stubborn thief

Chapter 630 Lure the enemy into a field battle

The Ming army only stayed in Weinan for one day.

Li Guozheng, Liu Jinjue, Zhang Jizai, Sun Shoufa and other generals were invited by the Nan family the first night to accompany Nan Zhongqi and Nan Juyi, the uncle and nephew of the minister, to discuss military affairs.

Everyone discussed using Weinan as a stronghold. If they advance, they can break the siege of Xi'an Fucheng, and if they retreat, they can defend the fortified city in order to maintain a long-term confrontation.

At the same time, the gentry of Weinan County were mobilized, requiring them to recruit troops, strengthen city defenses, purchase ordnance, and provide food and grass.

The discussion was very lively, with Nan Zhongqi and Nan Juyi, two high-ranking ministers, taking the lead. From the generals to the gentry, everyone was extremely active. It seemed that the great cause of Xingyi Division's fight against Bu Dao was just around the corner.

As a result, as soon as they opened their eyes the next morning, before the generals had time to assign tasks, they suddenly heard the alarm. The 1,300 Han He camp soldiers of the Li State Department stationed outside the Xiguan moat were surrounded.

Coming were Liu Chengzong and a thousand Mongolian cavalry led by Xie Erhu.

They galloped all night and arrived at the zero point outside Xiguan in Weinan before dawn. After a short rest to recuperate their power, they immediately ordered Xie Erhu to lead his troops into the formation and built three camps. Li Guozheng was shot to death on the spot.

Hundreds of defeated soldiers swam across the moat, and the three thousand troops of Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai stationed in the east of the river trampled on each other.

Both of them are from Hancheng.

As a local magistrate, Zuo Maodi's primary mission is to be responsible for the local area, so he has a heavy ideological burden.

But Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai are different as military generals. Military men are born for war.

As Chen Qiyu's message was passed on by Zuo Maodi, the army swept across Weibei. The two generals had no position to stay in the safe city, so they led dozens of servants and recruited troops along the way to join the war.

It's just that... they are not familiar with their own soldiers.

The soldiers were all landlord regiment training and rural soldiers from surrounding Zichuan, Heyang, Baishui, Chengcheng and other places.

Whether they are a mob or an ant army, it does not mean that the quality of their soldiers is not good. In fact, by this point in the war in Shaanxi, fighting has become common sense.

Regardless of officials, thieves, or civilians, everyone can march in line and use weapons.

However, the complicated background of soldiers, lack of familiarity with officers, and complicated food and salary supply will lead to a lack of prestige in generals and inability to give soldiers confidence in war. At the same time, the entire army also lacks organizational capabilities.

As soon as they woke up and rushed to the battle, everyone was trembling, panicked and confused. Not to mention fighting across the river, Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai spent a long time finding their subordinate officers.

This made the two of them terrified of the situation.

That is to say, Liu Chengzong did not send his troops to cross the river, otherwise a single attack would defeat them and scatter them.

The two men gathered their troops and calmed their morale. At this moment, the marshal's army on the other side of the moat sent a letter urging them to surrender, making them realize that Liu Chengzong was here in person.

Then the two of them found the problem based on the current situation.

Liu Chengzong didn't seem to be here to fight, but more like he was fighting.

The Mongolian soldiers under his command looked sleepy and tired. Even the men and horses were stunned. On the other side, they overthrew Li Guozheng's Han He camp soldiers in one fell swoop. They relied on their galloping momentum. At this time, they had no intention of crossing the river to pursue them. .

Soldiers and horses were spreading out in twos and threes in the western suburbs. Those who needed to eat grass ate and those who needed to rest rested. Some even took off their alms bowls and boiled hot water. There was no trace of the wolves and tigers they had just charged into the formation. .

They both thought that the enemy army was tired, but our army was waiting for work, and with more strikes and fewer strikes, the battle across the river might not be impossible to win. If Liu Chengzong could be captured in one battle, wouldn't it be... that he would be promoted to an official rank just around the corner?

In Weinan City, Nan Juyi, who was nearly seventy years old, was letting his servants carry the sedan towards the city wall.

