On January 14, 1648, on the banks of the Beisha River after the snow. Yang Mingyang returned from the front with more than 2,000 cavalry, who had just fought with Gao Di's horse team for a while, forcing them firmly back to the center of the battlefield.

This is the north of Teng County, after setting the plan to eliminate the Gaodi Division, the East Bank Army quickly stopped advancing, and then adjusted and mobilized troops and horses on the spot, and turned back to kill the Gaodi Division of the Qing Army, which had been far behind.

Gao was still a little unsure at the beginning, why did the yellow-clothed thief who was in a hurry to hurry up suddenly turn around and want to fight him to the death-shouldn't the yellow-clothed thief who robbed a belly of goods be in a hurry to go back and share the spoils, and now they should all have no heart to fight, right? But the facts surprised Gao Di, the yellow-clothed thief deployed a full 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers and horses north of Teng County - and the number has been increasing rapidly, and it is believed that when his troops are fully deployed, the number of soldiers and horses may reach more than twice that of Gao Di's soldiers and horses.

In the face of these numbers of yellow-clothed thieves, even if Gao Di prides himself on the ability of his sons and daughters to fight, he will not dare to take risks lightly.

To be honest, in the face of the yellow-clothed thief who opened a fierce attack, Gao Di actually didn't want to fight very much, because his troops were not superior. In desperation, Mei Lezhang Jinglai, who was rushing from Yanzhou Mansion, strictly ordered himself to drag the yellow-clothed thief brigade and not let it escape from the sea, so that the Qing army brigade behind could come over to surround the main force of the yellow-clothed thief. For the past few days, Gaudi has been harassing the Yellow Thieves along the way with his horse corps to slow down their march as much as possible, and this trick seems to have played a role.

It's a pity that Tong Yangliang, Yi Yonggui, Kong Xigui, Niu Chenghu and others who came from the rear are too slow, and they still don't know where to hurry. The day before yesterday, Lai's envoy came again, and brought the latest instructions on how to deal with the yellow-clothed thief, who was sitting in Jinan City: "Curb the thief's return." so that it does not face east. ”

Gaudí scratched his head at the order. According to previous information, there were "twenty or thirty thousand thieves" in yellow clothes. And his own step is not more than 15,000 steps, which is too difficult to intercept the other party. However, fortunately, there was no trace of the horse team in the yellow-clothed thief formation, and several skirmishes before and after were completely won by his own department, and one of the battles was even beheaded by more than 1,000 people, which added a lot of confidence to him - the yellow-clothed thieves who are famous in the three provinces are nothing more than that. In addition, Kong Xigui only communicated with him two days ago, and the governor led his soldiers and horses to come here, so it must not be far from here at this moment.

In this way, out of self-confidence in the combat effectiveness of their old troops. As well as the practical factor that the army of more than 20,000 thieves in yellow clothes has been deployed - Gao Di is not sure that he will be able to successfully retreat in front of the enemy, so he decides to fight with the yellow thieves here, maybe he can take this opportunity to drag the yellow thieves, so that the reinforcements in the rear can catch up and surround them, so that he can make a great achievement. However, at the moment when Gao Di was preparing for the battle, a news from the rear suddenly surprised him: Li Hua's whale soldiers besieged Caozhou, and the large amount of military resources stored by the Qing army was not guaranteed, and Kong Xigui had been ordered to rush to suppress it; And when it came this morning, another news came that made him fall into the bottomless abyss: the "more than 10,000 people" of the yellow-clothed thieves reoccupied Jining Prefecture and burned a large amount of military grain and grass.

This time. With a slight gesture on the map, Gaudí knew the perilous situation of his troops: the road was dead. And there is no hope of getting through in the short term. He didn't expect that the more than 5,000 old and weak soldiers and horses he left in Hexi would be able to defeat tens of thousands of yellow-clothed thieves, and if he added more than 20,000 people from Kong Xi's noble department, there was still some hope, but now it definitely won't work; On the right is Dushan Lake, which is covered with a thin layer of freezing, making it impossible to sail or pass through the Guò brigade. On the left is Yimeng Mountain, which has always been barren, and his more than 10,000 soldiers and horses may have to starve to death in the mountains; As for the front, needless to say, they are the main force of the Yellow Thieves, and if they want to have a way, they must be defeated!

said a thousand ways and ten thousand, now Gaodi has to fight if he fights, and he has to fight if he doesn't fight! After realizing this, he immediately took advantage of the precious time of the people on the east coast to mobilize troops and horses and arrange troops, and began to frantically organize people to cut down trees and build improvised camps, preparing to make the last stubborn resistance - if he insisted on the main force in the rear to help, then he Gaodi would have made a great contribution to turning the salted fish over!

Gao Di crossed the river with more than 15,000 soldiers and horses—5,000 more than the information he had obtained a few days ago, which surprised the people on the east coast, but it didn't seem to be a big problem. Isn't it just that there are 5,000 more green battalions, and now the main force of the East Coast army is gathered here, and there are so many ammunition on the car that they can't seem to be used up, let alone 5,000, and they are confident that they will cover you with another 10,000 or 20,000.

