Lin Zhe looked at the Taiping soldiers who were only five or six hundred meters away from his position, and secretly said in his heart, these Taiping troops were even more able to resist than he imagined, and they were continuously subjected to intensive artillery bombardment, but they could still maintain a steady queue and continue to advance, it seemed that he really underestimated the Taiping Army of this era.

The contemporary Taiping army was able to defeat the Qing army, relying not only on the belief in God and the like, but also on the actual combat effectiveness, maybe their equipment level is not very good, maybe their system is not very advanced, but their fighting will is incomparable with other contemporary domestic armies.

"It's almost time, our infantry should open fire, and as long as they get within range of our rifles, I don't believe they'll be able to hold up!" Lin Zhe said so secretly in his heart.

But the next move of the Taiping army surprised him a little, because the Taiping army on the opposite side actually stopped walking!

What's going on?

Lin Zhe had a very bad premonition in his heart!

Sure enough, it didn't take long for Shi Qingxuan on the side to exclaim in a low voice: "The cavalry of the thief army has moved!" ”

As his words fell, Lin Zhe also saw a thousand or so Taiping cavalry in the distance making a quick detour from the right side!

They are going to use infantry and cavalry flanking attacks!

At this time, Hunter William on the side also hurriedly said: "General, quickly let the first regiment on the right flank adjust the queue and prepare to meet the onslaught of the enemy cavalry!" ”

Now the tactical intention of the Taiping army on the opposite side can be said to have been fully embodied, that is, the infantry frontal attack, attracting the firepower of the Yuyao County Yong Battalion, and the cavalry is from the side ready to launch a roundabout attack at any time, once the enemy's cavalry rushes up, then the Yuyao County Yong Battalion will fall into a great crisis in this battle.

"Immediately let the First Infantry shrink the defensive line and prepare to deal with the onslaught of enemy cavalry!"

After Lin Zhe's order was issued, the first corps on the right flank began to quickly change formation, they were simply facing the front two horizontal columns, and now the enemy's cavalry appeared on the right flank, so the first corps in order to avoid the flank being impacted, naturally need to turn part of the force over, and then aim the muzzle of the gun at the direction of the enemy's cavalry, and build a defensive line facing the right flank.

At this moment, if you look down on the situation of the two sides on the battlefield from the air, you will find that the Yongying of Yuyao County has built a three-sided defense line with its back on the small hill of Dongqingshan, of which the northern defense line is the frontal defense line, and the east is the right wing defense line and the west defense line is the left wing defense line.

Previously, the direction of the Taiping Army's advance was directly from the north, so the Yongying of Yuyao County deployed most of the strength of the two infantry regiments in the north, while the left flank defense line in the west was mainly deployed by the baggage battalion, and the right flank defense line in the east was mainly composed of two companies of the first regiment.

Now that the enemy's cavalry was in the east, the First Infantry Corps quickly moved the four companies that had been deployed in the frontal line to the right flank.

However, after the 1st Regiment was withdrawn from the frontal line, only six companies of the 2nd Regiment and the 1st Artillery Company remained, totaling about 700 men, and they had to face more than 4,000 enemy infantry.

This is a battle with a huge disparity in strength!

Sure enough, after seeing that the Yuyao County Yongying had drawn troops from the front to reinforce the right wing, Lin Chengting on the opposite side showed a sneer, and immediately said: "Now you can let the sons and daughters rush!" ”

With Lin Chengting's order, the Taiping infantry who had stopped outside the range of the Yongying musket in Yuyao County started again, the soldiers in front carried heavy shields, followed by more than a thousand musketeers and some archers, and behind them were a large number of cold-weapon infantry armed with swords and spears.

As soon as the enemy moved, Lin Anfei, the commander of the Second Infantry Regiment in front, was beating violently in his heart!

When the enemy soldiers holding shields in the front row had just entered the distance of 500 meters, Lin Anfei did not hesitate to give the order to fire: "All of them, fire!" ”

The crackling sound of the Minnie Step's gun echoed in the air for the first time!

Lin Chengting, who was supervising the battle in the rear of the Taiping Army, saw that the Yongying of Yuyao County on the opposite side really shot three hundred steps away, and said secretly in his heart: "These Yuyao Qing Demons are really sharp muskets, not to mention the fierce artillery fire just now, the current muskets are actually shooting three hundred steps away!" ”

"Oh no, those shields don't work at all!" Lin Chengting saw that the enemy was only the first round of salvos, and the shield soldiers who walked in the forefront fell down even if they all brushed up, and secretly regretted it in his heart.

In order to block the enemy's musket bullets at medium and long distances, he did not hesitate to reduce the mobility of the troops, and let the soldiers in the front row push heavy shields to walk in front.

However, the Qing Demon Musket on the opposite side was able to generally penetrate his shield based on high hopes at a distance of three hundred steps, which made Lin Chengting quite depressed.

Since the shield tactics were not available, Lin Chengting was also ruthless, and immediately said: "Order the troops to let them abandon their shields, immediately launch a charge, and then let Dong Yanghong be ready, ready to attack the enemy's flank at any time!" ”

With 4,000 troops attacking the enemy's camp and more than 10 artillery pieces to help, he didn't believe that only 7000 people on the opposite side could block it, and once the opposite side was tightened and forced to draw reinforcements from the right flanks, then he would be able to let the cavalry led by Dong Yanghong immediately launch a flank attack, so as to break through the enemy's defense line in one fell swoop.

