Hong Chengchou fell silent after he was convinced that Hauge had listened to the advice of Man Dahai and Bolo, and for the next few days, he did not give Hauge any more advice.

He knew that he had come to this point in the Qing Dynasty, and his hope of turning the tables was very slim.

Even if Hauge listened to him, he would only be a little more secure and save a little more strength, and even if he was defeated in the future, the losses could be controlled as much as possible, but it would not increase his chances of victory.

In the face of absolute strength, strategy cannot fundamentally reverse the strength and weakness.

And Haoge chose the route of Man Dahai and Bolo, which means that he has to bet a little bigger and fight a little harder, and the winning rate may be higher than Hong Chengchou's weight, but if he doesn't win, he will lose more money.

These two routes, there is no absolute right or wrong, buy and leave the hand and go all the way to the black.

After Hong Chengchou figured it out, he began to pack his luggage secretly in confusion, so that if something happened, he could run faster - I don't know if it was the frustration before the battle of Guandu, or Yang Xiu during the battle of Hanzhong.

Time passed quickly, and Haoge and his party had to wait for the snow and the Zhangshui to freeze, and then look for an opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army, and as the time approached the wax moon, such weather would come soon. In the process of waiting for the heavy snow, the advance of Wu Sangui, Jiang Hao and Li Fuming was also steady and steady, and they had already maneuvered to the rear of the main force of the Qing army.

On this day, it was about the third day of the lunar month, and the entire territory of the Daimyo Mansion was covered by a heavy snowfall. The scope of heavy snow is very wide, and several prefectures around Hebei and even Dongchang Mansion in Shandong Province next door are all falling continuously.

Hong Chengchou saw the heavy snow, couldn't help but be a little dignified, the next morning, riding a horse out of the camp to observe, sure enough, saw that Zhangshui had formed a layer of ice, the ice surface was also covered with snow, looking at the white expanse from afar, it was difficult to distinguish the mud and the river.

Hong Chengchou could only use the height of the terrain to reluctantly estimate the location of the river, and asked the attendants around him to dig a few small stones from under the snow along the river.

Holding the stone in his hand, he estimated the distance and threw it at the place where it was estimated to be the surface of the river.

The slight sound of snow piercing was mixed with the cracking of the ice, and the stone eventually fell into the water.

Hong Chengchou looked up at the sky in a distraction and sighed: "It's not cold enough, but looking at this weather, within a day or two at most, it will be the period of decisive battle." ”

Returning to the temporary yamen in Linzhang County, Hong Chengchou was thinking about how his life might end, and suddenly an old acquaintance came to visit him - not a Manchu colleague, or the kind of old traitor who surrendered with him back then.

For such an old age, Hong Chengchou, who is now feeling more and more lonely, naturally still has to meet him as soon as possible, so his attendants quickly let people in.

Hong Chengchou was shocked when he saw it: "Brother Fuyu, why is it here?" Didn't Prince Su ask you to lead the troops to assist Tunqi in guarding Xingtai? Could it be that Xingtai has been lost? ”

It turned out that the person who came was Zu Dashou, speaking of which, it could be regarded as the fuse of the Songjin War, which caused Hong Chengchou to fall into a heavy siege and finally destroy the enemy.

In the Battle of Songjin that year, Hong Chengchou was forced to rush forward, because Chongzhen forced him to rescue Zu Dashou who was besieged in Jinzhou. In the end, Hong Chengchou was finished, and Zu Dashou also voted, which can be regarded as a difficult brother.

Zu Dashou was also in a very complicated mood: "Xingtai was indeed lost, but it was not taken by the Ming army, after several fierce battles, Tunqi Beizi took the initiative to abandon the defense, and Prince Su also allowed him to retreat to the first line of Shahe to set up defenses."

Anyway, Prince Su felt that the time had dragged on enough, and there was no need to waste the life of Baqi Erlang in vain, and the Ming army, which had just advanced to Shahe in the past few days, could not catch up with the decisive battle on the frontal battlefield. ”

Hauge had already made a plan before the war, regardless of the gains and losses of one city and one place, and held the flank of the Western Front, in order to prevent the part of the Ming army that detoured from Shanxi to Hebei from rushing to the battlefield to help in a frontal decisive battle.

