Chapter 336 Riverside Cat Golden Cube

The sentry's shrill cry did not wake up most people. After all, this was a military camp of more than 3,000 people. As long as everyone made a little more friction when walking and said a few more words, it would be enough to drown out his voice.

Until the shrill military bugle sounded, until the shaking of the earth could no longer be concealed, and even the curtain door of the military tent began to shake, the soldiers woke up from their dreams.

But as Otto had expected earlier, the proportion of officers in Tianming's troops was too low. He read in the books of Ming people that the smallest organization of the Ming army was a five-man squad, and the number of officers commanded at each level varied between two and five. The flat command structure of Tianming led to an officer commanding more than ten units, and the lowest-level sergeants even had to directly command twenty or thirty soldiers, which made it difficult to gather and respond in a hurry.

But Otto was just the young master of the Apocalis family who was escorted by this infantry regiment preparing to support the front line. He did not have any military position. Of course, even if he wanted to manage it, it was too late now.

His first reaction was to hold the bag containing the small wooden box tightly and trot to the nearest wall.

About a hundred yards outside the wall was the river they had followed during the daytime march. The team of soldiers who had been fetching water threw down their buckets and desperately ran towards the camp. More than a dozen Ming soldiers followed closely behind. The soldiers in the camp did not dare to open the camp gate, and could only let the soldiers outside curse and bang on the camp gate desperately.

This stalemate lasted for about a minute. The Ming cavalry became impatient and rushed up to shoot a wave of feather arrows, and then used the ropes hanging on the saddle to catch a few unlucky people who survived the arrows, squeezed the horses' bellies, and dragged them away.

Otto stood on the wall and watched all this happen without changing his expression. He knew that this was just an appetizer.

The ground shaking just now was like thousands of horses running together. The Ming people would never have only a dozen horses.

By this time, he had also understood a little bit -

Karen had commented on the Ming army's fighting style from a soldier's perspective in a letter to him:

"The Ming people's fighting style is very different from ours. They rely heavily on scouts on horseback. These people can often sneak into the rear of the battle line when we least expect it, so our troop movements are clear to them, and in most cases we can only passively take the beating.

"These scouts can go dozens of miles behind our battle line, guide the direction of the cavalry they infiltrate, harass our supply lines, and even reinforcements, so that two regiments of reinforcements have lost more than half of their personnel before they reach the front line, and have to be reduced to one regiment. "

Otto understood that the Ming cavalry that appeared yesterday evening were the "scouts" mentioned by Karen. They first found the location of the Tianming troops, and then used more than 40 cavalrymen to attack the team of 3,000 people. It was not a mindless and reckless behavior, but to test the combat effectiveness of this Tianming reinforcement.

Obviously, their reconnaissance has achieved satisfactory results. Now they have led a large group of Ming cavalry and rushed here in just one night.

However, Otto was not too panicked. He now had to thank, and all the soldiers had to thank the damned commander Mark Hughes. He forced the soldiers to work until the second half of the night with an unprecedented tough attitude last night, just to build this thin layer of wooden wall. Obviously, he had already anticipated it in his heart. This possibility was expected.

As long as there is this simple wall, the cavalry who are not good at attacking will have no way to deal with them. With the food and water in the camp, they should be able to hold on for a day or two. A large number of Ming cavalry gathered behind the Tianming Front, and they will definitely be noticed. They just need to hold on in the camp until the reinforcements arrive.

Nodding firmly, and gently patting the small wooden box in the backpack, after confirming that it is intact, Otto strode to the east wall of the stockade. He saw the flag of Captain Mark Hughes there.

The camp of 3,000 people is not big. It is hard to say whether the circumference is a lorry (about 1,500 meters). Otto ran quickly along the wall of the stockade and found Captain Mark Hughes in just two minutes.

