On May 20, 1641, Fort Gouda, sunny, temperature 12 degrees.

Zhu Liang stood on the only watchtower in the city, holding a telescope and looking ahead, and he had been motionless for more than ten minutes. For no other reason, a large army in the mountains ahead was slowly advancing. Behind him were two intern staff officers from the Dingyuan Army Military Academy, one of them carefully estimating the number of enemies, and the other recording their troop composition and armament.

"Between three thousand and four thousand." A young staff officer blushed and said that his range of numbers was too large, and there was a difference of a thousand between the upper and lower limits.

"Between three thousand seven hundred and four thousand." Zhu Liang glanced at him, then corrected in an accentuated tone, and the young intern staff officer lowered his head embarrassedly.

"Almost all of them had no armor, most of them were armed with wooden spears, and a few were armed with short spears and large shields, but they didn't seem to be very morale-high." Another intern staff officer followed.

"Sergeant, how do you tell that their morale is not high?" Zhu Liang quickly asked.

"Their steps are heavy, and many of them have their heads down and look listless, which shows that they don't think that this war will bring them honor." The intern staff officer quickly replied.

Zhu Liang was noncommittal, and continued to raise the telescope to observe. The formation of these barbarians is quite loose, maybe they are negligent in training, maybe they really don't have high morale. But that's fine, it's better that the opponent is weaker than the opponent. The order to put the whole army on alert had already been conveyed, and a small number of herders with red and green flags grazing outside began to drive their sheep slowly across the moat through the drawbridge under the cover of the cavalry of the South African Cavalry Company. Enter the unfinished castle walls.

Some cavalry, led by those old Shaanxi thief officers, shouted and galloped outside the barbarian formation. Tempting their reality and truth. However, the performance of the barbarians did not look as unbearable as Zhu Liang and others had estimated before. Some of the archers were quickly organized and began to drive out the cavalry with their long-range bows. The flintlock pistols in the hands of the cavalry were no match for the rifle, so they lingered for a while, buying the herdsmen enough time to retreat and then slowly retreated.

The drawbridge was pulled up, and there was no longer a single person from the east bank outside the moat. The bleak autumn wind blew, and the earth was yellow, looking extremely solemn.

There was silence in Fort Gouda. The soldiers of the 2nd Company and the Cavalry Company of the Army are fine, they are used to seeing life and death. These scenes in front of them did not frighten them. Although the city wall has only been partially repaired, it is enough to defend the city with a moat a few meters wide and three barbed wire. Fort Gouda is bordered by a river to the northeast and mountains to the southeast, making it difficult for the deployment and mobilization of troops, so the leader of the barbarians must have a headache in the face of such terrain. However, the performance of those Eight Banners was a bit unbearable in comparison, although there were less than four thousand barbarians outside the city, although there were seven or eight hundred Eight Banner warriors trained all year round in the city, although there were two hundred East Coast musketeers in the city, although there were more than a hundred East Coast cavalry in the city, although there were four cannons in the city. But they're just afraid. All their belongings are here, and so are their relatives. They fear the catastrophic consequences of losing the war.

"Let the people of the Eight Banners continue to build the city wall, and everything will be as usual." As the commander of the South African garrison, Zhu Liang began to give orders: "Inform Mo Dayong, the leader of the Eight Banners warriors, let him purge his subordinates, and then start patrolling in the city. Also, did the heralds to Fort Rivergo send out? ”

The staff officer who was recording Zhu Liang's order quickly stopped his pen and said, "I have already sent Lu, commander." A total of four men and eight horses, in two groups, marched northwest along both sides of the river, passing on the enemy information to any baggage troops they encountered, and it was expected that they would meet the reinforcements of the river fort halfway through. ”

According to the pre-established plan, the autumn harvest in the Fort River area should be completed by May 18. After the autumn harvest is over, Mo Ming, the supreme commander of the South African Theater of Operations, will personally lead the 1st Company, 103rd Company, 104th Company, South African Field Artillery Company, 1st Independent Field Artillery Company, Engineer Battalion and other main forces of the Army, which have been assigned to the South African garrison sequence, plus some militia of Fort River equipped with firearms, to advance along the Berg River to reinforce the Fort Gouda area. They should also be accompanied by more than 2,000 Eight Banner warriors. Counting the time, they were almost already on their way, and the herald was likely to meet them halfway through and let them know that the barbarian army had arrived.

This time, the size of the South African garrison reached an unprecedented number of four infantry companies, two artillery companies, and one cavalry company, with a total strength of nearly 1,000 troops. In addition to more than 300 militiamen of the Hezhong Security Regiment equipped with muskets, engineering battalions and baggage battalions equipped with some firearms, and nearly 3,000 warriors of the Eight Banners, the total strength of the East Bank side this time also reached 5,300 men, which was the largest military operation in the history of the East Bank.

