Ming Dynasty: Summoning game players at the beginning

Chapter 127 Pig Butchering Expert

Yuetuo rode on horseback and stared at the fierce fighting on the battlefield. He was surrounded by elite Bayala. Further around him were the elite cavalry of the Eight Banners Manchu and Eight Banners Mongolian, as well as the elite firearms troops composed of the Four Banners Han Army.

The objects in the "telescope" were brought several times closer, and Yue Tuo only felt that the enemy was standing in front of him.

This thing was brought to the Qing Dynasty along with heavy artillery by the "Three Shun Kings".

Thanks to this, Your Majesty was able to form professional firearms and artillery battalions, which enabled the Qing Dynasty to make rapid progress in the use of firearms and become on par with the Ming border army.

However, when they were ordered to invade the Southern Dynasty this time, they did not carry heavy artillery that would slow down their progress. Instead, they fought and retreated quickly, tying down and dividing the enemy's main forces, and then concentrating their superior forces to defeat the enemy with more troops and annihilate the Ming army's daring divisions.

Look, after many days of planning, the "lamb" finally stepped into the trap.

As long as he could annihilate this Ming army and intimidate the various Han Chinese forces that were coming to support the king, the Qing army would be like returning home. They could rob whatever they wanted, attack any city they wanted, sleep wherever they wanted, and they could even rob until spring came and the flowers bloomed.

Just as Yuetuo was looking forward to annihilating this Ming army, someone suddenly came to report, "A Ming army defeated Nata and is attacking the central army camp..."

How could the enemy appear in the rear? This area of ​​dozens of miles had already been completely cleared by the Qing Dynasty. How could there be any trace of Ming troops?!

How can anything go wrong at this critical moment of encircling and annihilating the Ming army!

"All the scouts I sent out were killed!"

You must know that although Yue Tuo had a large number of heavy troops, they were scattered around to annihilate the Ming army, with about a quarter of the troops on each side.

At this time, the troops directly under Yue Tuo's command did not exceed 10,000 people.

If the Ming army's light cavalry attacks, his main camp will be in danger!
Deputy Commander Du Du was also startled and asked hurriedly, "How many troops does the enemy have?"

"It's still unclear. These are the messages spoken by the armored men who were defeated by Nata." The pawn lowered his head, his voice trembling.

"Good-for-nothing! Go and investigate again!"

Du Du pointed at the soldier's nose and scolded him loudly, scaring him so much that he trembled all over. In a trembling voice, he said several times that he deserved to die, and ran out of the tent as if fleeing, fearing that the commander would chop off his head if they disagreed with him.

Yue Tuo widened his eyes in disbelief, took a deep breath and looked at Du Du beside him to make sure that he had not heard the bizarre information that sounded like a fairy tale wrong.

Either all the scouts who gave the warning were dead, or they were all bewitched by the Han women and couldn't move their legs!

Without alerting any scouts, the enemy took a detour and attacked from behind the central army.

If the defeated soldiers who escaped from the battle had not sent back the news, they would still not be aware that their rear was in danger!

Could it be that the Han commander's breaking into the "ambush circle" was a trick of the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole was waiting behind, deliberately using the same trick to lure his Yue Tuo into a trap?
Or is it that a certain Ming army was ignorant of the immensity of the world and came here to die even though they knew they could not fight?

Yue Tuo soon got the answer. There were about 2,000 enemy soldiers and many mule and horse caravans, among whom hundreds were "auxiliary soldiers" with simple equipment or even no equipment.

Among them, one or two hundred people had bald heads, like monks who had their heads shaved.

At first, the enemy soldiers stopped several miles away, and then as if they had discovered something, they advanced another thousand steps and stopped in formation when the distance between us and the enemy was two and a half miles.

This Ming army had many flags, dozens of them, and no one knew what kind of weird designs were used to make them.

There were complex Chinese characters like those for Qin, Han, and Tang, multicolored flags, animals made of pure bone, eight-pointed stars, skulls crossed by red crosses, Gatling gun patterns, and the simple, crude four-character blood-red "I am your father"...

