Chapter 480: A Familiar Decisive Battle

The trapped beast was still fighting, and Gao Jie, who blocked the back road, opened such a desperate posture, which made Liu Tichun and Liu Fangliang really have a headache, if it was back then, the two of them didn't say a word, and directly led the troops to rush up.

But now the situation is different, everyone has settled down, or rather, in their impression, the generals of the Shun army have the wealth of the world, and the soldiers of the Shun army all want to go home after the peace of their wives and children to hot kang heads, this desperate mind is inevitably weaker.

Gao Jie, the general soldier of Yansui, knew that he had a deep enmity with King Chuang, and gave Li Zicheng a green hat, this is not an ordinary hatred, Li Zicheng didn't even want to mention this matter, it must be a quick thought of frustrating the bones and ashes, and most of the cronies and generals under Gao Jie were old brothers who defected from the camp back then, and they also knew this consequence.

Surrender is absolutely impossible, and the leaders at all levels urge the soldiers to move forward with all their strength, although the quality of the soldiers is very average, they are actually quite equal in a short period of time.

The front and back flanking attacks were for this suddenness, but Bai Guangen, the general soldier of Yulin in front, set up camp and withstood several waves of Yuan Zongdi's attacks. Gao Jie, the general soldier of Yansui in the back, fought desperately and withstood the actions of Liu Tichun and Liu Fangliang, and the situation became a stalemate in a short period of time, at least within this day.

The generals of the Shun army gathered here, and the main army was also gathered, but they couldn't eat this Ming army in one go, they really felt like they had touched a nail, and their moods were quite low.

The sun is never seen in the sky, and this gloomy atmosphere makes everyone's mood not high, but fortunately, the Ming army does not dare to fight in the field. In the past, the first few victories were due to the fact that the chariot camp was used as a basis for slowly advancing, but now the land outside is muddy, and the cart will be stuck in the mud when it goes out to fight, and it is equivalent to sending it to death.

This gave the Shun army time to deal with it calmly, although the Ming army seemed to have the upper hand on this day. But he could only stay in his own camp to guard, but the Shun army could calmly arrange the ways and means to take the camp.

From this point of view, the Ming army is actually a matter of early death and late death, not to mention that Nahe Renlong and Bai Guangen are still thinking of fleeing eastward, not to mention anything else.

But Yuan Zongdi, the former battalion general, didn't think so, attacked several times, leaving nearly 3,000 corpses, and the Ming army on the opposite side was so proud.

This kind of thing. It all made him feel that he couldn't raise his head in front of Li Zicheng, the original distance between the two armies was about five hundred steps, for the sake of safety, Yuan Zongdi pulled his team back a few hundred steps, almost two miles or so, far away.

The Ming army set up such a camp, in addition to defending the harassment of the periphery, but also encircled itself in it. There are only a few areas that can provide the way for the army to march, and if they rashly flee to the east and west, some of them are desperate, and they will inevitably bring a great rout and the ensuing pursuit and massacre.

Therefore, Yuan Zongdi retreated, but he was not worried that the Ming army would take the opportunity to pursue or escape. What he has to deal with is whether he will be reproached by the king.

"Bastard, look at what kind of ball you played, when Bai Guangen's turtle son was in Shaanxi. I saw that we were all going to run, but today I was majestic in front of your kid! ”

There are not many people in the Shun army who can shout and scold like this, but it will not be Li Zicheng, before occupying Xiangyang, Li Zicheng's temper is also so hot, and he will beat the generals below, and scolding is even more commonplace. The relationship between him and the generals below is like that of brothers, uncles, nephews, fathers and sons, and this kind of beating and scolding makes people feel close.

But after occupying Xiangyang, Niu Jinxing once talked with Li Zichang, saying that now that the foundation is gradually settled, the king can't treat people with the attitude he had when he started, and he should be magnanimous and gentle to others. At the very least, do it superficially. Song Xiance also has this opinion.

Compared with other rebel army commanders, Li Zicheng was quite obedient to the opinions of scholars. Since then, Li Zicheng has rarely lost his temper, and he always thinks about three points first.

