Huangmei County.

Li Zheng and Xiao Zongxian only brought a thousand civilians with them.

A few days later, there were nearly ten thousand civilians!

Huangmei County and Jiujiang Prefecture are separated by a river, and many residents on both sides are relatives.

Do the people of Huangmei County know what life is like in Jiujiang?

The missionary officers and backbones of the farmers' associations roared along the river and lake, and countless farmers carried hoes, killed the tenant farmers, and came one after another to help the Datong army fight.

They don't do anything else, they just carry soil to fill in the moat and help transport some supplies.

I don't get paid, I just take care of the food.

Seeing that the moat was being filled up little by little, guard Wang Ziqi was quite worried. Although there were not many enemy troops besieging the city, the equipment looked scary. Compared with the two, the soldiers under his command were like beggars.

The entire army was wearing armor, even the cooks were wearing leather armor!

Fortunately, the enemy is not in a hurry to attack the city. It seems that they want to... siege the city and call for reinforcements?

Guangji direction.

The spy reported back: "General, we have found out the enemy's situation. The enemy has thousands of soldiers and has recruited nearly 10,000 civilians in Huangmei County."

"Thousands of soldiers, just want to seize the city?" Sun Kewang sneered, "The whole army sets off!"

Sun Kewang's ability in internal affairs is extremely strong. Now, of all Zhang Xianzhong's territories, Sun Kewang's is the most developed.

In just one year, Sun Kewang's army was able to be self-sufficient in military rations.

However, this person has great ambitions.

After becoming self-sufficient in military supplies, he immediately expanded the army. He did not want to stay in Huangzhou to defend Zhao Han, and kept trying to fight out. Susong County was captured this year, and he planned to attack Taihu County next.

Develop territory, expand the army, hoard food and grass, and occupy the entire Jianghuai River!

Zhang Xianzhong asked Sun Kewang to command 20,000 troops, but he secretly already had 30,000 troops, not including the troops defending the city along the river.

With a bigger territory, tens of thousands of troops, and self-sufficiency, one can imagine how the soldiers are treated.

Almost only rations were provided, and military pay could not be paid. Anyway, land was allocated to the soldiers, and the soldiers could recruit tenants to farm the land to support their families.

Not counting the investment in ordnance and equipment, but only in terms of rations and military pay, Zhao Han's cost of raising one soldier was enough for Sun Kewang to raise ten soldiers!

It seems scary to say it, but it's actually not outrageous.

The military salary of a Datong soldier is only 70% of that of a Guan Ning army. The Ming court really paid high salaries to support its troops.

The difference is that the Datong army is all paid on a regular basis, and the food in the army is of very good quality.

Sun Kewang personally led an army of 20,000 people and marched towards Huangmei County in a mighty manner. The troops assembled later went to Huangzhou and Qizhou to defend the city to avoid being attacked by Datong Navy troops.

With 20,000 troops and 30,000 civilians, Sun Kewang claimed to send 100,000 troops.

"Finally here." Li Zheng has been waiting for a long time.

Neither side did anything fancy. After setting up their respective camps, they just faced each other and fought openly.

Sun Kewang originally wanted to lead his cavalry to take a long way around and attack Huang Shun and Fei Yinggon outside Susong City. But he learned that there were thousands of enemy troops in Huangmei County, so a surprise attack would be useless. He had to eat the enemy in front of him.

There were many enemy troops, including those in the city. Li Zheng lacked cavalry and did not dare to attack at night.

Li Zheng was cautious in character, so he simply withdrew the siege to avoid being attacked from inside and outside, and huddled up to prepare for a decisive battle.

"This guy is very cowardly," Sun Kewang said, dumbfounded. "As soon as I came, he stopped besieging the city and didn't give him any chance. I guess a night attack would be useless. Let's take a day off and fight hard."

Sun Kewang and Li Zheng had a tacit understanding and both chose a few miles west of Huangmei County as their battlefield. The farmland there was mainly dry land.

The rice has not been harvested yet, and Li Zheng does not want to damage the crops.

Sun Kewang wanted to take advantage of the cavalry, but there were too many paddy fields for the horses to run.

Of course, Li Zheng was not a pedantic person. He chose dry fields as the battlefield because he was afraid that the enemy troops would escape. How long would he have to wait to achieve results?

The two sides slowly formed formations, and Sun Kewang gathered all the cavalry, a total of 1,200 cavalry, and handed them all over to the command of his general Feng Shuangli.

"Da da da da!"

