What will happen when the 10,000 exhausted Burmese troops encounter the 7,000 Jinggang garrison waiting for work?
Answer: There will be a massacre.
The Burmese army is a cold weapon army, and the ordinary Burmese army does not have much decent protection. Facing the garrison that has entered the era of almost pure hot weapons under the full promotion of high pragmatism, the chance of winning is slim, let alone now. Are there many unfavorable factors imposed on him?
Mang Ji Lao was traveling on an elephant. It could be said that he stood high and saw far. He was the first to spot the Jinggang garrison waiting in front. Although he had guessed that this scene would happen, the formation of the Golden Port Guards still surprised him.
The Crown Prince of Myanmar is almost 30 years old this year. He has been "trained" in the military for no less than ten years. He is not ignorant, but he has never seen such a dense and strict battle formation before.
His first reaction was: The Ming army stood so densely, if there was a rain of arrows...
This idea was so tempting and seemed feasible, because he found that the Ming army on the opposite side seemed to only have muskets.
Captain Reddy, the Portuguese military adviser, once told him that it would be difficult for the musketeers alone to win, because as long as the opponent could withstand the loss of one or two volleys, it would be able to rush in and wreak havoc in front of the musketeers without the cover of cold weapons. Massacre, the musketeers who are defenseless at this time will quickly fail.
Mangji Lao had also seen the tactics that Captain Reddy was good at. He usually used spearmen to form three horizontal lines. Each horizontal line had fifty to sixty people in front and twenty columns in depth. On the four corners are musketeers lined up in dense formations. The width is about fifty feet and the depth is a little over thirty feet. A column of musketeers is arranged on each side of the phalanx, and an independent detachment will be sent out to engage in small-scale attacks.
The Ming army in front of them did not use their forces in this way.
Mang Ji Lao saw it clearly: the Ming army as a whole seemed to have formed a "pin"-shaped layout. The "kou" in front was a horizontal rectangle. Compared with the two "kou" in the rear, the lineup in front was particularly huge.
The two characters in the rear are much smaller than the one in the front, but they are far away at this time, and it is not yet bright. Mangji Lao can't see clearly. According to experience, they are probably cavalry - otherwise it cannot explain why there are so many people. few.
Mang Ji Lao thinks that the last two small words do not need to be considered for the time being, because since they are cavalry and the number is so small, there are only two functions: one is to carry out flank harassment before the main force engages in the battle, and the other is to carry out flank harassment after the main force has decided the winner. Responsible for entering from flank conflicts, expanding the results of the battle or covering the retreat. In short, when there are too few cavalry, facing the well-organized infantry, the advantage is not very big, not to mention the Burmese army also has elephant soldiers.
As for the main force of the Ming army, the formation set up by the big mouth, Mangji Lao believed that it could be defeated with only about 500 casualties - according to the charging speed, 500 dead people were enough to rush in front of them.
So Mang Ji Lao ordered without hesitation: "Assemble the team, keep the formation close to 300 steps, and then launch a charge!"
Currently, there is no musket that can shoot three hundred paces. This is the answer Mang Ji Lao received from Captain Reddy. Three hundred steps is equivalent to about 150 meters in later generations - bullets in the musket era are not unable to hit such a distance, but bullets hitting this distance no longer have much lethality, not to mention the bullet itself will also be inaccurate due to insufficient accuracy. I don’t know where I flew to long ago.
Captain Reddy's words were actually not a big problem, because the European muskets at this time were of this level. The only problem was that he didn't know that the Wanli Type 1 gun already had four shallow straight riflings in the barrel, and the gunpowder ratio was excellent, and even Using granular gunpowder, at a distance of 300 steps, the Wanli Type 1 actually has a certain degree of lethality, and its accuracy is much higher than that of ordinary smoothbore guns.
But Mangji Lao's biggest problem was not that he underestimated the Wanli Type 1 musket, but that he misjudged that one of the two small "口" characters in the Ming army's rear team was not a cavalry, but an artillery team.
Although the artillery of the Marine Division is far inferior to the artillery of its own fleet in terms of quantity and quality, it still has one hundred and twenty artillery pieces, including thirty No. 2 cannons and ninety No. 3 cannons.
The Burmese army advanced. When it was still two miles away from the Ming army's artillery position, the artillery team of the garrison opened fire. The first one to fire was of course the No. 2 gun, which was larger in size and range.
Mangji Lao only saw flashes of fire in the distance, and then heard a series of loud "bang bang bang bang" sounds. It seemed like some black spots were smashing into or near the crowd of the Burmese army brigade.
What followed was a burst of screams. Some unlucky ones in the Burmese army were hit by solid shells and their bodies were torn apart. Some of the remaining cannonballs hit the ground and splashed mud and rocks, and some continued to roll around and kill more unlucky people.
