As the skirmishers advanced, the line infantry behind them also began to accelerate. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The Info Model Army adopted the typical skirmisher tactics of later generations, and the skirmisher line soon advanced to no more than seventy or eighty paces from the Spanish phalanx, and the stragglers opened fire in a half-kneeling position, and as their gunfire and thick puffs of white smoke rose, soldiers continued to fall to the ground on the outer layer of the Spanish phalanx. However, the Spaniards could not stop and counterattack, because if they stopped, they were likely to be shelled again, and if they were fired by artillery a few more rounds like just now, they would have collapsed directly without engaging the Chinese infantry.

However, the Spaniards' formation was shaken by the constant killing and wounding of the stragglers. It is really a morale-hurting thing to get beaten upright and upright but difficult to fight back.

The improved Spanish phalanx also had detachments for skirmishes, but they were not skirmishers but independent companies (a Spanish company of about 300 men at this time) was still fought in formation. The detachments of the Spaniards also did not have the ability to disperse the battle. The flexibility to use is also far from comparable to that of the skirmishers.

However, although the detachment was not actually suitable for dealing with the stragglers, at this time, the only countermeasure that the Spaniards could come up with was to use this detachment to expel the Chinese stragglers.

Soon, the detachment was dispatched, and they broke away from the phalanx, first advancing at a faster pace, and then standing still and firing at nearby skirmishers to cover the phalanx's advance.

It's just that the detachment of 300 people is actually a shrunken phalanx in essence, and the detachment has all the weaknesses of the phalanx. The phalanx is highly concentrated, and the area that can be controlled is naturally smaller, and the detachment is the same, so the detachment cannot completely block the attack of the stragglers on the formation. If the phalanx stops for a salvo, the highly nimble skirmishers will immediately retreat, with only one or two skirmishers shooting at the edge of range, and once the phalanx has fired a shot, the balladeers who have loaded their bullets from a safe distance will quickly approach and fire at the phalanx. This dilemma is the same here in the detachment. Although the detachment used the method of sectional firing in order to maintain the continuity of fire, temporarily pushing the stragglers a little farther away, it soon became serious that another problem posed by the continuous sectional firing became serious. That's the fog of the battlefield caused by constant shooting.

All the muskets of this era used black powder, and as for the smokeless gunpowder that we are more accustomed to in later generations, it will take hundreds of years to have it. Guns that use black powder produce a thick smoke of gunpowder when they are fired. Several successive rounds of guns would create a layer of smoke in front of the shooter that would obscure the view, and at the time, this smoke was called battlefield fog.

Once the fog of the battlefield appears, the detachment cannot observe whether the enemy skirmishers are approaching or not. Nor can it make effective aiming and shooting. But for the enemy's skirmishers, this problem does not exist, because although the enemy's detachment is shrouded in the fog of war and they can't see where the opponent is, but, after all, the phalanx of the detachment is a big target, and the general position is still easy to judge, so just shoot at the general position, as for whether it hit William or Charles, to be honest, the skirmishers have no opinion on this.

In order to get out of this predicament, the detachment had to move out of the fog of war before it could continue to fight effectively, and in the process, in order to maintain its formation, the detachment was also unable to shoot. So they had to endure the attack of the Chinese stragglers on the opposite side for a while, and then they could stand up and prepare to counterattack, and then it was another cycle.

And at this time, an even bigger blow fell from the sky. Just now, the Spanish cavalry received a heavy blow.

The cavalry of the Spanish colony of Manila had been trying to pin down the Model Army's artillery, approaching at high speed and then quickly turning back from outside the effective range of the shotguns. The Model Army's artillery fired two shots at them, but the solid shells they fired did not provide any effective damage to the high-speed Spanish cavalry.

"Change the shrapnel and show those Spanish buns. Let them also know that both infantry and cavalry are scum in front of our artillery! Zhang Qingxi shouted.

With the application of more and more new technologies in artillery, coupled with the fact that artillery requires a lot of mathematical knowledge, the proportion of military academy graduates in artillery is higher than that of other arms, and in the artillery of the model army, the so-called "artillery" idea has become popular, and once, Zheng Sen's joke that "high-tech warfare is artillery warfare" made them even more proud, and now, some officers, such as Zhang Qingxi, have clearly put forward that the army's combat should be based on artillery in the discussion of tactics, whether infantry, or cavalry, the first task in battle should be to provide assistance to the artillery attack.

