The training of recruits in Gaoyang City was directly handed over to the two centurions sent by Lu Xiangsheng, and Yang Hongzhang had the intention to train according to the army of the Harmony Era, but there was not enough time. The most important thing now is to help the men he brought from Hangzhou learn to ride and shoot, and to get all the horses used to the sound of flintlock pistols and palm thunder as soon as possible. As for the newly recruited strong men, as long as they can get familiar with patrolling in a short time, they can shoot bows and reload flintlock pistols is already very good.

Sun Chengzong promised the army to completely let Yang Hongzhang train and command. In fact, he also wanted to see how capable Yang Hongzhang was, because so far Yang Hongzhang should be the most arrogant young man he had ever seen. If Sun Chengzong hadn't seen Yang Hongzhang's battle, it must have been just the nature of an ordinary scholar, but Lu Xiangsheng's reply also said that this guy could snatch the sea ship from the red-haired people by relying on dozens of domestic slaves, and traveled tens of thousands of miles through the blockade of Westerners and returned to Daming smoothly. If Yang Hongzhang really has that ability, then Gao Yang is blessed, and Daming is blessed!

Under the call of Sun Chengzong and Wang Lenian, the magistrate of the county, the entire Gaoyang City was fully mobilized. And the hardest person is not Yang Hongzhang, but Wang Lenian. Because Yang Hongzhang also assigned him a task to supervise the construction of fortifications. Sun Chengzong had never heard of the fortifications, but he just told Wang Lenian to do it according to Yang Hongzhang's explanation.

Then, under the puzzled eyes of the people and craftsmen, Wang Lenian led 5,000 people to start digging pits outside the four city gates, and then poured cement squares of different sizes on top of the pits, according to Yang Hongzhang. Pouring, cement, and bamboo tendons are the first time Wang Lenian has heard of them. Especially when it comes to the formulation of cement, the ratio between clay, lime and gypsum is difficult to grasp. What maintenance is needed after each pouring......

However, three days later, Sun Chengzong climbed the city wall and was amazed when he saw the fortifications that were beginning to take shape. Experienced in a hundred battles, he could see at a glance what these cement piers meant to the Qing army, which was all cavalry.

Wang Lenian knew that Sun Chengzong was once the governor of Jiliao, and he personally built the Guanningjin defense line. Since he said it was good, he didn't work hard in vain these days. In fact, Yang Hongzhang was also smiling bitterly, if the Qing army gave him enough time, he would rather use cement to build the city wall. Although concrete-like cement is not as strong, it is much stronger than ordinary rammed earth walls with bamboo netting.

Yang Hongzhang's task to Wang Lenian is actually very simple, that is, to use wood boards as molds, and bury the cement prefabricated slabs of different sizes irregularly in the open space within 300 steps outside the city wall. These things are not used as bunkers, but as horse rejections. Fixed and irregularly arranged cement piers slowed down the Qing cavalry and made it impossible for them to form a formation in a short period of time. Of course, the main thing is that these horse-repellent swords are difficult to cut at once, and they are not easy to move, and they cannot be burned. If the Qing army gave up cavalry and chose to dismount and fight on foot or use siege equipment, these cement piers would become an obstacle in the way of the siege equipment.

The scouts bring back news every day, but most of it is about the homeless. Yue Tuo immediately dispersed his troops and tried to plunder as quickly as possible, and then joined up with Dolgon's troops who had entered the pass from Qingshan Pass to meet the Ming army that came to intercept him. Hejian Mansion is the focus of the scouts, but since Yang Hongzhang returned to Gaoyang again, there has been no large-scale army in and out, and I think Yue Tuo must have taken people to Shandong.

However, on the evening of the fourth day, a group of daring scouts brought news that a large number of vehicles loaded with supplies were heading northeast from Suning. Thinking that Yue Tuo captured Hejian Mansion and then set off from Hejian with a large amount of supplies, and then Yang Hongzhang set off with the five hundred cavalry that his subordinates had improvised despite Sun Chengzong's dissuasion.

After marching rapidly along the southern line of Baiyangdian for two hours, he finally caught up with the Qing army's convoy. At this time, it was already the second half of the night, and the entire transport team actually chose to camp in the field. Due to the information of the scouts in advance, Yang Hongzhang and the others no longer hid their traces after approaching and rushed forward directly. The Qing army was obviously also very vigilant, and more than 100 cavalry had already rushed out before Yang Hongzhang and the others approached, but they were greeted by more than 400 Yang Jiajun who had just been trained to fire a volley of guns. Bang bang, after the dense gunfire, only half of the more than 100 Qing cavalry who rushed towards him remained. Then when they saw the scale of Yang Hongzhang's cavalry, they chose to retreat. Then there was a column of nearly two hundred infantry behind the simple wall.

Yang Hongzhang was not carried away by the victory, but let the team stop, and continued to protect the sides on the horse without flintlock pistols, and the hundreds of dismounters in the middle were divided into three rows and chose to fight on foot. After all, the war horse is not very familiar with the sound of flintlock pistols and palm thunder.

When the gunfire rang out again, the Qing army on the opposite side finally panicked, and the Ming musket team they had encountered in the past definitely did not have such a strong combat effectiveness. The point is that the same infantry, the bows and arrows of the Qing army cannot reach the enemy at all. The sound of a salvo of more than 200 flintlock muskets was enough to deter any soldier who had never seen such a scene!

