The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 750 The Decisive Battle at Marco Polo Bridge
There are also high platforms built by hoarders on the high ground. There are dozens of them in the entire camp, with an average height of about ten meters.

It can be used to watch the audience and issue orders with semaphore.

Ding Yi climbed to the top and looked around with a telescope.

The two sides had a tacit understanding to choose the battlefield near the Lugou River, but it is estimated that Li Zicheng is also thinking about where to fight.

Ding Yi's soldiers and horses are on the south bank of the river, with a company and battalion for more than ten miles, and various ministries are arrayed around Huangcun from east to west.

At this time, the sergeants had already left the camp and lined up, but in order to save energy, all the troops sat on the ground and waited for the battle order.

Ding Yi is very humane in this regard, he does not require the soldiers to stand upright one by one before the battle.

Because almost all of them now wear iron armor, and the heavy iron armor wears on their bodies, and standing all the time consumes their energy.

Neither Zhang Jing nor Yuan Youcai, Ding Yi's main cavalry, came.

But all of his subordinates had horses, and all of them were cavalry, and even Zhou Guangbao's cavalry followed him all the time.

There are about [-] musketeers in the middle of the front line now, which are the main force of Ding Yi's decisive battle.

Then there are 2 cavalry, and [-] people with double guns, on the left and right wings.The other five thousand are mainly cold weapons as the reserve team.

There are more than 1 pikemen and [-] hoarders with knives and guns behind the blunderbuss.

There are more than 1 artillerymen pulled by carts and lined up around the back of their major battalions, and nearly a thousand 6-pound and 12-pound artillery are placed there.

The whole formation is divided into six pieces, which is very obvious.

Ding Yi even felt that he didn't need artillery to defeat Li Zicheng.

But in order to reduce casualties and defeat Li Zicheng as soon as possible, Ding Yi still had to show him the most powerful artillery formation in the world.

Li Zicheng at this time must have never seen so many artillery pieces, let alone thought that there would be so many artillery pieces on the opposite side.

Li Zicheng's entire army left the city early this morning, and then formed a large formation north of the Lugou River.

Has it been lined up yet?

Looking through the telescope, half of his troops are cavalry and half are infantry.

When he entered Beijing, everyone brought horses, and 10,000+ cavalry also entered Beijing.

But there are some soldiers and horses, like Ding Yi, who are infantry on horseback.

So he finally took [-] elite cavalry to Shanhaiguan, which means that his old battalion and elite cavalry were about [-].

Before Ding Yi pushed all the way, Li Zicheng fled many soldiers and horses to the capital. He regrouped and got another 16 horse battalion.

These were not the elite cavalry. Li Zicheng put them at the forefront, followed by nearly [-] infantry, and finally [-] elite cavalry.

The Peasant Army has always been like this in wars. In the past, when he was not very elite, the infantry in front of him might be old and weak civilians, who were used to consume the artillery of the army.

Now he brings almost all warriors, and he still puts the infantry at the front and the elite at the end.

This set is useful to other officers and soldiers, but to Ding Yi, it is simply a gift.

What Ding Yi is thinking about now is not how to defeat him, but how to block Li Zicheng and prevent his elite cavalry from running away.

Li Zicheng's elite cavalry are at the end, and if he is defeated on the battlefield, he will definitely turn around and run away.

But this time, even if someone else runs away, more than 7000 million silver will definitely not escape.

Ding Yi looked at it for a while, Li Zicheng's troops were still in formation, after all, the battlefield of more than 30 people was really huge, and there was a river separating the two sides, Li Zicheng was slowly setting up the battle without haste.

After watching the meeting, Ding Yi walked down the tower.

Most of the generals have returned to camp, only Zhou Guangbao, Chen Youyou and Xiao Yongqiu are still below.

"My lord." The three gathered around again.

"Where do you think Li Zicheng will choose to fight?" Ding Yi asked.

The three looked at each other, and finally Zhou Guangbao and Xiao Yongqiu looked at Chen Youyou.

Chen sometimes was not polite, and took the lead to say: "Li Zicheng has many soldiers and horses, so he must choose a wide area."

"His army is closer to the Lugou River than ours, but they don't pass the Lugou Bridge, or they wait for us to cross the bridge, and then attack halfway."

Ding Yi thought for a while and nodded.

They only arrived in Liangxiang last night, and Li Zicheng's soldiers and horses could cross the bridge ahead of time, but they didn't leave the capital until today.

Obviously he wanted to wait for Ding Yi's troops to cross the bridge.

Here the Lugou River connects to the Sanggan River, and the Sanggan River goes westward to Tumubao. Only two bridges, Lugou Bridge and Hongren Bridge, can pass through such a long waterline.

His 10,000+ soldiers and horses have passed, and it is estimated that it will take a long time to go.

And it's not good for artillery. It took a long time to transport thousands of artillery.

Li Zicheng is still good at fighting.

If he can't cross the river, Li Zicheng can't cross the river. If the two sides confront each other, it will be meaningless.

In fact, Li Zicheng's grain at this time may not be as much as Ding Yi's. Ding Yi's grain and grass are continuously transported here from Shandong and Tianjin.

But Ding Yi didn't need to fight him.

"Li Zicheng didn't dare to come over, so let's go over. Order, take He Xiaocheying as the vanguard, cross the Marco Polo Bridge, Chen Shiyou, and your troops cross the Hongren Bridge."

"No." Following Ding Yi's order, forward He Xiaocheying moved forward first.

Sometimes Chen also hugged Ding Yi, turned around and left.

Because they were also planning to pass through Lugou Bridge, He Xiaocheying was the closest to Lugou Bridge.

As soon as He Xiaocheying moved, the peasant army guarding Lugou Bridge retreated one after another.

