On the wharf, 100 elephant soldiers and 400 cavalry formed a circle formation, surrounded by 2,000 Ming soldiers.
Of the 2,000 Ming troops, there were only 500 cavalry and the remaining 1,500 were infantry.
These soldiers are the elite of the Beijing camp, experienced in a hundred battles, and are not afraid of death, but such a tall mount is really the only one in their lives, and the behemoth that is twice the height of the horse makes them unable to think of a way to fight such an opponent for a while, they can only nervously hold their bows and crossbows, because other weapons cannot reach the enemy soldiers on the war elephant.
Of course, if it is the Yunnan soldiers who appear here today, they will not take the war elephant in their eyes at all, when the Ming army first entered Yunnan, it also encountered the opponent who rode the war elephant, and at first faced with this novel tactic was also quite a bit of a hurry, but they quickly mastered the method of dealing with the war elephant.
Limited to the inconvenient transportation at that time, and the tactics of the Yunnan soldiers had regional surnames, spreading this tactic to other places became a "dragon-slaying technique", and it was useless to learn it, so the methods studied by these Yunnan soldiers in actual combat did not spread, and the officers and men of the Beijing battalion knew nothing about it.
However, although the officers and soldiers of the Beijing camp still do not know how to deal with war elephants, there is a Xia Xun here, and there are only war elephants, how can they stump him The soldiers brought by Prince Senak watched the huge ship carrying the prince sail away from the dock, and they did not dare to turn their faces for a while, they were also deeply afraid of the extremely sharp bows and crossbows in the hands of the Ming army, and the men and horses besieging them were as many as two thousand, four times as many, and if ten thousand arrows were fired, they could easily make a live target on the war elephant, so the two sides were in such a stalemate.
The two sides were at a stalemate, when suddenly someone shouted in the distance and a team of men and horses galloped over.
The Ming officers and soldiers were stunned for a while, thinking that the enemy had come to reinforcements, but when Dingqing looked at it, the men and horses who rode and galloped were clearly the clothes of the Ming officers and soldiers.
The officers and soldiers breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly sent people to greet them, and these people who came at a gallop were the Ming army that escorted Zheng He and other envoys all the way back.
Xia Xun is secretly making arrangements on the dock, under his arrangement, warships and merchant ships have sailed away from the dock to prevent Ceylon soldiers from boarding the ship to fight or set fire to the ship, and the muzzle of the gun is unanimously aimed at the direction of the dock, and now there are only three warships left at the dock, which are used to meet Zheng He.
As soon as Zheng He's soldiers and horses arrived, Xia Xun immediately greeted him and asked, "Father-in-law, what's wrong?"
Zheng He said with a pale face: "For some reason, the king of Ceylon suddenly made a mistake and wanted to take me down. ” Xia Xun hurriedly said about Prince Senak's fraud on board, and Zheng He suddenly realized: "It turns out that the lord of such a dignified country is really shameless to do such a dirty method."
Zhang Xin, a member of the Ministry of Works, said hurriedly: "This is the territory of Ceylon, the location and the people, we don't occupy any of them, the king of Ceylon has bad intentions, let's leave quickly, and wait for the king of Ceylon to send troops to chase, I'm afraid it's not good." ” Xia Xun said calmly: "I have made preparations in advance, but whether to go or fight, it is still up to Gonggong Zheng to decide." ” Zheng He is a messenger, Xia Xun's task is to find the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen, so he does not have the command of the entire fleet, so he can't overstep the line, if Zheng He really dies in the palace, then the person who has the power to command the entire fleet is Zhang Xitong.
Whether Zhang Xitong obeyed Xia Xun or not was another matter, but he couldn't directly complete the fleet.
Zheng He said: "Naturally, we will leave immediately, do you still want to stay here and start a war with that rogue king, let's board the ship immediately."
As soon as he was halfway through his words, Zheng He suddenly reacted, looked at Xia Xun, and asked in a deep voice: "What does Guogong mean by this, is it not the reason why we still have a war?"
Xia Xun said: "My father-in-law has not returned for a long time, and Prince Senak has come to the ship to defraud the property, so I know that it is not good, so I immediately called all ships to be on guard, and controlled Prince Senak as a hostage, and at the same time summoned the merchants of our fleet to return to the ship."
However, some merchants went to the city to trade, and only then did they count the number of people, and about 300 merchants did not return. ” Zhang Xin hurriedly said: "But I'm a Ming businessman" Xia Xun glanced at him and said, "There are Ming merchants, and there are also merchants from Nanyang countries who come from our fleet along the way. ” Zhang Xin stopped talking when he heard this, if those merchants who were too late to recall were from the Nanyang countries, he dared to suggest that he should immediately sail and leave Ceylon, but now there are still the people of the Ming Dynasty who are stranded in the capital of Ceylon, so he will never dare to leave.
When bandits abandon the city and abandon the people in danger, what kind of official do you still do, as long as someone impeaches him, the emperor must be killed.
Of course, when the system is gone, there will be no lower limit, but at this time it is still the Yongle Dynasty, not only the system is like a mountain, but the officials also have this awareness.
