Your burdens will become gifts, and your sufferings will light your way.

– Rabindranath Tagore (Indian poet, philosopher, and Indian nationalist)

By the end of March, in the cold north of the Empire, the countryside of Besançon Province had begun to show a little greenery, and the young leaves of the branches of the trees and the new shoots of the crops of the fields no longer signaled the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

The change of seasons from winter to spring will not stop because of the outbreak of war, nor will it change because of the will of any human being; Bai Feng, who is not ready for war, has not yet led his army to launch a counteroffensive against Langxiang Province, but war is inevitable.

The Jurchen cavalry, who had endured patience for several months, finally could not restrain the desire to plunder in their hearts, and slowly extended the scope of their wanton plundering from Langxiang Province to Besansong Province on the south bank of the Xingyue River.

The Xingyue River is a tributary of the Cangluo River that flows from east to west, like a jade belt between Besansun Province and Langxiang Province; although the Xingyue River is only a tributary of the Cangluo River, the river is still 100 meters wide and must be passed through a bridge.

On the Xingyue River, which separates Besansong Province and Langxiang Province, there are three large fine iron bridges and more than 10 ordinary wooden bridges; in order to prevent the Jurchen cavalry from moving south, more than 10 ordinary wooden bridges have been destroyed by the imperial army as early as the beginning of the fall of Longxiang Province.

The remaining three large fine iron bridges are all magic bridges that have been used since ancient times, and the imperial army alone cannot destroy them at all, and even Bai Yi and Bai Er, whose strength realm is a fifth-level fire sword master, cannot shake these three extremely strong fine iron bridges.

Therefore, after the Marquis of Besançon was appointed governor of Besançon, he sent three small armies to garrison the south bank of the three bridges;

The 3,000 officers and men of the city defense army with average combat effectiveness, plus 1,500 defenders stationed on the bridge, together constitute the garrison of the three fine iron bridges; with 1,500 soldiers stationed on the shore of a bridge, Bai Feng is still relatively relieved in this configuration.

You must know that the main duty of these 1,500 defenders was not to resist the large-scale attack of the Jurchen cavalry head-on, but to defend the shore of the bridge on one side when the Jurchen cavalry was attacking on a large scale, and on the other hand, they hurriedly reported to the main army in the rear.

The garrison, which had been moved from the county town of Besançon to more than fifty miles south of the Xingyue River, would only take two hours at most to rush to the aid of any bridge that was attacked, and this time was exactly the time that the defenders of the bridge could hold on.

No one expected that the unexpected battle would break out so quickly, and just as Bai Feng was discussing the military situation with General Louis in the 14th Army, 6,000 cavalry with the White Banner launched a fierce attack on the second bridge!

The basic establishment of the Eight Banners Cavalry is Niu Lu, every 300 and 8 Banner Cavalry forms a Niu Lu, and Niu Lu Ezhen is also called Zuo Ling; then five Niu Lu is compiled to form a Jia La, and Jia La's Ezhen is also called a staff leader; every five Jia La is formed into a solid mountain, and a solid mountain is also called Dutong.

According to this establishment, the Zhengbai Banner with a full strength of 20,000 cavalry should have three solid mountains, but this is not the case; the Jurchens, who use tribes as the settlement unit, are accustomed to organizing their armies according to the differences between tribes, and the same is true for the establishment of the Eight Banners.

The banner owner who is in charge of the Zhengbai Banner is Solgobele, and the Gushan Ezhen who handles the daily affairs of the Zhengbai Banner is Huerhan personally appointed by Nurhachi; in other words, the banner owner of the Zhengbai Banner Beile and Gushan Ezhen are only one person.

Under the banner lord Beile and Gushan Ezhen, there are tribe-based Zhengbai Banner Jiala, and the leader of the Hunhe tribe, Solgobel, is not only the supreme ruler of the Zhengbai Banner, but also the allegiance of the various tribes under the Hunhe Ministry.

In the white flag, there are only about 10,000 cavalry that really belong to the Hunhe tribe, and the other 10,000 cavalry are all from the subordinate tribes of the Hunhe tribe, and they follow Solgo to fight for the Hunhe tribe, and the price that the Hunhe tribe needs to pay is to give them enough booty.

The province of Langxiang, which has limited resources, was plundered by the five flags of yellow, red, red, white, and white, and the average amount of property that could be grabbed by each banner was not too much; the greedy cavalry of the white flag were the first to take the initiative to extend their plunder range to the south bank of the Xingyue River.

The White Banner Chiefs, who have a great deal of freedom of movement, often gather together to find new targets for plunder, and because one Armor is too weak to compete with the others, it takes at least two or three Armors to unite to be more competitive in plundering.

In the province of Langxiang of the Tianlong Empire, the cavalry of the Eight Banners plundering everywhere need to worry not about the counterattack of the Tianlong Empire, but the competition of other banner cavalry that contradicts each other;

After failing to find any good targets for plunder, the four leaders of the White Banner, who had cooperated several times, decided to join forces to launch a plundering campaign against the rich province of Besançon to grab some more money for their respective tribes.

When the 6,000 surging cavalry of the White Banner appeared on the north bank of the Xingyue River, the defenders of the bridge, who had been on standby, immediately reacted, and several alarmist cavalry, with the urgent report of the Jurchen cavalry's attack, quickly galloped towards the garrison of the army.

The 1,500 men stationed on the second bridge were divided into three combat units, and the 500 infantry quickly rushed up to the bridge and blocked the southern end of the bridge in a dense formation, while 500 archers lined up on both sides of the bridge, stretching their bows and arrows, waiting for the arrival of the enemy cavalry.

The 500 infantry, acting as a reserve, remained on the south bank of the bridge in a prepared posture, and once the 500 infantry on the bridge was routed by the enemy cavalry charge, their task was to rush forward and continue to block the bridge until reinforcements from the rear caught up.

The cavalry of the Zhengbai Banner, who is proficient in cavalry and archery, has a short range of more than 80 meters of bow and arrows, and is simply unable to carry out a rain of arrows attack on the defending infantry on the bridge outside the bridge; after rushing to the bridge, the charging advantage of the Zhengbai Banner cavalry will be lost, which is a dilemma.

However, the commanders of the Zhengbai Banner, who were full of confidence in the cavalry under their command, did not think that the mere 1,500 infantry on the opposite bank could withstand the onslaught of their own 6,000 cavalry, and without the slightest hesitation, the four commanders decided to launch a hard attack on the defenders.

1,200 cavalry with the white flag from the four Jiala, after preparing for the attack in Niulu, launched a charge against the infantry defending the bridge; the limited width of the bridge forced the attacking white flag cavalry to dense the loose charge formation.

As soon as the first Niulu's cavalry rushed to the bridge, the five hundred defending archers, who were ready to fire a salvo, immediately released their right hands holding the bowstrings, and the volley of five hundred archers could inflict no fewer casualties on the dense cavalry.

It's just that at a distance of about 100 meters, how many rounds of arrow rain can these ordinary archers fire at a salvo? After only two rounds of arrow rain, the high-morale white flag cavalry rushed into the defending infantry group, directly trampling the defender infantry in the front row into mud.