Fang just scolded like this, in the Shun army can scold Yuan Zongdi, in addition to the king Li Zicheng, that is, the general Quan, the head of the Shun army Liu Zongmin, he has a transcendent status, and he is the head of the generals, he has never concealed his temper, of course, maybe he deliberately made himself so hot, and there can no longer be a figure in the Shun army who wins the hearts of the people and holds military power.

was scolded by Liu Zongmin, this is also the proper meaning, Yuan Zongdi still heard it, Liu Zongmin's scolding gave him the appearance of exculpation, and the general Yuan Zongdi could only bow his head, but Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, had not spoken out, which made Yuan Zongdi feel very worried.

Li Zicheng has been looking at the official and military formations in front of him, and he is also very silent, listening to Liu Zongmin's scolding, he can't help but speak:

"Zong Min, victory and defeat are common, Hou Sui, this old dog is just a return to the past, there is no need to say it again. “

Speaking like this, it is equivalent to forgiving Yuan Zongdi's guilt for the failure of the attack, Li Zicheng slapped the horse, let the mount continue to move forward, Li Shuangxi behind him and the honor guard team of a cadre followed, King Chuang reined in the horse, hesitated, waved his hand to let the honor guard and other troops stop, he moved forward slowly under the light horse guard.

At a distance of about 1,000 steps, the troops on the opposite side couldn't see any movement clearly, and Bai Guangen and they didn't have any clairvoyant equipment, so naturally they couldn't see who was coming.

Accompanied by his personal guards and generals, Li Zicheng rode forward slowly, and the officers and men in the car battalion saw it from the lookout platform, thinking that a small army was attacking again.

I could see that the gaps in and out of the horses were opened again, the flags flashed inside, and Bai Guangen's subordinates were moving again, preparing to make a defense.

Li Zicheng and the others are not worried, these hundreds of steps away, even if the other party wants to chase it out, they have time to turn around and run away, so it is better to observe carefully.

Liu Zongmin and Yuan Zongdi are both by Li Zicheng's side, Hao Shaoqi is there to arrange the actions of the army, Hao Shaoqi's biggest headache is to launch a large enough front to attack the Ming army, He Renlong The terrain they chose is indeed more suitable, the front and back are relatively narrow, and only the place where he is stationed is spacious.

"The bottom of the cart is piled up with mud, and it is estimated that the car is also covered with sandbags, which is equivalent to a city on this side, and it is convenient for him to enter and exit there, but we can only fight from a few places circled by the Ming army. This thing is cleverly made! ”

Li Zicheng watched the battle while admiring, his expression like this made Yuan Zongdi even more worried, gritted his teeth, and simply stepped forward to report and said:

"Lord Chuang, Xiaodi is dizzy this time, and he is in a confused fight. If you don't do the things of the soldiers below, Zongdi is willing to ask for punishment! ”

Li Zicheng was still looking at the other party's car camp layout, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he said easily:

"It's not that you're dizzy, the incident in the old camp in Tang County made us dizzy, and since Zhu Xianzhen, I think it's very easy to fight the official army, and I don't look at these general soldiers are all from our Shaanxi. They are all border soldiers in Shaanxi, can they compare with Zuo Liangyu's waste? ”

There is a theory in the Shun army, that is, the Shaanxi people are good at war, the first in the world, which is also the border town of Shaanxi and Mongolia is already the tribe of the Western Regions has been at war all year round. The reason for getting the exercise, Li Zicheng's words mean this, and there is also the meaning of comforting Yuan Zongdi not to be too depressed, and sure enough, he finished speaking. Yuan Zongdi was not so worried, Li Zicheng's tone became more serious again, and he said:

"They set up camp, where they said that they could take it, and they thought that they could break through it with one rush, so they were a little dizzy, revenge, and they all wanted revenge. But if you throw your life there, you will avenge the bird! ”

When Li Zicheng said this, he vaguely revealed a bit of his true colors, dragged the horse fiercely, and turned back in the direction of the camp, and a group of people hurriedly followed.

