The auxiliary soldiers in front of the fourth trench pulled out the swords on their waists and followed the Fende Bashiku to rush to the front of the Song army's formation. However, what greeted them was a salvo of six hundred rifles fired from a distance of eighty meters. The riflemen had been loading their ammunition for a long time, and they were just waiting for the Khitan soldiers' wooden shields to be broken before firing bullets at the Khitan soldiers. More than two thousand Khitan soldiers were hit by a hail of 600 bullets before they could cross the wooden bridge they had built.
In an instant, hundreds of people were knocked to the ground, thrown to the ground like sandbags, or thrown on the wooden bridge. Some of the seriously injured wounded screamed and rolled on the ground, fell from the wooden bridge and fell into a trench two meters deep. The organs that had been shredded by the bullets were squeezed by the heavy fall again and turned into a ball of blood, leaving the wounded no longer alive. The leader Fende Bashiku shouted loudly: "Come on! If you kill a Song army, raise the flag!" When the followers heard this, their eyes turned red, and they followed the Fende Bashiku and rushed to the base of the Ming army's stronghold. .
But their charge stopped after only advancing ten meters. Just now, the Khitan soldiers were busy building bridges and hiding behind wooden shields. They were so busy that they had no time to observe the battlefield ahead. Of course, the valley in Maligou was not a plain. The surface was rugged and bumpy. It was difficult to see clearly what was happening on the ground in the distance even from twenty meters away. They did not see the wooden thorn that was only half a foot high in front of them.
When these auxiliary soldiers rushed seventy meters in front of the stronghold, they discovered that there was a large area of wooden thorns in front of them. The Khitan soldiers could not walk in these wooden thorn areas at all. Dozens of followers did not react and rushed into the wooden thorn area with swords raised. Their feet were pricked by wooden thorns, and they lost their position. They fell in pain among the wooden thorns. Those wooden thorns were all sharpened by swords. How could clothes and skin resist them? The servants were immediately stabbed open by wooden thorns, and their bodies were bleeding.
Some of the followers rushed too hard and fell with such force that they were stabbed to death by wooden thorns. Several auxiliary soldiers were also hit by the wooden thorns, but fortunately they were wearing cotton armor and were not stabbed to death by the wooden thorns. They fell on the wooden thorns and screamed a few times, then fled back in panic.
This road is blocked! The entire 70-meter-deep battlefield in front of the stronghold was covered with wooden thorns at a depth of 40 meters. These wooden thorn arrays cover a width of 750 meters in front of the stronghold, and there is only a passage more than ten meters wide without wooden thorns.
The thorns are buried so deep that it is impossible to pull them out. The Fendepa Shiku gritted his teeth and shouted loudly: "Charge in from the place where there are no wooden thorns." Before he could finish speaking, another 600 rifles were fired at the Song Army's stronghold. Six hundred rounds of bullets swept across the battlefield, hitting more than a thousand auxiliary soldiers and followers wearing thin or no armor. Blood flowers are like cuckoos in spring, blooming one after another from the Khitan soldiers. The Khitan soldiers who were shot squirted blood from their wounds and fell to the ground one by one.
That Fende Bashiku was also hit by a bullet. At a distance of eighty meters, even though he was wearing three layers of heavy armor, his body was penetrated by bullets. He was hit in the right lung. The bullet shattered this delicate organ, and blood shot along the trachea to various pipes in the human body, spurting out from his mouth and nose. He fell to the ground with a thud and died. Along with this Fende Bashiku, hundreds of Khitan soldiers fell.
In the blink of an eye, the wooden bridge team of nearly 3,000 people was killed and most of them injured. However, because there were more than 60,000 reinforcements behind them, these Khitan soldiers did not collapse. With so many reinforcements behind him, the fate of the retreat was likely to be hacked to death by the commander's guards. The auxiliary soldiers and followers who were still alive had red eyes, howling and rushing towards the passage without wooden thorns, preparing to attack the Song army from there.
But the passage more than ten meters wide was too narrow. More than a thousand Khitan soldiers crowded the periphery of the passage. Only a dozen or so people could enter the passage. Most people could only squeeze outside and wait to enter. The two hundred soldiers in the front row had just rushed into the passage and ran twenty meters. When they were fifty meters away from the stronghold in front, they were greeted by another hail of bullets.
The front of Yang Peng's stronghold was more than 700 meters wide. The Khitan soldiers who entered the passage were crowded on the passage. Soldiers who were too far away from the passage could not target them. But there are still more than a thousand Khitan soldiers crowded outside the passage. These Qing soldiers occupy an area of more than 200 meters, so the soldiers more than 200 meters on both sides of the passage can shoot the Khitan soldiers.
