"Garrison on the spot!!"

"Prepare for battle!!"

When the Ming army began to mobilize its forces and slowly approached the formation of the Hongtang army, the Hongtang army, which had always been aggressive, stopped there, and quickly rectified and adjusted the formation changes brought about by their advance under the command of the middle-level military attaché.

"Prepare the musketeers in the front row!"

"Ammunition loaded!"

A command was issued from the mouth of the commander of the company and battalion, and with the sound of their command, the 15,000 musketeers in Hongtang lined up with their muskets and aimed at the Ming army vanguard who was gradually approaching their formation.

Hongtang is probably the East of this era, and there is no one who uses muskets as the main force, and it may have begun to popularize muskets in the West, but it is rare to be able to equip tens of thousands of muskets at one time like Hongmen, even in Western Europe.

"Rush! Brothers, this is the opportunity to make a difference! ”

Under the influence of the Hongtang army and Westerners, the army of the Ming Dynasty gradually deepened the use of firearms, but sometimes it is not enough to have a strong foundation.

The manufacture of muskets is no longer a backward technology that relies on skilled craftsmen to build barrels one by one, and it has been possible to use hydraulic lathes and steam lathes to drill and manufacture smooth, uniform caliber musket barrels in Hongmen.

The Ming Dynasty Ordnance Department still followed their old methods, which could only rely on the personal skills of craftsmen and masters to make muskets, and its manufacturing speed, even if it gathered countless craftsmen to manufacture together, was only a scale of thousands of qualified birds per year.

"Fire!!"

The first thing that resounded on this battlefield was the musketeers of the Hongtang army, and the front and rear feet were released to pull the trigger, and almost at the moment when the guns rang out, there were countless soldiers of the Ming Dynasty vanguard army on the left battlefield, and they fell.

"The second column is in column, and the third column is ready!"

"Fire!"

The three-stage shooting, coupled with Hongtang's fixed ammunition and flintlock mode, has allowed the muskets to get rid of the slow hat, and now the musketeers of the Hongtang army can basically fire six times in a minute.

With the three-stage shooting as an auxiliary, the Hongtang army's firing frequency has been able to achieve a ground speed of 12 times a minute.

This is naturally a gratifying and congratulatory good thing for the Hongtang army, but for those opponents who are still immersed in sword fighting and cold weapon duels, this is simply their nightmare.

The musket team of the Hongtang army has been expanding, if the proportion of musketeers in the Hongtang army before was not more than one percent, with the development of potential in these years, the proportion of musketeers in the Hongtang army is now about three and a half percent.

The larger the army of musketeers, the more they can play their role; The Ming Dynasty army and the Hongtang army fought several times, most of them appeared in the role of defending the city, although they also felt the strength of the Hongtang musketeers in the street battles, but there were hidden objects anytime and anywhere, so that their performance of the power of the musketeers was underestimated.

Now, their misinformation has finally made them suffer.

Xia Chengde, as the main general, thought that although the task handed over to him by the coach Zhang Huangyan was arduous, it was not impossible to complete, after all, what his audience now has in his hands is a full 20,000 strong Ming army heroes.

However, in the first charge, no one of the Ming soldiers was even able to get close to the Hongtang position, and their forward army fled back in embarrassment under the dense gunfire and bullets, leaving more than 2,000 corpses on the battlefield.

"Bastard, who told you to retreat?"

"Lao Tzu continues to rush! Who dares to flee back for no reason, Lao Tzu cut off his head! ”

Xia Chengde was annoyed and angry, the first attack they launched only lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and then they were repelled by the other side, and in the case of their own heavy losses, the army on the opposite side did not even have the slightest loss, and even the formation did not change.

"Kill!!"

"Bang bang bang!!"

Ordinary people are only so fragile in the face of steel bullets, and the cotton armor worn by the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty has no effect in the face of the musket bullets of the Hongtang army.

Every bullet fired into the Ming soldiers' bodies must be an inch-sized deep hole, and the bullets are deeply embedded in the body, not only making their wounds look terrifying, but also destroying their internal organs, unless they are hit in the limbs, otherwise it basically means their death, or temporary loss of combat effectiveness.

After more than an hour, the number of Ming army's forward troops ranged from 20,000 at the beginning, to 167, 134, and finally less than 10,000.

"Let Xia Chengde stop attacking!"

Zhang Huangyan sat in the Chinese army and had been observing the offensive of the left flank, but the deeper his heart became.

The sharpness of the muskets in the hands of the Hongtang army and the high frequency of attacks have exceeded their imagination of the Ming Dynasty people for the muskets.

No wonder the Hongtang army has such a great confidence, with less than twice the number of troops of the Ming army, in the field and the Ming army to start a decisive battle, with this musket army in hand, even if the number of their Ming army soldiers is doubled, I am afraid it will be difficult to win in a head-to-head duel.

"Command the royal courtiers to attack."

"Send another 10,000 troops to Xia Chengde and tell him that if it is unfavorable to fight again, this official will take other people's heads to sacrifice the flag!"

"Command Kong Zhenhui, the cavalry battalion is ready for battle, and when the general army of the royal courtiers fights the enemy army, it can launch an offensive!"

However, there were also problems with the formation of Hongtang's army, in order to ensure the frequency of their shooting, Hongtang's formation was stretched extremely wide, and after more than 10,000 musketeers dispersed, they were stunned to open a formation that was four or five miles long.

Behind their musketeers, as a melee and artillery formation, it is also weak, if their own army can approach the opponent's position and fight with them hand-to-hand, then Zhang Huangyan believes that there is a great chance of directly tearing through the opponent's formation and breaking through the opponent's rear formation.

For this reason, Zhang Huangyan did not hesitate to sacrifice some soldiers, at least this can be said to be the most likely way to defeat this Hongtang army as soon as possible as he observed.