Bright Spring

However, things have become like this, and Ann can't do anything about it.An En rushed to his own army, which were all the men he had gathered from his own territory, and he led the men to retreat towards the camp.Only when he was in the camp and away from the naval guns of the Ming army, he could send someone to notify the nobles and leaders to restrain the army from reorganizing.

It seems that the battle has not really started yet, but the Chenla Army has suffered heavy losses.

When An En led his army and retreated all the way west, corpses and injured people screaming for help could be seen everywhere on the ground.Not only were there casualties caused by naval shelling, but there were also many who were trampled to death and injured by elephants and their own people.

Just one morning, the losses of the Chenla Army must have been far more than that.Because the army is in disarray, many people will flee.Especially those slave soldiers, who could not be captured for a short time after escaping.

Most of the chaotic soldiers may eventually be able to regroup, but it will take time.In the near future, the strength of the Chenla Army will definitely be greatly weakened.

When An En returned to the camp, he immediately dispatched a large number of guards and personal soldiers to find the generals of the various ministries and told them to gather and rectify the army.

Once again, however, things didn't go as planned.

It is reported that on the tributary of the Dong Nai River in the north, the Ming army has landed from the ship and is heading south!When some nobles heard the news, they didn't stay in the camp at all, leaving their tents, food and other supplies, and ran westward.

When An En waited anxiously at the gate of the big camp, he saw that the military flag bestowed by the king was dirty on the ground, with footprints all over the flag.An En was furious, stood on the ground and yelled at those nobles and tribal leaders, as cowardly as a mouse, cowardly and incompetent.

He rectified the troops in the big camp, and finally summoned a few nobles who were willing to listen to his orders.Everyone gathered together and decided to retreat westward first and leave the battlefield.

Now, even if An En didn't want to escape, that's all he could do for the time being.

The army abandoned most of the luggage, and there was no time to pack the tents, so the generals took the remaining infantry and elephant soldiers and turned to the northwest.They need to transfer to Phnom Penh, the second largest city in the Chenla Kingdom, and cross the Mekong River nearby; then they can retreat to the Tonle Sap Lake area and be supported by the people in the core area of ​​Angkor Thom in the Chenla Kingdom.

But before noon, An En's army encountered the Ming army.It is estimated that those enemy soldiers landed from a tributary of the Dong Nai River in the north, and finally intercepted a part of the Chenla army.

The Ming people did not have cavalry, they seemed to be rushing to pursue them, and they did not have that terrifying artillery.

The nobles under An En's command suggested that everyone should disperse and run away separately, and only meet again near the city of Phnom Penh.In this way, the enemy infantry had nothing to do with most of the Chenla soldiers.

However, this method is of course not the best. If the army flees after the defeat, the slave soldiers will take the opportunity to escape.When the main force of the Chenla army returns to the royal city, I am afraid that not even half of them will be there.

An En stepped forward to observe the enemy's formation in person.But between the rice fields and the bushes, those enemy troops formed a long dragon-like column.They are all infantry, without luggage, and the number is not too large.

As a well-known warrior in Chenla, An En has never been a hesitant person.He decisively decided: "We should gather our troops to drive back the pursuers. Then we will send orders to the various ministries to call up the troops and stop the rout. In this way we will at least greatly reduce the losses."

The few nobles who were still following him were terrified by the unheard of battle.They believed that the Chenla army was no match for the Ming army, and their morale was also low after running all the way here, so they shouldn't fight again immediately.

But An En felt that with several times his strength, he had great hope of repelling the enemy's pursuit.He decisively issued a military order.

So after a while, a nobleman secretly left with his people while An En was not paying attention.

Ann was very angry, but he didn't change his determination because of it.His eyes were bloodshot and both looked red and horribly red.He was emotionally agitated and couldn't control his voice well, so he yelled hoarsely: "If the enemy is captured, all of them will be whipped to death. Ming people must pay the price!"

He personally went to the teams to boost morale and ordered the people to gather into formations.After some rectification, An En finally got a formation of thousands of people.They chose a gentle slope with woods on the hill behind them.The Chenla army lined up here, ready to counterattack the enemy columns coming from the northeast.

