When the Yazhou army fled to Jiajiang City, they counted their numbers and found that only 1,100 people were left. More than 400 people were left behind after only 70 miles along the way. Although he knew that the pursuers were urgent, seeing that all the soldiers were exhausted, Cao Zhizhou had no choice but to agree to go into the city to take a rest. The Yazhou Army only had dozens of war horses. Except for him and a few generals and soldiers who had horses, the rest of the soldiers walked, and they were very tired all the way. However, he ordered that he could only rest for an hour, because Jiajiang City was in dilapidated condition after the attack by the Yazhou Army. There was no food or equipment in the city, so it was impossible to hold on. Although the chasing cavalry could not attack the city, the city was destroyed as soon as the Perak Army arrived.
After resting for an hour, Cao Zhizhou gave the order to start heading towards Hongya County. He has sent a fast horse back to Yazhou and notified the garrison of Mingshan City and Yazhou City to come and respond. After a night and a morning of walking, one hour of rest is not enough. Most of the soldiers were still sore and now said they would never leave again. Cao Zhizhou was anxious and annoyed but had no choice but to scold the Yi and Fan soldiers for destroying Jiajiang City so seriously. But he forgot that when the Yi and Fan soldiers captured Jiajiang City, he also praised them greatly and praised them for their extraordinary bravery.
Cao Zhizhou knew that some of the soldiers were already out of strength, and even if they were forced to go on the road with a knife, they would not be able to move at all. At that moment, he took his plan to heart and appointed a primary school student who was also unable to walk as the magistrate of Jiajiang County. He asked him to lead more than 300 soldiers who could not walk to defend the city. He also had his flag planted on the city wall. above. After doing all this, he took the remaining 800 people and fled to Hongya County. Not long after he left, a cavalry company of the Perak Army chased him to the foot of Jiajiang City. They saw that the city gate was closed, soldiers were standing on the wall, and a banner with the word "Cao" was flying on the city wall. They mistakenly thought that Cao Zhizhou and Yazhou were the military capitals. In the city, he immediately dismounted from his horse and stopped to rest. As a forward company, they were exhausted from chasing all the way. As for the remaining four cavalry companies, they are still behind to capture the Yazhou soldiers who have fallen behind along the way.
As soon as the Pili Army cavalry battalion arrived, the Yazhou soldiers in Jiajiang City tied up the small school guarding the city, opened the city gate and surrendered. Xiao Xiao had only been the county magistrate for an hour, and now he woke up from a dream and realized that he was just Cao Zhizhou's shield and scapegoat. The cavalry battalion commander left a company to take care of the prisoners, and sent people to notify the Jiading garrison to take over Jiajiang City. He led four companies to pursue Hongya City, which was eighty miles away. After chasing for less than twenty miles, sporadic Yazhou soldiers were found. When they pursued for thirty miles, they caught up with the Yazhou soldiers, but Cao Zhizhou was not seen. After arresting a few primary schools and questioning them, it turned out that Cao Zhizhou had already fled with his personal troops when he saw that the situation was not good.
It took a lot of time to capture these hundreds of Yazhou soldiers. If there is a mountain forest not far from the official road, these Yazhou soldiers can easily disperse and hide in it. It's just that these Yazhou soldiers were already blinded by running, and their legs and feet were so weak that they couldn't escape at all. What's more important is that Yazhou is close to the Pili Army, and information is very smooth due to frequent business exchanges. They are aware of the Pili Army's prisoner policy - as long as there is no blood debt, ordinary soldiers will only be sentenced to two or three years of hard labor. Although mining is very hard, But as long as you complete your labor quota, you can still have enough to eat. After completing the hard labor, you can be free again. Whether you are farming or working in a factory, as long as you are willing to work hard, your life will be better than serving as a soldier under Cao Zhizhou.