Feng Shuangli came with his cavalry, hoping to disrupt the Datong Army's formation.

"Line up the formation and raise the gun!"

There are five thousand regular soldiers, one thousand of whom are fire soldiers.

In front of him, the firecrackers appeared in formation, but Feng Shuangli did not dare to charge directly, so he led his cavalry around the flank of the Datong Army.

The Datong army quickly reorganized and advanced towards the enemy firmly and calmly.

We walked very slowly because there were still artillery.

"Woo~~~~"

Sun Kewang blew the horn, as if giving some order.

Feng Shuangli immediately led his cavalry, abandoned Li Zheng's army, and rushed straight to the camp on the bank of Leichi. This guy wanted to seize the opportunity to seize the camp, kill the civilians, and burn the food and grass.

"Boom boom boom boom!"

There was still a long way to go from the main camp, so Gu Jianshan immediately ordered the navy to fire cannons.

Dozens of artillery shells hit only two horses, but they still frightened Feng Shuangli.

As for the lakeside camp of the Datong Army, the sailors have disembarked from the boats to defend, relying on the camp with muskets in hand to prepare for the battle.

"There is an ambush, retreat!"

With so many muskets laid out, Feng Shuangli could not dare to ride into the stronghold, so he had to lead his cavalry back to the battlefield.

Among these 1,200 horses, some horses have a shoulder height of more than 1.35 meters, and some horses have a shoulder height of less than 1.23 meters. Anyway, the mounts are very messy, and the equipment is also very messy. Some people carry the standard equipment of the Ming Dynasty cavalry, and some only carry

Just armed with lance and saber.

After running back and forth, many horses were not strong enough and gradually fell behind.

Sun Kewang's 20,000 infantry advanced in ten square formations.

There are all kinds of arms, and there are even specialized firearms units.

Firearms are also diverse. In addition to the more popular bird guns, there are also three-eyed guns from the early Ming Dynasty.

The armies of both sides, after marching to a certain distance, chose to stop and remain still.

Of course, the general has something to do. While observing the enemy's situation, he is also adjusting his own formation.

However, Sun Kewang rode out on horseback and went to the battle in person to observe with his naked eyes.

Li Zheng, on the other hand, was sitting in the middle of the army and took out his telescope.

After observing for a while, Sun Kewang couldn't find any loopholes, so he waved his troops and divided his troops to outflank. 12,000 people attacked from the front, 4,000 people on each side outflanked, and 1,200 cavalry watched from behind.

Li Zheng's army was quickly surrounded from all sides.

The cavalry commanded by Feng Shuangli, after resting for a while, began to attack from behind.

Li Zheng mobilized 300 firecrackers to form an array specifically for the cavalry.

Feng Shuangli's cavalry troops rushed to a distance of sixty paces. The Datong soldiers neither fired nor showed any panic, they just lined up and waited.

"What kind of ghost soldier is this?"

Feng Shuangli was so frightened that his vest was sweating. He was so frightened that he stopped charging and divided into two teams to turn left and right.

Except for the iron canned heavy cavalry, it is impossible for other cavalry units to directly charge into the formation. It is nothing more than repeated pulling, rushing over and back again, creating a psychological deterrent to the enemy.

Ordinary rural warrior troops can at most withstand two or three threats before being frightened by the cavalry and causing chaos in their formation.

But these large synchronized soldiers in front of him frightened Feng Shuangli, who was commanding the cavalry!

Not to mention the chaotic formation, facing the cavalry charge, the large-scale pawns did not even move, as if they were sculptures standing on the ground.

The effect of standing in a military posture is reflected.

Just as thousands of infantry were moving around on both sides, Feng Shuangli gathered his cavalry to rest for a while and launched another intimidating charge against the Datong Army.

He felt that the last charge was not close enough, so this time he planned to charge about fifty steps.

"Da da da da!"

The ground shook under the trampling of horse hooves, but the Datong soldiers remained motionless.

"shoot!"

"Boohoo!"

At a distance of forty or fifty steps, the cavalry began to fire arrows.

None of the Datong soldiers were too lazy to hide. Only the Tengpai soldiers raised their shields to protect their face, neck and other vital parts. The fire gun soldiers stood behind the Tengpai players.

The arrows were shot crookedly, and at a distance of forty or fifty paces, facing the armored Datong army, it was incredible that the horse bow could cause effective damage.

Feng Shuangli almost went crazy. He had never seen such an army.

Two intimidating charges, plus a round of volleys, only managed to make the enemy's shield bearers raise their shields.
To be continued...