PS: Thank you for the monthly ticket voted by the book friend "Liang Mengchang".

But if you transport hundreds of people who have been carefully dressed up to Xuzhou, it will be too easy, even if they are monitored by the Qing army along the river, no one doubts, because almost no one thinks that a team of hundreds of people can play a role in Xuzhou City, if you really want to do this, there is only one result, send to death!

This gave Song An an excellent opportunity to contain Huaiyuan Azig with Qian Qiaogong's department, and Wu Zheng to contain the main force of Xuzhou, and he could lead hundreds of people to disguise themselves as an ordinary caravan and reach Xuzhou through the canal.

This is the "external force" mentioned earlier.

But the problem is that Song An's big game of chess was forced to be suspended halfway through.

It is said that plans can never keep up with change.

Such a "perfect" idea, suddenly stillborn, really made Song An depressed.

But, for Song An, Wu Zheng is all he has, as he often says, "Life is the Wu family, death is the ghost of the Wu family", without the young master, he is nothing.

Just as Song An led eighteen merchant ships, loaded with six hundred soldiers in disguise, set off from the Qinghe River and went north along the canal to the vicinity of Taoyuan.

After receiving an urgent report from Changlin Wei, the Qing army in Pizhou used innocent people as a human wall, forcing the prince to retreat eastward, on the bank of the Zhihe River, with heavy losses, and at the same time, the enemy army took advantage of the situation to recapture Suqian and continued to move south.

Song An immediately ordered all the troops to land ashore and set up an ambush in Yazhen, southeast of Suqian, to block the enemy army moving south.

……。

Anyone with a little common sense knows that in the era of cold weapons, the king of the battlefield is the cavalry.

And the king of kings is heavy cavalry with light cavalry, which is the most perfect combination.

With the ability of heavy cavalry and the mobility ability of light cavalry, he is almost invincible and invincible.

This is just like the heavy tank of later generations must be added to the light tank and armored vehicles.

Of course, it can also be combined with infantry coordination, but in this way, the advantage of speed will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, only the combination of heavy and light cavalry is called perfect, of course, this refers to field battles, raid battles.

Although Suqian and Qinghe are cities, the walls of such small cities are less than two people high, and they cannot form any strong resistance to the cavalry.

This is the main reason why the enemy cavalry dares to take advantage of the situation to go south.

Stimulated by two successive victories, they abandoned the infantry and quickly moved south from Suqian with a combination of heavy and light cavalry, aiming at Qinghe, intending to fight a battle, and washing Chen Jin's ineffective command, resulting in the humiliation of the Northern Expeditionary Army crossing the Yellow River.

Their arrogance is high, of course, it should be said that this is a fact.

More than 800 horses, under the cover of 2,000 light horses, theoretically, enough to sweep across both sides of the Yellow River, it can be said that the gods kill the gods, and the Buddha blocks and kills the Buddha.

Just like the main general of this mixed cavalry, Jia Lae Zhen (equivalent to the Ming army garrisoned to the level of the general army, equivalent to the brigade level in later generations), Hu Ni Ya Luohe, said before leaving, "The southern barbarians have no ability except for playing some tricks...... As long as we drive them down the Yellow River in one go, we can make a statement to the imperial court, what kind of musket new army, the most reliable is our cavalry! ”

But there are no absolutes in everything, and if the war is really a competition of objective factors, then Wu Zheng will not be forced to withdraw to the east bank of the Zhihe River.

In fact, Wu Zheng's tactics of three lines of defense east of Pizhou and on the banks of the Zhihe River were correct, and under certain conditions, the cavalry was by no means invincible.

Therefore, when this cavalry of more than 2,000 people marched on the official road, that kind of arrogant demeanor and momentum were simply like soldiers pointing at the point and being invincible.

But when they reached the turn near Cliff Town, the scene that made them self-denial and even have no time to regret it suddenly happened.

Yazhen is located at the corner of the official road about fifty miles east of the ancient city.

Because the canal has a sharp turn here, the construction of the official road also forms a sharp turn.

The cavalry of the Qing army had to lower their speed, otherwise, they would rush out of the official road and fall off the cliff on the right, the cliff was very high, about two zhang, this height, generally could not fall to death, but if you add the speed of the war horse galloping, then even if there is a golden bell shield to protect the body, it will have to fall into a pulp.

is just such a bend in the official road, so that this Qing cavalry, who has just been arrogant, tasted what it means to die if you don't die, and what it means to be covered by artillery fire in advance.

Here I have to explain why hundreds of people in Song'an District were able to cover the road with artillery fire.

At this time, the First Army had recovered Taizhou, and Chi Erhan and Zu Dabi raided Xinghua successfully, the north-south communication line was immediately opened, and the first batch of supplies had been transported to Qinghe, and Song An also arrived in Qinghe with the help of escort supplies, and Qinghe gave Qian Qiaogong a "bad idea".

Naturally, it is impossible for this first batch of supplies to have heavy artillery, and even if there is heavy artillery, Song An will not take heavy artillery to raid Xuzhou.

Isn't this a joke, six-pounder field guns weigh eight or nine hundred pounds, how to maneuver?

Moreover, even if it is transported to Xuzhou, it will not play a role in the siege of the city, and the city defense of Xuzhou is not comparable to small cities such as Suqian and Qinghe, and the six-pound artillery bombardment on the city wall is also a pit.

If such a fanfare attack is tantamount to looking for death and sending artillery to the enemy, Song An naturally would not be so stupid.

In the first batch of supplies, the largest proportion was paper bullets (not typos, real paper bullets, at this time, the front loading shell, that is, wrapped in oiled paper, thicker than the middle finger, about the same length, inside is a propellant and a metal projectile) and Tiger Squat mortar shells.

The tiger squat mortar can be disassembled into two large pieces, the barrel and the base, the barrel is heavier, about 16 catties, and the base is 12 catties, this weight is convenient for soldiers to carry on the march, so when equipping the Northern Expeditionary Army, it is the most popular among soldiers.

However, the power of this cannon is small (because of the shell technology and black powder), so it is suitable for dealing with ordinary infantry and light armor infantry, and against ironclad heavy cavalry, unless the shell happens to fall under the horse's belly and burst, otherwise, it is basically not fatal.

The second guard of Huai'an City fought hard for nearly a month, and even the 160 rounds of paper bullets (two large bags on the left and right waists) were exhausted, and the tiger squat cannon shells had long been exhausted, so before crossing the river to attack the Qinghe River, these tiger squat cannons without shells were left in Huai'an City.

Song An wanted to raid Xuzhou, just in time, he didn't bring much, one hundred and twenty gates.

This was used to make a local breakthrough and break through after infiltrating Xuzhou City, and at this time, Song An used it on the turning corner of the official road, forming a dense artillery cover.

Even if it's a rusty and tattered kitchen knife, as long as it can kill people, it's a good knife.

Although the power of the tiger squat cannon is not large, it is too much.

It is difficult for a needle to kill a person, but if the needle is dense enough to kill a person, it can still pierce a person.

It is precisely because the Tiger Squat Cannon is small in power that it was originally aimed at the enemy's infantry, so when the military workshop was produced, it was almost equipped with flowering shells.