On the Gaoyang City Wall, seventy-six-year-old Sun Chengzong held his hands on the wall crenels and looked at the wilderness in the north of the city from the crenellations, where body parts and horse corpses were everywhere, and the grass had been dyed bright red.
The gentry and wealthy merchants in the city heard that Lu Xiangsheng had led an army to rescue Gaoyang and was fighting with the Qing army in the north of the city. They rushed to the wall of Gaoyang's north gate and guarded the crenellations. They opened their eyes and looked desperately.
In the fierce cold wind, the north gate of Gaoyang City slowly opened, and three war horses took the lead in running out of the city. The three of them were already in their forties, wearing only light armor, no helmets, and only wearing plain hair.
Five or six more knights rushed out behind them, and behind them were some young men, almost all without armor, just wearing ordinary clothes, holding various weapons in their hands, and some even held pickaxes, rakes and other agricultural tools.
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The leader, a knight in his fifties, held a steel knife in his hand and shouted loudly: "Kill the Tatars!"
Then he rode his horse straight towards the bloody battlefield in the wilderness north of Gaoyang City. A group of knights whipped their horses and followed him towards the hell on earth where nearly ten thousand people were fighting desperately.
About two thousand young and strong men ran out of the north gate of Gaoyang City one after another. Without stopping, they followed closely behind the knights and horses, facing the dust raised by the galloping horses, and rushed towards the area more than three miles north of the city.
wilderness.
On the city wall, Sun Chengzong burst into tears and said to a gentleman next to him: "Quickly, make arrangements to prepare more grain and livestock. We want to work for the army and celebrate Lu Xiangsheng..."
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The Qing cavalry rushed out of the battlefield one after another, and gradually gathered into small groups, one by one, into cavalry groups of more than a hundred people. They bypassed the Ming army cavalry at a distance and gradually gathered around Hauge.
Lu Xiangsheng led Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei and other elite cavalry from the three towns of Xuanda, hoping to pursue them and defeat the Qing army in one fell swoop.
However, they were blocked by the Qing Army's subordinate He Chenggong, who was guarding the formation strictly, with fire cannons, and failed to break through the Hauge formation. Then, De Kelei led the Mongolian cavalry of the outer vassal, and fought with Shanxi Town Commander Jiang Mingwu's troops.
The knights broke away from contact and successfully returned to support the main formation.
Lu Xiangsheng knew very well that the soldiers of Xuandasan Town suddenly encountered the Eastern invaders. They had been fighting hard since noon and were now exhausted of men and horses. It was really not suitable to fight anymore. He hurriedly sent orders to the commanders of all departments to lead the troops to retreat temporarily.
The Ming army slowly retreated to the place where General Wang Pu of Datong Town was stationed. The horses of all the soldiers were there, guarded by Wang Pu's soldiers.
Just as Zhang Cheng was about to lead his troops to retreat, he saw densely packed human heads appearing in the south, in the direction of Gaoyang City. He quickly called to his generals to change direction and turn directly to the north.
After running more than 200 steps, they were galloping up a high hill when they saw dozens of Qing cavalrymen rushing out from the main formation, shouting and shouting towards the group of people approaching from the direction of Gaoyang City.
He hurriedly took out his telescope and looked south. Looking through the mirror, he saw less than ten riders galloping towards him more than 800 paces away. Behind them, more than a hundred paces, there were densely packed crowds of more than a thousand people carrying various weapons.
Weapons are striding towards us.
Almost all of these people were not wearing armor, and when they were running, they showed no signs of formation at all. At first glance, it was obvious that they were young righteous citizens of Gaoyang City who had been temporarily organized.
Taking back the telescope, Zhang Cheng shouted loudly: "Wu Zhizhong, you lead your troops south to meet the volunteers who are leaving the city in Gaoyang. Follow me up and drive those Tatars away."
Wu Zhizhong agreed, urged his horse and headed towards Gaoyang City.
Zhang Cheng didn't waste any time. He urged his horses and galloped away towards the Qing cavalry. Chen Zheng, Zhang Guangda, Hu Dake and other sentry commanders hurriedly led the knights under their command and galloped away, closely following Zhang Cheng.
The team of Qing cavalry rushed forward.
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Seeing that the knights from all the battles were returning one after another, Hauge hurriedly ordered them to change their horses and quickly form the team. He also sent Bagala warriors to urge the Aha to speed up the packing of the camp.
Within a moment, Hauge led his officers and men and ran slowly eastward, reaching the official road more than ten miles away.
He Chenggong's Han army and Deke's Mongolian cavalry from outside the vassal were ordered by Hauge to stay behind. Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei and others harassed them three times and then gave up the attack.
But He Chenggong and Dirk Lei still didn't dare to be careless. First, He Chenggong led the troops, and Dirk Lei was more than 300 steps behind him. Following Duan, they rode three horses at a time, constantly changing positions.
In exchange, the physical strength of the war horse has always been maintained at its best.
Although Hauge's retreat was not blocked by Lu Xiangsheng, he did not dare to be careless. There were still more than 10,000 Xuanda infantry who could arrive at any time. He had now seen the combat power of the cavalry on the opposite side.
If the infantry under Lu Xiangsheng's command on the opposite side were also of such strength, they might not be able to retreat as easily as now. Therefore, the Qing army only selected the most important things to take away, and those things that could be plundered were not taken seriously by them.
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Zhang Cheng dispersed the group of Qing cavalry and galloped to join Sun Yao and others. After the two parties exchanged identities, Zhang Cheng led them to the governor Lu Xiangsheng.
Sun Yao and three other brothers hurriedly rolled their saddles and dismounted, bowed down and said: "... Mr. Xie Lu has come thousands of miles to help drive away the Tartars and save the people of Gaoyang from the sword. The squires and elders of Gaoyang have prepared an army for Mr. Lu.
Grain, livestock, wine and meat to reward the brave men under Duke Lu..."
Lu Xiangsheng also got off his horse, stepped forward, helped up the three Sun brothers who were kneeling on the ground, and said: "Mr. Sun Ge, Xiang Sheng has admired me for a long time, but I didn't have a chance to meet him. I came late today, so Mr. Sun Ge was disturbed by Dong Nu.
It is indeed a sin, you three gentlemen, there is no need to be polite, please get up quickly."
After seeing the ceremony, everyone started talking. When they heard the three brothers of the Sun family talking about the danger of defending the city, they were all frightened. A little later, Gaoyang City was defeated. At that time, Dong Nu was guarding the city, and it would be difficult to attack again.
"What a blessing. All the people in Gaoyang City are deeply grateful to Duke Lu for his kindness and kindness!"
Sun Chengzong's second son, Sun Xuan, cupped his fists and bowed to salute, speaking with tears in his eyes.
While Lu Xiangsheng comforted the three brothers of the Sun family and the young soldiers of Gaoyang City, he arranged for people to clean up the battlefield. Although it was already winter, so many corpses would still affect and damage the surrounding environment if they were not buried on the spot.
Zhang Cheng looked at the large pits filled with headless corpses of Qing soldiers, and couldn't help but think that the weeds here would definitely become more lush in the coming year.
If you plant crops, the harvest will definitely be better!
At this time, Zhang Yan led groups of infantry to form a formation. It turned out that after they received Lu Xiangsheng's military order, Zhang Yan hurriedly assigned tasks to the officers. He left one third of the infantry to guard the frame.
Military supplies on carts.
He led a large group of infantry and organized them into battle formations. Each square battle squad maintained a distance of a hundred steps, and marched slowly towards the battlefield where Zhang Cheng and the others were, marching non-stop.