Looking at the river, although there is only a dozen zhang in the middle, it is equivalent to the difference between hell and heaven, the opposite side is a piece of killing and despair, and the south bank of the river is the excellent swimming of the old ox and slow car.

"My lord, we have arrived at the south bank of the Yuxi River, you see...... Do we shoot guns? ”

The handsome guard, as the commander of the border army who cooperated with the battle, came over first to ask Shen Xi's opinion.

Shen Xi looked at the other side of the river, and for the time being, he didn't know the deployment of the Ming army on the north bank, so it was not good to shoot directly at the other side of the river.

On the other side of the river, the first to face the Ming army was the Ming army, and I don't know what the depth of its array is, and I don't know who it will hit with a single shot.

Shen Xi really wanted Liu Daxia to run to the river at this time and wave his flag and shout at him...... Shoot at me!

Shen Xi looked around, the terrain around the ferry was relatively flat, but it extended to the east and west, and when it reached sixty or seventy zhang away, it was rocky and overgrown. In particular, there is a clear slope to the east, which is much higher than the opposite side, or the north shore can be detected.

Shen Xi greeted Zhang Lao Wu: "You go to the top of the hillside over there to see what the situation is on the other side!" ”

Zhang Lao Wu didn't say a word, and directly took a few people to Gaopo to find out the situation.

The shouts of killing on the other side of the strait were earth-shattering.

Shen Xi thought to himself: "Yesterday's battle is really pediatric compared to today. ”

Liu Daxia on the north bank is still commanding and dispatching in the square array, blocking the Tatars round after round of impact, but the Tatar cavalry, especially the small number of ironclad cavalry, has too strong impact, and the Ming officers and soldiers have no way to enter the sky and no door at this time, and their hearts are full of fear and despair, and they are gradually unable to parry.

"My lord, reinforcements from the south bank are indeed here...... But the number of people is too small, and now the pontoon bridge is being built, and I am afraid that it will be too late......"

Liu Daxia asked: "How many people are geometric?" ”

"Back to my lord, I can't see it clearly, but there are less than a thousand people in the situation."

Liu Daxia was secretly annoyed in his heart...... Okay, you Zhu Hui, I brought more than 10,000 soldiers and horses to be trapped, and ordered you to send troops to rescue, but you sent less than 1,000 people out of the city?

"My lord, the reinforcements are like ...... Bring the artillery! Tanma continued to report, "but for some reason, no cannon was fired." ”

Liu Daxia's war horse was squeezed by the flow of people in front of him and retreated, and in this dense defensive formation, it was easy for soldiers to trample on each other and cause casualties.

In the midst of the chaos, Liu Daxia suddenly realized something, artillery, reinforcements, pontoon bridges......

"Pass the order, continue to retreat, take the order flag to the bank of the river, and swing up and down to the opposite bank!"

Liu Daxia conveyed the military order, and there was a little more "illusion" in his heart. At this moment, many images came to his mind...... The Franc cannon can scatter the straw men into straw all over the ground from a mile away, and beat a group of beasts to a bloody pulp, which if you fire a few cannons at the Tatar team, you may really be able to survive.

"Shen Xi, that kid really sent the artillery to the border pass?" Liu Daxia didn't dare to think too much, at this time the formation was repeatedly compressed by the Tatars, and the personnel appeared more dense, and his next order was for all officers and soldiers to continue to compress the defense line, try to lean towards the river, and separate the two sides to form a long and flat formation.

This is no longer a "square circle array", but a long snake formation, but because of the formation of a defensive echelon, this formation is closer to the "yoke array".

The officers and men did not understand why they had to form such a four-way formation, because once the middle was broken through, it would become a bad situation in which the end and the end were not connected.

Moreover, after the officers and soldiers were forced to retreat to the river bank, there was no way to retreat behind them, and some people were even squeezed into the river, but fortunately, the water near the river bank was not too deep, but in this winter, it was really cold enough to step on the icy river water.

Liu Daxia made a change of formation in time, and Zhang Lao Wu on the hillside immediately asked someone to inform Shen Xi of the real-time situation on the other side.

At this time, soldiers began to wave small flags up and down on the north bank of the Yuxi River, not like any flag, but Shen Xi understood what was going on.

Liu Daxia once went to the school with Emperor Hongzhi to watch the artillery drill, and that time Zhu Youzhu used the flag to issue the order to open the cannon, Liu Daxia wanted to use this way to inform him that he already knew that Shen Xi had brought artillery, and made timely adjustments to the formation, so that Shen Xi could open the cannon on his own.

