Chapter 191: Wangjiangjing Great Victory
With the help of the famous doctor Li Shizhen of the world, Hu Zongxian poisoned thousands of Japanese pirates at one time, and finally beheaded more than 700 people, greatly boosting the morale of the Ming army. When Chen Dong led Xu Hai's main force back to take revenge, Hu Zongxian unexpectedly set up an ambush in Shitangwan again... Japanese pirates thought that after two battles, they would be extremely safe, but they were stunned by the Ming army that was killed again. After a fight, they left more than 400 corpses and walked north.
In this battle, the Ming army was defeated first and then won, and beheaded more than a thousand people, which is known in history as the "Shitangwan Victory".
Upon receiving the news that the Japanese and pirates finally got into the trap, Zhang Jing felt relieved and left Li Tianchong to lead 10,000 official troops to continue monitoring Wang Zhi's troops, while he led the troops to quietly leave while the night was dark.
Li Tianchong was also a resourceful general. He knew that the Japanese and pirates were afraid of the soldiers, so he ordered his subordinates to wear blue clothes and wear black turbans, which caused the illusion that the soldiers were still in the camp. As expected, the Japanese and pirates were afraid and did not come again until the end of the battle.
While Zhang Jing set out, he immediately ordered Yu Dayou to set off in the army of Yongshun to go north to Pingwang to block the retreat of the Japanese and pirates. He also ordered Hu Zongxian and Lu Tong to lead Baojing troops to chase the enemy behind. At the same time, he ordered Tang Kekuan's navy to fight in the middle of the line. The four armies advanced in unison, surrounding the three sides of the Japanese and pirates. As long as they could not go north, they would definitely be surrounded by the Ming army!
Until this time, Xu Hai and Chen Dong did not realize that they had been surrounded by the Ming army... They still thought that the Ming army they met in Shitangwan was a heavy army arranged by Zhang Jing to defend Jiahang... The two of them were robbing rather than rebelling, and had no interest in bloody attacks.
Xu Hai said to Chen Dong: "Brother, the more than 20,000 troops of the Ming army in Chuanshawa are real."
"The 15,000 or 16,000 in Shitang Bay is not a waste." Chen Dong nodded and said, "Let's fight in another place. Anyway, there are many wealthy cities in Suzhou and Hangzhou. Even if Zhang Jing can sprinkle beans and become soldiers, it is impossible for him to defend them so firmly.
"Well, I'm planning on Zhang Jing's soldiers are gone." Xu Hai nodded fiercely and said, "Let's go to Suzhou, there must be very empty there."
After some calculation, in the early morning of the 17th day of the 12th lunar month, the Japanese pirates fled from Jiaxing to Tangjia Lake, preparing to cross Wujiang and go north to Suzhou.
Unexpectedly, Tang Shunzhi and Tan Lun had been waiting for a long time. The two led 2,000 Wujiang soldiers... and 20,000 local civilians blocked the river and stored water. When the Japanese pirates were about to arrive in Wujiang, they would first open the dike. The water was surging for a while, and the Japanese pirates could not cross the river.
Tan Lun said regretfully: "It's a pity that it's the dry season now. If it's the spring and summer flood season, Xu Hai can be fed to the turtle in one go."
Tang Shunyi was wearing military uniform and smiled and said with a smile: "It's enough..." He personally led the Shaoxing navy that he had trained, took thirty clutches in the sea to attack the Japanese/kers boats. The Japanese/kers were good at land battles but were not good at water battles. They were even more than ten ships taken away, and the rest were burned down.
The Japanese and pirates were unable to cross the river, so they had to retreat to Pingwang. They suffered consecutive setbacks since sending troops, and their spirits were completely lost. Xu Hai and Chen Dong also realized that they might have fallen into the trap, so he drove his subordinates back the same way, wanting to return to the Tuolin nest and end this unsuccessful attack.
When they rushed back to Wangjiangjing on the same road, they were worried that their subordinates were low in morale, tired and hungry, and once they were afraid of accidents, Xu Hai ordered the troops to be stationed temporarily. Because the Grand Canal passed through the town, Xu Hai divided his troops to station two major transportation routes in the north and south of the canal - Qiumaoqiao and Yangjiaqiao... The main force entered Wangjiangjing Town for dinner and rest. At this time, the Japanese and pirate troops had gathered more than 8,000 people, all of which were capable of fighting.
But without long rest, Hu Zongxian and Lu Tong's pursuers finally arrived. In the early morning of the 19th, the two sides fought in Qiumaoqiao, south of Wangjiangjing.
After successive victories, the Ming army had fully demonstrated its momentum. Hu Zongxian's Japanese and pirates had been surrounded by various armies and told the entire army that all the troops were happy, especially the Baojing local soldiers under their command, who were afraid that they would rob their military achievements and launched waves of crazy attacks on Qiu Maoqiao.
But how could Japanese and pirates be easy? The two sides fought repeatedly on this nine-zhang stone bridge, with broken limbs and broken bodies covering the bridge deck, and blood dyed the canal red for several miles.
The Ming army had only more than 6,000 people, and only lasted for two hours with a momentum, and gradually became angry. Hu Zongxian saw the clues and personally led a hundred swords and axes to supervise the battle behind the formation. Those who did not approach died, those who retreated died, and those who retreated died, and they were hesitant to die! Only then did he barely hold on to the situation, but he also knew that if other troops did not come, the defensive line would collapse.
