The main infantry force of the official army marched for half an hour and walked eight or nine miles. When they caught up with the main force of the Han Wang Army and could see the opponent's troops with naked eyes, the sun was already at the three o'clock position.

The uniform and rhythmic skin drums kept ringing, and the horizontal military music mixed with it gave people a faint sense of joy. Perhaps it was because flesh and blood often flew across the battlefield, and the music in the Ming Dynasty's army rarely used heavy and magnificent songs.

Wu Gao, who had gray hair, had many wrinkles on his face, but the flesh exposed from his wrist armor on his arms was full of streams. He climbed up a hillside and looked at the enemy's deployment in the distance.

Wu Gao had received a report before and learned about the general situation. Now he saw it with his own eyes and soon saw the situation clearly.

When Wu Gao fights big battles, he likes to use defense instead of offense strategies, because the defense is more stable and it is not easy to suddenly collapse the blockbuster. But at present, Zhu Gaoxu obviously took the lead in using Wu Gao's method!

The official army marched from west to east. At this time, the mountain shape on the front was like a "concai" character that fell to the left, and the place where the concai entered was facing Wu Gaojun.

Almost all the rebels were on the mountains there. If Wu Gao wanted to attack, he could only attack the hillside. With such a slope, the physical strength of the soldiers who attacked the hillside would be several times higher than that of the enemy, which was quite a loss; the shooting of firearm bows and crossbows was not as good as that of the enemy on the mountain.

Only by attacking westward from the undulating mountain range in the south can it not be that big. But just attacking from one place on the ridge will consume too slowly; if you only attack like this and fight for consumption, and when the rebels' southern troops arrive in Pingyuefu, Wu Gao may not be able to take over the rebels of the Han King.

Wu Gao temporarily began to consider withdrawing his troops!

Originally, Wu Gao's idea was to try his best to get rid of the Han Wangjun and go to He County first; until yesterday evening, his plan was to go to He County, preparing to defeat the Han Wangjun first, and then go to He County.

But now he suddenly changed his mind: Now that the Han Wangjun has arrived in Pingyue Mansion, why don’t I follow the route of the Han Wangjun and turn around to Guilin Mansion?

If the marching route is changed north, one is the rebels' southern route, Shengyong's troops will catch up with Wu Gao, and the distance will be further. The other is, once successful, Wu Gao can still complete the general strategy of "doing his best to move towards the main force of the Huguang official army" by Zhang Fu, the leader of the Pinghan army, in the unfavorable situation.

At this moment, a thunderous cannon sound came from the south. Wu Gao looked at the ridge in the south, where the vanguards of the two armies monitored last night. White smoke could be seen vaguely on the high ground.

"Who ordered the war?" Wu Gao asked loudly immediately.

As soon as the words were finished, a burst of passionate shouts came from the nearby large camp. The officers and soldiers of various departments stopped in place one after another, and the sound of cannons in the south encouraged their courage.

Seeing this, Wu Gao was inevitably hesitant and did not immediately order the army to withdraw. The army had been walking for so many days, and now the two armies were facing each other. If the troops retreated, they would tell the soldiers to go on a long journey again, which would obviously hurt morale.

No one around the generals admitted that they had issued a military order to start a war in the avant-garde. At this time, a general clasped his fists and said, "The last general sent someone to see it immediately and come back to report to the Marquis."

"Go quickly!" Wu Gao said.

...On the ridge to the south, the sound of cannons roared and shouts shook the sky. The reinforcements of the Han Wang Army arrived near the vanguard camp and soon took the initiative to attack the Wu Gao army vanguard in the west.

However, after a large formation of 500 people in the Han Wang Army was repelled, chaos occurred on the uneven ridge of the high ground and fled to the east. Thousands of vanguards of the official army took advantage of the situation to pursue the Han Wang Army's vanguard camp.

The two armies fought fiercely again.

The vanguard camp of the King of Han rebels built simple fortifications, and along the ridges that were high in the middle and low on both sides, a waist-high earth wall was built, a trench of varying depths. The fortifications were obviously very hasty and the earth wall was very short. In most places, officials and soldiers jumped into the ditch and could climb up the trench and waist walls with bare hands.

So nearly ten hundred-houses in front of the official army had already pursued and approached the fortifications about ten steps. They followed the earth wall, from the front, the north and south armies besieged the trenches and earth walls. The firearms on both sides kept ringing, and arrows flew in the air.

The official army held a magic gun supervised by the Annan people, which was also a kind of copper musket, and shot with two rows of magic guns at the same time. The front row squatted on the ground and stood in the back row. The soldiers clamped the magic guns under their armpits with one hand and ignited the leads with the other.

"Bang bang bang..." There was a burst of noise, and the arrow clusters hit the earth wall ten steps away like raindrops. Since the near volley did not play much role, the rebel soldiers were squatting behind the earth wall, and at most they only had one head, so it was difficult to hit the arrow clusters of the magic gun.

The rebels then began to fight back with muskets. Their copper muskets were a bit strange. The tail of the gun was facing the soldiers' faces. People held guns in both hands, and fired fire guns only when they showed their heads. The sound of guns along the earth wall sounded, and rows of gunfires flew.

A scream suddenly came from the group of musket soldiers lined up by the official army. From time to time, people fell to the ground with screams of pain.