This army of unknown origin wrapped itself tightly with mule and horse carts, looking as if it was about to fight a positional defensive battle.

The "monks" who shaved heads were divided into teams of a dozen or so and tied together with ropes.

Holding a shovel, they began to dig trenches around the convoy, leaving a three-foot-wide aisle every few dozen steps.

Yue Tuo saw one or two half-familiar faces and realized that they were Qing army baoyi captured by the Ming army.

Yue Tuo observed for a while, wondering if there were any reinforcements behind this Ming army.

At this time, dozens of Ming army riders rushed out of the formation, each holding a black flag with a beast with all its bones curled up in the center. Large packages were hung on both sides of their horses.

They came running towards us with strange cries, like a group of rutting baboons on horseback.

The flag bearers beside Yue Tuo immediately rode their horses to meet them, but they did not expect that the Ming cavalry did not intend to attack. Instead, they circled half a circle in front of Yue Tuo's central army and threw out all the large packages on the left and right sides of the horses.

The flagmen waited until the Ming cavalry were two hundred steps away before they rushed over to retrieve the package.

Deep red stains oozed from the bottoms of dozens of large packages, as if they were filled with large, out-of-season watermelons.

Yue Tuo had already smelled the irresistible stench of blood and was mentally prepared.

In full view of the crowd, the flag bearer was ordered to untie the rope of the cloth bag.

The rustling sound of the ropes being pulled apart was as faint as the sound of a mosquito, but Yue Tuo always felt that someone was plucking a bowstring beside his ear, dong, dong, dong, like the sound of a pulse beating in an orderly manner in the night.

As the bulging cloth bags were untied one by one, a strong smell of blood came like a strong wind.

What was leaked were heads that had been carefully cared for, with clear faces. Their eyelids were torn open by bamboo nails, keeping their eyes open as if they had died.

"Ahhh!"

The flag bearers who discovered their friends screamed in fear and flew to their heads, wailing. Some people also saw their dead relatives, their bodies frozen in place.

Their rat-tail hairstyles silently confirmed their status as Qing soldiers—Niulu Zhang Jing Nata himself, his armored men, bannermen, and even some bondservants. Furthermore, each head had the same blood-red couplet etched on its cheek.

Your father's Black Flag Battalion is here too.

Specialized in slaughtering Tungus wild boars

Horizontal banner: Come here
Perhaps they felt that this provocation was not enough, so the riders who brought the gifts stopped their horses, stood on their horses, confidently untied their belts, and urinated a pool of steaming hot "yellow water" in front of tens of thousands of enemies and friends.

Then they all hooked their fingers at the Qing soldiers and shouted in unison, "Wild Boar Skin, come here!"

"Damn Han dog!"

Yue Tuo was furious and wished he could fly over and kill all the Ming troops.

His Aisin Gioro family had suffered many defeats and humiliations since his father Khan started the rebellion against the Ming Dynasty, but they had never suffered such humiliation as today!

Yue Tuo knew that the Southern Dynasty offered a generous reward for beheading a Qing bannerman.

There are two or three hundred heads here, enough for the leader of this Ming army to rise in rank.

But the Ming army was indifferent to it. They threw it on the ground in front of the flag soldiers as if they had picked up garbage, and then made a mocking gesture of urinating in public.

The Ming army can tolerate it, but the Qing Dynasty cannot!
"Calm down. This is the Ming army's provocation. They are forcing you to send troops!"

Du Du frowned. If he and Yue Tuo were not both sitting on horseback, he really wanted to grab Yue Tuo's arm and urge him to calm down.

On the battlefield, the side that suddenly attacks out of anger will lose its strategic advantage because this will disrupt the original strategic plan and fall into the trap set by the enemy.

Patience is an essential quality for a good commander.

Because he can keep calm, he has enough time to see the enemy's flaws and adjust the infantry tactics in time according to the battlefield situation.

