Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 715 Trapped in Ma'anshan

At noon, the scorching sun of July was shining brightly, the sky was cloudless, the sky was blue, and the birds in the woods were chirping in the distance. A group of dozens of cavalry suddenly appeared in the wilderness.

The cavalrymen stood on their horses and stood in a field where weeds grew wildly. The leading cavalry looked around, and the cavalry around them approached and looked around vigilantly.

The summer was scorching hot, and the sun was like fire. The faces of several cavalrymen were burnt by the sun. Beads of sweat rolled down their foreheads. The front and back of the cavalrymen's chests and backs were wet, as if they had been washed with water.

"General Banner, why haven't we seen any traces of the Central Route Army, not even the Qing Army?" A cavalryman urged his horse to take a step forward, approaching the leader with the helmet flag, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve sweat.

The general flag frowned. They were the scouts of the rampaging horse army. They were ordered to go to the direction of Dashengguan to investigate the location of the Chinese army and find out the movement of the Qing army by the way.

But they have already penetrated into Yingtian Mansion for fifty or sixty miles, and there is no trace of any army along the way, which is really strange.

Zong Qi glanced ahead, took out a water bag from the saddle, and threw it down on his head. The water had already been drunk. Seeing this, the knight at the side quickly threw his water bag over. Zong Qi took it, but After taking a sip, he threw it back, wiped his dry mouth, and said, "Go ahead and continue to investigate."

After finishing speaking, Zongqi pulled the reins, clamped the horse's belly with his legs, and urged the horse to gallop. The cavalry behind saw it and hurriedly urged the horse to keep up.

A group of people continued to move forward, taking the risk to explore in the direction of Dasheng Pass.

The cavalry galloped for more than ten miles, and when the city walls of Dashengguan were faintly visible, they finally found something.

On the vast Guanqian plain, a large camp stretched out. Half of the watchtower at the camp gate was eliminated, and it fell down. Most of it was burned, and the rest was emitting bursts of green smoke.

In the camp and in the surrounding wilderness, there are broken banners, arrows, knives and guns everywhere, the corpses of the Ming army, the Qing army, and the Eight Banners, all covered the ground.

Seeing this, the cavalry pulled the reins one after another, slowed down their horses, and walked among the corpses.

The general flag was riding on the horse, feeling heavy in their hearts. They urged the horse to walk slowly among the corpses, stretched out their hands and pulled out a pole, burned half of it, the military flag that was inserted obliquely, and then unfolded the rolled flag, and saw the word "Ming" in the middle , what has been burned is only one word "日", and a line of small characters next to it is still "Wuwei Zuojun Panshi Battalion Jiaqianding Banner".

The general flag frowned. From the situation in front of him, it was not difficult to see the intensity of the battle.

The battalion was breached, and corpses of people and horses could be seen everywhere in a radius of ten miles. The Central Route Army may have suffered a major defeat, but further investigation is needed to see how the defeat was and where the remnants retreated.

The hearts of the cavalry suddenly hung up.

The cavalry continued to move slowly among the corpses, pulling up a military flag from time to time, unfolding it for inspection, and seeing the battalion number on the flag, their hearts sank again.

From time to time, the cavalry dismounted and turned over the corpses wearing mountain-patterned armor, tore off a military badge from the waist of the corpses, and packed them up.

Judging from the distribution of corpses, the Ming army had much more casualties than the Qing soldiers. It can also be seen that the Central Route Army resisted very fiercely. The Sentinel Army has already taken in one general, three thousand households, and more than a dozen hundreds of households. The military card, it should be that there was a situation where the formation died in battle.

Fortunately, they did not find His Majesty's big banner, nor did the banners of Jin Shenghuan, Wang Deren and other generals. They could only hope that His Majesty escaped.

With a heavy heart, everyone moved forward and touched a few miles. A cavalryman suddenly exclaimed, raised his whip and pointed: "General Banner, there are Qing soldiers!"

Hearing the sound, the general flag looked in the direction he was pointing, and sure enough, he saw some figures walking among the corpses in the distance. The car is pulled away.

This is the Qing army cleaning the battlefield. When the cavalry found the Qing army, the Qing army naturally also spotted the cavalry in the distance.

A wandering white-armored Eight-Banners cavalry in the distance whispered a few words of Manchurian birds, then clamped the horse's belly, divided it into two parts, and surrounded the cavalry.

Seeing this, the general flag hurriedly waved his hands, then pulled the reins, and ordered: "Let's go, let's retreat!"

Immediately, the cavalry turned their horses' heads hastily, made the sound of urging the horses in their mouths, waved their whips in their hands, and hurriedly retreated to the west.

The white-armored cavalry pursued all the way, but the weather was too hot, and the white-armored eight-banner cavalry couldn't take it anymore. They chased for more than ten miles, but they still couldn't catch up, so they gave up chasing.

In the north of Dangtu County, another group of scouts from the Five Zhongjun Army chose to search along the Yangtze River. They traveled all the way and found out the piers re-established by the Qing court along the river, and gradually entered the boundary of Yingtianfu.

At this time, the sentry rode up a dirt hill one after another, and suddenly found that at the corner of Ma'an Mountain in the distance, a large camp stretched at the foot of the mountain, and the surrounding area of ​​Ma'an Mountain was blocked.

On the opposite side of Ma'anshan, Wujiang Town is only separated by a river. According to legend, during the battle between Chu and Han, the overlord Xiang Yu was trapped in Gaixia, besieged on all sides, and retreated to Wujiang. It makes people ferry Wuzhao, who has followed him for many years, to the other side.

Wu Zou has a spirit, loves the master and misses the master, rolls over and commits suicide, and the saddle falls to the ground and turns into a mountain, hence the name of Ma'anshan.

The sentry cavalry stood on the slope and watched. They were ordered to investigate along the river to find out the situation of the Qing army's river defense, so that the navy could go down the river, but they didn't want to bump into the Qing army camp under Ma'anshan.

The sentry cavalry saw at the foot of the mountain, flags fluttering, trumpet belts flying, white tents all over the foot of the mountain, and countless figures walking around in the camp.

"General Banner, look at the top of the mountain!" When everyone's eyes were attracted by the camp at the foot of the mountain, a sentry suddenly pointed at the top of the mountain and exclaimed.

Everyone searched for the reputation, and they saw that there were banners looming in the mountains, and there seemed to be big flags dancing in the wind on the top of the mountain, but the sentinels were too far away, so they couldn't see clearly enough.

At this moment, there was a sudden sound from the Qing camp, the sound of the blasting trumpets, like spring thunder from the vast ocean, followed by the beating of war drums shaking the ground, like a thunderbolt thrown in front of Wanren Mountain.

In the Qing camp, countless figures poured out of the camp, like a forest of spears, banners all over the sky, like a billowing tide, a mountain of soldiers came out of the camp and rushed towards several hills.

Seeing this, many sentry riders were shocked, and the general flag turned back immediately, "Sun Yiyi, you lead five people, go back and report to the king quickly! I will stay and continue to monitor."

A small flag with a helmet flag heard the sound, immediately cupped his fists, then ordered five of his subordinates, pulled the reins, and galloped away.

"General Banner, the rangers of the Qing army have spotted us!" The little flag had just left for a while, and a cavalry immediately exclaimed.

Everyone saw a group of Qing cavalry, who at some point had detoured behind the slope, and another Qing cavalry was rushing from the front.

When Zongqi saw this, his expression became sharp, he drew out his saber, pinched his horse, and shouted: "Get out."

(End of this chapter)