December 6 of the first year of the Great Jin Dynasty, the sixth day of the first lunar month.

The battle of Cangzhou began suddenly, which no one expected, although both sides have made sufficient preparations and attach great importance to this battle, but no one expected that the bloody battle in Cangzhou would be fought in the form of a small-scale encounter.

He Renlong led the leading troops, marching in the direction of Cangzhou, the Ming army and the valley where the Houjin Tartars were stationed, he was very clear, the three-dimensional picture had been constructed in his mind, according to the campaign deployment, this operation, his task was to lead the leading troops, and the Ming army to carry out real contact battles, the battle did not need to be in-depth and continuous, the main thing was to test the bottom of the Ming army, after Su Tiancheng and Hong Chengchou's repeated warnings, He Renlong was finally sober a lot, they were facing more than twice their own coalition forces, Among them, there are also the most courageous post-Kim Jong white flags and white flag-inlaid Tartars, this battle is not ordinary. Besides, using a vanguard of 20,000 people to make a test is also a very rare situation, which shows the importance of Su Tiancheng and Hong Chengchou.

With such thoughts, He Renlong was very cautious, and he participated in the attack with Li Dingguo, who had the title of desperate San Lang, and He Renlong also repeatedly told Li Dingguo that he must not be excited, no matter how favorable the battle situation is, he must always keep a clear head, after all, the other party is a coalition army of more than 150,000 people, and it is definitely not something that can be defeated in one or two battles.

The route of progress has long been clear by scouts.

Interestingly, the development of the encounter was not in the original planning place, that is to say, Chen Xinjia, Wang Daozhi and Dolgon's plan fell through, and the offensive plan planned by Su Tiancheng and Hong Chengchou could not be realized because of this encounter.

At midnight, the army came to a small village.

It's a small village with no name. There are only about a dozen households in the village, and it is still more than 30 miles away from Cangzhou City, and more than 20 miles away from the ambush site designed by Chen Xinjia.

Li Dingguo led the soldiers to walk in the forefront, the army was dominated by cavalry and artillery, and the horse's hooves were wrapped, so as not to cause too much shock, which has become a habitual action of the Jiangning battalion's march, whether it is necessary or not, in the process of marching, the horse's hooves need to be wrapped with cloth or straw. When the battle began, these pieces of cloth or straw were removed, although it was said that there was no direct request for this march, but He Renlong and Li Dingguo were arranged according to such requirements. The soldiers did exactly that.

Winter in the north, the time of the day. It was not yet dawn.

Just as I was passing through the small village. Before Li Dingguo and the soldiers could react, bursts of arrows suddenly shot out from the small village, and many soldiers were injured and even fell to their deaths directly.

At first, he thought it was a scout of the coalition forces, but Li Dingguo quickly denied his own judgment. Round after round of arrow rain seems very tricky, which can be described as steady and ruthless, such an arrow rain. The Ming army generally can't shoot out, only the Houjin Tartar has such an ability.

Li Dingguo immediately became vigilant, the rain of arrows was coming from the direction of the village, if the artillery battalion was ordered to fire back on the spot, the people in the village would definitely suffer, although it was said that many of the people had evacuated Cangzhou.

Li Dingguo immediately ordered the sergeant to return fire on the spot, regardless of whether there was a small force in the village, or the scouts of the coalition army, in short, the eyeliner lurking in this village should be completely removed, so as not to affect the army behind.

Li Dingguo led 5,000 men, and the remaining 15,000 men were led by He Renlong, the distance was not very far, considering that the speed of the march of the army could not be delayed, Li Dingguo sent 300 men to attack the village.

It was at this time that the battle began.

To Li Dingguo's great surprise, the attack of 300 people was blocked, and there were quite a few casualties, the opponent's arrow rain was too tricky, people could not be guarded, the attacking 300 people did not know the exact location of the opponent, and the blind attack led to casualties.

Those who can stop the attack of the 300 people of the Jiangning battalion have at least 1,000 people, that is to say, the opponent who is ambushed in a small village is probably more than 1,000 people, and this is not a small force.

Li Dingguo began to be cautious, thought twice, and asked the artillery battalion to make all preparations, he was going to use artillery to attack, and at the same time, Li Dingguo quickly reported this decision to He Renlong.

He Renlong, who hurriedly came on horseback, just glanced at the casualties, nodded and agreed to attack with artillery, it was all up to him, whether it would hurt the innocent, he wouldn't care so much.

The rumbling of artillery rang out, and the small village was instantly covered in artillery fire.

Another round of charges by the soldiers of the Jiangning battalion began, and this time there were 2,000 people participating in the charge.

At the beginning of the battle, the shouts shook the sky, and the heralds quickly came to report that the ambush in the small village was the Houjin Tartars, the number of whom was unknown, and the outfits should be white flags and Tartars inlaid with white flags.

