The Dashun army was in the Ji camp. The commander-in-chief, Li You, the mighty general on the right, stood proudly outside the Chaoyang Gate on a yellow gelding. Next to Li You was the Ming Dynasty surrender general Zhou Fengwu.
Behind them were Li You's 300 elite cavalry.
Li You originally had 5,000 cavalry and infantry outside Chaoyang Gate, but he had to leave enough troops to frighten the hundreds of thousands of troops from the three major battalions of the Ming Army to surrender, so he could only enter the city with 300 fine cavalry.
However, Li You felt that three hundred fine cavalry were enough.
Because there is no need to fight this time, only to show military power.
The three hundred elite cavalry behind him were all veteran soldiers who had fought with him from the sea of blood from the mountains of corpses. Picking just a few would make the hypocritical officials tremble with fear.
In order to demonstrate, three hundred cavalry formed four columns.
This is not because the Dashun Army does not want to form more columns.
But the Chaoyang Gate's door opening can only accommodate four riders traveling in parallel.
Zhou Feng realized: "General, I heard that the guard of Chaoyang Gate is Zhu Chunchen. This man is a top nobleman of the Puppet Ming Dynasty. When this man leads the officials of the Puppet Ming Dynasty out of the city to accept surrender, the general will humiliate him."
"No." Li You waved his hand and said, "The Lord has issued a strict order. After entering the city, you must treat the fake officials and gentry with courtesy, and you must do no wrong to the people. Anyone who violates the order will be executed!"
Zhou Fengwu felt a little embarrassed and slapped Ma's leg.
At this time, a faint neighing sound came from inside the barbican city.
"What is this sound?" Li You asked, "I've never heard it before."
Zhou Fengwu frowned: "It sounds like the neighing of an elephant."
"Elephant?" Li You looked confused, "What is an elephant?"
Zhou Feng realized: "This is an auspicious and strange beast that is paid tribute by a small country in Southeast Asia."
"Auspicious beast?" Li You said with a smile, "It's quite grand."
Li You took it for granted that this was a guard of honor to welcome the Dashun Army.
…
The elephant herd has been driven into Wengcheng.
The first group of elephants has been driven into the outer corridor.
"Your Majesty?" Gong Yonggu turned back and looked at Zhu Gaoyuan.
Zhu Gaoyuan nodded slightly, and Gong Yonggu immediately shouted: "Raise the fire!"
When there were two servants holding torches, they walked behind the tail of the first group of elephants.
He flicked the torch lightly, and the fuses connected to the eight powder barrels burst into flames.
The two servants then lifted it downwards, and the cotton cloth that had been soaked in kerosene wrapped around the tails and backs of the two elephants started to burn.
The flames burned their skin, and the two elephants immediately felt pain.
Under the severe pain, the two elephants instinctively ran forward. The direction was a little off at first, but the city gate corridor, which only allowed two elephants to run parallel, quickly corrected the elephants' direction.
The two elephants immediately accelerated and rushed out along the outer corridor.
Gong Yonggu led his men to drive the second group of elephants into the city gate corridor and set fire to them.
Then came the third group, the fourth group, the fifth group... all fourteen groups of elephants soon entered the corridor.
When the last group of elephants entered the corridor, Zhu Gaoyuan raised the three-eyed gun in his hand and fired it forward, shouting: "Soldiers, follow me to break through and kill!"
…
Outside Chaoyang Gate.
From the moment the first group of elephants rushed out of the city gate, crossed the suspension bridge, and rushed straight towards the Dashun Army's queue, Li You and Zhou Fengwu had already realized that something was wrong.
But it all happened too suddenly.
Li You and Zhou Fengwu only had time to subconsciously move to both sides.
"Be careful, disperse quickly..." Before Li You could finish his sentence, the first group of elephants had already violently charged into the Dashun Army's cavalry formation.
An adult Asian elephant can grow to be four meters tall and weigh five tons!
The weight of a war horse is only two to three hundred kilograms, and the weight of the cavalry is not more than half a ton, so it is not in the same weight class as an elephant.
"Bang bang!" Accompanied by two loud noises,
The two cavalry captains who bore the brunt of the attack were knocked backwards and flew away.
The elephants, which had been scorched mad by the fire, continued to rush forward, and the horses that flew backwards also knocked over more cavalry. The cavalry formation of Dashun Army fell into chaos in an instant.
Unfortunately, this has just begun.
Immediately afterwards, the second group of elephants violently charged into the cavalry formation.
Then came the third group, the fourth group... There were fourteen groups of elephants in total. Except for one group that missed the suspension bridge and fell into the moat, the remaining thirteen groups of elephants all crashed into the Dashun Army's cavalry formation.
At this time, the cavalry formation of the Dashun Army had been trampled to the point where it was unbearable to see.
Of the three hundred cavalrymen who lined up, except for a few who managed to escape with quick reactions, most of the rest were knocked to the ground, and many cavalrymen died tragically under the giant hooves of the elephants!
Seeing the chaotic cavalry formation, Li You was completely stunned.
Zhou Fengwu was also dumbfounded. Is this an elephant cavalry? It doesn’t even look like it.
However, the savage collision of the elephants did not stop. After trampling the cavalry of the Dashun Army to a bloody mess, they then violently charged into the military formation of the three major battalions from multiple directions.
Wherever the elephant passed, the soldiers in the capital camp were in chaos like waves breaking apart.
