East Factory Governor

Chapter 813
On the tenth day of February in the eighth year of Chongzhen, [-] elite troops led by King Dongwu approached the Wulahe area in a mighty manner.

At the second quarter of Yin time, on the avenue only about one mile away from the ambush site of the Ming army, a dozen groups of healthy horses suddenly ran past at high speed, and immediately they were Dongwu spies.

These spies flew past, just scanned the surrounding environment with their eyes, and found nothing unusual.

At the third quarter of Yin time, seven or eight Dongwu people appeared in the mountains where the Ming army's ambush was located. They walked like flying in the forest, and they were as light as apes.

They came quickly and left quickly...

As Qin Shuhuai expected, because the mountains are too long and the area is too big, and the vegetation is extremely lush, if you want to search the mountains comprehensively, at least tens of thousands of people will be mobilized, and it may take days and nights to search clearly.

Therefore, it is impossible to do a comprehensive search with these few people alone. All they can do is to search in detail in the most suspicious places, and pass through other places—at most, to observe whether there is any trace of the passing of the army.

The location where the Ming army ambushed was not the best, so it was naturally "passed by".

In addition, Houtuqi's camouflage skills are top-notch, so it's strange that these "passing by" spies can find it.

At six quarters of Yin time, on the main road one mile away, finally appeared the endless Dongwu army.

Through the binoculars, Qin Shuhuai couldn't help frowning when he saw the Dongwu army.

This army marched with strict discipline, and the team lined up in four rows, neat and orderly.

At the forefront of the army is a cavalry unit, about [-] in number.At least [-] of these cavalry were equipped with heavy armor, and all the knights on horseback held their heads high, their eyes awe-inspiring, and they looked like elites who had been battle-hardened.

Behind the cavalry is the elephant soldier that Qin Shuhuai saw for the first time.

Dongwu elephant soldiers look very powerful. First of all, the elephants are covered with armor made of cotton with metal scales attached to the cotton. There are two soldiers on each elephant. These two soldiers have shields and long spears. Spears, and bows and arrows.

In this way, before the two sides come into close contact, the soldiers on the elephant can use bows and arrows to create long-range strike capabilities condescendingly, and after getting close, they can rely on the elephant's huge body and strength to rush back and forth in the enemy's formation. The combat power is impossible. It's not scary.

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

And such elephant soldiers, roughly estimated, there are about [-] or so-divided into two camps, of which [-] are behind the cavalry, and the other [-] are about a mile behind, but the overall number is still [-]. It may be that if you put it at the end, the elephant soldiers will trample on their own people if they rush up.

Eight hundred elephant soldiers, this is already a terrible number. One must know that an elephant consumes a lot of food, and for an elephant to become a war elephant, it needs far more training time than a war horse.

Behind the war elephants are shield soldiers, pikemen, swordmen, crossbowmen, archers, artillery and other arms.Some are concentrated in one square formation, while others are scattered separately according to needs—for example, shield soldiers are mostly concentrated on both sides of the team for defense.

Generally speaking, this is a strong enough army. It was not just luck that King Talong was able to unify Dongwu and implement reforms with tough measures.

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

Why start shooting now?The reason is very simple, because the cannons were all dismantled and hidden for concealment. If they were erected at the beginning, the probability of being discovered would be very high.

However, the Ming army had plenty of time. After all, it would take at least half an hour for a [-] army to pass through.

In fact, it only took the Ming army two quarters of an hour to set up the cannon, and at this time the Dongwu army only passed about one-third of the way.

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

Qin Shuhuai gave the order to fire the artillery immediately, and all the artillery fire was focused on bombarding the elephant herd first, before we scattered these scary-looking creatures.

The order was issued quickly, and the Ming army fired.

"Boom boom boom!"

Two hundred Hongyi cannons were fired at once, and the deafening sound echoed in the mountains, like a monster roaring.

Those who manipulated the cannons were all experts, so even though it was the first salvo, they still maintained a certain degree of accuracy.

The two camps of the elephant soldiers of the Dongwu Army were bombed by about thirty or forty shells.

The formation of the elephant soldiers on the march was naturally very dense, and the thirty or forty shells bombarded them, and they exploded on the spot.

Woo~~Boom!
The shells roared, and then exploded violently.

Big holes were blown out of the soft ground, and the splashed soil was as high as three or five people. The effect was extremely shocking.

At the same time as the soil was splashed, there were elephant stumps, flesh and blood, and the black soldiers on the elephants that were blown away.

Boom boom boom!
For a time, the Dongwu elephant soldiers camp exploded everywhere, and the dust, gunpowder smoke and blood mist almost covered everything. Countless large pits were formed in an instant, like a monster with its bloody mouth wide open, and the elephant soldiers who were also huge monsters were smashed one by one. to devour.

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

Elephants are easily frightened animals. When huge explosions continue to explode around them, when large pieces of their own kind continue to fall, when bloody fragments of limbs fly around, and when there are bursts of pain on their bodies, The elephant herd is in chaos!

"Woo! Woo~"

The war elephants wailed lowly, and then dragged their bulky and huge bodies, and ran around like crazy.

In this way, the surrounding Dongwu soldiers will suffer.

Elephants running wild 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, its running speed can reach 24 kilometers per hour, while the running speed of a human is only 10 kilometers per hour, not to mention that in a dense formation, it is not so easy to disperse instantly.

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

In order to avoid the herd of elephants, soldiers trampled on each other, further escalating the situation.

At this time, the two hundred artillery pieces of the Ming army started the second round of shelling. This round of shelling was more precise, making the scene even worse.

After three rounds of bombardment, Dongwu's elephant soldiers were almost completely destroyed.

At least the average and above war elephants were killed, and the other half of the war elephants were also wounded. They either lost their ability to move, or they ran around and trampled on the Dongwu soldiers wantonly.

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

Wherever the cave black soldiers are dense, they will bombard them.

Soon, the entire road was bombarded densely with bomb craters, and the road was strewn with corpses of black soldiers, as well as wounded soldiers lying on the ground wailing and moaning.

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

(End of this chapter)