When the Mongol cavalry appeared from the south, all the Ming troops chuckled in their hearts: the Mongols really didn't leave.

Only Gao Yimin, who was on the northern front, was slightly surprised, and held the telescope for a while.

It is understandable that the Mongols did not run directly out of the forest, after all, the distance from the forest to the place where the Ming army lined up is a bit close, if they come out of the forest directly to attack the Ming army, although the reaction time that the Ming army can get will be shorter, but it is also difficult for them to let the war horses run and speed up, and they cannot meet the needs of the charge.

If they were just facing ordinary Ming guards, Buzhhatu obviously wouldn't mind this, because as long as the Mongol cavalry rushed in front of them in the field, their morale would collapse on their own, and there was no need to think about the lack of speed in the formation.

However, the Ming army that went out this time can be seen from the equipment alone to be elite, so it can't expect to fight a battle like chopping melons and vegetables, and it is necessary to give full play to its advantages.

Gao Yimin could understand this, but he was surprised that the Mongols would choose to assemble on the southern front.

The defenders of the southern front were Zhang Wanbang's troops, and the banner of "Guerrilla General Zhang of the Liaoyang Left Battalion" fluttering high in front of the battle could be clearly seen from afar, and it was not that no one in the Mongol army knew Chinese characters, so they had no reason to find the wrong opponent.

Liaoyang originally did not have a left and right battalion, and the two positions of guerrilla in the left and right battalions in Liaoyang were newly added recently, in order to adapt to the changes that had occurred in Liaodong's military strength to increase again. Among them, the guerrilla general of the left battalion is Zhang Wanbang, and the guerrilla general of the right battalion is Ma Lin, but he has not yet arrived at his post - Ma Lin was originally in the northwest with the army to quell the chaos, and now the northwest is determined, and he still has some military exploits to count, so he has not had time to rush over.

Zhang Wanbang's fame in Mongolia, even if it does not reach the level of thunder, at least it is certainly not a lonely person. Twice the Mongol cavalry was defeated in front of the battle, which gave him the nickname "Bayonet General", and it was called out by the Mongols.

This time, the maps were still aimed at Zhang Wanbang's troops and gathered on his southern front, which immediately made Gao Yimin a little vigilant.

In this kind of war, most of the time, it is important to strike a weak enemy first, because it is better to break through a weak enemy, and after a breakthrough, it is easy to form a momentum of breaking bamboo, so that the opponent has no time to adjust, and the army is defeated like a mountain.

But there are times when it is possible or even necessary to do the opposite, first striking a strong enemy, breaking and intimidating the enemy in one fell swoop. Before the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang had Chen Youliang in the upper reaches and Zhang Shicheng in the downstream, Chen Youliang was strong and Zhang Shicheng was weak, and most of the strategists believed that Zhang Shicheng should be fought first at this time, and then compete with Chen Youliang in the rich land of Suzhou and Hangzhou.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang disagreed, thinking that Zhang Shicheng was born as a salt dealer and was a small businessman in his bones, although he occupied a rich land, as long as he didn't force him to be in a hurry, he would not easily play with others. Chen Youliang is different, this person is ruthless, murderous, does not know what righteousness is, and will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

If he hits Zhang Shicheng first, Chen Youliang will not be able to sit idly by, and he will definitely take the opportunity to raise troops, and when the time comes, he will suffer from the enemy on his back, and defeat will be inevitable. On the contrary, if Chen Youliang is attacked first, Zhang Shicheng will at most try to send troops to see if he can take advantage of the opportunity, and will never attack with all his life, so Zhu Yuanzhang tried his best to overcome public opinion and insisted on fighting Chen Youliang first, and finally won a hard battle, laying the foundation for the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty.

If Zhu Yuanzhang's first attack on a strong enemy here is more often a matter of "materializing people like gods", which is not a simple tactical issue, then the Lunan Battle during the Red and Blue War before the liberation is more revealing.

At that time, the Battle of Subei had already hurt the Blue Army, and it also scared the Blue Army, and all the units of the Blue Army that were attacking suspended their attacks. Xue Yue, director of the Xuzhou Pacification Office, ordered the reorganized 74th Division, which captured Lianshui, to attack north.

However, Zhang Lingfu disobeyed the order and did not move, and he had to wait for the arrival of reinforcements from all walks of life before he was willing to march north, and the troops were closely attached to each other, covering each other to advance north.

At that time, the distribution of the Blue Army was as follows: the integrated 11th Division of the Southern Front was in Suqian, and the integrated 74th Division was in Chenshi'an, and it confronted the 6th Division, the 9th Column, the 2nd Column and the 7th Division of the Central China Field Army across the canal and the Liutang River. The 7th Army of the Blue Party was in Siyang, and the 28th Division was reorganized in Lianshui.

On the Western Front, Ma Liwu's 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column attached to the Ministry of National Defense of the Blue Party had already advanced to the east of Yixian and were preparing to attack Linyi, the capital of the Shandong Liberated Region, while Zhou Yuying's 51st Division was stationed in Zaozhuang, and Feng Zhi'an's 77th Division and 59th Division were stationed in Taierzhuang.

