Chapter 1057 1053【Brave and brave rider】

  Chapter 1057 Chapter 1053 [Brave and brave rider]

  The camp built on the mountain has been surrounded by Braha’s army.

  The soldiers of all ethnic groups who came to seek refuge were inevitably frightened, and it could even be said that they were panicked.

   As the former overlord of Central Asia, although Bukhara has become extremely decayed, it still has power at this time, and many tribes under the rule dare not resist.

  The second day after the encirclement of the camp, Governor Mirza came to call for formation.

  Liang Zhen observed with binoculars for a while, and immediately laughed: “It’s actually this kind of army. Fortunately, we have few soldiers, and the enemy came to fight on their own initiative. Otherwise, it would be difficult to chase after them if they were scared away.”

  Lei Zhiji was also observing the enemy army, and asked with a puzzled look: “Bukhara has been established for more than a hundred years, but hasn’t learned how to fight on foot?”

  Liu Qin couldn’t understand what they were saying, so he asked, “Is there any weakness in the enemy army?”

“Ha ha ha ha!”

  Liang Zhen and Lei Zhiji smiled at each other.

  Lei Zhiji explained: “The enemy army has no real infantry at all, and they don’t know how to form a large infantry formation. It is their firecrackers, to put it bluntly, they are similar to our army’s dragoons.”

   This is a puzzling thing. The empire that ruled Central Asia for more than a hundred years did not arrange infantry formations.

  Bukhara’s army can be said to be all cavalry.

  Even infantry, they usually ride on horseback—here we only talk about the regular army, and the temporary recruited tribal armed forces are not counted.

  At this moment, the enemy infantry came outside the camp, dismounted and began to line up. From the perspective of a layman like Liu Qin, the formation seemed to be quite neat, but in the eyes of Liang Zhen, it was ridiculous.

  Some people say that the troops of the Qing Dynasty were mounted infantry, while the Bukhara army in front of them. But it is a real dismounted cavalry.

   Moreover, although they were equipped with a large number of muskets, they did not see them bringing artillery when they attacked the camp.

  Lei Zhiji said: “It’s a pity that our army traveled a long way and did not bring chariots. Otherwise, the enemy troops would not be able to enter if the chariots were deployed.”

   “Not only chariots, but also artillery.” Liang Zhen said.

  I didn’t bring any artillery with a slightly larger caliber. This time I brought all the tiger crouching cannons, because the tiger crouching cannons can be carried by two people.

   Seeing that the Chinese army did not fight, Mirza finally ordered an attack.

  However, Mirza did not use the elite. After all, the Datong Army is well-known. He first used the Uzbek tribal arm to find out the truth.

  The Uzbek soldiers who were sent up all came from the tribes to the west, and they were fairly loyal to the King of Bukhara. They were usually half-cultivating and half-grazing, but now they were attacking the camp. They dismounted and marched forward, with scimitars pinned to their waists, bows and arrows in their hands, and some soldiers had small shields on their arms.

  The Datong Army, a camp of tens of thousands of people, cannot be defended by only 3,500 Chinese soldiers.

  Warriors from various tribes who came to seek refuge, although they dare not fight in the field, still have the courage to defend the camp. The two sides fired at each other across the wooden fence, causing casualties to each other, and the attacking side naturally suffered heavier casualties.

   Mirza should be a veteran general. He asked the tribal soldiers to take turns to attack the camp. It seemed to be a very stupid refueling tactic, but he was testing the defensive weakness of the camp.

   Moreover, Mirza continued to deploy troops, trying to involve the mobilization of the defenders, so as to find a breakthrough and launch a general offensive.

  But… Datong Army has hot air balloons!

   Four hot air balloons rose, of course not to drop bombs, but to observe the entire battlefield from a condescending height.

  The camp of the Datong Army was originally built on the mountain, and the terrain was higher than that of the attacking side. With the use of hot air balloons, you can see the battlefield situation at a glance, and you can see how the enemy deploys troops.

   Mirza is located in a low place, and the camp is covered by wooden fences. Oftentimes, one can only guess what’s going on inside.

   After fighting for a whole day, Mirza launched more than ten attacks, which were always easily resolved by Liang Zhen.

  Because when any of Mirza’s troops moved, Liang Zhen knew immediately, and dispatched troops to defend in advance. Not only does it have the advantage of defending the camp, but it often accumulates partial victories by fighting more and fighting less.

  Those tribal soldiers who came over saw that Liang Zhen commanded like a god. Although there were already casualties, their morale was getting higher and higher.

   So far, the Datong Army has not moved, and has always been watching the battle as a reserve team.

