Yang Zhiyuan has just received a signal from Xiaoliuzhuang.

"Marshal, we have defeated the counterattack of the thief Xirui battalion, and the leader of this battalion, Chang Shide, is confirmed to be killed."

The herald's excitement was palpable, and the staff officers' opinion was not as optimistic as the soldier's, on the contrary, there was a lot of puzzlement on their faces: "It is said that the counterattack of a battalion is actually only the strength of an infantry unit. Chang Shide's counterattack hit the iron wall of the new army, and the counterattack of 500 invading troops from the front hardly caused the slightest damage to the three battalions of the new army.

And Yang Zhiyuan, the commander of the new army, shook his head when he heard it: "The thieves used five hundred people to counterattack our three battalions, what was Xu Ping thinking?" ”

"Looks like it's stalling for time." Huang Xiwen said.

"It should be delaying time and giving him a chance to transfer his flag." The other staff officers were of the same opinion.

"It's suicide, not stalling." Yang Zhiyuan disagrees with this view, judging from the report from the front, the attack on the camp was completely undisciplined, which may be explained as a mistake in the busyness: "If Xiao Liu Zhuang is important to Xu Ping, why didn't he send troops to defend, it is said that there are hundreds of people left on the small three-way crossing next to it; If it's worthless to him, then how can he be so anxious to fight back that he makes a mistake in his busyness? If I were to take command, it would be against three battalions of the enemy, and these five hundred men would have many ways to delay their resistance, and there was no need to waste them in this way. ”

"Because Xu Thief is not a big handsome, he can't fight." Huang Xiwen replied without thinking.

"You're right." Although Yang Zhiyuan didn't agree with this judgment at all, he still nodded.

The Panshi and Xuanfeng battalions were preparing to attack, and the staff officers were waiting for Yang Zhiyuan's additional orders, perhaps the commander would come to the front line to take over the command and personally master this key attack, but Yang Zhiyuan did not give an additional order. Just waiting for the battle situation to develop on its own, and at the same time fell into contemplation, and said to himself: "Where is Xu Ping's main force?" The so-called abandonment of small and not taking, there must be a big picture, in Xiaoliuzhuang did not leave troops to guard, and his own generals did not leave reserves, so what did he want to do? ”

……

The banner of Xu Ping on the opposite side made Wu Zhong quite emotional, and after arriving at the front line just now, Wu Zhong was waiting for the order to attack with mixed feelings, but this order has not come. Soon Wu Zhong reconnoitred that there were still many troops on the opposite side, and due to the obstruction of the terrain, he didn't know if there were more hidden, so Wu Zhong had no desire to take the initiative to attack.

Although Yang Zhiyuan did not make any criticism or accusations, Wu Zhong's envoy reported that the staff officers of the other battalions seemed to be quite gloating, feeling that the Changqing battalion did not listen to people in the morning and had to fight for the limelight to blame. In this regard, Wu Zhong reprimanded the envoys and ordered them not to speculate on friendly forces and create contradictions without authorization—the disabled left hand seemed to be more painful.

"My lord, there is some change in the intrusive army on the other side, it seems." A scout was brought in by a staff officer, and when he reported it, he was not very sure: "It seems to be a transfer." ”

"Are you planning to move the camp?" Fu Tianjun immediately said that Yang Zhiyuan had already reported the progress of the right wing just now: "My lord, should we launch a diversion attack, and wait for the Xuanfeng battalion to outflank and annihilate the thieves in one fell swoop?" ”

Wu Zhong touched his left hand, which was getting more and more painful, looked at Xu Ping's camp opposite, and took a few steps forward to observe it surrounded by staff officers, it was indeed a little abnormal, and the opposite side seemed to be violently adjusting the deployment.

"Who knows, maybe they want to ambush us again." Wu Zhong looked at it for a while, then turned his head and asked, "Did the marshal order us to attack?" ”

"No, but ......" Fu Tianjun knew very well that Yang Zhiyuan did not give such an order, and he also knew that Wu Zhong knew everything about it, but this was not the style of the Evergreen Battalion, since the establishment of the army, the Evergreen Battalion has always been proactive, although Xu Ping is the most obvious one, but Fu Tianjun knows that Wu Zhong also cares about all kinds of shortcomings in the army. Like Xu Ping, if he found that the regulations were flawed, Wu Zhong would not immediately revise them as hard as Xu Ping, but he would also think hard, and he also said that he would actively cooperate with friendly forces.

