Wang Wenxiu, who was at the end of the team, led his troops in a hurry and was still two miles away from the battlefield.
The soldiers at the artillery post of the battalion are already cleaning the battlefield.
There were groans of pain everywhere.
Liu Chengzong passed by the outskirts of the battlefield where corpses were strewn, and the artillery sentry sergeants were escorting the captives of the flag army and carrying the wounded soldiers.
In the shallow stream that could not even cover the feet, old thief Cao, who was sitting on a four-wheeled Hongyi artillery cart, his face covered with blood, was chewing horse meat leisurely, holding a porcelain pipe with only the blue and white pictures of the erotic palace, and started to smoke it little by little.
Tobacco compaction.
This is Mr. Huo’s pipe.
On the day when Huojiabao was captured, the cracked pipe was handed over by the soldiers, and he gave it to Cao Yao.
Seeing him coming, Cao Yao stood up from the artillery cart and raised his thumb behind him proudly: "General, did you fight well?"
"It's so beautiful. Sit down. It will be a while before the chasing cavalry comes back."
Liu Chengzong complimented him, then dismounted and asked, "How did you do that face?"
Cao Yao wiped his face with the back of his hand, shook his head and said, "It's unlucky to be hit by a squatting tiger cannon. They banged a few cannons, but all my soldiers were fine. Only a piece of flesh was bitten off my face by the cannon."
He was lucky. The enemy fired the cannon at a farther distance, and the wound was also on the cheekbone.
A little further up, there will be a one-eyed dragon; if the cannon fires later, a row of them will be killed.
Liu Chengzong put down a red flag and grazed by the stream. He also went to sit next to the cannon cart and handed him a handkerchief to wipe it with: "It's time for my sister-in-law to scold me when I go home. Follow me out and break up the relationship."
"Forget it, we are not like Lin Wei who rely on face to make a living."
Cao Yao laughed out loud, and immediately called to a gunslinger who was running away with the weapon, and asked for a match rope to light the pipe. Then he said: "This is the first game. Let me fight two more games, and I will be able to light the rifle."
All the large and small mixed formations are listed."
"Forget it. If we fight two more games, you'll be dead."
"Well..."
Cao Yao waved his hand and spoke with ease: "This is the most difficult battle. I think they are easy to deal with so I fought like this. The artillerymen are counting how many people have been killed by the artillery fire. The next battle will be fired at a hundred steps."
Good guy, when Liu Chengzong heard that this old thief still knew how to calculate data, he gave a thumbs up and said: "Brother Cao, you were born late. If you were born a few years earlier, you would be Qi Yuanjing!"
"You were born a few years earlier and you were still Tan Zili." Cao Yao took the pipe from his mouth and spread his hands: "Isn't it too late for you to be born, what can you do?"
Liu Chengzong said: "Tell me what you think."
"Fifty steps, a hundred steps, a hundred and fifty steps, the Tiger Crouching Cannon is loaded with gravel, the Emerging Pearl Cannon is loaded with six-cent iron powder, and the Fran Machine is loaded with three-cent iron powder." p>
Cao Yao stretched out three fingers, corresponding to the distance in turn, and calculated: "For each distance, three types of cannons correspond to five, six, seven, um... nine types, corresponding to nine types of enemy casualties."
A smile appeared on Liu Chengzong's face. He originally thought that Cao Yao's hands were itchy, but he didn't expect that he was looking for rules very rigorously.
He also thought about shooting at close range with a musket.
But the times are wrong, the weapons are wrong, and the enemy is wrong.
Using a musketeer team to close in and fire a salvo can cause a lot of casualties, but if the number of muskets is insufficient, it will not be able to defeat the enemy, and at a closer distance, it is easy to be counterattacked by the enemy.
Most of the time, the winning strategy is determined by the enemy's shortcomings.
The Ming Dynasty's frontier troops in this era studied Qi Jiguang's drill code published by the Ministry of War.
In the era when Qi Jiguang was stationed in Jizhen, the requirements for the cannons and artillery in the car camp were to fire 512 No. 4 Franchise machines in sequence, pursuing continuity of firepower with extremely high discipline.
Because the Mongols generally do not engage in positional warfare with the Ming army.
"When I figure it out, which cannon is better, I will use that cannon and fire at the most suitable distance."
Cao Yao said it very simply: "I hope it is the Pearl Cannon. It is light and durable. The Fran Machine is also good, but it is too heavy. As for the Tiger Crouching..."
The old thief raised his finger and pointed at his cheekbone: "You didn't kill me, but I don't think it's good to penetrate the armor."
The shooting angle of Tiger Crouching is high, it can hit far but not directly, and the shells are also light, so the damage to armored enemies is not as good as other guns.
Liu Chengzong did not follow his words, but instead asked: "Do you know where I most want to go when I enter Shanxi?"
"The Yonghe Palace in Fenyang City, the Qingcheng Palace?"
Liu Chengzong shook his head: "There is no food in the palace. The food is in Wangzhuang outside. Shaanxi has reduced production this year. Food is very important, but I want iron smelting more. There are ready-made tools. We used to cast a batch of cannons ourselves, which is most suitable for us."
