The three-way Ming army attacked separately, Zhu Youzhen and Wu Sangui along the way, and as soon as they fought, they beheaded the enemy general Tong Tulai, and their morale was greatly boosted.

But the other two Ming armies were caught in a bitter battle at this time.

Zu Dashou had just killed all the rebels, and saw more than a thousand Jurchen cavalry pouring up behind him like a tide, holding a big banner high in the formation, with red edges on a yellow background, and a five-clawed golden dragon embroidered on it.

He couldn't help but secretly cry bitter in his heart, knowing that the old enemy was here again!

It turned out that Zu Dashou had been fighting in Liaodong for many years and knew the configuration and combat effectiveness of the Houjin army. According to the tribal affiliation, Nurhachi divided the Jurchen troops into eight banners, namely the positive yellow flag, the inlaid yellow flag, the positive white flag, the inlaid white flag, the positive red flag, the inlaid red flag, the positive blue flag, and the inlaid blue flag.

Among them, he personally served as the owner of the Yellow Flag, his son Huang Taiji served as the owner of the Yellow Flag, and his nephew Zierharang served as the owner of the White Flag. But before that, Zilharang's father, Shulhaqi, was imprisoned and died because he convicted Nurhachi. Zilharang was naturally more cautious, for fear of repeating his father's mistakes, although he was named the banner master, he actually obeyed Nurhachi in everything, so this white flag was also like Nurhachi's own palm. These three flags are collectively known as the "three flags", which have the largest number of troops and the strongest combat effectiveness.

The remaining five banners, which are also owned by Nurhachi's sons and nephews, are called the "Lower Five Banners". The owner of each flag is also called "Gushan Ezhen", under the jurisdiction of Wujiala; Each Jiala has five cattle under its jurisdiction; Each Niu Lu has hundreds of people, including all Jurchen adult men. The whole Jurchen clan is a people, and if you go out, you are a soldier, and the soldiers and the people are one. Although the Jurchens had a population of only a few hundred thousand, there were more than 100,000 warriors.

Zu Dashou fought many battles with the Jurchen Eight Banner soldiers, and knew that the Jurchens were extremely brave, especially good at field battles, and were by no means comparable to the Ming army. Putting aside the strategic level, in the tactical link alone, the Jurchens have several incomparable advantages.

First of all, the Jurchens were a nomadic people, and they were accustomed to fighting wild beasts since childhood. In an extremely cruel living environment, he naturally formed a character that is not afraid of death. They also adhered to the nomadic style, and took it for granted to plunder others. It can be said that throughout the year, they are either in the midst of war or preparing for war, and they have regarded war as eating and drinking, which is both extremely ordinary and indispensable.

The Ming army was all Han Chinese and had thousands of years of farming traditions. Farming is to work at sunrise and rest at sunset, three meals a day, all by hard work, obtained from the land. As long as you have one acre and three points of land, you can have no worries about food and clothing, and of course you don't want to have war to destroy your peaceful life. Even if they have to join the army, because they are from peasant families, they have little training, and their combat skills are often extremely low.

Even if Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang set up a military household in view of this, he failed to solve this stubborn disease. By the time of the Apocalypse, the military household system had existed in name only, and there were six or seven out of ten fugitives, and the remaining thirty percent were also abandoned by military equipment, just to eat for a mixed meal.

Therefore, in terms of personal physical fitness and will to fight, the Ming army has a large gap with the Jurchens.

Second, the Jurchens were all cavalry, while the Ming army was dominated by infantry, and the number of cavalry was very small. In this era of cold weapons, as long as it is a plain field battle, the huge advantage of cavalry over infantry is almost irresistible.

And even if it was cavalry against cavalry, the Jurchens were still sure of victory. Because horses were born in the grasslands, the Han land is all farmland or mountainous land, and there is no living space for horses. Even though the Ming Dynasty set up horse households to raise horses for war, one lacked the conditions to allow horses to gallop across the country, and the other was that the breed of horses was relatively inferior.

Although the Ming court also wanted to import high-quality horses from Mongolia and other places, the nomads were extremely cunning in business, and naturally refused to let their "cutting-edge technology" flow out, and often sold the inferior horses to the Han people as shoddy. Therefore, the horses of the Ming army are getting worse and worse, whether it is explosive power or endurance, they are much worse than the horses of the Jurchen cavalry.

Therefore, in terms of the advanced nature of the "key weapon", the Jurchens defeated the Ming army again.

Third, relying on the first two advantages, the Jurchens established a tactic based on "mounted archery". That is, the main attack method is to shoot arrows immediately, and try to avoid close contact with the enemy.

For the Ming army, this tactic of the Jurchens gave them an extreme headache. When the two armies did not get close, the Jurchens fired with bows and arrows. Although the Ming army can also use bows and arrows to fight back, but the strength is not as strong as the other party, people can shoot themselves, but they can't shoot others, so they can only hold the bow and arrow, trying their best to narrow the distance with the enemy.

But as long as the Ming army advanced, the Jurchens retreated, and they could always maintain a general distance, so that the Ming army would be beaten and they would be invincible. The horses of the Ming army were not as fast as the horses of the Jurchens, and no matter how much they rushed forward, they were only sent to death in vain, and they could never catch up.

Once the Ming army was demoralized and retreated, the Jurchens stopped retreating and instead charged. At this time, the Ming army had no strength to fight back, and the horses were not as fast as others, and they couldn't run far. wanted to turn around and fight to the death, but the Jurchens retreated again, and so repeatedly sawed and saw, like flying a kite.

