With bursts of sparse rows of guns, they failed to suppress the cannon fodder of Zhang Xianzhong's front team surging up like a tide. Lu Datou's battalion soon fell into hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, with swords and guns in the flesh.

Two thousand sturdy veterans from Huangzhou dock workers have been serving the Shenshu people for three years. In the past three years, it was Shen Tongzhi, Shen Futai, Shen Daotai, and Shen Futai who gave them a way to live.

Let their families have high-yield crops that they have never seen before, and give them overseas fish fry with fewer bones and faster meat, so that they can have meat to eat during the New Year in this year of great disasters in the last days under the conditions of a small peasant and miner's family.

At this moment, these soldiers were of course extremely brave, and they broke out with a united heart that was absolutely impossible for the Ming officials and troops in other regions to see.

In Zhang Xianzhong's army, the general in charge of the fifteen thousand Huguang cannon fodder soldiers of the front army was Zhang Hualong, who was originally in history and would become the governor of the right army of the Daxi regime two years later.

This Zhang Hualong doesn't have any strategic intelligence, but he is also a general who governs the army strictly and prohibits orders. Under the encouragement and strict military law of 15,000 cannon fodder a while ago, it can be regarded as a well-founded advance and retreat, and he dares to charge-

It's not that these soldiers are really heroic, but that the rabble will count their heads, and when they find that their own number is many times greater than that of the enemy, they will be emboldened. Until there is evidence to the contrary, this arrogance can continue.

Zhang Hualong originally thought that even if he was blocked by sporadic firearms, as long as his troops rushed up, with the regularity and bloodlessness of the officers and soldiers, they would definitely be able to break down quickly.

But the result was much more than he expected, and the musketeers were rushed before him, without fear, and after firing their guns, they continued to fight hand-to-hand with bayonets in hand-to-hand combat, and in tight formation.

Even if there were crossbowmen of Zhang Xianzhong's army, who did not hesitate to cover the shooting by mistake and shot some musketeers, some comrades in the back row immediately filled in their positions.

Even Lu Datou, who was on guard, and several dock workers under his command, all wielded the long-handled battle axe used by the turtledove hand, and slashed like a mad tiger and whirlwind.

Ordinary soldiers were felt by the courage of officers at all levels to be the first, and they also hated the same enemy, and every stab was pierced through their arms, and they rose from their strength to their feet, from their legs to their waists, from their shoulders to their elbows, and they all struggled to burst out with all their strength.

"Poof! Click! Crash! "The bayonet with the blood groove slumped into the flesh, and then pulled out with the sound of aching teeth, the kind of sound that is easy to hear in movies, is now alive and repeated in reality.

In the midst of the bloody battle, many grassroots officers also unconsciously roared wildly:

"northern dogs! Hurry up and die to the master! Brothers, avenge the slaughter of Changsha! Don't let go of the dog who is a dog for Zhang Gou! ”

"Brute! Dog mongrel! Why do you want to harm us! Brothers, fathers and fellow villagers are looking at us! Can't let these dog mongrels scourge Huguang! ”

Of course, they are roaring indiscriminately, and there is no idea of "regional discrimination", and they have no culture, but they simply feel:

"Even if there are many disasters in the north, you can't survive, then you are looking for officials, landlords, and old fortunes to settle accounts, why do you come to the south to slaughter the city and harm us poor people who could still live! If you can't live, it's not our scourge! We are living well under the politics of Shen Fu Tairen, why should we be coerced and not at peace! ”

If you think a little more actively, you will further hatred: even if there is oppression and resistance wherever there is, can't you rebel on the spot? These days killing dog thieves, why do you want to 'flow', you have to go around! Take 10,000 steps back, even if you want to flow, there is a debtor and a debtor, do you think that Emperor Chongzhen Dog can't do it, go to Beijing! The taxes levied by Shaanxi and Henan are all spent by the Beijing Imperial Court!

Under the blessing of such thoughts, the officers and soldiers are more and more courageous to be the first, even if some soldiers are seriously wounded, broken hands and feet, and are no longer able to assassinate, they will seize the opportunity to bite with their teeth, once they bite the other party, they will not let go until death, giving Zhang Xianzhong's army a great shock.

This is just a simple emotion of defending his hometown, especially the recent massacres of Zhang Xianzhong, which really inspired many local soldiers in Huguang of the Shen family army to share the same hatred.

Although there are almost no soldiers in Changsha Mansion and Changde Mansion under the command of Shen Shuren, those places that were slaughtered are not very closely related to the soldiers under him, at most they are only "different provinces in the same province".

But people can associate it, and the Shen family army also has ideological education work, so whether it is the Huangzhou soldiers or the Wuchang soldiers, it is easy to think that "if Zhang Xianzhong's troops are repeatedly harmed by Huguang, sooner or later their hometown will be slaughtered."

