Chapter 720: Using Artillery to Persuade Surrender (4400 chapters)
Su Ritu's 10,000-man army is also very distinctive. They all wear fur hats as a mark of identification of friend or foe.
In terms of weapons and equipment, Su Ritu's army is also the worst among the three forces this time. The Han tribe is all red robes and silver armor, and Maodun has bamboo armor and leather armor. On the other hand, Su Ritu's best is leather armor. Bamboo armor and iron armor are completely a luxury. Even Su Ritu himself only has a layer of leather armor.
Their weapons are still in the bone and stone age. The arrows they use are mostly wolf tooth arrows, and the spears are also equipped with spear heads made of stone or bone. Short weapons are mainly stone axes, and horse gear is rarely seen.
However, although their equipment was poor, their fighting style was unique. Unlike the group charge that the Han tribe was good at, they adopted what could be seen as guerrilla tactics. They first used a team of warriors equipped with leather armor and better weapons to fight the front, and then started to run out after attracting the enemy's attention. Then other teams went to divide and surround, and finally killed a small group of enemy troops by group fighting.
In this way, they lured out a part and ate up a part, constantly eroding the defeated troops in Maodun's coalition.
It was impossible to fight head-on. With their broken equipment, they couldn't even fight Maodun, let alone the Han tribe's armored army with abnormal defense.
After successfully connecting the fire here, Su Ritu also ran towards the Han army's flag under the protection of his own soldiers, but before he got to the front, he was immediately stopped by Chai Duoduo's soldiers, and Su Ritu had to shout loudly on the periphery.
"The one ahead is General Tu of the Han tribe. I, Su Ritu, am here with 10,000 soldiers to help you."
Chai Duoduo frowned, but the armor on his helmet covered his face tightly, leaving only his eyes exposed. It was normal that he was not recognized, but you couldn't see the bull-head flag beside you. Are you blind?
This guy probably didn't know much about the official positions of the Han tribe's army. Chai Duoduo didn't share his knowledge. He quickly glanced at the battlefield situation and immediately gave an order.
"The Thousand Bull Guards will follow me to attack the enemy formation. Su Ritu will deal with the scattered enemy troops. Afterwards, the Han tribe will give him benefits."
The messenger beside him quickly ran to the periphery and shouted Chai Duoduo's order to Su Ritu. Su Ritu didn't say anything more and immediately turned back to command.
His purpose of coming here was actually very simple. Mainly due to the difficulty in communication, he personally came here to tell the Han army that he was here with his men. When the fight started, watch out for the right spot and don't hurt friendly forces. In addition, I really brought people to help this time. Don't wait until the fight was over and turn your back on me. In fact, I came here to ask for benefits.
How could Chai Duoduo not see such a little thought? So he immediately issued an order that was not an order. In fact, it was to show the attitude of the Han tribe. You are here, okay, I get it.
After a short episode, the three forces started to move again. Chai Duoduo turned around with the Qianniu Guards and rushed into the defeated army of Maodun. This time, Su Ritu had the cooperation of the Han tribe, and the fight was more convenient. The Han tribe came to attack and divide, and they came to surround and nibble.
Many of Maodun's coalition forces have been baptized by artillery fire, and with the impact of the heavy armored cavalry of the Han tribe, the Han tribe has now sent another 10,000 thugs. Some of them have just been surrounded by the Su Ritu tribe. Facing countless spears and arrows, they simply surrendered.
This situation made Su Ritu very happy. This was a bargain. Although the Han tribe would definitely come to him for prisoners of war later, it did not mean that he could not hide some of them first. After all, he brought 10,000 people, and it was impossible for no one to be injured in the battle. The losses that occurred could be compensated with these prisoners of war.
As the battle continued, the resistance of Maodun's coalition forces became lower and lower. Almost all those who could escape had already escaped. Those who could not escape could only continue to face the threat of artillery and the impact of the Han tribe. Many soldiers chose to dismount and surrender directly. They did not have a deep hatred with the Han tribe, and even exchanged a lot of good things from Kaiyuan City. They came to fight with the Han tribe because Maodun promised them huge profits and coerced them.
If they continued to fight, they would only die. Seeing that other warriors were not killed after surrendering to the Han tribe, they might as well surrender. Even if they would be treated as slaves in the future, it would be better than dying now.
Since the Han tribe had fewer people, they had to hand over the surrendered prisoners to the herdsmen warriors who had surrendered to the Han tribe. They first confiscated their weapons and horses and drove them all together. In this way, they could not run away on the vast grassland. After all, no matter how fast a person runs, he cannot outrun a warhorse.
