At dawn, the trumpets and drums on the central Zhejiang Plain rose one after another, and a long red dragon rolled and surged, steadily advancing towards the Qing army camp in front.

Two sky-piercing roars shattered the silence. Wang Xinyu, who was riding a sweaty and bloody horse, looked up, but saw that it was two Hai Dongqing hovering over his team, guiding the position of the Ming army for the Qing army in the distance.

Hai Dongqing is a kind of divine eagle raised by the Manchurians, and the trained Hai Dongqing is a reconnaissance plane of this era, which can find the position of the opponent's army and guide its own direction.

The Qing army has Hai Dongqing, but Wang Xinyu has a reconnaissance weapon in his hand but has not yet taken it out, that is, a hot air balloon belonging to the artillery unit. Wang Xinyu has never used hot air balloons before, in order to maintain mystery. It is enough to have a night guard and various intelligence officers, and there is no need to use the observation method of hot air balloons for the time being.

In the future, there will be more time to use hot air balloons, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuchang, Xiangyang, Beijing and other fortified cities, the city walls are extremely high, and the moat is very wide, the Ming army can not build a nest car that exceeds the height of the city wall, and at that time it can only rely on hot air balloons to observe the movement in the city.

The height of the walls of these fortified cities in the world is more than five zhang, and the city wall of Nanjing has even reached a perverted six zhang. According to historical records, the city wall of Beijing is ten zhang high. In fact, it is not so tall, and the ancients liked to use exaggerated techniques, such as saying that Zheng Hebao was forty-four zhang long, but in fact it was not that long. According to the description of the length of the Dutch warship in the Battle of Liaoluo Bay, the historical records say that the Hongmao warship was thirty zhang long and as tall as a mountain. In fact, this 30 zhang is only about 50 meters long, and the displacement is in the 6 or 700 ton class. From this, it is estimated that Zheng He's treasure ship should be 60 to 80 meters long and has a displacement of between 1,300 and 2,000 tons, which was already the highest level of shipbuilding in that era.

The city wall of Beijing, recorded in the history books as ten zhang high, is actually less than twenty meters, that is, six to seven zhang.

And how high can the nest car, that is, the watchtower car, be built? It's about five feet to the sky, and if it's high, it's expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it's not cost-effective to build that thing.

In other words, it is difficult to build a nest car higher than those fortified cities in the world, so at that time it will have to rely on hot air balloons.

Although the hot air balloon has not yet been used, the surrounding night guards are very conscientious, and can send the movements of the Qing army back to the Chinese army in the first time.

Small groups of Mongol cavalry appeared around the marching ranks of the Ming army, poking their heads into the formation of the Ming army's infantry. Although the Mongol cavalry could not nibble at the Ming heavy infantry formations with pikemen, ironclad soldiers, and long sword soldiers, they could harass them with bows and arrows from a distance. This kind of harassment may seem like a pain, but it can have a huge impact on morale.

A hurried sound of horses' hooves sounded, and the dragoons and personal guards of the Qiongzhou army appeared, and they rushed in the direction of the Mongolian cavalry to disperse the Mongolian cavalry of the Qing army.

Approaching the position of more than 80 paces away from the Mongol cavalry, the dragoons turned over and dismounted one by one, took off their long-barreled flintlock pistols or compound bows, and fired arrows at the Mongols. A platoon of gunfire rang out, and several Mongol cavalrymen fell off their horses.

Several brave soldiers of the Eight Banners rushed over on horseback, trying to fight back with bows and arrows. But halfway through, before they could reach the range of their cavalry bows, the Mongols were shot into hedgehogs.

"Let's go!" Seeing that the situation was not good, the Mongol cavalry galloped away.

The guards rode in pursuit, and with the latest pulley recurve compound bow, which had a long range and could be easily drawn on horseback, they shot a few arrows, and killed several Mongol cavalrymen, and then stopped the pursuit, and turned their horses back to the sides of the infantry phalanx.

Riding a Don hippopotamus, equipped with a pulley recurve compound bow, wearing fine steel armor, with a thunderbolt around his waist, and equipped with the finest sabers, the pro-guards were definitely the most sophisticated light cavalry of this era, although the impact was not as good as the heavy cavalry, but against the Mongol archers who were good at using Mangu tactics, these pro-guards were the best weapons of great destruction.

The Mongols were unable to use their mangu tactics when they encountered the dragoons and the personal guards, because the range was inferior to that of men, and they were inferior to men in hand-to-hand combat, in short, they were completely suppressed.

What if there were too many Mongol cavalry? It was also very simple, the dragoons and the pro-guards only had to attract the Mongols to their infantry phalanx, and the Mongol cavalry archers would never dare to shoot at the infantry.

The reason why the pro-soldiers and guards did not chase and fight fiercely was also because they were worried that the Mengbaqi cavalry would attract them to their ambush circle.

From time to time, Mongol cavalry appeared around the Ming infantry phalanx, but as soon as they appeared, they were driven away by dragoons and pro-guards. The two sides fought for a while, strictly speaking, one-sided shooting, the dragoons and the pro-soldiers and guards shot like targets, and Meng Baqi did not even hurt a single hair of the Ming army, but he lost more than 20 people.

The Mongolian cavalry leader Bao Lide was extremely depressed, and the more than 360 people he led were originally harassing the Ming army from a long distance to reduce the morale of the Ming army. However, the opponent's cavalry has a very long range of bows and arrows, the armor on their bodies is like the armor of a red-haired ghost, and the horses they ride are like the horses of the Rakshasas.

