Liu Chengzong was waving the big flag in the mountains. Behind him, the bald Xiao Liu was holding drumsticks and playing urgent tunes on the waist drum with all his strength.
The eldest daughter and daughter-in-law of the border army's family wore floral jackets and played the snare drum in a messy manner. It was not in tune at all, which made people feel nervous.
There was also Sister-in-law Cao, standing at the end of the team, holding a Japanese-style waist sword and a small bow.
This is not a war drum. The drum sound is not meant for people to hear, and no one can hear any information from the drum sound. It is only used to scare people. Firstly, it is to make the thieves think they are officers and soldiers, and secondly, it is to make them think that the officers and soldiers are other people. The remaining troops are encircling.
It's hard to say whether the drums worked, or whether the bandits were frightened by the sight of the frontier army's cloth masks. Liu Chengzong, who was waving the flag, could see clearly that the first time his brother and Cao Yao's second group of infantry invaded the village , the thieves have retreated like a tide.
Although there were many bloody and brave people among them, they could only stop the boiling water if they pounced on them in twos and threes. Before they even touched the military formation, they were stabbed to death one by one by swordsmen and shieldmen throwing javelins.
When they got closer, they only needed to make up for it with one more knife, picked up the javelin, and moved forward over the corpse. Only about thirty people forced hundreds of thieves to flee and drove eastward.
The two groups of infantry were not in a hurry, and the formation was always maintained by the two captains. When they approached the siege, they formed a three-row, one-character long snake formation. The two wings moved forward and moved out of the middle, forming a small crescent shape toward the Press forward.
With a bang, smoke rose from the formation, and it was Cao Yaoduan who fired his three-eyed gun into the sky.
The three-eye blunderbuss is a short-barreled fire door gun. It has three barrels about one foot long and is connected to a long wooden pole. When firing, you need to hold the blunderbuss in one hand and clamp the wooden pole with your elbow ribs, and hold the match rope to light the fire door with the other hand. , because the gun tube is short, it is also difficult to shoot accurately.
In this era, the three-eyed gun was an old weapon in terms of age. Under the influence of Qi Jiguang, the southern gun soldiers mostly used bird guns. However, in the northern frontier army, Qi Shaobao's work of promoting bird guns was not smooth.
The bird gun has a medicine pool. Since the gunpowder is placed in the chamber first and then the projectiles, the primer connected to the gunpowder still needs to be sprinkled into the medicine pool lit by the match rope outside the barrel. The wind is strong in the north, and there is often a problem when using the bird gun. Risk of being blown away by the wind.
Therefore, three-eyed blunderbuss are still widely deployed in the northern frontier army. Excellent frontier army cavalry can use this difficult-to-ignite firearm to gallop on horseback. This is basically two weapons in terms of use method with the bird blunderbuss of the Chinese matchlock gun.
Bird cannons can shoot far and accurately, and three-eyed cannons seek a wide range. For example, the border troops of Yansui Town, whose defense direction is Hetao Mongolia, face border conflicts that usually involve hundreds or thousands of cavalry. They use three-eyed cannons as Be a one-time little troll.
Each of the three gun tubes was stuffed with two or three lead pellets, and they were fired at the nearest location, covering the face of the horse thief who lacked armor protection on the other side with blood, and then used him as a sap to fight hand-to-hand.
It is neither a repeating machine gun nor a toy that can only be heard. It is just a cheap weapon of this era that is good at dealing with unarmored enemies.
When it comes to long-range weapons, most of the soldiers still use bows. Small bows that can shoot long distances quickly and long-tip bows that can shoot heavy arrows with great power can supplement their strength in close combat.
The Yuhe Fort frontier troops turned in all their firearms when they left the fort. Only Cao Yao kept a three-pronged blunderbuss, not for anything else but because bad luck had fallen out of control again and could be used as a trumpet cannon.
The trumpet cannon transmits information. The three-eyed gun has a short barrel and is quick to load. It is the most efficient way to convey information on the battlefield.
Liu Chengzong knew full well that Cao Yao's trumpet had two meanings.
The first is that the bandits are defeated and the cavalry can be provoked into a conflict; the second is to tell him to kill the lame man.
The thieves had no chance to observe the situation calmly. As the saying goes, a Taoist cannot stand without strength. The leader of the bandits, Bai Yingzi, is the backbone of this group of bandits. In a sudden attack, everyone searched for Bai Yingzi within their sight range.
