The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Outside the city walls of Shidianfu City in Yunnan during the Ming Dynasty, the shouts of killing were loud. A large number of barbarian soldiers came from west to east. Groups of war elephants could also be seen among them. On top of the war elephants, there were people waving their weapons constantly to alert the surrounding barbarian soldiers. Cheer up.

The left governor Li Chengliang was standing on the city wall at this time, with his eldest son Li Rusong looking gloomily outside the city behind him.

"Is there any news about the two guards of Lu?"

After a long time, Li Chengliang asked.

"Commander, I didn't see it. I heard from the defeated soldiers that Feng Shanling had been killed in the city by the soldiers of Longchuan Chieftain."

Shidian guard Liang Dingnan said.

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"Without Lu Liang, your Shidian is the front line. Do you have the confidence to defend this place?"

Li Chengliang looked back at Liang Dingnan and said.

"A few months ago, according to the commander's instructions, the city prepared all kinds of defense supplies. Please rest assured, Commander, there is enough food and grass in the city, and with the help of the strong people in the city, defending the city will be a piece of cake."

Liang Dingnan immediately answered with cupped fists.

A smile finally appeared on Li Chengliang's face. He really hadn't encountered any good news recently. Even though he had been mentally prepared, the fall of Luliang was beyond his expectation.

Since a month ago, the enemy chief of Burma, Mang Yinglong, commanded Awa, Dong Wu, Meng Bie, Meng Mi, Manmo, Longchuan, Wuzhang, Yonghui and Guangnao, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses coming from the west in a murderous manner. The invasion was supported by tens of thousands of soldiers and horses from Che, Babai, Menggen, Menglian, and Gengma, but they made the people in the Ming Dynasty go crazy.

Nanya Pass, Tiebiguan, Tianma Pass and other important towns fell one after another with almost no resistance, and chieftains from Qianya Longchuan and other places surrendered to the enemy.

But this is not what makes Li Chengliang the most angry. The two guards of Lu have obtained his order and are in seclusion to prevent any Westerners from entering the city. But who would have thought that Feng Shanling, the two guards of Lu, would open the city gate privately and let the so-called Luchuan collapse The soldiers entered the city.

Perhaps, he wanted to increase the defense strength of Luliang City, so it would be good to gather some troops, but he obviously fell into the enemy's trick.

Now he not only lost his own life, but also lost the two cities of Lu, causing the Tengchong and Lu defense lines built by Mu Changzuo to completely fall.

When the news reached Baoshan City in Yongchang Prefecture, Li Chengliang had to rush to Shidian, while Mu Changzuo rushed to Tengchong with his soldiers and personally supervised the Tengchong guards to hold on to the city and not retreat.

Now, all the Ming army can do is the new defense line composed of Tengchong, Lujiang and Shidian. The original plan of slowly retreating, luring the Burmese army to Baoshan and Shidian and then attacking and outflanking them by surprise troops is now facing severe challenges.

At this time, the Burmese army outside the city had rushed to a stone's throw outside the city, and it looked like they would take advantage of the situation to attack Shidian City today.

"You only know how to defend, don't worry about me."

Li Chengliang, who was on the tower, saw that the morale of the enemy troops below was high and he was not sure whether the enemy would attack fiercely today, so he ordered the defender Liang Dingnan.

When Liang Dingnan heard this, he clasped his hands again, agreed loudly, turned around and left, making a "clatter" sound when the armor leaves collided with each other.

"Dad, I didn't expect the Southern Army general to still be wearing this kind of old-fashioned scale armor."

Li Rusong glanced at Liang Dingnan's back and whispered, then pointed at the soldiers guarding the city on the left and right and continued: "The armor coverage of these soldiers is too low."

The Ming army in the north was equipped with a large number of cotton armors. Although it seemed not as good as the armors of soldiers in previous dynasties, in fact the defensive and thermal effects of cotton armor were very good.

In the south, most soldiers wear cloth armor that was designed during the Jiajing period. It is similar to cotton armor. It is also equipped with iron plates inside to strengthen defense, but it is not too hot, so it is suitable for the warm climate of the south.

However, among these soldiers, the proportion of soldiers with cloth face armor is extremely low. Among the only half of the armored soldiers, many are still wearing the green cloth and leather armor from the Hongzhi period.

In the 16th year of Hongzhi's reign, the official ordered the green cloth armors of the Southern Guards Station to change their iron leaf armors to leather armors with cotton ropes and buffalo leather as the armor.

This may be because there are mountains and paddy fields in the south, which requires light armor. At the same time, the humidity in the south is high, and the iron armor is easy to rust.

However, the defensive power of such leather armor is definitely not as good as that of blue cloth iron armor.

