On the fifth day of the first month of March, the rich Monan grassland was directly exposed to the sun, and the grass green and blue sky and white clouds became the background board of the Ming army and Chahar.

The vanguard of the Ming army, which had been pursuing for a long time, set up a lineup and narrowed the exploration range of the Tang cavalry, which spread for fifty miles, to thirty miles.

More than 14,000 foot soldiers and more than 4,000 cavalry lined up in the south, with distinct armor and stomachs, like a red dragon lying on the green grass.

Opposite them, 17,000 Mongols dressed in coarse cashmere and a simple layer of chain mail sat on horseback, nervously holding bows and arrows in their hands.

Du Linghong, who led them, nervously clenched the hilt of his sword, and when he looked at it on horseback, he could only see a fiery Ming army, except for the Ming army, everything else was no longer so important.

The green and shining weeds were swayed in the center of the battlefield by the spring Monan breeze, and the grass waves turned lightly when the wind passed, and the flowers shimmered.

The vast expanse of the field, the bright sunshine and the nervous faces of the soldiers on both sides of the battlefield were in stark contrast.

Smelling the scent of grass and feeling the speed of the wind, the pristine grassland brings everyone not a beautiful view, but a calm before the storm.

Some of the Mongols of Chahar did not know who they were fighting for or what the battle could bring them.

Some people touched some of the ornaments they were carrying, most of which they were given by their families before they set out for the war.

The worried faces of the family members are still vivid in their minds, and they are repeated in the minds of all the lowest soldiers of Chahar, lingering......

On the opposite side of them, all the Ming infantry kept swallowing saliva, they were the first people and horses in the Shangzhi infantry army, and many of them were blank about how to fight on the plains and how to deal with the Mongol cavalry.

Under such circumstances, all they can do is to believe in their generals, believe that their generals will lead them to win this battle, and believe that they will be taken by the generals to return to the Central Plains, return to their hometowns, and see their relatives.

The only thing they had more than the Mongol soldiers of the Chahar tribe was their firm faith.

Because in their eyes, the Mongols were the northern captives who constantly invaded the Ming Dynasty and constantly harassed the border fortress, and they were the warriors who defended the border fortress.

Without this reason, they are just a group of slightly stronger soldiers......

Some nervous soldiers looked up, and they were greeted by a clear sky with clouds.

The clear sky seemed to be hope, and the robes beside them, and the hunting flags not far away seemed to give them enough confidence that they could win this battle.

Soon, in the tense atmosphere, the scorching sun, obscured by large clouds, began to cover the land briefly from the direction of the Mongols, and it seemed that even the wind in the steppe had become a little stronger......

"Pass on my military order and build a car suspension formation according to the terrain!"

In the middle of the army, Du Linghong, who had memorized the surrounding terrain in mind, began to give orders, and as his military orders were issued, all Chahar's cavalry began to move.

Now they are in the Duolun grassland, surrounded by flat land, which can give full play to the strengths of the Mongol cavalry.

More than 17,000 Mongol cavalry began to be distributed in three cavalry corps according to the formation, and the car suspension array was one of the few that could cope with the current situation.

In the past, most of the cavalry tactics in East Asia were frontal assaults, long-distance raids, strategic encirclement, cutting off the enemy's rear routes, etc., even the ancestors of cavalry tactics, the Huns, had only these.

However, at this time, King Zhao Wuling, who was reforming the Hufu cavalry and archery, pondered a new tactic, car suspension.

The car suspension is actually a powerful version of the assault tactic, but it is much more domineering than the assault, and it is not like the assault like a swarm of swarms, and pays more attention to the spacing between the riders.

The use of weapons in the front and back, on the left and right, and sometimes even deliberately widening the interval between the horizontal columns, so that the enemy army has a gap to hide, so as not to block the road of the front army, leaving the cavalry behind to pack up and cooperate.

It can be said that the car suspension array is equal to a cavalry version of the cone marching array, the difference is that the width is larger and the depth is narrower.

Because the rook suspension formation is not a formation in the strict sense, at least compared to the infantry formation.

It does not have an effective coordination between the various arms, but a pure cavalry shock tactic.

Therefore, most of the soldiers in later generations did not think that there was such a formation, such as most of the soldiers had a noncommittal attitude towards this formation.

