No, don't retreat, gather all the soldiers and horses, march to Lingqiu, this group of traitors will be completely wiped out. "Zhang Huai said with a cold face.
Before coming, he felt a little regretful at the thought of clearing the tiger-character flag. After all, the tiger-character flag brought him a considerable amount of money.
But after the war horse was poisoned last night, he understood that since the people in the Tiger Flag could poison the war horse, they might also come into the room at night to murder him. For his own safety, the Tiger Flag could not be left behind.
"Sir, we lost so many war horses at once, which not only weakened our own strength, but also made the generals below very dissatisfied." Li Kaiyang reminded.
The war horses of the soldiers and servants were purchased with money from the generals of each family and had nothing to do with the court. If the horses were poisoned, the losses would be those of the generals.
Zhang Huai gave Li Kaiyang a cold look and said: "It is the imperial court's will to suppress rebellion. If anyone dares to disturb the morale of the army, I can chop off his head right now."
"I will go and appease the generals below." Li Kaiyang said with a cupped hand, then turned and walked out of the house.
At this moment, Zhang Huai said again: "Tell them that the people from the Tiger Character Banner came to poison our horses last night, which shows that they are panicked. It also proves that the Tiger Character Banner has no soldiers and horses in Minlingqiu, and the Tiger Character Banner The flag has gold, mountains and silver. As long as we defeat a group of rebels, are we still worried that we won’t have enough money to buy more war horses in the future?”
"Don't worry, sir. I will definitely let the other generals know what you said." Li Kaiyang hugged Zhang Huai and then left the room.
Zhang Huai, who was standing in the house, glanced at the copper basin buckled on the ground and shouted outside the house: "Come here, get a basin of water. I'm about to wash up."
The soldiers outside the door came in, picked up the copper basin on the ground, and went outside to fetch water again.
An hour later, the army's soldiers and horses left Zhuangzi.
There were thousands of soldiers and horses when they arrived, and almost everyone had a horse to travel with them, but when they left, the number of horses was reduced by half.
Without nearly half of the horses, the marching speed of the official army was slowed down. The distance that you could have covered in one hour was forced to take two more hours, and it was already past noon when you reached the ground of Lingqiu.
"Sir, thirty miles ahead is Xujiazhuang, the hometown of the Tiger Flag. Let's give the team a rest first and let the servants of each family eat something." Li Kaiyang suggested.
Zhang Huai glanced around and saw that many people in the team were listless, especially the servants who had no horses, and began to stumble and lose strength when walking.
Seeing this, he knew that the team could not continue to move forward, otherwise many soldiers and servants would collapse from exhaustion before they reached the Tiger Flag's lair.
"Give me the order to stop advancing and rest on the spot."
The army stopped, and the soldiers and servants who were rushing on two legs sat on the ground one after another. Some people simply lay on the ground, breathing heavily.
Soldiers and servants who have war horses cannot rest after dismounting. Instead, they take care of their horses, feed them some fine food, feed them some water, and take good care of their horses, so that they have a chance to rest.
More than half an hour later, Zhang Huai led the army to continue advancing.
"Sir, look at the river bank over there." Li Kaiyang pointed to the river bank in the distance and said, "I have long heard that Tiger Character Banner built many waterwheels to irrigate the fields. I didn't expect this to be true."
Zhang Huai turned his head and looked over.
Just on the far bank of the river, waterwheels stood there, unusually conspicuous.
"With these water trucks here, the nearby fields are irrigated with the best water, and one acre can yield several bushels more harvest." Li Kaiyang said with emotion.
Many people in Datong know that Huzi Banner has a waterwheel for irrigation, but no one has ever built a waterwheel by themselves. Building a waterwheel costs a lot of money. Their land is rented to tenant farmers, so how can they spend their own money on it? The money was used to build waterwheels for the tenants.
Zhang Huai said: "Go back and destroy the Tiger Flag. You can take those waterwheels away as you wish."
"I finally heard that these fields irrigated by water trucks all belong to the Tiger Flag." Li Kaiyang looked at Zhang Huai.
Zhang Huai narrowed his eyes and said, "Are you concerned about it?"
"It's natural for people to like such a well-watered field." Li Kaiyang admitted frankly.
Zhang Huai raised his hand and touched his chin and said: "If you take these lands, you need to give up the other benefits of the Tiger Flag to others."
"This is natural." Li Kaiyang said.
Seeing that Li Kaiyang agreed, Zhang Huai said: "After destroying the Tiger Flag, we need to go to Lingqiu County. Then you can handle the affairs in these places by yourself."
"Thank you, sir." Li Kaiyang bowed on the horse.
The officers and soldiers walked south along the official road, approaching Xujiazhuang outside Lingqiu City.
Just five miles away from Xujiazhuang, there is an empty field with mountains on one side and an official road below, connecting Guangling and Lingqiu County.
"Master, the soldiers and horses of the army are here." The sentry horse galloping from a distance came to Liu Heng to report.
Liu Heng picked up the monocular telescope in his hand, stood on a high place and looked towards the other end of the official road.
Through the monocular, he saw several large flags erected on the official road, and the surrounding soldiers and horses were approaching.
"Send an order to the artillery team and tell them to be ready to attack the officers head-on." Liu Heng gave the order to the order soldiers around him.
A messenger ran towards the direction of the artillery team.
Liu Heng then said to a young and strong man in front of him: "In a moment, the official army will attack. You, the fifth soldier, will face the enemy head on. Remember, you must not let the official army's cavalry break through from you."
"I understand." The Fifth Soldier Battalion agreed.
Liu Heng waved his hand at him and said, "Go ahead, your military camp has too many new recruits, and you still need to hold down the formation."
"Yes." The fifth combat soldier camp turned around and retreated from Liu Heng's breakthrough, returning to the fifth combat soldier camp.
There is a large banner standing next to Liu Heng, with a tiger flag on a black background flying in the wind.
"Can we win this battle?" Zhao Yutu asked hesitantly.
Liu Heng looked forward and said without looking back: "Don't worry, we will win this battle. You and I both know the virtues of the officers and soldiers. They have no chance of winning this battle."
"Those are officers and soldiers! And they are all the personal servants around the general. They are far more powerful than the soldiers in the main camp." Zhao Yutu said worriedly.
Liu Hengguo turned around and said with a smile: "No matter how powerful they are, they can still be more powerful than the Mongolian cavalry brought by Su Nang. Even the Mongolian iron weapons are no match for our Tiger Flag warriors."
"That's right, even the invincible iron weapons of the Mongols were defeated by our hands. No matter how powerful the soldiers and horses brought by Zhang Huai are, they can't be stronger than the iron weapons of the Mongols." Zhao Yutu's worries subsided a little.
But he still didn't completely let go. Fighting against the official army and fighting against the northern captives were two different things after all.
