Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 412: Flintlock Showdown
As the nominal capital of Japan, Kyoto had a large number of nobles living in it. Although Tokugawa Yoshinao "invited" the emperor to Edo in March of that year, the vast majority of nobles still lived here.
Now there is no emperor in name only, and the officials who have long lost their power naturally don't need to get up early. After all, it's spring now, and sleeping in in the morning is really the most comfortable thing.
Unfortunately, they were destined to have a bad sleep in the early morning of the 25th.
Starting at six o'clock that day, people in Kyoto felt a slight shaking under their feet. At first, everyone thought it was an earthquake, but soon someone realized that such a rhythmic shaking was not an earthquake at all, but the vibration caused by tens of thousands of feet of a large number of troops stepping on the ground at the same time!
Such a scene, combined with the various news that the ministers had recently received, made it very clear to everyone: where are the Ming people coming!
Although they have no real power, the nobles are the elite of the country. Their national consciousness was awakened relatively early, so they instinctively disliked Ming soldiers. However, compared with the Toyotomi family in the past, the attitude of the Tokugawa family towards the royal family and the nobles is really cold. Therefore, the nobles have mixed feelings: We don’t want to help anyone. Besides, even if we want to help someone, we don’t have any power.
Forget it, let's evacuate Kyoto first. The Tokugawa shogunate has stationed so many soldiers in the city. It would be really bad if this place became a battlefield.
Although the area where Kyoto is located is generally flat, there are still some small hills nearby. After leaving Kyoto, the nobles all ran to Mt. Atago in the northwest direction: Kyoto has only been peaceful for a few decades. In the past few years, Hosokawa, Miyoshi, Oda, Akechi, and others took turns to take the stage, and it was a mess. Whenever there was a war, everyone would run to Mt. Atago for refuge.
Although Mt. Atago is not very high, with the top of the mountain only about 900 meters above sea level, this group of nobles who were always wearing makeup and applying makeup were already out of breath when they only climbed to a considerable distance from the halfway point of the mountain, and had to stop.
However, for the two armies deployed on the flat ground at this time, the sight of the ministers standing on the mountainside 200 to 300 meters high was much better than that of Zhu Youdong standing on the temporary platform only 20 to 30 meters high at the back.
More than ten miles north of Kyoto, the Tokugawa Army first deployed three divisions, each with 10,500 infantrymen and 1,500 artillerymen serving fifty 105mm cannons.
In order to maximize the power of the flintlock rifles, both armies adopted a large horizontal array and shallow vertical array tomorrow. In this way, more than 30,000 Tokugawa troops were only arranged in six rows, with 6,000 people standing in each row!
Looking down from Mount Atago, this formation looks like a long snake formation, which is quite spectacular and endless.
The Ming army, which was about a thousand meters away from the Tokugawa army, also arranged itself in a similar formation.
Compared with the two armies, the Tokugawa army had arrived here earlier and was ready for battle, so their position had an advantage: the infantry stood in a slightly lower place in front, and the artillery position was located on a small mound that was about ten meters higher than the infantry. In this way, the artillery's shooting vision was very good and it was not easy to cause accidental injuries.
Relatively speaking, the Ming army's position was somewhat poor: it was just a large plain, so the artillery had to be placed in front, almost level with the infantry line.
At nine o'clock in the morning on the 25th, the warm spring sun had already risen high in the sky, and the fog in the wild had all dissipated, making the visibility very good. At this time, the nobles on Mt. Atago suddenly saw a puff of white smoke rising from the Tokugawa Army's position, and almost at the same time as the white smoke appeared, a huge roar and a whistling sound were heard.
It was the artillery position of the Tokugawa army that first fired a shot at the Ming army in the distance.
In the historical plane, the maximum range of the peak muzzle-loading smoothbore cannon reached 3,200 meters (cast in Britain in 1861, 205mm caliber, 14 times the caliber). But it is obvious that the 105mm cannon of the Tokugawa Army at that time did not have such a long range: after the artillerymen fired the shell about 500 to 600 meters behind the infantry, the shell flew nearly a thousand meters in the air, and then fell weakly on the front line of the Ming army's position, stirring up a large area of soil with green grass.
At this time, the Ming army lined up in the front were Li Chunzhong's Third Regiment, Huang Degong's Seventh Regiment, and Mao Wenlong's First Regiment, who was in charge of the front line because Cao Wenzhao had to coordinate the overall situation. The location where the shell fell was exactly the position of the First Regiment standing in the middle.
