I want to be emperor

Chapter 440 You Can Lose In Team Battles, You Can't Die
Although Zu Dashou had already led his army to turn around and go south, he also sent people to the surrounding areas and even further afield to gather food.

Nima, he is fed up with the situation of being controlled by others in terms of food and grass.

Going south to fight the Chu thieves, in fact, he did not reject it. When Hong Chengchou asked him to lead the army to the south, he did not hesitate at all, and directly led the tens of thousands of troops under his command to the south.

But when to fight, where to fight, how to fight after careful consideration, after fully considering the gains and losses before fighting!
From Zu Dashou's point of view, the current situation is not a very good time to fight.

The Chu thieves had already understood their own intention to detour southward, and the other Chu thieves directly sent out a large army to intercept them.

And this kind of interception with the toes, everyone knows that he must be fully prepared.

According to the reports from the scouts in front, the bandits of Chu dispatched nearly 1 cavalry in one go, as well as more than [-] infantry and artillery units.

The total force is 2 people.

This troop strength is twice that of the [-] troops under Zu Dashou's command.

Moreover, there are also a lot of cavalry on the opposite side, and the cavalry of one's own side does not even have an advantage in number.

As for the quality advantage, although it is stronger, it is also limited.

After all, Zu Dashou has also heard that many of the large number of cavalry in the Chu bandits are fine cavalry from the frontier army who can charge and shoot, especially the three cavalry brigades in the Chu bandits. The cavalry of the frontier army transferred to Jiangbei to fight.

Although Zu Dashou was very confident in his own Guan Ning cavalry, he didn't think that his cavalry could still fight against the elite cavalry from Chu bandits and these frontier cavalry.

Don't say one hit ten, one hit two is enough.

When thousands of cavalry fight, if there is no absolute advantage in numbers, it will easily become a melee. Even if the Guan Ning cavalry under his hands can win, I am afraid that there will be heavy casualties.

To kill one thousand enemies, to lose [-] to oneself... well, even to lose [-] to [-] to one's own self, in Zu Dashou's opinion, this kind of thing is a big loss.

Because Guan Ning cavalry is the cavalry of his ancestor Dashou, it is not easy for him to accumulate thousands of armored cavalry, not to mention hundreds of thousands of casualties, even if there are dozens of casualties, he will be heartbroken for several days.

More importantly, a large number of cavalrymen under his hands died, and Hong Chengchou would not add another soldier to him!
Therefore, battles must be fought, but losses must also be controlled. There must be no situation where the troops are wiped out.

Even if in this battle, he wiped out the [-] Chu thieves on the opposite side and won an unprecedented victory, but if the Guan Ning army under his own suffered heavy losses, the gain would outweigh the loss.

It is very likely to appear at that time, and he obviously won the battle, but his Zu Dashou will end up being questioned and sent to prison in a short time.

These days, a general of the Ming army who does not have a direct line of troops on hand can be stepped on by any civil servant, and Chongzhen can kill him if he wants to.

Zu Dashou had a very clear understanding of this.

In this Tianjin battle, if you can win a big victory without too much loss, it is naturally hello, hello, hello, everyone.

If the situation is not right, then Zu Dashou will not hesitate to drop Hong Chengchou and Tianjin, and lead his troops to withdraw to Shanhaiguan without looking back.

In this process, Guan Ning's iron cavalry must not suffer too much loss.

It's just that if you want to retreat later and want to move freely, the problem of food and grass must be solved.

It is useless to look for Hong Chengchou. He has supervised the army for many years. He has long known the importance of food and grass.

In the past, Hong Chengchou used food and grass many times to force the frontline generals to fight according to his will, disobedient?Give you food in minutes!

Otherwise, what do you think Hong Chengchou relied on to hold down a large group of generals who led private troops to fight.

It's not really because he relies on the official title of governor and the so-called prestige...

Without money and food, those generals who fight with private soldiers can only listen to you.

Therefore, Zu Dashou has to solve this food problem by himself!

Sending troops to the surrounding area or even further away to collect food and grass is related to his retreat, so he did it very carefully.

Zu Dashou didn't intend to fight the Chu thieves to the death, he really encountered a large number of Chu thieves intercepting him, if he really couldn't get over it, Zu Dashou would still turn around and return north.

At that time, he is not even likely to return to Tianjin, but plans to go straight to Shanhaiguan.

As for the safety of Beizhili, Hong Chengchou's life and death are none of his business.

It's just that there must be food all the way back to Shanhaiguan, so he sent people to search for food nearby.

As for turning around and going south to fight, it is more to show Hong Chengchou a show, and whether to continue going south in the future depends on the choice of the Chu thief.

Zu Dashou and Hong Chengchou of the Ming army have their own ideas, but the Chu army on the opposite side doesn't know it. Now they are leading the army to kill in the northwest direction, preparing to intercept Zu Dashou's army lieutenant general Zhu Xingfa, who is still thinking about the deployment of troops on the opposite side And the marching route, rushing to fight a large-scale encounter or even a decisive battle.

Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa was born in the earliest batch of cavalry in the Great Chu Empire.

During the Jiangbei campaign, he stepped down as the deputy director of the cavalry, and was transferred to the front by Luo Zhixue. He served as the commander of the first cavalry brigade with the rank of major general, and led the only elite cavalry in the Great Chu Empire to fight in Jiangbei.

