The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 419: Surrender and Save Life
Seeing the formidable Qi army in the city, General Zuo Liangyu was at a loss. His hand holding the reins could not help but tremble. He raised his arm, pointed at the Guangji Gate where the cannon fire was coming from, and said to the head servant Ma Chun:

"Two thousand fucking people?"

Ma Chun looked at the jumping torches that formed a group two miles away, and watched those torches disappear at a speed visible to the naked eye. An expression of astonishment appeared on his ferocious face.

"Where did the Qi army get so many rockets? Why did they have so many artillery pieces? Why didn't they use them in the previous sieges?"

According to the intelligence Zuo Liangyu and his men had previously obtained, the total strength of the remnants of the Qi army that retreated to Linqing was no more than 1,700 people. Together with auxiliary troops and temporarily recruited men, the number would not exceed 3,000.

Some time ago, the royal army besieged Linqing. In order to preserve strength, Zuo Liangyu only dispatched two to three thousand people each time. Even with this small number of troops, he was able to fight back and forth with the Guangjimen defenders on the opposite side, with no clear winner.

The defenders in Linqing City remained in hiding, and only emerged when the Ming army was about to attack the city walls to launch a limited counterattack.

Even when the trenches and fortifications outside the city were destroyed by the Ming army, there was no statement made.

Coupled with Dongfang Zhu's previous deception, all these things made Zuo Liangyu have an illusion that the defenders were only two or three thousand people, and had run out of ammunition and food. As long as he put in a little effort, he could easily break through the city.

I didn't expect the firepower from the opposite side to become so strong all of a sudden. Judging from the sound of gunfire, there were two to three thousand people on the wall of Guangji Gate alone. The defenders of the four gates of Linqing added up to at least tens of thousands of troops, and their firearms were sharp and ammunition was sufficient.

"Weren't all of Liu Zhaosun's soldiers killed? How come there are still so many of them? Dongfang Zhu, that liar! Once I capture Linqing, I'm going to chop him into pieces!"

Zuo Liangyu clearly saw a divine fire crow rising into the air from the city wall behind the city wall, rising into the air and then falling sharply, like a dazzling meteor, smashing into the front of the Ming army that was at a loss as to how to advance or retreat, and exploding countless sparks among the crowd.

"It's over. I can't get any silver, and I still have to stay here."

Zuo Liangyu muttered to himself, thinking about the more than 10,000 people he had gathered with great difficulty over the past two years, and how more than half of them had been lost in a moment. He felt like he had been struck by lightning, and this feeling of losing everything was like a gambler losing everything.

"I can't be a poor ghost anymore, I..."

"Master, go quickly!"

Ma Chun pulled the horse's reins and shouted loudly into Zuo Liangyu's ear. He shouted several times before finally waking Zuo Liangyu up.

"Ah?" Zuo Liangyu woke up as if from a dream, and looked down at the calm and loyal head servant.

"Master, it's okay! It's okay!" The head servant spoke with a thick Henan dialect, leading the horse while comforting Zuo Liangyu.

"Master, we are better off than Huang Degong and his men. Only 3,000 of us went up, and there are still 5,000 or 6,000 brothers who gambled and didn't leave Yingkou. A few soldiers dying is nothing. What we in the Ming Dynasty lack the least now is refugees. As long as we can save our lives, we can go back and open up businesses to recruit people. There will be a lot of refugees."

"Retreat! Leave Huang Degong behind to hold out. As long as I have more soldiers than him, I can still become the Minister of Nanjing when I return! I'll give you a good promotion then!"

Ma Chun wiped his nose and said gratefully, "Master, you are wise! We can go back and rob again now. Last time, many villages were not robbed. Master, what should we do with those women?"

"woman?"

Zuo Liangyu's eyes flashed with the erotic scene of himself and Chen Yuanyuan undressing. He slapped himself hard in the face, finally coming to his senses. He shouted, "
"I can't take care of it anymore. Let the woman escape on her own. All the servants follow me closely. Gather the men and horses and run south. If we get caught up by Huang Degong's defeated soldiers, we won't be able to escape!" Zuo Liangyu whipped his horse and finally looked back at the tragic battlefield behind him. In the distance, rockets rose in the sky with a dull explosion, and thousands of Ming soldiers were running around in the field like headless flies.

Huang Degong's artillerymen were still bombarding the Guangjimen city wall with red cannons.

Zuo Liangyu laughed:
"The yellow dwarf still refuses to give up. Let him continue carrying it. It will help us escape! Hahaha!"

The black mass of defeated soldiers behind him rushed towards Zuo Liangyu. Zuo Liangyu did not dare to hesitate. He snatched the reins from Ma Chun and turned around to run towards his own camp. Behind him, a dozen servants shouted loudly as they walked, gathering their own soldiers.

Zuo Liangyu and his men had just walked a hundred steps south when suddenly a burst of dense horse hoofbeats came from the night, mixed with the unsettling sound of chain mail and the friction and vibration of weapons. The neat and majestic horse hoofbeats sounded like the beating of war drums, rushing towards Zuo Liangyu's camp with unstoppable momentum.

The servants who were running forward stopped one after another, because the camp two miles in front of them was in chaos, with the sounds of horse hooves, explosions, and shouts coming one after another.

Zuo Liangyu and Ma Chun looked at each other, expressions of extreme fear on their faces.

"Master, there are still dozens of servants in the camp. They should be able to suppress them."

In the camp, soldiers who had just finished gambling were watching the tragic battlefield outside the city with great interest, admiring the spectacular scene of friendly troops being ravaged by rockets and artillery. Suddenly, a cavalry rushed out from behind, thunderous gunshots rang out all around, and stone mines exploded under their feet from time to time. The soldiers screamed and fled. This army composed of refugees immediately collapsed in the night attack.

It was pitch black around the camp and the enemy could not be seen at all. However, the fierce battle before had left a deep impression on Zuo Liangyu's soldiers. No one expected that disaster would befall them in the blink of an eye.

Faced with the sudden cavalry attack, many people thought that it was a large number of reinforcements from the Qi army that suddenly arrived, so they immediately fled for their lives without hesitation.

In the chaos, the fleeing soldiers shouted: "The Zuo family army is defeated! Defeated! Run away!"

The remaining people fled for their lives even more desperately. More than 30 servants of Zuo Liangyu who stayed behind in the camp waved their weapons desperately and blocked the camp gate, trying to stop the crazy crowd and organize troops to fight back.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! There are only a hundred of them. Turn around and kill them all! Kill! The master will reward you handsomely!"

A servant of the Zuo family held a torch in one hand and waved a long sword in the other. He used his body to block the gate of the camp and shouted loudly at the thousands of chaotic soldiers in front of him who were like headless flies.

"Don't be afraid, kill..."

Before he could finish saying the word "kill", a huge arrow flew through the air and hit the servant's throat accurately. The man dropped his torch and long sword, and held the arrow feather that was stuck in his throat with both hands, his throat gurgling.

In an instant, a black horse came roaring with a strong smell of blood, the goose feather knife flashed a cold light, and the servant's head flew high into the air.

"die!"

Liu Zhaosun spurred his horse past the headless corpse, his burly upper body suddenly sinking down, clinging to the horse's back, barely avoiding a cold arrow attack. He was in no hurry to kill the Ming army archer who had attacked him, but instead skillfully lifted the still-tumbling head of the servant high up and shouted loudly to the chaotic Ming army fleeing soldiers in front of him:

"Here lies the head of the traitor Zuo Liangyu! Surrender and you will be spared!"

(End of this chapter)