Chapter 138: Advancing Under Fire

[How sad! Next week, Guo Ben will cry his heart out]

Chen Ming's mouth twitched. The Qing army's artillery fire was not a big threat to the advancing musket battalion, because the musket battalion's formation was too thin. The vast field outside Linru Town was enough for Chen Ming to arrange a thousand musket soldiers into ten long arrays of different positions.

The Qing army did not have shrapnel shells, but only traditional iron shells, which could not pose a threat to the musket battalion that stretched the array very thin.

However, the artillery of the Chen family army also had to make its own sound. The distance of two or three hundred steps was enough for the Qing soldiers to fire another shot, at least one shot, which would have an impact on the morale of the Chen family army.

Chen Ming looked at the artillery unit behind the musket array, all of which were three-jin and two-jin cannons, which were pushed hard by the gunners and the soldiers of the guard team to another artillery position in front of the formation.

The two artillery positions were only sixty steps apart, or about a hundred meters, and this hundred meters compared to the hundred or so steps that the musket battalion advanced forward was the difference in the range of the artillery fire on both sides.

"Boom boom boom..."

The Qing soldiers fired the second round of artillery fire. The accuracy of this round of artillery fire seemed to be about the same as the last time. The two rounds of artillery fire brought twenty casualties to the musket battalion? It did not have much impact on the morale of the soldiers in the musket battalion.

Chen Ming's eyes were taken back from the artillery battalion, and he breathed a sigh of relief, because the artillery of the Chen family army's artillery battalion was in place.

"Boom boom boom..." A water of three-jin cannons and two-jin cannons.

The number of artillery of the Chen family army exceeded thirty. This is why it took Chen Ming seven or eight days to rush from Xiang County to Linru Town, thanks to the Beiru River.

Thirty artillery pieces spewed out white smoke, and the thick smoke immediately covered the artillery positions, although the wind soon blew away the white smoke.

The screams that were so painful that they almost pierced the eardrums were heard in the Qing army. At least 10 to 20 Qing soldiers fell in a pool of blood and howled at the top of their lungs. In front of them or behind them, there were almost the same number of Qing soldiers lying quietly in the blood. Broken limbs, pieces of flesh and fragments of muskets were scattered all over the front line.

The formation of the Shaanxi soldiers fluctuated slightly, and soon returned to calm. Budashun, with a face full of flesh, held a heavy machete in his hand, staring at the musketeers around him with eyes as big as cow eyes. He really dared to chop people. The garrison of Tongguan Association was famous for his cruelty in Tongguan Association.

He held a wooden shield in his hand, and the shield was covered with a layer of cowhide. This thing could not stop artillery shells at all, not even bullets. A standard shield should be covered with two or three layers of cowhide. As for why this shield in his hand, which was in good condition, was only covered with one layer of cowhide, only God knew.

Although Budashun knew that the thing could not block the cannonballs at all, he turned his head and looked at the place where the iron bullet had just hit, and Budashun still held the shield tightly in his hand.

Chen Ming's eyes did not show any strange vision, but in his feeling, as his own artillery battalion opened fire, the morale of the musket battalion that was marching in formation in front of him suddenly rose, giving Chen Ming the feeling that his already bent waist suddenly straightened up, although his whole body was not yet stretched to the maximum.

"Boom boom boom..." The artillery battalion of the Chen family army was obviously a little later than the second artillery of the Qing army, but the second shot was very eye-catching and rushed to the front of the third artillery of the Qing army.

At this time, there were only a hundred steps left between the musket battalion and the Qing army's bird gun array.

An iron bullet quickly enlarged in Budashun's eyes, hitting more than ten steps in front of him, and then bounced up and pounced on him. Budashun couldn't control his fear and shouted. He found that he couldn't lift his legs at all, so he could only desperately block the shield in front of him and close his eyes.

There was a loud bang, followed by a terrifying sound of bones breaking, and then something hit his right shoulder. Budashun staggered, his legs softened, and he knelt on the ground. There was panic all around. Budashun shook his head, his whole body was numb, but there was no severe pain. He quickly looked down at his body and legs, which were all intact. Only then did his soul return to his body. He turned his head to see what hit him, but it was a straw hat. Looking at the ground again, there was a musketeer with only half of his body left. It seemed that he was cut in half by the shell. The colorful intestines under his body were scattered, and the filth and internal organs kept flowing out, and the stench was pungent.

Budashun looked at the face. This was his soldier. Of course he recognized him. He could even call out the guy's name...

The surrounding Qing soldiers looked at the scene in fear. Several of them vomited. The morale of the musketeers had been greatly shaken by the two rounds of artillery fire.

Compared with the artillery bombardment of the Qing army, the artillery bombardment of the Chen family army was much more powerful and accurate. If the first round of artillery bombardment had a hit rate of less than one-third of the thirty artillery pieces, the hit rate of the second round of artillery bombardment increased to more than half. If the Qing soldiers did not move, the hit rate of the third round of artillery bombardment might be increased to 70-80%. It could even hit the Qing artillery sandwiched in the Qing army's musketeer array.

Budashun's dull eyes slowly gathered, and then slowly returned to the fierceness of the ferocious. He waved the shield and machete in his hand, shouted angrily, and knocked the vomiting soldiers to the ground, and then kicked them fiercely, making the Qing soldiers beg for mercy.

"Stand up, all stand up..." The machete was waving, as if it could fall on the heads of those people at any time. "You bunch of cowards, what is there to vomit about dead people? Hurry up and line up for me..." The word "line" remained in Budashun's stomach forever.

Budashun, who roared viciously at his musketeers, died. A lead bullet hit his cheek accurately, shattering his skull, and his roaring stopped abruptly with his shattered eyeballs and splattered brain.

Seventy or eighty steps away, Chen Zhongda raised his eyebrows, then swaggered to stay in place to reload the rifle in his hand, while his assistant continued to look at the Qing army musketeer array with a telescope, looking for prey worth hunting.

Seventy or eighty steps away, more than thirty feet away, the musketeers in the hands of the Qing army posed no threat to them at all.

The chaos of the musketeer array in the front row of the Qing army became more and more serious. From Wang Tenglong's point of view, he could clearly observe the fluctuations of the musketeer array. Wang Tenglong was very angry. How many people did the Chen family army kill in two rounds of artillery fire? How many musketeers were there in front of the Qing army? Could the former be a hundred? The latter were more than two thousand.

When the musketeers advanced to the front of the Qing army forty or fifty steps, the third artillery of the Qing army finally fired. But it still did not cause any major damage, because the distance between the two sides was too close. Even if the Qing artillery reduced the gunpowder, the minimum angle of the muzzle could not be changed. Some shells still passed over the heads of the musketeer battalion. The Qing soldiers did not have shotgun shells, at least the artillery of the Shaanxi Green Camp in front of them did not have shotgun shells, which immediately reduced the threat of the artillery to the close-range infantry formation to the minimum.

A shrill whistle sounded. The Chen family army musketeers who were marching forward suddenly stopped, and then the ten formations easily formed five clusters, and the muskets were aimed at the Qing army bird gun soldiers on the opposite side.

"Beep--" The whistle sounded again.