Chapter 224: Thunder

In fact, the stone ox retreating to this temporary stronghold could see a slowly advancing camp from the left flank of the battlefield, and then it was discovered that these were many specially modified carts, forming a mobile formation; Under the cover of the erected boards and shelves, there were swords and spears that glistened with cold light and arrows that shot like locusts.

Where they had advanced, the barbarian teams that had come in droves had vanished like torrents rushing against the rocks, overturned, pushed away, squeezed away, and even crushed over.

Occasionally, they will stop, or even retreat briefly; That is the moment when they regroup and shrink their formation when they encounter obvious ground obstacles, and after a few moments when they contain the wounded and corpses and clear the obstacles, they will re-erupt with more damage and more powerful attacks.

On the right flank at the other end of the battlefield, which he could not see, Liu Liumao led the cavalry of the front battalion to block the perimeter of the battlefield, and cooperated with the infantry to attract and entangle the barbarian army from the front, trying to attack those large and small barbarian arrays from the flank and rear in turn, and then chase and annihilate them from the charge; It's a pity that the number of horse teams in the rebel army is still less, otherwise they might be able to break through a few more arrays, and the entire barbarian army on the right flank will be shaken.

Most of the crossbowmen and long-range equipment were concentrated on the main front where Zhou Huai'an was located, ensuring that they could be weakened and killed as much as possible before and after engaging the enemy.

I saw the curve of smoke trails thrown from time to time in the rain of arrows, and bombarded the poisonous smoke balls and arson canisters among the largest and densest crowd of the barbarian army, and in the screams of splashing, burning and smoking, they quickly cleared out one temporary vacancy after another that had not had time to be filled.

And Wang Qiu, the soldier who was squatting at the forefront of the net frame and the portable horse rejection, also tried to swallow saliva to relieve his throat that was itchy and dry because of nervousness; Holding the crossbow machine with both hands flat on his chest is his greatest reliance and basis; Although he really wanted to press the grip of the launch hard against the brutes who were rushing and falling and approaching; But the sticks and scolding that remained in his body and were trained daily were branded with instinct that prevented him from doing so.

"It's not time yet,"

"It's all steady."

"Closer."

He tried to calm his breathing, and his ears were filled with the voices of the old men who had been emphasized over and over again, and the moans of the hapless ghosts who could not control their own deductions, and who were being scolded and whipped; There are twelve tailless short arrows in the full arrow magazine, but because the crossbow machine itself has a short string and light arrows, it is only within ten to twenty paces that it is the most effective killing distance; After that, there will be no accuracy and no strength at all.

During this tormented waiting, he was reminded of his past again.

He was originally a resident of Xiafang in Guangfu City, and his former occupation was a white servant who helped idlemen and ran errands; That is to say, the lowest members of the public service with a huge number of public servants, who have neither salary nor food and clothing, can only rely on following those unscrupulous people who are mixed in the register, acting as a pomp and background, and then taking advantage of those small merchants and hawkers;

For he cannot be as thick-faced and black-hearted as his companions, and can do whatever it takes to achieve his ends; often gives people the old and weak, women and children or something to ask for something and softens their hearts, and sometimes they will secretly let people go; Therefore, in daily life, he is barely half-starved, and he often has to be scolded by people, and he has become a laughing stock among his peers. Fortunately, he is quite open-minded and doesn't take it very seriously, and he is not afraid of hard work and trouble, so he can do some dirty work, which keeps the identity of this white servant.

Therefore, if you can steal a chicken or hunt a dog on weekdays, it is a good day to have meat and tooth sacrifices. He was born with a five-short and chubby body that can grow meat even if he drinks water, so he got the nickname "Fat Autumn"; And because he has been uneducated since he was a child, he is easy to be clumsy when he sees a woman, and he blushes and doesn't know what to do; So I saw that I was in my twenties, but I still couldn't get married, and I didn't even dare to touch the hand of the laughing woman in the prostitution hall.