In another small battlefield not far away, a team of more than a thousand people was still forming a circle to resist. They placed their vehicles outside in a circle, and the herdsmen cavalry who had surrendered to the Han tribe could not take them down for a while.
Chai Duoduo led his troops to charge several times. Seeing that the situation was stable, he immediately rode up a small grassy slope to observe the entire battlefield. As a result, he saw the circular chariot formation surrounded by the Han army. There were about two thousand soldiers wearing bamboo armor inside, holding bamboo spears and trying their best to resist the attack of the Han army. These people were even equipped with a lot of bamboo round shields to resist the arrows of the Han army.
There was no need to guess that this must be the group sent by the Xin tribe. Chai Duoduo sneered and immediately sent someone back to the camp to pull a cannon over, and then he led his personal soldiers to ride towards the circular formation.
The herdsmen who surrendered to the Han outside the circular formation saw Chai Duoduo's general flag and immediately made a way for him to get close.
Chai Duoduo rode his horse to the front of the battle formation. When the warriors of the Xin tribe saw the important figure coming from the Han tribe, they immediately shot a round of arrows at him. However, the bamboo arrows with bronze arrowheads shot at his fine fish scale armor, and only made a few crisp sounds. None of the arrows could stay on it, and all were bounced out.
Chai Duoduo didn't care and shouted at the inside.
"The Han tribe's heavenly army has arrived. Why don't you put down your weapons and surrender immediately? Are you waiting for heaven's punishment?"
Most of the warriors of the Xin tribe still couldn't understand Chinese, but the leader of this team could understand it. It's funny that the commander of the team sent by the Xin tribe this time was actually one of Niu Wei's former subordinates.
After Niu Wei was secretly arrested, his subordinates were also arrested. Some of them chose to surrender directly to the power of the leader faction and betrayed Niu Wei without hesitation, while others insisted on defending Niu Wei's interests and refused to cooperate even if they died.
These people were all tribal elites who had been to the grassland with Niu Wei, and later lived with him in the Han tribe for more than a year. Not only were they familiar with three languages, but they were also much more familiar with the division of grassland forces and the situation of the Han tribe than others, so they became the best commanders.
When the leader heard Chai Duoduo mention the words "heavenly army" and "heavenly punishment", he was also frightened. He had seen the heavenly army before. Those warriors wearing iron clothes and holding steel knives were indeed unmatched, but this was not impossible to fight. What really scared them was the inexplicable mysterious attack just now.
Should he surrender or not? Actually, he wanted to surrender. After all, he was a spineless man. If he had any backbone, he would not have surrendered directly to Commander Xin.
But he couldn't make the decision now. Even if he said he wanted to surrender, the two thousand warriors around him would not listen to him, and they didn't care who they were.
This time, Commander Xin sent him young and strong men from the clans of several elders of the Commander Faction. They represented the clan interests of Commander Xin and several great elders. They were the most diehards who didn't want Zhudao to be occupied by the Han tribe. They came here just to fight the Han tribe to the death. How could they surrender now?
"Why don't we surrender?" The leader's subordinate Niu Wei asked the elders of several clans tentatively.
"Surrender?! How is it possible? Don't you know what the Han tribe wants to do to us? If we are willing to surrender, why are we here? We can just wait for the Han tribe to occupy Zhudao." A clan elder in his thirties shouted loudly, and immediately aroused the resonance of the young and strong people in the tribe around him. The
leader Niu Wei's men immediately refused to do it. Anyway, if they didn't surrender, they would die, so they just went all out. They heard him retorting to several clan elders.
"Didn't you hear what the Han man said just now? Didn't you see how powerful the armored army of the Han tribe is?"
"Powerful? Why can't they break through our chariot formation? You said powerful because those barbarians on the grassland are too cowardly. They wasted so many good things from our Xin tribe in vain, and they actually ran away without even fighting. They are all trash." Another clan elder cursed loudly.
Niu Wei's men were choked and speechless.
"Are you stupid? Don't you know why those barbarians are running away? Didn't you see how our thousand men just disappeared? Do you still want to continue to bear the punishment from the Han tribe? Can you resist it?"
His angry scolding immediately silenced several clan elders. No matter how reluctant they were to admit it, the fact was that if it weren't for the inexplicable attack just now, how could their coalition army be defeated before the battle.
Just when several high-ranking officials of the Xin tribe were still deadlocked, there was a sound of horse hooves behind Chai Duoduo. Everyone turned around and saw that it turned out that the artillery pulled from the camp had arrived.
The field artillery vehicle is actually a vehicle group, consisting of an ammunition vehicle and an artillery vehicle. It is towed by six horses in a row, and there are seven or eight gunners on horseback around it. They ran all the way towards the circle of the Xin tribe.
