stubborn thief

Chapter 356 Surrounding
The heron flies across the sky leaving a lonely shadow, the Huangshui under the sunset is swaying, and the willow branches that have sprouted out hang down on the river bank and sway with the evening wind.

On the five-mile-wide farmland from south to north, Ming officials and soldiers climbed out of the zigzag trenches holding high the Zhazi flag. The sound of whining horns echoed in the valley. They were more like a torrent than Huangshui.

The [-] officers and soldiers were divided into three groups, attacking from the south, east, and northeast directions of the earthen castle. Each group was divided into five posts, forming fifteen thousand army brigades. From left to right, they rushed towards the Huangshui River in a full-scale offensive posture.

Liu Chengzong looked around the battlefield with a brass binoculars. He had a good location on the three roads. The road in the northeast was narrow, and the Huangshui River was difficult to cross in the east. The stone bridge in the south was the easiest place to break through. That was also the main attack of the government and army that he expected. direction.

In that direction, about five or six thousand officers and soldiers were preparing in the trenches. On the edge of the trenches in front of the battlefield, five large carts were slowly being pushed to the edges of the trenches.

Then the soldiers in the ditch filed out and formed an army formation under the cover of the chariot.

Although he couldn't see the structure behind the chariot, Liu Chengzong could clearly see that it was not a chariot, but a large siege machine.

The front guard plate of the car is very thick, one foot high and one foot wide, with a row of blast holes on it, and the chassis wooden frame with four pairs of wooden wheels is about one foot five feet long.

It looks like a wooden city, moving slowly with the small army array behind it, and it looks full of shocking power.

This thing can protect the enemy's troops from passing the stone bridge, but it can only protect the enemy's troops from passing through the stone bridge, because the front of Liu Chengzong's position was also dug by the Mongolian soldiers. nest.

In this way, the real battle will be fought in the trenches.

Liu Chengzong shook his head silently. It was very magical. The Northwest Ming army carrying biological and chemical weapons was about to meet his vaccinated army in the trenches.

Compared with the car, the simple formation and indescribable temperament behind the car attracted his attention more.

The five chariots belonged to the five thousand generals of the South Road official army. The army was divided into five outposts under the establishment of the thousand generals. It was probably composed of two generals under Qianzong's command and one hundred headquarters each to form an outpost column.

Liu Chengzong saw from the flag that the level of the grassroots officers on the South Road was not low.

Their column behind the chariot is simple in organization, clear in hierarchy, and well organized.

The entire two-hundred-strong formation is a vertical formation, but the vertical formation is composed of two hundreds of square formations arranged one after the other, and the square formation is composed of two horizontal formations of management teams.

The commander and deputy standard-bearer of each horizontal team are in the front, and the management team and the flag-riding, drum-holding, and horn-blowing are in the middle. There is a very standard and complete Ming army grassroots officer corps.

But what corresponds to this set of things is that their soldiers don't even stand neatly in the horizontal and square formations, obviously lack of training, and the overall level of equipment is very low. A large number of soldiers wear guard-style foam nail armor, and even There are many soldiers wearing mandarin duck jackets.

The five columns sent out first by the entire South Road government army all looked like this.

Liu Chengzong pointed at the army formation, and said firmly to Yang Yao, "It's the Guyuan Army."

Yang Yao nodded slowly: "They are not easy to deal with."

Although the equipment of this group of people was very similar to that of the Banner Army of the Guard, both Liu Chengzong and Yang Yao knew that these were not the Banner Army of the Lanzhou Guard, but the Guyuan Army newly recruited by Yang Qi after Liu Shizi left Guyuan.

The status of military households in the guards is low because they are half-soldiers, half-farmers, and dependent on personal status. Therefore, their morale, fighting will and equipment level are lower than those of the regular army.

A bannerman may not use weapons other than hoes, but he will never walk the queue into this virtue.

Only the Guyuan army newly recruited by Yang Qi, who have been fighting against the peasant army since its founding, had no chance to conduct regular drills at all, could achieve this effect.

