When the news of the entry of the Jianzhou army into Xiao Xuan's ears reached Xiao Xuan's ears, it was already time for the main army led by Xiao Xuan to enter the northern Henan Plain. Not long after the Guards Battalion and the Yongwei Battalion entered Henan, the Jianzhou horse team of nearly 1,000 people encountered a team of about 10,000 people led by Xiao Xuan. When I first heard that I was going to fight against the Houjin elite, many of the teenagers who had accumulated a lot of self-confidence in the previous battle were still a little nervous.

Of course, Xiao Xuan also understood: in a confrontation with such an opponent, even if the opponent's troops were insufficient, if he was not careful when marching and camping, he would suffer serious losses. Therefore, the Guards Battalion and the Brave Guards Battalion were combined according to the standard of a two-tier defensive line to form a more consolidated front and advance in battle formation. Even when resting and building fortifications, there were at least 3,000 soldiers and hundreds of guns on standby at any time.

Seeing that the enemy's troops seemed to be concentrated, these main forces of the Jianzhou headquarters also felt that they had found a combat target, and planned to see how capricious this legendary Ming Dynasty Heavenly Son Forbidden Brigade was through long-distance projectiles. Therefore, they approached diagonally from four directions in a loose formation, and skillfully fired arrows at a distance of about half a mile. Let the heavy arrows fly down across a distance of more than one hundred and fifty paces. In cavalry shooting, heavy arrows can be thrown to such a long distance, which still exceeds the understanding of bows and arrows by many officers and soldiers. After all, when he fought with the hundreds of Houjin elites before, perhaps because the opponent was too small in number although he was strong, he rarely wasted arrows and launched a projectile at a long distance.

If the army encounters the main force of Jianzhou in different situations, how to make decisions, in fact, the whole team has already formed a relatively perfect combat regulations very early, and without Xiao Xuan's personal order, the teams have already begun to bombard with three or two sealed live ammunition one after another. In small squads, under the guidance of the long gunner, concentrated fire covers a certain distance around a horse. Some are on the left, some are slightly to the right.

In this way, on average, almost every ten times when the gunner was raised up and down, a powerful triple or two bullet would knock the enemy horses in the distance to the ground immediately, and the blood would flow like a pillar. Although there were more heavy arrows fired from the opposite side, throwing them at such a long distance still put those Jianzhou cavalry who came to harass them at a significant disadvantage in the casualty ratio of such sporadic encounters. After casualties and the loss of more than 100 horses and even dozens of officers and soldiers, the enemy cavalry with weak troops seemed to give up the plan of riding and harassing, and gathered the team two or three miles away, intending to follow the army led by Xiao Xuan at any time, and launch a "fatal blow" when there was a chance

Although the cheapness of the first confrontation eased the previous tension of many teenagers, at this time, Zhou Yuji felt that the situation was not secondary: "Shengshang: The main cavalry of Jiannu has crossed the Yellow River to the hinterland of the Central Plains, which means that the area around Shuntianfu is likely to be completely controlled by Jiannu's army." Now whether it is a craftsman, or a few mothers are in the team, it is better for our army to temporarily avoid the Xiangyang area... ”

Zhou Yuji's words did not make Xiao Xuan's heart move. It is an obvious fact that if he leads the army to the north at this time, with the combat ability and mobility of the main force of Jianzhou, the more than 10,000 people led by himself are likely to be besieged by the main force of Jianzhou. It seems that it is a rational and correct choice to avoid the south for the time being, not to mention the south, and he can still have the conditions to personally deter some people by force, and he does not have to worry about the reality of military expansion and development. At this time, although Jianzhou was only shrinking in the Liaodong area on the surface, Xiao Xuan certainly understood: in terms of strategic strength: this is already a force qualified to enter the north and compete for the world...

However, after thinking about it for a long time, Xiao Xuan still gave up this plan and decided to take the risk of going north once. If you let yourself lead more than 10,000 people to face off against the 20,000 or 30,000 armor of the entire army in Jianzhou. It is quite possible that there is a remake of the Battle of the Nahun River. But when the Liaodong Army has not yet been beaten and has lost its backbone, how can Huang Taiji and others not want their hometown to come out? In addition, Xiao Xuan believed that even if the strength of Zhao Shujiao, Lu Xiangsheng, Man Gui and others was insufficient, they would definitely be able to contain part of the strength of Jianzhou. What he will face, under normal circumstances, it is not bad to have a total of 20,000 Manchurian main forces, including 10,000 armor. If so, isn't it possible for the entire army to resist the opponent's attack?

Of course, these are not all the reasons, Xiao Xuan thought that the families of these young officers and soldiers are all in Beijing, and the main force of the soldiers is also northerners. If you expand your army in the south, you will first have to face the challenges of accent and geography. It may be worse that because of the early preparation of some forces, it is not impossible for some southern forces to take the opportunity to affect the relationship and the dark line within the scope of the Guards Battalion and the Brave Guard Battalion, and this is something that Xiao Xuan cannot accept at all.

Thinking of this, Xiao Xuan also finally decided to carry out a pre-war mobilization. Of course, Xiao Xuan understands that in the face of a very likely "tough battle", it is useless to only talk about the reasons why he will win to strengthen his courage as before. It is necessary to have a determination to die so that the whole team will not be too surprised when they are severely tested.

When night fell, those Jianzhou cavalry unexpectedly planned to raid and harass at a very close distance again, but when the enemy cavalry was on the cordon about forty or fifty steps outside the camp and was ignited by the arquebus lighting mine connected to the whole trench and exposed to the firelight, they were subjected to a fierce bombardment of cannon shotguns, and the archers also returned fire with poisoned arrows, once again leaving the enemy in front of the battle the corpses of hundreds of horses that had not had time to move. After the same setback of the infantry attack of more than a dozen others who were supposed to be the bodies of the slain armoured soldiers, the meeting calmed down throughout the night.

When the Yongwei Battalion on the periphery was on guard, Xiao Xuan also summoned many officers and non-commissioned officers in the Guards Battalion to hold a battle meeting in such an environment.

"How do you feel about this time when the army is out on the march? In addition to the ones written in the report materials, let's talk about it... ”

Seeing that many people wanted to speak and stopped, Xiao Xuan certainly didn't plan to waste time, and ordered a teenager who had been prepared before.

"This time with the thieves... I think... I... I really didn't think that from the Central Plains to the northwest, the living conditions of the people were even worse than those in the Beizhili area. Those man-made rebellions, some of which were premeditated, and most of them were also forced to do so... ”

In this way, many people did not dare to mention it directly in the report before, but Xiao Xuan understood that at this time, it was time to make friends with these children and establish a common ambition.

(End of chapter)