Before leading his troops out of the mountain, Luo Zhixue had already brought Lushan County into his own hands.
Although Luo Zhixue has no plans to attack Lushan County for the time being in order to avoid irritating the main force of the Ming army too much, the vast rural area of Lushan County is what Luo Zhixue is determined to win.
As long as we can attack several large estates in the countryside of Crushan County, even if the grain and other materials harvested from them are not as much as those harvested from Songjiazhuang, it will be enough for the Baoxiang Camp to develop and grow for a period of time.
This is what Luo Zhixue has been doing recently. After taking the Songjiazhuang, he organized manpower to transport supplies. At the same time, he also continued to send small-scale troops to the surrounding villages to recruit soldiers, requisition food from local lords, and attack those who did not Landowners willing to pay for grain.
Luo Zhixue and the others did not requisition food from the poor, but that did not mean they did not treat their opponents, the landlords and gentry.
Otherwise, why would they come out with such fanfare to protect their rural areas?
Recently, the Baoxiang Camp has recruited soldiers and grain from the western area of Lushan County headed by Songjiazhuang, including parts of the eastern and back areas, and has gained a lot.
According to estimates, the food and various resources they obtained from this operation are enough to allow them to expand to 2,000 people and maintain it for more than a year and a half.
In response to this situation, Luo Zhixue has instructed An Yongduo of the Staff Office to increase the previously set expansion scale of 1,000 people to 2,000 people.
And increased the scale of high-tech arms such as artillery and cavalry.
The officers and soldiers in Lushan County could only huddle in and couldn't control them, and the main force of officers and soldiers in the north was held back. Baoxiang Camp could have had fun in the countryside of Lushan County, but I didn't expect it. Chuang Potian and his group suddenly ran over.
The front foot said he wanted Luo Zhixue to be his adopted son, and the back foot sent people to plunder.
Such behavior is tantamount to directly grabbing food from Luo Zhixue's Baoxiang camp, and not only stealing it, these people also want to smash the bowl in Lushan County directly.
After understanding these situations, Luo Zhixue did not hesitate and directly sent Wang Xiazi to lead the cavalry to go north first. At the same time, Luo Zhixue also personally led hundreds of infantry and artillery to go north.
No matter who it is, whoever dares to undermine the overall situation of Baoxiang Camp in Lushan County and destroy the expansion plan formulated by Luo Zhixue is the enemy of Baoxiang Camp and the enemy of Luo Zhixue.
As a result, the current scene appeared. Chuang Potian's nephew Ding Potian led his army southward to about eight miles away from Songjiazhuang, and was intercepted by a cavalry sentry led by Wang Xiazi.
And Ding Potian even regarded Wang Xiazi and his cavalry as officers and soldiers.
Because Wang Xiazi and his cavalry are so neat in appearance, not only wearing gray military uniforms, but also advancing and retreating in a neat formation, and each of them is carrying an infantry bow and a riding bow. You can tell at a glance that they are engaged in mounted archery. Elite.
Such cavalry are very rare in the rebel army. Even if there are, only a few are under the command of Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong and other big bandit leaders.
But Ding Potian is very sure that among the various rebel armies that are attacking Ruzhou now, there is absolutely no such elite cavalry.
Faced with this "elite cavalry of officers and soldiers" who could not come out of nowhere, he was extremely frightened. While ordering the army to form a defensive formation, he quietly gathered all his elite subordinates in order to prepare for the bad situation. Escape at any time.
But unlike what Ding Potian expected, the army cavalry on the opposite side did not attack immediately, and they did not even attack the cannon fodder young men who had no fighting ability at first glance.
Instead, he stayed on the side while still going around to the north.
This is not right!
Intuition told Ding Potian that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out why for a while.
He did not expect that Luo Zhixue's task for Wang Xiazi was to hold them back and prevent these thieves from turning around and running away.
This was the reason why Wang Xiazi did not launch an attack, but detoured directly to their north, in order to imitate their turn and flee north.
As for the south, the infantry and artillery army led by Luo Zhixue himself is already on its way, and the distance is not far away. According to the itinerary, it is estimated that it will be able to reach the combat position in about half an hour.
Then, in the midst of overwhelming panic, he saw a group of flags appearing one after another in the south. Looking further, he could see groups of soldiers approaching one after another.
These soldiers were all in gray uniforms like the cavalry who had arrived and held them back before.
Seeing the large group of soldiers on the opposite side approaching, Ding Potian finally came back to his senses at this moment: "They are not officers and soldiers, they are people from Funiu Mountain."
Although these people from Funiu Mountain looked similar to the officers and soldiers in his influence except for their military uniforms, the color of the uniforms looked wrong.
As for Lushan County, apart from the officers and soldiers and their Chuang Po Tian Division, the remaining troops were the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp.
But Ding Po Tian came back to his senses and could not affect the current situation at all.
The soldiers of the Baoxiang Battalion on the opposite side were still advancing step by step, and after reaching a distance of 500 meters, they gradually changed from column to horizontal formation, and began to form a standard dense formation.
