There were many horse-breeding households in the north, and the men from these horse-breeding households could become good cavalrymen with just a little training. However, due to the dire situation in the late Ming Dynasty, most of the horse-breeding households became rebels, making it easy for Gao Yingxiang to form a cavalry team. Thanks to the deal with Huang Taiji, after a year of development, Gao Yingxiang had a cavalry team of more than 10,000 people.
Such a large cavalry force made Gao Yingxiang much more powerful than in history. The officers and soldiers who came to suppress him were almost forced to flee at the sight of him. If nothing unexpected happened, it would not take long for Gao Yingxiang to have the strength to capture the capital.
Zhou Linfeng's Zhou family is very wealthy and has more than 2,000 servants. In the past, when Gao Yingxiang and his men did not have the strength, they did not dare to target the Zhou family. Now Gao Yingxiang's team has grown to a terrifying number. With so many people to eat and drink, it is no longer possible to rob those small families. Gao Yingxiang's eyes are naturally on these super landlords.
However, Gao Yingxiang didn't know that in such a short period of time, the Zhou family had grown into a cavalry of more than 3,000 people. Of course, although a cavalry of more than 3,000 people was also a powerful force, it was still not taken seriously by someone like Gao Yingxiang, who had long regarded the Zhou family as a big fat sheep.
However, in Shanxi and Hebei, there is not only one big landlord, the Zhou family. Dozens of families have organized village militias with more than 40,000 people. These village militias are not like Gao Yingxiang's team, which has men, women, young and old. The members of the village militia are all strong men. These landlords are wealthy and powerful. Most of their subordinates are cavalry, and a small number of infantry are equipped with muskets. After a little training, their combat effectiveness is much stronger than that of officers and soldiers. In addition, they are locals and have the advantage of geographical location. Gao Yingxiang cannot just mobilize his armed forces to attack them.
For their common interests, these armed landlords united to form a loose group. Because the Zhou family was popular in the local area, Zhou Linfeng became the leader of this loose organization. Their main task was to equip all officers and soldiers to suppress Gao Yingxiang's rebels.
Because Gao Yingxiang's forces were growing rapidly and Huang Taiji's forces were hit by Tang Tongzhi, the Jiannu were temporarily unable to invade the Ming Dynasty. After making up his mind, Emperor Chongzhen withdrew a part of the Guanning Iron Cavalry from Shanhaiguan, and added Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengchou, Zuo Liangyu and other troops, totaling 270,000 troops, to encircle and suppress Gao Yingxiang's main force in three directions.
Gao Yingxiang's main force consisted of nearly 100,000 men, all of whom were relatively young and strong, led by Zhang Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others. The rest, consisting of nearly 200,000 old and weak men, had died. Basically, they were a team without any strong men, and had no combat effectiveness at all. Zhang Yan had about 7,000 men under his command, of whom 5,000 were either elderly or children, and the remaining 2,000 strong men were from the Zhang family and had never been transferred by Gao Yingxiang.
After Tang Tong ordered Tang Yan to defect to Gao Yingxiang, he was not put to any use. Instead, Gao Yingxiang drafted out his young and strong men several times. The reason was ridiculous. It was because Tang Yan was born into a scholar family, and Gao Yingxiang believed that scholars were unreliable, so he had always refused to use Tang Yan. After several young and strong men were drafted out, Tang Yan came up with an idea. He mixed together the people who were later arranged by Tang Tong and those who defected to Gao Yingxiang, and said that they were all members of his family. In this way, Gao Yingxiang could not be so unkind as to draft out these few people from his family.
Zhang Xianzhong was not suited to being an official. He was different from Zhang Xianzhong. Zhang Xianzhong looked rough on the surface, but he was actually very good at scheming. Zhang Zicheng had a high prestige among the rebels, but Zhang Xianzhong was not as popular as Zhang Xianzhong in front of Gao Yingxiang. The two became enemies and were at odds with each other. It was only because of Gao Yingxiang that the two sides could live in peace.
Zhang Zicheng was a more far-sighted man than Gao Yingxiang. Although Zhang Yan was not favored by Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Zicheng deliberately sought to win him over. This was partly due to Zhang Yan's talent, and partly because Zhang Yan's team was the strongest outside of the main force. The core of these two thousand so-called "Jian family disciples" far outpaced the most elite soldiers in Gao Yingxiang's army. Having such a team on Zhang Zicheng's side was a powerful asset in his fight against Zhang Xianzhong.
Of course, Zicheng didn't know. The reason why Gao Yingxiang's two thousand men were so formidable was that most of them were elite soldiers sent by Tang Tong. How could they not be strong? Furthermore, Gao Yingxiang had repeatedly drawn young and strong men from Gao Yingxiang's ranks. As a result, Tang Tong's undercover agents were scattered throughout Gao Yingxiang's main force, and many of them became small-time leaders.
Here, history unfolds in a surprising twist. Gao Yingxiang, overwhelmed by the rapid growth of his forces, split his forces into several groups to capture cities and territories. Zhang Zicheng advanced on Luoyang. Zhang Xianzhong's troops left Sichuan to seize the granary of Hubei. Gao Yingxiang then turned his attention to Shaanxi, aiming to capture Chang'an. His ambitions surged.
