Daming kill

Chapter 214 followed
Just when Li Ping was preparing to face Zhang Xianzhong in Qizhou, the reconnaissance troops who went out across the Chengjiang River in Huangzhou Fu brought him even more shocking news on the afternoon of May [-]th.

In the early morning of this day, a group of soldiers under Zhang Xianzhong sneaked across the river from Tuanfeng Island, more than 30 miles upstream of Huangzhou Fucheng, with a fishing boat, and soon captured Wuchang County, which is across the river from Huangzhou Fucheng. (now Echeng, not Wuchang City).

Zhang Xianzhong's operation of crossing the river and the loss of Wuchang County completely changed the situation.

Li Ping finally understood why there were no veterans of Zhang Xianzhong's troops among the enemy cavalry that appeared around Qizhou, and why Zhang Xianzhong's infantry near Qizhou was only [-] and did not cross the Qihe River further to the north of Qizhou.

Zhang Xianzhong played a good hand of chess.

This guy actually used a series of movements to pin down Li Ping who was most likely to hinder him from crossing the river or could effectively attack his vanguard troops crossing the river, and then secretly plotted against Chen Cang.

Next, whether Zhang Xianzhong attacked Wuchang City or coordinated an attack on Li Ping along the banks of the Yangtze River, he could completely rely on his mood.

But this is not fun for Li Ping.

Li Ping's troops are completely stretched for two-line defense, especially Fuchi, which has no strong city to rely on.

Fortunately, Wuchang County and Daye County, which is more than 80 miles away from it, are separated by three continuous mountains, and the inland Daye County to the Yangtze River is also full of wide and vast source lakes ( Today's Daye Lake).

On the evening of May [-]th, Li Ping, who had initially studied and judged the situation, immediately began to make emergency adjustments to his deployment.

Li Ping realized that after Zhang Xianzhong's strength soared, in order to defend Fuchi and Yongxing County (Xingguo Prefecture), Daye County must be defended.

This is a moment.

The current Daye County cannot be abandoned.

As long as Daye County is not lost, it will be like a nail to prevent Zhang Xianzhong from easily going around to attack Xingguozhouzhi and Fuchi with all his strength.

For this reason, Li Ping ordered Zhou Wen and the two infantry battalions and the second company of the cavalry battalion originally attached to Qizhou to immediately station in Daye County, and planned to transfer the 31 clay molded iron-cored copper guns that had just been deployed to Qizhou. Twenty gates were also deployed together.

Equipping Daye County with cavalry is mainly to enable it to have the ability to attack quickly and play a better role as a nail.

At the same time, the main force of the naval battalion equipped with 62 brand-new iron model guns (ten of which were assigned to the newly established army artillery company) was also ordered to enter Yuanhu Lake to assist in the defense.

In this way, a tens of li-long line of defense between the city and the water was formed in the north of Xingguo Prefecture and Fuchi.

Qizhou, which has a solid city defense, will only retain two infantry battalions this time, and will no longer be equipped with cavalry, and will be fully guarded.

These days, Xu Wenqi has organized all the tens of thousands of middle-aged men and women left in the city, as well as more than 1 male and female captives who have been identified and can be used with confidence, to cooperate with Ma Yong in defending the city.

Only in terms of defense, Qizhou's defense should not be a big problem.

Li Ping plans to lead the reconnaissance company, the first and third companies of the cavalry battalion, and an infantry battalion to sit in Fuchi to implement camera operations.

In this way, the entire army was also divided into three relatively independent parts by Li Ping.

However, after the order was issued, Li Ping found that he had overlooked a serious problem in the implementation of a series of tense and chaotic adjustments.

That is, its original command structure no longer meets the needs of the current war. Daye and Qizhou should have a more independent and complete command system, and should also have more autonomy.

He must adjust to this immediately.

So soon, Li Ping issued a new order after a night of simple thinking.

He decided to further upgrade and reorganize the troops into a system of one brigade and three regiments according to the needs of the war.

The troops stationed in Qizhou plan to be reorganized into a regiment, with Ma Yong as the head of the regiment, Han Jiu as the chief of staff, and Yang Ming as the director of the teaching office.

The troops stationed in Daye plan to be reorganized into the second regiment, with Zhou Wen as the head of the regiment, Ma Lan as the chief of staff, and Shi Lei as the director of the teaching office.

The infantry stationed in the Fuchi area was reorganized into three regiments, headed by Xu Changen, chief of staff Lu Liang, and taught by He Bo.

He Bo defected to Li Ping in Xiangyang, and was initially in the security camp.

