Chapter 54 Tiger and Leopard Rush into Battle

As mentioned last time, Cao Zhen led 1,500 tigers and leopards to charge into battle. The Shu army formed a five-stage firing formation and waited for it, in addition to the five rows of musketeers, there was also a row of rejecting horses in front of the formation.

The tiger and leopard rode into the range of 100 paces in a blink of an eye, and Liu Hou was not ambiguous, and decisively gave the order to fire. The 500 musketeers quickly completed the action of aiming, shooting, and then retreated to the last row to reload the ammunition. The musketeers in the second platoon raised their guns to shoot straight ahead, ignoring the black smoke rising in front of them, and in this case they could not aim at all, and the only thing they could do was to empty their guns as much as they could, and then reload them as much as they could.

The 5 platoons of musketeers cast in turn, only to hear "Bang bang bang!" The gunfire rang out continuously, and the tiger and leopard rode in the "poof, poof!" The sound of a man falling to the ground sounded continuously. And even louder were the neighing of the wounded horses and the wails of the wounded soldiers. However, these sounds usually stop abruptly after not being heard for long.

The reason for the abrupt stop is that the person or horse who made the sound was trampled into meat sauce by the war horse galloping at high speed behind him, and the scene was extremely tragic. Some lucky guys dodged the blow of lead bullets and approached not far in front of the Shu army, but inexplicably the horses stumbled and fell to the ground. It turned out that the small pit that Liu Hou had asked someone to dig before began to play a role.

The pit is small and not deep, but it is enough to serve as a fulcrum for the lever, and the pit and the horse's leg together form a set of lever system, which is still the kind of labor-saving lever. These unfortunate horses stepped into these small pits, and the legs of the horses trapped in the pit were like a crowbar, but unfortunately a crowbar was not hard enough, and the force exerted on the long arm of the crowbar under the high-speed gallop was enough to pry off the horse's legs, causing a man-made horse stumbling accident.

These small pits are very small, there are many of them, and the distribution density is large, and the knight riding on a high-speed galloping horse should not say that he did not pay attention to it, even if he paid special attention to see it, he may not be able to find these small pits in time, and even if he did, it was difficult to avoid in time, which was really difficult to prevent.

Cao Zhen, who was shot many times in his body, did not die for a while because of the heavy armor protection on his body, and his luck seemed to be very good, he actually avoided the small horse trap that broke the horse's legs and was extremely vicious, and rushed to the front of the Shu army.

Without a commander, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry did not retreat, they received the order to charge into battle, and before this order was lifted, they charged with tendons, regardless of casualties.

From time to time, horses were knocked over, passages were plowed out, and from time to time musketeers were wounded and killed. Liu Hou was shocked, this tiger and leopard ride is too brave, and it can still break through the defense line under such a firepower attack, which is completely different from the results of their usual training.

In their usual training, with such an intensity of firepower output and the protection of the upper rejection horses, the cavalry basically could not break through the defensive line. It's really right to say that the tiger and leopard ride has the best attack power in the world, and he is too light on the enemy. What he didn't know was that the tiger and leopard riders were not only superb in riding and martial arts, but also well-equipped, and the armor on their bodies had a certain resistance to lead bullets.

Liu Hou constantly sent out the reserves of the Chinese army to fill the personnel gaps in the various defense lines. The situation on the left and right flanks and the rear is basically the same as the front, the tiger and leopard cavalry are all desperate charges, the Shu army is full of firepower, as the battle is in full swing, the losses of the Shu army have skyrocketed. Whenever there were casualties in one place, Liu Hou asked the reserve to fill the vacated position of the casualty soldier, so that the various lines of defense remained roughly intact.

Later, Liu Hou didn't see that something was right, so he put another row of "pikemen" in front of each line of defense. The so-called pikemen, in fact, are still musketeers, but they are musketeers with bayonets. This time he came out in a hurry, and the troops were insufficient, and Liu Hou was not equipped with special pikemen, except for the musketeers, there were only cavalry used as scouts. The evil consequences of too single a class were undoubtedly revealed at this time.

Fortunately, these muskets were very long, and when the bayonet was attached, the length of the barrel and butt was slightly higher than the height of a person, and it could barely be used as a shrunken version of the spear. Moreover, these musketeers have been specially trained to defend cavalry with bayonets, so they can cope with the current scene.

In fact, their action is very simple, that is, they kneel on one knee, put the butt of the gun on the ground, and point the end of the bayonet at an angle of 45 degrees diagonally forward. This action can be learned in a day, and the most difficult thing is the training of their psychological elements.

To be able to throw away the musket in his hand without being afraid to throw away the musket and hug the head of the rat when thousands of horses gallop towards him, this is really not something that ordinary people can do. After all, everyone is afraid of death, everyone will have the feeling of fear, and in order for a person to overcome this natural feeling, it must be trained for a long time.

Fortunately, the musketeers built by Liu Houzhong were qualified, and each of them had received at least three years of rigorous training from Zhao Yun, and they were no worse than any army in the world in terms of courage.

The scene is tragic and tragic, from time to time there are cavalry rushing into the formation of the Shu army, they will be the first time to be the front of the soldiers who act as pikemen with bayonets to pierce the belly of the horse, the riders on the horse are naturally thrown forward by inertia, and then smashed in the Shu army musketeer formation after a few laps in the air, smashing and killing 2 or 3 Shu troops before exhausting their kinetic energy and not moving, and at the same time completing his task as a human and trebuchet thrower.

