In this battle against the Ming army, the Tatars had a certain mindset, believing that the Ming artillery must be displayed in the front row as in the battle of the Yuxi River three years ago, and they thought that attacking from the flank would definitely avoid the artillery attack of the Ming army. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Tatars did not know that Shen Xi hid ten artillery pieces on each flank of the military formation, which were themselves horizontally erected barrels, and in wartime, as long as the shield arrays on both sides were removed, the muzzles could be facing the two sides of the flank, giving full play to the power of the Franc machine's cannon surface killing.

The wars that Huo Aya had experienced before were all frontal battlefield battles, she had rich experience in fighting with the Ming army, but she had no chance to fight with Shen Xi, Rao was her rich combat experience, and she didn't expect Shen Xi to actually make such a "dark move", not only deployed on the flanks with firearms, but also hidden Franc cannons.

When Huo Yacha sensed the danger, he wanted to command the troops and horses to disperse, but it was too late.

"Soldiers and horses, retreat!"

Huoya first shouted and dispersed, but found that it was impossible to stop the attack of the opponent's musketeers and ten guns, and she could not warn the Tatar soldiers and horses attacking from the flank from the other direction.

At this point, it becomes the Tatar cavalry, each showing reflexes and horsemanship.

"Boom-"

The sound of shells landing and exploding continued to sound, and in the Tatar cavalry formation, more than 40 horsemen fell in response, and some of the cavalry were wounded by projectiles, both body and mount, but they still managed to disperse and charge forward.

"Disperse! Kill! ”

Huoya's order changed in an instant, and when she realized that the ten guns of the Ming army had only caused dozens of casualties, and the fire of the originally dense arquebuses stopped when the fire rang out, she regained her confidence...... At this time, she returned to the middle of the charging team, ready to command the Tatar cavalry to charge into the Ming army formation and break the Ming army formation.

At this time, almost each of the musketeers fired three rounds of ammunition, and the three loaded bullets they carried with them had been exhausted, so they needed to withdraw into the formation and reload according to the regulations.

However, the sum of nine rounds of strikes has caused more than 100 casualties to the Tatars...... As the Tatar formation became sparse, the accuracy of the Franc machine was obviously much worse, far from the good result of inflicting more than 40 casualties on the Tatars in the first round.

Huo Aya commanded the horse team to continue to charge, and the Ming infantry phalanx changed again, as the pikemen set up a long spear formation, like a hedgehog, if the Tatar cavalry did not brake the horses' feet, the final result would inevitably be to hit the tip of the spear.

At this time, the crossbowmen in the back row of the spearmen appeared, and at this time the Tatar cavalry was less than a hundred paces away from the Ming army's gun array, and completely entered the range of the bow and crossbow.

"Whoosh!"

As the arrows were fired, the hoplite cavalry, which the Tatars had relied on to fend off the arrows, had been wiped out by the projectiles of the musketeers and the Franco's cannons, and the follow-up charges of the Tatar cavalry were equivalent to being in an undefended state.

Light cavalry rushed, the most afraid of traps and crossbow arrows, although the Ming army did not dig traps, but after all, there were crossbow arrows and gun arrays as barriers.

The Tatar cavalry is still advancing, but at this time their combat power has been greatly reduced, this is still the soldiers and horses under the command of Huo Aya himself, with her in the ranks, the combat effectiveness can be guaranteed to a certain extent, and there are no soldiers and horses led by the commander on the other side, and the damage is even more serious.

Just these nine rounds of firearms, a round of Franco's cannons, and a round of arrows caused serious losses to the Tatar cavalry, with more than 800 horses on both wings, and more than 200 people on the side of Huoya, and as high as 70% on the other side.

The situation on the battlefield has undergone a radical reversal.

The soldiers of the Ming army, who had been cautious and skeptical about this battle, found that the Tatars were "nothing more than that", and their morale was greatly boosted, and before the other side could get close, the bows and arrows were shot out again, and a row of Tatars fell from their horses again.

After all the hardships, the Tatar cavalry finally came closer, but in the face of the spears of the forest, many Tatar cavalry could not control the momentum, and even men and horses collided with them, turning into flesh and blood gourds.

Huo Aya's eyes were sharp, and he immediately rushed into the Ming army formation with about one hundred and fifty horsemen from these gaps, and the other side was even worse, only seventy or eighty horsemen.

But at this time, the reinforcements of the Tatars in the south and north of the city began to come forward one after another on the left and right flanks of the Ming army. In the face of the constant stabbing of spears from all directions, the Tatar cavalry around him became fewer and fewer, and the mood of Huoya, which was originally on the verge of despair, became reinvigorated.

"Kill!"

