Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1086 1081 [Invasion Like Fire Yang Zaixing]

Yang Zaixing of the Southern Army was faster, and his troops were all mountain infantry and mountain cavalry.

Moreover, they did not bring so many immigrants to encumber them, and they did not even bring any artillery weighing more than 50 kilograms - the tiger squat cannon weighed about 40 kilograms.

Yang Zaixing had only 7,000 regular troops. In order to prevent the rebellion of the native chieftains in Guangxi, he ordered all the chieftains of the Guangxi tribes to personally bring their eldest sons and warriors to join the army in attacking the Dali Kingdom.

Any tribe that fails to send troops within the deadline will be regarded as plotting rebellion!
While Bai Qi, Lin Chong, Zhong Yu and other civil and military officials were still busy dealing with Guizhou affairs, Yang Zaixing had already divided his troops into two groups and attacked the Dali border.

One route was the coalition forces of chieftains of various ethnic groups in Guangxi, which took the Temo Road westward to attack the Huimo tribe.

Temodao refers to the large area of ​​Guangnan and Funing, and the Huimo tribe is one of the 37 barbarian tribes of the Dali Kingdom.

Another route was led by Yang Zaixing himself, who passed through the destroyed Ziqi State (Xingren, Anlong, and Xingyi) and attacked the Luo Xiong tribe in Luoping County.

The Luoxiong tribe was also one of the thirty-seven barbarian tribes. The original meaning of Luoping County is "Luo Xiong has been pacified."

Why are you so heroic?

Just call me Luo Ping.

These places are even harder to travel to than Guizhou!
But Yang Zaixing's troops were already used to it. All of their soldiers came from Lingnan, and they were stationed in Guangxi all year round to quell rebellions by local chieftains. Even 15% of the soldiers came from naturalized tribes.

Although they are elite troops, they all wear light armor, even the generals only wear light armor.

The logistics troops brought a large number of southwestern ponies, which were not very good at fighting, but were very useful for carrying goods in the mountains. After long-term training, one person could control multiple horses. That is, a person led one horse in front, and the horses behind carried goods and followed along the mountain road. Only when the road was extremely difficult did they need help.

Food route?

Yang Zaixing had no food supply.

He only brought 40 days of food and fodder with him. He would go wherever the enemy was and find a way to get food when the time came.

If it really doesn't work, kill the ponies that transport grain and eat them. Anyway, there is no grain to transport, and keeping them will only waste grain and grass.

Yang Zaixing's army was very fast, and the vanguard he sent out was even faster.

"Lord, the Ming army is coming!"

"How is that possible? We just attacked Lingtou Village yesterday. Did they fly here?"

The chieftain of the Luoxiong tribe, Pu Wa, was horrified.

The barbarian chieftains in southern Sichuan and western Guizhou called themselves "Ghost Lords", while those in eastern Yunnan and western Guangxi called themselves "Junchang", and the title of "Junchang" was also recognized by the Duan family.

When Pu Wa learned that the Ming army was suddenly approaching, he immediately ordered all villages to gather troops and sent envoys to ask Shi Zong's troops for help.

He hadn't even gathered all his troops yet when Yang Zaixing's vanguard troops had already arrived.

Pu Wa took the tribal warriors and rode on Dian horses to check it out in person.

There are dozens of miles of narrow plains here, which are flat lands between mountains. They are very suitable for farming and naturally suitable for cavalry combat.

But they saw more than 500 Ming Dynasty mountain cavalrymen, each riding three horses, galloping towards them, directly bypassing two villages along the way.

Pu Wa saw it from afar and returned to the village immediately without saying a word, as if he had seen a ghost.

Luo Xiong's troops could not confront the five hundred elite mountain cavalry head-on, so they could only rely on the fortress for defense.

The main camp of the Luoxiong tribe is located near a mountain and a river, with a lake next to it. However, there is a few miles of flat land in the southeast, which has been reclaimed into cultivated land. The narrow and long plains several dozen miles away are also mostly cultivated land. The agriculture here is quite developed, and it is relatively strong among the thirty-seven barbarian tribes.

Therefore, Luo Xiong's troops were able to gather thousands of troops!

Anyone who is young and strong can fight in a war, and women can also fight at critical moments.

"You go and persuade them to surrender."

The cavalry general was named Cao Xun, the nephew of the great bandit Cao Cheng, and he had also studied at the Kaifeng Military Academy.

He said to the guide: "Tell Puwa to surrender or be exterminated. I have tens of thousands of troops behind me. This time we are just passing through. Our real goal is to destroy the Dali Kingdom. He is a vassal of Dali and a traitor of Dali. Let him think it over carefully."

The guide was a businessman who frequently traveled to Yunnan. He ran outside the village trembling with fear and shouted.

Puwa called the small chiefs under his command and discussed for a long time, hesitating.

