Horse on the World

Chapter 720 Another Fire
Liao Bin and Zhang Liang finally managed to regroup the disbanded troops after dawn, which brought the army under their control back to more than [-] troops. The disbanded troops could be gathered, but the disintegrated morale could not be recovered in a short period of time. restored.Especially last night, the situation took a turn for the worse after the big victory, and turned into a complete defeat. They lost their camp, lost all their supplies, ordnance, and food.What worries them even more is whether Guo Shanfeng will command the army and come after them in a hurry. If so, they will inevitably be greeted with another big defeat.

However, what they were worried about did not appear. They retreated slowly while inquiring about the situation in Zunhua. The information they obtained made them very annoyed. They quickly returned to Zunhua City, and moved all their abandoned ordnance back to Zunhua City. At the same time, the young and strong who were still rushing to Zunhua one after another were desperately repairing the city wall and repairing the fortifications. All the evidence showed that , the opponent simply does not have enough troops to fight them in a decisive battle in the open field.

"Hit it back!" Zhang Liang gritted his teeth and held the handle of the knife tightly, his entire face deformed due to the huge sense of humiliation.

"Let's fight back and kill a carbine!"

Liao Bin didn't make a sound, and covered his face with his hands for a while, trying not to show his frustration on his face, then he put down his hands and said calmly: "There is no chance."

Zhang Liang sat down slumped, he naturally knew that there was no chance.If last night, they could organize their troops and fight back, then Guo Shanfeng should have been the one who fled in embarrassment instead of them. But now, they have just gathered their troops and attacked the city with such low morale. There is no doubt that there is no chance of winning, and there will be no gains if you waste your troops. Moreover, since Guoshanfeng has arrived here, it means that the overall situation of the Qinling Campaign has been settled. Come back, if they procrastinate here for a long time, they may not be able to retreat unscathed.

The two of them looked at each other with bitterness on Jiang's face.

The battle carefully planned by Shang Shoufu and Master Yuan failed because of Zunhua's unexpectedly strong low resistance. Relying on Qingyang, the imperial court can build a line of defense that can be attacked and defended on the border of Minquan, threatening the whole state from time to time, drawing down the army of Dingzhou, and thus reducing the pressure on Zhou Tong in Xingzhou. .

It is conceivable that after Xingzhou Zhoutong lost the defense line of the Qinling Mountains, the door was wide open, and there was no longer a defensive barrier to rely on. The open terrain would become a horse farm for Dingzhou cavalry to gallop across. In the case of absolute superiority in military strength, if you fight the opponent in the field, you will definitely lose.

"Let's set up camp here. Let's take a look first. At the same time, send a sentry to Zunhua to find out the specific situation of the opponent. If there is really a mistake in Qinling, then General Zhang will definitely send us a warning." Liao Bin said.

Zhang Liangliang nodded, that's all he could do now.

Their prudence allowed them to avoid greater losses. In fact, when it was dark the next day, Wang Qinian's division Tianlei Battalion, who had just come down from the battlefield of Anfu Temple, rushed towards Quanzhou in unarmored clothes. , Along the way, countless mules and horses died of exhaustion, and the traces of blood on the armor of the soldiers were still there. There was no time to clean up and they rushed to Zunhua. When they arrived, many soldiers were sitting on the carriages. According to you, snoring like thunder.

This is the Tianlei Battalion, known as the number one field army in Dingzhou infantry, to achieve this.As the most famous marine battalion in Dingzhou, Dingzhou's equipment is also extremely luxurious. Although it is called an infantry battalion, in order to save the soldiers' physical strength, when marching, they rely on camels and a large number of carriages to move quickly. Move the army, which makes their marching speed not much worse than that of cavalry.

When the Tianlei Camp arrived in Zunhua, the entire Zunhua city defense had been repaired for a day, and the main project had been basically completed. Although there were no peripheral fortifications, the damage to the city wall of Zunhua had been effectively repaired, and it was knocked down and collapsed. The walls of the city were also built with a large number of sandbags.A large number of trebuchets were obtained from Daying in Minzhou, and the eight-ox crossbow was moved to the city and quickly installed. The city was sharpening its knives, ready to fight against opponents who would counterattack at any time.

With the arrival of nearly [-] soldiers and heavy soldiers from the Tianlei Camp, Guo Shanfeng finally breathed a sigh of relief. The crisis is finally over. After the bloody battle, the remaining ten thousand youths who grew up rapidly, he has more than twenty thousand available soldiers at hand, and the whole prefecture is finally safe.

