Li Dingguo personally led 500 cavalrymen to make a detour to the south.
After the chieftain's cavalry had chased to a certain distance, the 500 cavalrymen he led were divided into two again.
Half ran eastward, and the other half retreated westward.
Sha Yueze thought that this Ming army was afraid of fighting, so he hastily sent troops to pursue them.
Li Dingguo ran and looked back, constantly calculating the distance in his mind.
"One hundred steps..."
"Eighty steps..."
"Whoa!" Li Dingguo suddenly pulled the reins of the warhorse, and then controlled the warhorse to turn around on the spot.
Seeing this, other cavalrymen followed suit.
When the two sides were sixty steps apart, the Ming army completed the formation adjustment, from facing the enemy instead of facing away from the enemy.
"Kill!" Li Dingguo led the charge.
Sha Yueze originally thought that the Ming army was afraid of fighting, but he did not expect that the other side would counterattack.
The sudden change made the Tusi cavalry a little panicked. They shot arrows and retreated subconsciously.
As more and more cavalry retreated, the army formation began to loosen.
The situation on the battlefield changed suddenly in the blink of an eye.
The Tusi cavalry changed from a pursuit to a fleeing trend.
In the past, they would have had plenty of room to escape and regroup.
Not today.
As soon as they turned around, they found that there were more than 200 friendly troops coming towards them, and these friendly troops were also retreating.
Five hundred Tusi cavalrymen were attacked from the front and back by five hundred Ming cavalrymen!
whoosh!
The arrow made a sharp sound of breaking through the air.
Since these chieftain cavalrymen were wearing armor, the Ming army did not use armor-piercing arrows, but instead used shovel arrows.
The shovel arrow is specially used for shooting horses. The arrow head is shaped like a shovel. When it hits the target, it will shovel off a large piece of flesh and blood, causing large area trauma.
The warhorse will suffer from pain, go crazy or lose the ability to continue fighting.
As the sound of breaking through the air was heard, the horses under the chieftain cavalry also let out painful neighs.
The soldiers had armor, but the horses did not.
The warhorse's butt and hind legs were constantly hit by shovel arrows.
The warhorse was soon frightened.
The chieftain's cavalry kept waving their whips in an attempt to calm their horses.
But the warhorse was totally out of control and ran forward like mad.
The two groups of Tusi cavalry collided head-on.
Under the huge impact, the soldiers fell off their horses one after another and their horses fell to the ground injured.
Before they could recover from the collision, Li Dingguo personally led the cavalry to the scene.
This was not a battle, but a one-sided massacre.
The Ming army's arrows hit the target and their swords were deadly, and they killed all 500 Tusi cavalrymen.
Sha Yueze was not spared and died in the chaos.
Shortly after the Ming army in the south of the battlefield ended the battle, the Ming army in the north also completed the mission.
Nearly a thousand Ming troops quickly gathered together.
"General, what should we do with these infantrymen?" a general asked Li Dingguo on horseback.
Li Dingguo shook his head and said, "Don't worry about them. Go to Pingyi City and persuade them to surrender immediately."
"Yes, sir."
More than a thousand cavalrymen quickly left the battlefield.
The Tusi infantry looked at the bloody battlefield, the corpses scattered all over the ground, and the Ming army leaving the battlefield. Everyone was dumbfounded...
"Boss, we haven't even joined the battle yet, how come it's over?" a Tusi infantryman asked the small leader beside him.
The little leader glared at him and said, "Fortunately, I didn't join the battle, otherwise I would have died miserably."
"So...what should we do next?"
"What else can we do? Surrender, of course!"
"Our families are still in Mengzi. If Lord Sha knew about our surrender, they would probably..."
"If you surrender, your family may not die, but if you don't surrender, you will be dead!" After saying this, the little leader took the lead in leaving the battlefield and ran towards Pingyi City.
There were only 500 infantrymen left defending Pingyi City. When they saw that Desheng's return was not a friendly army but the Ming army, they immediately laid down their weapons, opened the city and surrendered.
Between dignity and life, they chose the latter.
Li Dingguo captured Pingyi City in just half a day.
A day later, the main force of the Ming army entered Pingyi.
Governor Wen Anzhi was very happy with the victory in the first battle.
He sat in the central military tent and entertained all the generals.
Gao Wengui arrived first. He quietly slipped to Wen Anzhi's side and asked in a low voice: "Governor Wen, I have a favor to ask of you."
"Go ahead. Winning the first battle is a great achievement. As long as the request is not too unreasonable, I will agree to it."
Hearing Wen Anzhi say this, Gao Wengui's eyes lit up: "Does Governor Wen keep his word?"
"Of course. Go ahead."
"I want to eat mushrooms. They are fresh and fragrant when fried. They are delicious."
"No!" Wen Anzhi immediately refused: "It's better if you don't get poisoned. If you get poisoned, it's like destroying yourself."
"Don't worry, Governor Wen. I want to let the local chieftains and soldiers try the food first. If they are fine, we can eat it later."
Seeing Gao Wengui's expectant face, Wen Anzhi couldn't refuse anymore and could only agree to his request.
Half an hour later, the fireman brought a message: "Governor, one of the chieftain's surrendered soldiers who were tasting the food died, and the other two said they were flying."
"Ah?" Gao Wengui broke out in a cold sweat. "The locals can't even recognize poisonous mushrooms?"
Wen Anzhi sighed deliberately and asked, "General Gao, can you tell a person's heart from his appearance?"
Gao Wengui was stunned for a moment, "No, you can't know a person's heart but only his face."
"That's right! Mushrooms are like human hearts. You can't tell from the outside whether they are poisonous or not. Non-toxic ones can fill your stomach, but poisonous ones can kill you. As long as you don't think about filling your stomach, you won't get poisoned and die. Do you understand?"
Gao Wengui blinked his eyes and saluted: "I understand."
"Yeah," Wen Anzhi nodded, "Don't think about mushrooms anymore. Think more about how to fight the war."
As all the generals arrived, the banquet officially began.
As the cups were exchanged, most people drank too much.
Although Wen Anzhi and Li Dingguo also drank, they did not drink too much.
The two took the opportunity of the banquet to discuss their next battle plan.
At noon the next day, the army set out from Pingyi and headed for Qujing.
Qujing is the gateway to Yunnan, and Sha Dingzhou stationed 5,000 troops here.
Sha Dingzhou had a good idea. These soldiers would only guard the city walls and not go out to fight in the field.
The Art of War says that if you have ten of them, surround them.
Unless the Ming army could gather ten times more troops to form a siege, they could only watch helplessly.
But Sha Dingzhou forgot...
When the Art of War was written, there was no gunpowder or artillery.
After the Ming army arrived outside Qujing City, they surrounded the north, east and south sides, leaving a gap on the west side.
The generals defending the city laughed as they looked at the Ming army that was everywhere outside the city: "With only 30,000 soldiers and horses, they want to capture Qujing. What a joke!"
But soon he couldn't laugh anymore.
The next morning, a messenger came in a hurry to report: "Your Excellency, the Ming army is about to attack the city."
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