Now that it is snowing heavily and the temperature is plummeting, Hauge feels that the day of the decisive battle is within a day or two, so Xingtai has been attacked too hard, and the casualties are too great, so he should give up. And the sluggish Qing army on the western front retreated to Shahe, and it could be delayed for a few more days, and the calculation time was enough.

If you win the decisive battle, you can get back the land you have given up now; If the decisive battle is lost, the land that is not lost now will have to be lost in the future, there is no point.

Of course, Hong Chengchou could understand all this, but he still couldn't understand why Zu Dashou was arranged to come here.

He thought about it for a while, and couldn't help but continue to ask: "But even if Xingtai abandons defending and retreats to Shahe, shouldn't your troops continue to stay in Shahe to defend?" Why is this happening? Brother Fuyu, with all due respect, Prince Su was not very relieved that your ministry would directly participate in the head-on decisive battle......"

After Zu Dashou entered the Qing Dynasty, he still had a certain status in the Han Army Banner, and his subordinates were also included. The yellow flag and the two white flags in the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty all have people from the ancestral family.

It's just that Zu Dashou himself has always been on guard, and he is not allowed to lead the troops directly, mainly because he is too capable of surrendering on both sides. Even if the Zu family wanted to lead the troops, the Qing court would detain all the family members, for example, when his son Zu Zepu or nephew Zu Zeyuan led the troops, Zu Dashou himself was detained in Beijing.

This time, Hauge was still wary of him and didn't let him come to the battlefield head-on, obviously afraid that he would make a mess and affect the morale of his allies.

In the face of Hong Chengchou's incomprehension, Zu Dashou just smiled bitterly: "Prince Su this time, let me, an old bone, just stay in Linzhang to watch the play, as for where the tune goes, I don't know."

Think about it, who is attacking Xingtai now, and then attacking Shahe? It's Sangui! Can the prince rest assured that I will help Tunqi guard the Sand River? ”

Hong Chengchou suddenly realized that Zu Dashou was Wu Sangui's uncle, and now that Wu Sangui had hit Xingtai, it was indeed impossible for Haoge to let his uncle help defend his nephew, it would be too dangerous. can only detain all the ancestral generals, and then only draw their troops, take the generals as hostages, and force them to be cannon fodder under the noses of the main force of the Qing army.

In addition, Hong Chengchou had just observed the weather and knew that the decisive battle was imminent, and at this time, Zu Dashou was transferred, and it was already clear what it was for.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of fate that some things were wrong and wrong, and that he had exhausted all his calculations but got nothing in the end: "Hahahaha...... Brother Fuyu, you have repeated it several times in your life, just to protect your ancestral army and the interests of your Liaoxi generals, but in the end, it is inevitable that it will be empty.

You and I are really villains in vain - now, Hong is not afraid of being disrespectful, if you want to bow to Prince Su, you can go at any time, just say that Hong is disrespectful.

At that time, I was really completely disheartened, feeling that there were such stubborn and self-righteous lords as the first emperor in the world, and the Ming Dynasty had no luck in doing so, and was loyal to a person who was doomed to perish.

If the Qing Dynasty is lowered, it will be my colleagues who will revise the "History of the Ming Dynasty" in the future, and they may have to choose a good bird to perch on, and a virtuous minister to choose the master. Zigong said, if it is not good, it is not as good as it, it is the old gentleman's evil house, and the slander of the world is returned.

The people of the Spring and Autumn Period knew that although there were evil deeds in Shang, they were by no means as many as the sons of the hundred schools of thought sang about. It's just that the Shang Dynasty has been extinct for a long time, and in order to sell their own ideas, every example of the evil deeds of the country will be called the Shang Dynasty, and finally the successive dynasties will accumulate because of Chen Chen.

Martyrdom for the loser, even if he gained a good reputation for a while, a hundred years later, he will inevitably be tarnished by the literati of the new dynasty who have been writing history. Since the death of Qi Taishi, Jin Donghu, and Taishi Gong, there have been no historians in the world who are not afraid of death for 1,800 years, and they dare to write straight and usurp the dynasty. Hong knows too well that if I had died in Songshan at that time, future generations might not think I was vigorous......

