1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 129 [Flying Dragon Rides Face]

Persuasion is always a rare thing. Amijo will not be persuaded by Chavez, and it is even less likely to persuade Chavez.

But war is inevitable.

Even if the corrupt governor doesn't want to fight, he can only support his nephew and officers now, hoping to keep Santa Fe.

At least hold out until the reinforcements from the south arrive, although that doesn't sound like a good idea.

The battle began quickly, and General Carney's troops began their first round of attacks on the Mexican positions.

"For America!"

"Come on—"

With shouts, infantry and cavalry charged at the enemy, armed with their rifles, bayonets, and pistols.

"Fire!" The Mexican artillery lit the cannon fire.

"Boom-boom-boom!"

Accompanied by a few cannon shots, smoke and flames burst out among the U.S. troops, some soldiers were killed, and some cavalrymen fell off their horses.

Not to be outdone, the Americans also poured shells at each other. For a while, the battlefield was filled with thunder, gunpowder smoke, and of course blood.

The total number of artillery pieces on both sides was less than ten, and they were not advanced gadgets. Their accuracy, range, and power were quite limited, and the direct casualties were not many.

But the effect that artillery can produce is far from that of guns.

Only the blazing shells can create a shocking sound, fragmented corpses, and billowing gunpowder smoke quickly spread the atmosphere of death on the battlefield.

This is still largely the era of line infantry, although skirmish tactics have emerged.

For line infantry, advancing against artillery fire is the most basic combat quality.

If it is in later generations, it is undoubtedly a funny tactic to line up and shoot like this. The dense bullets and artillery will instantly crush the soldiers into meat.

But before the emergence of mature breech-loading guns and automatic weapons, the firepower on the battlefield was relatively sparse, and whether troops could withstand the firepower largely depended on morale.

As long as the morale of one side is firm enough to keep the formation intact in the rain of bullets, it is half the victory.

As most people expected, the morale of the Mexican army was not strong, or a little bit broken.

Many of them have no concept of "soldiers" at all, let alone think of themselves as soldiers, just a group of poorly trained militias and soldiers.

In their view, as a soldier, it is almost enough to stand in a queue at ordinary times, and it is unimaginable to actually fight your life on the battlefield.

So as the artillery fire continued to pour and the American army approached, many Mexican soldiers showed panic.

What's more terrible is that Americans basically use rifles, while the rifles equipped by Mexicans are mainly smoothbore guns, such as the brown bass that is being eliminated by the times.

Rifles have far greater range and accuracy than muskets.

Therefore, the vast majority of American soldiers can stand still and shoot at the enemy with bullets drawn from the rifle before they enter the firing range of Mexican soldiers.

"boom!"

"Bang bang bang-"

More and more shots were fired on the battlefield, most of them from the US military.

When the rain of bullets hit, the Mexican soldiers fell down one after another amidst the screams.

Not long after, deserters appeared in the Mexican army.

Deserters on the battlefield are often like a chain reaction. Once there is the first one, there will be a second and a third almost instantly... In the end, everyone will rush to escape.

In this atmosphere, no matter how brave soldiers are, they will lose their will to fight.

It only takes a short time for a few deserters to turn into a rout.

Now, the Mexican army is performing this process. The deserters are spreading at an alarming rate, and morale is about to collapse.

Seeing this scene, General Carney couldn't help but smile: "Haha, the Mexicans are still the same trash, Santa Fe is ours now!"

It seems that the Americans are already flying dragons on their faces, and they are sure to win.

However, what happened next was beyond Carney's expectations.

The young Mexican officer was obviously inexperienced and did not expect his side's defeat. Both Chavez and Archuleta were at a loss for a moment.

But soon they made a decision.

"Cavalrymen, take our new weapons and show them some color!" Chavez shouted, and then armed with both Browning pistols, the first cavalry took the lead and rushed towards the U.S. troops.

"Chavez!" Amijo was startled, but Chavez had already rushed out.

About five hundred cavalrymen followed, nearly every one of them carrying two Browning revolvers.

Under the leadership of Chavez, they rushed against the hail of bullets on the opposite side, and soon came within shooting distance.

"Bang! Bang bang!" Chavez fired both guns at the nearest enemy, "Go to hell, Yankee!"

"Bang bang bang!" The same was true for the cavalry. In less than half a minute, two or three thousand bullets were fired at the American forward troops.

The Americans were stunned on the spot.

They had never been subjected to such short bursts of fire, let alone such fire from the Mexicans.

In an instant, hundreds of U.S. troops were killed.

"God, what happened!"

"Help!" Seeing a large group of teammates suddenly fall in front of them, the soldiers with rifles didn't dare to reload and shoot, they all howled and fled back.

They also had revolvers, including Colts and Brownings, but obviously not as many as the Mexican side.

Moreover, since most of their pistols were purchased by soldiers at their own expense, they were not concentrated and scattered throughout the battlefield, unable to form a strong counterattack against Chavez's pistol cavalry troops.

So in almost 1 minute, the situation on the battlefield was reversed.

The U.S. Army rushed up, the U.S. Army began to attack, the morale of the Mexican Army plummeted, and the U.S. Army's victory was in sight-the U.S. Army began to flee!

"What's going on!" Seeing his own troops fleeing suddenly, General Carney was shocked and angry.

"It's a revolver!" Cook gritted his teeth. "Damn it, the Mexicans are equipped with at least a thousand revolvers!"

"They have it anyway!" Carney's voice trembled.

Donivan: "General, we must retreat quickly!"

"Retreat! Retreat!" General Carney had no choice but to order a retreat.

The Mexican army didn't give much chase either.

On the one hand, the cavalry led by Chavez lacked stamina, and it was quite troublesome to reload the revolver. After emptying a round of bullets on the battlefield, there was basically no chance to reload.

Another reason is that... the Mexican army itself was in flight.

Although Chavez led the cavalry to attack decisively and repelled the American army, the trend of his own rout has also taken shape, and a considerable number of soldiers are also fleeing.

As a result, a strange situation formed on the battlefield: the US army was retreating, and part of the Mexican army was also retreating.

Chavez and his cavalry stood in the center of the battlefield, looking around in a daze.

"Archuleta... we won the fight, right?" Chavez looked at Archuleta while clutching what appeared to be a bullet in the arm.

Archuleta looked around and said hesitantly, "It should be..."

(End of this chapter)