stubborn thief

The helmet and gun gleamed in the sunlight, his brows were lowered, and the shadow covered Mako's eyes.

He stood up outside the battle formation, turned over and squatted on the saddle, stood up again after a moment, frowned and looked towards the battlefield in the north, muttering: "What do you want to do?"

On the battlefield, two teams of Ming army infantry and cavalry were rapidly approaching the battlefield with wheelbarrows and began to carry horse carcasses onto the carts.

This scene gave Marco a brief moment of confusion, and then he sat down, steered his horse around the chevaux de frise and walked into the formation, with a smile on his face showing that he was in a good mood.

Seeing Ouyang Gun and Zhang Xianzhong in the camp, Ma Ke immediately said with uncontrollable excitement: "The enemy has taken the bait!"

Ouyang Gun was surprised and wanted to speak, but before he could say anything, he heard Zhang Xianzhong retort angrily: "What kind of bait did you take? I don't know which bastard is leading the troops. He is so smart. I have a rocket in my hand but I don't know where to release it!"

Marco glanced at Zhang Xianzhong and didn't respond to his words.

Rockets have appeared many times on the battlefield, and even the most sluggish enemies will be on guard against them.

What's more, Zhang Yingchang of the three towns of Ningxia had already been defeated, and the remaining Zuo Liangyu and Cao Wenzhao were both experienced veterans, so it was normal for them to be on guard.

"Time is running out. You two, as great generals, please think of a solution."

Zhang Xianzhong didn't get a response, which made him even more unhappy. He glared and said, "Force them over here, bomb their two battalions with rockets, and then use your real strength to destroy the second battalion. Only then can we continue to fight the four battalions behind us!"

Marco blinked, opened his mouth slightly, and stared at Zhang Xianzhong, as if he was listening to the ravings of a madman.

Ouyang Gun said: "Don't worry, General Ren's reinforcements will arrive tonight."

Zhang Xianzhong obviously didn't take Ren Quan'er seriously, and rolled his eyes, saying, "Speed ​​is of the essence in war. By the time he gets here, the Ming army will have already run away!"

"If he runs away, we'll chase him."

Marco chuckled, then said, "They have taken the bait. The enemy general has sent a small group of infantry and cavalry to escort the wheelbarrows and load the horse corpses on the battlefield. They will not run away tonight."

Ouyang Gun sighed very tiredly.

Everyone could see what Zhang Xianzhong was thinking.

There were more than 4,000 people in the Second Brigade's Special Forces and the Second Battalion of the Mobile Forces, and everyone hoped that the generalissimo would lead the troops to complete the encirclement.

Only Zhang Xianzhong did not want Liu Chengzong to arrive at the battlefield too early.

The day the Grand Marshal arrives at the battlefield means the day the army will win, and Zhang Xianzhong, who was released into the mountains, will have to get into the cage next to Liu Chengzong again.

The specialty of the Marshal’s Army is lunatics.

In the eyes of Ouyang Gun, who had not been tortured by too much madness, the cavalry general Ma Ke who was shouting "the enemy has taken the bait" looked like a normal person, but in fact he was only slightly more normal than Zhang Xianzhong.

Let's say a good man leading 4,000 troops would decide to go to war with 20,000 enemy troops within 20 miles, and call it taking the bait?

In his eyes, their 4,000 exhausted soldiers who had fought in several battles did not run away when the enemy, with more than 20,000 men, attacked from the south.

Of course, Ouyang Gun knew that this was beneficial to the overall situation.

They had to delay the enemy to provide time for Ren Quaner to provide support from the rear, and also create opportunities for Liu Chengzong to encircle them.

However, when working with these two people, Ouyang Gun always felt that he was out of tune with them, and he didn't know how to respond to what they said.

It doesn't make sense to agree with him; but I dare not ridicule him.

He could only change the subject and said to Marco: "The enemy general is not impulsive. He set up his camp in a safe place and then seized the horse corpses. He is still hungry... This is a strategy to lure us to withdraw."

"It doesn't matter whether it's a strategy or not."

