On April 20, six days before Liu Chengzong planned to launch a general attack on Gaotaicheng, an unexpected turn of events occurred on the battlefield in Gansu.
Lin Chengdong, the commander of Gansu Cheying who was besieged by Feng Yu's troops to the west of Gaotai, made up his mind and led his troops to break out.
Lin Chengdong fought very hard in this battle. The car camp is not an ineffective and rubbish tactic, but the most costly and effective battalion. It can be said to be an iron hedgehog built with silver. The same troops have the same dispatch. On the battlefield of ability, having a car camp is invincible.
The vehicle camp is actually the ancient version of the combined camp. It has cavalry, artillery, baggage, and cover. In terms of maneuverability, it is much better than the infantry brigade parading the horse on its back. The guiding ideology is to invest a lot of resources and be independent. Solve most problems encountered on the battlefield.
Chaoying has indeed achieved it. It has high attack power, high health, can fight and carry, and its performance on the battlefield is very outstanding. If the enemies who excel in Chaoying want to destroy it, they can only use the stupidest methods and means, encirclement.
Although this does make the death situation of the car camp look miserable, as it is always surrounded by people until it collapses, in fact only the car camp will be surrounded to the point of collapse.
Will three to five thousand infantrymen be surrounded by three times the enemy force in the field and collapse? Impossible, the field battle collapsed in three days; three to five thousand cavalry encountered three times the enemy force in the field, and could only choose between killing the enemy and being killed by the enemy, or being driven out of the battlefield on the day of the battle. There's nothing wrong with them.
There is only a car camp, even if it is surrounded by multiple enemy forces for thirty days in the wilderness, it will not necessarily collapse.
What is the concept of being unable to receive support for thirty days in the field? The entire front line has been defeated. The car camp is motionless. The front line has moved away on its own. It has changed from the front line of the battlefield to deep behind the enemy's rear. This means that the scheduling of the two sides is completely unequal. The war has been lost long before the car camp collapses.
Liu Chengzong's method of dealing with the iron hedgehog was also a stupid way, which was to cover it with an iron cage and wait for it to starve to death.
Lin Chengdong fought several battles from beginning to end, but they were not battles, but a struggle to perceive external information.
The Marshal's Mansion built walls and dug ditches outside the fire range of the camp. From the third day of the siege, Lin Chengdong's camp lost the ability to perceive the battlefield. The iron cage formed by the deep ditch was like an iron curtain. Blocking his vision.
On Liu Chengzong's side, the battle line was very clear and pushed eastward from the Gobi between Qingshui Fort and Camel City. Gao Yingdeng, Zhang Tianlin and Li Hongsi of the Ming Army ran all the way eastward like huskies without a leash. The main force The troops surrounded the high platform steadily.
But for Lin Chengdong, who was surrounded by three times the force for ten days, twice the force for five days, and finally for fifteen days by slightly less force than the car camp, he always thought that Deputy Commander-in-Chief Li Hongsi was still in Camel. city.
"Luotuo City is so close, why don't you come to save me?"
Just surrounding this conjecture, Lin Chengdong, whose five senses were blocked, almost went crazy. He had no idea what was going on outside.
He was not afraid of being surrounded for ten days, but he was a little panicked after being surrounded for twenty days. He counted the days every day for twenty to thirty days, and the army rations were getting less and less. It was time to kill horses to satisfy hunger, but he dared to do so in this environment. Kill a horse?
I don't dare at all. If I kill the horse, I will be completely unable to break through.
It's not too late to break out, at least open your eyes and see what's going on outside.
In the early morning of April 20th, Lin Chengdong selected fifty warriors, carried chisels and sneaked under the earth barrier to plant gunpowder. In the hazy morning, with a loud noise, the entire army abandoned their baggage and rushed out of the gap to surround the outside. Feng Rubu was startled.
The siege battle is not easy, especially when the troops are not enough, and there is no way to guard against thieves for a thousand days.
Since five days ago, Feng Yu had sensed that the enemy was preparing to break out. The Ming army's carriage camp surrounded by earthen forts had greatly increased their use of artillery shells, gunpowder, grain, grass and baggage, and they were constantly pumping the air and firing artillery from day to night. This must be Planning to break out.
