In the thick of smoke, the musketeers came out in a neat formation.

The tactics of praising the Japanese army were so simple and rude, the artillery opened the way, and the dense salvo formation of the musketeers immediately followed.

The Thracians had barely been hit by a burst of artillery when the volley of musketeers crushed them.

"Damn it!"

"How can their artillery be so fast!"

The important thing is that now the front of the Thracian corps has been swept by artillery, and it is no longer possible to block such a strong press.

And they found that what was worse was that the muskets used by the Tianzhu people also had a far higher rate of fire than they had expected.

The muskets roared incessantly, as if there was never a gap, the musketeers in front of them fired, and the bullets from behind came in a steady stream of bullets, and the Thracians almost despaired, and the whole piece fell in the face of such an endless volley, and the line tactics of the Japanese army were brought into full play at this moment.

The firecrackers who held the Japanese army were fighting very heartily at this moment!

They had never played so smoothly on the battlefield, and the whole formation played like training on the usual training ground.

At this moment, the firecrackers facing the enemy in the north fired an extreme rate of fire of almost five or six rounds a minute in a matter of minutes. The rain of bullets poured down like a forest, and the front of the Thracian corps collapsed at a speed visible to the naked eye!

If you look down from the sky above the battlefield at this time, you will see that the Byzantines were originally surrounded on three sides, but now the blocking formation in the north is constantly retreating in front of the erupting musketeers, and the whole front is tightened like a leather strip.

The scattered Thracian corps was already in a crush.

Wang Degong immediately decided,

"Command!"

"Xiao Cavalry Camp, turn to the north and cut in from both sides! Fight to defeat the enemy in one go! ”

He decided to put all the weights in one go!

It is difficult to solve the enemy with the firecrackers alone, or in other words, the advance speed of the firecrackers is too slow, and the cavalry, cavalry is the most suitable time to rush in and give the final heavy blow.

Sure enough, after 500 cavalry cavalry battalions joined in, the formation of the northern Thracian corps finally completely collapsed.

Everywhere there were desperately running enemies, leaving behind countless corpses and wounded soldiers. The soldiers threw down their weapons and fled frantically, and the cavalry of the cavalry battalion chased and slaughtered the soldiers as if they were chasing cattle and sheep.

It was not until another Byzantine cavalry appeared that the pursuit was stopped.

The two sides faced each other from a distance for a while, and seeing that the enemy was gathering more and more, the cavalry of the cavalry battalion slowly retreated, returning to the line that the Thracians had left behind.

This battle between the Japanese army in the north and the Upper Thracian corps won a complete victory!

At this point, though, the battle wasn't quite over.

On the front and to the south, there were many more Byzantine corps and the Japanese in a standoff.

Throughout the battlefield, the Byzantines still maintained absolute superiority in their forces.

But the rapid collapse of the Thracian corps made the entire Byzantine corps lose its fighting spirit.

Legion Commander Dimites stared at the battlefield for a long time, and finally decided to end the battle. The strength of the enemy made him lose the confidence to fight head-on.

The Byzantines on both sides slowly approached, formed a group, and slowly retreated behind them.

Among the Japanese soldiers, an officer asked:

"General, why don't you take the opportunity to go after you?"

Wang Degong, hehe smiled,

"Humph! Are the Byzantines really stupid? ”

He pointed to the flanks of the battlefield.

The cavalry of the Byzantines was eyeing the side.

The Byzantines outnumbered the cavalry battalions, and they might not be able to shake the Japanese formation, but if the Japanese pursued them and gave them a chance to attack their flanks, then the battle would have a turning point for them!

The cavalry of the Byzantines may not have been as good as the steppe cavalry in dogfighting, but they were actually far superior to the Mongols in the impact of the flat terrain.

Superior cavalry, on such flat terrain, has a chance to change the tide of battle.

Of course, Wang Degong would not give the enemy such a chance.

Tianzhu has an advantage in weapons and military tactics, but in the current situation, there is no absolute overwhelming advantage on the battlefield. The other party is also a well-organized and experienced elite division.

Byzantium?

It's a good opponent!

At the very least, it is stronger than the declining grassland Hu people.

Wang Degong looked at the enemy army in the distance.

In the distance, Dimites, who commanded his men to retreat, saw that the final arrangement had no chance, and finally retreated completely with the whole army.

As the sun set, the setting sun shone obliquely on the battlefield covered with corpses, and the curtain came down on the first duel between the Byzantines and the Tianzhu people.

Dimites failed to prevent Wang Degong from rushing to Aleppo, and paid the price of annihilating almost his entire Thracian army, and because of the withdrawal of the main force, the remaining army also failed to capture Aleppo.

Then, a few days later, with the successful arrival of the royal army in Aleppo, the Dimites' legion had to withdraw from under the city of Aleppo. The strategy of the Byzantines on the Western Front to enter Syria by capturing Aleppo also went bankrupt.

In the next 10 days, various units of the Japanese army were successively deployed in place at various strategic points on the defensive line.

The Byzantines actually lost the opportunity to win at the beginning of the campaign.

Skirmishes between the two sides continued to rage in various places.

Most of these battles were won by the Japanese, but there were occasional occasions in which the musketeers were wiped out by the enemy in some of the similar encounters.

Both sides are trying to get acquainted with each other and find out the bottom line of their opponents.

Both sides were getting to know each other better, and the Byzantines finally realized that it was impossible to be defended by the muskets and artillery of the Tianzhuans. Even if there are only two or three hundred firearms troops of the Tianzhu people stationed in a small city, that city will become a fortress that cannot be conquered by a large army of thousands of Byzantine legions.

It was an army they had never seen before in history, both in terms of weapons and tactics, far beyond their previous experience.

The musket is a weapon that exerts terrible power in the hands of the Tianzhu people, and when combined with the enemy's artillery, they will be crushed at the touch of a button at any time in a frontal battle.

The only disadvantage may lie in the advantage of this tactic of the Tianzhu people, which is mostly reflected in the frontal battlefield and defensive battle, in the encounter and pursuit battle, this pure lack of protection of pure firearms formation is still afraid of the rapid impact of the cavalry.

This was probably the only way for Byzantium to win.

Heraclius looked at the musket in his hand and sighed.

It can also be seen from the musket used by the captured Tianzhu people that the Tianzhu people have far surpassed them in metallurgical technology and mechanical manufacturing. He was amazed by the ingenuity of the design and the craftsmanship of this musket!

Such a fine musket he had never even seen before in Europe.

This is an incomparably formidable opponent, a formidable empire!

There is still a chance, there must be a chance.

He said to himself in his heart.