After the Battle of Subei, Chen Cheng, then chief of staff, went to Xuzhou to analyze the current strategic situation with Xue Yue, director of the Xuzhou Pacification Office. Chen Cheng and Xue Yue believed: "After a bitter battle, the Eastern Front Corps successively occupied Yancheng and Lianshui in northern Jiangsu, and the Red Army in Central China had lost its base and could only retreat to southern Lunan, while the Red Army's Shandong Military Region relied on the Shandong Peninsula, the Shandong Peninsula was deep into the sea, and the mountains such as Yimeng and Laoshan were undulating in the middle, and the terrain was intricate and complicated, and the Red Army claimed to have been operating for eight years and was deeply rooted.

In addition, Yantai, Longkou and Luda are only separated by a water, and it is easy to obtain foreign aid, so Shandong has become the best base area for the Red Army and probably the longest to defend. Shandong's gains and losses also play a decisive role in the domestic war situation. ”

Chen Cheng and Xue Yue came to the conclusion that after the loss of northern Jiangsu, Chen Yi's Shandong field army had to defend Shandong. The Blue Army can completely adopt the strategy of "attacking and defending" and fight a decisive battle with our Shandong field.

At the same time, our army Chen Shuai and General Su Da discovered that the enemy's 74th Division, the 7th Army of the Gui Army, and the 11th Division of the Gui Army were attacking Shuyang in an attempt to flank our army.

The Central China Field Army clashed several times with the enemy's reorganized 74th Division in Huaibei, and the reorganized 74th Division became the old enemy of the Central China Field Army, and all the people in Huaye insisted on fighting to the death with the reorganized 74th Division to avenge the revenge of Huaiyin and Lianshui. As a result, around "where to fight, who to fight", Huaye and Shanye high-level internal debate launched.

Huaye wanted to fight a decisive battle with Zhang Lingfu's reorganized 74th Division in Lianghuai or northern Jiangsu, while Shanye had to return to Lunan because the situation in Lunan at that time was also very tense: Ma Liwu's integrated 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column advanced all the way, and it was only 30 kilometers away from Linyi, the capital of the Shandong Liberated Region.

The lawsuit reached the center, and Mao instructed Chen and Su: "The battle of Lunan is related to the overall situation, and there is a way to recover even if all the cities in northern Jiangsu are lost." You must concentrate the 1st, 6th, 8th, 4th, 9th, and 10th Divisions, as well as the 1st Column, the Police Brigade, and other units, and have the necessary time to prepare for deployment, with a view to fighting a battle of annihilation that is even greater than that of Subei. The first battle seems to be appropriate to fight the three brigades of the 26th Division, because this division is the main force in Lunan and the division was annihilated, and the overall situation has improved. I hope that it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. ”

In the telegram, Mao clearly demanded that the Huaye and Shanye armies go north to Lunan and organize the Lunan Campaign, and proposed to attack Ma Liwu's integrated 26th Division first, and asked Wang Jian'an's Luzhong troops to also participate in the Lunan Campaign. Chen and Su resolutely carried out the instructions of the central center and decided to immediately organize the Lunan Campaign.

The specific process of this battle is not to be said, but the final result is that more than 30,000 people from the 44th and 169th Brigades of the 26th Division of the Blue Army, the 1st Rapid Column Tank Battalion, the Engineer Battalion, the 5th Artillery Regiment, the Transport Regiment and the 20th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Brigade were completely annihilated by our army, and 24 tanks, dozens of American heavy artillery, and more than 200 trucks were captured.

Ma Liwu watched as the main force of his reorganized 26th Division and the First Rapid Column were wiped out by our army in the county seat of Yixian County, and Cao Yuheng, the deputy division commander who had escaped by chance, fled back to Yixian County with a small number of remnants of the defeated generals.

Xue Yue was worried that our army would cut off the Jinpu line, so he ordered Ma Liwu to gather his troops and hold on to Yixian. At the same time, the 51st Division of Zhou Yuying was ordered to hold Zaozhuang, and Feng Zhi'an's 97th Army was ordered to hold Lincheng, forming three isolated strongholds.

At that time, there was only a complete regiment of the 51st Division, plus the remnants of the 26th Division, a total of less than 10,000 people, as well as 7 tanks and more than 30 artillery pieces.

After defeating a strong enemy, it is easy to deal with a weak enemy. In the end, when the 18-day Lunan Campaign ended, in the East China Battlefield, the Lunan Campaign set a new record, annihilating more than 53,000 people in 2 integrated divisions and 1 fast column of the Blue Army at one time, including more than 17,000 prisoners. 24 tanks, 470 automobiles, and more than 200 artillery pieces of various types were captured. It recovered Yixian, Zaozhuang and the areas east of them, and smashed the enemy's plan to attack Linyi and destroy the main force of our army in East China.