Zheng He no longer hesitated when he heard this, and said categorically: "Zheng He patrolled overseas on behalf of the Son of Heaven, how could he abandon my Ming people and rescue these people regardless of it, we must not leave."
Xia Xun said happily: "That's the case, we might as well take down these four hundred Ceylon soldiers, plus a Senak prince, when we can exchange hostages with the King of Ceylon, and we can avoid making a big move." ” Crowley, the general of Ceylon, was ordered to hastily assemble a team of 10,000 men, ready to fight to the port and capture Zheng He.
As soon as the army came out of the city gate, they saw dozens of war elephants rushing wildly, some of the war elephants were left with only an empty basket, there was no trace of anyone inside, some of the baskets were crooked, the soldier's hat was gone, and the weapons were also thrown away.
Crowley was amazed, but the war elephant was frightened, and they could not stop it, and both elephants and cattle were protected animals in the country, so they did not dare to stop them with knives and guns, so they had to dodge the road to make way for the elephants.
But tens of thousands of troops are blocked at the gate of the city, how to dodge The team was rushed by the war elephants, and those who didn't have time to dodge were trampled and kicked many people, which slowly blocked the escape of the war elephants, and Crowley asked a few elephant knights who were still shaking in a daze, and asked sharply: "What's the matter with you?"
The knight was tossed and limped, and stood unsteady as if drunk.
He staggered and said: "Back to the general, Prince Senak was taken by the Ming army, and they wanted to detain us, we tried our best to resist, we wanted to break their formation with war elephants, and we didn't want their crossbow arrows to rain like rain, and the war elephants suffered pain, uncontrollable, and turned around and fled, but scattered our cavalry, we were lucky to escape, and the others were killed or captured." ” Crowley was shocked when he heard this, a hundred war elephants and 400 cavalry were so vulnerable Crowley became the commander of the army by slapping his horse and whiskers to meet the tyrant, he was very timid, and he was immediately timid when he heard it, he stroked his beard and pondered for a long time, and ordered: "The army is down on the spot, waiting for my order, I will go to the king" Seeing that Alekuner said this, and tried to exaggerate the combat strength of the Ming army, Alekunel was also a little surprised, and immediately authorized him to mobilize all the troops to attack the Ming army.
Another captive who had been released by the Ming army was being arranged to bring Zheng He's message that he was willing to exchange with Alekunaer and return the prince and soldiers to him as long as he handed back all the merchants who were still stranded in the city.
Alekunel couldn't blackmail, and he lost his troops and generals, so he was already angry.
There was more than one of his sons, who could swallow his anger, and immediately drew his sword and beheaded the soldier who summoned him to the ground, and shouted: "There will be no peace, only a war" Those Ming merchants who entered the city to do business and merchants from various countries who joined along the way knew that something was wrong when Zheng He and his party broke through the city, but it was impossible to escape at that time, and the city gate had been strengthened and had to hide everywhere in the city.
While the tyrant Alekunel sent troops to search everywhere and arrest these merchants, he ordered Crowley to immediately lead a large army to capture and kill Zheng He to vent his anger.
Crowley gathered all the men of the royal city and slaughtered the docks.
At the Berori Pier, the vendors had long since fled, and the ground was a mess.
Taking advantage of the convenience of the sandy beach, the Ming army dug and built simple fortifications, and the soldiers lay in rows inside.
On the opposite side, on the flat and empty field, the black pressure was overwhelming, and the army of Ceylon was surging like a tide.
At the forefront, a herd of lions, tigers and leopards.
Alekunel sent out hundreds of beasts he raised, although these beasts preyed on live creatures every time, and the wild surname was untamed, but Alekunel domesticated them for fun, so there were special animal trainers, and they still obeyed these beast trainers.
The tyrant Allie had always thrown the belly of the beast to those who offended him, and in his resentment, he obviously wanted the Ming army to suffer such treatment.
Dozens of animal trainers drove hundreds of jackals, tigers and leopards to the front, followed by a row of tall war elephants, who had built sheds above the baskets to shelter the rain of arrows in view of the Ming army's crossbow arrows.
The elephant soldiers stood under the tent, holding their bows and arrows, and waited for the battle.
Behind the elephant soldiers, there is the black pressure of the infantry and cavalry phalanx, and at the front of the infantry and cavalry phalanx is the firearms unit, each of whom carries a wooden stick, and in front of the wooden stick is a thicker iron cylinder, which is their firearm.
This firearm is called the cannon, which is composed of a star letter, a breech, and a medicine chamber, which is actually equivalent to reducing the cannon at that time to the size of a hand-held, called a hand cannon, and this firearm technology is still in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty.
Among the firearms soldiers, out of every dozen or so people, there were two people who carried a brazier with coal, and two people who pulled a small four-wheeled cart behind them, the long halberd was like a forest, the knives were like a sea, dense turns, endless, Alekunel sent all the troops in his royal city, he was worthy of being the most powerful king in the Nanyang area, and gathered all the troops of the imperial city, and there were 50,000 people On the other side, only 1,500 infantry were still prostrate on the ground, and the other 500 cavalry had already taken refuge under the embankment.
"Stop" Crowley shouted, and the 50,000 troops came to an abrupt halt, like a black cloud suddenly fixed in the sky in front of the Ming fleet.
To be continued: