Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 374: Just quit like that? Do you have any shame?
Use Aha as cannon fodder and the armored ones as the main force, wait until the enemy is tired and has all its flaws exposed before using elite troops to defeat them. This is the most basic tactic of the Qing army.

The Han army under Hauge not only knew this clearly, but also had experienced the cruelty of it firsthand.

It’s just that people under the eaves have to bow their heads.

Even though they were unwilling, the Han army had to gather their troops when the military order came down.

“Why is it always us?”

Looking at the soldiers and horses that were marching out in a line, Jiang Denglei muttered in annoyance.

As a surrendered general, he actually had no objection to being cannon fodder, but the key point was that as surrendered generals, those who surrendered in Shaanxi were the vanguard in almost every battle, while some of them were used as the main force like real Tartars.

It is said that the problem is not poverty but inequality.

With such a comparison in front of him, he did not dare to disobey Hauge's military orders at all, but he could not help but complain to those who shared the same suffering.

"Who else could it be if not us? Will the prince send Wu Sangui out?"

"Why can't we send him? They are all surrendered generals, who is superior to who?"

Faced with Jiang Denglei's rebuttal, the middle-aged general who spoke just smiled but did not respond immediately.

His name was Shi Guoxi. He and Jiang Denglei had followed He Zhen to fight against the Qing army in Shaanxi.

During that period, the Dashun Empire was like a collapsed building with no sign of recovery. With no other options left, they chose to focus on self-preservation.

There is nothing much to say about what happened next. The Qing government used various means to split and disintegrate He Zhen's troops, and these artists were transferred to garrison elsewhere one by one.

Later, He Zhen rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, but these old subordinates settled down in Shaanxi until Hauge came to power again and led a large army into Sichuan.

Shi Guoxi was very self-aware. They were not the main force in Dashun and at most they were just garrisoning in some places. However, the Guanning Army was a powerful army in the world and was not inferior to the Tatar headquarters in terms of combat effectiveness.

Under such circumstances, it is natural for them to be cannon fodder, so what is there to complain about?

"Just bear with it, things will get better once we defeat Zhang Xianzhong."

After saying this lightly, Shi Guoxi urged his horse to go out of the camp with his soldiers.

He originally wanted to explain to Jiang Denglei. After all, being cannon fodder is also a process of gaining seniority. As long as new recruits join, the status of old cannon fodder like him will naturally rise.

However, the soldiers in the camp had already set off, and it would be a bit too late for a general like him to stand here and chat.

"Let's go. It's useless to think too much now. We might as well fight this battle well. We can at least get more rewards from the prince."

As soon as he finished speaking, the other generals followed Shi Guoxi's lead. Although Jiang Denglei, who was a little slow, did not understand the reason, he still followed him out of the camp gate.

Their camp was only about two or three miles away from the Bordered Yellow Banner Guards Camp, which was only half an incense stick's time during the day.

But the current situation is different from usual after all. As soon as they left the camp, the generals had already dispersed their elite scouts in order to avoid running headfirst into the enemy's ambush.

As time passed, the troops led by several generals gradually approached the guard camp.

Along the way, they passed by several Manchu and Mongolian camps, but without exception, all of them had their gates tightly closed and showed no intention of rescuing the army.

Things had come to this point, and it was useless to complain any further. But when a scout returned, Jiang Denglei could no longer suppress his dissatisfaction.

"General, there is a battalion of soldiers following behind our army."

"What a dog says!"

"Silence!"

Faced with this situation, Shi Guoxi, the most prestigious among them, had to speak out to stop it, but he only said this one sentence before he heard the other party complain again.

"If I hadn't been transferred away from Hanzhong, I would have joined the general in rebellion!"

"General Zhi has already abandoned Hanzhong. If you want to die, go find him. Don't implicate us!"

These people all followed Li Zicheng and raised their flags. Who would be less irritable than Jiang Denglei? Who would be willing to be used as cannon fodder by the Tartars?

But there is no way to escape the situation.

Not to mention where to go after the rebellion, the mere fact that all the soldiers, young and old, were in Guanzhong was enough to make these battalions of soldiers submit to Hauge.

