Ming Dynasty entry: I am Chongzhen, the greatest emperor of all time!

Chapter 28: Breaking into the Military Camp
Zhang Shize did not go through Deshengmen.

Because just seven miles away from Deshengmen was the rebel vanguard Liu Zongmin's troops.

He led more than 500 light cavalrymen, bypassed the Bell and Drum Tower, and exited from Anding Gate.

Before I had walked two miles, I heard a muffled sound behind me.

The Duke of England, who had just been full of vigor and energy, suddenly felt at a loss.

Could it be that he was targeted by the rebel army as soon as he left the city?

He quickly stopped everyone, turned his horse around, and wanted to look back.

Ye Bushou had already sent dozens of cavalrymen towards the direction of the sound.

At three quarters past ten, the moonlight was obscured by thick clouds.

After five consecutive crow caws.

Ye Bu Shou Bai Hu put away his crossbow and said, "Sir, they are one of us."

Although Zhang Shize was a little confused as to why one of his own showed up, he finally felt relieved.

Thousands of iron cavalrymen without armor soon arrived in front of the light cavalry.

Although he was not wearing armor, his imposing manner still made the servants who had never been on the battlefield retreat again and again.

Wu Wei rode forward alone, clasping his hands together on horseback.

"My Lord, His Majesty has ordered me to lead a 3,000-man battalion to report to you!"

Zhang Shize had no intention of taking these thousand heavy cavalry with him.

Even though he had never been to the battlefield, he knew that a night attack required the word "attack".

The movement of a thousand cavalrymen would make too much noise and would likely attract the attention of the rebel army.

But thinking about the servant's terrible performance, Zhang Shize was also worried that the mission would not be completed.

After thinking for a moment, he finally decided to bring the 3,000-man battalion.

But we can't act together.

"Captain Wu, you're making too much noise, which will easily arouse the rebels' vigilance. How about this?"

"I'll lead the light cavalry and sneak over to set fire to the grain. You lead the three thousand troops to take a detour, avoiding the rebel spies. When the rebel camp is on fire, you lead your men straight into the flames. How about that?"

"His Majesty has ordered that everything should be done by you, my Lord!" Wu Wei did not refute.

Zhang Shize's order was also very reasonable. Anyway, they put all the armor on the cart this time.

Don't worry about horsepower.

After a brief discussion, the two sides split into two groups again.

Zhang Shize led 500 light cavalrymen and galloped quietly along the Yongding River beach, with their horses' hooves wrapped in thick linen. Ye Bushou stood in front and kept making safety gestures.

Just as they were about to get closer, two crows suddenly cried out.

Zhang Shize immediately reined in his horse.

Along with this, there was the faint neighing of war horses coming from behind the earth slope three miles away.

The hundred households were not collected at night and their palms were stretched forward.

A dozen Night Warriors dismounted from their horses, and the copper nails on their leather armor were painted black with coal ash.

The one-eyed man in the lead drew out a goose-feather knife and bit it in his mouth, then used his hands and feet to disappear into the dry grass.

In just half a cup of tea, a faint fluorite light with three short and one long pulses appeared in the northwest corner.

"My lord, the rebel camp is just ahead." Yebushou Baihu translated the code for Zhang Shize.

Hearing this, Zhang Shize also dismounted and climbed up the dry grass slope on tiptoe.

Just one look and my throat felt sour.

The scene before him completely stunned the Duke, who had lived in the capital since childhood.

The camp consisting of 700,000 soldiers and civilians was spread out along the Yongding River, and the light bands formed by torches were even brighter than the Milky Way in the sky!

From Lugou Bridge in the east to Shijingshan in the west, the thirty-mile plain was filled with tents and carriages.

How could this be a military camp? It was clearly a living creature that devoured the world, wriggling and panting.

If he didn't look closely, Zhang Shize would even feel a sense of despair.

He had seen the general outline of the Beijing Camp before the Yongwei Camp and the Sanqian Camp moved in.