The archers were at the front, followed by the remaining dozen or so elephants, and the infantry were deployed behind the elephants.An En adopted the familiar offensive method of the Chenla Army, first shooting and killing with a bow and crossbow, and then charging into the formation with elephant soldiers to cover the infantry to fight.

An En's army was originally the main force of the Chenla Kingdom's army, but there were only a few thousand people left in the original huge army.He is determined to restore his dignity here.

Chapter 892 The Road of Thorns

The terrain here is flat, with occasional hills that are gentle.However, there are a lot of water networks, and there are a lot of rice fields and shrubs nearby. For the army, the terrain is not conducive to large-scale marches.

The Ming army's multiple columns came one after another from the small road between a piece of rice field, and they stopped advancing only when they were less than [-] paces away from the enemy's line.The general ordered the teams to form a square formation in horizontal formations.The soldiers lined up continuously and gradually formed a flat square formation. Only when the horizontal plane was wide enough would they not be outflanked by enemy infantry.

Flags fluttered among the teams, most of which were written in Chinese characters with numbers.After a while, a dragon flag of the sun and moon group with a blue background and a yellow picture moved over.

Then a middle-aged general with a serious face and a thin figure walked to the front of the army with his hand on the handle of his knife.All the generals in the queue clasped their fists and said, "Commander Lin." This person is Lin Zixuan, one of the naval commanders.Probably the food at sea is not very good, they often eat cold food, and there are very few fat people among naval officers.

Lin Zixuan kept nodding his head, responding to the greetings of the generals, he waited and watched for a while.There is still a faint moist mist in the air, but the terrain between the two armies is already clear at a glance.

The terrain between the two sides is not easy to walk, there are wastelands with rocks and weeds, dry fields, and most importantly, two paddy fields divide the open land.Lin Zixuan summoned hundreds of households, arranged for a while, and then ordered to move forward immediately.

After a while, the fife was blowing in the army formation.Amidst the brisk military music, shouts of generals can be heard everywhere: "Let's go together!"

The teams began to line up in the cross blow, and the line soon became untidy.Because some people have to climb up the ridges of dry fields, and it is difficult to maintain a horizontal and vertical formation when walking over rocks.But the soldiers generally still advance in formation.

When people arrived between the two rice fields, the hundreds of families in the middle stopped, and the soldiers stood in place.The horizontal square arrays on both sides walked towards the dry land in the middle from both sides.After the phalanx on the two wings passed by, the Hundred Household Team in the middle followed suit.

Gradually, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty approached a hundred paces, already within the range of the enemy's infantry bows.The expressions on the faces of the sergeants gradually became tense.

Thin mist drifted in the air, and besides the sound of blowing horizontally, the noise of enemy troops in the distance could already be faintly heard.The soldiers of the Ming army didn't make a sound, and continued to move forward at a constant speed.

Most of the faces of everyone are still very tired.Commander Lin's troops were not Zhu Zhen's army stationed on land, but naval officers and soldiers.They have been wandering at sea for many days. They just got off the battleship in Saigon Bay yesterday.

"Papapa..." The sound of strings came from a distance, and there were dots of black shadows in the sky, and the arrows of the Chenla people flew over.Arrows hit the wooden shields of the Ming army's spear and shield soldiers in the front row, crackling, and there were crisp metal impact sounds in the crowd, and some sergeants' helmets and armor were hit by arrows.From time to time someone fell to the ground screaming in pain.

But the Ming army continued to advance, and the generals did not order a counterattack.

People pass through the mist in the rain of arrows, as if they are walking on a pioneering road full of thorns.Some people sacrificed, some people were injured and shouted in pain, but the advancing pace of the Daming army as a whole did not stop or hesitate, and the firm momentum was unstoppable.

After the second round of intensive throwing of the enemy's bows and arrows, the front of the Ming army finally passed through two rice fields, and they began to separate to the two wings.The spear and shield soldiers in the front row held their shields against the enemy's formation and blocked their sides.

