If you want to unify the world, you must first level the north, and if you want to level the north, you must first take the east of the river. ——— Marshal Chen Li Jingyu!

Dachen Shenlong for three years, Hedong Province.

Wang Rengong, the marshal of Zhengdong and the governor of Hedong Province, took advantage of the darkness of night to lead 10,000 cavalry to sneak deep into Loufu County, where Liu Wuzhou was based, and this time the target was directly aimed at the Fenyang Palace where Liu Wuzhou was located. The chief steward Wang Junkuo suddenly galloped over with a team of men and horses, "Marshal, Liu Wuzhou has already fled from the city, and he left the Fenyang Palace and fled to Ma Yi before nightfall. ”

Wang Rengong frowned slightly, and ordered the guards to take the map and watch it with torches on the horse.

"Liu Wuzhou seems to have discovered our whereabouts, but it doesn't matter, he fled to Mayi on this trip, and he must pass through Loufu to enter Mayi, and join Song Jingang, Zhen Zhai'er and others. General Manager Wang immediately returned to Yanmen and passed the commander's order to General Wei Chigong, asking him to lead the Yanmen soldiers and horses out of Xicheng Pass as soon as possible, and set up an ambush in the area of the Sanggan River north of Loufu Pass. After the victory, they did not have to go north, we blocked Liu Wuzhou first, so that he could only retreat to Loufu and flee to the west of Linquan Town, so that he could cross the Yellow River and escape into Longshang. Ben Shuai led 10,000 soldiers and horses to set up an ambush in Linquan Town, and defeated and captured Liu Wuzhou in one fell swoop. Also, we must be cautious in our actions, we must not let Song Jingang and others in Ma Yi find out about our actions, after catching Liu Wuzhou, we must immediately raid Song Jingang, and then fight a beautiful battle, this time, we must recover Hedong in one fell swoop, let's go. ”

"Order!" The generals said excitedly.

After King Chen ascended the throne, the emperor suddenly changed his previous strategy and became conservative. The Hedong camp originally had nearly 100,000 soldiers and horses, but after several rounds of reorganization, there were only 50,000 soldiers and horses left, and all of these 50,000 people were turned into government soldiers, and half were ordered to be disbanded as farmers and take turns to recuperate. Wang Rengong, the marshal of the expedition to the east, was in the camp, and all of a sudden there were only 20,000 horses left, and the remaining half went to farming. There are also more than 50,000 township soldiers and militia groups under the command of the provincial commander. But he could not mobilize any of them.

With more than 20,000 people, they could not take the initiative to launch a major campaign without the emperor's order, because the imperial court did not have enough grain and grass to supply them. Wang Rengong had to launch small campaigns again and again, sending less than 3,000 troops each time. In this way, the Hedong camp finally broke into pieces, eating away at the soldiers and horses of Liu Wuzhou and others little by little. After two years passed, Liu Wuzhou finally only had the three counties of Loufu, Mayi, and Dingxiang left.

After the summer and autumn grain harvests in various parts of the Shenlong Dynasty in the third year of Shenlong finally harvested, the expedition order that Wang Rengong had been looking forward to finally came down. Two days ago, the emperor's will was transmitted to Taiyuan. Wang Rengong was ordered to gather 50,000 soldiers from Hedong and immediately launch an offensive after the autumn, in order to annihilate Liu Wuzhou in one fell swoop and completely recover Hedong.

As soon as he received this order, Wang Rengong ordered the assembly of the soldiers of the Yingyang Mansion, and on the other hand, he was eager to divide the existing 20,000 soldiers and horses into two parts. All the way, he personally rushed to the palace city Fenyang Palace, where Liu Wuzhou was annoyed in the building, and ordered Wei Chigong and Qin Qiong to sit in Yanmen Pass all the way.

In the reeds on the bank of the Sanggan River outside Yanmen Pass, 10,000 soldiers and horses led by Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong were ambushing here. I didn't fight happily for two years, and every time I was like bandits, I carried so many 800 people with a gun and a stick in the west, and even had to be pursued by rebels several times their number of soldiers and horses several times. Don't mention this grievance. Fortunately, I finally waited for this day, otherwise. Everyone can't help but resign.

"Here, Liu Wuzhou is here, seeing that the number of people is about 30,000, he came in a hurry, and the army is not in order. The first is Liu Wuzhou's banner. The scout reported excitedly.

Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong's eyes flashed with burning battle intent, and the two stared closely at the plain by the river. The autumn wind is bleak, and paraquat is yellow. Liu Wuzhou's soldiers and horses in the distance appeared in front like a black line. The first is a large flag with the word Liu in yellow. The two of them saw it clearly, and waited for Liu Wuzhou, who was fleeing in a hurry all the way, to the front and drew his sword in his hand. With a wave of the roar forward, the Chen army in Hedong jumped up in the reeds, and the horses of the cavalry at the front also stood up immediately, carrying the cavalry at a gallop. …,

The sound of shouting and killing sounded one after another, Liu Wuzhou and his subordinates had not yet reacted, Chen Jun had already killed, slashing with swords, stabbing with guns and arrows. The ranks of the front army were completely disorganized, and the ranks behind were immediately met with a rain of arrows shot from the reeds.

For a while, all I could hear was the sound of shouting and killing, and the rumbling sound of drums and horns resounded non-stop, as if countless soldiers and horses were killing in all directions.

