��XIX）

February 25, 1667, the early dry season

Yellow Turban, Taiping Province, the central province of Puzhou, the west bank of the Ruoshui River

The first day of the Battle of Puzhou

Later historians have recognized that the study of the Battle of Puzhou is a huge subject.

Not because there is too little information, but because there is too much information. This was the first battle to decide the future fate of the world after the completion of the magic web, and there were more than 10,000 neutral magic users on both sides involved in the war, of which more than 1,000 left original records of the relevant origins. Their magic spans more than a dozen different schools of magic, ranging from the most orthodox arcane, theosophy, and Taoism to shamanic witchcraft and yin-yang magic, and they observe this massive Armageddon from their own perspectives.

In every battlefield and every battle, there was a certain mage who left a record, and other users of the magic net from all sides repeatedly read the latest situation of the two armies in order to understand the latest battle situation, and formulated the next battle strategy accordingly. Of course, it is full of true and false records and judgments of the battle situation, which not only affected the opponents at the time, but also caused endless trouble for historians.

The commanders of both armies once thought they could control the spread of information on the magic web. But as it turned out, they were all wrong.

The Magic Web is a miracle: an invisible web of the world's most self-centered, proud, and confident people. It was fundamentally different from those previous written records. Written records can be falsified, consciously destroyed, and erased from the collective memory of humanity. As long as the flow of information is controlled, the information itself can be controlled - this is a law since ancient times, and it seems that it is not affected by the medium, whether it is clay tablets, bamboo slips, sheepskins, electronic and optical fibers, they can be controlled by power and violence.

However, records on the magic web cannot be destroyed or controlled. As long as someone has read a record, the record will use his or her reading to add value to themselves – the people who can use it are themselves the most dangerous bearers of violence.

According to available records, it is generally believed that the Battle of Puzhou broke out on the evening of 25 February.

In this season, if your people are in Lenny, the cold wind should not have receded.

If you are in the imperial capital of Deland, I am afraid that there is still snow on the ancient road bricks made of elf light green jade.

However, in the hinterland of the Yellow Turban Taiping Dao Kingdom, this season, the mango trees have already bloomed, and just after the full flowering period, the aroma of green mango blossoms can be smelled in the air.

Like most of the state capitals of the Dao Kingdom, there are also large and small estates outside the city of Puzhou. The industrious and brave Oriental people brought agricultural technology, combined with the fierce local folk customs of Mureman, to form a unique scenery of the Wubao manor culture.

Located in the northwest of Puzhou, on the west side of the Ruoshui River, this manor is also about 1,000 years old, and people have been growing mangoes here long before Taiping Road was introduced to Muleiman. The wooden hut became a stone fortress, and the stone fortress was broken down and turned into a Taoist temple of Taiping Dao, and the Taoist temple reform became a brick house, and the brick house became a residence of monks and nobles...... Thousands of years have been repeated, with only the mango trees and busy tenant farmers as usual.

Today, near the mango orchard is a hunting house with masonry walls, fortifications and gardens, which originally belonged to the Puzhou Taishou to entertain the nobles who came from Qingniu Mansion. After the advance of the combined army arrived in Puzhou and the state city changed banners, Taishou, who believed in the Hengqu sect, immediately sent one of his most elite troops here to prepare to resist the main force of the Qingniufu Weidao army from the north to the south.

Naturally, when the Guardian Army Vanguard decided to head south, this nameless manor hunting house was also the first point they had to conquer.

"But the ears of the state and county soldiers, the local chickens and dogs, my generation should break it with a drum!"

Before Ma Rush = Mai Redding led the army to attack, the Taoist jurists around him left a record of such speeches. In fact, of course, the real statements of this Ma general are much more vulgar than that.

"What kind of chickens, what kind of dog-like things, you will destroy them with the left army!"

"Obey the order! We will definitely recover the Qingniu Mansion and recapture the giant deer one day!"

The left lieutenant took the order. Although the slogan he said was a little outdated, it was the slogan that Lord Zhang Futu shouted when he raised the army more than ten years ago. In the past few years, the Weidao Army, which already owned the Qingniu Mansion, still shouted this slogan, capturing the two provinces in the far east, and the main force of the expeditionary force was still confronting the army of the Hua Dynasty.