"Ready!"

Shen Xi immediately raised the Ling Banner high.

Song Shu saw this situation and hurriedly reminded: "My lord, the other side is full of soldiers and horses, and you are firing artillery without authorization...... It's going to kill the head......"

"Adjust the elevation angle!"

Shen Xi ignored Song Shu's noise, and ordered the gunner to set the muzzle of the gun at a forty-five degree angle, and he didn't care about anything else for the time being, just firing the cannon at the farthest distance.

According to Zhang Laowu's visual inspection, the two sides of the river are about 15 or 6 zhang apart, and Liu Daxia's Chinese army headquarters has a depth of 60 or 70 zhang, as long as the artillery can shoot out 100 zhang away, that is, about 300 meters, it will definitely be smashed on the open ground or the Tatars' heads.

The group of gunners under Shen Xi had received formal training when they were in the capital, and in addition to the hearty battle yesterday, they had withstood the test of actual combat, and they were not in a hurry to adjust.

When everything was ready, Shen Xi lowered the flag: "Release!" ”

"Boom-"

Artillery fire!

Ten Franc cannons fired shells almost simultaneously, and the shells emitted a puff of pale black green smoke in the air, flying over the heads of the Ming troops on the other side of the Yuxi River, and falling into the distance.

"Boom—"

A dull explosion was heard, but the effect was unknown.

After the first round of running, Shen Xi did not immediately order the cannon to be fired, waiting for the flag on the opposite side.

If this cannon is good, then Liu Daxia will definitely give the order to open fire.

……

……

The fighting on the north bank of the Yuxi River has entered a white heat.

As the Ming army changed from a square array to a yoke array, the soldiers were not very accustomed to this flat formation with scattered troops, and were charged several times by the Tatars, and the formation was squeezed to the river bank again, leaving corpses along the way.

At this time, even Liu Daxia's handsome banner was only more than 150 steps away from the first line of the confrontation.

"Boom-"

There were suddenly a few roars on the south bank, but in the middle of the battlefield where the shouts of killing shook the sky, the sound was not obvious.

"Boom—"

As the shells landed, a violent explosion was heard in front of them, and a burst of gunsmoke filled the air, and there was a burst of confusion in the Tatar cavalry ranks...... Of course, this confusion is not in the front line of the confrontation, but in the rear, so the Tatars in front are still attacking, but they are still inevitably confused.

"What's going on?"

A shield soldier of the Ming Frontier Army raised the shield in his hand as he asked, blocking the dense arrows shooting from the front. In the middle of the shield, the pikemen in the second row, holding a spear of three feet (about four meters), stabbed the Tatar cavalry who rushed towards him, dismounted the Tatar cavalryman who was looking back, and then stretched out the tip of a spear in each of the other directions, stabbing the Tatar cavalry to death.

The pikemen who had just made a meritorious service breathed a sigh of relief, stood still and glanced at it, and said in a Sichuan accent: "It seems to be the rear camp of these turtle sons, could it be that my reinforcements are coming?" ”

If you can make chaos behind the Tatars, it must be reinforcements.

At present, there is no way to retreat, guarding by the river is tantamount to waiting for death, if the Ming reinforcements attack from the enemy's back, then not only do not have to die, but to turn defeat into victory.

At this time, several more Tartar heavy cavalry rushed over with sabers.

"Hold on!"

Various voices mingled, and the soldiers were aroused with a strong desire to survive.

Liu Daxia's position has an advantage, that is, it prevents the retreat of the soldiers to the greatest extent, and the essence of the last battle lies in this, with the icy river behind him and the enemy army in front of him.

"Kill!"

The Ming officers and soldiers continued to fight the Tatars.

At this time, Liu Daxia also felt the power of the round of artillery coverage just now, and the pressure in front of him dropped a lot.

"My lord, I only fired one round of cannons, and it seems that there is no way to continue." Tanma had just rejoiced because of the artillery fired by the Ming reinforcements on the south bank, but he was panicked because there was no follow-up artillery fire to keep up with the suspicious ghosts.

"Order, keep waving the little flag, don't stop!"

Because the officers and soldiers in front were forced too hard by the Tatar cavalry, the long snake formation facing the north moved more than a dozen steps south again, and Liu Daxia was directly squeezed off the horse...... He is not in the prime of life, his legs are not so strong and powerful, he is in his sixties, it is not easy to ride a horse, how easy is it to clamp the belly of a horse?

"Your Excellency?" Several guards hurriedly rushed forward to help Liu Daxia up, Liu Daxia still wanted to continue to ride the horse, but because of the excessive congestion of the crowd, he could not climb up.

