When you have your own land, family, property and a stable life, who wants to live a precarious life?
Unless absolutely necessary, Zhang Xianzhong would not choose Lao Huihui's strategy.
The bandits used to be barefoot and were not afraid of wearing shoes, but now they all wear good shoes. The generals own countless properties, and the elite elites of the old camp have become small landowners. They also have beautiful wives and concubines at home. Many of them have been in the past two years.
He even had children.
Even if Zhang Xianzhong is willing to flee again, the soldiers under his command will not agree!
Today, the siege has entered its second stage.
In the first stage, cannon fodder is used to consume the city's supplies, physical strength and morale.
In the second stage, cannon fodder is still used to attack the city, and elite troops are quietly mixed in to achieve unexpected results.
The third stage is the elite attack.
"Old Wang, there is something strange happening outside the city!" The person who spoke was Zhu Shijing, the chief missionary officer of the city guard, a descendant of the old Zhu family whose bloodline was too thin to be called a clan member.
Wang Hui raised his telescope, and sure enough he saw that the enemy's flags and orders were different, and many elites who were clearly in a more orderly formation were being mobilized.
Wang Hui did not dare to take it lightly, and immediately adjusted the deployment of defending the city, and arranged reserve teams in various streets and alleys in the city to be ready to rescue the city wall at any time.
"boom!"
At this moment, there was a loud noise, and Wang Hui felt the city wall beneath his feet shaking.
He turned his head and looked around, only to see a large gap in the city wall that had been blown down seven or eight feet away. Although the tunnel filled with gunpowder was narrow, the gap in the city wall that had been blown down was as wide as ten meters.
The entire section of the city wall collapsed in a "U" shape, with part of the wall falling inward and part of the wall falling outward. The gap was not flat ground, but turned into a mound of rammed earth. The rammed earth of the city wall was arranged into large and small clods.
, the largest one is as big as several dining tables.
There were even civilians attacking the city here. After the city wall collapsed, both the defenders and the siege suffered a large number of casualties.
The people defending the city fled in fright, and the people attacking the city also fled in fright.
Some peasants and soldiers fled out of fear, and a few peasants and soldiers in reserve spontaneously rushed towards the gap to fill their positions. More peasants and soldiers subconsciously wanted to escape, but froze in place, seeming to be waiting for the officer's order.
"kill!"
A group of elite enemy troops who were charging quickly rushed towards the gap, and the morale of the nearby siege troops quickly increased.
"Uu! Uu! Uu!"
Wang Hui blew the flags one after another, and the messengers waved the flags on the tower, directing the nearest reserve team in the city to fill in.
Many people couldn't bear this drastic change and fled to the center of the city completely unconsciously.
Zhu Shijing stood on the tower and shouted: "The missionaries do their work, the missionaries do their work!"
"beep"
The suona sounded like an alarm, and more than thirty missionary officers ran over, shouting slogans along the way, trying to stop this fleeing trend: "Folks, if you run away, you will die. Zhang Xianzhong has entered the city to kill and rob. Follow me and fight back.
Protect our parents, protect our wives and children..."
A village chief was running away. When he saw the Datong military flag planted in front of him, he suddenly rushed over, pulled it up, waved the flag and said, "Men from Tingqian Village, fight back with me!"
There were also backbone members of the peasant association, holding the flag of the peasant association high, charging against the current in the crowd, repeatedly waving the indigo flag in their hands.
In just half a stick of incense, the fleeing people were stopped and followed the flag with various weapons in hand to fight back.
The gap in the collapsed city wall formed an uneven mound of earth. Peasants and soldiers were competing with Zhang Xianzhong's elite to seize the high ground. Whoever could hold the mound of earth in place would be able to kill the enemy from a high position. Due to the rush of time, both sides were unable to form formations.
Fighting based on instinct.
Wang Hui shouted the order: "Ten thousand enemies, ten thousand enemies, don't throw for the time being, obey my orders!"
There are not many of them left in the ten thousand enemies, so they are reserved for critical moments.
