Chapter 43 Famous Generals

"Bah, bah, bah, bah." The continuous sound of muskets rang out from the not-so-tall city walls of Jiangwan New Town, and the Mengyuan soldiers who were climbing up the ladder fell to the ground like dumplings, rolling, struggling, and wailing loudly.

A white smoke enveloped all the battlements, and the smell of burning sulfur made the recruits cough loudly, but the experienced veterans, who had long been accustomed to the stimulation of the gunsmoke, stared at the scarlet eyes one by one, quickly handed the musket to the auxiliary soldiers behind them, and then picked up another loaded musket, clamped the fire rope, and poked out the barrel from the shooting hole.

Sure enough, a new wave of enemies had already climbed up the ladder again, moving swiftly like apes, and it was a soldier recruited by Dong Junxiao with a lot of money, with a dog-legged short knife in his mouth, and the tattoos on his forehead and face were clearly visible, (Note 1)

"Phew." The veterans pulled the trigger at their respective targets, and then quickly picked up the third musket that was sent up, clamped the fire rope, aimed, struck, and methodically.

A dozen of the fastest scrambling soldiers screamed and fell, but many more with tattoos continued to climb fast against the fire of muskets, oblivious to the imminent death.

They are all from the mountainous areas of Fujian and Liangzhejiang, and they have been competing for food with poisonous insects and beasts since they were children, and those who can survive are all determined and resolute, even if they don't take their lives seriously, not to mention their companions who have no blood relationship with themselves, stepping on the ladder moistened by blood, and going up, and in the blink of an eye, their fingers have almost touched the battlements of the city wall.

"Phew." A recruit who had just recovered from his senses put the musket on the head of the She warrior and fired a shot, the bullet began to deform and roll after leaving the muzzle, with the help of the huge kinetic energy of gunpowder deflagration, the opponent's skull was stirred, red blood, white **, and broken bones were splashed everywhere.

"Gross." The recruit dropped his musket and lay on the battlements and vomited, and an armor-piercing cone shot from under the city wall, hitting his unprotected eye socket, and the head with the iron helmet jerked back, and with a "bell" sound, the gold and iron rang together, and the recruit fell to the wall and died of exhaustion.

Under the command of a group leader, several people quickly carried away the corpses of the recruits, and another substitute soldier who had just been in the army for less than two months screamed and rushed forward, filling in the vacated position of the deceased, the trigger was pulled, and the ignition tongs holding the fire rope fell quickly, igniting the ignition powder in the medicine pool, and a white smoke quickly drilled into the barrel of the gun, igniting the gunpowder, pushing the lead bullet to fly out of the muzzle, hitting the chest of a She warrior, and beating the person to the heart.

More feather arrows, along this stack **, hit the plate armor on the substitute soldier clanging, the progress of technology, well make up for the lack of experience and skills of the substitute, the armor-piercing cone that has lost most of its kinetic energy, can not help the cold-forged plate armor at all, except for a few strings of sparks, nothing is left.

"Ahh,,。h A wave of ecstasy welled up in the hearts of the already dead substitutes, and they shouted and threw the empty musket behind him.

This action immediately brought him a leather whip, and the person in charge of the nearby battlements was red-eyed, and scolded, "Look for death, you, loser, broke the musket, what do you use to guard the battlement." ”

"The grass people are wrong, and the grass people are guilty." The substitutes were beaten to the point of grinning and habitually giving up.

"The answer is, you are a soldier, not a grass people, bastard, how many times do you have to teach Lao Tzu." Du Tou whipped it again, and then snatched a reloading musket from the auxiliary soldiers behind him, squeezed away the substitutes, and opened fire on the city.

"Phew." White smoke rose into the air, and lead bullet struck the waist of a Mongolian sharpshooter who was bending his bow and arrow, knocking him back several steps in succession, sitting on the ground, covering his wound with his hands, and screaming miserably.

The Mongol centurion who was supervising the battle next to him raised his sword and cut off the head of the marksman to cheer up the army's heart, and in the next moment, several lead bullets hit him at the same time, turning his chest into a sieve.

"Woo,,。" A long crossbow arrow roared up to the city, and exploded violently, and the Huai'an army, which could not dodge, was blown into the sky and was torn apart.

The surrounding soldiers were also blown over by four or five, and a huge defensive gap immediately appeared in the battlement, and several She warriors saw the bargain, quickly threw an iron claw with a rope, grabbed the city wall, and then broke away from the ladder with both feet, and floated like apes in mid-air.

Seeing that their feet were about to step on the top of the city, a small group of soldiers wearing chain mail and without any rank mark on their shoulders rushed up from the corridor on the inner side of the wall, and their five-foot spears flew up and down, turning the battlement in front of them into a moving iron hedgehog.

