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  Chapter 165 163【Fierce battle】

  More than 10,000 officers and soldiers evacuated with their luggage. A few old antique mortars must be given up, but the two Franco cannons have time to carry away.

   This thing is light and detachable, and five or six people can march with one gun.

  Hearing the charge in the rebel battalion, Li Maofang immediately ordered: "Give up the luggage, go to the hill in front of you to line up, and pour money and food along the way. Remember, throw more copper coins and broken silver!"

  Although the officers, soldiers and generals were reluctant to part with it, the battlefield had reached a critical moment, so they had to scatter the looted silver.

  Seeing that the opponent actually ran to the hillside to form an array, Zhao Han also stopped the charge, blew the horn to gather troops to form an array, and slowly advanced towards the enemy on the hillside.

  At the top of the slope, Li Ruolian was inexplicably horrified: "These thieves don't even want any money!"

  Li Maofang was also shocked. He originally wanted to spend money to destroy the formation and morale of the rebels, and then rely on the superiority of his troops to kill them.

   This trick is very effective against rebels. Li Maofang has succeeded several times before.

   Unexpectedly, the soldiers under Zhao Han's command lined up in an orderly formation, and walked through the area full of money, but none of them bent down to pick it up!

  Everyone has selfishness, and so do Zhao Han's soldiers.

  But everything captured must be returned to the public, this is what the missionary officer has repeatedly emphasized. If it was in private, maybe some soldiers hid and refused to pay, but who would not see the money picked up on the battlefield? The money he picked up was not his own, and he would be dealt with by military law instead. Soldiers with a normal mind knew what choice to make.

  Although a few mortars were lost, at this moment, the situation is more conducive to the officers and soldiers fighting.

  Before Zhao Han stood firm in the camp, the officers and soldiers had to slowly fill up the trenches, and then attacked the rebel camp, and there were trenches in the camp, archers shooting arrows were enough for the officers and soldiers to drink a pot.

   Now it is the officers and soldiers who occupy the high ground, and Zhao Han leads the troops to attack the hills!

  Although Li Maofang is greedy, he also knows how to fight. After he lined up his troops, he suddenly raised his sword and shouted: "Pass my military order, kill a rebel, and reward five taels of silver. Behead a rebel officer, reward ten taels of silver. Behead a rebel general, reward a hundred taels of silver." Two. Whoever can capture Zhao Yan and Zhao Yaonian will be rewarded with a thousand taels of silver!"

  Silver in the hands of Li Maofang has endless uses.

  It can be thrown out to harass the army of rebels. You can offer rewards to boost your morale. You can feed your boss and colleagues, let everyone help him speak, and you are not afraid of a lawsuit before the emperor.

  Li Maofang is very smart, he is not a fool who just takes money when he is greedy.

  In his opinion, if silver cannot be used, it is no different from stone.

  As soon as the reward was offered, the morale of the officers and soldiers was immediately boosted. In addition, they had more than three times as many soldiers as Zhao Han, which for a while actually downplayed the negative emotions of their own navy being repelled.

   "Hurry up and assemble the Folang machine gun! The archers step forward and shoot the bandits!" Li Maofang shouted.

  The officers and soldiers only have more than 500 archers, who were originally deployed on warships, but are now transferred to land to shoot and kill rebels.

  The thousand archers on Zhao Han's side also dispersed into a sparse formation and stepped forward.

  Huang Shun and Li Zheng, each with 500 soldiers, went around to the opposite flank, waiting for the opportunity to attack.

   "Shhhhhh!"

  The archers on both sides shoot at each other, one side occupies a high position, and the other side has more people.

  Fei Yinggong is now the captain of a hundred archers. The bows and arrows used by these guys are different. They are the standard stone bows used in martial arts examinations.

   An arrow was shot, and it hit an officer accurately, and Fei Yinggong was looking for the officer to attack.

  Xiong Yao used the Seven-Double Bow, and followed the soldiers in salvo. He aimed for the enemy's head, but shot an arrow into the target's calf.

   "Mr. Zheng, go attack the bandits' archers!" Li Maofang shouted.

  The General Manager Zheng, with five hundred soldiers, took advantage of the gap between the archer's stringing, and rushed down boldly.

  The flag was waved, and Jiang Dashan and Jiang Liang each led 500 people to come forward to meet them.

  The archers on both sides retreated respectively, and 1,500 melee soldiers strangled together. Zhao Han's central army was only left with more than 1,000 people, and 500 people on each side circled out.

   "The first six sentries, all out to kill the thieves!"

   Li Maofang launched an attack immediately when he saw the opportunity. He felt that he had the upper hand in the army, and he could kill the rebels with a pile of people.

  Li Ruolian also shouted: "Siege and kill the bandits!"

  The two of them had the same idea. They believed that Zhao Han was too mentally retarded. He didn't have enough troops in the first place.

  The central army that Zhao Han is in will soon be surrounded by officers and soldiers several times larger than himself.

