Daniel Zhang's formation was laid out for a long time, and Yuan Zongdi did not attack. [This article is from]

"Yuan Thief is probably recuperating from his soldiers, right?" Daniel Zhang knew that Yuan Zongdi had just fought a battle with Hu Wenke, and even if the terrain of the battlefield was flat, Yuan Bu, who had just fought fiercely, needed to rest. The report of the general who returned to his command not long ago is a circumstantial evidence, the Ming army is more numerous than the outflanked Qing army, but it held on to the spot and refused to attack, and the Ming army did not follow the pursuit when the Qing army retreated: "Maybe you can attack now?" However, the melee may be exactly what Yuan Thief is looking forward to, in case it is broken up, Yuan Thief can run away even if he loses. Forget it, I'll wait for Wang Mingde and them to drive the Yuan thief over, and save the body so that the Yuan thief can be wiped out. ”

When Daniel Zhang was making a wishful calculation, an arrow suddenly rose into the air behind him, and then another wolf smoke rushed into the sky.

After the battle, the Ming army, which had been cut open by the outflanking Qing army, immediately returned to the road from which they came, and several of them had horses, and they soon encountered the rear of the Ming army, and informed them of the news that a large number of Qing troops had been discovered. After receiving this news, the rear Ming army immediately accelerated its advance, and after reaching Daniel Zhang's back, the whole army made pre-battle preparations while raising a bonfire to try to get in touch with Yuan Zongdi.

Soon after this wolf smoke rose, Daniel Zhang also faced a black smoke rushing straight into Xiao Han, and Yuan Zongdi also lit a pile of fire after seeing the beacon fire of the reinforcements. Two black clouds of smoke echoed each other, intermittently communicating with each other.

As soon as he saw the smoke behind him just now, Daniel Zhang knew that the general situation was not good, and the most common way of communication was that the officer shouted to command the soldiers, which could be understood as long as he was not deaf; The second is the flag, which already requires some training; As for the sound of arrows, it belongs to the communication method that only middle and high-ranking officers need to understand, and different officers have different designs, such as Hu Wenke's signal Daniel Zhang is not all-encompassing; Once it rises, it will attract the attention of the surrounding enemy and our armies, and it needs to have a safe sending environment, a skilled operator, and an officer who can interpret, basically the main general and the deputy general are the communication methods in case of emergency, and sometimes they are in the hands of reconnaissance soldiers or important observation posts.

Therefore, as soon as Daniel Zhang saw the wolf smoke, he knew that most of the reinforcements from Yuan Zongdi were coming behind him, and he observed for a while, although he could not understand the specific signal, he vaguely felt that the east seemed to be informing the location and troop numbers, and the west was Yuan Zongdi's direction first inquiring, and then began to give the order to attack - although each has its own design, many basic things are common, and cryptography is not developed in this era.

At first, Daniel Zhang was still lucky, hoping that this was Yuan Zongdi's scouts in the old formation, trying to disrupt his position. But the wolf smoke in the east doesn't look like a fake, it contains a lot of information; Moreover, the scouts sent by Daniel Zhang also reported that there were indeed signs of large army activity in the east, and the number of people could not be judged for the time being, but the range was very large, if it was a normal formation, it would probably exceed a thousand people, which may be only a part.

"I knew it! How could the thief suddenly be bold and put it right with me, he really wanted to bully the widow with the public. No wonder he refuses to attack, this cowardly coward! Daniel Zhang shouted angrily, he knew that more Ming troops might arrive one after another, the strong strength of the Ming army surprised Daniel Zhang, because he had already observed about two thousand Ming army armor soldiers in the west, and now since the Ming army behind him dared to approach him, then at least there would be more than a thousand armor soldiers: "Where did the Yuan thief come from?" He has a lot of fields in Wanxian County, has he made a fortune in the past year? ”

Now is obviously not a good time to think about this, although Daniel Zhang is nervous but not desperate, calculating the distance, Wang Mingde should also be behind Yuan Zongdi at this time, even if it has not arrived, it is immediately.

"How do I deal with that?" Daniel Zhang thought nervously: "Should we release all the armorless soldiers and let the armor gather together along the river?" ”

"No way!" Daniel Zhang immediately vetoed his idea, which would be equivalent to losing half, and letting Wujia escape would not only suffer huge losses and demoralize, but also open the way and could not intercept Yuan Zongdi's main force from leaving.

"Yuan Zongdi should be his elite main force by his side, but he has already fought a battle, he is more tired, his combat effectiveness has decreased a lot, and he will be restrained by Wang Mingde; And even if the reinforcements in the east are the same as Yuan Zongdi's headquarters, they should be Yuan Zongdi's inferior soldiers, well, they must be his newly recruited recruits, and their equipment will definitely not be comparable to the elite around him. Daniel Zhang knew that Yuan Zongdi had a hard time these years, and in recent years, he could not launch a large-scale attack a year, and he had no opportunity to train new soldiers, so Daniel Zhang quickly made a decision: "The recruits from the east are not strong in combat, and the Yuan Zongdi headquarters in the west is tired and cannot attack me with all their strength, so I should divide the troops on both sides and continue to defend steadily." ”