But to Guo Shanfeng's regret, the opponent was obviously very shrewd, and the expected counterattack did not come. After Liao Bin camped dozens of miles away, there was no more movement, but their rangers dialed up several times a day. He ran to the city without hesitation, and fought fiercely with Zunhua's scout team several times. After suffering a big loss, he also retreated.

If the opponent doesn't come, Guoshanfeng thinks about it.

After waiting for three days, Liao Bin and Zhang Liang finally received Zhang Aimin's order to retreat to Qingyang urgently. Seeing this order, they immediately understood that the Qinling line of defense was over.

"Break the camp and retreat back to Qingyang!" Liao Bin stood up, Qingyang was their only victory this time, and they must ensure that Qingyang would not be recaptured by the opponent, and the news brought back by the scouts had made them sober He clearly realized that the battle of the whole state was over, and the next thing might be another long border confrontation.

Riding on the horse, looking at the land under his feet that belonged to Quanzhou, Liao Bin felt angry and hurt. This is where his family is located. The Liao family has managed Quanzhou for several generations, but now it has been defeated by him. Will there be a day when he will stand again in Quanzhou City? Liao's ancestral hall and ancestral tombs are all in Quanzhou. I don't know when he will be able to worship his ancestors again.

"Come here, give me orders!" Liao Bin's face was so gloomy that it seemed to drip water, and his tone was full of unwillingness, "Set fire to me, and burn all these crops clean!"

Zhang Liang sighed: "It's a pity, if the opponent can give us time, we can harvest it, which can fully support our army's rations for half a year." At the foot, on the large field of Zunhua, the crops have matured. It was the day of harvest, but because of this war, it was delayed.

"If we can't get it, neither can the enemy!" Liao Bin said coldly: "Burn!"

Thick smoke covered the sky and covered the sun. It was a time when the sky was dry and everything was dry. When the fire came together, it was out of control immediately. Even in the daytime, the raging fire still turned half of the sky red.

Liao Bin's arson once again made Guo Shanfeng almost mad with anger, and all the best of his men, with his own two thousand bodyguard cavalry as the vanguard and the Tianlei Battalion as the main force, rushed out to chase the Minzhou Army and his party, while Xu Kexing Then he took more than ten thousand young and strong to defend the city.

The opponent retreated extremely fast, and the raging fire became the best way to cover the opponent's retreat. Guoshanfeng, who chased out of the city in anger, stopped helplessly. More than 1 elite soldiers became firefighters, most of them To fight the fire that is still spreading, the other part is desperately establishing isolation zones to limit the fire to a certain range.

It took three full days to barely bring the fire under control, and the establishment of the isolation zone barely preserved part of the crops, preventing them from being overwhelmed.

In the past few days, this army has been like those coal diggers, covered with thick black dust, only the whites of the eyes and the teeth when they opened their mouths are still a little white.A considerable number of people's clothes were burned messily, and a very small number of people were burnt due to improper handling.

The Battle of Zunhua turned the entire area of ​​Zunhua into almost white land, and the young and strong in the whole prefecture suffered serious losses in this battle. Of the [-] young and strong who arrived earlier, only ten thousand remained, and the rest were almost all in Zunhua. They died in the battle, without military training, it is difficult for them to have the tactical skills of a veteran, and they cannot save their lives on the battlefield to the maximum extent.From the second day after Guo Shanfeng arrived in Zunhua City, under the auspices of Long Xiaotian, Quan Zunhua City began to process the remains of these war dead.

The weather was extremely hot, and the remains of the war dead quickly decomposed, and the stench in the city of Zunhua was suffocating. During the fierce battle, people were precarious, and those who struggled for survival did not care about these things. The most urgent thing at the moment is the rotting corpse. If it is not dealt with in time, it is very likely to turn into a plague. In this era, it is not a disaster.

With no coffins and less time for burial, the bodies had to be gathered together, cremated, and the ashes collected.There are too many people flocking to Quanzhou, and most of them are not organized. Almost 90.00% of the people don’t know their names or who they are from. After the war, I slowly visited them one by one.

Outside Zunhua City, under the fortifications filled by Minzhou soldiers, there are still countless remains of the war dead. It has become something that will never be known.

Even with a heart of stone honed through wars like Guo Shanfeng, after seeing the tragic resistance of the people in the whole state this time, seeing those ragged, skinny corpses holding the most crude weapons, in the Seeing their most heroic death and strength after fighting the enemy, they also shed tears.It was these people who saved the whole state and thwarted an extremely insidious battle plan of the opponent, so that Dingzhou will still take the initiative above the strategy in the future.

The Quanzhou people who flocked to Zunhua began to evacuate back to their hometowns. At this time, Li Qing, who had just returned to Qinzhou from Yaqueling Fortress, was also traveling day and night to Quanzhou.

(End of this chapter)