  Zhao Han smiled and said to Fei Ruhe: "I'll be on the left and you on the right, and form an formation together as bait."

   "No problem." Fei Ruhe said.

   After the thousand archers withdrew, they lobbed at the main force of the rushing army.

   One round of bow and arrow went down, only dozens of officers and soldiers were killed and wounded, but it directly collapsed a thousand-man sentry of officers and soldiers.

   "Fleeers, behead!"

  Li Ruolian personally led the law enforcement team, standing behind and beheading the fleeing soldiers.

   Hacked and killed more than a dozen people one after another. These broken soldiers yelled and turned around and rushed towards the rebels.

  Huang Shun and Li Zheng on both sides immediately charged after receiving the military order, and Li Maofang quickly sent out four outposts to fight. This is tantamount to saying that Huang Shun and Li Zheng, each leading 500 flankers, will face four times as many officers and soldiers as themselves.

  Zhao Han carefully observed the enemy's situation, and said to Zhang Tieniu: "At the whistle of the officers and soldiers' Wang Ziqi, after a few steps, there will be chaos. You will kill through and go straight to the enemy's central army."

   "Slave army, follow me to kill!"

  Zhang Tieniu led hundreds of slave troops and rushed out with two axes in hand.

  Zhao Han and Fei Ruhe, with the rest of the soldiers, formed formations and charged into the frontal battlefield to assist Jiang Dashan and Jiang Liang. There were only 2,000 of them in total, and they were almost half surrounded by officers and soldiers, forming a circular formation to resist more than 6,000 officers and soldiers.

   There is no reserve team anymore, and Zhao Han himself goes into battle.

   Despite the excitement of the fight, the battle was actually not intense.

  Wolf soldiers were in front, holding moso bamboo with branches, and iron branches were tied to the bamboo branches. Just stabbing randomly with the wolf's whisk made it difficult for the enemies three meters away to get close. The few who could rush in were blocked by the rattan hand holding up the shield, and the spearman behind took the opportunity to poke out.

   Just like facing a tortoise, you can't find where to put your mouth.

   More than 6,000 officers and soldiers surrounded and killed 2,000 rebels. After fighting for half an hour, only three rebels died, but dozens of officers and soldiers were stabbed to death.

  The main reason is that the officers and soldiers of the mob were cowering in the face of the wolf trap, and did not dare to risk their lives to charge in. Most officers and soldiers, like sleepwalking on the battlefield, have no idea what they should do.

  Fei Yinggong waited for a thousand archers, retreated to the back and kept shooting arrows, straight into the crowd of officers and soldiers, causing people to flee behind the officers and soldiers.

  Li Maofang waved the command flag and sent a reserve team to go around and attack the archers. But I saw Zhang Tieniu and Liu Zhu, leading Zhao Han's own soldiers and slaves, smashing through the "Wang" flag all the way, the general surnamed Wang was so frightened that he turned around and fled.

  Zhang Tieniu's left arm was cut, and his right leg was scratched by the spear, but this guy charged forward bravely and knocked down the boss with an axe.

   This general is a thousand households recruited by Li Ruolian. He has never fought a war, and his subordinates are all weak military households who put down their hoes. They even lined up crookedly, how could they withstand Zhang Tieniu's desperate attack?

   Zhang Tieniu is very strange, no matter the big battle or small battle, he will be injured in many places, and it is surprising which time he is not injured.

  Looking at Liu Zhu next to him, he also rushed to the front, and his clothes were not even torn.

"kill!"

  Seeing Zhang Tieniu rushing towards the central army, Li Maofang urgently dispatched the reserve team sent to kill the archers to fill the gap on the battlefield. In addition, he added another whistle, wanting to surround Zhang Tieniu to death.

  The two sides were completely mixed up, and the archers couldn't shoot at all.

   "Follow me!"

  Fei Yinggong threw down his bow and arrow, drew out his sword, and led the centurion into close combat.

   The nearly 2,000 soldiers centered on Zhao Han have been completely surrounded by more than 6,000 officers and soldiers.

  But there is a clear boundary in the middle, which is the wolf trap area with a length of more than three meters. Most of the officers and soldiers are blocked from the wolf trap and dare not rush.

   These formed three concentric circles on the battlefield, and the inner circles were two thousand rebels led by Zhao Han and Fei Ruhe. There is a circle in the middle, composed of wolf whisks and spears. The outermost ring is more than 6,000 officers and soldiers who are sleepwalking.

   More than 6,000 officers and soldiers have been besieged and killed until now, but the casualties of the rebel army are still in single digits.

  Fei Yinggong rushed forward with a team of centuries. After abandoning their bows, these archers used daggers to fight. But the combined impact of the inside and the outside directly caused thousands of officers and soldiers to collapse.

   Except for a small number of reserve teams, Li Maofang and Li Ruolian have completely lost control over the army.

  They kept asking the trumpeters and bannermen to convey the military order to divide the troops to attack the rebel archers. But the 6,000 officers and soldiers in front of them only knew how to besiege the enemy's central army, and stayed outside if they couldn't get in. Among the ten officers and soldiers, only one or two could actually meet the enemy.

