Chapter 233: Abandoning the city

As soon as he led the defeated army to retreat to Bijie and had not yet settled the wounded soldiers, Yu Chongming received the news that he had been attacked by Luo Ganxiang and lost Chishuiwei.

That's it!

The most unbearable losses are grain and grass. With the combat strength of the Yongning Army, the war to aid Wusa should have ended in ten days, and they were all friendly marches along the way, so he only carried half a month's food. All the grain stored in the red water silos is now in the hands of Luo Ganxiang - in this era, whoever has grain in his hands can release more manpower from the fields to go to war! Yu Chongming calculated that the stored food was enough for himself to eat for two years, that is to say, even if Luo rebel dog ate it and called that evil star Sun Jie to eat it together, it would definitely be enough for them for two years; Although the population of Luo Rebel Dog is small, at least two or three thousand more people can be pulled out of the field to enlist in the army!

These are still far-reaching worries, and the imminent problem is: in less than two or three days, the whole army will soon face the threat of running out of food - the axe split the gorge in a hurry, and most of the grain bags carried by the army have been thrown down! Of course, Bijie is An Bangyan's territory, and Brother An will not let himself starve no matter what. However, Sun Jie, who is close at hand, when he completely settles Wusa - with the terrifying combat power of this Ming army, there is no suspense at this point - counting the march, that is, seven or eight days, can he let Bijie go and not fight?

It stands to reason that his more than 20,000 people can help Brother An defend the city, and they will definitely be able to defend it for a short time - there are enough people, and the city is not big, like Chishuiwei, since the last time he was attacked by Sun Jie, the city wall has been heightened and thickened, and a lot of new fortifications have been built, and there is no shortage of guards...... However, Yu Chongming knew that strategically, Bijie had to be abandoned.

An Bangyan hoarded a large amount of grain and grass in Zhijin, and Bijie did not have much grain. To the west is Usa, which is the direction in which Sun Jie is about to attack. As long as you occupy Qixing Pass as a large camp grain platform, and then use the old crow pass in front as an advance base, you can get a steady stream of logistical support from the rear from the two prefectures of Wusa and Zhenxiong, and there is almost no need to make a detour, Luo Rebel Dog can also supply military rations from Chishui, so that this evil star can attack Bijie in an orderly manner, the north is Chishui, and Luo Rebel Dog does not need to make any moves, as long as he holds the city, he will completely block his retreat to the north, and the south is a continuous group of mountains, One hundred and ten people can still hunt for food through wild vegetables and wild fruits, but in any case, they can't support an army of thousands of people, so fleeing south is definitely a dead end...... Then we can only rely on the support of the Dong Ann brothers. However, from Zhijin to Bijie more than 300 miles, although there is Xiangshui River that can provide transportation capacity, it must also go upstream. Together with the Shuixi people living in Bijie, how much manpower will be consumed to supply the logistics of tens of thousands of people, and such a distance is a countercurrent except for the mountain road? Moreover, Sun Jie will definitely send a small group of troops to sneak attack the grain road from time to time, such a long section of the road, if you send heavy troops to escort them, they will attack, and if the grain guards are less, they will attack, and if they are not careful, they can just scuttle the transport ship and leave, or the old bottom of Brother An will be hollowed out in a few months - and Brother An will have to face the attack of Zhu Xieyuan's tens of thousands of troops alone!

So no matter what, Bijie can't be kept, and you must take the initiative to give up.

Having said that, Luxury Chongming was still reluctant to Chishui, and he was afraid that Luxury Yin would be red-eyed and anxious, so he asked him to stay in Bijie to help the friendly forces in Shuixi organize a retreat, and he took six thousand elites to the north non-stop. Can you snatch back the nest, another thing, if you don't try it, you won't be reconciled.

Walking to the Aluo Secret Place, Yu Chongming already vaguely knew in his heart that most of the trip would be in vain: The Aluo Secret Station had been burned to the ground, and many ruins still had residual warmth, indicating that the guys from Shui Nao Zhai had just left a day ago - they had time to raid south, and of course they would do a good job in the defense of Chishui. But they all came, so they had to go to the city to see, so everyone continued to move forward.

