"Sometimes, what should be given up should be given up, instead of blindly letting the strength in your hands lose in unnecessary places."

Zhang Huangyan wanted to say this, but in the end, when he saw the different expressions of the officers and soldiers in the army, he had nothing to say.

"We and other people in the barracks should stand up before the national disaster, even if the opponent is too strong to be moved."

In the end, what Cong Zhang Huangyan said in his mouth was actually not his original words, but it was also a compromise word taken in desperation: "But as the front line of war defense, if there is really a mistake, it will endanger Anhui in the rear, and even the royal capital of Yingtianfu, so a small county like this needs to be garrisoned, and in the opinion of this official, there is no need for too many troops." ”

"Kong Zhenhui is the chief soldier, this officer and your 10,000 soldiers are stationed in this county, and you have the right to respond to the situation, not to seek anything else but to maximize the strength of the Hongtang army."

"If you can't do anything, this official will also allow you to choose the right to withdraw at the right time, and exempt you from the duty of losing your land!"

"Whoa!"

Kong Zhen will raise his head and hold his chest high, although he has just suffered a defeat, but he can't see the slightest discouragement at this time, but has a little more solemnity.

Zhang Huangyan gave himself a lot of power, and even less restrictions on himself, which was to let him have less worries and concentrate on dealing with the Hongtang army pursuing in the rear.

However, in fact, behind this order, Zhang Huang said that they were not a tragic act, they were already using the lives of their Ming army officers and soldiers who were not worth a few big bucks to exchange with the Hongtang army, even if the ratio of two to one or three to one was the price they could bear.

"Xiaguan will live up to the expectations of adults, and vow to make the Hongmen traitors pay a heavy price."

Although Kong Zhenhui seemed to be impassioned, to be honest, there was almost no self-confidence in the words between them, and it was not even as good as when they faced the Qing army, at least they still had some confidence in defensive operations.

"In fact, General Kong does not need to be too pessimistic, the fall of the city of Jinan is related to its proximity to the Yellow River, and the most powerful naval fleet of the Hongmen people uses this as a pedal to give full play to its powerful artillery advantages to make my city fortifications an empty talk."

"But now, although the city wall of Laiwu County is not as high and deep as the city of Jinan, the artillery of the fleet of the Hongmen Naval Division is also unable to directly hit Laiwu County."

"That is, the other side has land artillery, but although our army was defeated in the last encounter, this officer also found that a large number of cathartic ammunition from artillery fire may be able to cause a lot of damage to our army's body, but in terms of city defense, it is not enough to cause too much damage to the bluestone brick wall of Laiwu County."

"As for the high-powered firearms in his army, because of the transportation route, etc., there may not be too many, so if General Kong is properly armed, using Laiwu City as the cornerstone may not be able to bring great harm to the Hongmen army."

Zhang Huangyan was not without other ideas, although the previous decisive battle made him feel desperate, but under his keen observation, he also discovered the defects of the Hongtang army's "conscienceless cannon", and informed it to the garrison general Kong Zhenhui to calm his heart.

"The last general knows!"

Kong Zhenhui nodded and agreed, and kept it in his heart.

"As for us, after resting in Laiwu City for a day, we will continue to move south and build a defense in front of Jining Mansion to deal with the southward movement of Hongtang's army."

This is also the safest plan that Zhang Huangyan can think of.

Since the occupation of the northern land by Hongtang, and the reinstatement of the sea ban, the Ming Dynasty has lost too many sources of income, especially the division from the grasslands, so that the cavalry team that may be able to compete with the musketeers in this era has lost its most important resource - war horses.

Choking and Strange Novels|w~w~w.

The reason why the Hongtang army ignored other places at the beginning and also controlled the Great Wall fortress was to prevent the Ming Dynasty from having a chance to replenish the war horses.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty has a vast territory, that is, Hongmen will occupy the northern territory, but there are also northwest and other places bordering the grassland, Xining and other places were originally occupied by the thief Li Zicheng, and then the defeat of the other party, and finally returned to the hands of the Ming Dynasty, and now it is the only place in the Ming Dynasty that can provide war horses.

