Chapter 37: The fierce battle in the snow to determine the northern border
The snow was getting heavier and heavier, and the world was vast, and everything in the battlefield gradually became blurred, as if God couldn't bear to see the fierce fighting among living beings, so he had to blindfold his eyes with pure snowflakes.
However, the battle must be decided. There must be a fall between the Ming and the Qing dynasties. This ancient land must fall down to return to peace again. Perhaps the Ming army's infantry happened to be in place, or perhaps the generals who commanded the battle seized the opportunity. Just when the snowflakes blurred the vision, the Ming army's infantry finally began to charge.
How to say the charge of the Ming army? One word is chaotic, without rules, no formation, and a messy and without any rules. It is like a scattered soldier and brave warrior.
At this moment, Huang Taiji's heart had already sunk to the bottom. Once the Ming army rushed up, he was basically finished. However, giving up was not his habit. As long as there was a glimmer of hope, he had to fight for it. As long as he persisted, persisted, and persisted again, perhaps a miracle would happen!
Seeing that the Ming army began to charge, he ordered without hesitation that all artillery began to bombard the fire continuously without aiming or adjusting the position. Anyway, he couldn't aim correctly, so he used a shotgun to blast in front!
There is no accurate number of shotgun attacks, but most of the shotguns of a cannon will fall within a range of about ten feet in a radius. This is the conclusion reached by the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War jointly tested countless times. In other words, as long as the cannon does not adjust its position, even if it is a shotgun, its landing point will be roughly fixed.
How to avoid various artillery shells? The Ming army soldiers often practiced this. Therefore, except for the first round of artillery of the Qing army, which caused serious casualties, there were almost no people in each round of bombardment. The Ming army even twisted and twisted when charging, and just avoided most of the shotgun attack areas!
As long as you observe carefully, of course you can avoid it. You can see that the snow in front of you are blasting like a pockmarked face. You are still stepping in, looking for death!
When Huang Taiji reacted and wanted to order the artillery to slightly adjust the angle every time he fired, it was too late. The Ming army had already rushed to less than two hundred steps. Unless the artillery was raised up and blasted towards the sky, the shells would not be able to land so close.
The Ming army suddenly had a plan again, and they saw them quickly line up one after another, rushing towards them like waves. The bullets were like water without stopping at all, and they were even denser than the snowflakes in the sky!
Huang Taiji, such as platoon shooting, segmented shooting, and folding waves, are naturally also there. The Ming Dynasty's "Infantry Practice" is written in detail. As the defensive side, he naturally chose segmented shooting. He immediately organized the remaining infantry, stood in rows after row, and started segmented shooting.
At this time, there is nothing fancy to play. This is how the large-scale gunfights during the Black Powder period are. If you come one by one, I will be in a row, and if you shoot one by one, you will not be killed even if you get shot. It depends on who can hold on until the end.
This is what is called queuing and shooting. Both sides line up to send it up to shoot the other party. If you are lucky, then congratulations. You are the executioner who is shot. If you are unlucky, you can only act as the executioner who is shot.
The total number of infantry on the Ming army was about 140,000. It was shelled by the Qing army, and about 10,000 casualties were about 10,000. In other words, there were more than 130,000 infantry on the Ming army that rushed to Huang Taiji. The Qing army's infantry originally had 100,000, but nearly half of them were killed by Zhu Cijiu's unconventional artillery charge. Now there are only more than 50,000 left.
There were 130,000 to 50,000, and a small half of the Ming army were equipped with revolver rifles that could be fired continuously, which had an absolute advantage in firepower. Logically speaking, Huang Taiji should have admitted defeat at this time, but he was still persisting. Anyone with great achievements was extremely tenacious and would never give up until the last moment. In history, Huang Taiji's achievements were still very great, so he was not the kind of person who gave up easily.
Like in Liaodong last time, what a desperate situation was. First, he was defeated by the little emperor Zhu Cijing, and then the old turtle Sun Chengzong built the fortress at his doorstep. Almost everyone thought he was probably going to be finished. However, he did not give up, but brought all his tribe members to a great shift, crossed mountains and ridges to the Mongolian grassland, and returned to the heyday in a few years!
