weaving

Chapter 1407 Capturing Li Zicheng Alive

"The Tiger Guards and the Imperial Guards are here..." He Zhenxiong roared, "Attack with all your might and capture Li Zicheng alive!"

The roars of more than two thousand standard cavalrymen resounded through the sky, prompting the Tiger Guards on both wings and the Imperial Guards to shout in unison. For a moment, the entire battlefield echoed with the roar of "Capture Li Zicheng alive"...

The three forces—Xuanfu Town Guard Battalion, Tiger Guard Cavalry, and Feathered Forest Cavalry—were like three arrows released from a bow, plunging straight into the rebel army's central camp, seemingly poised to break through.

Especially the cavalry under He Zhenxiong in the central route, they were truly like an arrowhead. When the front line weakened, the second line took over; when the second line weakened, the third line took over, and so on, endlessly. Their momentum never diminished, and they had deeply penetrated into the rebel army.

The Imperial Guards did not charge directly at Li You's rebel army cavalry. Instead, they made full use of their advantages, using crossbows and hand cannons to clear a path with the help of the "Ten Thousand Warriors" (a type of firearm). After breaking through from the flank, they made S-shaped bends through the rebel army's formation, always tearing open gaps in unexpected places.

However, the Tiger Guard Cavalry's two hundred cavalrymen and one hundred heavy cavalrymen were different from the Feathered Forest Cavalry.

They used heavy cavalry in the center as the vanguard, breaking through the enemy lines with heavy armor, and then used two hundred Tiger Guard knights on both sides as the blades, using bows and arrows, hand cannons, and ten thousand men's weapons to expand their gains and inflict greater casualties on the rebel army's cavalry formation.

Li You's forces still had a numerical advantage of more than double that of the government troops.

However, the incident happened suddenly, and his first problem was that he was unprepared. He had hastily assembled his troops and was about to face the elite cavalry of the government army. He was fighting a well-prepared army when he was unprepared, which was a disadvantage.

The second problem lies in the disparity in equipment. Although the bandit cavalry had a numerical advantage, only more than half of them were armored soldiers, and most of them wore rather worn-out old armor. How could this compare to the well-equipped Yongyi Army cavalry?
This is just the difference in armor, and it's already so vast...

The gap in weaponry is even greater. Regardless of their quality, the handgun and the "Ten Thousand Man Killer" are two deadly weapons that, if used properly in combination, would be invincible in this era.

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Seeing that he could not stop the government cavalry's attack, Li You was very anxious. He shouted, "Qiao Gu Zi, take a thousand men to protect the Grand Marshal."

He then shouted to the men around him, "Damn it, let's fight the government troops! If we can't stop them, we might as well die here!"

The junior officer who had just run back from the flank still had arrows strapped to his body. He brandished his longsword and shouted, "Kill...kill the government soldiers...kill the government soldiers..."

Under his leadership, numerous rebel cavalrymen charged forward once again with the cavalry of the Biao Battalion...

However, He Zhenxiong and his men did not linger in battle, but only focused on charging forward. Their momentum was so fierce that the rebel army was almost completely powerless to resist them, and could only try their best to slow down their advance.

Seeing that the bandits' fighting spirit had been reignited, Li You felt slightly comforted. However, he did not impulsively rush forward. Instead, he glanced around and then called to the dozens of cavalrymen beside him to charge towards a slightly higher spot in the southeast.

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Hu Dayou was also holding on. He led his heavy cavalry in a fierce battle for nearly an hour. Of course, the horses were exhausted, and they resolutely abandoned them, but still continued to fight the enemy for another half hour.

Now, under the cover of the Tiger Guard Knights, they fought and retreated. In the melee just now, nearly a hundred heavy cavalrymen had seized mounts, while nearly three hundred heavy knights were still without mounts.

Su Laohu's Tiger Guard cavalry pulled them onto their own warhorses, with two riders on each horse. Some Tiger Guards also seized fifty or sixty unclaimed warhorses and gave them to the heavy cavalry. Su Laohu personally led more than seventy Tiger Guard cavalry to cover the rear and repel the enemy, while those riding two horses on each horse were in front to provide cover.

But Hu Dayou insisted on staying with him to cover the rear. Zhao Long and Wang Hu were also unwilling to be covered by others and retreat first. They called on the seventy or eighty heavy cavalrymen who were riding alone on warhorses, and they all stayed behind at the very end.

Although nearly a thousand rebel cavalrymen were in pursuit, Su Laohu and Hu Dayou led more than a hundred elite cavalrymen of the Yongyi Army without any fear.

Even if all the pistols had been fired and there was no time to reload and fire again, they would still shoot arrows from afar and slash with swords and axes up close. Occasionally, a knight who had finished reloading would fire one or two shots from his pistol. Although the accuracy of the shots was not good, each crisp sound would make the pursuing bandits shrink back.

Every now and then, a ten-thousand-person enemy would explode during the cavalry's retreat, which made the bandits behind them cautious and forced them to slow down so they could observe the movements of the government troops ahead.

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Yuan Zongdi looked at the government cavalry breaking through the encirclement and felt very unwilling. Although he had killed more than a hundred government cavalry, his own losses were much greater, several times that of the government army. How could he not be angry?

However, he knew he couldn't linger in battle with the government troops here, so he sent Liu Han with a thousand cavalry to continue pursuing the fleeing enemy, while he led the remaining three thousand bandits toward the direction of the rebel king's headquarters.

Yuan Zongdi prayed silently, hoping that the rebel king could hold out until he arrived, so as not to delay the important task of rescuing the rebel king.

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Just as He Zhenxiong was charging forward relentlessly, he suddenly saw a cloud of dust coming from the left, which rushed to the flank of his troops in an instant. Sure enough, it was a band of enemy cavalry that attacked the waist of their cavalry formation.

He Zhenxiong personally led his troops in the charge, while Shao Dashun, a guerrilla commander in his own camp, was in command in the center.

This man was a veteran soldier in the camp of Yang Guozhu, the former general of Xuanfu Town. He was thirty-six years old, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, and very imposing and strong. His weapon was a large spiked club.

He rose through the ranks by virtue of his personal martial prowess and unwavering loyalty to Yang Guozhu. He was already a commander during the Battle of Jinzhou, and was promoted to guerrilla commander after the battle based on his merits.

Although promotion to guerrilla rank was based entirely on military merit, Shao Dashun was well aware that with the death of General Yang Guozhu, the military achievements of the Xuanfu Army generals might be overshadowed by other generals.

It was because of Yang Guozhu's entrustment that the newly appointed Xuanfu Town Commander-in-Chief Zhang Cheng protected the military merits they deserved, which made Shao Dashun sincerely admire Zhang Cheng.

Later, during the reorganization of the northern route, although he was still assigned to the Zhenbiao Battalion, his treatment was the same as that of the other battalions of the Yongyi Army, and he did not feel discriminated against. Moreover, his armor and weapons were all updated, which made Shao Dashun have no more resentment and he was completely convinced of the merits of the Earl of Yongning, Zhang Cheng.

Today, he originally volunteered to be the vanguard, but he couldn't refuse the commanding general He Zhenxiong, so he was ordered to lead the troops to provide support from the center.

I originally thought there was no big battle to fight here, but I also felt regretful and resentful that I hadn't tried harder to fight for it with He Zhenxiong.

But who would have thought that a band of over a thousand rebel soldiers would suddenly appear? Upon first seeing them, Shao Dashun was overjoyed!