When Cao Mingda retreated with the cavalry, Butcher Chen also led dozens of people to come forward to provide support and cover, so that the Ming army rushed out again to chase and kill.

You must know that the rout of most battles occurs in the process of retreat, and the slightest careless tactical retreat will turn into a strategic rout.

And once the rout occurs, no matter how strict the military discipline is, how strong the belief is, and how high the quality of the soldiers is, it is impossible to defeat an instinctive survival mentality, which leads to the inability to reverse the situation.

Even a general at the level of a military god can only sigh in the face of such a rout, and the only thing he can do is to wait until the rout is tired of running by himself, and then he can slowly collect the rout.

In order to prevent the retreat of the cavalry squad from turning into a rout, which in turn causes unrest throughout the troops, the necessary cover was necessary.

Not only did the hand-to-hand combat troops led by Butcher Chen cover up, but the musketeers were also in full position at this time, and the muzzles of the musketeers were always aimed at the direction of the city, and once someone in the Ming army on the city head dared to shoot arrows, they would immediately usher in a salvo of dozens of muskets.

However, Wang Danxu and Chen Butcher did not appear in their worries, the Ming army at the gate of the city had already collapsed, and there was still a way to prevent the men and horses from counterattacking or even pursuing, as for the Ming army at the head of the city, those ordinary soldiers and young men were powerless, as for those archers who could fight back, they were already afraid of the musket team of the Tang New Army before, and this bold shooting would attract a salvo from the Tang New Army, so that they did not dare to lean out to fight back.

It can only be the same as before, hiding behind the battlements to carry out an effective counterattack by projectile, in this kind of projectile counterattack that is not even visible to people, if there are hundreds of archers on the side of the Ming army, then the results under the cover of arrow rain will definitely not be small.

But the key thing is that there are not so many archers in the Ming army, and archers have always been an extremely scarce type of army, difficult to train, and small in number.

For example, there are not many archers in the Datang New Army, and there are only forty people who are counted when they are full, and these forty people occupy less than one-tenth of the proportion in the Datang New Army.

The Ming army is not much better, although the proportion of archers is higher, but this is in the regular army, and at this time in Zhengtai County, there are only more than two hundred regular guards in the army, and it is already very good to have twenty or thirty people who know how to bend bows and shoot arrows, plus the few people who can shoot arrows in Qingzhuang, there are only fifty or sixty people in total.

And these archers have already suffered a lot of casualties after being attacked by several rounds of attacks by the musket team of the Datang New Army.

There are only a few dozen people who shoot aimlessly at the sky, and it is impossible to form a large rain of arrows to cover the shooting, so the hit rate is naturally not high there.

Cao Ming came quickly with the people just now, and he was not slow when he left, and he quickly evacuated from under the city wall and returned to his own array.

Fang Dongquan looked at his old subordinate at this time, his face was gloomy and a little terrifying, and after staring at Cao Mingda for a long time, he said: "Just now, because of your temporary greed, you almost broke my Tang Dynasty's military strategy, you can ask Your Majesty for your own guilt!" ”

Although Cao Mingda was on the way back, he thought that his words might cause trouble this time he attacked without authorization, but at the last moment, he resisted the idea of capturing Zhengtai County and led people to retreat, in this way, it is not considered disobedience, at most, he chased the Ming army for dozens of meters on his own initiative, accidentally chased the city gate, and accidentally knocked down the city gate, this kind of behavior is at most an unauthorized action.

In the past, he acted without permission many times, and he didn't see that time when he was really punished.

But now he looked at the face of Fang Dongquan, the old master, but he had a bad premonition in his heart, this time, he was afraid that he would really get into trouble.

Fang Dongquan, the old boss, said that he naturally didn't dare to slack off, and soon rode his horse to the top of the hill, and without waiting to step forward, he turned over and dismounted, and then walked up.

He was still a few meters away from Li Xuan, and he already knelt down directly, and at the same time said in his mouth: "The minister is guilty, he should not be greedy for a momentary effort, and ask His Majesty to punish him!" ”

As he spoke, he also took off his helmet and acted as if he had taken off his official hat.

Looking at this Cao Mingda, Li Xuan's face was still not very good-looking, just now because of this Cao Mingda's unauthorized actions, he almost defeated Zhengtai County and made things so big that he couldn't clean them up.

However, seeing that he looked like he was willing to accept the guilt, he had resisted his greed at the last moment and led the army to retreat according to the order, which made Li Xuan really not want to deal with it too much, after all, now that the Tang Dynasty was founded, it was necessary for talents from all walks of life to serve.

Li Xuan needs civil officials like Liu Bagou, Qian Mengjiu, and Wang Wenhua, as well as strategic talents like Zeng Ziwen, and also needs people like Chen Butcher and Cao Mingda.

So Li Xuan wouldn't really kill this Cao Mingda, but such a person, no matter how brave he is, he doesn't dare to reuse it, who knows if he will make any trouble next time.