Cannon."
"What gun?"
Liu Chengzong's eyes showed reverie: "A small red barbarian cannon weighing less than 200 kilograms, with a gun carriage of 400 kilograms, and running on two mules, is powerful enough for field battles."
Use the modulus of each part of the gun body to make the thicker areas thicker and the less thick areas thinner, so that the artillery can be lighter and more durable under the same power.
So under the same weight, the power is naturally greater.
Cao Yao squinted his eyes, wiped the blood on his face again, and was very excited: "You wait, when you cross Luliang Mountain, you let me walk around, I will bring back some Buddha statues, don't use iron, use
Copper."
The requirements are quite high.
Liu Chengzong smiled and nodded, and saw in the distance that the cavalry that was chasing the enemy were taking hundreds of prisoners and returning in groups.
Zhong Bao, who was leading the cavalry, rode over, dismounted and prostrated, saying: "General, we still ran dozens of people, and we went into the mountains and couldn't catch up."
"It doesn't matter, you can send someone to the village at Chengguan in Pu County to ask how the banner army's military discipline was when it was stationed in the camp."
"As long as you don't do anything that makes people angry." Liu Chengzong thought for a while and suddenly touched his body and said: "If you are willing to surrender, then accept it; if you are unwilling to surrender, then... Brother Cao, do you have any money?"
"Silver? How much does it cost?"
"Three to five taels, maybe a dozen taels will do."
"Easy to handle!"
As he spoke, Cao Yao jumped off the cannon cart, handed the pipe to his hand, crouched down and searched around in the cannon cart of the Hongyi Pao, struggled to lift the cannon tail bead, and after a while he stretched out his hand:
"Is it enough?"
Two flattened silver ingots worth ten taels.
Liu Chengzong was dumbfounded: "You put the money down?"
Cao Yao said it was to seek a good omen, but he didn’t know where the superstition came from.
"If you are willing to follow, you can have enough to eat and drink; but some family members are in the guardhouse, and they don't force it. Each of them will be given one yuan or sixty-seven cents of silver for travel expenses, and make it clear to them that we were soldiers before, and it will not be easy for us to let them go.
They go home."
He laughed even as he spoke.
In this case, why pursue it?
But sometimes things are so weird. On the surface, the results are the same if you don't pursue them or if you chase them and let them go. In fact, for these people who were let go and those who know about it, the results are quite different.
Whenever the imperial court could afford military pay, Liu Chengzong would not do this.
Only a small amount of travel expenses are needed to ensure that the next time the troops are sent out, everyone will still bravely join the army, gather the numbers for the generals and officials, and surrender enthusiastically when the fight breaks out.
It was already dark, so Liu Chengzong dispersed the Tang soldiers ten miles away and camped in the camp where the government troops had set up camp.
In the middle of the night, Zhong Bao stood outside the tent and said that the servant who had gone to Pu County had returned and brought back the situation of the Pingyang Guards in Pu County.
"They were stationed in Qiangou, Pu County for two days. Mrs. Du said that they dismantled the door panels of their house to sleep in, but did not secure them when they left. They took four bundles of hay to feed the mules and used them for paving the ground; they also wanted to use the mules to
Take him away. Mrs. Du saw it and stopped holding her."
"There is also an old man named Mi from Xixiang who said that two bannermen lived in his house and stole his cotton trousers when he left. He did not leave any torn cotton trousers behind. There is also old man Chen's nephew. There is a small bannerman under Song Baihu's command.
I made an agreement with him that if I sleep with my mother-in-law for one night, I will give her four cents of silver, and if I sleep for two nights, I will give her five cents when I leave."
After Zhong Bao finished speaking, he glanced at Liu Chengzong and whispered: "Military discipline is okay."
Liu Chengzong licked his lips and pondered for a while, then nodded and said: "Okay, these are just a bunch of ruffians, it's not a big problem."
He clearly felt that Zhong Bao breathed a long sigh of relief.
Early the next morning, Liu Chengzong asked the prisoners to bring out more than 600 people. He also borrowed some money from Zhong Hu and others, collected seventy taels of silver, and registered on the spot.
Indeed, few people are willing to follow him.
I’m not willing to join a thief in the first place, but if the thief is released and given money, then who will continue to be a thief?
In the end, there were fourteen people who said that they had no family members in the guard station and that if they became thieves, their relatives would not be seduce by the army, so they became thieves and were incorporated into various sentries.
The remaining people received a penny of silver from Liu Chengzong and entered the prisoner camp again.
When everyone was about to leave, Liu Chengzong told them: "Don't harm the people on the way back. Come back when you run out of food. I'll take care of how many days you have to eat. If you don't want to follow me, it's okay. Eat for a few days before you go back." p>
Before they could leave, Liu Chengzong broke camp and left, leaving behind a bowl of porridge cooked in the camp for them to drink. Everyone packed up the remaining food before leaving.
Then the soldiers and horses rushed towards Daning County, and soon pursued them to Yonghe County. They almost made a circle before catching up with another army of Pingyang Guards by virtue of their marching speed.