Fortunately, if the Mongol cavalry rushed close and fired with their cavalry bows, then they would face the thunderbolts of the pro-guards and dragoons, and there would be more than 20 casualties.

Seeing the "four-wheeled cannons" moving in his direction from a distance, Bao Lide broke out in a cold sweat and ordered his cavalry to quickly leave.

However, the Ming army's flying cavalry artillery and dragoons cooperated with each other, that is, to scare the Mongol cavalry, and did not intend to really catch up and annihilate them in one fell swoop. The task of dragoons and flying artillery is to protect the infantry, not to break away from the large ranks and go deep into pursuit of the enemy alone.

The infantry of the Ming army advanced steadily with the cooperation of cavalry, and approached the Qing army camp little by little.

After driving away the Mongolian cavalry archers, Wang Yuyou did not feel arrogant, he knew very well that the combat effectiveness of the Mongolian cavalry was far inferior to the Manchu Eight Banners that had not yet gained strength in the rear of the Qing army. Nonsense, if the Mongols were more powerful than the Manchu Eight Banners, how could they be beaten all over the ground by the old slave and Huang Taiji, and finally chose to return to Shun. Manchu Eight Banners, that is the real elite of the Qing army, although the Manchu Eight Banners that have been in the customs for more than ten years have degraded a lot, but their combat effectiveness is still stronger than that of the Mongols.

Wang Xinyu called Gong Xiaoda, the chief soldier of Artillery Town, pointed to the forest in front of him and said, "We are about to advance to Weng Village, do you see the forest in front?" ”

Gong Xiaoda nodded, indicating that he already understood.

"The Tartars ambushed the cavalry there! Just want to give us a moment when we pass by! You bombard that woods for me and blast the Tartars out for me!" Wang Xinyu pointed to the woods.

When the Ming army arrived at a mile from the woods, they stopped marching, the infantry formed a formation, the cavalry flanks were on guard, and the gunners were busy, untying the mules and horses that had tied the artillery carriages, setting up cannons, and aiming the muzzles of the black holes at the woods in front. The gunners began to nervously reload gunpowder and shells, and the igniters lit the torches.

In the woods, there were more than 2,000 cavalry of the Qing army full of eight banners in ambush, and they only waited for the Ming army to pass the main road in front of them, and then they suddenly rushed out and caught the Ming army by surprise.

But who knew that the Ming army was still a mile away from the woods, so it suddenly stopped advancing.

A leader of the Eight Banners said in confusion: "It's strange, why didn't Minggou go forward?" ”

Another Eight Banners leader was also puzzled: "Seeing that Minggou is about to enter our ambush circle, they don't move forward, what the hell are they doing?" ”

These cavalrymen of the Eight Banners did not have binoculars in their hands, and if they had a telescope, they could see that the gunners in the middle of the Ming army's large array were ready, and the muzzles of the guns were aimed at the woods where they were hiding.

"Fire!" Gong Xiaoda gave an order.

The mortar shook the small flag in the commander's hand vigorously: "Fire!" ”

The explosive power of a flowering cannonball weighing 32 pounds and filled with about 15 pounds of black [gunpowder] is not trivial, and the explosive power of a shell is equivalent to the power of a 75-millimeter shell during World War II. Moreover, this flowering shell is also a special personnel anti-personnel shell, which is filled with iron balls, and after the explosion, the iron balls shoot out in all directions.

The igniter, who was responsible for lighting the shell, first put the torch into the muzzle, lit the fuse on the flowering shell, and quickly left. The igniter, who was standing in the back, picked up the torch and stabbed it at the end of the mortar, only to hear a dull roar, and the muzzle of the cannon flashed, spitting out a cloud of white smoke.

A mortar cannon exploded one after another, and the shells rose into the air, arcing in the air and smashing down into the woods a mile away.

"The barbarians have opened fire on us!" The Eight Banners soldiers hiding in the woods shouted in horror.

"Get on board! Rush out! A leader jumped up, pulled up the war horse squatting on the ground, and flew on the horse in a blink of an eye, and with a fierce wave of the horsewhip, the war horse rushed out of the woods in pain.

The movements of the Eight Banners were still very fast, and when they heard the sound of cannonballs and saw the cannonballs flying towards the woods where they were hiding, they jumped on their horses and tried to escape from the woods.

Mortar shells fly very slowly, and the shells, which can be seen by the naked eye, rise to the highest point and then fall to the ground. But the shells looked slow, and the speed was still much faster than that of men and horses. Before the Eight Banners could rush out of the woods, the shells had already fallen in the woods and exploded.

"Boom" A series of explosions sounded, and the flowering shells exploded into huge fireballs, and the waves of air swept through, and the sharp fragments toppled the big trees with thick bowls to the ground. In the exploding shells, iron beads flew horizontally, hitting people and horses, and immediately swept a bloody rain in the woods, many Eight Banner soldiers were swept up by the air waves, some were torn to pieces by shrapnel, and some people were beaten into a hornet's nest by the iron beads that came like a torrential rain.

Even if you have two layers of cotton armor on your body, it won't help, and you can't resist the powerful energy of the explosion of the flowering cannonball. Shrapnel and iron balls easily pierced cotton armor and tore the human body. (To be continued.) )