The battle in the western suburbs progressed too quickly. He received news in the city. As soon as he packed up his sedan chair, he heard that Li Guozheng had been shot to death outside the city. The 1,300 soldiers of the Sanzhai Hanhe Camp stationed on the west bank of the moat also Most of them were killed or wounded.

Nan Juyi, who was shocked to hear the bad news, hurriedly climbed up the city wall and looked at the situation outside the city with his dim eyes. He became anxious at the first sight.

Nan Juyi is not a little old man who doesn't understand anything.

When he was the governor of Fujian, he personally supervised thousands of troops, besieged and blew up the red fort built by the Dutch in Penghu across the sea, and was very familiar with muskets, artillery, warships and even the relationship between pirates and colonists in Southeast Asia.

In the first year of Chongzhen, he served as Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs and Governor Cangchang. That year, the court repaid part of the arrears, which was to withhold 300,000 Shaanxi taxes and pay at his suggestion.

Later, during the Jisi Incident, he was in Tongzhou and formulated very perfect defense methods. At that time, Zhang Fengxiang, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, was imprisoned because of insufficient ordnance preparations, so the emperor asked him to take over as the Minister of the Ministry of Industry.

In the end, because he said good things to save people, the angry Lord Chongzhen dismissed him from office and served the people. It was not until the time of Xu Shou Tongzhou Gong that Chongzhen's anger subsided and his official status was restored.

However, Nan Juyi is getting older now and has been living in his hometown.

This time Liu Chengzong led his troops to the east, Nan Juyi actually did not want to let the Nan family get involved in this muddy water.

When he served in the Ministry of Household Affairs, he was most aware of the grievances between Shaanxi rebels like Liu Chengzong and the imperial court. If he had not submitted a report to withhold 300,000 yuan in taxes from Qin, the Shaanxi rebellion would have been advanced by another year.

Secondly, Liu Chengzong did not come down from northern Shaanxi to start a small fight. If he were the bandits who came down from northern Shaanxi earlier, they would just fight and it would be useless.

Now that the Marshal's Mansion has captured Gansu, Qinghai and even Longxi, and the Eastern Expedition has entered Guanzhong, Nan Juyi is emotionally unwilling to see the tug of war between the Ming court and the Marshal's Mansion in Guanzhong.

From Nan Juyi's point of view, in this period of rampant natural disasters and continuous chaos, if there is a decent regime that can restore the vitality of the northwest, it is not actually the worst outcome.

The most important aspect is that Wei Qian'er and Zhang Tianlin led their troops to cross the border one after another earlier. Nan Juyi stood on the city and saw the two most elite battalions of the Marshal's Mansion.

Those two battalions were well-equipped, and just by marching and setting up camp at a distance, you could tell that they were well-trained, and they were definitely beyond the capabilities of ordinary armies.

What's more, the whole battalion is equipped with armored horsemen and chariots, and also carries light and heavy muskets and light and heavy red cannon.

In Nan Juyi's eyes, if this kind of troops were on the imperial court's side, even if there was only one division, they could serve as the leading division for the most elite troops. They only needed to cast some artillery, which would be enough to defend Weinan until the end of the world.

But now, a force like this, with two large battalions and ten thousand soldiers and horses, passed through Weinan and headed for Tongguan like a joke.

Nan Juyi believed that this was an invincible opponent.

However, the Nan family had too many properties and fields, and Liu Chengzong's land redemption policy frightened the clan members.

If no one in Weibei raised troops, Nan Juyi could still persuade the tribe to stay. But now that Weibei has raised troops, people regard this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it is inevitable that the war will come to Nan's head.

City head.

The younger generations who were calling for war were frightened to the point of losing their minds and turning pale as they looked at the Mongolian cavalry wandering outside the city and the corpses of Han He's camp that were defeated lying in the fields.

On the contrary, Nan Juyi's face showed uncontrollable joy.

He murmured: "Okay, okay, okay!"

He was afraid that elite troops like Zhang Tianlin and Wei Qian'er were coming again, but he felt relieved when he saw the Mongolian cavalry in groups outside the city.

