Cangzhou, the southern part of Nanpi County

On the edge of the Cao River near Imjin Town, groups of scattered people and horses are crossing, and the silted and dry river channel is rolling up patches of dust.

And in the array of a regiment of garrisons on the opposite bank,

Ding Desun, a veteran soldier from the Liangshan tribe, stretched out an old style of one-style pistol and waited silently for the command and whistle to sound.

As the reed wheel with the piece of the spark burst out, a little gunpowder smoke erupted from the side, hitting the left cheek of his squinted eyes, causing a faint burning and stinging pain.

At the moment when his shoulders recoiled against the wooden support, he could even smell the burnt smell coming from his sideburns; This is the disadvantage of this old-fashioned fire pistol, which is caused by the fire pool in the rear.

If those main battle battalions had already been installed in batches, and the new firecrackers that could be filled with fire caps and then fired with a wrench, there would have been no problem and trouble of gunpowder smoke leakage at all, so the charges would have been filled with more ballistics and straighter, farther and more accurate.

But none of this could affect his concentration and intentions, as well as his steady grip on the firebolt's arms and his barely able to lift his body.

In front of the mouth of the gun that spewed out green smoke, an enemy soldier who was rushing seemed to be struck out of thin air, and suddenly spewed a blood-colored filament into the air, and fell down like a stake.

Then he was skillfully and quickly put away by Ding Desun, put his mouth upward, filled in the sub-medicine strips in turn, and then sprinkled the fire-causing powder on the fire pool, and immediately played the second round with the left and right in a moment.

Nowadays, with the gradual upgrading of batches, even the local garrison regiments have used a certain proportion of firearms, although they are still dominated by three-eyed guns, arquebuses, and firearms.

In the garrison battalions, more than half of the firearms have basically been realized, and among the seven or eight veteran battalion leaders at the top of the ranks, they have even achieved a uniform arrangement of firearms;

As for the rest of the differences, they are made up with bows and crossbows, so if these garrisons are only used for positional warfare or fortification, they actually feel not much weaker in terms of long-range firepower.

To say that the biggest difference between the main battle battalion and the defense battalion is mainly reflected in the fighting will, skills, and military quality of the non-commissioned officers who have both offense and defense; After all, compared with the main battle battalion that has entered the mode of queuing to shoot + bayonet wall rush, in the defense battalion with mixed firearms and cold soldiers, there are still a lot of colors and remnants of the traditional cold weapon war mode.

The organization and form of the battle also resembled that of another time and space, with the Spanish phalanx firing firearms under the cover of spears and swords. But obviously, it is more than enough to deal with these large bandits that have wandered to the vicinity.

After the third horn sounded, the soldiers in the garrison camp who were waiting for them had already crossed these firing guns, and accelerated forward to meet them, blocking the fish that had slipped through the net one after another on the shore of the river, slashing and stabbing in front of them and pushing them back.

And Chen Yuan couldn't help but sweat a handful of sweat in his hand according to the handle, thinking that this was a rather comfortable task, but he didn't expect that on the fourth day of work, he would encounter major troubles.

These brigades of people who looked like rogues would suddenly flow over from Dongguang County in nearby Jingzhou without warning.

If there is any mistake in these craftsmen and technicians who are working on the river, then Chen Yuan, who is in charge of this escort mission, will be too big.

Fortunately, the worst did not happen, but in order to cover the evacuation of these technicians, they also gave these thieves some kind of opportunity, and the tail of these precious craftsmen almost rushed closer.

Fortunately, the leaders of the garrison regiment reacted faster and were more well-trained, and they directly let go of the enemy in front of them and went around the flank to intercept them, and personally broke them up with hand-to-hand combat, so as not to threaten the evacuated men; Therefore, the corpses scattered by these thieves are still lying on the mutilated embankment by the river.

In the blink of an eye, they had already fought several battles, and the disadvantage of numbers and the color of exhaustion began to appear in these ranks that could no longer hold the river bank and fought and retreated, but they still used a solid and solid hollow phalanx to protect the mechanics and craftsmen, as well as the wounded on the horses and horses, and stood majestically in the four sides of the enemy's attack one after another.

At this time, a cloud of smoke and dust rolled up from the north again, but new weapons appeared in the battlefield, which could not help but attract the attention of the warring sides at the same time.

Cavalry, it was actually cavalry, Chen Yuan, who was observing through the close mirror, couldn't help but be surprised.

However, this unknown cavalryman, who had first revealed his whereabouts, ignored the battlefield in which he was fighting, and rushed straight diagonally through the silted river; Then they suddenly accelerated their horses together, and set off a rain of arrows at most of the thieves who were surging forward.

Immediately knocked them over and disrupted a lot, and then some people shouted and divided their troops to block them, but they were beaten away by these cavalry again.

Then, like the wind, they rushed into the rear team of these thieves, suddenly rushing them to pieces, and then breaking through from the other end, so that their last bit of persistence and fighting spirit completely collapsed in the crying father and mother that also spread rapidly.

At this time, Chen Yuan finally realized that this was an ally on his side; Chen Yuan, the cavalry officer who led the left and right assault battles, was no stranger to it, but he came out of the same school of martial arts and was persuaded by his efforts to bring in Meng Bangjie, a cavalry student under the command of Pengju's brother.

Unlike the cavalry, which was in regular order, this cavalry was armed with captured Northern Dynasty armor, and was therefore armed with long and short swords, about twenty short crossbows or twenty stiff bows and arrows, thin scarfs and leather armor.

Therefore, if you don't distinguish the flag in appearance, it is really a bit confusing.

When they fought with the enemy, they often fired arrows from seven or eight people when they were more than 100 paces away from the enemy, and seven or eight people shot horses with short crossbows, and then split with long knives, quickly charged, assembled, and charged again, separating the enemy formations piece by piece and then selecting and defeating them, so as to kill and wound a large number of enemy soldiers.

Chen Yuan was surprised, Brother Pengju's brother sent the only cavalry that could maneuver long distances under his rule, which shows how much attention is paid to this matter.

However, this did not affect Chen Yuan in the slightest to instruct the remaining men and horses under his command to switch into the order of all-out counterattack and pursuit. The dry river beach that was chased for a time was full of dead bodies, squirming and struggling wounded, and figures kneeling and begging for mercy.

subsequently

Only by interrogating the prisoners on the spot did they understand that these so-called rogues who occupied land and were in chaos were actually from Yongqing Prefecture, which was further north of Jingzhou, and the leader of the group called himself "Guotianqi";

Several local rebels and rogues, including them, were actually supported and instigated by the garrison of Pinglu Dao, allowing them to be equipped and supplemented by thousands of people; And with the courage and confidence to go through the state and county all the way, and finally come to attack Cangzhou.

And just to rob the Changlu Salt Field, which has just been restored for a long time, there may be wealth and money, after all, even in troubled times, a sufficient amount of refined salt in the inland areas can be used as a proxy currency for circulation and trading.

It's just that they divided their troops to go south this way, and they just happened to bump head-on into Chen Yuan's side, which can be regarded as some kind of timely misfortune and a fortunate thing.

However, obviously there are some other places that are difficult to say, thinking of this, Chen Yuan couldn't help but feel a little anxious, but it couldn't be reflected on his face, after all, he still remembered his most basic duties.

I can only urge my subordinates to speed up the speed of cleaning up the battlefield, escort these technicians to the nearest safe place as soon as possible, and then lead the team to Qingchi County to support Brother Pengju.