There is no veteran who has a lot of experience in fighting against firearms armies who is not afraid of artillery. After all, this thing is not only powerful, but the key is that it is impossible to guard against. Whoever it kills depends on luck, so there was a wave of chaos in the Burmese army. There were many People subconsciously scurry away with their heads in their hands, as if they are trying to find a place to hide.
Although Mangji Lao didn't expect that the Ming army would bring a lot of "Red Yi cannons" with them during the thousands-mile expedition, he was only surprised at first, but he quickly realized what he was doing and yelled: "The Red Yi cannons are firing." It’s very slow, don’t panic! Just line up immediately and push past!”
The Crown Prince was a Crown Prince after all, and he was still somewhat majestic. The panic of the Burmese army quickly disappeared. Several soldiers who took the lead in fleeing were killed on the spot by the supervising team. The remaining Burmese army resumed their formation and continued to approach.
The Ming army's second round of artillery came faster than Mangji Lao expected, but at this moment, this little variable would not let him change his plan. Moreover, judging from the situation just now, although the power of cannons is indeed huge, because they are solid bullets, not many people are actually killed. As the commander of an army, there is no need to do anything specifically for the bombardment of cannons. Change.
However, after the third round of artillery fired, the situation began to change, because this round of artillery was obviously much denser than before. Originally, the Burmese army had barely overcome their fear of artillery under the forced order, but this round of artillery It seemed that they were frightened again - the number of solid bullets falling from the sky increased significantly, and there were very few shells that missed the wasteland nearby.
There were a lot of screams in the Burmese army's camp, with corpses and limbs flying everywhere, and blood and brains splattered everywhere. The formation that had been stabilized just now suddenly became chaotic and loose again.
This situation was beyond Mangji Lao's expectations. He had never seen such a powerful artillery array. Even the Portuguese mercenaries could not reach this firepower density. Of course, this was also related to the fact that the Portuguese had too few troops.
For the first time, Mangji Lao felt that his father's provocation of Ming Dynasty might be a huge strategic mistake, but this thought only passed by for a moment, and now was not the time to consider these things.
He decisively ordered: "Charge the whole army!"
Everyone in the Burmese army breathed a sigh of relief, because even ordinary Burmese soldiers knew one truth: after rushing to the Ming army's position and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the Ming army, it was impossible to continue to be bombarded by artillery.
The only problem is that the charging distance becomes too long. Oh, no, there is another unexpected problem: the elephant soldiers discovered that the war elephants did not obey orders. Although the war elephants are powerful, they have two major weaknesses: they are afraid of fire and loud noises.
Under the three rounds of loud noises, each time becoming more dense and fierce, these war elephants have begun to go crazy. In order to prevent the war elephants from trampling and killing their own family members, the elephant soldiers could only reluctantly lead the war elephants away. More than a hundred of them All the war elephants ran out of the battlefield in a flurry.
Fortunately, Mangji Lao was far away. Although his war elephant was frightened for a while, he was calmed down by the elephant slave and did not lead him away or simply fall down.
But at this time, Mangji Lao had no time to pay attention to himself. He was paying attention to his army. Humans are not machines. The action of charging is like a 100-meter sprint. It is explosive and different from endurance, not to mention that it is still under load. Therefore, Mangji Lao is also worried about whether launching a charge from too far away will cause a collision. There is no successor after the past.
At the same time as the Burmese army launched its charge, Gao Sijin, who was standing on a hillside behind the main position opposite, sneered and steadily ordered: "The first two rows set up bayonet formations, and the enemy troops are approaching as close as 150 The first round of calibrated projectiles will begin at ten steps, and the three-stage firing will begin at one hundred steps. After the three horizontal columns are fired, they will retreat directly to clean the barrels, and the last three columns will follow the cycle."
The nightmare of the Burmese army began with Gao Sijin's order.
When Mang Ji Lao saw that his army had approached two hundred steps, the Ming army still didn't start shooting. At that time, his heart was beating wildly, thinking that although the Ming army on the opposite side looked well-organized, it was actually a group of silver-like wax-tipped spears, and he was preparing for the first shot. A wave of ammunition is so slow. Unexpectedly, at the 180th step, the first two rows of the Ming army suddenly "turned their guns into knives" and showed their bright "long-barreled daggers".
But it didn't matter. The trouble was that they squatted down immediately. Two rows of Ming soldiers erected the "long-barreled daggers" in an orderly manner. They were high and low, blocking the front like a fence made of knives.
Then the real crisis appeared when the Burmese army rushed to about 150 steps, and the Ming army behind began to show its power with volleys of horizontal rows.
