In Pang Yu's telescope, what appeared in the direction of Liuhe should be the Biao camp coming to join together. There were only fifty or sixty cavalrymen, but about half of them were well-trained. They quickly dispersed the rogue cavalry and formed formations.
Youdu constantly divided into small groups to besiege the lone horsemen. If rogues and horsemen gathered, the Ming army concentrated again and dispersed, and soon six or seven rogues were cut down from their horses.
The resistance of the cavalry in the east quickly collapsed and they fled all the way to the north. The Ming army pursued them and rushed towards the cavalry in the north.
The official road to Dongge Station in the north was the retreat route for the rogue bandits. Upon seeing this, the cavalry soldiers in the west immediately retreated to the north.
This Ming army only defeated one direction, but immediately relieved the garrison's passive situation of being attacked on three sides.
"Chen Rulie, please follow me and give chase. Don't chase me too far. Be careful of rogues ambushing me."
Chen Rulie agreed and led the remaining dozens of cavalry to rush up the official road, as if it were like a tiger bridge again, to cut off the bandits' retreat.
But Pang Yu naturally knew that would not happen. The surrounding hills were passable and the rogue horse soldiers could leave there. They knew the nearby terrain better than the garrison camp.
Chen Rulie had not chased them far when nearly a hundred other horse soldiers appeared in the direction of Donggeyi. They were divided into two groups and prepared to surround the Ming army coming from Liuhe.
The Liuhe Ming army immediately slowed down and stopped on a hill. Some soldiers dismounted and took out their rifle bows.
Pang Yu saw that half of the Ming army was wearing scale armor or chain armor. After they dismounted, they became heavy infantry. They occupied the high ground and had bows and arrows in their hands. The rogue horse soldiers without any armor could not be favored.
If there was no garrison camp present, the bandits could slowly besiege them, but now that there was a garrison camp on the side, they had no conditions for a siege. The horsemen immediately slowed down and moved under the hill, not daring to attack the Ming army cavalry.
Chen Rulie stopped on the official road, between the rogue horse soldiers and the garrison camp. The rogue horse soldiers did not pursue him. They could also see that it was impossible to catch up with Chen Rulie before he could escape back to the infantry formation. It would be a waste of effort. The three parties faced off like this.
With.
The riders from the East and West, who had been in a bit of confusion just now, arrived at Dongge Station, and there was a captain arranging the team.
Pang Yu said to Guo Fengyou, "The first division is advancing steadily along the official road to Donggeyi."
After the square flag of the Chinese army and the first division answered the flag, the drummers beat the drums, and the first division advanced along the official road to attack.
As the infantry approached, the rogue cavalry gradually retreated, and the Ming army's siege was naturally lifted.
The Ming army immediately mounted their horses and followed the Liu bandits leisurely to put pressure on them. Once the Liu bandits collapsed under the pressure, the Ming army would quickly pursue them and achieve victory.
Chen Rulie's reaction should be slower. In Pang Yu's opinion, Chen Rulie should speed up a bit. The speed of Guandao will definitely be faster than that of Yedi. Although it is impossible for him to block Donggeyi according to his strength, he is the infantry behind him.
Strong support, as long as they show their intention to cut off the official road of Dongge Post, it will add more pressure to the bandits, just like the Tiger Bridge, which may cause the morale of the cavalry soldiers to collapse.
But Chen Rulie's rhythm slowed down a beat, and the cavalry soldier close to the official road responded, threatening the Liuhe Ming army from the side and forcing the Ming army to slow down.
Pang Yu watched it with great interest. It was his first time to see a head-on battle of cavalry. Although there were few direct confrontations between the two sides, the cavalry of both sides separated and combined well. The Liuhe Ming Army switched offense and defense quickly. The commanders dispatched the troops well, and the rogue cavalry was fully deployed.
Taking advantage of their strength, they neutralized the sudden attack by the Liuhe Ming Army.
The shortcomings of the bandits are still obvious. Their cavalry is highly mobile, but their attack power is not strong.