After about three more rounds of firing, the Qing army on the opposite side was already very chaotic and collapsed. Just when Yang Hongzhang thought that the other party was about to collapse. A surprising scene appeared, the originally dispersed Qing cavalry reappeared, but this time they did not choose to charge, nor did they choose to ride and shoot on the spot. It's that everyone has one person in their hands.

I heard a person on the other side shouting in Chinese: "The Ming dog on the other side immediately stops and leaves, otherwise we will kill a group of prisoners every time you launch." Until you kill them all! The man grinned, but there was a fierce glint in his eyes, obviously very proud of his action.

"......" Yang Hongzhang looked at the flickering firelight, those who were escorted by the Qing cavalry were all Han Chinese, but judging from the clothing, they were obviously just ordinary people. At this time, a scout came to Yang Hongzhang and said that there were indeed nearly 1,000 people in the situation they had detected. Plundering the population was also one of the major purposes of the Qing army. Therefore, it is normal for a transport team to have a large number of Ming Dynasty people. The scout didn't specify it. Yang Hongzhang glared at him viciously, and then ordered all the flintlock musketeers to reload their ammunition and then go back to join their horses.

The Qing army on the opposite side couldn't help but be overjoyed when they saw that their methods were effective. It was only soon that he realized that he was wrong. The assembled 500 cavalry quickly broke through the makeshift wall, their bows and flintlock muskets firing. All the cavalry of the Ming army started an indiscriminate attack on the cavalry and hostages of the Qing army and the scattered infantry without any scruples!

Seeing this, the cavalry of the Qing army became murderous and slashed at the Ming man beside him without hesitation. It is clear that these strange soldiers are trying to deter the invading enemy with bloody scenes. For a while, flesh and blood flew sideways.

Yang Hongzhang tried to control himself from looking and not thinking, he knew that he had to solve the battle as soon as possible, otherwise there would be more innocent people, so he desperately urged the war horse under his crotch, rushed into the Qing cavalry team first, and then threw out the palm thunder that had been prepared. The others who had already received the order also did the same, and suddenly the position where the Qing cavalry was located was blown out one by one. Fifty or sixty cavalrymen died on the spot. And the hostages in their hands have long since fallen to the ground and been trampled by the war horses.

More cavalry then stormed the makeshift camp and slaughtered the infantry who tried to resist. Seeing that the threat of their own people using the Ming people as shields did not work, those infantry also knew that a catastrophe was coming. Most chose to kneel and beg for mercy. However, the furious Yang Hongzhang did not plan to let them go. Everyone behind Yang Hongzhang had no intention of letting go of these captives, because Jiu Zai was still using innocent people as shields just now. Nearly 300 human heads were cut off and loaded into a carriage and brought back to Gaoyang.

Although at least 50 innocent refugees died, more than a dozen were killed in a head-to-head confrontation with the Qing army, and more than 30 were wounded by bows and arrows, they were nothing compared to the results of the battle.

Yang Hongzhang finally tasted the benefits of excellent scouts, this time he himself felt insulted, more than 100 cavalry and 200 escorts of the Qing army were attacked, and all but three were shot alive. At least 1,000 ordinary people who were about to become slaves were rescued, and a rough estimate of 3,000 stone of grain, five carts of silk, cloth, winter clothes, and pig iron were intercepted. There is also a cart of gunpowder that Yang Hongzhang urgently needs. Obviously, this is the inventory of the Hejian Mansion Treasury, and it is Yue Tuo who is organizing the Manpower King to transport their harvest in the north. As for the silver, except for the cavalry who promised to go to war, each divided three taels, and the scouts who found the enemy five taels each, all of them were stored by him to buy war supplies. This made all those who participated in the war smile. Only Xia Dongwei had a bitter face, on the one hand, he hadn't adapted to this bloody scene. Especially the Yang Xiucai he knew, his decisiveness and ruthlessness in the face of the threat of the Qing army and civilians made him a little unable to believe his eyes. Although it was later learned that 50 people were sacrificed but a thousand people were rescued, Yang Hongzhang's decision has nothing to blame. But watching living people, especially unarmed people, being slaughtered on the spot, made him realize that the battlefield was not so fun.

In fact, when those people learned that the Ming army in Gaoyang rescued them, they were also excited, for them, it is not terrible to leave their hometown, but the terrible thing is that they may never return to the Ming Dynasty. Many of them had young adults in their families flee from Hejian before the city was breached, and if they were captured and enslaved by the Qing army, they would never have a chance to reunite with those who had left before! So they are naturally grateful to Yang Hongzhang and his subordinates!

Just as everyone was about to return to Gaoyang with their belongings and rescued people, two men came out of the crowd, the eldest of whom was about forty years old, who came to Yang Hongzhang under the guidance of the soldiers and bowed first. Yang Hongzhang is not the first time to save people, and he is also used to the cumbersome etiquette of people in this era, not to mention that the person in front of him is not an ordinary cultivator at first glance.

"I don't know if the general is from that town, your general army can be nearby. I have important information. The middle-aged man said impatiently after saluting.