The army was dispatched, and the sentinels went first.

In order to find out where the army was located, and to find out whether the cavalry in Liaoxi was in ambush, Derge sent 300 cavalry as sentinels.

The sentinels were selected from among the well-armed bannermen, and some of them were Mongols, all of whom wore light armor, bowed their backs and held sabers, and each had two war horses, which could be ridden in turn.

Three hundred sentinel cavalry had fanned out and galloped quickly across the plain, and all the strange things could not escape their eyes.

Compared to the sentinels, the main force led by the Derg class is much slower. Although they are all cavalry, they must consider the war horse under the crotch, and they must maintain the physical strength of the war horse, and they cannot rush forward vigorously. However, Liaoyang is only one hundred and fifty miles away from Haizhou, and no matter how slow it is, it will inevitably come into contact with the Ming army within two days.

Derksik, the eldest son of the Derg class, was also among the sentinels, and although he was only fifteen years old, he had been in the army for more than a year, and his riding skills and martial arts were very good.

The plains of early winter are lonely, and there are dead grass everywhere you look, which is most suitable for cavalry galloping.

While galloping his horse, Dixik looked around the front vigilantly, and suddenly his eyes widened, and several black dots appeared in front of him, also moving at high speed.

"Discover the Ming army sentry and prepare for battle!" Dixik roared excitedly, and as he shouted, the surrounding sentinels quickly gathered towards him, and several horses suddenly accelerated, ran before Dixik, and he was so angry that he broke out. After scolding, he was helpless, because it was Goshha sent by his father Derge to protect him.

At the same time as the Eight Banners sentry found the other party, the Ming army sentry also found them, in the eyes of Dexik, the Ming army sentry was desperately enclosing the horse and escaping back, and Dexik excitedly drew his sword and rushed to the horse.

Shielding the battlefield with a large number of sentry scouts and killing enemy sentry sentry so that the opponent does not know the real situation of their own side, so as to achieve the suddenness of the attack, this is the usual tactic used by the Eight Banners.

It was precisely by relying on this method of warfare that the Eight Banners won successive victories in the face of the Ming army. For example, in the battle of Sarhu, the Ming army attacked in four ways, but the four-way army was broken by each of the Jiannu, and they couldn't even cooperate with each other, because the Ming army sentry cavalry was not the opponent of the Jiannu sentry cavalry at all, and they couldn't find the real location of the main force of Jiannu, so they could only be beaten passively.

A chase battle unfolded in the wilderness, the number of Jiannu sentinels far exceeded the Ming army sentinels, outflanked, more than a dozen Ming army sentry spies were killed one after another, and finally only two horsemen escaped.

Looking at the back of the Ming army sentry who had fled far away, Dirkic regretfully inserted the knife back into the scabbard. Now that the Ming army sentry has been discovered, it should not be far from the Ming army's brigade.

The two sentinels were instructed to return to report the news, and Dixik led the other sentinels on, but this time with much more caution.

......

At noon, Yaozhou Station south of Haizhou.

This is a post station leading to southern Liaoning, only forty miles away from Haizhou City, Zhou Yuji's army has just arrived here, and is resting for lunch.

The closer he was to the Jiannu lair, the more cautious Zhou Yuji's march became, and it had been reduced from sixty li to forty li per day. Every day, the camp was set off at three poles, and the camp was set up to rest just after the afternoon, and the daily march time was only three hours.

Because Zhou Yuji knew that his task was not to raid Jiannu's lair, but to contain and attract Jiannu's remaining troops, he was not the main force but a feint, so he naturally wanted to ensure his own safety.

As for the task of fighting the Jiannu left-behind army, the Liaoxi cavalry was in charge.

When capturing Gaizhou, Tian Ergeng, the commander of Jinyi Wei Liaodong, personally went to Gaizhou and told Zhou Yuji about the situation of the Liaoxi cavalry, and Cao Wenzhao, the general soldier of Liaoxi, was leading 5,000 iron cavalry, hiding on the west bank of the Liaohe River, only a hundred miles away from Haizhou. As long as Zhou Yuji's army can attract the remaining army of Jiannu, Cao Wenzhao will take the Liaoxi Iron Cavalry to give Jiannu a thunderous blow!

Since this is the case, Zhou Yuji put his mind at ease. Cao Wenzhao's cavalry was so powerful that he had seen it with his own eyes, and when Jiannu was pouring out of the nest, how many troops could he send to deal with him? Cao Wenzhao's cavalry was enough to cope.

As long as you keep yourself safe when the Jiannu army comes to attack!

If the Jiannu army left behind did not attack, then it would slowly push over, first defeat Haizhou, and then march to Anshan Station. The north of Haizhou is a plain, which is close to Jiannu's lair, and there are more and more Jiannutun villages.

For safety, whether it was marching or camping, Zhou Yuji sent a large number of sentinels. However, there are not many of them, there are only more than 100 cavalry in the whole army, and they are all cavalry belonging to the Dongjiang Army of Guangludao, and there is no cavalry in the headquarters of Zhou Yuji.

More than 100 Dongjiang cavalry naturally cannot be Jiannu sentinel opponents, but it can play an early warning role.

Therefore, when sending out sentinels, they are divided into groups of more than 20 groups, divided into two waves before and after, and about a mile away from each other, so as to ensure that when the front sentinel is killed by the enemy, the rear sentinel can report back in time.

It was precisely this arrangement that allowed the two sentinels to escape under the pursuit of the Jiannu sentinels and bring back the news of Jiannu's march.