But he also fell into a problem because of this, and when he saw a beautiful woman, he couldn't help but follow him, and followed him all the way to the other party's house in order to take a few more looks; Sometimes, if no one discovers, he will lie on the wall and continue to spy and watch for a while, until it is completely dark and completely out of sight, and then he will reluctantly turn back; But because of this problem, he got into a big disaster.

In the process of tailgating, he accidentally found a fairy jumping nest with female color as bait, but after the report was made, it was lost in the sea and never followed; Then he was arrested by someone and sent to a prison in Guangzhou pending execution on the grounds that he had offended a certain official in his outer room; Just as he pleaded for nothing and was desperate to die in prison, suddenly all the jailers ran out, and he was released.

found that the entire huge Guangzhou Mansion has completely changed, and the bad guys and bad handsomes who run rampant in the streets, as well as the skinless scoundrels and evil teenagers who fight for the tigers, have long since disappeared; In their place were teams of rebel patrolmen who were called "grass thieves" in the wanted list. Then he was also unemployed, coupled with no relatives and nowhere to cast, he repeatedly sought several jobs but could not do it, and in the end he could only go to these self-proclaimed "righteous army" grass thief classes to live in the porridge field.

Then he was recruited into the labor team of the Righteous Army, because he couldn't farm, he was directly assigned, digging sand, moving stones, burning bricks, cutting trees, and building roads, he did almost everything, and because everything was clear, he suffered all kinds of hardships, but he still barely persevered; In the end, because of the large-scale expansion of the Righteous Army, and because of his "bitter background" qualifications in the past, he became a new pawn of the Volunteer Army.

Then, in the selection of new pawns, because of his short stature and relatively flexible hands, he became a glorious knife player; No more dealing with stinking livestock or mud and rocks. As a major feature of this Sanjiang army, it is equipped with a large proportion of bows and crossbows; In addition to the Iron Arm Bow and Strong Crossbow of the specialized archery team, both spearmen and sword players are required to be proficient in the relatively simple crossbows.

For example, the crossbow machine in Wang Qiu's hand, in order to master this thing, he repeatedly shot at the cruising target every day until he vomited, and his hands were ground out of blood blisters and turned into thick calluses. At this moment, the long-awaited whistle suddenly sounded in the sky.

He couldn't help but press down the grip with a quick and desperate effort, and radiated all the arrows in one go; He dropped the empty arrow box and took a full crossbow machine in his hand, and pressed down the grip to shoot again, and shot again, and again; You don't need to deliberately aim or align at all, you just need to reflexively take it and shoot it out as fast as you can.

In the dense sound of roaring and bursting, these barbarians, most of whom were only wrapped in animal skins and coarse cloth, screamed and writhed their bodies to dodge, or brandished their weapons to try to block, but they could not stop them, like rice that had been cut head-on, and they fell down and were trampled on one after another; When Wang Qiu almost threw away a damaged crossbow machine with all his strength, the wave of barbarian troops in the field of vision had become sparse and sparse.

The remaining fish that slipped through the net rushed to Wang Qiu's face by inertia, and then the shuttle darts and axes they threw were blocked by the hand cards that blocked the net and rejected the horse, and were stabbed down one after another by the spears and chopping knives that were densely protruded, and they were cut to the ground without the ability to backhand.

At this time, Wang Qiu could breathe a sigh of relief, and began to look at his surroundings again, the array he was in had become uneven due to the brutal shooting, and he didn't know when a bamboo arrow was inserted in his boot, and a puddle of blood oozed from under the soles of his feet.

And as far as he could see, on both the left and the right, the barbarian armies engaged in the battle were in the process of rout and retreat. Only on the frontal battlefield where the Chinese army is located, those large numbers of barbarians are still trying to regroup a wave of offensives; It's just that as the horses and chariots gradually pushed over by the two wings, they can't help but show a panic and fear.

Then, Wang Qiu suddenly trembled, only to feel that every muscle in his body was telling him to flee for his life quickly, otherwise he would die without a place to be buried; Then the barbarians gathered in front of him also spontaneously routed in panic, and rushed to the sides; And there was no time to escape, and they were knocked down, overturned, trampled under their feet, or flown up again, like bloody rags and straws, and tossed aside.