The Chishui River was already in sight, and unexpectedly, Luxury Chongming found that the pontoon bridge was still there! Regardless of whether he was negligent or fearless, for fear that Luo Rebel Dog would cut the pontoon bridge in front of his eyes, and Xu Lili was far from the river, King Hao ordered the whole army to start charging! At the forefront were more than 200 knights, these people were either the leaders of the villages, or the famous warriors, and they were also middle and high-ranking officers among the 6,000 elites. When the horse team ran at full speed to a few dozen feet of the pontoon bridge, Hao Chongming saw Luo Ganxiang's arrangement clearly, and ordered the whole army to stop hoarsely, but it was still a little slower...... The pontoon bridge was made by nailing wooden planks to the boats in the red water, and when the boat passed, the live pin connecting the two boats in the middle was pulled out and propped aside, and then connected again when the boat passed - the bridge was unimpeded, but all the boats were full of dry wood and dead branches! No need to ask, gunpowder rosin and other ignitions have already been sprinkled - the vicious Luo traitor dog is not negligent to leave the pontoon bridge not to burn, but wants to burn it with people and bridges!

Galloped at full speed for more than half a mile, and the horses were about to reach full speed, although everyone heard the order of the king of luxury, but the horses still rushed forward more than a dozen zhang under the action of inertia before changing to broken steps, at this moment, luxury Chongming was horrified to find that wisps of familiar white smoke rose from the south wall of Chishui! The king of luxury reflexively jumped off the horse, the cat waist bowed his head while pulling the reins with his left hand to block the war horse in front of him, and in the blink of an eye, a rain of bullets rushed to his face, with a few muffled sounds of projectiles entering the flesh, the war horse jumped up suddenly, and fell to the ground with a sad ...... Half of the two hundred knights who charged were knocked off their horses in the blink of an eye!

In just a few days, Luo Rebel Dog actually moved a lot of Yongning's copper cannons over and erected them on the south wall of Chishui! "It's all robbing me of my food, this dog has people to use!" Yu Chongming thought sadly. In fact, Luo Ganxiang did not mobilize too many people to clear the road as Hao Chongming thought, but had already prepared a large number of wooden planks and paved a temporary plank road more than 100 zhang long in the iron thistle array.

In Chengdu Mansion, Longquanyi, Yongning City, Axe Splitting Gorge...... Yu Chongming has suffered countless losses in fire attacks and artillery attacks, and the sense of fear has been deeply seared into his heart. Retreat, first join the An brothers, Longchang Jiuyi is so deep, the mountains are continuous, the Yongning Army and the Shuixi Army are familiar with the terrain, and the only opportunity to introduce the two Ming armies from the east and west into the mountains and then wait for the opportunity to divide and annihilate them.

Like an axe splitting a gorge, Yu Chongming didn't dare to collect the bodies of the dozens of warriors who died on the spot, but just tried to snatch back the wounded who still had a breath left. Fortunately, Luo Ganxiang's artillery crew was far less well-trained than Liu Tieniu's subordinates, and it took a long time for the artillery to be reloaded until the Yongning army retreated, and the artillery on the wall only sounded two or three more times like a demonstration. The Yongning Army, which had been exposed to artillery and had a wealth of experience, fell to the ground one after another when they saw white smoke coming out of the wall, and these cannons did not cause much damage. However, the impact on morale of successive defeats was too great, and the consequences of hundreds of officers killed and wounded were even more fatal: the chain of command of half of the troops was completely broken, and Gao Chongming knew that such losses would bring great difficulties to future battles.

King Hao and his entourage returned to Bijie on the third day dejectedly. Bijie is not big, but it is also a city, and it is not an easy job to organize the evacuation of the whole city to the mountains hundreds of miles away. Hao Yin was busy, and Yu Chongming's ass had just hit the stool, and the alarm on the west wall sounded: Sun Jie's troops have appeared in Lao Yao Pass!