"Master Otto? "

Seeing that this noble young master did not shrink in his tent, but ran to the most dangerous front line, with an unusually calm expression, Mark Hughes widened his one eye in disbelief -

Is this still the young master known for his weakness and incompetence?

But at this moment he could not care so much. He saw Otto nodded to him, and instinctively nodded in response, and then he put his right hand on his chest and bowed.

Otto stood beside him silently, looked outside the village wall, and his brows quickly frowned.

About a thousand yards outside the village wall, you can vaguely see teams of Ming cavalry holding high battle flags and galloping back and forth. They probably dragged branches behind their horses, raising large clouds of dust while galloping, and the little light when the morning sun was about to rise, smoked the entire sky into a burnt yellow.

"What are they doing?"

Otto asked curiously.

"It's the same in the east, north, and west. "

Mark Hughes glanced at him. In the past, he would have disdained to explain, but after being in contact with Otto for a while, he felt that this guy was not as annoying as the other members of the Apokalis family. Sometimes, his behavior was more like Kaslana, except that Kaslana's unconventionality was supplemented by Apokalis's reserve.

"They are blocking the battlefield's sight, making it impossible for us to judge their troops and attack direction. I heard that more than two hundred years ago, this was also the most commonly used tactic of the Mongols."

"Then... what are they waiting for? Why don't they launch an attack now?"

"They are waiting for the sunrise."

Mark Hughes glanced at the scorched yellow sky, as if he could see through all the deployments of the Ming people.

"The sunrise on the grassland is particularly dazzling. If I were the commander of the Ming people, I would definitely consider the sun's good assist."

Otto suddenly realized that it was no wonder that Mark Hughes rushed to the eastern wall as soon as possible.

For the Ming people, the general attack directions that can be chosen are nothing more than the southeast, northwest, and northeast. The southern wall is only a hundred yards away from the river, and there is almost no space for formation. The commander of the Ming people is not a fool and will not crowd the cavalry on the riverbank.

Even after the previous cavalry left, Otto never saw the flag of the Ming people in the south again-surrounded by three and missing one, Otto knew this word.

As for the other three directions, attacking from the west would mean facing the dazzling morning sun, attacking from the north would be normal, and if attacking from the east, the army would be blinded by the morning sun.

"The musket company goes up to the wall, the spearman company pushes down the tents, and directly forms a square formation in the camp! Let the first, second, and third companies all come to my side and form a formation directly behind the wall! Quick!"

Mark Hughes responded quickly. With many years of combat experience, he was convinced that the Ming army was about to launch an attack from the east. He made a prompt decision and transferred the three spearman companies with the highest breastplate equipment rate and the longest service time to this direction.

But... he was also very clear about the speed of these people's formation. In such a panic, the time required to form a formation would only be more, not less, and all the tents had to be pushed down first.

Fortunately, the wall should be able to buy enough time for the infantry.

Mark Hughes patted the wooden wall with satisfaction. The wood that made up the wall was not thick. After all, it was a temporary product. The diameter was about the same as an apple, but it was enough to protect the musketeers under the rain of arrows from the Ming people.

Seeing the musketeer company stand on the wall first, Otto and Mark Hughes breathed a sigh of relief. The Ming cavalry came from afar and should not be able to carry artillery. There would not be too many people, otherwise there would be no need to cover the battlefield, and the whole army would just rush forward.

As long as the wall and the musketeer company can hold out for an hour, even half an hour, it is enough!

Otto glanced at his side. The musketeer had already lit the matchlock and loaded the first round of ammunition with trembling hands and feet.

Despite the unusual tension, some people couldn't help yawning, and then the whole company became sleepy and yawned all the time-calculating carefully, it has not even been five hours since the camp was set up... Thinking of this, Otto couldn't help yawning.

They also had four snake cannons, which were placed at the four corners of the camp. The four corners extended outward like the most common bastions, but because they were rushed products, the extension distance was not as carefully calculated as the bastions, but it was better than nothing.

