Although nothing can be seen in the east now, it is only because it is blocked by hills and mountains. The reconnaissance cavalry just reported that a large number of pseudo-Tang rebels were found several miles away in the east!
It is initially estimated that the number of troops is no less than 5,000!
Moreover, those 5,000 people were all wearing military uniforms unique to the Puppet Tang thief army. They were not the same as the Puppet Tang thief army that came before. There were also a large number of surrendered troops.
In the past period of time, Zhu Zhihai has also concluded that the puppet Tang thief troops who appeared in Ming army uniforms should be the Ming army's surrender troops, because these surrender troops were fighting with the authentic puppet Tang thief troops.
The difference in performance is so great that others can easily judge it.
So although there were 4,000 puppet Tang rebels who came before, Zhu Zhihai was not too worried!
However, the more than 5,000 people who came now were different. According to the scouts, the formation was neat and tight, and there was no chaos during the march. Among them, there were at least 2,000 fire rifle soldiers.
All this shows that the five thousand people who came here are definitely the main force of the puppet Tang thief army!
Its combat effectiveness is probably even more powerful than the two thousand or so puppet Tang bandit troops we encountered at the beginning!
Because of the reconnaissance report, they saw the words "Hao, First Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Regiment" hanging on the flags of the puppet Tang rebel army!
The Ming army and the Tang army fought against each other many times, and each would collect information about the other. Naturally, some numbers and the names of the main generals that could not be kept secret were known to both sides.
Zhu Zhihai knew that among the various branches of the puppet Tang bandit army, the so-called "First Infantry Regiment" was the most powerful unit and was led by a bandit general named Hao Bainian.
The appearance of the main force of these puppet Tang thief armies made Zhu Zhihai even more worried. He was afraid that the more than 10,000 soldiers and horses still outside the city at this time, who were used to contain the puppet Tang thief army and provide cover for the army and cut off the rear, might encounter something unexpected.
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In this case, his first reaction was naturally to withdraw as many troops as possible, and the first ones to withdraw must be his own direct troops, that is, Fubiao Recruitment.
Zhu Zhihai knew that the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army was about to arrive, and although he did not spread the news widely, many senior generals of the Ming army learned the news immediately.
It is said that on the front line, there are still more than 6,000 puppet Tang rebels fighting against the leader of more than 10,000 people: the commander of the Guizhou capital, Yang Guishan.
He got the news that the main force of the puppet Tang thief army was attacking, not much later than Zhu Zhihai got the news!
"The main force of the more than five thousand puppet Tang thief army is going to be in trouble now!" Yang Guishan is a veteran about fifty years old. However, although he is old, he is getting stronger with age. At this time, he is still wearing a suit of armor and riding a horse.
, still using a heavy ring-shou knife.
Under the armor, his expression is not pretty!
After several battles today, he has been able to confirm that the combat power of the Puppet Tang thief army is quite good, especially the main force of the Puppet Tang thief army with a large number of firecrackers. Their military formations are extremely tight and they have strict orders and prohibitions. They can lead such a
The general of the puppet Tang bandit army is really enviable.
Regardless of whether it was the 5,000 forwards led by Chang Pingchang in the afternoon, or the 5,000 men led by Master Shen, the commander of the Xinglong Guard, they were all defeated at the hands of the puppet Tang bandits.
Moreover, the total number of the puppet Tang bandit army was only over 2,000.
The past achievements and today's performance of the Puppet Tang thief army also made Yang Guishan lead tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, but he still did not dare to act rashly and could only rely on the superiority of troops for confrontation to cover the troops' entry into the city!
But now, the main force of the 5,000 puppet Tang rebel army has arrived. As a result, the situation on the battlefield is very, very bad for me.
If one of them fails, the boat may capsize outside the city of Lipingfu!
At this time, Zhu Zhihai's order also reached Yang Guishan. When he heard that Zhu Zhihai wanted Fubiao's troops to retreat into the city first, Yang Guishan's face became even more ugly.
The man surnamed Zhu had a good plan. Seeing that the main force of the puppet Tang rebel army was about to arrive, the first thing he wanted was not to fight to the death, but to preserve the force of his direct lineage.
Such a behavior makes him extremely shameless!
Even if it's a fight to the death, even if he wants to retreat, he has to let his guardsmen retreat first!
Their guardsmen are the regular army of the imperial court, and the ones they serve are just a group of recruited soldiers who are paid to work hard!
Shouldn't it be that the lives of those soldiers who were recruited to raise the standard need to be saved, but the lives of these guardsmen and soldiers don't need to be saved?
While he was meditating, a conductor next to him whispered to him: "Sir, it's not good, the person who caressed the flag is gone!"
After hearing this, he looked back and saw that the more than 2,000 Fubiao infantry on the left side of the array had begun to turn and retreat. As for the 500 cavalrymen in Fubiao, they had all mounted their horses, and they were walking faster!
"Damn it!"
"They all deserve to die!"
