As the counterattack force of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty continued to compress the activity space of the Ming Army, they soon drove the two thousand Ming Army completely to the river.
Many soldiers of the Ming Army had even run into the water. Some people hurriedly climbed onto the raft and rowed hard towards the other side. Some soldiers who could swim couldn't find the raft for a while, and even started swimming directly, thinking
You have to swim across these hundreds of meters of river.
However, more Ming soldiers were crowding at the river, their faces full of fear, fearing that death would befall them in the next moment.
As for the soldiers of the Ming army who were still on the periphery, only a few meters away from the new army of the Tang Dynasty, they had already begun to surrender in large areas.
Naturally, the new armies of the Tang Dynasty did not have to kill all these Ming armies, so after compressing the Ming army's activity space, they shouted over and over again: "Those who surrender will not be killed!"
Between life and death, most of the Ming soldiers did not even have to choose. When they had no choice but to retreat, they simply threw down their swords, guns and other weapons, and then knelt down or simply lay on the ground.
, shouting: "The little one wishes to surrender!"
"Spare my life!"
With no hope of escape and stubborn resistance but unable to resist, more and more Ming soldiers surrendered, and to what extent?
There were so many Ming soldiers who knelt down and surrendered that they almost crowded the entire river beach, and even successfully blocked the further advancement of the new army of the Tang Dynasty!
This is not the surrender of dozens or hundreds of people, but the surrender of thousands of people!
This also led to a rather embarrassing situation for the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. There were too many soldiers of the Ming Army who surrendered. Since they surrendered, it was naturally impossible for the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty to knock them down cleanly and then step on them.
Keep moving forward with their corpses in mind.
They either went around or simply shouted to the surrendering Ming soldiers to get out of the way. However, this wasted a lot of time and also disrupted the original neat and dense formation of the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
In this way, these kneeling surrendered Ming soldiers became the strongest line of defense of the Ming army, thus covering more Ming soldiers who climbed onto the raft to escape.
This has to be said to be a great irony!
When there was not a single Ming soldier standing on the riverbank, the battle finally came to an end.
The duration from the official landing of the Ming army to the end was only a quarter of an hour. In fact, the outcome of this battle was already decided in the first five minutes, and the next ten minutes were dominated by the new armies of the Tang Dynasty.
The time to counterattack and force most of the Ming army's soldiers to surrender.
At this time, Li Xuan on the hillside finally showed a faint smile. He did not maintain his usual calm look, but Li Xuan's smile was still very light. This was not an ecstatic smile, but a kind of smile.
A confident smile.
Most of the time, when facing the enemy, in order to give his soldiers confidence and boost their morale, Li Xuan always looked confident and sure of victory, as if he would die as many enemies as he came.
He will not show nervousness when encountering difficulties, nor will he show any ecstatic expression when he wins a victory, because he has to tell the soldiers that all this is within his expectation, the difficulties are temporary, and victory is
certain.
As an emperor, as a commander-in-chief of the entire army, you cannot make a fuss when something happens. Whether it is a failure or a victory, you must be able to make it collapse before your eyes without changing color.
Because Li Xuan, with these two identities, is no longer an ordinary person, he cannot even be said to be a human being.
He is a sign, the sign of the Tang Dynasty.
He is a belief, the belief of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the Tang Dynasty.
With such an identity, he is destined to be unable to express his emotions and sorrows on his face like ordinary people.
However, Li Xuan would be lying if he said he was not happy about today's victory. This time they defeated the Ming army. What they gained was not only a victory in a battle, but more importantly, they gained enough time.
It would take at least a month, or even more than three months, and with this time, he would be able to build more muskets and artillery, train more soldiers, and build a real army.
An army that could lay the foundation of the Tang Dynasty.
Compared with the time gained, how many Ming troops were killed and captured today is not that important.
Zeng Ziwen said to Li Xuan with excitement: "Your Majesty, this battle is a great victory for our army. There are at least 1,300 pseudo-Ming soldiers who surrendered in front of the battle!"
"There are countless other captured swords, armor, bows and arrows!" The excitement on Zeng Ziwen's face was not concealed at all. He did not need to hide his emotions like Li Xuan, and could express his joy to his heart's content.
"The number of puppet Ming rebels who escaped across the river on rafts will not exceed five hundred. The others were either killed by us or disappeared in the Lanjiang River!"
Missing is actually synonymous with drowning. The Ming army here includes some people who were killed and wounded by the new army of the Tang Dynasty when the Ming army crossed the river. In addition, after the final counterattack, some Ming soldiers who panicked and chose to jump.
People went into the river and tried to swim across the river, but the water quality was good enough to swim several hundred meters above the river surface. There were definitely only a few people, and most of them were actually washed away by the river water.
