I want to be emperor

Chapter 160 Lu Xiangsheng: It's Over
At the beginning of the battle, Luo Zhixue left two reserve teams: the supply battalion and the personal army battalion.

Now, although the enemy's central army and right wing have launched a full-scale attack, their left wing has not yet moved, and Luo Zhixue will not line up all the reserve teams, but leave a personal battalion just in case.

When the generals of both sides issued orders one after another and dispatched troops, another huge change occurred on the battlefield.

A large number of Ming troops, mainly the central and right-wing Ming troops began to move forward quickly, but their formation could not be maintained if they moved together.

After a while, the originally neat dozen square formations became loose and loose, and the Ming army in the first few square formations completely lost their formation, and directly became scattered soldiers all over the mountains and plains.

The Ming army launched a rapid attack. In order to intercept the enemy, Zhang Malin's artillery was not idle, and once again increased the rate of fire for intensive shelling.

As the shells fell one after another, the Ming army continued to suffer casualties, but it was just as Lu Xiangsheng himself said.

After all, the artillery of the Xiangbao Army is still a little less. The shelling can certainly bring some casualties to the Ming army in the charge, but in a short period of time, only a few hundred people can sustain two to 300 casualties. For the Ming army of tens of thousands , is actually nothing.

Therefore, even withstanding a certain amount of long-range bombardment, the Ming army's charge pace still did not stop, and even ran faster.

But even if they run fast, it will take some time for the Ming army to cross a distance of 600 meters.

Just before the infantry of both sides closed the distance, the [-] cavalry of the Ming army had been ordered to rush out first, trying to attack Zhang Malin's artillery position.

But these Ming army cavalry just ran out from the flanks, and before they accelerated and rushed towards the artillery position of the rural protection army in front, blind Wang who had been staring at them had already rushed over with the cavalry!

According to normal circumstances, a brutal battle will break out between the cavalry of both sides.

But, there was an accident. The Ming cavalry general on the opposite side saw Wang Xiazi rushing over with three hundred fine cavalry. He still remembered Lu Xiangsheng's task of telling them to rush over no matter what to destroy the enemy's artillery position. .

Frightened, he turned his horse's head and ran away with his cavalry...

Moreover, this run did not run into the main line of the Ming army, but ran straight to the north, leaving the battlefield and disappearing without a trace after a while.

Looking at this scene, Luo Zhixue couldn't help laughing. To be honest, he led troops and fought many battles with the Ming army, but he had never seen such a situation.

The [-] menacing cavalrymen of the Ming army who came to intercept Wang Xiazi's troops did not even dare to approach, and turned around and ran away.

Should it be said that the Ming army cavalry general who led the team was too smart or should it be said that the Ming army cavalry general was too stupid?

Luo Zhixue was in a great mood seeing this scene, but Lu Xiangsheng was not.

At this time, his face was ashen, and he felt remorse in his heart.

If I had known earlier, when the cavalry unit fled back without a fight for the first time, he should have chopped up the guerrilla and replaced the cavalry with someone else.

In this way, even if their own cavalry can't beat them, they can rush up to delay for some time, and maybe they can go around and destroy the artillery positions of the bandits.

But he didn't expect that his momentary caution would leave such a big disaster behind.

The cavalry's unauthorized escape from the battlefield not only failed to destroy the artillery of the bandit army, but also freed up the cavalry of the bandit army.

And more importantly, the cavalry fled the battlefield without authorization, which greatly affected the morale of the entire army.

After all, many soldiers were still charging ahead under the gunfire of the rebel army, but the friendly cavalry and the rebel army slipped away first. What do you think of the other soldiers who are still fighting?
They can run, why can't I run?

This battle is over.

What to do now?

But no matter what Lu Xiangsheng thinks now, or even what he does, it is actually unable to change the situation of the entire battlefield.

The charging soldiers of the Ming army were getting closer and closer, but when they finally braved the artillery fire and killed and injured hundreds of people and rushed to a distance of more than 200 meters, the many [-]-jin light artillery in the rural protection army also opened fire, and focused on aiming at I saw the artillery in the Ming army array.

The Ming army also has artillery in the formation, but they are all light artillery of tens of kilograms, one or two hundred kilograms. Because they couldn't shoot at long distances, they had no sense of existence. Heavy losses were caused by the focused bombardment of Jin long guns.

The remaining few dozens of light artillery managed to reach a distance of 200 meters, but it was not easy to fire.

Because the artillery of the Ming army was deployed on horse-drawn carriages, they had to go through a lot of complicated preparations when they arrived at the place.

For example, some artillery have to be removed from the carriage first and then fixed so that they can be fired, such as tiger crouching guns.

There are also some that can be fired directly on the carriage at that time, but the wheels of the carriage must be removed first, and then piled to fix it.

This is the huge limitation of the lack of advanced gun mounts, and its preparation work is too long.

Before they started, the many [-]-jin artillery and [-]-jin light artillery of the Township Protection Army had already fired intensive fire at them.

Under the intensive shelling, a large number of surviving gunners of the Ming army suffered a devastating blow.

