Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1051 1046 [Cavalry is not just for show]

The river in front of us is called Hongliugou because red willows grow in some sections of the river.

It passes through the desolate Gobi Desert, and its water source is melted snow and springs along the way. Due to the instability of the water source and excessive evaporation, it will dry up seasonally every year.

At this moment, it is approaching the dry season.

From Xingxing Gorge to here, Hongliu Valley is the "largest river" and the life along the way depends entirely on several springs.

Therefore, it has great strategic value!
Before the Ming army conquered Yizhou City (Hami), Hongliugou would be the only place for the Ming army to replenish drinking water. The fortress blocking the way here was also a stronghold that the Ming army had to take.

The Western Liao army slowly retreated towards Hongliuzhai, while Wu Jie's troops accelerated their pursuit.

Among Wu Jie's 800 cavalrymen, 300 were light-armored cavalry and 500 were medium-armored cavalry.

When the infantry chariots were chasing, the eight hundred cavalrymen also went out to protect the two wings. They did not need to kill many enemies, but only slightly delayed the enemy cavalry from flanking to prevent the chariots and infantry from being attacked from the side before they could change their formation.

In order to cover his main force approaching Hongliuzhai, Xiao Chalabu sent out all his cavalry.

These miscellaneous cavalrymen no longer dared to approach the chariots, but relying on their large numbers they dared to attack the Ming cavalry.

The 800 Ming cavalrymen did not want to fight. They shot arrows with bows and retreated, leading the miscellaneous Western Liao cavalry to the front and sides of the chariots.

"Woooooo~~~"

Countless Western Liao cavalrymen sounded their horns, and the nobles or chiefs, who were only five or six hundred steps away from the chariot formation, were so frightened that they quickly led their troops to other directions.

They were so frightened by the chariots that they dared not get too close.

Wu Jie felt helpless about the enemy's cowardice. There were too many cavalrymen in the enemy army, so he had to change his formation slightly, which made it impossible to quickly pursue the enemy's main force.

In fact, during the retreat, most of the Western Liao infantry had no formation to speak of, except for the elite troops in the central army.

They ran towards Hongliu Village in a disorderly manner, not caring about the front or the back, and the generals were unable to control them at all.

If Wu Jie had two or three thousand brave cavalry, he could have charged forward at this time and killed all the infantry of Western Liao, causing them to collapse.

After all, there are not enough cavalry.

It was too difficult to get here from Xingxing Gorge, and as a vanguard, it was impossible to bring too many cavalry. Their chariots, artillery, and ammunition were already extremely difficult to transport, and if they were dragged by the logistics of thousands of cavalry, they would not be able to move fast at all.

More than 10,000 miscellaneous soldiers fled to the vicinity of Hongliuzhai in a disorderly manner, while Xiao Chala Abu personally led the elite infantry to cover their retreat, and sent more than 9,000 Western Liao cavalry to delay the Ming army.

After a long time, the entire Western Liao army retreated to the fortress and re-formed their battle array.

"Leave all the food and grass in the village, and send another 1,500 people to guard the village!" Xiao Cha La Abu quickly issued a military order.

They came from Yizhou City, which was more than a hundred miles away, and did not bring much food and supplies. The food and supplies that could only sustain the army for a few days were now stored in Hongliu Village, just in time for the soldiers guarding the village to continue using.

By the way, the garrison of Hongliuzhai was increased to 4500 people to prevent the Ming army from occupying this place easily.

Seeing the Ming army's chariot array getting closer and closer, Xiao Chala said: "The cavalry will stay behind, and all the infantry will cross the river and withdraw!"

He also did not think about an orderly retreat because the composition of the troops was too mixed.

However, they saw nobles of all sizes, with their small number of elite troops and countless miscellaneous soldiers with little combat effectiveness, rushing into Hongliu Valley in a disorderly manner.

The knee-deep river water can be waded across quickly.

The riverbed is full of gravel, and once the dry season comes, even the riverbed will turn into a Gobi desert.

About 9,000 Western Liao cavalrymen were running back and forth around the chariot formation from a distance. As long as the chariots dared to move forward in a reversing moon formation or a horizontal formation, they would rush in from all directions, forcing the chariot formation to adjust its formation and distance themselves from it.

Wu Jie was very annoyed by this tactic. He could not keep the Western Liao infantry, so he could only leave some cavalry corpses behind.