Four hundred rounds of bullets hit the three hundred people who rushed into the passage and those who tried to rush into the passage, immediately sending these charging Khitan soldiers to the west. The bullets were like scissors for cutting leaves, clicking and harvesting life, killing all the auxiliary soldiers and followers on the east and west sides of the Khitan army at once. Those Khitan soldiers who were shot and fell to the ground were either dead or twitching and struggling on the ground, becoming obstacles and making the Khitan army behind them charge slower. It is estimated that in less than two rounds of volleys, these auxiliary soldiers and followers who rushed into the formation would have been killed.
If hundreds of rifles were aimed at this narrow passage, the only outcome would be total annihilation. This wave of Khitan soldiers finally collapsed. The front was blocked by wooden thorns, and the only passage was impossible to rush up to. The people who stayed in front of the formation were just targets for volleys of guns. A team of nearly 3,000 people was killed in just one moment, with 2,000 people killed and only 900 people left. The Khitan soldiers did not dare to charge any more and collapsed screaming.
But they who escaped were still within the range of the Tiger Division. More than two to three hundred rifles behind them chased and fired at them. From a distance of 70 meters to 200 meters from the canopy, the rifle could fire four or five rounds. The Khitan soldiers had no hope of escaping. The soldiers of the Huben Division shot the fleeing Khitan soldiers in the back, legs and back of the head one by one, as if they were executing prisoners.
The fleeing Khitan soldiers fell on the battlefield one after another. When the last fleeing auxiliary soldier was shot to death 150 meters away, the battlefield became quiet for a while.
In order to fill the four trenches, the Khitan army sacrificed 5,000 people. The last wave of Khitan soldiers charged into the formation, causing another 2,000 Qing soldiers to be killed or wounded. In just one stick of incense, the Khitan army had already abandoned 7,000 people in front of the Huben division. The battlefield two hundred meters in front of the awning was filled with corpses of Khitan soldiers, like a slaughterhouse.
Blood flowed on the uneven valley floor and gathered in low-lying areas, forming pools of blood. But only a few seconds later, the silence on the battlefield was broken by the roar of one hundred and forty powerful crossbows. The main force of the Khitan army rushed over from a mile away. The Khitan army used more than 60,000 flesh and blood to attack Yang Peng's gun array. The main frontline soldiers of the Khitan army were three hundred meters away from Yang Peng's awning, and had already entered the range of the trebuchet and the crossbow, and the crossbow opened fire.
Fourteen hundred long arrows were like a meteor, shooting at the more than 60,000-strong army, sweeping across a large area in the front row. Although most of the stones were shot away, hundreds of arrows still hit the Khitan army 300 meters away. The cotton armor and chain armor of the Khitan soldiers were defenseless against the iron bullets, and they were all shot through. Hundreds of people fell down screaming or silently, dying on the battlefield before they even got close to the trench.
The long arrow's damage made the front end of the Khitan army slightly confused. Many of the more than 60,000 Khitan troops charging into the battle were infantry and horse soldiers wearing heavy armor. They wore one or even two layers of heavy armor. However, the armor that the Khitan army was proud of was completely defenseless against shotguns, which was a huge blow to the morale of the Khitan army.
However, the lethality of the powerful crossbow arrow shot from 300 meters away was limited, and it only killed a few hundred people. The officers of the Khitan soldiers whipped the soldiers who were stagnant for a while, and then the team returned to normal. The Khitan army had to cross four ditches on a wooden bridge with rough workmanship and limited load capacity. A horse often weighed more than a thousand pounds. It was obvious that the wooden bridge could not hold up when riding into the formation. Therefore, the Khitan army all charged into the formation on foot, and there would be no big chaos caused by the frightened horses.
In fact, the Khitan army also had mechanical crossbows. Xiao Tianzuo brought more than fifty mechanical crossbows this time. However, the number of crossbows of the Khitan army was far less than that of Yang Peng, so it was not easy to shoot. Moreover, these crossbows are the absolute treasures of the Khitan army. It took many years to accumulate these assets, and siege cities and strongholds all rely on these cannons. If they were to shoot against Yang Peng's powerful crossbows, the Khitan army's machine crossbows would soon be knocked out by Yang Peng's powerful crossbows, and Xiao Tianzuo was reluctant to do so.
More than 60,000 Khitan troops accelerated their march and rushed towards the Song army's stronghold a few hundred meters away. When they reached the first trench, Yang Peng's crossbows and trebuchets opened fire again.
