Three days later, the Shaobi battlefield on the west bank of the river.

The Ming army, which steadily advanced thirty miles a day, finally blocked the main force of the Abatai division of the Qing army that was going south to meet it as scheduled.

There were more than 100,000 horses on each side, hunting with banners, and the momentum was so strong that it almost blocked the entire space between Weishui and Shaobei.

"The prince is really clever, he can really force the Tartars to take the initiative to go south and fight with our army on the battlefield where the terrain is not very favorable to them, and I will win this battle!"

Cao Bianjiao and Huang Degong, who used binoculars to observe the Qing army gradually approaching in the distance, were also fierce, and their confidence in Zhu Shuren's layout skyrocketed, and they sighed and admired from the bottom of their hearts.

Zhu Shuren was wearing plate armor forged from fine steel and water, riding on a tall and divine horse that was one of the best in a thousand miles, and he also observed the enemy situation with a telescope, but the corners of his mouth were just smiling.

The magnification of his telescope is naturally better than that used by Cao Bianjiao, which is convenient for viewing from a position farther away from the line of fire.

is so well-equipped and behaves so cautiously, it's not that he coaxes, it's all for the sake of explaining to his wife in the future-

He personally went out to supervise the battle today, in fact, he had already broken his previous promise to the princess. At that time, in order to comfort his wife, he kept saying that he was only in Hefei City.

After some observation, he resolutely ordered the generals: "Military is the continuation of politics, and the decision of today's decisive battle is not the best solution for my Ming Dynasty in military affairs, but it is the best solution after comprehensive consideration of politics and military.

But since the Tartars can't fight, we are willing to give them the opportunity to fight quickly, and the initiative to choose the battlefield should of course be in the hands of our army, otherwise the time and place are unfavorable, why should I fight? Then continue to avoid the war and drag it on.

Tartar obviously knew this truth, so when he chose the day, he asked my army to choose the right place, and everyone felt that they had a chance of winning, so that the battle could be fought. ”

The Qing army must have hoped for a quick battle, because no matter whether it is Shou Chengchi or the fortified fort on Bagong Mountain, it is not something that the Qing army can gnaw in a short time.

If the morale of the Japanese Qing army is only more depressed, it is better to take advantage of the fact that the war has only been started for more than half a month, and the morale is okay, and if it can fight a decisive battle in the field, it will be a decisive battle.

The Qing army also had a factor that was not conducive to a protracted war, that is, the Qing country's money, food, and material strength was weaker, and the army could not afford to spend a long time on supplies. And Daming already has an absolute crushing advantage in terms of money and food, so he is not afraid of consumption.

The battlefield in front of me has a total length of nearly forty miles from north to south, and the northernmost point is the peony water that flows into the water from Shaobei, and the width from east to west is only six miles. The southernmost section is the southern edge of Shaobei, which is twenty or thirty miles away from the river.

The whole battlefield is a trapezoidal shape or trumpet shape that is wide in the south and narrow in the north, with an average width of fifteen miles, so the total area is 600 square miles.

In terms of troops, there were a total of 180,000 regular troops in the Hefei Theater of the Ming Dynasty, of course, there could not be so many people who came to participate in the decisive field battles - Hefei and other key cities in the rear, camps along the way, and troops had to be left to guard. In the two places of Shou County and Bagong Mountain, which were besieged by the enemy, there were also as few as 10,000 or 20,000 troops as many as 20,000 or 30,000 troops in front of them.

Therefore, the field troops brought by Zhu Shuren are just over 100,000, and counting the reserves in the rear adjacent to the camp, about 1120,000.

The situation of the Qing army on the opposite side was similar, they also had to leave at least 50,000 people to surround Shouxian, Bagongshan and other places, and they also had to leave reserves in Fengyang and other key points. Therefore, the total number of people that Abatai can bring to the main battlefield of Weishui is also about 120,000-

Because the Qing army needed to cross the six-mile-long Shaoshui River on the way to the battlefield, the Qing army did not have a strategic reserve, and the whole army crossed the river and pressed it at one time. Otherwise, the reserves remained on the other side of the river, and it would not be easy to cross the river in a hurry.

