Ming Empire

Chapter 100 Cao Yue's thoughts

The ease with which this battle was won surprised everyone, including Cao Yue.

Originally, Cao Yue thought that the battle between the two sides would last for a long time, and Li Yan would use his superior force to attack in various ways.For this reason, he has made a lot of arrangements, and the array is more complicated than when he challenged Jiannu last time. He also set up ambushes on the left and right sides of the main array, equipped with artillery and a large number of "mines", and prepared to attack the bandits when they tried to attack from both sides. Including when attacking the main array, hit them hard.

Of course, Cao Yue didn't want to massacre the rogues. After all, these were Chinese and Han people.

But if the rogue really fights desperately, then he can only kill the killer.You can't fight with the benevolence of a woman. If you are too soft-hearted in a life-and-death war, you will lose on your own side.

Fortunately, Li Yan did not fight with all his strength. After suffering a loss, he immediately withdrew his troops and retreated. Cao Yue, who had no intention of killing the killer, gave up and sent a letter he had written in advance to Li Yan, saying: The three options are for Li Yan to decide by himself.

Cao Yue thought that he had exhausted his benevolence and righteousness by doing so. If Li Yan didn't appreciate it, then he could only be rude.Although the peasant volunteers were also Han and Chinese, if Li Yan still stayed under Datong City and wanted to attack Datong City, then he had no other choice.

Cao Yue felt that what he did was already very benevolent, but he didn't feel that he had done anything wrong.

In this battle, Cao Yue did not let the two hundred mercenaries led by Konstantin fight. He was unwilling to use foreign forces in the war between his compatriots.Cao Yue still has a psychological burden to shoot and kill Chinese people with the guns in the hands of foreign devils.

After Li Yan's troops withdrew, Cao Yue also ordered his troops to retreat, but they did not retreat to Datong City, but relied on Datong City to defend. All the troops camped outside the city and built fortifications.

At night, Cao Yue did not order members of the special training team to attack the camp, but he still took precautions to prevent Li Yan's troops from attacking the camp.

Fortunately, this night was spent in peace, and nothing happened.

When dawn was approaching, Cao Yue received a report from Tan Ma that Li Yan's troops had set up camp and headed southwest.

After hearing this, Cao Yue did not relax his vigilance, but strictly ordered his subordinates to remain on the highest alert, and ordered all members of the special training team, as well as other detectives, to closely monitor Li Yan's movements.

Soon, Cao Yue determined that Li Yan's troops were withdrawing from Datong and retreating in the direction of Henan.

It was confirmed that Li Yan's troops were planning to withdraw from Datong, Cao Yue did not order his subordinates to pursue him, and let Li Yan's nearly 8 troops leave.

This move made the generals under him very puzzled.

Cao Yue also explained this: "Our Datong Army has just been established. We didn't want most of them to be lost in the battle with the rogues. We recruited them because we wanted them to kill Jiannu. Therefore, the rogues After believing that they were invincible and retreating, the general let them go, it is not difficult for them. If the two armies fight desperately to decide the victory, you say, my Datong army, how many will be left in the end?"

After hearing this, the generals suddenly understood that Cao Yue was unwilling to fight desperately with the bandits because he wanted to preserve his strength.After thinking about it seriously, they also understood Cao Yue's thoughts.In fact, they don't want their troops to suffer heavy losses, even if they can win after the loss.Now these sergeants in the Datong Army are all of good quality. They have just been trained into the army, and their combat power has not been fully utilized. After more rigorous training and some actual combat, the overall strength of the Datong Army can be further improved.

Of course, many people think that Cao Yue's move is to be like the generals Zuo Liangyu and Liu Zeqing. The orders of the imperial court were obeyed and violated, and they were unwilling to fight to the death with the rogues.

Needless to say, many people's ideas are not wrong. Cao Yue does have the idea of ​​establishing his own sphere of influence and becoming someone whom no one wants to offend. This is also an important reason why he is unwilling to fight to the death with Li Yan's army. After all, he still wanted to win Li Yan over.

Killing one thousand enemies and harming oneself by eight hundred, everyone knows this, and Cao Yue is naturally willing to accept that the war can be ended in a peaceful manner.

After confirming that Li Yan's troops had withdrawn from Datong, Cao Yue ordered all the troops to return to their respective camps, and he himself led the main force to withdraw to Datong City.

Liu Zongmin's men are still on their way to Datong, but Cao Yue is sure that after receiving Li Yan's message, Liu Zongmin's men will not continue to go north, even if they do not retreat to Henan, they will stop advancing pace of.As for where Liu Zongmin's department will go next, Cao Yue is not very concerned.The most important thing for him now is to use the tens of 10 taels of silver extorted from Dai Wang Zhu Chuanqi, as well as food, to reward his soldiers and continue to recruit and expand troops in the name of suffering losses in this battle.

People's thoughts will change with the changes of the situation. When Cao Yue first arrived in Datong, he wanted to defeat Jiannu, destroy the bandits, pacify the world, and restore peace to the people in the world, but now he doesn't think so.The Ming Dynasty has been rotten to the core, and it is completely unrealistic to rely on Emperor Chongzhen and the courtiers of the Ming Dynasty in the Ming Hall to change the general situation of the world and restore the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty.

Cao Yue felt that maybe only he, a time-traveler, could rule the world, and everything would be possible.After holding more than [-] troops in his hands, this kind of thinking became more and more intense. He laughed at himself that this is evil born of courage.The mood is out of control, and Cao Yue has inevitably worked hard for it.Next, while working hard to strengthen his own power, he must unite all the forces that can be united, and strive to eventually dominate the general situation of the world.

Li Chen and Hong Niangzi are the force that Cao Yue most wants to fight for.

After leading the army back to the city in triumph, Cao Yue and his soldiers were warmly welcomed by the Datong officials and people headed by Wei Daben and Zhang An.The menacing rogues were beaten away, the Ming army won a big victory, and Datong City avoided the flames of war. Who would be unhappy?

Even Zhu Chuanqi, the acting king who was brutally slaughtered by Cao Yue, went to the gate of the city to greet Cao Yue in person, and praised him very much. Not only did he forget the wealth that Cao Yue extorted, but he also "generously" gave it away again. 3000 taels of silver are used to reward generals who have made military exploits.

Before Cao Yue led his army back to the city, he had already strictly ordered his generals to make the victory of this battle very hard-won. Our troops won the victory after fighting bloody battles and paying huge sacrifices. After the bandits suffered heavy losses , had to retreat.

Anyway, the battlefield is still under the control of the army, and ordinary people have no chance to see the real situation during the war, and they have no chance to go there after the war.Most generals do bragging about their military exploits, and there is nothing out of the ordinary for him to do so.

Thus, a brilliant victory was sent to Beijing under the ensemble of Wei Daben, Zhang An, Cao Yue and the acting king Zhu Chuanqi.

(End of this chapter)