"These southerners are quite brave, they actually dare to pursue our Qing warriors!"
On the mountain ridge, stood several Tatar generals with bright helmets. They looked at the Ming army chasing down the mountain, and their faces were full of excitement.
Behind these Tatar generals, the hills and slopes behind the mountains were filled with fine Tatar knights wearing iron armor.
Looking at their uniforms and flags, it turns out that the Tatars have men and horses from all banners, including the red flag, the red flag, the white flag, the white flag, and the blue flag. Although the number of people in each banner varies, the total number is nearly 30,000. They He sat steadily on his horse, his eyes flashing with blood-devouring light.
The military flags of the Tatars waved, and groups of Tatars followed the orders and rushed towards the mountains. The mountains and plains were covered with various Tatar flags and armors, covering the sky and the sun, and the momentum was astonishing.
Liu Zhaoji, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong Army, looked slightly panicked. He reined in his horse and shouted: "Get the team together quickly, and hold on to the infantry camp."
The more than 600 servants under his command immediately divided into several teams, galloped towards the edges of the cavalry formation, loudly conveyed the general's orders, and urged the chasing knights to form a semicircle formation and stand firm to wait for reinforcements.
Fortunately, all the knights are veterans, and they all know that if they turn around and run away at this time, there will only be one result: being chased to death like a rabbit being chased by hounds!
After Liu Zhaoji waited for the servants to rush back to him, he raised his mace again and shouted: "My sons, Marshal Yang will be here with his army in Xuanzhen. We can't offend the men of Liaodong today."
kill. Kill slaves. Kill slaves..."
…………
When Yang Guozhu led the cavalry and hurriedly arrived not far to the north of Xingshan, the troops under the command of Liu Zhaoji, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, were engaged in a bloody battle with tens of thousands of Tatar cavalry.
After Liu Zhaoji was ambushed, he also knew that he could not flee directly, otherwise no one would survive and the whole army would definitely be annihilated.
He personally led his servants and all the fine cavalry to resist the Tatar cavalry, and sent another group of cavalry to meet the infantry camp to form a formation to rescue them. Then they formed a chariot formation and stayed in place, with both infantry and cavalry huddled in the chariot formation. They only used guns, cannons, bows and arrows to shoot at the Tatars.
Although the Tatar cavalry changed from a three-sided siege to a four-sided siege and killed many Ming troops, they were unable to break through Liu Zhaoji's chariot formation for a while.
However, after all, the Tatar cavalry had an obvious numerical advantage, and their infantry and mounted fire were very fierce. It was obvious that they had the advantage on the battlefield, and it was only a matter of time before they broke through the base of Liu Zhao of the Ming army.
At the critical moment, Yang Guozhu, the commander-in-chief of Xuanzhen, arrived first with his elite cavalry. He urgently ordered his general Guo Yingxian to lead two thousand elite cavalry into the battle from the south and immediately rescued Liu Zhaoji's Liaodong army.
And he led more than a thousand elites in the rear sweep formation, and also expanded a stable line of defense for the subsequent infantry and camp troops to prevent them from being scattered by the Tatar cavalry before the formation was formed.
Guo Yingxian led more than 2,000 cavalry to suddenly attack the Tatars in a sharp formation. They appeared suddenly. Although the Tatar sentries had already discovered Yang Guozhu's reinforcements, they did not expect that they would directly join the battle.
The flags changed again and again, and the Tatar cavalry surrounding Liu Zhaoji's army to the south fought and retreated on both sides. After they merged with the Tatar cavalry in the rear, they were waiting for the whole team to launch a countercharge against Guo Yingxian's troops, and then combined them with Liu Zhaoji's troops. Everyone gathered together.
But I saw another puff of smoke billowing in the distance to the south. Driven by Yang Guozhu's personal cavalry, some Tatars were rushing back to the main formation, shouting something!
After a while, a bright red flag appeared in the south, and neat and heavy footsteps followed one after another. "Rumble" from far to near, an infantry array of thousands of people appeared in front of the warring parties.
Yang Guozhu commanded his subordinates who had caught up to attack He Zhenxiong, quickly formed a formation, and moved closer to the direction of Liu Zhaoji's vehicle formation. He also waved the tiger gun in his hand, and led his servants to rush towards the Tatar cavalry, which was running to the north with more than a thousand people.
