The sound of horses' hooves like a storm sounded on the valley road leading to Liaochengfu, after a burst of smoke and dust, a team of about 1,000 cavalry wearing blue guard uniforms swept through like a gust of wind, and then instantly divided into several groups of fifty people to drill into the surrounding mountains and forests, valley roads, running up the mountains, a team of 200 cavalry in front of continued to move forward for twenty miles, until a wide place left dozens of people to return, and then gathered soldiers and horses along the road, At last a battalion of cavalry of six hundred men gathered and continued to return along the road from which they came.

Thirty miles of cavalry came to a halt in the face of a troop of about 3,000 men, and on both sides of the road, 3,000 cavalry who were marching slowly passed through them, and a few miles behind was followed by an even larger contingent, which was estimated at 10,000 men.

This is Zhang Qiang's First Brigade of the Guards Brigade, already his personal guard regiment, since he learned that Tian Bin and their defeat of Dolong's 60,000 troops, and the Fourth Cavalry Brigade defeated 60,000 Mongolian cavalry, Zhang Qiang handed over the government affairs to the cabinet, and he rushed to see Tian Bin with the First Guards Brigade and the personal guard regiment that never left him.

He was accompanied by the soldiers of the 27th Field Brigade, most of whom had already passed this road into Shantung Prefecture and had already garrisoned the captured province of Tai'an.

In this way, Shandongzhou, the third strategic point that he has always wanted to carry out, was infiltrated by the Huaxia Army, and established a bridgehead position for attack, and this position is still very strong, and the defensive force has been strengthened, two field brigades, a first-class field brigade, a second-class field brigade, and there are about 15,000 elite soldiers of the Qing army led by Tian Bin, who has been disabled and is resting on the spot in Liaocheng, and finally returned from undercover after ten years.

In addition, there were 6,000 wounded soldiers, all of whom were experienced elite soldiers who had fought bloody battles, and after a certain period of time, when they had recovered from their wounds, and were equipped with some garrison battalion soldiers and recruit battalion soldiers, it would be an elite field brigade unit.

However, there is no need to think about it in a few months, these wounded soldiers will have to recover in at least three months, and they will have to rest and recuperate for another month, and they will be equipped with weapons and equipment.

This time, Zhang Qiang went to Liaocheng to visit these soldiers, and at the same time personally presided over the battle here.

He has not been on the battlefield in person for many years, Zhang Qiang also has some itchy hands, and wants to personally lead the troops to fight, this battle is not so intense, because the Qing army is now in internal chaos, and the battle with the Dajin Kingdom is at its most intense, although Hong Chengchou has also sent troops to seize the county capitals and territories that he abandoned again, and the Qing army sent 120,000 troops to seize these territories to assist the Qing army officials and generals who were reattached here.

But in the end, it was a miscalculation, so that Tian Bin and they dragged their footsteps, and were completely defeated by the final blow of the cavalry brigade, 120,000 troops, 60,000 troops were wiped out, more than 20,000 were killed, and more than 40,000 escaped, most of these escaped Mongolian cavalry ran back to the territory of the Qing army, Hebei Prefecture, and now the territory abandoned by Hong Chengchou is almost equal to a vacuum, and there are no soldiers to defend, it is just the time for Zhang Qiang to practice.

The brigade passed, it took less than half a day, three thousand cavalry entered Liaocheng, as for the troops behind, go slowly, even if the Chinese army is a half-mule and horse-like army, the marching speed is not much faster in this era, the territory of the Huaxia army is good to say, extending in all directions, the wide road allows the Huaxia army troops that have achieved semi-mule and horse can carry half a month's supplies and materials, and quickly march a hundred miles before a day and night, and can reach Shandong Prefecture, a place that has not been developed and built. The speed of this new army was a little faster than that of the Ming army in this era, which was mainly infantry, and it traveled 60 miles a day.

The infantry of the Ming army usually began to camp after walking thirty miles, and forcibly marched forty miles quickly, and set up camp and set up defense at an hour when it was almost dark.

But on such mountain roads, and in places where the roads are uneven, it is very fast for the whole army to travel twenty miles, twenty-five miles, or thirty miles a day.

The Qing army was faster, and the whole cavalry or the troops with infantry could march for 50 miles, because they were not afraid of hardship, and they had long developed the habit and character of not being afraid of hardship in the bitter cold land, and they could march 30 miles in this kind of mountainous terrain and forcibly march more than 40 miles, which was convenient for them to pursue and intercept the enemy, and the Ming army could not escape from them, and it was easy to control the troops if they ran fast.

However, if the Qing army was all cavalry, even this kind of terrain could travel 100 miles a day, while the Huaxia army was more hard-working, hard-working, and strong in combat than them, and the cavalry of the pro-guard regiment traveled 200 miles a day was nothing, because they often carried out this kind of training.

Therefore, in less than half a day, the pro-guard regiment threw off the infantry and entered Liaocheng first.

The headquarters of the Fifth Field Brigade in Liaocheng is still here, the other troops have moved to the newly occupied small county town, and there are another 1,000 infantry here to defend the city, and 1,000 people are here to take care of the soldiers from all over the country.

Geng Quanli, the commander of the Fifth Field Brigade, was already waiting for Zhang Qiang at the city gate.

The Fifth Field Brigade was originally led by Xuanyuan Longfei, and was later promoted to corps commander, so he had to sit in Henan Prefecture to command the troops to fight, instead of going to the front line to fight.

The commander of the Fifth Field Brigade was succeeded by Geng Quanli, the commander of the cavalry regiment of the original Guards Brigade.

"Geng Quanli, the commander of the Fifth Field Brigade of the last general, has met the Metropolitan Governor." Geng Quanli ran over to Zhang Qiang, knelt on one knee, and said to Zhang Qiang.

"Get up, do a good job this time, but your actions have dragged on a bit, almost resulting in a fiasco for Tian Bin's troops, you have to bear some responsibility for this point of commanding this battle, although they did not fail, but they also fought very hard, almost everyone was wounded, more than 30,000 troops only left less than seventy percent of the troops, less than half of them can fight, it can be described as a tragic victory, if you can capture Liaocheng as soon as possible, or send some troops to the battlefield as soon as possible, so many dragons will not escape, Tian Bin and their losses will not be so serious."

Zhang Qiang said to Geng Quanli with a somewhat reproachful tone.

"The last general confessed, but the Fourth Cavalry Brigade found that most of the enemy's troops fled that night, and the cavalry brigade that had been hidden around sent troops to surround and intercept the enemy's fleeing soldiers, resulting in a delay in the fighters, and when the troops were regrouped, Tian Bin They had already ended the battle, and could only catch up with the enemy at the end of the battle and defeat the Mongolian cavalry, but fortunately, Gao Yigong made meritorious service and captured a small county town near Jinan Prefecture, which made the troops in front of our army have a bridgehead closer to the enemy. Liaocheng became the rear. Geng Quanli explained.

"Okay, don't excuse yourself, just pay attention next time, stability is stability, but you can't delay the fighter for the sake of stability, forget it this time, let's go see Tian Bin and them."

(End of chapter)