I

When you have your own territory, family, property and a stable life, who wants to live a precarious life again?

Unless it is absolutely necessary, Zhang Xianzhong will not choose the old-fashioned strategy.

The rogues used to be barefoot and not afraid to wear shoes, but now they all wear good shoes. The generals owned countless lands, and the elite of the old battalion had become small landlords. They also had beautiful wives and concubines in their families, and many of them even had children in the past two years.

Even if Zhang Xianzhong is willing to flee again, the soldiers under his command will not agree!

Today, the siege has entered the second stage.

In the first stage, use cannon fodder to consume materials, physical strength and morale in the city.

In the second stage, cannon fodder was still used to attack the city, and elite troops were quietly mixed in to achieve unexpected results.

The third stage is the elite onslaught.

"Old Wang, there is a change outside the city!" The person who spoke was Zhu Shijing, the Chief Propaganda Officer of the city guard, a descendant of the old Zhu family whose blood was so thin that he could not be called a clan.

Wang Hui raised his binoculars, and sure enough, he saw that the enemy's flag order was different, and many elites who were obviously in a more orderly formation were being mobilized.

Wang Hui did not dare to take it lightly, and immediately adjusted the deployment of the city defense, and arranged reserve teams at various streets and alleys in the city to be ready to rescue the city wall at any time.

"boom!"

At this moment, there was a loud noise, and Wang Hui felt the city wall shaking under his feet.

He turned his head to look, but saw seven or eight feet away, a big gap in the city wall was blown down. Although the tunnel for filling the gunpowder was narrow, the gap in the city wall that was implicated and blown down was a full ten meters wide.

That section of the city wall collapsed in a "U" shape as a whole, part of the wall fell inward, and part of the wall fell outward. The gap was not a flat ground, but a pile of rammed earth. The rammed earth of the city wall was cracked into large and small clods, and the largest one was as big as several dining tables.

There were even civilians attacking the city here. After the city wall collapsed, both the defenders and the attackers suffered a large number of casualties.

The people defending the city were scared and fled, and the people who attacked the city were also scared to flee.

Some farmers and soldiers fled out of fear, and a small number of farmers and soldiers who were in the reserve team spontaneously rushed to fill the gap. More farmers and soldiers subconsciously wanted to escape, but they froze in place, as if they were waiting for the officer's order.

"kill!"

A group of elite enemy troops who were charging quickly rushed towards the gap, and the morale of the nearby siege troops quickly rose.

"Woo! Whoa! Whoa!"

Wang Hui blew the copper whistle one after another, and the messenger waved the command flag on the tower, commanding the nearest reserve team in the city to make up.

Many people really couldn't bear this upheaval, and fled to the center of the city completely unconsciously.

Zhu Shijing stood on the tower and shouted: "The missionary officers do things, and the missionary officers do things!"

"Doo~~~~~~~~"

Suona issued a sound similar to an alarm, and more than 30 missionaries ran over, shouting slogans along the way, trying to stop this trend of fleeing: "Folks, if you run away, you will die. Zhang Xianzhong will kill and rob when he enters the city. Come back with me, Protect our parents, protect our wives and children..."

A village chief was running away, but when he saw the Datong army flag planted in front of him, he rushed to pull it up, waved the flag and said, "Tingqian village man, come back with me!"

There were also the backbone of the peasant association, holding the banner of the peasant association high, charging against the current among the crowd, waving the indigo flag repeatedly.

After only half a stick of incense, the fleeing people were stopped, and they followed the banner with various weapons in their hands to kill them back.

At the gap where the city wall collapsed, uneven piles of soil were formed, and the peasants and soldiers were fighting for the high ground with Zhang Xianzhong's elite. Whoever can occupy the clods will be able to condescend to kill the enemy. Due to the rush of time, neither side can line up, but fight by instinct.

Wang Hui shouted an order: "ten thousand enemies, ten thousand enemies, don't throw for now, listen to my orders!"

There are not many enemies left, and they are specially reserved for critical times.