There were thousands of people scattered here and there, so scattered that they couldn't even fill a two-mile area. But when he looked closely, his despair immediately dissipated.

The entire Chuang army camp is divided into three levels.

At the outermost edge of the camp is the refugee camp where nearly 500,000 refugees are located.

The thirty-zhang-wide camp wall is more like a mass grave than a camp wall.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees huddled on the ground, with countless corpses piled up outside along with stones and wood.

There were messy tents and firewood everywhere.

A dozen or so sentinels of the rebel army dragged carts back and forth, and any starving people who were dying would be caught and thrown onto the carts.

Those twitching hands and feet, still clawing at the air, were used as kindling to fill the gaps in the surrounding camp walls.

There were piles of burning corpses or piles of corpses being filled all around.

The night wind, wrapped in a foul stench, rushed into Zhang Shize's nostrils, and he suddenly realized that the so-called camp boundary did not need a wooden fence at all, because living people and dead bodies were the best barriers.

This is the outer camp of the rebel army.

Amid the thick black smoke and pungent smell, Zhang Shize and others didn't even need to disguise themselves and could just move directly through the outer camp.

The refugees around didn't care whose soldier you were. When they saw someone on horseback, they would kneel down and call him "Master".

The vast majority of the refugees are young and strong, and women and children are extremely rare.

Zhang Shize led the people in for nearly ten miles in fear.

I barely made it through the refugee camp.

Come to the second floor of the Chuangjun camp.

Composed of surrendered Ming troops.

The camp of the 200,000 surrendered soldiers looked relatively neat, with broken Dashun flags randomly stuck on the gate.

Through the firelight, one could see rows of knife carts in the camp, and even Portuguese cannons mounted on earthen ramparts.

These weapons, which were supposed to protect the capital, were now all pointing their muzzles towards Beijing.

There were also patrolling soldiers inside and outside the camp.

It's impossible to just break in like a refugee camp.

"It's okay, sir. Just go in." Ye Bushou Captain said in a low voice.

"How can we rush in when the security is so tight?" Zhang Shize exclaimed.

Yebushou Captain sighed softly, without explaining, but pointed at the patrolling surrendered troops.

Those people were still wearing the standard Ming army mandarin duck battle jackets.

Li Zicheng had no ability to change their clothes.

Zhang Shize's face turned red. Why did he ask for permission to come here?
Following the order from the captain, thirty Night Guards put on the Shun army uniforms and swaggered out of the shadows.

The one-eyed man even deliberately kicked over a clay pot to attract the patrolling surrendered soldiers, while cursing in a Shaanxi accent, "You idiot! The night wind in Northern Zhili can freeze your balls off! Open the door for us quickly! We need to go back to the camp!"

The patrol team didn't even dare to look, let alone check, and hurriedly opened the camp gate.

Let Ye Bushu disguise himself as a rebel army and bring Zhang Shize and others in.

Soon he came out from the other side.

Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

In addition to the low combat effectiveness of refugees and surrendered soldiers and lax management, it was also related to the idea of ​​the rebel army collapsing from above.

Wherever the Dashun flag went, everyone surrendered.

No one would have thought that the Ming army would appear so brazenly among an army of hundreds of thousands.

When everyone finally saw the lights of the central army camp, Zhang Shize dug his nails into his palms.

The Twenty-Li Joint Camp was like a fire dragon entwined on the earth, and the tents of the fifty thousand old camps in the core area were arranged in neat rows.

What is even more terrifying is that countless rangers are patrolling the periphery, and the alarm torches next to the saddles can be lit at any time.

The old camp was like a steel hedgehog, with three layers of wooden walls standing majestically at intervals of fifty steps.

Through the gaps, one could see spearmen in double armor changing shifts, and the clashing of iron weapons could be heard clearly from two miles away.

At the core of all the defenses, sixteen giant granaries were tightly covered with cowhide tents. It went without saying that they were definitely granaries!
(End of this chapter)