The battle began on the day of the 14th. As a result of several days of snow outside, a thick layer had accumulated on the ground, and in this case, the power of the artillery that had previously relied on the Needle of the Sea on the East Coast was greatly reduced, because part of the kinetic energy of the ricocheting projectile would be absorbed by the snow or earth. However, Mo Ming still ordered the attack, and without him, the Gain fighter had already appeared. The troops that crossed the river in Gaodi were accustomed to fighting, and most of them were Liao soldiers who had been guarding Shanhaiguan for many years, and they were extremely arrogant on weekdays, but now they had opened a distance from their brother troops, which was an excellent opportunity to beat them to deter the Qing army.

You must know that the more than 20,000 people in the Gao Di Department are the ace army in the Qing court's three provincial capitals to suppress the seven general troops, with rich combat experience, complete equipment, and high morale. If this arrogant general is eaten, then the rest of the Qing army will be shocked!

The battle soon began. The artillery on the east bank first fired some solid shells from a distance into the improvised camp of the Qing army, but later found that the effect was not very good, so they replaced them with explosive bombs. However, the firing rate of this explosive bomb is less than 50%, and even if it successfully explodes, it may not just happen to blow up the enemy's head, so it can only be said that it is better than nothing, and the enemy is only slightly shaken psychologically.

This kind of shelling, which was not a big threat, reassured Gao Di a little. Before the battle began, he was worried that the famous yellow-coated cannon would cause his troops to suffer heavy losses, but now it seems that this is not enough, and the casualties are still within an acceptable range. Among the more than 15,000 soldiers and horses under his command, there are 3,000 horses, which are all the old foundations of the Liao soldiers in Shanhaiguan back then; Most of the remaining 10,000 infantry (8,000 people) were recruits later recruited in Kaifeng, Henan, and Guide Erfu, mixed with the Liao soldiers they brought, and the proportion of veterans was quite high, and the combat effectiveness was not bad. Moreover, although the more than 8,000 infantry troops from Henan are not as good as his old Liao soldiers, he has been diligent in training in the past two years, and these infantry will always be pulled out to practice every once in a while, which is definitely a few points stronger than the ordinary Qing army green battalion.

And the shape on the battlefield also correctly reflected this situation: a yellow-clothed thief infantry team with the word "Chen" on the face was counterattacked by the Qing army when attacking the simple walled city. These Chen Zhilong's subordinates were under the impact of thousands of Kaifeng Mansion soldiers, and they began to be a little unable to resist the enemy after a long time, but they still had some discipline and did not break up on the spot like the Ming army.

The yellow-clothed thieves quickly brought in several light small cannons and fired at the Qing troops from a distance on both sides, causing them a certain amount of confusion. And when the commander of the Qing army mobilized some elites to prepare to pull out this group of yellow-clothed thief artillery, they pulled these small cannons elsewhere with their horses, and then continued to attack.

After seeing this scene, Gao Di's face darkened even more. He was not a fool, although this kind of small cannon with super battlefield mobility was nothing to praise in terms of caliber and barrel -- this was only for the caliber of the cannons on the east coast, and to the Qing army, these cannons were actually not small cannons -- but their light weight and ease of movement were their greatest characteristics. If this small cannon is maneuvering around on the battlefield, then you can imagine how much trouble it will cause to the enemy.

Trouble! Gao Di suddenly regretted that he should have made up his mind to break through in the direction of the Yimeng Mountains at the first time. Although I had occasionally heard about the yellow-clothed cannon before, I couldn't get too impressed before I saw it with my own eyes, and I always felt that with the spirit and combat effectiveness of the sons under my command, I should be able to resist for a long time. After all, the yellow-clothed thieves didn't pop out of the cracks in the stones, most of them were originally bandits, thieves and mud-legged people from Shandong, and he could abuse these people as much as he wanted.

But now it seems that he has underestimated these yellow-clothed thieves a little, and the miscellaneous troops in these yellow-clothed thieves are not as vulnerable as he imagined, maybe most of the soldiers and horses under his command will be lost in this place today. And what's even more terrifying is that the horse team that the yellow-clothed thief had been disappearing before finally appeared, and under the battle just now, his three thousand old cavalry were defeated under the battle with the opponent's colored cavalry, and they were fiercely pressed back, which made Gao Di's heart feel even worse.

The situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly. Just when Gao Di was entangled and worried, the servant armies of the east bank army appeared one after another, Dong Xueli from the west, Zhai Congge from the north, and Qin Shangxing from the south began a general attack, and these people, with the cooperation of the east bank artillery, launched a wave of offensive against more than 15,000 soldiers and horses of the Gao Di division who were stationed in the center of the battlefield.

In particular, the Gansu border army of Dong Xueli's department has a fierce and bold fighting style, and it can be bold at critical moments. With the cooperation of the artillery on the east bank, they were the first to break through the Henan army array of Gaodi's troops in the afternoon, almost shaking their entire defensive line, and at the same time extinguishing Gaodi's last trace of confidence in holding on. (To be continued......)