Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 155 Two Ways ([-])

The war horses swept down like a torrent.

The party formation in Hexi is somewhat scattered and inconsistent.Some people were exhausted and sat on the ground panting for breath; some people pulled out teams to dig trenches;What's more, the slanting sun made people's eyes hard to open.

Thousands of iron cavalry cavalry cavalry rushed down the hillside to the west, and the timing was perfect.

"Huh la la..." The thin spear dam couldn't stop the torrent of iron cavalry rushing down at all.

Hundreds of cavalry in the left wing rushed to the front, and inserted dozens of steps straight into the formation, almost piercing through the entire enemy formation.They strictly followed the pre-battle arrangement, drove to the left and right to widen the gap, followed by more than a thousand cavalry swarming in, directly cutting the enemy's formation from the middle.

Infantry without formation is completely like a lamb to be slaughtered.

The leader of Hexi Dangxiang still had a horse, so he dropped the army and fled.However, there were too many rebels, and they couldn't speed up their horses at all, so they were quickly stopped by the garrison who caught up with the cavalry army. They rode bows and shot, and their horses stabbed straight.

From this, it can be seen how decisive Tuoba Sigong was in fleeing from the city of Youzhou last year.The leader of Hexi Dangxiang saw that the defeat was over, and tried to throw down the army and flee for his life, but in the end he was a step too late, and Qiqi became the soul of the dead trampled by the horse's hoof.

The tactics of the iron cavalry were almost a replica of the Khitan cavalry in the early Northern Song Dynasty.Staring at you like a pack of wolves, not letting you eat and sleep well, making you nervous or even in a trance, exhausted and demoralized.And they themselves have two horses or even three horses, which can be divided into several parts. When you are nervous and line up to meet the enemy, some of them will always eat, drink, sleep and rest, maintaining sufficient physical strength. Ghost.

Song Jun was extremely unsuited to this tactic at first, and suffered a big loss.Now when it is used on Hexi Dangxiang, no matter how they look at it, they cannot compare with the Daliang Forbidden Army. It is natural for the entire army to be wiped out.

Of course there is a way to break this tactic.Either strengthen the wall and clear the field, so that the enemy cavalry has nothing to loot, restricting their mobility, or send cavalry of the same size to ride through the cavalry.But Hexi Dangxiang cannot do both, and failure is inevitable.

After the formation was broken, the leaders and generals either fled or died, and these thousands of Hexi party members were already beyond the reach of immortals.

When the battle went into the night, all ministries came to report the results of the battle one after another.The civil servants kept writing, and at the end of the calculation, more than [-] people were beheaded, more than [-] people were captured, and some food, grass and equipment were seized.

More than 6000 of them were killed in World War I. Even if the Hexi Party has a large number of people, it will be heartbreaking.But there is no way, war is like this, no one will take care of you just because you are weak.You don't have all the weapons and training, and you may not be able to win the battle just with your bravery and brute force.Especially when encountering such weird and fierce cavalry tactics, it is not unfair to lose.

"Transport the head to Huaiyuan County, and build a temple in Beijing." Zhe Siyu ordered.

The scribes accompanying the army gave him complicated looks.Lei Jingguan boasted of martial arts, martial arts fighters especially love to do it, but Marshal Shao didn't like it.General Zhe usually looks at a cautious and cautious person, but now he is in charge of an army alone, and he is so high-spirited.

However, after this battle, Zhe Siyu's name should resound throughout the Northwest, and he will be among the ranks of famous generals.This killing field is really a vanity fair tailored for warriors.

After the general order was issued, the soldiers gathered the captured heads and placed them on the captured carts, preparing to transport them to the Huaiyuan city early tomorrow morning, where Leijingguan was forced to land in the county.

The iron cavalry brigade was still resting nearby, and sent scouts from afar to guard.

"Wei Wu conquered Hebei, and his division was Dunqiu. The black mountain bandits attacked Wuyang in the east. Take it." The night on the west bank of the Yellow River was a little bit chilly, and Song Ju, an important member of the shogunate's army, was reading historical battle examples to Zhe Siyu.This is the request of Marshal Shao, let all the generals study hard, draw inferences from one instance, and improve their own level.

"Where does this come from?" Zhe Siyu blinked his eyes and said, "I know what it means, how should I say it?"

"This is what we call tampering with emptiness." Song Ju said.

"That's right, it's to make trouble!" Zhe Siyu said with a smile: "I know how to make trouble, but I can't think of how to say it at the moment."

Linzhou Zhejia, grandfather Zhehua's reputation is not obvious, but he has consolidated the foundation of the family in Linzhou.It was not until Zhe Zongben's generation that he officially became a general, and Zhe Siyu was strictly speaking the second generation of generals, and he was still the one with a less profound background.

