Chapter 210: Geng Jimao's Doom
A small phalanx of each group quickly pursued the fleeing Qing soldiers, and with the sound of gunfire, the fleeing Qing soldiers kept falling, and many Qing soldiers threw away their weapons and knelt directly on the side of the road.
Ma Yingkui did not care about the Qing soldiers who knelt on the side of the road and surrendered, and quickly advanced with a regiment, and soon arrived at a place just over a mile away from Dangshan County.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th regiments also passed through this large gap, and after crossing the earthen wall, several regiments quickly advanced on both sides.
Luo Jian, who returned to the high slope, saw that a small phalanx outside Dangshan County was constantly advancing to both sides, and where he passed, the Qing soldiers fell countless times, although the Qing soldiers' firearms also caused casualties to the Yangzhou army, but the number was much smaller than Luo Jian's expectations before the war.
The Yangzhou army pursued too fast and too close, Geng Jimao did not dare to let the defeated and retreating Qing soldiers enter the city, lying on the edge of the city, watching the 13,400 Qing soldiers outside the city being quickly wiped out by the Yangzhou army, Geng Jimao was a little painful and regretful.
Just now, my subordinates have come to report that they have found that a large number of Yangzhou troops are heading west, and the road to Guide has been blocked, and Geng Jimao's heart has cooled down.
It took about an hour and a half for the Yangzhou army to clean up the Qing soldiers outside Dangshan County, and Luo Jian and Huang Degong also advanced a lot, only more than two miles away from Dangshan County.
Yan Yingyuan also advanced two miles away from the city wall with thirty artillery pieces, preparing to use these artillery pieces to directly bombard Dangshan County.
Seeing that the Yangzhou army surrounded the county, some generals of the Qing army began to be afraid, and one general actually found Geng Jimao and said that the Yangzhou army was invincible, so he simply surrendered.
Geng Jimao stared at this general, did not speak, but was thinking in his heart, you can surrender, I have a grudge against the Yangzhou army to kill my father, in fact, he didn't know that Geng Zhongming was handed over to the Southern Ming court by the Yangzhou army, he was not killed, and he has been locked up in a prison in Nanjing until now.
When the Qing court and the Southern Ming court negotiated peace, they did not know that Geng Zhongming was in the hands of the Southern Ming court, and if they proposed to release Geng Zhongming, perhaps Ma Shiying would agree.
Seeing that Geng Jimao didn't speak, the general turned around and was about to leave, but Geng Jimao waved his hand, and the soldiers around him quickly went up and arrested the general.
Geng Jimao still didn't speak, and with another wave of his hand, his soldiers pulled the general aside, raised his waist knife and cut him directly.
No one came forward to talk about the surrender, Geng Jimao stared at the Yangzhou army outside the city from the city, calculating how long Dangshan County could hold out, and looking forward to Duoduo sending reinforcements to rescue him from the siege.
Duoduo did not give up Geng Jimao's troops, and since he knew that the Yangzhou army began to march towards Dangshan, he sent reinforcements, which were 10,000 cavalry led by Gushan Beizi Tunqi and Hexuan.
Just when Geng Jimao was looking forward to reinforcements, Tunqi and each of them were at a loss in the face of the position of Li Chengdong's second division.
Both men had attempted to break through the defensive positions of the 2nd Division, but after leaving behind hundreds of horses and cavalry corpses in front of the positions, both gave up their plans to attack the 2nd Division's positions again.
The two ran together and discussed for a while, and decided to bypass the defensive position of the Second Division and rescue Dangshan County from other directions, such a flat terrain and such a wide front, the Second Division wanted to block the cavalry of the Qing soldiers, but it could not do it at all.
Holding a telescope, Li Chengdong, who was standing on horseback, saw clearly the intentions of the Qing cavalry, and was about to order a regiment attached to the cavalry division to intercept the Qing soldiers, when suddenly a thought came to him, that is, to completely annihilate the 10,000 cavalry of the Qing soldiers.
Li Chengdong jumped off the horse, thought about it, beckoned the herald to come over, and explained to him for a while, the herald turned over and ran towards Dangshan.
When the herald left, Li Chengdong began to give orders quickly, the second division all moved, the first regiment and the second regiment from the left, and the third regiment and regiment began to run towards the back from the right, and Li Chengdong personally led a regiment of the cavalry division to prepare to block the escape route of the Qing cavalry.
Luo Jian soon received the news of the Second Division and knew that Li Chengdong wanted to lay out a big pocket and annihilate the 10,000 Qing cavalry.
After a brief discussion with Huang Degong, Luo Jian quickly issued an order, except for the two regiments of the Fifth Division to monitor Geng Jimao's troops in Dangshan County, the other troops quickly ran towards the west of Dangshan County.
The scouts kept reporting the movements of the Qing cavalry, more than a dozen regiments kept adjusting their running routes, and tens of thousands of troops formed a huge encirclement and surrounded the 10,000 Qing cavalry.
Geng Jimao wondered that the Yangzhou army left under the city wall, climbed to the city wall to take a closer look, and suddenly gasped, the city wall saw very clearly, a huge encirclement had already encircled 10,000 cavalry in the middle.
Tunqi and each of them did not know that the danger was coming, and led the cavalry to advance rapidly in the direction of Dangshan, until the scouts in front reported that the front was blocked by the Yangzhou army, and Tunqi first felt that something was wrong.
As the gunfire continued to sound in front, the scout never came back to report the news, and Tunzile stopped his horse and looked carefully ahead, which was less than ten miles away from the county seat of Dangshan.
"Why don't you go?" And Beylor came running up from behind and asked.
"Oh no, the scouts haven't come back." Tunqi looked ahead and said worriedly.
