Although Zhang Nai has never been to the beach, he also knows that from Tianjin Wei to the east along the Wei River, there is the sea. For the generals of the Dashun Army, who were born inland and grew up inland, the sea was so unfamiliar, from Zhang Nai to Li Zicheng, the emperor of Dashun, everyone knew that Chen Yue was going south with Chongzhen, but no one thought that they would escape along the sea route.

And they are not to blame, after all, the sea is too strange to them! If you flee south by sea, you can naturally escape to the south, but who would have predicted this method?

This is not good, if Chongzhen really went south from the sea by boat, then he couldn't catch up if he wanted to, Zhang Nai's expression suddenly became serious. If you can't catch Chongzhen, how can you explain to King Chuang and his old man?

"Build a pontoon bridge and storm it!" Zhang Nai said to the deputy general.

"No, General, the traitor cavalry is on the other side, their firearms are too powerful, and there are several tiger squat cannons, and the casualties of the assault are too great." The adjutant general said with a bitter face, he lost more than 200 brothers in crossing the river earlier, and he really couldn't afford to hurt himself.

"Didn't you see them fleeing by sea? If it's too late, you won't be able to catch up! Zhang Nai said angrily.

"Or, let's take a detour to the south and cross the river secretly!" The adjutant general thought for a moment and cautiously suggested.

"Alright, that's it! You take half of your brothers here to make a feint to cross the river to attract their attention, and I take the other half of my brothers around it. Zhang Nai thought about it and nodded.

Zhang Nai, with half of the cavalry, quietly went south, in order to avoid being discovered by the cavalry of the Xishan Army on the other side of the canal, he deliberately went around a few miles to the west, until he could not see the canal in sight, and then turned south.

Knowing that there were sentinels in the Xishan Army, Zhang Nai was afraid that the Xishan Army sentinels would find out and make the river crossing fall short, so he ran south for more than 20 miles, and then turned back to the canal. Far from Tianjin, there is an empty wilderness everywhere, and the canals are empty, not even a small boat, and the war has depressed the once busy canals.

Although the width of the canal was only a dozen zhang, it was not easy for cavalry to wade through. If you want to cross the river, you must find a ferryboat, or build a pontoon bridge, looking at the empty river, Zhang Nai suddenly felt worried, and had no choice but to send his men to find the ferry.

After half a day's effort, his men finally found a dozen or so boats, but it was already dark. Most of his subordinates were landlubbers, and even Zhang Nai himself was not accustomed to water, so he had no choice but to camp for the time being, waiting for tomorrow dawn to cross the river.

Early the next morning, when the sky was light, Zhang Nai kicked his men up one by one, and after eating dry food and feeding the war horses, he immediately began to erect a pontoon bridge. More than a dozen small boats crossed the river, connected end to end and tied with cables, forming a narrow pontoon bridge.

However, when pulling the war horse pontoon, the war horse neighed and couldn't help retreating, this kind of pontoon bridge trembled and even the war horse felt the danger, forced to pull and scold, the cavalry forced the war horse onto the pontoon bridge, carefully jumped from one boat to another, and went to the opposite bank, until he stepped on the solid ground on the opposite bank, a heart was put down.

It took more than 1,300 cavalry an hour to cross the canal, and a dozen more men and horses fell off the canal, and by the time they all reached the other side of the canal, it was already mid-morning.

"Let's go!" After Zhang Nai sorted out the team, he took the lead and galloped north, but before he could travel two miles, he heard the sound of hooves like thunder in front of him, and a cloud of dust approached quickly.

This, this is a cavalry, a cavalry corps no less numerous than oneself! Zhang Nai was stunned for a moment, he planned to quietly run to the vicinity of Tianjin Wei, sneak attack and defeat the cavalry of the Xishan Army by the canal, lead the other half of his men to cross the river, and then go east to chase the fleeing dog emperor Chongzhen, but he didn't expect that just after crossing the river, a cavalry rushed towards him. It was definitely not his subordinates who stayed on the other side of the river, it should be the cavalry of the Xishan Army who found out that he had crossed the river and killed him.

"Kill!" Zhang Nai shouted angrily, pulled out his saber, pointed straight ahead, clamped his legs on the horse's belly, and the war horse screamed, and his speed suddenly increased.

When the brave wins when they meet on a narrow road, they will naturally have to do it in this case!

.....

Naturally, it was the cavalry of the Xishan Army, and after Chen Yue led the troops to guard for a day yesterday, he felt that the fleet was almost at the mouth of Dagu, and even if the army was chasing now, it would definitely not be able to catch up.

Since the retreat by sea is unharmed, Chen Yue will naturally not delay any longer, time is life, maybe the Shunjun brigade is on the way to Tianjin.

