After Qian Laoer's baggage horse team arrived to transport ammunition, the Thunderbolt Army began to move. There are still ten miles to go to the famous mountain city on this trip, and Ouyang Xuan still chooses to take the mountain path.

Although Zhou Jianshen brought the repatriation camp here, the number of Thunderbolt troops has reached 1,300. After several days of fighting, the Mongols lost 200 cavalry and 250 new annexes, and their available combat strength was only 300 cavalry and 500 new annexes.

After conquering the famous mountain, Cheri collected some new annexed troops, so although the new annexed army lost a lot of numbers, the total number of troops was not reduced much.

Comparing the strength of the two sides, the core combat strength of the Mongolian army is 300 elite cavalry, and the Thunderbolt army is 600 field battalion soldiers.

Although the number of people exceeded the Mongolian army, Ouyang Xuan knew that if the field battle was fought in the open area, the field camp still had no chance of winning against the Mongolian cavalry, not to mention that the Thunderbolt army had to divide 300 troops to protect the horses in the ravine.

In order to protect these treasures, Ouyang Xuan asked Zhou Jianshen to lead the sailor company escorting the baggage and the two companies of the Guizheng battalion to stay in the ravine.

Before dawn, Ouyang Xuan took people to Mingshan City while the morning was cool, and arrived on a low mountain two miles away from the city at three o'clock in the morning.

Mingshan City is located in a small mountain basin, the basin is surrounded by hills and low mountains, and the place where Ouyang Xuan and the others arrived is the closest low mountain to the city.

It's just that the light Tiger Squat guns brought by the Thunderbolt Army on this trip have a short range, and the shelling from the low mountains is simply not enough to reach the famous mountain city.

To fight the Mongols in the city, it was necessary to set up a position half a mile from the city. But this would require more than a mile of travel on the open flat ground in front of the famous mountain castle, which would obviously be attacked by the Mongol cavalry.

Even though the field battalion was the most elite combat force of the Thunderbolt Army, it would never be able to withstand the onslaught of the cavalry during the march.

In fact, the Mongols also knew this, so they would not be stupid enough to storm the Thunderbolt army on the mountain. The hill was low, but it was not something that cavalry could rush up.

Cherry's idea was to wait for the Thunderbolts to attack and launch a surprise attack to crush the Thunderbolts in one fell swoop, with the new annex attacking the front and the Mongol cavalry flanking from both flanks.

Even if the Thunderbolts were able to set up and fire their artillery in a hurry, as long as they resisted the casualties and rushed in, the gunners and musketeers who were close to them were lambs to the slaughter.

As for the Thunderbolts not attacking? That's easy to do! They stayed in the wilderness, not only exposed to mosquito bites in the wind and sun, but also far away in Qiongzhou - Baizhang was burned, and the famous mountain city had food and drink, to see who could consume whom?

However, the wishful thinking in Cherry's heart crackled, how could the Thunderbolts not understand the risk of blindly descending the mountain?

As soon as Ouyang Xuan saw the famous mountain city in the wide basin, he had an idea in his heart. His plan was to set up the cannon on the hill and then send people to the foot of the hill to dig trenches and build earth walls within the range of the artillery, and to build improvised fortifications.

After the fortifications were built, they sent people to hold the fortifications and then moved the artillery to the fortifications. After the artillery was erected, people were sent to dig trenches and build earthen walls in the direction of the city.

This repetition can gradually extend to the city. The reason why Mingshan is the richest county in Yazhou is because there are many small mountain basins in the territory, and the county seat is the largest one.

These small basins are flat and well-watered, and wheat and rice can be harvested in summer and autumn, respectively.

During this season, rice paddies were also scattered outside the castle, but Cheri led his troops to occupy the outside of the castle, and in order to prevent the soft mud from trapping the horses' feet, he ordered all the water in the rice fields to be drained, and turned the rice fields outside the castle into horse farms.

In less than 10 days, the thousands of acres of rice fields that were about to be harvested were turned into a mess. However, the Mongolian army's move inadvertently helped the Thunderbolt army.

Under the continuous scorching sun, the damp ground also became solid, and when the surface was excavated, there was a soft layer of soil underneath, which made great use of the Thunderbolts to dig trenches and earth walls.

So at noon on the second day, the ditch and earthen wall were built less than a mile from the city. Artillery was a problem for civil engineering, not to mention the siege weapons and the bows and arrows of the Mongol cavalry.