However, this kind of formation was used by King Zhao Wuling at that time, and the vertical and horizontal desert that was used by the Great Han Huo in later generations, no one could do it, but with the weakening of the Han cavalry, later generations could not personally feel its power.

Du Linghong is a Mongol, but he knows one thing very well, that is, to deal with the Ming army with cavalry and artillery, and it is impossible to deal with them with "mangu", but the cavalry that can restrain the cavalry of the Ming army.

In Du Linghong's imagination, all the Mongols are arrayed, and what is the concept of 17,000 people?

From the sky, the 17,000 centaurs cover almost tens of thousands of square meters of plain, the size of five to six football fields.

After they lined up, in the eyes of the Ming army opposite them, the skyline was still pitch black, and there was no grass or white clouds behind the Mongols.

"Blow the trumpet! Enter! ”

"Woo......"

With Du Linghong's order, some Mongols began to blow a long horn, and for a time the melodious horn sound spread throughout the grassland, making nearly 20,000 Ming troops instantly nervous.

Since Du Linghong deliberately chose a low slope, it seems that the Mongols were much more numerous than them from the point of view of the Ming army.

They did not have a neat and uniform banner, and for Cao Meng and others, who were good at judging the number of enemy troops with banners and cooking smoke, they could only judge by everything they saw with their eyes.

"Prepare the armies!"

Cao Meng, on horseback, pulled out the long knife at his waist, and his words were also heard by the Tang riders on both sides.

Rows of pond horsemen ran out and began to deliver orders to the men and horses, and the long-term training made more than 14,000 of them take a deep breath and prepare for battle.

Compared with them, the cavalry on the left and right who were transferred to participate in the battle of crossing the Hetao appeared very calm.

"The former army Wu Xiangwei raised his gun, ready to shoot in three stages!"

The Chahar cavalry began to march slowly, approaching the Ming army, and the distance was still three miles.

Faced with such a distance, Cao Meng did not directly send artillery, because he placed the artillery behind the 3,000 people of the front army, and filled it with five catties of fine stone bullets wrapped in oil paper.

Only when the guns in the front row could not withstand the pressure would he give the order to open fire.

Therefore, the time has come to test the psychological quality of the soldiers in the front row......

"The former army Wu Xiangwei is preparing for a three-stage attack!"

"The former army Wu Xiangwei is preparing for a three-stage attack!"

The Tang cavalry who ran back and forth passed the military order, and the hundreds of Wu Xiangwei who heard the military order picked up the wooden whistle and put it to their mouths.

"Beep-"

With the first blow, the shrill wooden whistle and the usual training caused all the footmen to raise their guns.

By this time, Chahar's cavalry was still a mile away from them, and they were still approaching.

For this distance, all the Ming army infantry players still seem to be at ease.

Although the cavalry restrained the infantry, the cavalry also had to open their mouths to eat, and all creatures that had to eat had one thing in common, that is, fatigue.

With fatigue, it is impossible to rush in one breath, and to understand the charge, you must first understand the pace of the horse.

The pace of horses is generally divided into four types, and for these four, the upright foot soldiers, who are often used to train cavalry to charge into battle, know so well that they can even hear it with their eyes closed.

Although it was an open battlefield, and despite the echo of the "boom" of the enemy's horses' hooves, they could all hear that the cavalry of the northern captives was still moving slowly.

The horses march slowly, and the sound of horses' hooves is one, that is, one horse step, there are four horses' hooves.

This means that the cavalry of the Northern Captives is still a long way away from launching a charge, and this slow pace also accelerates in the countdown of the Ming army's infantry players, and finally develops into a fast step.

The horse is walking fast, a horse can hear the sound of two hooves, two hooves off the ground, generally can hear the sound of two hooves, and when the sound of fast steps appears, the sound of the horse's hooves on the grassland "boom rumble" begins to have a certain rhythm.

It's just that this rhythm is only a few breaths, and soon it is all chaotic, and it is a chaotic kind of chaos.

Everyone knew that the cavalry was running, and it only took three seconds after the sound of running to develop into a sound of footwork......

"Weng Hum rumble—"

The low and chaotic sound of horses' hooves sounded, almost drowning out the sound of the Chahar cavalry's own horns, and the galloping horses had already reached a distance of a hundred paces in front of the Ming army.

The whole army charged, and the sound of crushing everything appeared, and at this time, the appearance of the Mongols on horseback appeared in front of the eyes of all the Ming army's foot soldiers.