When Ding Potian looked at the Baoxiang camp opposite, he pulled out several artillery pieces, and there were even two 600-pound long cannons that he knew were big guys at a glance.
He knew immediately that he could not win today, so the only solution now was to run away.
However, he looked at the more than a hundred Baoxiang battalion cavalry at the side and rear and frowned.
If it weren't for the cavalry of more than a hundred people watching eagerly from the side, Ding Potian would have actually led the army to retreat long ago.
However, if he retreated without hesitation, the entire army would be destroyed for sure, and he didn't care. The key point was that even if he wanted to escape with more than two hundred soldiers, it would be impossible.
After all, two legs cannot outrun four legs.
what to do?
Ding Potian watched as the bandit army in front continued to approach, and even the first two long-barreled artillery had arrived just over a hundred feet away from their array when they began to untie their draft horses and make final deployments.
He knew that he could not drag it out any longer and had to evacuate immediately, otherwise his life would be decided here.
He is not an ordinary bandit who knows nothing. He is a bandit leader who has fought many times with officers and soldiers. He knows very well that once the artillery on the opposite side is deployed, what awaits them is one-sided casualties.
And they don't even have the means to fight back.
Because they have no artillery and no large-scale cavalry.
"Charge and rush over. Don't let them complete their deployment. Quick, launch an attack immediately!"
"The Chinese army fell into the camp and charged with armor. They lined up to stop their cavalry."
At this last moment, Ding Potian finally gritted his teeth and made a decision. He ordered a full-scale attack. Not only did he let the cannon fodder and ordinary thieves launch the attack together, he also ordered the Chinese army, which was mainly composed of two hundred soldiers. The military camp also launched an attack.
After giving this order, he ordered to his close soldiers: "As soon as the trapped camp attracts the attention of the rebel cavalry, we will leave immediately!"
These confidants of Ding Potian have also experienced many big scenes, and they have escaped from being surrounded by officers and soldiers many times with Ding Po Tian. They are very familiar with the scene in front of them.
It's clearer what to do directly.
About thirty soldiers gathered around Ding Po Tian, making final preparations, tightening the saddle, and checking whether the bow and arrows were placed in the most convenient place.
They are about to abandon the two thousand troops and break out alone to escape!
At the same time, the army of two thousand ordinary bandits and young cannon fodder, along with two hundred bandit warriors trapped in the camp, had already launched an attack.
At this time, Luo Zhixue, who was wearing a winter military uniform and black leather gloves and riding a tall horse, looked at the bandits rushing towards him in a chaotic manner.
There was no change in the expression on his face, he just said calmly: "It's better for them to come here by themselves, it will save us the time."
"Command the artillery sentry to each team to fire freely."
"Pressure at the first and second whistles!"
Not long after Luo Zhixue's order was issued, the guns of the artillery posts, still commanded by Zhang Malin himself, opened fire one after another.
Amidst the rumbling sound of artillery, solid artillery shells and a large number of shrapnel flying horizontally, causing the thieves to fall one after another. Just one round of artillery bombardment made the opposite side seem to be huge, with nearly 2,000 troops attacking with one momentum. Stopped, many people were so frightened that they knelt down on the spot, or simply turned around and ran away.
On the other side, the two hundred trapped soldiers among the thieves also formed a formation and killed Wang Xiazi's cavalry sentry!
There were quite a few infantry archers among these thief soldiers. Just when Wang Xiazi was hesitating whether to retreat temporarily to consume their physical energy first, and then wait for the infantry to come and encircle and suppress this thief army soldiers.
The subordinate next to him reminded Wang Xiazi: "Something's not right!"
"Look, the sentry, they have gathered at least twenty riders."
Blind Wang looked in the direction of his men's knowledge, and sure enough, at least twenty riders had quietly gathered behind the rebel army.
What do these thief cavalry want to do?
Take the initiative to fight out?
It's impossible. Although today's battle actually lasted only a few dozen seconds, the outcome of the two sides had actually been decided long ago. Even if the other side invested another twenty or thirty cavalry, it would be impossible to reverse the situation.
So why did the enemy army gather a cavalry force of twenty or thirty men?
Also, why did these thieves not choose to break out of the encirclement when they were clearly at a huge disadvantage, but instead took the initiative to launch an attack?
They even sent some 200 armored soldiers to attack their cavalry sentries.
None of these tactical options seems normal.
But now, Blind Wang felt that he had found the other party's abnormal willingness: "They are trying to escape."
"Whenever these bandit leaders face a dilemma, their means of escaping remain the same. They abandon ordinary bandits and only escape with a few elite horsemen."
"Send a flag to report to the general that the thief will escape alone. Our cavalry sentry is ready to divide our troops to intercept."
After a while, the messenger received an order from Luo Zhixue in the Chinese army camp: "Accurate."
Blind Wang immediately ordered: "The first team will stay and walk these thieves. The second team and the third team will follow me!"
"Today, none of these thieves can escape!"