Where is the main force of Jiannu and how many troops are there? These were not all investigated, looking at the two sentries who were panting after the catastrophe, Zhou Yuji took a deep breath, but he didn't blame them, knowing that they had done their best.

Although I don't know the specific situation of Jiannu, it's enough.

Zhou Yuji immediately ordered the whole army to form a whole team and rely on the post station to camp on the spot to organize defense. All the remaining sentinels were released to strictly investigate the movements of the Jiannu army.

According to the usual practice, there is still a period of time from the discovery of enemy sentry to the official contact of the main forces of the two sides, which is enough to organize defense.

Zhou Yuji had a total of 10,000 troops in his hands, including 3,000 Praetorian Guards, and 7,000 were Dongjiang soldiers from Guanglu Island. In addition, there are more than 2,000 sailors and more than 100 sea ships, which stay on Lianshan Island in Gaizhou, which is too far away from here to be counted on.

The army was based on the Yaozhou Station, the Praetorian Guard was the backbone, and the Dongjiang soldiers were divided into two wings. The soldiers began to dig ditches, cut down trees, and began to set up camp.

However, as soon as a ditch was dug one zhang wide and four feet deep, before the horse rejection camp wall could be built, I saw that my own sentry horses had fled back frantically, and the army of Jiannu had arrived, and it was really fast!

Zhou Yuji immediately ordered the whole army to line up behind the ditch and prepare for battle.

The ground shook violently, and a large cloud of dust covered the sky and the sun, and it was sweeping towards the position of the Yaozhou Yiming army.

What kind of army does it take to make such a noise?

Gradually, the dust cleared, revealing a cavalry of immense proportions.

The cavalry and the infantry are different, they are very open to each other, and when a hundred cavalry gallops, it can still cause great momentum, not to mention eight thousand cavalry, which is simply all over the mountains and fields, overwhelming!

Not to mention the military sentry cavalry, even Zhou Yuji couldn't figure out how many Jiannu cavalry there were, but he felt a lot.

Looking at the wide ditch in front of them, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately this ditch was dug in time, which could slightly block the Jiannu cavalry, otherwise it would have collapsed all at once if it was charged by so many cavalry.

......

The Derg had no intention of charging with cavalry.

Attacking the infantry formation with cavalry may be able to win quickly, but the casualties will be very large, once the charge cannot be rushed, the war horse loses speed, and the cavalry surrounded by infantry can only be killed.

Moreover, attacking the infantry with cavalry, even if they could win, would lose a large number of horses, which was unbearable for the poor bannermen. Therefore, when the Eight Banners fought with the Ming army, they rarely directly used cavalry to charge the formation, but mainly dismounted and broke the formation, and the war horses were just to increase the speed.

Eight thousand cavalry dismounted one after another, the war horses were handed over to a few cavalry guards, and most of the Eight Banners quickly lined up behind the Derge.

The Derge class was still on horseback, carefully observing the Ming army array.

The ditch in front of the Ming army was a little troublesome, because there was more than a zhang wide, and the Eight Banners wearing thick armor could not jump over at once, and if they wanted to attack the Ming army, they had to fill the ditch first.

However, this is not difficult for the Derg class, as long as hundreds of banners are burdened, a section of ditch can be filled quickly, but it is a little troublesome.

Then there was the Ming army array, and the Derge class soon found that the Ming army in the middle was more elite than the two sides, not only the armor and equipment, but also the neat lineup of soldiers. The Ming army in the middle should be some kind of Praetorian Guard, and the Dongjiang army on both sides should be the Dongjiang army on Guanglu Island.

Yes, the sentinel led by Dexik caught a living Ming army sentry and forced him to ask about the details of the Ming army, and Derge knew that the main force of the Ming army in southern Liaoning was not the Liaoxi soldiers, but the Praetorian Guards around the Ming Emperor!

If you think about it, you can understand that if the Liaoxi soldiers want to attack Dajin, there is no need to make a detour to southern Liaoning, just attack directly from Jinzhou. This Praetorian Guard was originally sent by the emperor of the Ming State to Dongjiang to quell Liu Xingzuo's rebellion, and after learning that the Eight Banners had invaded, it was too late to withdraw, so he chose to launch an attack from Liaodong in southern Liaoning, in order to encircle Wei and save Zhao.

In this case, everything is revealed. It was not the Pidao soldiers who captured Zhenjiang Fort Phoenix, but the Ming Janissary Army, which was the main force that broke out with such a strong combat effectiveness and conquered Zhenjiang Fort and Phoenix City one after another!

Praetorian Guard? Derg sneered. Let's see who is the most powerful army today!

Derge immediately ordered Babutai to lead 3,000 troops to make a feint attack on the middle of the Ming army, and he personally led 3,000 of the most elite troops to attack the right flank of the Ming army.

The remaining 2,000 bannermen guarded the rear, and the Derge class had always been worried about the Liaoxi cavalry that had not yet appeared. I was worried that the Liaoxi cavalry would suddenly kill when I was fighting with the Ming army in front of me.

Derge is more afraid that if the Liaoxi cavalry does not come here, they will commit suicide to Liaoyang, although Amin promised to send Shenyang troops to help defend Liaoyang, but in that case, Shenyang will be a little empty, and the Ming army in Phoenix City will inevitably kill Shenyang.

So no matter what, you have to quickly defeat the Ming army in front of you, and then quickly return to Liaoyang!