Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 790 - 649: Decisive Battle 6_1

Chapter 790: Chapter 649: Decisive Battle 6_1

Liang Heng gazed distantly at the situation in front of him, his expression growing increasingly solemn.

The current battle situation was far different from what he had imagined - he didn’t expect Li Xuan to set up the formation directly on the river, didn’t expect the accompanying cannons of the Shenji right and left camp to have such a formidable presence, and didn’t expect the firing rate of those ’Rune flintlock rifled guns’ to be so outrageously high!

Liang Heng had observed the firing practice of the Shenji right and left camp outside the city. Even then, the musketeers of the left Shenji camp could only fire ten times within a hundred breaths.

But at this moment, that line column formation located at the opposite right wing was able to continuously fire eighteen times within a hundred breaths! Some of the formations could even reach over twenty times! The storm of bullets that spilled over was so fast and furious that it was terrifying!

Even the eight thousand ’Yiwu troops’ arranged by Li Xuan on the right wing could reach a firing rate of fifteen times within a hundred breaths.

All these factors combined made the distance of two and a half miles between the two army formations seem as impenetrable as a chasm.

"How can their firing rate be so fast?"

Xiao Ci, the Minister of Revenue, also noticed that something was wrong and his face was gradually becoming colder: "Did they take some kind of medication to excite their spirits?"

Even if he guessed the truth, it wouldn’t help the situation.

Xiao Ci was very confident in this battle of overwhelming the minority with a majority. In his imagination, this grand battle was just waiting for the opponent to come ashore, and then directly pressing over with superior military force.

But the fact is that these two hundred thousand troops were held on the shore, and it took a full quarter of an hour to advance less than fifty yards.

Even if Xiao Ci was somehow lacking in military common sense, he realized that the current situation was extremely unfavorable to their side.

"Commander Liang! The river beach is soft and unfavorable to our army. Can the army retreat a few miles first? Let them come ashore and then fight?"

"We can’t retreat!"

Liang Heng thought that Xiao Ci was an idiot. If he retreated at this time, it would definitely result in a total army annihilation.

He didn’t dare to retreat when he was four miles away from the enemy, let alone now.

These Weisuo army were forcefully conscripted by him using the influence of numerous northern martial nobles. Many of these soldiers had received Li Xuan’s grace in the past year, and their families even had a sacred tablet of the Marquis of Guanjun for worship at home.

Zhengtong Emperor had a very bad reputation in north Zhili. This act of rebellion and restoration was not in accordance with proper propriety.

As you can imagine, the morale and military spirit of these Weisuo army soldiers were extremely low.

At this moment, Liang Heng could only suppress them by relying on those middle and lower-level military officers who came from the northern military.

But once he said the word ’retreat’, the vast majority of the Weisuo army would scatter, and it might even affect the Jingying troops.

Liang Heng coldly said: "Liang Biao, now you should lead the supervision team right away, kill anyone who dares to retreat immediately! Send orders to Ma Lin, call back four battalions of Jingying, immediately! Right now!"

The progress of the 120,000 army led by Liang Heng to the Transport Army camp was very fast. They had already removed two layers of ’anti-horse stakes’, and seized three peripheral camps set up by Li Chengji at the bottom of the hill.

Liang Heng believed that with Ma Lin’s command ability, he would definitely be able to capture the cannon position guarded by the Transport Army within half an hour.

But Liang Heng had no confidence in the Weisuo army under his command, believing that they could not hold out until the Transport Army collapsed.

The situation indeed went as Liang Heng predicted. Only twenty breaths later, all the shield holders of the Weisuo army formations were the first to collapse.

They were being heavily targeted by the Shenji right and left battalions, enduring an enormously violent firepower.

These shield bearers, whose cultivation was generally at the third house level, could resist ten shots, or even twenty, but they couldn’t support more than twenty shots.

A vast majority of the shield bearers were shocked to death alive by those continuous bullets!

With the collapse of this large shield formation, the armored soldiers lined up behind these shield bearers were even more powerless. Although they were wearing double-layered iron armor, they couldn’t sustain more than three to five shots under the bombardment of the ’Rune flintlock rifled guns’.

The elite status of the Weisuo army was far inferior to the Jingying Forbidden Army.

Their shield bearers only had one layer, while their armored soldiers only had two thin columns.

"All cannons switch to chain shells! Aim at the enemy’s formation gap and fire at full speed!"

Li Xuan sat on the Jade Qilin, emotionlessly issuing commands: "Pass on to all generals, within a quarter of an hour, crush these Weisuo army for me!"

If it came to lethality, at a distance of two miles, ’chain shells’ were still more effective.

But earlier, the enemy’s shield formation was like a wall, and the death whirl of the ’chain shells’ couldn’t perform well. Its lethality was not as good as solid bullets.

It was only at this time, when the shield bearers of the enemy formation had collapsed, that Li Xuan immediately switched to ’chain shells’.

The military orders he issued were effective immediately, and the Weisuo army formations were quickly greeted with a massacre.

Those ’chain shells’, spinning wildly, were invincible, continuously causing gorges of blood and flesh to splatter and scatter in the enemy formation. The soldiers in front fell like mowed wheat.

With those armored soldiers also falling one after another, their casualties became even more horrifying. The ranks of Weisuo soldiers, who now resembled wooden stakes, were continuously being shot and killed by the Shenji Camp.

Shang Hong stared stunnedly at the massacre before him, an ocean of blood and piles of corpses. His face unconsciously twitched, his eyes filled with unbearable heartache.

