"Your Majesty, the horse team of the Taiping Army is pressing up!"

In Luo Xuan's reminder, Zhu Jishi's eyes turned to the right side of Lu, and he saw that the black Taiping cavalry was approaching his side. These cavalrymen were light horsemen, without armor, and their weapons were only wooden guns, sabers, bows and arrows, and they were scattered in formation, just a mess. However, there are many of them, around 20,000. The banners of these cavalry were also different, about half of them carried black flags, half of them flew white flags.

"The black flag should be Su Tianfu's horse team, and the white flag is Gong Deshu's horse team." Luo Xuan said to Zhu Jishi, "These two people are the general banner owners of the Twist Army in the past, and after defecting to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they were both made marquis, and the troops under their jurisdiction have also been expanded, but their foundation is still the original old foundation of the Twist Army. In order to move them from Henan and Huaibei to Beijing, Yang Xiuqing also gave them land in Gyeonggi. ”

Like the Taiping Army, the Twist Army is an armed force with a strong clan concept. Under the general flag, there are big flags and small flags, and each flag owner has a core group that combines clans, relatives, and township relations. Moreover, the flags are not subordinate to each other, and there are many small groups, which is really not a strong army.

Zhu Jishi said to the old Peel beside him: "Yang Xiuqing wants to use these horse teams to interfere with our formation, so that he can seize the opportunity, is there any way to expel these tattered horse teams?" ”

Old Pierre said: "It is not difficult to expel them, you can use light cavalry and rocket artillery, and in the Napoleonic wars, the British often used this method against our French cavalry...... Of course, there was nothing to brag about (in the eyes of old Peel, even the Battle of Waterloo was not worth bragging about), but it was enough to deal with Yang Xiuqing's horse team. ”

With the expansion of Daming's territory. Especially after the capture of Liaodong and Liaoxi. The origin of horses and ordinary cavalry is no longer a problem. So in addition to the original brocade knights adapted into guards cavalry. Each army and division also had its own subordinate cavalry, of course, not elite, but light cavalry used for reconnaissance and pursuit. However, after all, the Jinyi Guards are the pro-army of the Son of Heaven, and the light cavalry they belong to is also relatively elite, which can be used to fight a cavalry assault. However, the more than 2,000 subordinate cavalry of the Jinyi Guards alone will definitely not be able to deal with 10 times the number of Taiping cavalry, but fortunately, the Ming army still has a magic weapon to restrain the cavalry - Congreve rocket.

When Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu, the two marquis of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, were carefully pressing the 20,000 horse team towards the Ming army, they suddenly saw about 2,000 cavalry from the Ming army's marching army coming up to meet him. They hurriedly ordered to halt their advance and spread out their formation on the plain. This horse battle is not comparable to foot fighting. The essence is all in the word "rush", if the 2,000 cavalry grasp the opportunity to charge, they can still crush the 20,000 chaotic opponents. Looking at the formation of the opponent's two thousand horse team, Gong Su and the others knew that Lu Dao was an elite, so they didn't dare to slack off.

But just as the two of them were under their command, there was a sudden whistling of twenty-seven or eight white smoke rising from the rear of the Ming army's horse team, leaving crooked trails in the air, and the eyes of Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu followed those white trails, watching those "missiles" with long wooden poles fall down on their heads......

"Boom, boom, boom......"

One by one, dazzling fireballs rose up beside Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu with a loud noise! Some exploded after they hit the ground, while others exploded in mid-air. From a distance, it looked as if a sea of fire had fallen from the sky.

Before Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu could react, the mount under their crotch jumped up first! The power of this Congreve rocket is actually not very good. Because the rocket was very inaccurate. The explosion time was difficult to control, and it was far less effective than the Hodchsky grenade, so Zhu Jishi was not willing to use A oil explosive as the charge of the Kangreve rocket warhead, but continued to use black powder. But although the power of the explosion is not large, the momentum is very bluffing, and it is even more bluffing!

The horses of the Taiping Army Horse Team have never seen such a scene, they are honest horses, and they suddenly fell into the sea of fire, and they were about to flee in all directions with their neighing! The experienced old twisters could still hold on to the reins and control the horses, and those novices who had just entered the army were directly lifted off, and the horses left without the master's surprise, and the cavalry around them who were not bombarded by rockets also became chaotic. The leaders of the Taiping Army horse team who led the troops shouted loudly to control the team, but the second, third and even sixth rounds of rocket attacks of the Ming army followed one after another, and the landing points of several rounds of rocket bombardment were different, but they all fell on the heads of the 20,000 Taiping army horse teams, which immediately made their horses neigh and shout.

