The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 797
The raging fire by the lake quickly swept through the entire camp with the help of the wind, and it was not extinguished naturally until the next morning. This fire killed more than 4000 Tubo soldiers, most of whom were trampled to death by startled horses and fire horses. , Some soldiers trampled on each other.

On a piece of grassland that served as a place for discussion, Lu Dongzan sat on a stone without saying a word after being smoky. It's unbearable.

In fact, the loss of more than 4000 people was less than he expected, and he could afford such a loss.But the fire scared away about [-]% of their war horses, and at the same time seriously frustrated the morale of the army.

Dazan Gampo hurried back and forth, pointing at the generals and yelling, "The whole army is in chaos because of the ordinary smoke. They are all useless trash and cowards. Where is the blood and courage of the Tubo men?" Have the guts been eaten by wild wolves, or have they been eaten by dogs? Usually they all claim to be plateau eagles, but I think it’s more appropriate to be a group of pheasants. Everyone is good at drinking, eating meat and playing with women, but they are a bunch of cowards and counselors in war. Damn... I, a Tubo warrior, have lost all face to you."

More than a hundred generals bowed their heads in shame after being scolded, especially Nong Zhunbao, who was in charge of night watch, almost shrunk his head into his crotch.

He felt that he was too ashamed. Trees emitting stinky smoke were not uncommon in Tubo, but when he saw soldiers falling to the ground after inhaling the thick smoke, he instinctively thought it was the poisonous smoke released by the Sui army, thus ignoring the most common Therefore, they rang the bell as a warning, which led to chaos in the whole army and gave the Sui army a chance to set fire carefully.

"Prince, General Geer, maybe we still have two options." Drepung Nasheng in the crowd whispered.

"What way? Say it quickly." Datsen Gampo walked up to Drepung Nasheng and stared at him fiercely.

"The first way is to follow the original plan and immediately march westward to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the Sui army. Anyway, their morale is not high."

"We don't have enough food, we can't afford it. Now we have to fight, and we have to fight. Are you talking nonsense?" Dazanganbu was very angry.
"Prince, please listen to me."

"you say!"

Drepung Nasheng glanced at Dazan Gampo and said with a wry smile: "The most powerful part of the Central Plains army is their formation composed of spearmen, sword-shield soldiers, crossbowmen and other arms. Not to mention the powerful shock advantage of cavalry."

"Last night, I saw the terrified horse that was burned by the fire. It stomped on people and camps with the momentum of destroying everything. The ability to charge the battle is beyond human control. We still have more than a thousand cows here... "Drepung Nasheng explained his method of breaking the formation.

"Fire ox charge?"

"General Drepung's method is good."

Before Drepung Nasheng could finish speaking, there was a burst of applause.

The generals who came from Jishi Pass, such as Lu Dongzan and Dazan Gampo, were overjoyed. They had seen the formidable formation of the Sui Army outside Jishi Pass, and they had lingering fears about the multi-armed battle formation of the Sui Army.

"The Fire Bull Charged Battle has appeared many times in the war history of the Central Plains Dynasty. Every time the Fire Bull Charged the Battle, we will win a brilliant victory. We are sure we can do the same." Lu Dongzan knows a lot of allusions from the Central Plains. Using the "Fire Bull Formation" of the Central Plains in the war, he said excitedly: "General Drepung's method is excellent; what is your second method?"

Drepung Nasheng said hastily: "The second way is to replace offense with defense!"

"Defense instead of attack?" Lu Dongzan asked puzzled, "Be more specific."

"The climate on the plateau is complicated, and the weather is different in the morning and evening. This kind of climate is extremely harmful to the Sui people. It is a more difficult gap than natural barriers such as the Guanshan Fortress. They cannot delay in time. We can set up a camp in front of the Sui army camp. Drag them into the winter, during the confrontation, we avoid the reality and take the opportunity to attack the weakest link of the opponent. Although this method of play is time-consuming, it is more stable.”