The Ming army that came out of the position over there saw that it was already retreating, and it also died down.......

A simple tent has been set up on this side, and King Chuang and his generals are not very picky about this. A crowd poured in. There is a wooden platform on the ground with a simple map on it. A group of people were around, and Li Shuangxi was directing people to arrange there.

Li Zicheng walked to the map and was about to say something, but heard someone shouting:

"The messenger of Liu Tichun, the general of Guoyi in the right battalion, is here, and he has something important to report to the prince!"

Li Shuangxi hurriedly put down the things in his hand, lifted the tent and went outside to greet him, and after a while, Li Shuangxi led the messenger to come in in a hurry, and the attention of the camp generals was focused on him, and the messenger's face was not good-looking, and it was obviously not caused by a long time of hurrying.

After a moment's hesitation, the messenger gritted his teeth and spoke:

"Chuang Wangye, General Liu's side was blocked by Minggou Gao Jie, and he didn't beat it down after a few hard attacks, Hou Sui has already begun to send reinforcements to Gao Jie's side, General Liu said...... General Liu said that King Chuang would like to ask him to increase his troops as well......"

With a "bang", the table where the map was placed had already been kicked over by Li Zicheng, and everyone in the camp was silent, not daring to say a word.

Several people with sufficient status just wanted to come forward to persuade each other, but Li Zicheng waved his hand impatiently, took a few big breaths, and said in a solemn voice:

"The last group of people in the Ming court should be here, as long as we can eat them all, we can deal with Shandong with all our might. ”

Liu Zongmin had a hot temper, but he was quite calm in the battle, and he thought about it a little and said:

"With our current soldiers and horses, it is not difficult to defeat the Ming army in front of us, and it is very certain to defeat them, but if they sacrifice their lives to assault, they will still run out a lot, and then collect the border soldiers, it will still be a big trouble. ”

Li Zicheng was silent for a while, and then said:

"If you want to do great things, you must be willing to use soldiers and horses, pass on my orders, Tian Jianxiu led the soldiers and horses to the Ruzhou area, galloped to the aid of Erliu, He Jinbu accelerated the march, and joined my army!"

Tian Jianxiu led more than 10,000 soldiers and horses, and He Jin led 20,000 soldiers and horses, which is not too large compared to Li Zicheng's nearly 300,000 soldiers and horses everywhere.

But Tian Jianxiu went to cut off the retreat between Shaanxi and Henan, and He Jin went to resist the attack that might come from the direction of Kaifeng, both of these tasks were extremely heavy, and they were responsible for one party alone, and the requirements for soldiers and horses were also very high.

Li Zicheng mobilized these two troops to come, then he really made up his mind to attack, except for Gao Yigong and Li Guo's defense in Huguang, he was already eighty percent of the strength of the Shun army, ready to eat this official army.

Listening to Li Zicheng's arrangement, the expressions of the generals in the camp became more and more serious. I know that this is not inferior to Zhu Xianzhen's decisive battle.

Li Shuangxi, the leader of the guards, watched the clerk write out the orders one by one, and then sealed them in boxes, and he arranged for the trustworthy guards cavalry to deliver these letterheads, all of which were five people and twenty horses, to ensure foot strength.

After arranging all this, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, suddenly laughed, and everyone was a little stunned and flustered, thinking about such a tense situation. Why did King Chuang suddenly seem to be laughing madly, could it be that something happened, Li Zicheng's laughter stopped, and he said:

"I've seen a lot of tigers and wolves, and I've been scared by a few anxious rabbits today, Hou Sui's gang started killing horses three days ago, how long do you think they can hold on. ”

This is something that everyone can think of. But for the Shun army, maintaining 300,000 people along the border between Ruzhou and Kaifeng is also costly, and the battle must be ended as soon as possible, but for now. The Ming army can still support itself undefeated for a period of time, but it will be a big trouble after all.

