Three days after the end of the battle in Huoshiling City, in the territory of Guangling County in the east of Datong Prefecture, the flag of the Ming army flew to cover the sun.

The blue sky is cloudless, Guo Ruke rode his horse and whipped up, galloping on the flat field. Dust was scattered for miles around him, and several long dragons composed of Ming soldiers, chariots and horses were moving forward. From time to time, the sound of bamboo whistles and swan horns of the whole team came from various ranks, and they were mixed with each other. Somehow, whenever he hears these slightly harsh and sharp sounds, Guo Ruke always feels an indescribable peace of mind.

Starting from Taiyuan Fucheng, after a ten-day march, Guo Ruke finally led his army to Datong Fu.

On the way, the battle situation in Xuanfu and Datong has been passed over one after another, and Guo Ruke has always remembered Zhao Dangshi's neat and truncated face when he heard the news that Hou Dagui was martyred.

At that time, all the generals present were in an uproar, but Zhao Dangshi was silent for a long time before he spit out a sentence like frost: "I know." ”

When the others dispersed, Guo Ruke could not hide his sad and indignant look, and said to Zhao Dangshi: "Lord, you can't let Lao Hou and the five thousand Zhao Ying brothers die in vain. ”

Although he is also a first-line general of Zhao Ying, Hou Dagui is really Guo Ruke's old superior. Although the personal relationship between the two is weak, after all, they are both old brothers who followed Zhao Dangshi from Jinlingchuan at the beginning, and they have been in the same boat for nearly ten years.

"I know." Zhao Dangshi's tone was flat, but his eyes flashed with an unusually sharp color.

Guo Ruke said: "I heard that the envoy sent by the imperial court to Beijing has arrived, but for some reason, there has been no news recently. ”

Zhao Dangshi said coldly: "This is a retreat deliberately left by the Tartars, if the war does not go well, I am afraid that I still want to use this to mediate." He added, "In any case, Lao Hou is not only a Ming courtier, but also my brother of Zhao Dangshi, and if you offend my brother, you will offend me Zhao Ying." Those who commit my Zhao camp will be punished even if they are far away. ”

Guo Ruke nodded solemnly.

Zhao Dangshi continued: "The Tartars invaded our land and harmed our people, which is a public vengeance. Now it is a personal vendetta to kill my soldiers and trap my brothers. Public revenge must be avenged, and personal revenge must also be avenged. I have been fighting the world for so many years, and I keep saying that I will help the people and save the world, and help the community, but if I can't even give him an explanation for my closest brother, how can I be qualified to talk about it? ”

Guo Ruke didn't speak, only sighed.

Zhao Dangshi said: "The opportunity for revenge is right in front of you, and it all depends on you and me." The aftermath should not be sloppy. Lao Hou is my Zhao Yingdong, he is gone, and I am like a broken arm. When he leaves, I have to send him away in style. And said, "I plan to ask the court for my life and posthumously confer the title of old marquis." ”

Guo Ruke said: "Lao Hou sacrificed his life for the country, as it should be. ”

"It's one thing, and there's another, and I've thought about it, and I'll have to ask for your opinion."

"It's okay for the lord to say it."

Zhao Dangshi then said: "Although Lao Hou is romantic, he can toss for most of his life, but he has no heirs, and he has no relatives. Lao Guo, you have three sons, I want to take one son to inherit Lao Hou and continue his Hou family's incense. What do you think? ”

When Guo Ruke heard this, he was stunned for a moment, and then smashed his fist into the palm of his hand, and immediately responded: "It couldn't be better." Lao Hou has the grace of supporting me, I have nothing to repay during my lifetime, and it is an honor to be able to produce a son to worship his spirit. ”

Thoughts fluttered, and it was time to divide troops with Zhao Dangshi in Zhenwuwei.

Because he learned that Hou Dagui was killed and his army was defeated, the plan that Guo Ruke's army had found a rendezvous of his troops was temporarily adjusted. Considering the strength of the Xuanfu Qing army, Zhao Dangshi redistributed the soldiers and horses, and assigned 5,000 people from the Ma Wannian Department who belonged to him to Guo Ruke, which strengthened the strength of Guo Ruke's army.

