"Bang bang bang!" The familiar sound of gunshots rang out again behind the officers and soldiers.

The fierce shouting and killing sound shook the sky, and the wounded Ito Valley shook his spirits, knowing that victory or defeat was in this move, and he was also very hardworking.

Urging the cavalry under the command to maintain a loose formation, frantically patrolling in front of the official and military formations, and rushing to fight to the death when they saw which point was weak.

The trapezoidal military formation deployed by Zuo Zixiong along the river, leaning on the trapezoidal "waist" at the end of the western team, was under tremendous pressure in an instant.

Shots were fired, killing one thief after another. There are also several sand boats of the Shen family on the Qishui River to assist in the defense, and use long-range firepower to force out of position. The cavalry of the thief army did not dare to get too close to the river bank, so as not to kill and wound in vain for the side fire.

It's a pity that because the officers and troops had to fortify on three sides this time, they couldn't concentrate all the muskets on one side, and the firepower density was reduced by at least two-thirds compared with the battle in the early morning.

In the victory in the early morning, Zuo Zixiong was unintentional and unintentional, as long as he guarded in one direction, so he piled up 800 firearms in the front. At this moment, the defensive area at the end of the team is only more than 200 strokes.

Several rounds of musket fire added up to less than a hundred thieves killed and wounded, and the rest of the enemy quickly entered hand-to-hand combat, or scattered arrows in the rear.

It is not surprising that the pikemen on the side of the official army took on more pressure than the battle in the early morning.

The commander Lu Datou happened to be in charge of commanding the melee pikemen on this section of the line, and he shouted a fierce battle, stabbing the spear in his hand like flying, sparing no effort, and soon achieved another result, stabbing two thieves to death and wounding one.

The robe around him always fought so bravely, and remembered Zuo Dusi's morale-boosting words just now, thinking that as long as he fought hard, everyone had a future and could change their equipment and change jobs, and finally raised a stronger morale than in the early morning, and fought to the death one by one.

"There is something wrong with this official army, being rushed and killed by cavalry back and forth on the plain, it can not be chaotic, how can there be such a high morale in just a regimental training?"

Itogu on the other side is also a little puzzled, but it is impossible to turn back on the arrow, and this time it must be stumbled to the end.

"Boss, the officers and pikemen will not retreat! There was no chaos at all, the brothers were so miserable that they were killed and injured like this, and those turtledoves on the key river were still hiding in the boat and kept stealing us from the side! Hold your time! ”

After the thief army paid a certain amount of casualties, several grassroots thief generals around Yidougu were also a little unable to bear it, and they went to Yidougu with blood on their faces to ask for tactical guidance.

Ichito Gu stared at the eagle-like gaze, staring at the battle line in front of him, and his finger joints were about to pinch the flesh, and after a long time, he snapped:

"Don't let up! You know what to fight! Although the officers and soldiers are stubbornly resisting us in the back, their formation is stretching and disjointed! Their front and middle armies had just been ordered to speed up, but the rear had not yet accelerated.

Even if we are stuck and want to change the formation again, there will be chaos. The more we stick to the rear of the officers and soldiers here, the more obvious the flaws in the waists of the officers and soldiers will be! Hold on! There will be a turnaround soon! ”

Yidougu's battlefield vision was still very old-fashioned, and he could see that Zuo Zixiong's team was like a spring that had been compressed, and it was tight everywhere, but it was moving slowly.

After Zuo Zixiong accelerates, the east side is like the head of a spring, being pulled forward, but the tail of the spring will not follow immediately, but there is a time difference. This process of force transmission causes the spring to loosen, and then the spring tail will follow.

The more you bite the spring tail yourself, the looser the spring will be!

Once a battle starts, it is no longer a matter of the commander letting go and stopping.

Recruits are especially prone to the mentality of "if we have allies to help us fight and break off, let's take the opportunity to escape". And once it appears, the next step is the collapse of the whole army.

This is Zuo Zixiong's death!

……

Yidougu and Lu Datou are gritting their teeth, waiting for changes in their favor on the global battlefield.

It seems that there is a lot of hope on the side of Yidougu, and the disconnect between the rear army and the middle army and the front army is emerging. Soon it can be cut off by the thieves changing their tactics.

However, what Itogu didn't expect was that the Chinese army of the official army was not out of touch, but the easternmost front army had changed first.

Zuo Zixiong, who personally sat in the front army, has repeatedly used the Spanish telescope to confirm the overall battle situation and the distribution of the enemy's forces since the start of the war.

