"Bang bang bang-"

The deafening sound of fire resounded at the mouth of the valley of Tongbai Mountain.

The bursts of fire were so continuous that it was impossible to distinguish which were the real gunshots and which were the echoes of the mountains and valleys.

Early this morning, as He Yilong tried to turn around and rush out of the gap from the side of the Shenshu people, the two armies launched a fierce battle, and the bloody battle was also the first time that the Shenshu people led the troops.

The pioneers of He Yilong's department fell in batches at the mouth of the valley, and the corpses were quickly stacked into piles and piles. Let the Charger struggle and bury his heels.

The allusion of "burying the heel and fighting" first came from "Three Kingdoms", which was written about the last battle of Ji Han and the death of Zhuge Zhan against Deng Ai. It is often understood by first-time readers to understand that "let the soldiers bury their heels to prevent retreat as deserters", and then bring the black Zhuge Zhan rubber pillar drum and do not know the art of war.

Actually, there's no stupid thing about burying your heels in mind. It's not that there are too many corpses, and you will fall into it if you take any step.

And the situation He Yilong is facing today is obviously more difficult than when Zhuge Zhan faced Deng Ai.

The contrast between movement and stillness on the battlefield is terrifyingly strange - He Yilong has not faced a large-scale firearms battalion before, but it is really rare to see firearms to this extent and apply them so at such a time, place and people.

In the past, firearms should be bombarded with guns, but the sound of screams can occasionally overshadow the guns, allowing people to feel the killing effect and adjust the auditory nerve by the way.

But today's queue to fire, the gunfire is several times that of usual, but the screams are pitiful, and the contrast between movement and stillness makes the living stand on end and shudder.

Only officers who were lucky enough to survive a few more rounds could see what was really happening—because the valley was too narrow, and the front was no more than a hundred or so people wide, and it was impossible to make a detour.

The firearms were caught in the pile, and any soldier could be hit by three or five shotguns at the same time, so he didn't even have a chance to scream, so he was killed directly.

Normally, a soldier killed in battle would result in at least three to five times as many wounded. Now the casualty ratio is less than two to one, one dead person corresponds to less than two wounded, and the wounded will soon be trampled to death, crushed to death, suffocated to death, and the screams sound much cleaner and sparser.

The tactics practiced by the officers and soldiers in peacetime are all stacked methods, that is, the "three-stage strikes" in which they take turns to shoot forward. Now, he is also in a hurry to change back to the more old-fashioned "fan delivery method", so that the soldiers in the back row can load the ammunition and hand it to the soldier who shoots, and a special person is responsible for aiming and shooting.

In places where the terrain is relatively open and open, the stacking method will be more efficient in shooting, and a person who focuses on one gun will be more familiar with his own weapons.

But today, on this special occasion, they were all blocked there, and in order to make the first row as tight as possible, the officers and soldiers did not even leave a corridor for soldiers to rotate their advance and retreat, and nearly 200 people were densely arranged.

The Sinking Tree Man now has about 1,500 muskets, all of which are loaded with paper cartridge shells, and under the frantic handing of guns and changing guns, the front row can fire a shot almost every three or four seconds.

In front of the battle, it has become a complete place of death, and Rao is the reincarnation of Da Luo Jin Xian and the overlord of Western Chu, and he can't rush over.

Rushing to the front, there were also long-handled battle axes and sheathed bayonets waiting.

As the battle situation gradually stabilized, Shen Shuren, who had always been cautious and reluctant to go to the front line to supervise the battle, rarely went to a place three hundred steps away from the front line in person, climbed high and held a telescope to look into the distance.

In the last battle to pursue and eliminate Liu Xiyao, he hid on the ship and handed over the frontal command to Zuo Zixiong.

This time, it is a waste to destroy the two thief chiefs in the fifth battalion of the left of the revolution, or the resounding characters with the name of "leather and left" respectively, and it will be too wasteful if they don't take the opportunity to brush up on the prestige value.

Tongbai Valley is so steep that no one from He Yilong can rush over three hundred steps ahead, and it also exceeds the attack range of the enemy's long-range weapons, which makes Shen Shuren very calm.

After watching it for a long time, Shen Shuren himself was thrilled by the tragic situation in front of him, put down the binoculars, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart:

"It's a pity that there are no photos to take in this era, otherwise I must record my heroic posture of climbing the heights to look at the enemy's situation, talking and laughing, and commanding to break the enemy.

Well, but it's not completely hopeless, we can find a painter who paints realistically without photos, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were already Jiangnan painters who borrowed Western oil painting techniques and pursued realistic painters, and it seems that the details of the facial features can be painted very realistically.

It's a pity that I didn't master the light and dark shadows, far and near perspective method, it really can't work, and after a few years, when I am developed, let Zheng Chenggong destroy the Dutch. Capture all the Dutch captives and let the Dutch East India Company hand over the scientist Descartes and the painter Rembrandt to exchange them for hostages!

When the time comes, let Rembrandt be my royal servant, and record my heroic posture, why can't I paint dozens of portraits that are more famous than the Emperor of Na over the Alps? Rembrandt seems to be the same year as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and he should be only 35 years old. ”

……

The bloody battle on the first day ended in the strong and strange contrast between the talking and laughing of the Shen Shuren and the bloody slaughter of the frontier positions such as the Shura field.

