The main operational intention of the Northern Cluster was to attract reinforcements from the Southern Han army to the north, and reduce the forces that Liu Gang used to defend the Xingwangfu, so that the Maritime Cluster could capture Panyu more easily and quickly, so as to end the battle to destroy the Southern Han as soon as possible. Therefore, as long as Pan Chongche led the army to leave Panyu, this strategic goal had been achieved. Now, he is stationed in Fengzhou, ignoring Hezhou, which is already in danger, and it is even more right for Tang Chao. In this way, the latter can lead the northern cluster to advance westward after capturing Hezhou, and capture Fuzhou, Zhaozhou, Guizhou and other prefectures and counties, so as to stabilize their own flanks and ensure the safety of the right flank - as for the encirclement and annihilation of this Southern Han heavy army group, it is still necessary to wait for the Northeast Cluster to capture Shaozhou and Xiongzhou as planned, and attract the last mobile force of the Southern Han army to reinforce it, and then according to the actual situation, or first besiege the Southern Han army in the direction of Shaozhou, and then solve Pan Chongche, or a two-pronged approach, both sides will start at the same time, so as not to kill Pan Chongche's group on Tang Chao's side, The Southern Han army was frightened, and he did not dare to send troops to leave Xingwang's mansion.

On the morning of March 18 of the lunar calendar of the sixth year of Jianlong, with the order of Tang Chao, the northern cluster launched an attack on Hezhou.

As early as when Gong Chengshu's empty edict was announced, the Hezhou defenders, who had already lost their morale, had no fighting spirit at all after learning that the first batch of reinforcements from the imperial court was almost wiped out in Nanxiang, and the second batch of reinforcements were stationed in Fengzhou and did not continue to go north. Therefore, in the face of the Zhou army's artillery fire, those border guards of the Southern Han army, who were difficult to even guarantee food and clothing, did not hesitate at all, only stayed in the city for a while, and then retreated in a swarm. When the artillery bombardment was over and the Zhou army began to attack the city, they were surprised to find that except for a few wounded generals and a few of their own soldiers, there was not a single soldier in the huge Hezhou City to resist the guard. At the beginning of the year, only half an hour after the attack was launched, the city of Hezhou fell into the hands of the Zhou army, and nearly 20,000 defenders all abandoned their weapons and surrendered.

After Hezhou was down, Tang Chao's troops only rested in the city for one day, and then they raised troops to march westward, attacking the city all the way, and successively captured Fuzhou, Zhaozhou, Guizhou and other important towns, relieving their worries. Then he turned around and went east and killed Lianzhou.

Just when Tang Chao led his army to sweep the western front and turned eastward, the northeast cluster under Yang Xin also began to move. On the twentieth day of the fourth lunar calendar of the sixth year of Jianlong, the northeast cluster entered the territory of the Southern Han Dynasty, and immediately launched an attack on Xiongzhou, and went down in half a day, and the troops pointed directly at the military town of Shaozhou. When the news reached Panyu, the Southern Han monarchs and ministers, who found themselves facing enemies on both sides and seemed to have fallen into the other party's plan to divert the tiger from the mountain, were even more panicked. Liu Gang hurriedly ordered the assembly of soldiers and horses, with the general Li Chengwu as the commander, and led an army of 100,000, including 5,000 elephant soldiers, to Shaozhou to meet the Zhou army.

Hearing that the main force of the Southern Han Army was advancing eastward for reinforcements, Yang Xin couldn't help but feel good. He immediately ordered a postponement of the attack on Shaozhou, lest the Southern Han reinforcements retreat back to Panyu due to the fall of Shaozhou. At the same time, on the one hand, Yang Xin sent a large number of detectives and scouts to closely monitor the movements of the Southern Han reinforcements in front of him, and on the other hand, he sent an envoy to get in touch with Tang Chao, who was leading his troops to kill Lianzhou, and coordinate the actions of the two armies, so that the two sides could attack from the east and west, and defeat the Southern Han army, the largest mobile force, in Shaozhou.

On the 28th day of April of the lunar calendar in the sixth year of Jianlong, the northern cluster of Tang Chao's department captured Lianzhou. On the same day, the Northeast Cluster bypassed Shaozhou, which was already under siege, and met the Southern Han reinforcements in Shakou, a small town south of Shaozhou and north of Yingzhou.

Seeing that his side had an absolute advantage in numbers, and that he was accompanied by elephant soldiers who had repeatedly performed well in previous battles, Li Chengwu, who was eager to reverse his current unfavorable situation, immediately seized this favorable opportunity, led his army to pounce, and "defeated" this Zhou army by the way.

Although the other party is only a small army of only about 2,000 people, and the banner captured later is not the "Flying Dragon Army" that is the best in the world, and the record of the Southern Han Army is only dozens of beheadings. But after all, this was the first "victory" of the Southern Han Army, which had been in a passive position since the start of the war and had lost its divisions and territory one after another. Therefore, when the news reached the Xingwang Mansion, Liu Gang issued an order to reward Li Chengwu and his officers and men on the one hand, and on the other hand, he immediately informed the "world" of the good news of this "great victory" to the "world" to cheer up the soldiers and people of the Southern Han Dynasty who had been repeatedly defeated since the beginning of the war.