More than a thousand long arrows flew towards the Khitan army again, overwhelming the sky and the earth. Those long arrows made a whirring sound as they flew through the air. The sound of more than a thousand long arrows piercing the air merged together and turned into a roaring noise. It only took the blink of an eye for the projectile to pierce into the Khitan army's formation, piercing into the flesh and blood under the armor.
The armor was immediately torn apart, and any part of the Khitan soldier's body that the arrow hit would always pierce two holes. After the long arrow pierces a body, it will continue to pierce the back, killing the second Qing soldier in the back row. Facing the power of steel and gunpowder, the human body is as fragile as a layer of paper. This time the long arrow shooting distance was closer, the hit rate of the long arrow increased, and nearly a thousand soldiers in the front row fell down screaming. Screams and howls came from the mouths of the wounded in front of the formation, beginning to corrode the morale of the Khitan army. Blood, mutilated limbs and minced meat were everywhere. At first glance, everything was blood red. The front line of the Khitan army seemed like a pig-killing factory.
The Khitan army was hit hard again and some were unable to react. Why did the Song Army's powerful crossbows fire so fast? Doesn’t it take a long time to cum? At this rate of fire, wouldn't it mean that we could still fight for one round before the Khitan army rushed to the formation? The soldiers in the front row turned pale as if they saw the Song Army's powerful crossbows firing another round and killing themselves.
However, there is no retreat in this battle. There are thousands of commanders and guards in the Khitan army. If you escape, you will definitely die. In the roaring army of tens of thousands, people's adrenal glands will secrete exciting hormones, making the known death less terrifying. The Khitan soldiers in the front row gritted their teeth and rushed upward, as if they had forgotten their personal life and death. Brandishing their swords, they walked onto the wooden bridge over the first trench and crossed the first trench.
There are too many Khitan troops. The front of Yang Peng's stronghold is only more than 700 meters. The more than 60,000 Khitan troops cannot deploy at all. If they attack together, they will be crowded together and cause chaos. The Khitan army could not rush forward together, and the soldiers and horses split into two groups. The line consisted of 20,000 people in the front row, and five thousand-man teams led the charge forward. One group consisted of more than 40,000 people in the back row, waiting at the edge of the trench, ready to support the 20,000 people in front.
But Xiao Tianzuo believed that the 20,000 troops in the front could defeat Yang Peng's troops without the need for more than 40,000 troops in the back. The trench has been covered with a wooden bridge, and the front is flat. Yang Peng had only 10,000 soldiers and horses. How could he be a match for 20,000 Khitan warriors?
The moment the front row of the Khitan army crossed the wooden bridge, six hundred rifles from the front of the Huben Division opened fire on the front row of the Khitan army. At a distance of two hundred meters, six hundred rifles spit out six hundred bullets and attacked the Khitan soldiers whose hands were covered with Han blood. As soon as the six hundred rounds of bullets were fired, a large area fell in front of the Khitan army like wheat that had been cut by a sickle. At this distance, the conical bullet cannot penetrate the two-layer armor of the horse soldiers, but it is fatal to the infantry soldiers, Xi tribe soldiers and auxiliary soldiers.
In one salvo, at least three hundred Khitan soldiers were killed and wounded. The soldiers who were shot covered their wounds and screamed loudly. But soon the strength disappeared from them, and they fell into a pool of blood, gradually losing their voice. The Khitan army plucked up their courage and continued to rush towards the Ming army's formation.
After walking another dozen steps, another hail of bullets poured towards the front of the Khitan army's formation. The blood flowers bloomed on the Qing soldiers one after another, like fireworks blooming during the New Year, splashing the salty and hot blood several meters away, splashing on the bodies and faces of other Khitans around them. The still alive Khitans in the front row were all covered in blood, as if they had walked out of hell.
More than three hundred Khitans were knocked to the ground again. The shot Khitan was rolling and twitching on the ground, but no one paid attention to them. The 60,000-strong army formed a collective momentum of going forward, stimulating the fighting will of the soldiers in front of the formation, ignoring the hundreds of individuals who died tragically.
The cavalry soldiers who were not killed by the bullets had the highest morale. They thought that the Huben Division's fire cannons could not do anything to them, so they charged with howls. The Khitans crossed the second trench. There were only more than a hundred wooden bridges on the second trench, which did not cover the entire trench. The Tatar team huddled together here, and only part of them rushed onto the wooden bridge, while the people behind were crowded at the end of the wooden bridge.
