Early in the morning of the first day of December, on the city wall of the north gate of Gu'an, groups of people looked curiously at the Ming army encamped outside the moat, they were busy carrying some bricks, stones and wood, and also knocking ice in the moat to get water.

Lu Chuanzong snorted at the city tower, spit a mouthful, and scolded in his mouth: "Your mother, if it weren't for the military order, I wouldn't have defended the city for you if I killed Lao Tzu." ”

Chen Xin turned a deaf ear and was very calm on the surface. Not only did the Gu'an magistrate not provide food and servants, but he was not even allowed to let him enter the city, nor did he come out to talk to him, but only asked people to bring him a message and let him not enter the city. Although Chen Xin had no intention of going in to defend the city, he was still very dissatisfied in his heart. If it weren't for the fear of influencing political speculation, he even wanted to drag a few tiger squat cannons to his city gate for a few cannons, and at this time he was still discriminating against Wufu.

Fortunately, the two hundred stone grain in the pù of the Liu Village store in Qin Lufang was still there, and some of it was taken out to supplement the military rations. As for camping, the Wenden camp had to use soldiers, which made the soldiers have much less time to rest.

The captured Tartar was still tied to the carriage and was dying. Chen Xin retracted his gaze and said to the horseman in front of him: "Li Tao, you are also from Liaodong?" ”

"Yes, the villain's ancestors are from Sichuan, but the villain was born in Liaodong, after the fall of Guangning, he first went to Shanhaiguan, and then came to Tongzhou, because the villain can ride horses and raise horses, and he has been there for two years."

"Why don't you want to do it here?"

"This owner is too black-hearted, because when he took me in, he always thought that I owed him a life, and never paid me, just food."

Chen Xin smiled and said, "That's a little darker." ”

"I sent him all the way from Tongzhou to here, and the Tartar is also behind him, and it can be regarded as repaying his kindness, the villain uses a knife for archery, and wants to kill the Tartar with the adult."

There were many Dongjiang soldiers and Liao people in Chen Xin's army, and they had heard too much about their tragic events, and they didn't want to ask more about the deep enmity between Li Tao and Jiannu.

"You follow the training officer, listen to his arrangement, if there is anything to disobey the order, no matter how many Tartars you kill, I will not accept you, remember."

"Yes, sir."

Chen Xin sent this Li Tao away, this time he was able to capture the Jiannu fine work, this horseman played a great role, the table at that time was brave and strategic, Zhu Guobin heard that he could ride a horse, and hoped to stay, and enter the cavalry camp after going back. Chen Xin agreed to Zhu Guobin's request, and asked Zhu Daichun, who went out with the army, to manage it, and this training team also came with ten people, Chen Xin asked them to focus on observation, and summed up the improvement methods of training according to actual combat.

After arranging this, Chen Xin looked to the northwest, and several black smoke columns were clearly visible in the distance northwest of Gu'an, which was even more oppressive under the gray sky. The Tartar sentry had already encountered the Wenden battalion twice, because the Wenden battalion knew that the enemy was approaching, and the sentinels were all in a team of twelve together, and the focus was also in the northwest direction, so each time they had a numerical advantage, and the Tartar sentry rode away on their own.

The Wendeng battalion deployed all the cavalry in the northwest direction, and the cavalry of Chen Xin's personal guard was also dispatched, and two cavalry defense lines were arranged, the first was ten miles away, consisting of two teams that did not collect at night, both to reconnoiter the enemy and organize the enemy's reconnaissance, and the second was five miles away, consisting of six teams of cavalry and ten personal guards, and the infantry of another bureau occupied about three miles in that direction, and found some houses as strongholds to provide cover for them when they retreated.

Jiannu did not expect that the power in this direction would suddenly increase, and their sentry did not enter the range where they could see the camp of Wendeng Camp, so that the Wendeng camp could camp quietly.

Chen Xin laid a rectangular camp against the moat, using the north wall of Gu'an as one side, the front is wide and the two sides are narrow, like an abacus city like Tianjin. Lined up from left to right, he planned to build a stronger camp this time, but it was very difficult to dig in winter, so he sent people to demolish the surrounding houses, fetch earth and timber and began to build a breastwork on the perimeter of the camp.

The breastwork was incoherent, with a gap every eleven steps, which was the width of a firearms squad, and the gap was used to give the Mandarin Duck Formation a longitudinal formation, and the Jiannu team that was not strictly trained in the battle formation would only be squeezed together in this gap.

