When Li Rusong defeated Dong Hu, his father Li Chengliang was about to face a big battle.
However, compared to Li Rusong who sneaked into the enemy camp, Li Chengliang's battle was a sniper battle.
Su Bahai took the main force of Taining's 20,000-strong cavalry to the southwest. He originally planned to join forces with Dong Hu. However, because of Li Chengliang's previous "feint", he moved in a different direction from his marching route.
After Zhisu Bahai had already moved south, he temporarily adjusted his deployment and turned around to intercept Suba Hai.
This was Li Chengliang's unit. No other unit of the Ming army could have made such a decision - to pursue the Mongolian cavalry. How confident this was.
Of course, it is not that no one dares to block the Mongolian cavalry and fight, nor does it mean that someone else would not be able to win. The biggest problem is that they cannot catch up.
There is probably no other general in the Ming Dynasty who can confidently catch up with the Mongolian cavalry except Li Chengliang. After all, Ma Fang and Malan Xi, who proposed "cavalry to control cavalry", have retired and become official. Now the cavalry can only rely on Li Chengliang.
It's a one-man show.
In fact, if the highly pragmatic knights could gather together, they would have such strength. After all... he has money.
The manifestation of their ability is that the Gao family's cavalry are not only good at horses, but also have high remuneration and strict requirements. So if Gao Jingjing wants to do this kind of thing, he can actually do it, but Gao Jingjing cannot gather his cavalry together -
- He is not a minister or general. What does he want to do with nearly 20,000 cavalry gathered together? Even if the emperor does not doubt him, he cannot commit suicide by himself.
Besides, these cavalrymen are also scattered. The thousands of miles of border trade routes from Kaiping to Gansu and Beijing are all relying on cavalrymen to control the market. Although the face I answered before is effective, it is for the Mongolian official face.
For the tribes on the road, it has no effect on the horse bandits on the road.
Carefully maintaining this "speed" is something Gao Pragmatic has always paid attention to. Otherwise, how could he only bring 3,000 cavalry this time? With his financial resources, couldn't he bring 10,000 cavalry?
Li Chengliang's retainers are different from Gao Pragmatic. The Liaodong Army has hundreds of thousands of troops on its books. He mainly uses the money to raise these hundreds of thousands of soldiers to support his nearly 40,000 retainers and cavalry (not all of these cavalry belong to him).
(We will talk about this in detail later)), the treatment of this cavalry will naturally improve, and they will naturally work harder in combat.
The reason why Li Chengliang's tribe dared to chase Su Bahai at a faster speed actually lies in the word "money". Because Su Bahai's Taining tribe had limited financial resources, they would not usually feed the horses with fine materials, so
He must consider the problem of horse losing weight.
Relatively speaking, Li Chengliang was not as worried about this as Su Bahai, because the so-called concentrate generally refers to feeding soybeans - in later generations, it means supplementing high-quality, large-dose protein to promote muscle growth in horses.
Of course, those with more money, such as Gao Pragmatic, can even add eggs directly to the soybeans, which will have a more powerful effect.
It’s basically a dream to add soybeans and eggs so quickly. Except for some Mongolian noble leaders who can give their horses such extravagant meals, it is impossible for ordinary cavalry to do this. Otherwise, as long as a month’s war, it will be enough.
It can destroy Subahai.
Li Chengliang encircled a large amount of land in Liaodong, and most of the "book soldiers" under his command who could not fight went to farm. The supply of soybeans was obviously much more abundant than that of Subahai, and this battle was regarded by him as a way to draw closer
In an important battle with Gao Pangshi, a close minister of the emperor and future auxiliary minister, he naturally did not hesitate to temporarily lose his horsepower.
If a horse loses weight, it will lose weight. As long as it doesn't run away and become useless, it will still be active and vigorous after being raised for a few months.
But it was faster. After all, there was a premise of "not running away", so Li Chengliang's troops only caught up with Su Bahai near Xingzhong by the Daling River.
Xingzhong is the Chaoyang City of Liaoning Province in later generations. This place has a nickname that is much more famous than "Xingzhong" and "Chaoyang" - Longcheng.
Of course, there is a lot of controversy over where the Dragon City in Wang Changling's famous sentence "But the flying generals in Dragon City are" is. It is hard to say whether it is the "Dragon City" in Xingzhong. I can only say that it is possible.
Su Bahai learned that Li Chengliang's troops only had about 15,000 troops, but he pursued them here with great ferocity. He couldn't help but smile up to the sky and said to the people around him: "Li Chengliang, in the past, used to rely on the strength of his armored troops to rush into Mongolia."
The pastures of man are rampant, and I thought this man could at least be considered a hero among the Han people, but I didn’t want him to die by himself today!”
He sneered and said: "Li Chengliang is the commander-in-chief of Liaodong. He also exchanged the heads of our Mongolian warriors for the title of Ning Yuanbo. He is the sworn enemy of our Mongolian warriors. Now that there is an opportunity today, who is willing to do it for me?"
Pioneer, go get his head?"
His general, Mandu Ratu, clapped his horse and shouted: "Great Khan, my subordinates are willing to go!"
Subahai was certainly not a great khan, but there were a lot of various khans in Mongolia at this time. His direct subordinates called him this, which can also be seen as learning new routines from the Han people.
