Chapter two hundred and eighty fifth camp on the spot
From the beginning of the battle, the main force of the Ming army commanded by Liu Yulie fell into a slow rhythm.
Governor Liu Yulie did not feel at first that the rebels were about to leave the camp and form an array.
In fact, in ancient times, it was a very simple thing to judge whether an army would go out to fight today, just by looking at the smoke from the enemy's camp in the early morning. If the enemy's smoke appeared earlier than usual and there was a lot of smoke,
Then it can basically be determined that the enemy will leave camp to fight with you today.
This principle is actually very simple. Soldiers always have to eat a full meal before going to war. Of course, this phenomenon also reflects another situation: in ancient wars, except for a small number of elite soldiers, ordinary soldiers in the army
It is difficult to eat enough when there is no war. The army will not provide them with enough meals.
This was almost common sense in fighting in the Ming Dynasty. However, Liu Yulie, who was a civil servant, may have read several military books, but Liu Yulie did not understand this kind of military common sense that was not recorded in military books.
But Liu Yulie didn’t understand. Is there anyone among the military attaches he led who understood? But those Liu Yulie led were a group of high-ranking military attaches from the Ming Dynasty!
For those military attaches, they may not necessarily understand everything about war, but everything in the officialdom is clear. Who would say to Liu Yulie without opening his eyes: "You don't understand, so I tell you. The rebels have used up
We will leave camp to fight after breakfast. So we must seize the time to have breakfast and arrange our troops as soon as possible."
Isn't this a naked slap in the face of the Governor in public? Aren't you afraid that the Governor will settle the score later and use you as cannon fodder? Let's wait for some stupid young man to come forward and tell the Governor first.
But it turns out that the military attachés of the Ming Dynasty were of high quality, and none of them were stupid. They were all smart people. So it wasn’t until Liu Yulie saw the rebels leaving the camp and forming their troops that he suddenly understood and immediately ordered
Let the Ming army come out of camp and form an array.
But as a result, most of the soldiers in the Ming army only ate a few mouthfuls of dry food, and some didn't even eat a bite of breakfast, so they started fighting hungry.
What is different from what we have imagined in the past is that in the Ming Dynasty, such a frontal battle and the deployment of the army before the war took a lot of time. The reason is actually very simple. We only need to think about the athletes entering the opening ceremony of the modern Olympic Games.
It's a ceremony. Just a few thousand athletes have to walk for more than an hour.
Now, both the Ming army and the rebels each have tens of thousands of people, and they have basically not received formation training. Therefore, it takes a long time to get out of the camp and deploy the army.
It was not until more than an hour later that Kong Youde's rebels were arranged in formation. Once they were arranged, Kong Youde immediately ordered a force of 2,000 men to be dispatched from the right wing and began to tentatively attack the Ming army's left wing.
At this time, because the Ming army was large in number and the military attaches were not subordinate to each other, the Ming army's troops were not fully deployed. When Liu Yulie saw that the rebels had launched an attack, he hurriedly ordered the Ming army to fight.
The rear troops of Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing were now more than fifty miles behind the battlefield. They were gathering all the military attaches and were listening to the spies sent to the front to find out the news.
When they learned that the two armies were out of camp and arrayed, all the military attachés knew that there would definitely be a battle between the two sides today. So what action should their rear army take?
After the spies retreated, Liu Zeqing asked: "Everyone, what should we do?"
Wu Shigong, who was the de facto second-in-command of this rear army, was of course the first to express his opinion: "General Liu Shen. Our current location is also very embarrassing. It is more than fifty miles away from the battlefield, and we will definitely not be able to reach it in one day.
Even if we abandon all our baggage and rush to the battlefield, our men will no longer have the strength to fight."
"Besides, it's not of much use if we rush over in such a hurry. If the Governor wins, it won't even be our turn to clean up the battlefield. Then what are we doing rushing over? Are we fighting against friendly forces?
Credit? That’s a big taboo!”
"If we have to fight for several days, then there is no big problem if we stay there for one or two days at night."
"But what if the front is defeated? If we are defeated during the march, and the rebel army charges head-on like this, our own rear army will be in trouble."
"It's better to camp on the spot first and build a solid camp. Anyway, we have a lot of civilians and auxiliary soldiers in our hands. They won't play any role in the war, so let them all stay and camp. In this case, nothing will happen.
If there is a loss in the front, at least we can keep it ourselves, and we can also give the defeated army in the front a foothold to retreat."
"As for the Governor, tomorrow I will take the cavalry under my command and the cavalry from my colleagues, together with thousands of cavalry, and rush to the Governor. This is at least an explanation to the Governor."
To be honest, after such a long period of military study and war training, Wu Shigong's military quality is indeed up to standard, and he can even be said to be outstanding among the military attachés of the Ming Army.
After listening to Wu Shigong's methodical analysis, none of the military attachés present raised any objections. They were all waiting for Liu Zeqing to make the final decision. In Liu Zeqing's heart, he had actually already agreed with Wu Shigong's opinion.
However, to be cautious, Liu Zeqing still asked other military attachés. Seeing that there were no objections, he immediately decided: "Just do what Wu Shoubei said!"
Liu Zeqing was originally a domestic slave of Guo Yunhou, the Minister of Household Affairs during the Tianqi period. When he was 21 years old, he was arranged to join the army by Guo Yunhou. In just seven or eight years, he was promoted to the high position of a general.
In the original history, Liu Zeqing, who was one of the four major military towns in the Southern Ming Dynasty, actually did not fight any major victories in his life, and his military talents were not outstanding.
Liu Zeqing's only advantage was that he stayed in his hometown and refused to go out to fight. Moreover, he had a very harmonious relationship with the local officials and gentry in his hometown of Caozhou. Therefore, he was able to annex land to make money and recruit soldiers to expand his strength.
So at that time, the Ming Dynasty was destroyed, but Liu Zeqing was still able to maintain a considerable army, so Nanming had to give him a high position.
It can be seen from this that he has a natural sensitivity to preserving strength. He also knows that his commanding ability is indeed not as good as Wu Shigong. So of course he follows the good example!
In addition, the relationship between Liu Zeqing and Shandong Commander-in-Chief Qiu Lei was also very bad. This cannot be blamed on Liu Zeqing. Shandong Commander-in-Chief Qiu Lei did things even more excessively.
At that time, when the Ming Dynasty court allocated food and salary to the armies in Shandong, because the food and salary had to be transported from Tongzhou, it had to pass through Jinan Prefecture, where Qiu Lei was stationed.
And Qiu Lei always seizes these pitiful rations that have been stripped away by civil servants to use them as rations for his own army. And he is not afraid of lawsuits afterwards. Qiu Lei's yamen is in Jinan City and liaises with the yamen in Shandong.
Emotions are also quite convenient. Moreover, Qiu Lei stuffed enough money into those yamen officials, so this kind of lawsuits ended up being settled.
For this reason, some Shandong generals even lowered their dignity and begged Qiu Lei not to be too evil, and to discuss a ratio and let Qiu Lei deduct part of his food and salary. Liu Zeqing had also suffered too much from Qiu Lei in the past, and the two of them
The relationship has reached the point of incompatibility.
Therefore, if the main force of the rear army and the Ming army merged, at least the troops directly under Liu Zeqing in the rear army would have to obey the command of Shandong Commander-in-Chief Qiu Lei. But if they fell into the hands of his enemy, Liu Zeqing knew with his butt that he would
What would happen to the troops directly under him? So he thought about dragging it out for one day.
While the rear army was camping on the spot, the rebel army's 2,000-man army had already approached the Ming army's left wing. The battle began.