Hongya County was also destroyed at the hands of Yi and Tibetan barbarians. The remaining people in the city were very angry at the Yazhou army who led the wolves into their homes. In addition, there was a shortage of food and grass and the city's defenses were dilapidated, so Cao Zhizhou did not stay in Hongya County, but returned to Mingshan City with the Mingshan Army who came to support him. When they arrived at the famous mountain, Cao Zhizhou decided not to retreat, but opened up his formation and decided to defend the city. Of course, he had no way to retreat. The successive defeats could no longer be described as losing troops and destroying the future, but a complete defeat. If he hadn't been entrenched in Yazhou for many years and his forces were entangled, the defeat of Jiading would have directly caused his rule to collapse.
Cao Zhizhou chose to stick to Mingshan City because the location of Mingshan City was extremely important. If Mingshan is lost, Yazhou City will be under the threat of the Pili Army. If Mingshan City is defended, they can wait for an opportunity to attack Baizhang Tuqiongzhou, or capture Hongya and attack Meizhou. The famous mountain was chosen because it was the richest county in Yazhou, and the money and food in the city were enough to support the army for a long period of fighting. At this time, in addition to a thousand troops stationed in Mingshan City, there were also 1,500 soldiers who came from Yazhou City and other places. This was Yazhou's last mobile force. The consumption of 2,500 troops is really not a small number for Yazhou, which is short of financial resources. Apart from the city, only famous mountains can support it.
Cao Zhizhou's confidence in holding on to the famous mountain lies in its strong city defense and large amount of civil engineering works. Since Cao Zhizhou had always been hostile to the Pili Army and often deliberately caused friction, he was afraid that Ouyang Xuan would attack in anger, so he fortified Mingshan City early. In response to the advantages of the Pili Army's artillery and cavalry, Mingshan City not only set up anti-gun caves and anti-gun trenches everywhere, but also dug criss-cross trenches and pits outside the city, and even diverted water to silt it up, creating many artificial mud ponds. It was June, and the small basin where Mingshan City was located was filled with soft rice fields, which greatly restricted the movement of cavalry and the construction of artillery positions.
In Cao Zhizhou's view, the soldiers in the famous mountain city had enough food and supplies to hold on for a period of time. If the main force of the Perak Army is blocked here, the Mongolian army from other directions may take the opportunity to attack Chongqing Mansion and even destroy the Perak Army. Therefore, he encouraged his subordinate generals that as long as they persisted, the situation would inevitably change and the Perak Army would have to retreat. At that time, the Yazhou Army will not only retake Meizhou and Jiading, but also Qiongzhou and Chongqing Prefecture. By then, all of you here will become magistrates and magistrates in charge of one place, needless to say, glory and wealth. Cao Zhizhou once again used his famous deception skills to create big and round cakes for his subordinates.
Seven days later, Cao Ergou led an infantry brigade to the foot of Mingshan City. In addition to the cavalry battalion chasing Cao Zhizhou, there was also a teaching brigade from the direction of Baizhang City. The total number of troops reached 3,000. Five hundred people. Before the arrival of the infantry brigade, the leading troops of the Perak Army had already fought several battles with the Yazhou Army. First, the Yazhou Army tried to use artillery on the city wall to bombard the cavalry approaching the city wall, but none of them hit the target; then they tried to attack the cavalry at night, but were buried. The landmines next to the camp exploded with blood and flesh flying everywhere; and then they tried to attack the teaching brigade that was digging and filling trenches. Unexpectedly, the Yibo soldiers of the Perak Army were extremely brave and beat the Yazhou Army to a pulp in hand-to-hand combat.
According to the orders of the General Staff, these troops will be under the unified command of General Cao Ergou. Just when he was deploying his troops to prepare for a big fight, the Yazhou army in Mingshan City opened the city gate and surrendered. They had been beaten badly in the battles with the cavalry battalion and the teaching brigade. Not only were they crushed by the cavalry, but they were also defeated miserably in hand-to-hand combat and night attacks. Now Cao Ergou came to Mingshan City with dozens of heavy artillery. Not only did he have far more people than the defenders, but his armament was even worse. Those field artillery were just a test firing of the school artillery, and their power was extremely frightening. If it were fired in salvo, the power would definitely destroy the world. If Cao Zhizhou doesn't surrender, he will be buried with all the people in the city, so why not borrow his head as a certificate of surrender?
