Before the battle, Xiao Xuan had determined the idea of this battle in the military discussion, that is, the artillery should leave room when firing, and fire at the enemy at about a quarter of the full speed, and the infantry would still only use archers to resist the enemy's attack when the enemy was approaching. Unless the enemy's combat effectiveness is far from unusual or beyond expectations, in that case, the central command will also signal the whole army to use its full firepower if necessary, and even begin to use some of the rear hands that have been prepared in case of a crisis situation.

Therefore, not long after Wallenstein ordered the artillery bombardment to begin, Xiao Xuan also ordered the artillery of each team to launch heavy fire. The 200 200-pound light field guns also fired in turn to produce a rather terrifying firepower, and in the first minute after the start of the battle, the number of enemy troops suppressed by three rounds of fire and tens of thousands of heavy shotguns, which was not very large, greatly reduced the efficiency of artillery fire.

The increasingly accurate shelling also surprised Wallenstein and the Swedes who were in charge of the battle. I didn't expect the gunnery of these Orientals to be so good, that they could almost be compared with the best Swedish gunners in Europe at this time. Of course, the enemy seems to have made a huge mistake by wasting too much firepower on long-range engagements to suppress their own artillery.

Artillery is a firearm that is difficult to continuously deploy a high rate of fire, and after surviving the first three minutes of heavy shelling, Wallenstein's army, together with the Poles and Swedes in other directions, gradually approached those strong eastern enemies, and launched a fierce fire with muskets at a limit distance of about 150 paces or 200 meters or so from heavy muskets.

Wallenstein, who had some knowledge of the Ottomans, who were similar to the powerful enemies of the East, was also well aware of the weakness of the Eastern armies in the traditional sense, that is, the lack of strict discipline.

Indeed, as Wallenstein had predicted, the Eastern army did not accept a one-sided firearm attack, but shielded its troops from too severe fire with a slanted steel shield. One side launched a fierce counterattack with archers. The arrows fired by those men seemed to be markedly different from the Turks' assault. The Turks rarely fired back at this distance, and the arrows fired by the Easterners were more like those of the English longbowmen.

Although the arrows on the continuous projectile distance did not cause much damage to Wallenstein's skirmishers, they also interfered with the musketeers' shooting for a while. In addition, no one had expected that the enemy in the east would carry steel shields to counteract the threat of firearms at this distance, just like the Spaniards. Therefore, after learning the strength and nature of the enemy force in front of him, Wallenstein quickly ordered the cavalry to launch a fierce assault to test the effectiveness of the archers at close range.

Having heard a lot of battles in Europe, the European cavalry at this time was also quite experienced, and did not choose to rush straight as soon as they came up, but moved along the front of the opponent's formation as much as possible and constantly attacked the opponent with firearms, and then launched a decisive charge with the assault cavalry when the opponent's attention was completely focused on those pistol cavalry.

However, what Wallenstein did not expect was that the cavalry strand, which should have been difficult to be hit by bows and arrows, suffered heavy casualties in the face of the bows and arrows of these eastern enemies. The accuracy of the opponent's projectile seems to be much inferior to that of the legendary longbowmen, but when shooting at such a mid-range moving cavalry target, it seems to have some unique talent.

In this case, the decisive cavalry assault had to be carried out in advance. When the massive cavalry charge approached in the direction of the Volunteer First Division like a flood that lasted for two or three miles, the archers also launched a fierce counterattack with accurate and skillful one-stone-two-bucket or one-stone-three-bucket bows.

Bows and arrows were not good weapons to contain cavalry assaults, crossbows and arrows were. However, in the face of well-trained and very skilled archers in the true sense, the power of almost every arrow does not seem to be much inferior to the divine arm crossbow of the two or three stones of the two and three stone in the Song Dynasty, and it often has higher accuracy. All of a sudden, it seemed that the scene of Cressy hundreds of years ago was starting to play out again. Because most of the European armies of this era gave up full-body armor protection, to some extent, they were far from being comparable to the French army at the Battle of Agincourt more than 200 years ago. In front of the well-trained archers alone, the concentrated cavalry assault, which seemed to have a strong offensive energy, suffered heavy casualties.

Even if there were a few lucky men who were close to the enemy, they were quickly lost under the fire of many steel spears and even firearms and bows. Wallenstein saw that the tentative attacks of the cavalry had suffered such a major setback, and he quickly stopped allowing the army to continue the attack.

The loss of this tentative attack was not small, but it also made the advantages and lives of this eastern army begin to be effectively exposed, that is, the effect of relying too much on the strength of shotguns and even bows and arrows. As long as the lightly protected hoplites were to strike at night, the enemy's seemingly formidable formation was likely to be easily routed.

Although there were few full-body armor on the European battlefields of this era, Warsaw still had a lot of full-body armor accessories and armaments for the arming of the limbs, and although the number of suitable ones could only arm a few thousand officers and soldiers, it was also a force to be reckoned with. There are even more shields made of steel.

In this way, after thorough preparations, the offensive of the Catholic coalition began again the next day, just after dark. This time, at the beginning, it was still a curtain wall composed of loose cavalry, which was sheltered at sixty or seventy paces, so that the hoplites suddenly appeared in front of the opponent in a very short time in order to maximize the killing effect.

Unlike many ancient traditional armies, the volunteer divisions were also a team with the necessary knowledge of warfare, and when they saw the silver-shining hoplites attacking with metal shields, the gunners of each company who had already prepared them launched fierce fire and counterattack.

Unlike the traditional musketeers, the fire of the guns of the various units of the volunteer division was much calmer even in the case of battle, as if firing on the training ground, and almost in a short period of time, many people who seemed to have complete equipment and protection were knocked down under the heavy gun fire, and the entire enemy heavy unit had to start to retreat under this situation.

(End of chapter)