As Zuo Zixiong attacked and beheaded Liu Xiong, the rogue cavalry quickly fell into a complete collapse.
The frontline army led by Zuo Zixiong is like a wolf and a tiger, pursuing death and chasing north. Don't be too aggressive in fighting a favorable harvest battle.
All this fell into the eyes of the few civil servants and military officers watching the battle at the top of the city.
Although the battlefield was at least five or six miles away from the city gate, ordinary people couldn't see it clearly. But Chen Shuren's confidants could take turns using telescopes, and they actually witnessed a wonderful defeat throughout the whole process.
Seeing the excitement, several civil servants almost started pushing each other to grab the telescope. After being stopped by Chen Shuren, they realized their gaffe and quickly turned to congratulations.
"God bless our Ming Dynasty! Congratulations, Lord Tongzhi, for our army's great victory!" Zhao Yunfan and Gu Yanwu were both filled with emotion. Gu Yanwu couldn't help but compose an impromptu poem to praise this great victory.
"Hurry up and open the city gate! Welcome General Zuo on his triumphant return!" Shen Shuren himself couldn't hide his excitement, and his expression was almost ferocious.
He thought that Zuo Zixiong could win, and this was also part of his plan. From the moment the strategy of luring the enemy was successful, victory was a high probability event. He just didn't expect that Zuo Zixiong could adapt to circumstances and use such a method to win. Won so beautifully.
After waiting eagerly on the city tower for less than half an hour, the Ming troops who had completed their pursuit finally assembled one after another and gathered outside the west gate of Qizhou. The city gate was immediately opened to welcome the triumphant return of Master Wang.
Chen Shuren did not go down to the tower out of caution, but he had people place drinks on the tower and invited all the participating officers to go upstairs. He personally toasted and encouraged everyone.
"General Zuo is truly the most courageous of all three armies. Our army does not have any organized cavalry. In the end, you dared to launch surprise troops like this, surprise the enemy by surprise, defeat the enemy with a small number, and win the battle.
Come, please have a full drink of this wine. I will report to the imperial court that the Huangzhou regiment training will be turned into a formal guard post first, and after Liu Xiyao is defeated, I will report that you will be promoted to guerrilla."
Shen Shuren did not hide it, but in front of everyone, he talked about the draft proposal for Zuo Zixiong's reward.
No one thought there was anything wrong, because the promotion of military attachés below deputy general and staff general could be approved by the Military Selection Department of the Ministry of War.
It was wartime, and in order to respond quickly, the Minister of War, Yang Ge Lao, who was away supervising the division, took some offices of the Military Selection Department with him.
The grassroots military generals here in Huangzhou do not need to report to Beijing for their meritorious service. They only need to go to Mr. Yang Ge in Xiangyang for approval, and they can be promoted through the simple wartime procedures without even having to pay for the province. Finally, the results are sent to Beijing for filing. Can.
After Zuo Zixiong heard this, he also knew that Master Tongzhi valued him very much and tried his best to speak kindly. Such a reward was already very good.
His current position as the commander-in-chief seems to be of a high level, and he is a higher level promotion than the previous Qianhu, but after all, he is the commander-in-chief of the regiment training, and his actual status is similar to that of a regular guard station.
After the regiment training was converted into a formal guard post, the status of the captain was equivalent to a half-level increase. In the future, if he was promoted to guerrilla, his salary would not only be improved, but he would also have the power to leave the guard area and cooperate with friendly forces to cross the border to pursue the enemy.
"I'd like to thank you for your appreciation! I'm really ashamed of myself!" Zuo Zixiong quickly thanked him.
Chen Shuren was high-spirited: "If there is anything you dare not take, let's count the results of this battle first and tell us how many prisoners we captured."
Zuo Zixiong couldn't come up with specific data. After all, he had just cleaned the battlefield and was still making statistics. After struggling for a while, the following officer reported:
"We all know that in this battle, more than 700 rebels were killed and injured, and more than 600 were captured. In addition, in the battle early this morning, more than 400 enemies were wiped out, and the number of wounded enemies is unknown. In the end, it is estimated that there are only 300 or 400 cavalry left in the rebel army. They broke up and fled. The thief general Liu Xiong was beheaded, and another thief general Yi Dougu fled with the remaining troops after the thief's front army was destroyed."
Chen Shuren did a rough calculation and found that the sum of these numbers should be more than two thousand, but considering that "injuring the enemy" can be repeated, it is normal.
