There is only two hundred miles from Datong Prefecture to Yingzhou, and it is located in the Datong Basin, so the march is very fast and convenient.
Zhu Houzhao only marched south for half a day, and the cavalry from various departments of the Xuanfu were ordered to catch up. There were more than a thousand cavalry and dozens of cavalry, scattered together. Together with the cavalry brought from the capital, there were a total of five
More than a thousand light cavalry and five hundred heavy cavalry.
"All cavalry should be dispatched by the king and governor!" Zhu Houzhao immediately ordered.
None of the Xuanfu's generals had any objections to this. After all, Wang Yuan's historical achievements were there, and he was not one of those ordinary civil servants who only knew how to trick people.
Only Jiang Bin, Xu Tai and others were lucky enough to join the border generals, and they were quite dissatisfied. This battle was against the Mongolian cavalry. Regardless of victory or defeat, the cavalry would be of great use. Wang Yuan actually took away all the cavalry.
Wang Yuan said: "Your Majesty, the five hundred heavy cavalry are of no use to me. We should continue to defend the imperial cavalry."
"Yes," Zhu Houzhao ordered, "speed up the march!"
Wang Yuan left 500 heavy cavalry and hundreds of sentinel cavalry with the emperor. He led 5,000 light cavalry and immediately headed south as a pioneer.
Compared with the original history, Zhu Houzhao's rescue speed was much faster because Wang Yuan suggested moving to Datong Prefecture in advance instead of waiting in Yanghesi for the Xuanfu army to gather.
However, the rescue distance of 200 miles was not reached after walking for five full days. Not only were they attacked by Mongolian cavalry on the way, but also because there was heavy fog in the morning on three of the five days!
No matter how anxious Zhu Houzhao was, he did not dare to lead tens of thousands of troops on a rapid march in the fog. He could only wait for the fog to dissipate and then set off in the middle of the morning, which greatly slowed down the rescue speed.
This situation made Zhu Houzhao very depressed, and Dayan Khan even more depressed.
The six generals of Wang Xun had so many troops that Dayan Khan could not take them down. However, Zhu Luan and Xu Fu, who rushed to the battlefield later, were in danger on the day of the battle and were almost dead. They actually jumped out of the fog the next day.
Encirclement.
Zhu Luan and Xu Fu chose the mountain terrain and defended for two days. Seeing that they were about to collapse and there was heavy fog, they moved again.
Dayan Khan's original plan was to kill Zhu Luan and Xu Fu, who had few soldiers, and then mobilize troops to surround Wang Xun and other border generals, and then send elite troops to encircle the points for reinforcements, looking for opportunities to capture the "civilian governor" who arrived.
die.
But that damn heavy fog completely disrupted Dayan Khan’s battle plan!
On the fifth day of the battle, Zhu Luan and all the civilians under Xu Fu's command had either died or fled, and only more than 2,000 regular soldiers survived. They left the battlefield without permission, could not outrun the cavalry at first sight, and their morale was extremely low.
, it is very likely that during the withdrawal, they were chased by the Mongols and collapsed; secondly, after receiving the military order, the emperor had already led his troops to rescue and asked them to hold the enemy tightly. Even if they ran away now, they would be punished afterwards.
As a result, Zhu Luan and Xu Fu, with two thousand remaining soldiers, retreated directly to a hill and managed to survive from a high position.
…
"Governor, we have found hundreds of Tatars ahead, do you want to order a pursuit?" Wei Tianxiang asked.
Wang Yuan said: "There is no need to pursue, continue to divide the troops to investigate, and withdraw immediately when encountering a large group of enemy troops."
Wang Yuan handed over all the infantry under his command to Zhu Zhen, the commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu, and personally led five thousand cavalry to the south quickly. The main purpose was to find out the enemy's situation along the way, so as to prevent the emperor's army from falling into the enemy's trap.
The five thousand light cavalry constituted more than 80% of the total cavalry of the Ming army in the entire battlefield of Datong Town, including the Yingzhou side.
