"Two shifts, two shifts, two shifts..."
Amidst the sound that sounded like chanting a curse, the numb North Korean musketeers all clutched their muskets that had been loaded with bullets. They stood shoulder to shoulder stiffly in the cold wind, watching as they got closer and closer to them. The enemy, waiting for the order to lay down their muskets...
This was the scene on the Ming army's side when the first "queuing to kill" operation occurred in the battles of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The actual situation is that simple, and the North Korean musketeers cannot do anything too complicated this time. After all, they had only trained for two months, and they could only line up amidst the shouts and curses of officers and non-commissioned officers. Then mechanically, stiffly, and subconsciously complete a series of actions such as loading and shooting.
A considerable number of them will also put the stabbing strip in the barrel of the gun and shoot it out, and then they will be unable to load ammunition. Others will load the ammunition into the barrel repeatedly and forget to fire the gun. It is likely that only half of the warriors can actually fight effectively.
However, just these half of the people who can fight effectively plus a flintlock gun that seems to be shoddy are enough to form a very cost-effective "modern army".
Compared with the medieval army, the biggest advantage of this modern army is actually its extremely high cost performance.
Medieval armies can rely on small but capable "heavenly soldiers", such as the Eight Banners soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, the military generals' servants in the late Ming Dynasty, and the veteran soldiers of the Chuang and Xian families. In the West, there are also the Turkish Guards and the Egyptian Mamluks. Wait. If this "heavenly soldier" encounters an ordinary opponent, it is possible to beat one to ten, and usually the exchange ratio can be very disparate. .
But in the era of carrying flintlock muskets and lining up to kill, it is difficult for such "celestial soldiers" to appear... At least when two armies that also use flintlock muskets meet, it is difficult to achieve the "celestial soldiers effect" Yes, even in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham that was so popularized by later generations (a classic battle in which lobster soldiers fired volleys within 18 meters), 4,800 elite English soldiers faced 4,000 French rabble (mainly militiamen, and 1,000 Indians) , the lobster soldiers who were determined to die despite the random gunfire of the French were also killed by more than six hundred people!
If the number of Frenchmen were doubled, the lobster soldiers would definitely be defeated!
In the "queuing to kill" battle that began on the evening of November 15, the fourth year of the reign of King Ming of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army had a total of eight battalions that were not fully staffed (400 grenadiers were missing), with a total of More than seven thousand people.
The Qing army invested 20 dissatisfied staff members, with a total of more than 16,000 people. At first glance, the Qing army has a great advantage in numbers!
However, the Qing army did not have that many flintlock muskets that could be used for queuing up and shooting. A Qing army commander only had four assistants for queuing up and shooting. Each assistant usually only had 80 flintlock muskets. The leader only has 320 flintlock muskets, and the 20 corps leaders are more than 6,000 flintlock muskets... There is no way, the production cannot keep up!
The Ming army had more flintlocks, and they had "freedom of flintlocks." A leader of the Ming army was usually equipped with 160 flintlock muskets, and their battalion only had four leaders who could be used to line up and shoot. So there are a total of 640 fusiliers, and the eight battalions have more than 5,000 that can be used to fight the fusiliers and grenadiers who are lined up to be shot.
However, Liu Yan had previously detached some grenadiers to attack the Qing army, so now there were only more than 4,700 fusiliers and grenadiers left.
In addition, the long gunners of the Ming army have received flintlock training, and the direct leaders of each battalion are also equipped with a large number of flintlocks.
Therefore, although the number of the Qing army doubled, the number of flintlock guns and gunners (officers and soldiers who were proficient in using guns) possessed by both sides was actually about the same.
Although the Qing army's fusiliers had better shooting skills, the quality of the fusiliers they used was far inferior to those used by the Ming army...
Therefore, this "queue to shoot" battle was actually evenly matched, but on the evening of the 15th, neither warring party knew this.
The Korean musketeers on the Ming army were all dreaming of "two squads of dreams", while the fusiliers of the Qing army thought they were some kind of heavenly soldiers.