The elephant soldiers, the famous elephant soldiers in the Southern Barbarian Army, although they looked quite simple, and only had a basket carrying a driver and an archer, and then covered the elephant's head with a large rattan plate against arrows, and a wooden ball on the tip of the nose, but just where the huge figure stood, it was full of some terrible deterrent.

Although there were only a dozen of them in number, the deafening shouts of one after another made the horse teams on the left flank, which were interspersed and advancing, also uncontrollably stopped, and had to try to calm their mounts on the battlefield. The advancing carts were also deformed and stagnant, but the livestock inside were frightened.

But the barbarians, who had been routed and frightened, cheered up as if they had been infected by some kind of infection, and shouted some unintelligible slogan and name, and gathered around the elephant soldiers to the left and shouted angrily, and slaughtered again towards the array of the rebels.

And Luo Fengyi, who was supervising the battle on a satin-draped high car in the rear, couldn't help but loosen his tense face and showed a certain smug and reserved smile; Do these Han family members really think that they have left the familiar mountains and come to this plain to drown, and they have no backup and preparation at all.

These crossbowmen and cavalrymen of the Han family are brave and brave, but they will definitely not be the opponents of these war elephants in this land of Pingchuan; It was in vain that he tried his best to get these trained giant beasts and pilots from the command of Nanzhao's Tonghai Jiedu envoy. It can be said that apart from those bed crossbow giants guarding the city, there is no real threat to their existence in this land.

For this reason, even if you sit back and watch both wings completely defeated, as long as your own camp can win, the more those miscellaneous and subordinate cavemen and villagers die, the better, and it is even better to be able to consume some more Han family children.

"Let all the township soldiers belonging to the five caves go forward to kill the enemy, and Bustard Ding is responsible for supervising the battle."

Then he raised the banner of his beast's mouth and silver staff, and said loudly

"No matter how much the left and right departments dare to retreat, whether it is the cave master or the general, they will be killed on the spot."

With the whole disturbance, most of the barbarian army rushed to the enemy position with all their might; Then he saw a large field of arrows with smoke trails flying from the opposite side again, but with a completely different sound and movement, like a crisp thunder blooming in the array of barbarians and elephants;

"This is the first cry from the age of firearms."

Listening to the dense explosion in the distance, Zhou Huaian couldn't help but sigh to himself;

"Now that you know that you are a Southern Barbarian Army, how can you not guard against beast soldiers and war elephants or something. Even if you are not afraid of fire, are you not afraid of loud explosions?"

Then he turned to the left and right and commanded.

"Don't keep your hands any longer, knock out the rest of the poisonous smoke balls and arson canisters. Maybe you won't need it. ”

It was the first experimental firearm to be used on the battlefield. Of course, in the eyes of later generations, it is quite simple and full of shoddy work. That is, it is tied to the arrow shaft and ignited and launched, only the paper cannon with the size of the finger needs to be manually aligned with the lead; It is more similar to a firecracker called Tuleizi in later generations, the sound is particularly loud, and the direct damage is not large, but the frightening and shocking effect on livestock and personnel is quite good.

In fact, the dozen or so elephant soldiers who were focused on the fire were suddenly stunned, and then it was as if they had suddenly been ignited and burst out of the enemy's formation. One after another, the frightened elephants swept over and swept down, knocked away a group of brute soldiers and vehicles that could not dodge, or raised their front hooves in panic and swayed left and right, and in the crunchy screams and wails and screams, the surging momentum of the gathering of those large number of brutes was scattered in an instant.

And the first to bear the brunt are the rest of the Wudong Township soldiers who have completed the array, as well as the bustard Ding who is supervising the battle... As for the ordinary brute soldiers who were not high in fighting spirit and panicked, they were screaming and crying in panic, and they rushed to the ground as if they were kneeling and praying for something.

(End of chapter)