As the Ming army revealed its intention to move westward, the Qing army, which also had no time to spend any longer, also began to slowly advance eastward. The horses of the two sides fought back and forth on the vast land between Dingyang Creek and Lingxi, just to obtain more information and cover the direction of their own army by the way.

However, such a simple intention was due to the fact that neither side of the Tanma could achieve an overwhelming advantage in this area, and as the two armies continued to tighten the distance between each other, the confrontation between the Tanma became more and more intense. The two armies, who were still a little jealous, tried their best to fight more and more fiercely between the shrinking areas. It wasn't until the two sides got close to the point where they could no longer conceal their own direction and intentions that the desperate fight eased down a little, because they both needed time to save and accumulate more strength for the next bloody battle.

The vanguard of the Qing army crossed the source of Shentang, where a large number of pontoon bridges were built. Soon, when the Ming army learned of this information, it quickly accelerated to the west.

It was already getting dark, and the Qing army did not rush to cross the river, and began to set up camp on the west bank of the stream. The Ming army invariably stopped and camped more than ten miles north-east of the Qing army camp.

Just as the Qing army had already noticed the increase in the Ming army, the Ming army also found that the size of the Qing army's company camp seemed to be larger than expected. However, whether it was the Qing army that had to settle the Zhejiang problem before Fujian was completely eroded due to the fall of Zhangzhou by Zheng Chenggong, or the Ming army, which urgently needed to recover Quzhou for more resources to roll the snowball up, the two sides were in unison for a final rest, and the atmosphere in the camps of the two armies could feel that tomorrow would be a bloody day even for the people who acted as auxiliaries.

On the sixth day of the ninth month of the sixth year of Yongli, the staff officers of the Ming army had already completed their staff operations and formulated several battle plans according to the intentions of the Qing army and the terrain that had already been explored. Chen Wen thought for a while, then waved his army west. At this time, the Qing army also came out of the camp, crossed the pontoon bridges that had been repaired long ago, and encountered in the area of Yangtian Ridge.

The Ming army had as many as 8,000 soldiers, and most of the people who served as auxiliaries were left in the camp, carrying only enough auxiliaries to transport weapons. Chen Wen firmly believed that soldiers were expensive but not too expensive, so he was not very interested in driving the auxiliaries into battle.

At the same time, the Qing army that appeared on the battlefield still followed the old practice of placing auxiliaries behind the formation, and the soldiers began to form a decent formation on the battlefield. Among them, the standard battalion of Wang Zhigang, the general soldier of the left road of Fujian, and the reinforcements of the green battalion of Jianning Prefecture in Fujian formed the right wing, and the reinforcements of the green battalion of Quzhou, Zhejiang, the green battalion of Chuzhou, and the green battalion of Wenzhou occupied the left flank in the north of the battlefield, and the middle of the large array showed the banner of Liu Guangbi, the governor of Jiangxi, but the standard battalion of the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian was left behind the formation as a reserve.

Liu Guangbi was a member of the Han Army with a blue flag, and he had already cast for Tartar in the Nurhachi era, but his reputation was not obvious and he failed to stand out. Later, Jin Shengheng anyway, Tan Tai, who was suppressed by the Shuai army, left him in Nanchang when he returned to the division and served as the governor of Jiangxi, and his troops were already considered a rare elite force in the generally weak Jiangxi Green Battalion.

The increase in the Qing army was expected by Chen Wen, and it was also confirmed in the previous investigation. It's just that what he didn't expect was that Chen Jin's reinforcements turned out to be the Jiangxi Admiral's Standard Battalion, which was a large number of up to 5,000 people. Although the unfavorable situation on the Huguang battlefield and the Fujian battlefield made it impossible for this army to be dispatched in full, if you look at the banner, it will also arrive in addition to the rear camp.

As a result, the Qing army's soldiers suddenly rose to 15,000 people, once again forming a ratio of almost two to one.

In this regard, Chen Wen has no other way, and the number of Manchu Qing spellers who occupy seven or eight out of ten of China and have already formed a trend that has swept the world, he is incomparable. However, according to the art of war, the guest army could not move forward, and in the column arrangement, Chen Jin did not leave this new force as a reserve, but placed it in the position of the Chinese army, did he believe in the combat effectiveness of this Qing army so much?

