Commander Pu Gang intended to carry out a half-crossing attack, so he ordered the artillery bombardment not to be too intensive. Pu Gang was worried that Zuo Liangyu's troops on the south bank would suffer heavy casualties, so he did not dare to cross the river easily again.
This worry is obviously unnecessary.
The Qiu Ba people who had tasted the sweetness of massacre in Xuzhou heard from the surrendered Qi army that the enemy troops on the other side of the Huangpi River were only a few thousand, and they were only partial divisions. Looking at the sparse artillery fire around them, the morale of the troops was suddenly boosted, and their morale was as high as rainbow.
The leader of the Ming army, the commander-in-chief, brandished a firecracker and shouted:
"Roll over! Serve the Governor Zuo! Seize Huguang, kill Xiangyang, and sleep with the little girl!"
There was a crackling sound, and the Ming army on the fishing boat raised their muskets and fired a volley towards the north shore.
The Huangpi River looks like a New Year street, with white smoke filling the river.
Lu Yang led the artillerymen and advanced forward to face the attack. Occasionally a cannonball flew overhead, killing and wounding several Qi army artillerymen.
The Qi army now adopts skirmishing line tactics, which is completely different from lining up to shoot, so the casualties caused by sporadic shelling are generally within a tolerable range.
After a few shells were fired, the artillery on the opposite side stopped shelling, and the gunmen continued to move forward in a file, getting closer and closer to the fishing boats on the river, and soon entered the 400-step shooting range.
At this time, the Ming army's volley on the ship turned into free fire, crackling like fried beans, and most of the lead bullets fell in front of the Qi army.
Lu Yang had fought against the Ming army several times on the Huaiyang front, and was even more familiar with Zuo Liangyu and his gang.
Generally, when the enemy is still far away, the Ming army's firecrackers fight most vigorously, wishing they could blow the firecrackers out of their hands. However, when the enemy gets closer, they run out of ammunition and misfire.
I heard that Zuo Liangyu spent a lot of money last year to hire several Franji instructors to teach the art of firing volleys with musketeers. Now it seems that Governor Zuo's money was wasted.
Lu Yang loudly ordered the two training officers who were accompanying the team to disperse.
"Go to the roadside and spread out toward Tianchong. Don't get together! Be careful of stray bullets!"
The two instructors were both newcomers, student soldiers who had just come from the academy and had never seen blood.
Although compulsory school education is implemented every year, there are still a small number of people who are literate, especially those who are eloquent.
Therefore, every time there is a battle, the training officer is the second most important target of each battalion's protection, and the first is the ambulance soldier.
A sharp bamboo whistle suddenly sounded, and all the advancing soldiers stopped and spread out in skirmish lines, about five feet away from each other. There was another bamboo whistle, and each captain waved the order flag, and the soldiers immediately prepared for battle.
The mini rifle bullets developed by the workshop in the third year of Taichu used paper packages to pack the propellant (black powder).
The bullet uses a round-head cylindrical shell lead bullet, with threads around the bullet body to match the rifling, and animal oil is filled in the middle of the threads.
This kind of Mini bullet is slightly smaller than the caliber of a rifle and can be easily pushed into the gun bore with an ejector rod, thus greatly increasing the rate of fire.
At the same time, it avoids the embarrassing situation that the bullet is too large to fit into the barrel or blocks the barrel when loading bullets in the old rifle.
In order to develop this firearm, the workshop withdrew a total of 500,000 taels of silver from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War. Even during the difficult times of the empire, this amount did not shrink at all.
It is said that just to solve the problem of slow manufacturing of flash caps, the workshop organized more than 200 craftsmen to build a machine specifically for stamping flash caps. It is driven by steam and is ten times more efficient than manual labor... ··
This new army rifle was warmly welcomed by the gunmen as soon as it was trial-fitted by each battalion. It was not equipped with the Shenyang garrison until the end of last year. It is said that this thing can kill a ferocious tiger with one shot.
After all the combat orders were conveyed, the gunmen began to fire freely. Lu Yang put down his bamboo whistle, squatted down, and joined in the shooting of the Ming army.
He took out the paper bullet from his pocket, tore open the bottom of the shell, poured the propellant in the paper bullet shell into the muzzle of the gun, inserted the warhead with a purl, pressed the hammer, and placed a flash cap on the fire door.
An enemy general wearing chainmail appeared in his field of vision.
He stood on the rickety bow and swayed with the ship.
While waving a saber in an exaggerated manner, he kept shouting at the warship behind him.
There was a horse tied to his side, and it seemed that he was preparing to chase Qi's army after landing.
"He seems to be a boss. He's so far away. I wonder if he can be killed?"
Lu Yang hesitated for a moment, then suddenly pulled the trigger.
Three hundred steps away, the general of the Ming Army suddenly trembled. He looked at the broken pieces of armor in disbelief. He tilted his body and fell into the river.
The remaining Ming troops on board were still in a state of fanaticism and were indifferent to the general's sacrifice for his country.
The lead bullets poured down on the ship like raindrops, hitting the side of the ship. The hull shook slightly, and for a while, sawdust flew across the river.
The soldiers of the Ming army who were standing in an obvious position on the bow of the boat were hit by the first wave before they knew what was going on, and fell into the river like fallen leaves.
A clever Ming army gunman quickly hugged the gun and got behind the side of the ship. The surrounding Ming soldiers fell down, and the blood quickly stained the deck. Just as he was secretly rejoicing, a mini bullet easily penetrated the three-inch thickness. The cypress planks penetrated his throat...
The Huangpi River suddenly fell into chaos, and the Ming army rushing at the front was attacked most intensively. At this time, the rockets that had been idle for a long time on the north bank also joined the battle group. Under the joint attack of Mini bombs and Shenhuo Feiyang, the front The platoon battle ship quickly disintegrated, and after being hit by a rocket, it ignited a raging fire. The Ming troops who sailed to the middle of the river were either drowned in the water or burned to death.
The artillery battalion, which had been silent for a long time, also joined the massacre. The artillery battalion concentrated dozens of infantry guns, field guns, and siege guns on the river that was two miles wide and three or four miles deep in front of them. The Huangpi River suddenly The waves surge like boiling...
Looking at the situation, the Ming army was indeed pitiful. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was like driving a lamb to the slaughterhouse.
~~~
On that day, the vanguard of Zuo Liangyu's troops was defeated. The Ming army lost more than a thousand soldiers and countless warships. Although the troops were superior, they had no intention of fighting again.
Pu Gang decided to pursue the victory and ordered his army to board a pontoon bridge, cross the river, sweep across the south bank, and march directly to Jiangxia City.
Zuo Liangyu avoided fighting and stuck to Jiangxia. Using Wuchang as a corner, he secretly contacted Zheng Sen's troops in an attempt to annihilate the Sixth Corps under the walls of Wuchang.
After deliberation, the Chinese army decided to immediately launch a strong attack, first attacking Jiangxia and then Wuchang. They used the refugees as death squads to organize manpower, and took advantage of the night to climb the city that night.
The Civil Affairs Bureau and the Auxiliary Army sent many people to the four villages to collect ladders and hemp ropes.
The price of a ladder is eight cents, and a coupon is issued by the civil administration. Families who have been expropriated can use their coupons to go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to receive the money.
As soon as the recruitment team was dispatched, many ladders came back one after another. Some were brand new, and some were old and might have been more than a hundred years old. All old ladders are probably very short, probably because they have been broken or sawed short after being used for a long time. The location for climbing the city was chosen on a hill on the northeast corner of Binyang Gate. The city wall there was relatively low, only one to five or six feet high.
Lewen
