Ming Empire

Chapter 263 The Ming Army Takes the Initiative to Attack

On the second day, Jiannu did not attack again.

They retreated two miles, camped out of the artillery range of the Ming army, and built various facilities in front of the camp to defend against enemy attacks.

After knowing these situations, Cao Yue also made a judgment immediately. Dorgon must have learned his lesson and knew that the army under his command would be defeated so badly because of the active attack. It is impossible to lose so badly if the gun is charged down.

Cao Yue had anticipated this earlier and formulated countermeasures. "Since Dorgon thinks so, let's see if our army can take the initiative to attack and see if Jiannu can resist it." Cao Yue also ordered that the two guard divisions of the First Guard Army equipped with muskets prepare to attack Jiannu proactively. camp.

Following Cao Yue's order, the [-]st and [-]rd Guards Divisions left the trenches one after another, and formed several phalanxes in front of the formation, ready to attack.

Dozens of new artillery pieces, as well as nearly a hundred Franc cannons, also slowly pushed forward through the reserved channel.

The Second Guards led by Huang Degong had one and a half guards divisions equipped with muskets, serving as the flank guards of the First Guards, and guarding the flanks of the First and Third Guards Divisions.And the other troops of the two guards became the more peripheral guards of all the attacking troops.Cao Yue also ordered [-] cavalry troops to assemble at a distance of about one mile behind the two sides of the musket formation, ready to support or pursue at any time.

Cao Bianjiao, who directed the frontal attack, issued a military order in front of Cao Yue in front of all the generals. If he did not win the battle, he would be willing to be punished.

With everything ready, the two guards who took the lead stepped on a messy battlefield and slowly marched in the direction of the slave camp.

The Ming army began to take the initiative to attack, and the news reached Dorgon immediately.

Hearing this news, Dorgon couldn't help being taken aback. Cao Yue must have seen through his tricks, but why did the Ming army dare to take the initiative to attack?Dorgon believed that Cao Yue must have been prepared for this and had a well-thought-out plan, otherwise it would be impossible to change his tactics immediately.Because he had too much fear of Cao Yue, Dorgon couldn't help being a little nervous. He was afraid that what happened next would be something he didn't expect, and the Qing army would not be able to guard against it.

He didn't dare to be careless, and immediately ordered everyone to prepare for the battle.

In fact, when Dorgon left Duduo and Fan Wencheng last night, he analyzed how to deal with the Ming army's active attack and formulated a countermeasure.It's just that Dorgon thought that the Ming army would launch an active attack so soon, and Cao Yue's decision was too decisive.

The strategies that have been formulated have not been fully implemented, and everything can only be dealt with hastily.

Fortunately, Dorgon has commanded countless battles. He has seen a lot of strong winds and waves, and he didn't panic too much. He gave the order to fight in a clear and orderly manner.He ordered Duoduo and Daishan's second son, Shuotuo, to lead the Jurchen elite to attack from the flanks, and the Mongolian and Han troops to face the Ming army head-on.

The frontal army will definitely encounter the fire from the Ming army's muskets, and the loss will definitely be great. Dorgon's prior arrangement is to allow the relatively weaker Mongolian soldiers and the Han army to fully face the force. The most powerful Jurchen spirit Cavalry, on the other hand, prepared to rush out from the flanks in the midst of chaos, completely disrupting the Ming army's musket array.

Without the support of field fortifications and artillery, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army would definitely be greatly reduced. The Qing army would fight back with all its strength and would definitely be able to defeat the Ming army.

Dorgon had recovered from the initial shock, and he also forced himself to calm down, intending to counterattack with all his strength, severely injuring the Ming army who dared to take the initiative to attack.He also personally commanded the counterattack, led a group of men, rode up a high slope, and observed the battle situation with binoculars.

The actions of the Ming army were very slow, and the huge momentum was also compromised by the slowness of the actions, which did not give people a huge sense of pressure.

But the Ming army moved so slowly, Dorgon couldn't help but wonder, what is Cao Yue doing?Is it still tempting the Qing army to take the initiative to attack?
In the strategy formulated by Dorgon, in fact, it was not a complete passive confrontation. As long as the Ming army dared to leave the trenches and take the initiative to attack the Qing army, the Qing army could take the initiative to counterattack.If the time from the impact of the Qing army to the firearms of the Ming army is not enough for the Ming army to return to the trenches, a counterattack can be launched.But the Ming army attacked so slowly that Dorgon couldn't help but suspect that Cao Yue had a bigger conspiracy.

It's just that tens of thousands of Musketeers marched like mountains and seas, raising a lot of dust and sand, which completely covered the situation behind the Musketeers, and Dorgon couldn't see the follow-up movement of the Qingming Army.

Dorgon hesitated in his heart. When it was time to counterattack, he did not dare to order the whole army to attack, but waited for the Ming army to continue to advance.The Ming army continued to advance, although it put pressure on the Qing army, the effect of counterattack would be even better.The flanks of the Ming army were also exposed as they continued to advance. As the distance increased, even if the Ming army musketeers wanted to retreat to the trenches, it was impossible.

And just when Dorgon forced himself to remain calm and wait for a better opportunity to counterattack, Duoduo sent someone to ask for orders to lead the army to attack, but Dorgon stopped him.

Finally, when the Ming army advanced to about two miles away from his front, Dorgon ordered the frontal Jiannu to launch a counterattack, and took the initiative to attack the Ming army that continued to advance.

Just when Dorgon gave the order to counterattack the tens of thousands of Jiannu gathered in the front, the slowly advancing Ming army stopped.

This did not surprise Dorgon. What surprised him was that as the Qing army began to accelerate its counterattack, there were several loud roars from behind the Ming army formation.

"No, the artillery of the Ming army is also moving forward with the army." Dorgon immediately understood the reason why the Ming army attacked so slowly. It turned out that Cao Yue let the artillery advance with the attacking troops, but Dorgon I don't know how many Ming army artillery moved forward.But he didn't dare to be careless, and immediately sent an order to Duoduo, and when he counterattacked later, he was going to copy the Ming army's back route and destroy the Ming army's artillery under great pressure first.

Soon, the artillery fire of the Ming army began to intensify, and shells also began to be fired from the musket array that had stopped advancing.

Along with the musketeers, the advanced Fran cannon began test firing.

Although the range of the Franc machine gun is not far, Cao Yue likes it because of its light weight and easy transportation. Therefore, there are a lot of equipment in the army. This active attack also allowed nearly half of the Franc machine gun to march with the Musketeers. Used as suppressive fire.

Following the test firing of the artillery, shells one after another fell into the Jiannu formation who had just raised their speed and prepared to counterattack head-on. While setting off a huge explosion, many Jiannu were thrown off their horses.

This is just a test firing, debugging the shooting unit, and then the official shooting.

Because of formulating a series of operation methods and adopting the distance estimation method widely used by the artillery in later generations, the debugging of the artillery of the Ming army after test firing was very fast. After a round of test firing, more dense shells roared in. One after another, they fell into Jiannu's formation.

(End of this chapter)