Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 481: Will this work?
"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

"Dang! Dang! Dang!"

As the clear and crisp sounds of golden bells rang out, the Ming army, which had suffered a heavy blow from the Tatars, decisively withdrew from the battle.

Seeing this, loud cheers immediately rang out from Huai'an City, and then a general shouted to Hong Cheng: "Prime Minister! We won!"

Did you win?
It was indeed a win.

The smoke of gunpowder lasted only two rounds before the order to withdraw was issued from the Ming army camp. According to reports from the army, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the army collapsed at the first blow.

What's more, the capital's positioning in the battle of Huai'an was only to prove to both the enemy and us that it was capable of engaging in a head-on battle with the Ming army.

Under these circumstances, this battle can be considered a win.

As his thoughts turned, Hong Chengchou's face showed just the right amount of joy. After looking at the general, he even took half a step forward.

It was obvious that he knew the significance of this victory and did not want to disrupt the interest of his soldiers.

But the Ming army's reaction speed was so fast, as if they had been prepared.

While looking at the pursuing gun formation, Hong Chengchou always felt a little regretful.

If the Ming army had reacted a little slower, the distance between the two armies would have been closer. At that time, the muskets would have been fired continuously, and even if the Ming army wanted to retreat, they would have had a hard time.

After all, the Southern Dynasty was too powerful at sea, and even the Dutch could not transport a large number of firearms quietly.

Forget it, don’t think about it anymore. After all, I won a game.

When Tong Yangjia returns from the pursuit, the morale of the people in the city will surely be greatly boosted.

By then, it would not be difficult to maintain a stalemate with the Southern Dynasty in Huai'an for a while.

As his thoughts turned, the joy on Hong Chengchou's face gradually grew from the inside out. Then he laughed out loud, and after blending in with the surrounding atmosphere, he focused on Wu Zhen Chaoha's pursuit.

At this time, the Ming army was retreating to the main camp, but the Qing army's gun formation was still pursuing them.

However, the pursuing party had to load gunpowder, raise their guns and fire. Due to the delay, the distance between the two sides became farther and farther. By this time, the pursuit had become only symbolic, and it was difficult to achieve any results.

Hong Chengchou was no longer as hesitant as before regarding the current situation. At this moment, a burst of dense footsteps was heard, followed by Lekedehun's voice.

"What a good Tong Yangjia! He made us prepare for nothing!"

After hearing the words, Hong Chengchou withdrew his attention. When he turned around, he saw that the joy on Lekede's face was no less than that of the surrounding generals. He also responded with a smile.

"General Tong's gun formation was indeed too powerful, but I didn't expect that Prince Beile had made such a wasted trip."

According to their original plan, the Confederate Army would resist for a while due to their powerful firearms.

By then, Tong Yangjia's Wuzhen Chaoha would tie down the Ming army on the front, preventing it from leaving the battlefield, while Lekedehun would personally lead the cavalry to attack its flank.

As a result, these thousands of Ming troops became meat on the chopping board. Even if they could evacuate the battlefield under the cover of the main force, they would inevitably have to pay some price.

Now that Lekedehun had appeared on the city wall, it meant that in his opinion there was no possibility of outflanking the flank.

However, defeating the Ming army at the first blow was considered to have barely achieved the original goal. Like Hong Chengchou, he also had the idea of ​​boosting morale. After the atmosphere around them reached a climax again, the two of them began to discuss in a low voice.

"Now that the Ming army has been defeated, I don't think they will take the initiative to attack. Should we change our original arrangement?"

According to their original plan, after gaining the upper hand outside Huai'an City, they should defend the city carefully and look for another opportunity.

This is certainly a safe method.

After all, their purpose was only to confront the Ming army in order to reverse the trend of successive defeats. As long as they could have a reasonable victory, Beijing would exaggerate it.

Even if they evacuated Huai'an by then, it would only be because of the unfavorable terrain and they would move to the north, not because the Southern Army was so strong that Huai'an could not be defended.

Of course, they have won now, but the result of this victory is too little compared to earlier expectations.

In essence, beheading a few hundred people could be considered a war on the scale of tens of thousands, but beheading a few dozen would be too difficult, so he became interested.

"Does Lord Beile have other plans?"

"You are too polite, Grand Secretary. How can I, a warrior, have any plans? But Tong Yangjia's gun formation looks good. Should we be a little more cautious?"

