Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

They're not what they used to be, so how much willpower do they still have?

"Order Ruan Xing to immediately move forward to provide support and suppress the retreating army!" Du Yingwu hurriedly gave the order.

Li Yirong's troops collapsed, but the troops under Ding Congzhou and Long Kan on his flank suffered even less long-range fire.

In the critical moment, Ding Congzhou drew his sword and shouted, "Follow me and charge!"

Ignoring the main force in the fields, he led a group of his personal guards and charged out along the field ridges.

He wanted to wipe out the Mandarin Duck Squad on the ridge and kill the artillerymen hiding behind the Mandarin Duck Formation.

More and more Annamese vanguard soldiers, unwilling to be sitting ducks in the fields, climbed up the field ridges and charged with Ding Congzhou.

There were five small teams of soldiers, with only half remaining to guard the ridge, while the other four and a half jumped into the field to help defend. They numbered only sixty, but hundreds of enemy soldiers were charging towards them.

Fearing being hit by muskets, Ding Congzhou ordered a dozen or so of his personal guards to charge ahead of him.

These hundreds of people formed a long, serpentine line. After more than twenty of them fell to the ground from being shot or hit by arrows, they quickly rushed towards the five small teams of the Mandarin Ducks.

Then, they couldn't quickly deploy their forces; despite having hundreds of people, only the person at the very front could engage in combat.

The rest jumped haphazardly into the fields, completely losing their organization and fighting their own battles.

The five teams of mandarin ducks harvested the prey methodically, killing anyone who rushed at them.

"boom!"

Ding Congzhou was shot; the bullet came from two meters away and hit him directly in the forehead.

His remaining troops immediately collapsed and fled.

"Your Highness, our allies have been routed."

Zhao Kang turned around and saw that two miles away to his side and rear, the five thousand Annamese allies had been routed by Du Yingwu's troops.

Zhao Kang urgently ordered: "Forget about the twenty cannons borrowed from the navy. Have the officials, doctors, and gunners escape to the grain transport ships immediately!"

Han Jing also learned of the situation and shouted frantically, "Fire another round of shotgun shells! All troops, charge!"

Han Jing wasn't in a hurry. Those ragtag allied troops were no match for him; they were just tools he used to distract the enemy's forces.

He believed in the fighting power of the Mandarin Duck Formation in paddy field terrain!

Even if the enemy has several times the number of troops, it is difficult for them to commit all of them to the battle.

Two of the three Annamese vanguard armies have already collapsed.

After another round of shot, the third one also began to flee.

The Ming Dynasty's elite troops all arrived at the ridge of the field, transforming into six or seven long snakes that chased after them.

The routed soldiers could not run fast in the mud, the archers stopped from time to time to fire arrows, while the musketeers kept reloading their guns and continued to advance.

Unfortunately, the fleeing soldiers could not escape quickly enough to effectively attack the supporting troops, and the rout was quickly stabilized by the supervising team.

Chapter 3695 Invincible in Group Battles

The Annamese supervisory team fought the fiercest battles along several field ridges, scaring the fleeing soldiers into jumping into the fields.

Du Yingwu's central army waved command flags continuously, and apart from three elite units, the rest were all committed to the battle.

Many troops ran a long distance along the field ridges to circle around to both sides, seemingly about to surround the Ming army, but in reality, it was extremely difficult to engage them in battle.

This area is a fertile alluvial plain, and the paddy fields were all owned by nobles or gentry.

The field was quite large and not divided into many small plots.

To outflank them from the side of the paddy field, one would have to cross large areas of muddy paddy fields.

The Ming Dynasty's elite troops were no longer working in the fields; some small teams of soldiers stood on the ridges of the fields, firing at the enemy approaching from the flanks.

Some of the smaller teams were still charging forward, heading towards the incoming Annamese forces.

The ridges between the fields vary in width; some are wide enough for two people to stand side by side, while others are narrow enough for only one person.

Regardless of the width, only one person can stand during battle!

Ruan Xing led his troops to stand on the ridge of the field. He had driven his fleeing allies into the field, but they had thrown his own troops into chaos.

The Ming army had already advanced in a long line and was close at hand. Ruan Xing shouted with delight, "Attack the enemy on the field ridge from both sides! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

If it were on flat ground, even the most elite Ming army would suffer a defeat with such a formation.

Now, however, the situation is quite the opposite. The enemy troops, trudging through the mud, are moving at varying speeds, some even falling down.

The Ming soldiers, lined up in a long, straight line on the edge of the field, were firing diagonally forward, making the surrounding enemy troops easy targets.

Meanwhile, the Ming soldiers at the forefront were still charging, with musketeers leading the charge.

After firing at close range, he jumped into the field and immediately waded through the mud to reload his ammunition.

The squad leader fired an arrow, hung up his bow and arrows, and charged forward with his spear in hand.

The two sides clashed on the ridge of the field, with one person on each side stabbing each other with a gun.

Several soldiers behind him jumped into the field and began to deploy.

Three Ming soldiers could form a formation, with one on the field ridge as the main attacker and two others in the field as support.

The Annamese soldiers were somewhat bewildered and only knew how to fight on their own, haphazardly thrusting their spears forward.

The Annamese soldiers couldn't hold out the moment they engaged in battle; despite having a numerical advantage, they were constantly being outnumbered.

The first person was stabbed to death, and the second person was forced to take his place, but was injured before he could even get into the zone.

The Ming army simply charged forward, while the soldiers flanking them, unable to keep up due to the mud, immediately had to jump back down.

They coordinated with the soldiers on the field ridges to fight the enemy, always maintaining the small three-talent formation.

As the fighting progressed, the Ming soldiers who fought together were no longer from the same squad.

