Starting from August 20, the elderly, weak, women, children and family members of the postmen in Zuantianmao were transferred to Xingzi River in batches.
Teams gathered at Dongguan of Yan'an Prefecture, including those who shot the sky, those who broke through the sky, those who crossed the stars, Monk Wang, and Cao Cao.
People can influence each other.
The leaders around Yan'an who rallied around the Liu family all used Liu's border troops as their instructors and used Yan'an guard uniforms and weapons. The teams were almost all modeled after the same model.
It's just that some are carved exquisitely and some are carved carelessly.
There were three to five hundred people in each team, and they lined up at the official road next to Mizi Field. If you look around without knowing, the biggest doubt in your mind is where did the Yan'an Guard come from so many flag troops.
Liu Chengzong stood on the hill and watched, and he could easily estimate the combat effectiveness of each team.
Among the teams, apart from his own five sentries, Zhang Tianlin's 400-horse team was the strongest.
Followed by Liu Chengzu's 500 people on foot and cavalry, and then Li Wanqing's 500 people.
Liu Guoneng's 500-man unit later also hired instructors from Zhuantianmao for the border army. However, the training period was short and the equipment was not very good. However, like Liu Chengzu's army, the team was composed of father-son brothers.
The king's troops are for his own use. It is not easy to talk about the combat effectiveness of the troops for his own use.
He has more than 200 Yanchuan people who have followed him, and they are still scattered everywhere on weekdays.
But when he raised his arms and shouted, thousands of young men came from villages all over the country. If they had to say that they had fighting power, they definitely had no fighting power, but their appeal was very strong.
Liu Chengzong saw this all the time, raised his arm and pointed at Liu Chengzu and said: "Brother, have you ever thought about it, starting from my fifth post, all the way to Monk Wang's team, it is abnormal in northern Shaanxi."
"abnormal?"
Liu Chengzu sneered and said disdainfully: "The one at the back is abnormal."
The last one in his mouth was Luo Rucai.
The team's style was very different from others. It was divided into three parts in a square formation. The first one hundred men wore gold and silver and were wrapped in silk and satin. The last three hundred or so hungry people had bulging bellies like hungry ghosts.
The old, weak, women and children in the middle led donkeys and mules, and a group of people stood out of place in the military formation.
The entire team is a manifestation of the gap between rich and poor in the Ming Dynasty.
Liu Chengzu turned around and said to Liu Chengzong: "There is just a bunch of beggars, why are you recruiting them?"
Most of the leaders in the team had the same view of Luo Rucai as Liu Chengzu.
People looked down upon this weak and arrogant refugee leader, and they also looked down upon his tactics.
"It's true that they are a bunch of beggars, but you have never been to the east. Not every refugee leader is like us, well fed, clothed and well-armed. We eat better than the army. It is precisely because we are like them. People who block the officers and soldiers in other places, we are the exception."
Liu Chengzong shook his head and asked his brother: "Brother, do you really think that Luo Rucai's plan is not good? This man is very smart. He came to us with this plan. It is the only one that can win among all the choices and all the plans. .”
Liu Chengzu frowned: "Wrapped up hungry people to die, do you think it is a good plan? If you do such a thing, it will be difficult for your tribe to help you."
"The Master said: Not to teach the people to fight is to abandon them. What we know at the age of seven, he does not know at the age of twenty-seven. Think about it, don't care how many people died, don't care what others think, just think about it. Can we win this plan?"
Liu Chengzong thought about this issue very seriously.
The troops were divided into three formations: the hungry refugees in the front formation, Li Wanqing and others in the middle formation to supervise the battle, and the elite Liu Ying and break-in camp in the rear formation.
The front line is divided into teams of 500 or 1,000 people. Each team has only one chance to engage in battle. If it fails to engage in battle, it will be destroyed by a volley of artillery.
After the refugees and hungry people collapse, they will overwhelm the troops of Li Wanqing and others, but the officers and soldiers cannot pursue them. To pursue them, they must abandon their artillery positions. If the formation moves, they will lose.
The artillery can carry at most twelve rounds of ammunition, which consumes gunpowder at the expense of twelve brigades. If the attacks are fast enough and the officers and soldiers are not given a chance to clean the cannon, the red-hot cannon can be blown up in five or six times.
Liu Chengzu said with an ugly face: "I might lose."
"Of course it is possible to lose. The hungry refugees have not been trained. They are too weak. If the artillery fire does not hit them, they will retreat. But brother, have you ever thought about changing places? If the army forces the thieves to attack me, How do we win?”
Liu Chengzu was speechless.
Regarding the officers and soldiers, they have no reliable information on their strength, equipment, morale, training, food and heavy firepower, and must make estimates under the most cautious conditions.
In this case, if they use this tactic, they may lose. The reason why they lose is because as Liu Chengzong said, the hungry refugees are unorganized and are very likely to collapse their own team.
But if it were the other way around, he knew the various conditions of his own troops. If the officers and soldiers used this tactic to drive the rebels to attack, they would have no chance of winning.
"Since you think this plan is effective, why not use it?"
Liu Chengzong slowly raised his head and looked at the blue sky.
On the khaki land, the teams are marching eastward. Under the command of their respective leaders, they will be familiar with the terrain of this land in order to prepare for the next battle.
Everyone is limited by their cognition and experience, and they have different views on the same things. They and Luo Rucai are the people with the biggest differences in their two perspectives.
"I use it, who says I don't use it."
Liu Chengzong smiled in surprise: "Who is Luo Rucai? In his eyes, Li Bei's officers and soldiers are as heavy as Mount Tai, and Cao Cao is no more than a feather. He found a few rocks and it was not enough. He could only save the lives of twenty or thirty thousand hungry people." , try your best.”
Liu Chengzong turned to look at his brother, and clasped his hands in front of him: "His tired soldiers are asking for the fluorescent light of the polyspermum to compete with the bright moon. The idea is correct, but this man has never read and is a jerk. He doesn't want to ask that question." Are you willing to burn the rot grass... Zhongdou Xing is interested in this plan, and he came to see me yesterday."
"You mean, where is King Gao Chuang?"
"Yes, the final battlefield is still near Fucheng. We are most familiar with this place. If we can't win here, we won't win anywhere else."
Liu Chengzong stretched out his arm from the Yanhe River at his feet and pointed to the east: "From Yanchang to Fushi County, King Gao Chuang will fight and retreat at the same time. We will provide support. If King Chuang can fight and retreat at the same time, it means that Li Bei's army is still in good condition and he can carry it with him." If he has heavy artillery, then fight him in the mountains outside the official road."
"If the elite troops of King Chuang can escape and most of them are killed, then Li Bei's troops don't have heavy artillery, so why should they be afraid of him?"
Liu Chengzu shook his head and said: "But what if he goes straight into the city and takes over the north and south siege?"
"I wish he could occupy the besieged city. All the Yan'an Guard soldiers have been drawn out, and the food and weapons have been evacuated. He can have seven or eight days of food to support his death. Let him occupy it. When he is so hungry that he can't walk, what else can he do? scary."
"What if he also robs big customers?"
Liu Chengzong was happy.
There are some big households left near Yan'an Prefecture. The rest are basically the families of officials who don't have much money or food. Robbing them will cause great harm but little gain.
The best choice for Li Bei's soldiers is to rob thieves like them. If they also rob officials and their families, wouldn't they be just a bunch of rebel thieves?
"If he robbed a big family, wouldn't he be like us? Don't worry, brother, Li Bei can't enter Yan'an Mansion. Even if King Gao Chuang can't make Li Bei's department too tired, I still have a very good candidate."
In the final analysis, they are still too weak.
It's not that the military is weak, but that in the officer class, there is no general from top to bottom who has the experience of commanding 500 regular troops.
We can only try our best to give Li Bei's troops a negative status.
Delay time, reduce soldiers' rations, and make them hungry.
Several teams took turns stalling, tiring them out.
"who?"
"Sky monkey Liu Jiusi is moving from Yanzhou to Fucheng. He should arrive at Ganquan today. He can control his subordinates and is much better than the hungry people."
On August 22, Liu Ying's tribes set up camp in the mountains near Ganguyi.
Between the two counties, Tangqi reported back and forth. In the morning, Gao Yingxiang saw Li Bei's Tangqi at the camp of Baijiachuan.
In the afternoon, Li Bei's officers and soldiers placed seven cannons on the north bank and blasted the stronghold across the river to cover the officers and soldiers crossing the river.
The 400 Mongolian cavalry and 300 infantrymen of the Chuang tribe circled from the mountain to the east side, hoping to attack the baggage that was lagging behind when Li Bei launched his pursuit.
News was sent at night. They didn't know that they had been discovered by Tangqi, an official army. Li Bei had been prepared for the attack, so he had to retreat through the mountain road. Instead, he was pursued by the official cavalry. Three hundred infantrymen fled in all directions in the mountains, unable to return to their troops and disappeared. .
At midnight, Tangqi reported for the last time that the Chuang tribe had retreated to Nanping Mountain. Taking advantage of the late arrival of the army, they fought with the army on the tidal flat south of Yanchang County. They deployed pack artillery and repelled two attacks by the army's centurions.
It was getting late, and the government troops were stationed in Yanchang County.
Messages kept coming back and forth from day to night. The intensity of the battle was not high, and there were not many casualties on both sides. However, Gao Yingxiang had someone send detailed information on the strength of Li Bei's troops.
There were three full commanders and civilian men recruited from Yanchang County, carrying more than a hundred vehicles and seven heavy guns.
Gao Yingxiang's plan was very simple. The troops were stationed in the stronghold to delay the attack, so as to ensure that the grain and grass obtained from the robbery could be transported by manpower in the mountains to the Panlongchuan area behind.
He fought against Li Bei. It didn't matter whether he won or lost the battle. As long as Li Bei was not allowed to steal food and grass, it would be considered a victory.
However, Li Bei's troops have always attached great importance to the rear. One always fights at the headquarters, the other keeps the headquarters as a reserve to look after the baggage, and the third keeps the headquarters to look after the rear, and also sends Tangqi to the rear.
This move made Liu Chengzong and others very confused. There was no baggage and no enemies in the rear. Why was he looking behind him?
It is obvious that Yanchuan has been controlled by the imperial court again.
No matter how hard he tried, he never imagined that the troops Li Bei left behind were guarding against him.
General Lee thought he was to the east and could jump over at any moment to attack the flank.
In the early morning of the 23rd, Wei Qian'er's Tangqi troops spread out forty miles from Ganguyi to the southeast valley. They could already see the battlefield twelve miles away on Jiulian Mountain.
Chuangbu Tangqi said that the officers and soldiers fired cannons on the city all night long, hitting a cannon at intervals, which made people unable to sleep all night long.
In the morning, we first marched eastward in formation. After walking a few miles, we saw that there was no response from the stronghold. Then we lined up westward, broke into the headquarters to gather troops, and the officers and soldiers stopped.
Liu Chengzu said: "Li Bei guessed that we planned to use the exhaustion strategy and tried to break into the king's reinforcements in the east and west, but it was discovered."
Sure enough, when Li Bei left the city again in the afternoon, he no longer sent Tangqi to the rear, but mainly directed Tangqi's defense to the west, spreading out a radius of five miles, almost facing Wei Qian'er's Tangqi across the mountain.
Then the officers and soldiers began to attack Nanping Mountain with two units in formation and one unit in preparation.