"In that case, let's hold our defenses." Wu Zhong turned around and walked back to his general's banner, and the two infantry teams that were still intact were deployed in the rear as reserves, Wu Zhong felt that as long as he was on defense, the defense line of the Evergreen Battalion would never be easily shaken by the breaking army.

At this time, under Yang Zhiyuan's banner, a new battle report came.

"Marshal, the Taishan battalion was attacked by the thieves, and General Ji said that the thieves' attack was extremely ferocious, and his battalion suffered great losses."

"I see." Yang Zhiyuan let out a long breath, and his face suddenly became relaxed: "I understand, Xu Ping used his general flag as bait, intending to lure us into throwing troops into the center, while he concentrated his forces to crush our two wings, he himself is not here at all, and should command the attack on us somewhere." ”

From a logical point of view, it is not an exaggeration for Xu Ping to have this idea, after all, Yang Zhiyuan spread out the front line of the army and put on a posture of all-out attack, Xu Ping is likely to want to concentrate his forces to eliminate the new army first.

"But I think his wishful thinking is too full, and it's doomed to lose money." Yang Zhiyuan was not very worried about Xu Ping's strategy, if Xu Ping sacrificed the center to attack from both flanks, then his command and communication would become very difficult, Yang Zhiyuan immediately said: "Since he used his own flag as bait, we will eat it, let the Xuanfeng battalion continue to attack and push off his old battalion, and then march north to cut off the east-west connection between the thieves and divide Xu Ping's army into two." ”

In any case, it is advantageous to disrupt Xu Ping's unified command, and when Yang Zhiyuan sends the Xuanfeng battalion to obtain this lottery, he is also prepared to deal with the inevitable challenge: "The Chizhuo battalion will immediately go to reinforce the Xiliu battalion, there may be more thieves there than we thought, let General Zhou pay attention to defense; The Panshi battalion immediately withdrew from the battle and rushed to reinforce the Taishan battalion. ”

Yang Zhiyuan was full of confidence in victory, the new army was under unified command, and the complete front ensured that the rear roads were always unobstructed, so that the mobility of the new army would be higher than that of the divided invading army. And although Yang Zhiyuan admitted that the army that broke into the camp was very combative, after all, Xu Ping was in a hurry, and Yang Zhiyuan correctly estimated that Xu Ping could not complete the assembly so quickly, so a battalion of any new army could resist the attack of the camp for a long time, so that Yang Zhiyuan could send reinforcements according to the progress of the battle situation, repel any attack on the camp, and choose Xu Ping's weakness to counterattack: "I think there should be Xu Ping's main force gathered here, which has twice the advantage on our left flank, I think Xu Ping should be there now, let's go on the defensive with the left wing first. ”

"Yes."

……

"It's incredible."

Xu Ping looked at the Ming army in front of him and stopped, and began to change the formation, the two battalions of Rock and Xuanfeng, which were originally advancing in unison, turned into a situation of Xuanfeng in front and Rock in the back, and then Panshi retreated along the road under the cover of Xuanfeng.

"The knife that was in my throat didn't come in immediately."

Just now, Xu Ping had ordered to prepare for the transfer of the headquarters, and the staff officers who were caught off guard hurriedly looked for a new safe place, or a location that did not seem to be extremely dangerous, which was not easy to find. The transfer of command would mean the establishment of a new line of command communication, which would be a heavy task and would inevitably lead to considerable confusion, and if a random location were to be found, it might soon need to be transferred again.

While preparing to transfer the headquarters, the staff officers also had to plan how to make the intruding troops facing the Ming army retreat safely, and it was almost impossible to complete such a large amount of work before the Ming army advanced to Xu Ping's headquarters. If this really happens, Xu Ping knows that it will lead to the collapse of the entire command and communication system.