The garrison camp has learned lessons from Shucheng, and they also have drills for being attacked. As long as they don't mess up, the rogue cavalry will not pose much of a threat to the marching infantry, so they mainly attack the baggage in the middle.
It restrains the marching speed of the garrison battalion and consumes the garrison battalion's physical strength and morale.
Perhaps their morale was dampened by the attack by the Ming army from Liuhe. More than two hundred horsemen did not try to provoke any more. After meeting at Dongge Station, they quickly retreated along the official road. The Ming army from Liuhe chased them for a while, but their speed was not that fast.
Excellent, and the rogue bandits were not in chaos. The Ming army was also worried about being ambushed and returned to Donggeyi soon.
At this time, the infantry of the garrison camp had arrived at the post station. Pang Yu dismounted in the town and waited for the generals of the Liuhe Ming Army.
The Ming army cavalry galloped in slowly. The first man was wearing iron scale armor, probably with cotton armor stuffed inside. He looked very burly, and even the war horse under him looked like a donkey.
Jiangpu's Zhang Ruolai is thin and small, so he can probably make two changes with the defense in front of him.
Pang Yu knew that it was Zhang Guowei's Chinese garrison, which was on the same level as him, but he spent more time meeting Zhang Guowei, so he took a few steps forward to greet him, and then handed him over after he dismounted.
"I'm guarding Pang Yu in Anqing."
The guard of the Chinese army was about forty years old. After looking Pang Yu up and down, he cupped his hands indifferently and said, "The guard of the Chinese army is under the sign of Chen Yuwang."
... Like many post stations at this time, because it was located on the main traffic road, a town was formed based on Dongge Post. As the main official road to the north of Nanjing, this road is usually very busy, and the scale of the town is not small.
But by this time it had become a ruin.
The area near the town is desolate. All the nearby trees have been cut down and turned into black charcoal. The straw on several grass trees has been plundered, leaving bare tree trunks. Outside the southeast corner of the town, there are
There were hundreds of corpses, dozens of them planted upside down.
Since last year, Pang Yu has seen a lot of dead people, and now he is not surprised when he sees various ways of death.
"Sir, dead people have been thrown into the upper reaches of the river and in various wells, and there are also intestines and intestines of unknown animals."
Pang Yu walked to a well nearby. Several soldiers were fishing with hook guns. There were some intestines soaked white and two dead rats beside the well mouth. There was water flowing around.
"You fucking bandits, you should have chased them earlier."
Pang Yu rubbed his nose. At that time, he had no intention of fighting the bandits again. He missed the opportunity to chase them in Jiangpu, allowing the bandits to leave calmly. After widening the distance, they destroyed everything along the way.
The further inland you go, the more familiar the pattern becomes to the rogue bandits, whose experience is more than one level higher than that of the garrison camp.
The rogue bandits took full advantage of their retreat and robbed everything they could eat on the way. The towns and villages could no longer provide supplies to the garrison camp, and Pang Yu had nowhere to spend money to buy them.
The second is to destroy infrastructure, houses, bridges, and water sources. As long as they have enough time, they can destroy it to the extent of Donggeyi in front of them.
This was not the first time Pang Yu had seen this pattern of rogue bandits. After the rogue bandits passed through Anqing last year, he went to Susong to threaten Chen Shifu and passed by Qianshan Taihu Lake. He saw the horrors along the way, but he did not destroy it so completely, probably because there were no officers and soldiers at the time.
Chase behind the rogue bandits.
Before setting off from Anqing, the food shortage that Pang Yu was most worried about turned out to be a huge surplus after arriving at Puzikou. Apart from the food seized at Yinding Bridge, there was still a large amount of food brought in the bottom warehouse of the Cao Chuan, and the food purchased from Nanjing was not used.
But after Zhang Guowei changed his combat objectives, food became a problem. The biggest problem was transportation. Without the advantage of downstream shipping, it could only be transported by humans and animals.
Due to the haste of the plan, Pang Yu could only hire 97 mules and horse carriages in Puzikou, with 103 workers at the head office. He also seized 34 mules and horses from Yindingqiao, totaling 131, carrying rice.
