiangtou City, so they were sure to win this battle.

However, Dao Yubin and Dao Fengfu did not have such confidence as him. They hadn't seen the power of the cannon yet. But the former adjutant general of the army that started this war was Yan Wu, not the two of them, and the two of them also commanded the troops other than the soldiers and horses of the headquarters, and it was impossible for them to command their own soldiers and horses to sacrifice themselves, so they could only stop and rest.

Yan Wu let them rest for half an hour, called the soldiers up and continued to march towards Jiangtou City. Half an hour later, they saw Jiangtou City.

Yan Wu took out his clairvoyance and looked at the city, and sure enough, the guards in the city had already discovered their traces, and the city was in chaos. Taking advantage of your illness to kill you, Yan Wu immediately ordered the siege of the city.

The siege process was lackluster, and Yan Wu ordered the cannons to be pulled in front of the city gate, and the cannonballs were fired flat, and the wooden city gate was destroyed in a few strokes. Yan Wu then ordered several shotshots to be fired at the head of the city, and the cavalry infantry rushed towards the city gate.

The soldiers in the city were immediately blinded, had no idea what to do, and quickly surrendered.

Of course, whether the defenders surrender or not, the raid should still be plundered. Although the native soldiers of the Ava Dynasty of Burma and Mengyang and Dahou were all Dai people, these native soldiers did not mean to treat their compatriots preferentially, or they did not regard the Dai people of Burma as compatriots at all, and began to plunder after entering the city.

Yan Wu himself deliberately waited outside the city for two hours, until it was almost dark before entering the city, and began to maintain order in the city, so that the elite main force could stop the robbery. Although there were some conflicts, Dao Yubin and Dao Fengfu both knew that they could not disobey Yan Wu's intentions, and they hurriedly restrained their soldiers and restored order in the city.

When Yan Wu saw Dao Yubin and Dao Fengfu in the evening, both of them were smiling. Their troops suffered minor losses, with only a dozen men killed; But he captured Jiangtou City, robbed a lot of treasures from the city, and gained a lot.

If only we could fight like this in the future. Dao Yubin and Dao Fengfu both thought.

The two of them also took out a part of the goods from the local soldiers under their hands, and let the guards take them into the most luxurious house in the city where Yan Wu now lives, and said to Yan Wu: "General Yan, this battle is so smooth because of General Yan's soldiers, we are grateful; In the afternoon, we watched that the soldiers of the Han army did not grab anything, and we were a little distracted. These things,"

Dao Yubin took a package from the guard behind him, "Give it to General Yan; These things," he said, taking another package from the guard behind him, "let the brothers of the Han army divide it." ”

Dao Fengfu also said to Yan Wu like Dao Yubin.