Based on their daily training habits, they automatically form three-person combat teams regardless of whether they know each other or not.

As the fighting continued, the Annamese soldiers grew increasingly panicked.

The Annamese soldiers on the embankment in front of them died. The soldiers behind them did not react by fighting, but were so frightened that they jumped into the field to avoid the enemy's advance.

The Annamese general Nguyen Hang, who was directing operations from the rear, suddenly realized that the number of soldiers in the front ranks on the ridges of the fields was decreasing, and his troops were about to be cut through from the middle.

Some of the soldiers in the fields on both sides had already encircled the enemy, but they had no formation whatsoever and were completely out of sync with their allies.

Most of the Ming army stood on the ridges of the fields, while a small number jumped into the fields to fight, forming small formations wherever they were.

The seemingly fragile Ming army, operating in a long, continuous line, inflicted heavy casualties on the Annamese soldiers, killing as many as they went!

Chapter 3696 They lost already.

Despite the battle going on for so long, not a single Ming soldier had died.

Although there were hundreds of wounded soldiers, all of them were injured by arrows; none of them were stabbed in close combat.

"General, retreat immediately!"

The guards dragged Ruan Xing away.

Ruan Xing's mind is a bit foggy right now. He doesn't know how things got to this point, and he abandoned his troops and ran away in a daze.

On the other side, the Annamese general Ly Hue was also about to be overrun.

Li Hui was much braver; instead of running away, he personally took the lead.

Then I understood why the soldiers couldn't hold out any longer; the ridges and the fields on both sides...

Three spears thrust at the same time, each aimed at a different spot; the three Ming soldiers coordinated perfectly.

His own soldiers jumped into the fields on both sides to assist him in the battle, but they were unable to form an effective coordination.

Li Hui, relying on his superior armor, continued fighting even after being stabbed by a spear.

A musketeer jumped into the field, one foot in the mud, the other bent on the ridge, and fired through the gap left by his friendly forces ahead.

"boom!"

Li Hui was shot in the chest and finally collapsed, unwilling to accept her fate.

The two Annamese armies that came into contact with the enemy collapsed and fled one after another. The outermost troops that came to encircle the enemy, some of them charged over through the mud, while others were still circling around to the rear along the field ridges.

The Ming army's small cannons on the ridges of the fields were slowly loaded with shotgun shells and fired in turn at the enemy flanking from the side.

Tiger-squatting cannons and similar small cannons can only fire a few dozen meters away. Their power is so small that they won't even break the field ridges, but they can still cause huge casualties to the enemy.

The more than 10,000 Annamese troops deployed to the battle were in such disarray that Du Yingwu did not know how to command them.

Some had already been killed and were struggling to escape through the mud.

Many flanking forces suffered no casualties, but were scattered haphazardly in various places, unable to form an effective coordination.

Du Yingwu told the messenger, "Tell all the officers and soldiers that the enemy camp is on fire, and the Ming army's camp is about to be burned down!"

More than a dozen messengers went along the field ridges to deliver the news of "victory".

Du Yingwu's central army immediately shouted, "Great victory! Great victory!"

However, the Ming army, whose camp had been burned down, paid no attention to what was happening behind them and charged faster and faster along the ridges of the fields.

There were still a large number of Annamite deserters in the paddy fields between the ridges, but as long as the deserters did not attack, the Ming soldiers did not bother with them.

They charged straight at Du Yingwu's central army!

Du Yingwu grew increasingly panicked: "Elephant troops! Elephant troops, attack!"

More than thirty elephants marched out, each followed by a small squad of Annamese soldiers, their battle formation resembling a combined arms operation.

Elephants are tanks.

The war elephants trampled large pits in the mud, but this did not hinder their movement at all; however, it caused the soldiers cooperating with the elephants to be out of formation.

"Aim at the elephant!"

Without Han Jing giving any orders, the musketeers had already spotted the thing.

The musketeers stopped to take aim, and those with poor angles jumped into the field.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

Bullets occasionally hit the elephants.

However, war elephants were covered in armor made of a mixture of leather and iron. Firearms could penetrate the armor and even wound the flesh, but the muscular tissue could stop them.

To kill a war elephant with a flintlock musket, you must hit a vital spot or weaken it by causing it to bleed.

Of course, the war elephant, wounded but not killed, also became agitated due to the pain.

Chapter 3697 The Frustrated War Elephant

"Move the cannon over there and use large iron bullets!"

The Ming army's small cannons were dealing with the encircling enemy and did not follow the vanguard in the charge. Upon receiving the order, they hurriedly carried them forward.

Some of the fleeing Annamese soldiers, seeing their own war elephants move out, were stopped in their rout and reorganized by the supervising team.

"hold head high!"

A war elephant, riddled with more than twenty bullets, finally succumbed to the pain all over its body, whipped its trunk, let out a long howl, and turned to flee to its side and rear.

Three soldiers were trampled to death and several others were knocked over while soldiers in the rear were moving in coordination with the war elephants. The remaining soldiers were so frightened that they scattered and ran away.

However, due to the muddy and difficult terrain, the Annamese soldiers were unable to avoid being trampled to death or injured, and dozens of them were trampled to death or injured.

The Ming soldiers on the ridge jumped into the field to make way for the artillerymen carrying small cannons and shells.

The caliber of this cannon is about 5 centimeters, and even the largest iron ball is smaller than a tennis ball.

In order to save time, the gunner was running alone while carrying the shells, while the shells required two people to carry the baskets.

Annam's war elephant charge did not go smoothly; one had already escaped, and several others remained restless and unwilling to advance.

The rider was carefully calming the elephant, while the archer on its back kept firing arrows from above.

"Boom boom boom!"

The three small cannons fired first, but unfortunately they all missed.