In the chaos of the battlefield, the commanders of each company gave almost the same orders.

"The whole company, the gun on the shoulder, the gun in the front row."

"Walk in a positive step, keep the speed, keep the spacing, keep the queue."

Zheng Sen sat on an ammunition cart that was dragged forward by horses, listening to the rattling sound of the front queue, and then, in the two rows of line infantry, the front row held the guns with both hands and advanced, the muzzle of the black hole pointed obliquely to the sky, and the back row carried the gun on the shoulder, and then, the whole queue was one level higher.

Knock knock knock .......

The drummers of each battalion beat the drums in a hurry, and struck them several times in a slow marching rhythm, and after determining the speed of advance, the brass horn and flute joined in, and the cheerful military music and the frequency of the infantry tread in harmony with each other, and the whole infantry column began to advance slowly.

Zheng Sen saw with his own eyes that an infantry battalion under the command of Yang Yandi did not advance in the second column of the company, but discharged the battalion column to advance, so that he could witness with his own eyes how the company and horizontal team were arranged.

The so-called battalion column is to arrange the six companies of the battalion into three rows, each row has two companies, and the disadvantage of this is naturally that it can only exert one-third of the firepower of an infantry battalion, but the advantage is obvious, that is, when facing the cavalry impact, the front row and the rear row of the company do not need to move, the middle two companies do rotate 90 degrees, and then move half a company distance to the two wings, and a battalion-level phalanx with a thickness of two columns can be perfectly formed.

Yang Yandi's battalion is the center of the five main attack battalions, so that the left flank is the reserve battalion phalanx, and the right flank is the main formation commanded by Li Zhaoji, as long as there is one more phalanx in the middle, even if the remaining four battalions are scattered in the face of the enemy's cavalry impact, the soldiers can find a nearby phalanx to hide, and protect a large number of artillery and baggage, and then they can still resist and maneuver in the most unfavorable situation.

Zheng Sen saw that the company commanders of each company ordered the whole company to be arranged according to their height, and then divided their company evenly into two parts, so that the tall ones stood in front, and the short ones moved to the front of the tall ones, with a distance of about one meter between the two rows.

When the Dongfang Brigade was established, Li Zhaoji once insisted that the company horizontal team be lined up in three rows, after all, in history, most of the time the line infantry in most countries was three rows, but Yang Yandi and Zhao Dahe firmly demanded to be lined up in two rows after training and practice.

This is because the Eastern Brigade is a square formation, and each company is subordinate to two platoons, which can also be called platoons, and if it is divided into three platoons, it will become three platoons.

And this is not the main thing, the main thing is that the fire of the three platoons is not effectively played, not to mention the arquebus, even if the flintlock musketeers are assembled and fired with live ammunition, the third platoon will inflict casualties on the first platoon, and the three platoons will fire at the same time, and the first platoon is in a kneeling position.

In the battle just now, it proved the rationality of the two platoons, when the Qing cavalry attacked, in order to maintain more fierce firepower, Yang Yandi ordered a phalanx of six rows of thickness, the first three platoons can be shot, the direct result is that many soldiers in the first row were injured by the third platoon, not to mention, because the soldiers in the first row are kneeling to shoot, in the tense environment of the battlefield, it is difficult for them to stand up, fortunately the phalanx did not move at that time, otherwise it will cause huge problems.

After the two columns are arranged, the company commander appears on the far right of the company's horizontal line, marching in line with the first row, behind him are two drummers and an adjutant, and at the Eastern Brigade battalion company level, the adjutant is an experienced soldier who performs the duties of a sergeant.

The company commander's deputies, on the other hand, appeared at the back and to the left of the horizontal line, maintaining the line with the adjutants.

With the completion of the transformation of the various arrays of the whole army, a regimental phalanx with four rows of thickness was formed from west to east, two battalion horizontal formations, a battalion column that could be transformed into a phalanx at any time, two battalion horizontal formations and Li Zhaoji's own formation, because there was space between battalions and between companies, so that the length of this front line exceeded 2,700 meters.

The rumbling of footsteps sounded, the red tasseled hats and black barrels rose and fell in mid-air, and the soldiers advanced at almost the same pace, moving in unison, advancing more than eighty meters per minute.

And if you stand in mid-air, you can see that this horizontal formation is not parallel, and the closest to the Qing army is the main formation on the left flank, and then extends all the way to the west to the regimental phalanx, forming an oblique array. This is not a coincidence, but intentional, and all of Lee's previous plans have now become a reality.

If the more than 4,000 main forces of the Qing army break through, to the west is the sea, and the complex terrain along the coast, even if they spare the regimental phalanx, they will encounter a head-on attack from Tang Mu's cavalry, and if they flee to the east, they will get closer and closer to the Eastern Brigade and encounter countless artillery interceptions.

Therefore, in addition to breaking through the front of the Eastern Brigade Array, the Qing army had no choice but to retreat backwards and flee across the river from the bridge, that is, into Horseshoe Bend, where there was only one bridge, and thousands of troops crossed the single-plank bridge, and the result was self-evident.

At this time, Li Zhaoji stood on a baggage cart in this formation, and there was a big flag on this car, and Li Zhaoji stood with a knife, his face was indifferent, as if he had seen victory and glory, but Luck Dehun was a careful person, he glimpsed that Li Zhaoji's hand holding the handle of the knife was trembling slightly, and his knuckles had begun to turn white, and after a while, it had turned blue.

