Xiyin, the vanguard officer of the Ming army, fled into Zhang Yingchang's camp at Jinyintan in embarrassment.
After entering the camp, Xiang Xiyin bowed down and kowtowed, and was about to kill himself with a knife as compensation for the defeat.
He wasn't just pretending, he didn't even think of killing himself when he was defeated, he just wanted to escape quickly.
But the more I ran on the road, the more angry I became, and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to live.
His army was not weak after a slight defeat. The cavalry of the Marshal's Army charged into the formation four times and three times. It can be said that all the formations were smashed.
But every time, the cavalry would be forced back by the Ming infantry using cold weapons such as spears, waist knives, and bone swords.
On the one hand, after the Ming army's infantry formation was smashed, they were very capable of fighting in small formations; on the other hand, it is a bit funny because the Oirat cavalry's close combat ability is not outstanding, so that when mounted, they
It is difficult to defeat three or four Ming soldiers by one person in close combat.
Cavalry requires far more combat breadth than infantry.
The advantage of the Oirat cavalry is their strong impact, but charging with spears does not mean close combat. Melee combat is their disadvantage.
Wen Liang reformed his troops and equipped the cavalry with the best armor, which was similar to the armor worn by the infantry of the Ming border army.
But with armor like that, he only equipped two vanguard units, while the Ming army on the opposite side was full of them.
It's not that Liu Chengzong was stingy and refused to admire the armor of the soldiers. The armor leaves of the border army were filled with warehouses at the old Guanzhong Academy site in Xi'an and no one wanted them.
However, in terms of tactical positioning, the Ranger Battalion is a light cavalry unit.
Carrying one long, two short, three spears and one bow and two pots of arrows, the Oirat cavalry had very limited choices of protective equipment in addition to the common marching clothing and food felts, usually iron-inlaid leather armor and tied goggles.
A piece of leather jacket.
According to Liu Shishi's training requirements, those who are good at charging with spears are from the Mongolian guerrilla battalion Varasi where the Oirat cavalry is located. Their responsibility is to act as a cavalry archer in the guerrillas, while waiting for opportunities to trample and chase the defeated army, and to use spears to collide with the approaching enemy troops.
The cavalry protects Monansi, who is lighter in equipment than them.
What they hit was the enemy's cavalry, not the strict infantry formation.
After all, the cavalry charge into battle bravely and bravely, but in Liu Shizi's view, this was completely an impulsive act.
But design is one thing, and adaptability to war is another.
At least in this confrontation, Ma Ke, Li Fengji and Wen Lianggai cooperated very well. The cavalry attacked again and again to force the Ming army to immobilize. Finally, the dismounted infantry and musket chariots approached, and the final decision was made.
Xiang Xiyin's 3,000-man standard battalion used a brave and powerful style to push back the cavalry rushing into the formation time and time again, but was frightened out of fear by the threat of large-caliber muskets.
People fled in droves, and in the end, there were less than 400 Ming troops who followed Prime Minister Xiyin into the Jinyintan position.
Faced with the sad news of the defeat and loss of troops on the front line, Zhang Yingchang did not issue any criticism or ridicule as expected by Prime Minister Xiyin.
Just kidding, who is Zhang Yingchang? He has never seen any big storms?
He has seen every one of the 10,000 troops run out in one day without taking action.
You have 3,000 men. You fought against Liu Chengzong's soldiers, but you still managed to escape with more than 300 men. What do you call this? This is called a general! It's a big loss for Hong Junmen if he doesn't make you a chief military officer!
After hearing the battle, Zhang Yingchang was very tolerant and like a big brother, and comforted him in a gentle voice: "It's just a loss. No one expected to meet the enemy here."
He thought that it was good to fight like this, could he still want to win?
Even if he personally led the troops and was suddenly attacked while marching, there was no guarantee that he would be able to fight better than Xiang Xiyin.
"Being humble and incompetent, the front line has been defeated. Should our army withdraw to Lingzhou or..."
Xiang Xiyin did not say anything. The pursuers were chasing closely behind him. Enemy support must have arrived soon.
He felt that with the remaining three battalions fighting in the field outside the city, they had little chance of winning.
"It's too late to enter the city."