"Boom-"

The expected second round of shelling came as scheduled.

From the second round of firing, there was basically not much stagnation in between, and after six rounds of artillery after round, it was temporarily stopped.

By this time, most of the Ming officers and soldiers on the north bank of the Yuxi River did not know what was happening, only that the offensive of the Tartars on the opposite side had been weakened repeatedly.

The Franc cannon is a "secret weapon".

Because they have never been on the battlefield, many border soldiers are just hearsay, the more they go to the western border, the less they hear about it, and they are used to seeing unreliable earthen artillery and ****, and the officers and soldiers have more trust in bows and crossbows and spears and shields in their hands, and they don't believe in such magical artillery at all, just as a joke.

Although the sound of explosions in the rear of the enemy was endless, the soldiers all thought that this was caused by the arrival of the Ming reinforcements and the use of some mysterious weapon.

With six rounds of artillery coming down, the Tatar offensive had been continuous from the original front to the other, and a fault had appeared.

Even the fearless Tatars, under the blow of continuous mysterious artillery fire, chose to retreat because of heavy casualties.

"Reinforcements are coming, rush, fight with these turtle sons!"

When the Ming officers and soldiers saw the Tatars retreating, their morale was bursting, and they rushed forward with shouts.

Those who took the general flag officer hurriedly reminded the officers and soldiers in their ranks: "Don't chase after the poor, prevent fraud!" ”

Sure enough, the first group of officers and soldiers who caught up were ambushed and killed by the Tatar cavalry, which stopped in the distance and prepared to organize a new offensive.

At this moment, the roar of artillery sounded again.

This time, it was stopped after only three rounds.

Although only thirty shells fell in the ranks of the Tatars, it was enough to leave behind hundreds of corpses of the Tatars who had gathered to charge.

The Tatar cavalry had no choice but to disperse from the dense attack, because they realized that if they were gathered together, they would be hit by cannonballs, and the cannonballs that fell from the sky could penetrate even the thick iron armor, let alone flesh and blood.

"My lord, the momentum of the Tartars has been suppressed, do you want to fight back?"

Liu Daxia was squeezed into the crowd, dizzy, he never wanted to encounter this kind of scene once he encountered it again, it was simply unorganized and undisciplined.

"Order the three armies, no pursuit!" Liu Daxia thought for a while, the Tatars should have felt the power of the artillery and were ready to pull the front apart.

Even if Daming had artillery, it was on the other side of the river, and the range was limited.

But at this time, the entire Ming army was in chaos, Liu Daxia's military orders could no longer be conveyed, and there was chaos everywhere, and some soldiers had already organized a counterattack on their own, and the effect seemed to be good.

Liu Daxia was in the crowd, barely climbed on the horse's back, and when he sat down and looked steadily, he found that the situation was beyond his control.

"Hurry up and signal to the south bank that no more artillery will be fired!"

Liu Daxia wanted his subordinates to use the flag to order the other side not to continue firing artillery, so as not to hurt his own people, but because the sky had darkened, the flag on the north bank of the Yuxi River could no longer be seen clearly by the people on the other side.

"Boom-"

The sound of artillery that had stopped for a short time came again, but this time it made Liu Daxia feel like he couldn't cry or laugh.

Some of the Ming officers and soldiers who were chasing in front had already been hit by shrapnel and fell to the ground, and the people next to them only thought that this was a Tatar method, and they still rushed forward desperately without falling.

On the south bank of the Yuxi River, Shen Xi raised his eyes and looked out, the soldiers on the other side of the river were in chaos, and he couldn't see the situation clearly, and from time to time soldiers crossed the river from the downstream shoals.

Seeing that Shen Xi hesitated and did not move, the gunners looked at each other, not knowing whether they should continue the shelling.

"How many cannons were fired?"

Shen Xi asked Zhang Laowu, who was helping to load the cannon next to him.

"Back to the adults, plus the round that was put when the little one didn't come back, there are already nineteen rounds."

"Huh!? So many, that's stopped, if it's blown up, it's going to be whining, wait for the order from the other side...... Let's get the pontoon to the other side first! ”

Previously, he was only busy firing artillery, but Shen Xi finally remembered that the purpose of his trip was actually to meet Liu Daxia's retreat.

***********

PS: The second update is here!

I'm sorry, tutoring my daughter to learn physics, delaying the update! found out that after her daughter's vacation, the family grew busy......

There should be another chapter next, cheekily begging for subscriptions, tips, referral tickets and monthly pass support! (To be continued.) )