Four hundred and thirteen stones of beans, and two thousand three hundred bundles of hay.
As a result, his marching column was very long. In addition to having seventy marines follow the car, the second division had to be split up and separated in the convoy according to flags to protect the fragile baggage train.
But Chen Yuwang's situation was not as good as him. Obviously Chen Yuwang was completely unprepared for the long-distance pursuit of the rogues. In addition to the fifty cavalry in the vanguard he brought, there were also thirty cavalry and three hundred infantry in the rear team.
With seventeen carriages and forty civilians, the logistics are definitely insufficient.
The condition of the infantry is not very good either, looking similar to that of Xu Ziqiang.
However, Chen Shoubei was very responsible and took the initiative to camp in the north of the town to assume the main defense direction.
There was a sound of horse hoofs behind him, and when Pang Yu turned around to look, he saw that King Chen Yu had jumped off the horse and landed very smoothly.
Pang Yu greeted him and said, "I see that there are not many carts in General Chen's camp. I just sent five carts of grain and grass. Your Majesty has already collected them."
King Chen Yu accepted Pang Yu's gift and his attitude became a little more enthusiastic. "Pang Shou is polite. This time I received Zhang Duye's urgent order and set off immediately. It is indeed a bit hasty."
He said with a look in his eyes, "I just took a look at Pang's men and horses. Their armor is even better than that of our standard camp. There are actually two cannons. Among the soldiers from the north and south that I have seen, your infantry is the most orderly."
, I wonder where Pang Guards found so much money to support his troops."
Pang Yu felt a little proud in his heart and said modestly, "General Chen commends me. There are indeed more armors in the lower camp. This is because the rogue bandits ravaged Anqing last year and killed many people. The villagers everywhere were so angry that they donated a lot of tribute to our garrison camp."
We couldn't push away money and food, so we managed to piece together these armors, but they were not as well-trained as General Chen's cavalry."
"He is no longer a general."
King Chen Yu took off his helmet, revealing the deep wrinkles on his forehead, "My nickname is Danzhong, you can call me that."
Pang Yu was not embarrassed at all. At this time, he also knew the rules. At least he must be a guerrilla before he can be called a general. Low-level officers like them just showed respect. King Chen Yu was a bit disappointed. Pang Yu didn't care. It was easier to deal with such people.
Just listening to King Chen Yu's tone, it seems that he used to be more than just a guard officer, but he was demoted for some reason.
"There are very few cavalry in the lower camp. I just saw brother Danzhong leading the cavalry in battle. He is the best cavalry in the world. This time I am traveling with brother Danzhong and I have to rely more on your cavalry."
If I have some free time, I would also like to ask Brother Chen for advice on cavalry drill and dispatch methods."
King Chen Yu smiled as if he had heard some funny truth and said, "The thieves are just young people. They only rely on the strength of their numbers. Defeating them is not worth mentioning.
If one day I can lead the cavalry to sweep away that Jiannu, I will be considered one of the best cavalrymen in the world."
"Building slaves?"
Pang Yu thought for a moment before he realized. He had occasionally heard people mention these two words. He didn't know what it was for at first, but later he learned that it was in Liaodong. Pang Yu estimated that it was the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
Because they were too far apart, Pang Yu did not expect to have a conflict with them in the short term. His main goal was to defend Jiangbei, so he did little research on this potential enemy and there were few sources. If Chen Yuwang had interacted with them
It's a good opportunity to get some news.
"Brother Danzhong once went to Liaodong to fight?"
The look in Chen Yuwang's eyes flashed, and then he looked at the ground and nodded, "Of course I have been there, I have been there for many years."
Pang Yu quickly asked, "Brother Danzhong, can you give me some advice? How does building slaves compare with today's bandits?"
King Chen Yu frowned and thought for a moment and then said, "If a bandit is compared to a thief, then Jiannu is a giant thief.
In a battle on the battlefield, Gao Scarzi is not a general who can build slaves and unite."