A five-day march required a distance of 1,200 miles, crossing the Wei River and the Luoshui River.
The lightly dressed and simple minister of the Ministry of War walked at the forefront of the army. The official post along the official road stopped the caravan and cleared the way for the army.
The ferry was controlled by the local garrison and directly under the administration of the Taoist government. On the Weishui River and Luoshui River, the government recruited ships and connected seven or eight pontoon bridges with wooden planks for the army to cross the river.
The left and right Leopard Tao Guards, the left and right Ying Yang Guards and the Brigade Ben Army were lightly armed and simple, with one person and three horses, one horse to ride on, one horse to carry armor, weapons and dry food, one horse for transfer, followed by the carriage baggage, carrying forage, bean cakes, sugar candies
, these are all for horses to eat.
As for people, they could only eat dry biscuits and sip water. The army moved forward alternately. On the first night, some of Zuo Bao Tao Wei's cavalry rushed to the front to prepare to cross the Luoshui River, and some fell behind.
Behind Yang Wei.
The Ministry of War only gave Tiance five days to march and one day to repair.
Therefore, when they left Beiyuan, the entire army was well organized. At noon, the captains of each regiment called out those who could not keep up. They were led by a captain in his thirties and marched behind the army. Due to various reasons,
Those who were unexpectedly left alone would be taken in by the baggage team behind them.
Su Ce followed closely beside Zhao Zaicheng, accompanied by a hundred full sets of light armored Luben Army guards.
Su Ce also wore leather armor, and the heavy armor had been left on other war horses. Li Chang spent hundreds of dollars to buy the Western Region war horse Su Ce, who was reluctant to ride it, and would need its help in the subsequent battle.
Among the three high-quality war horses allocated by the army, one carried Su Ce's heavy armored grain and grass, and the remaining two were transferred on the road. It was impossible for ordinary war horses to carry the load for a long time.
When marching quickly, time is the most difficult to grasp. The captain who leads the army will choose the time to let his subordinates and horses rest based on the number of official posts passing by.
The horses are not running at full speed in an exaggerated manner. If they were, even the best war horses would not be able to run eighty miles in a day. Because a war horse running at full speed for half an hour would destroy itself.
Therefore, the whole army controlled the speed of the horses and changed horses every half an hour. By the way, the cavalry were allowed to rest for a while and the horses could take a breath.
Sometimes the timing is not good, and if you run ten miles more, you will get tired. After an hour of rest, the horse may not recover and start marching again.
Eventually, after repeated attacks, the exhausted war horse reached the limit of its physical strength.
If you travel two hundred miles a day, you will defeat the general.
Along the way, the horses kept by Guanyi were exchanged with war horses, which barely allowed the army to maintain a speed of two hundred miles a day.
Along the way, Su Ce saw many cavalrymen holding fallen war horses and crying. These horses ran too fast and failed to control the time well, and the war horses were run away alive. War horses in the army must be trained with others. What does the cavalry think of war horses?
is more important than his own life.
These horses that fell to the ground had more or less hidden diseases from previous battles. They were not easy to see on weekdays, but after running for dozens of miles, the body temperature of the horses was too high, and the horses' hearts could not bear it, so they suddenly fell to the ground.
Seeing the horse fall to the ground and unable to stand up, the cavalryman ignored his own injury and kept pouring water in an attempt to cool the horse's body temperature.
Some war horses can still stand up and survive after being fed some water, malt candies, and bean cakes, and sent to the official post to be raised, but the rest of the fallen war horses can only die in pain.
The cavalrymen could only tearfully kill these dumb companions with their swords.
Just stop and go, marching two hundred miles a day, half of the horses were lost.
In such a scene, Su Ce went from being sad at the beginning to becoming numb later. The change took no more than two hours. There were more than 83,000 soldiers in the army and 250,000 horses. There were more than 800 people who fell on the road today.
Only 60 to 70% of the 10,000 horses can recover.
In the evening, this sad atmosphere lingered around the entire army.
Three to four thousand horses died on the roadside. The cavalrymen could only wipe the horse blood from their swords with tears in their eyes, take the horses sent by the official post along the way, and go to the post station ahead with their fallen comrades to see
Can I meet Zepao from the same team?
The horse can't bear it, and the same goes for people. The cavalry can feel the exhaustion of the war horse. Once the horse shows symptoms of exhaustion and its breathing is about the same as the individual's heartbeat, the experienced cavalry will ride the war horse out of the team and let the war horse
rest.
Those who are inexperienced, even if reminded by the captain, still hope to keep up with the team and do not want to fall behind.
If there is any luck, the cavalry will be overturned. The horse will fall to the ground, and the cavalry will fall heavily to the ground. If they are lucky enough, they will roll to the side of the road in pain, or they will be collided by other cavalry.
Those with good skills can dodge out of the team, while those with poor skills can only become dead souls under the horses' hooves.
In one day, two brigade soldiers in Su Ce's team fell from their horses. Fortunately, they fell behind the team and were not trampled by their horses. However, one of them was killed and one was maimed.
The dead one had his neck broken, the disabled one saw half of the bones coming out of his left arm, and his right hand was bent.
The military doctors in the army are still in the logistics team at the rear, and they still have an hour or two before they can catch up.
Someone in the team fell off his horse, and Su Ce, as the leader, naturally needed to deal with it. Lu Benjun, who broke his neck, looked at Su Ce and wanted to speak, but his throat was blocked by broken bones. He could only hiss.
He was gasping for breath and his trachea was damaged. Su Ce had no choice but to save him.
Su Ce lifted the brigade Benjun's mask. Su Ce remembered his name. He was from Wannian County. His name was He Tao. He was a very strong soldier. His father was also an old soldier. He had served from the Anxi Protectorate a few years ago.
The injury is gone.
He Tao looked down hard, and Su Ce reached out from his lapel robe and took out a purse embroidered with two mandarin ducks.
Su Ce opened his purse. Inside was a folded letter and an amulet obtained from Anrenfang Jianfu Temple. Su Ce also had an amulet like this.
Looking at He Tao with his mouth wide open trying to breathe, Su Ce was helpless. He Tao's mouth was open and he couldn't speak, but Su Ce understood what he wanted to say.
"Give me your purse, madam, and help me see my parents, Wei Shu!"
Su Ce nodded heavily, put the purse in his arms, bent down, gently twisted He Tao's tilted head, pointed towards the south, and said softly: "Brother, let's go." Then he turned sideways.
As soon as the knife was stretched out, He Tao no longer had to suffer.
"Huh!" Su Ce took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, wiped the horizontal knife from the crook of his arm, and sheathed the knife.
"Watch your brother's body! Let the next group of people take you to the next station." Su Ce ordered, wanting to pat Zhou Wei on the shoulder.
But looking at Zhou Weizheng, who had a broken arm and hand hanging down, and his eyes were spinning in pain, he tried his best to squeeze out a smile: "We are both from the same Zhe Chong Mansion, thank you Wei for your help, Xiao Tao!"
Su Ce retracted his hand, took out a brocade bag from his arms, took out a piece of rock candy, stuffed it into Zhou Wei's mouth, and stuffed He Tao's purse into Zhou Wei's arms.
"You go back and give the purse to his wife. If I can come back after this battle, you and I can go visit He Tao's parents! If you feel pain, just scream, and it won't hurt anymore!" What did Su Ce say?
After saying that, he turned around and got on his horse, bowed silently, turned the horse's head, and went to the front to catch up with the team from the north.
Zhou Wei's shout from behind came to my ears: "Thank you Wei Sui, the candy is very sweet!"