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Shanhaiguan.

Liu Zongmin met Li Zicheng alone, and said, "Your Majesty, beware of Ma Ke secretly informing the slaves!"

"I know, these generals are unreliable." Li Zicheng nodded.

Due to time reasons, Li Zicheng had two main approaches to deal with the surrendered soldiers of the Ming Dynasty.

One is the guards and tomb guards who surrendered along the way during Li Zicheng's march. These officers and soldiers were basically disbanded on the spot and sent back to their hometowns to work in the fields. A few young men were recruited to supplement the vacancies of the Dashun Army.

One is the Daming Frontier Army. Because they maintain their combat effectiveness, it is temporarily inconvenient to move, so they are allowed to continue guarding the frontier. If the troops are forcibly disbanded, the frontier generals are likely to rebel, and Li Zicheng does not have so much time for conquest.

Hong Chengchou belongs to the second category, and Ma Ke also belongs to the second category.

Ma Ke is already good. Facing the attack of Hauge and Dorgon, he did not immediately choose to backstab Li Zicheng. He was guarding the city and watching, what if Li Zicheng could kill Huang Taiji?

Now that Li Zicheng retreated to Shanhaiguan, Ma Ke began to make up his mind.

Li Zicheng said: "There are not many Tatar slaves in the pass. They are all partial troops who took a detour and climbed over the Great Wall. Don't rush to break out and destroy these partial troops directly! At that time, relying on Shanhaiguan, if the Tatar chief (Huang Taiji) does not withdraw his troops, we will look for opportunities to leave the customs and follow him." decisive battle!"

Liu Zongbin said: "When fighting, take Ma Ke out, and our own people will guard the gate."

"Oh, how dare you let him guard the gate?" Li Zicheng sighed.

On this day, the Manchu and Qing follow-up troops arrived. With a full 60,000 army and a large number of grain transporters, it seems that the Tartars have already come out.

Before dispatching troops in a hurry, Huang Taiji could only mobilize 60,000 troops, but now he gathers 60,000 troops to kill. Not only that, there were also thousands of Mongolian cavalry from the direction of Lengkou and Xifengkou, crossing the Great Wall and entering Shanhaiguan.

However, after sending 120,000 troops and more civilians, the people of Liaodong have been severely overdrawn. Once Shanhaiguan cannot be defeated, the Manchu Qing regime will weaken from then on, and it is feared that it will have to kill people to protect food to survive.

"The Tartars have increased their troops again." Liu Zongmin said worriedly.

Li Zicheng forced himself to calm down: "Follow him to increase troops outside the pass, and first destroy the Tatar thieves inside the pass."

Liu Zongmin led 10,000 troops to defend Shanhaiguan.

Li Zicheng took Ma Ke and personally led nearly 60,000 troops into the battle. The troops were directed at Hauge, Dorgon, Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, and Jiang Zhu in the pass.

In "History of the Ming Dynasty", it is said that Li Zicheng's tactics are "three walls", which is almost certainly made up.

At this moment, Li Zicheng was also arrayed in three layers, with infantry in the front, cavalry in the middle, and cavalry in the rear.

Due to the continuous seizure of officers and soldiers' equipment, all elite members of the Dashun Army wore armor. Even the infantry wore high-quality leather armor, and some infantry also wore heavy armor. There are spearmen, archers, and gunmen, but not many sword and shield players. The defensive formation is far inferior to that of the Datong Army and the Manchu Army.

"Boom boom boom!"

There was a rumble of artillery outside the pass, but it was Huang Taiji's main force, attacking Shanhaiguan with heavy artillery.

Li Zicheng believed that Liu Zongmin could hold on, so he ignored Huang Taiji and sent his troops to kill Hauge and Dorgon in the pass.

In order to quickly attack in a detour, Hauge and Dorgon all had cavalry under their command. They put the surrendered general's troops in front, while they led the cavalry around the battlefield.

Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, Jiang Zhu and other surrendered generals were beaten to death by Li Zicheng's army.

On the way to Shanhaiguan, they all selected young and strong civilian men to supplement their troops. Now each of them has an army of five thousand, and the number of Han soldiers alone is fifteen thousand. It’s all a mob!