   "The mob, the mob!"

   Li Maofang stomped his feet in anger, but if he was given another year to train thousands of truly elite soldiers, he wouldn't be able to fight like this.

   Seeing that Fei Yinggong's surprise attack worked, the other archers also threw away their bows and arrows, drew out their daggers and ran to fight.

  To the left wing, Li Zheng led 500 soldiers, and suddenly defeated the officers and soldiers four times his own. Moreover, these officers and soldiers collapsed without warning, and it was too late for Li Maofang to send a reserve team to rescue them.

  Because most of the two thousand officers and soldiers are village braves recruited by the prefect of Linjiang, and a small part are young and strong selected from civilian husbands, their fighting power can bully the peasants.

  First of all, they besieged Li Zheng's 500 soldiers with an absolute advantage. They fought for a long time to no avail. Instead, Li Zheng stabbed dozens of them to death. After nearly a hundred casualties, the two thousand miscellaneous fish collapsed in an instant, and they were afraid of being served by a military judge, so they did not dare to flee back to the direction of the commander, and collapsed directly towards the Ganjiang River.

   Li Zheng immediately led his troops towards the enemy commander, Zhang Tieniu also rushed through them, and the rebels, who had less than 1,000 men, went straight to the large formation of officers and soldiers with superior forces.

  Seeing this, Li Maofang got on his horse and ran away. How could he care about his own army?

  Li Ruolian was stunned for a moment, and the sixty-nine-year-old Jiangxi general also hurried away on his horse.

   Although the horses of the officers and soldiers are rare, the two generals must have horses.

  As soon as they fled, the Chinese army formation of officers and soldiers collapsed immediately, because there were not many officers and soldiers left in the Chinese army because of the continuous dispatch of reserve troops.

"kill!"

  At this time, Zhang Tieniu had been injured in five places, and led the slave army in pursuit.

  Li Zheng did not continue to chase, but led his troops back to meet Huang Shun on the right. Huang Shun was facing a hard bone, and he was still stalemate in the fight.

  As for the besieged Zhao Han and Fei Ruhe, they didn't need Li Zheng to rescue them at all.

   Six thousand officers and soldiers were unable to attack and were attacked by a thousand archers from behind, which was equivalent to being surrounded. Before Li Maofang and Li Ruolian escaped, the six thousand officers and soldiers began to collapse, and at this time the whole line collapsed.

  The entire battle, if counted from the time when the archers shot each other, lasted about twenty-five minutes.

  The next step is to chase the enemy and receive prisoners.

   According to statistics after the war, 41 people were killed on Zhao Han's side, 18 people were seriously injured, and more than 100 people were slightly injured.

   Moreover, the most casualties were not the Chinese army who were besieged by six thousand officers and soldiers, nor were the casualties of archers shooting each other, but the slave army led by Zhang Tieniu who charged.

   This guy completely gave up defense, just kept going forward, killing the reserve team sent by Li Maofang, they didn't dare to go forward to fight.

  As for the officers and soldiers, including civilian husbands, a total of more than 16,000 people went to the battlefield. However, the number of officers and soldiers who were shot or killed head-on was actually less than 700.

  Very outrageous data, the two sides had a total of more than 20,000 people fighting, and the total number of people who died in the actual battle was less than 1,000, and the winner was quickly determined.

   It was not even clear whether the two main generals, Li Maofang and Li Ruolian, fled first, or the main force of the officers and soldiers on the frontal battlefield collapsed first.

   On the contrary, during the pursuit, hundreds of officers and soldiers were stabbed to death, thousands of people jumped into the river and drowned, and the casualties were more than twice that of the frontal battle.

   Neither Zhao Han nor Fei Ruhe had the chance to use force. They were directing the defensive battle throughout the entire process.

   After a long time, Zhang Tieniu came back leading a war horse with a head in his hand. The guy was covered in blood, and said with a smile: "It's unlucky for him to be chopped off, and he broke his leg while riding a horse."

  Zhao Han said speechlessly: "How many places were injured this time?"

   "I don't know," Zhang Tieniu was still laughing, "Don't worry, brother, I'm not stupid, and I can still hurt someone's vitals?"

  Zhao Han looked at the captives being escorted back one after another, there were thousands of them, and he had already made a decision in his heart.

  These captives selected some of them who did not do much evil to join the army, and all the rest were thrown into mining. The newly occupied iron mines are in urgent need of miners.

  Jiangxi Governor Li Maofang and Jiangxi General Soldier Li Ruolian, they were accompanied by only two or three soldiers. Because there are too many rivers in Jiangxi, I can't run even on horseback. I often run, walk, and circle around the river.

  After a journey of more than two hundred miles, the two rode for nearly ten days, and finally returned to the other side of the river in Nanchang City.

   After crossing the river and asking, I found out that Wang Siren's navy was defeated!

  (end of this chapter)