The next day, in the camp of the Ming army more than ten miles away from Linhai County, Yu Guowang was having a military discussion with Jin Tang, who had also come here to conduct a tie-in battle, and two other Ming army generals.

Since the beginning of August, with the cooperation of Chen Wen, the county seat of Tiantai has been captured, and the strength of Yu Guowang's department has increased considerably. After Chen Wen left, he made peace with Jin Tang, and with the help of the latter's already arranged Neiying, he captured the county seat of Sanmen County, and his strength was further improved.

If he coerced the people into joining the army as before, in fact, his strength could be improved faster, but after learning that new formation from Chen Wen, Yu Guowang's thoughts also changed, and he began to try to move towards the route of building elite soldiers.

To this end, Yu Guowang, at Chen Wen's suggestion, adjusted the various subordinate generals under his command, and he still kept his soldiers, but in the process of organizing the new formation, only the more elite generals and soldiers of each department were incorporated into the phalanx taught by Chen Wen, while the other soldiers continued to carry out tuntian and other things related to logistics reserves.

As a result, Yu Guowang's army quickly changed from more than 10,000 people to 1,500 soldiers using new formations, as well as more than 1,000 ordinary soldiers, and the others were all included in the ranks of auxiliary soldiers, and the most proficient birds in Yu Guowang's department were all included in the 1,500 troops using new formations.

After capturing the two county towns, he obtained a large amount of supplies, as well as some cloth armor given by Chen Wen before leaving, Yu Guowang expanded the troops under his command, and began to practice new formations from the original 500 ordinary soldiers, and finally expanded it to 2,000 people, which completely exhausted the bird gun reserves he had accumulated for many years.

Since the siege of Tiantai County, the military operation has been going smoothly. After the capture of Sanmen County, Ma Xin, the general soldier of Taizhou, once led his troops to rush, but after examining the battle formations listed in Yu Guowang's back city, he still chose to retreat and threw a large number of villages and towns during this period to the Ming army.

The improvement of the strength of Yu Guowang's department, in addition to the big supplement of the two county seats, is more due to the battle formation taught by Chen Wen, although he has not yet had the opportunity to test the edge for the first time, but Ma Xin's retreat has really improved his and his subordinates' confidence.

The improvement of strength made Yu Guowang's mentality begin to change. Since the beginning of the army, Yu Guowang, like other Ming troops, took advantage of the characteristics of the mountainous areas that were easy to defend and difficult to attack, occupied villages and towns in the mountains, and relied on the supply of tuntian and villages and towns far away from the Qing army's sphere of influence to raise troops.

Nowadays, with the large amount of materials brought by the two county towns of Lianke, as well as the use of new formations. Yu Guowang, who once didn't even dare to fight the idea of the county seat, began to have the courage to unite the ministries to besiege Fucheng while contacting the various ministries. Of course, this is also the inevitable choice of him after his strength was improved in order to contain the Qing army in Taizhou in the past period of history.

Yu Guowang has improved his strength by virtue of the transaction with Chen Wen, and he will naturally be looked at by some other well-intentioned people on Tiantai Mountain, such as Jin Tang.

It's just that Chen Wen is always on Tiantai Mountain, and the movements of each department are clear at a glance, and no one dares to steal from the master in front of such a fierce general who defeated the standard promotion battalion with fewer victories. It wasn't until after Chen Wen left, that Jin Tang relied on his relationship with Yu Guowang and after taking the county seat of Sanmen, he took the initiative to provide a large amount of materials to Wang Jiang's old camp, and he also began to learn to practice this brand-new formation, but the time was still short, far less than Yu Guowang's troops, which had been training for several months.

In fact, the military discussion here is nothing more than to discuss today's routine march in the city, and the harvest of the various departments in the countryside the day before. Of course, the most important thing is that yesterday came the news that Jinhua General Ma Jinbao led the troops to Fuzhi, and the countermeasures have already been agreed. In line with the thinking of containment, it is better not to fight if you can not fight.

It's just that the military presence of the Ming army in Linhai County in Tiantai Mountain made the Qing army preparing to go north to besiege Zhoushan like a fish in the throat, and it was impossible to set sail with confidence, and the battle was naturally inevitable.

Before the military discussion ended, the news that the Qing army was marching out of the city and heading straight for this place came back. The arrival of the Ming army on Tiantai Mountain was still short, and the camp was not stable, so it was obviously unwise to guard the camp to deal with the Qing army's attack. Moreover, Ma Xin's previous weakness also improved the morale of the Ming army in Tiantai Mountain a lot, so it was imperative to face the battle.

The generals gathered their troops, and Yu Guowang and Jin Tang and the two Ming generals who were traveling together led their troops to pour out. Since the position of the Ming army was in the northeast of Linhai County, it took a few miles to the southwest to find out the movement of the other party. The two sides readjusted their formations, and finally met on a flat section close to the later Eastern Avenue.

The Ming army came from the northeast, and Yu Guowang divided the two phalanxes to occupy the center and the left flank, and left some ordinary soldiers as reserves, while the hundreds of newly trained phalanx troops in Jintang and the other two Ming troops occupied the right flank. At the same time, in order to avoid the impact of artillery fire on the formation of troops, the Qing army from the southwest chose to reorganize the formation again one mile away, and then went to meet the Ming army that had already stood still.

On this expedition to Zhoushan, Ma Jinbao only left one battalion in his town to assist in the defense of various counties, and took the other two battalions and some men and horses from the three associations of Quzhou, Yanzhou, and Chuzhou into Taizhou to prepare to cross the sea.

