Although the lead bullet from the Franc cannon had a much longer range than musket lead bullets, reaching 500 meters, it was an effective range. Because of the poor airtightness of the Franc aircraft, the effective killing range is within 300 meters. Although it can't wear armor at a distance of 500 meters, it is extremely powerful against unprotected horses.

The horses of the first cavalry were hit by lead bullets, the war horse is a very sensitive and fragile animal, and there is an instinctive fear of the kind of white smoke and loud noises, and now they have been hit by a lot of lead bullets on their bodies, although it is not fatal but it really hurts!

Therefore, the horses of the first cavalry threw off the knights on their backs and fled. And these hapless knights didn't even have a chance to scream, and were trampled into pulp by the horse team behind them.

Immediately after that, the cavalry of the Qing army entered within 300 meters, that is, the lethal range of the Franc machine, and now the dense lead bullets emitted by the Franc machine began to really threaten the life of the knight.

Most of the cavalry that followed Wu Sangui today are the garrisons of the Qing army in Shaanxi, and there has always been no shortage of horses in the northwest because of the geographical relationship, and the riding skills of these cavalry are also okay. But the northwest is now poor jingle chaos, the army is almost eating human flesh, naturally the cavalry does not have any good equipment, some officials and ancestral armor can be worn, the best for small soldiers is a leather armor, most of the soldiers are wearing cloth clothes. Naturally, there is no need to be afraid of such equipment against the Northwest Peasant Army, which is also a turtle, but it is not enough to look at the Ming Army, which is armed to the teeth.

In order to ensure the intensity of firepower, the cavalry of the Ming army had a Franc cannon every ten meters in the front, this kind of cannon poured fire at a rate of four rounds per minute, and at the same time, the muskets of the Ming cavalry also began to fire, and for a time the Qing army's charging team was firmly blocked fifty meters away from the battle line, and it was impossible to attack it.

Wu Sangui in the middle saw that the cavalry attack on both wings was blocked, but he didn't expect the firepower of the Ming army to be so dense, five or six times stronger than the firepower of the Ming army he was familiar with. It's a pity that these cavalry brought today are all Shaanxi cavalry, and the equipment is not good, if they are all wearing heavy armor like the Manchurian Eight Banners, they should have some resistance to the Ming army's firearms.

When Wu Sangui was thinking, his middle road also met the middle of the Ming army, Wu Sangui's own cavalry of the Chinese army were all brought out by him from Liaodong, and the equipment was better than the Qing army in Shaanxi on a higher level, ordinary cavalry at least had a cotton armor, as the most elite eight thousand Liaodong iron cavalry in the cotton armor There is also a layer of chain mail, which has a miraculous effect against the firearms of the Ming army.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, because of the extensive use of firearms, the heavy armor such as Mingguang armor and Shanwen armor of the previous generation has been eliminated, because the solid armor cannot resist the shooting of muskets. On the contrary, this kind of lightweight cotton armor was popularized in the Ming army. There are many history buffs who think that equipping cotton armor is simply the imperial court has no money to equip armor, so as to get some cotton to fool the front-line soldiers, but this is actually wrong.

According to the record of the "Wubei Zhi" at the end of the Ming Dynasty, cotton armor, seven catties of cotton, with cloth in the jacket, the thick thread is sewn tightly, soaked in water, taken out to pave the ground, with the feet down-to-earth, no longer fat and swollen for the degree, dried. Cotton armor is divided into two categories: cotton-iron composite armor and pure cotton armor. If they are compared to the body armor equipped by modern armies, cotton armor is equivalent to the Kevlar outer skin part of body armor; Cotton-iron composite armor is equivalent to Kevlar's outer skin with ceramic inserts.

Cotton-iron composite armor is divided into dark armor and bright armor, the appearance of dark armor is no different from ordinary cotton clothing, in fact, it is either embedded with iron sheets in the lining with bubble nails, or between the inner layers of cotton sheets clamped with chain iron mesh to increase the protective performance. The Ming armor is based on the cotton gall, and the sheet metal iron sheet is connected to it in the form of a garment, or the iron mesh is directly wrapped outside the cotton gall, which is the Ming armor. Taking the cotton armor of the Ming Dynasty as an example, the weight of a collar of cotton-iron composite armor is about thirty-five to forty catties. As the name suggests, pure cotton armor is completely composed of molded cotton pads and weighs only about fifteen to twenty catties.

These cotton armors are the standard equipment of the Liaodong Army because they have iron armor inside to defend against the muskets of the Ming army, and cotton outside to protect them from the cold. Originally, Wu Sangui was invincible with these wolf-like Liaodong troops, but today he encountered a hard bone here in Shandong.

Because the Ming army used improved gunpowder, Zhu Hongsan directly took the best gunpowder to the Ming Dynasty, this gunpowder is very powerful, has reached the peak of black * gunpowder, under the blessing of this * projectile, although the Franc cannon is somewhat tightly sealed, but the lead bullet fired out is not a layer of cotton armor can resist. Therefore, Wu Sangui's Chinese army, like the other two directions, was blocked by the firearms of the Ming army fifty meters away.

When the front line was in a stalemate, there was a unit in the rear of the Ming army, which was watching the excitement for a long time, and this unit was the cuirassier heavy cavalry that Zhu Hongsan spent a lot of effort on.