At this time, the official army began to change guns, handed over the magic guns loaded in the back row, and sent the firearms back. Some soldiers in the back row took a few steps forward to fill the injured and injured.

The second volley shot, the rebels were earlier than the official army. Their turn was not to change weapons, but to change people directly. After the fire guns were released, the people behind stood up and walked back, and then went forward and squatted behind the waist wall.

Both sides used firearms to shoot twice in a row. Because the rebels had earth walls blocked them, the method of firing fire guns was also very strange, which caused the official army to suffer a great loss! At this time, the official army directly adjusted the sharpshooter and used a crossbow to accurately shoot the rebel soldiers who showed their heads within ten steps.

After receiving a firepower from the bow and crossbow, the official army's gun and shield soldiers rushed up with a shout. Some officials stepped on their companions' shoulders and climbed up the earthen walls, while the rebels stabbed them in rows of spears, shouting everywhere along the trenches and earthen walls, and the killing sounds were deafening.

From time to time, there was a "boom" sound from the trench. The rebels threw the lit pig iron thunder into the trench below. The iron sheets splashed in the explosion of gunpowder, and the officers and soldiers in the trench screamed and hissed.

The artillery cart that was being transferred from the west turned back and retreated. The rebel reinforcements were advancing from the north and south sides of the fortifications, and the officers attacking the fortifications in the front were retreating; if the artillery was transported up, they would soon be captured by the rebels.

Hundreds of rebels pursued the uneven ridges of the high ground, and only less than two hundred steps were pursued. The reinforcements of the government army also came. The two armies approached, and the government army bombarded with artillery, bows and crossbows.

The sharp guns were shot together, and then the soldiers rushed with guns and shields. The rebels were repelled again, and many people kept their formations and retreated eastward, and some were disintegrating, running all over the mountain.

At this time, the two sides only fought fiercely along the ridge and highlands, and the contact area was very narrow, and each had tens of thousands of powerful troops. Such a battle could not play a big role.

In field fighting, many times, it depends on pursuit. However, the enemy has a large number of reinforcements and cannot be carried out in the local area. The pursuit cannot be sustained, so it is extremely difficult to achieve great results. Fighting back and forth is nothing more than just consuming time and slowly consuming troops.

At this moment, a general came to the official army's forefront camp with the order flag and shouted loudly: "Stop chasing! Who told you to start a war?"

The commander of the vanguard of the government army quickly came over and replied: "The rebels first attacked our troops, and after our troops won, they chased them to the rebel camp."

The general holding the order flag handed over the military order, "The general has orders to avoid going to war with the rebels and wait for new deployment!" He looked back on all sides and pointed to a high place behind and said: "The whole army retreated to the top, set up artillery at a high place to resist the rebel attack."

"Get orders!"

The general who was sent to the command then left the battlefield and went down from the north of the mountain...

At this time, the main positions of the two armies still did not conflict. The Wu Gao army was at least one mile away from the enemy. Unless it was heavy artillery in Hongwu cannons, they would not even be able to bombard the cannons. Although the rebels were on high places, they obviously did not carry heavy artillery.

A deputy general next to Wu Gao said, "My official army has many soldiers and a wide range of generals. After trying to occupy several high grounds, he attacked from several sides. There is also a chance of winning this battle."

Wu Gao refused to say anything. His mount kept kicking the horse's hooves as if he was a little restless. He swayed on the horse's back, his eyes observing the scene in the distance.

"The rebels' pontoon bridge on the Lechuan water has been demolished?" Wu Gao suddenly asked an irrelevant question.

The general replied: "Half an hour ago, the last general received a report. The rebels demolished the floating bridge overnight last night, and all the ships were transferred to the Lechuan Water."

Wu Gao remained silent for a while, his expression changed, as if he was thinking about something repeatedly. After a long time, he finally said, "Send someone to Pinglefu City and order the prefect to transfer boats on the Li River to come. He ordered the guards to set up a floating bridge at the ferry crossing of the rebels yesterday."

"The Marquis is about to withdraw his troops?" asked a general beside him.

Wu Gao said in an unquestionable tone: "The rebels of the Han King occupy high places to defend themselves. If they waste a little time, they can build some fortifications; this battle is difficult to win quickly. Instead of delaying the victory and waiting for the outcome of the victory, it is better to make a decision to withdraw immediately as soon as possible.

Our troops are deployed to move closer to the main force of the Huguang official army. The rebels of the Han King have arrived at Pingyue Mansion. Our troops can take the opportunity to turn around and change their routes towards Guilin Mansion, and gradually move away from Shengyong reinforcements on the southern rebel route."

The generals seemed a little silent for a moment, obviously everyone was not very willing. Wu Gao also understood what they meant. Ordinary generals only wanted to obtain military merits easily, and often did not have any foresight on the whole... Maybe everyone would not worry about the things that Sheng Yongjun was approaching every day.

Before this, the army set out from Nanning Prefecture and walked to Luoqing River north of Liuzhou Prefecture; then returned to the northeast of Liuzhou Prefecture City and detoured by Pingyue Prefecture. Over the past few days, the army had traveled nearly a thousand miles, and it seemed that they didn't want to continue trekking.

This is also the reason why Wu Gao has not ordered the withdrawal of troops for a long time! But after repeated weighing, he still believed that it would be difficult for the official army to win the Pingyuefu Battle in a short period of time.

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Chapter completed!