Chapter 553: Hong Taiji Blown to Critical Injury

"Alright, prepare for battle." Lu Xiangsheng turned to look at Cao Wenzhao and said.

In truth, they no longer needed volley fire to kill the enemy. Though the formation was still being drilled, it was no longer as strict as before—people no longer trained marching forward in lockstep with raised muskets on a daily basis.

As for spearmen, shield bearers, and archers—those troop types were gone, all abolished.

Now in their ranks, there were only three branches: artillery, cavalry, and infantry.

The artillery consisted of cannons, plus rocket launchers.

The cavalry were all lance-armed riders.

The infantry all used uniformly identical long muskets. Of course, they were also equipped with hand-cranked rotary machine guns—those things were a real pleasure.

For the infantry, fighting meant advancing with steady steps; the lancers roamed ahead, gaps had already opened in several places within the formation, and the gun carriages had been pushed forward.

Soldiers pushing ammunition crates followed alongside, while others carrying mortars hid among the crowd. Of course, it wasn't exactly hiding—according to the current regulations, one Centurion was allotted one mountain gun, ten mortars, and five hand-cranked rotary machine guns.

Beyond that, Lu Xiangsheng also had one artillery Chiliarch and one rocket Chiliarch.

The artillery Chiliarch was equipped with fifty mountain guns, and the rocket Chiliarch with one hundred fifty rocket launchers.

This kind of equipment was all produced by the Hundred Works Institute working overtime. Most of the money His Majesty had obtained from Jiangnan went into the Hundred Works Institute—countless factories manufactured these day and night.

Besides the Hundred Works Institute's firearms factories, there were all sorts of supporting factories, and they had been continuously busy manufacturing all along.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard had also been training without pause. These men knew very well what rules these weapons followed. It was just that this was their first real battle, so they were still excited.

Soon, Hong Taiji's scouts appeared up ahead.

The opposing Hong Taiji seemed to have no intention of waiting—he led his men straight into the attack.

According to the scouts' reports, there were fully over forty thousand men, including twenty thousand cavalry, with the rest all infantry.

This should have been every bit of strength Hong Taiji could scrape together. He'd probably spent the past few years running into the northern forests grabbing people. But even so, it was only forty-some thousand—Lu Xiangsheng didn't take it seriously at all.

"After this battle, Liaodong will be at peace." Lu Xiangsheng looked at Cao Wenzhao and said.

"Our men are ready—we'll wait for them to attack." Cao Wenzhao said.

At this moment, the Ming army had already set their formation: the artillery Chiliarch had arrayed on the right flank, the rocket Chiliarch was prepared in the rear, cavalry held down both sides, and infantry had raised their muskets.

Across from the formation, Hong Taiji looked at the Ming army before him, his brows deeply furrowed.

These past years he had been biding his time in hardship, tightening his belt to continuously strengthen his military. Besides purchasing Ming equipment, he had also been casting large quantities of new gear.

Whether it was large cannons or the cast-iron guns he'd bought, he had cast them all. Though steel cannons couldn't yet be manufactured, his own people had developed quite a few things—for instance, an improved copper-iron alloy cannon with greater range and more power.

Hong Taiji had cast fully seventy-plus copper-iron alloy cannons, all for the purpose of teaching the Ming army a lesson this time.

But when Hong Taiji saw the Ming army, he still couldn't quite understand—were those people really the Great Ming's troops?

They wore no armor, just ordinary leather armor on their bodies, with helmets on their heads. Beyond that, there was nothing else. Were they coming to throw their lives away?

Still, the Ming cannons remained as formidable as ever—just look at the muzzles on those gun carriages. But with so few cannons, could their range really reach that far?

Had the Ming army regressed? Or were they simply too bold and arrogant?

Looking at cannons like those, they were no match for his own at all.

Hong Taiji kept making comparisons in his mind. And in fact, judging by caliber, the Ming mortars simply couldn't compare to Hong Taiji's cannons—after all, the caliber was right there, and those thin little things pointing at the sky looked utterly fragile.

No matter what the Ming army was up to, Hong Taiji felt certain he would win a great victory this time.

As long as he could defeat this Ming army before him and annihilate them, he could turn around to deal with the other Ming force, or even directly retake Jianning Guard.

After taking Jianning Guard, he could further sweep clear the Great Ming's presence in Liaodong.

"Prepare." Hong Taiji raised the blade in his hand and said.

The cavalry on both flanks pressed forward quickly, hooves slowly lifting into motion.

The artillerymen beside him also readied their torches, able to fire at any moment. At a single command, shells would fly everywhere—surely smashing the Ming army to pieces.

And within the Ming army's formation.

Lu Xiangsheng stared ahead with an expressionless face.

Cao Wenzhao turned to look at Lu Xiangsheng and said with some disappointment: "I'm afraid there won't be a chance for a good slaughter—everyone's a bit regretful."

