A total of 50 large and small naval guns on the starboard side of the model army Sanjo battleship opened fire one after another, first of all, the battleship "Fuyuan" at the forefront of the fleet, and there were a total of 30 cannons on her two-tier gun deck against the starboard side. The bottom layer was a 24-pounder gun, and the top layer was an 18-pounder gun. The shelling began with gun emplacement No. 1 on the lower deck, followed by battery emplacement No. 3, then gun emplacement No. 5...... Flames and smoke came out of the cannon window with a steady and mesmerizing rhythm, like a string of firecrackers exploding one after the other.

In this shot, the cannons were all loaded with expensive shrapnels. Because of the shaking of the ship itself, it is always extremely difficult to aim the naval guns, and if you use ordinary solid shells to shell fast-moving targets such as cavalry, the hit rate will be very low. And ordinary shotguns are difficult to hit such a long distance, so to effectively hit these cavalry of the Qing army, in the arsenal of the model army, the most effective is only howlmanite.

If these cannons were erected on stable ground, fifty shrapnel shells would be enough to wipe out the cavalry of only two hundred men directly, as simple as erasing the handwriting on the blackboard with a blackboard. However, the ship's sway still seriously interfered with the accuracy of the artillery, and even if up to 50 cannons were fired together, even if they used shrapnel capable of delivering area strikes, the effect of the strike was still not too ideal. The walk of the shells was so great that fifty grenade shotguns did not form a dense network of fire, and most of the shells exploded at a great distance from the enemy troops, and as a result, nothing hit. Two more shells were more deflected and almost flew directly above the heads of the Marines, and although they did not cause casualties, they also startled the Marines.

This round of shooting only killed about twenty cavalrymen, such a loss, the Qing army of this era can still bear, they shouted, brandished their sabers, and continued to rush forward.

The stragglers of the Marines fired first at the Manchu cavalry. After firing this shot, they didn't look at the results of their shots, they just turned around and ran towards the back. The marines, who had originally spread out in a straggler formation, also quickly lined up into several hollow phalanxes in the sound of sharp whistles. The speed with which he stood in line stunned Sauron, who was watching the battle from the city walls. Sauron is also a battle-hardened veteran, and he is familiar with all kinds of battle formations. This kind of hollow phalanx, he had also seen something similar and knew the usefulness of this formation. In fact, the Ming army's car formation was somewhat similar to this, and even, in terms of the solidity of defense, it was far more than it. But he had never seen a team that could suddenly become such a phalanx in such a short period of time, from a seemingly scattered state. Even the most elite white-armored soldiers can't do this.

Seeing this change of formation, Sauron knew that the assault of those cavalry must have crashed into the iron plate. If the other party had been in such a formation a long time ago, he would naturally not let the cavalry rush up, just like there were few generals who would let the cavalry directly attack, even if it was the car formation of the Guanning army that could not fight. Because the horse is a very sensitive animal that is afraid of death, it will never directly hit the bright bayonet without covering its eyes. They will automatically bypass the bayonets, or even stop themselves. In this way, when the cavalry passed through the gap between the two phalanxes, they could only shoot with the cavalry bows in their hands and the flintlock muskets of the phalanx. In fact, the soft bow of the cavalry can hardly cause much damage to the opponent, and if the opponent is in good armor, such a shot is almost useless. But the bullets of the flintlock pistol were much more powerful. No kind of armor can stop the bullets of the flintlock pistol, and once it is hit, not to mention people, even war horses, they can't stand it. Therefore, such a phalanx that directly uses cavalry to attack the opponent is almost to send people to the head.

Of course, if the enemy army had put on such a formation from the beginning, Sauron would not have worried about anything at all, and the Qing army was still experienced in dealing with this kind of formation. In the Battle of the Hunhe River that year, the indestructible formation of the white pole soldiers also brought huge casualties to the Eight Banners Army. However, the Eight Banners Army quickly found the weakness of this formation, which was densely staffed and inconvenient to move, and bombarded it from a long distance with artillery, crushing the opponent's formation in one fell swoop, and won the battle of the Hunhe River. Later, when dealing with the Tianxiong Army's car formation, he seized its weakness that was difficult to move, and relied on the shield car cover to eliminate the Tianxiong Army in one fell swoop. So this kind of solid formation, Sauron is not afraid. But with such an improvisable formation, he didn't know how to deal with it at all.

"Perhaps, perhaps, we should bombard them with artillery while they are gathered." Sauron thought so, and before he could say anything, he heard the roar of cannons in his ears - the cannons on the batteries were firing, and the target was not the hollow phalanx of the marines, but the fleet next to them.