The Southern Han monarchs and ministers rejoiced in the "first victory" of the war, but they did not know that they had really fallen into the Zhou army's plan to lure the enemy into depth. Because it still takes some time for the northern cluster of Tang Chao's department to arrive at the scheduled battlefield, and Yang Xin's side needs to take Shaozhou before encircling and annihilating Li Chengwu's group in order to ensure the safety of his rear. Therefore, in order to prevent Li Chengwu from withdrawing his troops due to the fall of Shaozhou and returning to Panyu, Yang Xin thought of this strategy to show weakness and feign defeat and lure the enemy deeper.

On the second day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar in the sixth year of Jianlong, Tang Chao sent a messenger to inform Yang Xin that the northern cluster had been deployed in place and could close the net. After receiving the news of Tang Chao, Yang Xin, who had been waiting for a long time, immediately began to act, and launched a fierce attack on Shaozhou City on the same day, and within two hours, he annihilated the defending enemy and captured the city.

If it is placed at the beginning of the war, the news of the destruction of Shaozhou City is likely to make Li Chengwu, who was already afraid when he led the troops to the battle, immediately withdraw his troops and return to Panyu to hold on. However, after achieving the "great victory" in Shakou Town, Li Dadutong's self-confidence had been restored, and he felt that the rumors in the world that the Zhou army, especially the "Flying Dragon Army", were strong and friendless, and the first in the world, but I was afraid that it was more of a self-flaunting of the Zhou army, and it was an exaggerated propaganda carried out to make other forces afraid of him. Therefore, when the news of the capture of Shaozhou by the Zhou army came, Li Chengwu not only did not retreat, but ordered the army under his command to speed up the advance, and it was necessary to rush to the city of Shaozhou within one day, so as not to let the other party see that his side was strong and flee.

Before the third afternoon of the fifth month of the lunar calendar in the sixth year of Jianlong, Li Chengwu soldiers came to Shaozhou City. However, contrary to its original prediction, the Zhou army did not flee because of the overwhelming number of Southern Han soldiers, nor did it retreat into the city to defend the city, but gave up the advantages of the city and camped in the south of Shaozhou City, which meant that it wanted to confront the Southern Han army head-on and fight a battle in a dignified manner.

Although the appearance of the Zhou army was somewhat unexpected, relying on the "great victory in Shakou Town" and his own strength advantage of nearly five to one, Li Chengwu did not have the slightest fear in his heart. On the one hand, he ordered his army to camp opposite the Zhou army, and on the other hand, he sent envoys to the Zhou army camp to persuade the Zhou army to surrender, so as not to cause a real fight between the two sides, and the Zhou army ended up with corpses all over the field and rivers of blood.

Yang Xin, who had long regarded Li Chengwu and his 100,000 troops as his own meal, made a generous statement to the envoy of the Southern Han army who was trying his best to persuade him to surrender didn't even bother to look at it, so he waved his hand, motioned to the guards to pull him out, stripped naked and hung it on the flagpole to show the public - Yang Xin was still very in favor of the rule of "the two countries exchange troops and do not kill the envoys", so he did not give a dead hand to this so-called "persuasion" envoy.

Although the camps of the two sides were separated by a distance, the flagpole was tall, and the envoys of the Southern Han army who were hung on it kept struggling, so the ranger scouts of the Southern Han army patrolling outside the camp quickly discovered the situation here and immediately reported it to Li Chengwu.

Li Chengwu, who received the report, was naturally furious, and on the one hand angrily denounced the Zhou army for "giving shame to the face, toasting and not eating and punishing the wine", and on the other hand, he ordered the whole army to form a team, preparing to kill the Zhou army in one go.

The two sides confronted each other head-on, and the Zhou army did not defend the city, and in Li Chengwu's view, this was a good opportunity for his own elephant soldiers, who had a strong impact and had almost never tasted defeat since their establishment. Therefore, after the formation of his own army was completed, Li Chengwu gave an order and ordered the elephant soldiers to attack.

With the general's order, 5,000 Southern Han elephant soldiers came out of the formation, and the people shouted and roared and rushed towards the Zhou army array.

Although before the start of the war, he had learned from his superiors and commanders that there were so-called elephant soldiers in the Southern Han Army, and during the pre-war training, the enemy command before the Yuegui battle also specially invited elephant trainers to demonstrate, so that everyone could know about elephants. But a few artificially trained elephants led by a trainer who walked in front of him meekly and obediently were obviously different from a herd of 500 elephants that roared and roared so quickly towards him, that even the ground under their feet shook violently with their running. Therefore, in the face of the surging Southern Han Elephant Array, it is definitely self-deception to say that the soldiers of the Zhou army are disapproving and fearless. However, fear is fear, and timidity is timid, but the observance of military discipline, the obedience to the orders of the commander, and the reflexive reaction of the body after the battle has begun have made nearly 20,000 Zhou troops retreat, let alone flee, although there is no shortage of soldiers with fearful faces and trembling faces.

