Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chongzhen eight years on November [-]th.

When Zuo Liangyu realized that the situation was not good, of course he wouldn't just stay where he was, waiting for the three peasant armies to arrive and be attacked from both sides.But there is no time to escape in a short time, so the only option is to find a favorable battlefield.

Zuo Liangyu didn't want to retreat into the city and simply defend the city, because his troops also came from outside the pass and northern Zhili, and there were many cavalry and chariots, so it was easy to display their combat effectiveness in an open battlefield.It is safer to hide in the city, but with the obstruction of the city wall, it is not easy to give full play to the strengths of Zuo Liangyu's department.Of course, the most important thing is Zuo Liangyu's strong confidence in his troops.

Therefore, Zuo Liangyu found a terrain with the back to the town and the left to the river, so that the peasant army could only attack from two sides.Another 3000 people were dispatched in the direction Zhang Xianzhong came to defend against this peasant army.In the end, Zuo Liangyu led the main force of [-] soldiers and prepared to fight Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng's coalition forces. He was going to defeat the coalition forces first, and then return to deal with Zhang Xianzhong's troops.

From this battle plan, it can be seen that the Ming army at this time still had strong self-confidence when facing the peasant army.Of course, this can also reveal Zuo Liangyu's own character.If possible, he would of course avoid battles to preserve his strength, but once he was in a desperate situation, Zuo Liangyu would be ruthless.

Therefore, Zuo Liangyu did not choose the weaker Zhang Xianzhong's troops at all, but chose the stronger Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng's coalition forces for the decisive battle, just because he wanted to settle the battle.Of course, as an experienced general, Zuo Liangyu has also arranged for a retreat. As long as the situation is unfavorable, he will immediately lead his troops to retreat into the town behind him for defense, waiting for the arrival of reinforcements.

But contrary to Zuo Liangyu's expectation, the battle started from Zhang Xianzhong's direction first.But Zuo Liangyu's estimate was also very accurate, and his three thousand soldiers also blocked Zhang Xianzhong's troops.

The reason why Zhang Xianzhong launched the attack first was also very simple, he just wanted to preserve his own strength.

Because the more than 2 people led by Zhang Xianzhong are almost all his elite troops, and there is no cannon fodder to squander, so Zhang Xianzhong provoked the battle with Zuo Liangyu first. [

This approach sounds quite contradictory.But Zhang Xianzhong had his own considerations.If Zhang Xianzhong has already made a move, Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng will be forced to do the same, because the coalition forces of Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng are stronger, and Zuo Liangyu must transfer his main force to the coalition forces of Gao and Li, so Zhang Xianzhong will be under pressure small.Here's a reason.

If Zhang Xianzhong attracts Zuo Liangyu's main force after he makes a move, then Gao Li's coalition forces are likely to break through Zuo Liangyu's block.Give Zuo Liangyu a fatal blow from behind, and quickly wipe out this Ming army.This is another reason.

No matter what the reason is, the loss of Zhang Xianzhong's department will not be too great.Of course, there is another situation that can make Zhang Xianzhong's troops unscathed, and that is to watch from the sidelines.But if the Gao Li coalition army also came to watch from the sidelines, then Zuo Liangyu, who was at a disadvantage in strength, would definitely not take the initiative to attack.But that way.The peasant army also lost the meaning of encircling Zuo Liangyu's tribe.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong didn't wait for his troops to fully deploy, and sent out successive small troops to attack Zuo Liangyu's 3000 troops.However, that kind of attack is only a taste of it, retreating when encountering a block, it is completely thunderous and rainy.

And the 3000 troops sent by Zuo Liangyu are also equipped with a large number of chariots, which can be effectively intercepted according to the chariots, so the entire formation is not threatened.

Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng, who were standing on a high place on horseback, looked at the direction where Zhang Xianzhong and Zuo Liangyu were fighting.Observed for a while.They looked at each other and shook their heads at the same time.Maybe they found that the other party's actions were in harmony with their own, so they both couldn't help laughing out loud.

Although they couldn't see the progress of the battle clearly, they already understood Zhang Xianzhong's intentions.In such a short period of time, there was no time for tens of thousands of troops to fully deploy, so Zhang Xianzhong's attack must have used small troops.

"You attack or I attack?" Gao Yingxiang asked.

"I'll attack!" Li Zicheng replied without hesitation, "Let Zong Min lead my old team first."

Gao Yingxiang nodded and said, "Then I'll give Zong Min another two thousand rides! My people follow Zong Min."

Because Gao Yingxiang was attacked by Chen Yongfu and Zuo Liangyu one after another, many refugees in the army dispersed.And Li Zicheng held back Hong Chengchou's tribe in Shaanxi alone for such a long time.There are also very few refugees in the army, so the two peasant armies can't send any refugees as cannon fodder.

But when these two people discovered Zhang Xianzhong's tricks, they were still willing to use their old background to fight Zuo Liangyu's tribe.It can also be seen from this: the two leaders of the peasant army before and after are very generous.

That is a kind of leadership temperament that knows that he is at a disadvantage, but who is better than me.In comparison, what Zhang Xianzhong did was a little clever.

