The first battle of the Shenji Battalion took place in the area around Dachang Town, Ningzhou.
A large landowner family named Zhou gathered together two to three thousand tenant families and used more than two thousand strong men as an armed force to build a decent military fortress, which looked quite powerful.
He gathered all the capable men, armed them, and raised a team of more than 2,000 people to defend his territory strictly.
Not only that, he also said that I will not offend others unless they offend me, but if they offend me, I will offend them!
The officers and soldiers had better not plot against his five-generation family business. If they coexist peacefully, he is willing to pay a certain amount of taxes. If they take it by force, they will both be destroyed! You will get nothing and pay a heavy price!
He thought that he was high in the sky and far away from the emperor, and he was used to living the life of a local emperor. Now that the real emperor wanted to disturb his beautiful life of a local emperor, he couldn't swallow this breath.
So he decided to resist.
More than a dozen village-level peasant associations in Ningzhou, led by two township peasant associations, organized more than a thousand armed peasants to launch an attack on the Zhou rebels. Although they were fully prepared, they failed and dozens of soldiers were lost. The people, forced to retreat, adopted encirclement tactics.
However, as a large landowner, the Zhou family has a large amount of grain stored. Such an encirclement tactic may not be effective even if it is used for a year or two. They can even use the land in their own fortress to continue farming, continue to obtain food, and fight a protracted war.
In desperation, the Ningzhou Peasants' Association requested support from the regular army. .
So this task was given to the Shenji Battalion. He Feihu led the Shenji Battalion to arrive at the battlefield on the seventh day of September. He briefly observed the decent military fortress and nodded.
"It is indeed decent, but in front of artillery, it is just a chicken and a dog."
Su Haisheng, who followed along, was quite skeptical about He Feihu's statement, but he didn't say it explicitly, just waiting to see the performance of the firearms unit.
He Feihu surveyed the surrounding terrain and decided to attack frontally.
He asked Su Haisheng to place the thousand cavalry he brought with him on the other three sides to prevent the people inside from escaping. He planned to launch an attack from the front and break through frontally.
Su Haisheng kindly reminded me.
"Surrounding all sides and leaving no way to survive is a taboo for military strategists. They will fight to the death and our army will suffer heavy losses. It is inappropriate to lose too many soldiers' lives because of these insects. It is better to give full play to the advantages of the cavalry. If we let them go and pursue them with cavalry, we will win a complete victory."
He Feihu knew what Su Haisheng meant, but he still shook his head.
"Their military stronghold is like paper in front of the artillery. It will be broken by a poke. There is no possibility of desperate resistance. I am confident that I will defeat this group of rebels in the shortest possible time until they completely collapse. There is no need to pursue them."
Su Haisheng saw that he was confident, so he didn't say anything. He just followed He Feihu's instructions and placed his cavalry on the remaining three sides of the military stronghold, forming a four-sided surround.
He Feihu brought fifty cavalry generals and artillery. He looked at the size of the military camp and decided not to use all of them, but only thirty.
He lined up ten cavalry and general cannons, and placed the remaining ten behind these ten, and ten more behind them, ready to launch in echelons.
He expected that one round of artillery strikes would completely destroy the frontal defense of the military stronghold and seriously shake the morale of the army. If the effect was not good, another round of thirty rounds would definitely completely destroy the military stronghold's defense and the morale of the resistance army.
The muzzle of the cavalry general's cannon was pointed at the military fortress, and the shooting distance was almost 250 meters. It was an effective range proven by exact experimental data.
Behind the artillery team is the firearms phalanx.
The firearms phalanx is not all musketeers, but a phalanx composed of sword and shield bearers, spearmen, crossbowmen, cavalry and musketeers.
When Su Yonglin designed the firearm phalanx, he referred to early European musket phalanxes, such as the famous Spanish and Dutch musket phalanxes. These traditional musket phalanxes were mainly composed of pikemen and musketeers, and most of the time lacked other arms. cooperation.
Su Yonglin considered that while the Ming army was equipped with firearms, it also had extremely elite cold weapon combat troops, and the range of the divine arm bow and crossbow was indeed longer than that of the matchlock gun, so it was not meaningless.
