Yangqiao, Hou Xun stationed his supervisor standard battalion here.

The 5,000 officers and men of the standard battalion were ignored by the invading army in Kaifeng, and they crossed the Yellow River in fear, but they did not encounter any counterattack by the invading army. After most of Yang Wenyue's Hebei Army was transferred, the Chuang Army was even more lazy to pay attention to them, and focused all its attention on the eastern and southern fronts. As the standard battalion of the dignified superintendent and the commander-in-chief of all the officers and soldiers who participated in the crackdown, the officers and men of the standard battalion felt that being ignored in this way really made their immediate superiors lose face. But that's okay, since they have no interest in Hou Xun in the camp, then they are much safer.

Yang Zhiyuan once hoped that the standard camp could attract some firepower, which would be conducive to his divide and rule, but this kind of scene was still within the scope of his plan, even if it did not attract a part of Xu Ping's main force, he was not very worried. But Hou Xun himself was very, very worried, he had just received a report from Kaifeng: the banners of Li Zicheng and Xu Ping had disappeared, and tens of thousands of troops had left from the camp near Kaifeng - since the main force of the camp left, the blockade of Kaifeng was suddenly much more sparse, although it was not possible to transport supplies to the city or let the large army break through from the city, but the contact between the Henan Governor Yamen and the Inspector Standard Battalion was completely restored.

The day before yesterday, the king of Zhou made a suggestion: let the Shanlan camp cover him to break through to the Yellow River, but Gao Mingheng, the governor of Henan, was reluctant, he was worried that once the Shanlan camp left, the morale of the Kaifeng defenders would immediately collapse; Jia Minghe was also unwilling, and after a long siege, the strength of the Shanlan battalion had dropped to more than two thousand men—not that it would not have been attrition without fierce fighting. If you want to cover the old and young of King Zhou's family, plus the heavy equipment and baggage of the whole battalion, Jia Minghe estimates that the speed of action will not be very fast and it will be difficult to leave the avenue, abandon all weapons or maybe go faster, but Jia Minghe's arrangement of the camp near Kaifeng is basically a black eye, if you don't bring heavy weapons, you may be able to break through the difficulties in case of being blocked - near Kaifeng is Xu Ping's base for a long time, even Yang Zhiyuan's army is not willing to step into it easily.

As for Hou Xun, of course he didn't agree, King Zhou stayed in Kaifeng City, he was more relieved, Hou Xun felt that King Zhou was a big target, and once he left Jiancheng, he was likely to be pursued by Xu Ping. Now Hou Xun has no confidence in Jia Minghe leading a battalion to get rid of Xu Ping's pursuit, and he estimates that even Jia Minghe himself will not have any confidence. And it doesn't mean that it is safe to escape from Kaifeng, even if King Zhou successfully escapes to the standard camp, as long as Xu Ping pursues with two battalions, then Hou Xun estimates that the standard camp and the Shanlan camp will still be the end of the entire army.

Now that King Zhou stays in the city, it can still play a role in boosting morale, and Kaifeng is still shielding the safety of Jingshi and Zhili, so King Zhou has to continue to stay, which can be regarded as buying time for the imperial court.

Five battalions of the New Army had already been transferred back to the direction of the Beijing Division, and Hou Xun was worried that the Chu Army and the Jiangbei Army would cringe because of this, so he simply concealed the news from Zuo Liangyu and Yu Dong. The new army was the most active force to relieve Kaifeng, so Yang Zhiyuan also acquiesced in Hou Xun's behavior of concealing military information from friendly forces. In order to cheer up the Chu army and the Jiangbei army, Yang Zhiyuan himself claimed in his letter that only the firefighting battalion and parts of the other two battalions were transferred back, and the new army still had more than 40,000 troops.

If Kaifeng can't be relieved and the king of Zhou can be rescued, Hou Xun himself will definitely suffer the most severe impeachment from the imperial historians. He knew very well in his heart that this was the last chance to give Kaifeng to break the siege. The news from the city was desperate, and the solemn expression of the senior commander of the new army was still fresh in Hou Xun's memory, and if there were more opportunities, the new army would not do anything to deceive the friendly army.

"Everything worries about people, everything worries about people, everything worries about people...... Hou Xun kept muttering in his mouth, and the hand holding the tea bowl trembled vigorously, splashing half a bowl of tea on the table without noticing.

