Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 220 Division and Surrounding
"Drive~"

In Haozhou, in the countryside north of the Huai River, war horses were galloping and arrows were flying in the sky. Hundreds of Shengwu Army cavalrymen in the front were riding and shooting, turning to the right and circling as they ran, trying to gain a favorable position on the battlefield.

Zheng Yong's Second Cavalry Regiment was luxuriously equipped. Although they did not have many horses and each man could not have two horses, their armor and weapons were very sophisticated. When they had just captured Haozhou, Lu Jin had made adjustments to them and asked Feng Sheng's 14th Regiment and Yu Tongyuan's 7th Regiment to give priority to giving armor to the Second Cavalry Regiment.

Therefore, the Second Cavalry Regiment had no shortage of armor. Although they were all captured armor, of various kinds and not standardized, the armor coverage rate of the entire regiment had reached 100%.

But this time, in order to successfully lure the enemy out, they didn't even dare to wear extra armor, for fear that they would appear too elite and scare the Yuan army away from pursuit. At the same time, it was also to make the Yuan army underestimate the enemy and gain a better chance of winning the subsequent encirclement and annihilation.

However, Zhou Dexing was not stupid enough to let his soldiers catch arrows with their bodies. Each of the unarmored cavalrymen carried a bamboo shield behind him and ran in the front, leaving the armored soldiers behind to cover their retreat. This way, casualties could be minimized.

Behind Zhou Dexing and his men were more than 800 cavalrymen led by Zhu La. These Mongolian cavalrymen dodged arrows while chasing hard. The two sides were nearly half a mile apart and always maintained a sense of closeness.

Jura chased them for a while and found that these Holy Warrior cavalrymen were not in a panic when they fled. They should have taken advantage of their familiarity with the terrain and ran very calmly. Whenever he was about to catch up with them, these thieves would always find some special terrain to bypass them, and seemed to be intentionally luring him away from Chelibuhua's large army.

Although Zhu La was arrogant, he was also cautious at this time. Maybe what Aduqin said was right. This group of bandits had more than a hundred cavalrymen, and there might be other cavalrymen hiding somewhere to ambush him.

But he had made a big promise before leaving. Now he couldn't just watch Zhou Dexing and others run away under his nose, otherwise eight hundred people would not be able to catch up with one hundred people. How would he save face when he returned?

Thinking of this, Jura immediately gave orders to split his 800 cavalry into two teams of 200 cavalry each, to speed up the encirclement from both wings of the Shengwu Army cavalry, while he continued to pursue with the remaining 400 cavalry.

As soon as Zhou Dexing saw the enemy dividing their forces, he knew that things were not going well. Although the strength of his own battalion was not weaker than that of the enemy, he only had two platoons of 100 cavalrymen. If he was surrounded by the enemy, he would probably die here today. This was his first time on the battlefield since joining the Shengwu Army. How could he die so miserably?
So Zhou Dexing also gave orders, "Blow the horn, the first platoon will go find Captain Qi, the second platoon will follow me to speed up the breakout, Ding Yu, quickly contact the first company and ask them to come to support us."

"Yes."

Soon, as Zhou Dexing's order was passed down, the one hundred cavalrymen were divided into two groups again. One group directly accelerated away from the battlefield and ran towards Qi Xiang's combat camp, luring Zhu La behind him to split his troops again. Zhou Dexing also took the remaining platoon of soldiers and accelerated their escape, blowing the horn while running, summoning the other two platoons of the company to come for support.

The sound of horns echoed throughout the battlefield. Looking at the bandit cavalry who suddenly split up and were still blowing the horns, Jura became more certain of his guess that the enemy must have been prepared and was deliberately luring him away from the main force.

But he was reluctant to give up the pursuit at this time. The most important thing was that he didn't know how many soldiers the Holy Martial Army cavalry had. If there were only three to five hundred cavalry including the ambushes, he was not afraid of them. Even if there were ambushes, he would destroy them together. If the number of soldiers exceeded five hundred, with his horsepower consumed greatly, the three to four hundred hidden manpower of the enemy might really inflict heavy damage on him.

Just as he was hesitating, the two platoons of cavalry led by Zhou Dexing were running farther and farther away, and were about to disappear from sight. A young general of the Yuan army suddenly came over and asked, "Captain, should we still chase them? The enemy soldiers may have an ambush!"

Zhu La hesitated for two seconds, and immediately made a decision, "Chase, the left wing continues to chase the fifty riders, and the right wing is retracted, and the main force continues to chase the armored general.

"Order the entire army to be alert to the enemy's ambush. Do not enter the village or the woods. Be careful of the enemy's infantry."

"Yes!"

