On the third day of November in the second year of Chongzhen, Hai Shi. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

After Zhao led the 5,000-strong army to evacuate from Da'ankou, he passed near Catfish Pass, and then went straight to Shimenzhai, skillfully avoiding the 5,000 elite soldiers of Mang Gurtai and Dolgon, who had reinforced Da'ankou in advance.

The strategic location of Shimenzhai is very important. It is located in the southwest of Zunhua City, only more than 60 miles away from Zunhua City. At the same time, it is located in the northeast of Jizhou City, and it is only more than 80 miles away from Jizhou City. If the army can be stationed in Shimenzhai, Yuan Chonghuan will have more strategic options at that time.

The army died down, and the people marched quietly. When the path was taken to a forest more than 50 miles away from Shimen Village, three Jinyi guards suddenly came to report panting.

"Thousands of households, three Tartar horses were found three miles ahead!"

Qin Shuhuai was taken aback, Shimen Village was still far away from here, it was impossible for the horse sentry to come so far to patrol for no reason, the only possibility was that there was about to pass by a Tartar army near here.

couldn't help but feel a chill in his back, could it be that his intentions were discovered by Houjin?

To be honest, he didn't have much hope for the combat effectiveness of the 5,000 Ming army. Although this is already the strongest force that the Ming army can handle at present, under field conditions, as long as it encounters two or three thousand Houjin soldiers, there is almost no possibility of victory. If these 5,000 people enter Shimen Village, it will naturally be an excellent move to cooperate with the Ming army from all walks of life, but if they lose here, they will be busy in vain these days.

But after thinking about it carefully, I thought it was unlikely. Even if Huang Taiji guessed that he was deliberately scaring him, he would definitely ignore himself and continue to attack Zunhua City, at most wait for Zunhua City to come to trouble him later.

Could it be that after Huang Taiji learned that Luo Wenyu had fallen, the reinforcements sent by Da'ankou passed through here? This is even more impossible. If you go to reinforce Da'ankou, you can either take the official road from Zunhua to Da'ankou, or you can take a closer trail, why come to Catfish Pass to go around in a big circle?

So he hurriedly told Zhao Shujiao the news.

Zhao Shujiao was also surprised when he heard this, but his judgment was also the same as Qin Shuhuai's, thinking that first, even if there was a Tartar army passing here, everyone would only meet by chance, and the other party could not be running for his own 5,000 army, and second, the main force of the Tartars was either attacking Zunhua City now, or they had already assembled in the direction of Da'ankou, so the number of this Tartar army should not be too much.

In this way, the rest of the work will be easier. Since the other party is not the main force of the Tartars, then the army does not need to avoid it, and it can also be an ambush to see if it can pick up something.

So the army immediately divided into two groups and took advantage of the night to ambush on both sides of the forest path. The cavalry tethered the horses at a distance, and then took the weapon and changed it into infantry. So that the horse's panting would not reveal the army.

A quarter of an hour later, three Tartar sentry galloped past the trail, two of them continuing to run forward, while the other stopped.

At night, the forest was pitch black, except for a little moonlight spilling in on the path because there was no tree to obstruct it, and the two sides of the road could not see their fingers.

The sentry listened for a moment, and then suddenly urged the horse to the forest on the right side of the road.

Qin Shuhuai watched the horse whistle walking towards him, his heart raised to his throat, and he thought to himself, could it be that he had discovered an abnormality?

The ambush position of the 5,000 Ming troops was about 30 meters away from the path, and the horse sentry walked in about 20 meters, and suddenly dismounted, as if he was untying his pants.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

When the Tartar horse was finished, he mounted his horse and galloped forward.

After a while, a horse sentry turned around and ran back, presumably reporting to the troops behind.

The crowd waited patiently until another quarter of an hour had passed, when they finally heard a jumble of footsteps not far away.

A troop of 200 horsemen and 300 infantry marched hastily through the forest path, and behind them there were nearly 500 men, each of whom carried heavy bags, and some of them were leading donkeys and inferior horses, and the backs of the donkeys and horses were full of things, which were obviously the harvest of their expedition.

It didn't take long for all of the 1,000 people to enter the ambush circle.

Zhao Shujiao suddenly gave an order, and fifty crossbowmen first came to fire a round of three volleys, and the Tartar soldiers who were caught off guard suddenly fell sixty or seventy people, half of whom died instantly. Then the 5,000 troops lying in ambush on both sides of the road immediately rose up and suddenly killed them!

The Tartars were in disarray, and in the bleak moonlight, everyone's faces were filled with surprise and fear. They never imagined that they would be ambushed after such a secret march and deliberately chose this inconspicuous path! They could never understand where this Ming army came from? How could they know their march route and lay an ambush in advance?

No wonder they were surprised, saying that it was just a "chance encounter" and they didn't believe it!

A man on horseback who looked like a Houjin general shouted hoarsely in Manchu in an attempt to stabilize the troops. However, when encountering an ambush at a moment, the opponent is still ten times his own strength, even if the soldier with strong psychological quality will inevitably panic, how can he stabilize it in a short time?

In particular, the soldiers, composed of Han Chinese, Koreans, and a small number of low-level Mongols, were so frightened that they scattered everywhere, and not only failed to help, but also disrupted their own position, and at the same time transmitted fear to the regular army.

The crowded path soon turned into a slaughterhouse, with swords and swords under the miserable white moonlight, wailing and screaming intertwined, and the Ming army poured up like a tide, continuously compressing the space of the Houjin army.

As soon as the Houjin cavalry saw that something was wrong, they prepared to forcibly break through. But soon they were surrounded by a dense crowd of spearmen, who were armed with spears nearly three meters long, and without saying a word, stabbed the horses first, and when the man on the horse fell, they swarmed him into a hornet's nest.

Of the 5,000 Ming troops, 4,000 were well-trained Guanning troops, and they took advantage of the ambush, so they were naturally able to deal with the 500 post-Jin soldiers with ease. As for the pawns who didn't even have decent weapons, they were even more dismissive.

Because Qin Shuhuai's injuries had not yet healed, he leisurely sat on a wheelbarrow with Li Jingting and Meng Wei to watch the battle this time. Li Jingting and Meng Wei have greatly improved their injuries because they have taken the medicine that Qin Shuhuai bought from the system, and they are now sober.

Meng Hu couldn't stay idle, relying on his own strength, regardless of the layers of gauze wrapped on his body, he screamed and killed into the enemy formation, and he didn't know how many Tartars died under his knife.

The battle lasted for half an hour, and all 500 Tartars were wiped out, half of the other 500 soldiers were killed, and half of them surrendered. The Ming army only lost less than 200 people in the battle, and this casualty ratio is already excellent.

found a Han soldier for interrogation, and without threatening to be punished, he obediently recruited everything he knew.

His words surprised everyone.

PS: Thank you to Caiyun Zhinan 85 for becoming the helmsman of this book!