So early this morning, he ordered the whole army to set off, abandoned the Tianjin Acropolis, and the whole army came south.

Not long after leaving, the cavalry did not receive a report at night, and a cavalry was crossing the river ten miles away. Chen Yue ordered the whole army to advance quickly, this is a good opportunity to attack half-crossing, who knows how late it is, the cavalry has already crossed the canal and is killing here.

Then what else is there to say, I can only do one game!

With Yu Feng's department as the vanguard, Ma Chuang's department as the left wing, and Li Yulin's department as the right wing, Chen Yue himself took the brigade as the central army, put out a glaive formation, and killed the cavalry of the opposing army.

The strength of the two sides is equal, the Xishan army has more horses than the Chuang army, this is a cavalry duel between Ming and Shun, and both sides of the battle are the most elite cavalry.

In the early days of the uprising, the army was composed of some homeless people, who did not understand cavalry combat at all, and were often killed by the Ming cavalry and fled. Later, as more and more border troops of the Ming Dynasty surrendered, the full army also formed its own cavalry team, of course, most of the cavalry were surrendered Ming troops. Therefore, in terms of combat effectiveness, the cavalry of the Chuang army and the cavalry of the Ming army are almost the same, after all, the soldiers on both sides turned out to be in the same camp.

However, the current Xishan Army is not an ordinary Ming army, this team has been established as a self-contained system from the beginning, and it is very different from the previous Ming army in terms of equipment and tactics.

Among the cavalry of the Xishan Army, at least half of them were armed with three-eyed firebolts, and the others did not have firearms, but there was also at least one modified hand crossbow. When the army was built, it was an imaginary enemy with the Manchurian Eight Banners cavalry, but Chen Yue himself knew that his subordinates did not have the ability to mount and shoot like the Eight Banners, especially the Eight Banners of the Mongolian Banner, everyone could ride and shoot.

Most of the cavalry of the Xishan Army have just learned to ride horses, not so much cavalry, but rather a mounted infantry, of which less than one-third are really proficient in horsemanship, and it is too difficult to rely on cavalry to charge into battle, unless it is a unit that encounters scum of combat effectiveness. Therefore, Chen Yue tried every means to equip the cavalry with three-eyed firearms and crossbows, in order to improve the cavalry's long-range attack power.

Of course, Zhang Nai had no way of knowing the situation of the cavalry of the Xishan Army, and he thought that it was the ordinary cavalry of the Ming Army that rushed on the opposite side. According to the previous way of fighting, the two sides just hedged, knife to knife and gun to gun, and everyone was in a fight. The brave wins when they meet on a narrow road, and it doesn't matter what the formation is!

Who knew that when the distance between the two sides was 100 meters, he suddenly saw the opposing cavalry raising their firearms one after another, and then there was a continuous sound of "bang, bang, bang", Zhang Nai's ears were buzzing, and the sound of "Zizi" breaking the air echoed in his ears, which was the crossbow of the Ming army shooting, and then there was a scream and the sound of falling horses one after another.

The cavalry that rushed to the front was constantly hit by the fire and fell off their horses. Then there was a continuous sound of fire, and Zhang Nai was furious to see the cavalry around him and in front of him constantly falling off their horses. But at this time, it was too late to retreat, so I could only grit my teeth and continue to move forward.

Although he didn't look back, Zhang Nai also knew that his side had suffered a big loss, but he didn't have time to think about it, because the enemy cavalry was already close at hand. He raised his long knife and slashed at the oncoming enemy horseman, but saw that the enemy raised the fire gun in his hand unhurriedly, and with a loud bang, the long knife slashed at the barrel.

The two horses were staggered, Zhang Nai ignored the rushing enemy horse, and was about to draw his knife and cut again, when another enemy horse held a stick-shaped thing and smashed it fiercely, but he used the empty three-eyed firearm as a short stick. Zhang Nai hurriedly held the long knife to block, and when the weapons collided, Zhang Nai felt a huge shock in the tiger's mouth, and the long knife in his hand almost came out of his hand.

Chen Yue straddled the war horse, he did not use the three-eyed firearm, but held a spear in his hand, and followed the team forward, carefully watching the situation on the battlefield. Before contacting, the soldiers of the Xishan Army fired a round of firearms, and at least three or four hundred enemy troops were shot, and the front of the cavalry ranks of the Shun army was almost empty.

According to tactics, the cavalry in front will slow down their horses after firing their guns, and the cavalry behind will accelerate past their comrades and continue firing guns. The glaive formation adopted by the Xishan Army seems to be thin, but it sandwiches the incoming cavalry from three aspects, and this formation can give full play to the power of the firecracker. After the cavalry emptied the three-eyed firecracker, they carried the handle and used the three-eyed firearm as a short stick, even if it was in contact with the intruding army, it did not suffer any loss.