Because Yang Zaixing's methods were extremely brutal, he had slaughtered two villages of Luo Xiong's tribe and robbed all the food in the village and nearby areas. One was to collect food and grass, and the other was to ensure the safety of the rear.

Pua and the small chiefs were very worried. What if Yang Zaixing suddenly ordered a massacre after they surrendered?
But if we don't surrender, we can only escape into the mountains, and we will never win the fight.

But Yang Zaixing's vanguard arrived too quickly, and if Puwa chose to escape at this time, it would be difficult for him to take away the money and food. If he made a slight mistake, he might be chased and killed by the Ming cavalry.

While he was thinking about it, the Ming cavalry had already taken action.

A dozen tiger squat cannons weighing about 40 kilograms were taken off the horses. This thing could not destroy the fortress, but it could cover the attackers' advance.

Of course, this time the light troops advanced quickly and did not bring many artillery shells.

"Boom boom boom!"

More than ten shells were fired, but the effective range was only a hundred meters.

Not a single enemy was hit, and it seemed as if the cannon was being fired for fun, but it frightened the barbarians in the village.

After two rounds of bombardment, Puwa sent an envoy to discuss surrender.

In the afternoon, Pua and the other small chiefs formally opened the village gate and knelt down to ask for surrender.

Cao Xun did not lead his troops into the camp, but chose to set up camp 20 miles to the south. The army guarded the entrance to the mountain to prevent Pu Wa from sending people to report to the Shi Zong army. As long as the place was blocked, even if someone went to report the news, they would have to cross the mountain or take a remote path first.

He said to Puwa, "Give me some food and fodder, and you can send your people home, leaving only 300 warriors in the village, waiting for the follow-up army to take over. By the way, one of my soldiers is sick, so he will stay in your village to recover for the time being."

"Is that all?" Puwa was a little confused.

Cao Xun said: "You must lead 300 warriors in person, and bring your adult son with you, and then follow the army to attack Dali. I will be the pioneer, you don't have to follow me."

Puwa said: "I can help persuade the Shizong tribe to surrender."

"No need." Cao Xun shook his head.

The Luoluo Kingdom was established by thirty-seven barbarian tribes, with the chief of the Maitreya tribe as king and the chief of the Shizong tribe as prime minister.

But in terms of wealth, the Shizong tribe ranks first, and it is the tribe with the most money, food and soldiers among the thirty-seven barbarian tribes!

As for the Maitreya tribe, it is the tribe with the most fierce soldiers.

Even if the Shizong tribe surrendered directly, Yang Zaixing had to be on guard against rebellion at all times. He had to beat them severely before persuading them to surrender, so that they would remember this lesson when they wanted to rebel in the future.

What's more, the imperial court has set its sights on the land of the Shizong tribe and plans to settle some Han soldiers and civilians there. How can they make room without killing some of the natives?
After watching Luo Xiong's troops disband, Cao Xun replenished his food and grass, and rested for fifteen or sixteen hours before continuing his march the next morning. The reinforcements from Shi Zong's army were already on the way, and they did not know that Luo Xiong's troops had surrendered.

Luo Xiong's troops did secretly send someone to inform them of the surrender, but the best route was blocked by the Ming cavalry. The messenger took a detour and set off more than ten hours in advance, but was quickly overtaken by Cao Xun's cavalry.

The two armies met in the hilly country.

One side was eager to rescue the allied tribe, while the other side was eager to attack the reinforcements. Neither of them explored the way carefully, and they just started fighting as soon as they collided.

"Why are there Ming troops here?"

The chief of the Shizong tribe was serving as prime minister in Shicheng at the time, and the chief's second son was in charge of leading the army to provide assistance.

He saw the Ming army in panic, and because this place was located in the "rear", it should have been absolutely safe.

"Change horses and charge forward!"

At Cao Xun's command, all the cavalry moved quickly.

These guys were wearing light armor even when they were traveling, and now they all switched to spare war horses.

To be honest, this place is not suitable for cavalry combat.

One hill is connected to another. Although the hills are not high and not very steep, they are covered with thorns and even infantry find it difficult to walk.

The only places that can be passed quickly are the narrow plains between the mountains.

The division's army had sent 3,000 reinforcements. They had sent out more than a dozen cavalrymen to explore the way, and now they received the news and rushed to fight. Thousands of soldiers and baggage troops were stretched into a long snake formation in the mountains because of the march, and they had no time to form a formation when they suddenly encountered the enemy.

The Ming Dynasty mountain cavalry was chasing after the Shizong’s pathfinder cavalry.

When the main force of Shizong's army received the news, the Ming cavalry was already two miles away.

They had no time to form a battle formation, so they could only dispatch shieldmen and archers, about two to three hundred of them, to block the front. More troops were still moving in a panic, trying to cut down the thorns on the hillsides on both sides of the passage, trying to deploy troops on the hillsides on both sides. Otherwise, no matter how many troops they had, they would not be able to deploy.

