Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 289 Blood River ([-])

On May 1641, 5, Gouda Castle was sunny and the temperature was twelve degrees.

Zhu Liang stood on the only watchtower in the city, holding up the binoculars and looking forward, and he had kept this posture motionless for more than ten minutes.There is no other reason, a large army in the mountains ahead is slowly moving forward.Behind him are two trainee staff officers from the Dingyuan Army Officer Academy. One of them is carefully estimating the number of enemies, and the other is recording the composition of their arms and their weapons and equipment.

"About 3000 to 4000 people." A young staff officer said with a blushing face. His range of numbers was too large, and there was a full difference of 1000 people between the upper limit and the lower limit.

"Probably between 700 and 4000 people." Zhu Liang glanced at him, then corrected him with an emphatic tone. The young intern staff officer lowered his head embarrassedly.

"Almost all of them have no protective gear. Most of them are armed with wooden spears, and a few are equipped with short spears and large shields, but their morale does not seem to be very high." Another intern staff officer said immediately.

"Sergeant, how do you judge that their morale is not high?" Zhu Liang asked quickly.

"Their footsteps are heavy, and many of them lower their heads and look listless, which shows that they don't think this war can bring them honor." The trainee staff officer quickly replied.

Zhu Liang was noncommittal, and continued to raise the binoculars to observe.The formation of these barbarians is quite loose, maybe they are negligently trained, maybe they really have low morale.But that's fine too, it's better to have a weak opponent than a strong one.The order for the whole army to be on alert has already been conveyed. A few herdsmen with red and green flags who were grazing outside began to drive their flocks of sheep slowly through the moat through the suspension bridge under the cover of the South African cavalry company, and entered the unfinished Inside the castle walls.

Some cavalry, under the leadership of those old Shanxi rogue officers, shouted and galloped outside the barbarian army, testing their reality.However, the performance of the barbarians did not seem to be as bad as Zhu Liang and others had estimated before. Some infantry archers were quickly organized, and began to drive away the cavalry with their long-range infantry bows.The flintlock pistols in the hands of the cavalry were no match for the infantry, so they lingered for a while, bought enough time for the herdsmen to retreat, and then slowly retreated.

The drawbridge was pulled up, and there was no one from the East Bank outside the moat.The bleak autumn wind blows, and the earth is withered and yellow, which looks extremely chilling.

There was silence in Gundam Castle.The soldiers of the 2nd Company and the Cavalry Company of the Army are okay. They are used to seeing life and death, and the scenes in front of them can't scare them.Although only part of the city wall has been repaired, the moat a few meters wide and three barbed wire fences are enough for defense.Fort Gundam is facing the river in the northeast and mountains in the southeast, making it inconvenient to deploy and mobilize troops. Presumably the leader of the barbarians also has a headache facing such terrain.But in comparison, the performance of those Eight Banners is a bit unbearable. Although there are less than 4000 barbarians outside the city, although there are seven or eight hundred Eight Banners warriors who have been trained all the year round in the city, although there are less than two hundred East Coast musketeers in the city , Although there are hundreds of East Coast cavalry in the city, although there are four cannons in the city, they are just afraid.All their belongings are here, their relatives are here, and they fear the catastrophic consequences of losing the war.

"Let the people of the Eight Banners continue to build the city wall, and everything will continue as usual." As the commander of the South African Garrison, Zhu Liang began to issue orders: "Notify the leader of the Eight Banners warriors, Mo Dayong, to clean up his men, and then start patrolling in the city. Tell those who disobey the order to be punished on the spot. Also, have the messengers sent to the fort in the river?"

The staff officer who was recording Zhu Liang's order quickly stopped writing, and then said: "It has been dispatched, Commander. There are four people and eight horses, divided into two groups, and head northwest along the two banks of the river. The supply troops conveyed the enemy's situation, and it is expected that they will meet the reinforcements from the River Fort on the way."

According to the plan made in advance, the autumn harvest operation in the Hezhongbao area should end before May 5.After the autumn harvest is over, Mo Ming, the supreme officer of the South African theater, will personally lead the 18st Company, 1rd Company, 103th Company, South African Field Artillery Company, 104st Independent Field Artillery Company, and Engineer Battalion that have been assigned to the South African Garrison Waiting for the main force, plus part of the river castle militia equipped with firearms, advanced along the Berg River to reinforce the Gundam Fort area.Acting with them, there should be more than 1 Eight Banners warriors recruited.Calculating the time, they had almost set off, and the messenger might meet them halfway to let them know that the barbarian army had arrived.