100 to 200 meters is the best shooting range for the "Five-Five" rifles equipped by the infantry of the "Flying Dragon Army", with high accuracy and great lethality, but at this distance, the soldiers of the Zhou Army standing in the front row of the military formation can already see clearly the ears and even blood-red eyes of the elephant that is rushing wildly.

Just as the hearts of the soldiers in the front row were almost jumping out of their mouths from the shaking of the ground and their own nervousness, a red flare finally rose into the air. As the flare was lifted into the air, the hearts of the soldiers in the front row of the Zhou army array finally returned to their stomachs. While gasping for air to relieve Fang Cai's tension, they shot fiercely, pouring a rain of bullets on each other's heads to vent their hatred - although it is normal for people to be timid and afraid in the face of strange things, especially strange things that pose a great threat to them, in the eyes of the vast majority of the Zhou army, especially the soldiers of the "Flying Dragon Army", such a reaction is a shame. And such a shame needs to be washed away only by the blood of the enemy.

In front of human beings, elephants are tall, powerful and almost invincible, but in the face of human weapons, especially powerful firearms, elephants are fragile and have no ability to resist. Although elephants are far less intelligent than humans, their instinct to avoid danger is innate. Therefore, when the dozens of elephants rushing to the front were knocked to the ground by the dense rain of bullets, and hundreds of ** that fell from the sky exploded around them, the remaining elephants were frightened and instinctively driven, and suddenly stopped moving forward, turned around and fled back and forth, in order to stay away from the danger ahead. At this time, even the most skilled and skilled elephant trainers could not stop the elephants, let alone face the dense rain of bullets, and those lucky elephant trainers wanted to stay away from this dead land more than the elephants they stepped on.

The Zhou army and the large camp of the Southern Han army were five miles apart, and all of them were within the range of the artillery attack of the "Flying Dragon Army". Therefore, this frightened and stern elephant army, which ran wildly, was almost driven by the relay of various types of artillery of the "Flying Dragon Army", and fled all the way from the Zhou army camp to the Southern Han army camp, and passed through the camp, and finally got into the mountains and forests in the south without looking back, never daring to come out again. Wherever the elephant herd passed, tens of thousands of Southern Han soldiers who were in front of the camp were trampled into flesh or broken bones, and the entire Southern Han army camp was also destroyed to pieces and in a mess.

Seeing that the elephant soldiers he was proud of not only failed to kill the Zhou army, but instead killed his own army with corpses and rivers of blood under the drive of the Zhou army's firearms, Li Chengwu realized that he had fallen for the opponent and was bitten hard by the Zhou army on the opposite side who "pretended to be a pig and ate a tiger". At this time, he no longer had the confidence and ambition that he had just achieved when he had just achieved the so-called "Great Victory in Shakou Town", but only a deep fear of the Zhou army and a strong desire to flee the land of right and wrong quickly, and immediately put it into practice, and fled with his personal guards. The instinct to survive drove them to follow Li Chengwu automatically, and fled to Yingzhou in a hurry like a lost dog and a fish that slipped through the net. Behind them, the cavalry battalions of the two regiments of the Northeast Cluster, which had been locked up in Shaozhou City to prevent the horses from being frightened by the influence of the elephant array, had rushed out of the city and covered the ass of the Southern Han army all the way. Behind the cavalry, infantry units of the Northeast Cluster followed, advancing southward.

Although the corpses retreated all the way from the city of Shaozhou for nearly fifty miles and lost tens of thousands of people, the nightmare of the Southern Han army did not end there. When Li Chengwu led his personal guards to retreat not far from Shakou Town, which had won the so-called "first victory" in the battle against Zhou, he planned to gather the remnants of the defeated generals who had retreated with him, and prepared to rely on the simple walls and buildings in Shakou Town to block the cavalry of the Zhou army that was still chasing after him, and buy some time for himself to continue to retreat, but he found that the banner of the Zhou army had been raised in Shakou Town. Under the guidance of a "Tang" handsome banner, nearly 30,000 Zhou troops swarmed out of Shakou Town and blocked the passage for its retreat.

Seeing that he was being attacked on his belly and back, Li Chengwu looked around and looked at the Southern Han generals who had retreated nearly fifty miles with his own breath, his face was full of fear and dust, and he was so tired that he couldn't even lift the swords and guns in his hands. In this battle, the Southern Han army suffered nearly 50,000 casualties due to the trampling of war elephants and the pursuit of the Zhou army, and nearly 50,000 people were captured, and less than 2,000 people fled back to Yingzhou by detour. The price paid by the Zhou army was less than 100 casualties, and it truly completed a real and real victory.