Zhu Houzhao's mood is very complicated at this time.

On the one hand, he won consecutive battles, and without wasting his efforts, he conquered Kuanhe, Huizhou, Fuyu, and Xincheng.

On the other hand, these four cities were all abandoned by the enemy on their own initiative, and the 50,000-strong army had not yet fought a decent battle.

It's like throwing a punch with all your might, but it only hits the air, and I feel aggrieved and panicked.

The army of 50,000 slowly came to the outside of Daning City, facing the tall city wall across the river.

Here, it used to be the Zhongjing of the Liao Kingdom, and the circumference of the city wall is 15 kilometers. There are outer cities, inner cities and imperial cities, although the outer city walls have been damaged, but if you want to storm it, you must take human lives to pile up.

In the first generation of King Ning, the palace was located in the city, and the current governor of Duoyan Wei also lived in the city.

The situation was unknown, and Zhu Houzhao did not dare to cross the river for the time being, so he ordered to find suitable terrain on the south bank and set up camp.

As soon as the camp tent was set up, an officer came to report: "Your Majesty, the puppet governor of Duoyanwei, Azamuri, has sent someone to ask for surrender." Do you want to see it? ”

Zhu Houzhao smiled and asked, "What is the statement this time?" ”

The officer replied: "The puppet governor Azamuri said that as long as His Majesty can withdraw his troops, he will send his eldest son to Beijing as a hostage, and pay tribute of 2,000 war horses." ”

Zhu Houzhao said angrily: "Let that person go back, and tell Azamuri that I have already consumed countless money and grain on this Northern Expedition, and I have to pay at least 20,000 war horses to return to my capital!" ”

"Yes!" The officer was ordered to leave.

Zhu Houzhao also let people spread the word: "After the camp is completed, the generals will go to the commander's tent to discuss the military situation." ”

In fact, there is nothing to discuss, the situation of the enemy is unknown, and our army has not yet crossed the river. It was necessary to find a suitable place to cross the river, send a small force to cross the river first, and at the same time build pontoon bridges, make boats, and make siege equipment.

Three days later, the army chose to cross the river a few miles to the southwest, where the river was relatively narrow.

Before the pontoon bridge was built, tens of thousands of enemies rode in.

Duoyanwei's cavalry is very shabby!

Only two or three thousand cavalrymen were slightly better equipped, and the rest were all rabble.

Those young men recruited from various departments, the scimitars have been used for an unknown number of years, and the blades are almost worn out. The bows and arrows were all made by themselves, with an effective range of less than 50 meters, and the arrows were mostly made of bone and stone. The quality of the war horses is even more worrisome, and the ordinary herdsmen themselves can't eat enough, so where can they get enough salt and concentrate to feed the war horses? Many of the horses look like mules.

There is no way, Duo Yanwei has been beaten by Dayan Khan for more than ten years, and his clan has suffered countless deaths and injuries, and has also been taken away countless times, and now he has not recovered his vitality.

The Ming army crossed the river in two places, about a mile apart.

Azamuri himself commanded 6,000 troops, and his cousin Hua Chi commanded more than 5,000 troops, and rushed to two river sections respectively, wanting to attack the Ming army halfway.

"Boom, boom!"

A total of forty Franc field guns fired at the cavalry across the river.

After a salvo, about a third of the shells missed, inflicting dozens of casualties on the enemy. Some shells directly shattered cavalry or horses, while others bounced on the ground, grazing several horseshoes along the way.

Tens of thousands of Uliangha cavalry only suffered a few dozen casualties, and some of the soldiers fled.

It is true that the composition of the Duoyanwei tribe is too mixed, and the integration time is too short, and many tribes have been annexed in recent decades. The descendants oppress the collateral tribes, and the collateral oppresses the medium-sized tribes, and the medium-sized tribes oppress the small tribes. If you can continue to expand, you can still cover up internal contradictions, but you will be pressed and beaten by left-wing Mongolia.

This time, tens of thousands of cavalry were forcibly recruited, many of them were ordinary young and strong, and it was difficult for them to live in ordinary times, so how could they be willing to work hard for a leader who had just ascended to the throne? What's more, this leader is still a little out of place.

The Franco's cannon could be quickly reloaded, and by the time the enemy cavalry rushed to the river, the second round of shelling had already been fired.

The shells also did not cause much damage, but they were able to disrupt the local formation of the enemy troops. At the same time, the enemy's cavalry once again broke and fled, and two rounds of artillery bombardment caused more than 3,000 enemy cavalry to flee from the battle.

Azamuri was very angry about this, and now he didn't care about punishing the deserters, so he took his guards to shoot arrows at the Ming army crossing the river.

Thousands of Ming troops who had already crossed the river were killed back into the river in an instant, and this crossing of the river was basically declared a failure.

Zhu Houzhao was so angry that he scolded loudly, so he could only rest his troops and return to the camp and convene the generals to meet again.

