The Song army dug trenches around the camp and built fortifications to defend them, forming two semi-circular defense lines, with the naval guns of the naval division as the long-range support, the infantry artillery brigade as the suppression firepower, and the infantry machine guns as the backbone of the three-layer firepower network. The Roma heavy cavalry besieged the Song army in this narrow salient in the bend of the river five miles away. On the east bank, tens of thousands of light horsemen of the Roma Kingdom descended on the shore and arranged a wooden fence to prevent the Song army from landing and breaking through.

On a moonlit night when the stars were thin, more than 10 warships of the Song Army's naval division quietly left the port and leaned towards the east coast, and more than 200 gunwales suddenly bombarded the Roma light cavalry camp with fierce artillery fire, and for a time the bullets rained down and the camp was blown into a sea of fire.

At the same time, the infantry artillery brigade also launched an artillery bombardment on the Roma cavalry camp guarding the bridge, and the sudden artillery fire caused heavy casualties and panic among the sleeping cavalry. Taking advantage of the situation, the 'Attars' heavy cavalry quickly routed the enemy defending the bridge, seized the bridge, crossed the Tigrus River with the dragoon brigade, and attacked the Kerman camp on the east bank. The Hussar Brigade crossed the river at night from the lower reaches of the river by sea warships, and went around the back of the Kerman camp, forming an encirclement with the other two armies.

Although the Kerman state was a member of the Great Seljuk Empire, it was independent and not under the direct rule of the Empire. When they received the order of the 'alliance leader' Sanjar to aid Baghdad, they were not willing, but at this moment, the army attacking the Black Khanate was stationed on its border, and if they did not take the hundreds of thousands of troops, they might destroy him first. After some haggling, the Kerman Sultan sent reinforcements. And this army is not very elite, most of them are slaves and criminals who work as coolies, although they are large in number, but they dare not compliment their fighting power. Therefore, the main force of this aid was the heavy cavalry of the Roma State, and they were only in a position of auxiliary.

At this moment, the Kerman army was separated from the enemy army by a large river, and there were strong allied troops on the opposite bank besieged it, so it was impossible to imagine that it would be attacked by the enemy army, and the garrison was naturally relaxed. As a result, during the first round of artillery fire, the sleeping Kerman army suffered heavy losses. In the panic, they found that the enemy had crossed the river, and in the night they could vaguely see how many people there were, so they tried to break through while it was dark, but both attacks were blocked.

The shelling continues. The Song battleships were like moving artillery groups on the river. Wherever there were many people, they fired at them, and countless Kerman soldiers were reduced to pieces in the shelling. After the troops crossing the river had closed the encirclement in the early morning, they switched to burning the enemy camp with incendiary bombs. At this time, the Kerman army, which had suffered heavy casualties after a night of shelling, had no intention of fighting, abandoned the camp and fled in a hurry. Li Quan, who led the army, was worried that the enemy would jump over the wall and strike desperately. Deliberately open the net to let him escape. Then the army then pursued and killed.

The Kerman troops, who broke through the encirclement, suffered heavy casualties in the shelling. In fact, there is still the strength of a battle, and the generals who lead the army also want to gather the remnants of the army and return to the army to fight again after escaping the range of artillery fire. But the defeat was like a mountain, and the army, which was already extremely poor, had just escaped for its life. He didn't listen to orders at all, he just wanted to get away from this terrible place. That is really a Buddha killing Buddha, a god killing God, just afraid that Allah's manifestation will block their path and they will be trampled like mud by horses. In this case, the authority of the generals is gone, and they are either swept away by the rebels who fled for their lives, or they are killed by the rebels.

The Song dragoons and the 'Blak' bandit army were best at rapid detours, and they followed closely on both flanks of the rebel army, seizing the opportunity to penetrate the enemy group in a dense formation, dividing and surrounding the enemy army, and the hussars immediately rushed into the enemy group with an unstoppable force. In such cases, the enemy army, which was already a frightened bird, was often crushed with a single blow, and the dragoons took the opportunity to surround and eat the enemy army.

The west bank of the Tigrus River is the east bank of the Euphrates, and the distance between the two great rivers is only sixty li at the widest point and thirty li at the narrowest point. The remnants of the Kerman army are like a bison trapped on the runway, the flesh of its body is torn off piece by piece under the pursuit of the wolves, and it is difficult to escape from the pursuit despite running desperately. Two days later, the brute bull ran out of blood, exhausted the last of its strength, and collapsed with a bang, and was soon devoured by the wolves that followed it......

At the same time as the Kerman army was shelled, the Roma also launched an attack, they wanted to recapture the bridge and restore the connection between the two armies, but they were never able to break through the bridgehead blocked by artillery fire, and watched the Song cavalry cross the river to encircle the friendly forces. However, the Roma also found that the enemy's cavalry had all crossed the river to encircle the Kermans, and the camp was only defended by infantry troops, which was a good time to attack, at least to force their cavalry to return and relieve the pressure on friendly troops.

Three Roma troops of 10,000 men lined up in a ten-mile horizontal line and launched a frontal attack on the Song army camp. Looking at the slowly approaching enemy Ma Wei was also a little nervous, before the battle when he discussed with the generals how to defeat the sudden arrival of enemy reinforcements, everyone thought that with their limited strength in the face of several times their own enemy army is definitely not possible, especially the heavy cavalry of the Roma country is the greatest threat to them, although their own hussars have firearms in hand, it is difficult to occupy an advantage in the battle, even if they can win, it is a miserable victory.

