"Thomas, your cavalry battalion will go to Gesang's side, give him another thousand armor cavalry, let him attack first!" Liu Cheng observed the situation of the enemy army for a while, and found that the left flank of the enemy army was close to the pontoon bridge, and as long as it could be defeated, he could fire at the pontoon bridge with artillery, block the enemy's retreat, and completely annihilate the enemy army in Hexi. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Yes, sir!" Thomas replied, and although he had only one leg, he was not in the way of riding. His cavalry battalion consisted of nine three-pounder guns and three six-pounder guns, with more advanced gun mounts allowing for better mobility. Therefore, he quickly shifted his position, and when Gesang learned of Liu Cheng's order, he immediately ordered: "Blow the trumpet!" ”

Hearing the sound of the trumpet, Hazar laughed and said, "It's finally here!" He pulled down his iron mask and shouted, "Get on the horse, get ready!" ”

The first to dispatch was not a cavalry, but more than a thousand light cavalry, they cut obliquely to the front of the Jin army, shot out rows of arrows in mid-air, these arrows rose to the highest point, and then turned around under the traction of gravity and fell into the ranks of the Jin army, and then the archers and firearms of the Jin army also returned fire, and people fell down from time to time in the ranks of both sides, and for a while the arrows in front of the left flank of the Jin army rained down, and the white smoke emitted when the firearms were fired spread out, blocking the view.

In order to prevent the enemy from detouring from both flanks, Azig arranged a team of white armor at the end of the left flank, and the leader of Ezhen saw that the enemy rode like a cloud, and hurriedly ordered his subordinates to erect long cards, and opened a bow to fight back, he secretly thought in his heart that the enemy general on the opposite side had no ability, and even took the cavalry archer to sweep the formation, and the riding bow was less than five or six buckets, and more than one stone and two buckets, unless it was to chase the death and chase the north, if how to shoot with the infantry bow and firearms in the array. While thinking about it, he suddenly felt a burst of vibration and contradiction under his feet, and knew that it was a large group of iron cavalry rushing over, so he couldn't help but be shocked, and hurriedly shouted: "Archers stand back, line up!" ”

It turned out that when Gesang let the light cavalry sweep the formation, he did not beat the drum and blow the trumpet, so that the armored cavalry detoured to the right and returned to the end of the left flank of the Houjin army, and then mounted his horse and rushed over. Later, the Jin army was attracted by the light cavalry in front of him, and waited until it was too late. In just a few moments, the shaking of the ground was already extremely strong, and it felt like the ground was shaking; The sound of the impact of the ironclad weapon and the sound of hooves are connected, and the soul is moving!

In a hurry, the one really had only time to withdraw the archer to the block, and it was too late to line up. In a panic, the iron cavalry had already entered the battle, like the spear of the forest, the iron hooves were horizontal, and they were all invincible, and the survivors threw down their weapons one after another, turned around and ran. These defeated men and horses were forced by the iron horsemen behind them, disrupting their own ranks behind them, making it impossible for them to organize effective resistance. For a while, the armies collapsed, and after a while, they were killed in front of the Azig formation.

Because the front of the formation collapsed too quickly, too suddenly, the guards around Azig didn't have time to line up at all, and he saw the iron cavalry driving the defeated army rushing over, and he knew that at this time, he must find a way to contain the momentum of the other party, otherwise it would be common for him to rush over with the defeated army and penetrate the entire left flank. However, the terrible thing about these armor horses is the impulse at high speeds, as long as the speed slows down, it is not so terrible.

"All armies move forward, those who retreat without a fight will be killed, and there will be no mercy!" Azig drew his saber and shouted. The white-armored soldiers beside him were all battle-hardened warriors, responding in unison, killing forward, and the routs who dared to stand in the way were all cut down with a knife, forcing them to turn back to meet the enemy, and the two armies were killed together for a while.

Seeing the strength of the enemy's army, he said to Azig: "The western captives are strong, please allow the last general to counterattack and frustrate his spirit!" Belle, please, hurry up and regroup your armies! With that, he let out a loud shout and rushed back with dozens of white-armored guards. He rode his horse and stretched his bow, galloping left and right, and although the armored cavalry on the opposite side was heavily armoured, the dozens of horsemen led by Dorona were all the best archers in a hundred, and all of them held strong bows of more than one stone, and once the arrows shot at close range hit the face without armor or penetrated the lock curtains around the neck, they all fell from the string. Even if you don't shoot anyone, as long as you shoot the war horse, you can also penetrate the cowhide covered by the war horse, and the injured war horse is in pain, and it is easy to lose control, crash into the knights on the left and right, and disrupt the formation.

