"So fast?" Zhao Wende was taken aback: "My lord, Lu Xiangsheng is quite famous for crusading against thieves in the south, plus the remnants you left in Xuanda Town, there are not enough 100,000 people, there are always 70,000 or 80,000, and the armor equipment is also very sophisticated, and it can be regarded as a strong army in Daming!" ”

"So what?" Liu Cheng said with a smile: "Field battles in the open field are nothing more than foot, cavalry, and artillery, he is not as good as me in riding, and the cannon is not as good as me, it would be good to be able to last a morning." Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoDon't worry, I've won this battle! ”

"My lord, there is a military intelligence!" A messenger dressed in a colorful brocade robe arrived, and he saluted Liu Cheng on horseback: "The striker has met the enemy!" ”

"Oh! Ah Gui has already met the enemy, and Lu Xiang has risen so fast! Liu Cheng smiled and said: "Okay, pass the order down, speed up the march, bypass Zhuozhou, and go all the way to the west!" ”

Zhuozhou, on the banks of the Juma River.

Zuo Liangyu looked east, the majestic Taihang Mountain had been left behind, and there was already a flat space in front of him, there was no danger from here to Jingshi, if it was a fast horse but a day and a night away, when he thought of this, his heart was excited and a little worried.

"Pass the order, let Xuan Feng cross the river first!" Zuo Liangyu ordered, as a veteran general who has been on the battlefield for many years, he naturally knows that it is extremely dangerous for a large army to cross the river, especially since the enemy has a strong cavalry force, if he crosses the river and attacks it halfway, it will be the end of the entire army. Therefore, as the vanguard of the army, his task was to quickly establish a bridgehead on the opposite bank to protect his own army from crossing the river safely.

According to Zuo Liangyu's order, more than 100 horsemen selected the front in a place where the river water was relatively gentle, they took off their lower body clothes and boots, tied them around their waists, and then wrapped their bows and arrows in cooked cowhide and tied them to the saddle, rode horses, and went down into the water with their lower bodies bare. The river is not deep, in many places it has just reached the belly of the horse, and in some places it only reaches the thighs of people, and although the river is already a little cool at the end of August, it is not uncomfortable. The crowd drove their horses hard, and most of them soon reached the opposite bank, hurriedly jumped off their horses, quickly wiped the water off their legs, and put on their trousers and boots again. Only a few rode to the depths of the water, and the horse's hooves could not reach the bottom of the river, and the men and horses were swept downstream by the river.

Zuo Liangyu stood on the west bank of the river, seeing that his selection of the front had successfully crossed the river, but the figure of the enemy cavalry did not appear, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, it seemed that the enemy army had not yet arrived here, maybe Liu Cheng did not want to risk being attacked by the defenders of the Beijing division and the Xuanda army, or it was possible that he spent his troops on the Guanning army that was closer to him. He hurriedly ordered the people crossing the river to go around and investigate, and at the same time began to build a pontoon bridge.

The first to cross the river were veterans, and they first used a rope to cross the river to lead a few thick ropes, and then connected them with sufficient skins, bundles of firewood, improvised boats and other pontoons, and then laid wooden planks on them, and soon built a simple pontoon bridge. Zuo Liangyu immediately ordered a part of the foot soldiers to cross the river, build simple field fortifications on the opposite bank, and at the same time ordered the construction of a second pontoon bridge.

"Tell the General!" A scout ran over from the pontoon bridge and said to Zuo Liangyu: "The scout has already checked the surrounding area for two or three miles, and no enemy rangers have appeared!" ”

"Good, good!" When Zuo Liangyu heard the news, he was very happy: "I will reward you with ten taels of silver, step up the investigation, don't be careless!" ”

"General Xie reward!" The scout hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed, and got up happily to receive the reward. Zuo Liangyu summoned his staff and said with a smile: "Mr. Wu, if you write a letter to the Supervisor, you will say that Liu Thief is guarding the river with thousands of people, and I broke it with one blow, beheaded more than 40 levels, and killed and injured hundreds of people!" The seizure of armor weapons is not counted! Pontoon bridges are being built, and the army is invited to move quickly! Speaking of this, he said to his henchmen on the side: "He Shoubei, you go and get dozens of heads, all of them are in the prime of life, don't get some women and children!" ”

"Yes, general, don't worry!" The officer nodded hurriedly, and then led more than 100 horsemen to the south along the river, and the staff wrote quickly, but in a blink of an eye, it was written, read it to Zuo Liangyu, and then asked the messenger to send it to Lu Xiangsheng.

