Huang Fei is still mobilizing for war, because the army still carries a large number of family members and belongings. This huge wandering fleet of more than 50,000 people is still busy settling the family members and those broken pots.
A major feature of the Huang Fei Navy now is that their soldiers take their families with them. Even when fighting and marching, they are not divided into camps. The soldiers of a battalion and their families are all in the same camp, along with their own belongings.
, I take it with me wherever I go.
Although this makes it easier for everyone to take care of their families while wandering, it also seriously hinders the combat effectiveness of this army.
Just like now, I finally reached Taihu Lake next to Suzhou and started to build an advance base on Xishan Island, but it was very chaotic.
Everyone was very undisciplined, and even from the morning, there were always firecrackers going off, one after another.
Huang Fei didn't bother to ask, but he also knew which family was marrying off daughters and which family was marrying off wives. Tens of thousands of troops moved together, like a moving city. With so many people, weddings and funerals were inevitable.
Although they are in the army and even during wartime, everyone seems to be accustomed to the current way of life. They marry when they should and even have banquets and lively celebrations.
Here a new house is set up to welcome the newlyweds, but over there someone hangs up white lanterns and scatters paper money to mourn the death of the old man.
Huang Fei stood high on the island and looked at the large camp on the island that was as busy as ants. He could only frown. Without these people, the soldiers would have no intention of going out. If they stayed on Chongming Island, they would not worry.
You can take it with you wherever you go.
Huang Fei and the others even planned to move their family members to Suzhou after the city of Suzhou was captured. They even planned to recover Susong prefectures and counties in the future. Soldiers would be stationed in various places, and their families would also move and garrison, just like in various places in the early Ming Dynasty.
Like the guards, they brought their families to garrison.
A fleet came back in a hurry, bringing back shocking news.
Wu Zhikui failed to follow the agreement and attacked Suzhou City alone in advance. As a result, he was ambushed. Deputy General Lu Zhiyu died in the battle in the city. Now his head is on the city gate. However, Wu Zhikui was defeated and his life or death was unknown. Wu's troops had nearly ten thousand troops.
He and his family members who accompanied the army were routed and scattered.
An elite Tatar cavalry came from Jiangning for reinforcements, killing countless people.
Upon hearing the news, Huang Fei's tall body could not help but sway a few times, almost losing his balance.
"Isn't there only a thousand fake thieves guarding Suzhou City? Even if Wu Zhikui and Lu Zhiyu were ambushed, would tens of thousands of them be annihilated by thousands more?"
The general who came to report was the general of the fleet that Wu Zhikui had seen before. He took two to three thousand men and hundreds of ships, but he was scared away by more than a hundred horsemen.
After escaping from the battlefield, he carefully walked around the lake and rescued some defeated soldiers who fled into the lake. He collected some messy information from the defeated soldiers, and ran to report it to Huang Fei regardless of whether it was contradictory or not.
"I heard that it was all the conspiracy of Hong Chengchou, Tian Guobao, Wu Shengzhao and others. There were actually tens of thousands of elite troops ambushed in Suzhou City. In addition, the puppet admiral Wu Shengzhao, the puppet commander-in-chief Li Chengdong and others did not go to Chongming at all, but were ambushed not far outside Suzhou City.
, In addition, we have already asked Jiangning for tens of thousands of elite Tatar cavalry, just waiting for us to hit them."
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!" Huang Fei interrupted the guerrilla in a dissatisfied voice, "Wu Shengzhao and Li Chengdong have already entered the boundaries of Changzhou. There are only a thousand pseudo-cavalry in Suzhou City, and it is even more impossible to ambush outside Suzhou City.
Tens of thousands of horses."
"Commander, the whole army of General Wu Town has been wiped out. Our navy is not used to land warfare, so we might as well withdraw first!"
"Withdraw? It took so long, and we finally reached the gates of Suzhou City. Now we haven't fought a single battle, and you are saying to withdraw?" Huang Fei was angry. "Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw." This was the word he had heard most in the past few years.
Withdraw from Dongjiang to Denglai, from Denglai to Huaiyang, and from Huaiyang to Jiangnan. After this retreat, where else can we retreat to?
"Commander, please don't act on your own initiative. Although we claim to be a hundred thousand people, the number of people actually fighting is no more than 20,000. How many elite soldiers are there among those 20,000 who dare to fight? We are short of armor and weapons. What if we abandon the boat and go ashore?
Competing with the captive cavalry for supremacy? Now that Suzhou has a strong army and a strong army, we can't defeat it."
Many generals began to hesitate and even considered retreating.
As soon as they heard the name of the Tatar cavalry, their bones felt weak. They didn't have the courage to go ashore and fight the Tatar cavalry.
"Retreat, retreat, retreat to where, when to retreat, where is there any place to retreat to?"
Just as he was talking, a servant came over in panic.
"No, the news that General Wu's army was wiped out has been leaked and has spread. Now the island is panicking. Some people have begun to seize ships and escape with their families."
"Report, Liu Shen will lead his servants and hundreds of people to sail to Suzhou to surrender!"
"Report, Zhao Shoubei has taken people south!"
In just a short moment, when the news of Wu Zhikui's defeat spread, the forward base on Xishan Island in Taihu Lake was in chaos. Some generals directly sailed their boats to surrender to the enemy. Some people took their families and started to seize the boats and run away. More soldiers also fell into panic.
among.
The whole island is getting more and more chaotic.
Huang Fei looked at the whole island and found that it was indeed in chaos.
This scene reminded him of the scene before the fall of Dongjiang Town, which was almost exactly the same.
The 50,000-man Ming Dynasty navy fleet that he worked so hard to maintain collapsed due to just one battle report. "Block Xishan Island, block the dock, no one is allowed to leave the island, and no one is allowed to board the ship. Violators will be executed!" Huang Fei almost said
He vomited blood and shouted.
But the group of generals around him all shook their heads in despair.
"Commander, the momentum is unstoppable. The soldiers are heartbroken and can't gather themselves. Let's retreat."
Huang Fei was unwilling to give in.
However, the chaos on Xishan Island continued to escalate. Countless soldiers broke away from their ranks and ran back to their camps to see their wives and children. Seeing their panicked and crying family members, they almost did not hesitate to abandon the army and began to drag their families away.
Take the mouth and run to the pier.
Because there were too many people at the pier, they were in a panic and there was no order. A stampede began to occur. The stampede aggravated the panic and made the chaos even more chaotic. Finally, someone started to draw a knife and cut people to clear the way, and their own people started to kill each other.
Bleeding, trampling.
panic.
Huang Fei's heart was bleeding as he watched this scene, and he knew that the situation was over.
Even if he is still determined now, he is afraid that no one will listen to him except his servants.
"Withdraw, send all your servants to the pier to maintain order. Anyone who dares to rush and kill people will be killed directly. Even if you want to withdraw, you must maintain order and walk together. They are running around like headless flies.
, it’s just asking for death.”
With Huang Fei's sigh, the offensive that the imperial court of Chongming Yiyang King had been planning for a long time was completely declared a failure.
Without even firing an arrow, Huang Fei's tens of thousands of naval troops dispersed, and many of them sailed directly to surrender.
Far away in the direction of Suzhou City, Huang Fei was ashamed and angry. He roared several times, vomited blood and fell to the ground. The servants rescued him and carried him to the dock to evacuate.