   Mirza’s core elite did not move, because they were all heavy cavalry and musketeers, and he would not let these soldiers die in a tough battle.

  Continuous fighting for three days, Mirza’s side suffered close to 2,000 casualties, while the Datong Army only had more than 300 casualties. They are all vassal troops of their own, as long as their morale doesn’t collapse, no matter how many casualties there are, they don’t feel bad.

   On the fourth day, Mirza stopped fighting and chose to besiege the camp, besieging the Datong army alive.

   After all, the Datong Army came from afar, and it is impossible to bring too much military rations. It is impossible for the tribes that have come here to have too much food and grass. Even if they can loot some along the way, they will be stuck in the camp for a month or two at most.

“The enemy general is not an idiot. He has finally begun to besiege us,” Lei Zhiji said. “This is the enemy’s territory. The longer the siege, the more troops we can recruit. Our rations are decreasing day by day. And after being besieged for a long time, the morale of the tribal soldiers who have taken refuge here will also drop, and there may be some people who secretly defected to the enemy.”

   “Then let’s fight.” Liang Zhen said.

  At this moment, a group of cavalry came from the southeast, about 2,000 in number.

   It was the Minge tribe who raised the flag and rebelled. Under the leadership of Mahmur, they came to help the Datong Army fight. They have already rebelled, and they are the first to openly rebel. It is absolutely impossible to be forgiven. They can only gamble, and maybe they can survive from death.

   “If you dare to come, let’s kill together!”

   Mirza was so angry that he sent elite cavalry to kill Minge’s cavalry.

   Upon seeing this, Mehmur immediately ordered to leave.

  Although there are 2,000 cavalry in the Minge Department, their equipment is rotten, and not many of them even wear leather armor. Such a beggar-like light cavalry is suitable for flying a kite. Anyway, he will run away if he can’t win.

   “Get out of the village for a decisive battle!” Liang Zhen made a decisive decision immediately.

   Mirza saw that there was a change in the Datong Army, and immediately ordered the recall of the elite cavalry, leaving only 3,000 light cavalry, and continued to chase the Minge cavalry.

   Both sides have tens of thousands of troops, and there are a lot of nomadic cavalry, and the entire battlefield spreads out for nearly ten miles.

   To be honest, there is no way to direct.

  Especially Liang Zhen, the tribal leaders who took refuge here couldn’t understand the flag orders of the Datong Army, nor the bugles of the Datong Army. After being thrown out, he can only fight with his own ability, Liang Zhen can’t even think about commanding those troops.

  This war has been particularly chaotic since the beginning of the battle.

  The tribal cavalry fought against the tribal cavalry, and they all wanted to preserve their strength. As far as the eye can see, they are all riding horses and shooting arrows at each other, and with the cavalry cruising, the battlefield area is getting bigger and bigger, and the horizontal line is already more than ten miles away – Mirza can’t command anymore.

   It seems that there are lively fights everywhere, but there has been no hand-to-hand combat.

   It means shooting arrows back and forth, and if any tribe is slightly disadvantaged, they immediately run to the edge of the battlefield, for fear that their tribe will lose too much.

   At the end of the fight, they were completely mixed up and turned into a big melee between the tribes.

  The main generals of both sides ignored this and locked on each other’s elite main force.

  When the tribal army in the central battlefield decreased, Mirza finally began to dispatch the elite. Two thousand cavalry musketeers and five thousand light armored cavalry rushed towards the 3500 Datong army.

  The front of the Datong army is full of horse-rejecting piles, which were built by craftsmen from outside Andijan.

  Mirza’s order was to let the musketeers get off their horses and shoot at the Datong army when they were within range, and the five thousand cavalry archers also shot arrows at the Datong army. After the formation of the Datong Army was disrupted, the heavy cavalry was sent out to destroy the Datong Army.

   “Tiger Crouching Cannon!”

  More than 20 tiger squatting cannons were carried behind the horse rejection post.

  Because of the long journey, Liang Zhen didn’t bring shells at all, they were all gravel from the camp mountain.

  A large amount of gravel was filled into the gun barrel. Such perfunctory ammunition has an effective range of less than 100 meters. If the enemy is wearing cotton-iron composite armor, they will not be able to penetrate eighty or ninety meters, but it will only feel very painful.

   But it is enough, far beyond the range of muskets and horse bows.

  About sixty to seventy meters, the musketeers on the opposite side got off their horses one after another. The cavalry archers continued to rush forward, and circled to the sides, intending to shoot at the Datong army from the left and right.

   “Boom boom boom!”

  More than twenty tiger squatting guns were fired, and gravel flew out of the sky, hitting the musketeers who had just dismounted.