"Proprietor!" Seeing that Zuo Liangyu was in a good mood, the staff said with a smile: "You will be the vanguard of the army, and you have made such a great achievement, and the position of the general soldier of Xuanda will definitely be yours!" ”

"Less ecstasy soup for Lao Tzu!" Zuo Liangyu scolded with a smile: "I haven't gotten anything yet, I haven't fought with Liu Cheng yet, so I'm thinking about being promoted!" ”

"Proprietor!" The staff had been following Zuo Liangyu for a long time, and knew that he would only speak in this tone if he was with himself: "How can you be a person who talks nonsense, this time you went to the aid of the Beijing Division, and if you win the battle, you are the striker, and you are naturally the chief soldier; If you lose, the court will have to rely on the military ministers to level the thieves, or will you give it as an official gift, isn't it necessarily yours? ”

Zuo Liangyu listened to what the staff said reasonably, and said with a smile: "Or you turban ghosts have a lot of ideas, but there are no eyes on the battlefield, if Lao Tzu dies here, there will be a bird commander?" ”

The staff member smiled: "The proprietor said that he laughed, and he also spent a little effort in physiognomy, your appearance is definitely not a thin person, if you can't be a town general, you will gouge out my eyes!" ”

The two were talking happily, when suddenly there was a sharp sound in the air, Zuo Liangyu could hear it clearly, but it was the common sound of Hu Qi. couldn't help but change his face slightly, and hurriedly shouted: "All armies are on alert!" ”

"General Gui, the enemy's forward is in front, and there are about 10,000 foot riders!" One of the scouts said in a loud voice.

"Well, give the order to go down, and the armies will line up!" Ah Gui waved his arm, he had been bumping on the horseback for two days, but his spirit was particularly vigorous, he stood up from the saddle, looked behind him, and saw that the various horse teams behind him stretched for several miles, like a long dragon, and he couldn't help but feel refreshed. He was appointed as the vanguard by Liu Cheng this time, commanding 2,000 cowardly Xue Jia cavalry, as well as more than ten Zasak cavalry of the Chechen Department and the left flank, about 10,000 cavalry. When he arrived at the banks of the Juma River, he did not defend the river as usual, but led the main force to cross the river to the west bank, leaving only a small number of troops east of the river, ready to wait for the enemy to cross the river by surprise from behind.

Zuo Liangyu looked at the enemy troops pouring out from below the horizon, and his face turned pale. The enemy's cavalry lined up along the river, and horses of various colors galloped noisily on the bank of the river, densely packed and layered, and the situation was very great, and the soldiers of the Xuanda army couldn't help but be frightened when they saw it. Suddenly, a horn sounded from the enemy's formation, and the knights took off their armor and robes, revealing the iron armor below, and it was just past noon, and the sun shone on the iron armor on the army, and the water light reflected on the surface of the Juma River not far away was connected with the reflected armor light, and a large dazzling light was reflected in an instant, so that people could not distinguish where people were and where was water.

"Could it be that Liu Cheng's Chinese army has arrived? Otherwise, how can such a magnificent military appearance? Zuo Liangyu's mind was blank, and the spirit in Fang Cai's chest had long since begun to know where to throw it, he looked at the surrounding terrain, the riverside terrain was flat, and it was close to the river, even if he wanted to escape, he couldn't escape, so he had to grit his teeth and ordered: "Pass the order, line up, and fight to the death with Liu Thief!" ”

As soon as Zuo Liangyu's words fell, he heard a burst of military drums from the other party, and saw that the left wing of the enemy army began to move forward, and it had already been killed, and his own infantry had not yet finished arranging, so he had to order the cavalry to drive forward to resist the enemy, so as to buy time for his own infantry to line up. But I don't want Ah Gui's left flank to drive the iron-clad knight of the cowardly Xue army, wearing an iron scarf, with an iron ring to protect the neck, iron armor all over the body, up to the knees, the spear is like a dense forest, and the war horse on which he rides is covered with leather horse armor, only his eyes and nose are exposed, which is even more hideous and terrifying, like a demon. The cavalry of the left army are all lightly armored cavalry, how can they resist the impact of the armored cavalry, and they scattered and fled in a blink of an eye, and the ironclad knights broke into the enemy formation, and the blockers were invincible. The light cavalry that followed closely behind them galloped left and right with their bows outstretched, and arrows flew into the ranks like raindrops, and the infantry of the left army who did not form a column fell one after another. There was a lot of chaos.

"General, the left flank has already entered the battle!" Babu, who was watching the battle beside Ah Gui, high-fived and said, he came to lead more than 3,000 cavalry of the Chechen Department to participate in the battle this time.

"Hmm!" Ah Gui looked at the battlefield with some surprise, the victory of the left flank came too easily and somewhat unexpectedly, so easy to break into the right flank of the enemy, because the right flank of the Ming army was torn apart, the Chinese army was exposed, many years of experience on the battlefield made him immediately sober up, patted Babu on the shoulder: "Babu, the time for meritorious service has come, you go and take the banner of the enemy general!" ”

"Yes!" Babu excitedly twitched his mount and ran towards his team. The sound of drums came from behind him, making his blood almost boil.

