"Something bad has happened! The Ming army is attacking the camp!" The roar of scouts was heard in the courtyard of Sha Dingzhou's Mengzi camp.
Sha Dingzhou hurriedly pulled up his trousers and walked out.
He opened the door and looked outside, only to see his scouts standing in the middle of the yard pacing back and forth.
Sha Dingzhou asked hurriedly: "The Ming army is coming too fast, isn't it? There are more than a dozen villages between us and the Ming army!"
"Sir, those villages were frightened by the Ming army. As soon as the Ming army's manifesto arrived, they immediately surrendered..."
Sha Dingzhou was in tears.
When they started the rebellion, they agreed to share honor and disgrace, and fought the Ming army to the end and refused to surrender.
As a result, except for his own camp, all other tribes were fence-sitters.
"How many people are there in the Ming army?" Sha Dingzhou asked after calming down.
“It’s impossible to count them all.”
"Damn it, if I can't count them all, I'll have to have an approximate number!"
"Maybe three or four thousand people, all infantry!" The scout made up a number at random.
Sha Dingzhou's brain worked rapidly and he ordered: "Gather all the troops and go to meet the enemy!"
"Yes, sir." The scout turned and left.
Sha Dingzhou did not follow the scout, but turned back into the house.
Wan in the room was now fully dressed and was taking up her weapons.
"Madam..." Sha Dingzhou stretched out his hand and embraced Wan, "How about we surrender!"
"Surrender?" Wan's beautiful eyes glanced slightly: "Do you think the Ming court will let us go?"
"Even if the Ming court can let you and me go, what about Mu Tianbo? His mother, concubine, and brother all died in the chaos. They want to peel off our skin and eat our flesh!"
"Surrendering now will lead to death!"
Sha Dingzhou smiled bitterly: "I don't want to surrender, but this is the situation now. The Ming army is too strong. Our army has been defeated again and again. Now we have retreated to the Mengzi camp. If we don't surrender, there will be nowhere to escape!"
Wan put her hands on her hips and thought for a while: "There is another place."
"where?"
Wan said leisurely: "Qigelung Old Village!"
Qigelong Laozhai is located on a mountain next to Mengzi Laozhai Village.
There is dense vegetation here, and steep cliffs on all sides. There is only one mountain road that can be used for travel, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.
The local chieftain once built city walls, houses and other fortifications here.
Because it is a city in the mountains, it is also called Chengzi Mountain.
(Qigelung Laozhai is now a cultural relic protection site, called the Annan Governor's Office. In the 15th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Nayou, the then commander of the Annan Road Defense and Escort Army of the Yuan Dynasty, led his troops to surrender. Zhu Yuanzhang changed the Annan Road Defense and Escort Army to the Annan Governor's Office, which was abolished in the 8th year of Zhengde.)
(In the first year of the Tianqi reign, Wangnong Tusi Sha Yuan made great contributions in blocking the invasion of Jiaozhi. The Tianqi Emperor re-established the Annan Division. Sha Yuan was promoted to Xuanfu Envoy for his military merits and took office as the Annan Chieftain. After Sha Yuan's death, his son Sha Dingzhou inherited the official position and occupied the Annan Chieftain's Office.)
Wan continued, "The mountain road leading to the Qigelong Old Village is rugged, and the Ming army's artillery can't be transported in at all. In addition, the terrain is difficult to attack and easy to defend, so it can be defended!"
Sha Dingzhou thought about it quickly and had no choice but to agree, "Well, Madam, pack up your belongings quickly, we'll leave right away."
"You can't just pack up your valuables!" Wan frowned and said, "The soldiers, their families, luggage, and food must all be taken away, otherwise the morale of the army will be unstable!"
"But the Ming army has already attacked the village. If we leave too late, we will be surrounded."
"It doesn't matter. The Mengzi camp is not that easy to breach. You take Chen Changming to meet the enemy, then sneak away after an hour, and sell Chen Changming out to cover your retreat."
"Is this...appropriate?" Sha Dingzhou felt a little embarrassed by the act of selling out his subordinates.
"Which is more important, life or face?" Wan asked back.
Sha Dingzhou gritted his teeth, put on his armor and walked out.
At this time, the 4,000 Ming troops had already started fighting with the 3,000 Tusi soldiers.
Although the number of Tusi soldiers is small, their advantage is that they are in a commanding position and in a defensive posture.
They hid behind cover, and when the Ming army launched an attack, they first killed people with arrows from a distance, and then threw down rolling logs and stones when the Ming army got close.
Although the Ming army had a large number of troops, they were restricted by the terrain and had no artillery support. After attacking for a quarter of an hour, they did not advance a single step.
After observing for a while, Li Dingguo issued an order: "All heavy armored soldiers retreat, and the rattan shield soldiers and bird gun soldiers go up. The rattan shield soldiers are in front, and the bird gun soldiers are in the back. Be careful to keep a distance from the front, back, left, and right..."
After a brief silence, the scene became noisy again.
Five hundred rattan shield bearers and five hundred bird-gun soldiers attacked up the hillside in a dispersed formation.
"Aim, aim in advance!" Seeing that the Ming army's rattan shield soldiers were about to be within the range of an arrow, Sha Dingzhou immediately gave orders.
The chieftain's soldier drew his bow and arrow and just as he leaned forward, the Ming army's rattan shield bearers' musket soldiers behind them opened fire.
They were holding the latest issued Rumi guns.
The Rumi gun is powerful and has a long range, and its hit rate is very high when stationary.
Bang, bang, bang——
After a cloud of smoke passed by, more than fifty Tusi soldiers were shot and screamed while covering their wounds.
"Ah...it hurts so much."
"Save me, save me quickly."
The other chieftains and their soldiers were stunned.
They were about seventy steps away from the Ming army's rattan shield bearers, while the Ming army's bird-gun soldiers were about twenty steps behind the rattan shield bearers.
The two sides are ninety steps apart...
The bird guns in the hands of the Ming army could actually penetrate armor and injure people, or even kill people, from ninety steps away!
It's unheard of!
What they didn't know was that if they didn't attack from above, the Ming army's bird guns could kill people from a hundred steps away.
Sha Dingzhou was also stunned. He kept calculating the distance between the two sides, trying to convince himself that he had made a mistake.
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