Who would have thought that in the end, Zhu Shuren would be born and bring Daming back! My generation is really a villain in vain...... I'm fifty-six, even though I'm dead, what's the regret? It is impossible to descend to the Ming Dynasty again, and I can't stand the repeated humiliation. If I could die here, and the future history will say that I was martyred when I was in Songshan and my whereabouts are unknown, how good it would be......"

Zu Dashou was also said to be silent, and had to apologize a few words, saying that he was the one who caused Hong Chengchou to fall into a heavy siege, and finally surrendered in defeat. The two of them could only drink and get drunk, and they didn't know what they were plotting again.

……

Soon another day and a half passed, and in a blink of an eye, it was the middle of the night on the fifth day of the lunar month.

It has been two full days of heavy snowfall, and although the snow seems to be getting smaller, anyone with a little life experience knows that in the cold winter, the temperature will only be colder than when it snows.

Therefore, the remaining bit of water in Zhangshui has been completely frozen, even if it is an ironclad heavy horse galloping, or even using a carriage to pull the Hongyi heavy cannon across the river, there is no problem.

Haoge himself has also moved from Wei County to Linzhang County in the west in the past few days, so that he can start the Ming army's grain camp in Neihuang at any time.

At this moment, everything is fully prepared, and the arrow has to be sent on the string, Haoge ordered the troops in advance to make up for sleep during the day, make food for the second watch, and complete the assembly and march out of the camp for the third watch, so that after two more not too urgent marches, they can rush to Huilong Town in the west of Neihuang County in almost five watches, that is, the wharf and grain town on the south bank of Zhangshui.

With an attack of more than 100,000 troops, it is impossible to carry out a sneak attack, and fighting at night will lead to chaos on your own side. Therefore, the most extreme way to play can only be "marching at night and fighting at dawn".

】

Everything seemed to be going well, and after a few hours of hard work, more than half of the fifth watch, more than 100,000 Qing troops had appeared on the battlefield with a frontal width of dozens of miles, spreading along the Zhangshui.

Before this battle, Hauge gathered a total of 2780,000 troops to the front, and the attrition and harassment of some time ago, small-scale battles, and the cumulative loss and attrition of 10,000 or 20,000 troops,

Therefore, at the moment, the available troops are at most 260,000, stationed on the battlefield along the three counties of Zhang, with a width of 1560 miles.

For today's battle, Haoge selected 160,000 people from them and placed them on the western front battlefield between Linzhang County and Neihuang County alone, and the remaining Wei County, Daimyo and other middle and eastern road theaters, adding up to only 100,000 people.

It's not that Hauge doesn't want to concentrate more troops, but if he concentrates again, he won't be able to spread his troops, and he won't be able to quickly go into battle. Fortunately, the troops who stayed in the middle and east roads would not be idle, and they would also launch a sheep attack at the right time to contain the enemy on the opposite side, so that the Ming army could not concentrate all its forces to rescue on the west side.

The role they play is equivalent to when Cao Cao went to Wuchao to burn grain, he also needed someone to resist Zhang He Gaolan in the Guandu camp. Cao Bianjiao and Huang Degong in Puyang, Qingfeng and other places are like Zhang He Gaolan in Haoge's view.

In addition, don't look at the fact that Hauge only gathered 160,000 out of 260,000 people, and put them all the way to the main attack, but the strength of the troops is never counted in numbers, but also depends on the quality composition.

The 160,000 from Haula to the Linzhang-Neihuang battlefield already included at least five and a half of the six Manchu banners on the front line, and 70,000 Manchu cavalry. There were also almost all the Mongolian army flags, a total of 40,000 Mongolian cavalry.

A total of 110,000 cavalry, plus 50,000 Han army flags, infantry and artillery of the green battalion, from the perspective of composition, this is definitely the strongest blow he has gathered since the founding of the Qing Dynasty.

