After Huo Lingyao went back, the people who returned to the department really did not have another incident, and did not complain about the lack of drinking water, and after two days, it was time for the two sides to make an appointment, and the Ming army camp with Hui'an Fort as the core sounded a slow and shocking war drum, almost at the same moment, the horn sounded in the Mongolian army camp opposite, and a big battle began.

Since it was an appointment battle, it was a face-to-face battle, rather than a passive defense of the fortifications of the castle, so the Red Shirts also opened a large battalion to cover the trench in the open area.

Three columns of red shirts lined up in a horizontal line, checking the bayonets on their weapons at the sound of the officers' commands, and at a glance, the dirty red robes of the soldiers stood out in the yellow-brown desert, and the summer sun shone fiercely on a cluster of bayonets, and the soldiers were silent and waited for the coming of the big battle.

Slowly, there was a belt composed of countless black dots in front, this is the cavalry of the Western Xia army, and the sound of horns came from afar, and the Western Xia army put out a long snake formation, pressed from the left, middle and right directions, full of eyes, all of them were black cavalry and colorful banners, the number of enemies was obviously several times that of the Ming army, and all of them were extremely mobile cavalry, if they were replaced by ordinary troops, I am afraid that the momentum would have been defeated first, but this thin three columns of red shirt army still stood as steadily as a rock, only the hot wind on the desert rolled the Ming character banner and hunted。

The cavalry of the Western Xia army began to jog, and in a flash, it seemed that the entire desert was moving, and the effect of tens of thousands of cavalry galloping together was not something ordinary people could imagine, only the earth moved and the mountains shook, the word could describe the land of the Ningxia desert, hard as iron, and still rumbling with countless iron hooves, even the ground under the feet of the red-shirted army was trembling, and the commander of the Western Xia army, Gu Lunmu, stood on a sand dune, looking at the magnificent momentum he had directed, and nodded with satisfaction。

Gu Lunmu was right, the Red Shirts had too few soldiers, even if they had excellent firearms, they couldn't take care of such a long front, and the cavalry was moving fast, leaving them with a very short time to shoot calmly, besides, in the face of such a shocking cavalry impact, who could maintain a good mood to fight.

The flanks of the three columns of the red-shirted army were few, and the poor cavalry returned to the three hundred knights in charge of the military formation, and the left flank saw the overwhelming Western Xia cavalry, and the athletes in the Hui department were all round and angry, drawing their swords in their hands, and Meng Dan whispered to Huo Lingyao: "Look at this formation, the Ming army will be defeated, and I will cover the princess later, and I can save one of them, and now it can only be like this." ”

Huo Lingyao didn't answer, she looked sideways at the redshirts in the queue, standing casually in the face of the galloping scene, calm as usual, chewing everything in her mouth, and the soldiers were so calm, it can be seen that the training level of the redshirts has reached a strong level.

The Tanguts were getting closer and closer, the horses turned from jogging to running, the horse's hooves struck the earth with a thunderous sound, the knights hid behind the horse's head, and controlled the direction of the horse with only their legs, and took out their short bows and feathered arrows with both hands to shoot, and when they finished a round of arrows, the war horse rushed into the enemy formation, and could draw the saber and cut the infantry condescendingly, as for the poor cavalry on the enemy's flanks, they were not at all in their consideration.

In this era, the cavalry is the master of the battlefield, they combine mobility and long-range firepower, and have a huge advantage that the infantry can never reach, and the nomadic cavalry who grew up on horseback since childhood has a huge advantage in training compared with the Han cavalry, which is a natural advantage, even if it is trained hard, it is difficult to follow in the footsteps of others. Therefore, in conventional terms, the Tangut people will win this battle, let alone the 3,000 Red Shirt Army, even the 100,000 Red Shirt Army infantry is not the opponent of the 30,000 Xixia cavalry in this endless desert.

But times have quietly changed, and the kings of the Western Regions have not yet noticed that their superiority will be wiped out in the face of steel, and the master of the battlefield will not be cavalry, nor infantry, but - artillery.

The three columns of infantry were just used as a cover for a trick, Liu Ziguang was not stupid enough to use an ordinary three-stage attack with a firearm to deal with the cavalry of the brigade, and his killer weapon was the artillery that lined up behind the infantry.

The exclusive text version of this work may not be reproduced without consent, and excerpts for more of the latest and fastest chapters please visit! This kind of cannon is not the common eight-pound infantry cannon in the army, but the fifty-pound cannon that has never appeared on the battlefield, the so-called fifty pounds refers to the shells used with this kind of cannon, weighing fifty pounds, which is an old-fashioned name, in fact, according to the terminology in the army, this cannon is called the fourteenth year of the Apocalypse, the five-inch caliber tiger squat howitzer, the gun body and the gun carriage are all made of the best quality high-carbon stainless steel, smooth and smooth, can see the human figure, the barrel of the cannon is the rifling milled out by water pressure machinery. Each shell is also cast from stainless steel, with a perfectly streamlined shell, a sleek, shiny shell containing a sophisticated and reliable mechanical fuse and a large amount of nitrocellulose high explosives.