The Yuan army pursuing behind also responded quickly, and the two sides continued to chase each other. A row that had left the team fled towards Qi Xiang with two hundred Yuan soldiers, and Zhou Dexing soon encountered the remaining two rows of soldiers who came to support them.

But they did not dare to turn around and fight back, and could only continue to flee. So now there were 150 riders fleeing in the front, and Jura himself led 600 Mongolian cavalrymen chasing behind.

As the two sides chased each other, they were getting farther and farther away from Chelibuhua's main force and closer and closer to the ambush point chosen by Zheng Yong. They soon reached the border of Xiquan Township. Zhang Huzi, who was hiding in the village, had long seen the smoke rising from the south and immediately prepared his four companies. Each company took the bugle call as an order and took turns to attack.

Although Zhu La ordered the entire army to be on high alert and not to enter the village or the woods, he never expected that the Shengwu Army had no intention of ambush him in the villages and woods. There were cavalry on both sides, and the Shengwu Army could not maneuver where the Yuan army could not.

So, when he ran to Xiquan Township, Zhu La suddenly felt that there was a wide open space in front of him. The barren field covered with wormwood was the cemetery that Zheng Yong had prepared for them.

Woo——woo——

Zhou Dexing, who was fleeing in front, immediately led his team to turn left and began to escape from the pursuers behind, while blowing urgent horns one after another.

Jura suddenly panicked, and before he could react, two hundred elite cavalrymen in full armor rushed out from the village on his right rear side.

The 200 armored cavalrymen were arranged in a single column. Each of them held a bow in his left hand, and three arrows at the same time, with the arrows on the string in his right hand. Like a windmill, they passed through the fatal right rear shooting angle of the Yuan army at high speed.

For a moment, the sounds of bowstrings being pulled and arrows being released were endless. The sound of two hundred bowstrings vibrating frequently was like a swarm of locusts flapping their wings. In an instant, arrows covered the Yuan army like locusts.

Zhang Huzi used rapid-fire tactics in this round of horse archery. Each man held three arrows in his hand and put another arrow on the string. After shooting the four arrows in their hands, they ran away and circled directly to the other side of the village. They did not draw arrows from their quivers again, and did not give the Yuan army any chance to counterattack.

By the time Zhu La's 600 cavalrymen reacted to this round of surprise attack and turned their horses around to prepare to meet the enemy, hundreds of Yuan soldiers had already fallen off their horses in this round of surprise attack. In a blink of an eye, there were only about 400 cavalrymen left, which made Zhu La gasp.

In the last round, two hundred cavalrymen each shot four arrows, which added up to eight hundred arrows. If Zheng Yong had not ordered that Zhang Huzi and his men only shoot people and not horses in order to seize more horses, I am afraid that more Yuan soldiers would have fallen in this round of raids. But even so, this was an unacceptable loss for the Yuan army.

However, the horns in the field were still making dull sounds, with no sign of stopping.

Just as Zhula and his men had just turned around and were preparing to face Zhang Huzi's surprise attack, another 200 armored cavalrymen rushed out from their northwest and attacked them again in the same way as before, and they also used the rapid-fire method of four consecutive shots. It was ridiculous that Zhula and his men had just turned around and thought they had hidden their blind spot, but in the blink of an eye, their right side was exposed to the enemy again.

The group of red-turbaned cavalrymen in front of them, all wearing armor, were like a pack of wolves working as a team on the grassland. Once they seized the enemy's weakness, they would bite hard and never let go.

The next moment, bang bang bang bang——

Another hail of arrows came, and more than a hundred of Zhula's 600 Yuan army cavalrymen fell again. In a blink of an eye, there were only less than 400 cavalrymen left. After only two rounds of attacks, nearly half of his cavalrymen were killed.

The team of red-turbaned cavalry that had just ambushed them, after each man shot four arrows, did not stop and turned away from the southwest again.

At this moment, the sound of horse hooves could be heard faintly from the north and south directions in front and behind Jura, which immediately made the hairs on his body stand up and he felt a chill on his back.

What Aduqin said was really right. The Luzhou Red Turbans not only have ambushes, but they are all cavalry. There are at least a thousand cavalrymen who appear here alone. If we don't escape now, I'm afraid we will all die here today.

"Retreat quickly! The whole army retreats! Follow me to break out from the south!"

"Tsk! Want to run? Too late! Damn it! You chased me so hard just now, and now you still want to run? Brothers, follow me and stop them!"

At this moment, Zhou Dexing, who had just escaped from the battlefield when Zhang Huzi led his troops to attack, came back with his large army, and this time he brought more than 700 cavalrymen. All the troops of the entire battalion were placed here, divided into two waves, front and back. Each wave had two companies of 400 cavalrymen, all holding nearly four-meter-long lances, and lined up in a dense formation that could squeeze people to death, and rushed towards Zhu La head-on.

