Half an hour later, the officers and soldiers of Huangqikou Town, under the rectification of Zuo Zixiong, cleaned up the battlefield, and let the soldiers eat the morning food and breathe a sigh of relief.

The war dead were also hastily pulled aside for cremation, and the wounded were simply disposed of.

After a short and bloody battle, the officers and soldiers suffered 31 casualties, 47 seriously wounded, and 68 lightly wounded, despite the advantages of leisure and firearms.

At least half of the so-called serious injuries cannot be saved, and can only be treated simply to alleviate their pain, and half will also be left with some disabilities. This adds up to permanent battle losses of more than 60 people, or 3% of the total force.

Among the number of battle losses, the elite Shen family only accounted for more than 20 percent, and the remaining 70 or 80 percent were local regimental training recruits.

On the one hand, this is related to the poor combat effectiveness and hasty training of regimental training, and on the other hand, it is also because most of the regimental training is pikemen, who need to carry the line and bear pressure, which is far less safe than that of firearms soldiers.

Fortunately, the results of the battle were also very fruitful, and after the battle, the search for the corpses and the seriously wounded abandoned by the enemy army was killed, and nearly 400 heads were captured. It is not known how many of the lightly wounded who fled.

In addition, one hundred and thirty intact and lightly wounded horses, two hundred donkeys, mules and other pack animals were seized.

Seriously injured and disabled livestock could only be slaughtered immediately, boiled immediately and eaten by the soldiers.

The broken knives and guns left behind by the enemy were not worth much, but more than 50 pairs of iron and cotton armor were taken off the corpses, and after a brief cleaning, they were immediately given to the regimental training soldiers who had performed well in today's meritorious service.

……

Cleaning the battlefield and, of course, capturing the wounded and prisoners of the enemy.

Zuo Zixiong kept an eye on it and asked his subordinates to pay special attention to the thief officers among the wounded.

The subordinates really didn't disappoint him, and found a cavalry commander of the thief army who couldn't follow the retreat because of a broken leg.

It always seems that there is no other injury, as long as one leg is amputated, and the wound is cleaned and does not suppurate, most of them can survive, so the desire to survive is also relatively strong.

Zuo Zixiong likes to deal with this kind of person who has a strong desire to survive, so he avoids suspicion and calls Shen Lian, a hundred households of the prison army, to interrogate this prisoner together, in order to show his public heart in all his decisions.

He didn't talk nonsense, and as soon as he came up, he pulled out his saber and put it on the neck of the general: "How many people have you come this time, and who is the main general?" How many reinforcements are there in the future? If you make it clear, immediately ask the military doctor to debride you and stop the bleeding, otherwise you will be slaughtered, and you can find another wounded person to ask. ”

As he spoke, Zuo Zixiong waved his hand and asked his own soldiers to bring another thief officer from the side, and the thief officer seemed to be seriously injured and unconscious, so he couldn't speak.

Zuo Zixiong stabbed him with a backhand, chopped off the head of the unconscious thief officer, and said coldly: "The thief general who can't speak, there is no need to suffer more." ”

The broken leg was always splashed with blood from the neck of the robe, and he recovered from the initial shock and sluggishness, and hurriedly begged for mercy: "It's the soldier led by the young master Liu Xiong, the king...... Oh no, Liu Xiyao also let Yidougu take him.

Liu Xiyao has already ordered the army in person, starting from Huanggang, and he will definitely be able to arrive before this evening. You...... You guys can't withstand Liu Xiyao's army! ”

Zuo Zixiong's face was calm: "Liu Xiyao personally led the army? How many people are there? ”

Broken leg general: "Liu Xiyao's whole army always has one or two...... Twenty or thirty thousand, I don't know how much. ”

Zuo Zixiong is not demanding, knowing that this is the truth. With a look, he signaled his subordinates to keep their promises, and dragged the thief army who honestly confessed down to saw his legs and drugged them.

As for whether the saw leg can survive after debridement, it depends on the creation.

Shen Lian and Pizarro next to him also had different expressions after listening to the confession.

