Chapter 519 Victory in the first battle

Author: Uncle Long Legs

Chapter 519 Victory in the first battle

"These desperate people are just asking for their own death; send a signal to the Fifth Cavalry Regiment and ask them to prepare to intercept and pursue this broken army of golden soldiers~"

After putting down a monocular telescope in his hand, Hu Biao said this.

There was something high-spirited in his expression and tone.

Next to him, there were several netizens including the imperial concubine and the singer, as well as a group of officers and generals of the Song Dynasty including Yue Fei.

At this moment, although they did not say anything, the expectant expressions on their faces could actually show that they also agreed with Hu Biao's statement.

Today is already the fifth day of February in Maode's second year, and it's early nine in the morning.

It was also the fifth day after they set off from Kaifeng City to take the oath.

The reason why Hu Biao and others are so high-spirited is because the start of the Northern Expedition, at least so far, has been quite smooth.

Not to mention anything else, just because they have increased the daily marching distance of the army to seventy miles starting from the second day, you have made them happy.

The reason for this is all thanks to the good weather, and the weather suddenly warmed up rapidly.

On the morning of the day of departure, the temperature was still below zero; but by noon, the temperature was rising to 15 or 16 degrees Celsius.

And in the next few days, the temperature got higher and higher day by day.

During the day yesterday, the highest temperature reached 212 degrees.

As a result, the ice layer on the thick river surface that was originally frozen became thinner day by day and was about to completely melt.

This means that the large number of carts in the current marching team no longer need to carry full of food, grass and supplies.

It can be used to improve the efficiency of the army's march.

Based on this idea, Hu Biao and the others found a lot of empty seats on these big cars.

These empty spaces not only allow the soldiers to throw a twenty-pound backpack behind them onto the cart to reduce their burden when marching.

There are even some spare spaces where the soldiers can take turns to rest and recover some energy.

However, when it comes to these new-style carts, the biggest role they currently play is to reduce the time and energy that soldiers spend setting up camps every night when they camp.

Building camps every day is one of the key factors that affects the speed of marching.

In order to prevent opponents from stealing camps in the middle of the night and possible camp roars, armies in the Central Plains have been very particular about setting up camps since ancient times.

As for the effect, if the camp is set up strictly according to the military manual, it will naturally be quite good.

But this also means that there are many requirements when it comes to choosing a camping site; you need to pack up for a while when you set out in the morning, and there is still some time before dark in the afternoon, so you have to stop and build a camp.

Taken together, a lot of time and energy are wasted.

Otherwise, why would many of Mao's ancient armies only be able to march a mere thirty miles in one day? This is also one of the allusions to the legendary "retreat".

You know, modern people can generally walk ten miles in one hour.

A three-hour journey takes a full day.

Not only during the march, there are too many other things that require energy; in order to ensure basic combat effectiveness, you can only walk such a small distance in a day.

But with these new big cars, everything is different.

Just like the cowboys during the Great Western Gold Rush, they did the same thing when camping at night.

When the soldiers camped every night, as long as they gathered together as a regiment, loaded the carts with planks and formed a circle, a solid formation of carts immediately appeared.

The whole process only takes about twenty minutes at most, and there is no need to bother building a camp at all.

Even these large cars can have a wooden roof added to them.

This means that even if it rains, it will not affect the defenders' use of muskets and artillery, and they can continue to open fire.

In this way, Hu Biao and others discovered that the soldiers were still relatively relaxed after marching sixty miles a day, so they increased the daily marching distance by ten miles.

Although the quantity is small, the accumulation is still considerable. This can arrive in Yanjing a few days in advance, which can be said to make their plan more abundant...

As for the battle that happened at the beginning, what was it all about?

To be precise, the first battle of the Song Dynasty's Northern Expedition was an encounter.

According to the information passed back by Xichang Fanzi who was active in Beidi, the Jin army is now beginning to gather in the Yanjing area.

Even Wanyan Wu's begging for money was done by the imperial chariot himself. It seems that there should be the final main battlefield between the two sides.

But this does not mean that they can let the Song Dynasty's Northern Expedition army reach Yanjing so easily.

Wanyan Yan Mu, Wanyan Aguda, Wanyan Wu Qimiao, the half-brother of the two emperors of the Jin Kingdom, was one of the few famous veterans left in the Jin Kingdom.