Looking at the artillery shells so close, Mao Wenlong frowned and waved his hands vigorously behind him. Then the gunners of the Ming army in the rear also increased the elevation angle of the cannon and tried to fire a shot.
The place where this shell landed was obviously a little worse than the opponent's shell.
Seeing this result, Mao Wenlong no longer hesitated. He quickly and loudly ordered: "Beat the drums, and the whole army will march forward!"
Following the movement of the first town, the third and seventh towns on its left and right sides also began to move forward slowly.
As the Ming army advanced, another whistling sound was heard, and the artillery positions of the Tokugawa family opposite began to fire continuously.
As the Ming army advanced, the Tokugawa family's cannons became more and more accurate. At 9:05 a.m., a cannonball finally flew accurately into the Ming army's square formation.
The shell whizzed down from the sky and hit a Ming soldier who was advancing, smashing him from head to toe. The huge potential energy when it landed stirred up a large piece of soil and also completely overturned several soldiers next to it. Then the solid iron ball that fell on the mud bounced up again, and when it jumped backwards, it cut off another soldier's thigh: At this point, his potential energy was basically consumed, and after landing again, it only bounced slightly, and then quickly fell to the ground, rolling down along the terrain.
Mao Wenlong didn't even blink when he saw the miserable state of his soldiers. He roared loudly and asked officers at all levels to keep their troops in formation. Then he just stared at the position of the Tokugawa Army in front of him.
Under the encouragement and strict orders of officers at all levels, the soldiers of the First Town, which had the unique name of "Henghai", marched indifferently in neat steps and continued to move forward at an orderly and uniform speed. Behind them, the medical soldiers quickly ran up and carried the wounded away.
Just as the Ming army continued to move forward steadily, countless puffs of green smoke suddenly rose from the Tokugawa army's position opposite, along with countless gunshots that almost sounded like one.
Then several Ming soldiers in the front row fell down without any warning.
After this row of gunfire, another whistling sound was heard, and more explosions rang out in the Ming army's phalanx. Whether it was the first town or the two towns next to it, there were casualties to varying degrees, as well as screams of varying volumes.
However, such screams only lasted for a moment. After they were uttered, they were forcibly suppressed by the owners of the voices with great willpower.
By 9:12 in the morning, although there were already many low roars of agony within the Ming army's formation, the Ming army's line remained extremely orderly in the face of the Tokugawa army's preemptive strike.
"Stand still!"
"Crack~" With the orders from officers at all levels, the Ming army began to stop. But at the same time, there was another volley of fire from the Tokugawa army position, and then the Ming soldiers continued to fall.
"We have everything! Take the gun and aim."
One officer was hit by a bullet and fell down before he could finish shouting the order, but another officer quickly stood up and continued to give orders almost without any obstruction: "Aim and fire~!"
"Crack~" Amidst the loud noise, countless puffs of green smoke rose from the Ming army's front line. Immediately afterwards, a large number of soldiers on the Tokugawa army's position also began to fall backwards.
"First row, retreat. Second row, move forward. Fire! Second row, retreat. Third row, move forward. Fire! Fourth row! Fifth row... First row, fire again!"
Following the orders from officers at all levels, the more than 30,000 Ming troops on the front line stepped forward in an orderly manner, raised their guns, fired, and then retreated and reloaded in an orderly manner.
Although the Ming army was still being harvested by the enemy's flintlock soldiers and artillery during this process, the more than 30,000 soldiers still maintained a nearly neat battle line without any disorganization.
Although the Tokugawa family had been waiting here for a long time and had built some simple fortifications in advance, the fatal problem was that these fortifications could not be too high: the Japanese were nearly 20 centimeters shorter than the average height of Ming men at that time, and if they were built too high, they would not be able to fight. Therefore, not only were the defensive capabilities of these fortifications very limited, but in the face of the fierce firepower of the Ming army, they still retreated two steps and advanced three steps, slowly but firmly approaching their positions. The commanders of the Tokugawa army who were sitting on the front line at this time felt soaked in the spring air.
By 10:05 a.m., the Ming army's formation was less than 300 meters away from the Tokugawa army's fortifications.
At this moment, the Tokugawa army commander on the front line was suddenly horrified to find that countless black shadows were flying rapidly over his head.
The Ming army's artillery kept advancing closely alongside their own infantry. At this time, they could finally raise their artillery high and directly attack the Japanese army's fortifications and artillery positions in the rear!
