With the sound of a few cannons, the woods where there were only a small number of Manchurian cavalry with two yellow flags on guard nearby suddenly began to boil like a pot exploding.
Countless Qing cavalry suddenly poured out from the woods and rushed towards Niujiazhuang like a tide. The thunderous sound of horse hooves resounded throughout the battlefield and even the earth trembled slightly. In less than a stick of incense, the Qing army's forwards had already rushed two or three miles south of Niujiazhuang. Two cavalry battalions commanded by Li Yuanyin were guarding there. They were aware of the Qing ambush as soon as they came out.
Facing countless Qing troops, they could not retreat because the bloody battle in Niujiazhuang was still going on!
Huang Degong and Li Chengdong were both stunned from the fight and had a serious illusion that their troops could quickly drive the Qing army out of Niujiazhuang - as long as they could occupy Niujiazhuang, they could rely on favorable terrain to hold on for a while. .
This Niujiazhuang is not small! Before the Great Chaos, there was a large Zhuangzi with a population of two to three thousand, belonging to a huge Niu family. Although it is completely ruined now, the Niu family living here are either dead or have become refugees in the southeast, and some have fled to Qufu. The army, but the walls of Zhuangzi's house are still there, enough to squeeze in eight or nine thousand people.
As long as they can stay here, they will be able to hold on until the two divisions led by Zhu Cixiang arrive, and then they will win a complete victory!
Huang Degong and Li Chengdong, who were eager to win, underestimated the number of Qing troops who came out of the woods, thinking that they were only a few thousand, so they asked the cavalry on guard outside Niujiazhuang to delay the sudden attack of Qing troops.
At the same time, the Qing army commanded by Monk Du Lei was far more tenacious than Huang Degong and Li Chengdong imagined. Although they lost half of the village, the number of casualties and missing people exceeded a thousand. But they still clung to the remaining half of Zhuangzi, fighting for it house by house with the Ming army. The entire Niujiazhuang has turned into a flesh and blood mill. The soldiers of the two armies who fought with all their strength were all killed heavily. Human lives were being consumed as if they were free, but the battle situation was still a stalemate.
"Sir, there are too many Donglu ambush troops, far more than a few thousand. Brothers can't resist them at all!"
Li Yuanyin's voice suddenly came, interrupting Huang Degong and Li Chengdong who were discussing how to use their last strength to launch a fierce attack.
Li Chengdong turned around and saw his adopted son covered in blood, standing there with the support of two soldiers, with an anxious look on his young face.
"Sir, Mr. Huang, something bad is going on. There are too many Donglu ambush troops. They are boundless. I am afraid there are 20,000 or 30,000 people! Brothers, we can't stop it. We really can't stop it..."
"What? There are so many?" Li Chengdong took a breath.
Li Yuanyin's words were full of tears, "Sir, break out of the encirclement quickly! If you don't break out of the encirclement, it will be too late!"
As if to confirm that what he said was true, Li Chengdong and Huang Degong both noticed the sound of horse hooves like rolling thunder, and the roar of killing like roaring waves!
This is definitely not something that a few thousand people can create!
"Hushan, what should we do?" Li Chengdong had no idea for a moment.
Huang Degong's face turned livid, "We have no choice but to withdraw! Niujiazhuang cannot be defeated for a while, and there are twenty to thirty thousand Qing troops outside. If we don't withdraw, we will be dead..."
"Okay!" Li Chengdong nodded heavily, "I will lead the cavalry to kill the bloody way out, and Brother Hushan will lead the infantry to follow!"
Huang Degong sighed heavily: "Escape is as much as you can!"
Then the two of them looked at each other wordlessly, and then went to reorganize their troops and prepare to break out.
Li Chengdong's two battalions of cavalry had just fought outside Niujiazhuang and lost more than half. Now there are less than 400 cavalry left. Huang Degong still has some scattered cavalry on hand. They are all dead soldiers who have followed him for many years, and now they are all handed over to him. After Li Chengdong was captured, the two families gathered a total of 500 cavalry. They did not dare to attack north and rushed out from the east of Zhuangzi.
Huang Degong reorganized the infantry, leaving three to four hundred soldiers who were willing to die to contain the Qing army in Zhuangzi. He also left all the artillery behind, and all eight 3-pound cannons fired desperately towards the north to attract the attention of the Qing army. . Then Huang Degong personally led seven or eight thousand infantrymen and poured out of Niujiazhuang.
However, Huang Degong did not go too far. Thousands of taels of yellow flag cavalry rushed over like a flood!
These thousands of cavalry were the reserve troops led by the commander-in-chief of the rear wing (ambush) of the Qing army, Zhenai Xinjieluo Baiyintu, who set the yellow flag on the mountain forehead.
