Han Hai Tang Ergui

Chapter 346 The Cruelty of War

Before Zhang Zhao heard people say that war is an art, he basically nodded in agreement like a chicken pecking at rice.

But after traveling for five or six years, Zhang Zhao felt that this sentence was not so accurate.

At least when it comes to the battlefield, it has less to do with art.

Yes, just brutal.

Guiyi Army and Fengxiang Army have the same tactics and similar equipment.

The only difference is that the Guiyi Army's left and right wings are extremely mobile cavalry, while the Fengxiang Army, which lacks cavalry, can only put precious crossbowmen on the two wings for passive defense.

Therefore, the situation on the entire battlefield is that the two armies shoot at each other with bows and crossbows in the middle, and then stab each other with heavy armor.

On the two wings are the cavalry of the Guiyi Army, who are constantly circling, probing, or dismounting and shooting at foot, so that the crossbowmen on the two wings of the Fengxiang Army cannot rest. After finding a flaw, they will rush in to fight a wave.

After all, the Fengxiang Army has a large number of people, and the crossbowmen on the two wings have suffered. Lu Duan in the middle will immediately dispatch the reserve team to make up for it, and then drive away the cavalry of the Guiyi Army. game.

In the middle, the brutal crossbow shooting also basically came to an end, and the two sides each threw tens of thousands of arrows at each other.

After that, the archer's arm strength reached a limit, and the crossbow was unusable due to loose strings and damaged triggers.

By this time, both sides had a clear understanding of each other's strength, and the outcome of the following battle depended on heavy armor fighting.

And this kind of fighting, it is difficult to cause a large number of casualties in a short period of time like a bow and crossbow, so it is even more difficult to defeat the opponent.

The war will change from the comparison of who can kill the fastest when bows and crossbows shoot each other into a contest of energy and perseverance.

The cruelest moment has arrived.

Amidst the sound of drums, the two sides lined up and stabbed each other four times within two hours.

The battle was so fierce that warriors like Qiong Re Duojin and Cui Huxin were stabbed and unable to continue fighting.

Especially Cui Huxin, if he hadn't tied a breastplate on his chest, he might have died on the spot.

From Fengxiang Army's side, shouts of 'Wan Sheng' came out. It was Li Congxi, who was already red-eyed, and released a reward of [-] guan.

But Zhang Zhao's compulsion was a little higher, and he offered a reward for going into battle in this battle.

According to the system of military meritorious service in the Tang Dynasty, the battle is based on fighting less and fighting more.

After such a battle, even the lowest-level soldiers, as long as they have no major faults and can decapitate one level, they will be considered meritorious, at least they can be awarded the second rank of meritorious policy.

The second rank of Xun Ce corresponds to Captain Yunqi of the seventh rank.

In Zhang Zhao's Hexi, the Honorary Officer of Captain Yunqi can reduce or exempt [-]% of the land tax or offset [-]% of the commercial tax.

He also gave [-] catties of corn and other coarse grains, [-] catties of polished rice, [-] catties of flour, [-] catties of tea, [-] catties of salt, [-] catties of sugar, and two sheep. Advice etc.

It can be said that after Xun Ce's second turn, soldiers have broken away from the category of ordinary people.

As long as he can survive and do nothing for a year, four hundred catties of grain plus salt, tea and sugar can guarantee that a person will not starve to death, and his status will be greatly improved.

Compared with simply giving rewards, the Guiyi Army's military merit system is undoubtedly more attractive.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao is still considering learning from the military officer system of the Song Dynasty, and merging the two titles of Gui Yilang and Captain Zhongjie into the honorary officer system, so as to make it more suitable for the needs of soldiers.

"Wind! Wind! Wind!" As soon as Zhang Zhao's reward for the second rank of the meritocracy came out, the Guiyi Army cheered thunderously, and even the drummer who was in charge of beating the drum became more energetic.

It's just that Zhang Zhao's face was a little gloomy. Damn it, there are two or three thousand Yunqi Captains at once!Just raising them costs [-] to [-] yuan a year, which is not counted as daily expenses.

At the same time, Li Congzhen's face was also green, and with the reward of [-] guan, he invested more than [-] guan.

In addition, if you win a fight, you will be rewarded once, and if you lose, you will get a pension, which is probably more than [-] yuan.

But the annual income of Fengxiang Jiedu is only more than a hundred thousand guan, so he must draw money from his own small coffers.

If Zhang Zhao and Li Congzhen knew that each other was so tough, maybe they wouldn't have fought this fight, but they have already fought for this point, so they have to fight hard.

After the rewards, it’s time to eat, usually some high-calorie food, such as glutinous rice poured with honey or syrup, and broth with enough salt.