He Renlong and Li Dingguo were greatly surprised, the location of the Houjin Tartar ambush is still more than 20 miles away from here, and the Jiangning battalion first has to face the Ming army, that is, the Datong border army.

The cavalry on both sides have been strangled together, and the combat effectiveness of the Houjin Tartars is indeed good, and as the sky gradually brightens, the fighting becomes more and more cruel.

Seeing the stalemate in the battle, Li Dingguo couldn't help it, and led the remaining 3,000 soldiers to launch a large-scale charge towards the small village......

This fight lasted until noon.

All the attacks planned by the previous plan fell short because of this encounter.

Su Tiancheng, Hong Chengchou, Qu Qingze and others, listening to the reports of He Renlong and Li Dingguo, the Houjin Tartars stationed in the small village, the number of at least 3,000 people, because of the surprise, the Jiangning battalion suffered a somewhat large loss, in the whole battle, more than 500 people were killed, more than 200 people were seriously injured, more than 1,000 Houjin Tartars were killed, more than 200 Houjin Tartars were captured, and the rest of the Houjin Tartars fled from the small village.

He Renlong and Li Dingguo fought for responsibility, because they did not expect that there would be so many Houjin Tartars in ambush in the small village, so they did not consider the matter of encirclement and annihilation, and what they thought of was to launch an attack.

Hong Chengchou's face was pale, he didn't expect to lose Jingzhou carelessly, the vanguard army had 20,000 people, and he made more than half of the other party flee to deal with the 3,000 Houjin Tartars, and his own losses were heavy.

Qu Qingze frowned, he couldn't figure it out, the scouts were scouting along the road, and the intelligence was very clear, could it be said that the three thousand golden tartars flew down from the sky.

Liu Tiehan stood aside, his face flushed, and after He Renlong and Li Dingguo finished speaking, he walked to the side of the two, and then knelt on one knee, saying that it was his responsibility, and the scouts were unable to accurately detect the information.

Hong Chengchou didn't speak, looking at Su Tiancheng.

After pondering for a while, Su Tiancheng spoke.

"Get up, it's not your fault, we thought of using 20,000 vanguard troops to test the combined forces of the Ming army and the Houjin Tartars, and people will be able to think of ways to test us, there is no doubt that what you encountered is also the elite troops of the Houjin Tartars, you should know that Dolgon is the most courageous general in the Houjin, and has never fought with our Jiangning battalion, although we have won a lot of victories in the battle with the Houjin Tartars, but Dolgon will not be convinced, this ambush must be planned by Dolgon, and did not report to Chen Xinjia. ”

"Our focus is on Chen Xinjia and the 100,000 allied troops who are ambushing Haolu, but we didn't expect that Dolgon would test our strength, Dolgon is bold enough to dare to send 3,000 people to ambush in a small village, which shows that his heart is still arrogant, thinking that Houjin Tartar is the most courageous, and this is also a demonstration to us."

"I didn't be able to detect this information in time, the scouts have a certain responsibility, but it's not entirely the responsibility of the scouts, I have already said it, the Jiangning battalion is a little overconfident, this is a lesson, I hope you can pay great attention to it in the future battles."

"The original battle plan, for the time being, do not make major adjustments, today the army continues to advance, set up camp in the predetermined place, Liu Tiehan, there are two things that must be investigated clearly today, the first thing is to fight with the Jiangning battalion soldiers tomorrow, whether it is the Ming army or the Houjin Tartars, today's battle is impossible to hide from Chen Xinjia, as for whether the army and the Houjin Tartars will quickly adjust their deployment because of this battle, this needs to be clarified by the scouts."

"The second thing is that there are still nearly twenty miles from here to the intended place of encampment, and whether there are other ambushes along the road, whether there will be small-scale attack teams, we must find out."

After the arrangement, Su Tiancheng thought of something and spoke to everyone.

"In this battle, we need to make adjustments to some ideas, in the previous battles, almost every time the Jiangning battalion soldiers took the initiative to attack, but this time the situation is afraid that the situation will change, maybe the Ming army and the Houjin Tartars will take the initiative to attack at some point and disrupt our deployment, of course they are coming for me."

Hong Chengchou and the others' faces immediately changed, these days, this problem is also the one they are most worried about, although Su Tiancheng asked to be in front of the command, at least need to participate in the command of the battle in the Chinese military tent, but Hong Chengchou and Qu Qingze refused without hesitation, they resolutely disagreed, and they arranged a personal battalion of 3,000 people to follow Su Tiancheng day and night, not allowed to leave half a step, even if it was a fly, they did not want to get close to Su Tiancheng. (To be continued......)