After Baiyintu commanded the ambush troops to fight out of the woods, he immediately divided the troops into three groups. One group was led by Gushan'er Zhen Tantai of Zhenghuang Banner, who rushed into Niujiazhuang to reinforce Du Lei; the other group was commanded by Suk Saha, Go around to the north of Niujiazhuang to cut off the Ming army's retreat; lead the way and wait in the south of Niujiazhuang.
After discovering that the Ming army had broken through from the east of Niujiazhuang, Baiyintu immediately led his cavalry to pursue them. At this time, most of the Ming army was in panic and could not maintain their array. When the Qing cavalry charged them, they were all thrown into chaos and fled in all directions. Only one battalion under the personal control of Huang Degong still maintained the formation of the Morris Square. They used long guns to cover their firecrackers and fired while walking. Not only were they not overwhelmed by the Qing army, they also repelled the successive attacks of several Qing troops. They killed and wounded hundreds of Eight Banners soldiers one after another.
Seeing this group of Ming soldiers fighting, Baiyintu was not willing to risk the lives of the Laoba Banner disciples, so he had to let them live and pursue other fleeing Ming soldiers - in fact, they couldn't pursue them very far, because Guishan They still need reinforcements!
Dorgon knew that he did not have much time - once the Ming army from Jinan Prefecture went south and reached the battlefield, the Qing Dynasty would really be over... So according to later statistics, the Ming army's number in the battle of Niujiazhuang The losses were not particularly heavy. Thousands of people followed Huang Degong and Li Chengdong to formally withdraw from the battlefield, and nearly 4,000 people returned to the army within half a month after the war. Although nearly half of them were lost, the structure of the twelve Morris infantry battalions can still be maintained. As long as enough soldiers and equipment are added, they can quickly recover.
The Qing army's losses on the Niujiazhuang battlefield were close to 2,000 people, which was almost two and a half Ming troops for one Qing army Nine Flags soldier.
Whether such an exchange is worth it or not, Emperor Amadorgun has to calculate it carefully on his fingers!
Before the fierce battle at Niujiazhuang was over, a generation of Confucian commander Shi Kefa had already begun to "stop losses on the battlefield."
He, Gao Hongtu, and Zuo Maodi were able to persist for so long on the Shandong battlefield. Of course, their "battlefield stop loss" skills were good.
They won't shed the last drop of blood with passion!
Shandong's resistance to the Qing Dynasty was a protracted war. How could it last if we died? Only by being defeated but not dying can we be defeated repeatedly and be truly durable!
Therefore, when Shi Kefa and others set up their formation on Turtle Mountain, they were already ready to retreat. More than a thousand people were divided into several teams, carrying a large number of flags, drums and trumpets to ambush on Horseshoe Mountain and Yunmeng Mountain, about 20 miles north of Guishan. A small car city was built with shields, vehicles and cattail bags filled with grain and grass.
But the most important thing is that Shi Kefa and Gao Hongtu grasped the timing of starting to run away very well, and they didn't take any chances. When they discovered that the situation in Niujiazhuang had changed drastically, they immediately abandoned their baggage and vehicles, divided themselves into several groups and rushed down Guishan Mountain, and retreated to Yunmeng Mountain and Horse Ti Mountain to the north.
At this time, Dorgon's army was still scattered across a front that was more than ten miles wide, and the middle road was still fighting hard with the Ming army on Guishan. The left wing had just completed its detour and spread out on the right side of the Ming army's vehicle formation. The right wing of the Qing army, including the four to five thousand men stationed at Lizhuang, were busy chasing Huang Degong and Li Chengdong's defeated troops.
Dorgon's own team had just set off from Baijiacun and advanced forward.
However, Dorgon still refused to give up. In today's battle, he has not won enough, and his losses are not small. If he does not take advantage of this opportunity to pursue and kill him, what capital does he have to fight with him? Emperor Zhu negotiates peace?
A burst of military drums resounded across the battlefield, and more than 40,000 cavalrymen from the Qing army's center and left wing began their pursuit operations one after another! The cavalry and mounted infantry wearing four-color armor spread over the white field like a tide, and hundreds of thousands of horse hooves beat on the earth like raindrops. For a moment, it seemed as if the whole world was shaking.
The power of the tens of thousands of cavalry charging reached its climax at this moment. The palace army left behind by Shi Kefa was quickly overwhelmed by the torrent of Qing cavalry.
After a fierce but short rearguard battle, a one-sided scene soon appeared on the Guishan battlefield.
But it was one-sided, which also meant that the main force of the Ming army was retreating quickly...