Later, Tang Xiancheng, the commander of Yang Guozhu's command, arrived with more than 2,000 infantry troops. They formed another infantry formation outside Liu Zhaoji's vehicle formation and fought relying on the guerrilla He Zhenxiong's infantry formation.
Although the Tatar cavalry numbered nearly 30,000, they started to attack Xingshan Fort, then attacked Liu Zhaoji's chariot formation, and then ambushed Liu Zhaoji's soldiers and horses. After such continuous battles for a long time, they were already a little tired.
At this moment, they saw that Yang Guozhu's troops were well-organized and their morale was high. They tried to attack for a while, but they failed to gain any advantage.
Just like Liu Zhaoji's chariot, Yang Guozhu's camp was also accompanied by chariots with long spears. When the chariots stood up together, the dense spear points pointed outward like hedgehogs, and the Tatar war horses did not dare to approach at all.
At the same time, Yang Guozhu was also slightly influenced by Zhang Cheng because he was in Xuanzang with Zhang Cheng. The Xincao Infantry under his command had many firearms such as fire blunderbuss and bird blunderbuss.
They fired several volleys of cannons, and the attacking Tatar cavalry fell down. Many war horses were frightened by the huge roar and retreated repeatedly. Seeing that they could not break Yang Guozhu's foot formation for a while, the Tatar cavalry stopped attacking.
After the Tatar cavalry retreated, they did not leave. They still feigned attacks in the distance for a while. Apart from attacking with cavalry and shooting, they never dared to engage in close combat with the Ming army again.
After all, they had also received reports from sentries. Most of the Ming army was not far away and were rushing towards this side.
At this moment, Liu Zhaoji also led his cavalry to rush out of the car formation and formed a formation on the east side to wait for the Tartar thieves, echoing the fine cavalry of Yang Guozhu's troops on the west side. Behind Liu Zhaoji's infantry formation, Yang Guozhu's infantry battalions formed two Car array.
The two sides continued to stalemate for a while. Seeing that the Ming army was closely coordinating with each other, the Tatars also knew that there would be no advantage to be taken advantage of today, so they did not dare to stay long for fear that they would be besieged when most of the Ming army arrived.
Therefore, when the sky was almost dark, the Tatars from all the banners on the opposite side formed formations and slowly retreated towards Songshan. Before retreating, they launched another feint attack and took the opportunity to recapture some Tatar corpses, but there were still more than a hundred Tatar corpses. It was too close to the Ming army and could not be snatched back.
This ambush battle led by the Tatar thieves ended. Afterwards, both the Tatar thieves and the Ming army declared themselves to be the victorious party.
…………
The Ming army's sentry riders galloped up the mountains, constantly looking around and detecting. After confirming that the Tatars had retreated, they began to count the men and horses and clean up the killing field.
Liu Zhaoji was obviously a little frustrated. In the fierce battle just now, the casualties of his soldiers were as high as more than 1,000 people. Even including the previous defensive battle on the hillside, the casualties of his entire army in the past half day were more than 2,000 people. , the number of dead in the war was almost a thousand, and many chariots were destroyed by the Tartar thieves.
He sighed heavily in his heart. These subsequent casualties were unnecessary: "Oh, don't chase after poor enemies. I am also experienced in fighting. Why have I forgotten this? I just blame myself for being too greedy for merit!"
But fortunately, although the casualties were indeed quite heavy, and dozens of tanks were destroyed, he still had more than 500 heads of Tatar thieves.
This is the most important thing. Compared with the previous records of the Ming army against the Tartars, this is a shocking victory.
Of course, compared with Zhang Cheng's achievements in killing Yue Tuo and Ma Zhan in the 11th year of Chongzhen, it is still a little worse, but it is a military achievement that can only be encountered but cannot be obtained.
With these Tatar heads, not only is my position as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong secure, but I am afraid that I will never be able to enjoy this record in my lifetime. What does the loss of soldiers and horses mean?
But there was another thing that Liu Zhaoji found a little difficult to deal with. That was the fact that he was ambushed by Tatar thieves because he was greedy for power, and he still needed to make some modifications.
He looked at Yang Guozhu, the commander-in-chief of Xuanzhen, who was directing the soldiers to clean the battlefield not far away. He seemed to be struggling in his heart. Suddenly, he seemed to have made up his mind and strode towards Yang Guozhu.