After all, it has never been stipulated that a wounded soldier can only be injured once in two battles, and lightly wounded soldiers can also be captured, and the numbers will stack up.
After Shen Shuren figured out the situation and analyzed it briefly, he became happy:
"Being able to kill Liu Xiong is an unexpected surprise. I didn't even dare to count on it before the battle. I wasn't worried about today's battle. I just waited for work and had no intention of doing anything. It was natural to win.
What I was worried about was that after Liu Xiyao's main force of more than 10,000 people arrived, they did not dare to attack the city, and they also caused harm to the surrounding areas, burning, killing, looting, and robbing mature autumn crops. I originally designed many back-up strategies, just to adapt to changes. At that time, I tried to find a way to attract Liu Xiyao. Now that I have the revenge of killing my son, this matter is even easier.
We are absolutely sure that we can force Liu Xiyao to be motivated by the blood feud and attack the city at all costs. The damage to our counties in Huangzhou can also be minimized. By the way, you should have tortured the prisoners. When will Liu Xiyao's main force arrive? ?”
Zuo Zixiong responded: "We are told that we will arrive at Huangqikou Town this evening. If we continue the urgent march to Qizhou County, it will be late at night."
Chen Shuren nodded: "Then it's impossible to attack the city today. You guys need to rest quickly. The soldiers stationed in the city will take care of the city defense. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the latest, there might be a bloody battle to attack the city.
Come, prepare a banquet immediately, and give enough meat and wine to all the soldiers in this battle! Bring me some more money, and I will reward the wounded and provide compensation for those who died in battle."
Zuo Zixiong, who was alert by nature, reminded: "Sir, Liu Xiyao has come far behind enemy lines, and the bandits always lack siege weapons. If they really want to attack the city, they will have to use some tricks. It is better to be on guard in advance."
Chen Shuren waved his hand: "Don't worry, I have my own plan for this and will be careful. Just do my duty tonight."
After saying this, the city quickly cooked meat to reward the three armies.
In today's battle, hundreds of dead animals were obtained in the morning, and large pieces of good meat were cut. The two thousand soldiers could not finish one meal, so they continued to eat. Only the wine was trafficked from Suzhou.
In ancient times, there was a lack of food preservation technology, unless the meat was dried or smoked. The soldiers who participated in the war exerted a lot of physical strength, and each person could eat an average of three or four kilograms of meat when they opened it. The remaining parts were also soaked by rain and dew, and were used by the defenders of the city today. The soldiers and officials each shared one or two kilograms and ate more while it was fresh.
Chen Shuren personally accompanied hundreds of households to inquire about the past, went deep into the soldiers to understand the situation, and ate the same horse and donkey meat as the soldiers, without any pretense of being the richest man in Suzhou.
…
Halfway through eating and drinking, our own battle losses were tallied up. Needless to say, in today's early morning battle, the permanent battle losses were no more than sixty, and the minor injuries were only seventy or eighty.
But the number of losses in the battle just outside the city was beyond Chen Shuren's expectation. In the end, more than a hundred people were killed directly in the battle, and the total number of minor and serious injuries was two to three hundred, and the cumulative casualties reached a huge number of four hundred people. !
In the two battles combined, the permanent battle losses reached more than 200 people, and more than ten percent of the combat strength of this unit was lost forever.
Chen Shuren was holding the wine glass and was very surprised. He asked Lu Datou, the commander in charge of calculating the losses: "In the battle outside the city just this afternoon, Zuo Dusi clearly had the advantage, so why did so many people die in the end?
Our army is just a group training, and if one-tenth of the casualties are killed or wounded, the morale may be shaken. Moreover, the ratio of direct battle casualties is too high. For one dead person, there are less than three injured. It is definitely not the performance that should be used to win a battle."
Lu Datou was just a dock worker. He had not had the opportunity to meet Master Tongzhi before. Now that he was being questioned by Master Tongzhi in person, he was very nervous. He knelt down and cried bitterly:
"They were all incompetent subordinates who failed to withstand Yi Dou Gu's desperate charge. Shortly after Zuo Dusi's front army took the initiative to pursue Liu Xiong, the rear army on the other side responsible for blocking Yi Dou Gu wavered and was killed by Yi Dou Gu. , if Zuo Dusi hadn't killed Liu Xiong and caused the entire rebel army to collapse, our rear army would probably be in trouble as well——
My subordinate is just a commander. Commander Qian, who is responsible for commanding our rear army, was seriously injured by random arrows from the enemy when they were blocking Yidou Valley. This shows how tragic the situation was. It is now my subordinate’s turn to report his duties to your lord."