The speed of the Tatar cavalry reinforcements was very fast, although they were menacing, but the Ming army commanded by Shen Xi also completed the dispatch, and the mule cart formation turned in a different direction, this time it was not the army formation that was fighting together, but the direction in which the Tatar reinforcements were gathered. It turned out that the Franc machine artillery in the front row of the Ming army was not used to destroy the enemy in front of them, but as an important means of striking the Tatar soldiers and horses who were outflanked on the flanks.

This is the situation that Shen Xi predicted in advance, he foresaw the direction of the Tatar attack, and naturally he could also guess the direction of the Tatar reinforcements, so after the war started, Shen Xi has always taken the initiative in the situation and grasped the opportunity everywhere.

The speed of the reinforcements of the Franc machine came to the battlefield very quickly, and the civil fort itself was not big, but it was a small castle one mile wide and two miles long, and this kind of fortress abounded in the northwest, if it were not for the change of the civil fort that changed the history of the Ming Dynasty, this kind of small city was not worthy of attention at all.

The Tatar cavalry killed at high speed, and suddenly increased the pressure on the Ming army's military formation, and the Tatar cavalry in the military formation, like a small strong that could not be killed, rode on the horse and rushed left and right, the Ming soldiers lacked cooperation, left and right block, but they could not quickly destroy the enemy, once the enemy should be combined with the outside, the destruction of the Ming army seemed to be in the middle of the day.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

The sound of artillery salvos sounded earth-shatteringly, and this time there were no longer just ten guns on one side, but a salvo of twenty guns at a time, and the power was amazing.

The spearmen and swords of the Ming army, waving the weapons in their hands, fought a bloody battle with the Tatar soldiers and horses led by Huo Ayaqin, and the 3,000 Tatar reinforcements from a distance had rushed to the Ming army's formation.

Shells flew over the heads of the Ming army from time to time, no matter in which direction, you could hear the rumbling sound, the sound of horses' hooves, shouting and killing, screams, and sorrowful screams were intertwined, and the west gate of the civil fort became a sea of blood.

After two volleys of artillery, the Tatar cavalry reinforcements were already less than a mile away from the Ming army's military formation, and if there was no next move, even if the Tatars had lost more than 1,000 cavalry, they could still rely on the remaining men and horses to break the Ming army's military formation.

At this moment, Hu Songyue led reinforcements, and at some point appeared from the rear of the enemy's reinforcements.

"Boom, boom!"

Explosions continued to sound in the distance, but this time it was no longer the movement caused by the explosion of the shells fired by the artillery, but the mule and donkey suicide team driven by Hu Songyue was attacking the Tatar reinforcements in the form of suicide attacks.

The men and horses under Hu Songyue's command were not a regular cavalry team, except for fifty cavalrymen and two hundred horsemen, the rest were all mules and donkeys.

These livestock now have torches tied behind their tails, carrying explosive packs on their backs in the north, and after the battle, they light the fuses of torches and explosive packs, and the livestock can only rush forward because of the pain and fear of being burned by the fire, and the Tatar reinforcements and horses thought that this was some kind of powerful cavalry team, and when they got closer, they found that it was a burning mule and donkey, and the impact was so powerful that it could not be stopped.

As soon as the two sides fought, there was a constant sound of gunpowder explosions, and the cattle and Tatar cavalry were blown up at the same time, and the dust and sand raised obscured the sky and the sun, and from time to time the neighing of mules and donkeys, who did not know what it meant to retreat, but rushed in one direction, chasing the buttocks of the Tatar cavalry, and in this short pursuit, the donkeys and mules were not much slower than the Tatar cavalry.

When the Tatars found out that the animals were burning explosives and tried to get away, they found them everywhere, and they exploded around them, and then fell to the ground with bloody eyes.

The Ming Dynasty did not have that much supply of horses, but the supply of mules and donkeys had always been abundant, and they were originally only used for transportation, but now they were all turned into weapons used by Shen Xi on the battlefield.

"Kill!"

The arrival of Tatar reinforcements did not immediately turn the Tatars into victory, on the contrary, the situation of the war became more complicated.

The Tatar cavalry and the Ming infantry, firecrackers, crossbowmen, and the burning livestock suicide squad were almost all mixed together, and in the exchange of soldiers and horses, it was impossible to distinguish between friend and foe, only that the mule and horse team constantly screamed and exploded.

"Charge!"

Shen Xi gave the order for a general attack.

Shen Xi knew that if the war situation continued to develop and the Ming army weakened, the number of deserters would increase significantly, so it was better to take advantage of the chaotic battle now and order the three armies to launch a counterattack.

In this chaotic situation, the superiority of the Tatar cavalry was gone, and it became a battle in which the brave won in a narrow way. (To be continued.) )