Li Zicheng's number one general, Liu Zongmin, led the [-] troops from Li Zicheng's old battalion, and the [-] cavalry supported by Gao Yingxiang stepped forward to form an array.At the same time, Zuo Liangyu was also ready to fight.

No nonsense.There was no temptation, and the two sides immediately launched a confrontation.But as soon as the battle was fought, the strength of Zuo Liangyu's regular army was revealed, and Liu Zongmin retreated steadily. [

The situation is not good at first sight.Gao Yingxiang's old battalion behind also hurried forward to support.But when the morale of Zuo Liangyu's troops rises, it's not so easy to stop.No way, Li Zicheng also led the remaining old battalion soldiers to immediately go forward to support.

After a whole day of fierce fighting, Zuo Liangyu completely gained the upper hand, killing and capturing more than 1000 peasant soldiers, while his own loss was only more than [-].

This defeat was due to the reason why the peasant army underestimated the enemy.They thought that they had killed Cao Wenzhao, the number one titan of the Ming army, and thought that the combat effectiveness of their troops was on par with that of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng did not take advantage of their large number of people. If they wanted to fight on an equal footing with the well-equipped and well-trained Zuo Liangyu, they would certainly suffer.And later, seeing that the situation of the battle was not good, the Peasant Army increased its troops one by one, and adopted fuel-adding tactics to save the defeat, which made the situation even worse.

However, although Zuo Liangyu won, he also had a hard time and knew it.Zuo Liangyu's understanding of the peasant army is still at the stage where thousands of officers and soldiers are chasing and killing 10,000+ peasant troops running all over the mountains and fields.He didn't expect that in the past half a year, the combat effectiveness of the peasant army would grow to this level.Otherwise, Zuo Liangyu would never have confronted Gao Li's allied forces.

What's worse is that Zuo Liangyu's loss has been supplemented, and one person is dead and one is missing.With a few more big victories like this, when Zuo Liangyu's troop loss rate exceeds [-]%, his troop will be disabled.

So on the second day, both sides changed their tactics in unison.Zuo Liangyu didn't divide his troops any more. He gathered his troops into a group, completely forming a hedgehog formation.After contacting the three leaders of the Peasant Army, they also took out their strongest old battalion and launched an attack at the same time.

The peasant army launched a fierce attack as soon as it came up, but whether it was on the football field or on the battlefield, the dense defense was not so easy to break.Coupled with the fact that the peasant army rushed too fiercely, Zuo Liangyu took advantage of the peasant army's weakness of bravery, lack of training and coordination, and used his own cavalry to carry out several counter-charges, which made the peasant army dare not let go of the attack. Another small victory.However, Zuo Liangyu's department also lost more than 1000 people.

At this time, Zuo Liangyu started to make mistakes.Although he won two victories, he was also terrified by the onslaught of the peasant army, so in order to reduce losses, Zuo Liangyu withdrew his troops into the town behind him, relying on the buildings of the town to resist the peasants The army attacked again.

Although Zuo Liangyu's approach seems reasonable, but in doing so, he limited the strengths of his troops.In addition, the defense of the town is always inferior to that of the city, and the few refugees in the peasant army can be used as cannon fodder to siege the town, so the gap between the two warring parties has widened instead.

So the fighting on the third day became more intense.Although Zuo Liangyu's department did more damage to the peasant army.But those were refugees who were used as cannon fodder, which consumed a lot of medicine, arrows and soldiers' physical strength from Zuo Liangyu's department.

Seeing Zuo Liangyu's soldiers were a little weak, the old peasant army soldiers and horses who followed behind the cannon fodder rushed into the town.However, in the street battles in towns and cities, Zuo Liangyu's soldiers could not cooperate with many people in the regular army, so they caused heavy casualties.

If it wasn't for the ferocious firearms of Zuo Liangyu's troops, plus Zuo Liangyu's bodyguard fighting back hard, maybe the Peasant Army would have completely ended the entire battle that day.But even so, Zuo Liangyu lost more than 400 people in one day, and the entire army was completely compressed in the town by the peasant army.

That night, Zuo Liangyu counted the casualties in the camp, and couldn't help but sighed, "I don't know when the reinforcements will come!"

But Zuo Liangyu was not feeling well, and Gao Yingxiang and the others were also not feeling well. Every loss of soldiers in the old battalion made Gao Yingxiang's heart bleed.They didn't expect to gather 10,000+ peasant army, but they still couldn't eat this tens of thousands of Ming army.

The reason why Gao Yingxiang and the others want to defeat Zuo Liangyu's department is because after Zuo Liangyu is eliminated, a vacuum can be formed in this area, allowing the peasant army to act wantonly.But if the fight continues like this, the three peasant armies will be hurt.

Moreover, the current peasant army cannot withdraw. If Zuo Liangyu is let go, whether it is attacked by him or entangled by him, it will be a very troublesome matter for the peasant army.

What's even worse is that the peasant army has also detected a Ming army coming to help.And that Ming army was Yu Zilian's Ruzhou Army.

For this reason, Li Zicheng sent 5000 people led by He Yaoqi to intercept the Ming army, and the remaining peasant army was about to defeat Zuo Liangyu who was trapped in the town before the Ruzhou army broke through and intercepted it. (to be continued...)