Ma Heima was not unwary. Before the second trench, he had already estimated that the three thousand men under his command would never be able to break through the Ming army's defense line, so he stopped his losses in time and chose to withdraw his troops.
However, how could the Ming Dynasty's military formation be the back garden of their Timur Empire? How can we allow them to come and leave whenever they want?
The guard of this section is Cao Tai, a student of the Imperial Academy's martial arts school, who is the son of Cao Liangchen, the Marquis of Xuanning. His father, Cao Liangchen, died in the Battle of Lingbei in the fifth year of Hongwu, and the Xuanning Marquis family fell. After Cao Tai entered the martial arts school, he wanted to shine brightly, so how could he let Ma Heima sneak away in such a big way?
"Brothers!" Seeing that Ma Heima had escaped from the shooting range, Cao Tai waved his hand directly, "Kill the prisoners!"
The sharp sound of the brass trumpet sounded, which was the charge horn used exclusively by Zhu Su's pro-army troops. Hearing the charge horn, the Ming army ambushers emerged from various traffic trenches and tunnels and launched an attack on Ma Heima. Charged.
At this time, the pocket formation, which seemed to be full of flaws, began to play its role. Because of its inward shape, no matter which section of the trench Ma Heima chooses to attack, the Ming troops on both sides will inevitably surround it. It would be fine if he could break the formation, but now that Ma Heima couldn't break the formation and wanted to leave, the Ming troops on both sides immediately surrounded him.
Ma Heima originally thought that retreating would not be a big problem. After all, the Ming army's strange ditch formation was more defensive and did not look aggressive. What's more, he also arranged 10,000 people in the camp as support, so it would not be a problem to meet these Ming troops outside the trench.
But who would have thought that these Ming soldiers actually had other methods. They were as elusive as ghosts. A small team of Ming soldiers would suddenly emerge from nowhere in the mountains and forests at night, using strange bamboo muskets and knives. The formation of shields and shields defeated the warriors under his command.
Their whereabouts were so strange that Ma Heima didn't discover the clues until there were only a few hundred people left around him: each of these Ming soldiers was wearing a yellow and green cloak, and the color of the cloak was consistent with the soil and the soil here. The vegetation is no different.
There are even some Ming soldiers holding firecrackers. They are covered with dense clothes made of hay. They are lying on the ground like a pile of haystacks everywhere. Not to mention that it is just early morning, it is three poles high in the sun. , the Ming army in this costume was lying straight in front of them, and they might not be able to notice it.
The muskets in the hands of these Ming soldiers were often extremely sharp. With the cover of their attire, they could often shoot the commanding generals in the enemy army at very tricky angles.
"Despicable! So despicable!" Ma Heima just wanted to cry to the sky. How on earth did Zhou Wang Zhu Su of the Ming Dynasty have such a brain? It was a trench, and the Ming army was made to wear cloaks and hay. How could he come up with so many such shameless and despicable combat methods?
Isn’t it said that in the future, the most important thing in the country is moral conduct? What about virtue? What about the martial ethics of this Zhou king?
Ma Heima, who looked up to the sky and sighed, felt a flash of fire suddenly fly past beside him, and he could already smell a hint of gunpowder smoke on the tip of his nose. He hurriedly hid in the wall of soldiers, using their bodies to cover himself tightly. As long as you dare to reveal a flaw, these Mingren will definitely let you die on the spot... It's terrible! This is not an army, this is a demon crawling out of hell!
He is the successor of the empire, so he cannot die yet!
To command an army, one must look over the battlefield, and when looking over the battlefield, one must show one's face... So Ma Heima didn't even dare to give an order, and fled in a hurry. Without command, the Timur Empire warriors under his command were suddenly leaderless, and were easily divided and killed by the elusive Ming army wearing camouflage cloaks using mandarin duck formations.
In the end, he escaped back to the camp with only a dozen guards.
"Your Highness, Ma Heima has been sent back to camp. However, all the soldiers from the Timur Empire he brought have been killed." In the headquarters in the eighth trench, the dog was wearing a coat full of Hay's "auspicious suit" is reporting the results of the battle to Zhu Su.
"Okay. Thank you for your hard work." Zhu Su looked at the map on the table with a calm expression on his face.
The victory in this battle was deserved, so there was no surprise.
The mandarin duck formation and the fire gun soldiers were the two magic weapons of Zhu Su's personal guards in the past. Although his Zhou Wangwei with the blessing of these two magic weapons has become the strongest army in the world, the close army is the foundation of the Ming Dynasty vassal's foreign operations. How to expand the generation gap of weapons to a greater extent, Zhu Su does not dare to slack off for a moment. .
In these years in Beijing, he also devoted all his efforts to promoting the technological reform of Baoyuan Bureau. With the successive breakthroughs of paper-packed gunpowder, rifled guns, pointed bullets, flintlock and other technologies, the power, distance, durability, and The reloading speed and so on have all improved by leaps and bounds, and some of the cutting-edge weapons created at any cost are almost close to the level of modern firearms of later generations.
However, technology can be improved, and even technologies such as rifling that cannot be mass-produced can also rely on China's skilled craftsmen to work bit by bit at no cost and time. However, the conditions for productivity are there. Before productivity can make a leap, Prior to this advancement, Baoyuan Bureau's firearms workshop had reached a bottleneck.
So Zhu Su began to study how to promote the pro-army combat power from the tactical level: trench warfare, camouflage uniforms, and sniper squads were the products of these attempts. In the previous confrontation with the Delhi Sultanate, Zhu Su had already put his skills to the test, and after confirming that trench warfare could have an overwhelming advantage over the army in the cold weapon era, he had no chance at all against Ma Heima's night attack tonight. worry.
Not to mention the elusive Ming troops in the trenches who were able to attack the enemy from a distance with muskets and engage in head-on battles with the enemy in mandarin duck formations. Let’s talk about the snipers trained and commanded by Gou’er himself and equipped with the most sophisticated rifled muskets. The brigade is not something that Ma Heima, a mere general in the cold weapon era, can resist.
Times have changed a long time ago. If Zhu Su hadn't ordered in advance to ambush the dog wearing a ghillie suit on their way and pass by them, Ma Heima's head would have been blown off with the first shot. Come on.
"Your Highness, why don't you just kill Ma Heima?" Someone asked everyone's doubts.
"Kill him, and who will send the message to bring back Timur and Shaharul's army?" Zhu Su answered matter-of-factly. "Ma Heima has never been our goal. Remember, our goal is always to distract Timur and Shaharul to coordinate Fourth Brother's troops."
"These trenches are not prepared for small characters like Ma Heima... Let the brothers brace themselves and prepare to meet the strongest conqueror in Central Asia."
Zhu Su looked at the map with a bright light in his eyes. Tamerlane, who can be called the strongest conqueror in the world today, must confront him to prove that trench warfare is truly invincible.
(End of chapter)