Du Du tried his best to persuade Yue Tuo to calm down. As the commander, Yue Tuo could put the overall situation first, but how could these flag soldiers hold back their anger?

What's more, there are only 2,000 Ming troops in front of him. If he endures the provocation and does not fight at this time, the prestige of the Qing Dynasty since entering the pass and looting as if it were in an empty land will be lost!

The bannermen started to make a lot of noise, and Yue Tuo thought for a moment and decided to defeat this Ming army.

"Have you forgotten the instructions His Majesty gave you before leaving?" Du Du tried to stop him.

Yue Tuo frowned and retorted sharply, "Do you think I'm so angry? I found this Ming army raising its flag and rushing forward just to show the commander-in-chief in the encirclement, so that they can see that reinforcements have arrived!
If the commander-in-chief forms a tacit agreement with the outer reinforcements and joins forces to break through and attack our central army, how will our lives be saved? "

"what!"

Du Du suddenly felt a cold sweat on his back, and then he realized the real meaning behind the provocative behavior, which was to survive and defeat his central army camp in one fell swoop.

You have to know that in ancient times, communication was slow and inefficient. If the enemy rushed into the center of the army and cut off the big banner, tens of thousands of troops might be defeated.

The large banner is generally not moved easily, unless it is a critical moment to raise the flag and advance, otherwise any movement may cause changes in the entire army.

"So I can't stand it. We must first defeat this Ming army and put an end to the Han people's idea of ​​becoming a commander. Only then can we have a chance to reap the spoils of both wars. Otherwise, our army will surely be defeated!"

"It's all Dorgon's fault for dividing the troops! If the main forces were gathered together at this time, why would we be afraid of the Ming army!" Du Du was still cursing.

Upon hearing this, Yue Tuo shook his head in distress, blaming the Ming army for being too weak, allowing them to enter the pass unimpeded for several months without any decent resistance.

Dorgon's request to split up the troops and plunder was therefore reasonable. Splitting into two groups and looting separately was indeed very efficient.

However, this sudden arrival of the Ming army, which broke through the scouts' vigilance, disrupted their well-planned deployment, like a nail stuck in the sole of their foot, leaving them in a dilemma.

What was worse was that most of the civilians and prisoners were lost in the siege and fighting, and Yue Tuo was unable to use his "human shield" to consume the enemy's gunfire and arrows first.

Either this Ming army is a bunch of brave but foolish people, or they have reinforcements behind them that make them fearless.

Yue Tuo was like a gambler, throwing the few chips he had on the gambling table, ready to decide the outcome of a game with the Ming army.

He sent out 12,000 infantry and cavalry, mixed with bannermen, to annihilate the Ming army, and the slaves accompanying the army were not counted as cannon fodder.

He also transferred 2,000 men from the other three sides of the encirclement to strengthen the central army.

Even if this causes the siege troops to relax, it doesn't matter. The cooked duck can be eaten again. If the duck is snatched away and saved by outsiders, they will be facing more than just two ducks.

He sent fast horses to quickly call back the more than 10,000 auxiliary soldiers of the right wing army. Now the situation is urgent, don't just sit there and eat alone!

The sound of war drums and trumpets resounded throughout the world, and Gushan Ezhen Tan Tai led 12,000 infantry and cavalry to attack the Ming army that called itself the Black Flag Battalion.

As a veteran general, he saw at a glance that the Ming army's "chariot formation and trench" system was a tough nut to crack, and it was difficult to break through it by relying solely on cavalry archery and cavalry charges. He could only send slaves and bannermen to consume them for a while, and then use heavy infantry and cavalry to destroy them in one blow.

At his command, hundreds of bannermen led four thousand infantrymen to speed up their pace forward.

However, when they walked a hundred steps forward and saw spears and muskets thrust out from the side carriages, they suddenly heard a loud explosion.

Dozens of gunpowder bags were ejected from the iron barrels half-buried in the ground, leaving gray smoke trails in the air, and exploded violently when they landed on the heads of the armored infantrymen.

(End of this chapter)