When the Burmese army's forward fell at least a hundred people at once, Mangji Lao's heart seemed to be violently tugged: These Ming army's muskets are probably more powerful than the Portuguese's!
The Ming army quickly "responded" to his suspicions-the second round of volleys came at an extremely fast speed.
There was still a column of fire flashing, and under the flying white smoke, the Burmese army forward fell down again without any surprise, a hundred or more dozens of people. The most shocking thing is that between these two rounds of volleys, the Burmese army only ran forward about twenty steps.
Worse!
Mang Ji Lao felt chills in his heart. The interval between the Ming army's volleys of muskets was even more astonishing than the performance of the Portuguese mercenaries. This battle was probably going to go bad...
When a person has a premonition, good premonitions are basically daydreaming, while bad premonitions usually come true quickly. Mang Ji Lao immediately found that he was confused - even if he didn't say it just now.
The Burmese army rushed forward for a while, continued to receive three rounds of volleys, and then... collapsed.
Because when they rushed to only about 80 steps away from the Ming army, the sarcasm on the faces of the Ming army on the opposite side could be clearly seen, and of course they could even see the bayonets standing in the front row with their tips staggered. Array.
dash forward? This is suicide!
Those shining half-edged narrow-edged knives can be seen from the reflection of the ice-cold blades. They are all first-class swords. Even if they wear Mingguang armor, they may not be able to block them, not to mention that most of them don't wear armor at all. ?
Coupled with the fact that they were already exhausted and the charging distance was too far, they could no longer run at all, so the Burmese army's momentum slowed down almost visibly.
The Burmese army was slow, but the Ming army was not. The garrison's firing did not stop for a moment. Amid the hesitation of the Burmese army, they fired two more rounds of volleys. By this time, the Burmese army had lost at least 1,500 people.
The proportion of 1,500 soldiers in the more than 10,000 Burmese troops may not seem high, but you must know that the army in the cold weapon era simply cannot afford high direct battle losses. There are many examples of collapse at 10% battle losses. Yes, it is almost a miracle that the Burmese army has not collapsed yet.
However, the source of this miracle is somewhat ridiculous: first, they knew the danger behind them and wanted to break through the current obstruction of the Ming army and return to Toungoo City; second, the previous rounds of salvos happened too fast, and they were in the process of charging. It was too late to "discover" how many comrades he had lost around him.
But at this moment, facing the bright bayonet array and the taunts on the faces of the musketeers on the opposite side, they suddenly realized - where are my comrades in front of me? Why did I come here?
"လွတ်မြောက်!" (Burmese: Run for your life.)
With an exclamation coming out of nowhere, many Burmese soldiers began to run away, and the charging formation suddenly became chaotic, disappearing like boiling soup pouring snow.
Some Burmese soldiers fled towards both sides of the battlefield, some turned around and ran away and knocked down their comrades in the rear who were still confused and were still running forward. In short, the entire battlefield suddenly became chaotic.
Mangji Lao originally wanted to regroup, but he immediately realized that this was in vain, because the supervising team at the rear subconsciously wanted to stop the rout, but was immediately submerged in the wave of rout and disappeared without a trace.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince immediately knew that he had failed and it was irreversible. He immediately controlled the war elephant and turned around to run away. However, at this time, he was surprised to find that the other character "口" behind the opponent's pinzi formation had long disappeared, and on his flank, a cavalry team of about 500 people was rushing toward where he was. Come to kill.
In order to defeat the Ming army in one fell swoop, Mang Ji'ao had sent out most of his own soldiers as a supervising team. Now there were only two hundred people around him, and the war elephants had long since dispersed, leaving only the only one under him.
In other words, he is now really "outstanding" and outstanding, and he is really the best target of the Ming army.
A war elephant cannot outrun a galloping horse. Mang Ji Lao was so frightened that he broke into a cold sweat on his forehead. He didn't even bother to ask someone to help him, so he just planned to jump off the war elephant and run for his life.
However, it was too late. Although the Ming army's cavalry was small, they were full of good horses. In a blink of an eye, they had reached a point not far away.
At this time, the Ming army did not even take out the sabers from their waists. Instead, they all held short guns that the Burmese army had never seen before. The barrel of this gun was half shorter than an ordinary musket, but the magic was that it did not need to be ignited. ——They had fired directly in the direction of Mang Ji Lao.
"Bang bang bang bang", I don't know how many gun barrels rang out. Mang Ji'ao only felt severe pain coming from several places on his body, accompanied by a strong burning sensation, which made him scream miserably.
Then he knew nothing.
The last voice he heard was cheering in Chinese: "The enemy general is dead! If you don't abandon your weapons and surrender, how long will it take!"
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