On the right flank of the Mochu coalition army, Shu Prisoner Mi looked at the rising gunpowder smoke from his own position, and took out his binoculars to observe the gap in the dense phalanx of the Wei and Han coalition forces opposite.

Several officers said with a smile: "The comrades of the artillery are getting more and more accurate, I remember that when we fought with the Tian clan a few years ago, the artillery had not been so accurate." At that time, I was afraid that the shells would fall on my head. ”

The rumbling sound of artillery could not hide the cavalry's ridicule of the artillery of a few years ago.

Today's artillery is still using a very simple protractor, using a plumb sinker and a rope as a baseline, inserting a simple protractor into the gun hole, and calculating the angle of the muzzle after the plumb sinker and perpendicular line are stable.

They don't need a lot of calculations, and the artillery officers are very good at nine numbers, but the average artilleryman mainly looks up the meter, like a rote method, to determine the angle of the muzzle and the distance of the attack.

Relying only on the amount of charge and adjusting the angle, although rudimentary, it is still better than the opposite artillery with everything by feeling and experience.

What's more, on the opposite side of the right flank of the Mochu coalition army, no copper cannons were deployed.

After the appearance of the copper cannons, the battle was generally always started by the copper cannons of both sides.

Based on the experience of the captive, in the first hour, both sides will choose to bombard, slowly adjust their formations, and wait for one side to attack because they can't withstand the shelling, or wait for one side to attack when they feel that the opportunity has come.

Generally speaking, after the shelling, their cavalry would soon launch a tentative attack.

But the first tentative offensive will not be them, but another active cavalry brigade.

This time, a total of two active cavalry brigades and this conscripted cavalry brigade of Shu Prisoner Mi participated in the battle, and all three brigades were "cavalry not martial knights" in the sequence of Sishang Yishi.

Although they were all cavalrymen who were not martial knights, the three brigades were different.

The cavalry of the brigade at the front may be able to afford some in Sishang, but the other princes will definitely not be able to raise it.

The cavalry of that brigade was each equipped with three short guns, and because it was difficult for the cavalry to gallop when the battle was approaching, they had to rely on reloading in advance and making up for it.

These short guns are very expensive, and a brigade needs to be equipped with nearly 5,000 guns, which is a huge expense.

Of course, this configuration is not based on the infantry of the Sishang Yishi as an imaginary enemy, but obviously with the vassal states of Wei and Han, which attach importance to the heavy infantry of the phalanx, as the imaginary enemy.

The advent of musket gunpowder has led countries to try new formations, and many of the old formations are no longer suitable for the times.

Wei Han chose to rely on the original phalanx heavy infantry advantage and use musketeers to cooperate with the phalanx.

And the cavalry attacking the heavy infantry phalanx is basically a dead end, if those elite training warrior knights are okay, it is unlikely that these cavalry will charge directly.

Therefore, the brigade was equipped with a short gun, and took advantage of the maneuver to shoot three shots at the enemy when it was close to the enemy's infantry phalanx, and of course there was no chance to reload after the fight, so it stuck the short gun into the waist and took out an iron sword and iron knife to attack.

If you can open the gap, you can rush in, and as long as you rush in, the step formation will disperse.

And if all three short guns are finished, and the enemy's infantry still does not appear a gap, but continues to maintain high morale, then it can be retreated......

In the presence of foot archers and foot musketeers, cavalry fire was given to the infantry.

The other brigade was not as generous as the one, each man was armed with only one short gun, and he had only one chance to be in battle.

However, they have the cooperation of the foot knights, generally the two wings are sandwiched by the foot knights, and after taking advantage of the maneuver to make a quick detour, the foot knights dismount and shoot in formation, and the cavalry brigades on both wings immediately move forward to fill the gap and impact once.

On the way to the charge, the foot knights will quickly reload, and if the cavalry opens a gap, they will support them with fire; If they did not rush away from the other side but retreated, they needed a salvo to cover the retreat of the cavalry.

When it was the turn of the re-recruited cavalry, such as the prisoners, the equipment was much worse, and they had a leather armor and an iron sword, and nothing else.

They can't compare to the martial knights, and those martial knights have iron armor; Compared to these regular cavalry of non-martial knights, they can't compare.

That's why there are always people complaining, joking that they are all cavalrymen, and martial knights are the eldest sons; The remaining cavalry in active service is the youngest son; These re-conscripted cavalrymen were concubines, not born of concubines who were married, but by nobles who were drunk and born to slaves.

The prisoner heard a lot about this kind of complaint, but he also heard some rumors, and it was said that there were some disagreements about what the cavalry should do.

Needless to say, the martial knights are too difficult to train, and the number is too small, and the large group of horse-owned farmers in Sishang can ensure a sufficient number of irregular cavalry.

In what way should these cavalrymen fight? There are different opinions among the top and middle ranks of the military.

It is said that it should cost a lot of money, and each person should be equipped with three short guns; It is said that the short gun should be abandoned, and only the sword should be equipped; It is said that it should be equipped with two short guns, like foot soldiers, using the formation to switch shots and run to the back to load; It is also said that it should be equipped with a spear and a sword, and the spear is disposable, and it is used when rushing into battle, and the sword is thrown away after the impact......

Everyone seemed to have a point, and they insisted on their own words and argued endlessly, and there was a situation where the equipment of the three cavalry brigades sent here this time was different.

Shu Prisoner Mi didn't like cavalry with short guns very much, because he thought that such words were like those Hu cavalry that he had often dealt with in Takayanagi before.