Because the Ming army did not fight back at all; the Chenla army did not rush to kill, and still used the bow and arrow formation in front to unilaterally shoot at the Ming army formation.Soldiers of the Ming army continued to be injured and were left in place.

At this time, the soldiers of the Ming army looked dull and stupid, they were constantly being shot by bows and arrows, but they didn't respond.The melody played briskly and horizontally in the army formation is especially funny.However, the queue was not chaotic at all, and the military discipline was extremely strict. This scene may have shocked the enemy a little bit.

The hundreds of household teams have completed the formation adjustment step by step, and continued to advance towards the Chenla people in a horizontal line in a flat square formation.Within fifty paces, the Ming army still didn't stop.The archers of the Chenla people began to shoot flat-shot at the Ming army, and shot-shot at close range. The arrows were nailed into the wooden shield, and sometimes the gun-shield heavy infantry was also injured.

The archers of the Chenla Army made a good shot, as if they were shooting a live target.

When only twenty or thirty steps approached, the general of the Ming army shouted, and the blowing stopped abruptly.Two sergeants with waist drums waved the drumsticks and beat them quickly with "boom, boom, boom...".

Following the shouts of hundreds of households, the spear and shield soldiers in the front row of each team squatted on the ground one after another, and the infantry behind them raised their firearms.People can already see the dark faces of the Chenla people facing them, and even the bewildered and surprised expressions on those faces can be clearly seen.

Hundreds of households in each team raised the Yanling knife, pointed at the direction of attack, and shouted: "Let it go!" The bright flames shone, and the muzzle "bang bang bang bang..." densely exploded, and gunpowder smoke rose.

With such a short distance and the enemy's deep formation, lead bullets were almost never missed.Many of the Chenla soldiers who were shooting happily before fell to the ground screaming, and some of them fell on their backs convulsively after being shot several times in a row.Chenla soldiers lined up with casualties like harvested rice disasters.

A round of salvo is like a one-hit nirvana.The enemy's bow and arrow formation was in an uproar, and many people lost their bows and arrows and ran away.The sound of people on the gentle slope opposite was like a frying pan.

The officers and soldiers had already changed teams, and the sound of the second row's salvo of gunfire rang out again soon.Many fleeing enemy soldiers were shot in the back and fell on the slope.The army formations everywhere over there simply dispersed in a rush, the crowd fled, and the hillside was full of people.

After the three-stage attack by the front team of the Ming army, they were planning to advance again.But something that surprised Lin Zixuan and others happened at this time.

The Chenla army did not retreat.After the bow and arrow array was dispersed, the elephant soldiers behind did not retreat but advanced, and counterattacked with a large number of infantry!

The formation of the enemy soldiers is very chaotic. After the general army has formed a large formation, it is really difficult to maintain formation during the attack.However, each team of the enemy army still gathered in one place, huddling together to kill the generals.

Lin Zixuan ordered to change teams.The hundreds of teams in front retreated, and the hundreds of teams that spread out horizontally behind went up.The sergeants who finished firing the guns were busy reloading as soon as they stood still. They are now cleaning the barrels with cleaning rods to ensure that there is no spark left.The army formation was busy, and countless arms were waving back and forth.

The elephant soldiers in hard leather armor walked forward with heavy steps, and the soldiers on the elephant's back held long weapons.The elephant's trunk flicked back and forth in the air.A large group of infantry behind them held various weapons and shouted loudly. The shouts on the hillside were deafening, as if resounding through the mountains, forests and rice fields on the ground.

At this moment, some brawny sergeants in the Ming army came together from the gap in the ranks to the front of the formation.Following the general's order, everyone picked up the short torches, lit the fuse, and then strenuously moved forward and threw the pig iron mine in their right hand.

"Boom! Boom, boom..." A huge explosion sounded, and the pig iron thunder that exploded on the ground flashed with flames, the smoke filled the air, and countless pieces of iron flew across.

The deafening explosion and the dazzling flames frightened the elephants into panic and honking.The elephants all turned their heads and ran, rushing back into the infantry crowd of the Chenla Army like a madman.