And the artillery of destiny became the first unit to fire in this battle.

Although the nearest artillery was more than a hundred yards away from Otto, the sudden loud noise still scared him, and the entire wall of the camp suddenly shook, as if it would fall apart in the next moment.

Then two black balls drew a visible arc in the air, one fell on the flat ground five hundred yards away, and the other fell at a distance of about the same distance, and then the two black balls bounced again by inertia and hit heavily in the smoke and dust raised by the Ming cavalry.

Otto did not hear the wailing of people and horses. Thinking of the loose formation of the Ming cavalry, it was indeed too difficult to hit them with such a density of firepower.

About ten minutes later, the second round of artillery sounded, and it did not hit the target as before.

At this moment, on the horizon blurred by yellow smoke in the east, a beam of dazzling light tore through everything without warning and shone straight in.

"It's coming!"

Mark Hughes shouted excitedly.

Facts have proved that all his tactical predictions were correct. Just a few breaths after sunrise, hundreds of Ming cavalry rushed out of the smoke in an extremely loose formation.

"They want to attack the camp on horseback?"

Otto was stunned and quickly crossed out this option from his mind, because as the Ming cavalry rushed into the 500 yards, he gradually saw the difference between these cavalry and the previous Ming cavalry-

Each of them rode a horse, and there was a smaller horse beside them. The things on the horse were not clear, but it was clear that they were siege tools.

The two snake cannons were still slowly dissipating heat and loading, and the Ming army approached within 200 yards outside the wall without any hindrance.

The musketeers on the wall of the fort fired a burst of free shots, but not to mention the morning sun that made it almost impossible to open your eyes, even under normal circumstances, the musketeers of Tianming, who were used to firing at a distance of two spears, had no accuracy at a distance of hundreds of yards.

The Ming cavalry quickly dismounted, and all their movements were as fast as in the drill manual. They worked in groups of three or four, and it took only half a minute to unload the things on the pack horses. During this time, the musketeers had not yet completed a round of reloading, and the battlefield fell into a brief silence.

As for the things they unloaded...

Otto took half a step back imperceptibly, making sure that he could jump off the wall and escape immediately. The sound of the wooden board "squeaking" was particularly harsh. Mark Hughes turned his head stiffly and said nothing after seeing Otto's movements.

"Ten breech-mounted eagle cannons (1), more than twenty... what are these!"

The rear-mounted eagle cannon is fixed on a four-legged curved gun mount, which can be directly removed from the horse and can be loaded and used directly.

What's even stranger is another type of light artillery (2), which is an iron barrel as long as a person's arm, with several iron hoops added. It doesn't even have a gun mount. The Ming army directly used a small log to cushion the gun body. Next, the shooting angle (3) is adjusted.

When the matchlock gunner fired the second round of meaningless shots, more than thirty artillery pieces of the Ming army had all been loaded. The gunner retreated, and under the command, he used the match rope to ignite the quick-burning fuse at the rear of the gun in unison. …

In an instant, the cannonballs surged and the smoke gathered into a thick "sea of ​​clouds."

The raindrops woven from hundreds of shotgun shells arrived first, sending sawdust flying across the wall. At the same time, the queue of arquebusiers suddenly thinned out.

The living people cannot be called "lucky ones", because in the next moment, more than thirty cannons the size of goose eggs hit that end of the wall almost simultaneously.

The thin wall collapsed instantly, revealing the first row of spearmen who had just lined up behind the wall. The violent vibration also caused many gunmen to lose their footing and fall backwards. One unlucky guy even had his body pierced directly on the spear.

Otto was lucky, but his butt hurt a little from the fall.

He quickly climbed up, held the backpack in front of him, and fumbled around in a panic. After confirming that the wooden box was okay, his anxious heart gradually relaxed.

Then, he silently took a step back - obviously, the wall was no longer safe, and he, Otto Apokalis, could not die here, he should not die here.

