lcionline Chapter 750 A desperate struggle for a new beginning
Chapter 750 A desperate struggle for a new beginning
Four legs are always faster than two. Just as the marines who had attacked the Qing army at Jinjiatun finished sweeping the battlefield and left, Hauge arrived with several thousand troops.
Amidst the horrified gazes of the people of Jinjiatun, Hauge rode closer with a grim expression, looking at them with the eyes of someone staring at a dead man, and coldly asked, "Tell me, which direction did those Ming troops go?"
Having just been rescued, the people of Jinjiatun were struggling to get over the guilt of betraying their former benefactor. They hesitated for a long time, but no one stepped forward to speak up.
The clanging sounds continued as several strong Bayara men surrounding Hauge drew their swords, their eyes fierce as they stared at the common people, the blades gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
"Answer Prince Su's question!"
The timid villagers were so frightened that they fell to the ground. Several of them, pale-faced, pointed west and stammered, "They...they went west..."
One of the Bayara dismounted and carefully examined the footprints on the ground. He walked several dozen steps to the west, then turned back and nodded to Hauge: "These Nikans weren't lying; they really did go west."
Hauge drew his sword, gritting his teeth as he said, "The cavalrymen who escaped from this village were the last to leave, so these Ming soldiers were the last to retreat. And since they're infantry, they couldn't have gone far. Mount up, everyone, and give chase!"
Thousands of people shouted and pulled on the reins, whistling as they raced westward.
As Hauge passed the trembling villagers, he didn't turn his head and ordered, "Chop down all these Nikans, and burn the village to the ground!"
The people, who thought they could survive by betraying their saviors, panicked. Some cried and some screamed, creating chaos. The Qing soldiers showed no mercy. They spurred their horses and galloped past, gripped their swords in reverse, and used the speed of their horses and the sharpness of their swords to easily sever the heads of the people. Sprays of blood shot into the sky, staining the land red.
With a deafening roar of hooves, a large contingent of Qing troops left the village, flames shooting into the sky behind them.
After attacking the Qing army's small grain-collecting detachment, the dispersed marines moved towards their landing site, preparing to regroup and concentrate their forces for the next round of operations. Borchu assumed the Qing army would be enraged and retaliate, but he hadn't anticipated that the arrogant Hauge would react far more intensely. Almost without delay, the Qing army mobilized a large force much faster than he had expected, and Hauge himself was leading the troops.
The first Liaonan operation went exceptionally smoothly with the support of warships. The marines became somewhat superior and unusually confident, so they underestimated the Qing army's reaction speed and lacked a sense of urgency. Under such circumstances, the more than one hundred soldiers who attacked Jinjiatun were overtaken on the way before they even reached the rendezvous point.
The mobility of cavalry was unmatched by infantry. Seeing the enemy pursuing them and unable to shake them off, more than a hundred marines had no choice but to form a battle line on the spot to resist the enemy's large cavalry force.
A miniature hollow square formation quickly took shape. The soldiers loaded lead bullets, raised their guns, and aimed in the direction from which the Qing army was pursuing them, preparing for a desperate fight.
Taktan was also among the pursuing troops. Having suffered a crushing defeat, he wanted to regain his honor, so he led his men to follow. Seeing that the enemy was few in number and had even formed a battle formation to guard against cavalry attacks from all sides, he felt somewhat uneasy. However, he also wanted to take this opportunity to redeem himself. So, he gritted his teeth, spurred his horse forward, and asked Hauge, "Master, this servant has suffered a setback at the hands of these Ming soldiers and wants to make amends. Please give me a chance."
Haug waved his hand: "Go ahead. As long as you can break through these people, I'll forgive you for what you did." He had never seen a musket that could shoot more than 300 paces and wanted to learn about it by watching the battle. Since Taktan volunteered, he decided to do him a favor.
Having received his master's promise, Taktan was invigorated. As if injected with adrenaline, he straightened his back, went to the rear, and shouted loudly, "Those who want revenge against the Ming army, follow me!"
Those vests who had suffered greatly under the rifled guns stepped forward and gathered behind Taktan, staring at the front with bitter and resentful expressions.
Knowing that the enemy's muskets could shoot very far, Taktan didn't intend to take his time and fight slowly. Instead, he wanted to overwhelm the enemy with a flurry of attacks. He raised his sword and shouted, "The Ming army's firearms are powerful, capable of hitting targets 300 paces away. Don't use the old tactics against them. Charge straight in!"
Having learned from his mistakes, Taktan quickly found a better way to deal with the enemy after suffering a setback. The old method of using feints to waste the enemy's musket ammunition was no longer effective; before the feint troops could even get there, they would be decimated. It was better to be simple and brutal and just charge directly.
Hundreds of cavalrymen shouted and galloped forward. At a distance of over 400 meters, the Marines leveled their rifles and aimed at their opponents.
The squad leader leading this unit was a lieutenant surnamed Lu. Looking at the large number of cavalrymen opposite him, he swallowed hard and said to his soldiers, "Brothers, the Tartars outnumber us, and we're outnumbered. It's a two-legged fight against four-legged men. The situation is terrible. Are you afraid?"
The soldiers responded one after another: "We're not afraid, we'll fight the Tartars to the death!"
"Alright, let's fight the Tartars. Killing one is enough, killing two is a bonus. Even if we die, the compensation money will be enough for our wives and children to live on." Lieutenant Lu smiled and raised his pistol. "On my command, prepare to fire, fire freely until all these Tartars fall, or until we fall."
Taktan led several hundred cavalrymen closer and closer, and at a distance of more than three hundred paces, he suddenly split in two, forming a pincer movement that squeezed towards the hollow square formation.
Lieutenant Lu silently estimated the distance, felt that they were within the firing range of a rifled gun, and shouted the order: "Fire!" He then pulled the trigger first, firing his pistol.
Gunshots rang out one after another, and the galloping cavalrymen fell headlong. Accompanied by the mournful neighing of warhorses and the screams of men, both men and horses rolled on the ground, raising clouds of dust. The cavalrymen behind them could not avoid the danger and stepped on their own men, lost their balance, and also fell off their horses.
Haug gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, somewhat horrified: Could there really be a musket in this world capable of shooting more than three hundred paces?
Taktan had no way out; he could only move forward, and the whistling bullets couldn't stop him. He clung tightly to his horse's back, head down, charging forward, hoping that stray bullets wouldn't hit him.
If the Marines, armed with rifles, were facing infantry, the outcome of this warm-up battle would have been predetermined: the Marines with their long-range firepower would have won. Unfortunately, their opponents were elite Manchu cavalry. After withstanding the first wave of fire, the rest bypassed the carcasses and other obstacles on the ground, continuing their high-speed advance. Meanwhile, the soldiers, frantically reloading, clearly only had one chance to fire. The situation slowly turned against them.