The Yizhang Eight Thousand Ming Army, which was deeply surrounded by the Tang Army on three sides, had actually been doomed from the moment they discovered the First Infantry Regiment of the Tang Army and related units.
Although the total strength of the Tang Army that surrounded them on three sides was only about 5,000, you must know that among these 5,000 people, the core First Infantry Regiment is the well-deserved ace unit among all the Tang Army. Even if
The other units that cooperate with the First Infantry Regiment are all units directly belonging to the First Infantry Division, and their combat effectiveness is also top-notch.
They have the First Cavalry Battalion, the only fully established cavalry battalion in the entire Tang Army. It has four complete cavalry teams and a total of more than 400 cavalrymen. They are generally captured from the Ming Army or recruited from the private sector.
The coming Mongolian horse.
Two field artillery teams and one supply battalion are all organic units in the First Infantry Division. At the same time, these units are basically one of the earliest units established by the Tang Army. Their history can almost be traced back to Huangzhushan.
era.
They are the most well-equipped among the Tang Army and were founded the earliest. Thanks to the previous battles between the Tang Army and the Ming Army, the proportion of casualties they suffered was relatively small. In many previous battles, the majority of casualties were still
The casualties of the garrison and the regular army were actually very small, relatively small casualties. This also means that the Tang Army can continue to allow the soldiers to continue to grow, because as long as there are no casualties, they will continue to train and absorb
Valuable experience from previous battles.
A few of these soldiers even started joining the army in the second year of Anjian, that is, the Huangzhushan era, and most of them joined the army in the first year of Xuanping, that is, the year when the Tang Dynasty came out of the mountains and captured Xingquan Prefecture.
.
In other words, with the exception of the Third Infantry Regiment, most of the soldiers in the First Infantry Division have been in the army for at least one year, and a considerable number of soldiers have been in the army for more than two years.
After two years of training and frequent battles, the overall quality of these soldiers has surpassed the entire army!
Facing such an opponent, the fate of Yizhang's eight thousand Ming army has long been doomed!
Because the five thousand men under Sun Shuangxi, not to mention in a siege battle, even in a head-on confrontation, are enough to withstand three to four times or even more Ming army garrison soldiers. If it is a defensive operation, even if the Ming army has
Even with more military equipment, it is difficult to shake their defensive front.
So there will be no surprises in the ensuing battle!
At noon, after the passage back to Yizhang was blocked, the eight thousand Ming troops in Yizhang began to turn around and flee northeast, trying to fight their way to Chenzhou to find a way out. Then the First Cavalry Battalion was decisive
launched an interception against the Ming army. Although the terrain was not flat enough for the soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Battalion to launch a cavalry charge, the soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Battalion chose to dismount and fight on foot. The more than 400 cavalrymen were only
Instantly turned into four hundred musketeers!
After being intercepted by the dismounted cavalry of the Puppet Tang thief army on foot and with muskets, those Ming troops thought they had been intercepted by the main force of the Puppet Tang thief army, so they had no intention of launching a forceful attack.
Choose to retreat!
About an hour later, an infantry battalion of the 1st Infantry Regiment quickly followed up and entered the battlefield from the north!
At the same time, more than a thousand Tang troops from the northwest also arrived and entangled the Ming army!
Half an hour later, the last two thousand main troops of the First Infantry Regiment arrived, and the two sides started a fierce fight more than twenty miles away from Yizhang.
However, the gap in combat effectiveness between the two sides was not so easy to offset. Therefore, the Ming army had already suffered heavy casualties in less than half an hour. In the end, the desperate Ming army began to split. Some Ming troops began to disperse and break out, while some Ming troops began to break out.
The army simply chose to surrender.
Surrender if you can't defeat them. This has been the common choice of many Ming armies in the past two years during the battles between the Ming and Tang armies, because they knew that after surrendering to the Tang armies, the worst they could do was to work as coolies, but their lives could be saved.
It can be seen from this that the policy of preferential treatment of prisoners of war adhered to by the Tang army in the past two years has had a considerable effect on dividing the Ming army.
If the Tang army massacred prisoners of war every time, their will to resist desperately would be greatly increased when they knew they could not survive even if they surrendered.
By three o'clock in the afternoon, the still-planned ambush battle finally came to an end, and even the pursuing cavalry troops returned!
With the powerful cavalry unit of the First Cavalry Battalion, those Ming soldiers who wanted to escape could not escape at all. Those Ming soldiers who wanted to escape either died under the cavalry's sabers or succumbed to the cavalry's hooves.
, chose to surrender.
In this battle, only a few hundred Ming troops took advantage of the chaos to escape, and the remaining Ming troops were either killed or wounded or taken prisoner!
The 5,000-strong army commanded by Sun Shuangxi only suffered casualties of only a few dozen people. Of course, the actual casualties of the Ming army were not large, because they did not resist at all, either choosing to escape or to fight.
