I want to be emperor

Chapter 204
Although Tang Hui had started dispatching troops two months ago to counterattack Xiangyang, many people did not listen to him because of his embarrassing status.

It took two months of painstaking efforts before he managed to gather [-] troops in the Yicheng area, and gathered nearly [-] troops from Chunan and other places, and personally brought reinforcements to the north.

However, what I didn't expect was that before they arrived in Yicheng with reinforcements, news came from the front: the bandit army went south to attack the city, and tens of thousands of defenders in Yicheng were defeated and retreated!

This is only news on the surface, but according to the actual situation of the scouts: when the security guards were still dozens of miles away, the defenders of Yicheng had already run away...

Fleeing without fighting is the truth!
After hearing the news, Tang Hui had the urge to leave the army behind and go back to his hometown to take care of the baby...

Nima, it was fine for the generals of the various ministries to push back three times and four times, but now everyone is greedy for life and afraid of death, fearing robbers like tigers!
What a fart, just go home and bring the baby!

----

On the morning of July 24th, more than 20 kilometers south of Yicheng, the Ming army that escaped from Yicheng did not continue southward, but was building rafts on the spot, collecting nearby ships and preparing to cross the Han River to De’an in the east. government.

These Ming troops who had been stationed in Yicheng for more than two months were already terrified by the series of victories of the former security guards in Nanyang Mansion and Xiangyang Mansion.

They didn't even dare to defend Yicheng before, so naturally they didn't have the guts to stay here and fight the thieves, and they didn't even dare to go south to meet Tang Hui.

On the one hand, he was also afraid that Tang Hui would directly attack these generals and punish them for abandoning the city and fleeing.

On the other hand, he didn't want to meet up with Tang Hui, and then fight to the death with the security guards.

Therefore, the 36 plan is the best plan.

As for what will happen to Tang Hui after they leave, and whether Zhongxiang and even Hanyang can hold on, that's none of their business.

They just want to save their own lives.

But it was not easy for them to cross the river and escape. At noon that day, after they finally started to cross the river officially, a bandit cavalry was killed behind them.

After the bandit cavalry arrived, the Wanming army fell into chaos. Except for the 3000 people who crossed the river first, the remaining 8000 or [-] people rushed to the front when they saw the bandit cavalry coming. Some headed towards the river, trying to fight for the raft, and the boats fled for their lives.

There are also some smart people who see that the boats are not enough at all, so they don't go to the river to snatch the boats, but just let go of their feet and run to the south.

Ever since, Blind Wang saw a quite astonishing scene.

His cavalry had just arrived here, and before he could decide whether to attack or not, the Ming army in front collapsed first...

Looking at the chaotic Ming army in front of him, blind Wang suddenly remembered the strategy of attacking halfway that someone had said when he was auditing a class in the camp military academy.

But, this doesn't seem to be considered a half-strike, because I didn't "strike" at all...

Rao Blind Wang was also an officer and soldier of the Ming Army, Rao Blind Wang also has a deep understanding of many other officers and soldiers, but at this moment he still can't understand why the Ming Army on the opposite side is like this...

This is the Ten Thousand Ming Army. As long as a small number of partial troops are allocated to line up, it is enough for his cavalry to give up the idea of ​​​​attacking and can only wander around to contain it.

In this way, I dare not say anything else, but it is still possible to let most of the troops cross the river safely.

But the Ming army on the opposite side didn't do this, and they immediately became chaotic.

Such a situation is rarely seen even in the weak Ming army in the hinterland of the Central Plains.

With a hint of exclamation and even puzzled, Wang Xiazi really ordered the [-] fine cavalry under his command to start attacking from the outside. Instead of rushing directly inside, they wandered around the outside, relying on the high mobility of the cavalry to continuously shoot through the cavalry. Hunt and kill each other.

In the face of scattered enemy forces, they rushed directly to hack and kill.

As soon as Wang Xiazi's cavalry moved, the Ming army on the opposite side became even more chaotic.

And many Ming soldiers saw that there was no hope of crossing the river, and they could not escape the four-legged cavalry, so they simply threw their weapons and surrendered on the spot.

At the beginning, only scattered soldiers surrendered, and soon some middle and senior generals directly led the soldiers to surrender en masse.

More than an hour later, more than [-] Ming army prisoners of war who had given up their weapons and dejectedly appeared in front of Wang Xiazi.

"This..." Looking at so many prisoners of war, blind Wang didn't know what to say.

Happy?

It didn't seem like there was much joy, but a sense of absurdity.

This battle was fought in a muddle, inexplicably!

There were only 200 cavalry and light cavalry on our own side, and they didn't even fight much. They hacked and killed [-] enemy troops before and after, and as a result, the enemy surrendered in large numbers.

There were tens of thousands of enemy troops, and 3000 of them successfully crossed the river except Wang Xiazi and the others before they arrived.

Of the remaining 8000 people, only a thousand fled southward or successfully crossed the river. It is estimated that there were hundreds more who tried to swim across the Han River at any time and were drowned or rushed downstream.

About one or two hundred were beheaded by Wang Xiazi's troops, and the remaining more than 5000 people all surrendered.

Blind Wang himself couldn't believe this record.

"Pegasus report to the general, tell the rear to quickly send infantry up to take over the prisoners of war, we are short of manpower, to avoid any trouble!"

If there are more than [-] prisoners of war, it will be very troublesome if they are not handled well. Moreover, their cavalry brigade has other strategic tasks. Tang Hui's [-] Ming army.