"Pass the order..."

Soon, the Ming army's chariot formation changed into a crescent shape and accelerated forward, while half of the infantry was separated to defend in a relatively backward position.

Those miscellaneous Western Liao cavalrymen who were cruising around the rear came from different tribes and had not received any definite military orders, so their choices were different.

At the beginning, they all rushed forward, trying to scare the Ming army soldiers.

After charging to a certain distance, some cavalry slowed down and retreated, while others moved to the side. These were relatively cowardly, not daring to take the risk of continuing to charge, fearing that they would be hit by the chariot formation.

There were also a small number of Western Liao cavalry who thought that the Ming army's chariot formation would not have enough time to change its defensive formation, and actually seized the opportunity to speed up and rush forward.

There was indeed no time for the traffic jam.

But the cavalry has been waiting for a long time!

Three hundred Ming light cavalry and five hundred Ming brave cavalry formed more than thirty cavalry squads. They were divided into two groups and rushed towards the Western Liao miscellaneous cavalry, which was three times their number, in a relatively dense formation.

This was completely beyond the enemy's expectations, because from the beginning of the war until now, the Ming cavalry had never engaged in combat.

They subconsciously believed that the Ming cavalry had little combat effectiveness.

What was worse was that since many Western Liao cavalry had withdrawn, the cavalry that chose to continue charging forward became scattered groups. They had no friendly forces to protect them on either side, and they were afraid of being bombarded, so their formation was extremely scattered, with the distance between cavalrymen being more than eight meters.

Judging from the data, 800 Ming cavalry charged at more than 2,000 enemy cavalry.

When the real fighting started, the 800 Ming cavalry were divided into two groups, encircling and annihilating more than 200 enemy troops in a local area.

The cavalry general Yang Zheng rushed to the front. His cotton armor on the shoulder was hit by an arrow, and his horse's light armor was also hit by two arrows. At this moment, he rushed into the sparse enemy cavalry formation, knocked away a Western Liao cavalryman with one spear, and swept down another cavalryman with a third spear. He even knocked down a chieftain with the third spear.

These more than two hundred Western Liao cavalrymen melted almost instantly.

The Ming cavalry in the back row slowed down and rushed towards the enemies farther away on both sides. Those enemies also had a loose formation and no friendly forces nearby to support them.

Faced with the sudden attack of the Ming cavalry, the first reaction of the Western Liao cavalry who chose to retreat or flee was not to rush to the rescue relying on their numbers. Instead, they fled in fear, increasing the distance!
These chiefs or nobles usually do not obey each other and may even have grudges against each other.

How could they risk the rescue without clear military orders?
What's more, Xiao Chala Abu and Yelu Songshan were already retreating with their main forces. The order they received was just to delay the enemy, and they would fight desperately if they were stupid.

Of the 800 Ming cavalrymen, only more than 20 light cavalrymen were shot dead or wounded, but they caught and pursued a larger number of enemy cavalrymen.

They chased them all the way, and the miscellaneous Western Liao cavalrymen in the distance fled one after another.

The Western Liao cavalry in front of and on both sides of the chariot formation had no idea what was happening at this time, as they had no vision of the battlefield where the cavalry were fighting.

Seeing friendly troops constantly escaping, those guys thought they were defeated and chose to flee without saying a word.

The famous scene appeared.

The Ming cavalry, which numbered less than 800, were chasing and killing nearly 8,000 miscellaneous Western Liao cavalry.

Those miscellaneous cavalry bypassed Hongliu Village and the main infantry force that was crossing the river, and fled across Hongliu Valley in a rush before gradually slowing down to check the situation.

The Western Liao infantry were frightened by the scene and were thrown into complete chaos. Even some of Gaochang's elite infantry dropped their weapons and pushed forward to speed up their crossing of the river.

Xiao Chala was not very angry, and personally led more than 2,000 elite cavalry to cover the retreat, including several hundred heavy cavalry.

Those heavy cavalrymen did not even have time to put on heavy armor during their retreat, and now they fought brazenly without armor.

Wu Jie, who was standing on the watchtower to observe the battle, put down his telescope and said, "Blow the horn, tell Yang Zheng to withdraw, and speed up the chariots."

It was obvious at a glance that the enemy's more than 2,000 cavalrymen who were left behind were the real elite.

