There are not many cavalry in their Ming army, and even now the two Ming armies in Jingzhou are combined, and the cavalry they have is only a little more than the fourth army, and the armies of these two sides have not officially fought yet, and their more than 300 cavalry have lost almost half, and now let these cavalrymen go out to investigate, people dare not go.

Even if they go out, these cavalrymen often find a place to go around, and then go back to resume their lives.

As a result, the Ming army gradually began to lose control of the movements of the Fourth Army.

However, this can't be blamed on the cavalry of the Ming army, they don't have any advantage in strength, and most of the cavalry is not a professional cavalry, let alone them, in the huge Ming Dynasty, in addition to the large-scale cavalry establishment of the northern border army, there is a lack of large-scale professional cavalry troops in other places, and as the southern inland area of Huguang and even Nanzhili, there are not many cavalry troops.

In the huge Huguangli, there was only one professional cavalry unit on hand, which was the direct force that Zhang Yue brought from the north, with about five hundred cavalry.

This cavalry was not a Beijing camp army, nor was it a border army in the north, but a cavalry unit drawn from Shandong, Henan and other places by the Ming Dynasty to strengthen Zhang Yue.

After all, it is impossible for Zhang Yue to go south to supervise the encirclement and suppression of the puppet Tang thief army, so that he will not bring any soldiers, in addition to transferring 1,000 people from the Beijing camp to him, the bigwigs of the imperial court also very considerately transferred 500 cavalry from Shandong, Henan and other places, thus forming the core of the supervision of Zhang Yue's direct jurisdiction.

These five hundred cavalry is not simple, it is not the kind of cavalry infantry in the ordinary Ming army, but a real professional cavalry, and it is also a cavalry that can skillfully play cavalry and archery.

Zhang Yue's core of supervision was 1,000 people in Beijing and 500 cavalry, and he also used various means on the road to recruit 5,000 young and strong people from northern Jiangsu, that is, the Huai River area, and obtained a large number of sophisticated ordnance and even firearms such as Franc machine guns from Nanzhili.

As a result, Zhang Yue's subordinate governors were formed, because most of them were newly recruited young recruits, who had always been taken by Zhang Yue and stationed in the hinterland of Huguang, that is, Changsha, for training.

In the huge Huguang area, in addition to the 500 professional cavalry in Zhang Yue's supervision, most of the cavalry owned by the other Ming army is said to be cavalry, but in fact it is mounted infantry, and many of them are the personal soldiers of senior generals, the reason is very simple, because they only have horses.

Ordinary big-headed soldiers don't have horses to match their genus.

In many cases, these horse-owned infantrymen were used as scout cavalry, and as for large-scale cavalry engagements, this was not their combat mission at all.

These mounted infantry part-time mounted infantry, you let them play solo combat, or even a few people's small-scale combat is fine, and even take advantage of some advantages, because their personal martial arts are usually better, even if they can't play horse combat, but after dismounting, they are basically elite soldiers.

Even on horseback, he was able to fight a draw with the equally incompetent scouts in the Tang army, and sometimes he was able to gain the upper hand.

However, when Chen Keqiao used the Second Cavalry Battalion and forcibly reconnoitred with a large cavalry force, these Ming cavalry infantry were obviously no opponents.

In a cavalry battle with a scale of more than dozens of people, their excellent individual martial arts could not be displayed at all, and then they were cut into pulp by the Tang cavalry rushing in rows.

The regular cavalry of the Tang Dynasty fights, and they don't pay attention to any personal martial arts with you at all, they pay attention to group fighting, and it is a group beating in a dense formation, and the cavalry comes and goes when they fight, which is such a fixed few moves, rushing up and directly swinging the knife and chopping, which can be said to have no technical content at all.

Even the Tang cavalry did not pay attention to the martial arts training of the cavalry, but paid more attention to the formation of the cavalry!

Charge in formation, that's the focus of their training!

After several days of cavalry fighting, the Ming army's scouts gradually lost the trace of the Fourth Army, but the general direction can still be seen.

Because as long as a straight line is drawn on the map according to the movement of the Fourth Army, then it will be found that the Fourth Army is heading straight to the north, and this direction is the center point of the two Ming armies.

Could it be that they are trying to forcibly intercept our two armies from it?

In this way, won't they fall into a state of being caught between the front and back?

How could these pseudo-Tang thieves be so stupid?

It's impossible, how could these pseudo-Tang thief armies be so stupid, if they were stupid, it would be impossible for them to defeat the official army in a row before, and the soldiers swept across the three provinces.

There must be some conspiracy here!