After several advances and retreats, the Ming army has often lost most of it. At this time, the Jurchens began to launch a general attack, surround the remaining Ming legions, and eat them in one bite. It was the Ming and Jin wars, which often ended with the Ming army being completely annihilated, while the Jurchens suffered few casualties, sometimes even negligible.

Therefore, in terms of specific combat tactics, the Ming army was again defeated.

Fourth, in terms of equipment and weapons, the Jurchens wore cotton armor inside, covered with iron leaves, wore steel helmets on their heads, and even their war horses wore iron armor. When shot by a bow and arrow with a slightly lower force, it will often bounce off the body without causing harm to the human body.

Most of the blades held are one-handed sabers, with a square and slightly curved blade, and two blood grooves. When slashing the human body, because of these two gaps, it is not easy to be caught by the muscles and can be easily pulled out.

The armor of the Ming army was relatively poor, only the generals had iron armor, and ordinary soldiers often only had leather armor, and some did not even have leather armor, but just wore ordinary clothes. Moreover, the general cold protection function is poor, and it is difficult to adapt to the severe cold that often occurs in Northeast China.

In terms of weapons, most of them are traditional broadswords and spears, and their swinging speed is slow, making it difficult to cope with the stormy attacks of the Jurchens.

Therefore, in terms of weapons and equipment, the Ming army still lagged behind the Jurchens.

The senior generals of the Ming army, such as Zu Dashou, naturally knew these four major disadvantages of their own side. But these disparities are not unique to today, and they have not only been formed for a decade or a few decades, but have been like this for thousands of years. As the so-called freezing three feet, it is not a day's cold, if you want to make a difference, how easy is it to talk about?

Therefore, the more intelligent commanders of the Ming army, whether it was Xiong Tingbi, Yuan Chonghuan, or even Sun Chengzong, all proposed to defend instead of fighting, or defending first and then fighting, which was really the only choice in desperation. Because only when defending the city, these advantages of the Jurchens are not so obvious.

But today's situation is different, Zu Dashou has already put life and death aside in order to cover the escape of Zhu Youzhen, the king of letters, but if he can delay the main force of Jin for a moment, Zhu Youzhen will have one more chance of escaping.

He saw that the Jurchen cavalry was only a few dozen steps away from him, and he did not hesitate, and shouted: "Kill!" He took the lead and rushed straight to the Houjin army.

And the hundreds of Ming troops behind him also knew the terrifying power of the Jurchen sharp arrows, so they desperately moved forward. As long as you can get close to the enemy and form a close melee, although there is not much chance of victory, it is better than being slaughtered one-sidedly.

At this time, Ao Bai had already rushed up from the Chinese army with yellow flags. Although he is only a Niu Lu Er Zhen now, but because of his courage in battle, he has been rewarded repeatedly, and his troops have gradually increased, and the Niu Lu under his jurisdiction has nearly a thousand people, all of whom are listed in front of the battle at this time.

Seeing that the Ming army only had a few hundred horsemen, Ao Bai no longer used the "kite-flying" tactic, but raised his saber and took the lead in rushing forward, wanting to annihilate the enemy in one fell swoop.

When the Jurchen cavalry saw that their master was leading the charge, they also increased their speed, and the distance between them and the Ming army quickly narrowed. But they were different from the Ming army, they released arrows while rushing, and before they could make contact, a rain of arrows had covered the Ming army that was rushing in the front, and they shot down thirty or forty horsemen.

Although some people in the Ming army also fired bows and arrows, their speed was obviously inferior to that of the Jurchens, and their accuracy was slightly worse, and they only shot a few enemy soldiers.

The two cavalry hedged each other, like two high-speed trains colliding head-on, and the speed was simply amazing. In an instant, Zu Dashou and Ao Bai had already crossed by mistake, and the big gun and saber exchanged blows three times in a row, making a deafening sound of gold and stone.

Zu Dashou was a two-handed gun, which originally had an advantage over Aobai, who was single-handed with a knife. But after these three blows, Zu Dashou was shocked to the point that his arms were sore, and he secretly praised the other party for his natural divine power.

But without much thought at the moment, he continued to charge forward, slashing at one of the horsemen who was following closely behind him, and stabbed him in the throat.

Although the cavalryman was heavily armoured, the throat was still the weakest point of protection. Zu Dashou still hit this vital point with great accuracy in this lightning and flint, and shot him under the horse.

At the same time, the two cavalry brigades finally collided fiercely. Although the Jurchens were superb in riding, most of them could turn their horses' heads slightly and cross the stirrups with the Ming army; However, due to the speed being too fast, there are still many direct collisions with the Ming army, and the two sides are on their backs at the same time, and the bones of the whole body are shattered!

Cavalry vs. cavalry, there are no more than three ways to fight; One is to shoot bows and arrows at each other, and the other is to charge at each other. Compared to archery, the hand-to-hand combat during the charge is more dangerous. When the battlefield is galloping, the battle situation is changing rapidly, and there may be enemies in the front and back, left and right.

And Ao Bai and his Niulu cavalry are obviously superior to Zu Dashou's Ming army. Even in such a chaotic situation, the Jurchens rarely used knives, and still mainly used bows and arrows to hurt the enemy. When an arrow is fired at a distance of more than a dozen or even a few steps, the speed is not much different from that of a bullet, and as long as the shot is accurate, there is no time to dodge or block.

Haoge, who was watching the battle in the back, looked at it for a while, put his mind at ease, and felt that if he continued to fight like this, Ao Bai would definitely be able to completely annihilate this Ming army, it was just a matter of time.

But when he looked at the other two Ming troops, his face suddenly changed color!