As early as a few days ago, he led a total of 40,000 cavalry to meet the Northern Expedition army.

So, yesterday, when they left the boundary of Xiangzhou controlled by the Yue Family Army, and today they arrived at Fucheng, which is away from Daming Mansion, only thirty or forty miles away, the battle between the two sides began.

To be more specific, a Jin cavalry of about 3,000 people.

After breaking through the Song army's sentries and cavalry cruising around the army, they suddenly launched an attack.

It is a pity that these Jin cavalry were discovered by the sentry cavalry left by the army to roam outside eleven or twelve miles away, and an early warning was issued in time.

The sentry rider held a special sky-piercing monkey, and after pulling the fuse, the thing could rush up to Lao Gao.

After the explosion, even during the day, such a huge movement can be seen clearly from a long distance away.

So, wait until these three thousand golden cavalry rush nearby.

Immediately I saw it, all the Song troops stopped advancing, and connected their carts with each other, forming one weird car formation after another.

After a slight hesitation, the Jurchen acted as Captain Meng'an.

Still commanding his cavalry, he chose a slightly smaller car formation with only two to three thousand men and launched an attack directly.

It seemed that they were preparing to rush up before the New Army cavalry surrounded them, take advantage of them, and then leave.

Then, just like the comment given by Hu Biao: These people who don't know whether to live or die are just asking for their own death.

As these golden soldiers rushed over, first they faced and the car formations on the left and right used Napoleon field artillery with a longer range.

He continuously fired solid artillery shells, giving them a severe blow.

Even these Jin men obviously know the power of this kind of artillery because their colleagues suffered heavy losses in Zhuxian Town.

In the process of charging, they tried to keep the distance between them as much as possible, but they were still hit by huge cannonballs, which smashed bloody alleys in the charging team.

However, compared to the scene where the muskets waiting in the car formation and the shotgun shells fired by the Xiaofolang machine guns were greeted one by one, the intensity of this shelling was nothing.

Especially these Jin cavalry, after rushing to the position fifty steps in front of the formation.

The position in front of them seemed to have an invisible barrier, making them pay a staggering price for every step forward.

When I paid a huge price and rushed thirty steps in front of the formation.

When the grenades were thrown out one after another, the casualties reached the level of the Jurchen Meng'an Commander, and they were all so painful that they were trembling.

The battle finally started, but only after three or four minutes.

The Jin side suffered thousands of casualties and could not bear it any longer. Suddenly a soldier blew the horn frantically, preparing to hastily evacuate the remaining personnel.

It was only after they turned around that they ran away like they had been for two days.

A Song cavalry unit with a size of 2,233 had already arrived with diagonal thrusts; this was the 5th Cavalry Regiment of the 2nd Cavalry Division, which had already rushed over after receiving the flag.

The knights above were all controlling their horses with one hand, and holding a short blunderbuss with the hammer cocked high in their other hand.

That doesn't seem to be entirely correct.

Because Gao Chong, who was riding a magnificent green horse and rushed to the front, was only holding a chiseled gold tiger head in his hand.

However, such an operation will not affect the performance of this once "the most powerful general in the Southern Song Dynasty" at all.

Against the background of bursts of short musket fire, he rushed straight towards the Jurchen Commander Meng'an with the shadow of his gun all over the sky.

No matter who blocked him along the way, he would stab him, pick him up, or knock his horse off after a shot passed. There was no single enemy at all.

After a brief cavalry fight, only seven or eight hundred of the originally three thousand Jin cavalry escaped.

When they were beating their horses wildly to escape, everyone's face was full of fear.

Not only was the power of the Song Dynasty's firearms far more powerful than in the legend, but also, that Song Dynasty young general Duan was too powerful.

Because their Captain Meng'an was already being held in his hand like a pampered little chicken.

After mentioning Hu Biao and others all the way, they threw it on the ground like garbage; then they performed a new army's military salute on horseback and said loudly:

"I have met all of you gentlemen..."

At this moment, Gao Chong was truly the most handsome boy in the room.

*******

Although in such an encounter, the number of Jin people killed and captured by the new army was only more than 2,000.

However, under the good omen of victory in the first battle, the Northern Expeditionary Army naturally burst into cheers, and their morale immediately skyrocketed.
To be continued...