Marco shook his head, obviously having a different opinion on this, and said: "Although the enemy has a large number of troops, they dare not move forward because they are afraid of our rockets. In this case, in my opinion, it is better to take the opportunity to send the cavalry to fight with them."

  Ouyang Gun looked at Marco in surprise, thinking that although Marco was extremely brave, courageous, and a bit reckless, he was not a complete fool. How could he say such a thing?

He wondered, "Isn't this exactly what the enemy wants? They have more soldiers and we have fewer. I know the cavalry generals are confident, but in a cavalry fight, our army won't gain much advantage."

To put it bluntly, the Marshal's Army did have an advantage in battle formation over the Ming Army, but the advantage was concentrated in infantry and artillery.

On the one hand, more horse-drawn vehicles provided the advantage of mobility and logistical supplies, and on the other hand, it was the technological advancement of guns and firearms.

The cavalry was where the gap between the Marshal's Army and the Ming Army was the smallest.

In group combat, the Marshal's Cavalry can win with their stronger organizational ability and morale, but in one-on-one combat?

Ouyang Gun did not think that Liu Chengzong's newly formed field brigade cavalry would be able to gain any advantage.

After all, there are too many special arms of the Marshal's Army mixed in.

It's not that Ouyang Gun looked down on the Mongolian cavalry, but in terms of its setting, the mobile camp was originally a group-based force to drive away enemy cavalry, and was not good at individual combat.

Even though their combat effectiveness had been strengthened by Liu Chengzong, the Oirat heavy cavalry were all equipped with three-pointed steel spearheads; the Mobei light cavalry were all equipped with eighteen armor-piercing cones and eighteen beryllium arrowheads.

It is still difficult to gain absolute advantage in individual combat and squad combat.

At most it would be a draw, because these equipments were standard equipment of the Ming army, but the Mongolian cavalry did not have them.

In fact, in Ouyang Gun's eyes, the ecological niche of the Mongolian soldiers of each brigade in the Marshal's Army was the same as that of the retainers and barbarians under the Ming army generals.

Or in other words, Huang Taiji's Three Shun Kings, Liu Chengzong's Mongolian army, and Ming general Yi Ding were all the same thing, helpless and without any ties.

It is the confidence for Dai Qing to deal with the royal family and nobles, the cornerstone for the Grand Marshal to ensure the lower limit of power, and the confidence for the Ming generals to suppress the mutinous army.

They are the leaders of violent groups and an important force in maintaining internal psychological deterrence.

This power does not need to be very strong, but people must know that it exists and that no one else in the group can use it.

It's that simple.

On this basis, Liu Chengzong's Mongolian Yi Ding's advantage lies in the number of cavalry, not the quality.

Ouyang Gun was convinced that he would suffer a loss if he fought.

But he didn't expect that Mako thought the same way.

"The general is right. The enemy has many soldiers while ours is few."

Marco was not discouraged when he said this, but was happy: "But our army has more cavalry, while the enemy's cavalry is less. Their four battalions have no more than 3,000 cavalry. If we kill one of them in a fight, there will be one less cavalryman."

"What we are worried about now is that the cavalry will leave the battle line and we are worried that the enemy will charge into the battle line."

Ouyang Gun was shocked and felt even more out of place.

What kind of people are these? They thought that the enemy army, which is five times their size, had taken the bait and they didn't run away. In order to prevent the enemy army from escaping from the encirclement, they were ready to fight and kill all the enemy cavalrymen.

But since Marco had said so much and Zhang Xianzhong also glanced at him with suspicion, could Ouyang Gun say that he couldn't hold on?

He waved his hand and said, "No problem. Since the general is willing to go to the battle, I will guard the camp..."

Before he could finish his words, Zhang Xianzhong interrupted him again. The Minister of Rites waved his hand and said, "Don't be afraid. The enemy is only 1,500 steps away. I will fire a few rockets at them. It doesn't matter if they hit the target or not. Anyway, no one can surround you!"

At this moment, Xu Yong, a Ming army general who was leading the cavalry on the opposite side of the battlefield, was thinking hard, thinking about all kinds of tricks for verbal battles and provocations.

He even planned to wait a little longer. If the enemy cavalry could not come out, he would have someone find two dead horses, cut and pack the meat on the spot, and let the enemy watch as they took the meat away.

