Two miles south of Jinzhou City, the Nuer River meanders through. On its south bank are Rufeng Mountain and Shimen Mountain, which serve as the gateway to the south of Jinzhou, especially the east-west Shimen Arterial Road of Shimen Mountain.
Now, the place is filled with gunpowder smoke, people are roaring and horses are neighing, and the sound of wailing and mourning is everywhere. In the entire Shimen Mountain area from West Shimen to East Shimen, the Ming and Qing Dynasties are fighting fiercely.
Although the Ming army had a great advantage in terms of numbers, the Qing army had been operating here for a long time and took advantage of the mountains to build strong fortifications.
Although their troops were small, they were mainly composed of Han and Korean troops. These two Tatars were not good at riding, archery, and bow and arrow skills, but they were good at using fire guns and iron cannons.
Although these hateful Tartars were forced into fear, their combat power was almost maximized. Looking at the situation on the battlefield, it seemed that the Korean soldiers were still not doing their best.
However, the Tianyou Army and the Han Army stationed at Shimen Mountain were very brave. Under the urging of the True Tatars and Shangguan, they fired guns and artillery, causing heavy casualties to the Ming army attacking the mountain and becoming a major obstacle.
The soldiers of the Ming army who attacked the mountain had no choice but to use their shields as cover. Facing the Qing army's cannons and sharp arrows, they often only managed to attack the village walls and trenches before being bombarded by intensive cannons and shells until they ran away crying. And back.
At such a close distance, the sharp arrows of the armored Tatar soldiers of the Qing army were all extremely accurate.
Although their arrows did not shoot far, their ability to pierce armor and bleed was extremely strong. Whenever many Ningyuan soldiers rushed to the front of the Tartar formation, they would soon feel the pain once they were hit by sharp Tartar arrows. He became weak and lost his fighting ability.
The North Korean army's muskets are different.
North Korean military attaches and soldiers were more accustomed to using cold weapons in combat. Long-range weapons were mainly bows and crossbows. Although they liked artillery, they were very resistant to firecrackers.
All of this is actually due to the distribution of interests. After all, swords, guns, swords, halberds, and crossbows have been used for hundreds of years. Although there have been several improvements in the process, the general form has not changed.
Continuing to this day, there are countless families in North Korea who are engaged in making bows, crossbows and arrows. Many of the big families who are engaged in this industry are connected with the courtiers and generals.
And even those ordinary soldiers often have people in their families who do this as a means of making a living.
Once matchlocks and other muskets are widely used, how many big families will fall from grace, and how many people will lose their jobs. Just imagine, with such intertwined interests entangled in it, how can we promote the use of firecrackers, a new type of killer weapon? ?
Furthermore, the technical threshold for gun artillery is still very high, and it has basically nothing to do with crossbows, so everything needs to be learned from scratch.
As far as this gunpowder production technology is concerned, North Korea has never mastered it. The powder used in its meager artillery had to be imported from the Ming Dynasty.
After all, gunpowder, fire blunderbuss, etc. are all weapons of the country. Although the Ming Dynasty has good relations with North Korea, it does not want the production technology of such sharp weapons to be mastered by other countries, so it is extremely strictly controlled.
This situation lasted until the Korean War broke out in the 22nd year of Wanli, and it did not change!
This war lasted for seven years. At that time, Japan was at the end of the Warring States Period. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great hero, ended the war in Japan and completed the unification of national power with the power of "the people of the world".
At that time, in Japan, the daimyo of all parties fought a civil war for more than a hundred years. Now that it was unified by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a large number of warriors who had experienced many battles were idle.
At the same time, after Toyotomi Hideyoshi ended the Warring States Rebellion in Japan, his strength was unprecedentedly powerful, and he gathered almost all the powerful troops in Japan under his command.
As a result, his ambitions became extremely swollen. At the same time, in order to alleviate the danger of having no war to fight in the country and a large number of warriors doing nothing, he actually came up with the idea of taking advantage of North Korea to attack Ming Dynasty.
To this end, a huge and ambitious plan to conquer the Ming Dynasty was formulated, and a total force of nearly 300,000 was mobilized. The infantry army responsible for landing operations alone had nine corps, reaching 150,000 people.
In addition, there are 9,000 navy personnel, driving more than 700 warships, responsible for transporting infantry to and from the strait, and transporting grain, grass and baggage to the front line along the way.
In the early days of the Japanese invasion, the Japanese army, who were veterans of more than a hundred years of war, launched a fierce and overwhelming offensive. In just one month, they successively captured Seoul, the capital of North Korea, and Pyongyang, the capital.
After that, they advanced all the way towards the Liaodong border of the Ming Dynasty.