"Why bother to fight with them, just use the old method of our Zhuxian Town to dig a deep ditch and surround them. When the time comes, they will starve to death, and immediately give Liu Tichun and Liu Fangliang an order, asking them to levy the people to dig a deep ditch, trap this car camp for me to die here, and see how many days they can eat cattle and horses! ”

After Li Zicheng finished speaking coldly, the generals in the room bowed down in unison and agreed.......

By this time, it was already getting late, and several messengers who were delivering the letter had already set off. The sky began to rain again, and the armies on both sides had to settle down in camp, and they could not rashly send troops to fight, anyway, this day and earth battle, the Ming army was in the upper hand, and today they won.

Early the next morning, the battalions slaughtered a number of oxen and mules carrying heavy loads. After the cauldron was cooked, it was distributed to the armies for food. It is estimated that it can last for three days.

Of course, not everyone gets it. Only those cavalry on horseback and the personal guards of the generals and subordinates can be fed, and there is nothing big to see, but anyone who is more sober understands that there is no way to support this situation for too long, but the crux of the problem is that the Ming army cannot and does not dare to take the initiative to attack at present, it can only be passively defended, and the cattle and horses will be eaten up sooner or later.

When they got up in the morning, there might be offensive and defensive battles, and the soldiers who were alert saw that the cavalry were all on their horses, and some of them were already desperate, and the posture of the cavalry on their horses was obviously to flee first when the situation was not right.

But no one wanted to run, as soon as it started, the Shun army began to dig trenches around the Ming army car camp, separated by a distance of enough distance that in addition to the second-line troops who dug the trenches, there were enough troops to remain on alert.

The so-called self-becoming good at attacking and fighting is that Li Zicheng's troops are particularly good at siege and fortifications, and this digging a long trench to besiege the enemy is their strong point.

Digging deep ditches and long trenches with great fanfare, the Ming army shrinking in the car camp naturally will not be invisible, Bai Guangen and Xu Dingguo are sent out to harass a few teams of cavalry, the problem is that the Shun army has never been afraid of the Ming army's field battle, if the two sides spread out to fight, it will definitely not be the Shun army that suffers.

The only breakthrough was the Shaanxi general soldier He Renlong, but his cavalry rushed to the edge of the long trench, waiting for him was Hao Shaoqi led the elite of the old battalion, these cavalry are also from the Shaanxi border soldiers, more combat experience, more powerful and powerful, the fight did not last long, He Renlong's soldiers and horses were beaten back.

The long trench was digging rapidly, and began to extend around the Ming army, although the army could still support it, but the atmosphere in the car camp became more and more panicked, several sorties were beaten back, and such fortifications were being built outside, the longer the delay, the more difficult it was to run out.

Relying on killing horses and cattle, there was no problem for the Ming army to support for more than ten days, but the long trenches dug outside were crushing the confidence of these Ming troops.

It was the same when he was in Zhuxian Town, after the deep ditch was dug, the Ming army found that it had no way to retreat and nowhere to go, and the morale of the army was completely collapsed.

The same is true on this day, with the excavation of the long trench, there began to be those people who were requisitioned to run outside regardless of it, they have not experienced anything, they are the first group of people to have a psychological breakdown, they ran away It doesn't matter, but the generals of the Ming army can't let them go, if they go, it will cause more routs.

The military horses of all walks were arranged to be guarded at the exit. Anyone who fled to the side of the Shun army was to be punished by military law and killed on the spot.

On this day, while it was busy, it was chaotic, and there were very few battles between the two sides, but the situation of victory and defeat became clearer and clearer.

When it was dark, the Ming soldiers and soldiers who were shocked by the blood and the head gradually died of the idea of fleeing. But those veteran soldiers knew that now was the time to escape, and many people climbed over the barrier of the car camp and the fences on both sides, and ran to the side of the Shun army on the opposite side to surrender.

Who doesn't know how many people died in the Ming army that was surrounded by a ditch when Zhu Xianzhen was in Zhuxian Town, and the generals in the camp were different. At the same time, he sent people to collect the clothes of many ordinary people for himself.