On the city walls on both sides of the gap, hundreds of thousands of enemies moved in. Looking at the bloody fight below, they did not throw them immediately, but waited for more enemies to come and gather together to die.
Wang Hui asked the messenger to issue a flag command again: "Light the smoke!"
Zhang Xianzhong sent a total of 30,000 troops to attack. They were all soldiers, not civilians.
About three or four thousand people rushed towards the gap, and all the others climbed up the city wall, and all the remaining four Lu Gong chariots also drove out.
In the open space at the gate of the county government office, the magistrate An Qigong asked people to light the smoke, while he led the people to assemble in the city. There were people everywhere who knew the flags and orders. If there was a section of the city wall with insufficient troops, An Qigong would send some people to support.
"Vend against thousands of enemies!"
Seeing that more and more enemies were gathering outside the gap, Wang Hui finally ordered the bomb to be dropped.
More than 20 bombs from the city walls on both sides of the gap were thrown into the crowd of enemies gathered outside the city.
"Boom boom boom boom!"
The successive explosions directly caused more than two thousand people to collapse. Regardless of whether they were injured or not, they all turned around and ran away, coughing.
Zhang Xianzhong's supervising team rushed up, and Sun Kewang personally rode over to take command. He divided the soldiers into several teams and formed a simple formation to charge.
The series of explosions just now also helped the peasants and soldiers guarding the gap to successfully occupy the mound of earth that collapsed from the city wall. Without Wang Hui's orders, the grassroots officers began to form a formation on the mound, and it was a neat mandarin duck formation.
Sun Kewang directed several charges, but all ended in failure. He could not even penetrate the Langzhen defensive circle.
At this moment, Zhang Xianzhong's firecrackers arrived.
Wang Hui saw it clearly, but he did not dare to let the peasants and soldiers withdraw. He only issued an order for the following peasants, soldiers and people to take over.
"Bang bang bang bang!"
After a volley of musketry, nearly a hundred peasants and soldiers fell down. Half of the peasants and soldiers on the mound collapsed in fear and fled, leaving a huge gap in the mandarin duck formation.
Sun Kewang immediately commanded the elite charge, and Wang Hui also asked the reserve team to fill in. The two sides once again fought together flesh and blood.
Three of the four Lu Gong chariots arrived at the city wall. A steady stream of enemy troops jumped to the top of the city. The people defending the city used simple bamboo spears and wooden spears to stab them randomly without formation.
Another group of elite siege troops climbed up the city wall from the ladder and started a bloody fight with the people defending the city.
Finally, the smoke rose in the city.
Zhang Xianzhong's expression changed drastically, and he ordered to invest another 10,000 troops to capture the county regardless of casualties. Otherwise, he would have to escape with his cavalry, horse team and mule team.
Because reinforcements are coming soon!
Lao Huihui took the initiative and said, "I'm going to intercept the enemy's reinforcements."
Not only did Lao Huihui's cavalry go, but Zhang Xianzhong's and Sun Kewang's cavalry and cavalry also ran toward the southeast together.
To the southeast, directly to the west, and in the mountains several miles away, smoke also soon rose, and the smoke conveyed the military situation.
Zhao Han's reinforcements are still fifty miles away!
The artillery team could not take them away, so Zhao Han led 2,000 personal guards and Li Zheng led 7,000 infantry, riding mules and horses from different directions towards Guangji County.
Lu Xiangsheng's cavalry was the first to arrive at the assembly point.
Among them, there are 3,000 dragoons, 2,000 are newly trained and 1,000 are transferred from Hu Dinggui.
There are also five hundred knights, all of them Mawali horses.
Marwari horses from India were shipped in three batches. Because the requirements were very high, the last batch was very expensive, and the princes of the Indian states also knew how to increase the price.
Of these five hundred horses, about three hundred were castrated stallions, and the other two hundred were unpregnant mares.