Unlike the Baozhou assassin who was forced to lead his elite troops to attack the front of the enemy's infantry formation, Ma Yulu was very confident, and he didn't want to throw his elite troops on the strongholds guarded by the soldiers of the prefecture and county. Behind him was not a local army with dubious loyalty, but an army of 150,000 led by the heir of the Qingniu Mansion himself, and there was no need for him to rush for a while. In his opinion, his cavalry from the north should be able to attack the defensive lines of these central local armies with ease.

But the liaison officer of the St. Sen's Volunteer Company beside him did not fully agree with him. The would-be elven mage from Gawen Figner left this point of view:

"The humble hunting house, though a small brick and wood manor, reminds me of the ruins of a stronghold built on the eastern frontier in the late imperial era, with anti-arrow walls, fences, trenches, and shooting holes. This kind of defensive structure is already rare to see in the local road and the hinterland of Koman, but it can still be found everywhere in the territory of the province. It would be a nightmare for our army if there was an average or more force on the other side. ”

Fortunately, the army guarding here is not an elite unit like the St. Sen Legion. As the brigade of the cavalry of the Left Battalion repeatedly swept under the enemy city and fired threatening arrows at the walls, most of them simply cowered behind the low walls, with not many deadly arrows and magical rays coming out of the manor.

However, they did not surrender as General Ma had hoped. After the traditional rounds of tentative firing at each other, the monks of the left battalion began to strengthen the siege engines of the army, scattering soybeans and potatoes on the ground, and using the soldiers they turned into to push the siege engines forward. Since the introduction of potatoes as a crop, the bean sprinkling soldiers have been picked up from the pile of old papers again, and have become one of the main battle techniques of the Taiping Dao.

"Keep up, keep up, as long as the beans are dispersed, use your pack horses! When the pack horses are dead, you follow the carts!"

The auxiliaries were driven out of the camp by the cavalry, driven by pack horses, following behind the huge siege engines. These siege engines were originally intended for Puzhou City, and they were simply overkill for this small manor and low brick and wood walls - those siege engines were much taller than the walls of the nameless manor.

When Rored first used the Potato Warriors, the Eastern Rebels who cooperated with the Yellow Turban Dao suffered a heavy loss. After that, as with all new magics after they are discovered, people immediately began to study ways to combat them.

Soon, the potato man stepped on the dispersal spell that was buried with the plum blossom pile. Under the control of the peachwood sword of the monk in the city, the Dao rune exploded and shattered, and the runic water mixed with black dog blood exploded out of the clay pot underground, scattering in all directions towards the surrounding monks and bean soldiers. Whoever touched it immediately retreated and left the line to return to replenish the charm, and the beans returned to their original state.

"It was expected. ”

Whether it was the commander and the monk in the nameless manor, or the captain and Taoist jurist of the cavalry outside the manor, they all judged so. These weak walls could not withstand the rams of heavy siege engines, and the two armies had to divide the victory in front of the walls.

"Drag it with a cheap pack horse, step on the trap and then pull the horse with a heavy pull!"

Seeing that it was impossible to break through directly with the bean troops, Ma Kyu Ritsu issued an offensive order on the premise of saving troops and horsepower as much as possible. The unarmoured auxiliaries braved cold arrows, strapped their horses to the ropes, and dug plum stakes while dodging traps and trenches as best they could.

This pace of progress is, of course, very slow. Fortunately, the cold arrows on the city walls were not dense enough to be called a rain of arrows, so that the attacking troops could pay the price little by little and move forward.

When the sun left only the last rays of light, the two siege engines finally pressed the corpses of dozens of men and hundreds of horses, and pushed them to the second trench, and all the horses were changed from pack horses to heavy horses, and the heavy warriors in double armor were in charge of supervision.

At that moment, an unexpected voice rang out. It was like the sound of a hammer pounding, dull and penetrating. The sound even reached the camp of General Makaku, who was familiar with it.