At the same time, since the Qing army dared to cross the river with the whole army, the channel of the mouth of the Weishui and Shaoshui rivers must have been completely destroyed by the Qing army in advance, and there was no need to worry about the Ming warships going around, because the ships could not go in at all, and they would definitely run aground on the reef.

The combined strength of the two sides of the 200,000 men was more than enough to line up on a battlefield of 600 square miles (150 square kilometers), and a large narrow area in the northernmost part of the battlefield, which was not even lined up by the Qing army, was completely empty.

……

Since the two armies were encountered on the way to march in opposite directions, they both wanted to strive for a relatively better geographical situation for their own side within the scope possible-

The Ming army wanted to advance north first, completely blocking the Qing army between Huashui and Shaobi, and preventing the Qing army from bypassing the south bank of Shaobi, so that the Ming army could not worry about the flanks being detoured and concentrate on facing the frontal battlefield.

And the Qing army, which had the advantage of cavalry size and mobility, certainly hoped to do the opposite.

For example, at the beginning, the Ming army was shown that "it seemed that it was too late to block the front between the south bank of Huashui and Shaobi", and lured the Ming army to a decisive battle.

And when the matter came, when the Ming army had already walked more than ten or twenty miles out of the camp to meet the battle, and there was already a dilemma and there was no way back, the Qing army suddenly increased its speed and tried to let some cavalry rush out of this section of the area, detour along the south bank of Shaobi, and threaten the Ming army's flank.

Such a posture in which both sides are moving to fight and seize time makes it impossible for the two armies to stop and line up properly, shout at the generals to answer and scold the formation, and declare their righteous deeds.

When the two armies were still separated by a few miles, Zhu Shuren sent a vanguard scout with some scolding players who were good at horsemanship, and swept past the battle and wanted to call the prince or commander of the Qing army to answer.

As a result, the Qing army on the opposite side ignored him at all, and just directly let a group of scolding soldiers scold and drive away in front of the formation, very briefly, saying that it was because the two armies were not good at killing, so they would not release the arrows for the time being, and if the Ming army beeped again, it would directly cover the shooting!

Zhu Shuren had no choice but to lose such a short window period of delaying time and slowly arranging the formation.

He made people scold, but in fact, there was still a thought: Daming has developed scientific research and farming in the past three years, and now he has created the first generation of front-loading rifled sniper rifles! It is also equipped with nitrocellulose smokeless propellant! The whole army is also fully equipped with hundreds of poles.

This kind of firearm is complicated to maintain, and it is difficult to reload, so at present, it can only be fired in battle, and it will take several minutes to reload, and at most three or five shots in a battle, it will have to be taken back for maintenance.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren did not count on rifled guns to kill the enemy on a large scale, he just wanted to snipe a few important generals and win the advantage on the battlefield.

However, now it is the first actual combat of this weapon, and Zhu Shuren certainly hopes to take advantage of the enemy's poor understanding of the performance of this weapon, and take advantage of this suddenness to make a big deal as soon as he comes up - for example, if Dolgon can personally supervise the battle, then Zhu Shuren will definitely hold back all his sniper rifles and concentrate on calling Dolgon, which is definitely a profitable business.

】

Even if there is no Dolgon, if you want to kill a prince like Azig, you will have to kill a prince like Abatai.

And the top of the Qing army did not fight with him at all, and there was no top-level general in the line of fire, Zhu Shuren had to order the sniper team around him to temporarily forbear, and must not fire in advance to expose their strength, otherwise the enemy will be alert next time.

Even if you want to fire and snipe in the future, you must wait for a large-scale fight on the front line and ten thousand guns to fire at once, and then mix it in the middle of the ordinary rifle to draw cold to prevent the enemy from discovering it, and try to hide this killer weapon for a long time.