Although he didn't know what his opponent was thinking, Chen Wen knew very well that the army under his command had just completed the division of land, and morale was the most vigorous. On the side of the Qing army, except for the Governor Battalion, which has long been a defeated general, and the Fujian Left Road General Battalion and the Jiangxi Admiral Battalion, which have not yet been defeated, the rest are all local green battalions. There must be something strange about Chen Jin's formation, but he can't figure out where the problem exists for a while.

There is no need to hesitate any longer, with a response made by the General Staff before, the Ming army quickly changed its formation. Soon, the Nantang battalion was stationed in the middle of the road, while the two battalion leaders of Yiwu and Dongyang guarded the left and right wings respectively, and Chen Wen also supported the garrisons of the two bureaus to the Dongyang battalion in the north of the formation. Keep the garrisons of the battalion and two other bureaus in the town.

The coaches of both sides are the same as their surnames, and the mood of rushing for a decisive battle at the moment is exactly the same. Without the slightest hesitation, after completing the formation, after a little rest, with the beating of the war drums, the two armies and more than 20,000 soldiers together got up one after another and began to line up and walk towards each other.

On the battlefield, the fiery red Ming army battle array and the gray-blue Qing army battle array began to slowly approach the center of the battlefield. The two sides marched slowly to the sound of war drums, and it seemed that neither of them intended to come up with any special tactical means, but they were all intent on crushing the opponent with the most direct collision.

It wasn't until they entered the range of the Franc cannon that the gunners of the Ming and Qing armies stopped and began to stuff the loaded guns into the mother guns. Immediately afterwards, when the gunner pressed the torch to the fuse, the cannonball flew out of the muzzle of the gun fired from the back, covering the large formation of the two armies with lightning speed.

It's just that, compared to the opponent, the Ming army's Franc cannon seems to have a longer range, and almost no shells hit the front of the Qing army, but all swept towards the Qing army in the front row.

Most of the Franc cannons used by Chen Wen were captured from the Qing army, while the Franc cannons of the Qing army were almost all made by the Ming court, although none of the cannons were all the same, but the approximate range was not much different. The root cause of all this is not artillery, but the use of more powerful granular gunpowder by the Ming army, which burns more fully so that the gunpowder produces much more gas than ordinary gunpowder at the moment of ignition.

When the first round of artillery shells fired by the Qing army only made the path of the Ming army more potholed, and at this time, the artillery shells of the Ming army had begun to bombard the formation of the Qing army.

The sudden casualties caused a slight disturbance in the Qing army on the left and right flanks, but they quickly regained their composure under the strong suppression of the officers, and the commander of the Qing army behind the formation, Chen Jin, found that the Ming army's artillery bombardment had begun to cause casualties, so he ordered the army to speed up to save more morale into hand-to-hand combat.

The gunners on both sides continued to bombard their opponents, and due to the advantage of the rate of fire of the Franc cannons, the Ming army always maintained the bombardment of the Qing formation, each time taking the lives of more than a dozen Qing soldiers and causing more injuries. The wails became more and more frequent, and the overseers behind the formation were hit by cannonballs on the way forward, causing near-fatal injuries but not dead Qing troops to mend their swords, but ushered in more wails.

The Qing army's large array was still advancing, and the Ming army's side began to be bombarded by Qing gunners. However, compared to the Qing army, the Ming army, whether it was the Mandarin Duck Array Killer Team, or the Spear Array Killer Team, and even the firearms team were using the vertical formation to advance. This is a tradition that has been established since the time of Qi Jiguang, and it is also a necessary means for this special Ming army to reduce casualties on the way.

When the fourth sub-gun is released, the loaders of the two armies are still reloading the first one, which has been cooled down at this moment. In this interval that seemed to have become a gap for the release of long-range weapons, the musketeers of the Ming army took the lead in breaking the silence, and the Qing troops who were concentrated by the Ming army's musketeers, even if they were wearing cotton armor, were invariably directly injured by lead bullets and fell on the way forward.