The firemen of each group gathered firewood everywhere, set up a cauldron fifty paces away from the breastwork and began to boil water, and with each pot of boiling, some soldiers quickly lifted it up and splashed it on the ground.

Groups of Wendeng battalion soldiers are busy, like swarms of ants carrying things, in the afternoon the chest wall is basically repaired, during this period Ye Bushu and Jiannu sentinel cavalry broke out two outpost battles, Wendeng camp one dead and one wounded, beheaded Jiannu two, but Houjin's sentry cavalry is gradually increasing, Ye Bushu has retreated to the defense line five miles away, and the cavalry withstood a round of reconnaissance.

Chen Xin only needs them to survive today, after the fortifications are built and the soldiers rest. In fact, the soldiers of Jiannu traveled thousands of miles, and they also had the problem of being human, and although the Ming army was very weak, they were not necessarily in a relaxed mood after all. So Chen Xin felt that they were actually very tired, and now that they had looted a lot, the kind of barefoot thinking that was not afraid of wearing shoes might have dropped, and the desperate mind must have weakened, and it would definitely be easier to fight them now than when they first broke through.

Taking advantage of their inertia of despising the Ming army, Chen Xin planned to teach them a good lesson and use their heads as a stepping stone for himself to reach a higher level.

According to Zhu Guobin's collection of information from the Dongjiang refugees, most of the left and right wings of Mongolia were Mongols who fled to Houjin, and Huang Taiji required that their clothing and customs should all be according to the Jurchens, and their appearance was no different from that of the Eight Banners, and the military discipline was also very strict, and their combat effectiveness was much stronger than that of those foreign Mongolians.

Seven years after the Mandate of Heaven, more and more Mongols took refuge, basically all of them were the Horqin and Ulut tribes that had originally submitted to Chaha, as well as some Khalkha Mongols. Nurhachi then organized it into two banners, which were nominally equal to the status of the Eight Banners Gushan Ezhen, but in fact they were only vassals of the Eight Banners of Manchuria, and they never had the right to speak in politics. Unag, who led the troops this time, defected to Houjin in the early years of the Mandate of Heaven, and was the first Mongol to take refuge, and he was the one who captured Juehua Island in the Ningyuan War and slaughtered tens of thousands of people. If Chen Xin doesn't appear here, maybe Gu'an will become a stepping stone for Unag's promotion again.

After noon, the construction of the breastwork was basically completed, and the headquarters began to set up distance signs in front of the defense area, Liu Pojun asked Chen Xin: "My lord, if you only repair the breastwork, is it thinner, it is best to add a trench in front, and add a horse rejection behind the trench." ”

"No, if it's too strong, they won't attack. I must fight this battle, and it is in our best interest to fight under the city. ”

Liu Pojun agreed, he also knew that the tactical mobility of the Wendeng battalion was completely incomparable to that of the all-cavalry Jiannu, and if the Jiannu did not attack them, it would be difficult to find an opportunity to fight them.

Chen Xin asked Nie Hong beside him again: "Have the Chinese military guards rested?" ”

"It's all rested, and only one body is not supported."

"The number one warrior of the Chinese army?"

"My lord, my subordinates will never recruit too strong people in the future."

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In the camp of the second banner team of the killer, the soldiers have completed the construction of the fortifications, and they all hurry up to rest, Zhou Shao'er leaned on his quilt, his eyes looked at the sturdy back of a sharpening knife outside the tent, and Emperor Guanmiao said beside him: "Brother, isn't this big man Chen stupid, he keeps sharpening his dagger when he stops every day." ”

Zhong Laosi also said: "Look at this posture is to go desperately, Lao Tzu will have to tell him later, don't fight and ignore the formation." ”

Zhou Shao'er agreed and said: "Yes, otherwise I would have been beheaded by the military judge because of this." ”

Emperor Guan said: "Brother, I'm still afraid, that Tartar heard that he wants to eat people." ”

Zhong Laosi kicked over, kicked Emperor Guan's temple to the side, and scolded in his mouth: "If you're afraid, get out, go to Zhou Kill to get a knife yourself." ”

Guan Dimiao patted the footprints on his buttocks and smirked twice, Zhou Shao'er didn't speak, but he was also a little nervous in his own heart, since the Tartars came to the army, they rarely suffered defeats, and even if they were defeated, most of them ran away, and every time the Ming army was defeated, it was the annihilation of more than 100,000 troops, and no one was afraid in their hearts.

