weaving

Chapter 518
In the 13th year of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, on December 26th, the Taojiadian, [-] miles north of Kaifeng City, was crowded with troops. The morning sun shone on the iron armor of the sergeants, shining with dazzling silver light.

After Zhang Cheng, Chen Jiugao and the generals beheaded the chicken heads and sacrificed the battle flags, the army marched out amidst the sound of the drums. They divided into three groups and acted according to the previous strategic deployment.

Lin Fangping led Zhang Cheng's pro-army Bureau B, and more than [-] elite Mongolian cavalry marched westward to cover Wei Zhice's chariot battalion on the outside and formed a chariot formation at the northwest corner of Kaifeng City to cut off the western and northern parts of the bandits. contact.

The food and grain supplies on Wei Zhice's carts have been unloaded, and they are left in the Taojiadian camp. Even the chariots only carry the necessary items, and all of them are light carts, so that the speed can be guaranteed.

The focus of their chariot battalion is to prevent the brigade from breaking into the west of the city to rescue the bandits in the north of the city, so all the sixty chariots of the chariot department are arranged here.

With the addition of nearly a hundred carriages, even if most of the invading army on the west side of the city launches a strong attack, relying on the formation of chariots, as well as the artillery and rockets on the chariots for long-distance strikes, and more than [-] official military ammunition behind the chariots The blunderbuss are used to block in the middle. Even if the bandits finally rush to the front of the chariot formation, or break into the chariot formation, there are still [-] officers and soldiers holding swords, shields and spears to fight the bandits in close blood.

The final formation of chariots was more than two miles long, but less than a hundred paces wide. They lay between the bandit armies on the west and north sides of Kaifeng City.

Lin Fangping didn't dare to delay at all. He led more than [-] cavalry around the west side of the chariot formation. After completing the cover task, he went back to the north of Kaifeng City between the chariot formation and the northwest corner of the city wall, which was less than a hundred steps away, to participate in the battle. The strangling battle of the bandit army in the north of the city has gone.

Wei Zhice had just finished forming the formation, and saw hundreds of rebels rushing towards the chariot formation, he hurriedly organized soldiers to line up, seeing that there were not many rebels, and there was no big formation afterwards.

So he decided to attack the thieves only with firecrackers, and repelled two waves of thieves' attacks one after another, killing nearly a thousand thieves.

…………

In this battle, Zhang Cheng invested almost all the troops he could mobilize. As the central part of the attacking bandit army in the north of the city, Zhang Guodong was in charge of commanding, and a total of more than [-] infantry troops were invested.

The officers and soldiers in the middle of Chen Dakuan's battalion are on the left, and the officers and soldiers on the right of Jin Yong's battalion are on the right. In this way, the left and right are [-] officers and soldiers each. A cold killer with a spear and a broadsword.

On the other hand, Zhang Guodong led more than [-] people to line up in the center, and the front was more than [-] infantry soldiers from Zhang Chengzhong's army. They were formed by more than [-] veterans and nearly [-] new troops. It has been more than half a year of rigorous training.

Then came the thousand infantry commanded by the guerrilla general Chen Chongchang in Chen Jiugao's Beijing camp. They were all cold soldiers with swords, shields and spears.

There were more than 2000 people in Chen Jiugao's Beijing camp this time, but nearly [-] people fled and left the team with excuses during the march, and there were as many as [-] people in his camp carrying and operating artillery. There are many, and the rest have less than [-] soldiers.

Now the blunderbuss soldiers were taken by another guerrilla general, Chen Shihu, to fight in Wei Zhice's chariot camp, leaving Chen Chongchang with more than a thousand cold soldiers and killers.

Zhang Cheng also knows that these people can only fight with the wind, and cannot rely on them to fight hard, so he placed the two officers and troops of the infantry battalion under his command on the two wings, and in the middle is also the infantry of the Chinese army in front, so that The officers and soldiers of the Beijing camp were behind to prevent them from retreating and causing trouble to themselves.