Zhang Yingchang heard what he meant, but did not agree. He only said: "The thieves have many people and horses, and they can run faster than us. What's more, our front line is newly defeated. If we encounter an interception on the road at night, the army will be overtaken and lost."
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"I have passed on the information to Ningxia, but there is probably no hope there. Instead, I am asking for help from the rear guard. Maybe rescue will come tomorrow."
At this moment, the faint sound of whimpering horns came from the south.
At night, among the bonfires set up by the Ming army on the Qinqu beach, the shadows of the cavalry stretched and twisted under the firelight swaying in the wind.
Gunfire flickered in the dark night in the distance from time to time, rang out a few times, then fell silent again, until it suddenly sounded again, suddenly far away and now close.
It is not difficult to imagine that there are some terrible things hidden in the dark night. You beat me back, you chase me and surround me, step by step, fighting for your life.
The pursuers of the Marshal's army are coming.
Until the sound of clanging gold bells in the camp could be heard far away in the cold wasteland at night.
Zhang Yingchang said: "There is no need to chase."
One's own family knows one's own affairs.
His military skills are not as good as others, and his troops are not as strong as others. They cannot cover the battlefield during the day, and fighting in the dark at night will only waste their lives.
Ever since He Huchen, the commander-in-chief of Ningxia, defeated Huanglong Mountain, they have been defeated one after another. Where can the Ming army in the northwest still have serious Tangqi troops?
Zhang Yingchang only had a few reconnaissance horses that he had collected in a hurry. Some of them didn't even have the flags of the Tang soldiers, and those who were issued with the Tang flags couldn't fly flags. The flags were just decorations.
The scattered regular cavalry is useless against the Tangqi who cooperate well in the pursuit; the cavalry can't cover the battlefield if they gather together, let alone catch up with the Tangqi.
If he really catches up, he will either be surrounded by Tang soldiers or be led into an ambush circle.
It makes no sense.
Not far away, under the night, there was a temporary pile of earth filled with sand and gravel in grain bags. Ma Ke looked at the Ming army camp with a telescope, his face showed no fear.
"They're lucky!"
Hurrying slowly, he chased all the way here. Seeing the favorable location and huge camp, Ma Ke knew that he could not capture Zhang Yingchang's camp.
The reason why he pursued slower was because he had surrendered a lot of troops.
Not counting those who died in battle and fled, Xiang Xiyin's camp left more than 900 surrendered troops on the battlefield, of which more than 800 were wounded.
More than 300 people who were fine and had minor injuries were organized by Ma Ke on the spot, and marched together. He left more than 500 wounded soldiers on the battlefield and sent a message to General Ah Liu of the rear reinforcement battalion to receive them.
The classification of minor and serious injuries in the Marshal's Mansion was born out of the battlefield, so the judgment method is relatively rough, using only two standards.
The first is to look at treatment. For example, if you get a horse's hoof and cause a broken limb, or a large wound that bleeds after being stabbed a few times, you can clean it up without dying, or you can still fight after the injury is healed. These injuries are called minor injuries.
If you leave it alone, the person will be gone in a while, or if there is still irrecoverable disability or sequelae after the best treatment and recovery, and the loss of the ability to participate in combat, it is called a serious injury.
It wasn't that Marco was greedy for credit and ignored the wounded soldiers, but that his military surgeons simply did not have the ability to treat a large number of seriously wounded soldiers.
The Marshal's Mansion was originally short of military doctors and medicines. Their army expanded too fast. Originally, only the general camp had a military medical brigade. After the garrison brigade was reorganized, each brigade only had a military medical brigade in the general military camp.
During the war, a ranger battalion like Mako was only assigned two medical officers, two physicians and twelve army doctors, half of whom were veterinarians.
In the Marshal's Mansion, where there were many horses and livestock, in addition to a fixed pox doctor and internal medicine physician, the remaining doctors who only studied surgery also had to study veterinary medicine, so they were generally not good at academics, but they were rich in experience.
In a battlefield environment with limited resources, although it is not written in the military medical manual, unless there are special circumstances, they usually do not give medicine to seriously injured soldiers.
If there is surgical value, we will do an operation. If it is not, we will forget about it. If it is too painful, we will give it away with a knife.
