Chapter two hundred and twenty third desperate run
Su Jiakang had just entered the city, and even before he had time to completely control every key point in the county, he had already ordered the Ming army to pursue the puppet Tang rebel army.
Anyway, a large number of their troops have already entered the city, and they are not afraid that the puppet Tang rebel army will return and capture the city again, because in this case, Su Jiakang will be even happier.
If the puppet Tang rebels try to escape now, it will be very difficult for him to catch up. But if the puppet Tang rebels get smart and come back to compete with the Ming army for Zhengtai County, Su Jiakang will laugh out of his dreams.
It's a pity that Li Xuan didn't show off, and the other Huangzhushan bandits are now focused on escaping with the stolen gold and silver treasures, and have no intention of taking care of Zhengtai County.
They started leaving the city at four o'clock in the morning. Because the roads were difficult to walk at night and they carried a lot of luggage, until half an hour later, they actually had not left Zhengtai County very far.
When the darkest hour before dawn passed and the sky began to turn white, they had walked six or seven miles. At this time, the Huangzhushan bandits walking at the end looked back and could still see the city wall of Zhengtai County and a group of bright people.
Where are the soldiers?
"It seems that they are really determined to catch up. If they had known about it, they would have massacred in the city and set a fire. In that case, these Ming troops would definitely not have the intention to catch up again!"
Fang Dongquan looked at the Ming army hanging far behind, and continued in a bad tone: "But they are so brave, they only sent three to four hundred people to catch up, and they are not afraid that we will turn around and eat them!
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Not only Fang Dongquan, but also Wang Shanxu said confidently: "Go back and find a place to ambush them. If these Ming troops are frightened, they will naturally not dare to catch up!"
Regarding the words of Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu, Li Xuan was speechless. How could you, Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu, have the confidence? They even ate the pursuing Ming army in one bite. It would be good if they didn't catch up and defeat them.
The total strength of the Ming Army is as high as over a thousand. The ones chasing the front are just the vanguard, and there are thousands of the main force of the Ming Army behind them. How dare you Fang Dong stop to kill a carbine, but the main force of the Ming Army will be able to turn around.
I'll catch up and eat you in one bite.
After fighting thousands of Ming troops in Zhengtai County, Li Xuan found that many of his men began to swell.
I felt that they were able to block the attack of more than a thousand Ming troops in Zhengtai County, and they also robbed everything from Zhengtai County, so I felt that the Ming army was just mediocre.
Regarding this situation, Li Xuan didn't know whether it was good or bad.
The good thing is that when they see the Ming army in the future, as long as the difference in strength is not too big, they probably won't turn around and run away. Instead, they will have the confidence to fight a battle. This will be of great benefit to the morale of the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
But the disadvantage is that they are obviously overconfident. Is the Ming army so easy to deal with? Especially the large-scale Ming army is so easy to deal with?
When they were at the top of the city of Zhengtai County, they tried their best to drive the Ming army off the city. When they broke through from behind, they were blocked by the Ming army. If Li Xuan hadn't threatened to massacre the city, Su Jiakang would have let him go.
There was no way they could break out of the encirclement so smoothly.
But now Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu have obviously forgotten the difficulties they faced in fighting the Ming army before. They only remember that they successfully resisted the Ming army and finally escaped from Zhengtai County by plundering everything.
Li Xuan didn't say anything about the optimism and confidence of his generals. Having confidence is better than having no confidence, right?
Especially now on the road to escape, it is particularly important to maintain high morale.
If the morale is low, like a frightened bird, I am afraid that I will collapse if the Ming army chases me. It would be better to have gold and silver jewelry in each pocket and look happy after returning from a successful robbery.
It's just that the Ming army behind them was chasing too fast, so they had to find a way to get rid of them.
When it was noon, Li Xuan frowned as he looked at the Ming army pursuing them from behind.
Li Xuan, who was riding a horse, could clearly see the Ming army's forwards three or four miles behind. The pursuit speed of these Ming army's forwards could not be said to be very fast, but it could not be said to be slow either. They were all at normal marching speed.
They were probably also afraid of the new army of the Tang Dynasty in front, and did not dare to run all the way to catch up and fight. They just maintained the same marching speed as the new army of the Tang Dynasty, always maintaining a distance of about three or four miles, no more, no less.
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This gave Li Xuan a headache. It would be a good thing if the Ming army did not hesitate to expend their physical strength to catch up all the way. Even if they could catch up after running for several miles, they would all be as tired as dogs. By then, they would be exhausted.
Tang Xinjun was waiting for work, and he just launched a counterattack to ensure that these Ming army forwards would not be able to survive.