Zhu Hongsan really spent his wife for this unit, and the silver dollars spent by this 2,000-strong cavalry were enough to build a new warship of more than 1,000 tons. In addition to the fact that the horses were all imported war horses, even the armor of the soldiers also cost a lot of money. Zhu Hongsan equipped each of these people with full-body armor, and the most important breastplate was polished, reflecting the sun's rays from a hundred meters away, as bright as a mirror. The cuirass was lined with silk to prevent it from being pierced by the Mongols' throwing bows and arrows.

In addition to the cuirplate is stamped and integrally formed, the other parts of the shawl, armor sleeve, front file, and left file are all made of Shanwen armor, and the triangular iron pieces are interspersed and stacked together, and then inlaid on the leather armor with iron buckles. Shanwen armor is the pinnacle of Chinese scale armor, this armor has a miraculous effect against bows and arrows, but the disadvantage is the same, it is too expensive. Zhu Hongsan, who spent money and was as wealthy as he was, could only use Shanwen armor in the corners to work, and use labor-saving and material-saving plate armor in the torso.

In addition to the muskets that are standard with dragoons, these heavy cavalry weapons are also equipped with two double-barreled muskets, sabers, etc., and some cavalrymen are from Li Chengdong's old rogue background, and they are also personally equipped with heavy weapons such as meteor hammers. In this way, each soldier weighed nearly 400 catties including armor, weapons, and himself, and the thin Mongolian horse of the past could not move at all.

Of course, the Andalusian horses selected by Zhu Hongsan for them can be carried, but they can only be used in battle, and these heavy cavalry are separated from people and equipment when marching normally, equipped with a horse and a horse for people.

Today, these people have put on their armor, but they did not get on their horses, but stood on a hill five hundred meters away from the Ming army to watch the excitement.

Zhao Hu was wearing a black mountain armor, he was the emperor's son-in-law, so he naturally didn't need to use simple armor, a black iron mountain armor, with a physique like a chimpanzee, standing on the hill like a giant spirit god.

Zhao Hu's deputy Zhu Ren said beside him: "Deputy marshal, it looks like we're going to go!" "Zhu Ren is one of the four sworn friends who followed Zhao Hu to Annan to serve as a soldier, when Zhao Hu was transferred back to lead the troops alone, he immediately transferred these four people to his subordinates, and now these four people are all capable middle-level officers under Zhao Hu.

Zhao Hu looked at the battle in front of him, nodded and said, "It's almost over, the momentum of the Qing army is exhausted, and it's our turn!" Tell the press and get everyone ready to go! ”

The Andalusian horse from Spain is one of the best war horses, with a shoulder height of 1.8 meters, which is much taller than the Mongolian horse, which is only 1.31 meters 4 meters tall. The heavy cavalry selected by Zhu Hongsan are also more than 1.7 meters tall, which is a strong man in the Ming Dynasty.

Because of Zhao Hu's heavy body, he himself is almost three hundred pounds, and with the armor, the Andalusian horse really can't move him. But don't worry, this is the first era of globalization, and China doesn't have heavy war horses, but Europe has! The Spanish merchants knew that the Chinese emperor was willing to spend a lot of money on war horses, and immediately shipped all kinds of war horses from Europe to China, including the English Shire horses.

The Shire horse that Zhao Hu rode was just over five years old, and he was in the prime of life, with a height of three meters and a height of two meters at the shoulders, which was one head taller than the two-meter Zhao Hu. When this horse first arrived, it immediately became a scene in the city of Guangzhou, and no one had ever seen such a big horse, which was already comparable to some Asian elephants.

Zhao Hu's personal soldiers led the elephant to Zhao Hu, Zhao Hu patted its huge horse's head affectionately, and said with a smile: "Man, I'm going to see your power today!" After Zhao Hu finished speaking, he got on the horse with the help of his own soldiers.

At this time, the battle in front was still going on, and the Qing army's attack had been completely resisted by the dragoons, and the cavalry lost speed and was slaughtered. Zhao Hu saw his subordinates get on their horses one after another, rode their favorite horses to the front, and said loudly: "In front is Wu Sangui's Liaodong Iron Cavalry, the cavalry that claims to be the only one that can fight against the Manchu Eight Banners, and now we have to deal with them!" But this is not the last battle, the Liaodong iron cavalry that defeated Wu Sangui will go to find the Manchu Eight Banners, and then go to the steppe to see if the Mongols are still as brave and good at fighting as Genghis Khan, and let them see that my Ming cavalry is not vegetarian! ”

Zhao Hu's two thousand subordinates shouted: "Please rest assured, general! We're so well equipped, it's not easy to deal with them! ”

Zhao Hu nodded and began to enter the battlefield with two thousand heavy cavalry.

Because this heavy cavalry was in the rear of the Ming army, they had to move to the flank before they could attack. Zhao Hu first led the horse team to walk slowly, then walked quickly to warm up, and finally slowly increased his speed, and when he bypassed the large square of the Ming army, he accelerated the horse speed to the fastest and rushed towards the flank of the Qing army.

Wu Sangui was in the middle of the battlefield at this time, he didn't expect why the Ming army, which had collapsed in one rush, would not retreat? Now that this battle has been fought in the mud, how can this be good?

Wu Sangui was just about to order the army to bypass the Ming army formation and attack the rear behind them, when he heard a thunderous vibration from the ground. You must know that Wu Sangui is on the battlefield now, and all kinds of voices come and go, how loud can you say that he can hear.