It turned out that when Jin Shenghuan, Sun Fugui and Zhang Yong launched counterattacks one after another, the Dashun Army's more than 30 cannons and thousands of muskets continued to fire, and fired hundreds of thousands of stones at the Ming Army's positions. bullets and thousands of lead bullets.
The infantrymen of Jin Shenghuan's tribe, who were being beaten there, happened to be ordered to retreat a hundred steps. These infantrymen had suffered "heavy casualties" from the opponent's artillery shells (actually it was not that bad, hundreds of casualties were lost). The people were panicked and uneasy, and they were unable to retreat in an orderly manner.
Li Zicheng, who had already descended from Jinmao Mountain and moved to the main position of Dashun Army on the right rear of Guangde Temple, had been waiting for this opportunity, so he made a prompt decision and launched more than 10,000 Dashun's infantry and cavalry to launch an attack. The infantry is still in front and the cavalry is behind!
Half of the infantry in front held spears and half held swords and shields, forming a dense formation. Looking from a distance, we saw infantrymen wearing blue arrow jackets and white hats coming like a torrent. Their formation was not neat, and they did not form any kind of square formation. They were still lined up side by side in waves of dense lines, not straight, but crooked.
Although the queue is not neat, the morale of the generals is extremely high - now the emperor is supervising the battle! Moreover, the old cavalrymen behind the infantry were all ruthless masters. As long as Li Zicheng gave the order, they would kill deserters without mercy. Therefore, officers from various ministries and outposts (the lowest level of the Dashun Army) stood at the head of the team, holding up their swords and spears to lead the soldiers forward. However, the reason why they are so motivated now is not entirely due to the brutality of King Chuang's supervising team, but because they feel that they can still achieve success by following Li Zicheng.
In the current Dashun Dynasty, there is no class of gentry and landlords, and there are no big profiteers (small traders are a bit, big businessmen no longer exist). The social hierarchy is very simple. The highest level is the emperor Li Zicheng, and below are the nobles. Below the nobles are the veteran soldiers of the old camp, and below that are the new subordinates like them. At the bottom are the farmers and a small number of craftsmen from the official handicraft workshops.
If you want to become an official and obtain a bigger farm, there is only one way, which is to kill the enemy and perform meritorious service!
If you accumulate enough merit, you can be promoted to the old camp, which means you have a Zhuangzi and a wife. Moreover, the status of veteran soldiers and nobles can be hereditary.
As long as the Dashun Dynasty is around, these two people will be the masters!
It is no exaggeration to say that they are now fighting for themselves and their descendants. How could they not be motivated enough?
Rows of spears undulated forward, a total of five to six thousand infantry, roaring and rumbling. Behind them, there were more than four thousand cavalry, surrounded by a large banner with the word "Chuang"!
Seeing the momentum of the Dashun army, the Ming army on the opposite side became timid before fighting. They all forgot about the order to retreat a hundred steps, and could not stop once they retreated.
Jin Shenghuan, who had retreated from the front line, had no choice but to mobilize fresh troops from the west side of the Ming army's battle formation (also leaning on the Hu Crossing River), plus hundreds of his servants, to form a new defense line on the west side of Tangjiashan, trying to stop Li Zicheng's attack. breakthrough.
The retreat of the Ming army on the southern front immediately wiped out the counterattack results of Zhang Yong and Sun Fugui.
Zhang Yong, who had just occupied the artillery position of the Dashun Army, had no choice but to hastily set off a few fires and then retreated in a hurry towards Tangjiashan. The artillerymen of the Dashun Army who had fled before returned to the battlefield, extinguished the fire set by the Ming Army, and raised the cannons that had been pushed down by the Ming Army. After a final calculation, they found that there were still twenty-five artillery pieces that could continue to be used. , other artillery pieces needed to be repaired due to damage to their mounts.
After the failure at the front line of Hudu River, Tangjiashan became the most important stronghold of the Ming army on the battlefield.
Once they fail, the tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield will lose their support and may become the prey of the Dashun Army!
After Li Zicheng commanded the army to break through the Hudu River, he did not immediately attack Tangjiashan, but instead used his troops to besiege the Lotus Temple.
This temple is the junction of the defense lines of Zhang Yong and Jin Shenghuan. There are about 1,500 people from Zhang and Jin guarding there. Most of them are archers and fire gun (bird gun or three-eyed gun) soldiers, relying on the strong outer wall of the temple to shoot arrows and fire guns with all their strength.