The barbarian soldiers' bows and arrows had a limited range, so the auxiliary soldiers and gunners of the Ming Mountain Cavalry Regiment rushed directly with their pack horses to within a hundred meters, dismounted and set up the cannon.

The power of the Tiger Crouching Cannon is extremely small. Not to mention attacking city walls, it can hardly even hit shield carts at close range.

But enough of bullying the shield bearers!
And they often fire shotgun shells, which fly out like flowers from the sky.

"Boom boom boom!"

The barbarian shieldmen and archers were busy fighting the enemy, and not many thorns and weeds had been cut down on the hillsides on both sides when the five tiger-crouching cannons started the first round of salvos.

After firing one shot, the front-row gunners quickly retreated, while the second row of five tiger-crouching cannons continued to fire - the terrain was too narrow and there were too many cannons to be deployed.

Then the third row opened fire...

"Go over and shoot arrows, don't shoot here!" the barbarian general roared.

But it was the barbarian archers who were still alive, who were so scared that they shot arrows on the spot to kill the artillerymen.

If it were the regular army in the north, this distance would be within the range of the infantry bows. But the barbarians of the Shizong tribe couldn't do that, because the range of their bows was even shorter than that of the tiger squat cannon.

The shot did come, but it was light and lacked power.

The barbarian general forced the archers to rush closer and shoot arrows, but they suffered heavy losses from the subsequent shotgun shells. The surviving archers fled one after another, and because there were shieldmen blocking them from behind, they turned around and rushed directly to the hillsides on both sides.

The hillside is covered with bushes, thorns, vines, weeds, and occasionally some large trees.

"Stop chopping and get through the grass!"

The barbarian general was extremely anxious.

If an ambush is set in advance, you can naturally get into the thorny bushes calmly.

But now they were fighting a skirmish on the march, and the barbarians who could not deploy were running around in a mess. Everyone was yelling, no one cared about anyone else, and the soldiers behind them didn't even know what was going on.

We didn't bring many shells, and we used them all up in one go.

The barbarian soldiers who had finally assembled had suffered heavy casualties from the bombardment, and the survivors dropped their weapons and fled. But behind them were the chaotic friendly troops, who were stuck in the narrow passage and could not escape at all. The situation became even more chaotic as they pushed and shoved each other.

After the Ming army had fired all their shells, the artillerymen immediately dragged the tiger-crouching cannon away to make way.

"Blow the horn, first team forward!"

Because of the narrow terrain, the twenty-five Ming mountain cavalrymen lined up in five rows for the charge, with only five riders in each row.

They first ran slowly, shooting arrows at the enemies in front of them.

The passage ahead was crowded with people, the shield bearers threw away their shields, and many barbarians were shot by arrows in the back.

The Ming mountain cavalry did not charge directly. They could not even break through the pile of people that the fleeing enemy soldiers could not break through, so they just shot arrows repeatedly, hitting the target every time.

The prime minister of Luoluo State and the son of the chief of Shizong tribe was squeezed into the pile of soldiers and unable to move.

This barbarian general had trouble even taking two steps, let alone issuing orders. In front of him were the fleeing soldiers, who were terrified, behind him were the brave warriors who were protecting him, and behind him were the soldiers who had no idea what was going on but guessed that they might have been defeated.

The shouting and chaos in front of the passage first spread to the hillsides on both sides.

The barbarians in the thorny bushes on the hillside were so frightened that they turned around and fled with difficulty, constantly cutting through the vegetation that blocked their way, and from time to time someone was tripped by vines.

Suddenly, the barbarian general was knocked down by the fleeing soldiers on the mountain road, and then was stepped on countless times.

Now even the personal guards of the barbarian general began to flee, and the momentum of the rout had spread to the middle of the long line of enemy troops. But people were still crowded together, and it was impossible to escape. The barbarian soldiers at the back were standing there in a daze.

"Everyone dismount and fight on foot!"

Cao Xun quickly changed his combat style, and hundreds of Ming cavalrymen dismounted.

These mountain cavalrymen did not use the four or five meter long spears of the north, but used two or three meter long lances. After they dismounted, they did not form a battle array, but rushed forward with their spears, stabbing the fleeing soldiers continuously.

Finally, the barbarians at the back learned of their defeat from the shouting, and they dropped their weapons and fled.

The crowded fleeing soldiers on the mountain road finally sped up their movement.

The Ming cavalry returned, mounted their horses, and chased the fleeing enemy troops.

After chasing for more than ten miles, except for a few enemies who escaped over the mountains, the three thousand barbarians were almost wiped out.

Cao Xun doesn't want any prisoners, so he will catch up with the fleeing soldiers and kill them all!

(End of this chapter)