The young soldiers in chain mail did not have the slightest fear on their faces, and cooperated with each other to remove the dog-legged short knives that were split in mid-air one by one, and then broke the rope behind the iron claws with another shot.

"Ah,,。h The She warriors in mid-air lost their relay points and fell down one after another, and the soldiers without rank markings quickly scattered left and right, hiding their bodies behind the battlements, and covering their ears tightly with their hands.

"Boom." Another crossbow bolt filled with gunpowder smashed outside the battlement, and the explosion was so violent that it shook the city wall.

"Boom, boom, boom." In the nearby battlement, several four-catty cannons fired at the ballista on the other side of the moat at the same time, blasting the ballista that had just been cast, as well as the Mengyuan soldiers next to the ballista, into a pile of fragments.

A detachment of auxiliaries rushed forward and carried away the wounded and dead from the city.

Another small group of Huai'an soldiers silently stepped forward with muskets to fill the vacant position of their own robes.

Unranked soldiers in chain mail grabbed their short guns and quickly gathered in a group to go to the next place where they might have slipped, each with the skill of a battle-hardened veteran.

They are the student soldiers of the Huaxia Lecture Martial Arts Hall, and they are also the only group of officers in this era who have undergone systematic military training, and their combat ability and adaptability to the battlefield are far from being comparable to those of She soldiers who fight by personal instinct.

However, the enemy army was not willing to lose, and soon, more than 100 steps away from the city wall, there were countless Jiangsu and Zhejiang gourd soldiers, pushing rattan cards with chicken carts, scattered into more than a dozen squads, protecting a large number of Mongolian marksmen, and rushed over again.

"Boom, boom, boom." The artillery 6 on the head of the city continued to be powerful, and fired the flowering shells one after another at the Yuan army, but the effect was very little, whether it was the "new" artillery engraved with rifling, or the "old" artillery without rifling, the accuracy was very limited, and in the case of the opponent deliberately scattering the formation, most of the shells fell on the open ground, and in vain blew up clouds of smoke.

"Bah, bah, bah, bah." When the enemy army entered within fifty paces, the muskets of the city wall also joined the battle, but the dense bullets could not penetrate the heavy rattan cards, and in the blink of an eye, the gourd soldiers and archers crossed the moat and came to a position only a dozen steps away from the city wall, (Note 2)

The Mongolian soldiers hiding behind the rattan plaque bent their bows and arrows, and shot the white bright armor-piercing cone on the city, although most of them were blocked by the plate armor, but the ants bit the elephant to death, so dense arrows, there are always one or two that can shoot the plate armor and helmets can not provide protection, causing great trouble to the defenders.

"Troll, troll." The deputy commander made Chen De rush to the city and shouted orders.

More than 100 auxiliary soldiers carried ten stout long-barreled tiger squat cannons, braved the dense feather arrows, poked them out of the battlements, and then lowered the muzzle, raised the tail of the cannon, and quickly fixed it with the tiger claws under the cannon body.

The gun commander looked down, and cleanly lit the lead at the tail of the barrel, "Boom,,。 ","Boom,,。 "Boom ,,。" "Boom ,,。"

Rows of stone projectiles erupted from the iron pipe, thousands, and swept towards the enemy troops under the city like hailstones, and the heavy rattan cards were beaten to a thousand holes, and the Mongolian archers and the two Zhejiang gourd soldiers behind the rattan cards were either beaten into a sieve and fell to the ground and died, or they were so frightened that they dropped their weapons and fled in the wilderness.

"Grenadier, three feet outside the city, throw." Taking advantage of the pause in the Yuan army's offensive, the deputy commander made Chen De decisively give orders.

Two rows of grenadiers, dressed only in leather armor, stood up from the inside of the wall, lit grenades, and threw them three feet from the wall.

"Boom." "Boom." "Boom." The sound of explosions was endless, and the Mengyuan auxiliaries who were protecting the ladder were blown up and fled in all directions, holding their heads and running away.

"Auxiliary battalion, pour fire oil, burn the fuck." Without waiting for the explosion to stop, Chen De quickly issued a third order.

A hundred strong men carried wooden barrels filled with fierce fire oil, ran to the battlement, and threw them at the ladder outside the city, splashing the ladder made of bamboo and the frightened She warriors on the ladder into darkness.

The other company of auxiliaries rushed to the battlement with torches held high, and threw them at the ladder, and the fire oil purchased from the great sea merchant at a high price was immediately ignited, and the orange flames jumped up on the ladder and the people, and flew happily into the air, like a bird out of its nest.