Even if Jura could lead the Yuan army to fight to the death to break through this wall of guns and horses, they would surely die in the second wave of attack.

Zhu La's eyes suddenly turned red with anger, and he wanted to break out from other directions, but when he looked around, he saw that Zhang Huzi also led four companies of 800 cavalrymen, encircling them from the east, west and north. There were large numbers of enemy troops in all four directions, leaving them no chance of survival.

"Ahhhhhhh~"

The cavalry of the Shengwu Army in the field had completed the encirclement of the Yuan army. They drew their swords and guns, stood up on their stirrups, waved their weapons in their hands, and let out monkey-like howls. Their morale immediately became higher.

"Kill them all!"

As Zhang Huzi pointed his spear and issued a cold and emotionless command, the thousands of cavalrymen in the field rushed forward howling like wolves that had been hungry for half a month, and began to encircle and suppress the only more than 300 Yuan cavalrymen left in the encirclement.

Fifteen thousand against three or four hundred, there was no suspense at all. The Yuan army did not even have a chance to beg for mercy and was quickly overwhelmed by the tide of the Red Turban Cavalry.

On the other side of the battlefield, a platoon of cavalry that Zhou Dexing had previously assigned was responsible for luring the other two hundred Yuan troops and taking them to circle around to find Qi Xiang. As a result, Qi Xiang discovered that there were only two hundred cavalrymen following them, so why bother taking them around in circles? He gathered all eight hundred cavalrymen in the battalion and turned around to eat up the two hundred Yuan troops.

The 800 cavalrymen led by Zhu La were divided, surrounded and annihilated by Zheng Yong in less than three hours!
The battalion led by Zheng Yong was still hanging far away near Chelibuhua's large force. One reason was to keep constant surveillance on the enemy's main force, and the other was to prevent Chelibuhua from running away.

If he knew that all of Jura's 800 cavalrymen were gone, he might even run away because of his timid nature.

Another hour passed, just as it was about to get completely dark, someone from Xiquan Township finally came to report the news.

"Report to the commander, our troops in the Zhou camp lured 800 enemy cavalry into battle, and again lured the enemy to split up, leading 600 enemy cavalry to Xiquan Township. They were surrounded and annihilated by our troops and the officials of the Zhang camp with two battalions. We killed 600 enemies, beheaded one enemy general, seized more than 600 war horses, and more than 300 sets of armor. Our troops suffered 42 casualties.

"Another enemy force of 200 cavalrymen was led to Officer Qi's camp and was also completely annihilated. Now our three camps have assembled at Yinjian Town. This is the head of the enemy general Zhu La. Please give us your instructions."

Zheng Yong looked at the head of Zhu La handed over by the soldier, with no joy or sadness on his face. This time the tactics were well formulated. He used the strength of three battalions to lure out part of the enemy, divide and surround them and annihilate them, while he himself led the main battalion to monitor the main force of the enemy. If he couldn't win, then he, Zheng Yong, would have no chance of survival.

The exchange ratio of 800 enemies was achieved at the cost of 40 casualties. Needless to say, it was impeccable. If it weren't for the fact that the men led by Zhou Dexing didn't wear any armor in order to lure the enemy, the casualties in this battle could have been even less. However, a merciful army cannot be commanded. Sometimes, some sacrifices are unavoidable in order to achieve tactical goals.

This battle got off to a good start and the morale of the Second Cavalry Regiment was very high, but it was hard to say what would happen next.

Zheng Yong wanted to continue to lure Chelibuhua into splitting his troops, but the enemy was not stupid. Zhula had not returned for such a long time since he went out, and even if they were stupid, they could guess what had happened. It would be difficult to make the enemy split their troops at this time. Chelibuhua would most likely retreat in a group and not give him any chance.

Zheng Yong closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, and finally decided to use force. Since you don't divide your troops, I will take the initiative to attack, disrupt your troops first, and then find an opportunity to concentrate my forces to eat a part of them, and forcibly tear them off bite by bite.

Zheng Yong then ordered, "Pass on my military order. Have Qi Xiang lead his three battalions to ambush near the official road in the east and prepare to intercept the fleeing enemy. Zhang Huzi and Zhou Dexing should immediately bring their troops to join me. The captured horses and prisoners should be taken care of first."

"Yes!" the soldier agreed, immediately urging his horse to turn around, and soon disappeared into the night.

In the dark night, Zheng Yong looked at Jura's head with a gleam in his eyes, and an idea suddenly came to his mind.

(End of this chapter)