Zhang Xianzhong knew that he could not gain a firm foothold in Huguang, so he completely gave up the people's will, just wanted to rob more property, and went to other places to start a business. And this mentality and style of behavior has now apparently led to a backlash and aroused the hatred of the local soldiers.

The hatred of these dock workers under Lu Datou's army towards Zhang Xianzhongjun is only a little smaller than the hatred of Tartars.

It can only be said that once any force reaches the stage of apocalyptic madness and begins to slaughter the city in a frenzied manner, then even people of the same clan may arouse deep hatred.

And the soldiers in Lu Datou's battalion shouted so loudly that it soon made the Huguang cannon fodder army on the opposite side have inevitable doubts about life - although when fighting, few people will listen to what the enemy is cursing, but after a long time of fighting, it will more or less drill into the ears.

These cannon fodder of the new annexed army are obviously all strong men caught in Huguang, the older ones are from Xiangyang Mansion and Yunyang Mansion, and the latest batch is from Changde Mansion, Yuezhou Mansion, and Changsha Mansion, and these two parts basically account for half each.

Listening to the fierce assassination expressions of the officers and soldiers on the other side, and insulting them as Shaanxi and Henan, they couldn't help but waver:

Do these officers and soldiers really feel that they are defending Huguang? Let the fathers and villagers not be robbed and killed by outsiders? So what are we doing? Could it be that under the rule of Shen Gou, life is really good? Are these people really working hard for Shen Gou Officer?

These thoughts are indeed a bit too complicated, and on the battlefield of bloody killing, ordinary soldiers don't have time to go through all the above questions.

Moreover, most of these soldiers were from poor backgrounds, and they could not see things from afar, and they had never seen the "benevolent government" in Wuchang Prefecture, Huangzhou Mansion and other places.

But in any case, one or two such thoughts occasionally crossed his mind, and under the distraction, Zhang Hualong's cannon fodder army performance became more and more stretched, although it had a local numerical advantage of six or seven times, but it was unable to break the defense line of the Shen family army for a while.

The Shen family army relied on the antlers to resist the horse and the sharp pile fence, maintaining the front to the death, half a stick of incense, a stick of incense, although there were more and more casualties, the fighting spirit never fell.

……

After Lu Datou struggled to hold on for about a stick of incense, his pressure was finally relieved, because the first batch of reinforcements from the Shen family's army had already arrived on the battlefield and immediately put into the position where the battle was most intense.

The general of the reinforcements was Jiang Shoude, a person from Taiyuan Prefecture, who was also rescued from Liaodong by Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong before, and was originally a subordinate of Li Fuming, the chief soldier of Shanxi, and an official guerrilla.

This time, the Shenshu people divided their troops to besiege the city, and each side of the camp in the city needed to have a general or guerrilla-level general in charge, and there were several battalions under the jurisdiction below.

Jiang Shoude's guerrilla was in charge of the north of the city, and of the two battalions under his jurisdiction, the western section was Lu Datou's battalion.

After the bloody battle began just now, Jiang Shoude immediately noticed that the pressure on the battalion on the east side was much less, so he personally took the personal guards and a thousand corps drawn from the battalion on the east side to support Lu Datou in the western section.

As an existence who has been fighting in Liaodong for several years and licking blood to get his life back, Jiang Shoude is naturally grateful for sinking down Taiyi Bo Yuntian and sending a fleet of ships transporting grain to save them from desperate situations, and is eager to repay the grace of knowing and saving their lives.

Zhu Wenzhen, the general who came with him, because he was a cavalry general, was very familiar with the Guanning Iron Cavalry, and was well versed in cavalry and archery tactics.

Jiang Shoude saw it in his eyes, and he was also very envious, he also wanted to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions, but unfortunately his old brothers were mainly infantry units, and they could not carry out rapid reaction tasks on the battlefield, so they always behaved modestly.

As a unit that retired from the Liaodong battlefield, Shen Shuren's "firearms transformation of the troops" was not their turn at the beginning. At present, there are 50,000 or 60,000 troops directly under the command of Shen Shuren, and the total number of new-style muskets is only six or seven thousand, plus the original bird guns and Lumi guns, it is less than the scale of the firearms army of 10,000 people.

Therefore, there are at least eighty percent of the troops in the army, and they need to use cold weapons to fight. These Liaodong soldiers are mainly pikemen, sword and shield soldiers, and they really don't have many opportunities to shine.

But today, as Zhang Xianzhong took advantage of the "lack of ammunition" of the official army to take the initiative to attack, Jiang Shoude finally seized an opportunity for bloody melee hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, he couldn't let it go, as soon as he arrived at the battlefield, he led the team directly to the flank of Zhang Hualong's cannon fodder army, entangled with each other.

"Brothers, let these dog thieves see the ability of our nine-sided elite to kill Tartars!"

Jiang Shoude's soldiers and horses are all northerners, mainly from Shanxi, so it is completely impossible to talk about the morale blessing of "defending the hometown and defending the fathers and villagers", and they are also a guest army.