The steel torrent of the army in the middle was almost an hour earlier than the car camp, but the infantry marched a little slower than the car camp, just when the car camp had just formed a car formation in the northwest corner of Kaifeng.

The infantry battalion also appeared five miles north of Kaifeng City under the sunlight. They temporarily stopped marching north of the bandit camp, and the army began to form slowly. It was also a short rest to recover Get ready for the upcoming battle.

…………

Liu Tichun was commanding and supervising the battle to the west of the North Gate of Kaifeng. At the beginning, there were more than [-] bandit soldiers and starving civilians on his side. Although the battle was not as severe as that at the West Gate, it was not much worse.

Yesterday, hundreds of hungry people were killed or injured in order to fill the trenches. Today, after digging and besieging the city for the whole morning, hundreds of bandit soldiers were killed and injured, and nearly a thousand hungry people were killed or injured.

Because he was eager to attack the city, he only left more than [-] firemen in the camp to support them, and prepared lunch for the attacking bandits and hungry people, while the rest of the bandits and hungry people were pressed against the base of the city wall to dig the city.

Even if there were only more than 200 bandit soldiers around him, there were more than [-] archers behind a simple wooden wall outside the trench, shooting arrows at the top of the city to suppress the defenders, so as to protect the bandit soldiers who were digging the city at the root of the city. , Hungry people.

Seeing the big holes at the root of the city dug deeper and deeper, Liu Tichun was secretly delighted. Just now he had to report that there was a reserve team of nearly a thousand people left on the side of the crockpot, and the progress of digging the city was very slow.

He was still cursing secretly in his heart: "Mother-skinned donkey ball, after all, you don't have the same heart with our father, you just know how to keep a hand, your mother is stupid..."

Just when he was satisfied with the progress of digging the city on his side, he suddenly heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of the camp behind him, and he turned to look north with doubts in his heart.

But I saw a few bandit soldiers galloping forward on horseback, they seemed to be panicked and anxious, but puffs of smoke and dust rose into the air from the camp more than a mile away.

He covered his forehead with his hand and yelled, "Oh, it's not good..."

Just when everyone around was astonished, those cavalry soldiers had already rushed forward, and they shouted loudly: "General Liu, the officers and soldiers are stealing the camp... the officers and soldiers are stealing the camp..."

Liu Tichun ran two steps to meet him, grabbed the bandit soldier who had just turned off his horse, and asked anxiously, "How many troops are there in the army?"

"...About a thousand people... suddenly came in..."

He shouted an order: "Hurry up, recall the brothers, stop the siege, take back the camp, and let's have dinner!"

Liu Tichun grabbed another bandit soldier who had just dismounted, and shouted: "You two go to the crock pot to see if there are any officers and soldiers attacking them, go back quickly."

The two got on their horses again, whipped their horses hastily, and ran towards the east of the north gate.

…………

Lin Fangping led more than [-] elite riders back to the north of the city from the northwest corner of Kaifeng City on his horse. He tried his best to suppress the horse's speed, for fear that he would appear too early and make the bandits take precautions, which would not be good for Jin Yong. Captured the bandit camp.

The military order Zhang Cheng assigned to him was to cooperate with Jin Yong's infantry battalion on the right side to attack Liu Tichun's bandit troops.

Lin Fangping turned to a place with a slightly higher terrain. He took out the binoculars and stood on his horse to check the situation of the bandits attacking the city.

When he turned his observation direction to the north, he saw bright red flags flying faintly in the smoke and dust to the north of the bandit camp, and he knew that Jin Yong's infantry army must have come to kill them.

"Brothers, kill the thief!"

He sat down on the horse, and shouted to Su Huhu and Mo Zhigen who were not far away: "Kill, drive the bandits around outside, and drive the hungry people into the bandits' formation!"

(End of this chapter)