Some things, he knows whether to do it, how to do it, he has a very keen sense of the battlefield, but he just can't express it.For the homework assigned by Shao Dashuai, he had to find someone to go over it every time.

"The general led the cavalry team into Hexi. This is a falsehood. Today, breaking the Hexi party before the battle is a fall." Song Ju continued: "The iron cavalry has made great achievements this time."

"This is all well-arranged by the commander-in-chief." Zhe Siyu has not been in vain for so many years, and some words are sneaky: "I will pay the elite soldiers and strong generals. If you can't make military exploits, you will be ashamed of the commander-in-chief."

"Actually, if the bandits don't stand still in the afternoon, they are planning to send someone to set fire at night. The bandits have no cavalry, so they can't catch up with our army. After setting the fire, if there is an opportunity, they can shoot some cold arrows If the rebel army sends out a large group, we will get on our horses and run. They will go back and come back to harass them. Such a rotation, the rebel army will definitely be exhausted." Zhe Siyu said: "However, the rebel army's infantry is not strong, and these methods are not enough. Come on, hehe."

"The general has the essence of how to use cavalry." Song Ju complimented.

Nothing to say all night.Early the next morning, Wei Mengbao set off first with the leaders of the Hexi Dangxiang.At noon, the main force also set off.As a result, when they were halfway there, the former army reported that Huaiyuan County had surrendered.

Zhe Siyu was overjoyed, and immediately led the main force of the cavalry to the county seat before nightfall.

Huaiyuan County has a large population, almost as large as Lingzhou City.During the Northern Anniversary, [-] households were relocated here. There is a ready-made water conservancy network and the grain production is relatively abundant.Since the Kingdom of China, every time people immigrated to the Hetao area and the situation was unfavorable, the local people would be moved back to Lingzhou and the territory in the north would be abandoned.

For example, in the early years of the Kingdom Dynasty, Fengzhou, which was located behind Liang Shidu, was a Turkic state on the surface, but secretly surrendered to the Tang Dynasty. After breaking with the Turkic people, all the people were moved to Lingzhou, so the population of Lingzhou has always been large.

It's just that after the rise of Tubo, Lingzhou became the front line of the war.Especially after the mid-Tang Dynasty, there were many military disasters here, the people were displaced, and the household registration declined rapidly.In the late Tang Dynasty, Tubo would die. The population of Lingzhou recovered, but it did not exceed [-]. In some counties, if you walk twenty or thirty miles outside the county seat, you will hardly see any people. There are wild animals everywhere. .

The fertile fields are abandoned, the canals are silted up, what a pity!
On April [-]th, after obtaining some supplies, the cavalry continued to move southward, reaching Baojing County in half a day.

They met hundreds of sergeants from Lingzhou outside the city.Baojing County closed the door and refused to accept. The sergeants were yelling and cursing, but they were surrounded by cavalry troops and surrendered on the spot.

Upon interrogation, it turned out that they were here to collect food.Zhe Siyu dispatched cavalry soldiers on the spot to search the surrounding villages, and sure enough, many Lingzhou soldiers who were looting were captured, and all of them were escorted back to Baojing County to be guarded. The total number exceeded a thousand.

This county is near Yongning County in Ningxia today. It was Cangcheng during the Northern Wei Dynasty. There are dense irrigation canal networks built since the Han, Wei, Zhou, Sui and Tang dynasties nearby. Unfortunately, the population has lost too much due to the war, and most of the water conservancy facilities have been abandoned. Yes, the farmland is also covered with grass.

On the [-]th, the brigade of cavalry soldiers appeared outside Lingwu County again.This county is also west of the Yellow River, across the river from the northwest of today's Lingwu City.Lingzhou's actions were not slow. They sent more than a thousand people to assist in the defense, and conscripted the strong people in the city to defend the city. They must not let Lingwu County lose it again.

It's not that they don't want to send more troops, it's because they are in short supply.Now in Lingzhou City, there are only 4000 yamen troops, plus [-] state soldiers who are not well trained, [-] people are really necessary to guard a big city.

Zhe Siyu was not in a hurry, and directly threw most of the people out.Herding horses to graze, collecting grain and beans, and at the same time bringing two thousand riders to patrol the river bank to see where they can cross the river.

At the same time, he received a military report that the Yicong army had crossed the river and joined the Dingyuan army.In addition to leaving 5000 people to guard the people and escort the food, grass and equipment, the main force of [-] people began to move southward, heading towards Lingwu County.

With infantry coming, you can attack the city!

(End of this chapter)