stubborn thief

Between the desert and the paddy fields surrounding the Qianhusuo on the high platform, within a radius of fifty miles, three armies rolled up dust and rushed all the way.

Gao Yingdeng led an army of more than [-] troops in the west, Tang Shiming led an army of more than [-] troops in the north, and between these two armies, there were more than a thousand cavalry led by Tang Tong, the front commander of Gao Yingdeng's camp.

Tang Tong was an unlucky guy. He fell off his horse in the conflict during the Hehuang War, and his head was hit by a pumpkin. After waking up from a coma, he had already arrived in Xining. He was in a daze without even a surrender ceremony. General, and the assigned official rank is still very low, called the captain of the Zhuang army.

The military ranks of the Marshal's Mansion are divided into three levels: general, school lieutenant, and captain. Each level is divided into three ranks and nine ranks. The ninth rank captain at the bottom.

The military officers awarded this level of honor are usually generals... Tang Tong was captured as a guerrilla general in Yansui Town, and this honor was very low for him.

This is because Tang Tong is a fast-track officer in the imperial court. His promotion speed is almost comparable to that of Yang Yao and Wang Wenxiu. Appearing on the Hehuang battlefield is already a guerrilla general.

So Liu Chengzong didn't give him an exorbitant official position, but Mr. Liu was very caring about such a general, he allocated a doctor to take care of the wounded, gave him a house and a pasture, and even helped him find a mother-in-law from Yang Qi's house, who became Yang Qi's son-in-law .

Liu Xiangyu knew very well in his heart that the second son was proud and a frontier army leader who started from a humble beginning. He always had grudges against senior generals who surrendered.

When there is a vacancy in a senior official position, Liu Shizi is more willing to promote the generals who follow him.

Under such conditions, among the three commanders in chief, He Huchen was the one he liked the most, Wang Chengen, who was not willing to contribute to the Marshal's Mansion, was next, and Yang Qi, who was always thinking about what he wanted, was the last.

This kind of mentality boils down to the fact that He Huchen took advantage of the fight with Liu Chengzong in the early years. At that time, the lion battalion had few soldiers and fought very hard, which also proved that He Huchen's ability is not bad.

But in Liu Xiangyu's eyes, the most reliable of the three generals is Yang Qi. It doesn't matter how capable a person is, what matters is how much he is willing to use for you.

As long as the Marshal's Mansion still occupies Hehuang, Yang Qi is the most reliable surrender general, and Liu Xiangyu is more willing to use Yang Qi to increase the subordinate's sense of belonging.

After all, family members are the weakest aspect of the direct line of officers in the Marshal's Mansion. This group of people are all bachelors, and it is difficult to attract outsiders by marriage.

This is what Liu Xiangyu learned from his nephew Hao Gena. To treat surrendered generals, those with low moral standards should be lured for profit; those with high moral standards should be allowed to marry.

At this moment, Tang Tong experienced half a day of running in the desert, and the Gobi scenery finally faded in his eyes, and what appeared in front of him was an endless oasis, and the fields were separated by criss-crossing canals.

Seeing the dust raised by the army from a distance, the cotton-planting farmers on the edge of the desert fled in all directions.

Tang Tong reined in his horse in front of the canal, and the Tang soldiers could not keep up with him half an hour ago. The last report from Tang Tong was that Gao Yingdeng had broken out of the camp, and two thousand troops were moving towards him.

He looked into the distance and shook his head. The fields farther away were close to the canal. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, it would be hard for him to imagine that the oasis surrounded by deserts actually had large rice fields.

If it weren't for this severe drought, if it wasn't for this war, this place should be on the south of the Yangtze River.

Tang Tong didn't feel overwhelmed for a long time, because it would be good to go anywhere in the south of the Yangtze River, but it was not suitable for the northern army to fight. He immediately ordered the army to move south along the edge of the cotton field to avoid being overtaken by the enemy.

On the north side, Tang soldiers under the command of Zhenyi guerrilla Tang Mingshi had already chased after them, and the army was only twenty miles away. Seeing the horse army of the marshal's mansion looking back at the paddy fields, he couldn't stop laughing excitedly, ordering Tang to ride in front, Two thousand infantry cavalry charged at Tang Tong at five posts.

Tang Mingshi was familiar with the landform here, and Tang Tong turned to the south, which meant that victory was in sight for him.

Because to the south, there are east-west hills formed by the impact and extrusion of melted water from the Qilian Mountains for tens of thousands of years, forming a natural barrier that cuts off the road ahead; Beyond that corner means entering a dead end.

Soon, 190 and two Tang cavalry of the Zhenyi Army spread out their fronts, forming an arc-shaped encirclement with a width of twenty miles, crowding the ten-mile battlefield between the two armies.

Tang Tong headed southward for more than a dozen miles, and gradually realized that the situation was not right. Earlier, he thought that the shadows of those mountains belonged to Qilian Mountains. Now the mountains in front of him are getting closer, and he can still see the mountains not far away. The deep grooves made his heart feel cold.

