Han Hai Tang Ergui

Chapter 141

In Shule King City, Li Shengtian is feasting the generals. For Khotan Jin Kingdom, this is an unprecedented victory.

The army of the Kingdom of Jin not only captured the city of Shule, but also captured the queen of Buglahan Saktu and Ittihad, the governor of Shule.

At the same time, most of the [-] Askars left by Saktu in Shule City were killed or injured, and the rest either escaped or were captured, especially the [-] or [-] warriors who have harassed the Jin Kingdom of Khotan all these years. , It just happened to be taken in one pot.

Most of the vendettas in Shule City these days occurred among converted believers and warriors. Everyone, including believers of the three religions in Shule City, hated these warriors.

If Askar is caught, there may still be a way out, but these god fighters from Baghdad, Isfahan, Samarkand and other places, as long as they are caught, they will almost die.

However, after more than ten days of vendetta, and the west city was blasted by Zhang Zhao, the entire Shule city might not be able to recover within a year or so.

Now, only the east city with commercial functions and the west city where the believers of the three religions live are relatively complete, and the north city has even been killed without any people.

After three rounds of wine, five flavors of food, the atmosphere in the hall was already extremely warm. Li Shengtian walked to the center and raised a jade bowl, which was filled with the finest grape wine, the color was like blood, and it was full of fragrance.

"My loyal Amojis! The sons and grandsons of King Nanta! Brave generals! Today we captured Shule and removed the boulder that was placed on us by the Kara Khanate.

But the Prague Khan Saktu, who turned his back on us and took refuge in the Persians, was not completely defeated. He has now led the army to Lower Artush in the north. What should we do, you say? "

Amozhi originally meant the chief minister, and it was also the original surname of Shule King Pei's family. However, with the destruction of the Shule Kingdom of Pei's family, Amozhi gradually evolved into a feudal lord who occupied one side.

As soon as Li Shengtian's words fell, the generals and civil servants who participated in the banquet knelt down on the ground, and the governor Pei, who had the blood of the Pei family, clasped his hands.

"Son of Heaven, since the first battle of Esksa Castle, the ministers have not made an inch of merit, and Shule City was also brought down by the Duke of Fengtian County in a bloody battle. Now Prague Khan Saktu dares to send troops to Artush, so let us Let's attack! I am willing to kill this thief for the son of heaven!"

"Pei Inspector is right. I have long wanted to clear Kara Khan for the emperor. Now we have been recuperating for more than ten days, and our morale is high. It's just a matter of going north to fight to decide the world!" Another Khotan general came out Please.

Li Shengtian nodded in satisfaction. He purposely held this banquet after Zhang Zhao left, in order to stimulate the generals in the west.

This Fengtian county public has made such a great contribution, and they have worked hard to go north first. Are you still ashamed to stay in Shule City?

And this is really useful, because in this battle, Khotan Jin Kingdom has the upper hand. If Saktu is defeated, the rich land near Shule will belong to Khotan.

Originally, the combat effectiveness of the Khotan army was higher than that of Karakhan, and without Shulejian City, everyone felt that the chances of victory were great, so the fighting spirit was very high.

. . . .

Zhang Zhao was no longer in Shule City. On the second day after talking with Li Shengtian, Zhang Zhao didn't even have time to find Monk Daozhen to inquire about the descendants of the Anxi Army, so he left the city directly because according to the news from the scouts sent by Li Shengtian , Prague Khan Saktu has led his army back overnight and is stationed in Lower Artush.

Although Zhang Zhao doubted how Saktu led a large number of soldiers across the Naryn River back to Lower Artush in April, he still keenly sensed that something was wrong.

The Khotan army, including Li Shengtian, believed that the loss of Shule in Saktu was no longer a concern.

But Zhang Zhao didn't think so, this is the ruthless person who single-handedly brought the Tianfang Sect into the Western Regions and made it grow stronger.

In the end, if the Liao Kingdom hadn't tacitly allowed several nomadic Khitan tribes to cooperate with the Gaochang Uighurs in fighting, Saktu and his descendants might have swallowed even the Gaochang Uighurs in one gulp.

How could such a character who can be called the Green Patriarch not have two brushes?
I'm afraid Saktu is far more powerful than Li Shengtian and others think!

"Your Majesty! Fifteen miles ahead is Xia Artush. The banner of the thief chieftain Saktu was found on the top of the city. There are heavy armored soldiers patrolling the top of the city. It is very similar to the Gulam Guards of Saktu!"

Lower Artush is the future Artush City, and it is only about [-] kilometers away from Shule. This Saktu is really bold, Shule has been captured, and he dared to come to Lower Artush.