……

"The Tartars don't even give time to fight with each other, this is clearly to seize time, using their right flank to outflank the left flank of our army.

Let the left flank speed up and run forward, General Cao, you first lead our cavalry to harass and delay the advance of the Tartar cavalry, and Huang Fei and Lin Chengcheng will follow closely with a phalanx of riflemen, advance to the southeast bank of Shaobi as soon as possible, completely cut off the Tartar circuitous road, and force the Tartars to fight a head-on decisive battle with us! ”

After Zhu Shuren figured out the enemy's movements and intentions, he naturally did not know how to hold the lake, and immediately gave a death order and fine-tuned the deployment of the troops.

Fortunately, before the Ming army came to the decisive battle, it had already roughly deduced the development direction of the decisive battle and several main possibilities, so the situation faced at this moment was also included in the scope of several sets of response plans of the Ming army, and all departments could deal with it step by step.

Cao Bianjiao was the first cavalry general of the Ming army, and at that moment he personally led half of the cavalry on the left flank to act immediately, with more than 10,000 horsemen, to meet the Qing army.

The men and horses brought by Cao Bianjiao have 3,000 breech double-barreled sprays and revolvers, and the armor and stomach are also very good, and most of the soldiers are Ming cavalry who fled back from the north, and their combat power is absolutely reliable. It can be said that the combat power of individual soldiers is far above that of the Eight Banners Cavalry.

Today, the strength of the two armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Qing army won more cavalry, because the rear siege did not use cavalry, and could be used for field battles, so the main forces of three Manchu flags and two Mongolian flags were pulled, and there were more than 40,000 cavalry. There were still seventy or eighty thousand infantry.

On the side of the Ming army, the cavalry was more than 10,000 less than the Qing army, less than 30,000, and the number of infantry was basically the same as that of the Qing army, but the proportion of musketeers was frighteningly high.

Before the truce three years ago, the Ming army only had 5,000 new "Wuchang-made" rifles, but now there are 50,000 rifles, and the ones that Zhu Shuren brought to the Hefei battlefield accounted for nearly half of the size of the whole army, with more than 20,000 rifles. Coupled with the old version of "Wuchang Made", the bird guns and Lumi guns that were supervised a few years ago, the total number of all musket troops exceeded 35,000 people.

Of the 80,000 infantry, more than forty percent were musketeers, and some crossbowmen. The number of pure melee soldiers, such as pikemen, has been reduced to one-third of the entire army. It can be shown that the composition of the infantry of the army is completely beyond the imagination of the Qing army on the opposite side.

……

"The Southern Barbarians want to use their cavalry to delay time, buy time for their infantry to extend to the northwest of the battlefield, and block the space for our army to take a roundabout!

Let Ekeqin and Bamburshan also work harder, the shame they provoked by Prince Yu three years ago with the white flag will be completely washed away today! Be sure to break through the obstruction of the Ming cavalry for this king! Let the white flag of Sukh Saha also hurry up and keep up! ”

After the Ming army responded, the Qing army commander on the opposite side could of course also see it. After Bolo and Yue Le reported to their father Abatai, the father and son quickly calculated and immediately accelerated the cavalry of the two white flags, striving to achieve a tactical breakthrough at any cost.

In today's battle, Abatai also had a clear distinction in the arrangement of troops, and he expected that the right wing of the Qing army would compete fiercely for the left wing of the Ming army, so he pressed the two white flag cavalry that had been sent by Duoduo Bai three years ago and had only been rebuilt now in that direction.

The two white flags are Dolgon's descendants, but Abatai is not a Dolgon faction, on the contrary, he had a good relationship with Hauge when he helped to suppress Manjiadong in Shandong three years ago. Since Dolgon hopes that the two white flags will have the opportunity to make meritorious contributions and wash away the shame, Abatai naturally wants to do official business, put the two white flags in the direction of the hardest and easiest to make military achievements, and fight to the death!

