Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 458 Hollow Square Array
Let's go back and explain the Qing dispute.

After several days of silence, another battle broke out on the Xuzhou battlefield.

First, a cavalry of about 3000 white flags surrounded a fort in the north of Xuzhou.

The town soldiers in the fort hurriedly lit up the smoke, and seeing the smoke, the cavalry of the Ming army stationed in various nearby forts rushed to help, and no less than a thousand cavalry gathered around noon.

Although at a significant disadvantage in terms of numbers,

However, the cavalry of the Ming army still brazenly attacked Jiannu.

Relying on more and more proficient equestrian skills and riding and archery skills, although the number of cavalry in the Ming army is small, they firmly control the initiative on the battlefield.

Since then, soldiers of the Eight Banners continued to come to help in the battle, and upon hearing the news, more and more Ming army cavalry arrived.

Towards evening, more than [-] Eight Banners soldiers rushed to the battlefield, and the number of Ming army cavalry increased to [-], and infantry and chariot battalions also rushed to the battlefield one after another.

According to past practice, the Eight Banners soldiers should withdraw at this time.

But this time, the Eight Banners soldiers were uncharacteristically, and still refused to retreat. They started brutal hunting and counter-hunting with the Ming cavalry in the vast wilderness, as if they were determined to decide their lives.

By midnight, the Eight Banners soldiers gathered on the battlefield had already exceeded ten thousand riders.

After hearing the news, more than [-] infantrymen of the Ming army came to help the battle, and there were more than [-] sidecars.

Now the situation of the Eight Banners soldiers is even more unfavorable, because the cavalry of the Ming army can return to the chariot formation to rest when they are tired from running, and they can return to the chariot camp to replenish their ammunition, but the Eight Banners soldiers do not have this convenience.

Near the end of the ugliness, most of the heavy arrows of the Eight Banners soldiers were exhausted, and the soldiers and horses were also exhausted to the extreme.

Finally, the leader of the army, Jiannuzhu, gave the order to retreat. Accompanied by the sound of horns, the Eight Banners soldiers who were still chasing the cavalry of the Ming army turned around and returned north without hesitation.

But how could the cavalry of the Ming army be willing to give up?
Hu Guozhu immediately led the cavalry battalion to launch a chase.

At about Maozheng time, they chased all the way to the vicinity of Guting Town, [-] miles southwest of Nanyang Lake.

A gust of wind blew by, and the soldiers leading the soldiers who walked beside Hu Guozhu suddenly chanted loudly: "Chile River, under the Yin Mountain. The sky is like a dome, covering the whole field. The sky is blue and the wild is vast. The wind blows the grass and sees the cattle and sheep. "

Hu Guozhu's heart skipped a beat, and when he looked around anxiously, he saw that the sky was already bright, and all he could see were lush green weeds, as if he was in a prairie.

When the strong wind blew, weeds that were half a person's height fell down one after another.

Occasionally, pheasants can be seen flying frightened in the grass.

"Not good!" Hu Guozhu growled secretly in his heart.

He also ordered the messengers around him: "Hurry up, send the order down, the rear team will change to the front team, and withdraw!"

However, it was only at this time that it occurred to him that it was too late to retreat. As soon as Hu Guozhu's words fell, the dozens of cavalry who had been sent out for vigilance rushed back from all directions without stopping at night.

"Junmen, Mongolian cavalry were found five miles to the east! The number is unknown!"

"Junmen, at least [-] Jiannu cavalry were found seven miles to the west!"

"Junmen, Mongolian cavalry were found eight miles to the southeast, at least eight thousand!"

"Junmen, a large number of Mongolian cavalry were found ten miles to the northeast, at least [-] cavalry!"

Dozens of riders galloped back without stopping, and at the same time reported the bad news to Hu Guozhu one by one. Hu Guozhu's heart fell to the bottom of the Nine Nether Valley in an instant, this was an ambush!

This is not surrounded by four sides, but surrounded by ten sides!

It can be ambushed on the plain, who will believe it?

"Junmen, what should we do?" The leaders of the cavalry battalion also gathered.

Hu Guozhu also panicked a lot, how had he encountered such a battle before?
However, after all, Hu Guozhu was born in Liaoxi generals, and he followed Chongzhen for three years. He has never eaten pork, and has he ever seen a pig run?At this time, you must not panic, but be calm.

"Calm down!" Hu Guozhu shouted in a deep voice, "Don't panic, there's nothing to panic about."

"Junmen, why don't you choose a direction to break out of the siege?" A scholar suggested, "Hurry up and break out of the siege before the Eight Banners soldiers and Mongolian cavalry complete the encirclement."

"Yes, let's break through, it will be too late."

"I'm afraid it's too late, the nearest is only five miles away."

"Then we can only throw our pawns to protect the chariot and block the enemy with a small group of cavalry to ensure that the main force breaks through."

"Junmen, give me five hundred cavalry, and I will hold off the [-] Mongolian cavalry in the northeast."

"Junmen, give me five hundred cavalry, and I will hold back the true slave cavalry coming from the west!"

"Junmen, I only want five hundred horses, and I will go too!"

I have to say that the scholars in the scholar camp are really kind.

At this time, their first reaction is not to run away by themselves.

Instead, he sacrificed himself without hesitation to cover the main force to break through.

If it were Wang Pu, Yang Guozhu, Tang Tong, Ma Ke, or Liu Zeqing, Liu Liangzuo, Zuo Liangyu and others, they would have already run away without seeing anyone.

