Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 370 Plan to Overthrow

The sporadic arrows still caused some casualties, especially among the spearmen in the front row, dozens of whom were hit by arrows.

But compared with the huge casualties of at least 500 cavalrymen who fell a hundred steps away from the formation, it was simply not worth watching.

"Is this the most elite Shenji Battalion in the Beijing Camp?" Wen Naxing muttered to himself. Chi Limu beside him had red eyes: "Your Majesty, let me lead the people to charge again."

Wen Naxing regained his composure from the shock and decisively ordered: "How many times can these ten thousand men charge? The whole army retreat, and I will cover the rear!"

Woo woo woo! The horn sounded a mournful cry. Jia Lian, who was high up, put down his telescope and complained in disappointment, "You're retreating now?"

Uncle Sun was very familiar with the relationship between the tribes in southern Mobei. He explained with a smile, "The balance between the four tribes is based on strength. If any one of them suffers too much loss, the other three will rush over to share the blood and flesh. Judging from the flag, this is the Khorchin tribe. There is another tribe behind them, the Chahar tribe. I'm afraid they are here to supervise the army."

Watching the enemy slowly retreating on the battlefield, Captain Yang signaled to send out a team of cavalry to make the final move. The infantry formation remained unchanged!
Li Ni saw Wen Naxing retreating and couldn't help but secretly complain. He could understand why Wen Naxing retreated, after all, the relationship between the tribes in the grassland was like that. In fact, he was the one who was most worried about the heavy losses of the Khorchin tribe. Wen Naxing was trying to seize power by mutiny. Without his support, he couldn't gain a foothold in the south of the desert. He didn't have the military force of the young people who rebelled to seize power as a base, and it was difficult to mobilize the Chahar and other tribes.

Now the four major tribes and other large and small tribes are gathered together entirely because his banner is useful and everyone has common interests.

If we cannot get enough benefits to share among the tribes this time, withdrawing to the grassland will be a different situation. It is bound to trigger another wave of bloody struggle. If you are unlucky, you will lose your life.

"Wen Naxing, you were the one who took the initiative to attack, why didn't you order a retreat?" The fierce king of Chahar stopped Wen Naxing. As an elder prince, he was full of malice towards rebellious juniors like Wen Naxing. If the young people of this tribe also follow his example, that would be terrible! Before Wen Naxing could answer, King Lin Dan beside him also stepped forward to help: "You just charged for a while and then retreated. The title of the first warrior of the Khorchin tribe is exaggerated."

For grassland customs, the two princes' weirdness was extremely destructive. Questioning a person's reputation as a warrior was like the Zhou Dynasty doubting the morality of a civil servant.

In the Great Zhou Dynasty, if a civil official's morality was questioned, it would not be a big problem for him to pretend to be dead and not answer, and to stay in the court with a thick skin. But on the grassland, being questioned about the reputation of bravery is much more serious. On the grassland, strength is respected. If the reputation of bravery is questioned, how can he command the heroes in the future?
Wen Naxing's face turned red, the tendons on his neck twitched violently, and his hand grasped the handle of the knife. With a clang, the knife was pulled out a little.

The two princes were both wealthy men, so how could they take risks? So they took the initiative to retreat, and the guards around them stepped forward to stop them, pulling out their swords.

"If it happens again, I will chop these two old thieves into pieces!" Wen Naxing threatened. Meng Wang stared at him viciously but didn't say anything.

King Lin Dan sneered and said, "Come on, don't wait until next time, come now!"

Chi Limu and his men drew their swords and stepped forward. The guards on the opposite side also drew their swords fiercely. When the two sides were on the verge of a fight, Li Ni said, "What are you doing? The enemy hasn't been defeated yet, so you want to fight for life and death among yourselves first?"

Both sides still didn't buy it, Li Ni shouted angrily: "Everyone, step down!" [TND, do you really think that my title of acting emperor is fake? ]

In any case, it was not appropriate to engage in combat right now. The leaders on both sides exchanged glances, and their subordinates put away their swords, and the tense atmosphere eased.

Seeing that both sides began to retreat and that the fight could not start, Bahamas stepped forward and interrupted them with a smile: "Hey, we are all family, why do we have to use knives and guns?"

[You bastard, do you feel sorry that they didn't fight? ] Everyone looked at Bahamas with malicious eyes, but he was not embarrassed at all. He was indeed disappointed that they didn't fight.

They are all people who came to power by rebelling. Compared with Wen Naxing who continued the name of the Khorchin tribe, he simply changed his name.

The initial change of mind led to disastrous consequences. After changing the name to the Bahama tribe, the people below became disunited and several small tribes fled.