The soldiers began to shake the muzzle of their guns, carefully reloaded the shrapnel and began to arrange the fuses according to the calculations. Zhang Qingxi carefully observed the pattern of each movement of the Spanish cavalry and judged the most favorable position for shelling. Zhang Qingxi noticed that each time the Spanish cavalry turned around, it would run sideways for a while, and then turn again to return to the starting position. And after the second turn, they turned their backs to themselves, and they also slowed down noticeably because they were not within the range of the shotgun, plus in order to save horsepower. He felt that this was a good time to cover these cavalry with a round of shrapnel.

The Spanish cavalry crashed headlong into the trap, and the shrapnel fired from five cannons killed more than twenty cavalrymen at once, including the Spanish cavalry captain. Such a blow beyond the imagination of the Spaniards immediately destroyed the will of the Spanish cavalry to fight, and after that, the mounted infantry of the Model Army once again mounted their horses and launched a round of attacks on the Spanish cavalry, and the Spanish cavalry, which had much better horses, did not meet the battle, but ran directly.

The disappearance of the threat of the Spanish cavalry allowed the artillery of the Model Army to turn their attention back to the attack on the Spanish phalanx. For the Spanish phalanx, which was easier to hit, Zhang Qingxi was reluctant to use howitzers, but re-attacked with solid shells, but the depth of the Spanish phalanx with a thickness of 20 lines also made the solid shells also have great lethality.

At this time, the Spanish artillery barely rushed over. In order to fight the Chinese in the field, the Spaniards brought a batch of 3-pounder guns from the country before the war. This cannon was entirely modeled after the Swedes' regimental guns, and although it was lightweight, it had a limited range, and when using shotguns, it was not even much farther than a flintlock musket. Therefore, before these artillery pieces were in place, they were constantly attacked by the stragglers of the Model Army, and had to get caught up in the battle with the stragglers, and did not care about supporting the phalanx at all.

As a result, the Spanish phalanx had to advance under constant shelling, each of which resulted in hundreds of casualties. Even in later generations, few armies could withstand such casualties, and after only three rounds of shelling, the Spanish phalanx began to break up.

"Xiao Chang, our cannon is playing well." Zheng Zhihu happily looked at the Spaniards in front of him who were dizzy by the cannonball, "I think they can't hold it anymore, we should be able to defeat them with one charge." ”

Chang Le hurriedly said: "What the second general said is true. Now it's time to charge. ”

The offensive method of the model army is also very unique in the eyes of the people of this era, and the model army does not maintain a strict horizontal formation, but adopts the column method when advancing. This practice originally appeared after the French Revolution. Large horizontal formations (including diagonal horizontal formations) often lead to scattered formations in order to advance quickly, and it is also difficult to change formations during the march. After the French Revolution, they were besieged throughout Europe, and in order to deal with these intervention forces, the French made extensive use of ill-trained volunteers. Although these volunteers were courageous, they were not well trained and could not maintain a tight horizontal line on the battlefield. Therefore, the French invented the method of advancing in columns, and then quickly expanding into horizontal formations after approaching the enemy, and it was found that this method not only made the infantry move faster, but also greatly reduced the accuracy of the enemy's shots before they approached the enemy. The brave volunteers could even use the column to resist the enemy's fire all the time, rushing to a distance of only about 30 meters from the enemy, and then quickly spread out a horizontal formation and give the opponent a volley. Since the invention of this hand by the French, this trick has been widely studied and has become one of the standard tactics of the era of queue shooting.

The Model Army naturally learned this most advanced method of warfare, and when they advanced towards the Spaniards, they did so in a company (Zheng Sen was influenced by modern times, and their company was much smaller than that of the Spaniards, only about a hundred men. Charge forward in columns, and then, after the commander gives the order, unfold into a horizontal formation. Then, according to the style of the lobster soldiers of the later generations, they fired a volley at close range, and then charged with bayonets.

"What are they going to do?" Looking at the infantry rushing up, Zhang Qingxi shook his head, "When they rush up, Lao Tzu will bombard those guys again, and those Spaniards should also disperse." What else can they do when they rush up? ”

In fact, just as Zhang Qingxi predicted, during the time when the infantry was approaching the Spaniards, his artillery fired another round, and as a result, the Spanish phalanx was really blown apart. From the beginning of the battle, the Spaniards were constantly smashed by shells, beaten by stragglers, and then smashed by shells, and had already suffered almost a quarter of casualties, and in such a situation, until the opponent's infantry launched a charge, it collapsed, which can already be regarded as showing tenacity.