"Father, Yang Shuai is calm and resolute, he is the henchman of Zhendonghou, and he will definitely be able to defeat Xu Thief's yellow-mouthed child." A young man came over to dry the table for Hou Xun, and beckoned the guards of the standard camp to change into new tea: "Zuo Shuai has hundreds of thousands of male soldiers, and he has arrived in Zhuxian Town a few days ago, and he will be able to join forces with Yang Shuai to relieve the siege of Kaifeng in a few days, and my father doesn't need to be so anxious." ”

"Alas, alas......" Hou Xun sighed with a sigh, the wrinkles on his face were twisted together, although he was worried that the loss of Kaifeng would mean a crisis in Zhili and a harbinger of the collapse of the Ming court's rule, but he still didn't dare to say so: "If it is defeated, the siege cannot be lifted, and His Royal Highness the King of Zhou will fall into the hands of thieves, and my old life will be over." That thief is so powerful, I really didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. ”

"Even if Yang Shuai and Zuo Shuai are defeated, it is not that they cannot be cleared." Hou Xun's son is named Hou Fangyu, a rising star of the Donglin Party and one of the four sons of Donglin. This time, Hou Xun supervised the division, and Hou Fangyu followed him to praise the military affairs. He smiled mysteriously: "As long as my father's standard camp is still there, this siege can be solved." ”

"Just by this standard camp!" Hou Xun's eyes widened, and he straightened his arm and pointed to the back of the tent: "If I force them to go to Kaifeng, I guess they will all run away before they see the city wall." ”

"Haha, that's what my father said." Hou Fangyu laughed, and then whispered, "But that's not what my son meant. ”

"Oh." Hou Xun saw that Hou Fangyu was speaking mysteriously, so he waved his hand and motioned for him to come forward and speak.

"Why does the imperial court let civilian officials coordinate the three armies, it is because we have brains, and those Qiu Ba can only fight and kill." Hou Fangyu walked up to Hou Xun and put his mouth to his father's ear: "Father, why did you forget to flood the Seventh Army?" ”

"No!" Hou Xun retorted categorically without thinking, he looked at Hou Fangyu with blazing eyes: "This matter is categorically impossible." Once the river is dug, tens of millions of creatures downstream will become fish and turtles. ”

"If His Royal Highness King Zhou can be rescued, they will be loyal to the country." Hou Fangyu shook his head and said, "If King Zhou falls into the hands of thieves, my father's life will be in danger." ”

"Even if I rescue King Zhou and drown tens of millions of people, I'm finished."

"Regarding the flooding of the Seventh Army, everyone didn't say that Master Guan was wrong, and all dynasties were full of praise. Han Xin dug the river and broke the dragon, and it was also sung through the ages. ”

"Han Xin was drowning the enemy army, and the unlucky ones were also the people of Qi State, not the people of the Han Dynasty, at least not at that time. As for the flooding of the Seventh Army, it was a natural disaster, not a man-made disaster, a sudden heavy rain, a flash flood, and it was not Master Guan who dug up the river embankment. ”

Hou Fangyu clapped his hands and smiled: "Father is wrong, it's not our Ming officials and soldiers who are digging the river embankment." Obviously, it was a thief who flowed through Henan, and he couldn't attack Kaifeng for a long time, and he tried his best to dig up the embankment of the Yellow River. ”

"Hmmm......"

"Or Li Chuang, the thief, was worried that the Qin army would get out of the customs, so he broke the embankment and flooded the city." Hou Fangyu added: "It may also be that Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Xu Ping are fighting among themselves, digging embankments for irrigation with each other, anyway, whoever is drowned is the embankment dug by the other party." ”

"Also, although the Qin army is newly defeated, the thoughts of these thieves are not understood by the righteous gentlemen." Hou Xun nodded.

Hou Fangyu hit the railway while it was hot: "Father, if His Royal Highness King Zhou escapes safely, and all the thieves are swept away by the flood, it is too late for the saint to be happy, how can he say that his father is not?" ”

Hou Xun twisted his beard for a while, and he understood that the courtiers would naturally not admit that it was the government digging the river: "If you can really do it without knowing the gods and ghosts, it doesn't matter, but where in this world is there anything that the gods don't know and the ghosts don't know?" This matter is considered in the long run, and now we are waiting for the good news of Yang Shuai and Zuo Shuai. ”

……

The sky is just bright, and the pheasant is in the north.

