stubborn thief

As the cavalry of the First Brigade of the Marshal's Army headed in, Ma Guangyuan's Han army flag line collapsed.

As a result, the Mongolian flag, which had already entered the clan camp and was fighting with the Liaoyang camp, lost its flank support and its troops retreated immediately.

Yue Tuo, on horseback, tightly grasped the handle of the Yanchi knife and witnessed with his own eyes the front line being smashed by the iron cavalry.

In his palm was the Holy Khan's handwritten message that had just been delivered by the messenger: "The red flag will not advance, prepare to withdraw the troops."

Huang Taiji is going crazy.

This battle cannot be fought.

He was proud that all his inhumane means were useless against the inhuman Liu Chengzong.

The key to the Eight Banners’ warfare is numbers, swiftness, ferocity and brutality.

To be honest, their tactics and equipment were almost the same as those of the Ming army, but they had a faster speed, more frontline troops, and an advantage in armored forces on the local battlefield. They used the Han and Mongolian armies to launch the most violent attacks, and then used the elite troops of the Eight Banners to launch the most brutal offensive, defeating the enemy in one fell swoop.

This battle was inherently disadvantageous for the Eight Banners Army. Without Ajige's 20,000-man armored corps, Emperor Chongde did not have the confidence to run rampant on the battlefield.

He could ignore the Han army flags and Mongolian flags and let them charge forward to consume him.

But Liu Chengzong is even worse!

The Khoshut cavalry raised their spears to exchange for the white-armored elite cavalry, three for one, which was a huge loss for the Eight Banners.

The elite Mongolian cavalry trampled on the front line as if they were injected with chicken blood, with a bit of national hatred and family feud.

The royal relatives of the Ming Dynasty simply served as human shields for Liu, driving chariots to the front of the formation, holding short guns and long cannons without even wearing armor.

If you break through this chariot camp battle line filled with soldiers in dragon robes, it will be difficult for the army to gain the morale boost of defeating the powerful enemy. On the contrary, if you fail to break through it after a while of charging, it will cause great psychological trauma.

Huang Taiji still hasn't figured out what the heck is riding on those chariots with all kinds of royal flags waving in front of the battle line.

Did Liu Chengzong really confer so many titles on the throne?

Or is it really the Shaanxi royal family of the Ming Dynasty?
The question is, why are you, the royal family of the Ming Dynasty, willing to give to Liu Cheng... No, it is quite crazy that Liu Chengzong set up such a camp specifically.

Not to mention the moment when the front line broke through the chariot formation, Huang Taiji clearly saw the guard cavalry beside him who was responsible for observing the front line, standing on horseback with a telescope in his hand, and looked stunned.

The guard stammered and asked him what he saw, but he was so scared that he knelt down. After a long interrogation, he finally said, "Enemy, report to the Holy Khan, the enemy is driving the white-armored soldiers to fight for him."

Huang Taiji didn't believe it and said angrily, "The Western bandits also want to distinguish between us and the enemy with the Ming army, so why can't they be wearing Ming armor?"

"Holy Khan, all of them have shaved their heads and tied red silk on their heads."

Emperor Chongde's blood pressure shot up.

Ever since the old Khan launched his army to attack the Ming Dynasty, he has driven the Han people to fight against the Ming army for twenty years. Today he also tasted the bitterness.

It was because Huang Taiji was so familiar with such tactics that he could clearly see the consequences of continuing the battle.

He might win.

No, at most he and Liu Chengzong were claiming victory over each other.

Because as long as Liu Chengzong stood on this battlefield, he was invincible.

Just like how he broke through Jizhen and entered Yongping Prefecture in the year of Jisi, all I need to do is prove that I can bypass Guanning, strike your hinterland and leave alive. It doesn't matter what kind of losses I suffer in the war.

The same thing happened with the later roundabout attack on Shanxi. What difference would it make if many Eight Banners died?
What the Later Jin needed to do most was to prove to the Ming Dynasty that the Guanning Defense Line was useless because it was too tight.

As long as it is proven, it will be a strategic victory.

The same is true now. What would happen even if Liu Chengzong was defeated?
The Han army flag fought against Liu Chengzong's Ming royal family, the Mongolian army flag fought against Liu Chengzong's Mongolian elite cavalry, and the Eight Banners fought against Liu Chengzong's red armored soldiers.