However, before he could implement this idea, he saw the scouts running over excitedly to report: "General, the enemy is marching out!" The four cavalry divisions at the four corners of the marshal's camp each split into a team and mounted their horses, marching slowly northward.

Xu Yong looked at those war horses and felt extremely jealous.

At such a distance, he couldn't tell whether they were Mongolian horses or Ili horses, or even their height or size. All he could see was their number.

His battalion had less than 600 war horses, and only 900 cavalrymen were available including pack horses and draft horses. The four cavalry officers sitting quietly at the four corners of the camp obviously belonged to one battalion.

Together with the troops in the camp, there were more than 4,000 people, and there were more than 5,000 war horses, donkeys and mules.

This does not include the consumption of previous battles.

In fact, this is also the fundamental reason why the clever Zuo Liangyu was willing to fight this battle.

They were all jealous of the logistical strength of the Marshal's Office.

By defeating this battalion, the mobility and food reserves of the 4th Battalion of Zuozhen will be improved to a higher level.

Otherwise Zuo Liangyu would have left long ago.

Wasting my time here.

The four squads of cavalry from the mobile battalion did not move fast, but they swept up a cloud of dust and made a huge noise.

Xu Yong was standing in front of his own army, looking through a telescope at the Marshal's cavalry approaching the battlefield. He turned around and said, "Prepare another 200 cavalrymen, and tell the people in front to be careful. The enemy cavalry is not easy to deal with."

He had long known that there were many Mongolian soldiers among the enemy cavalry, and he had looked down on them in the past, but now he saw that Liu Chengzong's army had a set of skills in training cavalry.

It's normal to have contempt.

Liu Chengzong had a surrendered general from Gansu named Li Changling under his command. He was now a training officer in the Ministry of War and was a one-eyed man.

In the past, as the commander of the standard camp of Yang Jiamo, the general of Gansu, he encountered the Huoluochi brothers who were pirates at the time and invaded Gansu from the north, and fought a beautiful battle with them.

The price of victory was Li Changling's right eye.

That’s the price, nothing more.

The Huoluochi cavalry fired arrows like rain, and their accurate shooting skills are still fresh in the memory of the Gansu Ming army. Every officer and soldier on the battlefield was hit by several arrows.

But not a single one died, and throughout the entire battle not a single arrow could penetrate the armor.

Only Li Changling, as the commander of the camp, looked up in the rain of arrows to observe the direction of the enemy's attack. As a result, he was shot in the right eye as soon as he raised his head - a copper-forged arrow.

The Mongolian soldiers were skilled in archery, but their armaments were so lax, how could they not be looked down upon?

But the enemy cavalry that Xu Yong saw at this time was obviously not a mob that was not even well-equipped.

The four teams of fifty riders were very quiet as they marched, with only the clatter of horses' hooves being the only sound, but they were not moving very fast.

They changed their formation while marching slowly, and the four teams first moved forward in a column, then divided into two groups, with the front team breaking through the gap and the rear team plugging into the gap, forming two large teams.

The two battalions once again formed a square formation with two hundred cavalrymen, with the front team breaking through the gap and the rear team filling in the gap.

Then the square formation separated and turned into a sea formation with four riders in a group, which made Xu Yong couldn't help laughing out loud.

This is not a mockery. The Marshal's cavalry are very skilled in changing formations, and are calm and experienced while marching without being impatient. They are opponents worthy of being taken seriously.

But this combination really made Xu Yong feel funny. It was clearly a Ming-style cavalry team, but he suddenly felt like he was seeing the Mongolian army from hundreds of years ago.

Haizi Formation is the famous formation of Genghis Khan.

The core idea is that cavalry should be dispersed rather than gathered, which makes it easier to control the battlefield and increase the width of the battle formation, allowing the cavalry to approach the enemy in smaller units, like scattered lakes on the grassland.

The formation change was completed within a thousand steps. At this time, Xu Yong could already distinguish the composition of the enemy cavalry with the telescope.

Each of the four riders in these four-riding teams has different attire.