How did this Han dog come so quickly? Could it be that they all have wings?

In fact, it was only the Panshi Battalion and Liu Tieniu's artillery team that came, and Sun Jie's main force had not yet reached the Qixing Pass at this moment.

Sun Jie didn't plan to fight any frontal battle in Usa at all. Leaving most of the Panshi Battalion and the Auxiliary Battalion in the Axe Split Gorge as a rear team to deal with Liu Tieniu's artillery crews on the two walls, he led the Tiger Wing Battalion, the Tiger Ben Battalion and the Auxiliary Battalion, and the native soldiers named An Yunao temporarily served as auxiliaries, and took the several artillery crews left by Tie Niu to go straight to Wusa Mansion.

Uzza was empty, An Xiaoliang took the main force away, and the old and weak defenders had less than two thousand. Of course, as long as there are city walls, even if they are not very high, they will be a tough nut to crack for the combined forces of Zhanyi and Umeng. However, Sun Jie had artillery, and after a few rounds of artillery bombardment to open the city gate, the rest of the street battles were all handed over to the Long family and An Yunao. After sending An Qijue to the Tusi Mansion, and arranging for the Wumeng army to set up Bai Niang's house to assist in the defense, Sun Jie took An Yunao's entire army back.

When he saw the scouts and knew that the marshal was already on the way over, Shi Jingsheng, who was bored to see the auxiliary soldiers hanging copper cannons from the stone wall, left half of the auxiliary soldiers to sort out the grain and grass materials discarded by the Yongning army, and waited for Sun Jie, and took the Panshi Battalion and Liu Tieniu and went straight to Bijie. There were only twenty or thirty Shuixi defenders responsible for delivering the news of the Qixing Pass in the nature of the post station, and they saw with their own eyes that the Yongning army of the King of Luxury was bombarded by the Ming army's artillery and returned with that miserable image......

In order to ensure the airtightness of the gun chamber during firing, the size of the large iron bullet stuffed into the gun port is very high, and the gun port must be hammered into the gun with a mallet when loading. The iron ox of excellence asked the craftsmen who cast the shells to make the shell mold slightly larger, and the people who called the artillery crew on weekdays used iron to frustrate them to the right size. Those who were too hard to fit into the muzzle without a mallet would be torn off the hapless man's shirt and fired with an iron bullet. Therefore, the seemingly simple iron balls, Tie Niu has really put a lot of effort into it. Before the cannon could be fired, the defenders all ran away, but the iron bull was so angry that it could not be pulled out: the iron ball that had been knocked into the muzzle of the cannon could not be pulled out, and it could not be just loaded and put back - otherwise, the gunpowder would never be able to go off again, and the cannon would be wasted, and if a spark fell carelessly, the disaster would be great! After scolding for a long time every day, Tie Niu fired three shots at the open space, and then sent auxiliaries to pick up the precious iron ball...... After that, the Rock Battalion drove all the way to Lao Crow Pass and began to build field fortifications.

Luxury Chongming's father and son didn't know that the Ming army that drove to Lao Ya Pass was just a rock battalion in Shijing, and no matter how good his eyesight was at such a distance, he couldn't tell which of the black pressed heads were soldiers and which were auxiliaries. On the one hand, as many Yongning troops as possible were sent to guard the wall, and on the other hand, they rushed all kinds of supplies in the city to the rear. The original plan of piling firewood everywhere and completely burning Bijie to the ground as much as possible to block Sun Jie's pursuit was definitely too late to implement, so he had to pile up some fires in several important places, which was better than nothing.

Sun Jie didn't know that Yu Chongming was racing against time to rush to transport supplies and prepare to abandon Bijie. Extravagant Chongming's judgment is very accurate, Sun Jie's ideal war is precisely that the Yongning army will defend Bijie, and then fight unhurriedly, constantly consuming An Bangyan's materials to bleed him - in that way, he can help Guizhou Lord Zhu relieve a lot of pressure, and the two friendly armies of Lao Shun and Liu Chao will fight better against the Shuixi Army, whose strength has been dispersed by themselves.