Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 787 Xiangfu Country's Support
At the beginning of its founding, Xiangfu Kingdom, under the advocacy of Ye Chen, attached great importance to the principle of "everything is forewarned, nothing is foregone". Everything will be planned in advance as much as possible, and various detailed predictions will be made, and then preparations will be made. corresponding plan.

For example, it has long been deduced that Xiao Chuo will never give up if he does not destroy Yelu Hanye and Yelulu, and Xiangfu State has Song State covetously, and Chen Bing, the king of the South Court of Liao State, has [-] troops in Wuzhou, facing Yu Xiangfu Guozheng. Ningbian County and Fuzhou on the western border.In view of this, Xiangfu Kingdom can currently mobilize one or two engineering battalions to support them, but it is not yet able to directly send a large army into the territory of Liao Kingdom to help Yelu Hanye and Yelulu.

Therefore, when Yelu Hanye and Yelulu couldn't hold on, the plan to meet them retreated as early as three months ago, and the General Staff of the Military Division began to make a lot of preparations.

The distance between Dongsheng Prefecture and Yunnei Prefecture and Heqing County and Jinsu County in the northeast of Xiangfu Kingdom is more than 300 miles wide, and the wasteland spanning more than 500 miles is not without people. There are at least five or six Han and Tang Dynasties. The abandoned military fort left behind.

The most important measure taken by the Military Shuttle Department to cope with the retreat of Yelu Hanye and Yelulu was to rebuild two of the deserted military forts.Although these two military forts are not the only way for Yelu Hanye and Yelulu to retreat and the Liao army to pursue, they are just stuck in the core. As long as a certain number of Xiangfu troops are stationed in these two military forts, Liao The army didn't dare to face the Xiangfu country's army to chase the enemy at all, so they could only talk about it after capturing two military fortresses.

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In the past three months, on the basis of the original dilapidated castle, the two fortresses renamed Zhenxi Fort and Zhenbei Fort by Xiangfu Kingdom's military headquarters have been built by Xiangfu Kingdom with huge manpower and material resources. .It has entered the final stage of arming.

On November [-]th, the Suzaku Army and Azure Dragon Army stationed in the hinterland had entered Zhenxi Fort and Zhenbei Fort respectively.With the arrival of the two legions, food, grass, and supplies from the logistics department and the equipment department were continuously transported into the two castles.

At the same time, Yang Jiye went to the front lines of Ningbian County and Fuzhou in person. The Zhelan Army and the Black Wolf Army, plus the Xuanwu Army who helped defend them, had already been here three months ago, and the army led by the King of the South Court of Liao Kingdom One hundred thousand Jingzhou troops confronted each other.

On November 230th, Zhang Dawei, the head of the Qinglong Army, led two cavalry brigades to the outside of Yunnei Prefecture for nearly two hundred miles to meet Yelu Hanye.At the same time, Deng Chongxuan, head of the Zhuque Legion, led two cavalry brigades to Dongsheng Prefecture for more than [-] miles to meet Yelulu.

Wang Chao, the deputy head of the Suzaku Legion and Yang Yanqing, the deputy head of the Qinglong Legion who were staying at Zhenxi Fort and Zhenbei Fort, seized the last time to deploy their defenses.

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In Zhenxi Fort, the engineering battalion of the Suzaku Corps was busy everywhere. The battalion commander Zhang Zijian was holding a map in his hand. A rangefinder beside him was measuring the distance of several vertical poles with a trebuchet rangefinder, and then simply calculated the distance. Find the altitude of the location.

The engineer battalion has studied the map of Fort Zhenxi, and the distance measuring soldiers have drawn circles with pencils on the key points that need to be measured, and then handed them over to the calculation soldiers to get the values ​​separately.The calculation soldiers are the most educated group of soldiers in the engineering battalion. They have systematically conducted relevant mathematics training and learning in the teaching team, and even learned the knowledge of trigonometric functions. Of course, they do not know that this kind of knowledge is called trigonometric functions, nor Learn the formula systematically.

But this does not prevent them from applying the two-rod distance measurement method one by one with the support of the theoretical system of trigonometric functions.

The last number was also marked on the map. Zhou Cheng, the commander of the first company of the engineering battalion, was the first to complete the area in charge of his company. He took out paper and a pencil from the engineering cloth bag he carried, and then squatted on the ground to draw Made a sketch.

If any elementary school student who had taken a geography class glanced at the map in Zhou Cheng's hand at this time, he would know that what he was drawing was a contour line.The engineering map course of the Xiangfu State teaching team must first teach the concept of contour lines. Ye Chen was an officer born in a professional class in later generations, and he is especially good at military maps. Therefore, under his guidance, the teaching team marked the military maps for engineers very well. good at.The basic knowledge of marking and drawing military maps and making three-dimensional sand tables like contour lines will naturally not be missed.

After the engineers completed the general survey of the vicinity of Zhenxi Fort and produced a more detailed sand table, Wang Chao, the deputy commander of the Suzaku Legion, called the two infantry brigades who stayed behind in Zhenxi Fort and above the battalion commander to hold a combat meeting to analyze the situation. and deployed combat missions.