The scale of the South African garrison this time has reached an unprecedented 4 infantry companies, two artillery companies, and a cavalry company, with a total strength of nearly 1000 people.In addition to more than 300 militiamen of the Hezhong Security Regiment equipped with muskets, engineering battalions and supply battalions equipped with some firearms, and nearly 300 Eight Banners warriors, the total strength of the east bank this time has also reached [-]. The largest military operation in history on the East Coast.

None of the officers on the east bank had organized such a large-scale battle before, and this was the first time the big girl was on the sedan chair, and Mo Ming and others were also a little apprehensive before they set off.But things have come to this, and no matter how difficult it is, we have to face it head on. I don’t believe in their modern military organization model. So many staff officers are making suggestions, checking for omissions and filling vacancies, and so many professionals are busy. State barbarians!

Zhu Liang observed for a while, and found that the army of barbarians had been staying there since it was deployed in the narrow terrain southeast of Fort Gundam.More than a dozen barbarians who looked like they had a certain status climbed up a high slope next to them and began to look towards the Gundam Fort, as if they were looking at the enemy's situation to decide what to do next.Zhu Liang also ignored them, he decided to stay the same and respond to all kinds of changes, let you have all kinds of skills, you have to attack in a real way to be useful.If you can do anything to us just by setting up a posture outside the city, then you can only say that you are too naive.

Under the intimidation of the warriors, the ordinary bannermen of the red and green flags in the city cheered up, tried not to think about things outside the city, and continued to build the city wall as usual.And Mo Dashan, who was born in the Red Banner, divided nearly [-] warriors from the two banners into more than a dozen groups and began to patrol the city, while the soldiers of the East Coast Army sat quietly in the barracks, waiting for orders from their superiors.After the initial chaos, everything in Gundam Castle seemed so orderly.

Only a short section of the city wall of Gundam Fort has been repaired, so it can't hide the peeping eyes on the opposite hillside at all.Those barbarian leaders obviously also saw the situation here, which made them hesitate for a while.Let's attack, one is that the troops are insufficient, and the other is that the number of enemies seems to be quite large, and they are well-trained, so they will suffer a lot if they attack;This is really a very tangled thing.

"Let the Eight Banners artillery move forward to the moat and shoot at these barbarians." The leader of the barbarians hadn't made up his mind yet, Zhu Liang had already started to order.The enemy's army formation is less than 800 meters away from the moat. This distance is already within the maximum range of the 8-pound artillery. Although such a long distance will definitely lack the accuracy of the head, but the enemy's army formation is so long, how can it be impossible to hit? .The only thing to worry about is that the solid iron ball lacks kinetic energy after being hit so far, and its power is also greatly reduced.But it doesn't matter, anyway, there are enough military resources in the city, and the prestige and morale of killing those barbarians is also good.

More than a dozen Eight Banners artillerymen drove the horses and pushed the two 8-pound guns to a built earthen fort by the moat on the east side of the city.The Eight Banners gunners trained by the two East Coasters used visual observation to estimate the distance and wind speed, then discussed with each other, and then went back to command the charge, reload, and adjust the shooting parameters.

"Boom!" Soon, the first 8-pound gun roared and fired today's first shell. Less than ten seconds after it finished firing, the second gun also started firing. Two 8-pound solid iron shells fired. The ball flew towards the barbarian army in tandem.

After crossing a long distance of hundreds of meters, the first solid iron ball landed near the front of the enemy's formation, bounced up quickly, and knocked down several barbarians in a row before stopping.The second solid iron ball was not very lucky. It may have been hit a little bit by the influence of the wind speed, and landed on a muddy ground not far from the river beach. It only jumped up slightly and then stopped.It can be seen that the land over there is relatively soft, which absorbs the kinetic energy of the shells well.

"The first hit! Who hit it?! Pass my order and reward the whole artillery crew with ten dollars!" Zhu Liang said with an incredulous expression while holding up the binoculars.Is this group of Eight Banners gunners lucky, or are they really professional, and they hit the first hit at the edge of the effective range of the artillery? How can this not be surprising.

"Let them continue to shoot!" Zhu Liang raised his binoculars to observe again while ordering, and saw a small disturbance in the barbarian army, especially around the area hit by the shells, more than ten people fled away. Zhu Liang despised him even more: "The morale is not high, and I am not mentally prepared for artillery shooting. Hehe, I still want to attack me at this level."

The barbarian leaders on the hillside couldn't sit still anymore, and they quickly sent several cronies down the hill to suppress them.And the barbarian leader hesitated for more than ten minutes before suddenly giving an order.After a while, the barbarian army that had just been suppressed and suppressed began to retreat slowly.

This is back?Zhu Liang was full of question marks, "Cavalry company, go out to investigate!" He quickly issued an order.

(End of this chapter)