Chapter 357 Congreve Rockets
The Qing army had already rushed to within 150 steps. When he saw a row of fire emitted from the muzzle that was close to him, Pall's heart suddenly shrank. He knew that it was a shotgun or shrapnel shot from the Ming army's cannon. He didn't know how many cavalry would be damaged again.
The shrapnel flew about a hundred steps and exploded in the air. Countless iron beads shot towards the Qing cavalry rushing towards him. Only a row of screams could be heard, and a blood mist was filled with blood. The eight banner soldiers who were shot were caught one after another. The Qing cavalry, who had already rushed within 150 steps, were almost wiped out, and the remaining nearest cavalry were 150 steps away.
This round of six-pound cannons and twelve-pound howitzers caused heavy losses to the Eight Banners Cavalry. One hundred and twenty six-pound cannons and forty twelve-pound howitzers swept away nearly two thousand Eight Banners Cavalry in front!
Even Pall Bon himself was injured. An iron bead as big as a soybean was rubbed over his right face, leaving a slender scar on his face, knocking off his lightning rod helmet.
"It's so dangerous, I almost died!" Pallban was shocked, but he did not retreat, but accelerated the horse speed, pointed the sword forward, shouting, "Minggou has no time to load it, rushing forward is a victory!"
Before he could finish his words, he could only hear a series of harsh whistling sounds in the air ahead. When Pollpen looked up, he saw countless fire dragons appearing in the sky in front of him, like arrows spitting out flames, falling towards his cavalry group. Before Pollpen could understand, fire dragons had already penetrated into the war horses of the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolian cavalry.
"A swarm of rockets?" Pallban was stunned for a moment. He still didn't feel scared because the swarm of rockets looked scary. In fact, it was just an arrow fired with a rocket. Although the penetration power was much stronger than that of an arrow and could penetrate the armor of heavy cavalry, the accuracy was not high, and several arrows could hit a person. The density of the rocket did not seem to be very large.
Even if there were hundreds of rockets on the opposite side to send a thousand arrows to the Qing cavalry, Pallpen was not afraid, and had already rushed to the front. A swarm of thousands of arrows could kill two or three thousand of them, and the remaining cavalry rushed in.
But what Pallbane did not expect was that these rockets fell into the horses of the Eight Banners Cavalry, but fireballs rose up, and then a deafening explosion sounded.
This time, the Kangreve rocket that landed beside the war horses and exploded caused panic in the running war horses. Although these trained war horses could charge against their opponents' guns, the roar was in the distance. Now, the explosion was next to the war horses, accompanied by the explosion, and there was a firelight and white smoke.
Even trained war horses are afraid of fire, smoke and loud noises. The Kangriff rocket's lethality is actually not very good. A rocket explodes and the range of radius is about seven meters. A rocket can kill at most a cavalry.
The Ming army had a total of 120 Congrif rockets, and they fired 120 rockets at one time, killing less than 100 Qing Eight Banners Cavalry.
But the serious problem is: the horses of the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia were shocked!
The galloping horses were frightened by the fire and explosions. The uninjured horses were not controlled by the cavalry and ran around, but eventually they ran into the horses of their companions. In a blink of an eye, a large number of war horses collided with each other, causing even greater riots.
The collision of war horses lifted the knights on the horse's back off the horse, and then the uncontrolled war horses raised their horse's hooves and stepped on their owners. Many Manchu and Mongolian cavalry were trampled into meat paste.
The Congrive Rocket shooters made a round of Rockets, immediately picked up the rockets on the ground, placed them on the launcher, and then lit the medicine twist at the tail of the rocket.
"Swish swish swish swish" another series of harsh whistling sounds sounded, and the second round of rockets spit out flames and drove thick smoke towards the Qing army.
The Congrive rocket is fast loading. After launching a rocket, it can load one again immediately and ignite it and launch it without any loading time. It is much faster than the Fran machine cannon and even the rear-loaded artillery in later generations. Rockets after rockets were launched towards the most densely populated positions of the Qing Dynasty, Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry.
The formation of the eight banners of Manchu and Mongolian cavalry was in chaos, and the horses collided with each other. Most of the cavalry could no longer control the horses. Only a few Mongols with particularly skilled riding skills controlled the horses, causing the horses to forcefully transfer out of their frightened state. However, due to this round of changes, the speed of Manchu and Mongolian cavalry had slowed down, and it would not be so easy to raise the horse speed again.
At this moment, a sudden sound of horse hooves sounded on the two wings of the Ming army's infantry phalanx. The Ming cavalry, who had been hiding behind the Ming army's infantry phalanx, took advantage of the chaos of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners cavalry and suddenly launched an attack.
The Ming cavalry was originally hiding behind the main infantry formation. Because the hollow formation and several square formations in front blocked the sight of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry, the Qing army did not find the Ming cavalry that had already started to accelerate from 200 steps away. Then two rounds of attacks from Kangliff rockets caused the Qing cavalry to fall into chaos.
When the Qing cavalry came to their senses, the 4,000 iron-armored cavalry of the Ming army had already appeared in front of the Qing army!
At this time, the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry had no speed and no formation, so they could only watch the Ming army heavy cavalry rushing towards them in an orderly manner.
It was too late to turn around and run. It was too late to use the Mongolian light cavalry to use the Manguda tactics. The Ming cavalry would not give the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners cavalry at all.
The Kangrif rocket destroyed the formation of the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry, and then used its own cavalry to attack the opponent. This was the trick used by the British and French coalition forces in the Battle of Bali Bridge in time and space. First, the Kangrif rocket was used to disrupt the formation of the Manchurian and Mongolian Cavalry, and then used heavy cavalry to charge the wall-style. The Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry, who had already been disorganized, could not escape, and could only watch themselves being crushed by the wall.
Originally, the cavalry of the British and French coalition forces in historical time and space were breastplate cavalry and dragoons. The breastplate cavalry only had one breastplate, which used sabers and muskets. The breastplate could withstand the shooting of muskets, but there was no protection for both arms and lower body, and there was no protection for war horses.
However, the heavy cavalry of the Ming army at this time were covered with plate armor, and even the war horses were protected by horse armor. Just like iron cans, the heavy cavalry using cavalry spears had a crushing effect on the light cavalry of the Qing army even more than the breastplate cavalry of the British and French coalition forces later.
The speed of the heavy cavalry had increased to the highest level. Soon the first row of heavy cavalry collided with the chaotic eight-banner cavalry of Manchu and Mongolia. While the cavalry spears stabbed the Qing cavalry, the Ming cavalry released their hands and threw them off their cavalry spears.
The cavalry spear that had already pierced into the Qing cavalry flew out with the Qing cavalry. The war horses in their armor hit the short Mongolian horses of the Qing Mongolian cavalry. The tall Arab Wen-blooded horse directly knocked over the Mongolian horse, and then the horse's hooves trampled over the Qing cavalry that fell to the ground.
Countless horse hooves trampled over the corpses of humans and horses everywhere. Wherever the horse hooves passed, the Qing soldiers were intestines and belly rotted, and heavy cavalry galloped past, leaving behind the corpses of Eight Banners soldiers and horses in the ground.
The Ming army's heavy cavalry charged and directly drilled through the formation of the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners Cavalry. At the same time, the light cavalry and infantry also started to move. The first one arrived were the light cavalry holding revolvers and sabers. The light cavalry shot from afar with pistols. After getting closer, the sabers slashed at the neck of the Qing cavalry in the chaos.
Chapter completed!