I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 619 Sense of Oppression

Guo Xun was extremely shocked as he watched the Northern Army's battle line cross the 70-step line. "What do they want to do?"

"I think the Northern Army wants to stop at fifty steps and shoot," Guo Kan said after a moment of hesitation.

Guo Xun said nothing, but just silently watched the advancing red wave of people.
Wang Ze followed the drum beats, walking in the ranks like a machine controlled by the drum beats. The scattered soldiers in front were still shooting.
A conch shell sounded, and the platoon leader shouted, "Raise your guns!"

Wang Ze tilted his flintlock rifle in his hand, the bayonet on the tip of the rifle emitting a cold light. The Confederates on the opposite side gave orders one after another, and he could see that they were raising their rifles. Wang Ze had gone through countless rigorous trainings, and he could estimate that they had already crossed a distance of seventy steps, and might be about to stop.
But the drums did not stop, and the ranks continued to advance. Suddenly, white smoke burst out from the Confederate formation, and dense flames flashed.
It turned out that the Confederate officers organized a small-scale volley...

This made Wang Ze feel numb all over. There were screams on the front line. Twenty or thirty Northern Army soldiers fell to the ground. When the sound of the gunshots faded away, Wang Ze recovered from his numbness. The drums and flutes were still sounding, and he was still moving forward stiffly, with no mistakes in the stride that he had trained countless times.

Wang Ze finally felt his legs moving normally and there was no pain in his body. He was sure that he had survived this round, but he saw from the corner of his eye that there was an empty space on the right and a soldier behind was filling it. He didn't know who was killed.

Wang Ze continued to walk forward, and suddenly Xie Fei beside him fell forward with a scream, and a few drops of blood splashed onto Wang Ze's face.

"Thanks..."

Wang Ze only shouted half of the sentence before Xie Fei's figure on the ground was left behind by the queue. Wu Hao from the second team came up and replaced Xie Fei's position.

All the soldiers continued to move forward without looking around. Two lines of tears flowed down Wang Ze's face. To him, Xie Fei, a brother who was from the same village as him and joined the army with him, was closer to him than his own family.

Wang Ze raised his head and looked at the company commander in front of him, who was holding a flagpole and walking forward firmly with standard steps. The Southern Army formation was in the smoke more than forty steps away, with sporadic flames flashing in it. Wang Ze gritted his teeth and his face became ferocious.

The Northern Army had already walked forty steps, and they had no intention of stopping. They surged forward in the long battle line. Under their great threat, the Southern Army's ranks were in chaos, shouting and gunshots were heard, and the air was filled with choking white smoke. The vision was unclear, and the orders could not be heard clearly. The grassroots command of the Southern Army was almost paralyzed. There were chaotic gunshots in the line, spewing out clouds of white smoke, and the vision in front became more and more blurred. Liu Di in the Southern Army's formation was holding a muzzle-loading flintlock rifle imitating the 16th style of Zhengde. He trembled and opened the lid of the medicine pot and poured the primer into the firing port. Under the musket, a body fell to the ground with its head facing west. The flag captain who commanded Liu Di had just been shot in the head by a Northern Army skirmisher. His eyes were wide open, and there was a big hole behind his head. A pool of red and white liquid flowed out and was almost at Liu Di's feet. When Liu Di was loading the primer, his sight was just facing the body, which caused him to load much slower than usual. He poured it several times before he realized that the lid of the pot was not removed.

There was a blast of drums and music across the stage, and Liu Di's heart skipped a beat with every orderly march of the Northern Army. In the background of this sound, there were also the sounds of gunfire around him, the screams of wounded soldiers, the curses of officers, and the choking smell of gunpowder. These things, which he had never really experienced before, made him extremely nervous.

While loading the bullets, he glanced ahead. He was in the first row at first, but he took advantage of the chaos in the queue to hide back in the third row. When he was rejoicing, an officer behind him yelled and swung his knife to kill a soldier next to him who had broken the wooden splinter, and blood sprayed forward onto Liu Di's body.

Liu Di shuddered and quietly left the dangerous officer. He looked forward through the smoke from the gap in the front row and saw a red wave surging in with the beat of drums. After a moment of daze, Liu Di continued to load the ammunition tremblingly, but he could not finish it.

After entering thirty steps, there was still no sound of gold. The Northern Army array advanced silently with an indomitable momentum. The shooting on the Southern Army line had become completely chaotic, and now there was only sporadic shooting.

But as the distance got closer, these sporadic shots became very accurate. The closer they got to the Confederate front line, the more casualties the Union army suffered. There were more than 200 casualties in the front row. As the battle line moved forward, it left a field of wounded officers and soldiers behind it. The white-clad rescue team carried stretchers back and forth, and from time to time there were seriously injured people crawling and wailing loudly, calling for the rescue team.

Guo Xun stared at the indomitable Northern Army in amazement. He had not expected that in this insignificant battle, the Northern Army would be so fierce and launched such an attack. They seemed to have no fear at all. These were the elite soldiers he had always dreamed of.
Liu Di was sweating profusely. The Northern Army was like a fearless machine, advancing towards the firing of muskets. The distance was getting closer and closer, which made Liu Di feel ominous. The team he was in was in chaos. An officer was still giving orders in the front row, but he could no longer organize anyone.
The Union Army's battle line on the opposite side advanced like a wall and did not stop even after thirty steps. The Confederates were completely panicked. They had never imagined that they could fight like this facing muskets. As the distance got closer, the pressure grew. Although the Confederates' shooting became more and more accurate, when a Union Army soldier fell, one would be replaced by another in the back row. The column did not stop and continued to advance like machines that did not know life or death. The Confederates felt that they could never be killed. A feeling of powerlessness surged in their hearts. If it were not for the strict military law and the supervision team, these Confederates would have collapsed long ago.

Liu Di was still in the third row at this time. He finally succeeded in pouring propellant into the gun barrel. The sound of drums and footsteps was getting closer and closer. The cheerful bronze flute sounded like a ghost demanding death in his ears, and the screams of the wounded soldiers on the ground also kept hitting Liu Di's eardrums.

As far as Liu Di knew, he had never thought that someone could advance calmly in the face of musket fire. Liu Di could no longer understand the will of those objects that were approaching like machines.

He knew that when the drums stopped, he would face the Northern Army's volley fire. The more Liu Di thought about it, the more scared he became. His hands shook more and more. He couldn't reload the musket in his hand. His heart was in his throat. He suddenly felt a warm sensation in his crotch.
Wang Ze was only twenty steps away from the Southern Army. The stop signal still hadn't sounded, but Wang Ze was not afraid at all. His face was grim, his whole body and palms were covered with sweat, and he could only hold on to his rifle with all his strength.

(End of this chapter)