"Drive! Drive! ”

At the southeast end of the North China Plain, when the Tang cavalry carrying the military intelligence chased forward along the official road, and after running for about an hour, the Tang cavalry finally saw the black and oppressive team in front of him.

"Eight hundred miles expedited! Eight hundred miles expedited!! ”

The pond rider shouted and sprinted forward, and the horses carried him on his charge.

He marched along the corner of the official road, which was five feet wide, and there was only a three-foot-wide road for him to advance.

Many of the soldiers consciously got out of the way, and he was able to gallop forward for several miles, and then was stopped at the position of the Chinese army.

"Eight hundred miles urgently, please submit it to Cao Guogong."

Natang Cavalry handed the information on his back to the Qianhu official who stopped him.

Seeing this, the Qianhu official got on an ordinary horse and rode to the front of the Chinese generals.

Not long after, the Qianhu official presented the urgency, and Li Jinglong, who was on horseback and wearing only a cuirass, took it and opened it, and raised his hand with a frown: "Stop marching." ”

"Beep-"

The long whistle sounded, and thousands of household officials followed and blew, spreading the whistle throughout this team that stretched for more than ten miles.

Many of the soldiers, after more than half a year of training, already knew what this meant, so the 110,000-strong army stopped marching at the sound of the whistle.

Such a move naturally attracted the attention of the generals who were responsible for covering the two wings of the whole army, and they left one person to continue to lead the team, and they themselves returned to the main position of the Chinese army on horseback.

They arrived one after another, their eyes fixed on Li Jinglong, waiting for him to speak.

It wasn't until Ping'an, Yu Tongyuan and others arrived successively that Li Jinglong stepped out of the team, obviously this expedited weight was not light.

The generals followed the horses out, and after walking to the country road, Li Jinglong spoke:

"The Yanshu people confused Xu Kai with suspicious soldiers, Chen Hui and Teng Ju, who rushed to Dong'an County in Cangzhou, did not have Yang Qingshuiyi, and thousands of Ganliang iron horsemen were captured."

As soon as Li Jinglong's words were spoken, the generals' hearts tightened.

That's a sweet and cool fine cavalry, one of the few elite cavalry in the Ming Dynasty, even if Yanfu and Bohai did not rebel, the cavalry in the Ming Dynasty was only 50,000.

After the rebellion between Bohai and Yanfu, the number of cavalry that the imperial court could mobilize was only 40,000.

Nearly a quarter of the previous Song Pan Jing cavalry was captured and killed, and this time it was lost by one-third.

It can be said that among the 300,000 southern troops, only Yu Tongyuan and Ping'an's army are left in Beijing.

The remaining tens of thousands of elite horsemen either followed the counterinsurgency in Xichuan and Yunnan, or prepared borders in Ganliang and Shaanxi, and even if they wanted to gather, it was very difficult.

The 200,000 soldiers and horses in the north were without cavalry, and the grain route would be easily cut off by Zhu Di.

"It's hard to do......"

For a while, all the generals had this sentence in their minds, which was originally very tricky for them to deal with Zhu Gaoxu, but now it has been mixed with Zhu Di.

If others only think it's tricky, then Li Jinglong feels that he is quite a bit of a dilemma.

At present, the 200,000 southern army is led by Wu Gao, Xu Kai, and Wu Jie.

Li Jinglong on Wu Gao's side is not worried, although Wu Gao does not have the ability to have 100,000 soldiers, but relying on Taihang Mountain, Wu Gao can definitely defend Zhuozhou City.

On the side of Xu Kai and Wu Jie, although these two people have the ability, they still have some difficulties if they each have to control tens of thousands of troops to deal with Zhu Di.

"Three hundred miles expedited!"

At this moment, without waiting for the generals to think about it, the urgent sound of the pond ride sounded again, but fortunately, this time the sound came to the east.

At Li Jinglong's signal, the urgent information was quickly delivered to him.

After a brief reading, Li Jinglong's face was a little angry, but he was quickly suppressed by him.

"Guogong, what's going on in the east?"

Yu Tongyuan, as a veteran, took the lead in asking.

In the face of the inquiry, Li Jinglong also said indifferently: "The Bohai pirate army is divided into four routes, respectively surround Yidu of Qingzhou Prefecture, and capture Linqu, Anqiu, Zhucheng and other places respectively, as if they have taken Qingzhou in one fell swoop. ”

"The number of soldiers and horses who captured the three counties of Linqu is about 10,000, and there is also a guest in Dengzhou who told the Bohai soldiers and horses that there are 10,000 people waiting for horses in the local area, which is 40,000."