However, in these grasslands in Xining, due to the fact that a small number of nomads advocate freedom and nature, and the strength of the Ming Dynasty has gradually decreased, the tribes on the northwest grasslands have gradually despised it, and it has become very difficult for the Ming Dynasty to obtain war horses from its land.

In Zhang Huangyan's view, if it wanted to fight the Hongtang army in the field, the Ming Dynasty needed at least a formed cavalry army, supplemented by a large number of infantry, before it could be formed.

At this time, in the army of the Ming Dynasty, there was no cavalry army of more than 20,000 people since the Guanning Iron Cavalry.

Even among the 100,000 reinforcements brought by Zhang Huangyan at this time, the audience was only 5,000 cavalry, and they were all evenly distributed to him from his 15,000-strong cavalry camp by Sun Chuanting, the former superintendent.

Therefore, now that there is no obvious advantage in the strength of the troops, and there is no trace of the follow-up reinforcements from the DPRK and China, Zhang Huang said that if they want to continue to block the southward pace of Hongtang's army, they can only start from the shortcomings of the other side.

"Of course, our side not only retreats from the headquarters, but at the same time, the official also has to fortify the wall and clear the wilderness, and in the vast land north of Jining Mansion, not a single family is allowed to stay, and at the same time, the land is planted with crops, and not a grain of grain must fall into the hands of the Hongtang army."

"Chief Kong, although this official will not hold you accountable for the final rout, but he also needs to give you a time to hold on, at least half a month to block the Hongtang army, possibly?"

"Yes!!"

Kong Zhenhui was stunned at first, but immediately reacted and replied with a resolute look.

"Very good, as long as you can do this, not only will this official not hold you responsible, but will ask for credit for you!"

Zhang Huangyan nodded with satisfaction.

The biggest flaw of the Hongtang army, or the Hongmen, has always been that their army number and population base are insufficient.

Although since Hongmen occupied the vast land in the north, together with the population of Hongmen in Dayuan, Luzon and other places, the total base has exceeded 10 million, but compared to the territory they occupy, this population is insufficient to develop the land they occupy, let alone recruit strong men from it to enlist in the army and strengthen the strength of Hongtang's army.

And Zhang Huangyan collected intelligence through Jinyiwei, as well as the number of Hongtang's Third Army that he observed during the actual battle, and keenly noticed that behind the opponent's strong military strength, there was actually an absolute flaw, that is, the number was not enough.

The number of troops is not enough, which means that even if the Ming Dynasty army fights again and again and suffers heavy losses, if it can consume one-third or one-quarter of the opponent's troops, then it cannot be said that there is no gain.

Compared with the Hongtang army, the population of the Ming Dynasty alone in the south of the Yangtze River now has at least eight million households plus hidden households, and it is not a dream to select tens of millions of troops from tens of millions of people, it is only a matter of time.

Moreover, the defect in the number of Hongtang's army will also bring a big trouble to their advancement, and this trouble is a great news for Zhang Huangyan and the Ming Dynasty behind him.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, there is a very clear example of this problem in the history that Li Tianyang has traversed, and behind this military case, it really ended with the defeat of the side with fewer troops and stronger.

The means of defending against the enemy that Zhang Huangyan thought of were also a huge scale in this era, and it was not easy to execute the four tactics, that is, the tactics of clearing the wilderness.

He wanted to exchange space for time, and since the number of Hongtang's army was limited, he would give up some unimportant city territory and give it to the other party. Since the other party has occupied these territories, it is inevitable that the troops will be divided to occupy these stronghold cities, and after the last division of troops, in fact, the strength of the other party has been weakened invisibly.

When the opponent's strength is weakened to the point that Zhang Huangyan feels that it is enough to fight, or that the opponent's layout has made a mistake and gives himself a chance, then it is the time for him to counterattack the opponent.

Behind this tactic, there are two points that need to be paid special attention to.

One of the points is that in the abandoned land, the Ming Dynasty government must not leave too much population and materials for the Hongtang army, and even the number of troops stationed there is not too much, otherwise it is likely to let it supplement and strengthen the army from the common people and captured soldiers, and contribute to it.

There is a more important point, that is, in response to the attitude of the cabinet ministers and Emperor Chongzhen in the royal capital of Tianfu, if he cannot obtain their recognition and support, and just continue to let the other party go all the way south and passively defend, it will inevitably cause the imperial historians to rise up in groups.