This campaign was a counter-the-counter to Mao's suggestion that our army should "first attack a weak enemy, and then a strong enemy", but it also came from Mao's decision. The so-called impermanence of soldiers and impermanence of water are clearly shown here.

However, it is not common for someone to be able to accurately grasp the key to "when to fight a weak enemy and when to fight a strong enemy". Gao Yimin didn't understand very well that the Mongolian army chose to fight Zhang Wanbang at this time.

The most critical point here is that from the perspective of the situation, all units of the Ming army are called elite, and it is unlikely that the whole army will be shaken and then collapse because of the defeat of Zhang Wanbang's department. What's more, the most famous feature of Zhang Wanbang's department is to fight the Mongol cavalry head-on, and whether the Mongols can defeat him is still two theories.

But the reality no longer gave Gao Yimin more time to doubt, and after the Mongolian army appeared on the southern front and quickly completed the assembly, it had already launched an attack on Zhang Wanbang's department on the southern front of the Ming army without hesitation.

In this attack, there was no tactic of the Mongolian army's most habitual rangers approaching and shooting and then quickly withdrawing, and the Mongolian army in front of Tumen Daxu directly launched a charging offensive, decisive and crisp.

It seems that Buzhihatu learned the lesson of Xin Ai and fried flowers at the beginning, and knew that the range and lethality of the cavalry bow and shooting were not as good as the elite musketeers behind the Ming army's bayonet array. These musketeers, armed with Wanli 1 or even Wanli 2, were able to inflict heavy casualties on the Mongol cavalry when they could not reach the cavalry, and the tactics of approaching the cavalry and then leaving the battlefield could not be used in front of them.

Therefore, Burihatu raised his strengths and avoided his weaknesses, and simply exerted the power of the charging formation to the extreme, and the opening was a decisive rushing formation.

Just when Gao Yimin was still in the rear (he was on the northern front) was shocked by Buzhihatu's decision, Zhang Wanbang in front had already sneered: "Learn to be good, you know that if you want to break the bayonet formation, you can only fill it with your life?" Very good, Lao Tzu will take a look today, how many dog lives you plan to fill in! ”

He roared: "Scatter the ground, retreat ten steps back and stand in formation!" ”

The Ming army in front of him shouted a promise, picked up a piece of wood from his side and went forward. These planks are what Zhang Wanbang called "astringent", which is not an ordinary plank, and on the side of the plank facing up, rows of Jinghua iron thistle terrestris are arranged.

These thistles are slightly different from the past thistles, but in fact the effect is the same, except that the handmade production is turned into a mechanical twist production, using a machine driven by a waterwheel to twist and intertwine the two sections of iron wire into a four-cornered thorn shape.

Tribulus terrestris can be sprinkled on the ground alone but in large quantities, and can also be made into this kind of "ground astringency", the main advantage of ground astringency is that it is more suitable for guarding the key points of the enemy's attack, as well as convenient recovery.

Of course, the Mongolian war horse has a horseshoe, and generally speaking, the horse's hooves will not be scrapped because of stepping on the thistle, but if the war horse steps on the ground, it will usually step on the ground and then fly around. The astringency of the flying ground is a wooden board covered with thistles, hitting a person or a horse, like a barbed wire mesh with thorns on the face, it is difficult to say whether you will die or not, but you basically have no choice but to run if you lose your combat effectiveness in an instant.

However, at this time, the Mongolian army obviously could not follow the previous practice of "refusing to suffer casualties", and they now made it clear that they wanted to attack at any cost. Therefore, after these astringencies were quickly thrown out, the Ming army did not look at them again, and immediately began to arrange them according to the standard state of the bayonet array.

The bright three rows of bayonets stood diagonally in front of the formation, as auraous as a forest of hellish knives. After the bayonet was the typical musket three-stage reserve, the paper-shell fixed ammunition had already been loaded, the flintlock ignition device of the gun had been checked in advance, and the bolt was pulled up, and it only needed a command to shoot.

A little further behind are the artillery. Due to the preciousness of the artillery and the use of bayonet arrays, when carrying out the bayonet formation tactics, the artillery is arranged in the rear, so it is necessary to adjust the muzzle firing angle on the gun carriage to form a projectile shape, so as not to accidentally injure your own infantry with direct fire.

Zhang Wanbang watched with a cold face as the Mongol cavalry rushed towards his formation and gradually increased the speed of his horse as the distance approached, he was unmoved, but the experienced eyes measured the distance between the two armies.

He has to calculate more than one distance, including the firing distance of the artillery, the firing distance of the musket, etc., all of which need to be calculated by him and immediately form a command command. Fortunately, the No. 2 gun usually does not participate in this kind of field battle, and he only needs to calculate the firing distance of the No. 3 and No. 4 guns at the moment, which is finally a little less workload.

"Gun No. 3 salvo ready! One, two, three, ignition! ”

With Zhang Wanbang's roar, the battle of Yehe River officially began.

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