On May 16, the eighth year of Chongzhen, in Xinye City.
Li Duo stood on the top of the city and looked at the scattered Ming army scouts outside the city, with a trace of worry on his brows.
Because behind these sporadic Ming army scout cavalry, there was also a mass of Ming army suppressing them. This was the three thousand Ming army they first came into contact with.
Further to the west, at least tens of thousands of Ming troops were rushing towards his Xinye City.
Yesterday, when he discovered tens of thousands of enemy troops in succession, and when at least 500 cavalrymen were charging towards his troops, Li Duo was almost frightened.
He couldn't figure out why the main force of Lu Xiangsheng's army, which was supposed to go to Xiangyang City, suddenly came to Dengzhou, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before he would face an attack by at least 3,000 enemy troops, or even tens of thousands of enemy troops.
If the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty decide to attack Xinye City!
Xinye City is just a small county town. The city wall is only a foot and a half high and not very thick. The moat outside the city is also very average, only about ten meters wide.
At the same time, there were not many artillery on the city. The seventh infantry battalion and a small number of reconnaissance cavalry and baggage troops he brought over only had three 200-pound light tunics.
The ninth infantry battalion originally stationed in Xinye City had two 300-pound light cannons.
At the same time, when Xinye City was in the hands of the Ming army, there were several light cannons weighing tens of kilograms and hundreds of kilograms, including two 100-kilogram Folang machines. These artillery pieces were generally not used directly by the Home Guard Army, and most of them were still used. The original city head was left as part of the city defense works.
However, the total number of artillery that can fire is only about a dozen.
And there is not even a long-barreled heavy artillery piece, let alone a long-barreled artillery piece, not even a traditional short robe weighing more than 200 kilograms.
Such artillery power was far from enough in Li Duo's opinion.
The forces in the city include two infantry battalions, an unsatisfied heavy transport sentry, and only one team of mounted infantry.
However, among the above-mentioned forces, the 9th Infantry Battalion is a recruit unit through and through. Most of the recruits have not even completed the one-month recruit training, let alone the subsequent adaptive training.
At the same time, there is also a serious shortage of equipment. The Ninth Infantry Battalion only has a total of more than 40 matchlocks made by the Baoxiang Army. These matchlocks are still used for preliminary training.
There is also a serious lack of armor. According to the rated establishment of the Baoxiang Army, a full infantry battalion has a total of 72 spearmen in the first two rows who need to wear armor. In addition, there will be at least three sword and shield sentries directly affiliated to the battalion. More than ten soldiers wearing armor, swordsmen, shieldmen, archers, spearmen, etc.
Including the armored officers and soldiers, there should be about 130 armored soldiers in a battalion.
This armor does not refer to the so-called cotton armor in the army, but refers specifically to iron armor. Whether it is captured pure iron armor, cloth-faced armor, or cloth-faced armor made by the Baoxiang Army, use whatever you have. The Baoxiang Army was not picky either.
As for cotton armor, this thing is generally used by musketeers, archers, auxiliaries and other light infantry in the defense army. Most of them are captured various types of cotton armor. After being captured, they will be modified and some iron will be added to it. film, focusing on protecting the heart and other trunk parts.
As for the 9th Infantry Battalion, there are only about 40 sets of various types of iron armor, but the cotton armor is quite complete.
The only thing that gave Li Duo comfort was that there was no shortage of all kinds of cold weapons in the Ninth Infantry Battalion. Those musketeers who did not have muskets for the time being basically held spears and one-handed waist knives, which could be temporarily used as light armored spears. hand use.
Most of the more than 1,300 troops in the city are new soldiers, and they lack a lot of equipment, especially long-range firepower and defensive armor.
But the Ming army coming from the west numbered a few ten thousand.
This is the problem Li Duo is currently facing.
If the general's reinforcements arrive late, then Li Duo will have to worry about whether he can hold Xinye City.
When he retreated to Xinye City today, Li Duo had already received an urgent order from Luo Zhixue:
Luo Zhixue told Li Duo that he had personally led the army northward, and asked Li Duo to cooperate with the main force of his headquarters to defeat the main force of the enemy in subsequent operations.
As for how to cooperate, Luo Zhixue didn't say whether to let Li Duo defend Xinye City or something like that.
Because when Luo Zhixue sent messengers north to deliver urgent orders, he didn't even know that Li Duo had retreated to Xinye City.
The reason why the messenger was able to meet Li Duo in Xinye City was purely due to good luck. In the early stage, he went north along the Baihe River. He planned to pass through Xinye City and then turn west to look for Li Duo in Dengzhou area. Unexpectedly, he went directly to the Dengzhou area. Xin Yecheng met Li Duo and the others, and then passed on the order.
If the messengers had gone straight north in a straight line from the beginning, towards Dengzhou, they would most likely have missed Li Duo and the others.
There is no way, ancient communication is so troublesome and full of surprises.
If the deployment of troops within a range of tens of kilometers is slightly careless, there will be situations where orders cannot be conveyed or are conveyed late.
