Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 65 Decisive Battle: Theme ([-])

When Lin Youde woke up, he found that there were four more artillery bunkers outside the east wall of Dingyuan Fort.In addition, the two artillery bunkers that had been destroyed in previous battles appeared to have been restored.The Spaniards lined up six cannons outside the city, their black muzzles facing the city wall.

"It's so fucking persistent." Lin Youde lamented, "I don't sleep at night, so they dig holes and build walls secretly. Do you want to use these six cannons to blow down Lao Tzu's city wall?" Thinking of this, Lin Youde's heart was really moved, he I remember seeing this kind of plot in a certain local stall military literature before.Can't it? !He recalled it carefully, and vaguely remembered that it seemed to be the offensive and defensive battle of the Sevastopol fortress between the Russian Empire and Britain, France, and Turkey.At that time, the British and French allied forces seemed to use cannons to bombard the walls of the Russians, but that was a big scene with hundreds of cannons, and there were only a few cannons in front of them, which were useless!Thinking of this, Lin Youde felt at ease again.

At seven o'clock in the morning, the two sides launched an artillery battle again.This time, the number of artillery on both sides is equal, both are six to six, and the caliber of the Spaniard's artillery seems to be slightly larger.The fierce artillery battle lasted from morning to noon, and the positions of both sides were in a mess.

The Spanish artillery positions were destroyed in three places, two of which were fortifications collapsed, and the other was completely destroyed by artillery.The two towers on the east wall of Dingyuan Fort were also riddled with holes. A 12-pound cannon was hit by the Spaniards. The cannon was not only scrapped, but also caused the casualties of four artillery crew members.

At 12 noon, the two sides tacitly stopped shelling each other.

After a whole morning of artillery battle, Lin Youde and Niu De no longer had the previous ease and relief on their faces.In just a few hours, the Spanish cannons hit the two towers many times. Although they did not cause too many casualties, they also beat the brothers of the second artillery post to disgrace, and the city walls were damaged in many places.

The Spaniard's performance has gone up a notch compared to when he only had two cannons.Alas, Lin Youde lamented that he could no longer find the crushing pleasure of crushing the Spaniard with two cannons that day.Thinking that maybe the Spaniards would shoot more guns tomorrow, Lin and Niu couldn't help but feel a little headache.The Spaniards had only six cannons, and they couldn't hold back anymore. If there were a few more cannons, they would still make people die.What did the Executive Committee and the Ministry of War do?Hurry up and cut off the Spanish transportation line!Anyway, let's reduce some of the pressure on the old folks, if this continues, this battle is really not easy to fight!

……

The low sound of horseshoes gradually sounded like thunder on the ground in front of us. Looking around, there seemed to be a thin dark line on the horizon in the distance. It was the Spanish cavalry.

The mount snorted uneasily. Xu Yu knew that he had won the lottery, and he bumped into the main force of the Spanish cavalry while chasing the Spanish transport troops.Suddenly changed from a hunter to a prey, Xu Yu was a little confused psychologically.In fact, he also knew that since the Executive Committee and the Ministry of War decided to invest more in the South Bank battlefield, their collision with the Spanish cavalry was inevitable.In this narrow area, it would be strange if the two sides with strong mobility could not touch each other for a long time.

The two sides on the front line of Dingyuan Fort have fallen into a protracted confrontation, and the two sides have no other programs except for some "painless" artillery battles every day.As an offensive side, the Spaniard will not take the next step with confidence and boldness until he removes the nail behind him.Therefore, the staff officers of the Ministry of the Army who have little war experience and are purely on paper have discovered from the ancient Chinese military wisdom that you fight yours and I fight mine. This is reflected in the specific combat plan. It was decided to focus on harassing the Spanish transport lines on the south bank of the Big Fish River.Attacking and blocking the Spanish transportation lines through a large number of mobile troops weakened the morale and combat will of Spanish officers and soldiers, and reduced their combat capabilities.In order to achieve this goal, if necessary, we can even continue to send more troops to the south bank of the Dayu River in order to achieve greater results.

As a highly mobile unit, the cavalry naturally acted as the vanguard of this kind of harassment.Correspondingly, in order to protect the transportation line, the Spaniards also scattered most of the cavalry forces on hand.In this way, the collision between the two sides is inevitable.