The lack of wooden bridges on the trenches caused the Khitan team's overall charging speed to slow down by several percent. A third rifle volley came. The screams sounded again, and the soldiers in the front row fell one after another as if they were called by name. A cavalry soldier wearing double armor rushed forward relying on the strength of his heavy armor, but was hit in the head by a bullet. Half of his head was broken by a bullet, and the blood and brain matter bloomed into a blood flower, which splashed on the face of the carabine next to him. The armored man touched his face in surprise, only to see blood red on his hand.
Just as the rifle fire stopped, the Khitans took another dozen steps forward, and the third round of catapult and the fourth round of rifles fired at the same time.
The rain of bullets that covered the sky was like a net, a giant net that could kill at the first touch, dominating the entire battlefield in an instant. Long arrow projectiles and rifle bullets were shot into the Khitan crowd, setting off a storm of blood. The long arrow projectile will pierce through anything it touches, whether it is the human body's torso, thighs or arms. Broken meat and blood shot out everywhere. The Khitan soldiers who were lucky enough not to be hit in front of the battle seemed to have been bathed in a red blood rain, and they were covered in blood. They had no idea whether the flesh and blood on their bodies was their own or someone else's. They cried out in fear in the rain of blood, fearing that they would fall down due to the sudden severe pain in the next second.
This burst of shelling finally frightened the Khitan army. The Khitan army in the front row slowed down and did not dare to rush forward with their heads down. The Khitan troops in the front row were frightened by the beating, but the Khitan troops in the back row still had morale. There were more than 60,000 Khitan soldiers in this battle, and thousands of casualties were bearable. The generals would never allow the front row soldiers to retreat. Seeing that the Khitan soldiers in the front row were afraid of moving forward, the handsome guard who was guarding the formation rushed forward and shot dozens of arrows at the stopped soldiers.
The commander's guards usually use ten-power bows, and the arrows are accurate and hard. The bow and arrow flew dozens of meters through the air and shot into the back of the Khitan soldiers in front, and those Khitan soldiers immediately screamed. The handsome guard does not allow the soldiers in the front row to desert! If the Khitan soldiers rushed to the front and died, they would still die in honor. If they fled to the back and were shot to death by the guards, it would be meaningless. If one person is shot to death by a guard guarding the formation, the whole family will be unable to hold their head high in the future. When the Khitan troops in the front row saw this scene, they no longer dared to hesitate, gritted their teeth and started running forward again.
The Khitan army sprinted forward and crossed the third trench. At a distance of about 110 meters, the soldiers who fired the first round of the Tiger Division had loaded their bullets again in the back row, stood in the front row, and fired the fifth round. The soldiers of the Huben Division did not fire volleys at the same time with 600 soldiers. The front of the battlefield was too wide to unify the firing time. The Huben Division basically fired volleys in units of thirty-one platoons.
Division Huben fired bullets platoon after platoon, and the Khitan in the front row was hit hard again. At a distance of 110 meters, even the Khitan vest soldiers wearing iron-plated cotton armor and chain mail couldn't withstand the cone-shaped bullets. The armor was also penetrated, and the bullets shattered when they penetrated the armor, flipped irregularly, and caused larger wounds when they penetrated the flesh.
Hundreds of horse-armored soldiers in the front row were leading the charge, but were suddenly shot through their bodies by bullets. These horse-armored soldiers thought that the Song Army's firecrackers could not do anything to them, but at this time they were beaten squarely. Each of them looked at the huge wounds on their bodies in disbelief, but they could not cover up the blood that flowed out. The blood that flowed out stained the armor red, causing the horse-armored soldiers to fall one after another.
The Khitan soldiers rushed forward for another dozen steps and were hit by another sixth round of rifle fire. The soldiers in the second row on the front loaded their bullets, stood in the shooting position, aimed at the Khitan, and fired volleys one after another. The distance was very close, and the Khitan was charging forward again, with a dense formation, and the Huben Division's shooting hit rate was very high. Missed bullets would even hit the Khitans behind and beside them, and very few bullets would miss. After six hundred soldiers fired a volley, four or five hundred Khitan soldiers were knocked to the ground.
The Khitan soldiers suffered heavy casualties, but they still fought to the death and continued to charge forward. Withstanding the fatal bullets of the Song army, the Khitan finally rushed through the fourth trench and rushed to the wooden thorn. The large piece of wood thorns shocked the Tatars who rushed here.
The Song army used deception! The group of auxiliary soldiers who had just discovered Mu Ci were completely wiped out by Huben Division, and no one went back to tell the Khitan army that there was Mu Ci in front. At this time, the large force of the Khitan army rushed in front of the wooden thorn. After seeing clearly the wooden thorn, which was only half a foot high, they realized how indestructible the Song army's stronghold was. This area of wood thorns is completely impassable.