Su Bahai was overjoyed and said: "Okay, Mandu Latu, you are indeed a rare warrior, but Li Chengliang is not an ordinary person after all. In addition to your own three thousand cavalry, I will give you another two thousand people, no matter what.
You can go around the camp and shoot, or you can attack the enemy, or you can charge into the formation. I only want you to guarantee one thing, and that is to mobilize Li Chengliang and let him attack in person!"
Mandu Ratu was full of confidence and patted his chest and said: "Don't worry, Great Khan, I will not only force him to attack personally, but I will also take his head as a gift and give it to the Great Khan!"
Su Bahai laughed loudly, rode up to him, patted his shoulder, and said: "Fight this battle well. If you win, you will get 30% of the supplies robbed east of Shanhaiguan this time!"
Mandu Latu was overjoyed and hurriedly thanked him. Then he took his own headquarters and the 2,000 cavalry transferred to him by Hai Hai quickly. A total of 5,000 Mongolian cavalry went straight to Li Chengliang.
The current terrain is like this. To the south is the Daling River. Subahai's headquarters and Li Chengliang's headquarters are both to the north of the Daling River. Subahai is to the west and Li Chengliang is to the east.
This means that even if Mandu Ratu attacks, it cannot make a full circle. If it cannot make a full circle, it will be very troublesome if it has to turn around halfway, especially if the opponent is also a cavalry, it can be easily cut off——
Just like Chatterji cut off Namur.
Qataiji can cut off Namur, and Li Chengliang's cavalry may not be able to do so. Mandu Latu obviously has more war experience than Namur, so he does not plan to fight like this.
He chose to approach and shoot first.
If Li Chengliang remains unmoved, he will change to charge into the formation; if Li Chengliang moves, he will change to Manguya, retreating and shooting at the same time.
This idea seems good. From a broad perspective, Li Chengliang's actions have only two choices: move or stay still, and he has made response plans for both options.
But what Mandu Latu did not expect was that Li Chengliang did not intend to wait for Mandu Latu to show his resourcefulness. Li Chengliang's habit was: I don't care what you think, I will fight however I want, and I have to fight first.
.
Therefore, an unexpected scene happened. The five thousand men from Mandu Latu had just stepped out of the battle, and Li Chengliang's army moved forward without saying a word, and divided into two groups.
It seems that the main force along the way should be Li Chengliang's main force, carrying a sufficiently conspicuous banner with the word "Ning Yuan Bo Zuo Dudu Liaodong General Military Officer Li", which should be the so-called regular soldiers; the other way is about four to five thousand people on the right wing, coming in a circle to the north
, this is a surprise weapon.
It seemed that Li Chengliang had no intention of waiting for Mandu Latu to launch any kind of encirclement attack, because he sent people to block the way for the encirclement attack first.
Mandu Latu was furious. He could see that Li Chengliang's intention was to force him to charge into the formation. The inner meaning of this move was that Li Chengliang was not afraid of him at all and was even waiting for him to charge into the formation.
Not far away, Su Banghai squinted his eyes and stared at Li Chengliang's arrangement in front of him, and suddenly sneered.
The people on the left and right asked him why he was laughing, and Su Bahai sneered: "I laugh at Li Chengliang. He only won a few games, but he dared not take my Mongolian warriors to heart, and actually wanted to eat the five thousand elite cavalry of Mandu Latu in one fell swoop...
...You are really overestimating your capabilities. Is this Khan a dead man and will you watch him surround Mandu Latu?"
The people on the left and right laughed and praised the Great Khan for his wisdom and martial prowess, and Li Chengliang's clown jumping off the beam.
He quickly said, "Send the order. When Li Chengliang's two troops surround Mandu Latu, I will directly press on with my army. This time I will definitely wipe out the scourge of Li Chengliang!"
Everyone agreed with a roar, as if they had seen the "scourge of Liaodong" Li Chengliang died on the spot, and couldn't help but look happy on their faces.
The cavalry was dispatched at an extremely fast speed. As he spoke, Li Chengliang's main force, the main force, had already begun to increase the speed of its horses. It seemed that they were going to rush into the formation and directly confront Mandu Latu.
Mandu Latu also began to speed up, but when they were about sixty steps closer to Li Chengliang's men, they still had time to shoot an arrow forward, then neatly hung up their bows and changed their swords, preparing to fight.
There were also some cavalrymen under Li Chengliang who shot an arrow first, but they only accounted for about 30% of them. From the looks of it, they should all be Mongolians or naturalized Mongolians.
In this case, although Mandu Latu's troops were not superior in the first round of arrows, the effect was slightly superior. Li Chengliang captured more than 20 horses, while he only captured more than a dozen, making a profit of nearly ten people.
However, Li Chengliang, who was rushing at the front, didn't even look at him. He continued to rush forward, increasing his horse speed to a level suitable for charging into the formation.
Mandu Latu did not take this round of arrow rain as a big deal, but he felt a little proud - when it comes to shooting arrows right away, my Mongolian warriors are invincible.
He didn't realize that because Li Chengliang's cavalry wore armor, most of the cavalry who fell off their horses were because their horses were shot. Although the cavalry who fell off their horses were badly beaten, they were experienced and rolled on the spot.
In terms of casualties, they are really not big.
Cavalry versus cavalry, the Mongols actually don't like to charge into formation, and they charge into each other's formation, so it happened.
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