Under Xu Ping's gaze, the Xuanfeng battalion worked hard to adjust its formation, preparing to continue to advance westward. Xu Ping observed the formation change of the Ming army, knowing that a new offensive was imminent, the remnants of the Xirui battalion gathered behind him, Xu Ping recruited several officers of the Xirui battalion to his side, pointed to the Xuanfeng battalion in front and said to them: "I want you to lead the troops to the north to quickly circle to their flank, and then launch a counterattack." ”

Just now, the Selector Battalion was the main attacker, and the Rock Battalion covered its flank, but now the Selector Battalion, which is the main attacker, has no other troops responsible for covering the flank. As the war drums of the Xuanfeng battalion sounded again, the Ming soldiers took a big stride and walked westward in unison. Soon, Xu Ping's expected counterattack was also launched, and hundreds of soldiers of the Xirui battalion attacked the marching Xianfeng battalion from the flank, and after a while, their counterattack was declared a failure, and the Xuanfeng battalion returned fire with a dense salvo, easily repelling the rushing Xirui battalion. And let the invading army pay the loss of more than a dozen people, this group of invading troops did not fall in love with the battle, but admitted defeat and retreated, using these sacrifices to buy Xu Ping a turn and two queues of time.

"Send the order to Staff Officer Zhou," Xu Ping closely observed the queue of the Xuanfeng Battalion, and said to the herald behind him, "Let him send me all the troops at hand." ”

The order Xu Ping gave just now was to reorganize the troops and prepare to cover the retreat of the old battalion, but now that he saw that the Xuanfeng battalion no longer had flank cover, he decided to delay them with continuous counterattacks.

After the Selector Battalion changed its formation to attack to the west, Xu Ping asked the standard-bearer to give the signal, and another flank attack was launched, and the second group of soldiers of the Xirui Battalion who arrived on the flank of the Selector Battalion stepped forward to shoot at the Ming army.

This distant shot did not cause much damage to the Ming army, but after seeing the flank appear again, Gu Maitreya immediately ordered to stop the advance and let the troops counterattack. The mode of fighting after the column is the most familiar one for the new army, Zhendong Hou always emphasizes the significance of frontal confrontation, Gu Maitreya does not remember that when he served under Zhendong Hou, there was a time when he was at a disadvantage in a frontal confrontation. Therefore, when the new army was transferred from Funing Town, Gu Maitreya was also shocked that the new army would be defeated several times in the camp, and the reason for the defeat in the new army's report was attributed to the incompetence of Jia Minghe and Puguanshui, and the camp was very cunning, and never confronted the new army head-on. Gu Maitreya was convinced of this, and the current battle seemed to prove it.

The Ming army returned color to these dozens of invading troops, and the Ming troops who fought back were more than three times that of the invading army, and the fierce rain of bullets made the invading soldiers crouch on the ground one after another - the experience of lying down in the camp was passed on to ten, ten, and hundred, as long as the purpose of the battle was not to defeat the enemy, but to delay time, the officers who broke into the camp liked to use such tactics.

After seeing a large number of intruders on the ground rather lying on the ground and being beaten than standing up and shooting, Gu Maitreya's heart was full of contempt for the enemy who lacked courage, this kind of performance belonged to him as a lack of fighting spirit, and in his impression, it seemed that even the pirates of Fujian and Guangdong were more daring to fight than this group of thieves.

The Ming army continued to shoot at the lying down intruding army, and the officer who led the camp stubbornly refused to get up to meet the battle, his original plan was to wait until the Ming army was pressing towards him with bayonets before running, but when he saw the Ming cavalry began to move to his position, the officer lying on the ground immediately lost the courage to insist, and led his subordinates to bend down and retreat, escaping from the range of Ming fire.

Xu Ping was also a little regretful that he could not attract the infantry of the Ming army to the north, but he also knew that this was basically a fantasy, and after Zhou Dongtian urgently sent a group of troops, Xu Ping designed a plan that was mainly flank containment and supplemented by frontal resistance. The two mutilated infantry wings of the armored battalion would be used by Xu Ping for frontal resistance, they did not have any artillery and were outnumbered by the Xuanfeng battalion, and Xu Ping wanted to avoid as much frontal engagement as possible—a battle that would inevitably cost him heavy losses.

The flank pinning was handed over to the remnants of the Xirui battalion and some other troops, and this kind of diversion battle would also cause heavy losses, but Xu Ping estimated that it could be a little smaller.

The exchange ratio is no longer in Xu Ping's consideration, anyway, in the first two counterattacks, the breaking army lost dozens of people, and the new army may only lose a few people.

