Just as Dai Shan looked at the Jiang Ning army under the mountain and gritted his teeth, Yang Feng also looked at the Houjin army on the mountain and let out a sigh. Although the power of the hollow phalanx is very strong, the biggest disadvantage is that it can only defend and cannot attack, and in the face of the enemy who can't fight and run, this phalanx composed of all infantry and artillery can only stare dryly.

"Haha...... Joyfully...... It's really painful...... "This."

At that time, Zhao Shujiao rode a horse to his side, and his face was still stained with blood, and after coming to Yang Feng's side, he patted Yang Feng's shoulder vigorously and laughed: "Today's battle is really too happy, brother, didn't you see it just now, brother, I killed at least four or five Tartars with my own hands today, I killed them with my own hands!" ”

"Congratulations, brother!" Yang Feng barely showed a hint of a smile.

"What, brother, why are you unhappy?" Zhao Shujiao looked at Yang Feng and asked very puzzled: "Brother Yang, we have won a big battle, why do you seem to be a little unhappy?" ”

"It's a little upset indeed." Yang Feng said calmly: "This time we fought very well, we could have severely injured these Tartars, but in the end we let them escape, I am really a little unwilling." ”

"Unwilling?"

Zhao Shujiao stared at him as if he was looking at a monster and looked at him carefully for a while: "I said Brother Yang, you can't be too greedy, in the past, we were able to behead dozens of Tartars It was already a great victory, if we could behead one or two hundred, we could report to the imperial court, today we have at least five or six thousand, this is a great victory that has never been before, are you still not satisfied?" ”

"A big victory?" Yang Feng glanced at him angrily, shook his head and said: "Brother Zhao, although there are a lot of gains in today's battle, most of them are dead soldiers composed of some auxiliaries and Mongolian tartars, and it would be good if the real Jurchen tartars could have two thousand." ”

"That's a big victory!" Zhao Shujiao was a little angry and pointed to the corpses on the ground and shouted, "Look at it...... What is that? That's all Tartars, you don't care if he's a Jurchen Tartar or a Mongol Tartar, or a coat or an auxiliary, they're all Tartars, I just know that our brothers are going to be developed this time, you know? ”

Looking at Zhao Shujiao, who was a little out of shape with excitement, Yang Feng suddenly understood a little bit about the problems that he had been ignoring all along, and he had always looked at these Jurchens with the eyes of the future.

In the impression of later generations, the Manchurian Eight Banners have always been synonymous with cowardice and incompetence, they smoke opium, they play with dogs and birds, the vast majority of them can't even ride horses, tens of thousands of troops can flee in the face of thousands of British and French allied troops, and the Beiyang Naval Division was wiped out by a small country.

This also made Yang Feng subconsciously ignore the predecessors of these Manchurians, the Jurchens were one of the strongest forces in the world at that time at the end of the Ming Dynasty, they could enter the Central Plains with a population base of less than one million, and rule this country with tens or hundreds of times their population for hundreds of years.

"Well, it seems that the younger brother did ignore something." Yang Feng nodded and admitted his negligence, today's battle can indeed be called a great victory, a battle that makes the entire Liaodong ...... No, the whole court was shocked by the victory.

"Then what does Brother Zhao think we should do now?" Being good has always been Yang Feng's code of conduct, he doesn't think that he is from the next generation, he will be smarter than people hundreds of years ago, they are experts in many things, such as how to deal with this great victory, Zhao Shujiao is more experienced than himself.

Seeing that Yang Feng was not complacent or did not take himself in his eyes because of this great victory, Zhao Shujiao also nodded secretly in his heart, this Yang brother did not become swollen because of this victory, but was still so modest, it seemed that he was a person worthy of deep friendship.

He had the heart to befriend Yang Feng, he pointed to the dry grass ridge and said patiently: "The Tartars should have been hurt by us, and they don't have the courage to fight us again in a short time, so the only thing they can do now is to withdraw their troops immediately, otherwise they will only suffer if they confront us again." ”

"What if the Tartars are not willing to fail?" Yang Feng raised his own questions.