And Yang Yao said that they were difficult to deal with because Liu Chengzong's South Road defenders were three thousand soldiers of the hunting battalion led by Gas and Bu Chi, the chiefs of the hunting battalion.

The composition of the shooting battalion and the Guyuan Army is exactly the same, with veterans of the frontier army serving as officers, heavy armored infantry or servants as elites, and starving people who have experienced bloody battles as their foundation.

So Yang Yao said: "Let half a hunting battalion block twice as many Guyuan troops, even if they occupy a good location, I'm afraid there will be a lot of casualties."

In Liu Chengzong's eyes, the situation on the battlefield at this time is very interesting... The 2 soldiers of the official army were divided into three groups to attack westward, and they also prepared large-scale equipment such as the chariot; Surrounded.

The officers and soldiers needed to cross the river. After crossing the river, they had to attack the trenches and then attack the Tucheng, so they had very few horsemen.

If the battle is fought on the defensive in the trenches, and it will be difficult to tell the winner by fighting hand to hand until the night.

Even if the enemy retreated and chased them out, there would be no benefit. It was too late to see their fingers. It would be a good thing if the hunting battalion didn't collapse. With rivers and ditches blocking it, Yang Yao's horse battalion couldn't chase them very far.

Combined with the tactical goal that the officers and soldiers hoped to achieve, to infect smallpox to Liu Chengzong's army-an interesting tactic took shape in Liu Shizi's head.

"I want to retire."

Liu Chengzong turned his head to meet Yang Yao's astonished expression, he nodded and stretched out his arms, pointing to the northeast direction and said: "But you don't retreat, the mountain road over there is very narrow, there are not many enemy troops and there are no chariots, I will transfer some cannons for you , take the soldiers and rations, and the horse battalion breaks through from there."

Yang Yao's mind was still confused, he nodded and asked: "How is the commander planning to fight, kidnapper?"

Kidnapper horse, soldiers divided into five sentries, and combined attack with various names, in the final analysis, are the tactics of anvil and hammer. In the traditional art of war, it is called Zhenghe Qisheng.

It is to block the enemy from the front, and the extra troops are used to break through or encircle and wipe out. The tactics of the small army formation are called the division of soldiers into five sentries, the tactics of the large army are called division and joint attack, and the flank assault cavalry is called kidnappers.

"I want to give them the earthen fortress and trenches, and lead the army to retreat westward. After you break through, don't worry about me. Go eastward all the way and steal their camp. The soldiers of the three towns are busy digging trenches, and the horses, food, supplies, and supplies are all in the camp. .”

Yang Yao looked at Liu Chengzong a little strangely.

"They dug ditches all over the place. If you break through from the north road, they should have already dug a ditch. If they want to chase you back, they need to go out from my ditch to cross the river, and then cross their own zigzag ditch that is one mile away. They can't catch up with you."

Liu Chengzong said: "You raided the camp, if the enemy army chases you, take away everything you can take away, burn what you can't take away, wait for the opportunity, and hit him if you can turn around and be a kidnapper, if you can't hit him Just go east from Hekou to Yongdeng Liancheng, and help my brother clean up the sick seedlings in Gansu."

Yang Yao was very moved when he heard this transfer plan, but it sounds like there is a serious loophole in this plan.

What if the general soldiers of the three towns are all in the army, regardless of the battalion, only Liu Chengzong's Chinese army is arrested?There is no chance of winning with 6000 people in the hunting battalion to block [-] troops.

So Yang Yao shook his head and said: "If the commander-in-chief's army is not safe... it's better to be safe."

"It's very safe. The hunting camp can't do anything else. Follow me from south to north and march for more than a thousand miles. It's no problem to retreat. Aren't there still Mongolian soldiers in the west?"

Not to mention retreating, Liu Shizi felt that he was not at a loss for retreating. All his loopholes were patched by the deployment of the officers and soldiers.