The physiognomy is clear, magnified, and the carrier is crushing everything.

"Drumming! Whistle! ”

Cao Meng, who was on horseback, kept his eyes calm and decisively gave the military order to counterattack.

"Dongdong Dong-"

"Beep-"

The heavy drums and horns sounded, and the 3,000-step men in the front row subconsciously pulled the trigger......

"Bang Bang Bang-"

The crisp sound of gunfire appeared melodiously on the Duolun grassland, and in addition to the smoke from the fire gate, there were also lead bullets coming out of the disembowel!

Eighty paces away, although not yet up to the effective range of a rifle, is very useful against rangers without horse armor.

For a while, the horse was shot and fell in front of the gallop, and the Chahar cavalry on horseback was thrown out one by one, and the subsequent cavalry charged for unknown reasons, not only trampling the fallen war horse, but also trampling the Mongolian cavalry who had just gotten up into meat sauce.

Among them, some horses that lost their front hooves did not step on the front hooves and continued to fall, causing a tragic "horse collision" incident.

Hundreds of cavalry and horses were tripped and trampled, while the subsequent Chahar cavalry relied on superb horsemanship to stop the rhythm of the horse sprint in the crowd.

"Retreat!"

While the army stopped, Du Linghong stood on the stirrup and glanced at the situation ahead, judged the distance between the two armies, and decisively announced a retreat.

The purpose of this charge is to understand whether the Ming army has artillery or not, and what is the effective firing distance of the guns, and it is not a stupid fool's charge.

Although the death and wounding of hundreds of people is painful, in order to learn more about the intelligence of the Ming army, there is no way.

The sound of the horn began to fade away, replaced by the sound of whim.

Hearing the sound of hooring, countless Chahar cavalry retreated and ran, and some people who were lucky enough not to be trampled to death or hit to death were also looking for lucky war horses and retreating with the army.

In such a situation, Cao Meng also decisively ordered:

"Put!"

As soon as he spoke, the two heralds on the left and right raised the command flag and shook it several times according to the flag.

The military musicians who had been observing the flag immediately stopped all the drums and wooden whistles.

With the sound stopped, a uniform sound of retraction sounded, followed by the "squirping" of the reloading ammunition.

In just a few breaths, the four infantry guns were emptied by the soldiers in the front row in a short time, and after making sure it was safe, they began to reload them themselves.

After all, the speed of flintlock smoothbore guns is relatively fast, and many soldiers wrap the lead bullet with the oiled paper that wraps the gunpowder after clearing the chamber and filling the gunpowder, and then take out the strip to press the lead bullet down.

The lead bullet was pressed down for a few breaths, and then everyone put the butts on the ground, the barrels resting on their shoulders, waiting for the next round of guns.

Such a neat and uniform process, steps, and scenes were clearly seen by Du Linghong, who was retreating.

His expression was heavy for a moment, and then he retreated with the army to a mile and a half away from the Ming army and began to garrison his horse.

Many Beltaiji began to settle the death toll, while Du Linghong squinted his eyes and stared at the Ming army.

He was wondering if the Ming army had artillery, and he led the army to attract the Ming artillery at a distance of one and a half miles.

It's just that he didn't expect that Cao Meng was more calm than him.

"Looking at the posture, the northern captives killed by the platoon just now are five or six hundred."

Cao Meng put down the binoculars clairvoyance in his hand, and Saihan didn't feel that Cao Meng's words were discriminating against him, because he and Chahar were not Mongols of the same tribe.

What's more, at present, he is already the Yinshan Bo canonized by the Ming Emperor, and he is already a Ming citizen.

"The tiger squatting rabbit is still there, just looking at the appearance of them galloping just now, it doesn't look like there are more than 30,000 cavalry."

Saihan was a Mongol after all, and he knew what it was like for tens of thousands of Mongols to charge at the same time.

In his opinion, there are 20,000 people in the sky, and it is impossible to have more than 30,000 people.

His doubts also aroused Cao Meng's vigilance: "You mean that the Beiyu has divided the troops?" ”

"It may be a suspicious tactic, they should divide the troops, after all, the northern captives fought against our Ming Dynasty, and there has never been an example of the same number or twice the number of people rushing head-on." Saihan frowned and said his opinion.

"Send someone to expedite the problem of the number of captives in the north to inform His Highness."

After listening to Saihan's words, Cao Meng confirmed his thoughts, and turned his head and ordered a thousand households to spread the news.