But it's useless to have telepathy in his heart. Feng Ru can't tell fortunes, and he can't predict when the enemy will break through. He relies on his 3,000 men to surround 4,000 people. Every soldier is tense at every moment. As a The general cannot put pressure on the soldiers at this time. On the contrary, he has to find ways to relieve the pressure on the soldiers.
If a conflict breaks out with too many enemies, people will die. If they don't sleep well for three days in a row, the soldiers will go crazy. If the general puts more pressure on him, the roar of the camp will be waiting for him.
Strategy and tactics can determine the upper limit of battle, but it is organization that determines the lower limit. The so-called organization relies on management. Management is a far more complex knowledge than strategy and tactics. The physical and mental state of each soldier will be reflected in the collective at the moment the war begins. In terms of combat ability.
Therefore, Lin Chengdong's plan to break out was difficult. He thought he would face a huge army of three battalions, but in fact there was only one thousand headquarters in the east, one general headquarters in the south, north and northeast, and none in the west. people.
Among these besieging troops, two-thirds of the soldiers were sleeping, and the defense line was penetrated at the first opportunity.
Lin Chengdong's breakthrough was from the northeast. After opening a gap, the four thousand troops divided into four groups and rolled in on foot and cavalry, running towards Camel City.
Feng Lei urgently gathered 600 cavalry and followed closely. They caught up and defeated them all the way to Luotuo City. However, the person who played the biggest role in the battle was not him, but Wang Ziyong, who happened to appear in Luotuo City.
Wang himself brought more than 200 people, including two dozen artillerymen from Huang Shengxiao camp, a total of 24 people. The others were civilians who transported artillery to the high platform, including the Suzhou flag guard and the Sanjie congregation.
They didn't have any old grudges with Lin Chengdong. They showed up at Camel City just on the way, passing through Qingshui Fort to the Gobi Desert in the middle of Camel City. The Hequ horses dragging the artillery were so tired that they foamed at the mouth, so they could only stop for a while in Camel City. Plus rest.
As a result, they spent the whole night repairing. When they woke up in the morning, they saw groups of Ming troops heading toward Luotuo City. Not to mention the Sanjie Congregation and the Banner Army, the twenty-four soldiers from the Marshal's Artillery Corps were all frightened.
Camel City had long been in ruins, and the place where they rested was a defensive position built by Li Hongsi's troops.
When the Ming army came over, their lives would definitely be lost. Huang Shengxiao lost his twelve newly-cast cannons and could not spare them. With twelve thousand-jin red cannons and ammunition, he saw Feng Yu's soldiers behind them covered in dust. When the soldiers arrived, they stuffed their ammunition and opened fire on the Ming army without even thinking about it.
In a hurry, the twelve artillery pieces were quickly loaded and adjusted at different positions. None of the twelve artillery shells fired at very long intervals was accurate.
But the will they instilled in Lin Chengdong's breakout troops was very clear: the battlefield situation was different from what they imagined. The people stationed in Camel City were not friendly forces. Luotuo City had fallen, and they were now deep behind enemy lines.
They didn't know that Li Hongsi had led a superior force to pursue Gao Yingdeng, and they didn't know that Gansu Commander-in-Chief Yang Jiamo was in Qianhu City, Gaotai. They only knew that Deputy Commander-in-Chief Li Hongsi had led his troops to evacuate without calling them.
The breakout army, which had been out of contact for thirty days, had just regained its ability to perceive the battlefield. Although they were still an organized army, their morale quickly collapsed.
The four thousand troops were confused. They gave up on detecting the Luotuo City garrison in the rolling yellow sand and focused on chasing the main force of Li Hongsi's troops eastward.
When Liu Chengzong received the accurate news from Feng Yu's tribe, the entire main force besieged outside Gaotai City was still immersed in doubts about "what ran over".
Since Qingshui Fort to Gaotai City has become a supply route for the Marshal's Mansion, an army of 4,000 people passed through it, bringing Liu Chengzong seven or eight sources of information from different locations. In hindsight, Liu Chengzong realized that a very Important issues.
This army, which fled eastward like a big black mouse, probably didn't even know that Yang Jiamo was on the battlefield.
