I have a cornucopia

Chapter 307 Huanhuan, did you hear me? I am here to sing the Chi Le Song for you.
Just as the Northern Expedition Army began to cross the Yellow River, Wu Sangui had already surrounded Pingyang. Fortunately, the reinforcements led by Li Guo had entered Pingyang a day earlier, and at the same time the Qing army in Lu'an also went south to attack Zezhou.

Even the Qing army on the eastern front attacked Tianjin again.

Even on the southern front, there were large numbers of Mongolian cavalry harassing western Shandong.

This is an all-out attack.

Because the defenders in various places felt that the Qing army had suffered such heavy losses this time and it was impossible for them to take the initiative to attack, they were all caught off guard, especially the areas originally controlled by Li Zicheng. Because he had withdrawn a large number of elite troops when he went south, the remaining troops were limited. In addition, the generals had become rapidly corrupt over the years and their combat effectiveness had dropped significantly. Faced with the Qing army's surprise attack, most of them fled without a fight, so Gaoping was captured soon after, and the Qing army quickly surrounded Zezhou.

It has to be said that the performance of Li Zicheng's subordinates was very poor this time.

Fleeing without fighting is the mainstream.

Even those who resist mostly flee at the first sign of danger.

They have no will to fight at all, and have even started to show some of the demeanor of the government troops of the past.

This is actually inevitable.

Li Zicheng's men were originally a hodgepodge, including old official troops, direct descendants of the old camp, various bandits and even local gangs. The internal situation was very chaotic, and even he himself could not rule effectively, so he created a general system similar to the Jiedushi.

The essence is to divide the land. He just needs to control Guanzhong with the Imperial Camp, and the military leaders under his command will be divided into different territories.

Once these people have power, it is impossible for them not to become corrupt rapidly.

After all, they have suffered for half of their lives, and they all want to enjoy themselves. Who doesn't like beautiful wives and concubines, singing and dancing, drinking, and sleeping with famous ladies? In the past, they could not get what they wanted, but now that everything is within their reach, how can they still endure it?
Therefore, it was inevitable that they would merge with the gentry.

They don't know how to play. The old money has a lot of tricks, including the tricks of governing the unruly people, the tricks of corruption and abuse of power, and the tricks of plunder. They are all experienced, and the former rebels who have become rulers really need them. The two sides can be said to hit it off, and they are willing to do so, which also made the Li Zicheng regime, which was originally a grass-roots team, corrupt at a speed that can be seen with the naked eye. Even in recent years, there have been cases of exploitation of soldiers in the camp, and Li Zicheng himself is not Zhu Yuanzhang. The gap between him and Zhu can be said to be huge. There is no good way to deal with this situation, and he can't even kill him. He went south again and again, in fact, to a large extent, to ease internal conflicts. After all, as long as he can plunder enough benefits from the outside, internal conflicts are nothing.

But now he has failed.

Although the Queen still acknowledged his identity in order to appease his subordinates, he died in the end, and his group had actually disintegrated.

In fact, there is no leader, or the subordinates don't know who to fight for. For those generals with high status, they can still look forward to the future, but ordinary generals know very well that they have no future, so they should quickly make enough money and prepare to retire and go back to being rich.

Especially the chaotic period after his death was a good time for robbery and plunder. After all, there was no supervision and the accounts were in a mess. It would be easier for a fire dragon to burn the warehouse. Similarly, there was a lack of will to fight when encountering an enemy. This was already the Zhu family's kingdom. Everyone didn't want to fight for the Zhu emperor in the past, and they didn't want to fight for him now. Following Li Zicheng meant a new dynasty and a new atmosphere, but what the hell was following the Zhu family?

You should save your life and go back to enjoy yourself. You won't die if you retreat after being defeated, but you will really die if you fight to the end.

If a city is lost, it is lost. It was never yours in the first place. But if your life is lost, it is gone too.

What's more, once the city was lost, all the evidence of his corruption and abuse of power for personal gain was gone. It was like a large-scale fire burning down the warehouse, and all the accounts were settled. If the officials of the Zhu family came in the future, there would be no place to investigate even if they wanted. It can be said that the Qing army was like timely rain, so when facing the Qing army, they basically collapsed at the first touch just like the official army in the past.

Not stupid!
South bank of Fen River.

"So it was not unfair for Lao Li to lose in history!"

King Yang stood on a terrace overlooking the Fen River and sighed.

The scenery here is pretty good, with a flat and green area under your feet.

Of course, Li Zicheng cannot be blamed for this.

After all, Li Zicheng's level was just that, not to mention compared with Zhu Yuanzhang, he was far inferior to Hong Tianwang. He was just a lucky one among those ancient bandits, no different from Liu Liu and Liu Qi, but he caught up with an era that suited him and was created by the times. His success was not really based on personal ability, his personal ability could not achieve his achievements. It was the famine in the late Ming Dynasty and Chongzhen's stupidity that made him successful.

