Hearing the dull sound of Spanish muskets firing, Nikan's face darkened again - this was an indiscriminate shooting! The Ming army was still a hundred steps away, and it was still late at night. They could only vaguely see the cold light rising and falling through the moonlight. Can they fire now?
Seeing that Nikan was about to get angry, the "black man" quickly tried to dissuade him: "Your Majesty, let the people below be emboldened... Now the morale of the army is shaken and morale is low. If we don't make some movement, we are afraid that the soldiers will Coax them away!"
"This, this..." Nikan gritted his teeth, "Our Manchurian heavenly soldiers are so brave, how come we are in this situation?"
The "black man" shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Your Majesty, all the Manchurian heavenly soldiers in the past have been destroyed long ago. Those who are fighting today are farmers from Guan who were lured by dozens of acres of land. What else can you expect?"
Nikan was speechless for a moment, and then felt that the man looked strange, so he asked: "You...who are you? Why do you talk like this?"
"The lower official Duncan is a subordinate of Old King Dingnan."
The old king of Dingnan was Kong Youde, and this Jia La named Deng turned out to be a remnant of the Kong family army. Nikan also remembered that when Duduo came out of seclusion, he also transferred people from various Gushan Mountains in Zhenglv Banner. Among them were Kong Youde's subordinates, who were brought out of seclusion by Kong Tingxun. But later Kong Youde killed himself in the Qing Dynasty by smashing the back of his head with a brush. Kong Tingxun returned to the pass, and the troops he left outside the pass were annexed by Duduo, and merged into the Zhenglan Banner Han Army with Niulu as a unit. And this Duncan was a Niulu Zhangjing at that time, but he didn't expect that he has become a Jia La Zhangjing now.
"No matter what, no matter..." Nikan stamped his feet, "It's better to shoot indiscriminately than not to shoot at all. Let them be braver!"
The group of old farmers under Nikana's command here have nothing to do. If they are pushed too hard, they are afraid that they will disperse in a hurry! The young soldiers on the other side did not even frown and continued to approach the enemy at a walking speed - they did not set up any horizontal or square formations. It was troublesome to maintain the formation at night. . And there is no need for it. Now we are not fighting in formation, but attacking the enemy's camp, so we have set up a relatively dense skirmish formation with companies as units.
But no matter how dense it is, it is still a skirmish formation, not comparable to a dense horizontal formation or square formation. So 8,000 young soldiers put up a posture of 20,000 to 30,000 in the dark night, frightening the Qing army who did not know what was true.
Of course, Qin Mingtao's choice to launch an attack in a wide skirmish formation was not to scare people, but to prevent the attacking troops from being killed too much by the Qing's 3-pounder cannon - the Qing's 6-pounder cannon had already been destroyed. It was almost there, but their 3-pounder guns never fired. They must be waiting for the Ming army's infantry to approach!
If they don't fire, they will naturally not expose their targets, and the Ming army's 12-pound cannon will not be able to destroy them.
In addition, the use of skirmisher formations was also to lengthen the Qing army's key defense fronts, increase the number of Ming army attacks, and extend the Qing army's musket shooting time - the quality of the Qing army's muskets was uneven, and the quality of the gunners was also poor. Once the fire is fired for a long time, there will definitely be a lot of mistakes. Either the gun will be fired out, or the gun will be used to explode the chamber...
Since it is a skirmishing formation, there is no concept of musket volleys. The soldiers themselves have control over when to fire, and the superior officer can at most specify a rough distance.
Zhang Cheng knew that his vanguard battalion wanted to lure the enemy's 3-pounder guns into firing and could not fire too early. Because then the enemy will find themselves in a skirmish formation, and may not fire artillery, but let the infantry counterattack. So he set the first firing distance at thirty or forty steps... But whether the people below can execute it all depends on their own consciousness.
As he got closer and closer to the Qing army's position, Zhang Cheng's heart was also in his throat - if the Qing army's 3-pound cannon was placed in front of him, he would be martyred by the Ming Dynasty if that artillery bombardment came over. The kingdom is over!
In addition, the musket fire on the Qing army's position in front was also very lively. There was a cloud of smoke and nothing could be seen. It was obvious that low-quality gunpowder with many impurities was used.