"Daming Iron Rider, rush! Rush ...... me."

After six rounds of rockets, a colonel commander who commanded the light cavalry of the Ming army saw that the opportunity was ripe, drew his saber and waved it in the air, and then pointed straight ahead and gave the order for the cavalry to charge. The two thousand horsemen, who had already lined up in two horizontal formations, threw off their hooves and galloped, knocking on the ground so faintly that they trembled.

"Spread out, spread out ......"

Before the cavalry of the Ming army charged, Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu knew that something bad was going to happen! The team has become such a mess, and it is strange to be able to withstand the charge of the Ming army's horse team! So the two of them ordered to disperse the team - this is the old way of fighting bandits, if you can't fight, you will scatter and run away, so you can't chase it!

It's a pity that this time the cavalry of the Taiping army did not have time to disperse, and the light cavalry of the Ming army was divided into two waves to launch an intensive charge, and in the rumbling hooves, more than 8,000 horses' hooves carried up the snow powder in the sky, like a snow-capped mountain collapse, pounced on the Taiping cavalry in chaos, just two waves of charges beat them to the back. After rushing through the Taiping army's horse team, the Ming light cavalry did not seek an opportunity for hand-to-hand combat, but quickly circled back to the original starting position from the flank, and reorganized the team to prepare for the second charge. At the same time, the rockets of the Ming army fell one after another.

Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu were overwhelmed by this Western cavalry tactic, and their horse team was also thrown into chaos. Seeing that the light cavalry of the Ming army rearranged their formation under the command of the military horn, they were about to launch a second charge. There was a drumming sound behind them, and the two of them turned their heads to see that tens of thousands of Taiping Army infantry had rushed over under the guidance of a military flag with yellow silk and green edges, which was the banner of the East King, and it should be the elite soldiers of the East Palace. The two of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time, the elite infantry of the Dongdian Army was not something that the light cavalry of the Ming Army could charge, and with their reinforcements, the horse team on their side would not be defeated.

Sure enough, seeing the reinforcements of the Taiping army's infantry team, the cavalry of the Ming army did not attack again, but only released rockets in rounds to harass the horse team of the Taiping army.

Yang Xiuqing, who was sitting on a Mongolian horse, also breathed a sigh of relief, turned his head to his side and said, "Quickly send a fast horse to chase King Yu and tell him to be careful of the rockets of the Ming army." ”

He witnessed the cavalry battle just now, and he didn't think how powerful the dense charge of the Ming army's horse team was, but thought that it was Congreve rockets that disrupted the horsemen of the Taiping army that caused Gong Deshu and Su Tianfu to suffer some losses. However, their losses do not seem to be too large, it is estimated that they are around 1,000 people, and they have not hurt their vitality.

"The Ming army's infantry team has begun to set up a formation, let's lose the lead, let's take the defensive, and when Lao Le's horse team comes back, we can always defeat them." Yang Xiuqing seemed to be giving an order, and it seemed that she was cheering herself up again.

"Let Su Hou and Gong Hou withdraw the cavalry and cover our two wings, and the right army of the East Hall will also come back." Yang Xiuqing ordered again.

At this moment, the Ming army has already launched two horizontal formations, in front of which are the nine battalions of the 1st Guards Division, and behind are the nine battalions of the 2nd Guards Division. At the same time, the three artillery regiments and six regimental artillery batteries of the Ming army also began to take their own positions, and the 36 9-pounder guns of the six regimental artillery companies were concentrated in the middle of the first line. The four 12-pounder cannon battalions belonging to the two divisional artillery regiments were placed on the two flanks of the first horizontal formation, while the other two 12-pounder howitzer battalions and two military 24-pounder howitzer battalions (and a 24-pounder cannon battalion remained in Guide City), as well as the rocket artillery battalion that had made a contribution just now, were placed in the middle of the two large horizontal formations. In addition, the light cavalry of the Ming army was also collected and lined up on the left and right of the infantry to cover the flanks. (To be continued......)