It was getting late, and the officers and soldiers were fighting at this time, so they didn't intend to let the battle last too long. It was just that the officers and soldiers were at a disadvantage, and retreated after fighting for smallpox. They certainly did not consider that Liu Chengzong, who was strong, would retreat.

While chasing Yang Yao, on the one hand, he could not catch up, and on the other hand, the river mouth had become a no-man's land due to the existence of smallpox; the Gansu frontier army who attacked Liu Chengzu by the north road would feel that their buttocks were safe, and it was convenient for Yang Yao to make a long-distance assault.

As for the retreat, Liu Chengzong didn't think it would bring him any disadvantages, on the contrary, it was all advantages.

There are [-] Mongolian horse teams ready to be vaccinated in the west. Further west, Liu Chengzong can retreat to West Datong Fort to join forces with Liu Chengzu. Further west, he can retreat to Nianbosuo, and even tens of thousands of troops can be added there.

There is Wang Wenxiu's training infantry battalion, there are troops gathered by carriers, and there is a [-] Mongolian cavalry team that went to support Wang Wenxiu.

However, Liu Chengzong did not intend to retreat that far: "Back to the sea and the sky, I only lost this earthen fortress with the most smooth road in the west, but the officers and soldiers have no food and sleep. If everything goes well, tomorrow will be us surrounding them."

The [-] Mongolian cavalry in the west alone can't do anything else. They are very capable of keeping the enemy up all night and tossing people.

Hearing Liu Chengzong's explanation, Yang Yao was relieved, and immediately took the order with his hands clasped together: "Since the commander-in-chief has made up his mind, then the general will be the kidnapper, but the gun is too slow, so please ask the commander-in-chief to transfer [-] to Ma Ying." A gun-carrying cart will rush over from the North Road at the end!"

Yang Yao led the horse army to prepare. Liu Chengzong stood at the top of the city and watched the enemy army rush towards the west of the river like a tsunami. The carts were pushed onto the stone bridge, and the infantry occupied the coast of the west of the river on rafts. soldiers, and issued orders to the hunting camp and the Mongolian fishing camp to the west.

They had to prepare to retreat, but they couldn't retreat now. At least they had to fight and retreat to create the illusion of being driven out of the trench before retreating. What's more, if they wanted to retreat the whole division, they had to let the Mongolian cavalry from the fishing battalion come to support them.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to take away all the supplies in the city.

Just as the orders were conveyed quickly in the army, Huang Shengxiao's heavy artillery team had just launched a battle line on the north side of the stone bridge. Twelve artillery pieces launched a bombardment from the oblique side to the column of the officers and soldiers who boarded the stone bridge.

The flames burst out, and twelve seven-jin iron balls shot hard at the front of the formation, and smashed heavily on the stone bridge. The iron and stone collided and sparked and bounced again.

There was no rout or escape. When the shell smashed the railing of the stone bridge on the other side, the bridge fell into an eerie silence, and a needle could be heard.

Behind the chariot, the lone standard bearer's dilated pupils frightened, he only heard a few swishes in his ears, and when he turned his head, the army formation behind him was like a field that had been plowed by nails and rakes.

In front of the battle, Mr. Bai struggled to get up from the ground. He looked around in a daze with less than one-third of the army formation left. He saw another Mr. Bai whose chest was pierced by a shell and whose portrait was embedded in the railing of the stone bridge; The drummer writhed on the ground, and the poor man's spine was broken.

And the deputy flag bearer next to him, his head was smashed to pieces, and his broken neck sprayed blood all over his face.

Twelve shells almost smashed the two hundred teams to pieces.

In just a few seconds, people's brains were so consumed by panic that even those who were injured forgot to shout.

It wasn't until Mr. Bai raised his hand to wipe off the blood on his face that he realized that his right hand was gone.

He looked at the broken arm and the iron arm, as if all the lost short-term memories crashed into his mind, he was dragged down by his own hand.