Taking advantage of heavy artillery, they successively broke through two small villages that were at the horns of each other, and the troops retreated into the mountains again.
The actual situation is not as complicated as Liu Chengzu thought.
But on the night when Li Bei entered Yanchang County, he summoned the people in the city to inquire about the situation. One of the city guards mentioned that there was a cavalry team heading westward earlier holding a red flag with a Liu character.
During the day, they traveled east and west just for a try, but they didn't expect the Chuang tribe to move so easily, so they concentrated their efforts on attacking the mountain stronghold.
In the afternoon of that day, Liu Jiusi, the heavenly monkey who came from Yanzhou, rushed to Fucheng with more than a thousand infantry and told Liu Chengzong very proudly: "There are still two thousand people behind us, and they will arrive tonight."
They met again when they were employed, and their feelings for each other became much deeper.
However, there was no chance for small talk as the enemy was approaching. Liu Chengzong smiled and said, "Let your men rest for a day and assemble tomorrow. We will go to the top of the mountain to hold him off for a day."
The hilltop he mentioned was the narrow mountain ridge in the middle of the bend of the Yanhe River at the junction of Fushi County and Yanchang County, where the Yanhe River flows from north to south.
Cao Yao said that Li Bei's troops would definitely seize this mountain ridge and use it as a heavy artillery position to strangle the river valley.
When Liu Chengzong led his five sentries to Hequ, Gao Yingxiang's troops quickly retreated in two groups. The cavalry arrived first through the valley, and the infantry retreated through the mountains to the rear south of Panlongchuan.
Seeing Gao Yingxiang again, King Chuang didn't look embarrassed even though he suffered repeated setbacks. He just smiled and said, "Damn, I lost a bunch of villages, so I've sent people to transport all the food. Li Bei is a little anxious. I guess he has food." not much."
After that, he looked around the valley from the mountain ridge and asked, "Why, is this the place where the decisive battle will take place?"
"That's not true. The decisive battle will take place in Daping in the north. The Sky Monkeys have just arrived. They need to rest for a day. We can't let Li Bei rest today."
"Don't let him rest."
While Liu Chengzong and Gao Yingxiang were talking, Cao Yao was already escorting the artillery team up from behind. People were pushing three medium-sized Franco machine guns up the ridge on wheels.
Cao Yao complained: "The Yan'an Guards can only fight these three things far away. When they are set up, they should be able to hit the river beach. They are still close to the official road. Which team do you plan to let fight?"
The only difference between them and the official army was heavy artillery. The official army could transport thousands of kilograms of artillery and hit two or three miles.
For the sake of mobility, they lost several of the heavy artillery at Yanshui Pass. The medium-sized artillery of three to five hundred kilograms was already the heaviest artillery.
"Crossing Taotian, shooting Taotian and Cao Cao."
Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed towards the official road at the foot of the mountain. Three teams of people were advancing at the foot of the mountain. Behind the three teams, the four sentry men of Gao Xian, Feng Yu, Yang Yao and Wang Wenxiu advanced slowly behind them and took up positions at the foot of the mountain. .
Gao Yingxiang worriedly asked: "Will they be defeated?"
"It will be defeated, so my people are behind, as well as the three cannons on the mountain, to counterattack the officers and soldiers and prevent them from expanding the victory. King Chuang's cavalry must form an array on the other side of the mountain, just in case my people block it. Don't hold back, your cavalry will take care of you."
In fact, this was also Luo Rucai's strategy to exhaust the troops, but the manpower was more or less capable, and he would not be able to take people directly to their deaths.
As soon as the troops at the foot of the mountain were in formation, Liu Chengzong saw flag-carrying soldiers looming on the top of the mountain in the distance. He shook his head and smiled at Gao Yingxiang: "It seems they really don't have much food and grass, and they don't want to rest."
The army's infantry and cavalry formed a long queue and walked out on the official road at the end of the river valley.