It wasn't because of the war, no matter where the fight started, Gao Yingdeng's order was to lure the enemy, and now the lure has been successful, the rest are waiting for help.

He was just afraid that he would lead the wrong way and be dismissed by his arrogant soldiers on the battlefield.

Tang Tong knew very well that although more than a dozen battalions were troops of the Marshal's Mansion, they had distinct ownership and ranks. The second battalion of Huben and Caiguan was the army led by Liu Chengzong himself, and the two field brigades and four battalions were the main forces of Liu Chengzong's direct line. military.

There were quite a few surrendered troops in the four battalions, but there was no discrimination among soldiers, discrimination only existed between generals.

That is to say, he is the only outsider in this battalion. In this situation, there is a lesson from the bee tail needle Zhang Zhen. If he makes a decision that is not in line with people's hearts, he is easily dismissed by the battlefield.

But there is also a bright side to the situation. Although Zhang Zhen was dismissed from the battlefield, he was reused because of his exploits in attacking the Khan at night, and now he is the deputy general of the Suzhou Camp.

Fortunately, Tang Tong observed the emotions of the two generals under his command. They didn't seem to have the slightest understanding of the predicament of being cornered, and even the two generals were eager to try. They rode up and challenged Tang Tong one after another: "Mr. If you are chased to a dead end, turn your head and attack them for a while!"

"Yeah, it's so aggrieved to be pushed all the time!"

One of them is called Wailiangzi, from Ningxia, who used to be He Huchen's Tangqi;

Tang Tong thought for a while, and said to the two: "Two generals, the enemy's soldiers are divided into five posts, and you can choose one post to ride and attack. If you go to General Gao to help, you will be at risk of being bombarded by the enemy, they have a lot of artillery."

Crooked Liangzi and Li Ba were overjoyed when they heard the words, and their affection for Tang Tong increased... To put it bluntly, the rejection of high-ranking generals by the direct descendants of the Marshal's Mansion actually largely stems from the conceit caused by inferiority complex.

Deep down in their hearts, they envied Tang Tong's position as a guerrilla general in the imperial court, but on the other hand, they also achieved their own achievements from a humble position, and they were very sensitive and did not want to be underestimated.

Tang Tong discussed the military deployment, which made them feel comfortable.

After some discussion, the two immediately decided to use Crooked Liangzi to lead the Zuo Division's 600 riders to attack the enemy, and Tang Tong led Li Baliang's You Division's [-] men to dig trenches and unload the guns.

Soon, Tang Tong found a suitable position to defend. He used a deep ditch washed out by meltwater as a trench, and set up the camp with chariots loaded with firearms at the four corners, and used horses, donkeys and mules at the edge of the camp as temporary shelters. , began to dig trenches and build simple anti-artillery walls.

One after another, the firearms were unloaded by the chariot, and standing on the edge of the camp, Tang Tong looked around at the soldiers who had set up the line of defense, raised his eyes to the north, watched the back of Crooked Liangzi leading the horse army galloping away, and slowly gritted his teeth.

In fact, he thought about escaping back to the imperial court, and he has been making such plans since he recovered from his injury. He didn't study much in the academy and Huben camp, and he has been planning how to escape.

But when the war broke out, Tang Tong felt more and more that it was meaningless to flee back, because he could not escape with the information to turn the tide of the war. The Ming army's hope of victory in the duel.

For him, this battle is to know the enemy and the enemy. The formation, equipment, and combat habits of the two sides are extremely similar. However, in all aspects, the Marshal's Mansion has targetedly strengthened the tactics of the Ming army.

If he fled back, the imperial army lost again, and he was captured again, so why flee back?

In the process of setting up the camp, there was almost no place for Tang Tong to intervene. Li Baliang's five centurions had a clear division of labor, four centurions dug trenches on all sides, and another centurion led people to disassemble the mule cart and drive it to fetch water.

One thousand-jin cannon and two lion cannons were placed in the central army, and the other eight [-]-jin lion cannons were placed around the camp.

At the edge of the trench, the soldiers used the dismantled car boards and shields as baffles, filled the middle with sand, piled up soil on the outside, built four simple sheep and horse walls, and carried guns and heavy guns.

Tang Tong compared the camps of the Ming army in the past, and found that the Marshal's Mansion army did not carry horses, but relied entirely on earthworks to build such a low wall in a standardized manner.

He couldn't help finding a Baibo and asked, "Why did you make it like this?"

"General, block the lead." Mr. Bai laughed, patted the plywood wall built by his subordinates, and said, "General Beetail Needle used this long gun to block the Tartars on the Heka grassland. Wet sand and wooden boards can If you block the lead, you won't be afraid of the loose balls shot by the cannon."

Tang Tong thought it was amazing, looked at the plywood wall full of sand, and asked casually, "Then why don't you bring Jumazu?"

Mr. Bai shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands: "The commander-in-chief didn't prepare for it."