The fact was just as he had guessed. On the route of the escape from the carriage camp, the people who had surrendered to the Marshal's Mansion reported to Yin Ruyue, the commander-in-chief of the Craftsman Camp, many times. The Ming army repeatedly asked them for information. The focus of the intelligence was to ask about Li Hongsi's identity. Where did the main force go?
There was only half a day between before and after. On the evening of the day when Che Ying broke through, Feng Ru asked to see Liu Chengzong outside Gaotai City: "Commander, will our troops march into Ganzhou and continue the pursuit of Zhangye?"
Liu Chengzong thought for a moment and then said firmly to Feng Yu: "If we are going to pursue Ganzhou, have all the artillery and artillery chariots from the camp been taken away?"
"They haven't been taken away. They're still on the battlefield. I've left a handful to take care of them. They should have been accounted for by now."
"good!"
Liu Chengzong's tone seemed very exciting. He immediately put down the intelligence sent from various places and said to Feng Rui: "Go back, take all the camp equipment with you, and march into Ganzhou."
Feng Lei blinked and was stunned for a moment before asking: "The commander-in-chief wants us to serve as a chariot camp? If we go back to push the chariot, we won't be able to catch up with the Ming army."
Liu Chengzong waved his hand: "It doesn't matter, it's a small victory until they give up their heavy equipment."
He didn't say it clearly. In fact, he couldn't catch up with Lin Chengdong now. The soldiers led by that guy had been eating well for a month. The army ran with great energy. They ran for more than a hundred miles in a day and night. This guy just wanted to escape. , it would be too difficult for anyone to pursue him.
As long as all the heavy equipment of the car camp is left behind, Liu Shishi thinks that besieging them for a month is enough.
Even if it costs three battalions of one month's rations, it is still worth it to weaken the combat capabilities of Lin Chengdong's troops. What's more, the two to three hundred large and small artillery pieces alone are enough to close the gap in ration consumption. In addition, With nearly a thousand vehicles and scattered supplies, they won't lose in this battle.
But it's really not profitable, so Liu Shishi didn't show too much joy. He just planned to let Feng Yu set up a car camp. The imperial court had sent the equipment, so he didn't use it in vain.
However, just when Feng Rui went back to get the equipment and advanced to Ganzhou, something unexpected happened to Liu Chengzong. As Lin Chengdong broke through, the battle in Gansu actually unfolded in a strange way.
The first time Ganzhou City saw Feng Yu's tribe... Kaicheng surrendered.
When the news reached the Chinese military camp outside Gaotai City, Liu Shizi and his men were all stunned. He was bent on breaking Gaotai City with a force attack in order to give a preview of the future attack on Ganzhou City and avoid suffering greater losses in the future.
As a result, before the storming of Gaotaicheng began, Ganzhou City surrendered first, and what he never expected was that this was the second time Ganzhou City surrendered.
In fact, before Liu Chengzong knew it, the troops on Zhangye Oasis had already become one.
When Gao Yingdeng led his troops to move east, the veteran generals who were idle at home in Ganzhou City mobilized their servants to go to the city to guard the city. Later, Gao Yingdeng did not go to Ganzhou, and as soon as his troops withdrew, they discovered that the deputy commander-in-chief Li Hongsi was behind them. The army came in pursuit. At this time, the people of Ganzhou City were still attached to the soldiers and the people.
However, Li Hongsi's soldiers were in a hurry and their rations were not enough for their horses. So he made a fortune in Ganzhou. He personally entered the city of Ganzhou and asked the idle veterans and gentry to provide them with rations and horses. The soldiers returned in teams. Family, eat and drink in the place where your clan is located.
This behavior itself is normal. The Ming army is the legitimate ruler of this land, and the sources of the army are local military households and soldiers. There is nothing wrong with going home to replenish supplies before going to the battlefield.
The bad thing is that Li Hongsi didn't know that Zhang Tianlin was following him.
Before his army returned, Zhang Tianlin had already rushed into Ganzhou, causing chaos in Ganzhou.
Zhang Tianlin was not only a general in the Marshal's Office, but also the leader of an independent peasant army in the past. He didn't know that Li Hongsi dispersed his troops to various places. He just entered Ganzhou and spread them out in batches. The six commander-in-chiefs did not expect to occupy the place. , just let his generals use their imagination to spread all kinds of false news in every village and fort along the oasis.