The Guiyi Army will also provide salty and sweet milk tea (butter tea), but they will not give too much. Eating too much is not conducive to fighting.

The bow and crossbow shot each other for half an hour, and they stabbed each other six times in more than three hours.

People on both sides understand very well that according to the resilience of the two armies, the next last fight will basically be the last.

More than two thousand prisoners of the rebel army also sat on the ground and ate and drank. Everyone devoured the sweet glutinous rice with syrup and salty milk tea.

These rebel prisoners sat together in a circle around the city, and around them, the soldiers of Regret Shandu had finished their armor and were monitoring and deterring them.

Zhang Zhao also came over wearing a blinding golden armor. This battle cannot be lost, and he still had to fight by himself, but the first batch of cannon fodder to die were these rebel prisoners.

"I don't say much, after this battle, if you are willing to follow me, as long as you are willing to reform your mistakes, your prosperity and wealth will be indispensable. If you don't want to follow, you will get [-] guan per person and return home with money.

But I also want to tell you that when I arrived on the battlefield, if I dared to procrastinate, I regretted Shandu, so I used a Mo knife to chop them into meat.

Of your 2000 people, half of them will die and half will live! "

Defense Envoy Wu survived because he released thousands of men and women as promised, but Zhang Zhao did not spare him.

Except that he and his relatives were not allowed to be tried in public by the Wei River, there was no preferential treatment, and now they still have to go to the palace of the king of hell.

"Think of yourself as a dead person! One person who dies can live one person.

Our hometown has been sold by Shi Jingtang's Nashatuo bandit slaves. For those who are alive, remember to bring the ashes of the dead home! "

Defense Envoy Wu stood up and shouted to the disorderly soldiers behind him.

Most of these soldiers of the Jingnan Army were from Youyun Sixteen Prefectures, because they were recruited by Zhang Xichong, the previous governor of the Jingnan Army, and Zhang Xichong was from Youzhou.

This time they chose to follow He Chuan in the rebellion, and also kidnapped Jiedu Envoy An Shuqian. The biggest reason was that Shi Jingtang betrayed the Sixteen States of Yanyun, and sold their parents, wives and children to the Khitan people.

The few words of Defense Envoy Wu, the rebellious soldiers and prisoners were silent, and there were a few low sobbing sounds from time to time.

After removing their identities as rebels who committed all kinds of crimes, these people are also homeless poor people. Their hometown was reduced to Khitan, and the later Jin court would not let them return to their hometown.

"Distribute weapons to them!" Zhang Zhao said to Guo Tiance beside him, and then looked at Defense Envoy Wu.

"Blood crimes must be washed away with blood, let's fight to the death!"

. . . .

'Boom boom boom! 'The war drum sounded again, and even the sun in the sky was hidden in the dark clouds, and the sky and the earth seemed to darken in an instant.

Under the guidance of acknowledging the flags one by one, tens of thousands of people shouted Hey!Hey Ya slogan, slowly approaching.

A small number of sharpshooters who were still able to shoot arrows threw their arrows towards the opposite side from time to time, and a few unlucky ones fell down screaming, not even affecting the people around them.

Everyone walked forward mechanically, sweat dripped down their faces, and the fingers holding the weapons turned gray due to the extreme exertion.

Twenty steps, ten steps, slowly, the two sides approached to the sound of drums.

Suddenly there was a loud roar, and everyone seemed to come alive, and the long spears began to hit each other's heads rhythmically.

However, for the front row elites who were all wearing iron armor, such an attack was not fatal, and the fatal one was at the bottom.

Under the knocking of the spears, there were rows of gunmen squatting halfway. They were holding hooks and sickles that could hook people.

A heavy armored soldier of the Fengxiang Army was careless, and his thigh was instantly hooked by a hook and sickle gun.

Howling in horror, the soldier threw away the spear in his hand, pulled out the barrier knife from his waist, and slashed wildly at the barrel of the hook and sickle gun.

There were also two people beside him who wanted to help him break the hook that was hooking his thigh, but unfortunately they were still a step too late.

Amid the desperate roars of the soldiers, he was dragged from the ground to the formation of the Guiyi Army.

Several jumping soldiers of the Guiyi Army with the sharpest barrier knives rushed forward. They tried their best to hold down the soldier of Fengxiang Army. One of them lifted his neck, and the other two stared at each other. Random insertion.

The soldier's painful limbs flicked wildly, and the wailing sound made people tremble, but it stopped soon.

Because in his desperate resistance, the jumping soldier stabbed the barrier knife into his throat, and cut open his neck artery by the way.

The soldier finally stopped moving, he stared at the sky with wide eyes, his face soon turned pale.