Suddenly, a particularly bright fire flashed out from the rising smoke ahead, followed by a deafening sound of cannon!
This should be a 3-pound bronze cannon firing, and the distance is very close, just a hundred steps away!
Needless to say, what came out must be shotgun!
Zhang Cheng could still hear the gunshots and did not feel severe pain anywhere on his body, indicating that he was not shot. Since he wasn't hit, he had to charge.
Now that the Ming infantry was close to the front line of the Qing army, the 12-pound cannon and the 24-pound mortar in the rear had all stopped firing, and it was impossible to suppress the Qing's 3-pound cannon. So we had to rely on the infantry at the front to use bayonets and flintlocks to take out those cannons!
Zhang Cheng turned his head hurriedly, wanting to give orders to the trumpeter following behind him, but could not find his figure. After searching again, he found that the seventeen or eighteen-year-old northwest boy had fallen to the ground and was motionless... ...I don’t know if he was killed by the shotgun blast from the Qing army’s 3-pounder cannon?
"Guards! Charge!"
"The Guards... protect Daming and guard your father-in-law!"
Just when Zhang Cheng was distracted, the young soldiers under his command had already taken the initiative to charge - the enemy's 3-pound cannon fired!
The sound of artillery is the order to charge!
Moreover, these young soldiers did not charge randomly, but rushed towards the Qing army's 3-pound cannon nearest them from all directions - they were really advancing towards the enemy's artillery fire!
A hundred-step sprint is almost like a race against death! If the Qing gunners finish loading again before they get close, they can gain a round of life, otherwise these young soldiers can capture these cannons with bayonets and muskets!
Zhang Cheng stopped looking for a suona and charged along with his sword.
As these young soldiers got closer and closer to the Qing army's artillery array, some of them began to stop and raise their guns to shoot in the general direction of the Qing army's artillery. Because the smoke in front has not dissipated, they have no way to aim at the target, but they are not shooting randomly, but interfering with the opponent's loading... They can brave the artillery fire to charge, but the enemy may not be able to. Loading with bullets raining down.
I don’t know whether it was the Qing army’s artillery skills that were poor or the shooting of young soldiers that interfered with it. Anyway, until the young soldiers rushed to the cannons more than 20 paces away, they did not fire again. At this time, the smoke in front of the Qing army's formation also dissipated, and the visibility was greatly improved. The reason for this is because most of the matchlock guns that were fired randomly just became mute, not because they were too hot to load. Some of them blew up the barrels themselves, and some of them blew out the barrels because the gunmen were too nervous...
Now that the firepower of the Qing army had been greatly reduced, the young Ming army began to shoot accurately. Two to three hundred muskets were all aimed at the gunners who were busy loading the artillery. A burst of crackling gunfire turned the Qing army's artillery position into a The place where corpses are buried!
After killing most of the Qing artillery, these young soldiers did not retreat or waste any more time reloading. Instead, they continued to charge with rifles with bayonets attached!
This frightened the musketeers who were leaning on the parapets and shooting at the front of the Qing army. Although they were equipped with socket bayonets, they had not received any stabbing training, nor did they have the awareness to fight hand-to-hand with their opponents - according to the standard Spanish phalanx tactics, hand-to-hand combat is the job of the pikemen and sword and shieldmen! How can the Musketeers fight hand to hand? If the musketeers can even do hand-to-hand combat, what are the pikemen, sword and shield soldiers doing?
So this group of musketeers stood up and retreated, running towards the pikemen who formed a square formation behind them. As soon as they ran away, they "ceded" a parapet that they had worked so hard to build to the charging Ming army. At the same time, they also gave up six 3-pound cannons that only fired one shot!
Nikan, who was supervising the battle behind the formation, was so angry that he almost jumped when he saw this scene - what kind of battle was it! He worked hard to build a position during the day, and let people take it with a single charge. He also took 6 artillery pieces. Taken away! He only has a total of 18 cannons on hand. Now the six 6-pound cannons are mute and the six 3-pound cannons have been taken away. How can we fight the next battle?
In addition, why are the infantry of the Ming army so powerful? Where did they come from?
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