He was born as a servant. Although he was not a scholar, he was quite knowledgeable. After he was transferred to the teaching office of the army, he had been unknown, and he had only recently entered Li Ping's field of vision.

All parts of the original regiment were directly promoted to various parts of the brigade, and the chiefs of each unit were promoted to the chiefs of each section. However, the chief of staff of the staff office was temporarily vacant, and the deputy chief of staff was taken over by Zhou Peng, the former battalion commander of the first battalion.

The cavalry battalion, naval battalion, and reconnaissance company that lost one company will continue to be directly under the brigade headquarters, and the commander of the cavalry battalion will be taken over by Zhang Qing.

According to this plan, Li Ping also gave the three regiments the power to further expand their forces according to their respective conditions, striving to build a force system with at least one regiment and three battalions as soon as possible.

Since the adjustment order was only issued on the morning of May [-], Zhou Wen in Qizhou had already received the order last night and immediately led the first battalion and the second cavalry company stationed in Qizhou to take a boat to Daye County.

However, they did not carry artillery.

The artillery needs to be delayed due to problems such as disassembly and assembly.

Therefore, Zhou Wen naturally did not receive any new orders to adjust the organizational system when he set off, so Zhou Peng, the commander of the first battalion, was still following him.

At dawn on May [-], Zhou Wen arrived in Daye County in a hurry.

He also understood the significance of Daye County.

It is estimated that Daye County is located on a peninsula deep into the source lake and is therefore surrounded by water on three sides. Daye County in the early morning is shrouded in a mist, hazy.

In addition, there are no city walls on the three sides of the entire county surrounded by water, which has a special charm.

This left a deep and beautiful impression on Zhou Wen who came to Daye County for the first time.

Not long before he arrived, the officials sent by Xingguo prefecture to make an emergency notice had just entered Daye county.

Due to the announcement from the superior yamen, and the news about the fall of Wuchang County from Li Ping's reconnaissance force yesterday, the arrival of Zhou Wen's fleet made everyone in Daye County very happy.

As a result, Zhou Wen docked from the pier in the south of the city very smoothly.

However, after entering the city, Zhou Wen realized that Xu Changen's second battalion, which planned to come over by land, had not yet arrived.

When Zhou Wen was exchanging greetings with the officials of Daye County and preparing to take over the defense, there was a sudden loud commotion from the direction of the only north gate with a city wall in the northwest, and then the sound of fighting and someone shouting, "The thieves have entered the city!" !"

The magistrate of Daye County had a puzzled expression on his face, and he couldn't tell whether it was worry or impatience.

Shocked, Zhou Wen immediately found Ni Duan, and he almost instinctively asked, "What's the situation at the North Gate?"

The county magistrate of Daye said in a daze, "Twenty or thirty remnant soldiers and civilians came to the city just now, and they said they escaped from Wuchang County. The leader is Hou Bukuai from the Wuchang County Government, and all the police officers here recognize him. , In addition, there are a few policemen among them, and our side also recognizes them.

Since I wanted to pick up Zhou Xiandi, I didn't go to see it in person.But out of caution, I asked the county magistrate to personally approve them before letting them in.

Shouldn't be a problem?
Even if those people have problems, what kind of waves can those people cause.Could it be that some misunderstanding caused the two sides to fight, and then some people made some sensational remarks.This county magistrate!What should I say? "

But at this time, Zhou Wen already had a look of horror.

After looking at each other with Zhou Peng and Yuan Ye, he immediately ordered the Second Cavalry Company and the First Battalion to rush to the north gate and enter the battle immediately.

time is life.

As long as the counterattack is timely when the city is broken, there is still a chance.

Yuan Ye, the commander of the second cavalry company with rich combat experience, immediately took the lead and led the cavalrymen who had just disembarked and were still shaking, and rushed over with a howl.

At this time, a large number of people yelling and fleeing from the direction of the north gate appeared in their line of sight, and the slow-witted officials of Daye County finally came to their senses and panicked.

At this time, there were corpses all around the north gate of Daye County.

More than 200 ragged officers, soldiers and ordinary people who just rushed in are clustering around a young man with an extraordinary appearance.

A horse was quickly brought over.

The young man held the bleeding knife in one hand, grabbed the saddle with the other hand and jumped onto the horse's back with ease.

After getting on his horse, he turned his head and looked up. A knife hand on the city gate raised the head of Daye county magistrate at him.

The young man yelled blankly: "Let me guard the city gate!"

Then the young man lowered his head and said to a nodding and bowed man in fast-paced clothes standing beside his horse, "You did a good job. I will credit you as the leader in this battle. Now lead the way quickly, and we will go straight to the county government to kill the county magistrate." Hurry up. As long as the magistrate dies again, the city will never be able to repeat it again."