Even when it comes to bandaging, military doctors provide guidance, allowing lightly wounded soldiers to tear off their clothes and boil water for disinfection, and bandage other wounded soldiers.
The battlefield is a makeshift one. There are usually too many medicines and medical tools to use, but when there is a big battle, there is always a shortage.
In the face of war, preparation is never enough.
After collecting the surrendered troops, Ma Ke knew the enemy's generals, generals at all levels and the strength of the troops. While passing the news to the rear, he continued to pursue the enemy with the Tang soldiers.
He knew that there were still 10,000 enemy troops ahead, and he also knew that in the event of a real fight, if each of these 10,000 people punched him, he would be able to crush this guerrilla camp of less than 2,000 people.
But Marco was not afraid.
This fearlessness is not based on courage.
When you are a top soldier, in charge of a team or even a general manager, courage and force are very important.
But above the general level, military problems require management, technology, intuition, experience, collaboration, decision-making and execution to solve.
It was intelligence from the rear that let Ma Ke know that the friendly forces had spread out after leaving the border and that the plains in the south of Lingzhou had been occupied. His flanks were very safe and he could safely and boldly lead his troops forward.
They control the battlefield and have a lot of room for tactical choices.
It was just another armed reconnaissance. Ma Ke had to admit that his actions were still a little slow. He was not lucky enough to achieve the unparalleled feat of defeating the fourth battalion of Zhang Yingchang's right town with one battalion.
Although the vision at night was poor, Marco could still roughly see the layout of the Ming army. This was because the Ming army lit bonfires every few dozen steps on the beach outside the camp in order to prepare for attacks.
Jinyintan is a triangular river beach separated by two east-west Qin canals flowing from north to south. It is five or six miles wide from east to west, eighty nine miles long from north to south, and wide from south to north.
The riverbank is covered with fertile irrigated fields, mixed with several villages.
Through the location of the bonfire on the tidal flat, Ma Ke could basically determine that the Ming army set up camp in the middle of the tidal flat.
Because there are fixed ways to prepare for night attacks, all the Ming army had learned them, and Ma Ke was no exception.
Behind those bonfires is the watchtower. There are always scouts named "Wangzi" on the watchtower. They are all soldiers with excellent eyesight. There is a building within a hundred paces.
There were bunks downstairs, and a few soldiers called "Tingzi" were specially selected. The requirement was that the soldiers who had trouble sleeping, in fact, had neurasthenia, gathered in the tent, and were equipped with a hollow gourd pillow made of wild boar hard skin, which could detect sounds.
The sound of large groups of people moving in the distance.
The location of this camp was chosen cunningly. Zhang Yingchang left two to three miles of open space around the tidal flat, which was obviously his preparation for defense against the artillery of the Marshal's Army.
This distance determined that all field artillery had to cross the river if they wanted to bombard his camp with level fire.
However, heavy artillery, chariots and horses risk being attacked when they cross the river.
This kind of terrain that is easy to get in and difficult to get out of is called hanging ground in the art of war.
Sun Wu's suggestion is that in such terrain, you should take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness and attack with an assault to win. If you are already prepared, you can't win with an attack, and it will be difficult to return to the enemy, which is disadvantageous.
The terrain that is unfavorable for deploying the troops and the enemy's troops is also unfavorable for deploying troops, so it becomes a support area. Sun Wu suggested leading the army to pretend to retreat, luring the enemy to attack halfway before returning to counterattack, so that the disadvantage can be turned into an advantage.
Therefore, Ma Ke did not act rashly, but ordered the cavalry to go north along the two Qin Canals in the east and west, completely cutting off the Ming army's camp from the outside world.
It was almost midnight at this time. Li Fengji, Ma Ke's general, wanted to camp nearby, but Ma Ke used the excuse that it would be warm to sleep in private courtyards, so he lured the army to march five miles southwest at night and garrisoned the Baihu Residence abandoned by the Ming army.
and residential buildings.
As a result, the courtyard was not enough to live in, and most of the walls of the 100-household residence were crumbled, and there was a lot of draft. Many people ended up setting up tents in the wild to spend the uncomfortable night.