Their fate can basically be determined, that is, drowning.
The Lanjiang River is not a docile river. Even if the river surface at the ferry is calm after all, this is relative, and this gentle river surface is not too long. If it is washed downstream by the river, it will be more difficult to survive.
.
How many Ming soldiers jumped into the river and how many swam to the other side was unknown to the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. Even the New Army of the Tang Dynasty could not determine the exact number of Ming soldiers who escaped on rafts.
Because the previous counterattack was chaotic and tense, they were still in the mood to pay attention to the Ming troops who escaped. They focused on the Ming troops who could not escape, trying to make them surrender or kill them.
The detailed results of the battle had to wait until the afternoon to be tallied up. The number of prisoners they captured this time exceeded their previous expectations.
The Ming army prisoners they captured reached 1,600, and these were only those who surrendered in front of the formation, and did not include the more than 300 Ming soldiers who were unable to escape due to injuries and were eventually captured.
However, although these injured Ming soldiers were taken as prisoners, many of them were seriously wounded. They were either hit by lead bullets or shot by shotguns and grenades. Most of their casualties were very serious. Therefore, these more than 300 people ended up
There will definitely be no more than one-third of the people who will survive, and it is unlikely that half of the three hundred people will survive this night.
And the New Army of the Tang Dynasty couldn't save them. The New Army of the Tang Dynasty had weapons for killing people, but they had no corresponding way to save people, let alone the soldiers of the Ming Army. Even the New Army of the Tang Dynasty's own seriously wounded soldiers, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty also
We can only watch them die in pain and there is nothing we can do.
These seriously injured people who are destined to be unable to be saved lie there. They will die in pain and wailing in the future. Some of them will struggle for one or two hours, and some may struggle for three to five hours, but most of them will not survive today.
It's too late, and you have to endure incomparable pain before you die.
As for the lightly wounded soldiers, they will receive better treatment. Don't expect medical treatment. The New Army of the Tang Dynasty does not have much medicine, and its own soldiers are not enough. However, these lightly wounded soldiers of the Ming Army are allowed to treat themselves and simply clean up.
After the wound is bandaged, if there is no infection, the wound can gradually recover. If the wound is infected, then it is embarrassing. The wound on the limbs will basically have to be amputated. As for the wound on the trunk if it is infected, there is nothing you can do except wait for death.
Whether they are intact Ming soldiers or those who have suffered minor or serious injuries, these people add up to almost two thousand people. As for the prisoners who can survive among these two thousand people, it is estimated that there are one thousand
About eight hundred people.
In other words, the new army of the Tang Dynasty will receive 1,800 prisoners that far exceed its own number in the future!
In addition to these two thousand people, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty cleaned up about two hundred corpses of Ming soldiers who died on the spot on the river beach. In order to prevent the occurrence of the plague, they asked the Ming army prisoners to dig holes that afternoon and put these
The bodies of Ming soldiers who died in battle were buried.
As for the remaining 800 people from the three thousand Ming army who attacked, there should be 500 or 600 people who fled back on rafts. The remaining 300 people are missing, either drowned or crossing the river.
He died in the river and was thrown into the water. It is also possible that he swam directly and reached the other side alive.
The specific situation is not something that the New Army of the Tang Dynasty can understand.
The Ming troops who escaped across the river did not leave, but continued to stay on the other side of the river, and were urged by the officers to start building defensive camps. Obviously, the Ming troops who escaped were afraid of the new Tang Dynasty army crossing the river to counterattack. In that case, Xing
It is 100% impossible to save Quan Mansion.
They fought a defeat and lost more than 2,000 men. This could be regarded as a tactical failure at best, but if the puppet Tang rebels crossed the Lanjiang River and finally captured Xingquanfu City, it would mean that the situation was complete.
Corruption, whether it was these leading generals or Song Zhiwen, all had to be beheaded by the court.
However, the worries of the Ming army were obviously unnecessary. Li Xuan had no intention of crossing the river and continuing to attack Xingquan Prefecture, let alone Xingquan Prefecture. He even retained Zhengtai County.
It's just a city. Apart from causing shock to the Ming court, what's the use of conquering it? It's of no use at all!
The biggest purpose of this Lanjiang battle was to stop the Ming army from the Lanjiang River and gain more time to control the vast countryside and nearly 100,000 people in Zhengtai County.
With enough time, Li Xuan was able to expand the army and train troops based on the population base of Zhengtai County, and finally form a larger army.
At that time, it is time to consider continuing to expand. As for now, it is too early.
That night, Li Xuan held a post-war military meeting as usual. The main content of the discussion was naturally the gains and losses of today's battle, but tonight's discussion was a little different from usual.