After he glanced at Cao Mingda, he immediately said: "Cao Mingda disrespects the order and acts without authorization, and he will be immediately removed from the post of captain of the cavalry!" ”

Cao Mingda, who was still kneeling on the ground, was slightly stunned when he heard this, obviously he didn't expect Li Xuan to directly revoke his position as captain, but after being stunned for a moment, he didn't say anything more, but said: "Thank you, Lord Longen!" ”

Just when Li Xuan had just removed Cao Mingda's position, suddenly there was a scout horse galloping on the periphery, this scout had just arrived at the top of the mountain, turned over and dismounted, and kept walking, and ran directly in front of Li Xuan, with a trace of panic on his face and said: "Your Majesty, a large number of puppet Ming thieves have appeared five miles behind the flank of our army, and the strength is no less than a thousand!" ”

As soon as these words came out, the hill fell into silence in an instant, and only the sound of everyone's increased breathing could be heard.

After counting the breath, Qian Mengjiu on the side stood up and said, "Can you see clearly, there are really as many as a thousand people?" Is it a regular army or a young man? ”

The scout ran too quickly when he ran back to report the news, so that his breathing was still a little unsmooth, but he still said: "That's right, there are at least a thousand people, and they are all regular soldiers, not young and strong!" ”

To distinguish whether the soldiers in the army are regular soldiers or young and strong and even whether they are elite, in fact, it is very simple, just look at the clothes on their bodies, those wearing tattered military uniforms must be ordinary guard soldiers, and those who wear neat military uniforms and even have cotton armor are the elite of those guard soldiers, that is, various low-level officers and even pro-soldiers.

And the soldiers with weapons and no uniforms, needless to say, also know that those are young men who have been temporarily conscripted.

And the Ming army, which has no military uniforms, not even standard weapons, at most only a flat pole or a little messy self-prepared weapons, is 100% a long man.

More than a thousand Ming troops appeared in their flank and rear positions, which is not normal no matter how you look at it!

How is this possible? The Ming army in Zhengtai County is only about a thousand regular troops, there are hundreds of people in Longhua Town, there should be hundreds of people in Zhengtai County at this time, and the rest of the Ming army is rumored to have been taken away by Su Jiakang.

Even if Su Jiakang appeared with all the Ming troops who went out of the city, there would be four or five hundred people at most, how could there be thousands of people.

Moreover, according to the consistent configuration of the Ming army, there will definitely be a large number of young and strong and long men behind the regular army, that is to say, the Ming army behind them, the regular army plus the young and long men, the total number of its people is more than 2,000 people.

After Li Xuan heard the words of the scout, his face changed several times in a row, from panic at the beginning to calmness, it lasted only a few seconds, and after a few seconds, he looked up at the scout and said, "Can you find out which part of the Ming army is the Ming army?" Who is in the lead? Where are its forwards and main forces located, and how far are they from our army? ”

Although Li Xuan didn't speak quickly, he asked a series of detailed questions.

When the detective heard Li Xuan personally ask, he naturally didn't dare to hide anything, and immediately said them one by one, and he also knew that the situation was urgent now, so he tried to be as brief as possible when he reported clearly, and there was no superfluous nonsense.

After Li Xuan asked clearly, he was silent again.

And Qian Mengjiu and Zeng Ziwen glanced at each other at this time, and they both saw worry from each other!

Just now, the detective said that there is a king's flag in the attacking Ming army, and if nothing else, this 'king' should be the Qianhu Wang Zhisigh of the fairy stone Qianhu. In addition to Wang, there is also a Chen Ziqi, and in the existing Fairy Shi Qianhu Office and Tong'an Qianhu Office in Zhengtai County, there is no senior general surnamed Chen, so it can be seen that this general surnamed Chen must have just arrived here from other places.

In addition to these general banners, the scouts also saw the honor guard of the third-class jinshi and the seven-rank civil official, which means that the Ming army in the rear is really led by Su Jiakang, because in this acre and three points of land in Zhengtai County, there is only Su Jiakang who is a seven-rank civil official from Jinshi.

Only Su Jiakang can use this kind of honor guard!

Is it a coincidence that Su Jiakang led a large army and suddenly appeared behind him?

When pigs fly!

Su Jiakang and they may have been lying in ambush nearby, and they began to attack after the Datang New Army began to attack the city, and the estimation was that they wanted to attack the Datang New Army back and forth, otherwise it would not be such a coincidence, and they appeared behind them, showing a situation of encirclement.

What does this mean?

This shows that all this is a conspiracy, Su Jiakang did not take people into the mountain, and the Ming army in Longhua Town entered the mountain is estimated to be just a pretense.

All this is to lead himself and others to the city of Zhengtai County, and then surround and annihilate.

Now, something is wrong, if one is not good, I am afraid that I and others will have to fold in Zhengtai County!

At this moment, the expression on Li Xuan's face continued to remain in a state of frowning, and after being silent for more than ten seconds, he suddenly spoke: "Immediately send an order to the whole army, immediately prepare for battle, and prepare to move in!" ”

Qian Mengjiu asked, "Your Majesty, where are we going?" ”

Li Xuan looked up at the southwest, which was the direction of Huangzhu Mountain, but he quickly turned his head to look in the northwest direction, and raised his hand and pointed afar: "Let's go to the northwest, Yangjia Village!" ”

After that, he looked at Qian Mengjiu, and then said with a smile: "Don't worry, I will take you back to the mountain." He paused, then took a deep breath and said, "Go back alive!" ”