A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 1005: The Battle of Jibei is in Danger, and the Enemy Camp Is in Full Swing

Bai Lang's troops headed north along the coastline. After arriving at Jinkou, they needed to enter the Zhangshui River and then the Sanggan River.

So Bai Lang left behind a thousand men and all the ships to guard the port and transport the baggage heading north.

He personally led the remaining 29,000 men and took small boats deep into the interior of Youzhou.

Because the entire journey was along the waterway and all the baggage was on the boats, the Khitan's proud tactic of harassing the food supply route was shattered.

It’s not that there were no Khitan troops who wanted to attack the Bailang tribe.

The largest-scale attack was by Yelu Yunchuan, the Khitan general in charge of looting Hebei. He gathered 60,000 scattered Khitan cavalrymen and attacked the Bailang tribe which had just arrived at Yongnu.

The result was not surprising: the Khitans were defeated.

If the Bailang tribe had cavalry, they would have been forced to hunt them down on a large scale.

In this battle, five thousand Khitans were beheaded and three thousand were captured.

April 8
The Khitan Emperor Yelu Deguang personally led 100,000 Khitan soldiers to Wozhou to stop Bai Lang's 30,000 Xia troops.

Yelu Deguang first ordered the Khitan cavalry to charge.

The Bailang tribe relied on the warships on the waterway and formed a battle formation with their backs to the water, leaving the Khitans with nowhere to attack.

In the head-on attack, the Xia army had a high armor rate, and the front row were all armed with spears and halberds, so they could not charge forward at all, and instead suffered huge losses.

Let's go on patrol and ride and shoot. The Xia army relies on shield formation and is just useless against arrows.

In addition, there were thousands of archers on the warships, who continuously shot arrows at both wings, causing heavy losses to the Khitan cavalry.

Yelu Deguang felt a toothache when he saw this situation.

After losing three thousand cavalrymen, he decisively ordered them to retreat and sent out puppet troops to charge at the Jin army.

Our own cavalry will roam around in the back, shooting and looking for opportunities to charge.

However, the fighting lasted from noon to sunset, and nothing was achieved except leaving behind thousands of corpses.

Yelu Deguang had no choice but to change the attack into a siege. As long as the Xia army was trapped in place, he believed that it would not take long to capture Jibei.

April 13

For five days, Bai Lang was unable to move forward at all, which made him extremely anxious. He had to send people to sail south to inform Li Cunqian of his situation and ask him to send people to help him deal with the Khitans on the opposite side.

Otherwise, I would be trapped by them and my journey north would be useless.

As Bai Lang relied on waterways to communicate with Li Cunqian in the rear, the Khitans had no way to cut them off and could only allow Bai Lang to communicate with the rear.

April

Another five days passed, and the white waves still stayed where they were.

On the contrary, the subsequent army led by Li Cunqian, because a large number of Khitan cavalry were summoned by Yelu Deguang, besieged Bailang.

Therefore, the army's march northward was very smooth.

They have cleared out Dezhou, Cangzhou, Jingzhou and Yingzhou along the way and have now arrived in Mozhou.

It was only one or two days’ journey away from Bai Lang’s troops.

Facing the arriving main force of the Xia army, Yelu Deguang was not at all panicked.

Because he had received the battle report from Jibei, the city was already suffering from food shortage.

According to the Xia people who escaped from the city, there are only three days of food left in the city.

In other words, Yelu Deguang only needed to block Bai Lang and Li Cunqian in Wozhou for three days to capture Jibei City.

It took two days for Li Cunqian's troops to reach Wozhou.

He believed that his army of 100,000 could not hold out for a day.
As long as Jibei was broken, his strategic goal would be achieved.

The Khitans who occupied the Yanyun area would no longer be subject to any restrictions and could go south to wreak havoc in Hebei at any time.

As for the 50,000 border troops of Daxia who were trapped in Huairong City by 200,000 Khitan cavalry.