Zhang Zhao smiled coldly, sometimes he was so bold that he could become famous through the ages like Li Min who went to Caizhou on a snowy night, or he might bump his head into an iron plate and get his legs broken.

Obviously, Saktu still didn't pay much attention to the Khotan army. Of course, it might be that the capital of the country was destroyed, the treasury was lost, and the queen was taken into captivity.

Of course, Zhang Zhao was actually surprised. Saktu wanted to defeat Khotan and regain Shule as soon as possible. Zhang Zhao was afraid that Saktu would gather his troops and run away after judging the situation.

You must know that there are hundreds of thousands of Geluolu tribes who surrendered to Saktu in the Qihe Basin and Yili Basin. The river basin has gone, and Shule will be busy after that.

"It's getting late today, so we'll set up camp here, and tell the first-level officer of the team to come to my camp immediately!" Zhang Zhao immediately issued an order to Wu Yuan'er.

After a while, dozens of military officers poured into the temporary camp. Now Zhang Zhaoke is rich, and this is the support he got after Li Shengtian revealed his heart and had a long talk.

Currently Zhang Zhao has a total of 52 Shandu soldiers in his hands. The casualties in the battle of breaking the city of Shule more than ten days ago were far less than what Zhang Zhao imagined. Not only did Wang Tongtong survive, but only seven people died in the battle. The most dead were Li Shengtian's palace guards, who lost a total of 50 people.

After all, they are all soldiers wearing two or three layers of heavy armor. In the era without muskets, it was not so easy to die. Compared with the hundreds of people killed by Karakhan's Askar and the God Warriors, it is better to judge, but The injured couldn't recover for a while, so Zhang Zhao only took 52 people with him.

In addition, his small Youyi Army cavalry had almost no casualties, ten armored cavalry and twelve elite light cavalry were there.

The second part is supplemented by the Yueqi from the Guiyi Army given to him by Cao Yuanxin. This Yueqi was Cao Yuanxin's dowry when he married Khotan 21 years ago.

At that time, in order to show the strength of Cao's Guiyi army, the hundred Yue cavalry were carefully selected from the Guiyi army, especially the Dadan cavalry of 50 people.

These Zub Dadan tribes who surrendered to the Guiyi Army were the predecessors of the Mongolian Tatars. They originally lived in the Bingzhou area of ​​Monan.

30 years ago, Li Ke used his father and son to gather tens of thousands of them into the Central Plains. In the famous Shatuo Yaer Army, there were many Dadan cavalry.

As for the Guiyi Army, they did not want to follow Li Ke into the Central Plains, but chose to move westward.

After they migrated to the grassland north of Guasha and converted to Han Chuan Tantric Buddhism, they accepted the rule of Guiyi Army Jiefu.

These Dadan people are the best light cavalry. After being equipped with the excellent armor of the Guiyi Army, they have become a cavalry team that the Guiyi Army relies heavily on. The Guiyi Army has fought against the Ganzhou Uighurs several times, and they all rely on the Dadan people to search and cover. mission.

After the 100 people Yueqi settled in Khotan with Cao Yuanxin, they multiplied for 20 years, and there are indeed 33 and [-] people.

Just hearing that Cao Yuanxin is so familiar with this number, he knows their importance, and Cao Yuanxin also sees it differently.

Zhang Zhao selected the elite of 300 people to form a new Youyi Army, with Bai Congxin as the captain of Zhechong, and Hucile from Dadan as the captain of Guoyi.

Since then, Zhang Zhao's cavalry team has finally taken off. Three hundred elite light cavalry equipped with ring-shaped ring-lock armor, armed with long spears, excellent horn bows, and melee pecking hammers are enough to undertake tasks such as covering and searching.

In addition to these three hundred and twenty-two cavalry, Zhang Zhao also had one more cavalry, and it was an armored cavalry, with a number of about one hundred and fifty cavalry, with Li Ruotai as the captain.

That's right, this Li Ruotai is the second elder brother of the little aunt Li Ruoliu who rolled on the same bed with Zhang Zhao.

This is also the secret of Yuchi Sheng's descendants headed by Li Ruoyu, who have been able to maintain their status in Khotan.

From Li Ruoyu to Li Ruotai and Li Ruohai, these three brothers turned out to be the few warriors in Khotan Jin who can play heavy cavalry.

Don't underestimate this ability, at least a man with a horse and a horse needs to weigh more than a hundred catties, and the weight of the knight himself is even more terrifying.

With such a high load, it is definitely not an easy task to be able to shoot from a long distance, poke in close combat, and rush when charging.