"Our army was already in a shortage of food, and lost a lot of food and grass last night. If we confronted the Sui army, our food and grass would last less than ten days." Lu Dongzan stared at Drepung Nasheng , asked: "Since Drepung proposed this method, he must have a solution to the problem of food and grass?"

Drepung Nasheng leaned forward and said, "What I mean is to divide the army into two, one will confront the Sui army on the north bank of the Yellow River and contain them; unimpeded."

"This method is inappropriate! It is better to use fire bulls to charge..." Dazan Gampo is a person who cares about face. He wants to boost morale with an upright victory, rather than relying on guard instead of attack, directly defeating the enemy from the front It can even boost morale, and the Tubo soldiers who are good at riding and fighting but not good at setting up camps can't hold out, which is very useless.

This is also the voice of most generals.

Lu Dongzan also said: "Our task is to take back Doma Valley before the Sui army's reinforcements arrive, otherwise, our army will be passive everywhere, and with the cunning of the Sui army, what happened last night may still happen again, so guard It's better to attack."

He pondered for a moment, then waved his hand violently, "Go and prepare, the whole army will set off in half an hour."

"The last will obey."

The generals were waiting to be arranged according to the order, when a soldier suddenly flew to report, "Prince, General Geer, the Sui army is here to fight."

"What?" Everyone was taken aback. The news was too sudden and unexpected. Sui Jun actually took the initiative to attack?

Lu Dongzan asked loudly: "Where did the Sui army come from? Is the main force of the Sui army coming?"

"It's not the main force of the Sui army. There are only about 2000 people. They came from the north. They should be the army from last night." The soldier said quickly.

"How dare 2000 people come?"

If the Sui army invaded on a large scale, the generals would have to take it seriously, but a mere 2000 people is obviously not in the ranks of everyone's attention. When they heard that such a small number of people dared to come to challenge openly, everyone was amused.

"General Geer, please give me a chance to make meritorious service and atone for my crime." Nong Zhunbao gritted his teeth and pleaded.Thinking of being tossed by the Sui army all night yesterday, and the camp was burned down again, new hatred and old hatred rushed into his heart. At this moment, his tiredness was swept away, his mind was clearer than ever, and his physical strength was stronger than ever Be full all the time.

Lu Dongzan nodded: "I will give you five thousand soldiers, and you must destroy this Sui army."

"Obey." Nong Zhunbao took the command arrow and went to lead the army.

Lu Dongzan said to the generals again: "Everyone, go down and prepare."

"As ordered."

. . . . . .

"Boom~"

Nong Zhunbao gathered five thousand soldiers and horses, and drove to the north in a mighty manner. Looking at the Sui army in front of him, there was a murderous intent in his eyes. He wanted to use a victory to wash away the shame of last night. .

"Warriors, the enemy who shamed us is ahead, only 2000 people... Warriors, we have no habit of saving hatred and shame until tomorrow, what do you think should be done?"

"kill!"

"kill!"

"kill!"

Five thousand Tubo soldiers howled like wolves...

"Take out your bows and arrows, let the enemy know that we are the best archers in the world, and make them tremble under the arrow feathers..."

Nong Zhunbao raised his short bow high and led the soldiers to rush forward.

In front of the Tubo army, the Sui army was already ready, and the commander in charge of the battle had been replaced by Ma Hua.

Compared with Wang Xiongdan, who participated in foreign wars for the first time, Ma Hua, who had fought against Khitan, Xi, and Eastern and Western Turks, was undoubtedly more proficient in cavalry warfare. He knew how to get the greatest results with the least casualties.

At this time, seeing a dense mass of Tubo troops coming from the south, Ma Hua ordered: "Shoot!"

"Woo! Woo! Woo!" With the sound of the horn, two thousand arrows were fired suddenly, forming a cloud of black arrows, roaring at the Tubo cavalry. When the shots came, Tubo soldiers kept screaming and fell to the ground in the charge. The third row of arrows roared, and the dense crossbow arrows shot through the shields and leather armor of Tubo like a storm. Rolling and falling to the ground, it was trampled into a pulp by the dense war horses.

