national surname chiming

Chapter 225 The Decisive Battle with Zhang Xianzhong - Part [-]

With the sparse volleys of guns, they failed to suppress the cannon fodder of the front team of Zhang Xianzhong's army surging up like a tide.Lu Datou's battalion soon fell into hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, with knives seeing blood and guns piercing flesh.

Two thousand strong veterans who were born as dock workers in Huangzhou have served Shen Shuren for three years.In the past three years, it was Shen Tongzhi, Shen Futai, Shen Daotai, and Shen Futai who gave them a way to survive.

Let their families have high-yield crops that they have never seen before, and give them overseas fish fry breeding with fewer fish bones and faster growth, so that they can, under the conditions of mere farmers and miners' families, be able to survive in this catastrophic year of the last days There is a mouthful of meat to eat during festivals.

At this moment, these soldiers were of course extremely brave, and they erupted into a unity that was absolutely impossible to see in other regions.

In Zhang Xianzhong's army, the general in charge of the [-] Huguang cannon fodder soldiers in the former army was Zhang Hualong who would have been the governor of the right army of the Daxi regime two years later.

This Hualong is not a strategic IQ, but he is also a strong general who runs the army strictly and prohibits orders.Fifteen thousand cannon fodder, under his encouragement and strict military law a while ago, now he is well-founded and dares to charge——

It's not that these soldiers are really brave, but that the mob can count heads anyway, and when they find that their own number is many times that of the enemy, they become more courageous.This bullying arrogance can continue until there is evidence to the contrary.

Zhang Hualong thought that even if he was blocked by sporadic firearms, as long as his troops rushed up, the officers and soldiers were always well-behaved and bloodless, and they would definitely be overwhelmed soon.

But the result was far beyond his expectation. The musketeers were rushed to the front without any fear at all, and continued to fight hand-to-hand with bayonets after shooting, and the positions were tight.

Even if some of the crossbowmen of Zhang Xianzhong's army did not hesitate to cover up and shoot by mistake, wounding and killing some musketeers, some comrades in the back row would immediately fill up their positions.

From the official to the guard, Lu Datou himself, and several of his subordinates who were former dock workers, Qian Zong, all brandished the long-handled battle ax used by the turtledove gunner, opening and closing like a mad tiger, and slashing in a whirlwind.

Ordinary soldiers are touched by the bravery of officers at all levels, and they are also united in the same hatred. Every stab penetrates both arms, and the strength is self-sufficient, from legs to waist, from shoulders to elbows. The bayonet skills of the past two years have not been practiced in vain.

"Pfft! Crack! Crash!" The bloody bayonet plunged into the flesh, and was pulled out with the sound of toothache. The sound effect that can only be heard in movies is repeated in real life at this moment.

During the bloody battle, many grassroots officers also unconsciously yelled frantically:
"God damn northern dog! Sue me to death! Brothers, avenge the fathers and fellow villagers who were massacred in Changsha! Don't let any dog ​​be a dog for Zhang Gou!"

"Bastards! You bastards! Why did you come to harm us! Brothers, all the folks are watching us! Don't let these bastards harm Huguang!"

Of course they are screaming indiscriminately, they don't have the idea of ​​"regional discrimination", and they don't have much culture, they just feel simple:
"Even if there are many disasters in the north and you can't survive, then you should ask the officials and landlords to settle accounts. Why did you come to the south to massacre the city and harm us poor people who could survive! It's not our fault that we can't survive! We in Shenfu They are living well under Tairen politics, so why should they be coerced and have no peace!"

Those who are a little more flexible in thinking will further hate: Even if there is oppression, there is resistance everywhere, can't you just rebel and separatist regimes on the spot!These days killing dogs and thieves, why do you want to "flow" and cause trouble everywhere!If you take [-] steps back, even if you want to die, you have a debt and a debt. You think the Chongzhen dog emperor can't do it, so let's go to Beijing!The excessive taxes levied in Shaanxi and Henan were all spent by the Beijing court!
Under the support of such thoughts, the officers and soldiers became more and more courageous and scrambled to be the first. Even if some soldiers were seriously injured, their hands and feet were broken, and they were unable to assassinate any more, they would seize the opportunity to bite with their teeth. Once they bit the opponent, they would not let go until they died. It gave a great shock to the front of Zhang Xianzhong's army.

This is just a simple feeling of defending their hometown, especially the recent massacres by Zhang Xianzhong, which really aroused the common hatred of many Huguang local soldiers in the Shen family army.

Although Shen Shuren has almost no soldiers from Changsha Mansion and Changde Mansion, the places that were massacred are not closely related to his soldiers, at most they can be regarded as "different prefectures in the same province".

But people can think of it, and Shen Jiajun also has ideological education work, so whether it is Huangzhou soldiers or Wuchang soldiers, it is easy to think that "if Zhang Xianzhong's troops repeatedly wander in Huguang, sooner or later, his hometown will also be destroyed. Massacre the city".