"Retreat to Funing quickly!" Dorgon was shocked.

Hauge said: "Yes, retreat quickly, we can't fight this battle!"

These two famous figures, don't think they are very brave, they can also run very fast when they encounter danger.

The two sides were still three miles apart, so Hauge and Dorgon ran away with their cavalry, leaving the 15,000 infantrymen of the surrendered generals on the battlefield.

"Run!" Tang Tong saw that the situation was not good and immediately ran away with his servants and cavalry.

The rest of the surrendered generals also scrambled to flee, leaving only 15,000 Han infantry on the battlefield.

Most of these Han infantry were common people along the way, and some had only served as soldiers for a few days. They did not dare to flee back for fear of being forcibly conquered by the Qing army again, so they knelt down and surrendered.

"Chase!"

Li Zicheng was too lazy to pay attention to these surrendered soldiers, and ordered the infantry to guard and collect them. He led his cavalry and cavalry and chased the enemy cavalry directly.

The valiant cavalry are all elite cavalry, capable of charging into formations and riding and shooting.

The cavalry are much weaker, and although they are also armored, they are more like mounted infantry.

And this cavalry team is very special, composed of thousands of teenagers, they are Li Zicheng's "children's army". He is usually responsible for custody, interrogation, and demotion. He is also responsible for publicizing policies everywhere, and is also the executor of all tortures.

Mentioning the "child army" can scare Ming officials to the point of peeing in their pants.

The head coach of the Boy's Army is Zhang Nai. He stood out among many young men with his military exploits and has now been adopted as his adopted son by Li Zicheng.

"Kill the enemy, kill the enemy!"

Zhang Nai drew his sword and shouted, and thousands of young men shouted in unison, riding horses and even rushed in front of Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng was shocked and said: "Blow the trumpet quickly and tell them to run slower!"

"Woooooooo~~~~"

The horn sounded, and Zhang Nai quickly slowed down his horse, waiting for Li Zicheng to catch up.

After leaving Shanhaiguan, Hauge and Dorgon suddenly laughed.

Li Zicheng was fooled.

Strictly speaking, the Manchu army was not divided into infantry and cavalry.

If you have to forcefully define the Manchu cavalry, then it is a very unique kind of mountain cavalry.

They can also ride horses to kill, shoot and other skills, but generally they don't use them for charging, and they are better at running raids. March quickly in the mountainous area, go around to the predetermined combat location, you can immediately dismount and attack the city, you can also form an infantry formation to fight, and cavalry combat is also available at critical times.

If the enemy has a large number of traditional cavalry, the Manchu Qing cavalry will use routines.

Use loose to outrageous formations to conduct guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare to lure traditional cavalry from the formation.

Constant riding and shooting coverage, constant disengagement.

They will set up an ambush during the pursuit, or gather superior forces to fight back. Use cavalry and shooting to weaken the morale of the enemy army, disrupt the formation of the enemy army, and then launch an assault from the flanks and rear wings.

Huang Taiji was very courageous and collected 20,000 cavalry for Hauge and Dorgon.

Three thousand of them are guarding Liangcao and Hong Chengchou in Funing, and there are 17,000 horses left in front of them. After they lured Li Zicheng out of the formation, they suddenly dispersed into four groups, and slowed down their horses to shoot at the rear.

Under Li Zicheng's command, there were tens of thousands of cavalry in armor, and there were thousands of children's cavalry, and they also dispersed.

Few of the cavalry cavalry were capable of riding and shooting, so they were ordered by Li Zicheng to stay behind and charge directly at the critical moment. Li Zicheng personally led Xiaoqi, and shot at one of the enemy troops.

The moment the two sides approached, hundreds of Manchu and Qing cavalry were hit by arrows, but only a dozen of them fell from their horses. The cotton armor was enough to withstand the power of bows and arrows. Moreover, the war horses of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties also wore cotton armor on key parts to strengthen their defense against bows and arrows.

Just when Li Zicheng had the upper hand, the other three groups of Qing cavalry suddenly rushed around the flanks, throwing arrows at the Dashun cavalry.

For the next ten minutes or so, Li Zicheng was a little stunned because he had never encountered this style of play.