After Qianhu made a move, he led more than ten Tang horsemen to retreat, and sent the news to Zhu Youzhen in the rear.

The movement of more than a dozen people, placed in the military formation of nearly 20,000 people, was simply a drop in the ocean, and Du Linghong on the opposite side did not notice it at all.

All he noticed was Chahar's dead and wounded......

"Five hundred and seventy-six? Are you sure? ”

Knowing that there were more than 500 casualties in the charge just now, Du Linghong's face on horseback was cloudy.

This number of casualties is 1,000 people, including the 400 people who died in the collision of the previous Tang cavalry and the sentry cavalry.

In other words, before the main forces of the two sides began to fight in earnest, one thirty-seventh of them had already been killed.

Not to mention the casualties of the collision of the Tang cavalry sentry cavalry, just now, they did not reach the distance of the face and the distance of the upward shot to break the armor, so they did not bring any damage to the Ming army.

Such a ratio of casualties made Du Linghong retreat in his heart, and he didn't want to be entangled with the Ming army anymore.

It's just that because of Lin Dan Khan's move to lead his troops to raid the Ming army, he can only create opportunities for Lin Dan Khan now by dragging the vanguard of the Ming army.

However, dragging is dragging on, fighting is fighting, Du Linghong has his own opinion on this, he turned his head to look at the other Taijidao:

"Step back a mile and a half, back to where you were just now."

Obviously, Du Linghong chose a conservative style of play, he still thinks that it is impossible for the Ming army to go out without carrying artillery, and the reason why the Ming army did not release it just now is to relax their vigilance.

Therefore, he chose to retreat three miles and keep a relatively safe distance.

Anyway, it was enough for him to just hold on......

His behavior increased the doubts of the general Cao Meng on the opposite side, but when he thought that Zhu Youzhen still had Long Xiangwei by his side, as well as the 1,000 cavalry of Wu Xiangwei's left army that he had photographed back earlier, he relaxed his vigilance a little.

However, for the sake of insurance, he still said to Wu Xiangwei's right army Qianhu: "Take your people to the south to find Your Highness." ”

"The last general commands!" The right army responded with thousands of households, and then began to mobilize his own 1,000 cavalry to return to Zhu Youzhen.

As for Cao Meng, he couldn't help but regret it after seeing Chahar's cavalry continue to move north to three miles away:

"I knew I should have bombed the fuck just now!"

He cursed, obviously uncomfortable that he hadn't been able to charge some more of the Northern Captives' heads, but Saihan laughed:

"It's not bad to cut the head in front of you first, it's considered to be the cost of gunpowder."

"It's okay......" Cao Meng could only comfort himself when he heard this, and then ordered someone to send some Chahar cavalry who failed to charge ahead and were still wailing to see Changshengtian.

Such an orderly move to harvest the head made Du Linghong feel cold, but he was also more sure of his own approach.

The unhurried appearance of the Ming army was obviously not afraid of their more than 16,000 cavalry, which showed that they must have weapons similar to artillery and chariots, otherwise it would not be so easy.

"Send someone to tell the Great Khan that we can't hold back the vanguard of the Ming army, and ask the whole army to withdraw to the Trouble River."

In the end, Du Linghong was still unwilling to waste time here, just because the combat effectiveness of Cao Meng's soldiers and horses alone decided that their raid was a failed decision.

Du Linghong was unwilling to let Chahar kill and wound more people, so he sent Tang Qi to try to redeem Lin Dan Khan's way of sending people's heads.

It's just that his speed is always not as fast as Lin Dan Khan's detour......

"Sigh the law ......"

On the grassland, twenty-four miles south of the battlefield, the Longxiang Guard, which had already reconciled with the cavalry of the Wuxiangwei Left Army, had grown a lot, reaching a scale of 6,600 people.

As far as the eye can see, on the way to the battlefield, there are all upright cavalry wearing cloth armor, hat-shaped helmets, and two-arm armor, while Zhu Youzhen and Sun Shoufa, who are wearing mountain armor and phoenix-winged helmets, and other Ming army generals are very conspicuous.

"Your Highness, do you think that Tiger Rabbit Pier really has the courage to attack us?"

"I can't tell, it's his ...... after all"

On horseback, Zhu Youzhen and Sun Shoufa chatted without a word, as if they had come to the green.