The thirteen groups of fire signs were like thirteen iron rakes, plowing thirteen deep grooves among the formations of the three camps. However, what was plowed up in the fields was soil, but here it was flesh and blood.
This was not over yet, as another series of explosions occurred.
These thirteen groups of fire elephants exploded one after another after crashing into the depths of the military formations of the three major camps.
More than a hundred barrels of well-sealed gunpowder exploded continuously. While the elephants were blown to pieces, they also cleared a dozen blank areas in the queues of the three camps.
The edges of these dozens of blank areas were filled with broken limbs and remains!
Seeing this cruel, bloody and chaotic scene, Li You and Zhou Fengwu were completely confused.
What the hell kind of fighting method is this? I’ve never seen it before!
Also, isn’t this too cruel?
Just when Li You and Zhou Fengwu were at a loss, there was suddenly another wave of killing sounds coming from Chaoyang Gate.
When I looked back hurriedly, I saw that four pseudo-Ming cavalrymen had already charged out of the city gate. The first one was wearing mountain armor, carrying a hood on his head, holding a torch in his left hand, and a three-eyed blunderbuss in his right hand.
The moment his eyes met with Li You's, the cavalry general lit the three-eyed blunderbuss with the torch in his left hand, and then placed the lit three-eyed blunderbuss on his left forearm and aimed it at Li You.
Li You bent down subconsciously.
I just heard a banging sound next to my ears.
Immediately, the war horse neighed and fell to the ground, and Li You also fell off the horse.
Fortunately, Zhou Fengwu came over on horseback, grabbed Li You's outstretched right hand and swung it upward with force. Li You immediately jumped into the air, and when he came down again, he had already landed behind Zhou Fengwu's saddle.
…
"hateful!"
Gong Yonggu held the three-eyed gun upside down, reined in his horse, and turned around to catch up.
However, just after chasing less than ten steps, a sudden shout came from behind: "Come back quickly!"
When he looked back hurriedly, he saw that the holy driver had rushed out of the city gate under the escort of Wang Chengen.
"Don't worry about those two thieves." Zhu Gaoyuan stopped Gong Yonggu, pointed to the front and shouted, "Hurry up and follow the troops of the Beijing camp to disperse the thieves outside, and break out as soon as possible!"
"Yes!" Gong Yonggu agreed, then reined in his horse and turned back.
Soon, more than 600 Ming army cavalry rushed out from Chaoyang Gate like a tide. In fact, there were more than a thousand people, because nearly half of the cavalry were two people riding one horse.
After rushing out of the city gate, they charged towards the chaotic Beijing soldiers before they could complete the whole team.
Of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Beijing camp outside Chaoyang Gate, at least three-quarters were refugees or even beggars who had been captured temporarily to make up the numbers, and the remaining one-quarter were all people who were just trying to make ends meet.
How can such an army have combat effectiveness?
It was charged and exploded by more than a dozen groups of fire elephants, and the camp was completely destroyed.
These frightened soldiers only regretted that they had lost two legs and wanted to escape as soon as possible.
Now, the five thousand thieves who were left by Li You to frighten the three camps also suffered a disaster.
Because when the chaos broke out in the front, the rear had no idea what was going on. By the time the Beijing camp soldiers in the rear also fell into chaos, the bandits holding the formation had no time to suppress them.
First, the number of defeated troops was too great.
The second reason is because the distance between the two parties is too close.
By the time the bandits holding the formation were unaware and wanted to suppress them, tens of thousands of defeated troops from the Beijing camp had already poured into their formation.
It's true that these Beijing soldiers are a ragtag group of people.
But when hundreds of thousands of people run away, it becomes an unstoppable torrent.
The five thousand thieves resisted for less than half a quarter of an hour before they were overwhelmed and scattered by the endless troops of the Beijing camp who came forward one after another. Then they also turned into broken troops and fled in all directions.
It's impossible if you don't run, you'll be trampled to death.
Fortunately, escaping is a traditional skill of thieves, so it is not a big problem.
Therefore, Zhu Gaoyuan rushed out with "more than 600 riders" and basically encountered no resistance. However, there were still many unlucky ones who fell off their horses and were lost in the chaos.
A quarter of an hour later, the Beijing soldiers and bandits were completely defeated.
"Hey." Zhu Gaoyuan gently reined in the horse and slowed it down.
"Ultimately." Gong Yonggu, Wang Jiayan and other distinguished officials also slowed down.
The cavalry behind them also slowed down their horses. The physical strength of war horses also has limits. After sprinting for a certain distance at high speed, they must stop to rest or enter a canter.
After a while, Liu Wenbing caught up with him.
But Zhu Chunchen, who had broken up with Liu Wenbing, was nowhere to be seen.
"Your Majesty!" Liu Wenbing chased him and said, "The referendum on the establishment of the country has led to the exile of thieves!"
Wang Jiayan, Wu Linzheng and other ministers were shocked when they heard this. The dignified prince actually surrendered to the bandit?
"This traitor!" Gong Yonggu said angrily, "Your Majesty, I will go and capture him!"
"Let him go." Zhu Gaoyuan said with a smile, "It just so happens that I also want to use his words to warn the traitors. At the same time, I also want to tell the people of the world that although the capital has fallen, I am still alive."
"As long as I am here, the sky of Ming Dynasty will never fall!"