The King of Korea, Li Wan, also fled north in panic, all the way to Yiju, and sent envoys one after another to beg for help from the Ming Dynasty, the suzerain country.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty had also discovered that Japan had the ambition to conquer the Ming Dynasty through North Korea. The court decided to defend the enemy from outside, send troops to North Korea to expel the Japanese army, and then help the King of North Korea return to the capital.
Li Rusong, who was then the admiral in charge of the military affairs of Shaanxi's anti-rebellion army, had just put down the Kuai rebellion in Ningxia when he was appointed as the admiral of the Eastern Expedition and led nearly 50,000 elite Ming troops to Korea.
After seven years and numerous large and small battles, the arrogant Japanese army was finally defeated and expelled from the Korean Peninsula, winning the final victory of the Korean Anti-Japanese War.
This battle not only further consolidated the friendship between China and North Korea and helped North Korea transform from subjugation to recovery, it also severely damaged Japan's vitality as a result of the war. The power of the Toyotomi Hideyoshi Group was weakened, which indirectly led to the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Moreover, everyone in Korea, from the king, ministers and generals to ordinary soldiers and civilians, all saw the power of firearms such as the three-eyed blunderbuss and the bird blunderbuss.
They used bows and arrows to fight against the Japanese iron cannons, and were driven all the way from Busan in the south to the Yalu River, where they saw the power of cannons and artillery.
The soldiers and horses of each camp of the Ming army entering the dynasty were also equipped with a large number of firearms. Among them, the cavalry of the Northern Army mostly used three-eyed blunderbuss, while the soldiers and horses of Jizhen mostly used bird blunderbuss.
Every time the Ming Army and the Japanese Army fought a war, guns and artillery were flying everywhere, and the Korean Army was unable to intervene at all. Therefore, it was reduced to a foil in the war, doing only logistical assistance.
Korean soldiers proved with their lives how accurate the Ming Dynasty military god Qi Shaobao's evaluation of "a bird's gun hit, ten times the speed of a gun, five times the bow and arrow".
Therefore, the whole country of Korea was united. They not only paid a lot of money to learn how to operate matchlock guns from Japanese prisoners of war.
He also openly poached the Qi family's army who aided the Ming Dynasty, and paid a lot of money to hire junior officers among them to stay as gun shooting instructors. He also paid a lot of money to purchase the "New Book of Jixiao" from the staff of Li Rusong, the governor of the Eastern Expedition.
From then on, North Korea began to use gunpowder as its most powerful weapon. It also equipped the army with a large number of weapons and practiced them strictly. Later, it purchased gunpowder production technology from the Ming Dynasty.
After more than fifty years of development, the cannons used by Korean soldiers have been widely used, but compared with the Ming army, they still lag behind. Their cannons are still almost the same as those during the Anti-Japanese War.
But even so, it is much sharper than a bow and arrow. If it is hit by a North Korean soldier's blunderbuss at this distance, the consequences will be equally terrible.
…………
On the West Shimen Mountain Road, Jia Lazhangjing Irza was also anxious.
The situation on his side was more critical than on Shimen Mountain. Although there were several stone walls and low ditch defense lines before him, the Ming army was also cunning. Their main attack direction was not on the mountain road to the west of Shimen Mountain.
Bai Guangen, who was as cunning as a fox, was naturally able to take the position of the commander-in-chief of Jizhen. He had long seen that the West Shimen Mountain Road was winding and rugged, making it difficult to capture.
Therefore, the main attack was placed on the mountains on both sides. To this end, he personally went to Hong Duchen to ask for many small cannons to equip the troops and horses responsible for attacking the mountains on both sides.
But after all, it was selfishness that caused these small artillery pieces to be assigned to his own main camp, or to those battalions close to him.
According to his strategy, the battalions in Ji Town that were not very close to him were all sent to attack the West Shimen Mountain Road and act as cannon fodder.
These cannon fodders attracted the attention and artillery fire of the Qing garrison in the mountain road, while the battalions close to Bai Guangen advanced on the mountains on both sides. They used these small artillery to open the way and bombarded them all the way forward.
In this way, although there were some casualties, it was still much better than a hard attack. For this reason, Bai Guangen also used money to borrow many gunners from the Dubiao Battalion.
Those battalions that were the main attackers on the mountain road knew that Bai Guangen was seeking personal revenge, but they were powerless. After all, Bai Guangen was still the commander-in-chief of Ji Town, and they could not afford the consequences of resisting military orders.
But the mountains on the West Shimen Mountain Road are rugged. Although the mountain road between the two ridges is gentle, it is very winding. Even the chariots have difficulty in advancing, and the wall built by the Tatars between the two ridges is very twisty. It is so thick that it cannot be destroyed without heavy artillery.
It is really a great power that one man can stand in the way and ten thousand men can’t stop it!
Although they are full of complaints, they can only attack with all their strength. They are also afraid that they will not try their best during the attack. If they are beaten again, they don't know what the outcome will be.