Li Laiheng led more than 500 soldiers of the 5th Infantry Wing of the armored battalion to rush south along the avenue, and as the first army to arrive on the battlefield, his task was to hold the mound of Yeji Gang and wait for the follow-up troops.

Pheasant Hill itself was not suitable for camping, and the surrounding area where tens of thousands of troops could camp was a few miles to the south, and the staff officers thought that there would probably be a sentry unit of the New Army on this mound. However, today the new army continues to march southwest, and there will not be many sentry troops here, maybe only a few sentinels. There was also a troop of cavalry before Li Laiheng, who would attempt a dawn assault, capture Pheasant Hill and hold out until Li Laiheng's troops arrived.

But this plan of the invading army failed, and Li Laiheng met the cavalry not far from Pheasant Gang, and the officers of the invading army who led the 100 cavalry ran over to salute Li Laiheng. Now these battalions of the army have promoted the rank system, so the cavalry officer can easily distinguish Li Laiheng's rank: "Major, there are more than 300 officers and soldiers on Pheasant Gang. ”

"It seems that the General Staff has made a mistake. However, I remember that Pheasant Hill is a very low mound, could it be a mistake in the investigation? Li Laiheng stepped forward and personally observed the deployment of the Ming army on the opposite side, and his tone was also full of doubts: "Why is it necessary to use more than 300 people to defend such a low mound?" ”

"Our artillery has not yet arrived." Li Laiheng's entourage was very embarrassed, looked at the Ming army on the mound and suggested to Li Laiheng: "Do you wait for the artillery to come, or do you want to start a battle formation and attack immediately?" ”

"Of course, immediately launch a formation attack!" Li Laiheng held a telescope, observed the enemy troops in the dawn, and gave orders without looking back.

However, Li Laiheng's subordinates still did not give up, and persuaded again: "My lord, the main force of the Fifth Infantry Wing will arrive soon, and if we attack three hundred with five hundred men, we may suffer heavy casualties. But if you attack with the whole wing, then you will definitely be able to take it easily. ”

"Our army wants to induce the officers and men to put seven battalions into battle one at a time, and each time they must be confident to come to battle with our absolute superiority, so we must hold the pheasant hill in our hands, so that the officers and men can be fooled. If they see that we have a wing, will they fight us with a thousand men? ”

Five hundred soldiers quickly fanned out. The morning light became brighter and brighter, Li Laiheng nervously observed the sky, muttered a few words in dissatisfaction, and asked a herald to go back and report to the wing and battalion of his superiors: "The staff officers have made a mistake, the rear guard battalion of officers and soldiers will be alarmed faster than we expected, our army must speed up the pace, and our department needs rapid reinforcements from the fifth infantry wing." ”

The herald departed, and his officers reported that the troops had completed their tactical deployment and were ready to attack.

"Very good," Li Laiheng pointed at the enemy troops on the mound, "the officers and soldiers are also making mistakes, they are standing on the ridge of the mound instead of being placed in the position of defending the ridge." ”

"Maybe they didn't expect us five hundred men to dare to attack?" An officer guessed.

"They were ordered to reconnoitre, and they wanted to stand taller so that they could see farther." Another officer analyzed.

"On the battlefield, you can't excuse yourself with not thinking; Besides, do these 300 people have to stand on the top of the mountain to reconnoitre? No matter what, we can't afford to miss this opportunity. Li Laiheng jumped out of the position first, holding a telescope and looking for a position where the enemy could not be seen outside the range of the new army's fire, and soon he found one. Li Laiheng waved his hand, and the engineering officers who immediately followed him ran to this position, and several of them held binoculars like Li Laiheng, pointed the lens barrel in the direction of the mound, and then moved forward step by step to ensure that the new army soldiers never appeared in the field of vision of the telescope.

Soon the engineer officers were within range of the Forces nouvelles soldiers, and they continued to move forward step by step, with the infantry of the 5th Infantry Wing following them closely. Whenever the intruder engineer officers looked beyond the rocky obstacles and the undulations of the hills, allowing the Forces nouvelles on the ridge to loom in their binoculars, they would stop and let an infantry stand there as a benchmark, and between these manned passages was the blind spot of the Forces nouvelles defenders on the ridge. Several groups of sappers marched in unison, and several passages winded and quickly stretched to the foot of the mountain, along which more than 500 intruders of the intruder army trotted towards the pheasant hill, and soon they heard the noise of officers and soldiers overhead.