Chen Shuren was slightly frightened after hearing this. It seemed that the battlefield was changing rapidly, and there was always danger at any time.
Victory or defeat is often decided by a thought. Sometimes, if the side where one's attack is focused does not defeat the enemy on the opposite side as quickly as possible, then one's side that is weak and under pressure may be broken through first.
It's just that the rear army of the official army was at least ten miles away from the city gate at that time. It was quite far and the telescope could not see clearly. It was not clear what happened on that secondary battlefield.
Shen Shuren was also a little sober from the wine, so he summoned Lu Datou and other officers who were in the rear army at the time, as well as Zuo Zixiong, to conduct a personal review.
Zuo Zixiong had also roughly heard that the rear army suffered heavy casualties today, but he didn't have much energy to distract himself from the victory and had been dealing with Lord Tongzhi. It wasn't until Lord Tongzhi personally intervened that he followed up to review the situation. situation at the moment.
Just listen to Lu Datou's miserable memory: "Our rear army was fiercely attacked by Yi Dougu, and its morale was a little loose. Later, we found that Zuo Dusi's front army had fought out. The front army was increasingly out of touch with us, and our morale was getting worse. He became more and more shaken.
Yi Dou Gu was very cunning. After noticing this, he sent a part of his troops to attack from the side, trying to cut off our rear army. During the bloody battle, some soldiers were the first to be unable to withstand it and jumped back into the river to escape, trying to escape by climbing on boats. The battle ended with the rear army being divided by the enemy.
Fortunately, the victory of the front army had already been decided at this time. Zuo Dusi beheaded Liu Xiong, and Yi Dougu had to break up. As a result, the part of the enemy army that was stuck to us could not retreat and was captured."
Lu Datou didn't understand the art of war, he hadn't read a book, and he spoke incoherently. Fortunately, Shen Shuren was keen and carefully examined it and grasped an important point: the rear army was cut off because there were people in the troops filling the defense line. Jump into the river and escape!
Chen Shuren touched his beard, turned to Zuo Zixiong, and sighed: "I just felt something was wrong when I looked at it from a distance. I couldn't explain it for a moment, but now I finally figured it out - Zuo Dusi, in order to fight against the enemy The cavalry harassed and kept marching, and the formation was imitating Liu Yu's Queyue Formation to defeat the Northern Wei Dynasty, right?"
Zuo Zixiong looked shy and said, "That's about right. There are no chariot poles to use, so I made slight adjustments and set up a trapezoidal formation between the Folangji Square Formation and Liu Yuqueyue Formation."
Chen Shuren shook his head: "The formation is fine, but the key point is why you brought the fleet close to the river bank to support the defenders on the bank with firepower. This approach is actually somewhat dangerous.
With the support of ships, the gunners can take time to reload and fire slowly, which can indeed increase the firepower. However, the sand ships of our own side are so close, allowing the soldiers on the shore to see the hope that they can escape the danger of the battlefield by just jumping into the river and swimming a few dozen steps away. , once the soldiers waver, they may not be willing to fight to the end.
Han Xin also formed a formation at the back of the enemy. The essence is to "throw yourself into death and survive, throw yourself into death and survive". If there is a ship to support you, it will not be death. You are using recruits who are not yet strictly disciplined. This is too risky!
Remember in the future, if you want to deploy ships in a back-to-back formation, you must be a veteran of hundreds of battles and a determined veteran, so that you can prioritize maximizing firepower. If morale and military discipline are not enough, you would rather not have this little firepower support than inspire the soldiers to fight to the death. Heart."
After listening to this, Zuo Zixiong broke out in a cold sweat and realized that after all, he had not read enough, nor had he analyzed and understood people's hearts well enough. Although he had fought many battles and listened to the battle allusions of famous ancient generals, he finally learned something specious.
Fortunately, today's enemy is not very strong, and his brave attack and killing generals solved the ultimate problem and covered up those small flaws.
"My lord, Tongzhi, has a wonderful plan. After reading the Art of War, I know what it is and why it is so. At the end of the day, I only learned it in a superficial way, but it is really beyond my reach!" Zuo Zi ambitiously bowed sincerely.
Chen Shuren waved his hand: "Let's not talk about the past. Although today's battle is a great victory, military laws must be strictly enforced. Let's find out who was the first to abandon the defense and jump into the river in the afternoon battle. Let the survivors The soldiers identify each other and must be severely punished!"
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