August 29, early morning.
When the sky began to dim and brighten, the open plains on both sides of the Neijing River were covered with soldiers. Two highly organized armies were heading towards each other under the guidance of their respective military flags.
Although they are walking towards each other, the postures of both sides are completely different.
The Qing army, which had been attacking for dozens of miles, still maintained a large column. One hundred and twenty staff-level columns were divided into three lines, advancing hand in hand in a mighty manner. Groups of cavalry were also scattered in front and on the left and right of the army - although this area was densely covered with paddy fields, which was not very conducive to cavalry attacks. However, four legs always run faster than two legs, and the horse-armored soldiers sent out by Yue Le to serve as light cavalry all retain the skills of riding and archery, and are also proficient in martial arts. Even if they dismount and fight, they can defeat the Ming army. Skirmishers...if the Ming army had some martial ethics and wouldn't always use loaded flintlock guns to fight with people!
However, when these Qing army cavalry soldiers approached the Neijing River, their bravery and fierceness immediately ran out of room to display. Because they suddenly encountered a joint attack by Ming cavalry and musketeers (skirmishers). In a circular area one or two thousand steps away from Nei Jingjiang, the cavalry and infantry from both sides were fighting. There were crackling gunshots, the sound of people shouting and neighing, and the sound of rumbling explosions. It was extremely lively. From a distance, it sounded as if what was happening was not a battle between scouts from both sides, but a battle between the main forces.
In fact, these cavalry soldiers of the Qing army really met the main force of the Ming army! It's just that they don't know it yet. . If they could climb up and look far like Fang Shiyu, they would have discovered that before the Qing army had deployed, the Ming army had already deployed a pocket formation with its back against the Neijing River, and there was also a mixed infantry and cavalry force with more than 20,000 people. The troops are moving in marching columns (not large columns) along the south and west banks of the Neijing River to the side and rear of the Qing army!
What these Qing army vests accidentally bumped into were the grenadiers (skirmishers) sent by the Ming Army infantry battalions that formed the pocket formation and a small number of Ming Army cavalry responsible for security and reconnaissance missions.
Of course, the Ming army did not have many cavalry, but there were many grenadiers (skirmishers) with them! Moreover, they also relied on the rice and field ridges in the fields to shoot, catching the Qing cavalry soldiers off guard.
However, there were still some relatively fierce Qing army cavalry soldiers who broke through the blockage of Ming army grenadiers and cavalry, and discovered a large group of Ming army infantry lurking in the rice fields on the banks of the Neijing River!
But what they saw were only a few "dots", not the entire "face", and they didn't have much time to look carefully, because the lead bullets fired from the opposite side were deadly!
So when these bits and pieces of information were sent back to Yue Le, the battle-hardened General Ningyuan Ping Kou still made a fatal misjudgment.
He never thought that his every move was completely controlled by the enemy - he had so many cavalry to protect the army, and from the time the army left camp until now, not even a single Ming cavalry had approached his marching column.
Maybe there were lurking Ming army secret sentries who had approached his army, but if these secret sentries couldn't gallop on horseback, they had to send the news to the Wulin Ming army camp on foot. By the time the news arrived, the day lily would be cold!
Therefore, Yue Le concluded that the Ming army had deployed defenses near various bridges on the Neijing River, and his cavalry may have encountered the Ming army guarding the bridge.
However, he still ordered the army to temporarily stop moving forward, and ordered his Zhenglan Banner Army Gushan, who was the vanguard, to launch a large horizontal formation directly in front of the army, and then summoned all Gushan troops to set up a burned-out The Chinese army from the village came to hold a military meeting.
To be fair, there is no big problem with his arrangement...it's just that times have changed!
Now the enemies are not only on the ground, on the water, but also in the sky!
Looking down from the sky, isn’t that a sweeping view? Moreover, apart from looking into the sky, people on the ground have nothing to do against the enemies in the sky.
And the first person to see the great soldiers ascending to the sky was the dim-sighted Zhang Zhongqi. Although the old man has been a flag slave and flag soldier all his life, he has never held any official position. After joining the army this time, he still served as a shotgun soldier - he originally served as a shotgun soldier in the old Eight Banners Han Army, and now he is just a shotgun soldier. Got a flintlock gun. Because he is a veteran, he was not nervous after lining up and looked around with a smile.
When I took it, I saw a gray ball floating in the sky!
"Hey, why is there another ball in the sky?"
A child soldier named Dequan next to him felt strange when he heard this. He quickly looked up and asked, "Where is the ball?"
Zhang Zhongqi pointed the flintlock gun in his hand into the sky: "Um, is that a ball?"
"It seems like it's really a ball!" Dequan was still laughing. "It's so fun. Why is there a ball in the sky? Why doesn't it fall down?"
"Yeah, why doesn't the ball fall down? This is unreasonable. What's the reason?"
"Is this ball particularly light? Is it lighter than the clouds in the sky?"
"It's possible...but what is this ball that's lighter than a cloud made of?"
Well, these two men were still discussing advanced physics issues on the battlefield...
As these two Qing soldiers who are very talented in "physics" began to discuss the "flying ball problem", the Qing soldiers around them also discovered that there was a ball in the sky!
This is so rare, no one has seen it before.
And when there were more people discussing this, the originally quiet battlefield became lively, chattering like a vegetable market.
The person in charge of this Gushan led by Yue Le is his eighth eldest son, a young man named Seleng'e - all the previous seven eldest sons died in infancy! He had the toughest life and lived to be twenty-one years old. He was also lucky enough to be one of the first Qing soldiers to witness a hot air balloon.
He saw the celestial sphere, and he could see it more clearly than others - he had a telescope, so he saw a basket hanging under the "celestial sphere", and there were two or three "fairies" in the basket!
"Fairy! There are gods. There are gods in the basket under the celestial ball... This celestial ball is the magic weapon of the gods!" Seleng'e, who was on the battlefield for the first time, was dancing happily. This is the first time in his life that he has seen an immortal! I don’t know if these gods came to “enlighten” him. If so, would it be better for him to stay in the human world and become a high official, or to follow him to cultivate immortality?
When he was thinking about whether to pursue the path of immortality or to stay in the human world and serve the Qing Dynasty, the cavalry soldiers on guard in front of his formation and on the left and right sides suddenly rushed towards him together, and at the same time, there was a messy sound of gunfire. , screams and neighing.
The sound of the two sides fighting suddenly brought Seleng'e back to reality, but before he could figure out what happened? The Goshiha around him shouted.
"The enemy... there is a large group of rebel infantry right in front!"
"There are also rebel infantry on the right!"
"There's also one on the left..."
While the people below were shouting, Seleng'e also heard the Ming army's war drums and the slogan "Kill the demons and restore China"!
This is not just one or two people shouting, but countless people!
Seleng'e was completely stunned when he heard the cry and didn't know what to do? Fortunately, his father, Yue Le, knew that he could not shoulder the responsibility of commanding tens of thousands of troops, so he sent veteran generals Laita and Zhao Guozuo as deputy commanders.
The two deputy commanders were still online. They were not confused by the sudden appearance of the "gods" in the sky. Instead, they immediately issued the order to shrink the two wings inwards, trying to turn the horizontal formation into one that could face the enemy on three sides. The enemy's three-sided formation.
But before the Qing army's formation change was completed, the Ming army grenadier who approached the Qing army's horizontal formation under the cover of the already tall rice had already thrown grenades and smoke bombs!
At the same time, twenty-four Ming army battalion-level columns, under the cover of these grenadiers and a small number of cavalry, quickly stepped through the rice fields and approached the Qing army commanded by Seleng'e from three directions: left, center and right!