Xu Yu raised his binoculars and looked, only to feel that all the Spanish cavalry seemed to be here.This made him hesitate. He had only a hundred or so cavalrymen, and the mounted infantry was less than half of them. This battle was not easy to fight.Thinking of this, Xu Yu felt that it was not wise to fight the Spaniards recklessly, so he decided to retreat.The direction of retreat is the gentle slope of the hills on the right, where the terrain is not suitable for the cavalry to attack, they can rely on the terrain and a large number of firearms in their hands to contend with the Spaniards.In short, it is important to preserve strength first, and it is not worth spending precious cavalry here.

So, while there was still time, the Cossack cavalry began to retreat quickly up the gentle slope under the scolding of the officer.The cavalry infantry post also retreated slowly, maintaining a certain distance from the cavalry battalion.At this time, the Spanish cavalry was also speeding up, and the distance between the two sides was getting closer.It can be clearly seen that the Spaniards rushing to the front are some gauchos, wearing simple leather armor and thin clothes, and wielding sabers in their hands.

The cavalry battalion successfully withdrew to the half-hill slope. The terrain here has a certain slope. If the Spaniards charge hard, the horses will lose speed quickly, and they will be at a disadvantage.Since the cavalry infantry post was responsible for blocking the enemy, they had just retreated to the edge of the gentle slope at this time, and there was still a distance between the cavalry battalion.

Some fast-charging gauchos had already reached the range of the 32-B flintlock rifles. They seemed to feel that they could take advantage of it, and galloped around the thin formation of mounted infantry sentries, arrogantly.

"Bah! Barbarians! There are so many bad pens every year, especially this year. Come on, brothers, give these barbarians a little surprise! One row and a half turn left... Raise your gun... Get ready, let go! Kneel in front of the second row , Three platoons step forward, two platoons shoot in volley...Get ready, let go! Fourth row, turn right, raise your guns...Get ready, let go!" Wei Aiwen, the commander of the mounted infantry post, is also a veteran of the last war, he knows Let these gauchos continue to toss in front of the position, and I am afraid that I will not be able to retreat smoothly.So he commanded several platoons of soldiers under him to shoot salvos in turn, knocking down some of the gaucho riders who rushed the closest and danced the most.After all, these gauchos are not regular soldiers. When they saw that the Tartans had rifles with such a long range, they felt very bad. While cursing the Spaniards, they all scattered to both sides and fled away like flying. The firing range of the rifle.

The horse-mounted infantry posts who eliminated the interference all turned back, barely maintaining the formation and trotting with their feet.Finally, before the arrival of the main Spanish cavalry unit, they retreated smoothly to the gentle slope of the hills, and then formed a tight formation again.

Captain Torres led a total of nearly [-] Spanish cavalry and stopped on the grassland about a few hundred meters away from the gentle slope.He held up his binoculars and looked up the hillside, and saw that there were nearly two hundred Tatans on the hillside, more than half of them were on horseback, barely maintaining a loose formation on the gentle slope; Hundreds of people dismounted and lined up, with sabers on their waists and muskets in their hands. They seemed to be mounted infantry, which is more popular in Europe.

The relatively small Tatans chose to avoid the battle, which was expected by Torres. After all, any commander with a normal mind would not use weak troops to fight the superior enemy before the end of the mountain.Captain Torres wanted to seize the opportunity and take the initiative to attack, but found that these Tatans were on a gentle slope, which was very unfavorable for his own attack.

This time, the Tartan cavalry was captured with great difficulty, but they could not take the opportunity to eliminate it, which made Captain Torres feel a little frustrated.He knew that the Tatan cavalry were all equipped with flintlock pistols, and the cavalry infantry seemed to be equipped with the latest flintlock rifles, which had powerful firepower.If your own cavalry cannot use their sabers and cavalry guns to deal with their opponents on the plains by virtue of their superior numbers, they will have no chance, because their powerful firepower can ensure that they can easily defeat most of their own cavalry who are only equipped with cold weapons in infantry battles. .

So, the two sides confronted each other like this.And this is also fully in line with the current strategic situation between the Spaniards and the time-traversing crowd. Perhaps the Spaniards have the upper hand on the surface, but it is hard to say how stable their advantage is. Maybe one day the battle situation will suddenly change dizzyingly .

Half an hour before nightfall, the two parties, who had been blowing in the cold wind for a long time, disengaged at the same time and turned around as if they had negotiated.The Spaniard felt that he was not sure of defeating the opponent in this situation. On the other hand, Xu Yu also felt that it was very difficult to counterattack.Ever since, the first meeting between the two parties ended hastily in such a way.

PS: I am also on a business trip these weekends, and I rushed to draft after I came back.The update time is uncertain, but I try to update it every day, I hope everyone will forgive me, I am really busy recently.

(End of this chapter)