The Beiyang Army was accustomed to purposeful skirmishes, whether it was an encounter or a battle, and they had never participated in a major battle with a scale of more than 10,000 people.

The veterans of France were different, for them the war was a muddy assembly, marching, stationing, looting after stationing, waiting for the other lords' troops, and then continuing the march, even if they were separated from the enemy army by a small river, they could go around each other, ranging from a few days to a few months, and the war could end at this time, and they would go home with the loot they had looted.

The battle is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both sides to have the will to fight.

But sometimes the battle had to be fought for the lord, as in the case of Wulong now, and the Earl of Charles could not abandon the bridge that was about to be completed and leave with a large number of supplies, and the troops were quickly assembled according to the defensive arrangements of the garrison camp.

The roaring artillery in the northwest did not make them panic, and when they marched to this place, everyone had a plan in their hearts, and they knew that they would most likely be attacked by the Ming army.

Although each brigade had soldiers who deserted to the surrounding areas to plunder the villages, more than 4,000 troops were effectively assembled and drove the wagons into the middle of the camp, with spears and halberds lining the camp and musketeers on all sides of the camp.

However, after a long time after the watchtower was planted with a fluttering dragon flag, there was no movement nearby, as if the Ming army had come here to capture the watchtower.

The Earl of Charles was a little unaware, and secretly scolded the sentries who were quickly removed for being useless, and were killed without even the slightest message, and still did not know the number of enemy troops, and could only judge from the firepower that they should have a large number of troops, and I am afraid that not only their sentinels were useless - their intelligence was also problematic.

After a while, there was another cannon shot from the direction of another watchtower directly north, and this time the Earl of Charles could not see the dragon banner from the occupied watchtower, which was tied to a towering tree and hung down, but he saw more than that.

First, the collapsed watchtower overturned in the river full of fallen leaves, and a sentry in the tower struggled to wave his arms to clear the fallen leaves and swam to the opposite bank, but the river was too wide, and in the shade of the dead branches in the forest, a Ming soldier wearing a bowl and wearing blue cotton armor and black boots appeared on the river bank with their standard muskets, standing facing the river.

From his back, the Earl of Charles could tell that he was reloading his musket, moving quickly and calmly.

He couldn't help but want the sentry to swim a little faster, a little faster, and if he swam a little faster, the musket would not be able to hit beyond a certain range.

But he was wrong.

When the Ming soldier in cotton armor with a high helmet and gun raised his bird gun, like a distant and silent movie, a cloud of white smoke rose from the muzzle of the gun, and the sentry in the river stiffened, as if he was trying to grasp something, and slowly sank into the water unwillingly.

It may not be long before he resurfaces, but by that time the Comte de Charles was sure that he would no longer recognize him, for the icy waters of the river rose and fell, and French sentinels in civilian clothes kept drifting closer and closer downstream.

There was also an outpost in the lowlands to the west, an abandoned village, and the fields near the Crane River valley were very fertile, and Chen Jiujing's Spanish mercenaries had visited it two months before, taking away the grain harvested in the autumn and plundering all the peasant households, and Marshal Matthion had consulted with the nobles in the west last month to try to bring some men from their territory so that they could resume planting next year, so as to ensure that the food supply that was consumed more and more was consumed.

But when the war came, no one wanted to come here, and the commander of the Charr stationed there a mixed squad of seven cavalrymen and twenty-six mixed squads with two-handed swords, spears, halberds, and musketeers.

Charles thought that if the number of Ming troops was not large, he could transfer a large Swiss army there, and both sides would not be surrounded, so he hurriedly ran in that direction, there was no dangerous terrain and woods around, and the village was surrounded by abandoned farmland, and the vision was extremely wide, and the terrifying Ming army hidden in the forest could no longer hide it, and showed its true face here.

He saw that the Ming army, which numbered about 100 men, had bypassed the village and continued westward through the barren fields, with three richly decorated commanders riding war horses and two marching musicians in the front, center, and back of the procession, and the whole team was divided into ten squads, each with three officers with small flags on their helmets.

All of them wore the same blue cotton armor and carried backpacks, with the bottom of the musket on their shoulders in their right hands, and marched with a uniform pace that was neither fast nor slow, and in each squad there were two soldiers carrying a log tube on one side of their backs, and two horse squads were special, and those half-mounted horses with visor cuirass, bulging cloth bags hung on both sides of the hips, and iron cannons with thick short pipes on them.

Another Ming army of the same size approached the village, with six squads scattered from the perimeter with muskets to surround and defend the village, with only four squads entering the village from both sides of the street.

The Ming musketeers stood in three rows on the main street to open the line, and the soldiers behind took the iron cannons from their horses and nailed them to the front, and four men took two things from their horses that were joined together by multiple iron pipes, and together with a round iron shield, they were propped up on the ground with a small axe, and they were half-crouched in front of the musketeers.

The garrison of the French army rushed out of the house next to the road, with two-handed swordsmen in front, halberders, and spearmen behind, the two sides were very close, as long as they were close to the Ming musketeers who lacked cold weapons, it was difficult for them to be their opponents.

But the Ming army fired, in a large cloud of gunsmoke, the mercenaries wielding swords were the first to be pierced, even wearing special half-armor could not protect them at this distance, the spearmen did not get close enough to be able to stab, a round of fire wounded them a lot, the people behind turned back and retreated to the house, but the bullets were very dense.

In Charles's eyes, this scene did not conform to common sense at all, the Ming musketeers were obviously shooting, and the people behind were indeed charging, but through the smoke there were still spearmen who were shot down.

The garrison cavalry seized the opportunity well, and took advantage of the short time when the Ming army's muskets stopped, and several cavalrymen rushed towards them with horses and guns...... They were greeted by the sound of a cannon.

The horses that rushed to the front were almost shattered, and the horses behind seemed to have been hit, and the people who stopped the charge stood up, and some riders were lifted off their horses, and those who were not lifted off were also busy controlling their horses, and the charge was physically stopped.

Immediately after the Beiyang infantry launched a counter-charge with bird guns, stabbing to death the riders under the horses and the fallen soldiers one by one, as well as those riders on horses, they were surrounded and stabbed, and only two riders who ran away from the horses were spared and ran out of the village.

The Count of Charles clutched the silk scarf he had brought with him in his hands, and his eyes were so wrinkled that he didn't want to look at it, and the Ming troops outside the village were already standing there with their muskets, just waiting for them to rush out.

As for the infantry and musketeers who failed to break through and returned to the house, they were more fortunate, they used muskets and steel crossbows to shoot out of the windows and doors, and spears and halberds could be used for defense, and it seemed that they would not be breached for a short time.

As soon as the Earl thought so, he saw several Ming soldiers hurrying along the wall with their waists raised, and without knowing what they were holding in their hands, they threw them into the window closely, and in the scene of the thatch of the roof dancing with the dust, distant and dull sounds came one after another.

The dragon flag was tied to the tallest tree in the village by the Ming army.