I don’t know if I’m used to this kind of scene or if what my colleagues say is really hard to refute.

After this voice fell, Jiang Denglei, who was furious a moment ago, just had a dark face and said nothing, and the conversation ended here.

After a while, the guard camp, which was extremely conspicuous by the firelight, finally appeared in front of them. However, to everyone's surprise, not only did they not encounter any ambush along the way, the scouts they sent out did not even find the shadow of half of the Dashi Army.

Seeing this, several surrendered generals secretly rejoiced. However, when they launched an attack on the Dashi Army in accordance with military orders, the Du Lei who followed them all the way fell into confusion.

This time he led his troops to follow the surrendered army in order to lure out the enemy ambushes hiding in the dark and give them a fatal blow.

But now, the group of surrendered soldiers have joined the battle, and there is still no trace of the ambush that the prince mentioned. He couldn't help but wonder what went wrong.

Is the prince's judgment wrong?
Of course it is unlikely.

Unless the purpose of this battle is not to fight itself, it would be unreasonable for the enemy to attack only one battalion when attacking at night.

Could it be that the scouts and scouts were deployed too densely, so the enemy felt they had no chance and withdrew their ambush?
That doesn't seem likely.

This area is sandwiched between two mountains, and there are only the mountains on both sides that can hide a large army. If there are really enemy soldiers hiding there, scouts will definitely be able to find clues.

As his thoughts turned, Du Lei's doubts grew. In the end, he still couldn't find a reasonable explanation, but he had to give an order to the general beside him.

"Order the entire army to stop where they are, and have the scouts and scouts continue to search the surrounding mountains and forests. Make sure not a single inch is left untouched."

"twitter!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a soldier went to pass on the order. Afterwards, he did not wait here but spoke to another person: "Go to the central army and tell the prince about the situation here in detail."

"twitter!"

As the soldiers left, the news from the front soon reached Hauge's ears.

But the situation at this time could already be described as weird. Even though no bad news such as "ambushed" was reported from the front, he was even more worried than when he saw the fire in the guard camp just now.

After all, he didn't believe that the Dashi Army would go through so much trouble in the middle of the night just to attack a camp, and he didn't believe that the Dashi Army didn't have any backup plans.

But the situation has developed into this state, and the enemy has not made any movement at all.

Under such circumstances, even if he had doubts, he could not find any clues.

Am I overthinking this? Is Xianze just trying to harass me?
But what’s the point of doing this?

Keeping the army restless all night?

Thinking of this, a battle array immediately appeared in Hauge's mind.

It seems that a thousand years ago, a high-ranking Han official used a similar method to keep enemy soldiers awake at night. After doing this for several days in a row, he took advantage of the enemy's fatigue and launched a real attack.

“Hiss~~~~, this is a trouble.”

As his thoughts turned, Haoge couldn't help but take a breath, but before he could calm down, he heard the sound of horse hooves, and then saw Luo Luohun's figure appear in the camp.

"Were we ambushed?"

Normally, when a military commander asks such a question, he would be worried or something like that, but at this moment, Hauge's worry was mixed with some expectation, as if an enemy ambush was the news he wanted to hear most.

This is no wonder, the unknown is always the most stressful.

If the troops ahead encountered an enemy ambush, he would just have to fight back with his generals and defend with his own weapons. The troops under his command were all experienced warriors, and after getting over the initial panic, they were not afraid of a head-on battle with the enemy.

But if the expected enemy does not appear, then the situation tonight will continue to be weird.

"No, the scouts searched several times but found no ambush. Aobai was making a lot of noise. I saw that the surrendered troops had already engaged the bandits, so I let him lead the team over."

Hearing this, Haoge's disappointment was evident on the surface, but Luo Luohun didn't seem surprised at all after seeing his look, and he obviously also noticed the weirdness of tonight.

"Tonight's bandits are indeed a bit unusual, but we are guarding the gates carefully so we don't expect them to come. If you think about it from another perspective, their initiative to attack us is not a bad thing."

Luo Luohun's words were meant to comfort Haoge, but they were not entirely unreasonable at the moment.