While Xu Ping was deploying and carefully watching the development of the battle situation, a herald ran behind him: "Chief of Staff Zhou reports that we still have at least half an hour before we can move the general flag. ”

"Continue to prepare," Xu Ping said without looking back: "At the same time, tell Chief of Staff Zhou to send every soldier who can be drawn out to me, fireman, cook, and groom, one counts as one." ”

"Yes, my lord."

The Rock Battalion, which was galloping west along the main road, made contact with the Taishan Camp in a matter of moments, where the gunfire had almost stopped, and there was only sporadic exchange of fire.

"Thank you, General Zhan, for coming to the aid with the Rock Battalion, but the battle situation here has stabilized, and the thieves have stopped attacking."

In this way, by the time the Rock battalion arrived at the site of the crisis on the front, the crisis had already been resolved by the local troops themselves.

Ji Xinghui, the battalion officer of Taishan, told Zhan Tianhao, the battalion officer of the Panshi battalion: "The thieves on the opposite side were defeated at the beginning, in order to look like they blew up their artillery, I was not very cautious, knowing that the thieves were very poor, and they had always cherished the artillery, so I mistakenly thought that they were really defeated, so I ordered the whole army to launch a fierce attack, and as a result, the thieves hid the main force on the other side of the second river, and when our army crossed two rivers in a row, they launched an attack, and many of the avant-garde of our battalion were still in the water and could not fight back, and hundreds of people were killed and wounded at once. At that time, my troops were separated by two rivers and had difficulty moving, and the battle situation was very passive all of a sudden. ”

At that time, the artillery of the Taishan battalion had crossed the first river, and Ji Xinghui's only remaining reserve had to defend its baggage, protect its artillery, and support the attacked troops.

"Later, when I saw that the situation was critical, I also failed by deception, ordered to abandon the position and retreat completely, and took the initiative to burn all the baggage, push all the artillery into the river, and gather troops to prepare for a counterattack. When the invading army saw that we had abandoned our positions and abandoned our heavy artillery, they thought that our battalion had been defeated, so they pursued them on all sides, and sent their troops straight to my banner. ”

The two sides of the battle switched positions, Li Guo dispersed his forces, and the Taishan battalion clenched their forces into fists and launched a counterattack.

Ji Xinghui pointed to the river in front of him and said: "The thieves are indeed very poor, they saw that I pushed ten cannons down the river, and began to retreat again, and immediately sent hundreds of strong soldiers down the river to salvage without waiting for the battle situation to stabilize, as if they were afraid that the cannons would be washed away by the water." When the pursuing thieves began to cross the river, I attacked them with all my assembled troops, killing and wounding them in large numbers, and the thieves suffered the same defeat as at the beginning of our army, with hundreds of thieves killed, and now they had retreated, and the artillery had given up salvage. ”

While talking, the two battalion officers saw an intruder coming over waving a white flag, and Zhan Tianhao was stunned and asked, "Did the intruder also use the white flag to ask for negotiations?" ”

"It wasn't taught to them by Xu Ping." Ji Xinghui replied angrily, and ordered loudly: "Bring him over." ”

The intruder strode to General Ji Xinghui and saluted him: "See the general." ”

"Say it quickly."

"Our General Li said that if the cannon is in the river for too long, it may be washed downstream, and if it is not salvaged, it will be lost."

Ji Xinghui snorted: "Do you Leader Li think that Ben will watch him salvage my cannon and then use it to bombard me?" ”

The soldier who broke into the army said unhurriedly: "The cannon in the river, if the general goes to salvage, our army will fire, we go to salvage, the general must also fire, so we General Li suggested, we might as well take half of the ten cannons, and each side salvage five guns, I don't know what the general wants?" ”

Ji Xinghui couldn't cry or laugh, and he didn't know what to say for a while, so he thought of a reason to refuse for a long time: "These ten cannons are all mine, why should I divide five of you?" ”

The soldier who broke into the army was obviously prepared, and immediately replied: "The cannon in the river is an ownerless cannon, like an ownerless treasure, and naturally it is for those who see it." ”

Zhan Tianhao waved his hand and asked Ji Xinghui to let the guards blast away the intruding envoy who was still shouting "General Think Twice".

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