Just when he was about to despair, a red cloud rose from the horizon to the east, and then rolled in. As soon as he got closer, Hu Zongxian and Lu Tong finally saw that this was a red scarf-wrapped army and shouted in unison: "Red-headed Army!"
When it sounded like the famous Red-Headed Army, the Ming army was very energetic, and the Japanese pirates were obviously quite afraid of this name. The morale of both sides suddenly turned upside down. The Japanese pirates finally withdrew their troops back to Wangjiangjing, and the Ming army finally defended the line of defense that was about to collapse.
Hu Zongxian and Lu Tong were extremely excited, and they quickly approached the rare reinforcements. Unexpectedly, as soon as the two sides met, the Red-Headed Army soldiers squatted on the ground and gasped, and many even fainted on the spot. They found Ding Chan, Ding Yaoshi and his son, who were extremely tired, and realized that General Yu was worried that he could not defend this side and ordered the Red-Headed Army to come and reinforcements first. The Ding father and son led their subordinates to run for a hundred miles without a rest in the middle...
Ding stood up straight with his waist and smiled apologetically: "It's too late, I didn't help much."
Hu and Lu shook their heads and laughed: "It's not too late, it's just in time!"
No matter what, Qiu Maoqiao was defending. In the afternoon, Yu Dayou led his army to arrive, and in the evening, Tang Kekuan's navy also arrived. At this time, the number of Ming troops was more than three times that of Japanese pirates, and the qi rushed to fight the bull, which was a good opportunity to defeat the enemy!
Tang Kekuan, Lu Tong, Yu Dayou and Hu Zongxian held a battlefield meeting. Tang Kekuan had the highest status among the people. He thought that he would wait for Governor Zhang to come before launching a general attack. Hu Zongxian disagreed and said to the general: "I think the bandit leader Xu Hai is also in the formation. His Japanese and pirates are extremely elite. If they do not take advantage of their morale to take advantage of the opportunity to attack, once they recover, they will definitely escape from the small path!"
Yu Dayou and Lu Tong also agreed with Hu Zongxian's opinion. Tang Kekuan was unable to speak out, so he had to agree to use the navy to control all land passages on Wangjiangjing first, and then attack the enemy at dawn.
After a night of arrangement, when the cannon fired, Hu Zongxian and Lu Tong's troops continued to attack from Qiu Maoqiao to the north, and Tang Kekuan and Yu Dayou attacked from the left and right.
The vanguard was the Red-Headed Army with amazing recovery ability. The Ding father and son led the way, and the military and generals of the family were following each other to fight with each other, like a sharp red tassel spear, attacking the bridge in one go.
The front soldiers were sharp and the back formation took advantage of them. The army came from all directions, and the shouts of killing were shocking... The brave men of the nearby counties and towns also rushed to help, just like Han Xin's ambush, which made the Japanese and pirates break and completely lost their fighting spirit... They were tired and sick and hungry, and they fought with their backs and were attacked on three sides, so they were defeated!!
When Xu Hai saw that something was wrong, he immediately took his two thousand elite troops to identify the east and ran away. He didn't feel sorry for the rest of the people. Anyway, as long as the Minghai couldn't ban it, it would be easy to replenish the troops.
When Chen Dong saw the boss running away, he followed closely with his five hundred iron rods. Before the rest of the Japanese and pirates could react, they were abandoned by the two bosses. How could there be any reason to fight again? They all abandoned the land, fled in all directions, and many people were lying on the ground and were stabbed, or knelt down and begged for mourning. The Ming army captured more than 2,000 levels and captured more than 800 people.
But the generals did not dare to slacken at all, because Xu Hai and Chen Dong, with more than 4,000 Japanese pirates, rushed over the wall and rushed hard, and actually broke out of the encirclement. They could not let these two blood-debt-in-law run away. Hu Zongxian and three generals led their troops to chase them relentlessly, and captured and killed more than 1,000 Japanese pirates along the way, and chased them forty miles and never gave up.
Xu Hai has been out for so many years and has been chased so miserably by someone. He rode on the horse and turned around and cursed: "You can chase me, can you catch me?"
The Ming army really couldn't catch up, and the two sides were already several miles apart... But if you want to catch a group of people, there is a better way to stop them, besides chasing them!
When the Japanese and pirates fled to a village called Zhou Jiabang, a cannon was heard, and a warrior with silver armor and double swords led five thousand soldiers to block Xu Hai's way.
Monk Xu was no longer thinking about it. He hissed at his subordinates: "If we can't break through this line of defense, this is our grave." He said to the sky and shouted: "But I don't want to die!" The Japanese pirates were aroused by the leader and shouted in unison: "Kill here!" Under the leadership of Xu Hai and Chen Dong, they rushed towards the soldiers frantically.
On one side are the brutal Japanese and pirates who are trapped in beasts, and on the other side are brave soldiers with a rainbow of momentum. The fierce fighting begins again!
The Japanese and pirates who are still fighting are all elites of Xu Hai's army, and they are all desperate people with high martial arts skills. They are indeed much stronger than the Japanese soldiers. However, Mrs. Wa led her soldiers to fight to the death and paid a price of one thousand people to resist the Japanese and pirates for half an hour.
The Red-Headed Army chasing behind finally came up, and Yu Dayou's Yongshun local soldiers also came to the front and gave the last blow of the Japanese and pirates who were returning from behind, destroying all Japanese and pirates like boiling soup and pouring snow.
Chapter completed!