After all, during this period of time they had been attacking the Dashi Army's fortresses, not only suffering considerable casualties, but they had not even reached the edge of Guangyuan City.

In comparison, although they were the ones who were attacked tonight, the Dashi Army had lost the protection of the fortress. After the reinforcements arrived, they would be able to make the attacking enemy pay a price.

Comparing the two, it is hard to say who has gained the upper hand.

As the commander of the army, Haoge could understand Luo Luohun's meaning, but the strangeness of the thief tonight could not be underestimated. After a few words, he expressed his guess.

".I thought about it for a while. In addition to boosting morale, the bandit's surprise attack tonight could only be this possibility. But there is only a thief who steals for a thousand days, and who has ever heard of guarding against thieves for a thousand days? If the bandit really comes to disturb us every night, it will be very troublesome."

“This isn’t difficult.”

It was obvious that Luo Luohun had heard of this battle example, and he also had a way to break this passive situation.

No matter what, no matter whether you use the method of beating drums and gongs or directly sending troops to raid the camp, the enemy army must first get close to the camp before it can be effective.

As long as they deployed more scouts and sentries between the camp and Guangyuan City, such a plan would naturally fail.

As for whether the scouts and sentinels can return safely
There are so many surrendered soldiers and Han troops in the left and right armies, and their losses will not be a big deal.

"Hey! You are smart, I..."

“Report~~~~~!”

Just as Haoge was about to praise Luo Luohun, he was interrupted by a loud shout, and then he saw a horse galloping towards the central army tent.

"Your Highness, the enemy army has been repelled, and the commander of the guards, Aobai, is counting the casualties."

Retreating so soon?
After hearing this report, Hauge and Luo Luohun looked at each other. They were still unwilling to accept it, and then they began to ask in detail.

The battle process was not complicated. To sum it up, after the surrendering troops arrived, the attacking troops retreated on their own initiative.

The reason why the word "careful" was used was because Hauge and Luo Luohun asked questions again and again about the enemy's performance.

After a while, all the questions that needed to be asked had been asked.

By this time they had already made some general judgments from the soldiers' answers and other information.

The bandits that attacked tonight can be considered elite no matter where they are. Not only was their attack quite methodical, but there was also a group of people who did not join the battle and stayed behind to provide support.

It is obvious that if the enemy army exerts its full strength, it will be able to block the reinforcements and directly wipe out the Bordered Yellow Banner Guards.

But not only did they not do so, they decisively evacuated after the reinforcements arrived.

What else does this indicate except that they did not expect to achieve much?
"Order Jiang Denglei and others to disperse all their scouts and scouts between Guangyuan and the main camp from tomorrow and tonight, and report any movement of the bandits immediately."

"Order!"

After receiving the military order, the soldier rode out again. After his figure disappeared, Haoge looked at Luo Luohun again.

"Should we move all the surrendered troops inside?"

Although Oboi had not yet counted the casualties at this time, the guards had held out for such a long time that their losses must have been considerable.

If the bandits came to do this every now and then, Hauge's Eight Banners headquarters would not be able to withstand it.

But then again, tonight it was the guards who were standing in the front. If it were the surrendered troops or the Han army, they would probably be completely defeated by the surprise attack of the bandits. Even if they could gather some of their forces after the battle, given their cowardly attitude, losing 30% to 40% would be inevitable.

Once this happens, when the real war begins, will we still have to rely on the Eight Banners headquarters to serve as cannon fodder?

Hauge was naturally well aware of this situation.

Just thinking about the loss of the Bordered Yellow Banner Guards tonight, his heart couldn't help but ache. Making such a suggestion, which he knew was inappropriate, was probably just a different way of venting his frustration.

With the withdrawal of the Dashi Army, the various troops returned to their own camps one after another, and the area where the Qing Army was located gradually returned to its original tranquility.

For them, tonight's battle is over, and what remains is to clean up the mess and vent all the losses of tonight on the fort after dawn.

But for Sun Kewang, everything was just beginning.

"Your Majesty, I'm back."

"went well?"

"As expected, the Tartars waited to find out the situation before they dared to send people out."

"Go down and organize the troops."

"Order!"

(End of this chapter)