But as the elite of the Nine Sides who have been trained for many years, their nerve coarseness in the face of bloody battles is definitely not comparable to that of the Ming army in the mainland.

Don't look at Zhang Xianzhong, since Chongzhen's twelfth year of rebellion, he has killed all sides in the mainland, but that is just because since the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the elite of the nine sides was transferred to Liaodong by Hong Chengchou, and the troops left in the Central Plains for Yang Sichang are not so elite.

If the elite of the Nine Sides had been transferred back again, Zhang Xianzhong would have been beaten like Chongzhen in the eleventh year and had to beg to surrender to Xiong Wencan!

These troops, when they were in Songshan, still fought back and forth with Huang Taiji. At the beginning, Cao Bianjiao's cavalry almost rushed into Huang Taiji's banner array. If the cohesion is a little stronger, all departments will work together as one, and the morale will not be worn out by the lack of food, and there will be a little chance to turn the tables.

Zhang Hualong didn't take it seriously when he saw that the number of reinforcements sent by Jiang Shoude was not large at first. As a result, as soon as the opponent entered the battle, he immediately felt a great pressure:

How dare these reinforcements? Looking at more than a thousand people, they didn't stay in the back row as a reserve to fill their positions at any time, but directly attacked the flank of our front army?

"Hurry up and release the arrows! Crossbowmen throw with all their might! Don't be afraid to hurt your own people! Shoot these lunatics to death! Zhang Hualong's voice was sharp with fear, and he frantically shouted to release the arrows, ignoring the fact that the front row was already staggered and fighting together, and it was entirely possible to accidentally injure more of his own people by releasing the arrows.

In just a few minutes, he had already seen clearly that this support army that came was definitely not easy to match! If you can cover one for one, or even two for one, indiscriminately, it is definitely earned!

After all, the cannon fodder of the Huguang New Annexed Army is worthless, and the elite of the Nine Sides is one less dead.

The crossbowmen in the back row under Zhang Hualong also began to turn around frantically and shoot at the official reinforcements. But the officers and soldiers were not to be outdone, although there were only more than 1,000 people, the front row was able to withstand in close combat, and the back row was shot with bows and crossbows.

The difference in the thickness of the military formations on both sides was huge, because Jiang Shoude had few people, and the front line was stretched into thin lines, and when it was covered by a rain of arrows with high projectiles, the hit rate was much lower.

Zhang Hualong's military array on the opposite side has a thickness of dozens of rows, so the official crossbowmen don't need to consider the distance when throwing, as long as they are casually blind.

In this sticky engagement form, the crossbow regains the advantage of projectile, and compared to the musket that can only aim at direct fire and has a sharp decrease in kinetic energy once it is fired, the bow and crossbow can continue to output from a distance when there are your own melee soldiers in the front row to fully carry the line.

And as the elite of the nine sides, they originally had a very high armor rate, when they withdrew from Liaodong, there were several percent of the iron cotton armor in the army, and after arriving in Huguang, Shen Shuren upgraded their equipment a little, and they were even more afraid of ordinary bows and arrows.

These soldiers who came back from Liaodong, all of them wore armor inside and a bright red burqa outside, which can be regarded as the unified military uniform of the Shen family's army, which is neat and uniform.

At first glance, it is not easy to see that the inside is pierced with armor, but I think the person looks more bloated. But after a while, many people lost seven or eight arrows stuck in their bodies, and in fact, they didn't penetrate the inner armor, but were just embedded in the burqa.

But because of the bright red color of the robe, I can't see whether there is bleeding clearly, and the state is very scary, and the new army of thieves on the opposite side has no experience, and I think that these soldiers are monsters who have no pain and are not afraid of death, and they are still fighting after being hit by so many arrows.

However, the cannon fodder of the new annexed army did not have iron and cotton armor, only the elite of Zhang Xianzhong's old battalion had some equipment, and the bow and crossbow were indiscriminately covered, which caused the casualties of Zhang Hualong's troops to be significantly higher after a while, and the morale gradually declined.

The officers and troops only used more than 3,000 people to block the mouth, and it was difficult to block Zhang Hualong's 15,000 cannon fodder army, and after a long time, the morale was finally reversed.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Zhang Hualong hurriedly flew to the rear army to ask Zhang Xianzhong, and asked the king for permission to put the reserves of the old battalions of Shaanxi and Henan into service as soon as possible, and could not rely on the cannon fodder army to fight.

Zhang Xianzhong's face was pale, and after observing for a while, he was decisive, so he ordered another fierce general, Ma Weixing, to lead a part of the brothers in the old battalion of Henan to launch an attack with the reserve of the new army.

This Ma Weixing, in history, was able to become one of the five military governors in the Onishi regime two years later, and his military talent was also decent. Historically, Zhang Hualong was the governor of the right army, and Ma Weixing was the governor of the left army.

After receiving the order, he immediately rushed up with the old camp in Henan.