open sea

Chapter 1179
Wang Youlin's judgment was quickly transmitted to the admiral of the squadron, Yuan Zizhang, who ordered the latter to immediately shrink the defense to cross the Kelan River and retreat from the west bank.

According to Wang Youlin's report, a lightly armed French army of more than [-] troops marched southward from the west bank of the Kelan River with luggage. [-]% of their luggage was burned, including copper shells.

Yuan Zizhang cared more about the "[-] French troops with light armor" in front of him. If that was the case, the [-] French troops without artillery, even if they cooperated with infantry and cavalry, would be nothing more than hard work against the [-] Beiyang troops under his command. vegetable.

The military technology of the Beiyang Army has been learned in Tianjin, and they have basically been proficient in Dongyang in the past few years. There is only one item in the real Dadongyang that allows them to strengthen their training. Safety needs, from Changshengwei to Mexico City and back thousands of miles, carry out a rapid march with light and heavy equipment.

Lightly armed, without guns, without luggage, and only carrying the necessary rations for seven days and fifty barrels of ammunition, the Banner Army of the size of a thousand households can march five hundred miles in five days, and it can go into battle when it arrives.

If you carry heavy artillery equipment, your marching speed will be two to three days slower, and the artillery will bring great uncertainty.

Now, their enemy had no artillery but carried shells, indicating that there were other armies carrying heavy weapons in support.

The soldiers and horses gathered in batches within an hour, and crossed the Kelan River westward on the prefabricated pontoon bridge of Yuan Zizhang's department. Thanks to the only materials left to build the pontoon bridge, they could hang far behind the enemy's buttocks that had been discovered. Headed back towards the return of the Dordogne defense line.

He came out to explore the way, and Yuan Zizhang didn't even think about relying on his 800 troops to fight the French army.

However, the Ming army did not panic. They had long expected that the enemy would have an overreaction... two hundred miles deep into the people's hinterland, and the sweeping force wiped out the strongholds on the way. The enemy would only have two reactions.

Either run away, or organize an army.

It now appears that the reaction of the French is clearly the latter.

After walking south for a day and a night, in the early morning of the third day, Li Dai, who was resting as a vanguard, saw a tired servant under his command again. At this time, the half-armored war horse had disappeared, and the horse riding under him was a A large horse used by the French to pull carts; the helmet and bones are gone , opened his mouth but didn't say a word.

Li Dai rode up to meet him from a distance, waved and threw the water bag over: "Don't talk, drink water first."

Waiting for the family member to drink two sips of water, he swallowed his saliva and said: "Lieutenant, I have been chasing the baggage team. They are going faster and faster on the road, and they stopped marching until midnight last night when they caught up with the large army. Its army is about four thousand. There are many people and few horses, camping and cutting wood to build bridges, and one day it will be time to cross the river."

"Crossing the river?" Li Dai recalled Wang Youlin's statement that the army should have one or more troops, and asked eagerly, "Does their camp have artillery, and how far is it from here?"

The servant raised his eyes and thought, then shook his head and said, "I didn't see the cannon, so I followed the river for 23 miles to the south, the river diverted into a bay, and camped on a high ground, and I could see clearly the hillside three miles away."

Li Dai didn't say any more, and it was impossible for him to let his servant go to rest during the march, but he just let him take a breath, then went back to find Wang Youlin, the immediate subordinate officer, and followed the three of them to meet with General Yuan Zizhang.

The general who was born as a Wu Jinshi didn't say much after hearing the news, and took out two sketches from the buffalo leather bag on his and his adjutant's waist that they had drawn together along the way, and handed one to Li Dai: "Let your most capable rider take it, Send it back to General Chen in Bordeaux and set off immediately."

In another picture, a line is drawn with charcoal pencil, and the tone is flat: "It takes a detour to enter an unexplored area and it takes an extra [-] miles. After three days, we can cross the Dordogne River and return. Our soldiers only There are three days left of food and grass; when I return to the defense line, the two enemy forces will also join up and fight positional warfare on the Dordogne River, and there will be mercenaries from the Western Army as helpers."

As he said, Yuan Zizhang drew another route on the map with his pen: "Or catch up, fight with the bandits, kill the bandits, seize their luggage, take all the winter clothes with shells, and teach them how to use the guns without bullets and whether they have bullets or not." Without medicine, with soldiers but without clothing, they are dedicated to enduring the bitter cold."

Yuan Zizhang turned his head, looked at the guerrilla general's reaction, and said to Li Dai's servant: "Can you draw a map of their camp...forget it."

Jia Ding is not the Beiyang Banner Army. Yuan Zizhang thinks that this kind of professional skills that can be mastered by everyone is difficult for them. However, Jia Ding really drew it with a pen and paper. Although it is crooked, it has some meaning. There are river valleys and highlands on the side, and forests along the coast. The French army camped on the highlands and built bridges in the valleys.

There is another low hill across the dense forest to the north of the camp. The owner said that he can climb up to have a panoramic view of the enemy camp.

Wang Youlin watched his servant draw a sketch, frowned and said, "The two cavalry of the Celestial Army are only a hundred or so. If General Chen's Kang Gulu led the Jurchen cavalry to follow, this battle would be a big one. In the current situation, it is best to defeat the enemy. Lead the army to the forest, otherwise the enemy cavalry will attack with spears and it will be difficult to resist."

Speaking of the guerrilla general, he glanced at Yuan Zizhang. Before setting off, Chen Jiujing specially reminded them that they should not take it seriously when they meet Qingqi with spears and mail armor. The horses are unprofessional and afraid of sharp things.

But the knights in France are all reckless men, and their horses have been specially trained. Dare to hit hard.

After killing the horse, the knight rolled over and pulled the wooden fence away from the horse, and he could also rush into the position and chop up the Han pirates who lacked armor like melons and vegetables.

This kind of thing poses a great threat to the line array commonly used by the Beiyang Army.

With hands behind his back, Yuan Zizhang counted the number of cannons in his hands and the magical arrows that the generals could use intensively, thinking that it was still possible to clean up the enemy army that built the bridge, but it was still a bit difficult. Make up your mind - the rewards of killing at least a dozen nobles in the first battle are extremely tempting.

The same is that the enemy army with twice the strength is still under the defense of the camp, and there is still one or several enemy troops who do not know where to go, and there is a risk of the entire army being wiped out.

"What do you think?"

Wang Youlin nodded viciously: "General, order the hundreds of households to check the ammunition, everyone is ready."

Beside the two of them, Li Dai also cupped his fists, his eyes showed a fervent look of yearning for battle.

Below Yuan Zizhang, officers who knew Fu Yuan's true purpose, the lower their rank, the more they hoped to get themselves a set of plate armor with coat of arms.

The admiral of the squadron took a deep breath, glanced at the two men and looked at the heavy formation of troops marching, and finally made up his mind: "Send the order, the whole army checks the ammunition, sends the cavalry to patrol twenty miles, and march south."

(End of this chapter)