There were two cavalrymen who were obviously Han soldiers, wearing bowl-shaped helmets and red cloth face armor. One of them held a flag spear or a long sword, and the other held a bird-shaped gun or a three-barreled gun. They all had goose-feather knives and golden hammers hanging on their waists, and bows, quivers and quivers hung on their horses.

The other two riders were obviously Mongolian soldiers. One was wearing chain mail, carrying three spears, one long and two short, and a bow and arrow on his horse's back; the other was wearing a leather coat and leather hat or iron-studded leather armor, holding a strong bow and carrying a large arrow, and a short spear with a sickle was hung on the side of the saddle with a hook ring.

There is no problem with the formation, arrangement, and armor.

Xu Yong was confident about the cavalry combat.

The main reason is that Liu Chengzong’s army always comes up with some weird things, but now it seems that the cavalry of the Marshal’s Office is still a very traditional force.

At the same time as the Marshal's cavalry deployed, the Zuozhen cavalry, although fewer in number on the battlefield, also deployed into battle formation. They were organized into battalions and did not have to change formations or disband and reorganize like the Marshal's cavalry. They could fight directly with the smallest organization, which was a great advantage.

The Ming cavalry were arranged in a row of five. Some of them rested their goose-feather swords on their right shoulders and rode slowly towards the marshal's cavalry. Some cavalrymen coiled the fuse on their left arms and loaded ammunition into their three-barreled guns or bird guns.

Some cavalrymen even held the reins of their bows in one hand and sorted the long and thick feather arrows in the quiver hanging on the horse's buttocks behind them with the other hand, arranging the feather arrows equipped with different types of arrow clusters in order in the quiver.

In the northwest, in the Zuozhen camp, two hundred cavalry reinforcements were rushing to the battlefield.

This advantage made Xu Yong, who was sitting outside the camp observing the battlefield, feel relieved. He even had some leisure time. Looking at the Marshal's cavalry with determination in the telescope, he couldn't help but sigh: "What a good cavalry, but it's a pity that they are rebels."

Although the marshal's camp in the south was stepping up the digging of trenches, on the outskirts of the battlefield farther away, the third battalion was dispersing and moving, and was about to complete the encirclement of them.

Such a situation meant that the cavalry of the marshal's army who left the camp to fight for profit would most likely die on the battlefield.

This has nothing to do with whether they can fight or whether they are good cavalry, but rather that they cannot control the battlefield.

The entire battlefield was controlled by the Ming army, which was extremely rare in the history of the Ming army's many years of confrontation with the Marshal's army.

Once they are injured and fall off their horses, it will be difficult for them to survive if they cannot get medical treatment quickly.

The battlefield is a place of life and death, there are no fools.

Xu Yong believed that those courageous cavalrymen knew their fate. They just believed that by delaying time, they could wait for something to come.

Just like Zuo Liangyu, Xu Yong and others, they all knew that Liu Chengzong's army was nearby, but they still came to fight.

It was also because they believed that they could crush this stubborn army before the enemy's support arrived.

At this moment, there were bursts of gunfire on the battlefield, and the cavalry were engaged in a firefight.

Xu Yong closed his eyes and listened attentively. This scene had occurred countless times in his military career. Even with his eyes closed, he could judge the changes in the situation through sounds.

First there was the muffled sound of bird guns, firing at the enemy cavalry at the farthest distance, then as the two armies got closer, there was the continuous banging sound of three-barreled guns, and then most of the cavalry would abandon their powerful but difficult to reload muskets and instead use bows and arrows to meet the enemy... Xu Yong opened his eyes in confusion.

  Why are there still fucking gunshots?

The cavalry of both armies did inflict many casualties on the enemy cavalry with muskets in the initial confrontation, and most of the Ming army did abandon muskets and instead use bows and arrows and goose-feather swords to meet the enemy.

But the Marshal's Cavalry did not.

Muskets were still being fired on the chaotic battlefield. Many cavalrymen did not join the melee at all. Instead, they circled and fired on the periphery of the battlefield on horseback, quickly reloading after firing and firing again.

Xu Yong only took a glance, then angrily threw down the telescope and angrily cursed: "Who the hell gave them the Qingdian Gun!" (End of this chapter)