Of course, we cannot deny that there is also the help of the Qing Dynasty outside the Great Wall...

Help each other.

After all, it was thanks to him that our Qing Dynasty was able to enter the country.

Although it was not agreed upon.

But in fact, my Qing Dynasty and Li Zicheng made each other successful. If one of them was missing, the other would not be able to accomplish anything. Without the civil strife in the Ming Dynasty, my Qing Dynasty would at most be a large-scale Altan Khan.

Entering the pass to plunder was nothing, and Altan Khan had visited the suburbs of the capital before. Moreover, after Huang Taiji's death, the Qing Dynasty had fallen from its peak. Not only did it almost suffer an internal conflict over the issue of succession, but Jirgalang did not benefit from his southward march. Although there was no record of this in the Qing Dynasty, he was actually ambushed by Wu Sangui when he retreated.

The power of the Qing Dynasty reached its peak during the time of Huang Taiji. It was bound to decline after his death, but luck came and it was unstoppable. With Li Zicheng's entry into Beijing and Wu Sangui's surrender, the upward momentum continued.

It’s time and luck!

At this moment, the observation post on the hot air balloon overhead blew the horn.

King Yang raised his head, and then the intercom in his hand rang...

"Enemy cavalry, ten miles northeast!"

Inside was the shouting of the observation post.

They all have rangefinders on their telescopes. Although fine-range measurement is difficult to learn, those smart ones can be specially trained and eventually learn it. In fact, Yang Feng already has his own military academy, where students are selected from retainers or farmers, and then study in the school of Andongwei. Now he even has pilots.

Hot air balloons fly too!

Even his paramotor has students who can fly it.

Even Yang Feng has been researching whether he can use the engines of those discarded miscellaneous things such as motorcycles and chainsaws to build a propeller plane. After all, this thing is all about power. It shouldn't be too difficult to build one at World War I level. At most, he won't have to fly it. As for his subordinates flying it and it falling...

That is their honor.

They were all able to fly planes into the sky in the Ming Dynasty, and it was worth sacrificing their lives for it.

Of course, King Yang doesn't need to worry about such trivial matters as how to deal with the enemy.

He also has a staff.

Since we have military academies, we must have staff officers.

At this moment, the staff officers behind him had already issued orders quickly to the map, and these orders were also issued by radio. Of course, Yang Feng not only had a walkie-talkie, he also had a civilian radio station. The electromagnetic space of this era was very pure, and even a small civilian radio station was enough to command a legion. So the style of his Northern Expedition Army was also very strange. The hot air balloon observer was holding a modern telescope and a modern walkie-talkie to command a mixed army of matchlock and flintlock rifles, and there was also a tractor in the middle.

And radio has actually become popular among travelers.

After receiving the order from the headquarters, the soldiers who had crossed the river quickly lined up on the north bank. They were actually walking on a floating bridge. There were many floating bridges on the Fen River. From here to the east, including the south of Jishan County and Yuanqu downstream, there were a total of four floating bridges. All of them were long-standing floating bridges. While the infantry lined up to guard the bridgehead, a small number of cavalry who had already crossed the river also rushed towards the enemy.

Soon, the dust raised by a large number of cavalry appeared at the end of the field of vision.

"Your Majesty, Jishan was attacked by the enemy. There was a spy in the city who tried to open the gate but was discovered in time."

Staff report.

Their vanguard had already entered Jishan County.

Of course, it is impossible for an army of 40,000 to cross the river using a pontoon bridge. In fact, Jiangzhou was also a crossing point.

"Spy, at this time, there are still people spying for the Jianlu?"

Yang Feng smiled coldly.

Of course, there were also some people who surrendered to the National Army in 1949.

"Tell Fu Shan that I asked him to join the Northern Expedition not to return with glory. The traitors in Shanxi must be purged. If he refuses to do it, I will do it myself. He should know the consequences of my doing it myself."

He went on to say.

The Shanxi Camp led by Fu Shan led the troops to cross the river via the pontoon bridge south of Jishan City.

At this time, the two cavalry units were already engaged. The tactics of the Northern Expedition cavalry, which had already achieved flintlock pistols, were very simple. Each person had two pistols and fired at their enemies while turning. They fired one shot before turning and one shot after turning. After firing, they immediately turned around and retreated. The enemy, who had not fought with them before, pursued them very simply, and the Northern Expedition cavalry quickly withdrew to the bridgehead, and then divided into the left and right wings of the infantry formation. Then the enemy cavalry appeared behind them. The infantry, who had been ready for battle, immediately opened fire with their dove guns. Unlike the cavalry, who were all Yang Feng's followers, these infantry were divided into battalions based on regions.

