The defeat at the Battle of Persimmon Garden made Sun Chuanting feel that Li Zicheng was no longer Wuxia Amon and was not easy to deal with.
Therefore, he led the army back to Shaanxi, while licking the wounds, while accumulating strength, actively resuming agricultural production in Shaanxi, and also recruiting troops and horses, and soon gathered 100,000 Shaanxi troops.
At the Battle of Persimmon Garden, Li Zicheng's elite cavalry made the officers suffer. Sun Chuanting was bitter and decided to start forming an "artillery unit" to deal with Li Zicheng's cavalry.
Modeled on the Wugang chariot of the Jin Dynasty, he designed a kind of chariot, which was loaded with hot weapons such as fire bolts and artillery, so it was named "train".
Such trains could also be loaded with soldiers' rations, clothing, and bows and arrows. It can withstand the impact of the opposing cavalry when attacking, and can be used as a barrier for the camp when camping, which is really a good equipment for traveling at home and killing people and goods.
Sun Chuanting had high hopes for the train camp, so he chose a brave and good warrior for it, Bai Guang'en.
It should be said that Sun Chuanting has already walked on the right path, and in time, the Shaanxi army in his hands will become a strong force, and at that time, it is entirely possible to independently solve Li Zicheng.
However, Sun Chuanting could wait, but Chongzhen could not wait, and he constantly gave Sun Chuanting additional promotions.
In May 1643 (the sixteenth year of Chongzhen), the imperial court ordered Sun Chuanting to concurrently supervise the military affairs of Henan and Sichuan, and then promoted to bingbu Shangshu, renamed the inspector, and added the military affairs of Shanxi, Huguang, Guizhou, Jiangnan and North, which was equivalent to handing over all the household belongings of the Ming Empire in Guannei to Sun Chuanting.
However, the emperor's favor was not given in vain, and Chongzhen had only one purpose, hoping that Sun Chuanting would be able to eliminate Li Zicheng as soon as possible.
At zhu Youjian's repeated urging, in August 1643, the helpless Sun Chuanting set out from Xi'an and led Bai Guangen, Gao Jie, Niu Chenghu and other generals to lead 100,000 troops out of Tongguan and enter Henan to fight Against Li Zicheng.
Before setting out, Sun Chuanting gave an order to Zuo Liangyu, who was entrenched in Huguang, hoping that he would join him in sending troops to attack Li Zicheng.
As we all know, Sun Chuanting was a man of letters and engaged in personnel work for many years before leading soldiers to fight.
Led by literati, the Song and Ming dynasties have always been criticized. For example, in the Southern Song Dynasty, people think that the reason why it is very weak is because he uses literature to control the military and let civilian officials lead the troops.
I used to think the same thing about that. But after looking at the mess at the end of the Ming Dynasty, I found that in fact, leading the way with literati was probably the best choice at that time.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, there were more phenomena of civilian officials dying in battle and military generals surrendering; on the other hand, civilian officials were also more obedient to dispatch than military generals.
In fact, the reason is also very simple, the literati have been deeply educated and influenced by Confucian culture since childhood, and they attach great importance to the idea of loyalty and the defense of Yixia, while the warriors are relatively less constrained in this regard.
For example, Zuo Liangyu, who held 800,000 Huguang troops in his hands, thought about how to preserve his strength, and he could drag out the orders of the Chongzhen Emperor, which was very perfunctory. Even before Chongzhen was finally besieged in Beijing, Zuo Liangyu remained motionless and watched the emperor fend for himself.
This time, Sun Chuanting ordered Zuo Liangyu to send troops to attack Li Zicheng, but he was still Yang Fengyin and did not move, missing the last opportunity to eliminate Li Zicheng.
Back to the Battle of Sun Li.
Li Zicheng clearly realized that this would be a decisive battle between himself and the Ming army, and as long as sun Chuanting was defeated, Chongzhen would have no one to use. Conversely, it is difficult to have a foothold on your own. Therefore, he was extremely cautious, adopting the tactic of enticing the enemy to penetrate deeply, and deployed the main force south of Yu County, preparing to deliver a fatal blow to Sun Chuanting here.