What they talked about was the result of Zhu Youzhen's personal analysis.

Because he knows very well that although Lin Dan Khan is politically almost zero, he is still militarily commendable.

However, it is only "praised".

Compared with Zhu Youzhen, Nurhachi, and Huang Taiji, Lin Danhan put Zhu Youzhen by his side, and at most he was at the same level as Man Gui.

This is not to say that Man Gui is not good, but that there are too many handsome talents and generals around Zhu Youzhen.

Xiong Tingbi, Sun Chuanting, and Hong Chengchou, these three people are currently the only ones under Zhu Youzhen.

Further down are Man Gui, Sun Yingyuan, Qi Jin, Huang Long, Qin Bangping, and then Cao Wenzhao.

Xiong Tingbi and Hong Chengchou, after all, are the two people who can wrestle with Nurhachi and Huang Taiji, and Sun Chuanting is slightly inferior in history, but with the help of Zhu Youzhen, his experience is comparable to Hong Chengchou, and their abilities are not different.

Therefore, Lin Dan Khan's placement on the side of the Ming army is the level of Man Gui and Sun Yingyuan, and on the side of Houjin, it is just the level of Daishan and Mang Gurtai.

Man's pity lies not in how hard he tries to get nothing, but in the fact that he always fantasizes about things beyond his ability.

Lin Danhan, in Zhu Youzhen's opinion, is like this......

If you don't have that means, don't do porcelain work, in terms of political means and vision, he might as well know that Zhu Youzhen ran away immediately on the Northern Expedition.

At least Bo Xuan knew that he was not an opponent, while Lin Dan Khan thought that he could pose a threat to the Ming army......

"First-class military intelligence is urgent!"

"Beep-"

When Zhu Youzhen and Sun Shoufa were chatting, more than ten pond riders appeared on the horizon in front of them, and the leader of the thousand households was a thousand infantry soldiers that Zhu Youzhen was somewhat familiar with.

They rode their horses at a gallop, and they didn't have time to rest, so they immediately rode their horses to Zhu Youzhen and said:

"Your Highness and the Northern Cavalry are only about 20,000 people, and they have already exchanged hands with Commander Cao and Uncle Yinshan."

"Let's talk about it carefully......" Zhu Youzhen's expression was flat, and Sun Shoufa looked like he had seen a ghost when he heard the words.

He looked at Zhu Youzhen, but he didn't expect Zhu Youzhen to be right, and Beiyu really divided his troops.

"...... at the time"

In Sun Shoufa's appearance of seeing a ghost, Qianhu told Cao Meng and Du Linghong about the fight one by one, and Zhu You bowed slightly after listening:

"Go back and tell Cao Meng that if you march slowly, the Beiyu will retreat by himself."

"The last general commands!" When Qianhu heard this, he pulled the reins, turned the reins of the horse, and led people away.

It's just that not long after he left, Sun Shoufa couldn't help but say:

"Your Highness, even if this is a division of troops, we should also attack the Mandu Governor and cut off our supplies, right? How could it come and attack us? ”

"We are few people, but we ...... after all"

"Wait!" Zhu Youzhen raised his hand to signal Sun Shoufa not to speak, and then listened attentively.

"Beep...... Beep ......"

"Boom, boom, boom......"

Not only Zhu Youzhen, but many people heard the sound of wooden whistles and rumbling horses' hooves, and they could judge that the other party was quite large by listening to the sound.

Sun Shoufa, who was in charge of the arch guard task, subconsciously drew his sword, while Zhu Youzhen turned his horse's head to look at the low slope on the left.

"Beep-"

Not surprisingly, after more than a dozen breaths, the fleeing Baitang cavalry rushed out of the low slope and rushed towards the army, and behind them was a cloud of flying dust.

"Sun Shoufa, now you can continue to talk ......"

Zhu Youzhen pulled out the long knife on his waist, and the horizontal knife immediately appeared in the army, and the upper straight cavalry quickly changed its formation, and there was no need for the general to convey the military order.

"I ......" Sun Shoufa showed a trace of embarrassment when he saw this, and just wanted to say something, the Ming army Tang cavalry that rushed down from the low slope rushed back into the formation, and the figures of the northern captives gradually emerged on the low slope.

The big silk that was waving in the wind attracted everyone's attention, and what also attracted everyone's attention was the luxurious big silk marked with the word "Qi" behind Zhu Youzhen......