The use of war elephants in battle was originally regarded as a trump card by Ruan Youliao, but unexpectedly it turned out to be a fatal injury. ∝八∝八∝Read ∝ book,.◆.o＋
Three war elephants were either dead or injured, and the other war elephants were frightened by the screams of the injured war elephant. Coupled with the round of shelling just now, the continuous loud noises made the war elephants extremely frightened and stopped moving forward.
As the second round of bombardment started, the war elephants suddenly collapsed and moved wildly, knocking off the mahout on their backs, turning around and running away, trampling the elite formation of the Zheng army into disarray. It also caused quite a few casualties.
In fact, it was a stupid thing for Ruan Youliao to choose to use war elephants in front of the Ming army, which had the highest level of firearms in East Asia. What's more, the highly pragmatic servant hùwèituán had much higher levels of firearms than the ordinary Ming army.
In the history of cold weapon warfare, the ancients liked to domesticate some animals for combat and logistics transportation. The most common ones are of course war horses and livestock such as camels and cattle responsible for logistics transportation. However, in the ancient Indus River and some areas of Southeast Asia, here Since people do not have good horses, they prefer to tame elephants to participate in battles. This is nothing new. The high pragmatism that grows up in the era of information revolution is of course very clear.
He even knew that because the Indus River Valley has been rich in elephants since ancient times, the ancient Indians were the first people to domesticate elephants for fighting. As early as the fourth century BC, during Alexander's Eastern Expedition, the Persian King Darius had elephant soldiers from India in his army, and they caused great panic to Alexander's army.
Later, after Alexander destroyed the Persian Empire, Alexander also had elephants in his army. The King of Gandhara once presented 30 elephants to Alexander, but Alexander did not send them to the battlefield after carefully understanding the habits of the elephants. Instead, it is mainly responsible for logistics and transportation. 【∞八【∞八【∞Read【∞书，.︾.o＠
It stands to reason that war elephants are tall and majestic, and their appearance on the battlefield can cause a great shock to the enemy army. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, many ethnic groups began to tame elephants for fighting and played a great role on the battlefield. However, high pragmatism You know, this situation changed when Timur invaded India at the end of the fourteenth century, because a fatal weakness of the elephant soldiers was exposed.
At the end of the 14th century, the Delhi Sultanate in India had many elephant soldiers. In Central Asia at that time, the lame Timur had long been eyeing the wealth of India. However, many of his ministers advised him not to attack India because Delhi The Sultanate's elephant soldiers were a very terrifying presence at that time.
Later, Timur even wanted to compete with the newly established Ming Dynasty. Why did he take the Delhi Sultanate seriously? So he refused to listen to dissuasion and invaded India resolutely. From the beginning, he tasted the power of the elephant soldiers in the first battle with the Delhi Sultan Army. His army was defeated by 120 elephants led by Mahmud.
Timur was very distressed and had to start looking for a way to defeat the elephant soldiers.
Later, Timur found out somewhere that elephants are very timid: Although elephants are huge, they are very timid and are very afraid of loud noises and fire. Once elephants encounter these things, they will definitely be frightened. war.
After Timur discovered the weakness of the war elephants, he ordered his soldiers to pile hay and branches on the camels, then set them on fire and then drove the camels towards the war elephants of the Sultan of Delhi. As a result, the war elephants were frightened after seeing the flames. His own soldiers began to stampede, and Timur succeeded in gaining victory.
Later, when Nader Shah of Persia invaded India, he also adopted Timur's approach and also successfully defeated the war elephants.
Artillery and artillery fire, with both the huge sound and the light of the cannon fire, how could the war elephants not be afraid? Since Gao Pragmatic knew that there might be elephant soldiers in Southeast Asia, why didn't he tell Gao Zhang about this?
In fact, if historical records are true, it was the Chinese who were the first to discover that elephants were timid. As early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties, when Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty was attacking the Linyi Kingdom, he ordered the soldiers to make many lion models and place them in front of the battle, so that Linyi's war elephants would be afraid of them. The lions retreated one after another.
Gao Zhang had always admired his master's erudition, and he had no doubt that artillery could scare off war elephants. The current actual combat results also proved that his master was indeed a learned man, and he could not even fight in this "southern barbarian land". Xiang has such a simple and effective way to deal with it, it's simply... Gao Zhang doesn't know how to describe it, anyway, it's awesome.
Huang Hu stood stunned for a while, and secretly spat in his mind: If you have that black thing in your mouth, being rich is great! Isn't this method tailor-made for Gao Yuntai? Once the cannon goes off, there is ten thousand taels of gold. Even if I know it, I still have to have a cannon to talk! This won't work. I have to talk to the eldest lady sometime. She and the high press... Well, in short, we should be able to get the cannon. It will take a few cannons... Well, no, it will take a few cannons. .
After thinking about it, Huang Hu was not polite to take the credit. Because Gao Zhang's subordinates, Ding hùwèituán, were all firemen and artillerymen, they paid attention to the formation of a neat lineup, and it was not convenient for them to rush forward to kill fiercely. When Zheng Jun's elephant soldiers went crazy and rushed his own formation into chaos, Huang Hu shouted decisively: "Siming wolf soldiers, follow me and charge! The head is in front. Whether you can get a heavy reward depends on you! Kill! ! Kill! Kill!”
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"Kill!"
Watching the wolf soldiers rushing down the mountain like tigers to grab money, it was Gao Zhang's turn to be stunned.
He touched his neck, which suddenly felt cold, and murmured: "Damn it... Fortunately, these wolf soldiers are all friendly forces."
And one of his subordinates said nervously: "Barracks, should we hurry up too, otherwise how will the credit be calculated? We can't fight in vain, and the brothers won't be happy if there is no reward."
Gao Zhang waved his hand: "It seems we can't steal the money from the wolf soldiers, but you don't have to worry about the reward. Our master doesn't use his head to discuss military merit. Don't you know his habits? Do you understand collective merit? Opposite me. We have already taken the credit for the collapse of the war elephant - after all the meat has been eaten, we have to leave some soup for others, right? Besides, we are the master's servants after all, and he will not miss our contribution. When has the master ever been stingy? ?”
The subordinate thought about it and felt that this was the truth, so he calmly asked the people below to check the cannon quickly, clean the barrel when it was time to clean the barrel, and prepare the barrel when it was time to prepare the gun. Although victory seems imminent in this battle, even if they win the battle outside the city, Qinghua City still needs their artillery to show off its power.
At this time, as the army's crossing of the river had been basically completed, Gao Pragmatic also took Boss Hu's "Xinglong" and rushed over from the east bank of the Majiang River. Along with this, there was news from the upstream: Cen Ling's troops had also arrived on time. Launched the attack, the current offensive is basically going smoothly. If there are no accidents, it is expected that they will be able to arrive at Qinghua City tomorrow morning to join Gao Pragmatic's main force.
The siege of Thanh Hoa with 100,000 troops surrounding Thanh Hoa is about to begin.
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