Chapter 3543
In order to keep the tactics to be used in this decisive battle secret, the Kyushu Allied Forces did not conduct calibrated artillery fire before the war began to avoid being discovered by their opponents. Even for the deployment of artillery positions, construction work was deliberately carried out in the early morning and evening when visibility was low.
And all the artillery troops rely on are the firing tables issued by these Haihan-made artillery, and the dozens of Haihan instructors who are secretly stationed in the position.
The firing table indicates the basic ballistic elements of the artillery, correction elements, dispersion elements, charge selection, etc. The artillery unit, under the guidance of Haihan military adviser, relied on these data to delineate the firing boundary on the plain in advance. .
Since calibration cannot be carried out, such a demarcation is definitely not accurate enough. Fortunately, the number of artillery pieces gathered here by the Kyushu Allied Forces is sufficient, and the firepower density can be used to make up for the error in firing range.
What's more, the battle plan of the Kyushu Allied Forces is to place the enemy in front of the formation and then open fire, and to shorten the engagement distance to ensure the accuracy of the shooting.
When the shogunate army advanced their formation to about three miles away from the Kyushu Allied Defense Line, they cautiously sent a cavalry unit of about a thousand people forward for reconnaissance.
Almost all horses in the Japanese archipelago are derived from Mongolian horses. However, due to backward concepts and management systems, Japan's horse breeding industry has not been taken seriously, and the quality of horses has seriously deteriorated. By the time of the Tokugawa shogunate, the average height of Japanese horses was even less than three feet, and their bodies were smaller than donkeys from other countries.
This resulted in Japan's cavalry units not having the combat capabilities of heavy armored cavalry and charge cavalry, and could only be used to perform reconnaissance missions, or be incorporated into logistics and transportation units.
The scene of a short soldier riding a short horse also looks quite funny. Steven Stone once unceremoniously described this as "a monkey riding a dog". There seemed to be a lot of cavalry with a strength of 1,000 people, but when the spectators saw the sight of the cavalry attacking through the binoculars, many of them immediately laughed out loud.
This kind of cavalry unit is still far behind the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty, Manchu Qing Dynasty, and even North Korea, let alone the Haihan cavalry riding tall horses.
Even the pack horses of the Haihan Army were many times stronger than these so-called war horses.
Of course, the shogunate army did not expect to use these light cavalry to break through the opponent's position. They just wanted to use them to lure the Kyushu Allied Forces to open fire, thus exposing the deployment on the position.
The cavalry troops made a careful circle in front of the Kyushu Allied Forces formation, but did not cause the other side to fire. They could only move closer and closer.
When the distance shortened to less than thirty feet, some shogunate cavalry who could not hold back their composure bent their bows and arrows on horseback and took the initiative to shoot at the Kyushu Allied Forces position.
However, these cavalrymen carried light bows and arrows with limited range, which did not pose a substantial threat to the coalition forces. The arrows they shot fell to the ground before they could even fly to the coalition positions.
In response to such a close provocation, there was still silence on the coalition position, which made the shogunate cavalry wonder whether their actions were ignored by the opponent, or whether there was no one on the opposite position at all.
If the Kyushu Allied Forces are deliberately setting up an empty city strategy, then as long as they boldly rush in and expose this trick, they will certainly be successful.
It wasn't until a cavalryman who was fearless in death rushed to a distance of about ten feet that he finally saw the expressionless faces behind the bunker, as well as the densely packed muzzles of guns sticking out of the bunker. After a burst of intensive gunfire, the more than twenty cavalry who rushed nearby fell down. The remaining shogunate cavalry quickly retracted their reins like frightened birds, turned around and distanced themselves, and escaped from the shooting range of their opponents.
This kind of fire reconnaissance is actually of little significance. The Kyushu Allied Forces have no intention of sending troops to fight. They just hold their positions and wait for the shogunate army to attack.
The artillery deployment situation that the shogunate army wanted to find out also completely failed in this round of confrontation. Faced with the provocation of the cavalry, no artillery fire was fired on the Kyushu Allied Forces' position, and they were simply allowed to be driven away by the musketeers.
After trying many rounds of tests, the shogunate army still did not find out the artillery deployment of the coalition positions, but they could only bite the bullet and continue to advance.
Both warring parties are well aware of each other's combat intentions and have made targeted deployments. However, due to the support of Haihan behind the Kyushu Allied Forces, with the addition of this variable, the side that seemed to be active on the battlefield was actually passive, while the side that seemed to be passive actually took the initiative.
The shogunate army knew very well that its opponent's army also installed a large number of weapons and equipment from Haihan, especially artillery with equally huge lethality and range of damage. A rash attack would be to feed the opponent's artillery, so they tried to use cavalry to conduct fire reconnaissance. .
However, after this move failed, the shogunate army had only one response method left, which was to use its own artillery to lead the attack.
The technique of artillery opening the way was not invented by the shogunate army, nor was it stolen from Haihan, but a tactic previously taught by the Portuguese. However, although artillery tactics all reach the same goal by different routes, due to differences in the quantity and quality of artillery, as well as differences in the quality of artillery, the final results on the battlefield are completely different.
This is exactly what the shogunate army faced at this time. In terms of quantity and quality, the Kyushu Allied Forces deployed as many as a hundred artillery pieces in this hilly position, and shipped several large-caliber coastal defense guns, whose range was far beyond that of ordinary field guns.
In terms of artillery quality, the artillerymen of both armies were trained by Haihan after purchasing the artillery. There should not be a big difference, but the Kyushu Allied Forces had Haihan's military adviser sitting in command, and the artillery firing was also done by Zhu Yuan. These military advisers personally solve the problems on site, and the combat effectiveness they can exert is completely different.
If there is a choice, this is not the best place for the shogunate army to launch a decisive battle. But now that the situation is forcing us to no longer allow the war to be delayed any longer, we can only fight this battle bravely.
Seeing the shogunate army launching more than thirty artillery pieces one after another, the guests watching the battle in the distance were also talking about it.
After two military bosses, Shi Diwen and Yan Chujie, came forward to endorse the Kyushu Alliance Army, the guests' views on the trend of the war situation have basically become consistent. The focus of everyone's discussion has also shifted from guessing who will win and who will lose to whether the Kyushu Allied Forces can decide the outcome in this battle.
Su Keyi couldn't help but feel disappointed when he heard the discussion of the people around him. When he had a secret meeting with the Portuguese the day before yesterday, he also agreed to find ways to support the shogunate. However, he never thought that when the decisive battle came, Haihan had already announced the defeat of the shogunate in advance. .
He originally wanted to go over and inquire about the deployment status of the Kyushu Allied Forces and see if there was any way to pass the news to the shogunate. However, after the inspection team's camp was moved, Haihan did not arrange for guests from various countries to visit the positions of the Kyushu Allied Forces. There is no way to talk about it.
Seeing that the shogunate army gradually entered the artillery strike range of the Kyushu Allied Forces, Su Keyi could only pray that the shogunate army would not lose too miserably in this battle.