Suddenly, Cao Bianjiao's more than 10,000 cavalry on the left flank of the Ming Army collided with the cavalry of more than 20,000 taels of white flags dominated by Ban Bushan and Suke Saha.

The cavalry of the Ming army is small, but it has the advantage of strong armor and sharp soldiers, and it collides upright, and the first wave can kill the vanguard of the Qing army on their backs! Steel-forged long soldiers and sabers flew over, and countless revolvers and double-barreled sprays were fired wildly at a distance of more than a dozen paces, and the instant explosive power was extremely amazing.

Hundreds of elites of the Qing army's two white flags were killed one after another in the moment they looked at their faces, and no matter how much they wore iron cotton armor, they couldn't prevent the trolls from penetrating through the ten-step trolls.

All of a sudden, the cavalry of the Qing army was also a little disturbed, and subconsciously began to use the old tactics and detours to keep a distance, trying to harass with a cavalry bow, and waited for the dense formation of the Ming cavalry to be pulled loose, and then pounced and bitten after taking advantage of the opportunity.

"Shoot the arrows! Fight with the Southern Barbarians! The southern barbarians are all steel-armored heavy horses with short muskets, and they can't be pasted up and fought hard! Many capable Qing army officers with rich experience in actual combat subconsciously commanded like this, and the impact momentum of the Qing army was suffocated.

The Ming army's iron cavalry came for a close combat battle, and the wedge-shaped charge formation was relatively dense, and the breakthrough power of such a formation was amazing, but it was also relatively vulnerable in the face of long-range strikes from the guerrilla.

Because the distance between the men and horses is relatively close, the enemy throws the bow indiscriminately from a distance, and even if the shot misses the target, it is easy to cover the soldiers next to him. In contrast, if it is a loose mounted guerrilla formation, as long as the target is missed, it is basically impossible to accidentally injure others.

The soldiers of the Ming army are protected by heavy armor, and they are not very afraid of riding a bow, but the war horse cannot do all the iron armor after all, at most it is to wear some leather horse armor, and it can only be the key protection of some parts, otherwise the horse will not be able to run at all.

After the Qing cavalry briefly turned into a guerrilla fight, the casualty exchange ratio immediately looked good, and the casualty rate of the Qing cavalry began to decline, while the Ming cavalry on the opposite side had arrows from their horses from time to time, throwing the cavalry off their horses and falling into internal injuries.

This was originally the orthodox way of fighting the cavalry of the Qing army against the cavalry of the Ming army, but today, this tactic lasted less than a cup of tea before it was stopped by Sukh Saha and Bambul in a fit of rage:

"Don't shoot the rangers, rush up and break through the entanglement of the Southern Barbarian Iron Cavalry head-on! Now is not the time to take care of casualties, what is needed is to rush for time, break through and return to the enemy's flank! Can't let the follow-up infantry of the Southern Barbarians be in place! ”

The senior generals of the two white flags almost all roared like this, and whipped the mid-level officers who could meet them with their tactics out of shape. This orthodox way of playing, which is concerned about tactical losses, is absolutely mistaken at this special moment today!

The two white flags of the Qing army fell into a brief chaos, and then they reunited their ideas, and they rushed to the death with the iron cavalry of the Ming army, and no longer played any fancy.

And this is precisely in the hands of the iron cavalry of the Ming army with poor mobility and high attack and defense! Cao Bianjiao is like a mad tiger, fighting wildly in the formation, and the three thousand short-barreled troll firearms like this kind of close combat the most, and the output is far more cool than the Qing army's cavalry bow that is conducive to long-distance fighting.

After the tragic fierce battle of half-burnt incense, the Qing cavalry paid much higher casualties than the Ming cavalry, which was simply a shame of the Eight Banners.

Once upon a time, the Manchurians boasted that the Manchurians were less than 10,000 and invincible, but now the elite cavalry of the Manchurians, who had more than 20,000 people, was beaten out by the Ming army's iron cavalry, which was smaller than them, and had a tragic exchange ratio!