Under the afterglow of dusk, the musketeers of the New Eight Banners Army, who thought they were heavenly soldiers, formed three firing columns and slowly approached the Ming army's phalanx from the north, west and east. But they don't have the guts to get too close to the Ming army. They are not lobster soldiers, and the Ming army also has sugar grenades! If you get too close, a wave of grenades will hit you, and you can't even imagine the consequences!
Therefore, when the distance between the two sides was still more than forty steps, the Qing military commanders who directed the battle issued an order to stop advancing.
"Rifle level!"
Seeing that the Qing army had stopped advancing, the generals of the various battalions of the Ming army on the opposite side immediately roared... It would be better to fire first!
The two rows of Korean soldiers who had already understood these three Chinese characters and the grenadiers who were queuing to be shot (they usually lined up in the back row) put down their flintlocks without hesitation - in order to maximize their chances of success. To exert his firepower, Liu Yan had no choice but to let his fusiliers and grenadiers form two rows of shooting formations, and at the same time let the pikemen pull out a sparse formation in the third row to supervise the battle and act as a substitute.
"Rifle...shoot!"
The lingering sounds of the commands of several battalion generals were still echoing, and rows of large and small fires and smoke suddenly flashed across the Ming Army's private line! The "Heavenly Soldiers" of the New Eight Banners on the opposite side trembled and fell in large pieces as if they were suddenly struck by lightning. The screams were unstoppable, and people fell down everywhere on the Qing army's front... Under the volley of flintlock guns, there were really no heavenly soldiers!
However, the Qing army was still a bit ruthless at this time. They had just been shot and immediately returned the favor. The commanders who led the team also pointed their swords forward and gave orders loudly, asking the musketeers below to fire quickly. .
When the fusiliers of the Qing army heard the order, they quickly lowered their muskets and fired at the Ming army's front line in front of them.
Then I saw the Ming army fell down in front of the formation, and some people cried loudly: "Woo, two squads... I want to be two squads!"
"Load, load quickly..."
In front of the Ming army formation, I immediately remembered the urgent screams of the officers.
The musketeers who had not been shot heard the roar and quickly took out their fixed paper shells and started loading.
The Qing army did the same thing!
There are fixed-loading ammunition on both sides, and the soldiers on both sides are well versed in the action of loading ammunition. There are nervous soldiers on both sides who make mistakes...
The Ming army who finished loading first fired first. They raised their muskets again, leveled their muzzles, and fired another volley at the Qing army's front!
After a while, the Qing army responded in kind!
The fusiliers on both sides were firing back and forth with each other, bullets pouring out and flying in front of the formations of both sides. The fusiliers on both sides were like rice and wheat meeting a sickle, falling into pieces. Thrown to the ground.
No one knows when the end will come, and the people on that side can't take even a step back... The Ming army has no way to retreat, and the Qing soldiers on the other side can't retreat either. Emperor Kangxi has given a death order, and this battle must be won!
At the same time, gunpowder smoke was still filling the air in front of both sides' formations, and the sky was getting darker and darker. After ten or twenty rounds of gunfire from both sides, the smoke and night finally obscured the soldiers on both sides.
Moreover, after continuous shooting, the barrels of their muskets were already hot and could not be used for the time being.
So the shooting had to be suspended, and the ministers, governors, and deputy governors who were supervising the battle behind the Qing army had their ears buzzing from the muskets, and their heads were also buzzing... One or two After ten rounds of volley fire, the North Korean recruits of the Ming Army did not collapse!
And the losses on my side seem to be huge!
Taking advantage of the gap between the battles, the wounded soldiers were carried down like running water, and their dying cries kept coming. The doctors in the army were dumbfounded when they saw this scene.
They have been military men for so many years, and they have never seen so many casualties in such a short period of time!
If this battle is fought this way, the Qing Dynasty will be over... There are few people in the Qing Dynasty, and the number of disciples of the New Eight Banners in the Qing Dynasty is even smaller!