As he said this, Cao Wenzhao was clearly somewhat dejected.

He could find comfort in Lu Xiangsheng, since the two could be said to share the same plight—both had trained martial arts hard since childhood, never once slacking.

Cao Wenzhao's great spear had been honed through bitter effort. Lu Xiangsheng was the same—that fellow had put real work into practicing his great saber.

But after this battle, no one would remember their spears and sabers, and probably no one would pay attention to spears and sabers anymore.

These things were useless now—what everyone should be using were muskets and cannons.

"This is a good thing." Lu Xiangsheng said in a deep voice: "Because it proves that no one can be the Great Ming's enemy anymore."

"As firearms continue to spread and appear, and individual martial prowess gets compressed, the Great Ming's technological, economic, and population foundations can quickly show themselves. In this era, what the Great Ming is about to unleash is power that makes everyone tremble!"

Having said that, Lu Xiangsheng directly declared: "That's about enough—let's begin."

Cao Wenzhao nodded.

The signal flag beside them began to wave.

Then, at the rear of the position, the rocket soldiers pulled the fuses.

"Whoosh! Whoosh whoosh! Whoosh whoosh whoosh!" The rockets soared into the air, trailing their tail fins.

After switching to the new gunpowder and adding fixed tail fins, the rockets' base speed and range had both been greatly improved—most crucially, their stability had seen a marked increase.

The rockets spun as they flew headlong toward the enemy side.

At the same time, the mountain gun Chiliarch on the right opened fire.

According to their combat regulations, whenever opening fire at the start, they had to fire three rounds of shells.

They quickly pulled the lanyards, and the shells flew out with a "Boom!" Then they began reloading and firing again.

"Boom! Boom! Boom boom!"

The sound of explosions became the dominant note before their eyes—in an instant the roar shook the heavens, rocks flew, earth and stone collapsed, and countless figures were blasted straight into the air.

In that moment, chaos reigned everywhere.

On the battlefield, gunsmoke filled the air and flames rose on every side—no one knew what was happening.

Lu Xiangsheng held a telescope in his hand, watching all of this before him, and shook his head as he said, "Press forward."

Three volleys of rockets plus three volleys of mountain guns had basically solved most of the problems. At the same time, the infantry pressing forward quickly raised their long muskets and fired at any standing figure they saw.

"Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang!"

Gunfire instantly erupted into a continuous roar, bullets pouring into the smoke ahead as if they cost nothing, and screams rang out once again.

If any moving figure appeared on the ground, they would step up and fire another shot at it.

The mortars advanced with them, were quickly set in place, and then opened fire.

The hand-cranked machine guns also opened up at this moment, firing wherever dense crowds remained.

For a time, gunfire rang out from every direction on the battlefield.

The mountain guns over there stopped firing, and the rocket artillery ceased as well.

The basic tactic was: cannons bombard, infantry mop up.

This was a one-sided battle. The battle Hong Taiji had envisioned had already ended before it even began.

His cannons were utterly no match for the Ming cannons. Before they even came within range of their own artillery, the Ming side had already opened fire, and the primary target was his artillery positions.

After just one volley each from the rockets and mountain guns, Hong Taiji's entire artillery position was engulfed in a sea of flames, blown straight into the sky.

Though a few managed to fire off two shots amid the chaos, it was utterly useless and caused no casualties whatsoever. Soon after, Hong Taiji's artillery position fell silent, with not a sound remaining.

On the Ming side, the mountain guns and rockets came crashing down on Hong Taiji's army all at once. The cavalry never even had time to wheel around, and as for the infantry behind them—they couldn't even think of fleeing.

After the Ming forces fired one volley, they began extending their artillery fire. Before Hong Taiji and his men could react, the mortars and revolving machine guns opened up.

The infantry's long muskets opened fire at the same time as well.

Bullets whistled over—swish, swish, swish—and screams instantly formed a wall of sound all around.

Hong Taiji's mind was a blank; he simply hadn't processed what was happening. The men around him pressed him down beneath their bodies, hoping to protect him.

But even so, a shell exploded right beside Hong Taiji, and several of the men lying on top of him were blasted away. Hong Taiji himself was hurled through the air, wounded by the blast, blood streaming from his body.

Hong Taiji lay there, as if he felt none of it at all.

After a long moment, Hong Taiji felt someone pulling at him, seemingly dragging him backward.

Hong Taiji lifted his eyelids and looked—it was his elder brother Daišan. By now Daišan was also gravely wounded, and was shouting at him in frantic desperation.

Only then did Hong Taiji snap back to his senses. The moment he saw Daišan, tears streamed down his face, and he said, "Elder Brother, how could this happen? It shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't be like this!"

Daišan's face was also ashen gray. He too had no idea why it had turned out this way.

This time was even worse than the last—before the fighting had even begun, their own side had already collapsed, without even so much as touching the gates of the Ming army.