Fortunately, the troops from the rear came relatively quickly. In the afternoon of the same day, the Second Infantry Regiment and the First Cavalry Regiment (new cavalry infantry) who were the forwards of the main force arrived here.

After a simple handover, Wang Xiazi did not stay, but continued to lead the cavalry brigade southward.

According to the scouting news, about [-] kilometers to the south is the main force of the Ming army in the north. Their cavalry brigade will go south for a certain distance now, and they will probably be able to entangle the opponent by tomorrow morning.

After learning that the Ming army had suffered a disastrous defeat here, the enemy soldiers were so frightened that they ran back to Zhongxiang.

In fact, that was indeed the case. In the afternoon of that day, Tang Hui learned that ten thousand deserters in Yicheng had been attacked by the rebel army halfway through. Except for thousands of people who had retreated to the east bank of the Han River, the rest were all wiped out.

And the news about the bandit army is also scattered and disorderly. Some say that the bandit army going south has at least [-] elite soldiers, of which there are [-] elite cavalry.

Others said that there were more than [-] thieves going south, and all the thieves were lost in the mountains and plains all the way south.

Some said that the bandit army numbered [-], but they were all elite old bandits, very good at field battles and invincible, and they were the main force of the bandit army that defeated Lu Xiangsheng back then.

However, no matter what the news was, the number of bandits was never less than [-].

Thieves between [-] and [-], regardless of the specific number, are quite a lot.

And there are at least thousands or even thousands of fine cavalry from the bandit army.

If he, Tang Hui, continued to lead his army northward, he might follow in Lu Xiangsheng's footsteps.

Under such circumstances, Tang Hui still dared to continue to lead the army north. After learning the news for a quarter of an hour, Tang Hui decisively ordered the whole army to return south.

He was going to go back to Zhongxiang City and rely on the city to defend for a while, and wait to see the situation.

Now that the army of security thieves is fierce, we should temporarily hide from the front and wait for reinforcements.

And they ran very fast, directly abandoning many heavy luggage and running lightly, and at this time they were not far from Zhong Xiang, they ran all the way in basically a day.

Although Blind Wang and the others tried to pursue, they still failed to catch up.

Tang Hui led his troops back to Zhong Xiang, and Luo Zhixue was a little disappointed when he heard the news.

The enemy ran so fast that their own cavalry failed to catch up.

However, blind Wang cannot be blamed for this. The main reason why the enemy army was able to retreat smoothly to Zhongxiang was because Tang Hui's troops were not far away from Zhongxiang, and the Ming army was more decisive when they retreated, giving up food and other supplies and retreating lightly.

And there was no need to set aside time to set up camp the next day, and there was no need to reserve physical fitness to deal with encounters and the like. They ran all the way south and ran directly back to Zhongxiang City.

And the reason why the enemy army is relatively close to Zhong Xiang is also because his family moved south too quickly...

The reason why our own army went south faster was because the defenders of Yicheng fled without a fight, forcing the township protection army to speed up their southward march.

This back and forth led to the place where the Township Protection Army encountered Tang Hui's troops, and moved about twenty to thirty kilometers south.

In just twenty or thirty kilometers, Tang Hui's troops managed to escape back to Zhongxiang.

War is like this, no matter how good the plan is, once the war breaks out, there will always be various accidents.

Especially when the other party is elusive.

Before going south, the generals of the rural protection army counted as one, but none of them would have thought that the defenders of Yicheng would flee without a fight.

At any rate, it was the Ten Thousand Ming Army. If they really wanted to defend the city, the Township Protection Army really had nothing to do with them in a short time.

It's okay to escape, but to cross the river, Xu Zhixian couldn't think of this brain circuit ten thousand times...

When Xu Zhixian and the others learned that the enemy had withdrawn from Yicheng, they thought that the defenders of Yicheng had voluntarily abandoned Yicheng in order to join Tang Hui's main force in the field and fight the rural army for a decisive battle, or they simply retreated to Zhongxiang. Fucheng is guarded according to the city.

At that time, Xu Zhixian and some of his staff strongly suggested that Luo Zhixue order to speed up the march in order to pursue the enemy as soon as possible and avoid the confluence of the two enemy forces.

Even if the enemy troops are successfully reunited, they still have to entangle them and try to defeat them directly in the field.

In short, it is to prevent the converging enemy troops from fleeing back to Zhongxiang City.

Once the enemy troops are brought together, there will be more than 3 troops, and Zhongxiang, as the capital of Chengtianfu, has better city defense facilities and better supplies during the period, which is much better than a small county like Yicheng.

At that time, it will be more difficult for the rural protection army to storm Zhongxiang than to storm Yicheng.

However, it never occurred to me that the tens of thousands of Ming troops who had withdrawn from Yicheng would not continue to flee south, but would cross the river on the way...

After the Wanming army was defeated, Tang Hui retreated decisively, leading his army all the way back to Zhongxiang.

As a result, a series of combat plans formulated by the staff team headed by Xu Zhixian came to naught again.

And it also brought about an even worse situation: Zhong Xiangcheng became a hard bone!

If the follow-up rural protection army wants to take Zhong Xiang, it will be more difficult than the previous storming of Yicheng!

Because Zhong Xiang now has [-] Ming troops stationed there!
For this, Luo Zhixue also felt a little helpless, this time going south to fight is hard to explain!

You said it didn't go well, and took Yicheng without much fighting, and even captured more than 5000 Ming troops.

If you want to say it went well, the expected siege and reinforcements failed, and the strategic concept of directly defeating the [-] Ming army reinforcements in the field was completely wiped out.

If he wanted to beat Zhong Xiang later, he still didn't know how much he would have to pay.

(End of this chapter)