Li Guozheng, Liu Jinjue, Zhang Jizai, Sun Shoufa and other generals were invited by the Nan family the first night to accompany Nan Zhongqi and Nan Juyi, the uncle and nephew of the minister, to discuss military affairs.
Everyone discussed using Weinan as a stronghold. If we advance, we can break the siege of Xi'an Fucheng, and if we retreat, we can defend the fortified city in order to plan a long-term confrontation.
At the same time, the gentry of Weinan County were mobilized, requiring them to recruit troops, strengthen city defenses, prepare weapons, and provide food and grass.
The discussion was very lively, with Nan Zhongqi and Nan Juyi, two great ministers, taking the lead. From the generals to the gentry, everyone was extremely active. It seemed that the great cause of Xingyi Division's fight against Bu Dao was just around the corner.
As a result, as soon as he opened his eyes the next morning, before the generals had time to assign tasks, they suddenly heard the police and the 1,300 Korean soldiers of the Li State Department stationed outside the Xiguan moat were surrounded.
Coming were Liu Chengzong and a thousand Mongolian cavalry led by Xie Erhu.
They galloped all night and arrived at the zero point outside Weinan's Xiguan before dawn. After a short rest to recuperate their power, they immediately ordered Xie Erhu to lead his troops into the formation and build three camps. Li Guozheng was shot to death on the spot.
Hundreds of defeated soldiers swam across the moat, and the three thousand soldiers of Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai who were stationed in the east of the river fell into chaos.
Both of them are from Hancheng.
As the local magistrate, Zuo Maodi's primary mission is to be responsible for the local area, so he has a heavy ideological burden.
However, Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai were different as generals. Military men were born for war.
As Chen Qiyu's message was passed on by Zuo Maodi, troops swept across Weibei. The two generals had no position to stay in the safe city, and both led dozens of servants to recruit troops along the way to join the war.
It's just that... they are not familiar with their own soldiers.
The soldiers were all landlord regiment training and rural soldiers from surrounding Zichuan, Heyang, Baishui, Chengcheng and other places.
Whether they are a mob or an ant army, it does not mean that the quality of their soldiers is not good. In fact, by this point in the war in Shaanxi, fighting has become common sense.
Regardless of officials, thieves, or civilians, if you are pulled out, you will be able to walk in a queue and use weapons.
However, the soldiers have a complicated background, have not been adjusted to the officers, and the supply of food and salary is also very complicated, which will lead to the general's lack of prestige and the inability to give the soldiers the confidence to fight. At the same time, the entire army also lacks organizational capabilities.
As soon as they woke up and rushed to the battle, everyone was trembling, panicked and confused. Not to mention fighting across the river, Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai spent a long time finding their subordinate officers.
This made the two of them extremely scared of the situation.
That is to say, Liu Chengzong did not send his troops to cross the river, otherwise a single attack would have destroyed them and scattered them.
The two men gathered their troops and calmed their morale. At this moment, the marshal's army on the other side of the moat sent a letter urging them to surrender, making them realize that Liu Chengzong was here personally.
Then the two of them figured it out based on the current situation and discovered the problem.
Liu Chengzong didn't seem to be here to fight, but more like he was fighting.
The Mongolian soldiers under his command looked sleepy and tired, and even their men and horses were stunned. On the other side, they overturned Li Guozheng's Hanhe battalion soldiers in one fell swoop. They relied on their speed and strength. At this time, they had no chance of crossing the river to pursue them.
Willingness.
Soldiers and horses were spreading out in twos and threes in the western suburbs. Those who needed to eat grass ate and those who needed to rest rested. Some even took off their begging bowls and made fires and hot water. There was no trace of the wolves and tigers they had just charged into the formation.
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They then thought, the enemy army was tired, and our army was waiting for work, and with more strikes but fewer strikes, the battle across the river might not be impossible to win. If Liu Chengzong could be captured in one battle, wouldn't it mean that... he would be promoted to an official rank just around the corner?
In Weinan City, Nan Juyi, who was nearly seventy years old, was letting his servants carry the sedan towards the city wall.
