Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 497 Enemy Attack
The Jiannu did come.

Huang Taiji's tactics were exactly the same as Zhu Shenzhu's judgment. Except for some of his Eight Banners soldiers who were stationed outside the capital to contain the main force of the Ming army, the rest of them were plundering around the capital. Man Gui commanded the Ming army to move to Yongding Gate without any warning. As soon as the army moved yesterday, Huang Taiji, who was paying close attention to the movements of the capital, understood what the Ming army was going to do. With his keen sense of smell, he immediately judged Man Gui's goal and sensed the opportunity.

If Man Gui had stayed in his original station, Huang Taiji might not have had this idea, because since the war began, the stations of the Xuan and Da tribes were both near Andingmen. As time went by, the Ming army camp near Andingmen had become established, and with the cover of the Ming army's artillery on the city wall, it was not easy to break through the Ming army's defense head-on.

But now Man Gui led his troops to move directly from Anding Gate to Yongding Gate, which was equivalent to abandoning the original stable camp and directly setting up a new camp in another place. This approach seemed to be nothing on the surface, it was nothing more than moving troops, but in fact such a troop transfer was very dangerous, especially if the original camp was lost, including the defense line set up outside Anding Gate, and it was impossible to start over at Yongding Gate in a short time.

The camp was just set up yesterday evening, and Mangui's troops had no time to make full defensive preparations. At present, they only set up some fences outside the camp. As for other means, they had not yet used them. Originally, Mangui planned to use these two days to reset them, but he never expected that Huang Taiji would come so quickly. Just after one night, the main force of the Eight Banners arrived.

When Huang Taiji learned that Man Gui had moved his troops, he quickly mobilized the army. Except for the Eight Banners that were originally in the capital to monitor the Ming army, the Eight Banners that were plundering near Liangxiang and Huangcun received orders to turn around and return quickly. They joined Huang Taiji's headquarters in the early morning, and the total force reached more than 12,000 people.

When the troops arrived, Huang Taiji ordered the entire army to attack. He wanted to take advantage of Man Gui's unstable foothold to defeat the Ming army. When the Ming army heard the movement of the cavalry and reacted, and the various Ming army units in the camp were about to gather urgently, Huang Taiji commanded the Eight Banners soldiers to rush over from three sides.

The galloping of thousands of horses is breathtaking.

In the blink of an eye, thousands of elite Eight Banners cavalry appeared from the south, southwest and southeast directions. The sound of horse hooves hitting the ground was shocking. The extremely ferocious Eight Banners elite came roaring and arrived in front of them in the blink of an eye.

The Ming army was shocked and defended hastily. At that time, most of the Ming army had not had time to prepare. The cavalry came so quickly that they did not give them much time.

At this time, generals such as Man Gui and Hou Shilu were the first to react and urgently integrated the troops to launch a defense. However, the Ming troops that had just assembled accounted for less than one-tenth of the entire army. Most of the rest of the Ming army was still in a panic. Many soldiers could not find their generals, and generals could not find their soldiers. Most of the soldiers did not even have time to equip themselves with cotton armor and weapons. They ran around the camp with empty hands and looks of fear on their faces.

Seeing this scene, Man Gui frowned and glanced in the direction of the Eight Banners. His hands holding the knife were full of sweat.

"General Hou Shilu!"

"The humble position is here!"

"You stay in the camp and quickly gather the troops. I will lead the people to stop the Jiannu first!"

"General Man, please let me go!" Hou Shilu said anxiously. He was accompanied by several hundred personal soldiers, and his other subordinates had not arrived yet. As for the army below, it was in chaos because of the surprise attack of the Eight Banners. Man Gui was not much better off. As the main general, he had only a thousand men around him. He had no time to react in such a hurry.

"The military situation is urgent, no need to say more, go quickly! Go quickly!" Man Gui did not give Hou Shilu a chance to refute, and directly issued the military order. As a veteran of many battles, he knew very well that if he could not organize the army effectively, everything would be over when the Eight Banners soldiers rushed to the front.

Although the total number of the Ming army was not small and was not weaker than that of the Eight Banners, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army was not as good as that of the Eight Banners, and now the Eight Banners were launching a surprise attack, the Ming army was attacked without any preparation. In addition, the camp at Yongdingmen was hastily set up yesterday, and the defense capability was not strong. Once the cavalry rushed in, it would be completely over. All Man Gui could do now was to rely on the fence set up yesterday to block the wave of attacks of the Eight Banners soldiers and try to buy time for the assembly of troops. Now, except for himself, the highest-ranking person in the Xuan army was the general Hou Shilu, and he was the only one who had the ability to help him assemble the army quickly.

After giving the order, Man Gui drew out his long sword without hesitation and waved it in the direction of the Eight Banners attack: "My men! Follow me to kill the enemy!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Man Gui roared and led nearly a thousand people towards the front of the camp. Under Man Gui's encouragement, these thousand people were fearless and followed Man Gui. For a while, the shouts of killing shook the sky. Everyone knew that they must stop the Eight Banners soldiers, otherwise the camp would be finished.

Seeing Man Gui turning around to kill, Hou Shilu was stunned for a moment, but he quickly came to his senses and stamped his feet without hesitation, and hurriedly turned around to organize the army. He ran back to the center of the camp and asked his personal soldiers to immediately raise his general flag, and shouted loudly to the soldiers in the camp who were running around like headless flies, asking them to quickly gather around his general flag and reorganize. At this time, Hei Yunlong happened to rush over. He reacted very quickly and brought more than a thousand men with him. When Hou Shilu saw Hei Yunlong arrive with more than a thousand fully armed men, he was immediately overjoyed. Without thinking, he ordered Hei Yunlong not to wait here and quickly go to reinforce Man Gui.