This is why Luo Zhixue did not tell Li Duo what to do specifically in his order. He just gave Li Duo a very vague order to cooperate with his army in combat.
As for how to cooperate, it is up to Li Duo to decide based on his own situation.
Now Li Duo is looking at this. He only has a thousand people under his command, and more than half of them are new recruits. They have not even completed the recruit training period and are not even fully equipped.
With such a force, how can it cooperate with the general's main force?
Not to mention cooperating, if he dares to lead troops out of the city now, he will have to be taught how to behave by the opponent's cavalry in minutes.
The Ming army had more than 500 cavalry outside the city. Even though the distance was still at least two miles, most of these cavalry dismounted to feed their horses and rest. But if he led his troops out of the city, it would not take a while for these cavalry to Can beat the horse and arrive.
At that time, these enemy cavalry will not need to take the initiative to attack. Just staying on the side will be enough to immobilize Li Duo's troops.
With a little delay, the main infantry force led by Song Hongcai from the rear could kill them in minutes.
In the past, when Li Duo was fighting with the army, he saw many times that Wang Xiazi and his cavalry tortured the Ming army to death. He didn't see Wang Xiazi and others fighting. They just stayed on the side, but the enemy army did not dare to move. Finally, their own infantry and artillery caught up and annihilated them.
And now, he also realized the embarrassing situation of those Ming troops before!
Our own side did not have a capable cavalry, so it was embarrassing to be restrained by the enemy's cavalry.
Under such circumstances, it was impossible to leave the city, and even if they were killed, they would not be able to leave the city. The only thing left to do was to defend Xinye City and wait for the main force led by the general to come for reinforcements.
Let's see if there is a chance to leave the city and cooperate with the general again.
But he soon discovered that this city was not so easy to defend.
At noon that day, Sun Hongcai commanded his army to attack the city.
Sun Hongcai's siege routine is even simpler than that of the Baoxiang Army!
When the Baoxiang Army attacked the city, they used artillery bombardment, infantry fire suppression, and heavy infantry climbed to the top of the city to fight.
As for Sun Hongcai's attack on the city, he directly drove a large group of young and strong civilians towards the city wall. These young and strong civilians did not even have weapons on hand. They were all carrying or carrying a lot of sand, stones, wooden boards and other objects.
These young and strong civilians are going to fill in the moat!
Li Duo didn't have much benevolence as a woman. Even if the enemy drove a group of civilians to fill up the moat, he still killed them. He immediately ordered the guns to open fire and the bows and arrows to intercept them.
Under the bombardment of guns and missiles, hundreds of civilians fell into a pool of blood in a short period of time. Seeing this, the civilians immediately dispersed, but the officers and soldiers behind them were even more ruthless!
As soon as these civilians turned around and ran away, a wave of arrows flew out from the array of officers and soldiers, directly killing one or two hundred civilians.
The remaining civilians were stunned. If you step forward, you will die. If you turn around and run away, you will die!
The two warring parties did not give them any way to survive!
Many people cried loudly or lay on the ground pretending to be dead. There were also smart people who ran to both sides instead of turning around and running towards the rear.
Naturally, the officers and soldiers would not sit back and watch all these civilians run away, but two teams of cavalry jumped out and ran to both sides of the array to intercept and hunt!
Except for a few lucky ones who escaped, most of the remaining people were either killed or driven back.
After all this back and forth, these civilians had already killed and injured more than 300 people before filling much sand into the moat.
The first wave of about a thousand civilians who came forward were killed and injured by the defenders at the top of the city, and more than two hundred more were killed by the officers and soldiers supervising the battle. In one fell swoop, more than three hundred people were killed or wounded, three out of ten!
Before long, these civilians, who had almost completely collapsed and lost all hope of survival, were once again forcibly driven by the Ming army to fill in the moat.
After a while, they retreated under the firepower of the defenders, and the officers and soldiers intercepted them again.
This went on and on, and soon more than 500 of the thousands of civilians were killed or injured, but Sun Hong was the ruthless man!
After seeing that more than half of the civilians in front were killed or injured, he waved his hand again and asked the more than 2,000 civilians from the rear who had been prepared to come forward.
It’s not enough to say they are civilian husbands. These people are actually both men and women.
In order to avoid losing money during the moat filling stage when his soldiers attacked, Sun Hongcai directly captured all the people in several nearby villages. Except for little kids and old guys who really had no strength, other people as long as they could carry things, let alone Regardless of gender or age, they all were arrested.
Sun Hongcai looked at the people in front who were crying but kept coming forward under the threat of swords. He stretched out his hand to stroke the goatee on his chin and said with a smile: "Three thousand people, I don't believe we can't fill this moat!"
"Even if we fill it directly with corpses, we can still fill up this moat, which is only a few feet wide!"
"By the way, it can also consume the ammunition and arrows of the bandit army, so it can serve multiple purposes!"
When Sun Hongcai said this, a guerrilla nearby couldn't help but move a step to the side!
These words frightened him, a veteran who had been in the army for decades!