They were blocked from returning home, and were destined to be the food on my plate, just a matter of eating it early or late. April 19

Bai Lang, who had suffered from insomnia for the past two days, finally received a reply from Li Cunqian.

Looking at the plan in Li Cunqian's letter, Bai Lang finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Come here, gather all the generals to discuss the matter."

At noon, Bai Lang ordered the entire army to have a full meal.

The soldiers unloaded a large amount of food from the grain ships anchored on the Sanggan River, including dried meat and low-proof liquor.

After half an hour of eating, the morale of the Xia army soldiers was greatly boosted.

Another half hour passed, and the food in the stomach was slightly consumed.

At five quarters after pm, 30,000 Xia troops marched towards the main camp of the Khitan army.

Yelu Deguang, who had long known that the Xia army was eating, pulled his troops out of the camp and confronted the Xia army in the wild outside the camp with his back to the camp.

In order to prevent support from the Xia army's warships, the Khitan army camp was far away from the river.

For the Xia army, it would take an hour to march, but for the Khitans who had war horses, it would only take two or three quarters of an hour.

Seeing the Xia army coming from afar, Yelu Deguang couldn't help but laugh:
"I have heard that the commander of the Xia army on the other side is the brother of Ji Wang Tao. Now that he is trapped by our army, he must be anxious. Otherwise, why would he abandon the water conservancy and attack our camp from afar?"

Even so, Yelu Deguang did not dare to underestimate the fighting power of the Xia army and gave the order:

"Don't fight the enemy recklessly, just buy time. As long as we can hold off the Xia army's attack, our army will surely win after a while."

Then Yelu Deguang divided the 100,000 Khitan troops into ten teams, with about 10,000 men in each team, preparing to take turns fighting with the Xia army and consume its strength.

As long as the Xia army showed signs of decline, they would be defeated as they were far away from the waterways.

The Khitan cavalry were best at chasing and killing.

Once the drums sounded, a bloody battle broke out in the wilderness.

As the first team of Jin troops engaged in battle with the Xia army, they were defeated in just three quarters of an hour.

Fortunately, as ordered in advance, the defeated army bypassed the group of 10,000 Khitan puppet troops behind them.

The Khitan puppet army held out for an even shorter time and was defeated by the Xia army in less than a quarter of an hour.

This happened three times, and each time the enemy was defeated at the first blow. The Xia army broke through three formations in a row, and their morale was greatly boosted.

Even when they encountered a cavalry formation composed of Khitans, they only held out for a quarter of an hour longer than the Jin army.

After defeating two Khitan cavalry formations in succession, the Xia army's indomitable momentum finally declined.

After two hours of continuous fighting, even an elite army like the Xia Army could not hold out.

When attacking the Khitan Sixth Team, the Xia Army showed signs of decline and it took them half an hour to barely defeat it.

Bai Lang decisively changed the attack formation to a defensive formation.

The remaining 20,000-odd Xia troops formed a circle and defended on the spot.

Upon seeing this, Yelu Deguang dispatched the remaining 30,000 Khitan fresh troops, as well as two gathered defeated troops, to besiege the Xia army's circular formation.

As time went by, the Xia army soldiers only had half a day's worth of dry food with them and had been fighting for half a day straight, so they were already exhausted.

Even if Bai Lang was replaced in time, he could not eliminate the decline in combat effectiveness caused by fatigue.

The visibility on the plain gradually faded. The Khitans lit torches and vowed to fight day and night without stopping to keep the Xia people at bay.

In the Xia army's circle formation, Bai Lang stood among the wounded soldiers on the ground, with a worried look on his face, muttering to himself: "Why haven't they come yet?"

Just as Bai Lang finished speaking, a team of elite cavalry suddenly appeared on the west side of the battlefield and rushed into where Yelu Deguang was.

"Death befalls old thief Yelu."

(End of this chapter)