Of course, these Shu soldiers who were hit will also break their tendons and fractures, spit blood and fly far away, and it is estimated that there are not many who can survive.

Later, Guo Youzhi saw the doorway and ordered the soldiers in the front row, who were "pikemen", to take 5 steps forward. In this way, there was a 5-step buffer between them and the soldier in charge of shooting behind, so that the cavalry who was thrown away would often fall on this buffer, avoiding damage to the musketeers behind. This method effectively reduced the number of casualties of the Shu army.

Liu Hou felt very uncomfortable, both grieving the large number of casualties of his subordinates and worrying about the situation of the war. These cavalry were completely different from the Xu Huang army they dealt with yesterday, the tenacity of will, the courage of battle, and the strength of defense Cheng Dù were completely one heaven and one underground, they were like madmen, only caring about the charge, although their casualty rate was very large, but they have been charging and charging again unyieldingly, and they have a sense of not giving up until they defeat the enemy.

Liu Hou prayed in his heart for God's blessing, so that these Wei troops would collapse quickly, and this war would end quickly, although he did not see any signs of his usual faith, but it did not prevent him from coming when he needed to use it, what Buddha Rulai, Guanyin Niangniang, what Muhammad, Allah Allah, what Christ Jesus, Almighty God, etc., etc., the gods and Buddhas of Mantian were recited by him.

It wasn't until Liu Hou sent out almost all the reserves that the Wei cavalry finally stopped charging into battle. Liu Hou looked over the black fog on a high makeshift lookout and found that these Wei cavalry did not disperse, but gathered their forces and gathered about 500 meters away from the front line of the Shu army.

"What a terrible force!" Liu Hou couldn't help but sigh. Today's wind is quite strong, and the black fog is quickly blown away, and a hellish scene is displayed in front of everyone. I saw that the four directions of the Shu army's camp, which had been extending about 100 steps outward, were densely covered with the corpses and wounded of people and horses.

Blood stained the earth, and the ground was covered with people and horses, and only a few horses could stand, but they were also covered in blood and neighed. Many of the people lying on the ground were movable, but they were just squirming or writhing, and the miserable wails from their mouths made this area like a ghost realm, which was terrifying.

No wonder the Wei cavalry wanted to stop attacking, there was almost no place on the ground to stand on the ground, and the men and horses lying on the ground became new obstacles, which was very unfavorable for the cavalry to run at high speed. And the cavalry that lost their speed, under the powerful firepower of the Shu army, could only be sent to death.

Liu Hou looked into the distance and estimated that there was almost one-third of the remaining cavalry of the Wei army, that is, about two-thirds of the cavalry covered the ground. "More than two-thirds of the casualty rate hasn't collapsed yet, how the hell is this unit trained." Liu Hou sighed.

"The Tiger and Leopard Rider is one of the strongest armies in the world, and it is not surprising that it can do this. In order to build this strong army, Cao Cao spent countless money and food. With Cao Wei's strong national strength, there are only about 10,000 tigers and leopards riding so far, so the prince does not have to worry too much. Guo Youzhi seemed to see through what Liu Hou was worried about, and said comforting words to Liu Hou.

"Also, this kind of elite soldier must not be so easy to train. Just look at my musketeers, for so many years, there were only five thousand. To build such a strong army, the soldiers' plain knowledge, training methods, training time, equipment, provisions, etc. have very high requirements, and it is definitely not something that can be accomplished at once. ”

"And this time, Cao Cao's ace army is folded in the hands of the prince, which is enough for this Cao Aman's heartache." Guo Youzhi.

"It's a fluke, it's a fluke that we won this time. If the other side has more men, they may be able to break through our defenses. We couldn't support it, but luckily they couldn't support it at the last minute. When I go back, I must study and study carefully to see how to deal with this kind of elite cavalry, I don't want to encounter them in the future, so I only have to fill this road with the casualties of the soldiers. Liu Houdao.

"Actually, it's not that there is no way, Thunderbolt is a good way, but our scouts almost exhausted Thunderbolt in the early stage, so this battle is so difficult. If there are enough thunderbolts, I believe they will not be able to break through our defenses. Guo Youzhi immediately thought of a way to deal with it.

"Yes, Thunderbolt is a method, and our rate of fire problem should also be studied to see how to improve it, and we also need to think of some better ways to resist horses, or create some simple and effective horse rejection equipment." Liu Hou added.

"Let's think about these things slowly in the future, and now it's the right thing to think of a way to get through this crisis." Guo Youzhi.

At this time, a personal soldier came to report: "Report, the casualties have been counted, the whole army has a total of 1,358 casualties, of which 462 were killed, 193 were seriously wounded, and the rest were lightly wounded. ”

"What! So many people died? Although he had been mentally prepared, Liu Hou was still shocked by this casualty figure. The all-firearms unit that he was proud of, and the musketeers he longed for to dominate the world, suffered so many casualties in the face of this all-cold weapons unit.

If you look at the death exchange ratio, it is almost 1 to 5, and if you count it as losing combat effectiveness, it is less than 1 to 2. How can Liu Hou accept this? What a treasure this musketeer is, he spent a lot of money to build it, it took several years to get together enough for 5,000 people, and now it is good, he lost one-tenth of his combat effectiveness in the first battle, and more than one-fifth of his combat effectiveness.

What else is this talking about dominating the world, if you really want to carry out a campaign to unify the world, you don't know how many tough battles you have to fight, and you really don't have enough musketeers to stuff your teeth.