Therefore, now I see that the entire Ming army at the top of Shidian City is wearing colorful clothes, including those wearing red battle coats, some wearing green cloth and leather armor, and interspersed with others wearing khaki cloth armor.

If you are not familiar with the changes in military uniforms of the Ming Dynasty, you may think that these different military uniforms represent different branches of the military.

But in fact, this is the manifestation of the lack of armaments in the south. Military households all wear things passed down from generation to generation. Whatever is left by the elders, they should use it as much as they can, so as not to spend their own money to replace it.

Although the imperial court distributed money to military households to replace equipment, but after all the deductions were made, how much money would the soldiers have left?

Instead of spending money to replace equipment at high prices, it is better to buy more food, eat more, and at least run faster.

At this time, the Ming army on the city wall had split into two columns at some point. One column was close to the outer city wall, while the other column was leaning against the inner city wall. As the military flags on the city tower swayed, a rain of arrows suddenly appeared in the air, pointing toward the outside of the city. The Burmese troops who were still approaching fired away.

The soldiers on the outer city wall, in groups of three or two, were nervously loading gunpowder.

Yes, there are a small number of Fran cannons at the top of Shidian City, and some soldiers are equipped with muskets. At this time, they are standing by the outer city wall, preparing to fire their firearms.

"Puff puff puff"

After a slight noise, several wailing sounds came from outside the city, and what appeared in the eyes of Li Chengliang and Li Rusong at the same time was a line drawn by arrows.

A slightly distorted line was left by arrows piercing the ground one after another. There were more than ten unlucky people who were hit by arrows. Several corpses fell straight to the ground, and the injured enemy soldiers were holding them up. Wounds and constant wailing.

None of the archers of the Ming Army ran to the city wall to look out. Instead, they glanced at the flag on the tower not far away. Then they drew out an arrow one after another, opened their bows and nocked the arrows, and placed them at a certain angle. When the flags were dancing, They all let go of their arrow-holding hands, and arrows shot rapidly into the air again.

This is a typical Ming army tactic of throwing arrows, which can increase the effective range of the arrows.

However, this time the Burmese army was already on guard, and some people had raised their shields or hid next to their shielded companions.

When the Burmese army in front saw that the bows and arrows were flying over their heads and could not hit them at all, they immediately understood what was going on.

The vanguards were naturally experienced veterans who had fought many battles. Now they quickened their pace and rushed towards the city wall.

They naturally wanted to get closer to the city wall so that the Ming army's archers' missiles would not reach their heads.

Soon, the Burmese soldiers carrying the ladders rushed to the city wall and began to assemble the ladders in preparation for attacking the city.

This speed must be fast, otherwise the archer will move up and release the arrow from a high position, and the power will be just right.

Of course, when these soldiers were assembling the ladder, a group of soldiers holding shields also stood in front of them to defend themselves against arrows that might be fired from the city wall.

The other soldiers also hid behind their shields, and soon they became a small group of three or five people, sparsely standing under the city waiting to attack the city.

"Haha, I'm laughing so hard. This is the forward of the Myanmar Army."

On the tower in the distance, Li Rusong was patting the city wall and laughing. It was amazing that such soldiers could carve out a large territory in Myanmar without any training rules.

"Rusong, shut up."

Li Chengliang shouted softly at this time, "They probably have no plan to attack the city today, but they just want to test whether our army is determined to hold on.

It may not be that the Burmese army has no training, but that the generals in front of them made impromptu actions. "

The Burmese army fought a lot in the Indochina Peninsula and conquered countless large and small cities. How could it possibly perform so poorly?

The only thing that can represent it is that the Burmese army has no plans to launch a large-scale attack on the city today.

When he heard his father stop, Li Rusong immediately put away his smile and continued to look out through the battlements of the city wall.

The ladders are assembled very quickly. In just a moment, two or three ladders were assembled.

Just when the rattan players who were protecting them in front moved out of the way to allow the warriors to carry the ladders and rush to the bottom of the city, a cannon rang out from the tower in the distance, and then the sound of gunfire rang out on the city walls, and puffs of green smoke spread out.

Three newly installed ladders were carried towards the city wall, and then they saw the people carrying the ladders staggering around, and many people making various screams.

Obviously, this was a group of people who were taken care of by the Fran cannon on the city wall. Some soldiers carrying the ladders had been hit and injured by the shells in the first round of artillery.

Soon after, there was another burst of Fran machine gunfire, and the target was still near the ladder, because there were the largest number of Burmese soldiers gathered around, so it was naturally the best target for bombardment.

"Hey, not bad, hahaha"

Li Rusong laughed out loud again at this time.

Li Chengliang also saw that an assembled ladder was directly hit by an artillery shell and had been broken into two sections. It obviously needed repair before it could be used.

But on the battlefield, of course it was considered scrapped and there was no time to repair it.