The broken-handed Boss Bai’s soul, which had been knocked out of his body, finally returned to his body. He pulled out the severed hand holding the knife from his subordinate’s chest with his left hand with a grim look on his face. He held his hand and the knife high in a strange posture, screaming like a roar and a wail: " go ahead!"

The army behind blocked their retreat, and on the bridge they had no escape but to advance.

With this roar, the brains of the soldiers were reactivated in panic, and people screamed and screamed on the bridge full of corpses, until the other two hundred generals rushed forward and moaned across the fallen ground. The soldiers continued to push the chariot forward.

However, the follow-up troops who witnessed a column in disarray were not calm. They could not walk in a straight line. They pushed the chariot across the stone bridge at the fastest speed, and immediately turned their heads to the left, so that the chariot moved obliquely against the artillery. go ahead.

The small artillery carried by the car also bombarded Liu Chengzong's heavy artillery team.

But they had just come down from the bridge for less than ten steps, when the Fran machine gun on the edge of the ditch splashed a piece of scattered debris and fell a piece of people.

In close combat, the scatter thrown by the Buddha Wolf machine is obviously a more terrifying weapon than the heavy artillery. The broken hand Baizong who has been bombarded by the heavy artillery can still order the soldiers to move forward, and the scared soldiers are just screaming on the bridge. Wow screaming.

But in the face of the threat of Fran's machine gun, even if one shot only cut off a corner of the edge of the column, the rest of the team would instinctively turn around and run, jumping into a river a hundred paces wide.

Heavy artillery is very powerful, but after being hit by heavy artillery once, it is almost impossible to become the target of the second artillery. It is different if you are bombarded once by a Francophone. If you dare to stand still, the Francophone will dare to bombard you six times gun.

The situation didn't get better until the second cart was pushed onto the stone bridge. The two carts blocked both sides. It rained on the car.

But except for those shells that fell into the formation by luck at high angles, it was difficult for the artillery to cause huge damage to the soldiers under the protection of the chariot.

Just in time for the Ningxia Town Frontier Army to attack from Zhengdong across the river, they also crossed the Huangshui River and launched an attack on the trench, which suddenly reduced the pressure on the Guyuan Army on the South Road.

But at the same time that the Guyuan army rushed to the trench, they found that the enemy did not fight with them at all. The cavalry fled with the heavy artillery, and the enemy infantry also retreated from the trench, dragging the Franco cannon and firing at the same time. .

The battle to capture the trench was much easier than they had imagined, and even the enemies on that earthen city fled in terror under the siege on both sides.

This made the border troops of the two towns in the southeast happily attack the earth fortress.

But at the same time, in the eyes of the Yansui army on the North Road, to be precise, in the eyes of General Tang Tong who was in charge of attacking the small road at the foot of the mountain, the performance of the Marshal's Army on the battlefield was completely different.

The [-] cavalry were densely packed in the north of the battlefield, galloping towards the north road, and he was so frightened that he hurriedly ordered the [-] frontier troops under his command to form a formation.

As soon as the battle was formed, he found that the enemy's densely packed horse army was surrounded by dozens of long-barreled gun chariots. The horses dragged the carts and passed by his line, stopping forty or fifty paces away. Open fire, and a piece of lead pellets that are too big to be described hits his impenetrable army formation.

The military formation is impenetrable, but lead-through.

The phalanx was scattered, and the rampaging cavalry rushed over. Tang Tong only knew that he dodged a spear, and his waist knife was knocked off his hand by someone with a weapon. The brass gourd hammer had already struck his helmet.

Regarding this war, Tang Tong's last memory is that there was a bang, and someone blew out the sun.

On the other side of the city, Liu Chengzong watched the setting sun and the horse camp galloping eastward. Amid the shouts of the siege army fighting bravely under the city, he walked down the horse path with open arms and laughed happily, turned over and rode on the red flag. The army ran west.

"Commander of the Three Towns, you are surrounded!"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)