In fact, Marco knew that the houses here were not enough to live in, and his purpose was not to worry about the soldiers sleeping in the wild and freezing.
The marshal's army has a very strong ability to keep warm. They set up tents in the wild and may be warmer than the Ming army who built a camp on Jinyintan.
After all, the campground is also leaky.
He was afraid that the Ming army would come out to attack at night. After a day and night of fighting, many horses were so tired that they had to lie down to sleep instead of standing up, let alone people.
Marco felt that he could no longer force the soldiers to march at night, so he allowed the troops to march another five miles on the grounds that the fortress walls blocked the wind.
After all, if he was worried about night attacks, not to mention the soldiers, even his two subordinates, Li Fengji and Wen Lianggai, were so tired that they just wanted to sleep.
Those two guys opened their mouths and slept for an hour. As long as they slept for an hour, they could mount their horses and fight the enemy.
But everyone can brag. As for them, they could fall asleep even if they touched the ground. If the Ming army really came out and slashed their necks with knives, they would not be able to get up.
In fact, Zhang Yingchang did send troops out at night.
But because they didn't control the battlefield, they didn't dare to run around. They just sent the cavalry to run out for six or seven miles from the four directions of southeast, northwest, and after looking around, they found no one and then went back.
The order was for ten miles, but no one dared to run far enough. Once they were able to fool people, they would go back and resume their lives.
Until the next morning.
First, the cavalry from the Qi Barracks led by Ouyang Gun, deputy commander-in-chief of the Second Brigade, arrived at the outskirts of Jinyintan on their horses, puffing out their breath.
At the same time, Zhang Yingchang's army began to dig trenches in the south of Jinyintan, trying to connect the two Qin Canals that were separated in the south to serve as a moat.
During this process, the Xifan musketeers from the reinforcement battalion commander A Liubiao also arrived on the battlefield. They numbered more than a thousand people and did two things throughout the morning, which greatly reduced the morale of Zhang Yingchang's Youzhen Ningxia Army.
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First, they buried gunpowder and blew up the stone bridges on both sides of the Qinqu Canal. Second, they were one mile away from the Ming army digging trenches on the south side of Jinyintan and began to build a wall against them.
The idea came from Zhang Xianzhong.
Regarding Ma Ke's suggestion of luring the enemy, the Minister of Li Ya said that this deception was too rude.
They, the outstanding generals of the Marshal's Mansion, should learn from the Marshal's fine style and noble moral character and respect the enemy's choice.
If people don’t want to come out, why do you have to lure them out?
The Marshal has the beauty of a man. Let's blow up the bridge first, then build it with a wall and seal it shut.
Not only do walls need to be built on the plains in the south, but also on the east, west, north, and west sides of the Qin Canal, five-foot-high and five-foot-thick earthen walls of sheep and horses must be built along the river banks. Whoever comes out will be the bastard.
The Ningxia rearguard did not live up to Zhang Yingchang's ardent expectations. Zhao Huaizheng, the military general appointed by Hong Chengchou earlier, was leading troops to the west for reinforcements.
However, they were only halfway through when they were intercepted by the Yanqing Brigade's deputy general Ding Guodong who sent troops from Qingtongxia in Huan County. The two sides started fighting on the same day.
On the other side, Liu Chengzong, who was stationed in Hongsibao, also received frontline intelligence. He looked through Ma Ke's report and learned that Ningxia had sent out the general troops of three towns, and that one-third of the troops were surrounded by Ren Quan'er at Jinyintan.
Similar to Zhang Xianzhong's reaction, when faced with Ma Ke's description of the terrain of Jinyintan and Zhang Yingchang's camp defense description and attack suggestions, he also did not choose to lure the enemy.
"Go back and tell General Ren and General Ma that there is nothing to tempt. Don't repair Zhang Butang's broken wall. He has no connections in Yingchang and he doesn't know Bai Guangen."
Times have changed.
Liu Chengzong waved his command arrow and handed it to Yu Linqi: "Ask Zhang Butang to send people to persuade him to surrender. If he surrenders, he will surrender. If he doesn't surrender, he will wait for rockets to be sent to blow him up...How many lives will he have to camp if he dares to camp like this?"