"Report." A fast horse flew towards the big tent of the Chuangjun army.

Li Zicheng didn't have a telescope, so he relied on sentry cavalry to convey information.

"My lord, the Ming army is crossing the bridge."

Beside Li Zicheng, all the generals followed, including Li Yan who ran back from Shanxi.

"Okay, Ding Yi really has the guts." Li Zicheng laughed loudly: "Let them come here."

"You can hit halfway through." Gu Junen said with a smile.

Everyone laughed.

Their entire army lined up three miles north of the bridge, and the three miles that were vacated were for the Ming army to use.

Li Zicheng thought that the Ming army would cross the bridge directly last night, but he didn't expect Ding Yi to camp on the other side of the bridge.

Ding Yi chose to be on the opposite side of the bridge, also to prevent intruders from attacking the camp, and to have a good night's rest.

But there are also weaknesses in this way. Now the whole army has 10,000+ soldiers and horses passing through the two bridges, which takes a lot of time.

If Li Zicheng's soldiers and horses are allowed to leave, it may take a long time to walk in chaos, and they may not be able to pass.

But soon Li Zicheng's sentry found out in horror that Ding Yi's troops crossed the bridge too fast.

Ding Yi's soldiers and horses were neat and orderly, not chaotic at all, but Ding Yi was afraid of crossing the broken bridge, so he asked to walk freely when crossing the bridge.

The whole army lined up in several rows, orderly and uncrowded. For example, a battalion of 5000 people walked in five rows, with 1000 people in each row, and ran over in a few minutes.

They all walked before the bridge, and when they got on the bridge, they began to trot. The pace of the whole army was inconsistent to prevent resonance.

In an instant, the first battalion ran across the bridge.

Then the successor soldiers and horses crossed the bridge one after another, and then walked to their respective positions.

Li Zicheng also chose a high place several miles away to watch, but he couldn't see clearly. After the Ming army crossed a large number of rivers, they finally saw clearly.

While the Ming army was crossing the river on foot, the artillerymen pushed the cannons forward one after another until they reached the edge of the river without crossing the river.

And across the river, the Ming army lined up with their backs and stood by the river one after another.

In this way, the artillery can hit the peasant army on the other side without crossing the river.

But Li Zicheng didn't know.

He was going to attack halfway, seeing that the Ming army seemed to pass through a large area in darkness, he was already hesitating whether to attack or not.

At this time, "Report", a sentry rider came back in front: "Half of the Ming army has crossed the river, and they are in formation, standing with their backs to the water."

"Hey, this is to learn from Han Xin and fight to the death?" Wang Weiguo laughed.

Liu Zongmin and other generals also laughed.

Li Zicheng's face darkened, and he said sharply: "Here's an order, all ministries will attack in order according to yesterday's arrangement."

"No" all the generals shouted loudly.

Li Zicheng raised his horsewhip fiercely: "After defeating the false king Ding Yi, there will be no soldiers or horses in Ming Dynasty to stop us."

"Long live." The generals shouted excitedly.

Soon, Ding Yi, who had just crossed the bridge, saw the huge camp of invading troops moving slowly several miles away.

At this time, there was a murderous atmosphere between the heaven and the earth, and the two armies lined up from east to west.

The tens of thousands of horses on both sides are on the north bank of the Lugou River, stretching for more than ten miles.

Only Lugou Bridge and Hongren Bridge are seven or eight miles away.

Ding Yi's soldiers and horses passed the two bridges at the same time, and then gathered in the middle of the two bridges. After the middle was full, they spread to both sides.

In less than half an hour, all the gunmen passed by, and ten thousand cavalry passed.

At this time, less than half of his entire army had passed.

But Chuangjun has already moved.

"Killing" the vanguard infantry of the Chuangjun began to roar to make momentum.

The chaotic infantry, densely packed, moved forward like ants, probably because the rear team was urging them, walking in front, and then started running again.

Looking through the binoculars, the ants-like crowd inside were running forward one after another.

Ding Yi was dumbfounded.

The Chuang army was originally about three miles away from the river, but Ding Yi's soldiers and horses stood with their backs to the river, occupying one mile.

The striker was two miles away from them.

Started running after two miles?
Do you still have the strength to fight when you run to the front?

Of course, the Chuangjun did not run all the time. The purpose of running in front was to open up the formation and give way to the horse army behind to charge.

After running for 200 meters, I was probably tired, and started to slow down and walk forward again.

In fact, there are already many generals scolding Li Zicheng, and Ding Yi doesn't talk about martial arts.

Our soldiers and horses charge forward, and you also charge forward, everyone go to the middle to fight.

But Ding Yi's soldiers and horses stood still, waiting for them to run over.

This annoyed Chuangjun.

Originally, there was a distance of two miles between the two sides, and everyone ran forward for one mile, and then we could start working.

Who knew that Ding Yi's soldiers and horses were watching, not moving.

After Chuangjun walked slowly for a mile, Ding Yi's soldiers and horses moved.

But instead of moving forward, it turned backward.

The battlefield is more than ten miles from east to west. Ding Yi's soldiers and horses don't need to be in a formation that is one mile wide. space.

I saw the Ming army retreating one after another, all the way to the river, and soon a large number of Ming troops stood with their backs, standing within tens of meters of the river, leaving some space behind for friendly troops to cross the bridge, and the gunners formed four rows. at the forefront.

And the successor cavalry is still crossing the river, a steady stream.

The two armies hadn't fought yet, and the battlefield was full of shouts of killing, and the intruders roared wildly to embolden their courage.

All the generals of the Ming army were watching with binoculars. Li Zicheng's elite who had entered the infantry battalion still had [-]% of them without armor, and most of the armor was cotton armor of the Ming army.

(End of this chapter)