The thousand-man phalanx of the Runing Army is actually a rectangular phalanx of forty by twenty-five, and the front is a rectangle of forty people. In the first six rows of the phalanx were the musketeers, followed by pikemen and axemen. Therefore, the current Runing Army has 160 musketeers per platoon.

After the firecrackers were distributed, the firecrackers immediately picked up their own firecrackers and ran to the phalanx, and they all took off their shields and lined up, ready to plug the leaks at any time to prevent the peasant rebels from opening the gap in the phalanx.

One hundred and sixty rounds of ammunition, like an invisible wall, immediately blocked the momentum of the peasant rebels' charge. But at this moment, the arrows thrown by the first row of archers in Luo Rucai's army also flew in, and these arrows immediately hit the heads and bodies of those fire guns with a burst of metal crashing sounds.

After Wu Shigong's reorganization, Yang Goudan's workshop department made a large number of iron helmets, and Bian's ironware workshop, together with the workshop division, also produced a large number of iron pieces to improve beggars' armor.

But after all, the time was still short and could not meet the equipment of all the soldiers of the Runing Army, so priority was given to equipping the musketeers who were in front of the formation and were relatively vulnerable.

And this armor and equipment are working now, except for a few particularly unlucky soldiers, the gunners in the Runing army have not suffered much damage. However, the range of the arrows thrown varied, and a small number of arrows flew over the heads of the musketeers and flew into the soldiers of the thousand-man phalanx, which also caused damage to some soldiers in the Runing army.

Although the damage caused was not great, the soldiers of the Runing Army were still caused some confusion by such a sudden blow. Fortunately, the peasant rebels who charged on the opposite side were also hit by the firecrackers, and they also paused, so they did not rush to the thousand-man phalanx of the Runing army.

The Runing Army's musketeers are basically made up of veterans, so they are returning to normal quite quickly. When the peasant rebel army came to a halt and wanted to speed up again and rush into the thousand-man phalanx, the second row of the Runing army fired.

Then came the third platoon, the fourth platoon ......, and when the fifth platoon of muskets was fired, the soldiers of the peasant rebel army lay down in a large area. The heavy casualties caused the peasant rebels in the back to retreat.

At this time, a lucky unscathed peasant rebel soldier stood in the middle of a mass of dead bodies. He looked left and right at the corpse of his companion lying on the ground, and then suddenly laughed like crazy, and shouted, "Lao Tzu is all right! Come on! ”

This cry immediately aroused the frenzy of the peasant rebels. But at this time, the second round of fire of the Runing Army started again. A single bullet shattered the laughing soldier's head, sending blood and brains flying everywhere.

The peasant rebels who came up from behind ran right behind him, and several soldiers were knocked down, and several soldiers hiding behind were also sprayed with blood and brains.

Another soldier went mad, and he was in tears. sang loudly in a hoarse voice in the Henan dialect:

"The flowers bloom in the mountains of Shandandan,

My sister came from the mountains with a burden.

……”

This madness immediately infected the entire peasant rebel army. What's the point of living a life that is worse than death? has a trace of life given by the eight kings, so let's exchange it for life.

The whole army of peasant rebels sang one after another, and all the people went crazy, and all of them disregarded all life, including their own. What bullets, knives and guns? Then use our flesh and blood! Once again, the peasant rebels rushed in desperation.

Due to the interference of the throwing arrows, some of the gunners of the Runing Army did not have time to reload their ammunition. So this round of firecrackers only shot three or four platoons. After this round of firing was completed, there was a noticeable pause in the firing of the Runing Army, and taking advantage of this pause, the peasant rebels suddenly rushed into a distance of twenty paces. And at first sight, the situation is not good. The Musketeers quickly made their way through the queue and ran towards the back of the thousand-man phalanx.

And the pikemen who were preparing to haode, but because they wanted to make these musketeers retreat, they had to make way in the formation of one passage after another, which also caused cracks to appear in the formation of the thousand-person phalanx.

But after all, these peasant rebels had no military experience, and they were already red-eyed at this time, and they only knew that they were facing the phalanx of the Runing army.

It was a bunch of madmen, and the soldiers of the peasant rebels did not budge at all, but rushed at the spears. They struck the spears with the weapons in their hands, and when they couldn't hit them, they simply hit them with their bodies.

Soon, the pikemen of the Runing Army were covered with corpses on their spears. And the soldiers of the peasant rebel army still charged forward one after another, and those soldiers in the back row even threw their weapons at the Runing army, regardless of whether they were bare-handed or not.

The thousand-man phalanx of the Runing Army was somewhat loose. However, three thousand-person phalanx is fine, and one thousand-person phalanx is a bit unpleasant. And this thousand-man phalanx was formed precisely by the engineer regiment. The soldiers of the Engineer Regiment are mostly new recruits, and in their peacetime training, they also have to carry out training such as transportation and bridge building, so the training of the phalanx is relatively small, so the situation of the Engineer Regiment has suddenly reached the brink of danger.

