open sea

Chapter 1396 Robert

Winchester is a large city with a large population.

The southeast and northwest are mountains and hills, and there is a road built by the Romans from the southwest to the northeast. It was already an important military town at that time, and later became the capital of England.

At this moment, it is the key place that Yingming must conquer, and it is also the fortress that Robert Dudley must guard.

In terms of intelligence, the Ming army is relatively backward, because it only has the single method of dispatching scouts.

And Earl Robert was able to gather the nobles fleeing in the west and summarize the information along the way.

On the third day of February in the 12th year of Wanli, the western aristocrats who had fled to Winchester reported to Earl Robert that six days earlier, Ming army cavalry with small flags on their backs had passed near Stonehenge in the northwest.

At the same time, their spies in Southampton reported that the Ming army sent reinforcements to Southampton for eight consecutive days, and nearly [-] troops entered the city every day. Now the city has implemented a complete Ming-style defense method, and no one is allowed to walk around. Water sources, geodesic listening, gathering astronomers, prohibiting noise, and conducting military management.

On the eighth day of February, nobles who fled from the southern Isle of Wight brought news that Isle of Wight was besieged by the Ming army with more than a thousand troops, and asked the earl for reinforcements.

The [-] registered sailors in the rear assembled the army from Glencoe Heights, and were expected to arrive in Portsmouth three days later, and set off from there to land on the Isle of Wight to relieve the siege. At this moment, the Ming army continued to send reinforcements to Southampton.

It has been twelve full days. In the eyes of Earl Robert, the Ming army in Southampton has swelled to an army of tens of thousands, which has doubled the pressure.

Finally, on the 14th day of February, that is, the tenth day of February, some nobles who fled east explained that the army had stopped sending reinforcements to Southampton. There were also twelve field swivel guns that entered the city together.

At the same time, news came from Compton Village on the bank of the Yiqin River that a group of scouting cavalry from the Ming army was heading to the east bank through the river.

All evidence indicates that the main force of the Ming army will launch an attack from Southampton to Winchester.

And it is very likely to attack from the east bank of the Yiqin River, which is uneven.

However, the truth is often different from the information. Yingming is not in Southampton, and there are no tens of thousands of troops stationed in the city.

Southampton has only two extended pasture camps, [-] troops and twelve Francois machine guns. The troops attacking the southern Isle of Wight are the longbowmen of the [-]rd Pooley Battalion, and they are launching a six-day attack In the end, they did not occupy the Isle of Wight, but instead withdrew their troops and headed north.

The reason why the intelligence told Earl Robert that there were a large number of Ming troops in Southampton was because Ying knew that there were British troops in the city.

So first use the city defense method to imprison the residents in the city so that they can't watch the situation carefully, then split up enough of the two pasture camps, secretly pull them out of the city at night, and drive into the city by the official road with great fanfare the next morning.

Wearing armor today, shirtless tomorrow, wearing helmets and civilian clothes the day after tomorrow, and gradually driving out the people in the city to live together, showing the illusion that there are more and more Ming troops in the city.

In fact, there are only those [-] troops in the city.

This kind of trick will definitely be seen through after a long time, but it is not a problem to fool people for a short time.

In particular, Ying Ming brought the cannons into the city, and the cannons were indeed left in the city. He himself rode out of the city that night, and led the Eastern cavalry waiting outside the city along the official road at night. Licheng joined the main force of the army.

In Bury City, he has four hundred households of the Beiyang Cavalry, four hundred households of the Alan Restoration Army, two Alan battalions, two Muye camps, and three Puli battalions, with a strength of nearly [-].

When the plan was implemented, no one knew whether it would be successful or not, especially for this kind of mysterious troop transfer. Until Ying Ming was ready to attack, he didn't know whether the enemy would take the bait.

But even if he didn't take the bait, there was no loss for him. Anyway, he was idle while waiting for the artillery team and the luggage team to gather behind him. Sleeping isn't too bad either.

He didn't know how many soldiers and horses the English stationed in Winchester, but he knew that nearly ten thousand sailors who had lost their livelihood to the east of Winchester were armed by the English royal family, which was no small trouble for him.

For this reason, he specially brought out 48 Fran machine guns and six heavy-duty General Shuo naval guns from Puli County, and hurriedly made gun carriages to bombard Jiancheng.

As soon as the heavy artillery team arrived, they took the Ailan Battalion as the forerunner and marched straight into the plain to the east.

The distance between the two sides was less than sixty miles. Along the criss-crossing farmland, the Allen Camp first occupied a beer workshop and then a large farm. There is an Anglican monastery nine miles away.

Earl Robert, who stationed the main force in the southeast of the city, was extremely panicked by the sudden situation, and ordered two knights who stayed in the city to lead more than [-] troops westward. The jazz led more than a thousand conscripts to move to Hesley in the southwest, in order to take care of both the north and the south.

At the same time, he had already determined that whether the main attack direction of the Ming army was the south or the north, the battle would definitely start at Winchester, so he summoned the registered sailors in the rear to rush to help.

The five hundred sailors who had been sent south to support the Isle of Wight were also called back.

The battle at the monastery started on the morning of February [-]th. The knights led a dozen light cavalry to attack the team of the Alan camp that was transporting beer, bread and goods to the west. The soldiers were wiped out.

Immediately after half an hour, the Alan infantry of the monastery rode out in all directions, intercepted and wiped out the cavalier squad that was unable to proceed because the wheels of the carriage were stuck in the mud by the side of the road.

Another knight led more than 200 people to launch a siege to the monastery. The battle lasted for two hours, but he couldn't get in. The knight finally found that the defenders were more powerful than him. When he retreated, he was killed by the Alan camp and chased him all the way. Almost into the town of Winchester.

The demise of this army is very meaningful to the earl. It took a day to let him turn the main force from the east to the west of the city, and mobilized the farmers to build a trench outside the city. That night, he led three thousand main troops and two thousand Earl Robert, the sailor, led his troops out of the city, camped in the west of the city, and sent someone to send a letter of war to the commander of the Ming army in the west, hoping to fight on the plain farmland.

Because of this protracted defense, Earl Robert was already heavily in debt, and neither the troops nor he could continue to bear the pressure of the erratic actions of the Ming army.

This is exactly what Ying Ming wanted. If the enemy defenders were to stick to the city, he was really worried about a strong attack.

But in field battles, the advantage of the defenders is offset.

His reply was very forthright.

"I'm Ying Ming. I have a question that has been buried in my heart for a long time. After this battle, can you tell me why you are called Carrot Head?"

(End of this chapter)