At this time, Deputy General Ma Dengyun also arrived with hundreds of people. Hou Shilu directly gave him the same order, asking him and Hei Yunlong to reinforce Man Gui. After receiving the order, the two led their troops to reinforce Man Gui quickly. At this time, Man Gui and his men could no longer stop the attacking Eight Banners.

In just a few minutes, the Eight Banners soldiers rushed to Mangui's camp from three directions. Although there were fences outside Mangui's camp, these fences could only block infantry and were of no use in stopping cavalry.

The Eight Banners soldiers in the front were well prepared to deal with these things, and when they got close, dozens of them waved the lassoes in their hands and threw them forward with force. The lasso cut through the space and caught a corner of the fence in an instant.

Then, the Eight Banners soldiers did not stop their horses at all, and they urged their horses to change from a frontal charge to a sideways run. Driven by the power of the horses, the erected fences could not hold up at all and were pulled out of the mud in a blink of an eye.

In just a few breaths, a large section of the fence was destroyed by the Eight Banners. Without the obstruction of the fence, the Ming army's camp was equivalent to letting go and allowing the enemy to gallop.

At this time, the Eight Banners soldiers behind came galloping over. They did not rush into the camp directly, but drew their bows and shot on their horses. The sound of countless arrows breaking through the air rang out, and the Ming army behind the fence screamed in pain and fell down in an instant.

"Where are the shields! Shields! Put up your shields!" Man Gui's eyes turned red when he saw this scene. He didn't expect the Eight Banners to be so fierce. The fence outside his tent couldn't even stop the Eight Banners soldiers for a moment. Seeing the arrows flying, Man Gui hurriedly shouted to put up shields to resist, but his men didn't have any shields at all, because the incident happened suddenly and they were not prepared at all. They were hastily fighting, and it was good enough that they arrived so quickly.

The Eight Banners' cavalry archers were indeed strong. The Ming army was instantly killed and wounded by the continuous arrows. Man Gui tried to counterattack several times but couldn't get through at all. Even he was hit by two arrows. If it weren't for the good defense of his armor and the desperate protection of his personal guards, this commander might have been shot into a hedgehog by the Eight Banners.

"Marshal, shall we retreat?" The personal guards advised hurriedly. The Eight Banners were too brutal and too good at fighting. Although Man Gui's subordinates were not afraid of death, the question now was not whether they were afraid of death or not, but that they had no way to fight.

The infantry were fighting against the cavalry and were attacked without any preparation. Now even the fence of the camp was destroyed. If they continued like this, they would not be able to stop the enemy.

"Retreat! We must hold on even if we can't! Anyone who disrupts our army's morale will be killed!" Man Gui's eyes widened with anger. He stretched out his hand to push away the guards around him, brandished his sword and shouted: "My men! Today is the day to serve our country and kill the enemy! Hold on! Hold on!"

After shouting, Man Gui reached out and grabbed a small shield, protected his head and face and continued to advance, and the morale of the guards around him was greatly boosted by seeing their commander so brave. After everyone shouted, they followed Man Gui and charged towards the Eight Banners cavalry in front of them. Seeing that Man Gui and his few hundred men dared to counterattack even after suffering heavy casualties after the fence was destroyed, the Eight Banners generals were also surprised and for a moment were stunned by the ferocity of Man Gui and others.

But even so, the reaction of the Eight Banners was still not slow. The Eight Banners soldiers' horse riding and archery did not stop at all. Dozens of cavalrymen who had rushed to the nearby area rushed directly into the gap, waving their sabers and hacking continuously. In a moment, they killed many Ming soldiers.

Seeing this, Mangui was furious. He rushed to the nearest Eight Banners soldier without hesitation. He could see clearly that the equipment on this Eight Banners soldier was different from that of the other Eight Banners soldiers. He was wearing the most elite white armor among the Eight Banners. Holding a shield in one hand and a knife in the other, Mangui rushed to the front like a gust of wind. The white armor soldier who had just killed another Ming soldier saw Mangui coming towards him and did not retreat but advanced. He smiled grimly and swung his knife at Mangui. Seeing that Mangui was about to die under the knife, just when the white armor thought that Mangui would be killed by his knife, Mangui suddenly dodged the knife by turning sideways, so that the knife that the opponent was determined to kill actually missed.

Before Bai Jia could react, Man Gui rushed forward directly. His left hand holding the shield and his body hit the right side of the opponent's horse. The force of the collision was so great that Bai Jia's horse could not withstand it, and it fell sideways with a neigh. Bai Jia, who was riding on the horse, had never expected such a situation to happen. He was careless and lost his balance on the horse. He clamped his legs tightly around the horse's belly. He was about to rein in the horse to keep his body stable when Man Gui's backhand arrived.

"Jiannu! Die for me!" Man Gui roared, and swung the sword in his right hand without hesitation. Bai Jia was instantly scared to death when he saw this. He raised his right sword to block Man Gui's blow, but it was too late. He saw a flash of snow in front of his eyes, followed by a pool of blood. Then, Bai Jia's head was chopped off by Man Gui's sword. The headless body spurted out a stream of hot blood, shook twice on the horse, and finally fell to the ground.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" After killing Bai Jia with one sword, Man Gui did not stop and continued to move towards the next target with the sword in hand. The personal soldiers behind him saw that their commander was so morale-boosting, and they shouted "Kill" loudly, and followed Man Gui to kill the enemy with all their might.

(End of this chapter)