Seeing the crisis of the situation ahead, Xue Yongli, who was in command, immediately became angry: "Gong Ben is really eating grass? Why hasn't his artillery regiment been on it yet? ”

Gong Benshi, who commanded the artillery regiment, was also sweating. At this time, the artillery had just been unloaded from his horse, and he commanded the gunner: "Push the one-pound gun up first, remember, push the shotgun-loaded first, whoever pushes wrong, I cut him." ”

A group of gunners, together with the artillery guards, pushed the artillery forward from the passage between the phalanxes of thousands.

In the back, the cavalry commanded by Li Sanhe saw that the two armies in front were about to fight hand-to-hand, and he immediately wanted to order the cavalry to line up and press forward, and he wanted to support the thousand-man phalanx.

But at this time, the cavalry commanded by Li Dingguo also moved, and they also lined up in formation and slowly pressed towards the cavalry of the Runing Army.

Seeing that Li Dingguo might attack, Li Sanhe immediately ordered the cavalry to turn to the formation, preparing to clean up Li Dingguo's cavalry first, and then go to support the thousand-man phalanx.

However, seeing that the cavalry of the Runing army was ready to fight him, and after about a hundred steps forward, Li Dingguo's cavalry stopped and retreated to their starting point. Now Li Dingguo wants to contain the cavalry of the Runing Army.

At this time, the peasant rebels had reached the extreme of madness, and the throwing arrows were still being fired round after round. Receiving two blows from top to bottom, the thousand-man phalanx of the engineering regiment was finally broken through a gap.

And Xue Cunyi, the commander of the engineering regiment, was also anxious, he took the axe and gun from the hands of his own soldiers around him, and shouted: "No one is allowed to retreat!" ”

Then Xue Cunyi easily knocked down a retreating Runing soldier, and then, he took the lead and rushed towards the gap.

As soon as he jumped into the crowd of peasant rebels, Xue Cunyi stabbed two peasant rebels to death with a few stabs. Then he swung his axe and gun and swept at the peasant rebels around him.

A soldier of the peasant rebel army did not dodge Xue Cunyi's axe gun, and in the midst of the screams, Xue Cunyi's axe and gun slashed into the body of the peasant rebel.

But Xue Cunyi slashed too deeply, and he couldn't draw an axe and gun for a while. At this moment, a peasant rebel on Xue Cunyi's left side stabbed Xue Cunyi in the face with a wooden snatch in his hand. Xue Cunyi subconsciously raised his head to avoid it, only to feel a pain on his face, his eyes were dark, and he fainted on the ground.

Seeing that his regiment commander was knocked to the ground, the pro-soldiers behind him were also red-eyed. They jumped out with all their might, first chopping the peasant rebel who had injured Xue Cunyi to the ground, and then entangled with the peasant rebel who followed.

At this moment, next to the thousand-man phalanx of the engineer regiment, the first artillery was also pushed into position. The gunner made the arquebus extremely short, and when it was lit, a shotgun was fired. This suddenly knocked out a large open space for the peasant rebels who followed up.

However, several peasant rebels on the flanks immediately rushed towards the gunners. Several gunners were caught off guard and were killed by them. The soldiers of the artillery guards also drew their swords and threw themselves at the peasant rebels.

The attack on the gunners was actually a return to the glory of the peasant rebels, and the artillery of the Runing Army was pushed to the front line, and with the sound of shotguns, those crazy peasant rebels finally woke up in the face of death.

It was as if they had just gone crazy, and now the morale of these peasant rebels was also low for a moment. The peasant rebels who charged turned around and fled. The entire attacking jiashi collapsed like an avalanche.

But the Runing army still did not stop attacking the peasant rebels, and the musketeers moved forward one after another, firing freely at the fleeing peasant rebels, and the artillery loaded with solid shells was fired, so that the archers in Luo Rucai's army, who had been leisurely shooting arrows, were finally threatened.

It stands to reason that the archers were lined up, and solid shells could not bring them too many casualties. But the archers were veterans, so they did not have the same feverish mood swings as the charging peasant rebels. Therefore, they immediately fled back to avoid the fire of the shells.

The whole battle only lasted less than half an hour, and the frightened Ru Ning Army looked at the flesh and blood Shura field in front of the thousand-person phalanx, and they all gasped, as if they had just had a dream. And Xue Yongli, who was in command, finally breathed a long sigh of relief.

But Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai let out a long sigh. They all knew that the fanaticism of the peasant rebels just now was quite rare. Faced with the threat of death with muskets and spears, even if they sent the elite of their respective battalions to fight, they would not necessarily achieve more results than those peasant rebels.

And the officer army on the other side is too difficult. (To be continued......)