As long as the cavalry can break through, relying on the impact of the cavalry will definitely be able to win a big victory!

With Lin Chengting's decision, the shield soldiers of the Taiping Army in front quickly threw away the shields in their hands, and then rushed forward with various shouts just holding their swords, while the musketeers and archers in the rear followed closely.

Seeing that the enemy gave up his shield and launched a direct charge, Lin Anfei felt as if it was a repetition of the Battle of Guangde, when outside Guangde City, Li Cong'an's thousands of Taiping troops also launched a direct charge, and finally were defeated by Yuyao County Yong's thousands of muskets, and finally the whole army collapsed.

Now unlike the Battle of Guangde, only the Second Infantry Regiment itself and the First Artillery Company were on the frontal defensive line, while the First Infantry Corps of the main force of the Yongying in Yuyao County was forced to transfer to the right flank to guard against the charging of the enemy cavalry.

The charging enemy army was not only more than 1,000 people, but a full 4,000!

Can the 2nd Infantry Regiment alone be able to hold back?

Lin Anfei already had a little panic in his heart, and while directing the battle, his eyes also unconsciously looked at the small hill in the rear, where Lin Zhe and a group of senior officers were observing the development of the battle situation.

"My lord, the front direction is a little tight now, do you want to transfer some of the baggage regiment to support one or two!"

Lin Zhe nodded after hearing this: "Yes!" ”

Although the soldiers of the baggage regiment were all civilian men before, and although they underwent formal training after being incorporated into the baggage regiment, the soldiers' physical quality and training level were incomparable with those of regular infantry.

However, no matter how bad they are, they are equipped with rifles, and they can be pulled out and directly into battle if necessary.

Although Lin Zhe's original intention in establishing the baggage regiment was to make the logistics troops more professional, he later found that it was too wasteful for the logistics troops directly supporting more than 300 people to transport the baggage, and the Yongying Battalion in Yuyao County had few troops, so these more than 300 people naturally could not be wasted.

Therefore, the soldiers of the baggage regiment were also issued with rifles, on the one hand, to give them the ability to protect themselves, and on the other hand, they were also planning to pull them into battle when necessary and directly participate in the battle.

Speaking of armed baggage regiments, it is still thanks to the fact that the Lin's workshop modified the Mini Infantry gun is more smooth, because it is just a simple rifling, and a simple ruler is installed, so it is relatively easy to convert the smoothbore version of the brown bass infantry gun into a rifled Mini Infantry gun.

After purchasing the machine, Lin Zhe directly purchased thousands of brown bass rifles for modification, and has now successively modified 100 guns, in addition to equipping the second infantry regiment, the rest is equipped with the baggage regiment.

These men of the Baggage Regiment, who were also equipped with the Minnie Rifles, may not be able to compare with the regular infantry in combat, but if they were just allowed to stand behind the breastwork and shoot, it would not be a big problem.

As Lin Zhe very simply abandoned the defense line on the left flank and directly transferred the baggage regiment to reinforce the front defense line, the front defense line had gathered nearly 800 muskets.

Every salvo of these more than 800 Minnie rifles brought great casualties to the Taiping soldiers who were on the way to the charge!

And this casualty is getting bigger and bigger as they charge closer and closer.

However, although the firepower of the Second Infantry Regiment and the Baggage Battalion of the Yuyao County Yongying was fierce, they could not stand the Taiping soldiers on the opposite side, and although the casualties caused by the Yuyao County Yong Battalion to them were large, compared with the total strength of the Taiping Army, the casualties of hundreds of people were nothing at all.

The Taiping troops on the opposite side completely ignored the soldiers in front of them falling one after another, and continued to charge forward one after another, even after the First Artillery Company fired scattered bullets and caused them Yan zhòng casualties, they still did not stop the pace of the charge.

Seeing that the Taiping army had rushed to less than three hundred meters, Lin Zhe once again ordered: "Let Shi Langyi transfer two companies to support the frontal defense line and form fan firepower." ”

Soon, the two infantry companies of the 1st Regiment completed the conversion of formation, from the previous east-facing to the northwest-facing direction, in order to shoot at the Taiping troops on the frontal defensive line!

And Lin Chengting, who was on the other side, saw that the soldiers of the first regiment of the Yongying in Yuyao County began to move, and he sneered: "After waiting for so long, the opportunity has finally come, let Dong Yanghong rush and remember, once the enemy army returns to defense, retreat immediately!" ”

He knew very well that relying on a thousand cavalry alone to storm the enemy's position, even if it succeeded, would require great casualties, and what he wanted was not to let the cavalry directly attack the enemy's defensive line, but to hang the cavalry as a sharp knife over the enemy's head, forcing them not to dare to lightly mobilize the forces of the first corps.

Lin Chengting's tactics are actually very simple, that is, to divide the forces of the Yong battalion in Yuyao County, use infantry and cavalry to suppress the enemy respectively, the cavalry does not move, and only uses 4,000 infantry to attack the front of the enemy, if the enemy army can't stop the attempt to draw the right wing of the troops, then he will not hesitate to order the cavalry to attack the enemy's right flank.

He didn't believe it, his 6,000 army, with full preparation, could not defeat this small Yuyao County Yong battalion!