   There were three or four hundred musketeers on the spot, who were hit by stone bullets in a daze.

   Those who were hit on vital parts such as the head and neck fell down on the spot. There are also some who were hit, but the stones may be relatively small. The slightly injured only felt pain, and the seriously injured were broken by the broken stones.

   At this time, the morale can be seen. The morale of the Bukhara army is really not very high.

  The artillerymen of the Datong Army were still reloading, but the Bukhara musketeers did not take the opportunity to charge forward, but mounted their horses and began to retreat collectively. Even those places that have not been shelled, the musketeers are retreating, and it seems that they do not intend to fight the Chinese army.

  You can’t even get the military salary, so what the **** are you fighting for?

  The cavalry archers circled to the two wings, and before they entered the range of the horse bows, the musketeers of the Datong Army began to fire in salvo.

   There was a gunshot, and the horse archers also retreated, leaving only more than a hundred corpses.

   Mirza was annoyed at the cowardice of the soldiers, but he did not punish them on the spot, but ordered two tribal cavalry to be dispatched. He didn’t want his elite to fight bloody, and planned to use the tribal cavalry as cannon fodder, and then ordered the elite to charge and kill while the Datong army was reloading their ammunition.

   “Cavalry attack!”

  Liang Zhen suddenly dispatched cavalry, sending out only five hundred cavalry.

   Instead of killing the elite of Bukhara, it was to aid the tribal soldiers farther away.

  Seeing that the Datong cavalry carefully passed the rejected horse and rushed towards the battlefield on the left, Mirza was a little confused about the situation.

   But he didn’t bother to think about it. From Mirza’s point of view, the big trouble was the Datong army, and the Chinese leader was in the infantry formation. As long as the Chinese army is dealt with and the Chinese leader is killed, no matter how many rebellious tribes are left, he can easily destroy them.

  Cavalry Battalion Commander Lu Zhaoyun led five hundred Datong Xiao cavalry, and immediately accelerated after passing the horse-rejecting pile belt.

  There has been a mess over there, shooting non-stop in a mess, and no tribe is willing to fight hand-to-hand if the opponent is not shot to flee.

  Lu Zhaoyun didn’t care about this, he spotted an enemy army, and immediately rushed over desperately. During the charge, more than a dozen cavalrymen of Datong were shot off their horses by the enemy’s bows and arrows, and more cavalrymen had arrows stuck in their armor.

   In a blink of an eye, Datong Xiaoqi rushed in, and the Uzbek tribe fled immediately.

  The Tajik tribal cavalry nearby saw their morale high immediately, and followed the Datong cavalry to chase and kill them.

   Hacked and killed dozens of enemy cavalry along the way, and the chased tribe turned to flee. However, Lu Zhaoyun advanced straight forward, charging towards another group of enemies, and after that group of enemies fled, the nearby Gilligis cavalry also followed.

   Not long after, more and more tribal cavalry followed Datong Xiaoqi.

  The scattered tribal cavalry actually wanted to fight. After all, they had already rebelled. If they lost the war, they would definitely be settled by the governor. But they lack a backbone, and without a backbone, they have to preserve their strength.

  In contrast to the tribal cavalry under Governor Mirza, they were usually exploited by the king, and they were willing to fight with the governor. This was their last loyalty to the king, and it was absolutely impossible for them to bleed to the end.

  Five hundred Datong Xiaoqi, under the leadership of Lu Zhaoyun, continued to defeat the enemy along the way, and tribal cavalry continued to join.

   At the end of the rush, only four hundred of the five hundred warriors remained, and nearly one hundred Chinese soldiers were buried here. But the tribal cavalry behind them had gathered tens of thousands, and with the Datong cavalry as arrows, no one dared to stop them along the way.

  Mainly because of the previous melee, all the tribes who followed Mirza to fight were scattered, and they couldn’t get together for a while.

  Mahmur also led Minger’s cavalry and ran back to the battlefield in a circle. Seeing this, he couldn’t help admiring: “What a brave warrior!”

  The Bukhara light cavalry chasing Makhmur, but their faces changed dramatically, and they immediately fled to Mirza in fright.

  The tribal cavalry behind Lu Zhaoyun gathered more and more, and finally rushed to Mirza’s main formation. More than 20,000 cavalrymen killed the sky and covered the sky, and the heavy cavalry around Mirza were terrified.

  As for the tribal cavalry following Mirza, most of them have fled.

   “Attach the bayonet, the infantry strikes!”

  Liang Zhen personally led the infantry, inserted bayonets, crossed the rejected horses, lined up and walked towards the enemy.

   “Master Governor, run away, we have already lost!”

  (end of this chapter)