With the deepening of the left wing armor cavalry, the torn ranks of the right wing of the Ming army became more and more chaotic, and they could not organize organized resistance at all, and almost let these iron-armored beasts gallop across the country. At this time, the cavalry no longer maintained the formation of the past, but divided into more than 100 cavalry, each of which was followed by about twice the number of light cavalry, and whenever the Ming army gathered into a group and tried to resist the enemy's onslaught in a dense formation, these light cavalry would shoot dense arrows at it and disperse it. Soon, the right flank of the Ming army collapsed.

Because the collapse of the right wing was too fast, Zuo Liangyu could hardly react quickly, and seeing that there were thousands of enemy cavalry rushing towards him, he had to order each team to return fire with firearms and crossbows first, and swing the vehicles away, ambush them with killers, and prepare to take advantage of the scattered formation of enemy cavalry, killing one by surprise and recovering a game. But did not want the cavalry on the opposite side to come too fast, although someone was shot by a bow and firearm, fell off the horse, but was quickly filled by the knights behind the line, the shooters of the Ming army wanted to retreat behind the vehicle, but found that the gap was too small, for a time not to enter, many people were blocked outside the car formation, and the enemy cavalry who rushed up was killed like chopping vegetables and melons, and the corpses were all over the ground. Seeing this, the foot soldiers behind the car formation were also frightened, many people dropped their weapons and turned around and ran, Zuo Liangyu saw this, hurriedly sent troops to supervise the battle, and slashed and killed a few deserters, but he didn't want those deserters to fight with them, and the formation was suddenly chaotic.

At this time, Babu had already killed the shooters outside the car formation, and when he saw that the Ming army in the car formation had killed each other, he was overjoyed: "It seems that the Bodhisattva heard my prayer last night and made me make a great contribution!" He hurriedly jumped off his horse, and was the first to rush to the front of the cart, splitting the chains with his short axe, and dragging the vehicle with all his might. His attendant cavalry hurriedly followed, either shooting arrows for cover, or towing vehicles, and in a short time a gap was opened, and the knights immediately rushed in and killed the Chinese army.

Surrounded by Zuo Liangyu's elite soldiers who had followed him for many years, seeing the chaos of the situation, he hurriedly jumped off his horse, tied the reins around his waist, lined up around Zuo Liangyu, and shot the enemy and rebels with firearms and bows and arrows. Although there were occasional knights rushing over, most of them were shot by arrows or birds, and fell from their horses and died. However, as time passed, more and more enemy cavalry rushed in front of the Chinese army, from scattered knights in groups of three or five to large forces of cavalry of dozens or even hundreds. Even the kind of ironclad knights in armor began to appear, and at a time, dozens of ironclad knights braved arrows and firearms to rush to the banner of the Chinese army, stabbed them with spears, and suddenly more than ten people were killed or seriously injured by spears, and the tip of the spear was only a few people away from Zuo Liangyu. More than a dozen cronies of the same clan around him rushed forward regardless of life and death, only to kill these ironclad knights.

Although the ironclad knights were repulsed, it also attracted more and more enemies to surround them, and the besieging cavalry shouted in Mongolian while firing arrows: "The enemy's great officers will be here, and my generation will be rewarded with wealth and grace here!" ”

Seeing that there were more and more enemy horsemen outside, Zuo Liangyu's face was pale, but he was calm, and the leader of the personal soldiers around him grabbed his reins and said loudly: "The thief army surrounds him, if he doesn't leave, he won't be able to leave!" Zuo Liangyu was still hesitating: "If I leave, the whole army here will be wiped out, and it will be difficult to escape military law when I go back!" ”

The right arm of the leader of the pro-soldiers had been cut by a spear, and the blood was pouring out, he held back the severe pain and said with tears: "General, this battle is because the thief army is too strong, it is not your fault, how dare you kill the general when the overseer is about to fight?" Besides, if you die here, won't so many brothers who died here die in vain, and who will take care of their little family? ”

Zuo Liangyu woke up from a dream when he heard this, it turned out that according to the unspoken rules of the time, like Zuo Liangyu's personal soldiers were attached to him, if Zuo Liangyu died in battle, he had the obligation to take care of his wife and small family, but if Zuo Liangyu also died here, other generals had no obligation to take care of these. Their military exploits and pensions will be divided among others, and the achievements they have accumulated over the years will also come to naught. The advantage of this unspoken rule is that the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the pro-soldiers are very strong, as long as the generals do not die, even if they lose the battle, they can also train a new army through the generals and some of the pro-soldiers around them. The disadvantage is that once the general himself dies or the loss of his own soldiers is too great, then the army will disappear completely. This is also the reason why Chongzhen killed the ministers like a mustard, and although the generals who led the specific army repeatedly violated military discipline, they did not dare to touch them.