Zhao Dangshi judged that since the Qing army won in Xuanfu, it would definitely take advantage of the situation to attack Datong Mansion next, or force Jiang Jiu to surrender, or defeat Jiang Huang, in short, it was impossible to make Datong Mansion a nail behind their southward movement. Therefore, the original plan remained unchanged, more than 40,000 soldiers and horses of Zhao Dangshi's army rushed to Datong Mansion to stabilize Jiang Huang, and more than 20,000 soldiers and horses of Guo Ruke's army went east to Guangling County and Ulzhou, threatening the flank of the Qing army and seeking an opportunity to outflank Zhao Dangshi's army.

"The subordinates are here, and there is no advance or retreat. Put it to death and live later, it is better to be a broken jade than a complete tile! ”

"You are a lucky general, and you will succeed immediately."

Under the flying banner, Zhao Dangshi and Guo Ruke bowed their hands and said goodbye, each with a short sentence, and they were heartfelt.

Thinking of this, Guo Ruke, who was distracted, suddenly cleared his mind, looked around and left, and in the yellow sand and dust, the soldiers were still flowing endlessly. Raising his head slightly, his eyes swept over the forest of spears in front of him where countless spearmen were leaning on their shoulders, and on the long road, a horse came at a reverse gallop.

It was the Qingtong battalion who was the striker who sent the Tangma who returned the letter.

"There is an army of Tartars ten miles away, numbering tens of thousands."

Guo Ruke listened, nodded, and as expected, the Qing army's military situation in Xuanfu and Datong was so grand and rampant that it was not long after arriving in Guangling County, and it was about to encounter a field battle.

Compared with other conformist generals, Guo Ruke, who is good at pondering, has developed some tactics on his own in response to the large-scale increase in the proportion of firearms in Zhao Ying. For example, counting his own soldiers, the way of arranging the birds, and the way of arranging the birds, is very different from that of his battalion. For example, Xu Hui's personal soldier battalion, which has the highest proportion of bird guns, will line up the ranks of bird guns in several horizontal lines to strengthen the depth and impact resistance in order to prevent the gun formation from being attacked by the enemy's melee troops and lose order. However, Guo Ruke went the opposite way and insisted on deploying the Bird's Gunner array in the form of two columns of horizontal formations in depth, because he believed that the Horizontal Formation could give better play to the firepower of the Bird's Gunner than the column. In order to compensate for the sacrificed defenses, he chose to use the terrain and various barricades to protect the horizontal team.

Just like at the moment, Guo Ruke, who learned that he was about to encounter the Qing army, immediately sent an order to the two battalions of Qihun and Qingtong, so that Peng Guang, an officer in the Qihun battalion, and Kong Quanbin, the commander of the Qingtong battalion, quickly led the lightly armed bird men in the battalion to go first, look for the hillside, and combine the bird guns to deploy on the anticline behind the mountain, first, to concentrate troops, and second, to strive not to expose their horizontal position before the battle started. Subsequently, Guo Ruke sent an order to Ma Wannian, asking him to advance immediately and seize the favorable hillside heights of the frontal battlefield to attract the attention of the Qing army. The rest of the troops changed their battle formations on the spot and advanced slowly.

The southeast of Guangling County is flat and is an endless loess slope. Within a radius of more than ten miles, there is only one highland in Zuo Yu Mountain. It is said to be a high ground, but in fact the whole mountain can only be regarded as a raised dirt slope, and it is bare and unprotected by trees. Fortunately, Zuo Yu Mountain extends two or three miles to the north and south, and it is basically able to meet the needs of the Ming army's formation.

The Ming army went from west to east, the Qing army went from east to west, and the Ming army was closer to Zuo Yu Mountain. Immediately afterwards, the 5,000 soldiers of Ma Wannian's army brushed up the not very high Zuoyu Mountain, and from the ridge straight down, the array was divided into more than ten small formations, covering the gentle slope of the entire eastern sun.

At this time, Guo Ruke got the report that the Qing army was not in a hurry to advance and fight for the hillside with his own army. They seemed to know that it was too late to fight for the mountain, so they improvised and reorganized their ranks along the cracked Huliu River, which was three miles east of Zuo Yao. According to scout reconnaissance, this Qing army carried a large number of firearms, not only all kinds of large and small guns, but also dozens of Hongyi cannons covered with red cloth.

The commander of this Qing army is none other than the Qing Dynasty Zhishun Wang Shang Kexi.

