On the tenth day of the second month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the 50,000 elites led by the king of Dongwu approached the Wulahe area in a mighty manner.

At two o'clock, on the avenue only about a mile away from the ambush of the Ming army, more than a dozen groups of healthy horses suddenly ran at a high speed, and they were immediately Dongwu spies.

The spies sped by, merely scanning their surroundings with their eyes, and finding nothing out of the ordinary.

At three o'clock, in the mountain range where the Ming army was ambushed, there were seven or eight Dongwu people, who walked like flying in the forest, light as apes.

They came and went as fast as they could......

As Qin Shuhuai expected, because the mountain range is too long, the place is too big, and the vegetation is extremely vigorous, if you want to search this mountain range comprehensively, I am afraid that at least tens of thousands of people will have to be mobilized, and it may not be possible to search it for a few days and nights.

So it was impossible for these few people to do a full-fledged search, all they could do was search the most suspicious places, and pass around the rest of the place—at most, to observe whether there was any sign of the army passing.

And the place where the Ming army was ambushed, the geographical location was not the best, and it was naturally "passed by".

In addition, the kung fu of the thick earth flag camouflage is first-class, so it is strange that these "passing by" spies can find out.

At six o'clock, on the avenue a mile away, an endless Dongwu army finally appeared.

From the long binoculars, Qin Shuhuai couldn't help frowning after seeing this Dongwu army.

The march of this army was highly disciplined, and the ranks were in four rows, neat and orderly.

At the very front of the army was a cavalry unit, about five thousand in number. At least two thousand of these cavalrymen were heavily armoured, and the knights all held their heads high and their eyes were awe-inspiring, and at first glance they were battle-hardened elites.

Behind the cavalry, there were elephant soldiers that Qin Shuhuai saw for the first time.

The elephants looked very formidable, first of all, the elephants were covered in armor made of cotton with metal scales attached to the cotton, and each elephant had two soldiers with shields, spears, and bows and arrows on their backs.

In this way, before the two sides come into close contact, the soldiers on the elephant can use their bows and arrows to condescendingly create long-range strike capabilities, and after getting close, they can rely on the elephant's huge body and strength to rush back and forth in the enemy formation, and the combat effectiveness cannot be said to be terrifying.

It is said that when ordinary war horses see elephant soldiers, they are often frightened and even run away.

And such elephant soldiers, roughly estimated, are about 800 - divided into two camps, of which 400 are behind the cavalry, and the other 400 are about a mile back, but the overall is still in the forefront of the 50,000 army, probably because they are afraid that if they put their heads last, the elephant soldiers will trample on their own people.

Eight hundred elephant soldiers, this is already a terrible number, you must know that an elephant is very food-intensive, and an elephant needs to pay much more training time than a war horse to become a war elephant.

Behind the war elephants are shield soldiers, pikemen, swordsmen, crossbowmen, archers, artillerymen and other troops. Some are grouped together in a phalanx, while others are spread out separately as needed - for example, shield soldiers are mostly concentrated on both sides of the team for defense.

Overall, this is a strong enough army that it is not just a matter of luck that King Talong was able to unify Dongwu and implement reforms by forceful means.

When the Dongwu army appeared, the Ming army on the mountain a mile away also began to set up artillery.

The reason is very simple, because in the past, all the cannons were dismantled and hidden, and if they were erected from the beginning, the probability of being discovered would be very high.

However, the Ming army has time, after all, if the 50,000 army wants to pass, it will take at least half an hour.

In fact, it took only two quarters of an hour for the Ming army to set up the artillery, and at this time only about a third of the Dongwu army had passed.

Zhang Xiao found Qin Shuhuai and told him that the cannon was ready.

Qin Shuhuai ordered to fire the cannon immediately, and all the artillery fire was prioritized to bombard the elephant herd, and then blow up this group of scary-looking things.

The order was given quickly, and the Ming army opened fire.

"Boom, boom!"

Two hundred Hongyi cannons fired in unison, and the deafening sound echoed through the mountains, like a monster roaring.

The people who controlled the cannon were all experts, so even though it was the first time to fire in unison, they still maintained a certain level of accuracy.

The two elephant battalions of the Dongwu army were bombarded with about thirty or forty shells each.

The elephant soldiers on the march were naturally very densely formed, and these thirty or forty shells bombarded down, and they exploded on the spot.

Woo~~ Boom!

Cannonballs whistled, then exploded ferociously.

The soft ground was blasted into large craters, and the splashed soil was three or five people high, and the effect was extremely shocking.

At the same time as the soil, there were also elephant stumps, flesh and blood, and the black soldiers of the elephant cave that were blown away.

Boom Boom!

For a while, the camp of the black elephant soldiers exploded everywhere, and the dust, gunsmoke and blood mist that were raised covered almost everything, and countless large pits were formed in an instant, like a monster with a bloody mouth open, devouring the elephant soldiers who were also behemoths one by one.

The violent explosion brought not only casualties, but also fear.

Elephants are inherently frightened animals, and when huge explosions keep blowing around them, when large swaths of their kind keep falling, when bloody stumps and broken limbs fly everywhere, when there are bursts of pain on their bodies, the elephant herd is really in chaos!

"Woo!woo~"

One by one, the war elephants whined lowly, then dragged their bulky, massive bodies and ran around like crazy.

As a result, the surrounding cave soldiers suffered.

Elephants are running around, this is a catastrophic event that even lions have to run, let alone people.

And people, obviously, can't run as fast as a lion.

When an elephant is frightened or angry, it can run at a speed of up to 24 kilometers per hour, while a human can run at a speed of 10 kilometers per hour, not to mention in a dense formation, it is not so easy to disperse in an instant.

As a result, countless cave soldiers were trampled and collided with by the crazy elephant herd, and the scene was very tragic.

The situation escalated further by stampede between soldiers and soldiers in order to avoid the elephants.

At this moment, the two hundred artillery pieces of the Ming army began a second round of shelling, which was more accurate and made the scene even worse.

After three rounds of shelling, almost all the elephants in Dongwu were destroyed.

At least the average war elephant was killed, and the other half of the elephants were also wounded, either losing their ability to move, or running wildly everywhere, trampling on the Dongwu soldiers.

And the artillery fire of the Ming army was no longer aimed at the war elephants, but extended to the Dongwu soldiers.

Wherever there is a dense number of black soldiers, they will bombard.

Soon, the entire road was bombed and covered with bomb craters, and the road was littered with the corpses of the Wuwu soldiers and the wounded soldiers lying on the ground wailing and groaning.

After three rounds of artillery fire, the Dong Wu soldiers finally managed to evacuate.