Since the Qin Dynasty, strong crossbows have been superior to ordinary bows and arrows. With the development of skills, the role of crossbows in warfare has become more and more obvious.In the Han Dynasty, Li Ling relied on the rhubarb crossbow to fight against [-] Huns with [-] Han infantry, and even recorded tens of thousands of casualties.In the Sui Dynasty, thanks to Yang Tong's emphasis on craftsmen, various new crossbows with stronger power, longer range, and better carrying methods showed a spurt of development.

With only three bursts of shooting, the first row of soldiers in Tubo was bathed in blood and mourned everywhere.The Tubo soldiers who were rushing to kill were in chaos.

"The whole army continues to move forward and speed up!" Nong Zhunbao felt distressed, and his hatred grew a little bit more.

He knew that if his soldiers turned around or stopped, they would only become targets for the Sui army, and under the attack of the whole army, if they were ordered to evacuate or disperse, even the best cavalry in Tubo would not be able to say stop Just stop, it can only make the front and rear collide with each other.The best way is to not do one thing, just lead the troops to shorten the distance between each other, go to fight hand-to-hand with the Sui army, and directly obliterate the advantage of crossbow arrows.

However, when he gave an order, he immediately found that the Sui army on the opposite side ran away.

That's right, Sui Jun did run away.

They adopted the tactic of shooting in three stages. First, the whole army was released together, and then divided into three parts. The first arrow was fired, without even looking at the Tubo army. They flew to the left and right in the first time, turning around like a line. Then he ran to the back and became the rear army; after that, the second row, which became the front row, shot an arrow, and ran to the back in the same way as before, so that the third row became the first row...

Such crossbow arrows shot like rain one after another, and only four rounds took away more than 1000 of their combat power. At this time, falling from the horse meant being trampled to death, that is to say, more than 1000 soldiers died beyond death.

Nong Zhunbao was not feeling well, he was almost stupid: the Sui army adopted exactly the same tactics as theirs, and the difference between attacking and receiving made him have the urge to vomit blood.

As an expert in riding and shooting, Nong Zhunbao can certainly see that the Sui army has put in a lot of effort in this area. When it comes to the speed of riding and shooting and the flexibility of turning, they are even better than them, and the Sui army is even more terrible. The range of crossbow arrows is about twice that of their short bows, which only have fifty steps.And the range difference of fifty steps caused more than a thousand people to die without firing an arrow.

"Well done, did you see that, in fact, dealing with the cavalry of the nomads is as simple as that, I'd rather shoot one less arrow than let them catch up, and then take advantage of the difference in range to hunt and kill the opponent's soldiers..." Ma Hua controlled the distance between the two sides, and used the rogue tactics to the extreme. While commanding the Xuanjia Army to consume Nong Zhunbao's troops with the advantage in range, he also freely passed on experience to Wang Xiongsheng and Cheng Chumo.

"Do you know? In fact, it is better to shoot horses at this time. The horse has a big target and is easy to aim. The horse will jump up when it is seriously injured, and throw the soldiers off the horse. Under the cavalry charge at full speed, falling off the horse is equivalent to death. Not even a corpse left..."

The eye-opening Cheng Chumo smiled and said, "However, this kind of tactics is not very effective for our army."

Ma Hua and Wang Xiongdan couldn't help laughing when they heard this.

The short bows of the Tubo army have a short range and weak power. For the Sui army wearing solid armor and long helmets, the damage is indeed not great. The key is that the crossbow arrows of the Sui army have a long range. Casualties were caused. When the Sui army rushed within the range of the enemy, the first row of soldiers wearing only leather armor had been hit by the torrential rain of crossbow arrows and collapsed.

"All right."

Seeing that the enemy army was approaching by the desperate charge, Ma Hua shook his reins and clamped his horse, shouting loudly: "The whole army retreats!"

The horn sounded, and the Sui army roared to the north in a neat lineup.