On the command tower, Liu Ziguang saw that the Western Xia army had entered the effective firing range, and waved his hand decisively, and the flag officer next to him waved the red flag in his hand, and a password sounded on the artillery position:

"The whole regiment shoots the target No. 7O2, the target 'enemy' cavalry grenade, the instantaneous fuse, the No. 4 charge datum, the firing direction is directed at O-O4, the gauge is 376, and the right O-35 is loaded in 85 seconds!"

The cannonball was filled into the barrel of the cannon, and the angle of the muzzle was also set a long time ago, after hearing the commander's order, dozens of artillerymen moved quickly and neatly pulled the cannon rope, and thirty huge cannons suddenly roared, this roar was completely different from the roar of tens of thousands of iron hooves hitting the earth, the latter can only be regarded as a pediatric in comparison, the roar of the giant cannon shook the whole Hui'an Fort trembling, the earth wall fell down the earth, all the soldiers felt the eardrum was impacted, back to the athlete's war horse, without training to resist the sound of artillery, on the spot shocked, fortunately, the riders were superb in riding and barely controlled。

Thirty huge cannonballs swirled sharply in the barrel, and then erupted, with endless anger shot at the Western Xia cavalry brigade, the cannonballs pierced faster than the sound of cannons, and before the Western Xia army heard the deafening roar, the cannonballs had fallen among them, and the fuse hit the hard ground, and suddenly detonated the nitrocellulose explosives in the body of the projectile, and the explosives burned quickly millions of times in a ten-thousandth of a second, and even the strong shell could not withstand such a great pressure, so the air waves pushed the steel fragments in all directions, harvesting the lives of people and horses without any scruples.

Thirty cannonballs exploded in the cavalry line on the spot, thirty big blanks were blown up on the spot, the cannonballs exploded within a few dozen zhang, the people and horses were dead, and the bones were dead, and the heads and feet could be separated by a hundred zhang, and before the Western Xia army woke up from the horror of the surprise attack, the second wave of blows arrived.

The artillerymen of the Red Shirt Army had already put on earplugs, and the sound of the huge cannon under the command of the officer was too loud, and if you stood next to it, your eardrums could not bear it at all, and even if you wore earplugs, there were still many soldiers who were hearing impaired because of this.

After the first cannon was discharged, the artillerymen immediately opened the bolt, the brass shell shell fell out of it with gunsmoke and fell to the ground, still hot and hot, without gloves, they did not dare to pick up the camphor wood ammunition box on the side, one by one the shells had torn the wax paper wrapping, polished brightly, the ammunition hand went into battle shirtless, with muscular arms to pick up the heavy oval shell and stuffed it into the gun chamber, and then quickly retreated to the side, the gunner followed, held the gun rope, quickly turned his head, paid attention to the commander's small flag, thirty huge cannons, there are 300 artillerymen to serve, under the long-term hard training, everyone's movements are uniform, from the shell to the loading is completed, ready to shoot in a few seconds。

The command flag was swung down, the shell was discharged again, and the huge recoil caused the gun carriage to move violently backwards, if it were not for the long hoe nailed to the ground, I am afraid that the artillery position would have been out of order long ago.

Successive high-explosive grenades exploded in the Western Xia army, forming a barrage of steel, even modern armored vehicles could not withstand such a bombardment, not to mention flesh and blood, the chain mail of the Western Xia heavy armored cavalry blocked a bow and crossbow still had some effect, but in the face of the scorching sharp steel shrapnel, it was as useless as a layer of tissue paper, countless knights and war horses who had been in battle for a long time were thrown into the air and were torn into pieces by shrapnel in the air waves, and the knights who were lucky enough not to die fell from their war horses, and their whole brains were dizzy, in their eyes, the world was no longer the original world, it became a blood-red sky, and their ears were buzzing, even if their comrades were shouting next to them, they couldn't hear it, and some people were stunned by the air wavesSomeone next to him pulled out a scimitar and slashed, all in all, the huge cavalry charging group had been disintegrated by the shelling.

However, the resilience of the Tangut people should not be underestimated, although the forward has been blown to pieces, but under the command of Gu Lunmu, the rear team still bravely rode forward to join the attack queue, they knew that moving forward was death, but for the final victory, no one was willing to retreat.

Thirty cannons were powerful, but there were still many cavalry who had slipped through the line of fire, and these bloodied cavalrymen rushed madly from three sides, and the knights stood on stirrups with their feet straight, brandishing their sabers, and shouting hoarsely like a group of vengeful devils.

By this time, the infantry had retreated into a half-man-deep trench, and hundreds of muskets opened fire together, turning the cavalry who had been lucky enough to rush over on their backs, and the infantry calmly reloaded and fired again, forming an uninterrupted net of fire to annihilate those who slipped through the shelling.

Gu Lunmu looked at this tragic scene, his hands were bruised, and the clairvoyant mirror was about to be shattered, but he did not panic, but calmly ordered the cavalry to attack in a roundabout way and attack from the flank.

The horn sounded again, and the attacking Western Xia army immediately turned their horses' heads to the two wings of Hui'an Fort, and rushed to the tide of cavalry, like a river hitting a reef, instantly divided into two forces, and the cannons of the redshirt army suddenly lost their target.