This is Yingtian Camp.

Their weapons are still the turtledove guns.

Protected by chariots, they opened fire at the incoming cavalry, including light artillery, which sprayed streams of flames, and dense shotgun shells and bullets swept towards their enemy.

The latter immediately retreated.

Very simple.

After all, Wu Sangui's men were all veterans of the Guanning Army, and they were very familiar with this tactic. If they didn't have cannons, they wouldn't be so foolish as to charge forward.

But at the same time as they retreated, the Northern Expedition cavalry that had retreated to the two wings had also completed reloading, and then attacked again, rushing close to the enemy, opening fire while turning, and retreating immediately after completing the shooting. At this time, the opponent was embarrassed. If they turned back to attack again, they still had to face the firepower of the infantry.

Continue retreating?

Then these bastards rushed up again after reloading.

Instead of charging the infantry, they would just attack the cavalry? That would be useless, because these bastards were hiding under the infantry's fire protection, and they would still be hit by bullets if they charged. The turtledove gun was still very lethal to targets like cavalry even at a distance of two or three hundred meters. Although it was impossible to aim at such a distance, there was no need to really aim when attacking a cavalry group from the side.

"Your Majesty, in my opinion, we can actually do without these chariots. As long as we replace them with flintlock rifles and reload them quickly enough, the pure infantry formation can also stop the cavalry. It's just a matter of arranging them more densely, in three or five rows, and when the cavalry rushes over, one cavalryman will have to face the flintlock rifles of more than a dozen infantrymen, and there is no way to break through. After throwing away these chariots, the infantry will march faster and will not be restricted by the mountains. We can even have more such square formations to support each other on the battlefield. Even if there is a distance of 300 steps, the cannons and muskets can still lock the middle.

If there are dozens of square formations, it would be suicidal for the cavalry to charge in, and the crossfire would prevent them from escaping. "

The staff officer looked at the enemy troops on the battlefield who seemed somewhat at a loss, and spoke cautiously.

"You have some ideas. I can give you a whole battalion of people to train like this when we get back!"

Yang Feng said.

This has all developed to Waterloo.

Ultimately, the development of weapons will inevitably bring about tactical changes.

The matchlock needed chariots and spears for protection because it was slow to load, but the new flintlock loaded several times faster, so chariots and spears became dispensable.

The abandonment of spears by European armies was also a gradual process. In the beginning, there were more spears than muskets. In the following decades, there were fewer and fewer spears and more and more muskets. After the flintlock rifles became popular, they completely disappeared. These young officers of the Ming Dynasty were also gradually reforming their tactics like their European counterparts.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your cultivation!"

The staff officer saluted excitedly and said.

This was the beginning of his meteoric rise. The dream of these staff officers was to be able to lead soldiers in battle as commanders.

Just then, a scream came from below the terrace on their left.

Yang Feng immediately walked over and looked down at Ge Lin and Lu Xiangguan. The height difference of this terrace was very large, which was basically the same as standing on the Nanjing city wall and looking down. They were huddled at the bushes below the terrace. Lu Xiangguan was still digging with a knife, as if he was looking at something...

"Don't look at it. This is the Yubi City, also known as Gao Huan's Happy City. Those are the soldiers who died under Gao Huan's command."

King Yang said.

Ge Lin and Lu Xiangguan looked up in surprise.

"Chi Le Chuan, under the Yin Mountains, the sky is like a dome, covering the four fields. The sky is vast, the fields are boundless, the wind blows the grass low and cattle and sheep appear!"

King Yang sat high above their heads, singing at the top of his voice the Chi-Le Song sung by a female singer.

Then the style of painting changed...

"Huanhuan, did you hear me? I am here to sing the Chi Le Song for you!
After singing the Yinshan Chi-Le Song, the hero wept a lot in his old age. Only now there is still a clear moon, which once shone on the thousands of horses of King Gao.

Ha ha ha ha……"

He howled like a convulsion.

Ge Lin and Lu Xiangguan looked at their king in silence. Finally, both of them ignored him and Lu Xiangguan continued to use his knife to dig at the layers of piled bones.

At this time, the Qing cavalry on the north bank had already retreated, but the Northern Expedition cavalry did not give up attacking them. They were still chasing behind and constantly getting closer to the target while chasing, then firing with their flintlock rifles, stopping to reload, and then continuing to chase. If the enemy was so angry that they came back to fight, they would run away immediately without any scruples.

More and more infantrymen crossed the Fen River behind them, and the second phalanx was quickly formed. With the cover of the two phalanxes, the third phalanx was also moving forward to complete its formation...

(End of this chapter)