At that time, whether it was Salhu or the Battle of Songshan, even if the Eight Banners were exhausted, the mobilization rate at that time was not so high, and it was impossible to make all the full-man men over the age of fifteen be able to serve as soldiers.

Today, Hauge smashed two-thirds of the cavalry force that the entire Qing Kingdom, including Mongolia, could control, and smashed it here.

In addition to the cavalry, in order to ensure that the Ming army's fortifications could be broken through as soon as possible, Hauge also brought in the largest artillery unit since the founding of the Manchu Qing Dynasty!

When Dolgon tried to break through the Shanhai Pass with all his strength with the Eight Banners, he only concentrated seventy or eighty cannons in a desperate gamble.

Later, Duoduo led an army of 150,000 to conquer Jiangnan, and only 60 Hongyi cannons were brought with him when he sent out the army. In the end, when it reached the city of Nanjing and launched a decisive battle, only 46 Hongyi cannons were left to bombard the city wall of Nanjing.

In contrast, today Hauge concentrated as many Hongyi cannons as he could get, and the total number reached a staggering one hundred and thirty!

Among them, about 20 or so are old goods before the Qing army entered the customs, and the remaining 110 doors are all slowly rebuilt and improved in the six years after entering the customs.

After all, the three collapses of Duoduo, Azig, and Abatai have lost at least seventy or eighty percent of the inventory accumulated by the Qing army before entering the customs, and the cannons that Haoge took out are, of course, mainly relying on the new ones made in the past six years of frugality.

According to the original industrial base of the northern region, coupled with the production capacity of the Tartars outside the Guan, when Dolgon was alive, he once thought that he could increase the production capacity of his heavy artillery in the Qing Dynasty to fifty guns per year. It's a pity that things backfired, the front was defeated one after another, and there were often thieves inside, and the productivity was too damaging.

In fact, in the past six years, the artillery industrial production capacity of the Manchu Qing Dynasty has been more than halved compared with the theoretical value, and after so many years of saving, it has not saved up the output of 200 guns. If you want more, you have to bring the city cannons on the city wall of Beijing.

……

Seeing that all the cavalry artillery was in place, Hauge finally gave the order for a general attack.

For a time, in the darkness before dawn, on the position on the north bank of Zhangshui, hundreds of cannons fired in unison, indiscriminately bombarding the inner Huangcheng and the wharf camp of Huilong Town on the south bank.

In recent years, the Qing army has also suffered enough from the cavalry artillery tactics of the Ming army, and gradually came back to the taste, and also tried to learn, wanting to let the heavy artillery have the ability to advance rapidly with the cavalry troops.

It's a pity that the Qing army's scientific and technological engineering capabilities have always been shortcomings, so even if they learn hard, they only learn a superficial tactical appearance, that is, use a newly built heavy horse-drawn artillery cart to drag heavy artillery and march quickly with the cavalry troops.

The Qing army could not learn from the rapid deployment and rapid advance of the Ming cavalry artillery, so it was difficult for their artillery positions to move forward again once they were deployed to a combat state after a rapid transfer of long-distance artillery.

In other words, it may take several hours to move back to the loading state, push forward, and redeploy from the firing state, and at most two or three times a day.

In contrast, the cavalry artillery of the Ming army, the most important thing is not the speed of maneuver, but the flexibility of deployment, after the enemy retreats, the firing range is out of reach, can be reloaded and towed in a few minutes, after maneuvering to a new position, it can be redeployed and fired in a few minutes, and it may be able to move forward two or three times in an hour.

However, these differences, at the moment when the war just started, were not obvious, anyway, the Qing army just wanted to bombard the Ming army's camp fortifications, these were fixed targets.

All of a sudden, the Ming army's grain camp in Huilong Town was full of fire, and the tent collapsed. The walled wall, built with rammed earth dug out of the trench, was hit by solid iron bullets everywhere, and the wooden fence piles on it were broken and broken, and the broken wood flew around.

Seeing that the initial firepower preparation was effective, Hauge immediately asked his general to take a few Manchurian cavalry of Jiala, and immediately launched a tentative charge at the position where the Ming army camp wall was blasted out of the gap.