After he was stabbed to death, people continued to be dragged away by both sides, some from the Guiyi Army and some from the Fengxiang Army.

"Scatter! Scatter!" A loud roar came, and the horizontal row of soldiers in the middle of the Guiyi Army suddenly dispersed after losing a little contact.

After they dispersed, a group of soldiers in messy armor rushed over screaming. They were the prisoners of the rebel army.

These captives didn't have long weapons, they all held short horizontal knives and round shields, howled and ran directly towards the forest of spears of Fengxiang Army.

Many of them were quickly pierced by the spears on the opposite side, but their fearless fighting style still caused the Fengxiang Army's formation to be recessed from the middle.

"Do it!" Zhang Zhao yelled, and the warriors of Regret Shandu who were behind the captives of the rebel army immediately began to swing the Mo Dao.

But they weren't killing Fengxiang's army, they couldn't kill them at this distance, they were killing the rebel army who fell at the end, and directly slashed and killed with the Mo Dao!

In an instant, fifty or sixty rebels were hacked to death from behind!
Seeing this situation, there were some who wanted to steal and play tricks. Knowing that they could not escape, they were all dead. They screamed even louder, and desperately launched wave after wave of fatal attacks towards the depression of Fengxiang Army.

Lu Duan, who was in command of the Fengxiang Army's formation, darkened his face. He sensed the danger, and he also saw that the place where these people were desperately attacking was the main attack direction of the Guiyi Army.

Zhang Zhao watched in cold blood as the rebellious soldiers were continuously being killed from both sides. He waited until the soldiers of Fengxiang Army came to support them with several red-bottomed phoenix banners, and then waved his hand.

Regret Shandu's Mo Dao hand stopped slashing, but when he saw Zhang Zhao's waving captives, his heart collapsed. They cried and retreated together.

But their task is also completed!They made a big gap in the Fengxiang Army's formation, and forced Lu Duan to use the last reserve force.

Wearing red battle robes, the soldiers of King Qi's Mansion rushed over from behind brazenly. They were all armored and their morale was high.

"Hahaha!" Zhang Zhao burst out laughing, and the surrounding armored soldiers also burst out laughing.

This operation confuses the dental soldiers of King Qi's Mansion who came to plug the gap.

But immediately they stopped being confused, and the flying stones in the sky smashed towards them like falling stars amidst the whistling sound.

Zhang Zhao has resisted using the whirlwind cannon until now, just to wait for this moment.

More than 3 trebuchets (some of which were damaged and unusable), threw thousands of flying stones in the time of half a cup of tea (two [-] minutes), and the thousand-odd soldiers of King Qi's Mansion disappeared immediately. More than three hundred.

Li Congxuan burst into tears of distress. This is an elite soldier raised by two generations of his Li family with countless painstaking efforts!Just lost hundreds.

"Song Zhong! You doggy farmer's slave, you are really here to die for someone!"

Li Congxuan looked to the right and couldn't help crying out loud. The battle had come to this point, and the 3000 people of Song Zhong's [-] people, commanded by the Xiongwu Army Yamen, remained motionless.

"Your Majesty! You can't fight anymore! If the fight continues, the two generations of King Qi's estate will be wiped out!"

Lu Duan, who was in charge of the command, pointed to Zhang Zhao, who was slashing people with a knife in the distance, and said, the commander of the Guiyi Army went into battle in person, and the morale was like a rainbow, and the killing Fengxiang army retreated steadily.

Li Congzhen's face was full of tears, and he didn't have the expression of the tiger fighting the rabbit not long ago, and he was sure of winning. He asked Lu Duan sadly.

"Shiro, what can I do?"

"Abandoning the 4000 people who cannot escape, we headed east, where there is a mountain forest, the sky is getting late now, with the cover of night, we can still stick to it.

This battle was provoked by An Shenqi, he wanted two tigers to fight each other, he would never sit back and watch one side be annexed by the other, so he sent all his horses to inform the third brother to raise troops to come with An Shenqi. "

Li Congzhen asked hesitantly: "Will An Shenqi come and help us kill the Hexi army?"

Lu Duan shook his head bitterly, "How is it possible? Let's not even think about killing the Hexi army. We asked An Shenqi to mediate, and give money and food to Jinbo girl! Let's admit it! As long as the king is safe Go back to Fengxiang."

Li Congzhen listened, and then covered his face and burst into tears, tens of thousands of people left the city, and now almost four thousand were gone, the most elite four thousand.

This is not a big loss, but half of it is about to sink into the ground!But he didn't have the courage to continue fighting.

"Just as Shiro said!"

　Another [-] words have been updated today, and tomorrow’s has not been written yet, tragedy!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)