Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 222 Morale Issues
His new wall formation slowly came back, and Yang Chao regretted that he didn't have a confrontation, because he didn't see the power of the new formation.

But it proved that the captive soldiers had completely lost their courage, and no one of those stragglers dared to confront the Ming army.

Yang Chao simply continued to organize a new type of wall array, this time directly forming three, and the finished characters moved forward.

Their purpose was not to snatch the heads and horses, but to distance Yang Chao's soldiers behind and let them cut off the heads and collect the horses.

There were 50 people in one new wall formation, 150 people in three wall formations, and only 50 soldiers left. They were unable to deal with it at all, and they didn't intend to fight. They retreated again and gave the entire battlefield to Yang Chao.

The guards calmly chopped off all the heads, collected the horses, and returned to the warehouse. After counting, they found that there were [-] heads. Among them, several soldiers were newly injured. As a result, the guards did not hesitate , directly hacked to death, for them, the most valuable thing of these captive soldiers is their heads.

Fifty war horses were collected, and more than a dozen relatively complete corpses of war horses were snatched back. As for the stumps, they were temporarily given up. Yang Chao didn't want people to take back those war horses that were mixed with human stumps. stump.

After returning to the camp, the faces of the soldiers were filled with the joy of harvest. Although this time was not as happy as last time, but this time they went out to reap the fruits, which made people even more happy. Heads, including the one they promoted.

Without letting the soldiers rest, while it was still dark, Yang Chao lined up again to collect all the heads scattered on the northern battlefield.

In addition to those who were beheaded yesterday, thirty heads were also captured on the northern battlefield, which was somewhat beyond Yang Chao's expectations.

After returning to the camp, it was getting late, Yang Chao assigned many men's flag teams to be on duty at night, and then asked other soldiers to rest quickly.

If you win during the day, you must pay more attention to the enemy's sneak attack at night.

The old man Bian saw Yang Chao's army attacking three times in one day, with excitement on his face, he came to find Yang Chao again on behalf of the people.

He took out his own gold again, expressing his hope to work in the army, and hoped that Yang Chao would use the money to sell some wine and meat to work in the army.

Yang Chao told old man Bian that even if he had money, he couldn't buy anything, so he rejected old man Bian's money.

All of Yang Chao's thoughts were focused on the captive soldiers in the north at this time. To deal with these more than 100 captive soldiers, Yang Chao didn't plan to attack by force, because he thought that once these captive soldiers knew that their companions in the south were wiped out, will retreat by itself.

But Yang Chao obviously made a mistake. Not only did the captive soldiers in the north not leave, but from the next day, they stepped up the frequency of harassment and even started to attack.

Watching waves of shield carts being pushed, they ran within [-] steps of the warehouse, and then the captive soldiers behind the shield carts began to draw hard bows and shoot heavy arrows, and confronted Yang Chao's musketeers and archers.

One side is protected by a shield car, and the other side is protected by low walls and warehouses, and it is evenly divided for a while.

But in the final analysis, Yang Chao is more advantageous. After all, the simple shield car cannot be compared with the low wall, let alone the warehouse. Although the shield car can block bows and arrows, it can also block the blunderbuss, but it can block one or two shots. Block ten rounds and twenty rounds?Not to mention that Yang Chao still has a big killer like a tiger squatting cannon in his hand, which can blast the shield car out of a big hole with one shot, and the general cannon and the Qianjin Frang machine can even blast the shield car out with one shot .

But the captive soldiers were also cunning. As soon as their shield chariots were broken, they fled immediately without delay, and after returning, they changed to another shield chariot and continued to come.

It seems that he has made up his mind to spend it like this with Yang Chao.

But Yang Chao couldn't understand that the captive soldiers were going to use up their ammunition in this way?

Yang Chao didn't think that the captive soldiers had this ability, even if all the captive soldiers were dead, Yang Chao probably wouldn't be able to run out of gunpowder and lead bullets.

But the captive soldiers didn't know, maybe they wanted to use this method to consume all of Yang Chao's supplies, and then rushed up.

But why did the soldiers do this?
Yang Chao really doesn't understand, as a looting group, as a looting group that seldom attacks fortified cities after entering the customs, and it's not the main force, it's just a small detachment with no weapons to attack fortified cities, relying on improvised shields Cars, armed with bows and sabers, are about to attack the fortified fortress?

Unless the commander of the captive soldiers is a fool, it is really difficult to understand the other party's approach.

But Yang Chao is also happy to play with the other party like this.

Even if the captive soldiers did not hold each other, after the shield chariot was smashed, no matter how fast they ran, they would always be killed by the blunderbuss. If the captive soldiers did not lose a dozen or twenty lives in a day, they would not be able to live.

This way of death, the captive soldiers will be exhausted before they are exhausted.

The command of the captive soldiers is obviously not a fool, on the contrary, the command of the captive soldiers is very cunning.

Soon Yang Chao found that they were attacking east and west, and their rangers who were attacking everywhere appeared in all directions.