In addition to the knight's own martial arts, it also requires the extreme tacit understanding between the knight and the horse. The horse can understand the meaning of every action of the knight, and the knight knows how to save effort for the horse.

After Li Ruotai arrived, Zhang Zhao handed over his ten armored cavalry to him as the decisive force for the final final decision of Zhang Zhao's small army.

Liu Zaisheng wiped the sweat off his face, just now he went to inquire about the enemy's situation outside the city of Xia Artush himself.

Now that Liu Zaisheng has been promoted to captain, the Khotan palace guards lost a lot in the battle of Shule City, losing hundreds of people, but Li Shengtian quickly added them.

What's more, one hundred Tubo people who came down from Qiang Tang were added, and their fighting power was even stronger than the original palace guards.

Khotan's current army is composed of more than [-] people gathered by small feudal lords such as various Amozhis and governors. The main force is the Shenwei Left Army, Shenwei Right Army and Palace Guard Army.

Among them, the Shenwei Zuo Army has about 1000 people, almost all of them are heavy infantry, which is one of the core of Khotan's infantry.

Most of the Shenwei right army is cavalry, including various tribes who surrendered to Khotan and domestic cavalry and archers. The number is about 500 people.

Finally, there are 10,000 people's palace guards. These palace guards are Khotan's standing army, and they are usually scattered in various cities or key passes.

Among them, there are as many as [-] people stationed in Khotan City, and [-] of them are stationed in the royal city headed by Taihe Palace all the year round.

However, the people are not fixed, but take turns among the 10,000 people, but there are exceptions. Liu Zaisheng belongs to the palace guard who never has to go to other places and has been guarding the Taihua Palace. Like him, they are all Khotan nobles There are about 200 people selected by experts.

Zhang Zhao signaled Liu Zaisheng to sit down quickly, and handed him a water bottle.

Li Shengtian's uncle is still very powerful. Liu Zaisheng's five hundred palace guards are almost all selected from the elite Khotan palace guards.

Except for the four hundred flying cavalry of the palace guards that Li Shengtian kept to save his life, they are the most skilled fighters.

Besides them, Master Zhitong brought 300 people from Shenjidu, Shi Chongmin's more than [-] people from Jindu, brother Li Qilang and monk Huitong brought more than [-] followers, and followed Zhang Zhao to the front.

So Zhang Zhao's current command is no longer the size of the hundred people at the beginning, but almost 2000 taels.

Among them, the armor wearing rate has reached more than 1000%, and the core [-] people are quite powerful. If Zhang Zhong and Wu Yuaner count the thousands of civilian husbands and thousands of mules and horses in charge, he can already be called ten thousand people.

'Boom boom boom! An eager drum sound came from outside the camp. The so-called beating drums to gather generals refers to this stuff.

Of course, after Zhang Zhao looked around, no one dared to challenge his authority. From the low-level officers like the captain to the middle-level officers like the school lieutenant, they had all arrived long ago, and they were obedient. The county magistrate showed his rebelliousness.

Just kidding, Zhang Zhao's record is solid, and he is also Li Shengtian's most trusted and beloved nephew. Khotan country is so big, there are really those who can't understand the situation with their eyes open, and they can't be mixed up at the level of an officer.

Seeing that his cheap second brother-in-law Li Ruotai had a serious and well-behaved face, Zhang Zhao nodded in satisfaction. He spread a piece of white paper produced in Xuancheng County on the case table, which is also the famous rice paper in later generations. There are densely written words and pictures on the paper.

But it's a pity that Zhang Zhao's meticulous preparation didn't help much, because there are more than forty officers in this room who can read and understand Chinese characters, and there are only a dozen of them in total. They are all trying to put on an expression that I can't understand, but they are greatly shocked.

"General, this seems to be a formation map?" Li Ruotai was speaking. As a descendant of Wudu County Wang Yuchisheng, he was of course literate, not only literate, but also knowledgeable.

"That's right! This formation is called stacking formation, and it was designed based on the characteristics of Karakhan's army with more cavalry and fewer infantry. It is an formation that uses infantry to defeat cavalry."

The formation is not as mysterious as it is written in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it is indeed a very important part of the war in the era of cold weapons and hot and cold weapons. Even to a certain extent, the three-three system of the later republic can also be called the formation .

The founder of the formation was Wu Lin, a famous general and military strategist in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, facing the Jurchen of the Kingdom of Jin with extremely fierce cavalry, Wu Lin innovated and invented according to the tactical system of using carts and cavalry in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and designed the This stack.