The man dressed up quickly replied: "A little credit is not worth mentioning, all thanks to the general's brilliance, martial arts and ingenuity. The little one will lead the way, and I will..."

Before the flattery was finished, the people dressed up quickly noticed that the young man on the horse looked up suddenly with horror on his face, and the people above the city gate also started to scream in horror at this time.

The person dressed as Bu Kuai couldn't help turning his head in surprise to look at the inner road leading directly to the city gate.

Soon, a large group of cavalry rushed out of the mist amidst the sound of horseshoes becoming more and more clear.

"Array, array, array..." the young man roared fiercely with his eyes wide open.

The two hundred or so people around him who had just rushed in immediately quickly formed a tight formation with their hands and feet, and all the people holding spears consciously stood at the front and tilted their spears upwards.

The only 20 or so riders immediately lined up with the young people at the end of the formation, and drew the few bows and arrows to their full strings.

This is a group of combat veterans.

However, the group of cavalry who came out of the mist and arrived in an instant first shot the first wave of arrow rain, and then the arrow rain did not rush towards the spearmen in the formation, but shot precisely at the end of the formation. Square knights.

In a burst of puffing, the young man commanding at the end of the formation under the city gate was shocked to find that seven or eight of the elite light cavalry who were disguised as runaway officers and soldiers without armor fell off their horses in an instant.

But it's not over yet.

The sharp-eyed young man clearly noticed that the person at the front of the opponent's cavalry group had released three arrows in the short distance before they approached them, and then returned the arrows to kill them.

However, the two arrows that he finally successfully released in panic were blocked by a block, but the other arrow pierced a person's breastplate, which should have caused no actual damage.

What's even more frightening is that this group of cavalry, who had rushed to their vicinity with at least a hundred people, did not charge their formation, but quickly passed in two lanes along the road around the city to the left and right.Meanwhile, everyone was shooting at them with bows and arrows.

Although the human shooting skills behind are generally very general and clumsy, the damage is still huge.

Dozens of people have fallen in a pool of blood.

But it's not over yet!
The cavalrymen who flitted to both sides hadn't finished their tails before they turned their heads back again, crossed left and right, and continued to fly past their formation while shooting arrows, but they didn't move forward.

The young man who was still alive and was doing his best to control the team was shocked.

He suddenly realized that this seemed to be the legendary Mongolian style of play, and the opponent was still proficient in using it in the city with limited space.

This is a group of elite riders.

And since they were all government officials pretending to be defeated and fleeing civilians, they didn't bring a few bows at all, and naturally there were not many archers, and the more than 20 people on the city gate all knew how to use bows.

This makes them completely incapable of confronting such opponents with bows and arrows.

He knew he had to do something before the second round of passing arrows from the enemy cavalry was over.

Otherwise, the opponent will wipe out their entire army just by shooting arrows.

But just as he was about to control his subordinates to push forward and force the enemy cavalry galloping along the not-so-wide road to engage in close combat with his side, a large group of uniformly dressed infantry came out from the mist far away from the straight road. .

The young man was dumbfounded.

The infantry formation, which had already suffered huge casualties, simply collapsed in an instant.

Seeing this, the young people no longer hesitated, and immediately ordered each of them to flee for their lives loudly.

When the young man was the first to ride across the moat outside the city on horseback, a group of blunderbusses began to ring out behind him.

……

Standing on the city wall, the magistrate of Daye, still in shock, kept expressing his gratitude to Zhou Wen.

But Zhou Wen was absent-minded.

He was shocked by the enemy's surprise attack on Daye so soon. He was glad that Li Ping's decision was timely, and he was also thankful that he didn't waste time.

Zhang Xianzhong was more difficult than they expected, and Zhang Xianzhong's generals were also bolder and braver than they expected.

Through the interrogation of the prisoners, Zhou Wen already knew that the leader of Zhang Xianzhong's army who ran away was called Li Rujing, who was 22 years old this year and was Zhang Xianzhong's adopted son.

It was this person who pretended to be Yang Sichang's emissary to deceive Xiangyang the year before last, and then set fire to the city at night and seized the city gate, and finally let Zhang Xianzhong's elite soldiers lurking outside the city captured Xiangyang.

This is a very dangerous enemy.

Notes:

Historically, Zhang Xianzhong indeed crossed the river from Tuanfengzhou and captured Wuchang County on May [-], but the surprise attack on Daye County did not exist. This was a new action he took due to the appearance of Li Ping.

(End of this chapter)