The two sides spent time on this section of the river, and they were in a stalemate for seven or eight days. The Ming army secretly crossed the river more than ten miles further south, and the troops of 8,000 people successfully smuggled and ran back to help their main force suppress the formation.

Of the 8,000 men were 2,000 musketeers, 1,000 archers, 1,000 swordmen, 2,000 pikemen, and 2,000 chariot soldiers.

Among all the arms of the Ming Dynasty, the fastest growing was the chariot soldiers!

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had chariot soldiers. At that time, the chariots could transport supplies when marching and form a chariot formation during battle, but they were relatively simple and primitive.

With the scarcity of the Ming war horses and the long-term face of the Mongol invasion, the chariots were built for defense. At this time, the chariot was no longer a baggage vehicle modification, but a very professional horse-rejecting chariot.

In the face of cavalry charges, chariots formed a chariot formation to protect their infantry.

After the chariot, there are swordsmen, pikemen, archers and musketeers who shoot to their heart's content.

Watching the Ming army's chariot formation advance slowly, Azamuli led tens of thousands of cavalry, and instantly lost the desire to attack. Regardless of the main force of the Ming army that crossed the river, he directly chose to withdraw from the battlefield and returned to Daning City in a swarm.

Zhu Houzhao successfully crossed the river, set up camp, and sent people into the mountains to cut wood, so that craftsmen could continue to build siege equipment.

For more than half a month, from time to time, the Duoyan Guard cavalry came to attack and disturb.

Every time the Ming army launched a counterattack, those enemy horsemen slipped away and hid in the city as shrunken turtles.

A month later, Zhu Fen had brought his troops over to join the division, and the siege equipment was completed, and Zhu Houzhao officially ordered the siege.

The outer city is broken at the first attack.

The inner city is breached in one attack.

The imperial city is broken in one attack.

What the heck?

Zhu Houzhao led his troops into the city only to find that the former Zhongjing of the Liao State not only collapsed in many places in the outer city wall, but also collapsed a large part of the inner city wall. Only the imperial city of Liao, that is, the acropolis of the palace of the first King Ning, was seriously repaired by Duoyanwei.

These barbarians, who have occupied a great city for decades, have not even repaired the city walls!

But wronged, those collapsed walls were torn off by the order of Dayan Khan.

The little prince of Mongolia once took Duoyanwei's nest, when the governor of Duoyan fled to the border, crying and begging Daming's father for relief, Daming sent a lot of livestock and food, so that these guys did not freeze to death and starve to death. Then, Duoyanwei took refuge with his sworn enemy, Dayan Khan, and in turn robbed the Ming who had been kind to them.

Building the city consumes too much manpower, material and financial resources, and after Dayan Khan stripped off many city walls, Duoyan Wei could only repair the innermost city walls.

Zhu Houzhao came to the acropolis of the palace of the first King Ning, he had achieved his goal of sending troops, but he was so angry that he wanted to cut Azamuli with a thousand knives.

The bastard ran away again!

Moreover, while the Ming army built siege equipment, tens of thousands of cavalry were used to cover the battlefield, not to let the Ming army sentry cavalry approach, and take away the troops and livestock in batches every night.

The 50,000-strong army seems to have become a joke, as long as Zhu Houzhao withdraws the army, those damn barbarians can be killed back at any time.

This is an old tactic of the Doyanwei, whose territory has been captured by Dayan Khan many times. In the case that it is obvious that it cannot be defeated, run as far as you can, and wait for the enemy's army to retreat, and immediately kill to recapture the pasture.

Gu Dayong, who came with the army, asked: "Your Majesty, Daning City has been restored, and winter is coming, should you prepare to withdraw your troops?" ”

Zhu Houzhao was furious: "Withdraw a fart and chase after me!" ”

Gu Dayong persuaded: "Your Majesty, Daning is far away from Jizhen, if we pursue it to the north again, it will be difficult for us to supply grain and grass." Moreover, the grain road is getting longer and longer, in case of chasing halfway and being surrounded by enemy troops and cutting off the grain road, the army of 60,000 (after the division) will be in danger! ”

"I don't care, keep chasing, chase to the grassland and catch Azamuri!" Zhu Houzhao was so angry that he lost his mind.

"Your Majesty!"

Gu Dayong knelt down and kowtowed violently, and said stubbornly: "The change of Tumu Fort." ”

Zhu Houzhao was stunned, then clenched his fists again and said: "Call Zhao Er (Yuan Da) and ask him to gather all the cavalry and stick the thieves to the death." Zhu Fen said that Erlang led his troops to Quanning, maybe he had already killed them from the north, just blocking the way of those thieves. What if, can you flank back and forth? ”

Daning is hilly, and the main force of Duoyanwei retreats to the grassland, although there are many valleys that can be passed, most of them will choose the best road. And when Wang Yuan came back from the grassland, he would also choose that road, because it was easy to walk, and he would not take a detour.

Both sides, most likely, collide head-on!