They detoured to the west of the river, trying to attack the ships parked by the pier, detoured to the south of the warehouse, snatched all the corpses of the captive soldiers whose heads had been chopped off, and emptied the food supplies, even cattle and sheep, from the camp of the captive soldiers in the south.

"Gold, gold!"

A few shouts made Yang Chao realize that he had made a big mistake. The other party snatched all the corpses and left a scattered ingot of gold on the ground.

The gold was obviously from the captive soldiers who died in battle. Their corpses were taken away, and most of the gold and silver were taken away by the living captive soldiers.

And it was Yang Chao who let the captive soldiers snatch the corpses and specifically ordered his soldiers not to shoot a single shot. It was Yang Chao who gave these captive soldiers the opportunity to calmly take away the corpses of their compatriots.

The reason why Yang Chao did this was because Yang Chao believed that these corpses were easy to breed germs if they were kept here. If they infect his own people, the gain would not be worth the loss. It would be great to have enemies as scavengers, but he did not expect that he would also The gold and silver hidden in these captive soldiers were missed.

Since it was a robbery group, they came here for the purpose of robbery. The captive soldiers had the habit of hiding spoils, and many of the captive soldiers were Yu Ding. They were not organized by Abatai to rob, but came voluntarily. They prepared their own The purpose of food and horses is to plunder, so these people hide more things.

But Yang Chao obviously doesn't know much about the situation of the captive soldiers. The only thing he knows is from Qi Jiguang's military book, but in Qi Jiguang's era, Qi Jiguang was stationed at the border. It seems that it is not easy for the captive soldiers to go south to plunder. He lost his head first, so the captive soldiers at that time were not like a looting group, but rather like a meritorious group that sent military meritorious heads to the Ming army.

More accurately, it was Lao Jin who told Yang Chao. However, the captive soldiers in Lao Jin's era had not yet passed through the pass, and they did not seem to have the habit of hiding spoils of war outside the pass. At least Lao Jin did not tell Yang Chao Perhaps Lao Jin is a member of the brave Qi family army, but the Qi family army has also disappeared, and the captive soldiers were the most ferocious and barbaric in the Nurhachi era. Lao Jin probably had no chance to search for spoils from the captive soldiers, so he didn't understand this situation.

This caused Yang Chao to give up a great opportunity to make a fortune.

Judging from the ratio of gold and silver left behind at the scene, it is clear that the captive soldiers robbed a lot of gold.

What Yang Chao didn't know was that, according to relevant records, Abatai captured 36 people, 12 taels of gold and 220 taels of silver.The ratio of gold and silver in the Ming Dynasty was about ten to one. Even because silver circulated more widely as currency, the stock ratio of gold and silver was 220 to twelve, which seemed too exaggerated.Therefore, the only explanation is that under the same weight, the Eight Banners soldiers are more willing to hide gold with higher value, so the gold beyond that part of the ratio is naturally hidden by the soldiers.

Unexpectedly, it is understandable that the captive soldiers have gold, but Yang Chao even gave up the captive soldiers' camp, which is somewhat unreasonable.

Yang Chao did not expect that so much food, so many cattle and sheep were hidden in that simple barracks.

Although there were captive soldiers walking around at that time, it was not worth the loss to occupy the barracks two hundred steps away, but Yang Chao could completely blow up the barracks with cannons.

It was entirely my negligence that allowed these supplies to be taken away by the captive soldiers in vain.

Gaining wisdom from a pit, Yang Chao memorized the habit of captive soldiers, and promised that he would not do it again next time.

The stalemate with the captive soldiers in the north has been in a stalemate for three days. During the three days, these captive soldiers continued to harass them. Even if they lost more than 30 lives, they showed no sign of giving up.

On the contrary, there was a problem in Yang Chao's army. Yang Chao found that the morale of his soldiers seemed to be a little low. After defeating the captive soldiers on the first day, everyone was still very happy. Early this morning, Yang Chao found many soldiers with gloomy expressions, sitting silently on the corner of the street.

Something must be wrong.

The psychology of soldiers is a magical thing, very difficult to grasp. A strong-willed and tenacious army may blow up the camp with a single sound. Anyway, the psychology of these people wandering on the edge of life and death is so subtle that even a psychologist cannot be fully controlled.

Experienced generals will know how to dredge such emotions and know how to guide them.

Yang Chao is not an experienced general. On the contrary, he lacks experience in leading troops, so he doesn't have the ability to deal with this kind of problem.

But it didn't prevent Yang Chao from knowing the importance of morale in the army. Among all the famous generals, there was no one who didn't pay attention to the morale issue.

Therefore, noticing that there was a problem with the soldier's mentality, Yang Chao immediately became careful and began to find out the reason slowly.

First, chat with some soldiers cordially.

It turned out that the results were not good, and the soldiers were unwilling to tell the truth to themselves.

So he mobilized his own soldiers, and these soldiers were with other soldiers, and some of them were fellow villagers from the guard, so there was no problem for them to communicate.

And his own soldiers have no influence, they are paid more, and they are more loyal and trusting to Yang Chao.

Through individual soldiers, Yang Chao soon discovered the reason.

(End of this chapter)