The artillery units of the Ming army did not inflict any effective blows on the rural protection army from the beginning to the end, so they were severely damaged and could not play any role at all.

The artillery of the Ming army was almost useless, and the infantry were not much better. After a group of infantrymen of the Ming army rushed to the front and entered a distance of [-] meters, they were intensively fired by the musketeers from the [-]st Infantry Brigade. The casualties were heavy.

And when they finally approached, they found that the bandit soldiers in front had a dense formation, and at the same time, there were rows of neatly armored spearmen in front, like hedgehogs, making it hard to tell.

At the same time, they continued to be continuously killed by the gunners and light artillery of the Township Protection Army.

As the Ming army continued to approach, instead of retreating, the [-]st Infantry Brigade continued to press forward!

A large number of armored spearmen in the front stepped forward steadily. They formed a dense formation and continued to press forward under the cover of the musketeers on both wings.

Such a situation caused many soldiers of the Ming army to retreat involuntarily!
They had already experienced a large number of casualties, and they were still suffering intensive casualties at the same time. The morale of the army had already dropped to the bottom, and after being pressured by the [-]st Infantry Brigade of the Township Protection Army, they finally couldn't hold on.

At first, the soldiers of the Ming army in the front row started to turn around and wanted to run, followed by hundreds, thousands!
It didn't take long for almost the entire middle and right ranks of the Ming army, thousands of strong, to run back together.

No matter how Lu Xiangsheng behind him gave orders, no matter how the senior generals shouted, and even supervised the battle with their own soldiers, they could not stop these thousands of Ming soldiers from running for their lives.

Finished!

Lu Xiangsheng closed his eyes, sighed and stopped hesitating, but ordered: "The whole army retreats to Sanyuan Village!"

The frontal field battle is completely over, and now what Lu Xiangsheng can do is to gather the rout as much as possible and retreat to Sanyuanzhuang.

Fortunately, he had a premonition from the very beginning that he had not ordered the three thousand Ming troops on the left wing to go out to fight, otherwise there would be no place to hold Sanyuanzhuang.

As Lu Xiangsheng formally ordered the retreat, the Ming army in front ran more joyfully.

It didn't take a while for it to completely collapse, and thousands of people ran towards the rear all over the mountains and plains. The speed was so fast that it was even difficult for the [-]st Infantry Brigade to maintain a complete formation for pursuit.

But at this time, there is no need to keep the [-]st Infantry Brigade and the Supply Battalion in full formation. It is the right way to rush directly to chase the enemy.

Immediately, Luo Zhixue ordered the [-]st Infantry Brigade and the Supply Battalion to attack and divide them into battalions to pursue the enemy.

At the same time, the cavalry brigade attacked to cover up.

The artillery brigade began to shell the still organized enemy array.

However, in order to prevent the only one, Luo Zhixue also ordered the personal barracks to come out at the same time, this is to guard against the enemy's still intact left wing forces.

The ensuing battle cannot be called a battle anymore. Basically, the first infantry brigade, cavalry brigade and supply battalion of the rural protection army cooperated with each other, chasing down and capturing a large number of Ming army's defeated soldiers. Neither side even broke out again. Not even a single large-scale organized battle.

A chase lasted for more than an hour, and the curtain came to an end when some of the remaining Ming troops retreated to Sanyuanzhuang, while more Ming troops fled the battlefield and disappeared.

As soon as the pursuit battle ended, Xu Zhixian couldn't wait to report to Luo Zhixue with the preliminary statistics.

"According to our statistics, in addition to the more than a thousand troops originally deployed by the enemy at Sanyuan Village, 2000 people from the enemy's left wing also successfully retreated into Sanyuan Village, and about 1000 more rout troops fled into Sanyuan Village. "

"Currently, there are about 5000 enemy troops in Sanyuan Village. In addition, the enemy army has also transported a large amount of luggage in Sanyuan Village. It is estimated that there will be no shortage of food in a short time."

"Among the remaining enemy troops, we killed about 1000 or 4000 people on the spot, not counting the wounded. In addition, we also captured about 2000 captives, and about [-] enemy troops, including those who escaped before. The [-] cavalrymen in the army have completely fled the battlefield, and they are nowhere to be found."

"In addition to the enemy army, we also controlled about 3000 civilians who accompanied the army behind the enemy, and at least [-] civilians fled."

"As for the casualties of our army, the current statistics show that 43 people were killed and 87 were injured."

After Xu Zhixian finished his brief report, he said excitedly: "Our army has won a big victory in this battle!"

And Huang Guangmao on the side also said in time: "Congratulations to the general, congratulations to the general, after this battle, our army in Xiangyang will be invincible again, and the supremacy can be expected!"

The others also stepped forward in time at this time, congratulating Luo Zhixue one by one, and at the same time, their words were full of hope for the future.

Now the hegemony of the Rural Protectorate Army can be expected, Luo Zhixue will definitely become king or even emperor at that time, and they will also be the heroes of the founding of the country, and prosperity and wealth will be indispensable at that time.

Many people have even fantasized about what kind of title they will be able to earn when the rural protection army officially occupies Chubei and the general establishes the country and proclaims himself king and emperor.

(End of this chapter)