"Combined with the news of Yidu, the number of soldiers and horses that Zhu Gaoxu surrounded Yidu should be about 6,000 to 9,000, of which at least 5,000 are cavalry."

Li Jinglong roughly judged that Zhu Gaoxu's troops surrounded Qingzhou Mansion to govern the capital, but his judgment was obviously useless, because before his words fell, one after another was sent from Qingzhou Mansion to his hands.

Bohai divided 3,000 troops to seize Guangling Town and approached Shouguang County.

In addition, Zhu Gaoxu saw that he couldn't take Yidu, so he actually turned around, crossed Beiyang Water, and marched to the northwest.

"Northwest, isn't that our side?"

Ping An suddenly opened his mouth, and immediately asked for orders: "Guogong, the last general is willing to send cavalry to defeat the Bohai Shuren." ”

"The last general is willing to go too." Yu Tongyuan followed, and the second son Yu Jing, who was standing behind him, also made a gesture when he heard the words.

The three of them are tall, and they ride the big horses given by Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Yunwen, needless to say, the cavalry led by them is also the most elite cavalry of the Ming Dynasty left by Zhu Yuanzhang in Beijing.

Li Jinglong has not yet made up his mind about whether to use them to encircle and suppress Zhu Gaoxu, because his opponent is not only Zhu Gaoxu, but also Zhu Di.

"The army crossed the Daqing River first and rested in Qingcheng County, Henan."

Li Jinglong needed a quiet environment to consider how to deal with Zhu Di's father and son, so there was no military order for the time being, but only gave where the army camped today.

With his order, the 110,000-strong army continued to march, crossed the Xiaoqing River in the afternoon, and camped in the plain north of Qingcheng County.

At dusk, news came from the southeast again.

"Zihediantang cavalry found traces of Bohai cavalry, and the Bohai Shu people are in the array."

"The Linzi defenders sent Tang cavalry, and the south post road of Linzi found traces of Bohai cavalry, and the Bohai Shu people were in the array."

"The defenders of Xincheng sent Tang cavalry, and the southeast of Xincheng found traces of Bohai cavalry, and the Bohai Shu people were in the array."

"The defenders of the new city returned, and the Bohai Shu people camped in the south of the filial piety river, looking at the movement, it seems that they are preparing to cross the river tomorrow......"

When the information was delivered, there was silence in the tent of the military camp outside Qingcheng County.

Zhu Gaoxu's posture seems to be really coming at their 110,000 people.

"A mere 6,000 cavalry also came to stop our 110,000 people, the Bohai Shu people are too light on the enemy, right?"

"Hahaha......"

I don't know which general spoke, causing laughter in the tent.

"Regardless of whether he underestimates the enemy or not, our army must not be arrogant, don't forget that the arrogant soldiers will be defeated, not to mention that the horse infantry of the Bohai Shu people is extremely fast, if he intends to drive, it will not take five days to gather the four troops and horses that are separated."

Li Jinglong opened his mouth to stop the generals' idea of underestimating the enemy, he knew very well that he could not underestimate the enemy in the face of Zhu Di and Zhu Gaoxu.

Zhu Di is a good player at playing tactics and deceiving, but Zhu Gaoxu is better at this aspect.

Originally, the number of cavalry in the southern army was small, and now Chen Hui Tengju was heavily injured by Zhu Di and captured, it is foreseeable that even if Zhu Di cannot achieve merit in Xu Kai and Wu masters, the number of cavalry available in his hands will inevitably increase.

The father and son joined forces, and the horses and infantry in their hands were close to 120,000, and it seemed that they should not march at such a time.

Li Jinglong has always remained sober, although he didn't understand why Zhu Gaoxu put on the posture of leading 6,000 people to a decisive battle with his 110,000 people, but he knew that there must be fraud in this.

"Guogong, when will we set out tomorrow?"

Li Jian, the commander of the horses, opened his mouth, and the generals also set their eyes on Li Jinglong.

However, in such a public view, Li Jinglong said amazingly: "If you don't advance tomorrow, withdraw your troops and return to Daqing Hebei." ”

"Not marching?" Hearing Li Jinglong's words, everyone was in an uproar.

A group of them galloped from Datong to this place, and they drove a thousand miles, but now they have to withdraw their troops before they even fight?

"Withdraw the troops, but not to cowardly the enemy, but to change the target!"