From a distance of 100 meters when the firecrackers began to fire, to the two sides of the array collided together, in a short period of time most of the cavalry were emptied of the firearms, but this round of bombardment, to the cavalry of the invasion brought huge damage, hundreds of cavalry were shot at the same time, so that the cavalry behind the cavalry were all frightened, and the front of their own men and horses fell down to make the cavalry formation of the invasion army more chaotic, it can be said that before the real short-range encounter, the invasion army has shown its defeat.

The two sides really fought each other, the enemy and our cavalry were relatively impactful, mixed together, Chen Yue had no time to observe carefully at this time, and he danced his spear and fought with the enemy army rushing from the opposite side.

An enemy cavalry rushed towards him, and the cavalry on the horse raised his long knife high, ignoring the long knife Chen Yue who fell, and the spear in his hand stabbed straight into the abdomen of the opposite cavalry, and the cavalryman's long knife could no longer fall, and it slashed weakly above Chen Yue's helmet.

Under the gallop of the war horse at high speed, the spear pierced into the opponent's body and could not be withdrawn, Chen Yue decisively gave up the spear and pulled out the long sword from his waist. When he slashed an enemy horse under his horse again, the opposite side was empty, and there were no more enemies.

Observing left and right, he found that the number of cavalry around him had not decreased much, and Chen Yue was relieved that he knew that he had not suffered a loss in this round of attack. Then he issued an order, and after hearing Chen Yue's order, the guards who followed closely behind his war horse waved the battle flag, and when they saw the flag, all the cavalry slowly stopped and rearranged the array.

After a little look, and found that his men had lost less than 100 cavalry, Chen Yue nodded, and issued orders one after another, and all the cavalry turned their horses' heads one after another, preparing for the second round of charge.

When I turned back to the war horse, I saw that on the battlefield behind me, the corpses of hundreds of war horse soldiers were poured horizontally, and flags and weapons were scattered everywhere. Not far away, the cavalry of the invading army was also regrouping, and the two sides were preparing for a second round of fighting.

"General, more than five hundred brothers have died!" The adjutant general said to Zhang Nai with an ugly face, "I can't fight anymore!" ”

It's just a rush to kill, forty percent of the cavalry under his command are killed, and the rest of the courage is cold, the Xishan Army has too many firearms and too powerful, and his cavalry does not have the ability to attack from a distance at all, this battle is really impossible to fight.

Looking at the enemy cavalry arrayed on the opposite side, although they did not rush immediately, Zhang Nai knew the reason, and they must be loading the firearms. There is no way to fight again, maybe just another charge, and there will be little cavalry left. Zhang Nai bit his lower lip tightly, and a stream of fishy hot liquid flowed into his throat, and his lip had been bitten.

Since you can't fight anymore, you have to retreat! Looking at the enemy cavalry slowly approaching again, Zhang Nai sighed and ordered to retreat.

"The enemy is back!" The soldiers of the Xishan Army cheered one after another. Chen Yue ordered to clean up the battlefield, treat the injured and fallen brothers, and kill the wounded enemy by the way. More than 20 of their own cavalry who had fallen off their horses were found on the battlefield, more than 50 ownerless horses were captured, the wounded soldiers were tightly tied to the horses, and the whole army was ordered to continue to retreat.

Zhang Nai crouched on his horse, galloping quickly, full of frustration. Since following Li Zicheng to start the army, especially in recent years, in the face of the successive victories of the Ming army, how could he have suffered such a big loss! A battle knocked away the arrogance in Zhang Nai's heart, and at this moment, he no longer had the naïve idea that the Dashun army was invincible.

Not only Zhang Nai, but almost all the soldiers who broke into the army were in an extremely gloomy mood, for fear that the Xishan army would chase after them, and they fled in a hurry one by one.

"General, they didn't chase!" Listening to the shouts of his subordinates, Zhang Nai slowed down his horse's speed, and when he turned around, he saw that the Xishan Army was rapidly withdrawing.

"General, what shall we do?" All the soldiers stopped, looking at their commander one by one.

What to do, how do I know what to do! Zhang Nai smiled bitterly in his heart, the difference in combat power between the two sides is too great, what's the point of catching up again?

"General Liu Fangliang has already sent troops in the direction of Qingxian, and he will definitely be able to intercept them!" Zhang Naidao, but he didn't have a bottom in his heart, even he was defeated by the cavalry of the Xishan Army, Liu Fangliang's army was all infantry, could he stop them? Also, weren't they going to retreat from the sea, and why did this cavalry go south by land? At this moment, Zhang Nai's heart was very confused.