Wang Yuan is the temporary cavalry commander, and his deputy is Wei Tianxiang.
This guy's uncle is Wei Bin, one of the "Eight Tigers".
When Wei Bin was at his most powerful, he was in charge of the Ceremony Supervisor, the Royal Horse Supervisor, and the Shenji Battalion and the Three Thousand Battalion. At that time, Wei Bin was so arrogant that he got into trouble with Ma Yongcheng, another "Eight Tigers". The people continued to make trouble in front of Zhu Houzhao, and they were both dismissed from their posts.
After the fire in the Qianqing Palace, there were numerous impeachment memorials. Zhu Houzhao felt that he could not control the civil officials, so he reinstated Zhang Yong, Wei Bin and other eunuchs who had been dismissed.
At this time, Wang Yuan commanded five thousand cavalry, two thousand of which were under the command of Wei Bin. The old eunuch was almost sixty years old, so naturally he could not follow the charge into the battle, so he sent his own nephew to "supervise the army".
Relying on his uncle's relationship, Wei Tianxiang had already become a commander and a third-grade military attaché, but he had never actually fought in a war.
Once this guy doesn't obey his orders, Wang Yuan will cut him off and gain complete control over the five thousand Qingqi.
The further south you go, the more Mongolian cavalry there are.
And there are hundreds of cavalry in a group, taking turns to attack. If you chase, he will run away; if you don't chase, he will follow quietly.
This strategy of the Mongolian cavalry had three purposes: first, to slow down the rescue speed of the Ming army; second, to block the field of view of the battlefield as much as possible; third, once the Ming army showed a weakness, the scattered Mongolian cavalry would quickly gather to attack.
Wang Yuan naturally thought of an animal—the wolf!
It's very disgusting, I can't hit it, I can't get rid of it, I can't really ignore it.
For two consecutive days, there were more and more Mongolian cavalry, and Wang Yuan's five thousand light cavalry no longer dared to disperse. He ordered several pursuits, but with little success, and only single digits of enemy cavalry were killed.
Even Wang Yuan did not dare to advance too fast. He could only try his best to maintain a distance of more than ten miles from the emperor's army. Because Wang Yuan was worried that most of the Mongolian troops were hidden somewhere and suddenly came out to attack Zhu Houzhao's main formation. .
However, Wei Tianxiang performed well. Although this guy was not good at fighting, he finally knew what was good and what was good. Behind him was the emperor, so Wei Tianxiang did not dare to do anything wrong and carried out Wang Yuan's every order seriously.
Not only that, the generals around Zhu Houzhao were also extremely cautious. When faced with numerous small groups of enemies, they never took the initiative to pursue him, but just walked on the road honestly, preferring to sacrifice their marching speed and not leave any loopholes to the enemy.
About ten miles behind the emperor's army, there were actually thousands of enemy cavalry following them. Since the view of the battlefield was obscured by a large number of Mongolian sentry cavalry, the Ming army was not discovered from the beginning to the end.
The man who led the army was none other than Dayan Khan's third son, the Mongolian deputy Khan Balsopolo!
Parsopolo was like a wolf king, sending his wolf cubs to constantly harass the prey, and leading the main force to follow quietly. As long as the emperor's army was negligent, he could sound the horn to gather troops and lead 10,000 Mongolian light cavalry to launch a surprise attack.
This was Dayan Khan's countermeasure. Zhu Houzhao wanted to join forces to annihilate the main Mongolian force, so Dayan Khan sent his son to lead 10,000 cavalry, waiting for the right opportunity to poke Zhu Houzhao's anus.
But the situation was embarrassing. It was not that Zhu Houzhao was extremely smart and saw through Dayan Khan's plan. Instead, he looked down on the hundreds of scattered enemies and rushed to Yingzhou wholeheartedly to fight the decisive battle against the countless numbers thrown by Balso Polo. Ignore the bait.
Balsawa Polo was just trying to wink at a blind man, not to mention that the enemy general was actually a newbie on the battlefield who didn't know anything.