Li Jinglong's eyes were calm, and he raised his head and glanced at the generals: "The Yanshu people played a hand to confuse the enemy, and we can too." ”

"Spread our military order, from now on, Beiping and Shandong Zhucheng will be under martial law, and no matter whether it is a city or a township, it is not allowed to go out of the scope of its jurisdiction."

"In addition, Li Jian, the commander of the horse, led the rear army of 40,000 people to stay here to confuse the Bohai Shu people, and the remaining 70,000 people withdrew at Yin Shi (3 o'clock) to return to the north of the Qing River, and the whole army went north to the river, all of them took the country road, not the official road!"

Li Jinglong was keenly aware of one point, that is, whether it was Zhu Di or Zhu Gaoxu, their intelligence control of the Southern Army was a little scary, at least more accurate than the Southern Army's intelligence on them.

Such a situation can only show two points, either the two of them have a guest in their hands who is not inferior to Jinyiwei, or Jinyiwei is mixed with water.

Of the two, Li Jinglong believes in the latter more.

As the person who presided over the most important national project in the Hongwu period, the "Western Tea and Horse Trade", and also as a person who followed Feng Sheng to crusade against Nahachu and followed Lanyu to crusade against the Northern Yuan.

Li Jinglong knew very well what the situation of Jinyiwei was during the Hongwu period, not to mention that in the densely populated Central Plains, even in the deserted Mobei, Modong, Qinghai and other places, Jinyiwei also had a way to get information.

The Ming army can always chase the enemy, in addition to its own strength, more importantly, it can grasp the general movement of the enemy in almost every battle.

It's just that at the moment, Jinyiwei seems to be blind and deaf, and all the information cannot be said to be useless, but it has a serious lag.

Judging from Zhu Di's annihilation of Chen Hui and Teng Ju's more than 10,000 iron cavalry, and Zhu Gaoxu's ability to divide his troops in advance to show the enemy's weakness, these all show the lag of the Southern Army's intelligence.

There were many counties and towns on Zhu Di's way to raid Yang Qingshuiyi from Dong'an, but they didn't send out any information.

Zhu Gaoxu's division of troops was the same, he was less than a hundred miles away from Zhu Gaoxu, and this information was sent slowly.

For the Southern Army, which was already a foot soldier and had difficulty putting on armor on the march, the lag in intelligence was undoubtedly fatal.

Although there are a lot of 110,000 troops, if Zhu Gaoxu also comes to raid him like Zhu Di, then the 110,000 unarmored soldiers are much easier to slaughter than to kill 110,000 chickens for 6,000 cavalry.

"I can't take the initiative to attack this father and son, I have to let them come to me."

Li Jinglong's thoughts were cleared, so he faced the doubts of the generals, and after glancing around, he said calmly:

"What our army has to do now is to rely on the canal and the Huai River to build a defensive line!"

"But ......" Hearing Li Jinglong's words, Li Jian, who was the captain of the horse sent by Zhu Yunwen, immediately frowned and said:

"But the imperial court has a decree that our army must drive the Bohai Shu people back to Liaodong within four months and restore the situation at the end of last year."

"Four months is enough!" Li Jinglong filmed the case, and was not in a hurry to fight because of Zhu Yunwen's urging.

"Order Xu Kai to withdraw to Sujiaqiao, Wu Gao to withdraw to Heyang, and the two armies will rely on the Baigou River, Wugongdian, Triangle Lake and Weihe River to wait for our army to go north."

"On the way to the south, all the soldiers must not leave their armor, even if the retreat is slow, don't give Yan Yi a chance!"

Li Jinglong had already made a decision, Wu Gao and Xu Kai retreated south, Li Jian led 40,000 people to stay here to doubt Zhu Gaoxu, and he took 60,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 cavalry to the north to garrison the Baigou River.

After assembling the 40,000 wagons of the rear army and giving the 60,000 foot soldiers of the front army and the middle army, they will march faster than before, and although they cannot reach the level of horse infantry, they can march at least about 80 miles a day.

From this place to Xiongxian, it is almost 650 miles, and it can be reached in eight days at most.

Thinking of this, Li Jinglong glanced at the generals, and from their faces, he could feel the dissatisfaction of the generals.

I'm afraid that not only the generals, but even the grassroots soldiers will be dissatisfied with his actions, but what can he do.

The southern army was divided into a two-front battle, with no less than 150,000 Yan troops in the north and no less than 40,000 soldiers and horses in the Bohai Sea in the east.

Although 290,000 against 190,000 had too many advantages, the shortcomings of the Yugoslav army were too serious and could not be made up by numbers.

Withdraw to Xiongxian County, first concentrate on dealing with Zhu Di at the Baigou River, and then go south to deal with Zhu Gaoxu.

