open sea

Chapter 1432 Battle of Creek

The blue St. Andrew flag representing Scotland flies north of Nottingham. They are from Scotland's largest and oldest clan force, the Downer family.

It was very difficult for the six Scottish nobles to fight in the south. For hundreds of years, these families fought against each other until they jointly took charge of the Scottish state affairs.

Nothing can resolve the enmity among them.

Until the English handed over the throne to them.

The six highland tribes came out in full force, assembled, prepared, and marched, all the way unimpeded.

For more than ten days, their highland cavalry fought against Ming army scouts in Nottinghamshire many times. The highland cavalry could find Ming army scouts dozens of times a day from various places and fought several times. It was difficult to catch or kill them.

The scouts of the Ming army are all serious Beiyang cavalry. Each small flag is equipped with a telescope. Their detection efficiency is extremely high and their concealment ability is extremely strong. Basically, they will only be discovered when they want to be discovered by the enemy.

It was discovered that it was to stop the enemy from going south.

Just like what Yang Gao knew about the Ming army, when the single scout was detected, the main force of the Ming army might still be three hundred miles away.

According to Ying Ming's understanding of the British army, as long as their team is found, the main force must be within a radius of fifty miles.

Taking advantage of the time gained by the scouts, Ying Ming communicated with Yang Ce in the rear, and at the same time ordered the scouts to step up their investigations to the north to find out where the main force of the enemy army is.

Then the range of camps of English troops and Scottish troops was marked on Yingming's map.

"This 300-man army ransacked the Abbey of Nottingham on the sixth day of April with the white cross flag. After resting for four days, they continued south. On April 23th, they burned down a village on the roadside [-] miles away, and then rested for three days."

"This 500-man army used the red cross flag and moved the fastest. It was still in York on the third day of April, and it had already traveled 110 miles south on the seventh day of April. After three days of rest, it continued to march forty miles a day and entered Nottingham."

"The behavior of these two troops was strange. At first, there were four centurions. On the seventh day of April, the two teams approached, only thirteen miles away. On the eighth day, our scouts were harassed and did not dare to approach. The two teams merged into one team, and only 500 people remained."

Ying Ming carefully analyzed the intelligence from the north in a small village on the northern outskirts of London. The camp was quite simple, with only thirty or so Alan armored infantry guarding the surroundings, and almost all the Beiyang cavalry under him were sent out.

In the tax official's hall in the past of the village, twelve general banners, small banners, and preaching officials marked the latest news sent by the scouts on the map day and night, and the wooden blocks marked with the names of the scouts were placed densely.

A thick stack of paper was pressed under those wooden blocks, which wrote down the daily movement of the represented enemy army and the officer's prediction of their marching direction and speed, and tried to find loopholes in it.

The Ming army can carry out a surprise attack after a rapid march of three hundred miles, but that kind of battle is not suitable for the current situation. On the map, the total number of enemy troops detected by a single scout has exceeded ten thousand troops. Take a risk.

It is impossible to attack with heavy troops. The Mu camp, the Spanish Legion, and the Han troops are not used to long-distance raids.

He needs a fight, preferably within a hundred miles of Northampton to the outskirts of London.

From then until May, the main force of the coalition forces of England and Scotland gradually approached the south. The scope of activities of the Ming army's scouts became more and more dense, and the enemy's marching speed became slower and slower. It seemed that they were waiting for reinforcements from the rear and were gathering strength.

Ying Ming and Yang Ce assembled a cavalry unit composed of Beiyang, Alan, and Spain on the third day of May, and quickly attacked four groups of enemy troops in night raids on the plain south of Leicester.

Then the troops were divided into two groups, one led by Wei Jinzhong went east to bypass Rutland Lake, and the other retreated south to the Yafang River, and three days later used an ambush to defeat a chasing enemy army.

After that, although there was no engagement between the two sides, the situation of the battle was still advancing rapidly. The Scottish and English coalition forces were gathering their main forces to Leicester, and they were very cautious not to send troops to continue southward.

By May 800th, a team of [-] Scottish Highland cavalry quickly passed the first blockade of the Ming army's scouts to the south. The second layer of the blockade network, continue to move south.

They attacked noble manors and villages with bright flags along the way, burned and killed everything they saw, and then walked away.

Let Ying Ming fly into a rage.

Information is also delivered by people, as long as it can be used at the same speed as the horse team, information will always be slower than things happening.

In order to retaliate, the Spanish Legion under Yang Cefa and the Han Legion mixed into four thousand-man teams, and swept away to the north with a sweeping momentum.

After fighting the enemy twice, they retreated southward under the urging of Ying Ming's scouts.

"That's a strategy. Our scouts found out that the enemy army has [-] soldiers in the west, and you have [-] enemy troops in front of you. Get out quickly."

Yang Ce withdrew, the enemy chased him, and he responded to Ming's aid. Finally, in the early morning of May [-]th, in a small place called Creek, Yang Ce decided not to run away.

Ying Ming's reinforcements were 22 miles away from him, and the pursuers behind him were only [-] miles away. This distance was enough for him to set up a camp and rest for a while.

The enemy army appeared at the end of the line of sight along with the sunset in the evening sky, and also set up camp. Ying Ming divided two battalions into two battalions in the southwest and southeast of Creek, and only sent cavalry to communicate with Yang Ce at night, but did not appear on the battlefield. superior.

A large-scale battle is inevitable, and even Wei Jinzhong's cavalry is rushing here from the northeast, but he is too far away to participate in this battle.

By the early morning of the next day, the two sides were in battle on the huge field, and the undulating field was full of Scottish army formations.

More than [-] soldiers frantically adjusted their formation under the order of the nobles, and spread the troops as wide as possible, hoping to surround the [-] Ming troops with fewer troops than them at the beginning of the battle.

However, it wasn't until Yang Ce deployed his troops that the British and Soviet troops realized that what they were fighting against was a Spanish phalanx using the Huangming flag.

Ten Spanish companies lined up in the wilderness. In order to make up for the lack of width, each company's phalanx had a lot of gaps, which were made up by a weak line of skirmishers composed of matchlock gunners from the Han Army.

Even so, Yang Ce's troops were still nearly half shorter than the opponent's in width.

Earl Robert, who led the Soviet-British coalition forces, didn't think it was a decisive battle at all. His scouts knew that there were two Ming reinforcements gathering behind Yang Ce, but he was sure to defeat Yang Ce before the reinforcements arrived.

What's more, they also have two Scottish nobles on their flanks who are leading 5000 and [-] legions respectively to approach the south to surround the Ming army with a larger pincer.

Amidst the sound of prayers one after another, the Scottish Legion moved forward in a big way.

(End of this chapter)