Non-main force teams like Gao Yan were assigned to attack the rural militias in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and other regions. Relatively speaking, these non-main force teams faced the toughest challenges. Gao Yingxiang, however, thought the missions he assigned to Gao Yan and his team were easy.
The landlords' armed militias were composed of young and strong men. Their weapons were far superior to those of the non-main force troops like Yan Yan and his group. Furthermore, the non-main force troops had almost no cavalry, while the landlords' armed forces had a large number of cavalry. As a result, from the very beginning of the battle, the non-main force troops among the rebels were almost completely defeated. Even a man with military talent like Yan Yan was powerless and could only retreat with the rest of the group.
The non-main force units within the rebel army were independently organized. They were composed of troops who had defected to Gao Yingxiang from various regions. After joining Gao Yingxiang's team, Gao Yingxiang did not disband these individuals. They still led their own subordinates. However, Gao Yingxiang had withdrawn most of the young and strong members of the team under various pretexts, which could be considered a disguised form of control.
As the biggest undercover sent by Tang Tong, Yan always kept in mind the need to protect his men. Naturally, he would not take these people to fight desperately with the militia. He took his men into the mountains and left the rebel troops to be hunted down by the militia.
There were also local militias who had set their sights on the Tang family's team and wanted to follow them into the mountains to hunt them down. However, they suffered heavy casualties in the face of the battlefield Tang family had built and could not advance an inch. They wanted to surround Tang family and wait for them to run out of ammunition and food. However, with the covert support of the Tang family caravan and merchants related to the Tang family in Shanxi, they did not have to worry about running out of ammunition and food.
In recent years, many Shanxi merchants have had business relations with the Tang family. These merchants were also the first to buy muskets to protect themselves. Now, among the rural militias in Shanxi, several are formed by these merchants. Although it is not known why the Tang family secretly supports this team, because Yan Yan paid a high price to buy the things they secretly transported,
These businessmen thought that the Tang family did this to make a profit.
Merchants' instinct is to make profits. For the sake of profits, these merchants don't care whether the other party is a rebel or not. Some self-righteous merchants even sell horses to Yan at a high price, and don't seem to care at all that Yan's power will be strengthened as a result.
In just a few days, the army of nearly 200,000 was beaten to pieces by tens of thousands of local militias. These victorious local militias worked together and cooperated with the officers and soldiers to kill Gao Yingxiang's army.
Zhang Xianzhong's troops had a smooth journey, but Gao Yingxiang's army did not make good progress. They first suffered a small defeat at the hands of Hong Chengchou, and then were entangled by Zuo Liangyu's army for a while. In order to prevent the officers and soldiers from surrounding them from several directions, Gao Yingxiang did not dare to fight with Zuo Liangyu. After quickly getting rid of Zuo Liangyu, he went out of the South Gate and marched straight to Xi'an.
Along the way, they were constantly attacked by the armed forces of the landlords, which made Gao Yingxiang's soldiers tired and exhausted. These local militias that came from all over the place were basically cavalry, and they kept harassing Gao Yingxiang's team like a group of ants. Gao Yingxiang had more than 10,000 cavalrymen under his command. In order to drive away these cavalrymen of the local militia, Gao Yingxiang kept dispatching these cavalrymen. In this way, he achieved considerable results. Those local militias could no longer come to harass him, but Gao Yingxiang did not notice that more than 8,000 of his more than 10,000 cavalrymen were dispatched.
Gao Yingxiang accelerated the pace of his army. When the army reached Yangjialing, history once again showed its powerful inertia. Sun Chuanting led his men to ambush here, waiting for Gao Yingxiang to fall into the trap.
In history, Gao Yingxiang was ambushed by Sun Chuanting and captured by officers and soldiers. It was only because of Tang Tongdi's arrival that this incident was brought forward by one year. When Gao Yingxiang arrived at Yangjialing, the team was already exhausted, but there were a large number of officers and soldiers and local militia chasing them from behind. Gao Yingxiang did not stop, but led the team to prepare to enter Yangjialing.
Zhou Linfeng was looking at Gao Yingxiang's rebels in the distance with a monocular telescope, a cold smile on his face. This time, he had traveled thousands of miles in a hurry and finally made it in time to join the officers and soldiers in encircling Gao Yingxiang's troops. This time, maybe he could catch a big fish and make a great contribution, which would also be a way to repay his father for buying these equipment for him.
As the leader of a local militia, Zhou Linfeng was not qualified to participate in the combat meetings of officers and soldiers, so he did not know that Sun Chuanting had set an ambush in this place. He just relied on his military talent and felt that this place was a good place to set an ambush. The only thing that made him sigh was that he was a step too late and failed to get ahead of Gao Yingxiang's troops to set up an ambush here. Now all he could do was to cooperate with the officers and soldiers to encircle Gao Yingxiang's troops.
"Sir, the rebels have already occupied Yangjialing.
"Sun Chuanting stood in a forest, observing the situation ahead with a telescope in his hand. A scout came over and reported to him.
Sun Chuanting put down the telescope. He had already seen the situation of the rebel Gao Yingxiang's troops through the telescope. This kind of telescope was produced by a factory under Tang Tong. Each one cost tens of thousands of silver taels. Most of them were sold to sea merchants. Some rich families bought them as curiosities. Some people used the telescopes for military purposes. These people generally had some military talents and knew how to use some tools. However, due to the high price, the use of telescopes was not promoted.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com