And when Hong Linquan looked at the extremely abstract map in his hand for a long time, he finally secretly said that it was not good!

Others even asked what was wrong!

Hong Linquan said: "It is very likely that they are going to the defenders of Jingzhou!" ”

"No, we must speed up and join the Jingzhou defenders as soon as possible, otherwise, if the Jingzhou defenders alone want to deal with these pseudo-Tang thief army, I am afraid that there will be too many variables!"

Although this is a bit embarrassing to say, Hong Linquan is a cautious person, he doesn't think that the 10,000 people of his Jingzhou garrison can win the 7,000 people of the puppet Tang thief army, even if his side has a slight advantage in troops.

The real thieves in the pseudo-Tang thief army are already known to be strong, and most of the seven thousand pseudo-Tang thieves are real thieves, and now the enemy is dark and I am clear, in case of a surprise attack, I am afraid that the boat will capsize in the gutter!

"Is it possible that they're coming towards us? Although the strength of the Jingzhou defenders is smaller, but they have just left the city, and if they encounter an accident, they can retreat back to the city at any time, these thieves will not know this, but we are short of soldiers after a long march, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to fight if it is intercepted! Someone else said.

Hong Linquan said: "Coming towards us? Hmph, it would be better if they dared to come, the headquarters has 15,000 soldiers, even if they can't beat them, they won't be defeated in a short time, then the headquarters will first entangle them, and then wait for the Jingzhou defenders to come, cooperate with our army to flank the thief army, and our army will definitely be able to win a big victory in this battle! ”

Hong Linquan guessed correctly, Chen Keqiao really planned to attack the Jingzhou defenders first, as for the reason, it was naturally the well-known small number of Jingzhou defenders, and more importantly, it was closer to the Fourth Army.

Through the maneuvering in the past few days, the main force of the Fourth Army is less than 20 miles away from the defenders of Jingzhou, and this distance is still being shortened, but it is still more than 30 miles away from the reinforcements of Xingquanfu.

The defenders who came out of Jingzhou City first, he would have more time, so as not to delay the time for the two armies to converge, so that they would be attacked from front to back.

As for how long it will take to defeat them?

Chen Keqiao believed that from the beginning of the engagement, if the two sides fought a field battle, one day was enough to distinguish the winner and loser, and at this time, unless the Xingquan Mansion reinforcements were inserted wings, it was impossible for them to arrive in just one day.

However, what Hong Linquan didn't know was that in order to avoid being attacked from the front and rear, Chen Keqiao did not face the battle directly west of Jingzhou's army, but launched an attack from the southeast, which was to block the way for the Jingzhou defenders to escape back to Jingzhou City.

Even in order to achieve an advantage in this direction, he did not hesitate to take his troops around in a small circle, for which he wasted an extra half a day on the march.

By the evening of the same day, the main force of the Fourth Army was only about ten miles away from the garrison of the Jingzhou garrison, but naturally it could not continue to march at night, let alone fight.

Nights are a break for both parties!

Playing Night War? The brain is burned out, this black light is blinding, it won't take long to run out, and the enemy will have to break up before he touches himself!

As for the torches, the march is barely okay, but it also needs a guide who is very familiar with the terrain to lead the way, and then it is necessary to frequently use cavalry to communicate with the front and rear, otherwise it is easy to walk and walk in chaos.

As for attacking with torches, this is basically telling the enemy: I'm here, I'm coming, you get your bows and arrows ready and shoot at me!

And the most important thing is that you can't know how many enemies there are on the opposite side and what kind of defense you have prepared, and the enemy can give you a fatal blow at any time in the dark.

This is actually quite good, it is more likely that the troops in the rear do not know the situation of the troops in front, and there may even be a situation where friendly forces attack friendly forces, and the slightest disturbance can easily lead to the collapse of the whole army, because you don't know what happened to the friendly forces hundreds of meters away!

That scene was a disaster for any general, and he couldn't command the battle at all.

Of course, it is feasible to send a small number of elite troops to attack and harass in the dark, but everyone is not stupid, the camp is full of torches, just prevent you from playing this hand, if you want to send someone to attack and harass, the possibility of success is not great!

Therefore, in most ancient and modern wars, night battles actually rarely occur, except for the kind of battles that are quite transparent between friend and foe.

Even during World War II, night battles were not fought much!

Darkness is the best messenger of peace, bringing a short peace to the defenders of Jingzhou and the Fourth Army, but this peace is destined to not last long.

The sun had just risen, and the Fourth Army, which had had eaten breakfast in advance, was once again advancing in the northwest direction, and at this time, they were only ten miles away from the Ming army!