This kind of war of attrition is fatal for the expeditionary force far away from the native army and difficult to replenish, and there is a fortified city waiting for them to capture in front of them, and excessive losses will directly lead to the failure of the expedition. So some people proposed to avoid the enemy army and go north directly to Baghdad by water to attack the capital, but this idea was quickly rejected, at this time they were less than a hundred miles away from the imperial capital, and the speed of the boat was not comparable to that of the cavalry, and before they reached Baghdad, the enemy reinforcements had already arrived first, and they could not avoid it.

Fighting and not being able to fight, hiding and not being able to dodge, and completing the predetermined campaign objectives, this is the time when the commander of an army is most tested. According to the battlefield situation, Ma Wei made the decision to annihilate the current enemy first, and then march into the imperial capital. In the face of the superior enemy army, the Song army only relied on sharp firearms, according to which Ma Wei skillfully deployed the firepower configuration of his own troops:

On the one hand, it focuses on giving full play to the powerful power of the naval warship's artillery fire, placing the camp within the range of the naval guns, and providing strong fire cover for the infantry troops; On the other hand, it changed the tactics of taking the cavalry as the main body of the battle, using the infantry army as the main force in this battle, using the field fortifications to defend as the offensive to consume the enemy's vital force, and then using the cavalry to counterattack after inflicting heavy blows on the attacking enemy.

Therefore, Ma Wei arranged two lines of defense in echelons with infantry troops, and rushed to repair strong field fortifications, and the defense lines communicated with each other by communication trenches, so that they could freely come and go to support each other. The 10,000-foot army seems weak on the ten-mile-long defensive line, but its firepower should not be underestimated. With the improvement of the machine gun and the expansion of production capacity, the weight of the four-barreled machine gun has been greatly reduced, and the portability has been greatly improved, and it can be configured to the gang.

This allows each unit of the infantry to form a fire support point with the machine gun as the center, and the large carrying capacity of the ship and the strong transportation capacity can provide them with sufficient ammunition, and they do not have to worry about the lack of ammunition, and they can let go of the fight. Nearly a thousand machine guns were fired at the same time, and the scene is enough to excite people. And its terrifying lethality, anyone who has experienced it will be haunted by nightmares for a lifetime.

However, the enemy army did not follow Ma Wei's thoughts, and they actually divided their troops into two ways to encircle the expeditionary force, which made him see a new fighter. The two enemy forces faced each other across the river and were connected by only a pontoon bridge, which the Song army could easily divide into two places by seizing the pontoon bridge. The Kerman army, which did not understand the tactics of the Song army at all, actually went down to the river, giving a good opportunity to give full play to the firepower of the naval warships, Ma Wei immediately changed his plan and decided to destroy the enemy all the way first.

However, this also entailed taking risks, as the Song army was already weak, and the cavalry could not guarantee an advantage over the enemy forces that had been hit by artillery fire. Even if the infantry army is concerned, how can their two legs not catch up with the four legs who are bent on fleeing for their lives, then the task of holding the large battalion can only be undertaken by the infantry and the marines. And as long as the enemy army is not stupid, they will not fail to see that this moment is also an opportunity for them......

In the rapid sound of war drums, hundreds of thousands of horses' hooves beat the ground, which could be distinguished at first, but as the war horses began to accelerate, it was difficult to distinguish, and the thunderous hooves sounded into a point, and the earth was trembling and trembling with it, and the oppression generated by the heavy cavalry charge was simply suffocating.

"Target, enemy frontal formation, artillery fire ready!" In the past, the artillery used to quickly shift their positions after firing, but this time the artillery brigade could not retreat, they had to withstand the enemy's attack together with the infantry army, which made Qiao Lao Er also a little nervous. He stood on the lookout car with a telescope and watched the approaching enemy soldiers wipe the sweat from his palms, raised his left arm high and gave a loud order, and the heralds quickly followed the order to raise the flag and signal to the artillery arranged on both wings.

"Mortar shells, continuous fire!"

"Rapid-fire cannon, solid shells, two rapid shots!" Qiao Lao Er did not wait for the enemy to fully enter the firing range before firing as in the past, but ordered the enemy cavalry to fire a blocking fire as soon as he entered the firing range.

Qiao Shijun knew very well that only one hundred and ten light guns of the artillery brigade were arranged on such a long front, which was not enough to completely block the enemy's attack, and now the warships of the naval division were shelling the Kerman army camp on the west bank, and they could not take care of this side for the time being, and now they could only be supported by the artillery brigade first. He knew that it was difficult to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy by firing the artillery now, but it could reduce the impact speed of the enemy's cavalry, thereby relieving the pressure on the front-line infantry troops. Therefore, in the face of the overwhelming enemy cavalry, he immediately ordered the artillery to open fire and strike at the opponent at a long distance, hoping to disrupt the enemy's offensive rhythm.

Sure enough, although the artillery brigade opened fire first, their light artillery coverage density and lethality could not completely suppress the fast-moving cavalry. Soon, the Roma cavalry still rushed to a place that was unwilling to leave the Song army's defensive line...... (To be continued......)