Li Zhi equipped 1,500 cavalrymen with chain mail. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

After the last battle with Zhenghuangqi, Li Zhi captured a large amount of Tartar armor. Although the armor was pierced by the Minnie rifle, the damage was not large, and the blacksmith could continue to use it with a slight repair. Among these armors, the chain mail worn by the Qing army's white swing teeth and horse armor was the most sophisticated, so Li Zhi repaired these chain mails and equipped them to the cavalry of the Xuanfeng Regiment.

Cavalry has the need for melee combat on horseback and needs the protection of armor.

It took the blacksmiths half a month to repair the chain mail.

In the past half month, Li Zhi also recruited 1,000 Minzhuang as carriage drivers and men, and trained them. Although the army of thieves marched in the interior of the Ming Dynasty, it was possible to buy military rations on the spot, but it was still necessary to carry some grain and grass with the army for backup. Li Zhi prepared 1,000 wagons loaded with grain and grass, and carried a month's worth of rations and beans with the army.

These people not only managed the grain carts, but also buried the pot and cooked every day.

After making preparations, Li Zhi set out on the fifth day of the sixth month and led 8,000 soldiers to Nan0yang. As in the past, Li Zhi still left his younger brother Li Xing to sit in Fanjiazhuang to deal with emergencies.

At this time, it was the height of summer, the climate was hot, and it didn't take a few miles to get out of the sweat, and there was a risk of heat stroke after a long time. Li Zhi had his troops march early in the morning and at dusk, walking only forty miles a day. After walking for a month, the messenger quickly sent a report that the thieves had gathered in An 0qing, Xiong Wencan went to An 0qing, and asked Li Zhi to go to An 0qing to rendezvous.

Li Zhi abandoned Nan 0 Yang and went to An 0 Qing.

After walking for another month and a half, I came to the boundary of An0qing.

Thieves gathered on the border of An0qing, and they were repeatedly robbed by thieves, and it was very depressed. Li Zhi looked all the way and saw that the village was all dilapidated and abandoned, and there were no people. The house was dilapidated, and the contents of the house were empty and untamed by the owner of the house. The fields are even more barren, and the crops sown in the previous months are like weeds that are left untended.

Li Zhi's march passed through several large cities in the prefectures and counties north of Anqing Prefecture, and saw that outside the city there were thieves and displaced people, densely packed, huddled like beggars on the red earth under the city wall. As soon as the refugees saw a well-dressed person, they kept kowtowing and begging for a bowl of gruel to drink. The price of rice in the city is very expensive, and the price of rice has risen to eight taels of silver per stone, and there is no market.

Everywhere a post-apocalyptic scene.

The sentry of the thieves disappeared from time to time, and Li Zhi asked the soldiers to put on armor, carry rifles, and march in full armor. After another day of walking, Li Zhi walked to the territory of Huai0n County and encountered a thief army.

The rogue horse army has about 2,000 people, which is probably the outlying sentinel force of the rogue thieves. Seeing that Li Zhi's troops were numerous, they did not dare to come up to harass them, so they only hung three miles away and sent a large number of sentry cavalry to reconnoiter the situation of the Tiger Division. Li Zhizhi's horse army was forced to maintain combat readiness all the time, and always marched in three rows. After a few days, he still didn't know which thief this horse army belonged to, but Li Zhi's troops had already been found out.

Li Zhi was a little annoyed and determined to eat this horse army.

Now the 1,500 soldiers of the Xuanfeng Regiment have been turned into cavalry, led by the deputy regiment commander Xue Sanku. Xue Sanku is Li Zhi's little playmate and the first member of Li Zhi's Ding team. Because he was the veteran of the Jiading team, and his combat bravery and excellent performance, he gradually rose to the position of deputy commander.