But when he turned around while swallowing furiously, he met the eyes of countless soldiers.

"Gulu..."

Otto used so much force that he almost broke his Adam's apple. The soldiers whose faces were covered in sweat and black mud just stared at him, with no anger, no curiosity, and no fear in their eyes. The soldiers in the first column had barely formed a horizontal line, and the queues on the 19th floor behind were still crowded together. The sergeant should have cursed the names of the soldiers loudly to form a line, but when he turned around, everyone stopped moving, just Stare at him quietly.

The queue of soldiers was quite dense, but this density was only relative to the Ming army. There was still a little more than half a yard between each of them. Otto didn't even need to turn sideways, just walked straight like this, and he could pass by them. walked through the gaps.

But after thinking about it, he slowly turned back - according to his mind, of course he wanted to escape, there was no doubt about it.

He, Otto, is a person who is extremely afraid of death. What's more, if the thing he is carrying is captured by the Ming army, it will be a disaster for Destiny and Kallen.

But he did not leave, because he calmed down at the most critical moment. He knew that as the young master of the Apokalis family, although these soldiers may not like him, his escape from the battle was completely detrimental to these soldiers whose morale was already low. It's adding insult to injury. And if he stood here, it would actually boost morale a little.

Of course, the most important thing is that now he has no place to escape. Instead of running out of the camp and being captured by the Ming army, he might as well stay here and think about a solution.

But he no longer dared to go up the wall, and he could not retreat. He could only stand awkwardly between the soldiers and the wall with his attendants.

But with the wall blocking him, he couldn't see the situation on the battlefield at all. He could only stand where he was and rely on sounds and other things to make a rough judgment——

The Ming army's artillery sounded again, and now the wall not far away on the left was blown down again. Otto had already seen the calves of many arquebusiers trembling crazily.

At the same time, on the right side, in the direction of the gap made by the Ming army's first round of artillery, there was the rumble of horse hooves.

"The Ming cavalry is about to attack!"

Only the first column of spearmen in the direction of the gap has completed the formation. They have no other choice but to flatten their spears and let the shimmering spear points protrude diagonally from the gap, hoping that the horses will The fear of adversity was forced to stop.

But Mingren's cavalry was obviously very experienced in attacking infantry arrays. First, a dense rain of arrows poured in from the gap. The soldiers waved their spears and tried to deflect the arrows. The success rate was naturally not high, but the soldiers in the first row were more protected. Well, there was chain mail under the chest plate, so not many people fell to the ground.

But then, with a series of explosions, Otto's whole body jumped. At a distance of thirty yards, the cheap mass-produced chest plate armor could not block the shooting of Akito's three-eyed gun (4) , most of the soldiers in the first column fell down in the blink of an eye, and even a dozen of the extended spears were broken by the fine rain of bullets.

Are you about to rush in?

Otto stared at the narrow gap with wide eyes. He heard uneven breathing sounds coming from behind him, and he knew that he was not the only one doing this at this time.

But they were all disappointed. There were still horses in front of the camp. The Ming cavalry was not that stupid.

In a daze, Otto felt that the sound of horse hooves was getting closer to him, and a picture suddenly appeared in his mind - when approaching the gap, the Ming cavalry made a half-turn just like the cavalry of destiny, but their charging speed was several times faster. The latter, so much so that it traced a crescent-like trajectory.

Just like capturing prisoners before, they used the ropes hanging from the saddle to hook the barricades in front of the gap and pulled them apart, clearing the way for the subsequent comrades to charge. Then, they galloped along the wall, clearing the barricades along the way, and they might even be separated from Otto by a thin wall!

Wait!

Otto's eyes suddenly widened. He looked up at the commander Mark Hughes standing still on the wall. Just as he was about to shout something, he heard a crisp sound of a bowstring.

Then, Mark Hughes' body slowly leaned back and fell in front of Otto.

His face was full of feather arrows, like a hedgehog.