The refusal of the Marshal's army has always been in Liu Chengzong's mouth, but it has never been implemented.

Before marching into Gansu, it was the condition that the expedition did not carry such heavy materials. After arriving in Gansu, it was because his mules were too few to carry.

More and less are relative. In terms of the total amount, one battalion of the Marshal’s Mansion outnumbers two battalions of the Ming Army in terms of the number of mules and horses, but a regular battalion of the Ming Army can free up 72 mules to carry 140 four packs of refusal horse tusks. It is 860 four rejecting horses.

It doesn’t matter if the Ming army doesn’t have horses and mules to ride, they have to bring all their weapons and equipment; it’s okay if they don’t have all the weapons and equipment in the Marshal’s Mansion, they have to have horses to ride, or at worst a donkey or a mule.

This was the only weakness that Tang Tong found in the Marshal's Mansion. They just couldn't spare this bit of capacity, or they were too proud, thinking that the Ming cavalry had no chance to trample on the formation.

A series of trenches were quickly dug out, and Tang Tong could also see the horse team galloping several miles away.

The cavalry led by Wai Liangzi easily broke through the defense line of the pond soldiers, and ran head-on at the armored infantry brigade on the left wing, but the Ming army responded quickly, and the armored cavalry guarding a post not far from the infantry immediately went out to meet them.

The Ming troops at the remaining outposts also stopped, putting on their armor and forming a square formation.

Seeing that he couldn't get any good, Crooked Liangzi led his team to run westward for a mile, and saw the Ming army cavalry still chasing behind him. With a whistle, ten teams of horsemen turned around one after another, and launched an assault in all directions of the Ming army cavalry formation in diagonal stabs.

The cavalry on both sides did not choose to engage in hand-to-hand combat. For a while, arrows scattered and muskets blared. After the two armies had fought for a while, a golden drum sounded, which stunned the crooked beam who had just hit his head with enthusiasm. He was so anxious that he just wanted to scold Tang Tong. If it doesn't sound right, the voice came from the Ming army formation.

For a while, the cavalry of the Ming army retreated one after another. Wai Liangzi led his troops to chase and fight fiercely, but he got some benefits. He didn't order the troops to withdraw until they were almost [-] paces behind the front line.

When Ma Jun returned to the army formation, Crooked Liangzi still angrily said: "If I hadn't seen their two big Flang machines, I would have kicked their army formation."

But Tang Tong didn't bother to listen to his bragging at all. He looked and looked at the changing enemy formation with his binoculars, and saw the surrounding Ming army Tangqi shrinking rapidly, and some people galloped northward, and then a horn sounded from the army formation. Voice.

Feeling slightly puzzled, he suddenly turned his head and said to Wai Liangzi, "Quickly dismount and line up to defend, they are going to attack!"

Crooked Liangzi didn't know what was going on, so he called the general directly and asked, "General, how do you know this?"

"Just now Mingjin was abnormal, and their Tangqi ran northward in a panic. At this time, everyone got off their horses and formed a column, pushing the Yongzhu Extermination Cannon to the front. They should plan to force their way into the formation."

Tang Tong stared at the enemy formation with his binoculars and said this long series of words. Finally, he put down the binoculars and took a deep breath. It's done."

Crooked Liangzi and Li Baliang understood after hearing the explanation, and they also knew the enemy's small calculations. They nodded their heads heavily for a while, and conveyed orders to the various generals under their command.

In the successive military orders and military music, the soldiers in the trench camps on all sides gathered one after another, carrying guns and heavy blunderbuss, centered on the north horse wall, crossed the east and west ditches, and expanded slightly to the two wings to prevent being attacked by the enemy first. Key breakthroughs in rounds of impact.

On the other side of the battlefield, the Zhenyi guerrilla Tang Mingshi also watched the enemy's deployment, but with the wall of sheep and horses, he couldn't see the weapons and equipment clearly, so he could barely see the width of the formation.

Indeed, as Tang Tong thought, Tang Mingshi's Tang soldiers found more than [-] cavalry from Gao Yingdeng's tribe thirty miles northwest, and at this time they knew the tactics of the Marshal's army to lure the enemy.

Apparently the marshal's army had more than [-] people, but he only had [-] troops, so he didn't have an advantage in terms of strength, but he didn't choose to escape. Instead, he asked for reinforcements from Gaotai Camel City, [-] miles to the north, in order to completely take down this general army. The rebel army has a strength of nearly [-].

When the horn sounded again, generals at all levels of the Zhenyi Army led their columns to attack Tang Tong's position. They had already learned of the deputy commander's analysis of the military equipment of the Marshal's Mansion, and the order was to rush to a distance of [-] steps and use the pearl The superiority in the number of cannons and extermination artillery bombarded the enemy's formation.

Looking at the columns carrying small cannons and walking quickly, the crooked beam behind the sheep and horse wall was dumbfounded: "They, what do they mean? This is within the range of carrying guns!"