The sun had begun to set in the west, and the sun was not as dazzling as it was at noon. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In the open space outside Tsurumaru Castle, two military phalanxes of tens of thousands of people were facing each other.

There was no wind, the temperature was a little hot, and the woods were silent, as if even the birds had felt the tension and stopped chirping.

The phalanx on the side of the Shimazu family is the most typical battle formation in Japan, the middle army, the front army, the rear army, the left army, the right army, and the reserves, all standing according to their respective arrangements, most of them are ashigaru troops (ordinary infantry) and longbow soldiers, a small part of the iron artillery team (the Japanese call the musket iron cannon, and the artillery is called the big barrel), the flag samurai team (elite samurai, more than 100 stones, can directly meet the monarch, and the smallest in the army are grassroots commanders, which is equivalent to the cadre regiment weaving in the Anti-Japanese War era), There was also a cavalry team of about 500 menagi swords, and in the rear of the phalanx, you could even see ten large tubes.

This is already all the elites that the Shimazu family can take out by smashing pots and selling iron.

On the other hand, on Arnold's side, all the musketeers formed an array firing formation, forming a large phalanx, behind the phalanx, more than 50 artillery pieces of all kinds have been set up in formation, because it is a land artillery, the largest is only 24 pounds, and the smallest is 3 pounds, however, compared to the large team of the Shimazu family on the opposite side, which even barely reaches the 3-pound standard, Arnold's side has many times stronger firepower.

"Woo woo~~~"

The military horn sounded on the side of the Shimazu family, and I saw the location of the command platform of the military Shimazu Mitsuhisa, and the command flag changed for a while.

"Shimazu's sons, follow me and kill!"

One of the ashigaru generals standing in the front row drew his katana and was the first to rush out.

"Kill!"

"Rush!"

Suddenly, the shouts of killing shook the sky, and thousands of ashigaru stepped out of their little short legs, brandished all kinds of weapons in their hands, and rushed towards the phalanx on Arnold's side like a tide.

Why?

Let's start with Ashigaru.

Ashigaru is the most basic and common infantry unit in Japan, most of them are recruited by farmers, and they usually receive regular military training while farming, and their weapons and equipment are all self-raised, and the good family can be equipped with some light armor and long knives, and the poor ones at home are basically coarse linen clothes with a sharpened wood. This kind of infantry generally has little combat effectiveness, and it is all about numbers. Ashibashi, as the name suggests, is that the feet are very light, why, because they are poor and can only wear straw sandals, let alone any weapons and equipment.

"To the right... To the right... Okay, stop! ”

On Arnold's side, several artillery observers constantly directed the other gunners to make adjustments, as a very professional artilleryman, the composition of each artillery group was very perfect, according to the different levels of artillery, equipped with four to six gunners, some responsible for calibration, some responsible for adjusting the gun, some responsible for clearing, some responsible for loading ammunition. The division of labor is quite clear, after strict training, if they cooperate closely, the firing speed and accuracy of artillery are quite terrifying.

The firing distance of the flintlock pistols was only two or three hundred meters, so it was these artillery pieces that were the first to strike before the enemy came into the range of the musketeers.

Originally, before the shelling, it was necessary to carry out several rounds of calibration to improve the accuracy of the shooting, not to mention the current ancient artillery, even if it is put into modern times, before the cluster shelling, it is also necessary to carry out calibration to test the accuracy of the shelling. However, now that the enemy has rushed in, especially this kind of large-scale dense charge, as long as it hits, it will definitely hit, so these artillerymen did not carry out calibration, but only roughly calculated the landing point of the shells, and began the shelling.

"Five rounds of volleys! Ready, put! ”

"Boom, boom...

A huge roar was remembered, and suddenly, the artillery position was filled with gunsmoke.

With the whistling sound of cannonballs piercing the air, dozens of iron balls rose into the sky, and in the blink of an eye, clouds of smoke and dust rose from the ashigaru team opposite.

Under the shelling, a ashigaru was directly hit, and was immediately smashed into a ball of meat sauce, and a few guys behind him were also unlucky, the shell was not unloaded with all the impact force, several jumps, a group of people turned on their backs, knocked to death, touched and injured, directly hit five or six ashigaru, after landing on the ground, all of them vomited blood, and they couldn't live, and the most unlucky guy was directly hit in the head, and suddenly, there was a white flower.

In fact, the artillery of this era is not suitable for field warfare, think about it, the shells of this era are still solid iron bullets, before the flowering bomb was invented, the lethality was limited, more used for siege, that is, field warfare, and more for deterrence.

Of course, this is just a general statement, here, because the Shimazu family is too face-saving, such a dense formation, a shell can kill five or six if it is smashed, to say the least, and the lucky ten or twenty are not a problem.

In just one round of shelling, the Shimazu family suffered four or five hundred casualties.

If this were to be put on the European battlefield, this kind of shelling of the Warring States would never have appeared.

In fact, it's not to blame people, who calls the Japanese battlefield in this era now, or the world of cold weapons, not to mention artillery, even muskets are a scarce commodity, throughout the entire ancient history of Japan, there is no large-scale use of artillery on the battlefield, there is no one, so the lack of experience in artillery warfare is also an important reason.

The bloody scene after being shelled frightened some people very much, their faces were pale, and they were unable to move forward, and suddenly, there was confusion in the Shimazu ieashigaru team, and the good charging formation was scattered, and the scenes of people crowding and hitting people abounded.