He actually repelled several rounds of attacks from Dashun Army!
And their blocking also gave Jin Shenghuan and Zhang Yong the opportunity to pack up the team and fight again.
Li Zicheng saw that his troops were repulsed several times in a row, leaving corpses on the ground in front of the Lotus Temple. He knew that he could not attack by force, so he had to be patient and readjust his deployment.
He first rebuilt a front line to confront the Ming army - just west of the Lotus Temple and the east bank of the Hudu River (north of the corner of the Hudu River), backed by the Hudu River flowing eastward.
At the same time, Li Zicheng ordered his artillery to cross the river, move to the southwest of the Lotus Temple, redeploy it, and prepare to use them to destroy the outer wall of the Lotus Temple.
This was a time-consuming and laborious job. Not only did it require moving the cannon, but it also required mounding soil. It took less than two or three hours to finish.
Li Zicheng also knew that these cannons were inconvenient to use, so he had to wait patiently while deploying a large blunderbuss to shoot at the newly formed battle formation of the Ming army.
This blunderbuss, which can only be used by two people, is simply a weapon tailor-made for armies with the advantage of cavalry.
The big-lift gun can hit farther, and its effective range is not lower than that of the turtle-dove's foot gun, but exceeds that of bows and arrows. But the rate of fire is too slow and reloading is too troublesome. It is difficult for a side that does not have an advantage in cavalry to make good use of them. If they are not careful, they will be surprised by the opponent's cavalry. If they must be used, they must be equipped with enough pikemen and archers to protect them (archers are used to deal with mounted archers). They take up too much of the establishment - one thousand muskets require two thousand people, plus There must be at least four to five thousand spearmen and archers...
However, Li Zicheng's cavalry was powerful, so he sent a thousand cavalry to cover them.
Although the firepower of a thousand large guns is not fierce, the endless "shooting" cannot stand the Ming infantry on the opposite side!
As a last resort, Zhang Yong and Jin Shenghuan had no choice but to organize a counterattack by selecting front soldiers again. However, this time they had no way to attack from the flank (the flank was the channel where the tiger crossed the river), so they had to bite the bullet and charge against the firepower of the big guns.
As a result, before they could get very far, the cavalry sent by Li Zicheng to cover and carry the muskets counterattacked! Because they did not maintain a good formation during the charge (it was difficult to maintain formation despite the enemy's firepower), they collapsed when Li Zicheng's old battalion cavalry charged them, and they retreated in disorder, even charging. The formation of the Ming army in the rear.
Li Zicheng seized the opportunity and immediately mobilized his troops to press forward again. Jin Shenghuan had no choice but to retreat and commanded his troops to resist desperately.
But how could he be Li Zicheng's opponent? Even if I risk my life, I can't resist it!
Fortunately, the Ming army formed a square formation at the beginning, so it had greater depth. When Jin Shenghuan's troops were killed and retreated to the northern line of the quadrangle, they were barely able to hold on with the support of Qiu Lei.
Li Zicheng mobilized tens of thousands of infantry and cavalry from the rear, all of which were fresh troops, and handed them over to General Liu Zongmin to direct them to continue the attack.
As a result, the two sides fought again for two full hours. The Ming army, which was forced to retreat, finally retreated to the east bank of the Hudu River (north of the eastward bend), and then relied on the river to stabilize. Get into position.
It was stable, but Qiu Lei and Jin Shenghuan still retreated two or three miles to the northwest. Their contact with Tangjiashan was also interrupted.
The Ming army on the Tangjiashan battlefield was therefore divided into three large pieces.
Less than 30,000 people from Qiu Lei's and Jin Shenghuan's troops crowded on the east bank of the Hudu River. Facing them were more than 10,000 people commanded by Liu Zongmin.
Zhang Yong protected Chu King Zhu Cizhao and led more than 10,000 people (including some of the palace guards who guarded Zhu Cizhao) to defend Tangjiashan. Tian Jianxiu then supervised 20,000 troops and surrounded Tangjiashan.
Li Zicheng personally supervised and led more than 10,000 infantry and cavalry, plus 2,000 gunmen and artillery, to besiege the Lotus Temple.
On the edge of the Tangjiashan battlefield, Sun Fugui led 1,500 to 600 armored cavalry and fought with two to three thousand light cavalry of the Great Shun Army.
The situation on the battlefield seems to be quite favorable to Li Zicheng, the Emperor of Dashun Yongchang!
