The sky was bright and the breeze was cool, but the rancid smell of dead rats lingered and permeated the surroundings, and the morning fog gradually receded.

Whether they want to or not, both sides have to have a duel, a duel in the era of platoon guns.

As the rhythmic snare drum began to beat, the two sides lined up slowly forward, forward, and forward.

On the battlefield five or six miles wide, except for the corpses that had not had time to be cleaned up, there were only neat footsteps and the sound of military drums one after another.

The fluttering flag of the Chinese army, with a red background and blue edges, slowly emerged from the mist.

On the opposite side, four flags also appeared together, divided into four arrays, each array of about 1,200 people, followed by two phalanxes, one phalanx of about 4,000 people, and under the flying flags were the Japanese daimyo army of Ichizumizu kimono, the daimyo army of Tokukang Ieichi, the musketeers of 2,000 men, the spears of 2,000 men, and the army of broadswords.

The other phalanx is the melee army of various countries wearing the uniforms of various countries, but equipped with plate armor and leather armor, which is also about 4,000 people.

On both sides of the six phalanxes, there was a team of Portuguese lancers, about 500 people, wearing half-body chest armor and helmets similar to the lightning rods of the Ming and Qing armies, but their helmets were completely covered, not the open helmets that the Qing army and the Ming army learned.

In the middle of the phalanx, there were two pikemen phalanxes, one was the Spanish pikemen phalanx, and the other was the Dutch Changge phalanx, each about 1,600 people.

The British phalanx was followed by the British cavalry, similar to the chassars of the Huaxia Army, about 800 men, and the cavalry was followed by artillery units, about 30 cannons ranging from six-pounder to twelve-pounder guns.

On the other side of the formation was the common Portuguese and Dutch artillery unit, which also had about thirty cannons, and the format was different, but it can be roughly guessed that it was also a six-pounder to a twelve-pounder gun.

In this way, the combined Portuguese force is about 20,000 people.

It is more than four times the total strength of the Huaxia Army.

The strength of the Huaxia army that can go into battle, plus the support troops that rushed in, is only more than 5,800 people, and the more than 1,000 Ming troops have to take care of more than 30,000 prisoners, and they also have to guard the camp and the wounded, so they don't need to participate.

There are a lot of cavalry here, but Zhang Qiang can't make so many people into cavalry, and they have to organize a musket team.

Three hundred intelligence officers plus some remaining lightly wounded formed two musket teams of 100 households, and the remaining strength of the dragoon battalion could also organize a musket team of more than 400 people, and the chaser battalion of more than 800 people, which was completely a musket battalion. The scout battalion and the lancer battalion, together with a few lightly wounded, formed a cavalry battalion of six hundred men, which were divided into two sides.

The field brigade that arrived had more than 500 cavalry, a total of more than 1,000 cavalry, which was a huge disparity in strength compared to the enemy's nearly 2,000 cavalry.

This field brigade can organize a four-battalion musket team of 2,000 men, and the remaining 600 men form a melee force to prepare for hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons.

As always, Zhang Qiang always needed a personal guard, and he only had ten chasseurs, ten dragoons, and thirty elite cavalry guards from the field brigade by his side.

The artillery brigade has its own escort team, although it is only one hundred households, and it is equipped with bows and crossbows, as well as a pikemen unit of more than a dozen people.

The artillery brigade had only 600 men, carrying 10 6-pounder guns and 10 12-pounder guns, plus a few dozen men from 100 households of engineers and 100 households of baggage, but it had just arrived at 700 men.

These dozens of men operated some captured British artillery, three nine-pounder guns and three twelve-pounder guns, to form another artillery hundred, a small number of people, but it was also a last resort.

The artillery brigade is not very complete, and it can't even carry too much, too heavy artillery, because of the hurry, a lot of gunpowder and shells are discarded, gunpowder and shells are not much, maybe only one round, the British and Spanish discarded cannons are different caliber and gunpowder, can not be universal, this restricts the firepower of the Huaxia Army, can only rely on the Huaxia Army's musket units to make contributions.

Three thousand six hundred musket troops, one thousand one thousand cavalry, a total of more than five thousand three hundred troops capable of fighting, and the rest were some wounded who could not fight and the necessary soldiers to guard the camp.

30,000 captives, do you really think that after the outbreak of the war, with more than 1,000 remnants of the Ming army can be suppressed, Zhang Qiang does not dare to gamble, the back is chaotic, his troops' operations will be affected, no matter how elite a unit is, how can it fight, the back road is broken, that is a taboo on the battlefield, he can't be careless, leaving a force of nearly 400 people to help the Ming army Su Zhengqing to suppress those prisoners.

"Knock-knock-knock——," The drum beat became slow and depressing.

Because the two armies had already completed a journey of thousands of meters, they met in the center of the battlefield, in a relatively flat middle ground.

Two hundred meters apart, the cannons of both sides quickly passed through the gap between the phalanxes, lined up in front, separated, quickly unloaded the cannons, and then began to reload nervously.