Seeing the approaching trenches and earthen walls, Tori panicked and had to send troops to charge to stop the civil engineering work outside the city, but this played into the hands of the Thunderbolt army.

Under the bombardment of artillery and muskets, the Mongolian troops who came in like a tide retreated like a tide after dropping dozens of corpses.

Contrary to Cheri's panic, Ouyang Xuan was not in a hurry. Extending it again, the earthen walls and ditches could be built within half a mile of the city walls, and the Mongols would be able to taste Qiongzhou again.

And he is still waiting for reinforcements from Yazhou - he has sent Qian Lao Er to Yazhou to deliver a letter, asking Yazhou to send troops to fight the Mongols together.

Ouyang Xuan believed that the Yazhou side had previously refused to send troops to Qiongzhou, and it was these bureaucrats who had refused to send troops to Qiongzhou

"Just care about the snow in front of everyone's door, then care about the frost on other people's houses", but Baizhang and Mingshan are counties of Yazhou, so they should send troops.

The reason why Qian Lao Er was sent to go, in addition to being familiar with the trail, also gave him an important task - to go to Lizhou to inform the caravan to come back, saying that Qian Lao Er and they set off in mid-April, and it is now mid-August, and it has been four months since he left home.

It's just that to Ouyang Xuan's surprise, Qian Lao Er ran into a wall again in Yazhou, and Cao Zhizhou of Yazhou said that such military affairs should not be moved without permission, and it must be ordered by Lord Yu Xing to raise troops.

Ouyang Xuan knew that this Cao Zhizhou had no intention of raising troops at all, so he stepped up his attack on Mingshan City. Seeing that the scene in Qiongzhou City was about to be repeated, Cheri decided to retreat to Hongya County, Jiading Prefecture, and go to Pengshan County, Meizhou, as originally planned.

The terrain along the way was hills, low hills and basins, and it was not difficult for cavalry to pass. When he easily took Hyakujo and Mingshan Castle, Cherry changed his mind and prepared to hold it for a long time and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Although the general trend is difficult to disobey, it is not a glorious thing to lose Qiongzhou City after all, and with these two cities, there is the capital to regain Qiongzhou.

Moreover, after connecting the two cities of Baizhang and Mingshan, Yazhou sent people to negotiate the conditions for annexation, and also sent a lot of money to him not to burn down Mingshan City.

It's just that this Yazhou Governor is too greedy, and the condition for belonging is actually the location of the Jiading Prefect, which makes Cherry very annoyed.

Although he agreed verbally, he secretly wanted to make plans after earning Yazhou. However, the war was unfavorable in the past few days, and the Yazhou side repented again, not only did not have a good face for the envoys sent by Cheri, but even demanded that the Mongolian army immediately withdraw from the border of Yazhou.

Cao Zhizhou's clouds and rain made Cheri very angry, but he was helpless. Now there are less than 300 cavalry under his command and only 400 new annexes, so it is not the time to be happy with revenge.

For the sake of today, it is the best policy. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, Cherry led his cavalry out of the city and headed southeast.

In addition to the Mongolian cavalry, he only brought more than a dozen new annexes with superb horsemanship. Because there were only 700 horses left, it was necessary to ensure that in addition to one person and two horses for the combat cavalry, it was necessary to bring the Mongols whose fingers had been cut off.

Although these wastes are a drag, because they are Mongolians, Cheri has to take them. In addition to the lack of horses, Cherry had to leave the new army to defend the city, and dragged the Thunderbolts to allow him to escape calmly.

Of course, the new annexed army was not good, and the Mongols would obviously not defend the city obediently if they fled, so Cheri told them that he led the cavalry to attack the city of Yazhou.

On the second day after Cheri and his men left, the Thunderbolts' trenches and earthen walls were built on the edge of the city and began shelling the city.

It was not until the fourth day that the new annex in the city opened the gates and surrendered, partly because the Mongols had not returned for a long time, and on the other hand, because the shelling of the Thunderbolts was getting tighter every day, and it was really unsupportable.

It would be stupid to say that these new annexes had surrendered only to know that Cheri had fled to Hongya. Now that I think about it, why did Cheri bring wounded and sick horses with him when he went to attack Yazhou City, why did he bring the Mongols who were no longer able to fight, and why did he bring large bags of belongings?