Zhou Shao'er squinted her eyes for a long time, she didn't feel sleepy at all, she was a little worried, and she was a little excited, she really couldn't sleep, so she simply sat up and habitually cleaned up her equipment.

He is still a commander and a sword and shield hand, the weapon is a waist knife improved according to the Qi family knife, three feet two inches long, very sharp, weighing only one pound and ten taels, and then a defensive round shield, three feet in diameter, this is his main weapon, and there are also a dagger, a coconut scoop, a belt, and a pair of chain mail. The round shield soldiers are very flexible, and sometimes even have to bend down to fight, so their armor is chain mail that does not affect the dexterity of their limbs, and the other killer teams are iron scale armor, which is much heavier than chain mail.

After Zhou Shao'er cleared it out, he also brought a stone outside and began to sharpen the dagger, which was made of steel and was very sharp after grinding. In the instructor's demonstration, a close-range assassination can easily break through the iron armor made of Min Iron.

Zhong Laosi was already asleep, and Emperor Guanmiao couldn't sleep, he took out the deposit slip on his body and looked at it, and said: "Brother, we have saved seven taels of silver, all of which are stored in the zài quartermaster's office, if I am killed by the Tartars, you remember to tell my mother, don't forget to get it." ”

"Hmm." Zhou Shao'er said perfunctory while grinding, he felt a little bad in his heart, this Guandi Temple is a homeless person in Wendeng, there is an old lady and an elder brother, if he dies in battle, the silver is still useful, if he dies in battle, the more than ten taels of silver saved are useless.

At this time, as soon as the tent curtain rang, the instructor of their bureau walked in, put a piece of paper on the ground, and said to them: "Who is the captain?" ”

Zhou Shao'er is a sneer, and the oysters are noisy

The instructor didn't wake him up, and said in a low voice: "There is something here, there is no eye on the battlefield, you veterans know that every time you write a suicide note before the war, you don't need to write what you have written, and if you don't write a suicide note, do you need to leave a suicide note?" ”

Zhou Shao'er looked around, only Chen Ying and Guandi Temple had not written, and called the two of them to speak, Chen Ying was silent for a while, and asked the instructor: "I have no family members, and the silver is stored in the zài quartermaster department, and I have not received it, if I die, can this silver be given to other lonely and displaced people from the Dongjiang River." ”

The instructor glanced at him, he also knew this Chen Ying, who had already lectured in some bureaus, and he said: "There is a children's fund here, if you have no family, your money will be used to adopt a homeless orphan, and when they grow up, they will follow your surname and offer you incense as your righteous son." ”

"Really?" Chen Ying's indifferent eyes suddenly appeared.

"Really! This is what Chief Instructor Huang came up with, there are many people like you in our army, if you want to do this with your money, you can tell me the name and address of your ancestor in more detail. Most of the time it's fine, just in case. ”

"Chen Ying, a native of Liaodong, whose ancestral home is Dongchangfu, Shandong......"

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After the Wendeng battalion completed the construction of the fortifications, the soldiers were given time to rest, and at the end of the day, the sentinels of Jiannu were strengthened, and two or three hundred easily drove the poor cavalry of the Wendeng battalion back to the city of Gu'an, and the cavalry of the Wendeng battalion did not dare to engage them, and withdrew quickly, and only five people died in the mutual temptation of the two sides.

The cavalry and the covering infantry withdrew to the camp, at this time it was late, Jiannu did not go directly to the city, Chen Xin could not find their camping site, sent twice the Fulu army to guard, perhaps Jiannu was very contemptuous of all the Ming troops, they did not come to harass at night, and the night was peaceful.

In the early morning of December 2, a little sun, the cavalry of the Wendeng camp patrolled the surrounding two miles, and shortly after the hour, the cavalry on the periphery came back to the camp one after another, and entered the camp through various passages, Zhu Guobin's horse passed through the interval of the infantry team, and all the infantry sat on the ground to rest, and it was dark and oppressive.

Chen Xin was dressed in a fine mountain armor and stood on a command platform in a carriage, with no flags erected around him. The cavalry in all directions are retreating, it is obvious that Jiannu is approaching, the battle he longs for is just around the corner, he has a strong army with strict training, the other party is the elite who has experienced a hundred battles, who is stronger, we can see today.

Just now, the first Houjin Sentinel rode through the thin morning light and appeared in Chen Xin's field of vision. He stood a mile away, quietly surveying the camp here.