By the time the officers of the Forces nouvelles discovered the mistake of their troops, the invading troops had already rushed to the foot of the hill, and the Forces nouvelles began to adjust their positions to resist. At this time, the front invading army began to intercept and shoot, and these invading soldiers hiding behind the rocks at the foot of the mountain caused great trouble for the movement of the new army, forcing the new army to not use the ridge to find cover and shoot at the invading army. The sound of the exchange of fire did not stop the engineer team led by Li Laiheng, who had already begun to climb the mountain, continued to use binoculars to confirm the blind spots of the Ming army's firepower, carved passages between rocks and ravines, and leaped swiftly on the dirt slopes like antelopes.

The infantry of the invading army followed up to the mountainside, and the two armies exchanged fire within 100 meters, and the north side of the small mound of Yeji Gang was suddenly filled with battle, and white gunpowder smoke rose into the air in large groups. Li Laiheng and the sappers crawled forward, bullets whistling overhead, and fierce gunfire everywhere in front of and behind him. He had climbed some distance when he suddenly heard an excited shout from ahead, mixed with orders and even what seemed to be an argument.

The guards around Li Laiheng took out their weapons one after another, and one of the guards crawled in front of him, hid behind a large rock and quietly poked his head out, and then Li Laiheng saw him raise his gun and shoot indiscriminately, and then quickly retracted his body. After this shot, a violent expletive erupted from behind the rock that blocked the view, followed by a deafening volley of gunfire, which sounded close to the enemy, and the bullets that smashed into the surrounding rocks made a dense hail sound.

The guard at the front was desperately reloading his musket with his back against the rock, and the infantrymen who followed closely behind the engineer team bent over and ran past Li Laiheng, and they jumped to the front of the intruder, first following his example and gasping for a breath with his back against the rock, and then turning over one by one, shooting a puff of gunpowder smoke at the opposite side.

More and more intruders came up along the road behind Li Laiheng, Li Laiheng also took out his handcuff and rushed to the forefront, the shouting on the opposite side was heard vividly, he raised his head to look ahead for the first time with the handcuff, and saw that behind this big rock, less than ten meters in front of him, there was a head that had just poked out from the side of the rock. Those eyes looked at Li Laiheng for a moment, and quickly sank, and at the same time, a pair of hands raised above the ground, and shot bullets with a "bang".

The bullet grazed Lee Rae-hyung's temple, causing his right ear to rumble, and Lee Rae-hyung hurriedly shrunk his neck, and while hiding his head back in the safe zone, he also flew a shot and fired the bullet indiscriminately at the opposite side. At Li Laiheng's side, rows of intruding soldiers were busy reloading the firearms, and they poked their heads out one after another, exchanging curses and insults with the Ming army opposite.

I don't know how many shots this is, the battle made Li Laiheng forget the time, being in such a place makes people gradually forget the fear, Li Laiheng feverishly loaded the handcuff with gunpowder and bullets, and then poked his head out again and again to shoot at the enemy on the other side of the trench a few meters away, although people around him fell from time to time, but Li Laiheng's chest swelled with more and more confidence: they will not hit me.

At the end of another shot, with his back against the cold rock wall, Li Laiheng felt sweat running down his eyebrows from the corners of his eyes, but he didn't have time to wipe it, so he only stabbed the gunpowder with a stick. Suddenly, something black flew overhead, and he saw with his peripheral vision that it was a cloth bag with a long, sizzling gunpowder fuse tied to it.

"Son of a bitch!" Before Li Laiheng could react, a soldier flew over, picked up the gunpowder bag, and threw it back with a flick of his arm.

The screams came from the other side, and with a few shouts of "throw it back", the cloth bag screamed and flew back to this side, this time another intruder picked it up, he did not throw it back immediately, but first looked at the gunpowder primer, and when he saw that it had not burned to his head, the invading soldier blew twice, and then stood up and threw his arms over the top and threw it at the opposite side.

As soon as the soldier squatted down from the rain of bullets, there was a loud boom from the opposite side, and Li Laiheng and the surrounding intruders shouted at the same time: "Okay! ”

After a while, another gunpowder bag was thrown over, and as soon as the soldiers saw the gunpowder bag, they immediately picked it up and threw it back, but the Ming army threw it more and more accurately, and soon a few packs of gunpowder were blown up on the ground. One of the packets was not far from Li Laiheng, and the impact knocked him to the ground, spraying his face with flying dirt.

[Remember the URL . 三五Chinese网]