When Zhong Mingyuan returned to the Chinese army, he bumped into Ding Kuichu coming towards him surrounded by guards, and hurriedly bowed on the side of the road, "I've seen Lord Dutang." ”

Ding Kuichu looked at the appearance of the dust around him, raised his eyes to look at the nearby terrain, and couldn't help but snort coldly: "Shizhi is really cautious, so a flat land has to investigate the enemy's situation?" ”

Zhong Mingyuan had no choice but to bow his head and say, "Yes." ”

Ding Kuichu ignored him anymore, and turned his head to ask Chen Jiaodao: "Is there any news about the Tanma sent to Wuzhou recently?" ”

"Back to the Governor's Hall, no one has returned." Chen Ke hurriedly added, "I think that Wuzhou has been surrounded by water, and the enemy army is very strict in patrolling, and his subordinates have sent additional manpower to go. ”

In fact, Zhu Linwei had already blocked all the roads near Cangwu, and anyone could only go north and not return south for the time being.

When Ding Kuichu heard the words "surrounded by water", he felt anxious again, and ordered Chen Ke to urge the army to speed up.

"Look!"

Before Chen Jiao left, Ding Kuichu's guards suddenly pointed to the west and shouted. The crowd hurriedly turned their heads to look, and saw smoke billowing from the poplar forest in the distance, and in a moment, the fire was already faintly visible.

Ding Kuichu pulled Zhong Mingyuan over and said sharply, "Can you explore the woods?" ”

"My subordinates have taken a closer look, and there is nothing unusual in the forest!"

But he did not know that although the low bushes in the forest could not be hidden, there were a large number of linen straw ropes soaked in fire oil and sulfur placed in them, and it was impossible to see them from a little distance.

Only a dozen people galloped through the forest with torches and set these things on fire. It was a hot day, and the bushes themselves were extremely flammable, so a fire broke out in the woods in the blink of an eye.

Soon, the shrubs that spewed flames ignited the poplars around them, and the fire suddenly became even more intense.

Even if Ding Kuichu is dull, can he still not know that someone set the fire at this time? In other words, there must be an enemy ambush nearby.

He hurriedly encircled his mount, ordered the whole army to stop advancing, and formed a formation on the spot to meet the enemy.

But before, when he saw that this place was flat, he kept ordering a rapid march, and his men and horses could not care about any formation under the urging of the officers. More than 14,000 horses had already dragged the team into a sparse and sparse column more than five miles long, according to their different steps.

At this time, when they suddenly heard that they were about to form a formation, the front team hurriedly looked for the Chinese army, and the Chinese army was in a hurry to contact the rear team, but when they looked up, they found that they were still several miles away. For a while, some of the low-level officers ordered to retreat and join the brigade, and some ordered to form a formation in place to defend, and the scene suddenly became chaotic.

At this moment, there were dense snare drums on the east and north sides, and the neat drum beat made Ding Kuichu's heart panic. They couldn't help but stop their movements, and followed the prestige, when they saw a group of men and horses dressed in dark green military uniforms suddenly appear in front of them, lined up in a neat line, lined up in a long snake formation, blocking the road more than two miles wide.

Then the same long snake formation appeared on the gentle slope on the east side, looking condescendingly at the army below the slope.

Ding Kuichu's scouts took a lot of effort to find him among the chaotic troops, and hurriedly shouted: "Report! On the east and north sides, enemy ambushes were discovered, and about four or five thousand people were touched. ”

"But four or five thousand?" Ding Kuichu was stunned when he heard this, and he hurriedly stood on his horse and looked into the distance, and when he saw the Dragon Guard line less than a mile away, the look of horror on his face faded.

"I'll just say how can such a spacious terrain ambush an army. The enemy army actually lined up a thin long snake formation, and they wanted to use this to block the way of our army? ”

He straightened his clothes, calmly pointed forward with his horsewhip, and ordered Chen Jiao in a loud voice: "Let you lead the forward battalion to quickly rush away from the enemy formation on the north side and clear the way for the army." ”

"Subordinates obey!"

Ding Kuichu looked around again, and saw that the soldiers were all huddled together in a mess, and frowned and ordered Zhong Mingyuan, "You lead your men and horses plus two thousand sword and shield men to take down the formation on the east slope, and beware of the enemy taking advantage of the chaos to rob our Chinese army." ”

"Subordinates obey!" Zhong Mingyuan had just taken two steps, then turned around and returned, and hesitated, "Dutang, King Chen's main force is only four or five thousand people, and now this ambush has this number, is it ...... They gave up Wuzhou to come here? ”

"That's where the battle stands!" Ding Kuichu yelled impatiently, "What are you doing here?" Hurry up and arm to the east! ”

Zhong Mingyuan originally wanted to say, "The enemy must be deceitful, so we should close our formation and guard against it until the artillery arrives." But in the end, he only opened his mouth and walked away.

On the other side, Chen Ke held the banner and ordered the forward battalion to line up. The forward battalion is the most well-equipped elite unit under Ding Kuichu, almost everyone is equipped with full-body cotton armor, and it has always been the support of Ding's to fight tough battles.

It's just that at this time, under the chaos of people and horses, Chen Jiao gathered 16,700 people for a long time.

He glanced at the line of the Dragon Guard not far away, thinking that now these centaurs only need to concentrate on attacking the enemy, which should be enough to break through this thin formation.

So he raised his saber and shouted, "For every enemy killed, a reward of ten taels of silver!" Follow me! ”

……

Zhang Jiayu looked at Ding Kuichu's messy army in the telescope, and couldn't help but shake his head slightly, less than a mile away from the enemy, it was a good opportunity to fire artillery to kill the enemy, but he didn't know why His Royal Highness the Auxiliary King only let the artillery battalion stand by.

Suddenly, he saw a team of brightly armored men and horses rushing out of the enemy formation, rushing towards the defense line of the Dragon Guard, he hurriedly turned to Zhu Linmiao and said, "My lord, there are enemy ......."

Zhu Linmiao nodded, put away the binoculars, and saw the enemy troops rushing over.

He glanced behind him again, there was still no one on the flat wasteland, and he couldn't help but sigh in his heart, Zhu Youlang, this kid, dropped the chain at a critical moment. It is no wonder that the Yongli Dynasty in history has a general like Li Dingguo, but it still failed to save the defeat of the Ming Dynasty.

He then turned around and said to Zhang Jiayu: "Implement it according to the B-word plan." ”

"Yes!"

The gunners of the Dragon Guard were staring at the approaching enemy forces in front of them, and at this time they were less than two hundred paces away, but they still did not see the order flag to open their cannons.

The ammunition had been loaded a long time ago, and the ignition hand was sweating with the ignition stick.

One hundred and eighty steps!

One hundred and forty steps!

One hundred steps!

They could already vaguely see the appearance of the Gui army, and suddenly, the military drums behind them sounded, and the pipe team on the side of each cannon raised the order flag at the same time, shouting the order, "Release!" ”

At the same time, in the infantry line array, all the infantry and 200 chasseurs who were blocking the enemy head-on shouted in unison with the command given by the commander, "Release!" ”

In an instant, more than 1,300 Chasseur guns, 600 flintlock guns, and fifteen field guns on both flanks almost erupted in a loud bang.

The dense rain of lead bullets immediately slammed into the forward battalion led by Chen Jiao.

The accuracy of the Type 2 Hunter Gun is undoubted, and almost more than 30% of the Mini shells hit the target. Although most of the flintlock shots missed, they also killed at least sixty or seventy enemy soldiers.