Because Zhang Xianzhong knew that he could not gain a firm foothold in Huguang, he completely gave up the popular support and just wanted to rob more property and start his own business elsewhere.And this kind of mentality and demeanor have now obviously led to a backlash and aroused the hatred of the local soldiers.

The hatred of the dock workers under Lu Datou's command towards Zhang Xianzhong's army is only a little less than the hatred towards the Tartars.

It can only be said that once any force reaches the stage of doomsday madness and starts to slaughter the city madly, even people of the same clan may arouse deep hatred.

And the soldiers in the Lu Datou camp fought so loudly that the Huguang cannon fodder army on the opposite side had unavoidable doubts in life-although few people would listen to the enemy cursing during the war, but the curse After fighting for a long time, more or less it will still drill into the ear.

The cannon fodder of the new attached army is obviously the strong men caught locally in Huguang. The older ones come from Xiangyang and Yunyang prefectures. The latest batch comes from Changde, Yuezhou and Changsha prefectures. These two parts basically account for half .

Hearing the grimacing expressions of the officers and soldiers on the opposite side, and insulting them as people from Shaanxi and Henan, they couldn't help but waver:
Do these officers and soldiers really think that they are defending Huguang?Let the fathers and villagers not be robbed and killed by outsiders?So what are we doing?Could it be that life is really easy under the rule of Shen Gouguan?Are these people sincerely working for Shen Gouguan?

These thoughts are indeed a bit too complicated. On the bloody battlefield, ordinary soldiers don't have time to go through all the above problems.

Moreover, most of these soldiers are from poor backgrounds, unable to see things far away, and have never seen the "benevolent government" in Wuchang Prefecture, Huangzhou Prefecture and other places. They speculate based on their original life experience in poor places such as Yunyang. Believe it or not.

But in any case, if one or two such thoughts occasionally flashed through his mind and his mind was distracted, Zhang Hualong's cannon fodder army performance became more and more stretched. It was impossible to break through the defense line of the Shen family army for a while.

Relying on antlers to repel horses and picket fences, the Shen family's army maintained the front line tenaciously, half a stick of incense, a stick of incense, although there were more and more casualties, their fighting spirit remained unabated.

……

After Lu Datou struggled for about a stick of incense, his pressure was finally relieved, because the first batch of reinforcements from the Shen family army had already arrived on the battlefield, and immediately put them in the most intense position of the battle.

The general of the reinforcements was Jiang Shoude, a member of the Taiyuan Prefecture, who was also rescued by Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong from Liaodong.

This time, Shen Shuren divided his troops to besiege the city. Each camp on each side of the city needs to have a general or guerrilla-level general in charge, and several battalions under his jurisdiction.

The guerrilla Jiang Shoude was in charge of the northern part of the city, the two battalions under his jurisdiction, and the one in the western section was Lu Datou's battalion.

After the bloody battle just started, Jiang Shoude immediately noticed that the pressure on the battalion on the east side was much lower, so he personally brought the personal guards, and a [-] corps drawn from the battalion on the east side, to support Lu Datou in the west section.

As an existence who fought in Liaodong for several years and saved his life by licking blood with the knife head, Jiang Shoude was naturally grateful for Shen Futai's righteous Bo Yuntian and sent a sea fleet to save them from desperation, and was eager to report his gratitude. Grace, life-saving grace.

The general Zhu Wenzhen who came to vote with him, because he was a cavalry general, was very familiar with Guan Ning's cavalry and was well versed in cavalry and shooting tactics. He was entrusted by Shen Shuren with the important task of cavalry commander. .

Jiang Shoude saw it, and was very envious. He also wanted to kill the enemy and make meritorious service. Unfortunately, his old brothers were mainly infantry troops, and they couldn't perform quick response tasks on the battlefield, so they always behaved mediocre.

As a unit retreated from the Liaodong battlefield, Shen Shuren's "army transformation" was not their turn at the beginning.Now Shen Shuren has 6 to [-] troops directly under his command, and the total number of new firearms is only [-] to [-]. Including the original bird blunderbuss and Lumi blunderbuss, the size of the firearms army is less than [-].

Therefore, there are still at least [-]% of the soldiers in the army, and they need to use cold weapons to fight.These Liaodong soldiers are mainly spearmen and sword and shield soldiers carrying the line, and there are really not many opportunities to shine.

But today, with Zhang Xianzhong taking advantage of the "lack of ammunition" of the officers and soldiers to take the initiative, Jiang Shoude finally caught a chance for a bloody close combat.

Of course he couldn't let it go, as soon as he arrived at the battlefield, he led the team with high morale and rushed directly to the flank of Zhang Hualong's cannon fodder army, entangled with each other.

"Brothers, let these thieves see our Nine Sides elite's ability to kill Tartars!"

Jiang Shoude's soldiers and horses are all from the north, mainly from Shanxi, so the morale boost of "defending their hometown, defending their fathers and fellow villagers" is completely out of the question. They are also fighting as guest troops.