Otto's upper and lower lips opened and closed slightly, and his legs suddenly became so soft that he almost fell to the ground.

The next moment, he really sat down on the ground, but not because of simple fear, but...

"Boom!"

The wall in front of him was broken into countless pieces. If he hadn't fallen down because of his weak legs, the soldier behind him, whose face was full of wooden thorns and whose body was broken into two by lead bullets as big as goose eggs, would have ended up like him.

He looked up again and saw that hundreds of Ming cavalry were rushing towards the gap in a loose manner. The shooting of the musketeers only caused a few people to fall off their horses. In the final stage of the charge, the formation of the Ming cavalry gradually became tight and neat, like a wall.

Then, Otto saw those Ming cavalry leveled their three-barreled guns.

"Run!"

At this moment, he did not hesitate and ran backwards, rolling and crawling. The sound of gunfire rang out behind him, merging with the screams of the soldiers, and then, it was the collision of iron and flesh.

Otto ran like crazy, and soon he found that he was not the only one running backwards. The soldiers around him, in front of him, and behind him all threw away their heavy spears and even ran faster than him.

The line of the Tianming army collapsed inexplicably after Mark Hughes was killed. The soldiers ran around in the barracks. The Ming cavalry still followed them slowly, deliberately driving them to attack the other three sides of the army. If someone tried to gather together to resist again, the Ming cavalry would rush in with long swords and iron bars and disperse them in one wave.

Otto and his attendants were also swept around by the sea of ​​people. Fortunately, he had a relatively clear goal - the south. He knew that there were no Ming troops outside the wall of the south. He knew that there was a turbulent river outside the wall of the south. He knew that was the Ming army's tactic of surrounding three and missing one, but only there was a glimmer of hope!

But there were people everywhere, and they couldn't find the door of the southern wall at all. Fortunately, Otto had sharp eyes and saw several old soldiers in cotton armor sneaking in the opposite direction. He immediately followed them. After walking for several steps, he realized that these people were going to the southeast corner of the camp.

The east was the first area to be breached, and the southeast corner was naturally affected, but the Ming cavalry seemed to have only a few hundred cavalry, so they couldn't spread out and advance, so there was a gap there, a gap that neither the Ming army nor the Tianming army noticed.

Otto hurriedly quickened his pace to catch up. Several old soldiers didn't seem to recognize him, or they did recognize him, but in this case, there was no difference between the lives of a noble and a soldier.

They supported each other to cross the southeast corner of the wall, and then ran wildly towards the direction of the river - the river was not wide, but the water was a little turbulent. As long as they could swim across, the Ming cavalry might not be able to catch up!

But the rumbling of horse hooves broke all the illusions. After a few crisp sounds of bowstrings, several veterans fell down. Otto was not shot because his attendant threw him down in time and blocked the fatal arrow.

But it was useless.

Otto crawled out from the body of the attendant, stumbled and ran two more steps, and turned back to find that a dozen Ming cavalry were following him quickly, with long knives pointing at him, obviously playing a cat-and-mouse game.

"Heh..."

Otto grabbed the wooden box through the backpack. As long as he opened it and crushed the things inside, the thousands of people fighting here would become dead soldiers in an instant.

But he hesitated again.

He could speak Shenzhou language. Now he showed his identity to the Ming army. Even if he became a prisoner, he would definitely survive, but he would lose his dignity.

But what is dignity? For Kallen, these are not important at all. Moreover, he will definitely be sent to the Ming army camp at the front line. If he opens that thing there...

Just when he was about to raise his hands shamelessly, he seemed to see a few golden feathers floating down in front of his eyes. He saw that the eyes of those Ming cavalry gradually became confused and empty, and then they rode away.

"What is that...?"

Otto didn't have time to savor the joy of escaping death. He turned around and was about to step into the river, but his vision went black and he felt his body fall into the water.

…………

"Meow..."

"Meow?"