It's just that, compared to artillery, the lead bullet of the gun only caused more mutilation, but the wail of pain also began to affect the morale of the Qing army.

"How is this possible?!"

It is indeed impossible, the guns used by the Ming and Qing armies in this era are nothing more than bird guns and three-eyed guns, of which the three-eyed guns are not only short in range and not high in accuracy, but also generally used by cavalry. But how could a bird still be able to do damage at this distance?

"Of course it is impossible for the bird gun, but the Lu Mi gun, which has entered the category of heavy arquebus, can ignore the protection of the cotton armor at this distance, and the Qing army was forced to eliminate the cotton armor after eliminating the bird gun in history."

Squinting with one eye, Chen Wen looked at the battle formation of the Qing army from afar with a monocular in both hands, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

But an arquebus is an arquebus after all, and the speed of reloading can be fatal on a battlefield where you can die in an instant. After a long period of accumulation, except for the flintlock pistol, a few have not been made so far, and the Lu Mi Gun that uses the fire arquebus has only completed the refitting of the Nantang Battalion, and the other troops are still using the bird gun. And this is the result of Chen Wen inheriting the inheritance of Wang Yi and Yu Guowang, otherwise, I am afraid that even the war camp will not be able to prepare according to the establishment.

Therefore, when the musketeers of the Nantang battalion were still in the interval of reloading, the Qing army's bird-gunners began to shoot, and the archers soon entered the range to shoot at the Ming archers.

The Qing army on the battlefield was all green battalion soldiers, and the hemispherical helmet was far inferior to the helmet of the Ming army, which could rely on bowing its head to resist the thrown bow and arrow, but the victory was that the troops were stronger, but the Qing army's arrows were more dense. Even if the Ming army used the vertical formation, there would inevitably be casualties.

Fiery red and gray blue, these two colors are still approaching on the battlefield. However, the fiery red of the present day remained somewhat flat, while the gray-blue of the center and part of the right wing had to pause for a moment so that the other gray-blues could catch up.

A moment later, the Qing army, which had regrouped in the confrontation, began to advance again, and they, like the Ming army on the opposite side, moved out of the tiger squat cannon from behind the formation after entering the fifty paces range. However, unlike their opponents, the Ming army used large shields to protect the gunners in the counterfire, while the Qing gunners could only flee behind the formation after lighting the fuse.

After a round of artillery bombardment, the Qing army, which had refilled the gap caused by casualties, rushed towards the Ming army with a shout, throwing javelins and throwing axes one after another, trying to destroy the front row of the Ming army.

At this time, the Ming army, which was already familiar with such tactics, still maintained a vertical formation. It wasn't until the Qing army rushed into about ten meters that the Mandarin Duck Formation transformed the vertical formation into a big three talent formation with wolf hand pressing, while the spear array killer team quickly moved closer to the center, filling the gap between the two wings with the Mandarin Duck Formation, which always protected the wings behind the flank.

In the center of the battlefield, the Nantang Battalion, the most time-honored member of the Jinhua Ming Army, collided with the elite Jiangxi Admiral Standard Battalion of the Green Battalion from Jiangxi. The infantry team of the Nantang battalion was newly organized, and the first and second rounds used the spear array killer team, while the other two rounds used the Mandarin Duck array killer team.

The 4th Infantry Team in the first game, this is an old qualified infantry team. Although the qualifications are old, this does not prevent them from using the spear array, at least when they crossed Lingxi, this army had firmly guarded the battle formation of the Ming army from being crushed by the superior Qing army, and even cooperated with the Mandarin Duck Array killer team to attack the Qing army's standard camp.

As the captain of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, after the counter-raid a few months ago, after the reorganization of the formation, he also used the spear formation more easily, and his old buddy Wu Changshi Da Niu had also returned from injury before the battle, and he was full of confidence in defeating the Tartars in front of him who did not know where to find death.

The formation was quickly brought closer, although it was not very convenient to change the formation, but from the front row of long players, several rows of five-meter spears were densely packed like hedgehogs that blocked any direction of the Qing army's attack. And their opponents were just a group of green battalion soldiers who used primitive swords and shields and seven- or eight-foot spears.