Surrender, or surrender after a failed escape, the actual casualties would be less than a thousand.
However, what gave Sun Shuangxi a headache was that after cleaning the battlefield, he found it difficult to deal with the newly captured 7,000 prisoners of war, which was more than his total military strength.
If it was in the past when the garrison still existed, it would be enough to simply select them and then reorganize them into the garrison. But now the garrison no longer exists, and even if these prisoners of war want to join the Tang Army,
They must also be selected and then go through at least one month of recruit training like ordinary recruits.
According to the prescribed procedures, these prisoners of war should first be selected by officials of the War Department, and then the outstanding ones would be selected to enter the new army camp. Those who voluntarily surrendered but were unqualified would join the reclamation regiment, and those who were unwilling to surrender would be sent to prisoner of war camps.
However, Sun Shuangxi was now on a mission. He did not have so much time to wait for the people from the Army Department to slowly select and then escort the prisoners to different places.
He also needs to move his troops as soon as possible. He has already received intelligence before, saying that thousands of Ming troops have appeared to the west of Yizhang, most likely from Linwu to reinforce Yizhang's troops. He wants to
Lead the troops to another ambush battle, kill the thousands of Ming troops who came from Linwu, and then slowly clean up the Ming troops in Yizhang City!
Therefore, he did not have time to deal with these prisoners slowly, not even a day!
Finally, after discussing with the officials from the Ministry of War who came with the army, he decided to take temporary measures first, that is, the Tang Army only left a mere 100 troops, and they were escorted by the baggage troops and escorted back to the rear.
, until the rear troops take over.
Anyway, these prisoners of war have been disarmed, and in order to prevent them from unrest, their hands have been tied together long ago, and they have been trained in a string, let alone rebellion, even if they want to escape,
Can't escape.
Moreover, the middle and high-level officers in the Ming army have been sent out individually. It would be very difficult for ordinary soldiers to do anything if they were not connected in series.
As for Sun Shuangxi, he will lead the main force to take action immediately and rush to the west of Yizhang City to conduct another ambush battle. If the ambush battle cannot be fought, he will engage in a frontal interception battle. In short, Sun Shuangxi cannot let these Linwu Ming troops
Enter Yizhang City.
Sun Shuangxi's detachment took action again, leaving only one detachment of heavy troops behind, guarding a total of 7,000 Ming army prisoners who were tied up in strings and rushed back to the south.
In the rear, there will be recruits from the 1st Supplementary Brigade to meet them and take on the subsequent work of handling prisoners of war.
The Sun Shuangxi detachment bypassed the small Yizhang County at high speed, appeared to the west of Yizhang County again, and conducted a rather hasty interception operation about seven miles west of Yizhang County.
In this battle, about 5,000 Ming troops who had been reinforced from Linwu faced a blow from the 5,000 main force of Sun Shuangxi's detachment. They also failed to hold out for long before quickly collapsing.
After winning this battle, Sun Shuangxi launched a strong attack on Yizhang City without hesitation!
Shelling, laying explosives to blow up the city walls, and then launching a strong attack with heavy armored infantry were the old tactics used by the Tang army to attack the city. Although the tactics were very old, the Ming army in the city was already panicking.
They were all aware of the two consecutive battles that broke out outside the city. In other words, they watched helplessly as the Ming army, totaling more than 13,000 people, was defeated one after another. Now, only the Ming army in the city was left.
There are less than 4,000 people, many of whom are young men recruited.
The combat effectiveness was low, and morale was close to nothing. Faced with the fierce attack of the wolf-like Sun Shuangxi detachment, Yizhang City only held on for two days before it could no longer support the four thousand defenders. Facing the city wall, it was
After the explosion, the heavy armored infantry of the puppet Tang rebel army boarded the city. In despair, the Ming army in the city, like many Ming soldiers, chose to surrender to save their lives.
On December 28, the southernmost bridgehead of the Ming Army, Yizhang, was officially declared lost and fell into the hands of the Tang Army. As a result, the Datang Army finally opened a large-scale entry into southern Huguang, and the logistics troops were no longer needed.
Passing through this area with great fear, even now Yizhang can become an important base for the Tang Army's transportation of various materials to the north.
After capturing Yizhang, Sun Shuangxi's detachment only rested for one day, and then handed over Yizhang and more than 6,000 prisoners to Danzi, a battalion of recruits from the 1st Supplementary Brigade who escorted the arrival of the 4th Transport Regiment.
Immediately, Sun Shuangxi led his troops to the north quickly!
Hao Bainian had already sent him an order before, asking him to end the Yizhang war as soon as possible, then go north and return to the combat order of the 1st Infantry Division headquarters!
Because there is still a battle of unprecedented scale waiting for them in Hengzhou!