The moment it stopped, the drums of war became longer and slower, and both sides looked ready to go.

At this time, both Zhang Qiang and the people around him were breathing heavily, after all, this was the first frontal musket duel between the East and the West in the long river of history, whether the Western army as the master won, or the new army of the Eastern Ming Dynasty as an apprentice won, the result will be revealed today.

At this moment, even Zhang Qiang, who is a traverser, does not dare to say that he will definitely win, after all, no one knows the future.

The Portuguese governor Schroeder was also worried, and he was really tired of this Ming army called the Huaxia Army, 100,000, he and his coalition army collected nearly 80,000 cannon fodder troops, plus their own regular army soldiers, a full 100,000 troops, just like that, they didn't kill this damn Huaxia Army for two days, crippled, and beat them to the point that they didn't know them.

He squinted at the phalanx next to him on the side of the Dutch governor Eichi. It's much neater than their side, and the soldiers are much better equipped, I really envy these guys from the merchant alliance, so rich, they used to be glorious in Portugal, but they are not so rich, so losers, can you not make the soldiers so spirited, they look so powerful.

Look at the lifeless Spanish phalanx in the distance, all of them are still holding heavy arquebuses with fork stands, and now even they Portuguese know how to change the sophisticated arquebuses, especially their imitation of the Huaxia Army's Jingai-1 arquebus, advanced, compared to the Spaniards, the arquebuses of the former Portuguese father country are much more advanced.

As long as he defeats the Huaxia Army this time, what he wants most is the firearms workshop of the Huaxia Army, what is the Huaxia Army called?

Arsenal, yes, arsenal, he is going to move all the arsenals of the Huaxia Army to the Trench Gate Realm, and send them back to the Portuguese mainland in the future, then he can escape from this place, and the mainland is much better than this place.

Britain let you, as always, still adhere to their gentlemanly demeanor, wearing a military uniform like a red robe, wearing a thick hat like a bear, whether it is hot or not, this is the south, the south of the Ming Dynasty, the coldest time of the year is only a few degrees below zero, and the hottest time can heat people to death, although it has been cold in recent years, but there is no need to wear such a high hat, such a thick hat, he really thought that those soldiers would be fainted by the hat heat when they were not in battle.

"Prepare ——," their vanguard officers all raised their command knives vigorously and shouted loudly.

This woke up the gossip of Governor Schroeder, and he glanced at the entire Portuguese ranks, and after several troop transfers, all the capable native troops from the Portuguese in Malacca, as well as the Western mercenary troops collected, finally organized this huge Western lineup.

He nodded to the herald beside him, and the herald immediately raised the command knife in his hand, swung it hard, and then, like a chain reaction, the heralds in the distance waved the command knife one by one, and then - the cannon went off.

The artillerymen under the protection of the phalanx on both flanks opened fire one after another, and at a distance of 200 meters, even a six-pounder gun could easily penetrate the enemy's lineup.

The opposing artillery also opened fire.

The shells of both sides arrived in each other's lineup almost simultaneously.

It's just that the lineup of the Huaxia Army is relatively large, and the formation is relatively sparse, so there are many fewer casualties, and after the shells bounce several times in a row on the somewhat soft ground that has been beaten by more than half a month of fighting, after killing and wounding a few soldiers, the helpless words on the ground are steaming hot, turning and stopping.

More than 60 shells caused damage to the Huaxia army of about 100 people.

This was already a great deal of damage to the Huaxia army, which was only close to 6,000 people, and the Huaxia army team was in a panic, but immediately recovered.

And Schroeder's side still maintains this dense formation, although the Huaxia Army's artillery shells are only more than 30, the distance they can fly is too far.

Their shells did not bounce on the ground, but flew straight into the Spanish formation, directly causing huge damage to the Spanish formation from three directions, left, center and right.

Like a piercing spear, it passed directly through the chests of four or five soldiers, and then smashed heavily on the ground in the gap where the panicked soldiers dodged behind, bounced up again, cut off the heads of two soldiers, pierced through the arms of one soldier, and took the lives of several soldiers, before smashing on the ground again, bounced again, this time directly piercing the loose formation behind, smashed the arquebuses in the soldiers and their hands into parts, bounced on the ground again, flew diagonally to other places, and hit the artillery position, After smashing the gun carriage of a cannon, he reluctantly stopped.

Thirty shells, each of which performed so well, took away the soldiers, killed and wounded, more than double the shells of the allied artillery on the Portuguese side, and at least one took the lives of more than twenty to thirty Spanish soldiers.

Panicked the densely packed Spanish phalanx.

After the exhaustive pressure of dozens of British cavalry behind and the roar of the Spanish officer, it took about a minute to successfully suppress and stabilize the troops, and this time the Spanish troops lost more than 300 soldiers, which was more than double the blow of the Chinese army by the Allied artillery.

"Knock knock," the snare drum began to grow stronger, which was the rhythm of the offense.

(End of chapter)