"If the Tartars are not willing to fail, then they will increase their troops." Speaking of this, Zhao Shujiao's face also became serious, but he immediately shook his head and said: "It's just that the current Tartar forces in Shenyang are about 20,000 to 30,000, and the rest of the soldiers and horses are scattered in Liaoyang, Guangning, Yizhou, Fushun, and Tieling. And if you want to defeat us, you can't even think of an army of less than 30,000, so I don't think the thief chief Nurhachi will be so short-sighted. ”

"Well, that's too." Yang Feng nodded, the Jurchens in this era are not like themselves with a time and space where materials are so abundant that people are overnourished, once a country mobilizes more than 100,000 troops in this year, then at least the same number of logistics personnel are needed to serve it, if this war becomes a protracted confrontation, it will be a disaster. Now the number of soldiers and horses of Daishan and Amin has exceeded 20,000, and if there are more troops, it will definitely not be less than 30,000, as long as Nurhachi still has the brains, he will not do such a stupid thing.

Looking at Yang Feng's contemplative face, Zhao Shujiao's heart was both envious and a little jealous. This Yang Feng is really a geek, he can achieve such brilliant results with less than 10,000 soldiers and horses, and after this battle, this son will definitely shock the entire court. Although he is still only a staff general, it won't be long before he, the chief officer, will have to salute when he sees him in the future.

Zhao Shujiao was right, about a quarter of an hour later, the Houjin army on the opposite side sounded a continuous sound of horns, and the Houjin army on the dry grass ridge began to slowly retreat. However, their retreat was also quite orderly, not a honeycomb retreat, but the foot soldiers went first, and then the cavalry began to open up to the wings and set up a goose-shaped formation, if the Ming army wanted to pursue at this time, it would be a headlong into the encirclement of the Houjin army.

Seeing the orderly retreat of the Houjin army, Yang Feng was very unwilling, and his brows furrowed into a Sichuan character. Zhao Shujiao, who was on the side, saw his thoughts and scolded with a smile: "Brother Yang, what are you sighing, if I were you, you should be laughing from ear to ear now, do you know what reward you will get once today's credit is reported?" A Zuo Du Du estimates that that's the minimum, aren't you satisfied? ”

"Not really." Yang Feng was a little unwilling: "The junior brother just sighed that it would not work without cavalry, if the junior brother has eight thousand iron horsemen in his hand at this moment, none of these Tartars will want to run." ”

"Eight thousand iron riders? How dare you think about it! Zhao Shujiao was startled at first, then shook his head and said with a smile: "Do you know how many cavalry there are in the entire Liaodong, less than 20,000." In this way, it is still accumulated over the years, and you want to have 8,000 cavalry in just one guardhouse, how is this possible? Do you know how much silver it takes to raise a cavalry of eight thousand men? Isn't this counting, how much silver does it cost to feed such a large cavalry, and how much silver does it cost to eat and chew horses every day? ”

Zhao Shujiao said these words to remind Yang Feng not to be ambitious, but to persuade him to be down-to-earth. I never thought that this guy would not appreciate it, but this guy actually smiled and said: "Brother Zhao, you don't have to worry, but anything that can be solved with silver is not a problem." ”

"Eh, that's a big mouth. I'll have to wait and see, brother. Zhao Shujiao was almost angry, this little brother is not very old, but his breath is not small, and he openly shouted out that the problems that can be solved with silver are not problems.

Unexpectedly, this guy licked his smiling face and said to Zhao Shu: "That ...... Brother Zhao, there is something I want to ask you. ”

"What's the matter?" Zhao Shujiao asked knowingly, pretending to be confused.

Yang Feng touched his nose and asked a little embarrassedly, "What's that...... I just want to ask, where did you get your horses? ”

Seeing Yang Feng's embarrassed look, Zhao Shujiao couldn't hang him anymore, and said: "There are generally three ways for our Liaodong cavalry to have war horses, one is to provide them from their own horse farms, and Daming has a tradition of horse politics since its beginning, but now that the horse government system has collapsed, Daming can no longer provide many war horses." The second is to buy from the Mongolian tribes, after all, although the Mongolian horses look inconspicuous, but their endurance is notoriously good, the reason why Genghis Khan was able to dominate the world in the past is that the Mongolian horses are made by the Jurchen Tartars, and their war horses are also very good, but since the battle of Sarhu, this road has also been broken. ”

"That's right." Yang Feng lowered his head and thought for a while, "It seems that if you want to get a large number of war horses in a short period of time, you can only ask those Mongolians." The rest, whether it was within the Ming Dynasty or buying war horses from the Jurchens, would not work. ”

Zhao Shujiao Zhengse said: "It's not impossible to buy war horses from the Mongols, for example, the Duoyan tribe often sells war horses to my Daming, but now the strength of the Duoyan tribe has declined significantly, I'm afraid there is no way to provide you with so many war horses." ”