Although Lekedehun's words were obvious, he did not put forward any practical plans in the end. However, Hong Chengchou had been in the officialdom for so many years that he was very good at observing people's words and expressions. When he heard the words "zoom in a little bit", he immediately cast his sights on the Ming army camp outside the city.

There is another Ming army camp more than ten miles behind this camp, and the shore of Hongze Lake is about twenty miles away.

Earlier, they were not sure whether Wu Zhen Chaoha's gun formation could defeat the experienced Ming army's gun formation, so they could only be conservative when making plans. But now the situation outside the field has proved that the Ming army is not invincible, and it seems not unacceptable to change the previous plan.

just
"What Lord Beile said is true, but I have no plan in such a hurry. I wonder if Lord Beile has any method to defeat the enemy?"

There was a hint of expectation in Hong Chengchou's words, as if he really had no plan. Seeing his performance, Lekedehun didn't think much about it, and then poured out his thoughts without hesitation.

"Grand Secretary, the two camps of the Ming army seem to be advancing step by step, but they have no cavalry to protect them. If we send an army to disrupt their food supply, we may not necessarily abandon Huai'an."

"Can you be sure?"

This question was nonsensical and did not specify what the question was about, but Lekede's mind was as clear as a mirror, and he had already given a detailed explanation before the question was even finished.

"It is certain that the scouts who were sent out last night carefully checked the footprints while the Ming army was not paying attention. Apart from large animals carrying heavy loads, there was no trace of a large number of war horses."

Hearing this, even the extremely cautious Hong Chengchou couldn't help but be tempted.

If they could really rely on the advantage of cavalry to cut off the Ming army's food supply in this battlefield of less than three or four hundred miles in radius, then this battle would certainly achieve great results.

By then, it will not only deter certain forces on both ends of the Rat Head, but also make it easier to move north of the Yellow River.

As for what we mean by holding on to Huaibei.
This idea is naturally a good one. By occupying this place, we can control the intersection of the Yellow River, Huai River and Yun River. In the future, whether we use it as a base to seek an opportunity to move south, or as a fortress to block the Southern Army, the location of Huai'an can be considered excellent.

But then again, this is only the case when the enemy's strength is equal.

Although their side had built some warships at this time, they were inferior to the Ming army in terms of both quantity and familiarity of the soldiers and generals.

Thinking that we can defend Huai'an under such a comparison of power is probably too much.

His thoughts turned again, and Hong Chengchou automatically ignored Lekedehun's subsequent words. Then he moved closer to him, as if he was ready to discuss cutting off the food supply route.

But who would have thought that just as he opened his mouth, the voice coming from outside the city suddenly became much heavier. When they looked outside the city with some doubt, they saw flashes of fire in the Ming army camp. "Boom!"

"boom!"

"boom!"

Is this a cannon?

How dare Tong Yangjia chase to the enemy camp? !

Faced with this extremely sudden turn, both Hong Chengchou and Lekedehun could not help but stand there in a daze, and the atmosphere in the city completely froze at this moment.
-
"Load!"

"Fire!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

As military orders were issued one after another, the muzzles of the Tianzihao magic cannons extended from the camp fence and fired shells into the Qing army's gun formation one after another.

At this time, most of the Ming troops had retreated into the camp, and the rest gathered around the camp gate. After seeing this situation, Tong Yangjia thought this was the best opportunity to expand the results of the battle. However, he did not expect that just when he got within the range of the muskets, the artillery of the Ming army camp emitted a series of roars.

I have to say, this was a beautiful counterattack.

After landing, Chang and Mei had been planning to advance step by step. Not only did they set up two camps in just one day's journey, they also deployed various types of magic guns and cannons around the camps.

Due to the distance and the density of the Qing army's formation, the already flat Tianzihao Shenchuang cannon demonstrated great lethality, and the Qing army, which was still pursuing the victory the moment before, was immediately forced to flee in panic.

If it were Hong Chengchou and Lekedehun in Huai'an City, they would have celebrated after seeing such casualties, but Chang Guanlin and Mei Chun had gloomy faces, obviously feeling aggrieved about the first defeat of the imperial guards.

"Don't be depressed. The losses aren't big anyway. It's not wrong to say that we lost first and then won."

Chang Guanlin, who had been in the Nine Frontiers, was more open-minded than Mei Chun. When he saw a group of generals stopping not far from him with annoyed faces, he first said a few words of comfort to Mei Chun.