"The enemy commander must be a veteran on the battlefield, maybe he is Wang Yuan who destroyed Turpan! If Father Khan's strategy fails, this battle may be a bit difficult to fight." Balso Polo secretly guessed.
In fact, as long as Balso Polo rushed forward with 10,000 cavalry, he would definitely be able to divert Zhu Houzhao's attack target, causing the Ming army in the direction of Yingzhou to lose rescue and be wiped out. But Balso Polo thought too much, and he also
He overestimated Zhu Houzhao's IQ, so he decided to continue to follow him invisibly, and then suddenly came out from behind when the decisive battle came.
…
It was another evening, the battle was over, and everyone took a rest.
An impromptu meeting was held in the military camp, and Zhang Xi said to Wang Xun: "General Wang, the gunpowder in the army is about to be exhausted."
Xiao Chu said: "I'm almost running out of arrows."
Ma Sheng said: "The Mongolian cavalry is gathering more and more. The Tatars who were sent out to rob have probably been recalled. The enemies we face are at least 40,000. On the opposite mountain, Vice President Zhu is estimated to have been killed by tens of thousands of thieves."
We will fight on horseback. If the reinforcements don't come, we will all die here."
Shichun was also complaining: "Even if it's foggy in the morning, we don't dare to move around. Every day, soldiers take advantage of the fog to escape. Once we retreat in the fog, I'm afraid that when the fog clears, we will only have half the soldiers left."
.”
Wang Xun gritted his teeth and encouraged him: "If you persist for one more day, reinforcements will surely arrive!"
"You said the same thing yesterday," Gao Shi said angrily.
Ma Sheng suddenly said: "Could it be that Jiang Bin and the others, as well as the eggless eunuchs, were frightened by the Mongolian Tatars and encouraged His Majesty to withdraw his troops on the way? They threw us here to die!"
As soon as this statement came out, all the generals looked at each other, thinking that this was very likely.
Wang Xun scolded: "Shut up, don't disturb the morale of the army!"
Ma Sheng sneered: "You still need me to disturb the morale of the army? It has already been a mess. When the gunpowder and arrows are used up, if we hold on for half a day at most, the whole army will be defeated by then."
Wang Xun glared at Ma Sheng: "Do you dare to withdraw your troops?"
Ma Sheng was speechless.
"If you don't dare to withdraw, just hold on for as long as you can," Wang Xun reassured. "I have dealt with Governor Wang. Although he is a civil servant, he is a bloody man. In the Western Regions, he led thousands of temporary
A small group of miscellaneous cavalry dared to march thousands of miles straight to the royal city of Turpan. With him at your majesty's side, how could he be scared away by the Tatars?"
When Wang Yuan went on an expedition to the Western Regions, Wang Xun was the commander-in-chief of Gansu Province, and the two had exchanges in Ganzhou.
It was precisely because of Wang Xun's outstanding performance in Gansu that he was transferred to Datong as the commander-in-chief, and was even thrown out by the emperor as bait to delay the Mongolian army.
After hearing these words, the generals reluctantly regained their confidence and were no longer convinced that the emperor had fled halfway.
Xiao Tie said: "It depends on Governor Wang, he is a real man. Anyway, I can't trust Jiang Bin. This guy will retreat in the face of battle. What he is best at is killing good people and taking credit. Not to mention those eunuchs who have no eggs, all of them are just
They know how to make money, but they know nothing about fighting!"
"Jiang Bin is the most hateful," Ma Sheng complained. "If he hadn't encouraged His Majesty to go on a personal expedition, how could we have been trapped here by the Tatars?"
Shi Chun said sarcastically: "Jiang Bin, in order to get promoted to a higher position, has used the officers and soldiers of the nine towns as pawns. One day he will be killed by the civil servants."
"Woo!!!!"
A few miles away, a horn sound suddenly sounded, and the Mongolian camp quickly lit up countless torches.
Wang Xun stood up quickly and said happily: "Reinforcements are here!"