The battle in the western suburbs progressed too quickly. He received news in the city. As soon as he packed up his sedan chair, he heard that Li Guozheng had been shot to death outside the city. There were 1,300 soldiers from the Sanzhai-Korean joint camp stationed on the west bank of the moat.
They were also beaten to death and injured most of them.
Nan Juyi was shocked to hear the bad news and hurriedly climbed up the city wall. He looked at the situation outside the city with his dim eyes and became anxious at the sight.
Nan Juyi is not a little old man who doesn't understand anything.
When he was the governor of Fujian, he personally supervised tens of thousands of troops, besieged and blew up the red fort built by the Dutch in Penghu across the sea, and was very familiar with muskets, artillery, warships and even the relationship between pirates and colonists in Southeast Asia.
In the first year of Chongzhen's reign, he served as Minister of Household Affairs and Governor of Cangchang. In that year, the court repaid part of the arrears, which was to withhold 300,000 Shaanxi taxes and pay at his suggestion.
Later, during the Jisi Incident, he was in Tongzhou and formulated very perfect methods to defend the city. At that time, Zhang Fengxiang, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, was imprisoned because of insufficient ordnance preparations, so the emperor asked him to take over as the Minister of the Ministry of Industry.
In the end, because he said good things to save people, the angry Lord Chongzhen dismissed him from office and served the people. It was not until the time of Xu Shou Tongzhou Gong that Chongzhen's anger subsided and his official status was restored.
However, Nan Juyi is getting older now and has been living in his hometown.
This time Liu Chengzong led his troops to the east, Nan Juyi actually did not want to let the Nan family get involved in this muddy water.
When he first served in the Ministry of Household Affairs, he was most aware of the grievances between Shaanxi rebels like Liu Chengzong and the imperial court. If he had not submitted a report to withhold 300,000 yuan in taxes and pay from Qin, the Shaanxi rebellion would have been advanced by another year.
Secondly, Liu Chengzong did not just come down from northern Shaanxi to make a small fuss. If he were the bandits who came down from northern Shaanxi earlier, they would just fight and it would be useless.
Now that the Marshal's Mansion has captured Gansu, Qinghai and even Longxi, and entered Guanzhong on the Eastern Expedition, Nan Juyi is emotionally unwilling to see the tug of war between the Ming court and the Marshal's Mansion in Guanzhong.
From Nan Juyi's point of view, in this period of rampant natural disasters and continuous chaos, if there is a decent regime that can restore the vitality of the northwest, it is not actually the worst outcome.
The most important aspect is that Wei Qian'er and Zhang Tianlin led their troops to cross the border one after another earlier. Nan Juyi stood on the city and saw the two most elite battalions of the Marshal's Mansion.
Those two battalions are well-equipped, and just by marching and setting up camp at a distance, you can see that they are well-trained, and they are definitely beyond the capabilities of ordinary armies.
What's more, the whole battalion is equipped with armored horsemen, equipped with chariots, and also carries light and heavy muskets and light and heavy red cannon.
In Nan Juyi's eyes, if this kind of troops were on the side of the imperial court, even if there was only one division, they could serve as the leading division for the most elite troops. They only needed to cast some artillery, which would be enough to defend Weinan until the end of the world.
But now, a force like this, consisting of two large battalions and 10,000 soldiers and horses, crossed Weinan and headed for Tongguan like a joke.
Nan Juyi believed that this was an invincible opponent.
However, the Nan clan had too many properties and fields, and Liu Chengzong's land redemption policy frightened the clan members.
If no one in Weibei raised troops, Nan Juyi could still persuade the tribe to stay. But now that Weibei has raised troops, people regard this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it is inevitable that the war will come to Nan's head.
City head.
The younger generations who were calling for war were frightened to the point of losing their minds and losing their composure when they saw the Mongolian cavalry wandering outside the city and the corpses of the Korean and Korean troops lying in the fields after they were defeated.
On the contrary, Nan Juyi's face showed uncontrollable joy.
He murmured: "Okay, okay, okay!"
He was afraid that elite troops like Zhang Tianlin and Wei Qian'er were coming again, but he felt relieved when he saw the Mongolian cavalry in groups outside the city.