When Hazar, who was leading the cavalry to charge into battle, saw it, he shouted to his subordinates beside him: "These people must be the best warriors of the Jurchens, so you will quickly step forward with me to take down their heads and present them to Lord Jinong, and there will be a great reward!" The people responded in unison, and then beat their horses and rushed towards Dorona and his party. Seeing that more than 100 of the enemy's ironclad knights were rushing towards him, he knew that the opponent was wearing iron armor and holding spears, and his own side was holding short bows and arrows, and if he was hedging on the horse, he would definitely not be lucky, so he hurriedly ordered the man with the spear to dismount and tie the reins to his belt.

In the blink of an eye, the ironclad knights had already rushed to the front of them with the strong bows and arrows of the Houjin army, and during the charge, Hazar received an arrow in the calf, and the blood flowed profusely, but he gritted his teeth, just shouted loudly, and stabbed the enemy soldiers behind the war horse with his spear. Under the stabbing of the ironclad knights, more than a dozen Houjin soldiers behind the horses were suddenly killed or seriously injured, but these people were all white-armored guards around Azig, all of whom were experienced in a hundred battles and brave, and they knew that Azig was sorting out the armies behind him, and they all stepped forward regardless of life and death. At this time, Dorona had run out of arrows in Hulu, and he had no long soldiers in his hand, so he drew his sword and rushed forward, and one of the enemies stabbed him with a spear in his chest, but he avoided it sideways, grabbed the shaft of the spear, and pulled it hard. The knight on the opposite side was afraid that he would pull him off his horse, so he had to discard his spear and ride his horse crossed. With a spear in his left hand and a saber in his right, Dorona rushed into the ranks of the enemy, stabbing two men in succession and slashing three of them. He was also hit by several spears and fell off his horse with serious injuries. Someone jumped off the horse, took off his head and asked for a reward in front of Hazar, Hazar saw that although he was killed in battle, his eyes were round, and he opened his mouth to shout, as if he was alive, without the slightest fear, and could not help but sigh: "Although this person is an enemy, but he is also a warrior who can rival ten thousand people, but it is a pity that he followed the wrong master, and died here due to bad luck, it is very sad, you go and find his body, and wait until he is broken, and ask a master to chant the Buddha for him, and seek the blessings of the hereafter!" ”

Under the siege of the ironclad knights, the dozens of horsemen led by Dorona were killed and wounded in the blink of an eye. But they also bought Azig time to regroup. I saw that the spears in front of the Jurchen array were like a forest, the formations were layered on top of each other, and the flags of various colors were like a sea, which was no longer something that could be broken by just these more than a thousand ironclad knights. Hazar was considering whether to muster up Yu Yong to launch a fierce attack, when suddenly there was a burst of gold from the rear, and he looked back to see that the flag on the other side was a signal to retreat. He made a decision in an instant, and said loudly to the subordinates beside him: "Everyone will withdraw for the time being, and come back to fight with the Dongyu after resting and changing horses!" With that, he turned his horse's head and retreated to his own formation.

Azig was relieved to see those ironclad knights turn their horses' heads and retreat, only to see that the grass in front of him had been trampled by iron hooves and turned in mud, the corpses of soldiers and war horses were scattered everywhere, and the ownerless war horses were wandering around, making desolate neighing sounds from time to time. He was hesitating whether to send light cavalry to pursue or defend himself, when he suddenly heard the sound of horns from the enemy on the opposite side, and his heart couldn't help jumping a few times.

About 300 paces to the left of the left flank of the Houjin army, Thomas was directing his subordinates to make the final preparations before the artillery bombardment, and in the front of the left flank of the Houjin, Liu Cheng's more than ten infantry phalanxes were slowly moving forward. Just as Hazar was charging with iron cavalry, he commanded the cavalry to move forward and occupy this advantageous position.