However, as the Nine Borders elite who have experienced many years of experience, their nervousness in the face of bloody fighting is definitely not comparable to that of the Ming army in the mainland.

Don't look at Zhang Xianzhong's massacres in the mainland since the 12th year of Chongzhen's rebellion, but that is only because the nine border elites have been transferred to Liaodong by Hong Chengchou since the 13th year of Chongzhen. Not that elite.

If the elites from the Nine Borders were brought back, Zhang Xianzhong would have been beaten like he was in Chongzhen in 11 years, and would have to beg for surrender from Xiong Wencan!
These troops fought back and forth with Huang Taiji when they were in Songshan.Back then, Cao Bianjiao's cavalry almost rushed into Huang Taiji's flag formation.If the cohesion is stronger, all the ministries will work together to prevent morale from being consumed by food shortages, and there is still a chance to turn the tables.

Zhang Hualong didn't take it seriously when he saw that Jiang Shoude's reinforcements were not many.As a result, as soon as the opponent entered the battle, he immediately felt great pressure:

How dare these reinforcements?Seeing that there are only more than 1000 people, they are not staying in the back row as a reserve team to fill in at any time, but directly attacking the flank of our front army?

"Fire the arrows quickly! The crossbowman throws them with all their strength! Don't be afraid to accidentally hurt your own people! Shoot these lunatics to death!" Zhang Hualong's voice was sharp with fear, and he yelled wildly to release the arrows, ignoring the fact that the front row was already criss-crossed and fighting together. It is entirely possible to accidentally injure more of your own people by shooting arrows.

In just a few minutes, he had already seen clearly that the support army that came here was definitely not someone easy to deal with!If you can cover one-for-one, or even two-for-one without any difference, it will definitely make money!

After all, the cannon fodder of the new Huguang army is worthless, but the elites of the Nine Borders are dead and one less.

De Ling, the crossbowmen in the back row under Zhang Hualong, also started to turn wildly and shoot at the reinforcements of the government army.But the officers and soldiers were not to be outdone. Although there were only a thousand or so of them, the front row held up in close combat, and the back row used bows and crossbows to shoot at each other.

The thickness of the military formations of the two sides was very different. Because Jiang Shoude had few troops, the formation was stretched into a few thin rows, and when it was covered by the rain of arrows with high-throwing ballistics, the hit rate was much lower.

Zhang Hualong's army formation on the opposite side is dozens of rows thick, so the archers of the official army don't have to consider the distance when throwing shots, they just need to be blinded casually.

In such a sticky combat mode, the bow and crossbow regained the advantage of throwing. Compared with the musket that can only aim and shoot directly, and the kinetic energy will drop sharply once thrown, the bow and crossbow can at least have their own melee soldiers in the front row to fully carry the line. case, continue to output continuously remotely.

Moreover, as the elites of the Nine Frontiers, they had a very high rate of wearing armor. When they withdrew from Liaodong, there were several percent of iron-coated cotton armor in the army. After arriving in Huguang, Shen Shuren prepared and upgraded their equipment a little bit. When it comes to ordinary bows and arrows, you are even less afraid.

These soldiers who came back from Liaodong were all wearing armor inside and bright red burqas outside, which can be regarded as Shen's army's unified military uniform, neat and uniform.

At first glance, it is not easy to see that the armor is worn inside, but I just feel that people look bloated.But after fighting for a while, many people had seven or eight arrows pierced into their bodies, none of which actually penetrated the inner armor, but were only embedded in the burqa.

But because of the bright red color of the burqa, you can't see if there is any bleeding, so the state is very scary. The new rogue soldiers on the opposite side have no experience, and they thought these soldiers were monsters who didn't feel pain and were not afraid of death. Many arrows still screaming for battle.

However, the cannon fodder of the new attached army did not have iron-coated cotton armor, only Zhang Xianzhong's old battalion elite had certain equipment, and under the uniform coverage of bows and crossbows, Zhang Hualong's troops suffered significantly higher casualties and their morale gradually declined.

It only took more than 3000 officers and soldiers to block Zhang Hualong's [-] cannon fodder army. After a long time, the morale finally reversed.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Zhang Hualong hurriedly flew to the rear army to ask Zhang Xianzhong for instructions, and asked the king to allow the reserve troops of the old camps of Shanxi and Henan to be deployed as soon as possible, instead of relying solely on the cannon fodder army to fight.

Zhang Xianzhong's face was livid, and after observing for a while, he was considered decisive, so he ordered Ma Weixing, another powerful general under his command, to lead some brothers from the Henan old battalion to launch an attack with the reserve team of the new force.

This Ma Weixing, in history, was also able to become one of the five military commanders in the Daxi regime two years later, and his military talents were quite satisfactory.In history, Zhang Hualong was the governor of the right army, and Ma Weixing was the governor of the left army.

After getting the order, he immediately rushed forward with Henan Laoying.

(End of this chapter)