In normal times, such heavy casualties would have caused the thieves to collapse and retreat. Today, because of the siege on all sides and the dogs jumping over the wall, three or five thousand people died, and finally retreated.

After several successive breakouts with tragic casualties, He Yilong's spirit was also completely defeated. For the next five or six days, no large-scale charge could be organized, at most some tentative sneak attacks.

The grain and grass of He Yilong's department are also gradually consumed, and there is not much food for the army, so it would be good to be able to eat it for more than ten days.

It took several days to march and fight with Liu Guoneng after entering the valley before, so counting the days, the food brought before would definitely be eaten up in three or four days.

Of course, He Yilong's troops did not only have food to eat with the army, after all, they also controlled the mountain checkpoint of Pingjing Pass.

In peacetime, there are as few as one or two thousand, and as many as three or four thousand people are stationed here, and some food will be hoarded for the garrison to eat for a long time during the war, at least to ensure that it is enough to eat for three months to half a year, and after a protracted war, there will also be time to transport grain from the rear.

However, the grain originally planned to be given to 3,000 garrisons is now given to more than 30,000 people, and the time has been shortened tenfold, and at most it can last for ten days and half a month.

Shen Shuren and Liu Guoneng didn't want the troops to suffer too many casualties, and they would starve the enemy to death after besieging it for half a month, and the price was definitely worth it.

On the other hand, it was also after the large-scale bloody battle that day that there were some complaints from the rear of the Shen Shuren-

In the previous battles of the Ming army, there was rarely such an opportunity to continue to use firearms for half a day, that is, to open three or five times for each firearm in the battle, and then enter the short-range encounter, at most there were more opportunities to fire during the defense of the city.

Therefore, the logistics supply and ammunition ratio of the Ming army were also prepared in accordance with conventional operations.

Even if Shen Shuren attaches more importance to firearms than others, and repeatedly emphasizes the need to ensure the production of gunpowder and bring more ammunition with the army, he has no experience at the beginning and does not understand the details, so he generally asks "more than other Ming troops to prepare ammunition with the army", which is enough.

This time, he and He Yilong continued to queue up in the valley and were shot for a day, and the Ming army immediately had a shortage of ammunition and logistics could not keep up.

Fortunately, He Yilong had lost his heart and didn't know about the situation, so he didn't rush again. Let the Shenshu people slowly make up for this shortcoming, eat a trench and grow wise, and next time order the troops to prepare more ammunition.

From this, he also realized a problem: he had planned to start in April, after the existing firearms troops were equipped with bayonets and long-handled battle axes, most of Huangzhou's military production capacity would be piled up to produce new muskets.

Now it seems that more important than muskets is the mass production of ammunition, and the subsequent allocation of military resources has to be readjusted.

In the past, the production ratio of the Ming army was to ensure that each musket was equipped with twenty or thirty rounds of ammunition. When you get to the Sinking Treeman, you have to raise it to "at least keep ammunition that can ensure that all muskets are fired a hundred times", otherwise the guns will be burned with sticks if they are too much.

Insiders in fighting wars have always looked at logistics, and no matter how good the ordnance data on paper is, it will be in vain if logistics cannot keep up.

The Shen Shuren side maintained the siege, checked and filled in the gaps, and He Yilong's side finally couldn't sit still.

By May 25, the tenth day after He Yilong's failure to break through, He Yilong began to reduce the food ration for his troops, and instead ate only one meal a day. On the other hand, he also set out to send envoys, wanting to ask Liu Guoneng or Shen Shuren to accept the surrender again.

The messengers he assigned were all very afraid, after all, the messenger sent to Liu Guoneng last time was directly killed. But under the coercion of He Yilong's knife, they could only go on their own roads.

Anyway, the envoys sent by He Yilong at the beginning were not important people, and he was not distressed when he was killed.

As a result, the envoy sent to Liu Guoneng was indeed killed again.

There is no way, Liu Guoneng knows He Yilong too well, and he despises him very much, so he refuses to give him a chance to believe it again - he knows that He Yilong has followed Zhang Xianzhong and has already had the experience of surrendering and reversing twice, how can he step on the pit for the third time?

Besides, he Liu Guoneng has a sensitive identity, and if he casually contacts and negotiates with thieves, it will only damage his trust in the imperial court, and he can only be extra careful in this regard.

In contrast, those sent to the Sinking Tree Man did not have the risk of being directly beheaded.

Shen Shuren received the envoy quite politely, and asked for clarification, and after learning He Yilong's purpose, he seemed a little surprised:

"He Yilong wants to surrender? Does he still have credit? At the beginning, Chen Qiyu and Xiong Wencan appeased the thieves, but they were allowed to defend themselves and nominally submit to the imperial court, but it turned out to be a big disaster! Why should I believe them now!

It's not impossible to talk about surrendering, let him He Yilong personally surrender, and the whole army will lay down their arms and accept the reorganization of the imperial court.

Also, what kind of thing are you, can you agree to this condition on behalf of He Yilong? Next time, he will either accept it directly and come down in person, or if he wants to bargain, he will also change it to a sufficient weight. ”

The nameless messenger was soft-spoken, but he didn't dare to resist, so he could only be a microphone and bring the words first.