The equipment of the valiant cavalry is similar to that of the Manchu cavalry. The inner armor is combined with cotton armor, and pieces of cotton armor are worn on the key points of the war horse. The cavalry and archery skills are quite difficult, but everyone can shoot arrows. They were converted from the eliminated archers. Riding skills
It’s quite frustrating. I only trained for more than two months, and many complicated operations are difficult to perform perfectly.
Rushing to the foot of the nearest beacon point, Lu Xiangsheng sent out five hundred dragoons to inquire about the situation in the direction of Guangji County. The remaining cavalry stopped to let the horses rest.
Due west, Chilong Lake.
Chilong Lake in the late Ming Dynasty was larger than it would be a few hundred years later, with nearly 300 peninsulas in the lake.
Whether it was the fishermen under Zhao Han or the fishermen under Zhang Xianzhong, after seeing the flames of war, they quickly headed towards Qizhou. Some small boats from Jiangxi had also entered Chilong Lake from the Yangtze River and docked there.
Waiting for orders on the peninsula in the middle of the lake.
The original plan was to detach only 10,000 peasant soldiers who surrounded Qizhou and go by boat to support Guangji County.
However, Huang Yao led the mountain division and came by boat. Five hundred artillery troops stayed in Jiangling to attack the city. The remaining 7,000 people were all outside Qizhou City. Now they also took the boat to attack Zhang Xianzhong.
They were able to take a boat all the way to Guangji County, nine miles southwest of Guangji County.
A few miles southeast of the county town, Lu Xiangsheng's sentry cavalry collided head-on with Zhang Xianzhong's cavalry and cavalry. Seeing them from a distance, they turned around and ran away because there were too many enemy cavalry.
The cavalry and horse teams totaled more than 10,000 people.
When three thousand dragoons encountered more than ten thousand enemies on horseback, they immediately dismounted and leaned against the foot of the mountain to form a firecracker formation.
The five hundred valiant cavalry all withdrew to the rear of the infantry dragoons.
Zhang Xianzhong's thousands of cavalry charged in an extremely scattered formation, with the distance between horses more than four meters.
"Bang bang bang bang!"
"Bang bang bang bang!"
"Bang bang bang bang!"
Three thousand dragon cavalry fired three shots at the cavalry, then quickly got on their horses and followed the five hundred brave cavalry into the mountain.
Since the opponent was running at high speed and the formation was extremely loose, the firing rate of the 3,000 rounds of muskets was about 70%, and only more than 40 enemy cavalry were shot down.
Lao Huihui and his Xiaoqi were circling sideways, but when they saw all the Datong cavalry entering the mountain, how could they dare to pursue them into the mountain? The opponent had three thousand fire muskets, and once they entered the mountain they could find numerous favorable terrains for shooting.
"Damn, these cavalry are so disgusting!" Lao Hui cursed back and spat out a mouthful of thick phlegm.
Qin Liangyu's grandson Ma Wannian, his blood is boiling at this moment. He knows that a decisive battle will soon come.
Wu Huapu, who came from Liaodong, and the red-helmeted general Zhou Yingyuan were also among the knights at this moment.
However, the one-armed Wu Huapu could command a hundred troops.
The tall and strong Zhou Yingyuan was just an ordinary cavalryman. As an honor guard of Chongzhen, he had never been on a serious battlefield even though he had superb riding skills.
"General Lu, the enemy cavalry is not chasing you." Zhu Tianxi rode forward on horseback.
Lu Xiangsheng said: "Just hold the narrow road in front and wait slowly for reinforcements from King Wu."
Zhu Tianxi, a native of Taizhou, was a Jinshi in the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign, and was sent to Guangdong to serve as a guerrilla general. As soon as he took office, Zhang Tieniu led his troops to fight, and he chose to surrender without any psychological burden.
Not only was he a martial arts scholar, he was naturally an expert in cavalry. He also served as a Datong sergeant for four years and was promoted to the commander of the heroic cavalry a few months ago.
Zhu Tianxi touched the Kaiyuan Bow in his hand and was filled with anticipation. He had been tired of being an infantryman for several years, but now he was finally able to gallop on the battlefield.
Moreover, he also rides a majestic Indian Pegasus.