The Shaanxi commander-in-chief He Renlongdi moved, and the Yulin commander-in-chief Bai Guangen over there was all clear, and he was also following the example of the cat and the tiger, and the supervisor Hou Sui in the Chinese army was finally desperate, and all the commanders outside the barracks were busy arranging defense and escaping there. But he drank and cried every day, and he didn't know what to do.

In the massacre in Tang County, he had already sealed all his retreats, even if he surrendered to Li Chuang. There will be no way for him to live, as for Li Meng, the Duke of Qi, he can't run out of this situation now, how can he run away.

The supervisor Hou Sui burned the two letters in his personal collection, and then took advantage of the wine to write a few impassioned desperate documents, always to win the name of a loyal minister and righteous man after his death.

Tongguan was sealed by the Shun army, and Zuo Liangyu in Huguang was trembling in Wuchang. The entire territory of Henan is not under the control of the Ming court, and the soldiers and horses of the Inspector Hou Sui are trapped between Ruzhou and Kaifeng, and the court and Emperor Chongzhen don't even know the news, let alone any reinforcements.

On the contrary, it was Gao Jie, who suppressed the rear team, after all, he was born in the camp, and when he saw Liu Tichun's troops and horses retreating and began to dig a ditch, he knew that the big thing was not good, and Gao Jie, the chief soldier of Yansui, was really afraid of the consequences of being caught in front of King Chuang. He directly launched a general offensive of the whole army.

On this narrow road. Tens of thousands of soldiers and horses rushed forward regardless of the trampling, although the trampling was quite heavy in casualties. But Liu Tichun and Liu Fangliang also had to stop everything at hand to deal with it, although Gao Jie was sick and weak, and Er Liu's soldiers were strong, but they were also in a hurry to deal with such a desperate rush.

On the first day, it was repelled more than three miles, if it wasn't for Liu Fangliang personally leading the horse team to counterattack, the situation would be even worse, retreating more than three miles, and not far from the city of Jiaxian, the Shun army was determined to refuse to let the other party enter this city, Liu Tichun was directly under the city to block Gao Jie.

The envoy from the old camp of King Chuang has returned, so that Er Liu has the bottom of his heart, as long as he can hold on until the arrival of Tian Jianxiudi's soldiers and horses, then Gao Jie can only be captured.

In the past few days, there has only been a light rain in the Ruzhou area, but the rain in Kaifeng has always been not small, and a few messengers sent out by the old battalion of the army have been bitter.

The civilians on this road were almost scattered and fled, most of the invading troops were gathered around several battlefields, these messengers could not get any supplies along the way, the distance from Xiangcheng to Weichuan was not close, and the road was not a flat river, it was all hilly and mountainous.

When the two messengers passed through Xuzhou, they were sick because of the rain and could not continue to travel, so they had to stay in Xuzhou to recuperate, and one messenger broke his leg and foot on the road from Xuzhou to Changge because of the slippery mud, and he could not move, and the remaining two messengers collected all the horses and went on the road with a few pieces of bread.

The wind and rain on the road, the two messengers were exhausted, and they just thought about sending King Chuang's order to the side of General He Jin of Guoyi, and when the time came, they would have a mouthful of hot soup to drink and change into dry clothes, but the weather was getting colder and colder, and it was really uncomfortable to walk like this on the road.

After entering the territory of Weichuan, the rain finally fell a little, and the two messengers remembered where the place where He Jin camped was, and the two messengers were already a little relaxed.

The horses were already exhausted to death, and when they crossed the mountain, the three-day journey was finally over, it was already dark, and the rain had stopped.

Soon they were noticed, and a dozen knights ran in this direction from the battalion, and with all his strength he shouted:

"Breaking the king's military order, 100,000 urgent, 100,000 urgent!!"

While urging the horses to rush forward, but the color of the cavalry did not look right, and as they got closer, a messenger finally noticed that something was wrong, he had participated in the Battle of the Whirlpool, and he had seen this color.

There was a heart-rending shout from the valley, "It's Shandong's soldiers and horses, it's Shandong's ......" The shout stopped abruptly, followed by a terrible scream, and then everything calmed down.