This set of formations can be regarded as a great invention in Chinese military history. With this formation, Wu Lin defended most of Shaanxi for the Southern Song Dynasty, thereby preserving the wealthy land of Sichuan, and avoiding the further expansion of the Jurchen Kingdom.

Historically, stacked formations were used throughout the Southern Song Dynasty, and they were still used in the Ming Dynasty. The nine-entry and ten-series formation used by the Green Battalion in the middle of the Qing Dynasty was also an improved version of this stacked formation.

Li Ruotai squinted his eyes for a long time, and took a high look at this man who didn't know whether it was his eldest nephew or cheap brother-in-law.

Regardless of the formation, those who can design the formation have already been upgraded from so-called brave generals to commanders.

But the more he watched, the more frightened Li Ruotai became. Following Zhang Zhao's explanation, he could see how the cascade was played.

In this formation, several rows of spearmen and horses were arranged in front of the formation to act as the city wall, followed by strong archers with eight fights or above, ordinary archers with eight fights or less, and finally the god-armed archers.

At the same time, there are phalanxes on the left and right wings to guard the formation, and the formation is surrounded by horses, which is almost the concept of using horses to form a city wall, and all the soldiers of the formation are framed inside.

And behind the square formation on the left and right wings, that is, on the left and right ribs of the formation, there are also two cavalry.

"The essence of this formation lies in defensive counterattack!" Zhang Zhao said a word that did not exist in this era, and he pointed to the formation drawn on the rice paper and talked about it.

"When approaching the enemy, place the horses in front of the formation first, and the spearmen in the front row squat down on the ground first. When the enemy is seventy paces away, a strong archer with eight fights or more should be drawn once. When the enemy is sixty paces, an archer with eight fights or fewer After that, he knelt on one knee and fired arrows one after another. When the enemy got closer to fifty steps, the god-armed archer continued to fire arrows!

Under the continuous blows of bows and crossbows, the enemy's formation and morale will inevitably decline rapidly as the Kara Khan army regards it.

If you still want to charge hard, the spearman stands up to meet the enemy at this time, and the bow and crossbow shoots all the arrows again. If it is still not broken, the archer changes the knife and stick to hit him, and the archer with the magic arm shoots accurately.

After repeating this, when the enemy's morale collapses and they are exhausted, the left and right winged light cavalry will go out to drive away and gather the enemy, and finally the armor cavalry will stand out for a battle! "

This thing is actually a large phalanx of Nassau in the cold weapon period, with elite crossbowmen acting as musketeers, spearmen protecting the formation, and a little cavalry mixed in for harvesting after defeating the enemy.

However, since the continuity and destructiveness of crossbow firepower cannot be compared with muskets and cannons, it is required that the crossbowmen in the formation must also have the ability to fight hand-to-hand, or arrange several stacked formations to cover each other as in the Southern Song Dynasty.

But coincidentally, the soldiers in the Tang Dynasty were not like those after the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. Crossbowmen could not fight in close combat, and hand-to-hand soldiers could not shoot arrows. They just met the requirements.

"But general, please forgive me for speaking bluntly, although this array is exquisite, the placement of the horses is not suitable.

All our troops were blocked in the formation by rejecting horses. If the situation is unfavorable, we will be like a turtle in a urn, and there is no way to escape. Secondly, this formation mostly uses bows and crossbows. I'm afraid we don't have so many arrows to use! "

Zhang Zhao looked at Li Ruotai, who was frowning. This person is indeed a bit capable. The two problems he pointed out were exactly what puzzled people at the beginning of the formation.

Uh!No, the Southern Song Dynasty did not have the latter problem, because the country's economy was developed during the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Song Army had a tradition of relying on bows and crossbows, so the consumption of crossbows and arrows was nothing at all.

But Khotan was indeed a problem, because arrows, especially shafts, were very expensive at this time.

In ancient times, there were no machine tools, and the round arrow shafts had to be cut out by hand, and then they had to be baked, straightened, painted, and finally selected together with the same material and length.

The cost of an arrow shaft in Khotan is approximately equal to the living expenses of two adult men for two days, which can be called a sky-high price.

So Li Ruotai's problem is very real. If this battle goes on like arrows raining down, if he can't win, not to mention casualties, he will lose money and kill people.

But this also just shows that now in Anxi, after the powerful Tang army and the Tubo army are gone, even if the Kara Khanate seems to be tyrannical in fighting east and west, it is actually just a little more capable of fighting among the rookies. A rookie, even a qualified bow and arrow can't be used much in a big battle, most of the time it depends on close hand-to-hand combat.

Thinking of this, Zhang Zhao has a little more confidence in his next plan.

　I drank too much, I woke up in the morning (;︵;`)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)