Li Zhi summoned Xue Sanku and said, "Xue Sanku, I want to eat this horse army, do you have confidence in your three battalions?" ”

Xue Sanku sat up straight on his horse and said loudly: "Commander, I have confidence!" We must defeat this horse army and drive it away! ”

Li Zhi nodded and said, "Then you can go." ”

After Xue Sanku left, the Chinese army unfurled its flag and issued orders to the three cavalry battalions of the Xuanfeng Regiment. Xue Sanku led 1,500 cavalry to leave the large army and rode to the rogue horse army three miles away.

Seeing that Xue Sanku had few people, the thief Ma Jun did not evade, so they drove their horses to face Xue Sanku and rushed up to prepare for a fight.

However, Li Zhi's precious cavalry is not used for sword fighting, these cavalry armed to the teeth have two guns, and they can shoot the enemy from a distance.

The two armies gradually approached, the distance was four hundred meters, three hundred meters, and finally two hundred meters, Li Zhi's cavalry stopped their horses and rode on their horses to shoot.

There was a crackling gunshot, white smoke erupted from the barrel of the gun, and the three hundred cavalrymen in front of him fired bullets. The high-speed flying bullets shot fiercely into the body of the thief Ma Jun in the front row, and a miserable scream suddenly sounded in the ranks of the thieves. Blood poured out of the wounds of the bullets, and one or two hundred thieves fell off their horses and fell on the red earth of August.

The thief's horse army was stunned for a moment, and he was a little frightened on his horse.

Where did this official army come from, how can they be so powerful, they can take people's lives with firearms in more than a hundred steps? How will this battle be fought?

However, the horses under their crotches did not stop advancing, and they rushed forward another twenty meters.

The first row of cavalrymen in the front row of the selection regiment who had finished shooting rode their horses and walked a few steps to the side, giving way to the rear row of cavalry to come up and shoot.

The cavalrymen in the back row rode up to the firing position, aimed, fired, and there was another shot fire, and another hundred and seventy or eighty rogue horsemen fell under their horses, and blood and red earth were mixed together.

Although the thieves have become stronger and stronger over the years, they have been able to protest against the officials and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. But after all, they are still thieves, and their morale is limited, so they are scared at once. The firepower of the officers and soldiers was incessant, and this battle could not be fought. They howled loudly and turned to flee.

However, they were still within range of Mini's rifles. The cavalry of the second row moved out of position, and the cavalry of the third row opened fire, and another cloud of smoke was spewed out, making the white smoke in front of the front of the front of the front of the formation even more intense. More than 100 thieves were hit and fell under their horses in a scream.

When the soldiers of the fourth platoon of the Forward Regiment were shooting, the rogue horse army had already run more than 200 meters away. However, the soldiers did not let them go, and still held their breath to shoot, and the three hundred bullets shot down another hundred thieves and horses.

By the time it was the turn of the fifth platoon, the thieves had fled to two hundred and fifty or sixty meters. It's a long way off, and it's hard to target a person on a horse, but it's still possible to aim at a rogue horse with a larger target. The three hundred soldiers of the Elective Regiment took aim carefully, fought in rows and platoons, and brought down more than sixty terrified thieves.

The thieves who were still alive fled in all directions, and their armies were crushed.

Defeating the rogue horse army, Li Zhi had the cavalry scattered to reconnoiter and reconnoiter the intelligence within a radius of forty miles. The infantrymen went up to clean the battlefield, cut off their heads, torture the wounded, capture the horses, and kill the wounded to eat meat.

In the first battle, Li Zhi's cavalry killed and wounded more than 600 thieves and captured 490 military horses. Among these military horses, there are war horses and pack horses, and it is obvious that these two thousand horse troops are not the elite of the thieves, but only the sentinels on the periphery.

In addition to the living military horses, more than a hundred military horses were shot and injured by the thieves on the horses. These wounded horses became a source of horse meat for the Tiger Division.

Li Zhi tortured the injured thieves and learned that these thieves belonged to Zhang Xianzhong's men.