Li Zhaoji was worried, he was worried that the Qing army would launch a brainless attack, although the battalion company horizontal team can fully develop their own firepower, but the ability to deal with the cavalry impact is insufficient, a company, less than 100 soldiers, occupy a front of 75 meters wide, it is too sparse, if all the flintlock pistols are better, this front is only 25 to 30 meters wide, it can be called a human wall, but most of the soldiers are arquebusiers, and they must be separated by more than one meter, so that the horizontal team looks sparse.

It was precisely because of his lack of confidence that he ordered Yang Yandi to let the middle battalion set up a battalion column, just to avoid the whole line being washed away, but this only gave his side a little more certainty, and did not change the essence of the sparse horizontal team that could not cope with the cavalry impact.

Li Zhaoji was gambling, and he was betting that the Qing cavalry, which had been frustrated before, would not attack again.

In fact, Lee won the bet.

The Qing army was more numerous, especially one man and two horses, occupying a wider front, but when the soldiers of the Eastern Brigade approached at a speed of eighty meters per minute, the whole army was in an inexplicable state of tension.

Zilharang first sent the cavalry on the far right to go around to the west, trying to open a breakthrough, but soon encountered artillery and regimental phalanxes blocking fire, in order to avoid fire, these cavalry had to dodge as far west as possible, but the closer to the sea, the more they found that there were only reefs, swamps and bushes, some of the grass looked flat, but because it was at the confluence of the sea and the river, the bottom was full of soft mud, and before it could be bypassed, Tang Mu's eight hundred elite horsemen were seen maneuvering.

Tang Mu did not give the order to rush into battle, the complex and difficult terrain was also a restriction for them, he asked the archers and his entourage to dismount, and killed those men and horses who accidentally fell into the mud on the spot.

The mouth of each river was a trumpet, and the more the Qing army retreated, the less room there was for maneuvering westward.

The Qing cavalry was retreating step by step, and some tried to get close to the horizontal column to force it to stop, but Yang Yandi reacted by ordering the chaser companies of each battalion using rifled rifles to form up skirmishers, and to drive the cavalry away from a long distance with even smaller units.

This part of the chasseurs used flintlock muskets, and the two horizontal columns were lined up, which only occupied a width of twenty-five meters, and even if all of them were dispatched, there would not be a single cavalry that could break through the gap.

"Prince Zheng, let's gather the cavalry and stick out in front." Bolo and Sonny came to Zilharang together, and Bolo said loudly, ignoring the rules.

Zilharang's face was grim, he had never encountered such a situation, the superior cavalry was driven back step by step by a group of infantry, he could already see the sparkling Qing River, and if he retreated, he would be driven down the river.

"After rushing out, even if we preserve this army, we will encounter defeat and can only retreat to Liaoyang! And....... How do you know you're going to be able to get out? Zilharang said sternly, and when it came to the end, there was a hesitation in his words all his life.

He didn't know if he could rush out, and if he couldn't, it would mean a rout, and even if he did? What can be done, the infantry of the Eastern Brigade will seize the bridge, and then cross the bridge to Gaizhou, where the grain and grass will be captured.

You must know that the Qing army had more than 8,000 people in the south, more than 20,000 horses and mules, and all the baggage was raised in the Haicheng area, and it was not easy to transport it to Gaizhou.

Zilharang said to Sony: "Sony, you take the rest of the shield carts to the vicinity of the bridge, organize a defensive line, let the Mandahai who defends the sea cross the river immediately, and use firearms to establish a defensive line at the entrance to Horseshoe Bend." ”

Sonny went at once, and Zilharang grabbed Bolo by the neck and said, "Go and tell Amma, let him lead the cavalry around the enemy's flank, kill the enemy's cavalry first, and then fight with me on both sides." ”

Just as Bolo was about to respond, Zilharang pulled Bolo to his lips: "Don't come back, then you follow your Amma." ”

"Prince Zheng, I'm ........"

"It's an order, you go!" Zilharang didn't give Bolo a chance to speak, and pushed him away.

Bolo gritted his teeth, rode away, all the way to the east, what he saw was the panicked cavalry, they didn't know how to deal with it, they could only go further, they took a step back, Bolo saw that the infantry of the Eastern Brigade advanced and retreated in a certain way, and every time they advanced a distance, they stopped the whole team to keep the horizontal line of each battalion and company and the lineup complete.

He passed almost in front of the entire Eastern Brigade, and the further east he went, the closer he had to get to the river, and when he arrived in front of the main formation, he was attacked by a round of attacks, which were shot by some of his relatives who came out of the formation, and Bolo was lucky not to be hit, but he also knew that in a quarter of an hour at most, or maybe half an hour, the huge phalanx could advance to a distance of four hundred steps from the river, which meant that the artillery of the phalanx and the strange guns could completely isolate the two Qing armies.

"Amma, Prince Zheng asked you to lead the cavalry to go around the enemy's flank, destroy the enemy's cavalry first, and then flank the enemy's infantry with him!" Bolo saw Abatai and immediately spoke to him.

Abatai had been anxiously awaiting orders, and he had sent three waves of men to ask for orders, but either he did not find Zilharan in the chaotic cavalry array, or he was killed when he did not control the distance as he passed the front of the Eastern Brigade, until Bolo brought his long-awaited order.

"At this time, I still cowered and didn't dare to fight hard." Hearing this order, Abatai smashed his fist in the palm of his hand, and he said to Gushan beside him: "Point eight hundred horsemen, you and Bolo are the vanguard, first fight the cavalry of the thieves, no need to break the enemy, just repel it."

The rest, with me, rushed straight into battle. ”

"Amma, Prince Zheng said, first break the enemy's cavalry, and then charge into battle." Bolo repeated Zilharan's order.

Abatai said angrily: "The enemy cavalry is very cunning, and does not engage us at all, and when they are killed, he will take a bath in the Qinghe River." ”

new