A field at the foot of the Moon Mountain in the east of Anqing Mansion is the concentration of the left army, a large tent that stretches for several miles, crisscrossed between trenches and canals.

It is worthy of being the most elite army of the left army, the arrangement of the whole barracks is very reasonable, the ditches and the canals not only provide convenience for drinking water but also play a blocking role, and the wooden gate is set up between the ditches, and the suspension bridge communicates.

In addition, there are watchtowers at every walled gate, and sentry horses patrol everywhere day and night.

Zuo Liangyu's big tent of the Chinese army is in Huaining County under the Moon Mountain, with 3,000 iron cavalry guarding day and night, and tens of thousands of archers guarding the battlements.

There are also forts on each walled gate, and there are forts in the southeast, northwest, and northwest, which can facilitate artillery bombardment in any direction.

As the deputy commander-in-chief of the First Corps of the First Army of the Guards, Liu Zhaoji could see that Zuo Liangyu's Chinese army camp was an easy place to defend and difficult to attack, and Zuo Liangyu was obviously prepared to stay here for a long time.

Liu Zhaoji took Yan Yingyuan's platoon of cavalry to observe the entire left army camp by moonlight, and he couldn't help but have a sad look on his face for a while.

"Our Guards were prepared to fight with the Tartars from the beginning, if the left army did not have such a solid battalion, the officer could order the attack now, but now this left army relies on the big battalion, fortified step by step, and there is a Huaining county town as the backing, my Guards have less training in attacking tough battles, and now it seems that it is not easy to take the left army as soon as possible!"

Liu Zhaoji said as he spoke: "No wonder there are hundreds of thousands of troops under the command of the Marquis of Jingnan and Governor Yuan and they dare not attack the left army, it seems that this left army is not the grasshopper after the autumn as expected by the imperial court." ”

Yan Yingyuan saw Liu Zhaoji looking at him, so he also responded: "What the marshal said is exactly what His Majesty and the princes of the court can't reach, so naturally they can't live in their true realm, but if you only see what you see in front of you, it is true that the left army is difficult to break, but the left army has been trapped here for a long time, and I am afraid that the food and grass have long been gone, as long as I attack properly, I will not be able to win completely." ”

Liu Zhaoji smiled slightly, noncommittal, there were infantry, cavalry and artillery behind him, which was different from the traditional formation of the official army, which was a mixture of infantry and artillery and cavalry, which was equivalent to fighting together.

But now that each branch of the army has a separate division of labor, he, as a commander, is equivalent to having three sharp weapons in his hands, and he has to figure out how to use these three sharp weapons to fight the left army.

Liu Zhaoji also knew that it would not be a problem to defeat the left army with the weapons and quality of the soldiers under his command, but he did not want to let his first corps lose too much in this battle, after all, he always remembered that His Majesty the Emperor had told him that the main opponent of their guards was the Qing army that was heading south.

"Let's go, go back to camp! In any case, as long as the decisive battle of Jingnanhou is certain, our army will attack with all its might! ”

Liu Zhaoji rode away lightly as he spoke, and only after half a quarter of an hour did he ride his horse towards the temporary garrison of the Ming Guards.

Yan Yingyuan pressed the knife in his hand tightly and followed behind Liu Zhaoji, although he was received by Zhu Youzhen, but in Liu Zhaoji's opinion, he was just an insightful offspring.

After all, Liu Zhaoji has a lot of talents in the army.

As soon as he returned to the station, Liu Zhaoji received an order from Huang Degong.

Liu Zhaoji knew that tomorrow at noon would start the decisive battle, so he began to sit on the ground and did not say a word.

It wasn't until an hour later that Liu Zhaoji suddenly ordered: "The order, the first battalion of artillery type A and the first battalion of artillery type B took advantage of the night to advance to the east, west, north, south and north directions of Yueshan overnight, and launched an artillery bombardment early the next morning!" ”

The artillery battalion, with a total of hundreds of cannons, began to gather and rushed to the left camp in the night.

Each battalion of the Guards artillery battalion is a team of every fifteen people, one team is responsible for one gun, and one battalion has more than 300 guns.

A battalion was divided into three marks, each marked with a Flo machine gun, a tiger squat cannon and a new large cannon made by the Ordnance Institute.

This kind of cannon is a field gun that is more practical for infantry combat, much smaller in weight and volume than the redcoat cannon, and the firing range is also reduced by half, but it is easier to transport, and the operation is more convenient, and the probability of dumb fire and explosion is small.

After all, it is the latest alloy steel made by the Iron and Steel Smelting Bureau, which is harder than the iron cannon but not much different in weight than the copper cannon.

Of course, the biggest advantage of all kinds of artillery of the Ming Guards is that the barrel is cast, and it no longer relies on soldiers to fire guns based on experience.

Early the next morning.

The two artillery battalions of the Ming Guards began to poke their heads out of a pile of weeds, and each artillery began to operate its artillery according to the orders of each target.

In a team, one person begins to measure the distance between the target shell and the caliper and the angle of the gun body according to the caliper and caliper, and uses the position of the vernier to start issuing instructions to the operator.

"Tilt thirty degrees to the right and raise the elevation angle thirty!"

Zheng Chenggong came from a pirate family, had a soft spot for artillery, and was proficient in arithmetic, and like him, the artillery operators and commanders of the artillery of the A battalion of the First Corps had a certain knowledge base, and could effectively apply various geometric knowledge.

Once the commissioning is complete.

As the captain, Zheng Chenggong stood up first, and the other artillery captains all stood up.

Immediately after that, the standard thousands of households ran to the battalion commander to obey the order.

The battalion commander reported to Liu Zhaoji in flag.

Liu Zhaoji nodded.

In an instant, there was a boom, boom, and several cannons rang out throughout the quiet field.

The left army had not heard such a dense cannon fire for a long time, and they blew up their nests in an instant, and they were all busy coming out of their tents to observe.

Zuo Mengeng was also awakened from his sleep by the sound of cannons, he hurriedly ran out of the county office and asked, "What's the matter, where is the cannon!" ”

The personal soldiers under his command said that they did not know, and they were sending people to investigate.

Here, Zuo Liangyu also sat up in a panic, and hurriedly pushed open the window, but saw that there were bursts of white smoke in the distance, and couldn't help but wonder: "Whose army is this, the artillery fire is so dense!" ”

At this time, the gates of the wooden villages of the left army camp were shot one after another, directly shattered into sawdust, and collapsed in the trench.

The left army on the gate of the wooden village also fell down one after another, and the generals of the pro-army of the left army immediately left the camp, but they did not dare to go up to the gate tower of the wooden village again.

Zuo Mengeng also came to the front at this time, and the generals of the pro-army of the left army hurriedly surrounded Zuo Mengeng: "Young marshal, look at this situation, it should be the army of the imperial court, and the scale of this artillery fire should not be less than 200,000 soldiers and horses!" How we should deal with it, please let the young marshal decide! ”

Zuo Mengeng couldn't help laughing: "What can I do, since there are many enemies, let's abandon the wooden villages everywhere first, concentrate on defending Huaining County, and rule the other departments to immediately rush to the aid of the Chinese army!" ”

Saying that, Zuo Mengeng went to find his father Zuo Liangyu first.

On Liu Zhaoji's side, when he saw the first shelling, the left army began to retreat, and he couldn't help laughing: "The turtle is really timid!" Order the cavalry battalion to immediately take a small road and march under the city of Huaining, lock the retreat of the left army, and the infantry battalion advance and attack the peripheral army of the left army from the front! Just at noon, the outer camp of the Left Army was resolved! ”