After all, although the Mongolian cavalry could run fast and be good at attacking, they did not carry heavy artillery, so it was very difficult to deal with the city.
But immediately afterwards, Nan Juyi's doubts also emerged: "Why don't the camps under the city cross the river to pursue them?"
Scattered Mongolian soldiers are scattered on the plains. Isn't this a good opportunity to pursue them?
But the officers and soldiers outside the city did not pursue him.
At this moment, he was about to send someone down to the city to remind him, but he heard that the defeated troops came to report that Liu Chengzong was leading troops outside the city, which made him hesitate again.
The shadow of the famous tree.
Liu Chengzong has played in the northwest for six years without a single defeat. His name alone is enough to scare thousands of people into hiding in the city and pissing their pants.
Not to mention, Nan Juyi felt that Liu Chengzong came over with only a thousand Mongolian cavalry, so he must have a back-up plan, and it would be right if the generals outside the city did not take the initiative to defeat him.
At least it's safe.
However, the generals outside the city did not pursue him, not because they did not want to, but because they were unable.
They didn't think it through at all, or Liu Jinjue, Zhang Jizai, and Sun Shoufa were all on the defensive. They didn't have the option of retreating due to their responsibilities, so they were very good at fighting tooth and nail.
The three of them had the same plan: to appease the soldiers, prepare their troops, beat the drums and march immediately, lead their troops across the moat, and head west to cover up the enemy.
This sudden change made Nan Juyi angry at the city gate and slapped his thigh.
If you didn't fight when you should have fought just now, you would have missed the opportunity. Now that people have rested for a while, it will be difficult to get any benefits if they rush to fight again.
Liu Chengzong, who was herding his horse on the west side of the moat, heard the sound of drums in the distance. He stood on his horse and watched the Ming army crossing the river. He clapped his hands happily on the spot: "Well done!"
Just as Nan Juyi imagined in the city.
Who is Liu Chengzong? Since he raised his troops, he has been invincible. He has commanded and fought as instinctively. Especially in local battles like this, there is no need to put extra thought into it, let alone putting himself in danger.
The reason why he only gathered a thousand Mongolian soldiers and rushed over was because he had a burning desire to vent his anger and wanted to rush over as soon as possible to deal with the Ming army.
But more importantly, they were still afraid that the enemy would not dare to leave the city due to the large number of troops. As a result, they could not vent their anger and instead came to fight the siege on their own.
It is not impossible to attack the city, but it is not possible to gather tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to attack Weinan County. It is too close to Xi'an Fucheng. If Fucheng needs to besieged, Weinan must also besieged. It is almost equivalent to the Marshal's Mansion having to invest all its troops.
The distance between the two sides was less than a hundred miles, and tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were assembled, which could even eat away the grass roots in the ground.
What's more, Weinan is a fortified city, with thousands of defenders holding the city tightly. If there are more grain stores in the city, they will not be able to capture it until next spring, and it will hurt the morale of Ruhong, the commander-in-chief.
Therefore, his plan from the beginning was to use a thousand Mongolian cavalry as bait to cover and control the battlefield, lure the Ming army to fight in the field, and give the supporting troops an opportunity to calmly enter the battle.
Seeing the Ming army crossing the river, Liu Chengzong felt relieved. He waved his hand to Yu Linqi and said: "Give Brigadier Xie an order to assemble his troops and defend for a while before preparing to retreat."
At the same time, he told the other two Yu Lin cavalry: "It is said that Gao Ying on the west bank of the Wei River ascended to Qian Zong Tangtong and ordered him to cross the river to prepare to meet the enemy; on the north bank, Huben camp Qian Zong Ma Ke led his army to march eastward from Hebei to outflank the Ming army.
"
When the Mongolian cavalry saw three or four thousand Ming troops crossing the river, each group also blew the horns one after another, and unconsciously gathered their formations, put on their clothes when they should, and mounted their horses when they needed to.
When the Ming army crossed the moat, they immediately sent out several groups of cavalry to seize the terrain, and further challenged the gathering Mongolian cavalry, compressing their movement area and creating conditions for the follow-up infantry and gunners to form formations.