At present, since it was decided to defeat the Ming army on Tiantai Mountain first, Ma Jinbao mobilized a battalion of his own town and a thousand men and horses from the other three associations to participate in the battle, occupying the middle and right flank of the battlefield, opposite Yu Guowang as the main force of the Ming army, and Ma Xin left part of the city to defend the city because the men and horses of the headquarters were stationed in various counties, and only brought a battalion of soldiers and a brigade of auxiliaries to come, occupying the left flank of the Qing army's front line.

The strength of the two sides was about the same, and the number of Qing troops was slightly less, but it was not far behind.

Ma Jinbao occupied a commanding height on the side of the Qing army that was easy to observe, looking at the formation of the Ming army from afar. The Yu Guowang department he was facing was just as Ma Xin said, and there were two identical phalanxes, but this phalanx was strange everywhere.

According to the dignified way of engagement in this era, it was also attacked and defended in a rectangular battle formation. It's just that Yu Guowang's phalanx is clearly a large phalanx, and the two corners in front are connected to a small phalanx, and if you look at it from a distance, it seems that the back is the same.

Looking at it carefully, the front row of the large phalanx is a sword and shield soldier, but the shape of the shield is slightly larger, followed by a spear, which is far longer than the seven or eight-foot spear used by the Qing army, maybe it is not easy to say; And the small phalanxes are all composed of birds.

Ma Jinbao thought about it for a while, and then ordered the whole army to advance with the banner, but instead of sending the cavalry in advance, it seemed that he intended to lure the Ming army's bird gunners and the few small guns in the formation to open fire.

The Qing army began to press over steadily, and Yu Guowang, who was sitting in the Chinese army, was already full of sweat in his palms. After many years of raising troops, even if the number of outnumbered people in all previous field battles has rarely been victorious, this time the Qing army faced was only slightly inferior in strength, how could he not be nervous. In the distance, the infantry of the Qing army was still advancing in formation, while the two parts of the Qing army on their own side sent cavalry and rushed straight forward.

"Are the Tartars trying to trick me into firing?"

Seeing that the cavalry of the Qing army turned to move slowly after rushing beyond the range of the bird's gun, and even many of the cavalry of the Qing army put on a posture of wanting to shoot with a bow, which made Yu Guowang even more firm in the correctness of this judgment.

Since Yu Guowang started his army, the troops he has trained have always attached importance to the use of bird guns, and his bird guns are also quite strong. These veterans who had ambushed the Tibiao battalion in the mountains and forests were all waiting for the officer's order to open fire, and there was no joke that the Ming army was often tricked into firing by the Qing army.

At this time, on the contrary, the sword and shield soldiers and pikemen in the middle of the phalanx were more nervous, and many of them even entered the battle posture with weapons in their hands without orders.

Yu Guowang had already seen these anomalies, and he didn't have a good way to deal with them, and he could only hope that these hand-to-hand combat arms, which were not very valued in his army, could gradually grow up in battle.

Seeing that Yu Guowang's birdmen and artillery team remained unmoved, the light cavalry of the Qing army rode into the firing range and drew their bows and fired at the phalanx of the Ming army.

It's just that after the Qing army's light cavalry entered the firing range, they saw the rows of bird guns on both sides of the phalanx, and they didn't dare to get too far ahead, plus they used riding bows, so the range could not be compared with the foot bows or even bird guns. As a result, only one arrow after another fell on the ground in front of the Ming army after exhausting its kinetic energy, unable to cause any damage.

The bows and arrows of the Qing army flew in, and Yu Guowang's bird guns were still unmoved, and the long-term practice of bird guns made them have a more intuitive impression of the distance, and it was impossible for the Qing army's cavalry bows to cause any casualties at this distance, so there was no need to be nervous enough to fire back.

However, in the main formation of the phalanx, the sword and shield soldiers and pikemen were nervous, especially the sword and shield soldiers in the front row, and they raised their shields as they had done in training, in order to try to defend against the damage of bows and arrows. When they found that the arrows could not reach them, they mechanically lowered their shields under the reprimand of the officer, and so on.

The Qing army moved very fast, and it didn't take long for it to be within the range of the Ming army's birds. Listening to the orders of the officers in each small formation, the first row of bird-gunners, who had already been ready to go, opened fire.

Only a series of "bang" sounds were heard, and the two small formations on the left and right of the phalanx were immediately shrouded in gunsmoke. It's just that as soon as the smoke cleared, the second round of shooting began, followed by the third......

Yu Guowang's bird gun is indeed quite proficient, but there are certain rules for shooting arquebuses like bird guns, and it is difficult to achieve such a speed even if you practice for many years. However, the Ming army used the method of three-stage shooting to shoot in rotation, and after each row of firing was completed, it would retreat to the original third row to reload, and the next row would shoot, and so on, in order to maintain the continuity of shooting.

At the first burst of gunfire, the front row on the side of the Qing army immediately raised their shields and began to speed up, and those light cavalry also quickly moved to the flank under the command of the general.

In charge of the right wing phalanx was an old subordinate of Yu Guowang, who also held the rank of chief military officer. Seeing the cavalry of the Qing army coming straight to the flank, he immediately ordered the bird-gunners who were outside the main formation to be put into the formation, leaving only rows of sword-and-shield and pikemen to take a combat posture, using shields to protect themselves and the robes in the back row, while the spears protruded from the tips of the spears in the dense formation.

The Ming army in the front row instantly turned into hedgehogs, making the cavalry of the Qing army unable to speak, so they deceived the Ming army with few cavalry, and boldly went around the flank of the left flank. However, as soon as the Qing army rode their horses, the birds behind the flanks retreated into the formation like mimosas, revealing their hard shells and dense thorns.

The cavalry of the Qing army was completely powerless, but at this time, after the tiger squat cannon of the Ming army rang out, the Qing army quickly entered the distance of throwing melee weapons under the cover of the suppressive shooting of the archers in the rear row, and the Qing army was bound to start hand-to-hand combat.