However, Mei Chun had never suffered a defeat in battle since he began to lead the troops, and he remained silent even after being advised by his colleagues.

Seeing this, Chang Guanlin knew that it was pointless to say more, so he waved to the defeated generals, and only forced a smile after they came closer to him.

“You did a great job!”

When he heard the words, everyone thought he was speaking in a sarcastic way. The older ones were fine and just lowered their heads with a dejected look on their faces. However, young and energetic people like Xu Wenjue even bit their lips.

Chang Guanlin is not the kind of person who is sarcastic and weird. He has some long-term considerations in his actions.

In the final analysis, it was because the two armies in the front and rear were operating too smoothly under your majesty's planning and arrangements.

The situation of the front army was slightly better, as they had finally wasted some time in Jiangxi. As for the rear army, since they had fought a battle with the Tatars outside Yingtian City, they had always relied on their sharp firearms to crush the enemy.

Compared with these two sides, the Central, Left and Right Armies have all fought in real tough battles, and have since been transformed into truly powerful armies in Your Majesty's hands.

Chang Guanlin had understood this a long time ago, and naturally wanted to find some tough battles to make the front army truly a force that could be compared with the other three armies.

However, Your Majesty had no choice but to take risky moves due to lack of strength at that time. Starting from the southwest, he relied entirely on his strength to crush the enemy and rarely encountered any tough battles.

Faced with this situation, even if Chang Guanlin wanted to train his men again, he no longer had the opportunity.

So when his initial frustration disappeared, he immediately realized that this was a good opportunity for his guards to be reborn, and this was not a sarcastic remark.

"How can a soldier who gets paid have never seen a defeat? Moreover, your retreat has a reason and you did not disband. Just this alone can be considered the seed of a strong army!"

After saying this, Chang Guanlin glanced at the faces of those generals.

But his words seemed to have no effect, and everyone still hung their heads, looking dejected.

Seeing this, he didn't say anything. He waited for a few people to go back and reorganize the troops before turning his attention back to Mei Chun.

"What? Are you upset?"

"I get the highest pay and the best equipment, but... Hey!"

In response to Chang Guanlin's advice, Mei Chun only said two sentences and then sighed heavily.

Although it was the two of them who issued the order to withdraw, the soldiers did not directly collapse during the retreat.

But in the final analysis, this army, which had cost the imperial court countless resources to build up, was defeated by the Tartars.

Even though they later took advantage of the Tartars' unpreparedness and used artillery to attack them, the defeat was still a real one.

Faced with such a situation, Mei Chun, a military general who had spent half his life in the Xiaoling Mausoleum, naturally felt guilty about the emperor's grace, and it was understandable that he was unable to change his mind for a while.

"Your Majesty always says that fortune and misfortune go hand in hand. Although we have suffered a small setback, at least we have brought out the Tartars' trump card." Mei Chun couldn't help but look up at this point. After seeing his reaction, Chang Guanlin continued, "Didn't the Jinyiwei discover earlier that there was a group of people of unknown origin in Huai'an? I think it must be them."

"Well, it's them."

"Yes, we used a small defeat to draw out the Tatars' trump card. Isn't this a good deal?"

After Chang Guanlin finished speaking, Mei Chun couldn't help but show some confusion on her face.

After all, he was a determined man. After thinking about it for a while, he turned his attention back to the business.

"I think there were at least three to four thousand people there. I'm afraid this is not all of them."

"Of course, Your Majesty has already predicted that the Tartars will have to defend Huai'an for a while, otherwise they will not be able to give an explanation to the various parties inside. There must be a lot of troops here."

Although Chang Guanlin did not explain it, his covetousness for the Qing army in Huai'an was obvious.

Seeing this performance, Mei Chun couldn't help but frown, obviously worried about the lack of musketeers on his side.

To get to the bottom of it, although the Jinyiwei were unable to find out how many musketeers the Qing army had, judging from their camp, its scale must have been quite large.

Apart from the hand-to-hand combat soldiers in the front army and the artillerymen in the rear army, they only have more than 6,000 real musketeers.

As the commander of the rear army, he naturally knew that the melee soldiers had almost no ability to fight back when facing muskets, and the more than 20,000 people in the front army were just extras in his eyes.

But to his surprise, Chang Guanlin came up with a clever idea during this period of time, and whispered in his ear before he could say anything more.

"Can this be accomplished?"

(End of this chapter)