Even if the Ming cavalry could win, they would certainly suffer heavy losses. Moreover, those frightened Western Liao cavalry had already stopped after escaping across the river, and if the Ming cavalry continued to fight, they would probably be defeated.

Wu Jie felt sorry for the elite soldiers he had trained and was unwilling to throw them all into the gamble.

When the Ming army's chariot formation advanced to the riverside, the main force of Western Liao had already retreated far away - many of the miscellaneous soldiers did not even retreat, but fled to Yizhou in a disorderly manner, and some were so scared that they abandoned their weapons and armor along the way.

There were also 4500 unlucky people from Western Liao who were left in Hongliu Village to defend it.

These guys have basically been abandoned, and Xiao Chala Abudu is still waiting for reinforcements. How could he send anyone back to rescue them?

In this battle, 6 Ming soldiers were killed and 23 were injured.

Except for two brave cavalrymen who were injured when their horses stepped on stones in the Gobi Desert and fell off, the rest of the casualties were from light cavalrymen who were hit by arrows during the charge.

Of course, the Ming army also lost a lot of gunpowder...

More than 3,000 Western Liao cavalrymen were killed in the battle. Some were killed by firearms and melee infantry, some were killed by Ming cavalry, and the rest died at the hands of auxiliary troops who were cleaning up the battlefield.

More than a thousand Western Liao infantrymen were also killed, and some were trampled to death by friendly forces when their retreat turned into escape.

Auxiliary soldiers and civilian laborers came out of the camp, cleaned up the battlefield, burned the corpses, and took back the captured war horses and armor.

However, Wu Jie led a large army and blocked the outside of Hongliu Village, which had no moat.

The 4,500 defenders were trembling with fear.

Wu Jie said to the guide who was fluent in Uighur: "Go and persuade them to surrender!"

The guide was a spy who had been in the merchant team for many years. He said, "General, these are dead soldiers. Their families are all controlled by the Western Liao. Once they surrender, their entire family will become slaves. If an officer surrenders, the male members of his family will also be executed."

Wu Jie said: "Tell them that if they lose their wives, they can marry again; if they lose their sons, they can have new ones; their parents don't want to see them die. As long as they surrender their fortresses, I will be the matchmaker and choose women for them to start a family after we capture Yizhou City. If they don't surrender, the subsequent million-strong army will come and the Western Liao will surely be defeated. I will find their families and kill them all!"

Under the protection of the shield bearers, the guide came outside the village wall and shouted continuously.

Soon, there was a commotion among the defenders of the fort.

Some people who were afraid of death no longer cared about their parents, wives and children at home, and only hoped to survive after surrendering.

What's more, Wu Jie was threatening to kill their entire family.

They had just seen how powerful the Ming army was and did not think that the Western Liao could win. What if they tried to defend the fortress but the Ming army broke through Yizhou and Gaochang and killed their entire family?

The garrisons of these forts came partly from Gaochang and partly from Yizhou, and were mainly Buddhists and Nestorians.

If the Gaochang Uighur Kingdom still existed, they might have had a slight sense of belonging.

After Yelu Dashi's death, in order to prevent the King of Gaochang from colluding with foreign enemies and joining the Ming army, Empress Gantian captured the king and completely destroyed the Gaochang Kingdom.

What sense of belonging could they have to Western Liao?
Why would I sacrifice my life for Western Liao?
After persuading the surrender, the guide came back to drink some water to moisten his throat.

The defenders remained motionless, but the generals and officers were arguing privately.

Their only burden of surrender was that the Ming army did not keep its word. In order to resist the invasion of the Ming army, the Western Liao Dynasty used all its propaganda to smear the Han people, and the Han people were almost turning into cannibalistic demons.

Wu Jie used binoculars to observe the defenders' reaction. After a while, he ordered: "Pretend to attack the fortress and scare them."

360 small artillery pieces were dragged closer and fired, all aimed at the fort's war sheds and arrow towers.

As the war tents and arrow towers became riddled with holes, the village gate slowly opened.

Wu Jie smiled and said to the officers beside him: "Send the light cavalry back to Shankou Village and tell them that I have won a great victory. The bastard Sang Zhong must be there. He didn't come to rescue me when I was surrounded. I will slowly deal with him later!"

(End of this chapter)