However, these Ming army generals who were pursuing them clearly had some understanding. They did not insist on closing the distance and excessively consuming the soldiers' physical strength. They always maintained a comparable marching speed with the new Tang Dynasty army in front.
Maybe they didn't want to get too far away from the main force of the Ming army in the rear and suffer any accidents.
But now this situation is fine during the day. Everyone is marching and in motion, and the line of sight is wide during the day, so you can clearly see the movements of the pursuers behind you.
But after nightfall, various accidents may occur!
Once it gets dark, it will be difficult for Li Xuan and the others to control the movements of the Ming army behind them at all times. What if these Ming troops leave for an extra hour at night and then sneak up at night?
Also, if the main force of the Ming army at the back could move for an extra hour or two, they would be able to shorten the distance from the forward and even meet up with their forward.
In this way, by tomorrow, the Ming army behind them will not be a vanguard of three or four hundred people, but the main force of more than a thousand Ming troops. Once this happens, it will be very bad.
Near noon, Qian Mengjiu said: "Your Majesty, the soldiers have been traveling for most of the day. Most of them are tired and hungry. Do you want to rest for a while and let the soldiers have a good meal before continuing?"
Li Xuan shook his head. He pointed at the Ming army forward behind him and said: "We stop, but they won't stop. Give us the order to continue on our way and eat dry food as we go!"
You definitely need to eat, but you don’t necessarily need to eat hot meals. How can this army running for their lives be like marching in normal times? After walking for a few hours, they can stop and bury pots to make rice and eat hot meals and hot dishes.
It would be nice to have some dry food to eat.
Li Xuan ordered the troops to continue on their way, which made many bandits complain. They basically didn't get much rest last night. They set off after a hurried breakfast at four in the morning. Now they have been marching for four hours continuously.
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Not only is it dizzy from hunger, but it also consumes a lot of physical energy.
Seeing that the soldiers were all sighing, and even the guards around him had sighing expressions, Li Xuan rode through the queue and shouted loudly: "The pseudo-Ming forward is behind us, if we stop
They will catch up when we get down, and there will inevitably be a fierce battle!"
"I know that everyone is tired, but not only are we tired, the Ming army behind us is also tired. Now if we want to get rid of them, we must persist longer than them!"
"I said that I would successfully break out of the encirclement for you, and now I have succeeded, but whether you can get rid of the Ming army's pursuit depends on you yourself!"
"As long as we get rid of the Ming army behind us and return to Huangzhushan, I will let everyone eat and drink happily!"
At this time, in order to boost morale, Li Xuan did not care about the emperor's dignity. He rode directly through the queue and repeatedly spoke to the soldiers in the queue.
While Li Xuan was doing this, Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu also continued to boost the morale of their men, allowing these soldiers whose physical strength was almost exhausted to continue on their way.
But it didn’t take long for some people to start falling behind due to lack of physical strength!
When Li Xuan saw that several people could not walk in a row and the team was getting slower and slower, he said to Huang Xueren beside him: "Huang Aiqing, throw away some unimportant baggage on the carriage and let those
Sit on the soldiers who can't walk!"
After hearing this, Huang Xueren hesitated: "Your Majesty, most of the baggage we carry are important materials. Apart from ordnance, they include food and iron tools. If we throw them away..."
When they first entered Zhengtai County, the Huangzhushan bandits had basically nothing except weapons and ammunition before they fled into Zhengtai County.
But last night they robbed a big one in Zhengtai County. They seized a lot of gold, silver, grain, and ordnance. The gold and silver was easy to say, but the weight was not heavy. Several thousand taels of gold and silver, and even those messy jewelry, were only a few hundred.
Just a pound.
Except for a small part of the gold and silver that was kept by the soldiers themselves, most of it was concentrated on Li Xuan's side and carried away by two horses.
What really slows down the pace is food, weapons, and iron tools.
Part of these ordnance is the ordnance carried by the new army of the Tang Dynasty, such as the armor of the heavy armored sword and shield soldiers. Naturally, it is impossible to wear these armors when marching. It has to be transported by carriages. When the battle breaks out, they will wear armor and fight.
Even the spears of the spearmen were too long and heavy, so they were often placed on carriages, and the spearmen marched on foot.
Then there are spare ammunition, bows and arrows, etc., which are not in large quantities.
What's more, they seized a lot of Ming Army's standard swords and armor from the Ming Army's ordnance warehouse.
The entire army's ordnance was loaded onto more than a dozen carriages.
Compared with ordnance, what is heavier is food and messy things. There are more than a dozen carts of food, and there are also all kinds of messy iron tools.
That's right, it's iron tools, such as iron pots, hoes, etc. In short, they all grab anything that is iron!