Liu Chengzong's posture made it clear that he dared to fight with the red-armored soldiers.

Does Huang Taiji dare to use the Eight Banners?
Before actually fighting with Liu Chengzong, Huang Taiji dared to fight.

But after the real fight, the Marshal's Army defeated the four flags of Zhenglan, Bordered White, Han Army and Mongolian in a flash, and he dared not fight anymore.

The cost of fighting to the end is too high.

It was so big that Emperor Chongde could not bear it.

But many times, a war is easy to fight, and all it takes is one person wanting to fight.

However, to stop the war, both sides must agree.

At this moment, Huang Taiji, despite a terrible headache, ordered the two wings that had just been opened to be retracted. At the same time, he provided momentum support to the army formations on the front and right wing that were in contact with the marshal's army, and ordered them to withdraw.

But things backfired.

On the right wing, the Blue Manchus and Mongols who were fighting against the two battalions of Marshal Tang Tong and Zuo Guangxian did not need his orders at all. Their attack was crushed by the recoil, and now they could not retreat even if they wanted to, and were almost stuck.

They rushed into the formation, broke through the line of the Western Fan firearms soldiers, and were hammered and fired out by the Han army inside.

As a result, the Blue Manchus had no choice but to step forward to provide support.

Normally, if you get shot, you should just run away, but you can't run faster than the bullet.

There was no need for cavalry. They just raised their guns and shot anyone they could at a range of 200 steps, killing them. They were not allowed to run at all. Seeing their comrades being killed by guns and cannons, they had no choice but to turn around and charge again.

After all, it is difficult to be killed in a fight with the Marshal's army relying on armor, but if you try to escape and are hit by the enemy's supervisory team with guns, you will definitely die!
The Bordered Blue Banner is just like the Liaodong branch of Zhang Yichuan's Five Camps in Henan. The defeated soldiers who break through the sword formation are better trained in recoil than those of Zhang Yichuan's direct disciples.

It's true that Tang Tong's firearmsmen didn't expect the Eight Banners to have such a nature. They would flee after being defeated in close combat, and would actually be inspired to fight back after being damaged by firearms. The second charge almost broke Tang Tong's army formation.

Because the cavalry of the Bordered Yellow Banner had already approached the battlefield at this time, and the Mongolian cavalry in the central part of their side was returning to reorganize the army, which put great pressure on Tang Tong's reinforcement camp for a while.

The chariots with guns on the corners of the two wings of the reinforcement camp had no time to reorganize and abandoned many of them. They changed their formation during the battle, relying on the chariots to set up a small camp in four directions, including two divisions of Han troops outside and Western firearms, to deal with the impact.

When Emperor Chongde's messenger arrived at the right wing, he could only shout to stop the yellow-bordered infantry artillery that was accelerating, but the cavalry could not stop even if they shouted.

Some of them were surrounding Tang Tong's square camp and shooting, while others joined the blue-bordered cavalry and fought for their lives with Zuo Guangxian's cavalry.

The messenger ran over and was hit by three arrows before he got close. It would have been a good thing if he hadn't blown the Mongolian horn to symbolize retreat.

Although some unlucky ones in the Eight Banners cavalry were caught by the hook-and-sickle spears of the Mongolian cavalry, they were then chased and stabbed to death by the Khoshut cavalry.

But the same thing happened when Zuo Guangxian's cavalry was caught up. They were either shot down by arrows shot from large bows or knocked off their horses in combat.

Although both sides fought all over the place, they seemed to be evenly matched in the end.

As soon as the Mongolian horn was blown, the situation on the battlefield changed immediately. The Eight Banners cavalry in the battle began to retreat, which in turn boosted the morale of the First Tourist Barracks cavalry. The Khoshut cavalry began to chase and stab them.

There were even cavalrymen who broke all three of their spears, one long and two short. They dismounted, picked up the Eight Banners' goose-feather swords, stepped on the stirrups, leaned forward on their horses, and stabbed anyone they could find.

Unfortunately, even luck was not on Huang Taiji's side. When Dai Qing's army heard the order to assemble at the center, not only did they withdraw a quarter of the yellow-rimmed infantry artillery on the right wing, but the camps on the left wing could not withdraw either.

