Wang Youscale's judgment was quickly transmitted to Yuan Zizhang, the commander of the detachment, who immediately ordered a complete contraction of defenses to cross the Crane River and retreat from the west bank.

Wang Youscale's report was this, a lightly armed French army of more than 4,000 men marched south from the west bank of the Crane River with their baggage, and their baggage was burned to the ground, including copper shells.

Yuan Zizhang cared more about the '4,000 lightly armed French troops' in front of him, if this was the case, the 4,000 French troops who did not carry artillery, even if they were coordinated by foot and cavalry, would only be a hard dish in the face of the 1,800 Beiyang Army under his command.

The military skills of the Beiyang Army have been learned in Tianjin, and they have basically been proficient in the past few years in the East, and there is only one item for them to strengthen their training in addition to shooting - in the face of the empire's expanding territory and security needs in the New World, they will travel thousands of miles from Changshengwei to Mexico City to carry out a rapid march with light and heavy equipment.

Lightly armed, without artillery or baggage, carrying only the necessary rations for seven days and 50 cartridges of ammunition, the banner army of the size of a thousand households marched 500 miles in five days, and could be put into battle when it arrived at the locality.

With heavy artillery equipment, the march will be two to three days slower, and the uncertainty caused by artillery is great.

Their enemies now carry artillery without artillery, suggesting that there are other armies with heavy weapons in response.

The soldiers and horses were assembled in batches within an hour, and crossed the Crane River westward with the prefabricated pontoon bridges of Yuan Zizhang's troops, and thanks to the only materials left to build the pontoon bridges, they could be hung far behind the buttocks of the discovered enemy troops, and advance in the direction of returning to the defense line of the Dordogne.

came out to explore the way, and Yuan Zizhang didn't think about relying on his 1,800 men and horses to fight the French army.

However, the Ming army did not panic, they had long expected an overreaction from the enemy army...... Two hundred miles deep into the hinterland of the people, sweeping the stronghold on the way, the enemy will only have two reactions.

Either flee or organize an army.

Now it seems that the reaction of the French was clearly the latter.

After walking south for a day and a night, in the early morning of the third day, Li Dai, who was resting as a pioneer, saw a tired family member under his command again, at this time the half-mounted war horse had disappeared, and under him was a large horse used by the French to pull the cart; The helmet and bones were gone, there was still a crossbow arrow embedded in the breastplate, the thick shaft of the arrow had been broken, the lips were chapped and the face was tired, and the troops were relieved to see the rest of their lives after the catastrophe, and they opened their mouths but did not speak.

Li Dai rode up from afar, waved his hand and threw the water bladder over: "Don't speak, drink water first." ”

After drinking two sips of water, he swallowed his saliva and said: "Captain, I have been chasing the baggage team, they are going faster and faster on the road, until last night when they kept up with the large army, and their army was about 4,000, with many people and few horses, camping and cutting down trees and repairing bridges, and one day they should cross the river." ”

"Crossing the river?" Li Dai recalled that Wang Youliang said that the French army should have one or more troops, and asked eagerly: "Does their camp have artillery, and how far is it from here?" ”

Jia Ding pondered with his eyes, shook his head, and said: "I didn't see the cannon, so I went along the river twenty-three or four miles to the south, and the river was rerouted into a bay, and the camp was stationed on the high ground, and the hillside was clearly visible from three miles away. ”

Li Dai didn't say more, and it was impossible for him to let his family go to rest during the march, but he just let him take a breath, and then turned around to find the direct commander Wang Youlan, and followed the three of them to meet the general Yuan Zizhang.

The general who was born as a martial artist didn't say much when he heard the news, and took out two sketches of the general drawings they had drawn along the way from the little bison leather bags on his and his adjutant's waists, and handed one to Li Dai: "Let your most capable rider take it with you, send it back to General Bordeaux Chen, and set off immediately." ”

In another picture, a line is drawn with charcoal, and the tone is flat: "It takes an extra eighty miles to enter an undiscovered area, and in three days we can cross the Dordogne River and return, and our soldiers have only three days of grain and grass left; When we return to the defensive line, the enemy forces will also converge and fight a positional battle on the Dordogne, where the mercenaries of the Western Army can help. ”

As he spoke, Yuan Zizhang drew another route on the map with a pen: "Or catch up, fight with the thieves, punish the head of the thief, take their baggage, take all the shells and winter clothes, and teach their partial teachers to have artillery without bullets, bullets without medicine, soldiers without clothes, and specialize in enduring bitter cold." ”

Yuan Zizhang turned his head, looked at the reaction of the guerrilla general, and said to Li Dai's family: "Can you draw a map of their camp...... Never mind. ”

Jiading is not the Beiyang Banner Army, Yuan Zizhang thinks that this kind of professional skills that everyone will know is difficult for them, but Jiading really took a pen and paper to draw it, although it is crooked, but it is so interesting to draw it, the bank of the river meanders and turns first there is a valley and then a highland, and the coast is a forest, and the French army is stationed in the highlands and builds bridges in the valleys.

There was another low hill in the north of the camp across the dense forest, and the family said that if you climbed up, you could get a panoramic view of the enemy camp.

Wang Youlan looked at the sketch drawn by Jiading, frowned and said: "The two cavalry of the Heavenly Army are only more than 100 hundred, if General Chen's Kanggulu led the Jurchen cavalry to follow this battle, it would be big, at this moment, it is best to lead the enemy army to the forest, otherwise the enemy cavalry will attack with guns and will be difficult to resist." ”

Speaking of this, the guerrilla general glanced at Yuan Zizhang, and before setting off, Chen Jiujing specially reminded them that they didn't have to take it seriously when they met a light horse with a spear and chain mail, and a good spear and thorn on the bird were enough to scare them away, and those horses that followed were not professional enough and were afraid of sharp things.

But the knights of France are all reckless, and the men and horses are specially trained, relying on the armor and horse harness, not to mention the bird stabbing array, outside the city of Bordeaux, don't care about the large array formed by the eight spears or the wooden fence to resist the horses, they dare to collide hard.

Knock the horse to death, roll the knight up, drag the wooden fence to the side, and rush into the position to cut a piece of the Han pirate who lacks armor like chopping melons and vegetables.

This kind of thing is a great threat to the line formation commonly used by the Beiyang Army.

Yuan Zizhang counted the few artillery pieces in his hands and the magic arrows that the general department could use in a centralized manner, thinking in his heart that it was still very possible to clean up the enemy army that built the bridge, but it was still a little difficult to make up his mind - the reward of cleaning up at least a dozen nobles in World War I was extremely tempting.

In the same way, the enemy army, which is twice as strong, is still under the defense of the camp, and there is still one or more enemy troops with unknown locations on the side, and there is a risk of total annihilation.

"What do you think?"

Wang Youlan nodded viciously: "General, order each hundred households to check the ammunition, everyone is ready." ”

Next to the two of them, Li Dai also clenched his fists, and his eyes showed a fanatical look yearning for battle.

Below Yuan Zizhang, the officers who knew Fu Yuan's true purpose, the lower their rank, the more they hoped to get themselves a set of plate armor with heraldry.

The admiral of the detachment took a deep breath, his eyes swept over the two of them to look at the heavy army formation that was marching, and finally made up his mind: "Send the order, the whole army will check the ammunition, send the cavalry to patrol for twenty miles, and march south." ”