"The Sui army is out of arrows, and the whole army is chasing after them." Until then, the Tubo army, who had been stunned by the crossbow arrows, reacted. The blood of the Tubo soldiers was ignited, and their eyes gradually became hot, like wild beasts that want to choose and devour, they chased away furiously.

So in this wilderness with undulating hills and dense weeds, the two cavalry staged a frantic pursuit and escape.

Nong Zhunbao chased after him for a while, but he saw that the Sui army was superb in riding skills and had plenty of horsepower. They couldn't catch up with the opponent before their horsepower ran out.So he divided the army into two, one continued to pursue, and the other went around to the flanks, preparing to outflank the Sui army.

Because the Sui army got up early, it was far away from the Tubo army. Even the last row of cavalry was more than [-] steps away from the front row of Tubo cavalry, far exceeding the range of the Tubo bow and arrow by as much as [-] steps. , and Tubo did not have high-bridge saddles and double-sided stirrups to stabilize the body. If you want to shoot arrows, you can only slow down the speed of the horse, and the distance between the two sides will be further shortened between one attack and one slowdown. Except for people with excellent riding skills who don't shoot indiscriminately, most of the Tubo cavalry just chased them dully and couldn't do anything.

The Sui army, who was like cheating, did not have so many worries. They could let go of their hands to fill the crossbow arrows during the gallop, and they could also look back and aim at the arrows. The army is alive.

The Sui army's molesting behavior undoubtedly angered the Tubo army. Even Nong Zhunbao, who was trying to keep calm, couldn't bear it; he knew that this was an isolated and helpless Sui army, and there were no Tibetan soldiers in the open area. He simply chased after him desperately, vowing to annihilate this hateful Sui army here.

And this was also the wish of the Sui army led by Ma Hua, Wang Xiongdan, and Cheng Chumo, because they prepared a very good cemetery for Tubo.

"The destination is coming soon, everyone get ready." Ma Hua was originally at the head of the horse, but now he slowed down, and turned his head to order the soldiers on the left and right.

Without saying a word, the soldiers each pulled out a small red flag from the flag pot behind them, turned around and waved it vigorously.Immediately, generals at all levels drew flags in response, and at the same time reminded the soldiers on the left and right to get ready.In less than a cup of tea, all the soldiers of the Sui army were ready to launch with all their strength.

In fact, using horn horns to issue orders is the most convenient method, but in order to avoid the alertness of the Tubo army, a relatively slow signal was used to issue orders.

"Boom!"

The iron hooves struck the ground, and the soldiers of the Sui army rushed up a low hill. When the last cavalry disappeared for a moment, a tidal wave of Tubo cavalry rushed in.

And the fatal blow came suddenly at this moment.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa..."

The arrows were like rainstorm, and the howling sound was like weeping;

The Tubo soldiers were furious. They thought that the Sui army had exhausted their arrows, so everyone rushed to catch up with the hill with a dense lineup. More than 500 people fell off their horses with arrows, and all of them were trampled to death by the horses.

Just as they attacked the hill and wanted to "repay" with a violent rain of arrows, the scene before them made the Tubo army dumbfounded.

Nong Zhunbao almost gritted his teeth with hatred. The Sui army was so treacherous that they rushed into a Gobi desert.

"Everyone draws their bows and draws their swords, rush in and hack these hateful and shameless people to death!" Nong Zhunbao was the first to draw out his long swords, and leaped off his horse. There was a series of sounds of swords being unsheathed behind him.

But when they roared into the Gobi Desert, the Sui army had already moved away, leaving only the Tubo army roaring furiously.But soon, their roars turned into shouts of excitement.Just because another team of cavalry was approaching quickly and successfully blocked the way of the Sui army.

Ma Hua reined in his horse, and before the Tubo soldiers arrived, he led his soldiers to the east and ran towards a hill as high as a hundred feet.

Nong Zhunbao was ecstatic, and laughed loudly: "The rocks and sharp stones are everywhere in front of them. They are desperate. The whole army will crush and slaughter the Sui army!"

"kill!"

"kill!"