It was the sound of a salvo of more than two hundred heavy armor-piercing muskets. This musket with a bracket was used by the Southerners in the Free War against the Corman Heavy Cavalry and Paladins, and successfully eliminated the Heavy Cavalry as a unit. Later, the heavy musket with the bracket was also eliminated and sold in large quantities to Murayman and even the rulers of the Eastern Empire to use against spellcasters.

"Hongyi re-lifted the gun?!They really colluded with Hongyi a long time ago, and they actually prepared so many Hongyi re-lifting guns!"

Two minutes later, another volley was fired. Two minutes later, it's the third round.

Hearing this, Deputy Commander Ma Jian Lu finally couldn't hold back his emotions anymore, and he loudly ordered the generals of the guards around him: "Mingjin collects the troops! Don't throw the precious cavalry and armor here anymore, it's just two siege vehicles anyway!"

He turned to the lieutenant of the Right Army.

"At least, we've made sure that the troops here are only defending the city. Right Captain, you lead your army around this fortress, tighten the distance to stop the spy horses, and attack the rear of the opponent's reconnaissance post before they find out!"

The lieutenant of the right military was taken aback by this chaotic order: "Obey, my lord, but this rear ......"

"The enemy has sent reinforcements. This magic net or something, it's really a good thing. The man, whose original name was Maireddin, laughed, "It seems that it is not useless to learn the latest Dao method." ”

On the Combine side, the first unit to be reinforced was led by Colonel Schlopp Cliff, known as the "severed finger rabidie".

After reinforcing his cavalry and magical forces, his troops rushed to the nameless manor on the banks of the Ruoshui River in the northwest for reinforcements at almost a forced marching speed. At first, some staff officers did not believe the information of the Yellow Turban envoy, but the large-scale movement of the enemy troops in the northwest proved that there was indeed a danger of war. After a lot of news appeared on the magic web, no one was against emergency reinforcements, the question was only how many emergency reinforcements.

If there are too many reinforcements, if it is a trap over there, it may cause unbearable losses to the defensive circle of Puzhou Prefecture, but it is even worse if there are fewer reinforcements, most of the 30,000 people around are just rebels who admire Hengqu and speculative state and county soldiers, and no one knows whether it will form a chain reaction of collapse and bombing the camp once the outpost battle is lost.

According to the minutes of the General Staff, at that time in the command of the Combine Forces, the moderate and the radical faction were equally at loggerheads.

The 150,000 troops besieged around the perimeter put so much pressure on the people that more than one officer almost collapsed in the staff and voted to withdraw immediately after crushing the enemy advance in front of him, or even if not to crush the enemy front.

This atmosphere reached its peak after the commander of the 14th "All Seas" Division, Major General Dubre Goho, voted for the retreat plan. He didn't state his reasons, just silently voted for the retreat plan, and stepped aside.

Seeing this, the Overseer Envoy of Namen Soleton's lips only moved, but he did not speak, nor did he force the old general to speak. He only agreed to Colonel Cliff's request to speak before the next lieutenant colonel officer, who supported the retreat, spoke.

That speech was later recorded in the history of the Battle of Puzhou. Some historians believe that this passage may not be Cliff, but rather Naymen Soleton's concluding statement, but most agree that this passage is indeed the original statement of "severed finger rabid dog".

"We are not facing an ordinary war. From a military point of view, the most important thing we should do now is to retreat, and I am sure you think so. Fighting 30,000 against 150,000 is an out-and-out foolishness. But I want to look at this from another angle. If our retreat fails, not only will we lose all of Murrayman, but we may even bury all the officers, non-commissioned officers, and elite soldiers that the Interre Army and the entire Republic have trained over the years. That is the same result as defeat. But if we strive for victory, we have the opportunity to make this land a part of the economy of our free nations forever, albeit at the same cost. Our ships will sail safely on the Hidden Dragon Sea as they sail on Intre Bay and Emerald Bay. ”

He slammed his right hand on the table. With only two fingers, the sound was not loud, but it was as dull as the sound of a heavy armor-piercing musket.

"What I want to say is that if we don't go for it, we can't win. My vote is on the fighting side. ”

Namen Soleton's Overseer and Temporary Commander of the Combine frowned slightly, and suddenly interjected: "Colonel Cliff." You've just made this statement public on the magic web, haven't you?"