Chai Duoduo immediately made way for them and ordered them to pull the artillery directly to the circle of the Xin tribe, and then immediately began to unload the vehicle, adjust the gun position, and load ammunition.
In the circle in front, the people of Xin tribe saw the big thing brought by Han tribe, and their faces changed drastically. Even if they didn't know what it was, they knew it was a weapon used by Han tribe to deal with them. It should be used to destroy their chariot formation. Anyway, no matter what it was, it was definitely not a thing for them to cook.
The silver cannon body shone brightly in the morning sun. Even a fool could see the material of the thing. It took seven or eight strong men to put it on the cart to push it together, so you can imagine how heavy it was.
Such a heavy iron thing, they would not believe it even if they were beaten to death.
Some clan elders couldn't help but cursed, "Damn, Han tribe is so rich, such good iron is so wasted, and it was used to make such a weird thing."
However, the Han tribe gunners in front of the formation didn't care about that. After receiving the order, they immediately unloaded the cannon cart, and then pushed it to a hundred meters in front of the circle. Then they began to clean the barrel and load the fixed gunpowder and shells. But Chai Duoduo next to them stopped them immediately when they saw them loading the shells.
"Wait."
Several artillerymen were stunned, not knowing what Chai Duoduo would order again.
"Isn't your chain bullet too far?"
"Report to the commander, chain bullets use double charge, the range can reach 600 to 700 meters, and now the target is 100 meters away, it can definitely hit." The instructor in charge of this gun immediately replied.
"Okay, change to chain bullets, I haven't seen how chain bullets hit people." Chai Duoduo immediately changed the order casually.
The artillerymen were stunned, and several pairs of eyes immediately revealed a bloodthirsty light. They have been firing artillery for so long, but they have never really fired at people. Even for the few rounds they fired just now, because the distance was too far, they could not see the actual casualties. Now they finally waited for this opportunity.
Fortunately, the shells had not been stuffed in yet, and several gunners did not need to make any extra movements. They directly stuffed another fixed charge column in, and then someone dragged a string of 20 kilograms of chain bullets from the ammunition truck next to them. The two worked together to stuff the shells into the barrel.
The people of the Xin tribe in the opposite chariot formation could not help but be horrified. The man just now took two large iron balls and stuffed them into the iron pipe. Could it be that the thing could throw the iron balls in front of them? Could this be the divine punishment weapon used by the Han tribe just now?
After the cannon was loaded, the gunner poured bulk gunpowder into the flintlock powder pool at the back, cocked the flintlock, hung the string, and then stood in position ready to fire at any time.
Chai Duoduo rode forward again, stood next to the cannon and shouted at the Xin tribe warriors in the chariot formation.
"I will give you one last chance. If you lay down your weapons and surrender, I will not kill you. Otherwise, I will let you taste the power of heaven's punishment
. Once this weapon sounds, you will be crushed to pieces and die without a burial place. You will be turned into powder in an instant. Do you surrender or not?" "I surrender! I surrender! Are you blind? That person said they are going to use heaven's punishment again. Do you want to be turned into a pool of minced meat on the spot? If you want to die, don't drag everyone down." Niu Wei's subordinate immediately
threw his weapon outside the chariot formation and shouted in Chinese that he surrendered. Seeing that the elders of several clans around him were still unmoved, he immediately cursed loudly. At this time, Su Ritu's task of gathering the surrendered soldiers was almost done. Seeing the flag of the Han tribe standing here, he hurriedly rode over and saw this scene in front of him.
The two thousand Xin tribe soldiers in the chariot formation still refused to surrender, and the Han general also pulled a strange iron cylinder next to them. It was unknown what the two sides were doing.
Chai Duoduo glanced at Su Ritu under his visor. Seeing that he ran over, he did not let anyone stop him. He looked at the Xin tribe warriors who still refused to surrender in the chariot formation. He gently raised his arm, then swung it down suddenly, and shouted: "Fire."
The next moment, there was a loud bang, and the earth trembled three times. Su Ritu was completely shocked. He saw that the big iron barrel on the car next to Chai Duoduo suddenly spewed out a burst of fire and pungent white smoke, and then suddenly something rushed out of the big iron barrel at an incredible speed, whizzing towards the Xin tribe's chariot formation.
In an instant, a terrifying crash and screams came from the chariot formation.
Two iron balls weighing 20 kilograms, pulled by iron chains, spun into the chariot formation, and the outermost wooden carriages were smashed into powder on the spot. Countless wooden debris flew into the sky, and the soldiers in the chariot formation were instantly shattered by a weapon that could not be captured by the naked eye.
(End of this chapter)
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