——These were the loyal and valorous soldiers of the Jin Dynasty, only to sacrifice their lives in this civil unrest.

"Marquis of Guanjun!" Shang Hong saw Li Xuan, his hand on his sword, give him a sidelong glance. He couldn’t help but give a bitter smile. "I’m not trying to defend the rebels. I only wish for you to preserve more vitality for the Jin Dynasty. It’s such a waste to see these soldiers of Weisuo fall."

"Shang Xueshi, your intentions are not pure! The outcome of this battle is still uncertain. Where is there room for mercy?"

Li Xuan gave a cold snort but still removed his right hand from his sword.

If he hadn’t planned on preserving some vitality for the Jin Dynasty, he would have eliminated Shang Hong, who was a hidden threat due to his allegiance to Prince Yi Yu Jianshen, back at the Qianhu Office in Chengde.

"Softness has no place in command of an army! If I held back now, it would mean more people will die in this battle! Plus, I am currently responsible for the lives and deaths of my Shenji Camp, not those traitorous soldiers of Weisuo."

He thought if he did not crush the Weisuo army quickly, allowing them to linger on the battlefield, it would only cause more casualties.

Shang Hong was stunned and then gave a bitter smile, "The Marquis is right. This is a merciful heart using tough measures. My ignorance was evident."

He thought this Marquis of Guanjun truly had an iron will—it was impossible to shake him.

In less than two hundred breaths, nearly twenty thousand bodies fell by the river, and the lines of the Weisuo army were in a state of collapse, widespread desertion occurring in the rear of many formations.

Liang Heng had foreseen this and ordered Liang Biao to block the retreat in advance.

’Du Du Qianshi’ Ma Lin had just withdrawn in time for four battalions of the Transport Army, with a total of more than 40,000 people to come to the aid. Ten thousand of them are in position under the command of Liang Heng, blocking behind the Weisuo army.

Liang Biao was ruthless and overbearing, showing no mercy to any deserters, killing them directly on the frontline.

Yet he quickly realized this blockage didn’t matter—those fleeing soldiers were endless.

The killing efficiency of the Shenji right and left camp due to the simultaneous shooting exceeded several times that of the supervising troops and Jingying!

Death awaited them on both sides. Choosing the side with a greater chance of survival was everyone’s instinct.

The Weisuo army was so desperate they turned their weapons against each other. The surge of over one hundred thousand troops flooded the three thousand troops under Liang Biao’s command and the ten thousand Jingying in an instant.

If the Weisuo army wasn’t so keen on fleeing, they would have been drowned in the chaos.

"How can this be? This, this, how can this be? The advantage of the musjets is so pronounced?"

Minister of Revenue Xiao Ci saw the fleeing soldiers like a flood, his face turning pale, his hands shaking slightly.

He found it hard to believe that 250,000 troops on the riverside had been completely routed by the Shenji camp, which was less than a fifth of their size, within a single moment.

On one side, Liang Heng gave Xiao Ci a cold stare, "Why must Xiao Shangshu be so downcast? Though the Weisuo army is in chaos, we still have a chance to win. We can ensure a final victory just by having our armoured iron horse charge over. I ask you to do your best to help me."

At this moment they were no longer on the hill they had been on, instead, each of them was straddled on a Earth Dragon and flashed across the ice.

Behind them were thirteen thousand armored iron cavalry and nine thousand cavalry that Liang Heng had enlisted from Jingying and the Weisuo army.

Liang Heng had predicted the collapse of the Weisuo army a moment ago, so he had preemptively ordered the cavalry to charge.

He chose not the predetermined attack route, but had all knights put a piece of coarse cloth on the hooves of their horses, then took a big detour upstream of the Chaobai River.

They crossed the sand beach north of the ’Baiding Bridge’, rode down along the river, passed through the arch of ’Baiding Bridge’, and charged towards the flank and rear of the Shenji battalion.

As they passed through the arch of the bridge, Liang Heng looked at the 18,000 Jizhou cavalry positioned by Li Xuan on the east side of the bridge head of ’Baiding Bridge’ and his lips twitched slightly.

His sense of defeat was now more evident, as if every move he made was predicted by Li Xuan.

The 18,000 Jizhou cavalry on the shore were already making deafening noises and rushing down to the shore. They ran into the icy surface of river and accelerated to the extreme in a very short time, emanating an irresistible momentum.

Obviously, they were preparing to launch a flanking attack and kill the flank of their own troops.

But Liang Heng had no choice. He could only adopt this method to avoid the frontal gunfire of the Shenji Battalion, and avoid the sandy beach that was miles wide —— it was just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.

If they charged head-on, they would lose more cavalry on the beach.

However, Liang Heng still had great confidence. He believed that his armored iron cavalry, as long as they charged to the front of the Shenji camp, were enough to determine the outcome of the battle.

Li Xuan had also noticed the movement of this cavalry a long time ago, and after the entire Weisuo army was annihilated, he calmly swung his horse whip.

"Right wing and central army immediately change formation! Face north to meet the enemy, adopt the square formation, oblique line formation! All cannons turn and aim towards the direction of Baiding Bridge in the north!"

Following his order, the 28,000 soldiers of the Shenji camp in the right wing and the central army, a total of 69 line column formations, once again changed their formations with synchronized steps.

They composed themselves and unfolded a ninety-degree slant line on the Chaobai River’s icy surface, facing the incoming armored iron cavalry with remarkably neat and square formations.