Fu Biao's unauthorized retreat would leave a huge gap in his array of tens of thousands of troops. The puppet Tang rebel army on the opposite side would definitely see it and take corresponding measures.
By then, his own army of ten thousand people will not be able to leave.
Even if we want to retreat, we have to make arrangements to cover each other and retreat alternately. You guys have to leave first, so why don’t you leave us behind?
At this time, he also saw the puppet Tang bandit army on the opposite side moving!
In the meantime, the puppet Tang rebel army had already begun to advance at a trot. Looking at this posture, it was known that they had seen their own array shaken and chaos appeared, so they had already begun to launch an attack.
His prediction was correct. Fang Xitong did indeed see the change in the Ming army's array for the first time, and without any hesitation, he directly ordered the troops to move forward!
Seeing this scene, Yang Guishan took a deep breath, and then said: "Send the order, Ming Jin withdraws the troops!"
The soldiers and horses of Fu Biao can run away? But the soldiers and horses of their guard station cannot run away? What a joke!
Following Yang Guishan's order, tens of thousands of troops all turned around and started running!
Seeing this scene, Fang Xitong and his friends on the opposite side were shocked!
What's going on? He can understand that two thousand people in the array on the opposite side are retreating, but tens of thousands of people are retreating together. What do they want to do?
Aren't they afraid that they will pursue them and cause their complete defeat?
Fang Xitong naturally couldn't understand the thoughts of Yang Guishan and Zhu Zhihai!
Their motivation for doing all this is actually very simple. The first premise is that they all deeply realized that the combat power of the Puppet Tang thief army is not weak, so when they heard that the main force of another 5,000 Puppet Tang thief army was about to arrive,
, the first reaction is to escape, not to engage in a life-and-death battle!
Well, this cannot be said to be cowardly. In fact, what they did was correct. If Zhu Zhihai did not order a retreat, but planned to have a decisive battle with the puppet Tang rebel army outside the city, then Li Xuan would definitely wake up laughing in his dreams.
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You must know that the mission of the second brigade is to keep them, but they just can’t!
But retreating is the right choice, but how to retreat and who to retreat first, there are differences and problems.
Zhu Zhihai wanted to let his Fu Biao retreat first, because in Zhu Zhihai's view, among the more than 30,000 troops, only his Fu Biao and the other two thousand recruits were actually effective, and the others were just foils and had to be sacrificed.
If so, the young civilian men must be sacrificed first, and then the garrison soldiers.
However, this is just Zhu Zhihai's idea. In the eyes of Yang Guishan and other generals of the guard, their own lives are the most precious. What are Fubiao and recruiting soldiers? They want me to cut them off and let them escape on their own.
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Beautiful thought!
As a result, the more than 10,000 troops outside the city retreated together, in no particular order!
There is no order at all, and the organization's retreat is actually not much different from a defeat.
Fang Xitong didn't know why this situation happened to the Ming army on the opposite side, but he knew that this was an extremely rare opportunity that he had been looking forward to.
So he ordered the entire army to charge without hesitation!
It was no longer the slow advance as before, but a direct charge!
The core Chinese army composed of the 3rd Infantry Regiment and the 10th Infantry Battalion advanced at an extremely fast speed. Although the 7th Infantry Regiment on the flanks said that the quality of the soldiers was not very good, no matter how bad it was, it was still an army. If you want to let them
It is difficult to fight a tough battle, but it is still very reliable to let them fight a smooth battle like this.
In fact, under the instigation of some surrendered generals of the Ming Army, the surrendered troops of the 7th Infantry Regiment even ran faster than the 3rd Infantry Regiment.
Because the Third Infantry Regiment still had to maintain their formation, and the soldiers of the Seventh Infantry Regiment did not care about their formation in order to grab the credit.
No matter what the officers who came from the main force of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty said, they could not maintain a complete formation!
In the end, Li Shuangxi, the commander of the 7th Infantry Regiment and the former deputy commander of the 5th Infantry Battalion, could only look at the running army in front with a helpless expression.
When the army launched a charge, he was unable to stop the spontaneous charge of these surrendered soldiers. He could only follow behind with more than two hundred direct regular troops.
Next, a very interesting scene appeared on the battlefield. More than 6,000 people from the Tang Dynasty's new army were chasing tens of thousands of Ming troops!
It didn't take long before the tens of thousands of troops in front began to disperse. They did not say that they all ran towards the city gate, because at this time the city gate was already blocked. Some smart people saw this and consciously ran to both sides.
Run away.
And this behavior is not caused by the orders of the generals, but the spontaneous behavior of middle and low-level officers and soldiers!
In this way, even if some of them could escape with their lives, a scene that was extremely dangerous to the Ming army would still occur.
That is, the other Ming troops originally covered by them and some of the baggage troops who had not yet had time to enter the city were completely exposed to the front of the new army of the Tang Dynasty!
More importantly, the first brigade led by Hao Bainian finally entered the battlefield at a trot and killed them directly from the east!
At this time, if the Ming army no longer takes effective measures, what awaits these Ming troops outside the city will be a massacre!