Wang Chao deployed two infantry brigades on the central position and built a protruding defensive core, leaving the two wings of defense to Yelu Hanye's army.If the Liao army concentrates its forces to attack the flanks, the long-range attack from the central position can form a side shot.And can take the initiative to attack the enemy when necessary.

"The other two cavalry brigades are deployed at the rear, ready to reinforce the two wings or fill in the center at any time." Wang Chao explained his idea pointing to the formation map.Behind the line of defense, engineers will also be asked to build some thatched huts, dig a firepit, and prepare hot water and bandages so that the wounded can be rescued in time.The chief of staff of the legion led the staff officers to follow the military plan, and kept placing small wooden blocks of different shapes symbolizing various buildings and facilities on the map, as well as placing various troops and fortifications on the sand table.

"According to His Majesty's will, this battle is not only to defeat the Liao army that is catching up, but also to show the strength of our army in front of Yelu Hanye." Wang Chao checked the detailed layout of the central defense line as he spoke.

After revising the plan, the chief of staff of the corps and the two brigade commanders kept putting forward their views from their respective perspectives combined with the terrain, and soon an offensive and defensive strategy was formed.

Finally, Wang Chao ordered: "Immediately upload the general's local military order, and quickly strengthen the defense lines on the two wings. The horses and wood are used in the central position. Well, gunpowder can also be used to blast the trenches, and then use these soils to build parapets."

Speaking of which, Wang Chao picked up the sketches of the offensive and defensive lines drawn by everyone's collective efforts, and made a concluding speech to everyone: "The commander of the legion has given the entire defense task of Zhenxi Fort to this general. Regarding the central defense, I will care about it." It has been decided that our Suzaku Legion will be responsible for the entire three-mile-long central defense line. On this line of defense, our army will build four sharp-edged bastions. Each side is a hundred steps long, and five giant crossbows will be built with openings in the middle of the two walls. On both sides of each bastion, a 50-meter-long low wall was built horizontally. The foundation of the wall was first built with wood, and then soil was piled up. The bastion was strengthened with city bricks, and the wall was built thicker. The soil is ready."

Zhang Zijian, the commander of the engineer battalion who was recording quickly, suddenly interjected, "May I ask the deputy commander, how thick should these walls be? What is the height?"

Wang Chao said to Zhang Zijian with a serious expression: "This is the specialty of your engineering battalion, so you can judge the height and thickness based on your own experience and professional quality."

Zhang Zijian obviously had a plan in mind, and Dang even said: "The rebels only have trebuchets at most in long-range attacks, and they don't have gunpowder packs, so our sharp-edged fort walls only need to be two feet thick and seven feet high. As for the horizontal parapet, Five feet high and one foot thick will suffice."

This data is similar to what everyone thought in their hearts. No one expressed any objection. Zhang Zijian recorded them and began to calculate the earthwork for the project.

"Wooden ladders need to be prepared behind these two walls. Prepare two for every three feet. If you have time, let the archers and crossbowmen familiarize themselves with the coordination of shooting against the wall."

"Also prepare more fire oil, don't forget to double-check, and hot dishes, hot rice, and hot soup are all ready later."

Every time Wang Chao issued an order, the corresponding responsible personnel saluted and accepted the order.He slid his finger repeatedly on the parapet on the sand table, and asked some more about the situation of the horses and the timber. The parapets of the bastions will be connected by wooden fences and the horses, forming a continuous field about three feet high. fortifications.Four quick crossbow companies were deployed behind the bastion and the horizontal parapet of the bastion, while the pikemen of the three battalions would form a battle formation behind the wooden fence, and the other teams were deployed behind the defense line to move at any time.

After discussing the deployment of the main defensive position, Wang Chao and others turned their attention to the field fortifications in front of the defensive position.They have already drawn three wavy outer walls on the sketch. Zhang Zijian will blast the trenches while building these trench soil into earth walls, and then pour cement to form a hard cement outer wall.

"The trench doesn't need to be too deep, but it's better to be two to three feet wide." Wang Chao said while gesturing to several officers with his hands: "These three outer walls are two feet wide enough. ..." Wang Chao looked at the defense division map that had just been formed on the sand table, stretched out his hand and compared it in the air, it was about three feet above the ground: "This height is fine."

Seeing that everyone had no doubts, Wang Chao slapped the table and stood up: "It is estimated that the two cavalry brigades led by the regiment leader will bring more than 9 people led by Yelu Hanye in three days, so the entire field fortification needs to be Complete within three days, without any mistakes!"

The officers in the room also stood up straight at the same time, and replied in unison: "Of course."

A similar scene also happened four hundred miles away in Zhenbei Fort, led by Yang Yanqing, the deputy head of the Azure Dragon Army.

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On November 8th, Deng Chongxuan, the head of the Suzaku Army, and Yelu Hanye arrived on time, but this retreat, where the cavalry escorted more than 1 civilians, was extremely fierce. Yelu Hanye's 7000 troops retreated into the west of Zhenxi There were only more than 8 people in the Fort, and more than 1 tribal people loyal to Yelu Hanyi also died.Deng Chongxuan, who was in charge of the response, led two cavalry brigades with a total of 1000 cavalry and killed more than [-] cavalry.If it weren't for the stone mines constantly planted by the engineering battalion along the way, the Liao army's cavalry were terrified, and the charge was interrupted several times, and the losses would have been more than that.

(End of this chapter)