If Zhu Di learned that he was concentrating on dealing with Zhu Gaoxu, then the number of soldiers and horses dispatched by Zhu Di would probably not be fifty or sixty thousand.

Li Jinglong calmed down, and the generals were not convinced, and ordered the army to get up and go at night tomorrow to rest early.

Time passed little by little, Li Jinglong stayed up all night without sleeping, and kept observing the map, trying to figure out that Zhu Gaoxu dared to use 6,000 people against his 110,000 people.

From the fourth quarter of the hour (20 o'clock) to the hour of the second hour (3 o'clock), he watched all night before he roughly deduced what Zhu Gaoxu wanted to do.

Although the number of 6,000 cavalry in Xincheng is large, it is not the main force to break the enemy, and the real main force is the 3,000 firearms battalion that was besieging Shouguang before.

Judging from the speed of the horse infantry of the Bohai Navy, even the firearms battalion has the ability to forcibly travel 120 miles day and night.

From Shouguang to Xincheng, it is only a hundred and fifty miles away, which means that if this firearm horse infantry had rushed from Shouguang to Xincheng from noon yesterday, it would have arrived in Xincheng at dusk today.

If his 110,000-strong army wanted to go south to Xincheng, it would take seventy miles, just one day.

When they arrived in Xincheng, Zhu Gaoxu's 6,000 cavalry waited for work, and although the firearms battalion was tired, they only needed to use artillery to disrupt their formation for the Bohai cavalry to assault.

"Good boy......"

After analyzing Zhu Gaoxu's thoughts, Li Jinglong was relieved, and even had a smile on his face.

Although he had ordered the whole army to retreat and decided to deal with Zhu Di first, once Zhu Gaoxu's hand succeeded, although it would not completely annihilate his 110,000 soldiers and horses, it would at least make his soldiers and horses unable to go north.

"Do you want to stop me from going north?"

Li Jinglong wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, chuckled and shook his head: "The kid's intention is still too obvious, but it is better than Liaodong." ”

He has a good relationship with Zhu Gaoxu, and he personally does not support Zhu Yunwen for cutting down the feudal domain by force.

However, after all, he is the Duke of Cao Guo of the imperial court, and as long as there is a chance to win, he will not sit idly by and watch the father and son expand the war.

"Alright, let's withdraw the troops."

Throwing the dogma in his hand onto the sand table, Li Jinglong beckoned to the soldiers who had worried about him for the night.

After a while, the dark southern army camp began to be lively, and at four o'clock, 70,000 troops began to leave the camp to cross the Daqing River in the north.

They relaxed, and Li Jian, who was in charge of staying behind, also heard Zhu Gaoxu's plan from Li Jinglong before Li Jinglong left.

After hearing this, his face was solemn, and he couldn't help but sigh that Li Jinglong's choice was right.

With the power of the artillery of the Bohai Navy, there was no problem in destroying their pikes, and the infantry without the pikes on the plain was no easier for the cavalry than it was to catch pigs.

"Guogong, please rest assured, the last general will definitely stick to the camp and stick to it."

Li Jian made a fuss at Li Jinglong, who was about to cross north, but Li Jinglong shook his head: "It's not that you can't hold on, but you can't stand by." ”

"The artillery of the Bohai Navy is sharp, and it is difficult for ordinary battalions to resist, what you have to do is to doubt them, let them believe that our army is here, if they don't believe it, start to launch a strong attack, you can retreat to the north of the Daqing River, cut off the bridge, wait for our army to break through the Yan Rebellion and go south, and then clean up the mess in Shandong again."

"The last general commands!" Li Jian responded, and Li Jinglong also led Yu Tongyuan, Ping'an and others to start crossing north.

It has to be said that the military order he ordered the people of North China and Shandong not to issue military orders did cover the retreat of the army to the north, but the problem is that Zhu Gaoxu never thought of defeating his 110,000 army head-on with 6,000 men.

"Calculate the time, it should be almost ......"

In the wilderness north of Xincheng County, when Zhu Gaoxu was standing in the sun in military uniform, looking at the north, Xu Sheng behind him also walked up.

"Your Highness, if Li Jinglong doesn't appear here before dusk, then can we take the next step?"

"Hmm." Zhu Gaoxu responded, but Xu Sheng said, "What should I do next?" ”

"Order all the troops, after nightfall tomorrow, all take advantage of the cover of night to gather in Zhucheng!"

Zhu Gaoxu's squinted eyes suddenly opened, and the corners of his mouth outlined a smile.

