"My sons, follow this commander's horse to the camp and capture Li Chuang alive!"
Wu Sangui was also covered in blood, waving a long knife and screaming in excitement.
Outside the camp, the intruder army had only managed to gather 30,000 people out of the camp to form a formation, and the others were still forming troops in the camp.
There was no way, Wu Sangui arrived too quickly. It took less than two-quarters of an hour from the time he scouted the horse to report the news to the time the cavalry arrived at the camp.
In such a short period of time, let alone a breakout army, no matter how strictly disciplined the troops are, it is impossible to assemble hundreds of thousands of troops into formation.
In fact, Li Zicheng made a fatal mistake. He should not have allowed Li Guo to lead his cavalry to intercept them head-on. Instead, he should have allowed Li Guo to lead his cavalry to occupy the high ground on the west side.
In this case, Wu Sangui would not dare to charge the camp directly, but would first deal with Li Guo's cavalry, thus buying some time for the infantry.
At worst, it would force Wu Sangui to divide his troops, instead of like now. Not only did he fail to block Wu Sangui's Guan Ning cavalry, but he lost nearly 10,000 cavalry in vain.
There are over ten thousand cavalry, and there are no borders.
At this moment, looking at the overwhelming cavalry coming towards them, the more than 30,000 rebels who had gathered in a hurry instantly collapsed and fled in all directions.
They even fled with the people in the camp, and they were truly defeated.
"Your Majesty, the situation is completely out of control, you'd better retreat quickly!"
"Quick! Tie the two prime ministers to their horses and follow me back to the South Camp. We will assemble the army and fight again!"
If ordinary people saw that their hundreds of thousands of troops were herding sheep all at once, they would definitely be frightened.
But for Li Zicheng, this kind of overwhelming defeat was a common occurrence and he had long been used to it.
So he also knew how to deal with it. He got on his horse almost immediately, not forgetting to take the two prime ministers with him, and then fled southward surrounded by his personal guards.
Little did he know that Wu Sangui was also accustomed to this kind of scene, or perhaps the entire Ming army generals were accustomed to it.
In the past, when the Ming army dealt with the refugee army, it was usually the generals who led the elite servants. No matter how many thieves there were, they would directly capture the thieves and capture the king, and bite the leader and not let him go.
At the beginning, the refugee army had poor equipment and did not have many cavalry. In the field battle, it was impossible to stop the fierce generals of the Ming army. No matter how many people there were, they had no choice but to run away for the sake of their own lives.
As soon as the leader ran away, the others naturally dispersed as well.
This is also the reason why, eleven years before Chongzhen, the refugee army had been suppressed and beaten, often as fierce as a tiger. Cao Bianjiao and others, with two or three thousand elite cavalry, were able to defeat hundreds of thousands of rebel troops.
It was not until the Ming army's elite cavalry was defeated and the rebel army continued to grow that this situation changed.
So as soon as the enemy army collapsed, Wu Sangui was looking for the big fish, and at a glance he spotted Li Zicheng and others who had escaped.
Almost without hesitation, he led his three thousand servants to pursue him and left the battlefield under the command of his fourth brother Wu Sanfu.
Wu Sangui's three thousand servants are the real elites of Guan Ning's cavalry. Not only do they all wear fine armor, they are also skilled in equestrian skills, and they can also ride and shoot.
Each man is equipped with two good horses, and only these three thousand people can truly rival the Eight Banners and dare to compete with the Eight Banners cavalry in a field battle.
Likewise, these three thousand servants are also Wu Sangui's greatest confidence. With three thousand servants in hand, even if the enemy has millions of soldiers, Wu Sangui can still dare to attack him for several rounds.
This was the case at this moment. Wu Sangui and his servants were able to move freely among the rebellious army, cutting off King Chuang's retreat to the southern camp, forcing him to continue fleeing south.
Later, as the chase got closer and closer, all the banners with the word "Chuang" and the bright yellow cloak were thrown away, but they still could not escape Wu Sangui's pursuit.
But here Wu Sanfu began to drive the broken troops to attack the South Camp, just like herding sheep.
You have to run away wherever you want to go. Lying on the ground and pretending to be dead will cause you to be trampled to death.