This is true for bows and crossbows, not to mention cavalry and other melee combat units. None of them can be replaced by current firearms. At the same time, European musketeers were often beaten to death by cold weapon armies.
It is a long process for firearms to replace cold weapons, and in this process, the existence of cold weapons is necessary.
It would be a huge disadvantage to abandon cold weapons at once and adopt an excessive number of firearms troops.
For example, when Zhu Ming's army confronted Hou Jin, they suffered from too many firearms and weak field troops. In humid weather, firearms could not function at all. The cavalry and heavy infantry attacked Zhu Ming, who was highly weaponized. The army was completely wiped out.
What really dealt a huge blow to Hou Jin's Eight Banners army was the white-armed soldiers with all cold weapons.
Although firearms are the mainstream of the future and are destined to become the king of war in the future, for now, they are indispensable with the powerful assistance of cold weapons.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty version of the Shenjiying musket phalanx has a strong color of cold weapons.
The sword and shield bearers stood in the front, followed by the musketeers, then the spearmen, and finally the crossbowmen. Then the cavalry was placed on both wings, and the artillery troops acted as the main support force and followed the army.
As they advanced, the team formed a square formation.
During the battle, the phalanx spread out toward the two wings and turned into an assault formation. The cavalry served as auxiliary wings to protect the two wings of the infantry assault formation.
Before the official start of the war, the artillery was fired first to bombard the enemy's military formation in an effort to destroy the enemy's military formation.
If the enemy's formation is really destroyed, the cavalry will rush to the rear, and the infantry will rush forward quickly to achieve the effect of annihilating the enemy.
If the enemy's formation is not defeated by artillery, regular combat will continue.
In regular combat, the sword and shield bearer stands at the front as the cornerstone of a stable military formation. Because of the range advantage, the crossbowman takes the lead in firing arrows to form a rain of arrows, and carries out the first round of shooting at the enemy formation.
When the military formation approached the range of the matchlock guns, the three rows of matchlock gunners completed the shooting as quickly as possible, while the crossbowmen continued to fire without interruption.
After each row of arquebusiers finished shooting, they quickly moved behind the pikemen's queue and in front of the crossbowmen's queue, while the pikemen's queue gradually moved forward.
After three rounds of arquebuses were fired, the three rows of arquebusiers retreated to the core of the military formation to reload ammunition.
At this time, the main combat force becomes sword and shield bearers and spearmen, because the enemy's military formation has most likely collapsed, and spearmen and sword and shield bearers can begin to harvest the enemy's heads and expand the results of the battle.
If the musketeers need to fire again later, the commander of the military formation can issue an order to repeat the tactics until the enemy completely collapses.
However, according to the calculations of the General Staff Council, the enemy formation without equivalent firearms will basically collapse after three rounds of gunfire.
No matter how elite the army is, it is difficult to maintain the integrity of the military formation under the attack of artillery and muskets.
At least the swordsmen, shieldmen and spearmen at the front will have difficulty resisting the impact of lead bullets regardless of whether they hold shields or armor. They will inevitably be hit hard and be on the verge of collapse. To seize this opportunity, their own swordsmen, shieldmen and spearmen should Have the ability to defeat them quickly.
He Feihu knew very well and was very confident about the power of firearms and the combination of this set of tactics. He believed that the group of chickens and dogs in front of him were no match for the Shenji Battalion.
What's more, this battle is likely to be an offensive and defensive battle and a street battle, not a field battle.
Artillery is best at attacking immobile opponents.
At this moment, the Zhou rebels in the military camp were already in full formation, and they climbed onto the arrow tower to bend their bows and set arrows.
Not only did they have bows, but they also had crossbows, and even large bed crossbows.
When the peasant armed forces attacked this military camp before, they were shot by large crossbows, causing heavy losses and retreating.
And this also strengthened Su Haisheng's determination to completely destroy this family - just kidding, they were all equipped with bed crossbows, which showed that this family was thinking of rebellion.
This is no ordinary landowner and tycoon, and it will take a heavy blow to deal with it.
But before he could throw a heavy punch, Su Yonglin sent him an iron fist and asked him to use it.
Sitting at the rear of the entire array, Su Haisheng watched the gunners' movements with anticipation.