Yang Feng's eyes rolled, "Brother Zhao, which tribe is the strongest in the Mongolian tribes now?" ”

"The two tribes of Korqin and Khalkha." Zhao Shujiao replied without hesitation: "The Horqin tribe has the closest connection with the Jurchens, and the Jurchens support them is also the greatest, and now this tribe has at least 100,000 troops and 20,000 cavalry, which is the strongest tribe in southeastern Mongolia, and the Khalkha tribe is bordering the Jurchen Tatars, and its strength should not be underestimated." ”

"That's right." Yang Feng's eyes showed the same light, and he muttered, "It seems that we will have to fight the autumn wind with these two tribes in the future." ”

"Hey...... I said, Brother Yang, don't come nonsense. Zhao Shujiao was taken aback when he heard this, he couldn't care about the rudeness, grabbed Yang Feng's arm and said urgently: "I know that you want to form a cavalry, but this kind of thing is not done overnight, brother, the four thousand cavalry under my command also took seven or eight years to slowly prepare, even if you want to form a cavalry, you can't be too anxious, you can't eat fat in one breath." ”

"I know it in my heart, brother, you can rest assured." Yang Feng smiled and patted his arm to signal him not to worry, "Let's send someone to clean up the battlefield first." ”

After chatting, Yang Feng and Zhao Shujiao sent people to the surrounding guards and sent people to follow the Tartars from a distance, to prevent the other party from killing a horse pistol while sending people to clean up the battlefield, and at the end of the afternoon, the night that was sent out to follow finally returned, and the Houjin Tartars had retreated to Guangning and Yizhou respectively, and the camp outside the Dalinghe Fort also began to pull out the camp. By this time, the battlefield had also been cleaned up, and Rao is Yang Feng and Zhao Shujiao had already prepared in their hearts, and they were also stunned by the results of the battle.

After counting, they seized a total of 2,006 Jurchen Tartar heads, 2,025 Mongol Tatar heads, and 2,685 other auxiliary soldiers, coats, etc., which add up to more than 6,000 heads.

Zhao Shujiao suppressed the strong excitement in his heart, and hurriedly urged Yang Feng to load all the heads into the cart and return to Jinzhou immediately, but Yang Feng hesitated a little.

"Brother Zhao, we were ordered to come to the aid of Dalinghe Fort, and now that the Tartars have retreated, is it a little inappropriate for us to return to Jinzhou without even saying hello to them?"

"Brother, you're too worried." Zhao Shujiao didn't care about Yang Feng's worries, and said disdainfully: "Now that the siege of Dalinghe Fort has been lifted, our mission can be regarded as complete, and now we can't get out of trouble with anyone who has withdrawn to Jinzhou." Besides, if we have a bloody battle with the Tartars here today, don't the defenders of Dalinghe Fort know anything about it, but if they have a little brain, they should go out of the city to attack the Tartars with us, but how did they do it? The seven or eight thousand defenders of Dalinghe Fort cowered in the city and didn't even dare to go out of the door, such a person I Zhao disdained to be with him. ”

Yang Feng stopped talking, Lao Zhao, you are so reasonable, I was speechless.

"Okay, let's go back to Jinzhou, but it stands to reason that we still have to send someone to Dalinghe Fort to say something."

"Well, that's fine."

While sending someone to Dalinghe Fort to deliver the letter, the two returned to Jinzhou without looking back......

When Zhou Xian and Yuan Chonghuan of Dalinghe Fort received the letter sent by Zhao Shujiao and Yang Feng, they looked at each other, a little ashamed and a little incredulous.

Zhou Xian looked incredulous, and asked the messenger in front of him, "Are you saying that you have defeated the Tartars and are now returning to Jinzhou?" ”

"Exactly!" The messenger said: "Today, our army and the Tartars fought fiercely for half a day in the Dry Grass Ridge, and the Tartars were severely damaged, and the Tartars had to withdraw their troops in a hurry. ”

Yuan Chonghuan, who was on the side, carefully looked at the letter in his hand for a while before asking, "Are you really reinforcements from Jiangnan?" ”

The messenger replied: "Exactly, we are all under the command of Jiangning Wei Yang, a few days ago I was ordered to come to the rescue of Dalinghe Fort with General Zhao Shuojiao, and now the siege of Dalinghe Fort has been resolved, General Yang and General Zhao said that there is no need to come to Dalinghe Fort again, and Yushi will return to Jinzhou." ”

Yuan Chonghuan and Zhou Xian's faces turned red, and it was obvious that they both heard the meaning of each other's words.