The Jianzhou ironclad cavalry that launched the assault operation this time was only about 1,000 horses in total, but they were divided into at least a dozen rows in depth, and each row was no more than a dozen horses. It was not only the cavalry that had armor, but also the fronts of the horses. Ancient Chinese armor developed to the late Ming Dynasty, and it was somewhat advanced in form compared with the Tang and Song dynasties. Not only the upper arms are armoured, but also the inner arms are surrounded by rings. It's not just that the Eight Banners soldiers in film and television just have armor on their bodies, and their faces also have the iron face of the Immortal Army in "Stealing Ming". The fact that the Ming army was unable to produce armor of acceptable quality did not mean that the Jianzhou army could not advance the armor to a peak before the appearance of plate armor.

In the first row of Jianzhou, dozens of iron riders were wide and narrow, from far to near, and approached obliquely to a distance of about 100 paces. The teenagers on the left side of the dense hollow phalanx also began to unfold one after another, leaning on the chariot formation to launch their arrows.

However, this method of warfare, which was very useful for dealing with ordinary Jianzhou light cavalry and even the peasant army, had almost no effect on the approaching Jianzhou iron cavalry. Except for the fierce sporadic cannon fire at a distance of about one or two hundred paces, which caused some of the opponent's men and horses to fall, the thousands of arrows that were fired one after another in a short period of time did not seem to have seen even a single figure of the opposite ironclad cavalry falling, and almost a short time after that, the ironclad cavalry's return fire arrived.

Just as no one required armoured cavalry to be melee cavalry, Polish hussars were often equipped with firearms. These all-ironclad Jianzhou cavalry also skillfully deployed heavy arrows to fire sideways when they approached a distance of less than thirty paces, and the crossover heavy arrows quickly caused a series of casualties among the officers and men of the guards on the left flank. Most of them had to retreat under the tremendous pressure of the Jianzhou army, as if they were very familiar with the Jianzhou Iron Cavalry and had seen it more than once in the Ming army.

Just as the swarming Jianzhou Iron Cavalry controlled the entire left flank of the large array with cross-side fire, the Jianzhou hoplites carrying shields under the cover of the cavalry also gathered from other directions at the fastest speed through horses.

The infantry often rode horses and could use horses, and the strength was also superior, so that the Jianzhou army, which was not bad at command, gave full play to its own strength, and skillfully concentrated the elite on the entire battlefield for decisive assaults.

At this moment, the elite of the Guards Guards' Guards Battalion, who was lying low in the dead corner position close to the car formation, began to use dozens of rows of sophisticated firearms that had long been filled with gunpowder and iron arrows to shoot at the Jianzhou Iron Cavalry, which planned to get close to the position of the car formation for more than ten to twenty meters to launch a more severe side fire, and the continuous fierce fire also caused the Jianzhou Iron Cavalry in the first row to lose more than 20 horses and more than 10 people. However, in a farther position, most of the crossbow steel arrows of firearms, which lacked tail stability and no rotation stability, slapped horizontally on those iron riders, and could not effectively kill.

Seeing this, the Manchurian army finally felt the hope of breaking the formation. When the armored infantry carried a variety of special ladders, mines, short cannons and other tools and firearms specially used to break through the Ming army's vehicle formation. Although the car shield did not have time to be transferred, in order to prevent the threat posed by the opponent's less powerful firearms and arrows to the greatest extent, the shields carried by many human beings also quickly stood up, and they approached at the fastest speed at a very close distance.

Almost at the same time, in order to contain the forces in other directions, from the front to the entire right flank, the Jianzhou army was almost fully engaged in the final stage of the onslaught. Relying on the rain of sharp arrows fired by strong archers and the projectiles fired by short cannon gunners that were almost ineffective to resist, the space of the entire army of more than 10,000 people was compressed from all directions.

The heavy arrows were also suddenly thrown into depth at this time, and even the guards battalion around Xiao Xuan began to fall in the heavy arrows of the Jianzhou army. The singing of "Song of the Defenders" also seems to have been affected. Whether it was Zhou Yufeng and Concubine Yuan, who were hiding in the coffin-like carriage, or Tian Xiuying, who accompanied Xiao Xuan as a personal soldier, they also seemed to realize that the last moment had come at this time.

"Your Majesty, is our army going to lose this battle?" Tian Xiuying asked in a low voice at this time.

"It's possible, but it shouldn't be now... Xiao Xuan said calmly. Then he again ordered the officers and soldiers who were observing the enemy situation to lift a young child into the air above the battlefield with a pole similar to a spear, and quickly let it go before the fierce rain of arrows pounced. The selected toddler reacted after a few seconds of great nervousness: "Enemy... Enemy... Most of the military brigades should have entered the firing range... Getting the news, Xiao Xuan quickly ordered the herald to shoot the prepared fireworks into the sky.

Just after that, more than 200 young elite soldiers under the cover of the car formation quietly opened the latch behind a small door under the shield of the side van car while bending their legs and lying flat, and opened the small door with a diameter of only about one foot. The outside of the small door still seems to be the shield of the van shield, but in one place, there is a fragile thin wooden board with less than a minute of thickness on the outside of the car shield. The internal force of the camouflage of the thin plank is a device like a leaky bottom iron pot.

How to fight a really strong opponent like the Jianzhou Army was something Xiao Xuan had been thinking about a year ago, and it was not a secret. It's just that in strict deduction, no matter what reliable method is adopted, the team that has formed an army for a year at most cannot be allowed to fight against the dominant force in strength, and the armor, bow and arrow, and the ability to cooperate with multiple arms are as powerful as Xiao Xuan's description. Of course, things like mines or grenades are also being considered. It's just that the effect of the black powder grenade in this era is extremely unsatisfactory, even if it is made as heavy as a shot put, it is not sure that it will constitute effective damage in the face of a truly reloaded opponent. And another important hidden danger is that the fuze cannot come up with a reliable solution in the East Asian environment at this time, and it is easy to be thrown back by the opponent, not to mention the situation that may not even be able to take the head in the face of a desperate melee situation.

After countless arguments and design modifications, I finally put my hope on the 10,000-strong enemy who weighed about 30 kilograms. With the power of firearms in East Asia at this time, the effective killing range of the "10,000 enemies" weighing more than 30 kilograms was only comparable to the power of a grenade of more than 600 grams according to the standard of the normal powers of World War II. It is still not very reliable to effectively kill and injure heavily armored and heavily protected targets with heavy shields. The solution is to make a "heavy shrapnel prefabricated fragmentation bomb" with half the volume of clay and several levels of heavy lead bullets, but the structure of the entire bomb is very fragile. Even throwing it from a height of one meter can easily break, so in the end, this is the only way to go.

Another advantage is that the blast attack is quite sudden and not easily thrown back. Xiao Xuan, who had experienced several actual battles, certainly understood the importance of the suddenness of this kind of weapon attack. One of the important reasons why grenades are not very effective on the modern battlefield is that they are easy to avoid the killing zone.

There's only one chapter left for the time being.。。。

(End of chapter)