They couldn't find Bai Yingzi, and the thieves were fighting on their own. But when they found Bai Yingzi, they saw that he was leading a few management teams to pull seven or eight grain trucks to escape eastward. They all ran out of the village, and they were all full of fighting spirit. none.
The flag was lowered, and Liu Chengzong turned around and ran quickly down the hill. On the official road, beside the red flag, stood twelve frontier cavalry soldiers holding their horses.
Everything had been arranged before the war. As agreed, they would intercept and defeat the deserters from the east under the leadership of Liu Chengzong.
Everything on this familiar road was like a carnival belonging to the deserted soldiers of the frontier army. The soldiers climbed onto the newly prepared saddles, and even the horses twisted awkwardly because they had been unsaddled and unmanned for a long time.
In the eyes of the riders, it was as if the war horses were also excited.
They drove their horses quietly, and their hoofs stepped on the yellow earth, making a deep and firm sonorous sound.
In order to ensure that the frontier cavalry could complete the interception mission, Liu Chengzong raised his strong bow and issued several orders to the team. They completed the last detachment before the battle on the official road, gathered together, changed their formation, and trotted towards the fields east of the village with neat steps. go.
The thieves in the village have used all available means. Some people tried to stop them, but were knocked down by the frontier soldiers throwing spears. Even if they were lucky, they could not avoid the infantry who came close to kill them with hobs.
Anyone who was willing to resist was killed in an instant, and the remaining people didn't know how to deal with it. There were endless people who threw away money and pushed their accomplices.
Seeing that the army's infantry formation was advancing step by step and could not catch up with them, Bai Yingzi, who had escaped from the village entrance to the east, also noticed something was wrong. He stopped following the fleeing men, climbed onto the shaft of the carriage at Panliang Station, and looked back to the west.
"The official army seems to have no reinforcements. There are only more than 30 people and there is no big flag."
In the Ming Dynasty, the combat effectiveness of the border troops was reduced due to court corruption and poor financial conditions, but they were still strong in terms of morale, training, and discipline. The troops who had not been paid for three years could still be dragged out to fight according to the emperor's order. This is a sign of their high morale, training, and discipline. The embodiment of discipline.
Institutionalized troops don't talk about large armies going into battle. Even if a small flag officer leads troops to carry out work for the landlords, there will still be helmet flags. This seems to be common sense to Bai Yingzi, who has been fighting with the government and the army for many years.
But at this time, the officers and soldiers only saw bare helmets and guns on their heads, and the red flag that was waving on the hilltop at first was gone. Looking back again, that flag didn't look like a military flag at all. It didn't have the four-color flying tiger or the five directions. The divine flag doesn’t even have twenty-eight stars.
After experiencing the initial panic, Bai Yingzi came to his senses, slapped his head and cursed fiercely: "If you fall into the trap of these cowardly suspects, they are just a group of deserters. They will starve to death without food. Wrap up your hands and follow them - forget it, pull it." Form a team to protect the grain truck!"
Sober and sober, Bai Yingzi is not yet enthusiastic.
It's not that he didn't want to fight, it was just that the thieves were scared out of their wits. Even if he ordered a counterattack, no one would die for him.
During this moment of hesitation, the sound of horse hooves sounded in the south, and a frontier cavalry team was approaching them.
The cavalry was preceded by a single rider, followed by twelve riders in three formations. Everyone held a rein in their left hand and a sword in their right hand, with the backs of their swords resting on their right shoulders, galloping forward like thunder with an indomitable momentum.
Before they even got close, the bandit soldiers gathered around the grain cart had already dispersed to both sides like waves. When Liu Chengzong galloped five or six steps closer, there were only three or four people on the left and right sides of the grain cart who were as frightened as dumbfounded. No matter how much Shang Baiyingzi calls, he can't call his subordinates back.
Bai Yingzi had just lifted the bow from the bow pouch at his waist, but before he could pinch the arrow, Liu Chengzong had already turned his horse's head and galloped to one side, turned around and pulled the bow full force to release the fast arrow with carved feathers.
In an instant, Liu Chengzong heard a shout of being hit by an arrow coming from behind him, and his ears were immediately filled with the wails of the cavalry rushing into the crowd, charging and killing.
Note: The cavalry formation, saber leaning on the shoulder and other movements refer to the "Ping Fan Victory Picture" which depicts the border troops in Guyuan Town performing military tasks during the Wanli Period of the Ming Dynasty.