On the city walls on both sides of the gap, hundreds of thousands of soldiers moved in. Looking at the bloody fight below, he didn't throw it immediately, but waited for more enemies to come and gather to die.

Wang Hui asked the messenger to issue a flag order: "Light the smoke!"

Zhang Xianzhong sent a full 30,000 soldiers to attack, all of them were soldiers, not civilian husbands.

About three or four thousand rushed to the gap, and all the others climbed the city wall, and the remaining four Lu Gong cars all drove out.

In the open space at the gate of the county government, An Qigong, the county magistrate, ordered people to light up the smoke, while he himself led the people to gather in the city. There are people who understand the flag order everywhere, and An Qigong sent some people to support which section of the city wall was insufficient.

"Vote to the enemy!"

Seeing that more and more enemies gathered around the gap, Wang Hui finally ordered the bombing.

More than 20 thousand enemy bombs were smashed from the walls on both sides of the gap, and thrown into the pile of enemies gathered outside the city.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

Two consecutive explosions directly blew up more than two thousand people to collapse. Regardless of whether they were injured or not, they all coughed and turned around to run away.

Zhang Xianzhong's supervising team rushed up, and Sun Kewang personally rode over to command the soldiers, divided the soldiers into several teams, and simply lined up to charge.

And the series of explosions just now also helped the peasants and soldiers guarding the gap to successfully occupy the mound that had collapsed from the city wall. Without Wang Hui's order, the grassroots officers began to form formations on the mound, and it was a neat formation of mandarin ducks.

Sun Kewang commanded the charge several times, all of which ended in failure, and he couldn't even penetrate the defensive circle of the Wolf Whip.

At this moment, Zhang Xianzhong's gunfire soldiers arrived.

Wang Hui could see clearly, but he didn't dare to let the peasants and soldiers withdraw. He only issued an order for the follow-up peasants, soldiers and common people to respond.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

A volley of muskets fired, and nearly a hundred peasants and soldiers fell. Half of the peasants and soldiers on the mound collapsed and fled in fright, and the arranged mandarin duck formation also showed a huge gap.

Sun Kewang immediately commanded the elite to charge, and Wang Hui also asked the reserve team to fill up, and the two sides once again strangled together.

Three of the four Lügong chariots arrived at the city wall. A steady stream of enemy soldiers jumped to the top of the city, and the people defending the city stabbed them in disorder with simple bamboo and wooden spears.

Another group of attacking elites climbed up the city wall from the ladder, and started a bloody fight with the people defending the city.

Finally, the smoke in the city rose.

Zhang Xianzhong's face changed drastically, and he ordered another 10,000 troops to be deployed to capture the county town regardless of casualties, otherwise he would have to flee with cavalry, horse teams and mule teams.

Because reinforcements are coming soon!

Lao Hui took the initiative and said, "I'll intercept and kill the enemy's reinforcements."

Not only the returning cavalry went, but Zhang Xianzhong and Sun Kewang's cavalry and cavalry also rushed to the southeast together.

In the southeast, due west, and in the mountains several miles away, the smoke of wars soon rose, and the smoke of wars conveyed the military situation.

Zhao Han's reinforcements are still fifty miles away!

The artillery team couldn't take them away. Zhao Han led 2,000 personal guards, and Li Zheng led 7,000 infantry. They rode mules and horses to Guangji County from different directions.

Lu Xiangsheng's cavalry arrived at the assembly point first.

Among them, there were 3,000 dragoons, 2,000 were newly trained, and 1,000 were transferred from Hu Dinggui.

There are another five hundred Xiaoqi, all horses and horses.

Three batches of Mawari horses from India were shipped here. Due to the high requirements, the last batch was very expensive, and the maharajas of Indian states also knew how to raise prices.

Of these five hundred horses, about three hundred were gelding stallions, and another two hundred were non-pregnant mares.