He also saw that the side of Itogu was being used by the thief army as the main direction of attack, and more and more mobile troops were invested.

The remaining reserves of the other side that can be flexibly deployed have also been moved to the waist of the battlefield, and they seem to be ready to flank and cut off the officers and troops at any time, so that the officers and soldiers cannot take care of each other.

Only the interception troops at the head of the officers and soldiers are becoming fewer and fewer, and they don't seem to intend to intercept them-

It is not wrong for the thief army to choose this way, "Sun Tzu" cloud "bait soldiers do not eat, return to the teacher do not stop". In the case of wanting to defeat the enemy, give up the escape path to urge the enemy to focus more on escaping and disintegrating the fighting spirit.

Now the total number of thieves is less than that of the official army, but the elite level of the soldiers and the will to fight are far superior to the official army.

It is definitely unwise to block the escape route and force the officers and soldiers to play with you.

However, there will be weaknesses and flaws in any arrangement. Liu Xiong's arrangement is based on a mindset - that is, it is absolutely impossible for the officers and troops to take the initiative to attack, and they can only defend all the time.

This mindset, strictly speaking, is not wrong.

Because the officers and soldiers are mainly infantry, since ancient times, there has been no reason for infantry to take the initiative to attack and pursue cavalry, and they can't catch up if they want to.

On Zuo Zixiong's side, there were originally only dozens of horses, mainly officers with war horses. In the early morning battle, there were also some captures, and even if all the soldiers in the army who had experience in riding and horse fighting were organized, there would be no more than two hundred horsemen at most.

Of the 1,900-strong troops, only 200 have high mobility, so they still take the initiative to attack!

"Liu Xiong thief, today I will let you know the price of underestimating my Zuo Zixiong's courage."

Zuo Zixiong repeatedly observed the battlefield, and finally gave the order to gather all the horse teams in the army and prepare for the attack.

This requirement, he had already passed with his confidants and officers before the war, and it was one of the alternatives for today's battle.

But at this moment, the soldiers were still a little nervous, and they were still timid.

Zuo Zixiong's face was resolute, and he finally said a few words: "Don't be afraid!" The enemy's morale has declined several times, not to mention that Liu Xiong underestimated the enemy, feeling that it is impossible for our army to counterattack, and has already divided the vast majority of men and horses in other directions. There are not many more people around his own banner than we do!

And it's only seven or eight miles away from the county seat, and the adults in the city must be watching us! In the morning, I asked Shen Lian to send a fast boat back to the city to report the news, maybe Lord Tongzhi is ready and will send troops to meet us! ”

After much encouragement, the soldiers finally mustered up their courage, and he left a few officers in command of the musket corps to stay in the main camp with his staff officer Pizarro, and then personally led about 1670 men and rode out on horseback.

……

Liu Xiong's main formation, which still has about 300 cavalry, has always been responsible for containing and monitoring in front of the official army.

Because of his small numbers, he retreated farther away to ensure his own safety, and the two armies were separated by at least a mile or more.

When he saw the official army horse team coming out of the battle and rushing straight forward, Liu Xiong's face was full of disbelief.

He subconsciously wanted to temporarily retreat to avoid the enemy's edge, but he was afraid that the movement of the flag array would shake the morale of the army, causing a detour in the distance, and he didn't know what was going on here.

After hesitating for more than ten seconds, the distance between the two sides had approached to within three hundred steps, and after a short trance, Liu Xiong finally saw that the enemy was only about half of his own guards. His mood also fluctuated and he regained his composure.

"This dog official is a dog jumping off the wall in a hurry! There are more than 100 riders here, and you dare to rush at my banner array of 300 riders? Sons, let these southern ducks know the ferocity of my northwest sons! ”

He was very confident in the last 300 men under his command.

Those are all murderers brought out by his father Liu Xiyao from his hometown in Shaanxi, and they have been with him for at least five or six years, and the waves have washed away the sand, so that it is his turn to be his personal guard for the young master.

A few seconds later, Zuo Zixiong, who was more than 200 steps away, saw the reaction of the thief army's flag array, and also showed a fierce smile:

"Sure enough, this time the bet was right, seeing that there were few cavalry in our army, Liu Xiong dared to fight. Otherwise, if he only knew how to run, there were horses on both sides, and even if our horses had been resting for a longer time, it would not be easy for them to catch up for a while. ”

The two armies quickly rushed to a distance of only 100 paces, Zuo Zixiong waved his hand, ordered the soldiers to slow down temporarily, and then the front row of riders took out the Lu Mi gun that was on their backs and had been preloaded with a paper bullet shell ammunition in advance, aimed directly on the horse, and then rode and fired a round.