"Meow meow meow!"

"Uh... vomit!"

Otto only felt a heaviness in his chest and abdomen, and vomited a bunch of river water from his mouth, which made him feel "alive" again.

He lowered his head and saw a cat that was almost fat like a ball standing on his chest, stepping on him with its front paws.

"Uh... this is..."

Seeing that he woke up, the cat jumped off his body consciously, allowing him to sit up.

Otto's first reaction was naturally to check his backpack. Fortunately, the wooden box was specially made for him, and although it had some water in it, it was not a big problem - in other words, he was still alive, which meant that there was nothing wrong with the things inside.

He glanced at the river behind him again. He should have drifted downstream, there was no doubt about that, but the problem was that the river had turned completely red at this time, and a large number of headless corpses were floating downstream like driftwood.

The Ming army cut off heads to reward meritorious service - he suddenly thought of this, and then he pounced forward and vomited violently.

"Meow?"

The fat cat tilted its head and sneered disdainfully.

When Otto finally felt more comfortable, he found that the cat had been standing beside him obediently and did not leave.

"Huh? Are you a domestic cat?"

Otto saw the bow on its neck, which was not something a wild cat could have. Of course, its size could also explain everything.

The cat smiled slightly and suddenly opened its mouth to him.

But it was not going to bite people. A golden light suddenly appeared in its throat, and then the cat's throat swelled and spit a golden cube into Otto's hand.

"This... what is this?"

The golden cube still had a little bit of temperature, but it was not stained with any mucus from the cat's stomach, as if the cat did not really exist in the world.

Uh... that's right, if a normal cat had something like this in its stomach, it would have died a long time ago, right?

Otto finally realized that this cat was not simple, but when he moved his eyes away from the golden cube, he found that...

There was no cat in front of him, and there were no cat footprints on the black mud in front of him.

Only the golden cube in his hand was a real thing.

(1) Breech-loading Eagle Cannon: that is, the Portuguese machine. The one mentioned in the text is more accurately called the Wolf Machine Gun on Horseback. The cavalry was accompanied by the cannon, which was carried by a mule. When in use, the cannon was supported by a pack frame, and the standard ammunition was 100 rounds.

(2) This type of cannon originated from the combination of the Ming army's Mielu Cannon and Yongzhu Cannon. The following weights and dimensions are all in Ming Dynasty units.

The Yongzhu Cannon is 1 foot 7 inches long, 8 inches in circumference, and has an estimated caliber of 6 centimeters. It weighs 45 pounds. The cannon is 8 times the diameter, and uses ammunition of 1.2 jin to press a large iron bullet, 40 iron bullets of 1 liang, and 10 lead bullets of 1 liang. A total of 4.4 jin of large and small bullets, 8 liang of charge.

The Mielu Cannon (Ye Gong type) weighs more than 80 Ming jin (equivalent to 95 jin now), with 12 liang of charge and 6 liang of lead.

The cannon here is equivalent to the charge of the Mielu Cannon firing the shells of the Yongzhu Cannon, so there is also the later cannon firing solid bullets and shotgun shells, which was very common in the artillery of the East and the West at that time.

In addition, can this ultra-light artillery attack simple camps? Let me put it this way, in the Battle of Bozhou, the Ming army used the Mielu Cannon to attack the enemy. There are many types of Mielu Cannons, and considering the era of Pingbo, there is no doubt that it was Ye Gong Mielu (one of the Red Yi Cannons is the Red Yi Mielu).

(3) This seemingly crude elevation adjustment was actually intended to enhance the mobility of light artillery. At that time, artillery also used wooden wedges to adjust the firing angle, so the difference was not large. For details, see the scroll of the Battle of the Black River in which the Qing army pacified the Hezhuo brothers.

(4) The Artifact Book believes that the three-barreled gun can shoot at unarmored targets at a distance of fifty steps, and at heavily armored targets at a distance of thirty steps