At this time, the sound of gunfire on the city wall was endless, and the Ming army frantically poured ammunition into the city. However, the more Li Chengliang looked at it, the more he frowned.

Since he is a veteran, he naturally knows what kind of weapons to choose. Among the forward troops of the Burmese Army in front of him, the proportion of shields and equipment is extremely high. Behind every shield under the city are Burmese soldiers.

At this time, the power of the cannon fired from the city wall was almost zero, and it seemed that it could not penetrate the shields.

At least, from Li Chengliang's perspective, he couldn't see how many Burmese soldiers were injured behind the shield, and the shield was still upright, blocking his view.

However, a Fran machine shell hit two shields, and almost all the Burmese soldiers behind them were disabled.

However, there are only eleven Franco cannons on Shidian City, and they are all small and medium-sized Franco guns. Their lethality is naturally limited, so their use is mainly focused on dealing with those ladders.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuu"

There was a sound of horns from the rear of the Burmese army. The Burmese army in front dragged the corpses and wounded and began to retreat quickly to the rear. Obviously, today's plan to use the momentum to directly break the city failed, and the generals on the opposite side did not want to lose these veterans in vain, so He decisively chose to retreat.

"Come here, ask Vice General Liang to come over."

Li Chengliang gave instructions to the soldiers beside him and continued to watch the Burmese army retreat outside the city.

"You see, there are many ways to retreat, it's not just a mob."

Li Chengliang said this to Li Rusong. He had previously laughed at the opponent for not training.

The seemingly chaotic rush towards the city before was probably because these Burmese troops had not encountered any decent resistance since entering the territory of Ming Dynasty. Some underestimated the enemy and believed that the Ming army's morale was scattered and vulnerable.

Therefore, this kind of marching method that seems not to care about the enemy's existence can put a certain amount of psychological pressure on the opponent.

If it suddenly explodes after getting close, it will also catch the opponent off guard, which may have a miraculous effect.

As the Burmese army withdrew to a certain distance, the Ming army's firearmsmen and archers had stopped shooting, and some archers were still shaking their arms slightly at this time.

Li Chengliang saw it in his eyes and knew mentally that this was the result of insufficient training.

A mature archer knows in his heart how many arrows he can support, maybe twenty, or thirty.

Generally, you don't shoot all the arrows, otherwise you won't be able to swing the sword at that time.

After all, after shooting arrows, the archers still need to participate in the defense of the city wall, and they also need to chop with swords. How can they use their strength too old?

Soon, Liang Dingnan came to Li Chengliang and bowed to salute.

"No gift."

Li Chengliang smiled and said something to Liang Dingnan, and then pointed at the retreating Burmese army outside the city wall and said: "We encountered the Burmese army today. Did you see anything?"

"They are very skilled in fighting and cooperate well with each other. They are all veterans."

Liang Dingnan lowered his head and replied.

"Look at your people again."

Li Chengliang turned around, pointed at the two archers still shaking their arms in the distance and said.

When he finished speaking, Liang Dingnan raised his head and looked in the direction he pointed, his face turning red for a moment.

These generals of the Ming army may have never fought in a war in their lives, but because they are hereditary, they know the taboos in the army from the mouths of their elders.

Therefore, even inexperienced generals actually understand a lot of common sense on the battlefield.

The performance of those two archers was a slap in his face.

"And those firearmsmen. When shooting earlier, I also saw someone pouring gunpowder outside the barrel."

Li Chengliang said unceremoniously, "Commander Mu ordered us to train more frequently a few months ago, but look at what kind of soldiers you have trained."

"Any idea what to do next?"

Li Chengliang asked in a stern tone.

"Yes, the general will immediately put him in order and train him strictly."

Liang Dingnan lowered his head and said.

"It's too late. Let the archer count the arrows shot in a few days and estimate his own endurance. Don't use up all your strength.

There are also those firearmsmen who have repeatedly trained and reloaded, but their performance today was really poor.

Tell them that after the war is over, the court will definitely reward them heavily, and the governor will personally supervise the distribution.

And you will naturally be on the list of merits, and the rewards from the court after the war will definitely not be small. "

Li Chengliang drew big cakes for Liang Dingnan, and also asked him to go back and draw big cakes for his men.

No matter how many people are left on the city wall in the end, everything is possible as long as Shidian is defended.

Otherwise, they would just be one of the reported dead, and receive no rewards. At most, they would burn their money and send people from their families to the military camp.

"The last general will be so angry that he will not hesitate to defend Shidian City to the death, and will never disappoint the commander-in-chief's instructions."

Liang Dingnan also knew that this was the time to express his determination, so he said loudly.

"Can the shield held by the Burmese army protect against birdshot?"

Li Chengliang asked abruptly.