Because the county is far away from Guanzhong, the decisive battle here, the Ming army is difficult to supply, and it is in an unfavorable situation.
Li Zicheng's strategy is undoubtedly correct, but against a player of Sun Chuanting's level, it is not enough to have the right strategy, and sometimes it is necessary to rely on a little destiny.
On September 14, the Ming army and Li Zicheng's troops fought a fierce battle in WuXian County.
At this time, the peasant army was no longer the ragtag crowd of that year, they had achieved great success in every battle, and their experience on the battlefield was not comparable to that of the recruits that Sun Chuanting had just recruited.
What's more, Li Zicheng still had an elite cavalry in his hands. Therefore, in the face of the officers and troops who are attacking far away from the labor division, they should have the upper hand, right?
If you think like this, you underestimate Sun Chuanting.
As the second military commander of the world at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chuanting was extremely talented in the matter of fighting wars, and when he was still a personnel official, he took the initiative to ask for help, and it took only three months to train a new army in Shaanxi, and he was defeated and captured the old king Gao Yingxiang.
Now that he has spent more than half a year training the army, its combat effectiveness is naturally not bad. Besides, he also had an "artillery unit" that specialized in dealing with cavalry?
Therefore, as soon as the two armies fought, under the fierce attack of the Ming army, the peasant army soon could not resist and fled one after another.
Sun Chuanting led his army in hot pursuit, and even Li Zicheng was almost captured and fled to Xiangcheng, barely stopping the decline.
Seeing that the Ming army could break through Li Zicheng with more efforts, at this moment, it suddenly rained heavily in the Xiangcheng area.
This time, it went down for seven days.
Not only was the Ming army unable to attack the city, but the rear grain and grass supply was also in trouble because the roads were muddy.
Therefore, the mandate of heaven is indeed no longer on the side of the Ming Dynasty.
Li Zicheng, who was full of doubts about the situation of the Ming army, finally ushered in the dawn of victory, and he ordered Liu Zongmin to lead 10,000 cavalry to bypass the rear of the Ming army and cut off the grain and grass of the Ming army.
In order to paralyze his opponents, Li Zicheng wrote a battle book with a big card and agreed on a date to fight a decisive battle with the officers and soldiers.
Li Zicheng's little trick, of course, could not confuse Sun Chuanting. He decided to return to his division to receive grain and grass. In order to prevent Li Zicheng from pursuing, Sun Chuanting decided to leave Chen Yongfu, the commander-in-chief of Henan, and lead his army to defend the Ming army camp.
This plan was not bad, but unfortunately, at this time, an accident occurred.
Chen Yongfu's subordinates saw that Sun Chuanting had led the concubines to retreat, believing that they had been left as substitute ghosts, and they also ran after the Shaanxi army. Chen Yongfu could not control the situation, and the Ming army was in chaos.
Li Zicheng seized the opportunity to attack with all his might, and the Ming army collapsed in its entirety.
Sun Chuanting led his army to retreat to Nanyang, only to ease up and organize an army to meet Li Zicheng's army, and the two sides once again launched a fierce battle.
Li Zicheng was extremely treacherous and discharged a five-fold battle front, and the first heavy was the hungry people who acted as cannon fodder.
The Ming army broke through three layers of formations in a row, and the fourth layer was Li Zicheng's elite cavalry, and the Ming army was difficult to overcome for a while and fell into a stalemate.
At this moment, something unexpected happened: the train battalion, as a trump card, actually took the lead in retreating.
One place was broken, the whole line was passive, and the Ming army began a major rout.
The peasant army went out in full pursuit, chasing more than 400 miles a day and night, and the Ming army was killed by more than 40,000 people.
The rest of the Ming army that did not die in battle also fled, and the wounded were no longer able to fight. Li Zicheng took the opportunity to capture Tongguan, and Sun Chuanting was killed in battle.
"Pass the court to death and the Ming dynasty to death!" (History of the Ming Dynasty)
In the same year, Li Zicheng attacked Xi'an, and Lady Sun led the second daughter and three concubines of the Sun family to commit suicide, and sun Shining, the younger son of the eight-year-old, was adopted by an old man.