At this time, in front of the Qing army's stone wall, many Ming army corpses and wounded soldiers had fallen. The flowing blood soaked the dry dust on the mountain road. Although there was less smoke and dust, the disgusting smell was still there. But it became more pungent.
There were also a lot of rocks stained with flesh and blood, rolling everywhere on the mountain slopes, and fragments of flesh and blood were scattered everywhere along with them.
The sound of bullets like exploding beans sounded from time to time. The North Korean officers behind a section of the stone wall shouted orders in unintelligible Korean. As the trigger was pulled, the marbles sounded like exploding beans again. Attack.
Another wave of Ji Town officers and soldiers attacked the mountain and fell down screaming!
Although they were holding shields as cover, how could these light shields block the bullets fired from close range? However, if all of them were holding heavy shields covered with iron, they were so heavy that not many people could lift them.
The Ming army in Ji Town usually didn't like to practice muskets. Some of them were good at using firearms, and most of them were semi-heated weapons such as three-eyed muskets and quick guns.
The range power of the three-eyed gun is only effective within twenty or thirty steps. Even the shooting range of the fast gun is limited, not to mention the accuracy of its shooting. Its advantage is only that it is easy to operate and can be directly used as a cold weapon. Just come and use it.
With such a firearm, how can it be the opponent of a blunderbuss?
But if they abandoned the three-eyed blunderbuss and quick guns and switched to bows and arrows for shooting, how could they beat the Tatars hiding behind the wall?
Furthermore, due to the narrow terrain of the mountain road here, the Ming army's Jizhen official army could not take advantage of its strength. Each wave of attacks could only attack a few people.
It’s purely a fueling tactic!
Gunshots exploded repeatedly, and sometimes there was the roar of artillery, and the sound of trembling bowstrings occasionally sounded. It was obvious that the Tatar soldiers supervising the battle were not willing to be lonely. While the Korean soldiers were shooting, they also shot fatal shots from time to time. sharp arrow.
The big and heavy Tatar arrows came with a "whoosh" sound.
In the blink of an eye, during this wave of charging Ming troops, people kept screaming and being hit by arrows.
Those who were shot by Tatar arrows felt that their bodies were hit hard at first, then they felt their bodies gradually getting colder, and then they quickly became weak and weak.
From the perspective of people on the side, these Ming army soldiers who were shot by arrows were all bleeding profusely, and their appearance was extremely scary.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
On the ridge on the west side of the West Shimen Mountain Road, a few huge rocks were pushed down, and several explosions were heard.
A cannon hit the intersection of three pieces of rubble on the stone wall. Although it was not as powerful as the Hongyi cannon, it accidentally knocked away the rightmost piece of rubble.
The originally solid stone wall collapsed in an instant, and the rubble tumbled to catch up with the rocks in front of it, rolling down the mountain together. With their top-down momentum, they rolled faster and faster after each other.
The Ming army, which was attacking on the mountain road, saw such a terrifying situation for the first time. The rocks drove down the gravel, large and small, and rolled down together, raising a large cloud of smoke and dust.
In their frightened eyes, they smashed down their heads and faces!
Amidst bursts of wailing and shouting, many Ji Zhen Ming soldiers were hit with broken bones and tendons on the spot. Those who were hit on the body had blood spurting from their mouths and fell to the ground. Those who were hit in the hands and feet had their hands broken immediately. The fate of a broken foot.
The white bones and stubble on many people's bodies were exposed from the beginning. They were holding their wounds, all in agony, and wailing and mourning all over the field.
The fighting will of these Ming soldiers was far from resolute. At this moment, seeing their comrades who had been together day and night howling miserably, the miserable condition on their bodies was even more unbearable to witness.
One by one, they no longer had the courage to attack the mountain, and the array immediately collapsed and ran away. They yelled and cried and ran away. Even the superiors' roars at the top of their lungs were incomprehensible.
…………
The Ming army attacking the mountain road here was in terrible shape, and the Qing army on the mountain ridge on the right was not much better.
Because of that cannon shot, the gravel on the stone wall fell off, which actually caused a chain reaction. The originally solid stone wall collapsed instantly, although most of the gravel rolled down the mountain, increasing the damage to the Ming army on the mountain road. .
However, the two Tatars of the Han army, who lost the protection of the stone wall, were suddenly exposed to the guns, artillery and arrows of the Jizhen soldiers who attacked the mountain.
Moreover, part of the collapsed stone wall also had some rubble, which fell to the side of the Han Army's Ertazi. In addition, the artillery placed on the high platform was also due to the uneven force caused by the collapse of the stone wall. The high platform collapsed, and the artillery Fall to the ground.
Many Han soldiers and Tatars were not injured or killed by the Ming army attacking the mountain, but they were killed and injured by the stone walls they had built so hard, and were killed and injured by their own artillery.