The three battalions of Zhenghuang, Hujun and Vanguard at the end of the left wing moved towards the central army. The 3,000 Tianyou troops under Geng Zhongming in front had just begun to retreat when Subadi's Mobei cavalry came up.

Huang Taiji moved his troops to the central army, and Subati was the most excited.

He didn't notice that Dai Qing was going to withdraw his troops, but he felt that Tianyou's army had finally moved.

Geng Zhongming's men had too many guns and cannons, and Subadi's Mobei cavalry could do nothing to them.

Firearms formations are easily moved when hit, but it depends on who hits them.

For a unit that has some field fortifications, or at least a few tanks and some armored soldiers, attacking a firearms formation and crashing into it will at least bring more benefits than costs.

Subati's light cavalry ran into Geng Zhongming's guns and cannons and ended up in ruins.

Now, as soon as Tianyou's army moved, it would expose the Mongolian army's second line on the left wing behind them.

As early as when Huang Taiji was adjusting his formation, Babu Taiji in Subadi's formation accidentally saw the flag of the Mongolian army.

Babu of the Chechen Khanate was the person who was most familiar with Dai Qing in the entire Marshal's Office at that time. He guessed that the person under the flag should be Manzhu Xili, the prince conferred by Huang Taiji in Khorchin.

The younger brother of Khorchin Prince Wu Kesan, he is also the most capable nobleman in the left and right wings of the entire Khorchin.

Babu was happy to share this information with Subati.

Marshal Liu's troops are out of reach of the east. Living here for a short period of time is an unrealistic delusion, and immigration is even more nonsense.

Their Chechen Khanate is close to Khorchin, separated only by the Greater Khingan Range.

Even without talking about the seizure of grassland, the fact that Khorchin's military strength was greatly reduced and its range was shrunk to near Shenyang was a huge benefit to the Chechen Khanate.

What's more, Babu knew that as long as he won the battle, his father Khan Shuolei would not miss the opportunity to seize the grassland.

Subati was a little hesitant at first. After all, that guy Lausa was leading a group of vanguard cavalry to rush out, and his posture was very scary.

But Lausa seemed to be... not scared of him, but he just didn't dare to come out.

Subati's men were no match for the vanguard army, which charged out twice, each time with more than 200 riders. Both times they made them flee in all directions, and hundreds were killed or wounded by their powerful bows and arrows.

Normally, it would be a crushing defeat in such a small-scale battle.

Fortunately, the vanguard cavalry wearing three layers of armor would quickly get heatstroke in this season even if they didn't exert any effort, so they had to go back and rest after running out for a while.

It's June now, the breeze is blowing, and with two layers of iron armor covered with a layer of cotton armor, who can withstand a fight?

When he came out the second time, Subadi was prepared. His troops ran away when they saw them, but they surrounded him from a distance and did not dare to leave the camp too far, so the losses were much smaller.

Even when Lausa was retreating, more than a dozen horses were shot dead. After the men fell to the ground, they were surrounded by the Mobei cavalry from a distance, allowing Lausa to lead his men to charge back. He was truly unstoppable and even rescued several people.

In the end, only three of them died at the hands of Subadi's Mobei cavalry.

But even though he killed three people, Lausa's army had retreated until this moment and did not rush out to kill again.

In fact, at this moment, Subati still secretly hoped that Lausa would come out again.

But Lausa is not stupid.

No matter how brave he and the vanguard cavalry are, they are still human beings. They rely on their martial arts, armor and horses, and take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to launch a sudden attack, which can boost morale.

But once you are prepared, there is no such thing as being invincible when targeted.

Those who were killed in the battle were all brave men.

All of a sudden, Geng Zhongming's Han army formation had just changed from the front team to the rear team, led by the right wing, and turned to march towards the center army, when Subadi's Mobei cavalry rushed over in a mighty manner.

Geng Zhongming was frightened and stood still immediately. He reorganized the formation in a mess, pulling the first and third characters of the Tianyou Army's one-two-character formation forward and backward, and separating the two characters into two wings, forming a hollow square formation.

The Tianyou Army stood at the four corners of the front, each holding a spear and a sword. The gunners loaded their muskets and stood at the four corners to guard against sudden attacks by the enemy cavalry.