It's just that the place affected by them instantly turned into hell, and the She warriors and other Mengyuan soldiers screamed, pushed, and slapped their bodies in vain, trying to extinguish the flames, however, the fierce fire oil specially mixed with sulfur powder and sawdust could not be extinguished as long as it burned, and wherever it was sticky, orange flames immediately rose, bright and vivid, and it was incomprehensible in beauty.

It was a kind of beauty full of the smell of death, beating violently on the human body and the ladder, whether it was leather armor or iron armor, as long as it was splashed a little, it would follow the flames, and when you slapped it with your hand, the palm of your hand immediately caught fire, and when you sharpened it with your weapon, the weapon also turned into a torch, and fell from the ladder to the ground, and countless stars jumped on the ground, lying in the dirt and rolling, and the earth soon rose into smoke.

"Ah,,。h A Mengyuan centurion wearing iron armor was frightened, turned around and jumped into the moat, boiling into the river, instantly swallowing the part of his body below the neck, but the fierce fire oil on the iron armor floated on the water surface, continued to burn fiercely, and soon, he was burned beyond recognition, completely turning into a charred corpse.

More of the people who were affected by the fierce fire oil rushed along the pontoon bridge to their own team, they ran all the way, the flames fell all the way, and soon, the pontoon bridge was also ignited by the flames, and puffs of green smoke rose from it.

"Warlords." Five hundred steps away from the city wall, Zhedong Xuanxuan made Dong Xiaoxiao blush, and issued a cruel order.

"Woo, woo, woo, woo" The oozing horn suddenly sounded.

A group of horse-drawn red soldiers armed with crossbows quickly stepped forward to meet the retreating team.

Three hundred steps, two hundred steps, one hundred steps, the overseer team decisively pulled the trigger, "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." Rows of armor-piercing cones flew out horizontally.

Luckily he didn't die from a musket, he didn't die from a grenade, he didn't die from the rout of the fierce oil, he was cut over by an armor-piercing cone, he rolled and struggled in a pool of blood, and he didn't blink to death.

"Ahh 6 The second wave of the routs that had continued to retreat were so frightened that they stopped, and retreated toward the moat.

On the city wall, the recruits and veterans of the Huai'an Army fired a beautiful salvo and shot dozens of routed soldiers from behind across the moat.

The rout, who was lucky enough not to die, screamed and rushed towards his own camp again.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." Another row of armor-piercing cones flew out horizontally, nailing the fastest fleeing man to death on the spot!

The rest of the people were not retreating, nor were they advancing, caught between the accurate range of the musket and the strong crossbow, at a loss, Dong Luxiao saw this, and immediately waved his hand again, "Beat the drum, order them to cross the river and fight again." ”

The war drums of "knock knock, knock knock" sounded in the Yuan army's main formation, and it could not be refused.

The soldiers of the overseer team with the crossbow in their hands bent down, used the strength of their thighs and waist to cooperate with the crossbow strings, and then silently placed the crossbow arrows in the shooting slot, aiming at their own robes that were still hesitating more than a hundred steps away.

The rest of the rout burst into a series of screams, turned around, and rushed to the pontoon bridge again, staggering like a group of lonely ghosts.

"My lord, they have done their best today." Tongzhi Cheng Mingzhong was soft-hearted, leaned into Dong Junxiao's ear, and pleaded for the survivors in a low voice.

"Ci is not in charge of the army, what is the use of this kind of waste that is afraid of death." Dong Shuxiao glanced at him lightly, gritted his teeth, "Come on, send ten more ladders over, let them go to the city, those who go to the city first, whether they can gain a firm foothold or not, will be rewarded with twenty copper coins, and the official will be promoted to three levels." ”

"Send the ladder, hurry up and send the ladder over." A man dressed as a commander, wielding a steel sword, shouted orders to the improvised Minjin.

The people didn't dare to disobey, they reluctantly lifted the ladder and walked on the pontoon bridge that was still smoking, and before they arrived on the other side, Meng Yuan Zhedong Xuanxiao gritted his teeth again and roared in a low voice, "Push all the artillery and ballistas up for me, aim at the head of the city, and blow up, when will our people go up, when will we stop." ”

With that, he jerked his reins and rode his horse back, far out of the possible maximum range of the city's artillery.

Note 1: She soldiers, She tribesmen, belong to the ethnic minorities living in the mountainous areas of Zhejiang and Fujian, brave and good at fighting, when the Song Dynasty died, they had resisted the Mongols for more than ten years, and finally were suppressed, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there were also many who were recruited by the government at that time to deal with the Red Turban Uprising.

Note 2: The Maohulu soldiers, that is, the village warriors raised by the local gentry, were affected by the clan power and local consciousness at that time, and their fighting will was often stronger than that of the regular officers and soldiers of the Mengyuan Dynasty.

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