Later, during the Jiangbei Campaign, he also coordinated the First Cavalry Brigade and several other divisional cavalry regiments to fight against the enemy cavalry in Jiangbei many times.

With the end of the Jiangbei Campaign, after the large-scale surrender of the Ming cavalry in the Jiangbei area, Zhu Xingfa was promoted to lieutenant general of the army and deputy commander of the third army because of his outstanding military exploits.

With the title of deputy army commander, the two cavalry brigades under the command of the third army continued to carry out the Northern Expedition.

This person is the highest-ranking cavalry general in the various ministries of the Northern Expedition, second only to the three generals.

This is also the reason why in this operation to intercept Zu Dashou, the supreme commander was not Meng Junli, the commander of the [-]th Division, but Zhu Xingfa.

In terms of position, he is the deputy commander of the third army, and Meng Junli is only the division commander of the third army.

In terms of military rank, Zhu Xingfa is a lieutenant general in the army. Looking at the entire Great Chu Empire, he is also a cavalry general second only to Wang Xiazi, with outstanding military exploits.

As for Meng Junli, this person's qualifications, prestige, and military achievements are far from being comparable to Zhu Xingfa's. This person gradually rose to prominence after Luo Zhi proclaimed himself emperor and founded the country, prepared to establish the official class of the Military Academy, and entered the second official class.

Although he was promoted very quickly, he had successively served as the battalion commander, deputy regiment commander, regiment commander, and deputy brigade commander in the main division. Last year, he was transferred to the [-]th division and served as the deputy division commander of the newly established [-]th division.

However, during his tenure in the Tenth Division, because the Tenth Division was a newly established unit, although it was very important, but because he did not go to the battlefield, his military achievements were naturally not much, and his promotion was slower.

After the Battle of Jiangbei, the [-]th Division performed outstandingly, and Zhang Malin, the commander of the division, finally survived the rank of major general, and was promoted to lieutenant general in one fell swoop, and was transferred back to Gyeonggi by His Majesty to once again serve as the artillery director.

Meng Junli, the deputy division commander of the [-]th division, finally ushered in the time when he really ascended to a high position. He succeeded Zhang Malin as the division commander of the [-]th division, and was promoted to the rank of major general at the same time.

This army major general, who has just been promoted for a few months, naturally has a big gap with Zhu Xingfa.

Therefore, in this battle, it seems that there are only a few thousand cavalry, but the Tenth Division has 5000 people, but the commander-in-chief is still the cavalry general Zhu Xingfa.

Zhu Xingfa led the army westward all the way, in order to increase the speed of marching, to prevent Zu Dashou's troops from passing through their interception first, and then rushing to the rear to stir up wind and rain.

Therefore, Lieutenant General Zhu Xingfa led three cavalry brigades to march ahead of time, and the Tenth Division followed behind with supplies and artillery units.

Zhu Xingfa led more than 4000 cavalry all the way, and finally outflanked Zu Dashou's troops on July [-]th.

Block Zu Dashou's passage to the south!

When Zu Dashou heard that thousands of Chu thief cavalry appeared in front of him, he didn't even need to ask carefully to know that they must be enemy cavalry running over from the canal to intercept him.

Even the serial number can be guessed directly, it must be the first cavalry brigade of the bandit army and the three cavalry brigades. It is rumored that the commander of these cavalry is Zhu Xingfa, the cavalry hero of the Chu bandits.

After discovering that the Chu thief cavalry ran to the front of our side, what should we do?

What else can I do, order to stop, and then inquire one or two, to see if there is a chance to go around...

If not, you can only stand still.

As for running away, he also thought, but the soldiers sent out to collect food and grass had limited gains, and now they had to continue to rely on Hong Chengchou's food and grass to live.

But Hong Chengchou didn't allow him to retreat casually.

Therefore, when Zu Dashou learned from the scouting cavalry that the bandit cavalry on the opposite side were extremely well prepared, and even dismounted, and built an artillery position along a small valley that must be passed through.

He simply ordered the troops to find a small mountain range that was easy to defend, difficult to attack, and easy to escape.

He didn't want to continue going south to fight the thief Chu to death!

He didn't even go to Wen'an County, which is about 20 miles to the southwest. He wanted to run away after entering the city, but it was not so easy, and he could easily become a lonely city.

This is Liaodong again, and Wen'an is not his territory. He doesn't intend to defend the city, and he doesn't need to. It's better to stay in the wild, so it's easier to get around!

It's not easy to explain to Hong Chengchou just by running away, so he can only leave it on the spot...

He just waited for the Chu thief to kill him, and after a little contact, he pretended to be invincible and ran away.

Looking back, he would be able to give Hong Chengchou an explanation: It's not that I don't want to go south, nor is it that I don't want to fight the Chu thieves, but that the Chu thieves are really sharp guns, and I really can't beat the one who lacks soldiers and food.

How should I put it, I should give Hong Chengchou some face.

When Zu Dashou led the way and built a defensive position on the spot, Zhu Xingfa on the opposite side was taken aback for a moment...

Why does this scene seem to be reversed...

(End of this chapter)