To say that the hit rate of this round of artillery shelling of the Qing army was actually not bad, at least four shells hit the "Fuyuan". But the effect is not very good. The bow of the warships of this era was the most sturdy, and the thick planks, combined with the angle of inclination, greatly increased the chance of ricocheting. The shells fired from the Niuzhuang Fort battery hit the bow of the "Fuyuan" and all of them bounced off, causing almost no effective damage.

In fact, this also reflects the lack of experience of the Qing army in attacking ships and related weapons. When facing the front of an enemy ship, it is difficult for a solid shell to penetrate the opponent's thick planks. The most suitable ammunition at this time should be chain bullets, from this angle, the chance of hitting the sail or even the mast with a chain bullet is much higher than usual, and if you are lucky, a few rounds of fire can make the opponent lose most of the ability to sail due to the damage of the sail, or even the broken mast. However, the Qing army was not equipped with chain bullets, a weapon specially prepared for attacking sails and masts in naval battles.

"Damn Nikan! Who told you to hit those boats? Why not hit their people! Sauron shouted angrily. Completely forgetting that it was he who gave the order to attack the opponent's warship, of course, it was not his fault, the reason why he gave such an order was completely misled by Cai Shiying's flag-raising Nikan, who believed that shooting warships was more efficient than shooting infantry. So, it's still the damn Nikan who is at fault.

"Master, the minions are going to let them use artillery to open up the battle formation?" A white-armored soldier beside Sauron.

"Forget it." Sauron shook his head, "The cavalry has already rushed up, and now they will fire their artillery, and it will hit our own people." ”

True, after receiving a round of artillery bombardment, the cavalry of the Qing army picked up speed and launched a charge in advance. Because although in the eyes of the model army, the effectiveness of this round of shelling is really low, but in the eyes of the Qing army, more than 20 people were killed in one round of shelling, so let it fight two or three rounds, so what is it?

The acceleration of the cavalry of the Qing army, on the one hand, avoided the second round of shelling of the fleet. On the other hand, it also made it impossible for his side to fire.

The Marines had formed four hollow phalanxes, the phalanx had three layers of soldiers, and the soldiers on the outermost layer were half-crouching, holding flintlock muskets with bayonets, and the bayonets were stretched outward, which made the whole phalanx like a porcupine, branching out the sharp thorns on its body. The soldiers in the second row, armed with loaded flintlock pistols, aimed at the rushing enemy.

The cavalry of the Qing army was getting closer and closer, and their horses clearly saw the cold and shining bayonets, so they automatically turned around and swept past the phalanx. Taking advantage of this opportunity, some of the Mongol riders unleashed their horses' bows and threw arrows at the landing crews. It's just that their arrows are too weak (on horses, the waist and abdomen are not easy to borrow, and they basically can't use a strong hard bow), and they can't even penetrate the felt skirts of the lower bodies of the marines, let alone the armor of the upper body. As for the heads, the Marines wore helmets, which even wore visor, which made them almost impossible to attack with bows and arrows.

The distance between the two sides was closer, almost only five or six meters, and the cavalry of the Qing army had already rushed into the corridor between the two phalanxes. Because of the distance, some Qing soldiers began to attack the phalanx with throwing weapons, and what flying swords and bones were thrown over one after another. These things are much more powerful than the soft bows of cavalry, and they can also cause no light damage when hit in poorly protected places, such as limbs.

At this moment, a long whistle sounded, and at the same time, a white smoke rose from the phalanx, and the soldiers of the Marine Corps launched a volley at the Qing cavalry who broke into the corridor between the phalanxes.

The distance between the two sides was quite close, so although those Qing soldiers were on horseback, the speed was fast, and it was not easy to hit, but this round of shooting still achieved good results.

After this round of firing, at least fifty more cavalrymen fell. Some of them were hit by bullets themselves and fell off their horses; In some cases, the horses were hit by bullets, and then even the men and horses fell to the ground. And such a blow also made the whole horse team messed up. Unlike the war horses of the model cavalry, these war horses of the Mongolian Eight Banners have not been trained in such an environment where there is gunsmoke everywhere, fire and explosions everywhere, so many war horses have a stress psychological disorder in such an environment, or rather, these war horses are scared out of neurosis. Some of them were so frightened that they stood there as if they were all four hooves, no matter how their owners roared, how they tapped their spurs with whips, they just didn't move. Some screamed and stood up on their two hind legs, so that the unprepared cavalry rolled to the ground at once, while others ran around but just didn't run outside. In short, the remaining hundred or so cavalry suddenly fell into chaos.