None of these East Coast officers had organized such a large-scale battle before, and this was the first time that the eldest girl had been on the sedan chair, including Mo Ming and the others, who were also a little apprehensive before they set out for the battle. However, the matter has come to this point, no matter how difficult it is, we have to meet it head-on, I don't believe in their modern military organization model, so many staff officers are making suggestions, checking and filling in the gaps, so many professionals are busy, and they can't compare to the barbarians who are still in a state of ignorance!

Zhu Liang observed again and found that the barbarian army had stayed there since it had been deployed in the narrow terrain southeast of Fort Gouda. A dozen or so barbarians who looked like they had some status climbed up a nearby hill and began to look towards Fort Gouda, as if they were also looking for the enemy's situation in order to decide what to do next. Zhu Liang also ignored them, he decided to respond to all changes with the same, no matter how you have all kinds of skills, you have to attack in a real way to be useful. If you can make us do anything just by putting up a position outside the city, then you can only say that you are too naïve.

Under the coercion of the samurai, the red and green bannermen of the castle cheered up and tried not to think about what was going on outside the castle, and continued to build the castle walls as usual. Mo Dashan, who was born in the Red Banner, divided nearly 800 warriors from the two banners into more than a dozen groups and began to patrol the city, while the soldiers of the army on the east coast sat quietly in the barracks, waiting for orders from their superiors. After the initial little chaos, everything inside Fort Gouda seems so orderly.

The walls of Fort Gouda had only been built for a short time, so it was completely impossible to hide the peeping eyes from the opposite hillside. The barbarian leaders had apparently seen the situation as well, and they were a little hesitant for a moment. Attack, first, the troops are insufficient, and second, the number of enemies seems to be quite large, and they are well-trained, and most of them will suffer losses when attacking; But if you don't attack, this formation is laid out today, do you want to play monkey? It's a very confusing thing.

"Let the Eight Banners artillery go out to the moat and shoot at these barbarians." The leader of the barbarians hadn't made up his mind yet, and Zhu Liang had already begun to give an order. The enemy's military formation was less than 800 meters away from the moat, and this distance was already within the maximum range of the 8-pounder gun. The only thing to worry about is that the kinetic energy of the solid iron ball is insufficient after hitting it so far, and the power is greatly reduced. But it doesn't matter, anyway, the city has plenty of military resources, and the prestige and morale of killing those barbarians are good.

More than a dozen Eight Banner artillerymen drove their horses and pushed two 8-pounder guns onto a well-built earthen fort by the moat on the east side of the city. After estimating the distance and wind speed using visual inspection, the two Eight Banner gunners trained by the East Coast discussed with each other, and then went back to command the charge, load, and adjust the firing parameters.

"Boom!" Soon, the first 8-pounder cannon roared and fired the first shell of the day, and less than ten seconds after it was finished, the second gun also began to fire, and two 8-pounder solid iron balls flew towards the barbarian formation.

After crossing a long distance of several hundred meters, the first solid iron ball landed near the front of the enemy line, and quickly bounced up, knocking down several barbarians in succession before stopping. The second solid iron ball was not very lucky, it may have been hit a little off the ground by the wind speed, and landed on a muddy ground not far from the river beach, only jumping slightly before stopping. It can be seen that the ground over there is relatively soft, and it absorbs the kinetic energy of the cannonballs well.

"The starter hits! Who hit it?! Pass my order and reward the whole artillery team with ten dollars! Zhu Liang held the telescope and said incredulously. How can it not be surprising that these Eight Banner gunners were lucky, or were they really more professionally qualified, and they actually hit the first hit on the edge of the effective range of the artillery.

"Let them keep shooting!" Zhu Liang raised his binoculars to observe again while ordering, only to see a small commotion in the barbarian army, especially in the vicinity of the area hit by the shells, more than ten people escaped, which made Zhu Liang even more contemptuous in his heart: "The morale is not high, and I am not mentally prepared for artillery shooting, hum, you still want to attack me at this level." ”

The barbarian leaders on the hillside could not sit still, and they quickly sent a few cronies down the mountain to suppress them. And the barbarian leader also hesitated for more than ten minutes before suddenly giving an order. A moment later, the barbarian army, which had just been suppressed by the bullets, began to slowly retreat.

Is this a retreat? Zhu Liang's mind was full of question marks, "Cavalry company, go forward to investigate!" He quickly gave the order. (To be continued......)