However, before the leaders of the ashigaru and the generals adjusted their formation, the second round of artillery bombardment immediately struck, and suddenly, the entire ashigaru team was in turmoil again.

"Boom, boom...

Five rounds of salvos in a row, the Shimazu family's ashigaru team was bloody, with stumps and broken arms all over the ground, and some cowardly ones simply became deserters, scurrying around the entire battlefield like headless flies, making the already chaotic formation of the entire ashigaru team even worse.

"Yaga! Yaga! Give it to me! ”

The president of the ashigaru team shouted and scolded, but it didn't work, and he frantically sent the overseer team.

The overseer team was all composed of samurai, and they were ruthless, and suddenly, some of the people at the back of the Ashigaru team were killed, as long as they turned around, they couldn't help but say, they were stabbed down, and blood splashed.

"Ahhh!!h

So Ashigaru went crazy, there was artillery bombardment in front, there was a war team in the back, death on both sides, rushing forward can also ensure that his family is old and young, if he blocks the deserters, not only himself, but the whole family will be executed, knowing that he will die, these ashigaru people suddenly went crazy, broke out with strong blood, waved the weapon in his hand, and rushed towards Arnold's side.

The shelling continued, only from salvo to free fire.

Cannonballs were flying, stone chips were all over the sky, and under such indiscriminate shelling, whether it was a low-level ashigaru or a ashigaru head or a general, their lives were reduced to individuals without any high or low.

The cannonballs smashed the skull and smashed the body with ease, no matter what you were wearing, not even if you were wearing iron armor.

At this moment, everyone was treated equally.

Some of the lucky ones rushed through the layers of shelling and were about to rush in front of Arnold's phalanx.

"Raise your gun, aim, shoot!"

"Bang Bang Bang . . .

Before the lucky ones could get closer, they were greeted by a merciless buckshot.

Suddenly, blood splattered, and one by one, the bodies that had been beaten into a hornet's nest lay on the ground like rag pockets, and fell to the ground forever.

After all, Arnold's land artillery was still too few, and soon, more and more enemies broke through the blockade of shells.

However, this is not difficult for Arnold.

The musketeers in an array formation illustrate the difference between hot and cold weapons.

In this era, because of the various defects of the arquebus, low shooting accuracy, short range, low rate of fire and other reasons, the mainstream of the battlefield is still cold weapons, but with the advent of flintlock pistols, cold weapons have entered the end of the period.

The rate of fire, range and shooting accuracy that far exceeded that of the arquebus, making the flintlock pistol gradually become the mainstream of the battlefield.

Li Luwei's army was fully equipped with flintlock pistols, especially this flintlock pistol is not a traditional flintlock pistol, but a specially improved flintlock pistol, its original form is the three-eyed eye gun of the Guanning Iron Cavalry.

Three-eyed eye gun is one of the most representative weapons of the Ming army's individual gunpowder weapons, a total of three barrels, can be fired in turn when shooting, is the standard equipment of the Liaodong Iron Cavalry at that time, when the charge is launched, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry will rush into the battle formation, launch a salvo on the horse, basically three rounds down, can crush the enemy. In the War of Resistance Against Japan and Aid Korea, the Ming Dynasty used the three-eyed eye gun to severely damage the first army of the Japanese Konishi Yukinaga. The Guanning Iron Cavalry is the most elite unit of the Liaodong Iron Cavalry, all equipped with three-eyed eyes, and in the confrontation with the Qing army, it has repeatedly hit the elite of the Qing Eight Banners, and is famous all over the world.

However, the original three-eyed eye gun has a short range, low accuracy, troublesome reloading, and many defects.

However, after Li Luan's improvement, the principle of the three-eyed god pistol was combined with the flintlock pistol, and it became the three-shot flintlock pistol that the current army is equipped with.

Not only has the range and accuracy of shooting not decreased, but the rate of fire is far beyond that of ordinary flintlock pistols, but it is a little slow to reload, but with the addition of numbers, the shortcomings have been compensated.

Lead bullets rained down, and the three-shot flintlock pistol plus the array firing formation actually formed a simple firepower network on this ancient battlefield, even if it was a simple firepower network, no matter how the Shimazu family's ashigaru team charged, no one could step within fifty paces of the musket team.

"Yaga! Yaga! Baga !! ”

Seeing the large number of deaths of his subordinates, Shimazu Mitsuhisa, who was far away in the Chinese army, cursed repeatedly.

The enemy's strength is beyond Shimazu Mitsuhisa's expectations, he has already thought that the enemy is strong, his side will definitely suffer enough, the destruction of the naval army is the best symbol, Shimazu Mitsuhisa's goal is to fight a draw in the land battle, and then start peace talks, telling the enemy that his Shimazu family is not a vegetarian, if you want to destroy his Shimazu family, you must pay a great price, the gains outweigh the losses, and then pay some more price, I believe that the enemy can retreat.

But to Shimazu Mitsuhisa's expectations, the enemy was so strong that his ashigaru team didn't even touch a single hair of the enemy, and nearly half of them were killed and wounded.

"Give me the whole army!"

Seeing that the Ashigaru team alone could not achieve results, Shimazu Mitsuhisa issued an order for the whole army to attack. (To be continued.) )