Zhang Tianlin and Wang Ziyong belong to two extremes. Wang Ziyong is particularly good at using superstition and concepts to mobilize the people at the bottom, while Zhang Tianlin is just the opposite. He is good at using gentry to spread false news.
This was his specialty when he was traveling in northern Shaanxi. He tried to build forts and serve as bandits, but at that time he did not have the ability to fight head-on with the army. The people in the local area who survived by building forts and forts together with their clans, and Basically, it was like the situation in Heilongshan before Liu Chengzong's rebellion. The officers and soldiers were not willing to cooperate when they came, and the bandits were even willing to risk their lives when they came to rob.
In this case, there is no point in making rural covenants with the squires or doing work for the common people. It is better to circulate around and use them to spread panic and spread all kinds of false news, which will actually reduce the official and military organizations.
In Ganzhou, Zhang Tianlin picked up her old business.
In the blink of an eye, as his army advanced into Ganzhou, Yang Jiamo was captured, died, surrendered, and fled, Li Hongsi died and fled, the main force of the Ming army was annihilated, captured, and integrated, and even the Marshal's Mansion army had occupied Ganzhou. Rumors such as the state advancing to Liangzhou were flying in the sky in a few days.
In order to prevent the spread of rumors from shaking the morale of the army and the people, Li Hongsi had no choice but to give up the pursuit of Gao Yingdeng and assemble his troops to fight repeatedly against Zhang Tianlin's scattered troops on the Zhangye Oasis.
In a short period of time, Zhang Tianlin's army divided into six divisions was attacked everywhere. There were too many Ming troops in Ganzhou. One of his commanders was even intercepted three times by the army along the way in one day. The army lost its structure and ran all over the place. , the situation did not improve slightly until Gao Yingdeng led his army back.
The first surrender of Ganzhou City occurred when the organizational structure of Zhang Tianlin's and Li Hongsi's tribes was completely disrupted.
Zhang Tianlin led more than a hundred cavalry into Ganzhou City from the west gate. They occupied the city wall for an hour and a half. They fought in the streets while setting up magistrates, county magistrates and officials. When they rushed to the official warehouse to open a warehouse for grain storage, everything broke out in the city. He ordered all the embrasures of the cannons on the city to be nailed shut, and gunpowder was laid to blow up the gate hole of the west gate.
Then the Ming army attacked. Zhang Tianlin led three county officials across the market and ran out from the south gate, leaving only a handwritten flag of the Marshal's Mansion on the wall of Ganzhou. When the Ming army entered the city, the flag was removed. Throwing it under the city, Ganzhou City was announced to be recovered by the Ming army.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Zhangye Oasis has been on fire for more than half a month. At this juncture, Feng Yu's troops from the Marshal's Mansion entered Ganzhou with a complete car camp, which directly led to the rumors spread by Zhang Tianlin being confirmed. There were more troops stationed in various places along the way. The military bases and civilian villages with few or even no troops thought that the Marshal's Mansion had completely occupied Ganzhou.
Ganzhou City, whose west gate was blown down, was already short of defenders, and the cannons that nailed the embrasures were still being repaired by craftsmen. Faced with Feng Yu's troops coming, the defenders had no choice but to declare surrender for the second time.
After receiving such news, Liu Chengzong outside Gaotai City was also very excited. When Huang Shengxiao's troops escorted twelve artillery pieces to Gaotai, he immediately clapped with joy and said: "Ezhe, bring me a pen and paper. I want it." Tell General Feng to send the Ganzhou gentry to persuade him to surrender."
The adopted son Ezhe who was standing behind him quickly took a pen and paper and spread it on the table. While sharpening the ink, he asked doubtfully: "Father, the cannons have been brought, why are you trying to persuade him to surrender? Don't you mean that the chief military officer Won’t you surrender?”
Liu Chengzong picked out a pen, looked at E Zhe and laughed, rubbing his hands and saying: "The purpose of persuading him to surrender is not to make him surrender, but to weaken the defensive will of the defenders during the siege. Just wait and see, annihilate the Gansu border." The army’s general offensive is about to begin!”
good afternoon!
(End of chapter)