Those who run slowly and fall behind often have their heads hit the ground before they even react.
Therefore, countless defeated troops scrambled to flee southward, no one wanted to be left behind. They wanted to take off their weapons, armor, and even their clothes.
The south camp of the invading army was also unblocked. Once it was attacked by the defeated troops, the cavalry took advantage of the situation and killed them. The 200,000 troops also could not escape the fate of being defeated.
Some generals and leaders of the Chuang army saw that the situation was not good, and the life and death of King Chuang and his old man were also uncertain. They got on their horses and fled southward with their henchmen.
But after all, not everyone has a horse to ride.
More than 10,000 cavalry charged and killed them, leaving rivers of blood and corpses strewn across the field. Only then did Wu Sanfu rest for a while.
Then they surrounded tens of thousands of broken soldiers. After gathering them, they followed the gourd's instructions and drove them leisurely towards the east camp, but ignored the other broken soldiers.
By this time, Liu Fangliang had already fled back to Dongdaying.
The number of troops he brought to the battle last night was at least 20,000, so there are still 80,000 troops in the camp.
Back at the main camp, I didn't even have time to take a sip of water when I heard that the southern camp collapsed, and the Ming army drove the defeated troops to kill.
"Oh! I regret that I didn't listen to the military advisor!"
Liu Fangliang felt extremely regretful while hammering the case.
At the beginning, Li Yan suggested that each camp should build some horse-repelling stakes and dig a trench around the perimeter. But at the time, everyone thought it was unnecessary and were too lazy to listen. But now they are reaping the consequences.
If there was just a horse-repelling stake outside the camp now, he would not be afraid of the attack of the defeated troops, or even to collect the defeated troops. After all, the opponents were all cavalry and had no infantry.
"Commander, what should we do? Are we preparing for war or...?"
Everyone looked at Liu Fangliang and completely lost their sense of proportion.
"Prepare for a bloody battle, send the order, and the army will retreat to Tongzhou immediately!"
Liu Fangliang stood up quickly and said in a hateful voice.
Even though Nanda Camp had taken away 100,000 men last night, it still had 200,000 left, which could not withstand the impact of broken troops and cavalry, not to mention his 80,000 men. The only option was to take advantage of the opponent's attack.
, run away as fast as you can.
Immediately, 80,000 people lost almost all their supplies and rushed towards Tongzhou desperately, without any formation at all.
As soon as they escaped here, it didn't take long for Wu Sanfu to know about it. He immediately abandoned his defeated troops and led the cavalry to pursue them.
It really takes full advantage of the cavalry.
Seeing that the cavalry had finally left, the 50,000 to 60,000 driven troops immediately collapsed to the ground and refused to move.
It was obvious that he was mentally exhausted to the extreme.
"Zhou Aiqing, hurry up, send people to capture the surrender and clean up the battlefield."
Zhu Cixiang had been paying attention to the fighting outside the city, and he was very excited when he saw that Wu Sangui and Guan Ning's cavalry had arrived in time, and that the invading army was completely defeated.
But apart from being excited, he was also shocked. Wu Sangui had only 20,000 cavalry, but he directly killed the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Chuang Army and completely collapsed. So what would he do if the Eight Banners had hundreds of thousands of cavalry?
At this moment, Zhu Cixi finally realized the power and great role of ancient cavalry.
There is no comparison between infantry and firearms.
Because only cavalry can expand the results of the battle infinitely.
Only then could he defeat three major battalions and defeat hundreds of thousands of enemies in one day.
Zhou Yuji naturally understood that the defeated troops were exhausted and there was no threat at all, so he immediately led his men to kill them, obviously he was well prepared.
Sure enough, when the defeated soldiers saw someone coming out of the city, they didn't care how many people they were. After discovering that they were all infantry, those who still had the strength got up and fled southward. Those who couldn't run anymore knelt on the ground.
In the end, more than 30,000 people were captured.
There is no way, it is too difficult for infantry to capture prisoners.
If these broken troops had not been exhausted by the cavalry, I am afraid that even 30,000 people would not be able to catch them.
After all, the capital city is surrounded by endless open spaces.