However, the Qing army exchanged time for life, which can be regarded as a change of time to a certain extent.

Although it was delayed at first, the follow-up Qing cavalry broke through Cao Bianjiao's pull, and finally came to the front of the Ming infantry who came later.

The time used was at least half a stick of incense later than expected at the beginning, but it was not too late.

The infantry of Huang Fei and Lin Chengcheng of the Ming army on the opposite side could only be regarded as barely in place, and roughly opened a blockade line.

However, because the march was too hasty and too time-grabbing, the various units under Huang Fei and Lin Chengcheng were more or less disjointed, and the formation was also loose. There are still a lot of gaps between formations, which are much wider than normal corridors.

In other words, if the Ming cavalry is given more time to delay a small half of the incense, the Ming infantry who rushed to block the road in the back row will be able to complete the formation and make up for the disjointed gap.

From this point of view, it is definitely cost-effective for the two White Flag cavalry to pay an extra thousand casualties in exchange for compressing the length of time required to break through Cao Bianjiao!

Since this amount of time needs to be spent on so many lives to win, it is naturally not worth wasting!

Bamburshan looked at the infantry of the Ming Army of the Huang Fei Division in front of him with blood on his face and a hideous expression, and immediately gave an order with a fierce voice: "The whole army took advantage of the fact that the southern barbarians were not finished in formation, rushed up and scattered them all!" ”

Su Ke Saha, who was a little farther away, also reacted in the same way, and before the whole team, he let the Qing cavalry, which had just broken through Cao Bianjiao, rush directly towards Lin Yangsheng.

The more than 20,000 infantry on the left flank of the Ming army almost rushed to this battlefield and rushed to the front two phalanxes of the Huang Fei Department at the front, so that they could rush to the shore of Shaobi Lake, only a few hundred zhang away from the shore of the lake.

However, although there is still some space ahead, I am not afraid of the last two or three miles of the Qing cavalry.

Shaobi in the Ming Dynasty has fallen into disrepair and is not the kind of artificial lake with a solid shore. The shore has long been muddy and wet, and the boundary between the lake and the dry and solid land is not clear, and the closest to the lake can not be walked for at least a mile or two, and the horse's hooves will be stuck in the mud.

The new muskets used by the Ming riflemen could easily cover the two or three hundred steps in front of them and inflict certain casualties on the roundabout enemy. If the Qing army really had to brave a little muddy detour carefully, it would definitely be flanked by the Ming riflemen who were gradually approaching and suffered huge casualties!

Therefore, the only chance for the Qing army is mainly to stare at the gaps of the Ming army's infantry running out of joint, and directly chisel through it!

Huang Fei and Lin Chengcheng on the opposite side have also been fighting for many years and have a lot of experience, and they have also undergone rigorous training in the use of new weapons and new tactics in the past three years.

Seeing Bambulshan and Sukh Saha rushing towards them, they also made the same choice:

"Each formation is close on its own! Column rifle hollow phalanx! Bayonets on all sides! Don't expose weaknesses to the tartars! ”

The various departments of the Ming army immediately began to fine-tune, and it was too late for the formations to get closer to each other and form a larger and more solid formation, so they hugged each other nearby, forming a formation with hundreds of steps between each other, but at least it was solid enough to resemble a hedgehog.

In each small formation, the musketeers are on the bayonet and then aim, and the muskets are facing the front and back, left and right, each has two percent of the soldiers, and finally there are two percent of the number of people in the formation as reserves.

"What the hell is this? The disconnect between the various formations is so serious, and you dare to resist my Daqing Iron Horse? "Bambulshan and Sukh Saha didn't understand it, but they also knew that they couldn't waste time, and if they dragged it on, the Ming army would be able to line up the formation better, so even if they couldn't understand it, they just ran into it contemptuously regardless of it!

"Kill! Kill the Southern Barbarians of the Dogs*! Death to those who stand in my way! ”