A group of Manchu cavalrymen risked their lives to shoot at Li Zicheng against the rain of arrows, while the other three groups kept shooting arrows around the side. When Li Zi formed his troops to shoot at each other, the Manchu and Qing cavalry suddenly dispersed again, one group divided into several groups and fled.

How far did it hit in the end?

The two sides were divided into countless stocks, each with only a few hundred people, and they were distributed in disorder on the battlefield. The battle rhythm was completely controlled by the Manchu cavalry.

Moreover, after the Manchu and Qing cavalry interspersed back and forth, it is possible for several groups to quickly merge into one and charge with superior forces on a local battlefield.

It sounds simple, but it is actually very difficult, which requires a very high degree of organization and training!

Li Zicheng has a high degree of organization, but almost no training in relevant tactics, because he has never fought such a cavalry battle. Even though he had many Ming frontier troops under his command, these Ming frontier troops revolted very early and had no exposure to the Manchu and Qing cavalry tactics that had matured in the past ten years.

After being cannibalized by the enemy's 2,000 cavalry, Li Zicheng awakened his fighting consciousness from the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood.

"Wooooow!"

The Dashun cavalry scattered all over the battlefield gathered the troops by blowing the trumpet, and gathered in the direction of Li Zicheng at the risk of death.

From the battle to the present, Li Zicheng finally completed his assembly at the cost of almost 3,000 casualties, and rushed towards the Boyer Army regardless of everything.

The Manchu and Qing cavalry joined forces in pursuit, gnawing at the tails of the Dashun cavalry all the way.

"Woooooooooooooooooooooo!"

With the sound of high-pitched horns, Zhang Nai led an army of thousands of children to kill, and charged with all his strength as fast as possible.

This is almost a suicide charge. Although the children's army rides horses, they are still infantry in essence. Their weapons, equipment and combat skills cannot be compared with real cavalry.

But the thousands of teenagers were not afraid. They held up infantry spears and charged towards the Manchu cavalry without risking their lives.

Abandoning equipment, relying on the speed of the horse, charging quickly, and fighting at close range, this is the best tactic to deal with the Manchu cavalry. In just over ten minutes, Li Zicheng realized it during the battle!

The Boyer Army just lacked cavalry equipment. Although the horses were relatively inferior, they ran much faster than the Manchu cavalry.

Seeing this situation, Hauge and Dorgon hurriedly ordered to disperse, intending to repeat their old tricks and eat up the cavalry team.

Under the leadership of Zhang Nai, thousands of children in the army forgot to die. After being shot and killed hundreds of people quickly, they crashed into the scattered formations of the Manchu cavalry.

It doesn't matter if the equipment is inferior, these teenagers are here to die, one for one, two for one, three for one, all are acceptable.

Li Zicheng also brought Xiaoqi over to help, facing the shooting of other small groups of enemy troops, he rushed into the group of Manchu cavalry dragged out by the boy army.

Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, Jiang Zhu and other surrendered generals were all dumbfounded at this moment.

They escaped to watch the battle from afar and witnessed the whole battle process. So far in the battle, the Dashun Xiaoqi Cavalry had suffered more than 3,000 casualties, the Dashun Boy Army had more than 1,000 casualties, and the Manchu Qing cavalry had also suffered more than 2,000 casualties.

Moreover, Li Zicheng has found a suitable tactic.

The intensity of the war was too high, beyond the imagination of the generals, and they couldn't understand why both sides were not afraid of death.

"withdraw!"

Some of the bitten Qing cavalry remained alive and were directly abandoned by Dorgon and Hauge. They took the opportunity to distance themselves and wanted to continue playing routines.

Li Zicheng gritted his teeth and said, "Back to Shanhaiguan!"

Although this tactic is effective, it was created by the Haier army. Although it can effectively kill the enemy, if you come a few more times, thousands of child soldiers will have to confess here, and Dashun Xiaoqi will have to pay a heavy price.

Seeing Li Zicheng's retreat, Hauge and Dorgon came back with troops.

Li Zicheng was determined to be ruthless, and after he separated hundreds of children into the army, the teenagers used their lives to cover Li Zicheng's retreat.