Now he is the weakest among the four tribes. If the other three tribes fight, he will wake up with a smile in his sleep. For the time being, he is the same as Wen Na Xing, and both need Li Ni's banner to be a memorial archway. But compared with Wen Na Xing, Bahamas cares more about autonomy.

Li Ni looked at the four tribal princes who were not disguising their disharmony, and felt a little bitter in his heart. It was the same in the capital back then, the father-son affection between the two generations of emperors was useless.

"Okay, everyone, calm down and discuss how to deal with the reinforcements sent by the pseudo-emperor!" Li Ni brought everyone back to reality. The previous battle ended briefly, but the consequences were serious.

Wen Naxing knew he had to speak out, so he stepped forward decisively, raised his hand to his chest and bowed: "Your Majesty, fellow princes, everyone has seen the battle. In just two moments, the Shenji Camp has caused at least 500 casualties to our troops. No matter what, we cannot force an attack at the moment, otherwise no one can bear the loss. For now, we can only surround them and think of a way to deal with the casualties caused by the gunfire, and then make another move."

"Indeed!" Even though he was strongly dissatisfied with Wen Naxing, King Lin Dan still agreed with this view and echoed: "Wooden shields embedded with iron sheets and covered with ox slopes should be able to withstand it. It's a pity that we didn't get the firearms of the Shenji Camp, otherwise we could try the results."

"It's a good idea, but the wooden shield is too heavy and needs to be held by someone, which is inconvenient for cavalry to carry. We can't give up the cavalry advantage and dismount to fight on foot, right?"

"It's not impossible to fight on foot. Just put on a few more layers of cotton armor. You can also use the front of the chariot to block the bullets. When you get close, the warriors can break through the formation with swords and axes. This is how the Later Jin people dealt with the Ming army."

"Have you not noticed that the fire guns of the Shenji Battalion can accurately shoot within a hundred steps and penetrate leather armor? It is already difficult to avoid heavy casualties with the light cavalry tactics."

"First, surround them and trap the Shenji Camp with trenches. Dig trenches from far away to near. The Zhou army is short of cavalry, so we can trap the enemy bit by bit!"

"Borrowing the experience of using sandbag barriers to deal with artillery fire, piling sandbags on the oars should be able to block bullets!"

That is to say, Jia Lian was not at the scene. If he was, he would be scared to death. These people are really experienced and have fought against the firearms of the Great Zhou for many years. That is to say, no one proposed the trick of soaking the quilt in water.

"Everyone said it very well. I am very pleased! Since you have an idea, go back and prepare. You have one day to prepare. The day after tomorrow, each unit will send out 5,000 troops. No matter what, we must cut off the connection between Jia's troops and Xuanhua."

Even though this acting emperor was self-proclaimed and totally unworthy of the title and lacked strength, Li Ni still insisted on calling himself "Zhen". If you don't have confidence in yourself, how can others believe you? You must deceive yourself before you deceive others!
The four princes looked at each other, no one objected, and they all acquiesced to the matter, and went back to mobilize troops and make preparations. At the Wulipo camp, Jia Lian met Ding Zhun, the night captain, and listened to his report on the results of the investigation.

"The various tribes on the grassland mainly set up camp in tents. There is no shortage of fodder at this time of year. Although they may seem loose, they are not vulnerable due to their mobility. The worst thing is that the spring seedlings in the surrounding fields have been basically destroyed."

Jia Lian knew what he meant. The enemy was mainly composed of cavalry. Once our army launched a night attack, even if it could succeed temporarily, it would be difficult to withdraw under the siege of high-speed cavalry.

There were only 5,000 cavalrymen in the Xishan camp. It was true that they were fully equipped with armor, but they were not equipped with new muskets, so their combat effectiveness was much worse. Even if they were equipped with firearms, fighting at night would not be easy.

After waving his hand to signal Ding Zhun to leave, Jia Lian returned to the central military tent and looked at the sand table made by the staff in front of him. The terrain in this area was generally still the edge of the Yanshan Mountains, with plains as the main feature.

This means that once the left army attacks, it is bound to be inferior to the opponent in terms of mobility, and it is unrealistic to resolve the enemy's threat in a short period of time.

"Don't worry, Commander. Wulipo is not far from Xuanhua. With our army's firepower advantage, it will not be difficult to fight our way back into the city." Looking at the frowning Jia Lian, General Sun consoled him.

"The opponent suffered a loss today, will he come up with some evil tricks? We must be on guard against the tactics used by the Later Jin Dynasty to besiege Daling City in the late Ming Dynasty." Commander Yang reminded, be careful of the opponent digging trenches.

Jia Lian looked at the sand table for a while before speaking: "The original plan to use the camp to lure the enemy to attack, and then launch a counterattack after killing a large number of people is no longer realistic. This governor really didn't expect that during the grain transportation process, the grassland cavalry left more than 500 people dead in the face of the firepower of the musket. We can't passively wait for the opponent to attack, we must be more proactive and force the opponent to attack."