Thousands of warriors were sacrificed and they rushed to the front of the Song army's formation, but were unable to advance because of the Song army's fortifications. The Khitan soldiers who rushed into the formation felt like they wanted to cry without tears. Even the bravest Khitan soldiers suddenly felt despair. Dozens of Khitan and infantry soldiers of the Xi tribe rushed into the wooden thorn formation. The soles of their shoes were immediately pierced by the wooden thorns and they fell on the pile of wooden thorns. Even though they were wearing cotton armor or cotton armor inlaid with iron sheets, these Khitan soldiers were stabbed by wooden thorns. They struggled to find a place to stay among the wooden thorns and slowly escaped back.
The Song army fired continuously and poured bullets at the Khitan soldiers, but the Khitan soldiers had no way to go. If you want to go through the wood thorns, you must dig the soil to spread a layer of soil half a foot high on the ground. But under the aim of the Song army's gunfire, how many people had to die before these wooden thorns could be covered with soil? This is mission impossible.
Then some Khitan soldiers lost their fighting spirit and turned around to flee back the way they came. A few hundred meters away, at the center of the Khitan army, the generals were extremely anxious when they saw the rushing team stopped. After sacrificing so many warriors, they managed to reach fifty steps away from the Song army. How could they stop?
Handrang looked at the Qing soldiers who stopped in front with his mouth open, and was so surprised that he couldn't speak. Obviously, the warriors encountered Yang Peng's fortifications and were unable to charge forward.
This Yang Peng is cheating! Handerang's face turned pale and he said: "General, there seems to be a trap ahead, and the warriors cannot rush forward." Xiao Tianzuo covered his nose with his hand, feeling as if his heart was cut by a knife.
After sacrificing so many warriors, Xiao Tianzuo felt like he was frightened by Yang Peng. Originally, he had made such a big sacrifice to rush forward and annihilate Yang Peng's troops, but this Yang Peng was deceiving and even laid a trap in front of the formation that could not be seen from a distance. Not only that, the powerful crossbows that had only been fired for a long time when the wooden bridge was being laid were now being bombarded continuously. If he had known that Yang Peng had so many backup options, Xiao Tianzuo would not have let the warriors rush forward to die.
But now that the work is done and thousands of warriors have died, can we just withdraw like this? Unable to advance fifty steps away from the enemy, the Liao soldiers could only use arrows to attack the enemy. But Yang Peng's soldiers and horses were hiding behind the earth wall, so they were not in a good position to shoot at the Khitan soldiers. However, 7,000 auxiliary soldiers and followers had already been abandoned in front of the formation when they were building the wooden bridge. At this time, more than 4,000 Khitan soldiers were killed in the charge of the formation. Xiao Tianzuo was already red-eyed at the loss and was absolutely unwilling to admit defeat. He shouted: "Blow the horn and let the brave men hold on!"
In front of the formation, dozens of Khitan soldiers who took the lead in escaping were shot to death by the guards guarding the formation. The Khitan soldiers heard the clarion call to continue charging and did not dare to retreat. They could only grit their teeth and bear the fire of the Song army. In this situation, they could only shoot with bows and arrows. The Khitan soldiers took out the bows and arrows on their backs with pale faces and began to shoot at the Song army's gunmen behind the wall.
This was an unfair fight. Most of the horse soldiers and infantry soldiers used eight-power bows. Fifty steps, or seventy-five meters, was the limit range of these Khitan soldiers. They could not shoot accurately at this distance. The auxiliaries and followers of the Khitan soldiers are even more miserable. They usually use six-power bows, and the arrows they shoot have basically no lethality at fifty paces. Most of the Khitan bows and arrows of the Xi tribe are similar to the Bali bow. They can shoot at the limit of fifty steps, have poor accuracy, and cannot break armor.
But Master Huben was shooting from behind awnings and earthen walls. The earthen wall was almost as tall as a man's shoulders, completely protecting the torso of the Tiger Soldiers, leaving only their heads and shoulders exposed. Not only that, there was an awning above the Song army's head, and most of the bows and arrows fired were blocked by the awning. Moreover, 2,000 of the 2,400 soldiers on the front were soldiers of the Selected Front Regiment, wearing chainmail armor. Fifty steps away, only the commander's ten-power bow could penetrate the chainmail. The guards were all behind the formation, and the eight-force bows of the vests and infantry in front of the formation were completely powerless against the chainmail.
After all, what happened next will be explained later.