The equipment of the Xiaoqi is similar to that of the Qing cavalry. The inner armor is combined with the cotton armor, and the cotton armor cloth is worn on the key points of the horse. Riding and archery skills are good enough, but everyone can shoot arrows, and they are transformed from eliminated archers. Riding skills are also bad enough. After only training for more than two months, it is difficult to perform many complicated operations perfectly.

Running to the foot of the mountain at the nearest beacon point, Lu Xiangsheng sent out 500 dragoons to investigate the situation in the direction of Guangji County. The rest of the cavalry stopped to let the horses rest.

Due west, Chilong Lake.

Chilong Lake at the end of Ming Dynasty was larger than it was hundreds of years later, with nearly 300 peninsulas in the lake.

Regardless of whether it was the fishermen under Zhao Han's rule or Zhang Xianzhong's rule, after seeing the beacon fire, they all quickly headed towards Qizhou. Some small ships from Jiangxi also entered Chilong Lake from the Yangtze River long ago, and have been docked on the peninsula in the middle of the lake to wait for orders.

The original plan was to send only 10,000 peasants and soldiers who surrounded Qizhou to support Guangji County by boat.

However, Huang Yao led the mountain division to come by boat, 500 artillerymen stayed in Jiangling to attack the city, and the remaining 7,000 people were all outside Qizhou City, and now they are also going to attack Zhang Xianzhong by boat together.

They were able to take a boat all the way to nine miles southwest of Guangji County.

A few miles southeast of the county seat, Lu Xiangsheng's sentry cavalry collided head-on with Zhang Xianzhong's cavalry and horse team. Seeing it from a distance, turn around and run, because there are too many enemy cavalry.

There are more than 10,000 cavalry and cavalry in total.

Three thousand dragon cavalry, when encountering more than ten thousand enemies on horseback, immediately dismounted and leaned against the foot of the mountain to form a firecracker formation.

The five hundred cavalrymen all withdrew to the rear of the infantry dragoons.

Zhang Xianzhong's team of thousands of horses charged in an extremely disorganized formation, with the distance between horses being more than four meters.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang bang!"

Three thousand dragon cavalry shot three shots at the cavalry, then quickly got on their horses, and followed five hundred Xiao cavalry into the mountain.

Due to the high-speed running of the opponent and the extremely loose formation, 3,000 rounds of firecrackers fired ammunition (the firing rate was about 70%), and only shot down more than 40 enemy cavalry.

Lao Hui led the Xiaoqi to circle around, seeing all the Datong cavalry enter the mountain, how dare they chase into the mountain? The opponent has 3,000 guns, and after entering the mountain, they can find countless favorable terrains to shoot.

"Damn it, these cavalry are disgusting!" Old Hui Hui cursed, spitting out thick phlegm.

Ma Wannian, Qin Liangyu's grandson, is full of enthusiasm at this moment, and he knows that a decisive battle will soon take place.

Wu Huapu, who came from Liaodong, and the red-helmed general Zhou Yingyuan are also in the Xiaoqi team at this moment.

However, the one-armed Wu Huapu can command a hundred troops.

The tall and strong Zhou Yingyuan was just an ordinary cavalry soldier. As a guard of honor in Chongzhen, he had never been on a serious battlefield at all—even though he was skilled in riding.

"General Lu, the enemy cavalry did not come after us." Zhu Tianxi rode forward.

Lu Xiangsheng said: "Just guard the narrow road ahead, and wait slowly for King Wu's reinforcements."

Zhu Tianxi, a native of Taizhou, was a Jinshi in the ninth year of Chongzhen, and was exiled to Guangdong as a guerrilla general. As soon as he took office, Zhang Tieniu led his troops to kill him, and chose to surrender without any psychological burden.

He was born as a Wu Jinshi, with superb riding skills, and also served as a soldier of the Datong Army for four years. He was promoted to the commander of the Xiaocavalry a few months ago.

Zhu Tianxi touched the Kaiyuan bow in his hand, and he was full of anticipation in his heart. He had been tired of being a pawn for several years, and now he was finally able to gallop on the battlefield.

Moreover, he also rode the majestic Indian Pegasus.