After all, although the Mongolian cavalry can run fast and be good at charging and fighting, they do not carry heavy artillery, so it is very difficult to deal with the city.

But immediately afterwards, Nan Juyi's doubts emerged: "Why don't the camps under the city cross the river to pursue them?"

Scattered Mongolian soldiers are scattered on the plains. Isn't this a good opportunity to pursue them?

But the officers and soldiers outside the city did not pursue him.

At this moment, he was about to send someone down to the city to remind him, but he heard that the defeated troops came to report that Liu Chengzong was leading troops outside the city, which made him hesitate again.

The shadow of a famous tree. Liu Chengzong has played in the northwest for six years without a single defeat. His name alone is enough to scare thousands of people into hiding in the city and pissing their pants.

Not to mention, Nan Juyi felt that Liu Chengzong came over with only a thousand Mongolian cavalry, so he must have a back-up plan, and it would be right if the generals outside the city did not take the initiative to defeat him.

At least it's safe.

However, the generals outside the city did not pursue them, not because they did not want to, but because they could not.

They did not think carefully at all, or Liu Jinjue, Zhang Jizai, and Sun Shoufa were all on the defensive. They did not have the option of retreating due to their responsibilities, so they were very good at fighting.

The three of them had the same plan, to appease the soldiers and prepare their troops. They beat the drums and marched immediately, led their troops across the moat, and headed west to cover up the enemy.

This sudden change made Nan Juyi slap his thigh at the top of the city.

If he didn't fight just now, he would have missed the opportunity. Now that he has rested for a while, it will be difficult to get any benefits if he pounces on him again.

Liu Chengzong, who was herding his horse on the west side of the moat, heard the sound of drums in the distance. He stood on his horse and watched the Ming army crossing the river. He clapped his hands happily on the spot: "Well done!"

Just as Nan Juyi imagined in the city.

Who is Liu Chengzong? He has been invincible since he raised his troops. He directs and fights as instinctively. Especially in local battles like this, there is no need to spend extra thought at all, let alone putting himself in danger.

The reason why he only gathered a thousand Mongolian soldiers and rushed over was because he had some eagerness to vent his anger and wanted to rush over as soon as possible to deal with the Ming army.

But more importantly, they were still afraid that the enemy would not dare to leave the city due to the large number of troops. As a result, they could not vent their anger and instead came to fight the siege on their own.

Attacking the city is not impossible, but gathering tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to attack Weinan County is not possible. It is too close to Xi'an Fucheng. If Fucheng is to besieged, Weinan must be besieged as well, which is almost equivalent to the Marshal's Mansion having to invest all its troops.

The distance between the two sides is less than a hundred miles, and tens of thousands of soldiers and horses are gathered, which can even eat away the grass roots in the ground.

What's more, Weinan is a fortified city. Thousands of defenders are defending the city. If there are more grain stores in the city, they will not be able to capture it until next spring, and it will hurt the morale of Ruhong, the commander-in-chief.

Therefore, his plan from the beginning was to use a thousand Mongolian cavalry as bait to cover and control the battlefield, lure the Ming army to fight in the field, and give the supporting troops an opportunity to calmly enter the battle.

Seeing the Ming army crossing the river, Liu Chengzong felt relieved. He waved his hand to Yu Linqi and said: "Give Brigadier Xie an order to assemble his troops and defend for a while before preparing to retreat."

At the same time, he told the other two Yulin riders: "It is said that Gao Yingdeng's troops on the west bank of the Wei River were sent to Qian Zong Tangtong, and he was ordered to cross the river to prepare to meet the enemy; on the north bank, Huben's camp Qian Zong Ma Ke led his army to march eastward from Hebei to outflank the Ming army. "

The Mongolian cavalry saw three or four thousand Ming troops crossing the river. Each brigade also blew horns one after another. They unconsciously gathered their formations, put on their clothes when they should, and mounted their horses when they needed to.

