"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

The three cannons in the Qi army rang out again, and the cavalry commander Ali Al Jabri subconsciously lowered his body and clinged to his horse, praying in his heart that the cannonballs would never fall on his head.

Perhaps, the true god sensed his infinite devotion and protected him, and one of the cannonballs landed in the open space on the left side of the line, and the other two fell into the back of the line, and the sound of people shouting and neighing was heard.

Accelerate, accelerate, rush up!

Ali Al Jabri slammed his feet on the horse's belly, urging the horse to rush forward at a higher speed.

Closer, closer!

There are still more than a hundred meters left, and they are about to rush into the Qi army array. The Qi soldiers on the opposite side only lined up in a thin horizontal formation, holding muskets equipped with swords, pointing diagonally upwards from afar, like a traditional spear formation, trying to block the onslaught of our more than 300 cavalry.

Oh, all the way to the Qi artillery bombardment, it is likely that there is no more impact of three hundred horsemen. But it doesn't matter, as long as there are more than 100 cavalry rushing into the formation, it will definitely break through the Qi army's musket array, and at that time, the entire battlefield will fall into a melee, which is the best battlefield situation for the Omanis who are in an advantage in strength.

Ali Al Jabri raised his right hand slightly, raised his scimitar, and with a fierce expression on his face, he was ready to swing his sword and slash at the Qi soldiers on the opposite side of the battle.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

Three more violent artillery roars sounded, and a metal storm blew over suddenly, rolling the charging Omani cavalry into it, and countless fragments seemed to form a dense and wide barrage, blocking the rushing Omani cavalry alive a hundred meters in front of the Qi army.

The Qi army fired a shotgun!

Shotgun, the last line of defense of artillery, is designed to kill and injure enemy personnel who are close to artillery or infantry formations. Both the cannons and howitzers attached to the Qi Army can fire shotguns, but the latter is relatively weak.

The outermost layer of the shotgun produced by Qi is generally a cylindrical thin tin can, and the bottom of the tin can is made of iron, and the inside is wrapped with 50-200 bullets and iron fragments with a diameter of between 10-50 mm. The moment the projectile body leaves the barrel, the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the gun is huge, and the tin shell immediately bursts, and the bullet collapses, forming a cake-shaped barrage in space.

Obviously, such a fire coverage will cause very terrible losses to the enemy forces in dense formations at close range, but the construction of the shotgun also makes it more damaging to the breech during firing, and the "Qi Royal Artillery Guidebook" states that the new 55mm cast-iron cannon can withstand about 5000-5400 solid shots, but can only withstand 200-230 shots.

Twenty years ago, the Qi artillery used iron bullets to replace the original lead bullets in the shotguns, and the iron bullets had a strong rebound ability, which was easy to cause ricochet, effectively increasing the lethal effect. According to the different bullet sizes, the shotgun made by Qi can be divided into two types: heavy shotgun and light shotgun: the former has fewer bullets and larger weight, which can achieve effective killing at a long distance; The latter has a higher number of bullets and is more effective at short range, but the range is only two-thirds of the former.

Normally, light shotguns are best when the artillery is also within effective range of the enemy musketeers. At very close range, gunners will often reload with two shotguns or one shotgun and one solid round (solid shells in the back). Although this will severely reduce the service life of the gun chamber, its lethal effect will be greatly enhanced. In February of the fifteenth year of Taiping (1719), in the Battle of Kalmanwati, the Qi artillery used the loading method of shotgun and solid bullets, which effectively killed and injured the cavalry troops of the Maratha Kingdom, making it impossible for the opponent to launch an effective attack on the Qi army array.

Qi's military experts have conducted numerous scientific tests on the effectiveness of shotgun attacks, and have concluded that the diameter of the shotgun dispersion is about one-tenth of its flight distance, and will eventually form a quadrangular killing area similar to a bow. In the "Elements of Artillery Technology" of the Artillery Department of the Qi Army School, it is pointed out that when a shotgun flies 90-100 meters, the dispersion diameter of the bullet will be expanded by about 9.5 meters. At a distance of 220 meters, the diameter of the shotgun dispersion is 25 meters, and at a distance of 440 meters, the diameter of the shotgun dispersion is 55 meters. If a company of 120 men were to come under artillery fire at a distance of 150 meters, a simple calculation would show that the shotgun would cover it almost completely.