The roar of the Tubo soldiers who had been hoisted into the sky shook the sky, and the hooves of the two armies continued to chase towards the Sui army.

This hill is a rocky mountain, very gentle, but the mountain road is full of gravel, which seriously damages the horseshoes, so the Tubo soldiers were all overjoyed when they saw the Sui soldiers riding up the mountain, and they just waited for a while to see the joke.

However, the scene of the Sui cavalrymen falling off their horses due to broken horseshoes did not appear as they expected. Except for a few horseshoes stepping into the gaps in the rocks and breaking their hooves, the main force was safe and sound.

It wasn't until the Sui army galloped to the middle of the mountain that they all stopped and turned around to shoot arrows. The continuous arrows shot down more than a hundred Tubo soldiers.

At this time, they discovered a very pitiful and sad reality: Because the soldiers of the Sui Army occupied the convenient location, they invisibly increased the power of bows and arrows, and fired arrows condescendingly, so that the range of crossbow arrows could be extended to more than 120 steps, while their own After the bow and arrow attack, he couldn't even reach fifty steps.

The only way is to rush up and get close to shoot, or fight hand-to-hand.

But the headache for Nong Zhunbao is that they cannot attack on foot, otherwise they will be wiped out by the Sui army above.So I can only charge forward and quickly close the distance.However, as long as the war horse stepped on such a chaotic hillock, the hooves would definitely be useless... But no matter how much I feel sorry for the war horse, I also know that the most important thing right now is to wipe out this partial division of the Sui army, otherwise they will continue to harass the army endlessly.

It is self-evident which is more important and which is lighter.

Nong Zhunbao made a decisive decision and ordered: "Soldiers of the army, rush up to me. Their horses will not last long. At worst, we will fight with them on foot. We have a large number of people, so we can still win."

"kill."

"kill."

Under the strict order of agricultural security, Tubo soldiers beat horses to climb the mountain.However, after more than an hour of chasing, they ran another piece of Gobi desert. The horseshoes of the Tibetan war horses without horseshoes were very worn out, and now they forcibly climbed up the rubble-filled, sharp-edged rocky hills.No matter how careful the Tubo soldiers were, the severely worn hoofs could not withstand the jabbing and cutting of sharp gravel. From time to time, war horses could suddenly kneel down, and the long hills were covered with bloodstains.

Every prairie cavalry is a horse lover, and especially regards his mount as a companion.Seeing that their favorite horse was so useless, some Tubo soldiers wept unceasingly, and dismounted their horses one after another in disregard of the strict security order.

The Sui army continued to ride and retreat to the top of the mountain. They retreated and shot, keeping the two armies at a distance of more than [-] steps, and harvested the lives of Tubo soldiers with powerful crossbow arrows.

When all the Tubo troops went up the mountain, Ma Hua saw that there were only a few arrows, and he knew that the arrows were exhausted and the time to attack was ripe, so he immediately ordered: "The whole army goes out and kills."

"kill."

Wang Xiongdan yelled and led his soldiers down from the mountain to kill him.

Nong Zhunbao was only guarding against the crossbow arrows of the Sui army, and never thought that the opponent's war horse would continue to gallop after leaving the rocky mountain.

When the Sui army fell from the foot of the mountain, the morale of the Tubo army who had lost their horses and walked up the mountain collapsed, and countless soldiers turned around and went down the mountain. .

Seeing that the situation was not going well, Nong Zhunbao pulled his horse and ran away, but he could not run more than 20 steps when the horse's hoof accidentally got stuck in the gap between the stones, and the horse stumbled, throwing him on his back. On the sharp-edged rocks, the head slammed into a big rock, and it was torn apart like a watermelon.

Seeing that the general died in such a strange way, the Tubo soldiers ran away desperately, but they had already become infantry and were chased and killed by the Sui army from behind. Of the [-] troops before the dispatch, less than [-] escaped by chance. .The losses of the Sui army in this chase and escape battle were almost negligible.

This is not only a good strategy for the Sui army, but also a technological victory.

(End of this chapter)