Rabid Dog was stunned for a moment, then leaned back exaggeratedly and laughed.

"I've just learned the spell paradigm of making public information on the magic web, and I'm not very skilled in setting it up yet. I'm sorry. ”

"Then all of us, even our enemies, should hear your speech. Naimon turned to Zhang Shiyi on the side and nodded, "Then, I will also vote for the fight." Colonel Cliff, you are to be held responsible for this mistake, and whether we decide to fight or retreat, we must first thwart the first wave of the enemy's attack. It's up to your troops to reinforce the hunting lodge in the northwest, no problem. ”

Cliff thought for a moment and asked, "The sun is almost setting." Are you planning to take advantage of the night to reinforce you?"

"Yes. Soldiers are fast. In order to prevent any accidents, I will strengthen the headquarters and Zhang Qushuai's cavalry troops to you half, and the separately strengthened magic troops will be formed with the staff department as the core. ”

"It's going to be a night fight. Cliff said in the softest voice, "Is it because of the experience of my troops when they were at Lenny?"

"It doesn't have to happen, but I think the enemy won't let this opportunity go. Naimon replied, "This is also an opportunity provided by the magic net." I'm afraid the enemy will try to eat such a big bait......"

"Enemy cavalry team spotted ahead!"

The news from the Scout Cavalry brought Cliff back from his memories. Perhaps due to the nervousness before the engagement, the "severed finger rabid dog" has been repeatedly recalling in his mind the orders he received in the staff headquarters, as well as the prepared combat plan.

The enemy really appeared, and he was relieved.

"Sure enough, it's all in our calculations. ”

Schlopp Cliff whispered, unshackling his arm from his belt and placing it on his right arm, which was only two fingers. He looked around and saw that the troops were still in marching formation, torches held aloft, but if he looked closely, he could see that the regiment was actually a team of officers, non-commissioned officers, and magic users, many of whom were armed with torches tied to the tips of their spears.

He took a deep breath, raised his arm, and repeated his words out loud.

"Everyone, the enemy's actions were exactly what I expected, and they came to die!"

He was answered with a cheer. Tonight's battle plan has been passed through all the officers, word of mouth to every squad.

"All troops are ready to extinguish the torches at any time! The gods and the righteous path are with us, and the night battle is chaotic, and we will definitely be able to defeat this enemy army!

The sound of horses' hooves could be heard in the distance. Knowing that it had been discovered, the Guardians began to expand their search area, and the Far Stop Spy Horse began to gallop towards the Combine troops.

Cliff looked around and realized that he was in the middle of a large sparse forest and the Ruoshui River. In the distance, the river shimmered with fire and moonlight, and the sparse woods were pitch black.

At the speed of cavalry, it will soon be here. The Colonel quickly recalled in his mind the examples he had seen of regular infantry regiments of the Free Army against the Imperial Knights.

"Spread out the formation between the Ruoshui River and the thin forest! Each company should be contracted according to its formation, leaving a gap between the companies, do not completely block the road, leave a minimum of torches, tie all other torches to spears, and stick spears into the ground to form a rectangular formation! Let the enemy's cavalry pass!"

The usual night battle is for both sides to risk being injured by mistake and then drop half of their forces and go back. But since the other side came this time with the determination to shake the infantry array head-on, "Rabid Dog" Cliff did not want to pay the price of half the force.

The sound of the horse's hooves pierced the darkness, and the sound of the sound seemed to be like a thousand horses. With Cliff's little military experience, he couldn't tell how many cavalry there were, but he could be sure that the enemy was definitely no less than two thousand—almost as many as he had at hand.

The thousands of cavalry were divided into several formations, the first of which stopped hundreds of paces in front of the Cliff regiment, as if to observe his formation.

In the eyes of the right lieutenant, the enemy army in front of him was in a formation between marching and fighting. Each marching company was haphazardly formed a non-neat formation with spearmen on the spot, and torches were tied to the front of the spears, for fear that the enemy would not be able to distinguish the location of their main force.

"Is the commander of this reinforcement desperate?"

The right lieutenant muttered to himself and made a decision.