These 1670 cavalrymen only brought a total of 50 Lumi guns, and they didn't dare to bring more. Because of the tactic of putting a gun on horseback, Zuo Zixiong had not tried it on a large scale before.

The cavalry would soon enter the melee charge, and it would not be possible to line up in a row, so the depth would be too thin. The team needed to be deep in many rows, and it was not easy to aim on horseback, so in order to prevent accidental injury to one's own people, only the first platoon could fire muskets.

In terms of sheer firepower density, this damage is nothing at all, but it is better than surprise.

By the time the fire was fired, there were only fifty steps left in the hedge between the two sides, and the lethality of the shotgun was maximized.

The point is that the thief army is also defenseless, and many cavalry are in chaos at once. Dozens of horses fell to the ground screaming, and many more horses screamed and stumbled and threw the rider out, breaking tendons and fractures, and the overall momentum of the charge was suffocated.

Zuo Zixiong took the opportunity to let the cavalry accelerate again, and although it was not enough to rush to full speed again in just fifty steps, it was barely enough.

"Don't fall in love with the war, go straight to the Liu Xiong flag formation! Kill Liu Xiong, our army will win! ”

Zuo Zixiong swung his long knife like a fly, and took the lead in killing Liu Xiongzhong's army.

Although the enemy still outnumbered him by a hundred people, at the beginning, Liu Xiong relied on his own large number of people, and wanted to flank Zuo Zixiong, so that the front of the thief cavalry was wider.

At this moment, it was disrupted by muskets, and the thief cavalry could not assemble in the middle for a while, but Zuo Zixiong realized the advantage on the local battlefield and broke through in the center.

"Die!" Zuo Zixiong chopped a fierce-looking old thief in Shaanxi with a knife, and then dragged it back, killing another thief, and killed less than thirty steps away from Liu Xiong in three strokes and five divided by two.

Liu Xiong's heart finally rose with fear, and he couldn't care about the flag formation or the army's heart anymore, so he directly whipped his horse and fled backwards, shouting fiercely: "Stop this dog officer!" Stop this dog officer! ”

The thief army was disrupted and completely lost its unified command, some people blocked up to protect the young master, and were defeated by the officers and soldiers after ignoring the front, and some broke down in morale and slipped away.

And the situation that made the thief army desperate soon came, when Zuo Zixiong led the army to assault, his every move had been seen by Shen Shuren, who was watching the battle and supervising the battle from the tower of the West Gate of Qizhou, with a telescope.

Therefore, the horse team in the city that had already been prepared to respond also sent more than 100 people to come out as soon as possible - Shen Shuren couldn't get more money, mainly because the official army in Huangzhou was still very short of horses, and this thing was not as easy to solve as other weapons, and the Shen family had only gotten so much for the time being.

Although the city gate is at least six or seven miles away from Liu Xiong, the horses of the cavalry in the city are all recuperated and full of horsepower, and the person at the head is actually Shen Shuren's cousin, Zhang Huangyan, the new Huanggang magistrate.

Zhang Huangyan has always had courage, and he is also proficient in riding and archery, even if he is not good at melee martial arts, he still has the courage to rush with Zuo Zixiong with the answering people.

Liu Xiong didn't expect that the officers and soldiers were so courageous today, and they were cornered, so they had to pick a random direction to break through.

"Shoot the arrows!" Zhang Huangyan looked at Liu Xiong and despised him, and when the two armies were forced to within 100 steps, Zhang Huangyan took his subordinates to bend their bows and arrows together, no matter what the hit rate was, they had to overwhelm the other party in terms of momentum.

The thief rode with iron armor and was not afraid of ordinary bows and arrows, but the war horse was not.

During the struggle, Zhang Huangyan shot violently again and again, used up about one-third of the pot of arrows, and personally shot down two thief war horses, breaking the head of the thief on top and bleeding. The other cavalry around Zhang Huangyan also fought hard, stabbing and shooting dozens of enemy horses.

In the chaotic battle, Liu Xiong's own war horse was shot one after another by a stray arrow shot by someone, and he was thrown off the horse with a neighing cry.

Liu Xiong had excellent iron and cotton armor to protect himself, but he was not injured, but he also fell dizzy, his organs were damaged, and he vomited a mouthful of old blood.

Before he regained his senses, Zuo Zixiong behind him had already rushed to the horse, and with a dance of the long knife, he stabbed Liu Xiong, who was injured internally, to the head.

"The Thief Chief is dead! Those who descend will not be killed! ”