Chapter 14: Fear
Seven, seven Divine Mighty Bolts accurately crashed into the enemy ranks.
The other five Divine Arrows had even more graceful spinning trajectory, perfectly flying past the enemy line and flying behind them, and then exploded one after another with the rockets that fell into the French formation during the fall, bursting through the iron shell of the prefabricated fragments in the air at a height of eight or nine feet.
It was a disaster, for behind the French was a camp of traders who had come to work as traders, with merchants in velvet robes, hired guards in helmets and armor, overworked prostitutes, and young men trying to go to the battlefield after the battle to pick up rags and sell them for money.
The fragments of the rockets struck them mercilessly, and the fragments and iron balls swept through everything like a few tiger cannons fired in close proximity, and in the blink of an eye, the camp that had been out of step with the tense atmosphere of the battlefield miles away, full of laughter, was left with only wailing and crying and the sky-high fire that had ignited in the tent.
Humanity responds almost identically when disaster strikes.
The Shenwei machine arrows stuffed with granules of gunpowder exploded in the French position, and the lethality of the flat explosion was even more than the explosion in mid-air, and no army in the whole world had ever faced such a disaster, even the Bernal Legion of the Spanish Viceroyalty in New Spain, which had disappeared in the long river of history, had only received the baptism of the general flag arrow.
Shenwei Trap Arrow and Total Banner Arrow are two completely different weapons, and their difference is like the difference between the Small Flag Arrow and the early rocket.
In the sound of explosions one after another, the phalanx legions that thought they had been smashed by the cannonballs collapsed in an instant, and the horses were frightened and stood up or ran wildly, even the most seasoned knights could not restrain their horses at this time, and the close friends on the battlefield were at this moment relying on their hooves to rampage, trampling everything that could be seen.
In this era, bows and arrows were being withdrawn from the battlefield, which meant that the phalanx soldiers were less and less likely to be damaged from the sky, and in order to deal with the large number of Ming troops armed with muskets, both Mathion and Charles chose to place heavily armored soldiers at the front of the formation, followed by elite soldiers wearing cuirass or semi-armor, and then all light infantry lacking armor.
Only the officers, flag bearers, and military bands are protected by elite soldiers.
If the Fragment is lucky enough, it can hurt three or more people; If the person is unlucky, he will be hit by ten or more fragments.
The explosion of the rockets brought great shock and confusion to the French army, which was not all shaped by the iron cylinder cast with the word Shenwei, the explosion of the seven rockets could injure less than 200 soldiers, and even only a few people died directly.
Life and death are all luck, and some people are so unlucky that even if only one fragment hits him, it can kill him directly through the throat.
Some people stood next to the exploding rocket, and they were injured more than ten times at the moment of explosion, but as long as they didn't hit the vital point, even if they were crippled and blind, if they could get proper medical treatment after the war, this person would not have died.
But the wailing, weeping, scolding, and shouting of the wounded scattered throughout the phalanx further spread fear among the army, even more terrifying than the direct loss of human life to weapons.
Those who were unscathed wanted to see a knight fall from his horse, silently, his helmet dented by a rocket, and as if he were asleep, ignoring the red or other colored things that flowed from the gaps between his neck and visor.
But what caught their eyes was the comrade-in-arms who had just walked side by side with him with a spear, and whispered to him with a lot of aftertaste to introduce him to a certain peasant woman who had come with the caravan with a graceful figure, and squeezed out his wallet and some other things, this person he laughed at shamelessly, he was fearless and brave, he was a veteran and a real good friend, and he could relieve himself of the fear of facing the enemy.
But the next moment his spear fell, and he raised his wrist and shouted in disbelief for his mother, tears and snot and saliva flying all over his face.
When he knelt on the ground, he found that the earth-colored double-layered linen robe he was wearing bulged with a large red mouth, and the hemp rope tied around his waist could not hold the weight inside.
Before he died, he didn't feel the anger of avenging him, and he just wanted to do everything he could to help him cover his belly, and even the more primitive impulse was to help him stuff his intestines back, but he stretched out his hand and suddenly remembered that something flew up when the explosion happened just now, and he caught it in his arms, and now he only felt wet and greasy, and when he picked it up, he saw that it was his hand that had frostbite.
The blood dripped down into the dirt and rolled into small balls.
The hand is still twitching.
At this time, the explosion that scared people before was no longer terrible, what was terrible was that the blood was pouring into the head, the ears could not hear any sound, and it seemed that all the angry scolding and cries rushed in, and the heavy heartbeat that could not be driven away like the sound of war drums.
His head was white, and everything in front of him was chaotic, until someone pushed him hard and slammed into him, his spear had been dropped, and he didn't know where he was going to flee or if he could escape from the military formation.
Then he noticed a knight galloping in front of the formation with his spear held high and stepping on the hooves of his heavy horses, and he turned around and swept across the formation with his arms raised, and he was actually shouting that no one could hear anyone but the few in front of him—and suddenly all the voices returned, for one could see a small black dot in the sky behind the knight.
Some moments may have passed and it may be difficult to recall exactly what happened at that time, but as long as you are impressed enough, even if it is a long time ago, you can clearly recall a sound or a smell at that time, and it will leave a lasting mark on people.
At this moment, the mercenaries from all over France, Switzerland, and Germany in the phalanx could always remember the smell of blood and gunsmoke, the torn sackcloth in the background of the neighing of horses, and the most terrible screams.
No one knows exactly how many linen robes were pierced, just as no one can count how many soldiers were shot at this moment.
The tiger squat cannon erected in front of the Ming army emitted lingering gunsmoke, the loose cylinder and the skidneys fell into the dust in mid-air, and the small iron pellets cast fell into the phalanx like raindrops over a distance of hundreds of steps, bringing results far less than the explosion of Shenwei rockets.
This distance, unless it is made up to hit the eye, can only bring pain, and the pain ...... For a moment, the brain didn't look like his own, where could the French soldiers still feel pain?
There is also a Furlong cannon still firing.
In the chaos of the battlefield, the gunners of the Franc machine gun position on the left flank abandoned the guns and fled because the rockets fell nearby, but the gunners on the right flank still stuck to their posts, firing scattered bullets forward as much as they could, and the time for changing the guns was reduced to the shortest, even if the hands were burned by the hot guns, they did not notice it, because the Ming cavalry came, and those plate armor iron futu wearing plate armor, wearing bowls on their heads, and horses wearing heavy armor rushed with whistles.
The long pole was thrown several times in the air, and finally slammed into the helmeted head of the artilleryman, and then was smashed to the ground by the golden gourd and trampled into meat by the war horse.
The smoke of scattered musket fire rose from the French formation, but the Iron Float rarely fell off its horse, and on the road with a small number of handcuffs and bows and arrows symbolically returned fire, quickly swept over the flanks of the position, and covered the French light cavalry in the confusion of the rocket explosion.