Xu Sheng responded, and turned around and arranged for Tang Qi to send a message to the various armies, but after doing all this, Xu Sheng was puzzled:

"Your Highness, I don't understand, in such a situation, why didn't Li Jinglong dare to bring someone to fight us?"

"Although 6,000 cavalry is a lot, don't they also have 10,000 cavalry?"

Not only Xu Sheng was puzzled, but even the generals of the Southern Army yesterday were puzzled, and even Li Jinglong needed a night to understand.

"This game is meant to be for smart people."

Zhu Gaoxu did not shy away from Xu Sheng, and said with a smile: "If an ordinary general sees that our army only has 6,000 people, then he will naturally pounce, but Li Jinglong, as the commander of the 300,000 Southern Army, needs to be restrained in many ways, and he has to look at things from the perspective of the entire battle situation." ”

"Our 3,000 soldiers and artillery in Shouguang made him throw a rat trap, if nothing else happens, I estimate that he will camp in Qingcheng for at least three days, wait for the Tang cavalry to probe all the information before heading south, by then we have arrived in Zhucheng."

"Even if Li Jinglong reacts, except for the 10,000 cavalry who are listening to the drill in Beijing, it will be difficult for the rest of the soldiers and horses under his command to catch up with us."

"We're nearing the end of our trip south."

Although Zhu Gaoxu could not say that he was absolutely confident, he believed that there were only a few months left to end the Battle of Jingjing, and if it was sooner, even one month would be enough.

"I see, that's ......" Xu Sheng suddenly realized, and then his face showed embarrassment:

"I thought you were going to take 6,000 men to fight 110,000."

"Six thousand to 110,000?" Zhu Gaoxu chuckled and said, "I'm not Tang Taizong or Han Guangwu, how can I have that ability?" ”

With that, he turned and returned to his ranks, waiting with his six thousand soldiers for dusk.

However, instead of waiting for dusk, he waited for better news.

At noon, a group of Tang cavalry galloped from the east, and then arrived in front of Zhu Gaoxu through the camp of 6,000 cavalry.

"Your Highness, there is an urgent report in Beiping, His Royal Highness King Yan and Yang Qingshuiyi broke Chen Hui and Teng Ju, the two generals were killed in battle, and the remaining more than 3,000 people were killed, and more than 6,000 people were captured."

"His Royal Highness King Yan originally wanted to take advantage of the victory to pursue and take down Xu Kai and Wu Gao, but these two were cautious and closed their camps and did not come out."

Tang Qi brought good news, Xu Sheng looked at Zhu Gaoxu for the first time, but Zhu Gaoxu glanced at Tianshi when he heard this.

"It seems that Li Jinglong will not only not go south, but will withdraw his troops."

"Withdrawal?" Xu Sheng was puzzled, and Zhu Gaoxu saw this and motioned to the soldiers to spread out the map, and then pointed to the situation on the map and said:

"The North China Plain is a flat river, in addition to the water network can be used to garrison, but whenever you want to march and hurry, you are prone to cavalry raids."

"If you want to defend the North China Plain, you can only rely on the Baigou River, Wugongdian and Triangle Lake, which are three places with developed water networks, to garrison Yanyun."

"The premise of the garrison is that there must be a strong cavalry that can calmly support the cities, but this cavalry has been destroyed by my father."

"If Li Jinglong learns the news, he will definitely withdraw to Hejian and garrison in Xiongxian County as appropriate."

"In this way, our army has a greater advantage in moving south, and my father has done us a great favor this time!"

The smile on Zhu Gaoxu's face couldn't be hidden, and he finally enjoyed the benefits of the two-line attack.

He pointed his finger at Zhucheng and then slid all the way down to the Huai River in Huai'an Province.

"Right now, the only thing that can stop our army is the Huai River in Huai'an Mansion."

"Who's the guy stationed here?" Zhu Gaoxu asked Xu Sheng, and Xu Sheng didn't think twice: "It's Sheng Yong, the governor of the Chinese army, and he should lead the two guards of Yulin and the Jiangbei Tunwei to train in Huai'an Mansion." ”

"Sheng Yong......" Zhu Gaoxu didn't expect that the battle situation had changed so much, and he could still see him on the battlefield.

"I know Sheng Yong, and I used to be my superior."

Zhu Gaoxu chuckled, not taking Sheng Yong in his heart.

He slowly stood up, his whip in his hand, and looked south:

"Before Li Jinglong reacts, my whole army will take advantage of the night to the east of Zhucheng!"

(End of chapter)