weaving

Chapter 1367: General Chen will come to save us
In the east, although Chen Yongfu took advantage of his advantage to defeat Tian Jianxiu's 500 cavalry, Tian Jianxiu made up for the losses he suffered on the eastern front in the west.

The total strength of Tian Jianxiu's side was not weaker than that of Chen Yongfu, and they also had a cavalry of 2,000 people.

However, he was in a passive situation in the allocation of troops. Because he was worried that Chen Wenzhong's troops would suffer losses, he sent Hou Daqing to reinforce them, which resulted in only a thousand cavalry left with him.

Although they still had an absolute advantage of twice as many troops as the government troops, they advanced in batches and did not form an encirclement of the 500 elite cavalry of the government troops, nor did they launch a surprise attack.

As a commander under Chen Yongfu, Cheng Zihong had also experienced many actual combat exercises on the battlefield. Seeing that the cavalry of the rebel army coming from the opposite side was no different from his own troops, he whistled and ordered his cavalry to divide into small teams and continue to slowly press forward to the south.

On their side, they were divided into groups of three or five riders, and they spread out their battle line very wide. With the same number of troops, they were able to form a semi-encirclement of the oncoming cavalry of the rebel army.

Jiao Cheng was also an experienced thief. He immediately divided his 500 knights into three teams to meet the enemy.

In the middle were two hundred knights led by him personally, and on each wing there were one hundred and fifty knights, forming an "inverted T-shaped" formation - the two wings protruded in the front, and the middle was slightly behind, in order to support the attacks of the two wings.

Judging from this response plan alone, Jiao Cheng is indeed much stronger than Chen Wenzhong. He is not as reckless and impulsive as Chen Wenzhong, but knows how to judge the situation rather than simply relying on force to decide the outcome.

Chen Wenzhong is similar to the type of fierce general like Hao Yaoqi, with well-developed limbs, outstanding combat power, and the courage to fight, fight and charge. He is the kind of ruthless character who is the first to charge into battle and kill the generals. However, his shortcomings are also very obvious - he is simple-minded and impulsive, and lacks strategic vision. He is not a talented commander in battle.

Although Jiao Cheng was born a bandit, he was not rude and reckless. His behavior was somewhat similar to that of Luo Rucai. He was meticulous and cautious. Although he hesitated beforehand, once he made a decision in his mind, he would execute it quickly and resolutely without delay. This was the only respect in which he was slightly better than Luo Rucai.

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Seeing the cavalry of the rebel army coming straight at him like three sharp arrows, Cheng Zihong shouted: "Divide, divide and surround!"

His idea is good, but it is really difficult to implement effectively...

When both sides have the same military forces and equal strength, and there is no obvious generation gap in weapons and equipment and training, how can they easily divide and surround the other side?

The battlefield situation was determined the moment the two sides engaged in battle - it was bound to be a chaotic battle with evenly matched forces!

As expected, as the two sides got closer, the government troops gradually split into mountain groups, and started fighting with Jiao Cheng's three groups of rebel cavalry.

The two sides had equal forces, and although the fight was hard to determine, the shouting and roaring were mixed with the neighing and whinnying of war horses, making it seem that the fight was very fierce, but in reality the casualties were not very tragic.

This was not the result Cheng Zihong wanted. While riding on his warhorse, he fought with the bandit knights around him, while whistling secretly to call his elite cavalry to slowly retreat backwards, trying to gather together to meet the enemy, so as not to be separated by the bandit army.

However, once the team was dispersed on the battlefield, it was not easy to gather again. Although everyone heard and understood the hidden meaning in Cheng Zihong's whistle, they had been bitten by the enemy knights and there was no way they could get away for a while.

Just when Cheng Zihong was secretly anxious, he suddenly saw another group of bandit knights rushing in from a distance. Although he couldn't see the number of bandit cavalrymen rushing in at a glance, judging from the current situation, if they rushed in close, his few men would be dead and he wouldn't even have a chance to run. "Liu Cai, I'll rush to the left to attract the bandit army. You rush to the right when you see the opportunity to pull Zhao Qi and the others out, and then look for me on the left."

Without waiting for Liu Cai to reply, Cheng Zihong squeezed his legs hard against the horse's belly and shouted, "Team one, go left and charge!"

As Cheng Zihong shouted, dozens of government cavalrymen immediately urged their horses to catch up. They vigorously waved their long-handled weapons and rushed to the left with all their might.

The incident happened suddenly, and the enemy troops were caught off guard. They were actually rushed to the left for dozens of steps. They were about to break away from the battle with the enemy troops in the middle and run to the left.

Jiao Cheng also became anxious when he saw this. He desperately called upon the cavalry of the rebel army around him and rushed forward to try to trip up Cheng Zihong's hundred or so cavalrymen to prevent them from going to the left to join the government troops there.

This really proves the old saying - it's hard to take care of the end when you take care of the beginning!

He just managed to catch up with the tail of the horses of Cheng Zihong and other government troops and barely tripped them up, preventing them from moving forward to the left to join the government troops there.

Then, more than a hundred government cavalrymen suddenly rushed to the right. Due to the emergency mobilization just now, the focus was placed on the left, resulting in the lack of troops on the right side, and they were able to break through in one fell swoop.

Seeing that the more than one hundred government cavalrymen were already dozens of steps away and it was difficult to rush up to stop them, Jiao Cheng did not hesitate. He focused on commanding the less than three hundred cavalrymen around him to tightly entangle Cheng Zihong's less than one hundred cavalrymen, vowing to capture them alive or kill them on the spot.

However, the group of government troops on the left seemed to have noticed the movement in the middle, and actually abandoned the bandit cavalry that was fighting against them, and rushed towards the middle, wanting to join up with Cheng Zihong.

Seeing that his military advantage was about to be lost, Jiao Cheng saw that his own cavalry was following him, and he felt a little relieved - even if the government troops joined together, his military advantage would still be there.

"Brothers, Master Tian is here with his troops to help us. Come on, everyone, kill all those damn officers and soldiers!"

Upon hearing that reinforcements were coming, the morale of the bandit army soared. They shouted and spurred their horses and rushed into the fiercely fighting battlefield with their swords wielded...

Cheng Zihong was also extremely anxious. He knew that once the reinforcements of the bandits arrived, even if his few troops could hold out for a while, they would probably be wiped out in the end.

He had just blocked a large knife that was coming at him, and took advantage of this rare opportunity to glance around. Seeing that the terrain to the northwest was slightly higher than other places, he felt like he had discovered a new continent.

Suddenly, Cheng Zihong shouted, "Retreat, retreat north."

While calling on the government troops around him to retreat, he also directed everyone to shout, asking the government troops rushing towards them from the east to retreat as well.

Although the distance was a little far and the shouting and screaming were deafening, it was impossible to hear clearly what they were shouting, but one could still vaguely make out something from their actions. The group of government troops who were running over understood what they meant and withdrew to the north.

When it seemed like they were almost there, Cheng Zihong shouted again, "Go west, the terrain there is higher, help Liu Cai and the others hold that high ground, General Chen will come to rescue us..."