However, he also had a long heart, knowing that the Ming army was not so easy to defeat, and he also took care that Curb Pilon did not have to rush forward before attacking, and if the Ming army organized counterattack firepower, he would quickly retreat.

Thousands of people rode out, with non-slip straw ropes tied to their hooves, and they stepped on the ice to launch a charge.

"Don't retreat! Don't let the loud roar disturb the morale of the army! Rifle team ready! Fire! ”

The generals of the Ming army on the opposite side did not include the lake, and when the fortification camp wall was bombed to pieces, the musket team on the night patrol had already occupied the commanding heights behind the wreckage, and the loaded black hole muzzle was facing the surface of the Zhangshui River.

With the order to open fire, thousands of Wuchang-made rifles spat out tongues of fire, causing the Manchurian cavalry under the command of Kubilong to scream and fall from time to time.

The cavalry of the Qing army also counterattacked with cavalry bows, shooting blindly indiscriminately, and for a while it was like rain, and all kinds of guns and shells tore the air with the sound of breaking wind, and the strange screams brought bursts of death.

There was no love on the side of Suppilon, and when he found that the Ming rifle team did not show any flaws because of the sudden attack at the beginning, he immediately retreated, leaving only hundreds of dead and wounded.

And as Suppilon retreated, Hauge saw that the direct breach and sneak attack were ineffective, so he poured all his resources into more adequate artillery fire preparations.

Fortunately, the Ming army on the opposite side was not idle, even if the Qing artillery position in the distance could not be seen in the darkness at first, but after the Qing army fired five or six rounds of artillery, the Ming artillery also relied on the firelight to push back, roughly touched a direction, and began to counterattack fiercely. Most of the artillery in this era was still mainly direct fire, and there was no need for ranging, and the left and right directions were good to fire.

Only those artillery that use flowering shells, or mortar cannons, need accurate impact points to ensure the power of blasting, and now it is dark, so I have to learn to shoot solid iron bullets like the Qing army.

"The Southern Barbarians actually have so many heavy artillery in this camp? How strong is their national strength today? ”

Seeing the artillery bombardment of a few teas, Haoge took Hongyi's original old-fashioned telescope to observe, and his heart was also secretly frightened.

He didn't know how many cannons the Ming army on the other side had, but at least the Ming artillery was definitely better than him, I am afraid that there were at least two hundred. This is only on the side of Neihuang County, if the battlefields in Puyang and other places are also counted, the Ming army does not know how many artillery it can have.

Fortunately, there were no fortifications on the side of the Qing army that could be destroyed, as long as they were not directly hit by the iron ball and the artillery itself, there was nothing to lose, it was nothing more than the exchange of lives between the two sides.

Up to now, the Qing army can no longer refuse to be able to exchange lives with the Ming army.

Seeing that it was dark for more than a quarter of an hour, the sky finally gradually brightened, and the enemy on the opposite side could be observed relatively clearly.

In the morning light, Hauge saw from a distance that the camp on the opposite side was already in ruins, and the system of walls and ditches attached to the bank of the Zhangshui River was almost completely destroyed, and the cavalry could break through wherever they wanted along the entire front.

And the artillery of the Ming army hid quite far away, looking at the position of the fire when firing, at least a mile behind the camp wall, no wonder they were not afraid of the artillery of the Qing army - the Ming army was outside the range of the Qing army to counter the bombardment, and the artillery of the Qing army could only bombard the fortifications of the Ming army and the infantry who filled the line of defense on the first line.

As the sky gradually brightened, the accuracy of the Ming army's artillery bombardment also began to improve, and the flowering blasting shells began to be used.

Hauge knew that he could not delay any longer, so he gave the order for a general attack on all fronts.

"It can't be delayed any longer, otherwise the range of the Nanbanzi artillery is far beyond our army, and it will only be consumed by them in vain. The concession cavalry all pressed up, forcing the Ming army not to dare to hide in the rear to avoid the artillery!

Mandahai, you attack from the left flank, let Aobai be your vanguard! Bolo, you attack from the right and let Suppilon be your vanguard! The survival of the Qing Dynasty, in this battle, we must do our best and swear to the death! ”