All three of them fell into silence. It was not easy to force the enemy to take the initiative to attack. The opponent was mainly cavalry, and had a huge advantage in mobility. The only flaw was that they could not fight a protracted battle.

The original intention of the left army's advance was to mobilize the enemy and relieve the pressure in the direction of Datong. Now that this tactical goal has been achieved, the next step should be how to complete the strategic goal of delaying the battle.

No matter how to achieve the strategic goal, we must find ways to take advantage of firepower and kill a large number of opponents. At the same time, we must take advantage of the opponent's internal contradictions and preferably cause internal unrest.

Touching his chin, Jia Lian suddenly had an idea: "Send someone into the city tonight to ask if there are enough straw bags. If not, try to collect as many as possible."

Commander Yang thought for a moment, then clapped his hands and said with a smile, "Your Excellency has a good idea! We can use vans to set up a formation for protection!"

Uncle Sun didn't understand and said in confusion: "Speak clearly!"

Commander Yang pointed at the sand table and said, "Look, my Lord. It's only five miles away. We can use straw bags to fill the soil and build a breastwork along the official road! We can also dig soil along the official road to build another trench!"

Sun Boye understood this and slapped his thigh, saying, "The only weakness of our army is the food route. It's only a five-mile road. We can use trenches and breastworks as obstacles to defend the food route and drag the enemy down."

Jia Lian also smiled and said, "That's the truth!"

The three of them had a clear tactic, and they all smiled relaxedly. They were not afraid of the grassland cavalry in a frontal attack. There was little rain in the north, and the Xishan camp was equipped with a large number of matchlock guns. There were enough wagons, which could be connected to form a wall. The front was a barrier made of spears and shields, and the back was a volley of muskets. With the back against the camp or city, the firepower advantage was maximized, and they were not afraid of the opponent's impact at all.

The three of them felt that they could have a good sleep, so they sent messengers back to Xuanhua overnight. Jia Lian was still worried that Guo Dongliang and Prefect Lin would not understand, so he asked Commander Yang to go back in person with the Yebushou camp for protection.

When I woke up the next day, it was another quiet morning. It would have been more comfortable if there were no distant sounds of animals and the smell of manure.

In the open space outside the central army tent, Jia Lian practiced a set of boxing at a leisurely pace. After finishing, he wiped the sweat off his face. He couldn't take a shower, so he had to endure it. He raised the telescope and looked at the situation in the distance. He found that several teams of Ye Bushou were retreating. There was smoke and dust behind them. They must be being chased. Jia Lian was not worried about the Ye Bushou because they were equipped with the best weapons. With the range, they could fire a round. As long as they didn't fight too long, they would be fine.

Sure enough, the Yebushou teams came back one after another. There was a camp of Yebushou under the left army, which had three teams. Each team had a hundred people and each man had two horses. They were not at a disadvantage whether fighting or running.

"Reporting to the governor, the cavalry from various grassland tribes did not harass us, but only drove us away. We did not see their army mobilizing. They are digging trenches near the camp, and they started early in the morning. Sir, do you want to stop them?"

Jia Lian smiled and didn't take it to heart. Hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen from various parts of the grassland came out, and they could dig ditches as they pleased. They wouldn't stay long anyway, and they couldn't just ignore the production at home, could they? To take back the wealth, they had to rely on smuggling to exchange for food. Don't think that the lower class of the grassland can eat much meat, and it's good enough to have a sip of milk tea.

"No need to obstruct them. Your safety is the first priority. Just observe from a distance." Jia Lian didn't take it seriously. He felt that those people wouldn't be able to cause any trouble.

Standing on a high place and continuing to look, we found a group of grassland cavalry moving forward and setting up camp again six or seven miles away from the official road.

Are they here to cut off the official road? In this case, Li Ni is a talented person who has grasped the key points in tactics. Unfortunately, the devil is always stronger than the righteous!
Jia Lian was in a good mood and was a little puzzled as to why General Yang had not returned after going to Xuanhua. Could it be that Xuanhua did not have enough straw bags? This was possible.

One day passed, and at sunset, we finally saw horses and men galloping on the official road. General Yang had returned.

After the meeting, seeing General Yang's gloomy face as he was about to report, Jia Lian said calmly: "Go to the central army camp and tell them!"

Uncle Sun also noticed something was wrong, and without changing his expression, he followed him to the central military camp.

After ordering his guards to guard the central army camp twenty steps away, Jia Lian went back to ask, "What's the matter? Has the situation changed?"

Commander Yang said angrily, "Not only has the situation changed, but the change is significant. I'm afraid the tactics we discussed will have to be overturned."

(End of this chapter)