It's just that the Hu cavalry used bows, and Si Shang's side was replaced with a short gun, and he didn't think the effect was good.

Of course, the short bow can't shoot far, but the short bow is the same, it is immediately bumpy, it is difficult to shoot, and it is easy to shoot back and forth so that the cavalry dare not fight hand-to-hand.

He always felt that the cavalry should be outflanked, detoured, circled or when there was a gap, and used impact and hand-to-hand combat to open the gap and defeat the opponent.

Besides, he felt that now that there were flint guns in Sishang, the cavalry gave up impact and hand-to-hand combat and chose to shoot at the foot soldiers, which was not self-defeating?

However, the reality is so helpless, if you choose to confront the military formation of Sishang, the cavalry and archery tactics will definitely not work, and you will be directly shot by the infantry in Sishang to collapse.

But if it is against Wei Han's infantry phalanx, which lacks musketeers, it seems that this kind of cavalry with short guns looking for opportunities to open the gap is still somewhat useful.

Thinking of this, Shu Prisoner Qi looked at the Chu soldiers in the Chinese army, shook his head in his heart, and said secretly: "According to the rules of Sishang, it has always been about the cooperation of infantry and cavalry artillery. The cavalry first charged the opponent to form a formation, and after forming a formation, they used artillery bombardment or infantry fire, and then rushed after they were scattered, and then shot again after forming a formation...... But if you rely on the cooperation of these Chu troops, I am afraid it will not work. ”

In addition, he also felt that the artillery of the Chu people was too small.

These artillery companies supported by the Mohists were basically deployed in front of the formation by the allied commanders, and in the Sishang Yi Division, almost every regular infantry brigade would be equipped with three small cannons to follow the infantry movements. Except in exceptional cases, it was not subordinate to a separate artillery command.

Before that, there was a saying in the world that the so-called commander-in-chief of the three armies refers to the left, center and right armies, while in Sishang there is a saying that the commander of the five armies, the so-called infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering, and boat, each of which is divided into arms.

After muttering in his heart, the captive was bored.

Now the first hour of the war was boring and bloody, and it was impossible for either side to attack at once, but to let the copper cannons bombard it for a while.

The soldiers on both sides endured the sound of artillery, and after watching the corpses of their comrades fall to the ground, they filled the gaps in the formation under the urging of the drums and maintained the neatness of the formation.

It can be said that the first hour of the battle is a competition of discipline.

Whoever lacks discipline to withstand the shelling, who lacks patience to launch the attack first, and whose military formation is the first to move and there is a gap, will be passive.

Fortunately, the enemy army facing the right flank of the Mochu coalition where the prisoner was located did not have artillery, and there was no other weapon to attack at such a distance except artillery.

The direction of the copper artillery on both sides is the Chinese army, but it is obvious that the artillery quality on the side of the Mochu coalition army is superior, and the artillery on the side of Wei and Han is already less, so it does not have any advantage at all.

At one hour in the middle of the day, the shelling, which had lasted for an hour, continued.

There were already gaps in the Chinese armies on both sides, some of which had been filled by subsequent soldiers, and some of which were still empty.

The extremely bored Shu prisoner finally waited for a long-awaited drum, this is the drum of the whole army forward, it seems that the great Sima of the Chu State is ready to try to get close to the Wei and Han army formations.

In fact, the great Sima of Chu State not only prepared the whole army to move forward, but used the advantage of artillery bombardment to make the illusion of attacking on the whole front, using the forward advance as a cover, and moved a part of the foot soldiers deployed on the second line to the right flank.

Because the formation of the new army of Chu is a bit like the formation of the period after the Moxi-Vietnam War in Sishang, the number of musketeers is larger, so the front is longer.

Now the length is equal, and in fact, part of the forces of the Mochu coalition army is deployed in the rear.

The plan of the Great Sima of Chu did not change, taking advantage of the fact that there were more cavalry on the right flank and less infantry, which determined that the right flank would move faster, so that it was easy to move forward from the central army, causing the line of the Mochu coalition army to skew to the right front.

Under this characteristic, it is possible to mobilize a part of the Chinese infantry of the second line to move to the right flank, so as to make up for the strength of the right flank in the rear and form superior forces on the right flank.

Once the opportunity came, after the cavalry began to detour under the cover of the north wind and gunsmoke, the right flank could launch an attack, so that the left flank of the Wei and Han coalition forces had no chance to adjust their formation.

If the detour is fast enough, there will be no time to make Chinese support or adjust the deployment when the Wei and Han coalition forces find out, and the only thing that can be used is the elite warrior knights of Wei and Han to support their left flank.

As long as Wei Han's martial knights were mobilized to the left flank, the safety of his own left flank, which was the only concern of Chu Da Sima, would be guaranteed.

If the infantry on the right flank can also have an advantage, then as long as a small breakthrough can be obtained, it can continue to expand and create fighters.

If Wei Han was to guard against the frontal infantry, he would not have the extra strength to guard against the roundabout cavalry; If you guard against roundabout cavalry, then the infantry facing head-on will be easy to break through by the Chu army.

The movement speed of the Wei Han army formation was the biggest shortcoming, and it was also the shortcoming that Chu Da Sima wanted to take advantage of.

With the sound of drums on the side of the Mochu coalition army, the Wei and Han coalition forces, which had endured the bombardment of superior copper artillery for an hour, also began to make formation adjustments.