Song Zhiwen ran away. Even if he was forcibly taken away by his personal guards, no matter what, he abandoned his army and ran away again.
The remnants of the 500 Ming army who were fighting at the front to break through the tight encirclement of the puppet Tang rebels saw that Song Zhiwen had all run away. How could any of them still have fighting spirit?
Even the courage to fight was completely lost. I quickly ran away and surrendered!
It's best if you can escape with your life. If you can't escape, just surrender!
Anyway, it has almost become a tradition for the Ming army to surrender to the puppet Tang rebels. Every time the Ming army was defeated, a large number of Ming troops would always surrender to the puppet Tang rebels.
And many soldiers of the Ming Army have heard many rumors that the puppet Tang rebels will not treat these surrendered soldiers of the Ming Army too harshly!
Many soldiers of the Ming army who surrendered will turn into traitors of the Tang Dynasty!
Being soldiers and eating food is not a job there, not to mention that they are not middle-level or senior generals of the Ming army. They don't have to worry about their families being implicated. There is no psychological pressure at all in surrendering and becoming a bandit army.
This shows the benefits of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty treating prisoners well!
If Li Xuan was trying to trick and kill prisoners of war every time, or if he was the coolie who captured all these prisoners as slaves, when those Ming soldiers knew that there was no hope of survival, many people would choose to fight to the death. After all, no one would
I don't want to die.
But if they can still live well after surrendering, why should they resist desperately?
After the remnant of the 500 Ming army completely collapsed, the defenders in the city who had originally planned to come out to meet Song Zhiwen saw this and dared to stay there, so they immediately turned around and returned to the city.
When they returned to the city, the Tang army tried to pursue them and even took advantage of the chaos to rush into the city. If they had not been in a hurry and the Ming army on top of the city fired a large number of arrows to block the attack, the Tang army might have already entered the city.
.
However, Hao Bainian did not feel frustrated when he failed to take advantage of the chaos and enter Xingquan Fucheng. After all, his mission was not to venture into the city now. His mission was simple and clear, which was to prevent the main force of the Ming army from returning to the city.
The Tang army, which cooperated with the pursuit from behind, severely damaged and even defeated the main force of the Ming army.
And now, after annihilating these five hundred people, Hao Bainian did not send anyone to pursue Song Zhiwen. On the one hand, he lacked cavalry troops. There were only a dozen reconnaissance cavalry who followed him across the river. These reconnaissance cavalry are now
They were all scattered outside to collect intelligence and could not gather to pursue Song Zhiwen.
Besides, even if we send people, it's still unclear whether we can catch up. Even if we catch up, we probably won't be able to defeat them.
The cavalry of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty has always been weak. Although their cavalry team is called a cavalry team, they are actually only infantry on horseback. Many cavalrymen are only rudimentary in riding skills and cannot fight on horseback at all.
Song Zhiwen's personal soldiers are naturally not ordinary soldiers. They are proficient in riding skills and have excellent martial arts skills.
Anyway, although Song Zhiwen was a high-ranking official, from a military point of view, he was of no importance. His escape alone would not affect the overall situation.
After gathering the prisoners and simply cleaning the battlefield, Hao Bainian led his troops to station outside Xingquanfu City, waiting for the Ming army to come.
There were quite a few Ming troops retreating from the Lanjiang Ferry, far more than these 500 people, and there must be more Ming troops behind them.
But he didn't know that the guardsmen and young men left behind by Song Zhiwen were not in good physical condition. In the afternoon, they were about to be overtaken by the Tang Army, such as the Third Infantry Battalion, who were pursuing from behind.
Without the backbone of Song Zhiwen, the Ming army generals in the rear had no intention of resisting, and could only abandon those Ming troops who could not run away again and again.
As a result, a very embarrassing situation arises!
The Tang army pursuing from behind would catch up with a group of exhausted Ming troops from time to time. When these Ming troops saw the puppet Tang rebels catching up, they did not even resist and either fled in all directions or surrendered on the spot.
As a result, the Third Infantry Battalion did not fight a few battles along the way, but it captured many prisoners.
Capturing these prisoners even slowed down the pursuit of the Third Infantry Battalion, which made Wang Shanxu of the Third Infantry Battalion quite depressed.
By the time they chased the Ming army all the way to the gates of Xingquanfu City, there were only more than 200 people left in the Third Infantry Battalion, because they had to send troops to gather prisoners along the way and hand them over to the garrison battalion and other troops in the rear.
On the road again.
However, the Ming army at the front was getting smaller and smaller. By the time they arrived near Xingquan Fucheng, there were less than a thousand people left.
What made them even more desperate was that when they finally reached the outside of Xingquanfu City, they found a Tang army waiting for them ahead.
At this moment, despair is the mood of these Ming soldiers!
Fight? Naturally, I don’t dare to fight. The only option is to continue running away.
However, after running for a whole day, they could not run fast at all, and Wang Shanxu behind them could not catch up. However, Hao Bainian's troops, who had rested in place for an hour and the soldiers' physical fitness had recovered to a certain extent, were able to catch up with them.
After a pursuit battle in the evening, the Ming army, which numbered less than a thousand people, completely disappeared in the wilderness. A small number of them were killed and injured, some were taken as prisoners, and more dispersed in a rush.
, ran away to who knows where.
A straggler who has lost his organization and only knows how to run for his life is much harder to catch than a pig.
However, by the time Li Xuan arrived outside Xingquan Mansion in the evening, the tens of thousands of troops that Song Zhiwen had assembled in the past few months had completely disappeared without a trace.
Only hundreds of Ming troops and many young men in Xingquanfu City were left shivering!
After arriving outside the city of Xingquan Prefecture, Li Xuan immediately met with Hao Bainian, Wang Shanxu, Li Chunjing, Huang Xueren and other generals to listen to their reports on the war since last night.
After a brief summary of the battle, Li Xuan dismissed the meeting and asked everyone to go back and rest. Everyone had been fighting hard all day and was already exhausted. Tomorrow, they had to attack Xingquan City.
What can you do if you don’t nourish your spirit enough?
That night, more than 3,000 people from the New Army of the Tang Dynasty were stationed outside Xingquanfu City to rest, but inside Xingquanfu City, the whole city was in panic. The officials were uneasy, the gentry and wealthy people were also extremely fearful, and even ordinary citizens could not sleep well.
Because they all know that the puppet Tang bandits have arrived outside the city, and they may launch a massive attack on the city tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
When the time comes, will the hundreds of regular troops in the city plus a group of young men be able to stop the puppet Tang rebel army outside the city?
They have no confidence, they don’t believe it!
The army of ten thousand people led by Song Zhiwen himself was defeated by the puppet Tang rebel army. How could they stop the puppet Tang rebel army with the small number of troops in the city?
When people are in panic, some people will naturally have thoughts that they shouldn't have, such as opening the city gates and surrendering!