Pizarro is just here to get a high salary as an instructor, not to accompany those things that are risky for nothing. He immediately shouted:

"Left, shouldn't we immediately withdraw to the county seat of Qizhou? It's only half of the day, and if Liu Xiyao really brings 10,000 or 20,000 people to come and surround us in this kind of town with only earthen fences and wooden fences, we will only be destroyed! ”

After all, Shen Lian has been a confidant of the Shen family for many years, and he is also an outlaw, his loyalty is more reliable, he is more worried about the overall situation, after thinking about it for a while, he can't help but regret:

"I knew that I was going to withdraw to the city in the end, I shouldn't have given Liu Xiong a chance to breathe just now, I should have taken advantage of his rout to chase and kill, maybe I could cover up and kill more Qian'er 800 remnants, and not give them a chance to regroup.

Now it's a little difficult to do, Liu Xiong and the remnants of Yidou Valley, it is difficult to break through the town of Huangqikou that we are guarding. But if we leave the town and march in the plains and open fields of the river valley on the north bank of the Qishui, it will not be easy to deal with them. ”

By cleaning up the battlefield and interrogating prisoners, the combat power of friend and foe is now very clear.

Zuo Zixiong's side lost nearly 100 people's combat strength, and 1,900 people remained in good condition, with enough weapons, equipment and ammunition, and 200 people could ride horses (dozens of them were originally brought by officers' horses)

Liu Xiong and Yidou Gu should have 13,400 people left, nearly half of them are cavalry, and the others are at least mounted infantry, and they have an advantage in mobility.

Leaving the terrain of the town, in the open area, it was indeed risky for musketeers and spearmen to deal with attacks from multiple directions.

Zuo Zixiong's face sank like water, and he still maintained a certain degree of politeness towards Shen Lian, the "Hundred Households of the Prison Army", to prove that he was convinced of Shen Tongzhi's deployment. But that doesn't mean he minds Shen Lian questioning him tactically.

After taking a deep breath, Zuo Zixiong said solemnly:

"Shen Baihu, let's stop this kind of afterthought. At dawn just now, the sky was dark and the enemy's situation was unknown. It is a prudent policy not to dare to pursue and expand the results of the battle.

What's more, our army is all infantry, and there are half of the recruits, even if they chase out, the enemy army has horses, and they can't catch up with a few people. Let's look forward and think about how to safely withdraw to Qizhou City.

Since even we thought that the infantry would not be safe against nimble cavalry on the plains of the valley, the enemy could also imagine it. Maybe he can seduce Liu Xiong to regain his courage and take the initiative to provoke us.

If you can beat them again with the opportunity to wait for work, and finally successfully withdraw to the city, and even take advantage of this to form a deep hatred with Liu Xiyao, that is the blessing of the people of Huangzhou - the most annoying thing for Lord Tongzhi is that Liu Xiyao does not come to attack the city, but plunders and robs the autumn grain. ”

When Shen Lian heard this, this was indeed the truth, and he also apologized to Zuo Zixiong: "In this way, it is too much to say." However, is it really certain that you will have to rely on 1,900 foot soldiers, break through the encirclement of 1,300 cavalry, and march twenty or thirty miles back to the county seat? ”

Zuo Zixiong thought for a while: "Do your best, obey the destiny of heaven, how can you be sure of victory on the battlefield." We slowly moved east along the north bank of Qishui, so that the south side was close to the river, and it was impossible for the enemy cavalry to take a detour, in fact, we only had to defend the northeast, east, and west.

The famous generals of ancient times, marching along the river in a moon formation, defending three faces to resist the harassment of the cavalry, there are countless examples. The most famous is Liu Yu, Emperor Wu of the Song Dynasty, who traveled west on the north bank of the Yellow River with a moon formation, and the cavalry of the Northern Wei Dynasty could not break it with several times the advantage.

Although we don't have chariots like Liu Yu now, and we can't learn Qi Shaobao's Tatar chariot formation, we do have firearms, and we still have a small fleet, and we still have more people than the enemy army, and our physical strength is more than the enemy's, so we should be very promising—Liu Xiong has been on a journey all night, and he hasn't slept much at all. ”

After Shen Lian heard this, he immediately asked for an order: "Then it is better for me to lead the fleet, go up the river and cooperate with the capital by land and water." Since I was a child, I followed my master's family to the sea, and it was more than enough to command a few ships. ”

Zuo Zixiong nodded: "This is okay, but you'd better divide a fast boat, carry more powerful oarsmen and pennymen, rush back to the city at full speed, and report to Lord Tongzhi."