"Afraid of what? Let's hurry up, I don't believe that the Yangzhou army can still leave us here, and if we don't go outside Dangshan County, we won't be able to explain to Prince Yu when we go back. He said.
When Tun Qi heard this, he patted the horse and continued to walk forward.
The first thing that the cavalry brigade of Tunqi encountered was a regiment led by Weng Zhiqi of the fifth division, Weng Zhiqi saw a little farther away on the horse, and saw that the cavalry brigade of the Qing army was in front, and hurriedly commanded the troops to set up a formation, and the riflemen quickly lined up in four rows, and slowly pressed towards the Qing soldiers.
Tunqi also discovered the Yangzhou army, and saw that the Yangzhou army did not have too many people, it seemed that there were only more than 2,000 people, and he had the intention to eat the troops of the Yangzhou army, which were not numerous.
With the order of Tunqi, the cavalry of the Qing army quickly formed a charging formation.
Weng Zhiqi saw that there were too many cavalry, so he quickly ordered the troops to stop, and more than 2,000 people quickly formed a circle, and the riflemen were still in four rows, all ready to shoot.
The momentum of the charge of tens of thousands of cavalry looked extremely amazing, and with the sound of horses' hooves, the ground seemed to shake with it.
It's just that more than 2,000 Yangzhou troops shrank into a group, but the wide attack front of the Qing cavalry was too wide, and the cavalry on both sides began to rush around an arc towards the hedgehog formation of the Yangzhou army.
Weng Zhiqi did not dare to let the cavalry get too close, and gave the order to open fire from a distance of more than a hundred meters.
With the sound of gunfire, the cavalry of the Qing army fell off their horses one after another, and the cavalry behind them, who had already raised their speed, bypassed the horses that had fallen to the ground and continued to run forward.
As the distance got closer, more and more horses fell from the Qing cavalry.
Only more than 50 meters away, the third row of gunners in the circle had changed to the front row, and as the more and more dense gunfire rang out, the Qing cavalry turned over more and more on their backs.
But the cavalry did not stop, and continued to rush towards the circle, and the wide terrain allowed the cavalry with excellent riding skills to calmly bypass the fallen horses, and there were not many cavalrymen who were knocked over by the fallen horses.
Weng Zhiqi's heart began to tighten, although he had already inflicted heavy casualties on the Qing soldiers, according to Weng Zhiqi's estimates, the fallen Qing cavalry was no less than five or six hundred cavalry, but the Qing soldiers had no intention of stopping, and it seemed that a regiment was going to suffer heavy losses today.
Just when Weng Zhiqi kept giving the order to quickly reload and shoot, suddenly there was a whistling sound in the air, and dozens of shells fell on the route of the Qing cavalry's charge, and the explosion of the shells only killed and injured a dozen cavalrymen, but more horses were frightened, and the cavalry's collision with each other became frequent.
Listening to the cannonballs flying overhead, Weng Zhiqi's heart suddenly became steady, and there was no longer panic in the shooting action, and everything seemed to become calm.
The shells were fired from the mortars of the 1st Division, and Yan Yingyuan's artillery did not have such a fast maneuver speed.
Liu Zhaoji saw from a distance that the 5th Division and 1st Regiment were in danger, so he immediately ordered the mortars to be deployed on the spot, and quickly opened fire.
As several rounds of artillery shells fell into the Qing cavalry charging formation, the Qing army's charging formation was completely disrupted, although more than 100 cavalry rushed to a place more than 30 meters away from the circle formation, but they were quickly beaten to the back of their horses, and there was no longer a threat to the fifth division and the first regiment.
When the cavalry circled around in a big arc and then concentrated behind Tunqi, Tunqi found that there were many fewer men and horses.
Without counting the losses, Tunqi felt that he had to flee from this dangerous place quickly, and was about to order the cavalry to turn around and flee, but he could not be tolerated at this time.
Li Chengdong led a regiment of the cavalry division to catch up from behind, and after blocking the retreat of Tunqi, the cavalry dismounted, and at this time they became infantry again, and the cavalry in several rows towards Tunqi came up, and several regiments of the first and fifth divisions on both wings had already run to block the escape route of the Qing army.
Liu Zhaoji commanded the mortars to fire shells into the Qing cavalry ranks, although the cavalry was fast, but the shells chased faster, although the damage was not large, but the startling effect was more effective than direct killing.
Although Tunqi and Hefu and the cavalry desperately broke through, they finally did not break out of the fire encirclement composed of tens of thousands of people, and as Tunqi and Hefu were both killed, the Qing army soon collapsed.
Although more than a hundred cavalry of the Qing army escaped from the headless flies, the rest of the cavalry were left on this land forever.
The fields of several square kilometers were full of horses that had fallen to the ground by the Qing cavalry, and there were even many cavalrymen lying on the ground and not dying.
Lou Ting sent a lot of cavalry to chase the horses that fled after the master was killed in all directions, and when these horses were gathered, Lou Ting was suddenly overjoyed, and there were more than 800 horses that were not injured and still intact, and these horses were trained by the explosion, and added a lot of strength to the cavalry division, you must know that these are real Mongolian horses.
Geng Jimao watched all this blankly from the city wall west of Dangshan County, and he was amazed by the running ability of the Yangzhou army.
Seeing that the cavalry was surrounded by a large number of Yangzhou legions, Geng Jimao knew that these cavalry would not be able to escape no matter what.
Geng Jimao also thought about going out of the city to rescue these cavalry, but looking at the defensive formation of the Yangzhou army not far in front of him, and seeing that the cavalry were all stopped, Geng Jimao knew that his infantry army would not be able to rush through no matter what.
When the Yangzhou army finished cleaning up the battlefield, the troops came back one after another and stopped around Dangshan County, and Geng Jimao knew that his end was not far away.