Chapter 645: The Confrontation

"General, the Frankish warships are trying to escape."

At the port of Malka City, two warships turned around and headed south; the flagship's captain, Gong Ying, immediately shouted.

Frowning, he noted that after the translator sent by the Franks returned, there had been no further movement.

Now, these two warships had chosen to flee again.

This maneuver left him somewhat puzzled, but after a moment's thought, he grasped the key to it.

The Frankish warships were fleeing simply because the Frankish commander lacked the confidence to defeat them at sea; fleeing was merely to preserve their strength.

But once these warships were gone, they could successfully land on Yizhou and attack Malka City.

He believed that the Frankish commander must have considered this point as well.

Since he still chose to do so, there was only one reason: he was confident he could withstand their attack at Malka City.

"Do they not know the power of Yanzhou's firearms?" Zhou Yi wondered to himself.

Or perhaps, they believed their own firearms were superior to those of Yanzhou.

Shaking his head, Zhou Yi decided to let the Marine Corps land first, then adapt to the situation on the battlefield.

Under his orders, the troop transport ships sailed toward the port of Malka City.

The Marine Corps soldiers successfully disembarked from the troop transport ships.

Following this, field artillery and mortars were hoisted down from the warships.

With all soldiers ashore, he said to the Marine Corps Captain Pan Zhang, "This battle is left to you."

"Yes, General," Pan Zhang replied.

Immediately, he took a small boat to the shore.

Originally, he had been Bai Shang's Vice General, responsible for training the Marine Corps.

After the training was completed, he was supposed to return to the Prince's Personal Army, but Zhou Yi had set his sights on him during the Great Song's Northern Expedition.

Thus, he had petitioned Yan Wang to keep him in the Marine Corps.

Upon landing at the port of Malka City, Pan Zhang immediately reorganized the soldiers and ordered them to march toward Malka City in formation.

Although a Lengbao with red walls could be seen standing in the distance from the port.

There was still a distance of over ten li between the port and this Lengbao.

Both sides of the road leading to Malka City were covered in farmland.

To their surprise, these fields were actually growing rice seedlings, whereas in the cold Yanzhou, the land was planted with wheat.

In the village at the end of the farmland, Great Song commoners could be vaguely seen peering toward them, only to vanish like rabbits.

Along the way, they encountered no resistance, and they stopped at a distance of about 1,500 meters from Malka City.

Picking up his telescope, Pan Zhang looked toward Malka City.

At this moment, the walls of Malka City were filled with soldiers, and thirty pieces of artillery were aimed directly at them.

"I never thought the day would come when it would be our turn to attack a Lengbao," Pan Zhang said with a bitter smile after observing for a while.

This massive Lengbao of Malka City was similar to the outer walls of Yanguan they had seen.

He understood the power of this kind of Lengbao.

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly saw an astonishing sight.

The gates of Malka City opened, and a squad of Frankish soldiers marched out in formation.

These Frankish soldiers wore uniform blue military attire; this clothing was quite different from Great Song attire, resembling more the short tunics worn by commoners.

On their heads, they wore hats resembling sailboats.

After the Frankish soldiers left the city, they lined up in front of the gate; immediately after, eighteen more field artillery pieces were pushed out, continuously advancing with the squad.

Seeing this, Pan Zhang was not nervous at all; on the contrary, he felt somewhat excited.

He had campaigned on the battlefield with Bai Shang, going through many battles, and was a veteran of many wars.

Naturally, he felt no nervousness whatsoever.

Furthermore, the gunpowder used by their Marine Corps soldiers this time was all Yellow Gunpowder newly manufactured in Yancheng.

Before departing, they had tested the power of this Yellow Gunpowder.

Just as the data provided by the Armory Department indicated, their rifled muskets could now effectively kill enemies within 350 meters, and beyond the effective range, up to 600 meters, stray bullets could still injure enemies.

At the same time, the power of both the artillery and mortars had been greatly increased.

"Truly courting death," Pan Zhang sneered, and immediately, based on the Frankish soldiers' formation, ordered the Marine Corps soldiers to change formation.

In just over ten minutes, the Marine Corps soldiers, like the Frankish soldiers, arranged themselves into a Large Horizontal Formation 300 meters wide, with three ranks per line.

There were eight such horizontal lines, advancing in a staggered manner.

On the ramparts of Malka City, Steven watched the advancing Yanzhou soldiers and whistled, "The time for the hunt has arrived."

Although surprised that these Yan Wang soldiers carried flintlocks equipped with bayonets and possessed field artillery similar to their own.

He remained confident that he could defeat these Dongtu natives.

Because he believed that the firearms of the Western Lands would not lose to those of the Dongtu natives.

In his view, the muskets used by these Yan Wang soldiers were at most comparable to the Western-style firearms imitated by the Eastern Japanese.

And the flintlocks they used were crafted with exquisite workmanship, certainly not comparable to the crude products hand-forged by Eastern Japanese craftsmen.

Their hard steel barrels allowed their chambers to be loaded with more gunpowder, and the mirror-smooth bore allowed the bullets to be fired without any obstruction.

All this allowed their flintlocks to reach an effective range of 150 meters.

This was basically the limit for Western flintlocks.

If they wanted to improve further, they would have to switch to the Yellow Gunpowder that had only recently been born in the Western Lands.

But because such flintlocks were sufficient to deal with the Dongtu natives, the Frankish army had not distributed this more powerful gunpowder to them.

Even so, just as the army had considered, he believed it was absolutely enough.

This time, he would beat this Yan King Army until they were scurrying away in terror.

With a smug smile on his face, Shi Diwen prepared to observe a massacre of the Yanzhou soldiers.

On the battlefield, as the two armies drew closer, Pan Zhang immediately deployed six hundred soldiers to form skirmishers, scattering them to advance and attack.

This was their brand-new tactic.

Facing an army from the Western Lands for the first time, he naturally wanted to use it to test the power of this tactic.

The main tasks he assigned to the skirmishers were to harass the Frankish soldiers at the front and to attack the Frankish Artillerymen.

No matter how long the range of the muskets was, it could not exceed that of the Artillery; as the two armies advanced in dense formations, the Frankish Artillery could still pose a threat to the Wangfu Army.

Upon receiving the order, the skirmishers were like a handful of Sha scattered across the land, dotting the battlefield.

They were in groups of three, distributed in front of the formation.

When they reached three hundred and fifty meters, these skirmishers raised their Rifled Muskets and aimed at the Frankish soldiers.

"Bang, bang, bang..." No thick white smoke rose on the battlefield.

Only faint wisps of blue smoke drifted up, but this did not affect their vision.

When using Yellow Gunpowder, they had been told that one difference between Yellow Gunpowder and black powder was that Yellow Gunpowder was a type of Smokeless Gunpowder.

In this way, their vision on the battlefield would not be obscured by thick smoke, which would have affected their shooting.

As the gunfire rang out, the advancing Frankish soldiers suddenly began to fall sporadically.

Seeing this scene, the Frankish generals marching with the troops were immediately taken aback.

But without Shi Diwen's orders, they could only continue to advance.