Even so, the offensive that Liu Jinjue and Zhang Jizai had placed great hopes on still failed to work.
Xie Erhu and his Mongolian soldiers are too oily.
In addition to the few standing Mongolian troops in the Mongolian battalion of the Marshal's Mansion, most of the remaining troops were recruited from the Tunmu Camp before the war, and most of the officers serving as officers were Mongolian nobles.
This group of people is the best at judging the situation when fighting. They are very brave and can fight tooth and nail, but they generally don't do this.
After all, the price of risking one's life is too great. There are not many herders and travelers in the village, and there are also very few cattle and sheep. If more people are killed, the cattle, sheep, and horses will be gone.
Therefore, it is okay to be responsible for loitering, herding horses, reconnaissance, coloring maps, and maintaining existence on the battlefield, but there is no point in fighting a tough battle with the Ming army.
After all, there was a gap in equipment. Except for the idiot lancers from the Heshuote tribe, the other tribes were not willing to go head-to-head with the Ming army in formation.
Liu Chengzong's order was basically equivalent to "getting off work" for Xie Erhu, telling him that he did not need to make any sacrifices in the subsequent part of this battle.
In this case, Xie Erhu simply let himself go, gathered his troops in formation, and looked eager to try.
When the Ming army entered the shooting range, they took out the artillery left behind by the Li Guomin Department of the Korean Joint Army earlier and fired at the Ming army.
Xie Erhu issued a death order and forbade his soldiers to carry artillery while escaping.
His Mongolian soldiers really liked the Ming army's artillery.
They didn't like the standard lion cannons and thousand-jin field cannons of the Marshal's Mansion, nor did they like the Ming army's general cannons. Those things were too heavy and slow.
I only have a soft spot for the Zhuzhu Cannon and the Small Fran Machine Cannon.
Those gadgets are magic weapons to them. They can hit them by just putting them on the ground while riding a horse. They hit fast and scatter a lot of bullets. As long as the enemy is within range, they can hit them accurately. They can pick them up with a bang and run away.
.
very happy.
The Ming troops who rushed over were stunned. Aren't they a group of Tatars? Why did they fire off artillery?
When the Ming army also pushed the artillery forward, they heard whistles in the smoke, and hundreds of cavalry dispersed like birds and beasts.
Don't break yourself.
When the Ming army hurriedly caught up, what greeted them was not the fleeing Mongolian cavalry, but the elite soldiers of the marshal's army wearing the same uniform as them.
It comes from Tangtong, which crosses the Wei River bend in the west.
When they discovered that the support of the Marshal's Army had arrived, Liu Jinjue and Sun Shoufa, who were leading the troops, were not afraid. After all, they still had the advantage in terms of military strength.
However, the long spears and heavy artillery in Tang Tong's hands not only eliminated the disadvantage caused by the strength of the troops, but also blocked their offensive. There were also a large number of Mongolian cavalry to cover the flanks, constantly driving away the limited cavalry of the Ming army.
In terms of the number of cavalry alone, Xie Erhu's thousand cavalry was no less than the cavalry of Liu Jinjue and Sun Shufa.
As the Ming cavalry was driven out of the battlefield one after another, the remaining infantrymen quickly wavered under the fire of guns and heavy muskets.
Xie Erhu is full of energy. If he doesn't rush now, when will he wait?
He has always been able to fight this kind of battle with favorable winds.
The Mongolian brigade's light cavalry clashed in the smoke, galloped with bows drawn and fired randomly, and combined with guns and artillery, they defeated one cavalry and three infantry head-on, causing the entire Ming army to collapse.
For Nan Juyi, who watched the Ming army's defeat on the city wall, this was not despair.
The real despair comes from the north bank of the Weihe River.
Marshal's Army Huben Camp Qian Commander Ma Ke was leading nearly a thousand cavalry, carrying the battle flag across the river bank, cutting off the retreat of the defeated Ming army from the front and back, and spreading it out outside the city.
This scene made the gentry at the head of Weinan City look ashen!