"Shut up, can you hold on?" Hu Guozhu was furious.

All the soldiers shut their mouths at the same time. They have joined the cavalry battalion for some time, and they have enough understanding of the mobility of the cavalry. The mobility of the cavalry is really much better than that of the infantry.

Therefore, it is pure wishful thinking to hold back thousands or even tens of thousands of cavalry with hundreds of cavalry.

If it's on a steep mountain road, maybe it's still possible, but here is a great plain, and you can't even see a small hill with a height of several tens of feet within a few hundred miles. How do you hold back the enemy cavalry?

Another scholar said: "Then we can only break out of the encirclement by force in one direction."

"Can you break through?" Another scholar immediately retorted, "Before we penetrated the enemy cavalry in front of us, the enemy cavalry from other directions had already been killed, and by then we would really be dead."

"Then what do you say?" the scholar before asked with a dark face.

Hu Guozhu's face flashed a touch of determination, and he shouted: "Get off the horse!"

"Huh? Get off the horse?" Dozens of Prince Qin's scholars looked at each other in disbelief when they heard the words.

"What are you still doing?" Hu Guozhu said angrily, "Everyone is there, dismount! Dismount and form! Hollow phalanx!"

"Hollow phalanx?" Dozens of Qinwang scholars woke up like a dream when they heard the words. When they were in the infantry before, they and the new soldiers led by their respective command often trained the hollow phalanx, so they didn't care about the hollow phalanx. Strange, including the soldiers of the cavalry battalion are no strangers, after all, they were selected from the infantry.

But can the hollow phalanx really block the cavalry attack?

In this regard, the scholars did not quite believe it in their hearts.

……

Surrounded by Vaxing'a and more than a hundred Bala soldiers, Duoduo meanders southward.

From time to time, Duoduo would look up at the direction of Nanyang Lake in the south.

If all goes well, the ambush should have surrounded the main force of the cavalry of the Ming army by now, right?
For this ambush, Duoduo really took great pains, and spent a lot of money, and even dispatched the Eight Banners Mongolia from Beijing urgently.

Now, the [-] Banners of Mongolia plus the [-] Banners of Manchuria,
A huge ambush circle has been set up within [-] miles around Nanyang Lake. As long as the Ming army cavalry enters the valley, the cavalry of each banner will encircle the Ming army cavalry in the center from all directions.

But whether this ambush plan will work, Dodo has no idea.

If this ambush fails, it may be difficult to find such an opportunity.

Just when Duoduo was feeling uneasy, dozens of horsemen galloped back from the front.

"Master!" The one led by Xiangbaiqi Gushan Ezhenhe Luohui galloped to Duoduo's horse and panted, "The cavalry of all banners have completed encircling the Ming army's cavalry!"

"Really? Surrounded?" Duoduo was overjoyed when he heard this.

"Yes, surrounded!" He Luohui nodded heavily, and then said, "The cavalry of the Ming army knew that they could not escape, so they simply dismounted and prepared to fight with us."

"Haha, that's great." Duoduo said, "It's really a shaman guardian."

After speaking, he whipped the horse's butt hard again with the whip, and the war horse raised its head and hissed sadly under the pain in its crotch, and then threw off its four hooves and galloped towards Nanyang Lake.

He Luohui, Wa Xing'a and others quickly followed.

After running for more than an hour, Duoduo and his party arrived near Nanyang Lake.

But there was already a mass of black cavalry on the horizon in the distance.

Duoduo quickly opened the binoculars and looked forward. With the help of the monocular, he could see more clearly, and saw that the large cultivated land around Nanyang Lake had turned into a prairie at this time.

On the verdant grassland, there are moving horse heads everywhere.

The [-] cavalry of the Eight Banners Manchuria and the [-] cavalry of the Eight Banners Mongolia almost covered the grassland.

The cavalry of the Ming army could not be seen, but Duoduo could imagine with his toes that the cavalry of the Ming army must have been surrounded by the Eight Banners Manchuria and Eight Banners Mongolia in the center of the battlefield.

……

The Ming army cavalry was indeed surrounded in the center.

However, the cavalry of the Ming army did not mess up.

The calmness of Hu Guozhu, more than 100 Qin Wang Shizi, and more than 3000 old cavalry infected the new cavalry. In fact, these new cavalry have grown into old cavalry. Yes, and the more than 1000 soldiers who died were not sacrificed in vain.

In a word, more than 8000 soldiers are very calm.

"Tie up your horses and don't mess up the formation!"

"Excess horses are tied to the center of the phalanx and can be replaced at any time."

"The battalion with a small number of people will be temporarily divided, and only six cavalry battalions will be kept."

"Two battalions on the front and rear, one on the left and one on the right."

"After the temporary formation is completed, stand in the standard queue and shoot in three sections!"

Under the orderly command of Hu Guozhu, more than 8000 cavalry quickly completed the temporary formation. After the formation, the cavalry was divided into six battalions, each with about 1350 cavalry.

Then it quickly formed a huge hollow rectangle.

The two long sides of the rectangle are about 300 meters long. On each long side of 300 meters, there are 2700 cavalry standing in three rows, 900 cavalry in each row.

The two short sides are about 150 meters long, and 1350 cavalry stood on each short side.

Around this large hollow rectangle, there is a protective wall made of horses, and the extra horses of the cavalry battalion are surrounded by the rectangle formed by the cavalry for protection.

(End of this chapter)