The war drums beat and the roaring Ming army began to slowly advance under the leadership of the long card players in the first row. The dense spear heads posed a great threat to the Qing army, and not only could the pikemen not reach their opponents at all, but even the long players in the front row of the Ming army were rarely able to attack. And those sword and shield soldiers who have always been used to destroy the strong formation are attacked by the spears that are constantly piercing, even if they try their best to escape the fate of being stabbed to death, because this spear is too dense!

"Kill!"

"Kill!"

With two tiger roars in his ears, a nimble Qing saber and shield soldier dodged the thrust of the first spear, but instead of smiling at him, Lady Luck sent another spear to directly pierce his lower abdomen.

The spear was neatly withdrawn, and the sword and shield in his hand were dropped, and the sword and shield soldier fell to the ground, holding his wound with his hands and wailing. At this time, the battle formation of the Ming army was still advancing, and Shi Daniu, who had just returned from his wounds, half-squatted and walked to the front and slashed at the throat of the Qing army sword and shield soldier, and then ignored the corpse and continued to lead the team forward. As for the corpse, it will be disposed of by the firefighters behind their own team, who will cut off the head and put it in a large basket.

In this way, the entire infantry team is like a monster that harvests life, with pikemen like fangs and claws piercing the enemy, and the long card player can either act as a bone armor to defend against the opponent's attacks, or at the right time reveal the spikes under the bone armor to kill the opponent who is lucky enough to die, and the remaining corpse is cut down by the firemen who converge the head, leaving only a headless corpse.

As for the captain who commands the battle, it is the brain of this monster, responsible for coordinating and replenishing the movement of each fang, claw, and bone armor......

Jiangxi Admiral Liu Guangbi watched in amazement as his subordinates began to retreat the moment they met the enemy, Chen Jin had not failed to remind him before, but those five-meter-long spears were really a bit of a chicken rib for the army under his command that still emphasized personal martial arts. As a result, he had to replace the new force through the constantly changing formation, buying time for the killer feature in Chen Jin's mouth.

The slow forward pressure of the Nantang camp in the middle road not only frightened Liu Guangbi, who had just come to Zhejiang and didn't know much about the market, but also greatly surprised Chen Wen.

As far as he knew, the Qing army in Jiangxi was mainly concentrated in three places, Jiujiang, which controlled the Yangtze River waterway, Nanchang, the provincial capital, and Nanjiang, which had a very important strategic position. It's a pity that the Jiangxi Admiral still doesn't know very well that the Ming and Qing armies on the battlefield in Zhejiang have begun a competition in the establishment, and the two sides are making targets in the continuous confrontation, so as to improve their combat effectiveness step by step. And the old version used by the army under his command has long been outdated, and it is not easy to rely on the superiority of troops to support it now.

As for the left and right wings, the Qing army on the left flank hesitated because the local green battalion had been pressed by the Dongyang battalion and the Mandarin Duck Formation temporarily handed over to Chen Guobao to command without the slightest ability to fight back, while the Qing army on the right flank relied on the Fujian Left Road General Battalion, which had already begun to learn from the Zhejiang Qing army, to maintain the battle line.

The gap between the two sides can no longer be made up by the disparity in strength for the time being, and the Qing army can still rely on the overwhelming superiority of troops to support it, but when the casualties reach a certain level, Chen Wen does not believe that the Qing army can continue to support, and it is a useless support that cannot win at all.

However, just when he thought that the overall situation was decided, his old opponent Chen Jin finally could not bear it any longer, and threw his reserves into the right flank of the Qing army, which was still struggling to maintain the front.

It is wisest to throw reserves into critical moments and critical locations in battle. However, when Chen Wen saw the Dubiao battalion that he had repelled twice and could be said to be extremely familiar, what he saw was not a Qing army like other green battalions, but a Qing army composed of Mandarin Duck Formations - a replica of the Nantang battalion under his command at the end of last year. However, at this moment, Chen Wen did not have a second Nantang battalion in his hands that could be used to verify the opponent's counterfeit and shoddy products! (To be continued.) )