The news that two groups of officers and soldiers appeared near Xinping Fort was known to Zhang Hong in the city early.
All the soldiers and horses of the Second Battle Division were already stationed in Xinpingbao City at this time.
Xinpingbao is a large castle, enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people living a normal life inside.
After the Ming Dynasty and the Tumut Ministry opened mutual trade, Xinpingbao served as an important frontier fort. It became a place where merchants often appeared. Slowly, merchants began to move their families to live in Xinpingbao.
This also allowed Xinpingbao, a purely military border fort, to gradually become a dual-use military and civilian border fort. There were far more people living here than there were soldiers in the fort.
However, after Du Yan captured Xinpingbao, some of the merchants living in Xinpingbao moved away from Xinpingbao.
For businessmen, they can do business with the Tiger-Character Banner, but they will never help the Tiger-Character Banner deal with the court. Now the court wants to deal with the Tiger-Character Banner and continue to stay in Xinpingbao. Once the imperial army arrives in the future, it will be easy to recognize them. Cheng and Huziqi are in the same group.
As businessmen, they will never take this risk. Even if they lose some money, they will leave Xinpingbao temporarily and wait to move back to Xinpingbao in the future.
Later, the news that the imperial army was coming to Xinping Fort reached Xinping Fort, and some people in the fort also began to move away.
Every common people is willing to suffer military disasters.
For the people, even if they move away from their hometowns and suffer from hunger outside, it is still much better than staying in the fort and waiting to suffer military disasters.
As a result, there are very few people and merchants left in Xinping Fort. The vast majority of the people in the fort are soldiers of the Second Battle Division of Tiger Character Banner, and there are also some original soldiers who guarded Xinping Fort.
"Shizheng, the two armies of the government army have just arrived during the day. It is the time when they are most tired. Tonight is the right time to sneak attack their camp and defeat these two armies in one fell swoop." Pan Yi said to Zhang Hong.
Zhang Hong smiled and said, "What? Are you, Pan Yingzheng, still afraid that you won't be able to defend Xinping Fort?"
"Despite the virtues of the Xuanfu and Datong border troops, they still want to capture Xinping Fort from us and realize their spring and autumn dream." Pan Yi curled his lips disdainfully.
Except on the grasslands, the soldiers and horses of the Tiger Flag rarely appear in large numbers in the Ming Dynasty. Most of them appear as escorts of accompanying convoys, and the number is not large.
But for the border troops stationed in Xuanfu and Datong, as long as they are willing, it is not difficult to figure out what the strength of the border troops is.
In particular, the Ming Dynasty's border troops have always been potential enemies of the Tiger-Character Banner. People from the Tiger-Character Banner have always been aware of the specific strength of the border army, and even know the armaments of the border army clearly.
Zhang Hong said with a smile: "You have already said that you are not afraid of the army coming to attack the city, so why take the risk to attack the army camp at night?"
Attacking camps at night has always been a task carried out by a small number of soldiers and horses. They relied on the darkness to make the enemy unclear about the situation and suffered a heavy blow to the enemy's camp.
But again, once the enemy is prepared, it will be difficult to succeed, and it will be easier for the enemy to swallow it up. After all, there should not be too many people in a sneak attack at night.
"It's a pity not to attack with such a good opportunity," Pan Yi said regretfully.
Zhang Hong shook his head slightly and said: "With the strength of our Tiger Flag soldiers, there is no need to attack the enemy camp at night. Even if the imperial army comes to attack the city openly, there is nothing we can do to attack the camp. This kind of thing is too risky. Once it fails, not only will we lose soldiers and horses, but it will also damage the morale of the army, and it will completely outweigh the gain."
He did not support sneak attacks on the official and military camps.
In a head-on battle, he was fully confident. He did not think that Tiger Flag needed to do something like a sneak attack on the army camp to increase its chances of victory.
"Since Shi Zheng did not agree to sneak attack the enemy's camp, my subordinates defeated them openly and openly." Pan Yi said.
Without the consent of General Zhang Hong, his battalion could not lead troops out of the city to sneak attack on the enemy's camp.
Zhang Hong said: "Since the imperial army has arrived, I'm afraid it's time to attack the city in the next two days. Which camp will stay on the city wall tonight?"
"It's the subordinate camp." Pan Yi said.
Zhang Hong added: "Tell your people to be alert at night. We will not sneak attack on the army camp. They might attack us overnight."
"Don't worry, Master. I've sent extra sentries tonight. Not even a mosquito can fly into the city from outside the city." Pan Yi assured, patting his chest.
At night, Tiger Flag has its own patrol team, which will be replaced every once in a while. It will never be like the official army who falls asleep on duty in the middle of the night.
After all, the Tiger Character Banner is a new force with strict military regulations and disciplines. In addition, it is far superior to the Ming Army in all aspects, so it is very difficult to sneak attack the Tiger Character Banner's camp.
The night passed quickly.
After dawn, the various military camps in the Tiger Flag began to cook rice.
Because of the arrival of the imperial army, Zhang Hong had to eat and drink well and have enough strength to appear on the battlefield. He had been eating meat every day for the past few days.
The big meat buns in the morning were prepared early by people from the cooking team and delivered to each soldier one by one in a basket.
The soldiers guarding the city wall were also replaced by the team that had eaten and rebelled first.
Zhang Hong stood on the city wall, accompanied by Pan Yi.
He held a single-channel telescope in his hand and looked in the direction of the military camp in the distance.
However, because it was too far away, the official camp could not be seen at all, but the official cavalry appearing near Xinpingbao could still be seen through the monocular telescope.
Yang Guozhu put down the military book in his hand and asked, "Did he make any demands?"
"That's not true. I agreed very happily." As soon as Xue Mugang finished speaking, he seemed to have thought of something, and then added, "I asked about the cannon. The student told Mr. Wang that we have prepared twelve general cannons."
Yang Guozhu nodded and said: "He is not completely a fool. He also knows that Tiger Character Banner has prepared cannons in Xinpingbao City to defend the city."
Xue Mu, who was standing below, twitched the corners of his mouth and did not dare to answer.
His own commander-in-chief could call the other commander-in-chief a idiot, but he did not dare to challenge him at this time. If word got out, Wang Bao would be unable to do anything to his commander-in-chief, but it would be extremely easy to deal with one of his own staff.
"Don't think that the general called him a idiot because he was deliberately humiliating him." Yang Guozhu said, "If he hadn't allowed the Tiger Flag to grow in Xuan Mansion, how would Liu Heng have the strength to go north to the grassland to conquer the Tumote tribe? It's even more shocking. What’s annoying is that the dignified commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu actually allowed Tiger Character Banner to build forts on the grassland outside Zhangjiakou. Do you think he is a fool?”
As he spoke, he snorted coldly.
He believed that the tiger-character flag could become bigger because of the laissez-faire of the generals in Datong and Xuanfu.
It's a pity that he was no longer the commander-in-chief at that time, so it would be difficult to mobilize the border troops. If he were the commander-in-chief of either place in these two places, he would never give Tiger Character Banner a chance to increase its strength.