If your subordinates are unreliable, you'd better deliver the letter yourself. Messengers on land would have been intercepted by enemy cavalry, only light sentinels. Adults know my latest plan so they can cooperate with us. ”

Shen Lian thought about it carefully, and really didn't find that there were other captains under him who could do this errand safely, so he had to personally undertake the work of delivering the letter, and entrusted the command of the fleet to others.

He found thirty strong sailors, feasted on meat, brought fifteen turtledoves and fifteen relumines, ensured that each man had a gun, and some bows and arrows for self-defense, and led the sentinel boat up the river as close as possible to the south bank of the Qishui.

The ship was also equipped with more than a dozen long pennies, and seven or eight sailors were always kept struggling to support the pennies, and the sentinel ships were speeding in the shallow water, and the enemy cavalry could not detect them, and they could not chase them after discovering them.

On the other hand, the town of Huangqikou had actually been evacuated before the war, and there was no goods left in the town.

In order to prevent the enemy, Liu Xiyao was left with a place to rest during the war. Zuo Zixiong had to fortify the wall and clear the wilderness, and when he withdrew, he burned down all the remaining dilapidated buildings in the town.

The weapons and armor that were seized in the morning were all loaded onto the dozen or so Shen family's sand boats. The hundreds of carcasses of livestock were also simply cut, and as much meat as possible was selected for loading on the ship.

The remaining skeletons such as "horse scorpions", "donkey scorpions", and "mule scorpions" that cannot be loaded are not cleaned. Along with the animal offal, which were susceptible to germs and should not be hoarded, they were all thrown into the town.

After the fire was dissipated, the aroma of the skeletons and internal organs of hundreds of donkeys and horses attracted wild dogs, domestic dogs, and all kinds of beasts within a radius of more than ten miles.

……

Zuo Zixiong took 1,900 soldiers and 200 horses, loaded all the baggage on the boat, and went upstream by land and water.

Of the 1,900 people, some of them were on the boat, so there were only about 1,500 people walking on the shore—it wasn't that he hadn't thought about taking all of them, but he really couldn't sit down. The Shen family's fleet was originally here to act, and there were only a dozen of them.

Moreover, if they are all by boat, it is not easy to eliminate the fact that the shallows of the channel are temporarily manipulated by the enemy, so it is the most stable to advance by land and water.

Zuo Zixiong's latest movements were immediately noticed by Liu Xiong and Yidougu, who had already fled more than ten miles upstream. The scouts of the cavalry of the thief army saw the fire in the town downstream and the officers and soldiers going upstream, and immediately flew to report to the young master.

"Do these thieves want to stop us for a while and frustrate our spirit, and then immediately hide back in the county to join the main force? It's really a good calculation, if these two thousand people are combined with the defenders, it will be even more difficult to attack the city in the future. ”

Liu Xiong also had a bit of military common sense, and immediately realized that he couldn't let Zuo Zixiong and Shen Shuren join forces.

Offended this young master and still want to leave?

However, the fiasco just now made him have no confidence, so he asked Yidougu who was temporarily on crutches next to him: "Are you still sure of volleying?" ”

Itoya didn't answer immediately, but asked the scout for some details, mainly the deployment of the march of Zuo Zixiong's army.

After listening to this, he said solemnly: "The enemy army seems to have strict military discipline, and he actually thought of the Buqi Moon Formation, advancing by land and water and slowly retreating. It was at least evening when the king's main force arrived, but it was only the beginning of the day.

It is only ten miles from Huangqikou Town to us, and another fifteen miles is the county seat of Qizhou. If they hadn't delayed, they would have been able to walk the twenty-five miles back to the city in three hours.

Although our army is newly defeated, there are many cavalry, and Zuo Zixiong's moon formation seems to be quite lawful, but there is no cane. In ancient times, the key was to have a car as a cover - Qi Shaobao of this dynasty dealt with the Tatars, isn't it the same?

In my opinion, as long as our army is dispersed enough, brave after shame, and then take advantage of the enemy's new victory to return like an arrow and be proud and complacent, it is still possible to fight.

In the morning, it was just that the terrain was too narrow, and so many of our cavalry could not spread their formation, so they had to charge intensively, and they were so badly hit by scattered bullets. This time the battlefield is very wide, we must loosen the formation, guerrilla harassment, so that their scattered bullets are useless! ”

The old thief of Yidougu said a few pieces of military common sense, and Liu Xiong agreed with all of them, and finally regained his confidence in volleying.