Daniel Zhang divided his 1,700 armor evenly into two parts, and at the same time spread the battle line to the east and west, and for the sake of safety, Daniel Zhang estimated the Ming army from the east at 2,000 soldiers - this number Daniel Zhang thought was already very high, but even if it was 2,000 recruits, Daniel Zhang was confident that he could block their attack with half of his men. Compared with the eastern front, the western front is more worrying to Daniel Zhang, although Yuan Zongdi's troops have already fought once, but the Ming army is likely to launch a fierce attack in order to escape: "As long as the west holds on, if Yuan Zongdi's whole army storms, Wang Mingde can rush over unhindered, as long as I grit my teeth and hold on, then Yuan Zongdi is still a dead end." As if to hypnotize himself, Daniel Zhang repeatedly nagged: "Persistence, persistence!" ”

As Daniel Zhang expected, Wang Mingde and Yuan Jiawenbi had also arrived behind Yuan Zongdi at this time, but they did not raise the wolf smoke to contact Daniel Zhang, but planned to attack silently.

Pointing to the two wolf smoke in the sky, Wang Mingde said to Yuan Jiawenbi: "Since the thieves are still using beacon fire to communicate, it means that Admiral Zhang is still blocked in the middle of them, and we should quickly launch an attack to relieve Admiral Zhang." ”

"Or wait for the Yuan thief to attack, and then we will attack." Yuan Jiawen Bi had a different opinion, just now they met the defeated Daniel Zhang troops, knowing that the defenders of Wanxian County were in the way: "If we rashly launch an attack, the thieves will use all their strength to resist us, and Zhang Admiral's forces will resist the thieves in the east at this time, and it is easy to fight into a stalemate in the end, if the battle cannot be resolved before nightfall, the thieves will flee." ”

"Does the deputy capital commander want to wait for Yuan Thief to break through before attacking?" At this time, Wang Mingde's scouts and Yuan Zongdi's rearguard also had contact, and I believe that the other party had noticed the movements of the Qing army, but Wang Mingde and they did not raise the beacon fire, nor did they quickly unfold, presumably Yuan Zongdi did not know much about the strength of the Qing army.

"Exactly." Yuan Jiawen nodded, he just wanted to use Daniel Zhang as bait to relieve the pressure of his Qing army attacking: "We can prepare the beacon fire in advance, once the thieves start to attack Commander Zhang, we will light it, let Commander Zhang's men know that reinforcements have arrived, just hold on for a while." ”

"Hmm." Wang Mingde pondered for a while, but did not object, Daniel Zhang will definitely resist desperately for his own survival, and when the time comes, a bunch of beacons will be raised to give him a shot in the arm, and it will not be a problem to withstand Yuan Zongdi's two or three thousand soldiers - the change in the situation has made Wang Mingde also raise his estimate of Yuan Zongdi's strength, but it has not yet reached the height of Daniel Zhang. Yuan Jiawenbi's plan was not a bad thing for Wang Mingde, Daniel Zhang took on Yuan's fierce attack, which meant that Wang Mingde would have to pay a much smaller price, and maybe there was still room to launch a full-scale pursuit and take a large number of prisoners for himself.

"When the deputy capital commander and I will attack?" Wang Mingde asked again.

Yuan Jiawenbi glanced at Wang Mingde: "These are just thieves, can't Mr. Wang deal with them by himself?" ”

The Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty are different from the Green Battalion, they cannot be sacrificed in vain, if the casualties of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty are too large, it will be difficult for Yuan Jiawenbi to return to Beijing; It is now the early years of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the policy of non-intermarriage between the Banner and the Han Dynasty is implemented acceptably, the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty belong to the Banner people, and many of them have in-laws with the Manchus.

Seeing Wang Mingde's hesitation, Yuan Jiawenbi knew what he was worried about, so he patted his chest and promised: "After defeating the thieves and starting the pursuit, whether it is a thief in armor or without armor, I will not kill indiscriminately or hand it over to others, but give it to Mr. Wang. ”

If Wang Mingde was in charge of the general attack, the follow-up pursuit activities would definitely be the responsibility of the Han Eight Banners, which were different from the Green Battalion, and the captured prisoners could neither carry the flag to replenish themselves, nor would they bring these dangerous elements back to Beijing to be used as coats. Yuan Jiawenbi assured Wang Mingde that all the strong prisoners after the war would belong to him, and he would not let him take the lead in vain - even if Daniel Zhang was used as bait first, Yuan Jiawenbi still planned to let Wang Mingde's subordinates be cannon fodder in the battle.

"Okay, Deputy Commander, we'll make up our minds!" Wang Mingde is very conscious of cannon fodder, and if he doesn't have this consciousness to fight side by side with the Eight Banners, there is really no need to mix, since Yuan Jiawenbi promised to hand over all the prisoners to himself and not others, Wang Mingde thinks that this cannon fodder should be worth the price.

"By the way, Deputy Commander, can you let the firearms soldiers under your command help in the battle?" Wang Mingde estimated that although Yuan Zongdi could not judge his own strength clearly, he would still leave hundreds of armor soldiers to cover the back road, and if there were eight banners of bird guns and tiger squat cannons to cover, Wang Mingde's losses would be even smaller.

"And rightfully so." Yuan Jiawen agreed to come down.