"Originally, cavalry should not attack a prepared enemy, let alone fight at night...... But since the enemy is so incompetent, let me accept this victory. ”

With a wave of his hand, he ordered all the troops under his command to extinguish their torches in turn.

This was to prevent infantry bows, crossbows, and muskets, making it difficult to determine the enemy's position in the dark, while torches illuminated the defenders' positions, making them suitable for cavalry to use hunting bows to snipe pikemen who lacked heavy armor. He also divided the Taoist priests who accompanied the army into the first formation, preparing to use their few cultivated flying swords and more attacking Dao techniques to directly destroy the opponent's magical power.

After making all the preparations, he personally led the first team and began the wave assault.

When fighting with ethnic minorities in the deserts and steppes in the north, the right military captain was known for his bow and arrow skills comparable to that of the nomads. He aimed at the spearmen in the front row of the enemy and fired an arrow, and as if in response to his actions, the horse archers around him fired deadly arrows.

There were a few screams and more muffled grunts from the enemy line, but much less than he expected. The right lieutenant looked intently, but found that there was no one under the spears with torches tied to the tops, but were supported by a metal iron rod! Moreover, the torches were not as sparse as they seem, as if there were spears twice or even three times as long as the torches intertwined on the soft ground of the river beach, forming a blockade of death!

"Don't charge, don't rush, get through the gap!"

The right lieutenant of the Makyu army shouted, but the power and inertia of the wave charge were so great that at least half of the people could no longer hear his orders.

Agile and skilled knights rushed through the gaps between the companies and the companies, and the rest crashed into the array of spears stuck in the soft earth, but fixed with magic hardening. The neighing of the horses and the screams of the cavalry were mixed in, not much, but each one represented the disappearance of an experienced rider.

Almost at the same time, the Combine's magical forces opened fire on the cavalry as they passed through the gap between the company phalanx. Under the command of a magical officer, four or five light and heavy muskets were grouped into groups, commanded by someone who had temporarily learned night vision magic, and fired a volley at the height of the cavalry. Although the cavalry did not use torches, such a high density of fire often knocked the cavalry off their horses. The monks of the Guardian Army were also counterattacking with Dao techniques, but because of the darkness, it was difficult to find the correct position to counterattack, and they were knocked down one by one by the middle-level mages on the opposite side.

"Get down!

There were a total of 4,000 cavalry under the command of the right military captain, and this time almost all of them were brought out, and they were lined up into a large charging arrow that was seven or eight stories deep. Once such a huge charge arrow is launched, it can no longer be stopped.

Countless screams hit him in the heart. These are all first-rate good men he has befriended and led over the years, but they were lost in this night battle that shouldn't have happened.

But he felt he still had a chance. This enemy army was at best two thousand men, and it was impossible for them to carry more than five thousand spears, and it was impossible for them to maintain the same defensive force on the back as long as they rushed through and then turned their horses' heads.

That was the end of Captain Weidao's thoughts.

Because he saw that in front of the West Bank Avenue, a fire dragon suddenly lit up.

It was a neat array of torches, deployed between the west bank of the Ruoshui River and the thin forest, and the position of the torches seemed high, just as high as one man and one horse.

Underneath those torches, shiny sabers reflected the fire.

"The Hengqu Guards cavalry is here! Those who descend will dismount, and they will not be killed by throwing into the water! Those who descend will dismount, and those who throw themselves into the water will not be killed!"

The right lieutenant sighed.

Then, while shouting, "I am the captain, surrender, surrender!", he galloped diagonally towards the Ruoshui River, threw off the reins of the horse, and jumped into the water.

Behind him, almost all the cavalry that had rushed through the spear formation also followed his direction and rushed to the banks of the Ruoshui River, and none of them dared to face the blades of the Hengqu cavalry.

"Even if you have the same amount of information, you will have different results depending on the power and decisions you make. That's the first thing the Magic Web teaches war practitioners. ”

—General History of the Yellow Turban Kingdoms, Shinkyo University Press, 1820

P.S wrote too many words about the frontal war, so I had to cut to the first day here...... How to cut the next chapters is still being studied. So I wish readers a happy Labor Day! Woo I really want to concentrate on writing without labor......

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