When the Ming army crossed the moat, they immediately sent out several groups of cavalry to seize the terrain, and further challenged the gathering Mongolian cavalry, compressing their movement zone and creating conditions for the follow-up infantry and gunners to form formations.

Even so, the attack that Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai had placed great hopes on still failed to work.

Xie Erhu and his Mongolian soldiers are too oily.

In addition to the standing Mongolian troops in the Mongolian battalion of the Marshal's Mansion, most of the remaining troops were recruited from the Tunmu Camp to prepare for the war, and the majority of the officers were Mongolian nobles.

This group of people is the best at judging the situation when fighting. They are brave and can fight hard, but they usually don't do this.

After all, the price of fighting is too high. There are not many herding travelers, and there are also very few cattle and sheep. If more people are killed, the cattle, sheep and horses will be gone.

Therefore, it is okay to be responsible for loitering, herding horses, reconnaissance, coloring maps, and maintaining existence on the battlefield, but it is meaningless to fight a tough battle with the Ming army.

After all, there was a gap in equipment. Except for the stupid lancers from the Heshuote Department, the other departments were not willing to go head-to-head with the Ming army in formation.

Liu Chengzong's order was basically equivalent to "getting off work" for Xie Erhu, telling him that he did not need to make any sacrifices in the subsequent part of this battle.

In this case, Xie Erhu simply let himself go, gathered his troops in formation, and looked eager to try.

When the Ming army entered the shooting range, they took out the artillery left by the Li Guomin Department of Han He's camp earlier and fired at the Ming army for a while.

Xie Erhu issued a death order and did not allow his soldiers to carry artillery when they fled.

His Mongolian soldiers liked the Ming army's artillery so much.

They didn't like the standard lion cannons and thousand-jin field cannons of the Marshal's Mansion, nor did they like the Ming army's general cannons. Those things were too heavy and slow.

I only have a soft spot for the Zhuzhu Cannon and the Small Fran Machine Cannon.

Those gadgets are magic weapons to them. They can hit them by just putting them on the ground while riding a horse. They hit fast and scatter lots of bullets. As long as the enemy is within range, they can hit them accurately. They can pick them up with a bang and run away. .

very happy.

The Ming army that rushed over was stunned. Aren't these a group of Tatars? Why are you still shooting?

When the Ming army also pushed the artillery forward, they heard whistles in the smoke, and hundreds of cavalry dispersed.

Don't break down.

When the Ming army hurriedly caught up, what greeted them was not the fleeing Mongolian cavalry, but the elite soldiers of the marshal's army wearing the same uniforms as them.

It comes from Tangtong, which crosses the bend of the Wei River in the west.

Upon discovering the arrival of support from the Marshal's Army, Liu Jinjue and Sun Shoufa, who were leading the troops, were not afraid. After all, they still had the advantage in terms of military strength.

It's just that the long guns and heavy artillery in Tang Tong's hands not only eliminated the disadvantage caused by the strength of the troops, but also blocked their offensive. There were also a large number of Mongolian cavalry to cover the flanks, constantly driving away the limited cavalry of the Ming army.

In terms of the number of cavalry alone, Xie Erhu's thousand cavalry was no less than Liu Jinjue's and Sun Shoufa's cavalry.

As the Ming cavalry was driven out of the battlefield one after another, the remaining infantry quickly wavered under the fire of carrying guns and heavy muskets.

Xie Erhu is full of energy. If he doesn't rush now, when will he wait?

He has always been able to fight against the wind.

The Mongolian brigade's light cavalry clashed in the smoke, galloped with bows drawn and fired randomly, and combined with the guns and artillery, they defeated one cavalry and three infantry head-on, causing the Ming army to collapse across the board.

But for Nan Juyi, who watched the defeat of the Ming army on the city wall, this was not despair.

The real despair comes from the north bank of the Weihe River.

Marshal's Army Huben Camp Qian Commander Ma Ke was leading nearly a thousand armored cavalry, carrying the battle flag across the river bank, cutting off the retreat of the defeated Ming army from the front and back, and spreading it out outside the city.

This scene made the gentry at the head of Weinan City look ashen!

　good evening!

　　(End of this chapter)