This time, the reason why he was still insisting was naturally that he expected a miracle to appear on the cavalry. So what was going on with the cavalry?
If he could see with his own eyes the tragic situation of the Manchu and Mongolian cavalry, he would probably not persevere. In terms of the number of cavalry, the Manchu and Mongolian coalition indeed had a certain advantage, because the Ming army and the two routes supported only 180,000 cavalry in total, while the Manchu and Mongolian cavalry had a total of 200,000. However, the gap in weapons and equipment was so large that it could not be made up for just these 20,000 people.
The Ming army's cavalry were equipped with revolver rifles. Before they rushed in, the bullet was like raining, making the Manchu and Mongolian coalition troops overturned. Of course, the Manchu and Mongolian coalition were not powerless to fight back. They were all very good at riding. They all knew to stick to the horse's back and even the belly of the horse to avoid bullets. Moreover, they had bows and arrows. After a rain of bullets, they could fight back with bows and arrows, which could indeed cause considerable casualties to the Ming army.
However, the guns and bullets were just appetizers. The waves of grenades after the Ming army approached were the real killer weapon. The grenades were a range attack, and it was useless to hide wherever you were. Even the war horses had to follow the rainy rain needle!
Therefore, before the two sides collided, the Manchurian-Mongolian coalition had basically suffered more than half of the casualties. Of course, this casualties were not counted as those who were stabbed into the hands or legs by steel needles, because they could still fight. If this was all counted, then they had basically been wiped out!
After the hand-to-hand combat officially began, the Qing cavalry on the left wing was quite tenacious. Fighting 50,000 or 60,000 Ming army with 100,000 Ming army, it did not immediately reveal its defeat. The Mongolian cavalry on the right wing was no longer able to do it. The 50,000 or 60,000 Ming army did not last long, and they were quickly defeated. However, they were quite capable of escape. After being defeated, they immediately ran away like a blowout, which really wasted a lot of time on the right Ming army.
The reason why the Qing army on the left was able to fight with the Ming army was mainly because there were many masters among them, such as Dorgon, Ajige, Duoduo, Daishan, Yuetuo, Jiergalang, Oboi, etc. Except for Huang Taiji, they almost all came, and they had a very bad habit, that is, they liked to beat the Ming army's chief generals. Although Cao Wenzhao and Qin Gongming were also experts in the Ming army, each of them was beaten by three or four masters. It was already good that they had not been killed, so they still had time to command their troops to fight.
However, this situation was completely reversed with the arrival of Cao Bianjiao and Zu Dabi. These two guys were mainly unable to kill. There was no way. The Mongolian cavalry on the right was almost defeated. As soon as they cut over a few Meng generals, the enemy escaped, which made them extremely unhappy.
What should I do if I’m not happy? Anyway, nothing is wrong. They are not interested in chasing and suppressing deserters, and they don’t have to do it themselves if they clean the battlefield. They simply go to the left to help. So, Dorgon and others have a tragedy.
It is really impossible to measure how fierce these two people are, because the historical data is incomplete. The only record is that Zu Dabi once beat the number one warrior of the Qing Dynasty in the formation of thousands of troops to look for teeth, while Cao Bianjiao. Zu Dabi once competed with him, but was beaten to look for teeth all over the ground!
With the arrival of these two powerful generals, the Qing army on the left finally collapsed. According to the original plan, Qin Gongming hurriedly gathered 50,000 cavalry to run towards the infantry fighting area.
The sound of horse hooves that Huang Taiji had been waiting for for a long time finally rang out. He heard the rumbling sound, at least tens of thousands of cavalry rushed towards him. He couldn't wait to take out his telescope and look at the sun, moon, dragon flag, it was the Ming army!
The only hope was shattered, and he finally became desperate. Looking at the Ming army infantry attacking like flowing water, he said to his personal guards in pain: "Rolle the white flag and surrender!"
A fierce battle finally ended, and heavy snow like goose feathers slowly covered the entire land, and the northern border of the Ming Dynasty was settled!
Chapter completed!