"Fire!" Thomas's right arm slashed down, and the command knife slashed through a bright light, and almost at the same time, the six-pounder cannon beside him jumped backwards, and the muzzle of the cannon spewed out a ball of fire, and then the guns on both sides also opened fire, and the rumbling sound of the cannon made his ears unable to hear anything for a while, and the white smoke from the burning of the gunpowder obscured his vision. Thomas didn't bother to observe the effect of the shelling, and shouted in his loudest voice: "Quick, reset the cannon, clean the chamber, reload!" ”

Houjin's left flank was already in shambles, and only about half of the more than a dozen solid bullets flying from the side hit, and the rest missed, either falling into a mess of mud trampled by cavalry in front of the phalanx, or falling into the river behind them, splashing a column of water seven or eight meters high. But the shells that hit all produced an extremely terrible killing effect, and the high-speed flying solid iron bullets swept through the ranks of the Houjin army, tearing everything they touched to pieces, until all their kinetic energy was consumed, and then they landed still, leaving a flesh alley behind them.

At the state of technology at that time, the only practical shells for smoothbore cannons beyond two hundred meters were solid shells. Obviously, the lethal effect of such shells has a considerable relationship with the formation of enemy troops and the position of fire. If you shoot from the front of the horizontal team, the lethal effect of the solid bullet is very average, with the artillery technology of the time, it is very likely that the landing point of the shell will be too close or too far, and even if it can hit, at most it will only kill or wound three or four people, and the tactical effect is almost zero -- when the vast majority of soldiers line up and advance in a horizontal line, their attention is directly in front of them, and they cannot be seen a little farther away from their side. But if it is fired from the side of the column or the phalanx is another matter, as long as it can be hit, a solid bullet may sweep through the horizontal column, killing a dozen or more soldiers at once, this terrifying sight is likely to destroy the will of dozens or hundreds of soldiers at once, if you use an analogy, the former is like using a needle to prick tofu, when the needle is pulled out of the tofu, the hole quickly disappears; The latter uses a knife to cut tofu, and a large slice can be cut down at once, and the effect is naturally very different.

Thus, from the 15th century to the 17th century, the pace of field warfare in Western Europe became very slow. One military critic described it as an aristocratic minuet, with dozens of board squares moving slowly on either side, often playing this bloody dance game at the end of the day. This was not because the European generals at that time did not understand the principle of the speed of the soldiers, but because the maneuverability of the field artillery at that time was extremely poor, and the firing frequency was low, and both sides were trying to arrange their own artillery on the side of the enemy's phalanx, and avoid exposing the flanks of their own phalanx to the enemy's guns. If you push forward, expose your flanks to the enemy's field guns, and a few salvos can break up your formation and result in losing the entire campaign. It was not until the famous European commander King Gustav II of Sweden carried out military reforms, laid the prototype of modern artillery, greatly improved the mobility of artillery with standardization and lightness, and smashed the army of the Holy Roman Empire in the Thirty Years' War, this situation was changed.

As a traverser, Liu Cheng naturally knew about this military reform, so what he had been pursuing was not the power and range of artillery, but the standardization and lightness of vehicles, even at the expense of power and range, to ensure that artillery could maneuver on the battlefield and occupy the most advantageous firing position. In his opinion, if the army is compared to a person, the general is the head of a man, the cavalry is the legs of the army, the infantry is the chest of the army, and the artillery is the fist, and only by combining them can they exert their greatest power. It's just that the opponents in the previous battles were all Mongols, and they were all chase battles, and the artillery won the battle without having a chance to play, but it played a good role in secrecy. Although Hou Jin had already seen the power of red-coated cannons, and there were many red-coated cannons in his army, he had never considered how to lighten them, improve their vehicles, and combine them with infantry and cavalry, and suffered a big loss for a while.

Thomas's artillery had just fired two rounds, and the black pressed infantry pressed towards the left flank of the rear Jin army, and when the distance between the two sides was about seventy paces, the lightly armed arquebusiers stepped forward to fire a volley, and then disappeared into the gap in the phalanx, and those infantry in iron armor lowered their spears, accompanied by rhythmic drums, and pressed towards the left flank of the rear Jin with a neat pace.

"How did Azig lose so quickly!" Huang Taiji looked at the left flank, although there was the dust of the galloping horses and the white smoke emitted by the firearms, he could still see that his left flank had suffered heavy casualties under the onslaught of the enemy, and the formation was scattered, obviously if he didn't do something, Azig's side would collapse. After a moment's thought, he shouted, "Curb Pilon! ”