In fact, this is also an important reason why many generals in the Ming Dynasty who knew enough and were smart enough were aware of the shortcomings of the Hongtang army, but they did not dare to act like this.

But Zhang Huangyan dared to act like this, firstly, he naturally thought that he was loyal, if he could use this strategy to slow down Hongtang's southward pace, buy more time for the Ming Court to recruit soldiers, or simply use this as an opportunity to completely inflict heavy damage on Hongtang's army, he would be questioned by the court afterwards, and it would be worth it.

The second is Zhang Huangyan's allies in the court, which brought him a strange atmosphere in the royal capital: Emperor Chongzhen, who ruled the world for 26 years of the Ming Dynasty, is finally about to die.

Although this matter is still a top-secret piece of information, it is no longer a secret in the eyes and ears of the ministers and ministers of the DPRK and China.

According to the latest news report, Emperor Chongzhen was already furious because of this incident when the Hongtang army marched together in three ways and started the battle of crossing the river, and finally fell unconscious until now.

At this time, the cabinet ministers of the DPRK and China paid more attention to the aftermath of Emperor Chongzhen's funeral and the crown prince who inherited the throne, but they were a little less bound by the pressure of the emperor due to the war.

At the beginning, everything was still going according to plan, but after some smashing, Zuo Yiqian, who rushed forward to protect his belongings, was also taught a hard lesson by several strong men.

The two guys invited by the silk village did not dare to step forward to stop them, and the strong men who were red at the eyes of the dead hands, while smashing the goods in the village, the blood of Zuo Yiqian's beating was like an infusion, and they were unrecognizable.

Zuo Yiqian is also a tough guy, his entire net worth is in this Zhuangzi, now the economy is in recession, business is difficult to do, to be honest, he has no other more valuable goods besides this Zhuangzi.

After the weak and even this Zhuangzi was destroyed, it would be a catastrophe for Zuo Yiqian and his family.

In order to protect his property, Zuo Yiqian can be regarded as fighting with his life, and he stubbornly entangled one of the thugs who smashed the most powerfully, so that he could not use his hands and feet.

For these hungry and crazy thugs, and finally found a temporary job, at this moment, in order to complete the task and get the due remuneration, no one dares to steal and play tricks, although these two silver are now in the inflationary Suzhou, it is not much value, but at least they can buy a small half stone ration to maintain the life of a family of three for a month.

Moreover, for these thugs, their hearts are filled with anger and injustice: they have given up their dignity all day long for their livelihood and are like dogs who let people call and drink; For a job that requires them to work hard, they all need to squeeze their heads.

But look at the guy in front of them, because they are reincarnated well, they have no worries about food and clothing since they were born, and when others are still desperate for a mouthful of porridge, they are still thinking about bullying other people's wives and relatives.

The reason why the thugs have always kept these injustices deep in their hearts is because they still maintain a minimum of conscience and calm thinking.

However, when they break through the defense of conscience that they have built since childhood, what they may do next will be beyond their imagination.

Although it is forbidden to carry weapons among the people, in order to defend themselves, almost all of the five thugs present have a simple weapon: an iron needle with a sharp edge, and a kitchen knife full of rust marks that I don't know where to go.

The thug who was entangled, the first time he did this kind of thing, was very panicked, at this time he was worried that what he had done, he was likely to be bumped into by the government officials patrolling around, and at the same time, he was also very worried about the shopkeeper who was holding his left leg at his feet.

didn't think much about it, after the thug got rid of the entanglement several times to no avail, he raised his heart ruthlessly and pulled out the self-defense dagger from his long sleeve, and stabbed it without thinking about it!

"Ahh

At that time, I heard Zuo Yiqian's scream, and then a stream of blood followed the action of the thug who pulled out the dagger, and scattered it around, and suddenly a bloody breath gushed out.

"Y-What are you doing!"

The other four thugs who were busy robbing were also taken aback, and everyone was just here to teach the shopkeeper a lesson, but they didn't think about using knives.

In a hurry, in addition to reprimanding this confused accomplice, the only thing left was to hurry up and make another profit, take several rolls of exquisite silk in the Zhuangzi, and go away.