At first, Geng Zhongming thought that this cavalry was circling the formation to find the weaknesses of his formation. He was full of pride and thought that his formation was not afraid of the attack of light cavalry.

In fact, Dai Qing's Han army was very afraid of the enemy cavalry charging into the battle formation, the kind that did not charge forward but rushed forward to shoot at each other, similar to the tactics commonly used by the Eight Banners cavalry.

The Han army of the Eight Banners was afraid of this, because Nurhaci did not allow the Han army to use bows. The Han army only had firearms for long-range combat. Relying on spears and short weapons, they were not afraid when dealing with fast charge formations, but they were not good at shooting.

After all, simple firearms have a slow loading speed and a low tolerance rate.

To put it bluntly, this regulation was intended to prevent the Han army from rebelling, and to leave a back door for the Eight Banners to suppress the rebellion and break the enemy's formation.

But Kong Geng's Tianyou Army was not among the Han army. They had bows and arrows and were no different from the Ming army. The only difference was that they had fewer armored soldiers, but they were not afraid of the Mongolian cavalry.

As a result, they could only watch helplessly as the Mobei light cavalry made a large circle beyond their shooting range, and then slowly gathered in groups of three or two in a sea formation while marching, forming a cavalry regiment of dozens of horses. With the sound of whistles, they suddenly accelerated, trailing a huge cloud of dust, and rushed straight towards the second formation of the Khorchin army.

This sudden change shocked not only Geng Zhongming, but also Manzhu Xili in the Khorchin army.

He had also just received the order to gather the troops and was giving orders to change the formation, but he saw that the Mobei Army seemed to be planning to attack the Tianyou Army, so he acted a little late. He wanted to wait until Geng Zhongming was hit before going up to help.

Who knew that the cavalry would rush over with a cloud of dust.

"Damn it, come at me!"

Manzhu Xili immediately gave orders, ordering the infantry to form a defensive formation and leading the cavalry to cross the formation and go forward to engage in battle.

He could never have imagined that the Mobei Army would rush towards him like fools... He was the second formation, coming to attack him. Not to mention that the third formation of the Plain Yellow Banner, the vanguard, and the Guard Battalion had already followed the imperial carriage to the east, Geng Zhongming's Tianyou Army on the flank would definitely attack them from both sides.

These few thousand light cavalrymen with incomplete armor would be killed if they were caught in a pincer attack.

What’s the difference between this and being tired of living?
Geng Zhongming thought so too. This was simply a military achievement delivered to his hands. He gave orders directly to rearrange the formation, with the west and south as the front team, the northwest and southeast as the second team, and the north and east as the rear team. The large horizontal formation was deployed and moved diagonally towards Subati's flank.

Being in the midst of the huge cavalry charging, Subadi hastily glanced at the battlefield and saw the king in front of him leading the cavalry with an umbrella to meet the attack, and the Tianyou army on the side attacking in a line. He was about to be attacked from both sides but he was not panicked at all, and even couldn't suppress his smile and swallowed a mouthful of sand.

Because...it's better to leave it to the Han army to deal with.

Not far to the west of the battlefield, several lone cavalrymen appeared on the sand dunes, each a few hundred steps apart.

They carried flag spears with a triceratops flag hanging from them. The rope at the end of the spear was hung on their right feet, and the spear body strap was hung on their right shoulders. They held the long-barreled three-barreled gun in their left hands, blew fire to ignite the matchlock wrapped around their right arms, and then took up the reins one by one and ran down the sand dunes.

Behind them, teams of dusty red-armored cavalrymen carrying various triangular military flags appeared on the sand dunes, surrounding a large flag with a white background and a red border.

On the left side of the big flag was inscribed "Grand Marshal's Office, Mo Nan Governor's Office", and on the right side was inscribed "Congratulations, General of Shuofang Town", with a big "Shuai" in the middle.

The Shuofang Camp with more than 2,800 cavalrymen led by He Huchen, led by the 24th Tang Cavalry of the Grand Marshal's Office, arrived at the battlefield without stopping, urging their horses to charge straight at the left wing of the Daiqing army.

Geng Zhongming's Tianyou Army was the first to bear the brunt of the attack. (End of this chapter)