"Whew!" A huge iron crossbow tied to a bundle of rockets flew under the huge Liu Zi flag, and with a loud bang, the flag officer and the more than a dozen cavalrymen beside him fell to the ground instantly, leaving a cloud of smoke.

"Launch!" At some point, Liu Wuzhou found that rows of Chen Jun were also rushing out of their back at this time, and quickly set up several spear formations on their back road. What's even worse is that behind the spear array, a long row of ballistas has been pulled out. And behind those ballistas, there were many Chen soldiers driving crossbows to pull carriages covered with bright red robes.

From afar, when Liu Wuzhou saw these carriages covered in red clothes, he felt a burst of bad feelings. He had been fighting with the Chen army for several years, and according to what he knew about the Chen army, the sharpest weapons of the Chen army in ambush warfare like today's were their mine-throwing carts for projectile firearms, and then catapults and crossbowmen. But now that he looked at Chen Jun's arrangement, crossbowmen appeared, and catapults also appeared, but there were not a few firearms mine-throwing vehicles. This made him even more afraid of the red-clad carriage.

Rows of red-clad carriages finally took place far behind the Chen army's infantry formation, and from a distance it seemed that there were at least a hundred of them.

An officer of the Chen Army lifted it vigorously, and the first piece of red cloth was lifted, revealing a hideous weapon. The thing was dark and shiny, even slightly blue. In the early morning light, it is getting brighter and brighter.

It was like a huge pillar erected on top of the carriage, but the huge and black hole still made Liu Wuzhou, who was holding a clairvoyant mirror, feel that it was Chen Jun's weapon.

In the rear position of the Chen army, Zhao Ren, the commander of the engineer battalion, excitedly commanded the soldiers to lift the red coats on the cannons. This new weapon was named the Shenlong Cannon by the people of the Firearms Bureau, but because the Shenlong Cannon was usually covered with a bright red coat, the sappers preferred to call it the Red Cannon.

This red-coated cannon is the latest firearm developed by the imperial court, a cannon made of stainless steel weighing 3,000 catties, the cannon body is one zhang long, the muzzle is thicker than the mouth of the bowl, and the cannonball used is a lead bullet weighing ten catties. With a range of up to 2,500 paces, it is definitely the longest-range weapon in the world, and it is 1,800 paces higher than the 700-step winch crossbow with the longest range before, almost three and a half times as long.

Moreover, this red-coated cannon also has a special illumination door and a crosshair, and the accuracy is very high, much more accurate than the catapult with a range of only more than 200 steps. After the redcoat cannon was manufactured, it was the first time it was put on the battlefield, and this was the first battle.

At one time, the imperial court directly sent all the 100 red-coated cannons that had been built to Yanmen. These cannons weighed 3,000 catties, and the imperial court originally intended to erect these cannons on the walls of important cities such as Yanmen and Taiyuan as defensive weapons. However, after Wei Chigong and Qin Qiong saw the power of the red-clothed cannons in the test firing with their own eyes, they immediately regarded these cannons as treasures. In order to move these cannons here from Yanmen, the two even ordered the cavalry to use their war horses as crossbows to pull cannons together.

"Reload the shell!" Zhao Ren shouted excitedly.

Hundreds of professional artillerymen who had graduated from the newly opened artillery department of the lecture hall quickly loaded their shells and began to aim.

"No. 1 test firing!"

Ignition, shooting.

The ten-pound lead bullet flew over the soldiers' heads with a huge whistling sound, and landed in the tens of thousands of Liu Wuzhou's army by the river at least two thousand paces away. There was a boom, and the huge cannonballs penetrated the dense crowd of rebels one after another, taking away countless stumps and broken arms, and then smashed a deep pit on the ground, and then bounced again, flew into the air again, and quickly smashed into the nearby rebel group, and jumped up again...,

"Dog-day, good fight!" Wei Chi Jingde's face was swollen red with excitement, the cannon shot just now was too good. The power of one shot, he really saw it in the clairvoyant mirror, at least twenty-three people were killed, not counting those who broke their hands and feet, especially after the cannonball hit the ground, it would bounce up, this killing power is simply amazing.

"Free fire, ten bursts!" Zhao Ren also saw the actual combat power of this red-clothed cannon for the first time, and he was so excited that even the orders behind him were directly shouted.

"Howling, howling, howling! ~”

One shell after another was fired, and hundreds of red-coated cannons were fired in a salvo, which was unprecedented in power. Along the line of the Sanggan River, more than 50,000 rebels of Liu Wuzhou were instantly in the eighteenth layer of hell. With a range of 2,500 paces, they were completely within the range of these Chen Jun's cannons.

Ahead is the Sanggan River, and although it is the dry season in autumn, the water in the river is still deeper than a person. To the rear, there were neat formations of pikes, repulsions, four-cornered nails, and the artillery formations that terrified them. On the other side, there was the archer array, crossbowman array, and cavalry led by Qin Qiong and Wei Chi Gong.

There is no way forward, and there is no way back.

After the first battle of the red-coated cannons, the 50,000 rebels who had fled from the building all night finally collapsed. For many rebels, those whistling shells are not human, they are the power of ghosts and gods.

The 50,000 rebels completely collapsed in the ten rounds of red-coated artillery, and a large number of rebels began to abandon their weapons and surrender on the ground with their heads in their hands, and a large number of them scurried like frightened war horses, headless flies. The rest, such as Liu Wuzhou, who were still unwilling, gathered a small number of people and horses, desperately looking for a breakthrough rebellion.