This army is not so well-behaved.
They didn't fight with them at all. Since Wei Qian'er's Tangqi was discovered in the northeast of Yonghe County, the whole army dispersed and ran all the way.
Cao Yao was so angry that he screamed, and the sentry soldiers chased him all the way to Shilou County.
When they arrived at Shilou County, there were more than 400 people left in the flag army. They had abandoned their armor along the way and were completely defeated.
Shilou County did not dare to open the city gate for them. After running for nearly sixty miles, they lost any strength.
Finally, outside the shallow moat, we formed a formation with our backs to the suspension bridge.
It was Zhong Bao who was chasing them, and there was nothing he could do against these people.
There were quite a few of his men chasing the cavalry, but they couldn't hold back the banner troops and surrendered all the way. They also discarded their helmets and armor along the way, leaving weapons and armor everywhere.
If they surrender, they will have to send someone to watch them, and the weapons everywhere make it more difficult to watch them.
When he chased him to Shilou, he only had a vanguard of more than fifty cavalry.
The two groups of people confronted each other by the Longquan River outside Shilou City. They waited until an hour later when Liu Chengzong led his troops over and said, "Tell them, Shilou County doesn't care about food. Come with me and have a full meal before talking." No one listened.
Later, when Liu Chengzong saw Shilou County, he had no intention of sending troops to fight it out, so he simply asked people to bring pots picked up on the road, fetched water from nearby villages, and put in some dried horse meat that the soldiers carried with them. p>
Made a horse meat soup.
As soon as the drinking started here, the flag army couldn't stand it anymore.
After the meal, the usual ceremony of collecting and releasing people was carried out. They were all from Pingyang Guards. When passing through Daning County, Liu Chengzong also sent someone to ask.
Their performance is similar to that of the flag army in Pu County, they are also a bunch of old ruffians.
However, this time Liu Chengzong had experience and asked the carrier to bring some money in advance and paid back the money of the sentry commanders. The specifications for releasing the prisoners were still the same.
He was very happy about this battle. The Banner Army was defeated but there were not many casualties. Everyone was not in a bad mood.
Only Shilou County was shocked. At first, there were only a few dozen riders, so they didn't want to light the smoke. Later, there were more people, but Liu Chengzong didn't mean to besiege the city, so he didn't dare to light the smoke.
After they went south, they finally breathed a sigh of relief and sent someone out of the city to send a message to Li Shi'en, who was stationed at Kulong Pass in the east, saying that the bandit soldiers from the south had crossed the border and besieged the city, and they left after being unable to hold the city under siege.
Perhaps because of the retribution for lying, just after Shilou County conveyed the news to Li Shien that the city was under siege, Shilou County was really besieged in just one night.
In a sea of "Chuangzi" banners, the magistrate of Shilou on the top of the city wanted to cry but had no tears. He just wanted to open a mouth that he had never opened before.
Gao Yingxiang led dozens of riders toward the south, and the further he walked, the more confused he became.
I passed two villages that were burned down at the beginning, and I thought to myself, Liu Shishi asked me to strictly enforce military discipline, and destroyed all the villages myself?
But further south, the situation is completely different.
This village is not afraid of thieves!
When the common people saw them, it was as if they had not seen them.
It's just that when they marched on this road, the people would carry dung and walk on the other side.
There were even people holding iron tools to follow them.
Gao Yingxiang was scared at first, but later he found that the people were just picking up horse dung after them, just over a hundred steps away.
I have never seen anything like this in Shaanxi!
It’s hard to say what he feels in his heart. Gao Yingxiang is not happy at all, and even has a sense of irritability rising in his heart.
He has seen others fear, and he has also seen others support him. No matter which one it is, he feels very good.
There are more than 50 fully armed horse soldiers, and even Tatars from Mongolia, and more than 160 horses. Not to mention frightening you to the point of kowtowing and begging grandpa for mercy, you have to give me some face to get into the mountains, right? p>
Such complete disregard?
King Gao Chuang couldn't accept it in his heart. It was like this after walking through one village, and it was still like this after walking through two villages.
In the third village, there were still people following the team picking up horse manure. He couldn't help it anymore and sent a horse soldier back.
"Hey, that old man, stop and don't move!"
The old man was startled, so he picked up a piece of flattened horse manure with an iron clip and pointed it at the horse thief: "You, what are you doing?"
This is the first time the old man has seen this situation. This thief is actually talking to someone!
"Aren't you afraid of us? You've been picking up horse manure from behind!"
The old man was stunned for a while. It was strange that the villagers were picking up horse manure behind General Liu's troops, but they were never stopped.
After a while, he slowly frowned and asked in a low voice: "Heroes, which team do you belong to?"
"Which team do you care about... I ask you, are you not afraid of us?"
The old man asked again: "General Liu?"
The horse thief shook his head.
"Border troops?"
The horse thief shook his head again.
"Flag Army?"
The horse thief still shook his head.
The next moment, the old man threw away the iron clip and the wooden basket containing horse manure, and ran towards the village. His straw sandals flew away as he ran, shouting: "Hurry up the mountain, there is a thief!" p>