In that year, the Ming army used the Hongyi cannon to defeat the Qing army in the Battle of Ningyuan, and the Hongyi cannon became famous in the first battle and received the attention of the Ming court. Later, at the initiative of Xu Guangqi and other officials, the Ming court sent people to Haojing Macao to purchase firearms from the Franco, and hired a group of military advisers including gunners, craftsmen, and generalists to Beijing to assist in the training of firearms units. Subsequently, this group of military advisers was ordered to go to Denglai, Shandong Province, to help Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, train his troops.

Sun Yuanhua was a student of Xu Guangqi, the same as his teacher, and had always advocated welcoming the West and learning to use Western weapons to improve himself, so he cooperated with the military adviser Francois to form a new army in Denglai, hoping to cultivate a force that could not only cast artillery but also be good at using artillery to fight. Although Li Jiucheng died, Kong and Geng escaped across the sea, rebelled against the Ming Dynasty and surrendered to Huang Taiji with more than 20 Hongyi cannons, 300 Western cannons of various colors and a large number of firearms. At that time, Huang Taiji was using the Ming gunners captured from Yongping Mansion to prepare firearms troops, and Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others led troops to surrender, which actually strengthened the Houjin at that time.

Later, the Jin State had the firearms brought by Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming's troops, and got the cast cannon template and experienced gunners, and since then it has quickly smoothed out the firearms gap with the Ming Dynasty, and then Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and other troops led the army as an auxiliary attack force in the Battle of Lushun, the Battle of Guangludao and other battles to command the firearms troops to shine, and the more Huang Taiji's trust. When the Ming army fell on the islands in Liaodong, Dongjiang Town was destroyed, and Shang Kexi surrendered, Huang Taiji then formed the Tianyou Army and Tianzhu Army with the Han Army as the main body with Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and Shang Kexi, three old generals of Dongjiang Town, as the core.

In the second year of Huangtaiji Chongde, Wuzhen Chaoha, Tianyou Army, Tianzhu Army and several Han armies represented by Li Yongfang were unified and reorganized into the Eight Banners of the Han Army, which was equivalent to depriving most of the military rights attached to the Han generals in disguise, and because the Han Army was slightly inferior to the Manchurian and Mongolian soldiers in riding but refined firearms, it was fully organized into an infantry army, mainly holding firearms, assisting the Manchurian and Mongolian Eight Banners to fight, and it has since become customized.

The composition of the Eight Banners of the Han Army is complex, even if the Niu Lu of the Eight Banners of Manchuria was adapted in the seventh year of Huangtai Ji Chongde, there are still Gongshun Wang Kong Youde, Huaishun Wang Geng Zhongming, Zhishun Wang Shang Kexi, and Shen Zhixiang, the Duke of Xushun, although they were merged into the Han Army Banner, they did not organize Niu Lu, but only walked with the flag. Therefore, even though there are senior generals of the Han army such as the Blue Banner Han Army Gushan Ezhen Bayan, the Red Flag Han Army Gushan Ezhen Jinli, and the White Flag Han Army Gushan Ezhen Tong Tulai and other senior generals of the Han Army, they still have to obey the orders of the Han Army, which are more qualified and the title is relatively independent.

In addition to the Eight Banners of the Han Army, there are also the Blue Banner Manchuria Gushan Ezhen Bahana and the Yellow Banner Manchuria Melle Ezhen Ahanikan and other departments that obey Shang Kexi's moderation, and the Manchu and Han Eight Banners are complete with soldiers and horses to ensure that this Qing army has sufficient balance of combat power.

After learning that the Ming army was the first to occupy the mountain, he immediately ordered the whole army to take the Huliu River valley as the northern top and spread out the array to the south, and tens of thousands of troops were deployed in more than ten positions in the north and south, and the Qing army's main formation was located in the earthen fort group between Jiangguanzhuang and Daxizhuang in the south, and the largest number of Qing troops were also gathered in this area.

The Ming army guarded the mountain, and the Qing army was able to calmly deploy the formation. However, the Qing army's main formation was located in the southeast of the southern end of Zuo Yu Mountain, and if the Qing army continued to concentrate troops there, it was very likely that it would directly bypass Zuo Yu Mountain with heavy troops and outflank the rear of the Ming army's position. The battlefield was changing, and Guo Ruke, who was still in a hurry, immediately made a decision through the continuous reports of the Tang soldiers on the front line, so that Li Ji, who had a large number of horse troops, would meet the soldiers and horses of the imperial village, and rush to the Tubao group first, so as to disrupt the Qing army's formation as much as possible.