This time, in the face of the charging formation of more than 300 Omani cavalry, the artillery of Qi State just put the distance close to around 150 meters, and then adopted the attack mode of loading double shotguns, forming a barrage with a diameter of more than 50 meters in front of the position, which immediately made the rushing Omani cavalry turn over on their backs and fall down.

However, the penetration of shotguns is far less than that of solid bullets, and the lethal effect on columns is naturally slightly inferior. However, the corpses of the men and horses that fell to the ground in front stopped the cavalry following in the rear on the spot, and the speed of the galloping horses slowed down instantly.

"Ready!"

"Put!"

"Bang! Bang! Bang! ……”

Company commander Yu Yuanbin swung the command knife in his hand fiercely, and more than 100 officers and men of the second company of the 3rd Mixed Battalion immediately mechanically pulled the trigger, and the dense projectiles instantly shot at the Omani cavalry gathered in a group.

"Dragoon attack!"

More than 100 Qi dragoons rushed out from the gaps on both sides of the phalanx and rushed towards the Omani cavalry, which was already in chaos.

The formation of the Qi dragoons was relatively late compared to several major military powers in Europe. In the seventh year of the Han Dynasty (1677), after the defeat of the Mughal Empire by the Qi State, in view of the lack of mobility of the line infantry and the inability to achieve rapid deployment and maneuver on the battlefield, they began to form dragoons.

However, although the dragoons of Qi had the name of cavalry, for a long time their equipment and training were carried out according to the standards of infantry. You must know that the regular cavalry regiments of the Qi State are equipped with more expensive cavalry short guns or flintlock pistols, as well as cuirasses and sabers, while the dragoons are equipped with infantry spears, and their military uniforms are also very different from the cavalry uniforms, which are almost the same as the infantry, except that the shoes and socks are replaced by boots and spurs. Their establishment is still infantry, based on the company.

Because the dragoons did not engage in horseback combat, only the officers had a flintlock pistol, and the soldiers had only an infantry dagger in addition to their muskets. It is worth mentioning that among their equipment is a small pickaxe, which is used to hook the reins when riding to prevent falling off the horse. As for the mounts used, they were usually short, cheap horses, which were not as good as the high-headed horses of the official cavalry of the Qi Kingdom. Dragoons, the most important of the cavalry subjects, charge into battle, pursue, fight on horseback, and shoot on horseback, will not be trained, and dragoons will not even be equipped with the sabers of orthodox cavalry.

Because the dragoons often fought on foot in a skirmish line, in order to enhance their firepower output, they were equipped with muskets with rifled sniper rifles (i.e., mini guns) with a long range and stable trajectory, so as to effectively improve the effectiveness of their skirmishers.

However, in the Qi Army, many high-ranking generals have proposed to equip the dragoons with sabers and other cold weapons, and at that time they can be used as light cavalry and regular cavalry regiments to launch a cavalry charge to enhance the "cost performance" of this army.

However, this move was opposed by the cavalry generals, either explicitly or implicitly. What are you kidding, training the dragoons to the standard of light cavalry, wouldn't that rob us of the work of our cavalry and cover our limelight.

In this case, why not dismantle the dragoons, invest the limited army resources in our cavalry corps, and directly expand the types and scale of our cavalry, so that we can also develop and train light cavalry that dismounts and fights on foot and charges on horseback.

The combat mode of the dragoons of Qi is basically similar to that of European countries, that is, to attack the enemy with the classic semi-gyration tactics, and its operation mode is "charge-shoot-turn-load-charge again".

Ali Al Jabri, the cavalry commander of the Omani army, was shot in the leg, killed his horse, and fell to the ground despite being shot in the leg, killing his horse, and falling to the ground, but miraculously escaped the trampling of the cavalry in the rear and the musket volley of the infantry of the Qi line, undoubtedly under the selfless protection of the true god.

When he staggered to his feet, he couldn't help but be shocked when he saw the two teams of cavalry of the Qi State rushing out of the formation. After several rounds of blows, the Omani cavalry was less than 100 horsemen, and it was still in chaos, how could it block the thunderous blow of the Qi cavalry?

In desperation, Jabri turned around and looked for horses to ride on, preparing to lead his men out of the area.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! ……”

Unexpectedly, the expected cavalry assault did not come, but ushered in a rain of bullets, and Jabri only felt a heavy blow to his back, and immediately, there was a piercing pain, and he immediately fell to the ground, curled up in pain.

"Kill!"

"Kill!"

As his consciousness gradually fell into blur, he vaguely heard a shout from the Qi army array, as if it was like a boiling flood, gushing out in all directions.