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On the eighteenth day of the first lunar month of the second year of Tianfu (902), Liu Shouguang ordered an attack on Shicheng.
On the battlefield of Shicheng, due west of Shicheng, there is the Marshal's personal army, which is dominated by the Yi'er Army, with more than 10,000 soldiers; about eight miles northeast of Shicheng, there is the Jizhou Army commanded by Zhao Jing, with 6,000 soldiers;
At the foot of Lianshan Mountain, seven miles southeast of Shicheng, there are three thousand Badu Cavalry led by Zhao Ba.
At the same time, in places further around Shicheng, there are also soldiers and horses led by several state governors, military envoys, military city envoys and guarding envoys. However, the number of troops is small, and they can at most serve as some warning and blocking scouts.
The role of .
The total strength of the Youzhou coalition forces is 50,000, of which about 20,000 are armored soldiers, and the rest are unarmored auxiliaries and civilians.
Although from a broad perspective, the Youzhou Allied Forces formed a strategic encirclement of the Yingzhou Army, tactically, they did not complete the encirclement of Shicheng.
Not to mention that the three main forces of the Youzhou Allied Forces are far apart and cannot form effective contact. As far as Shicheng is concerned, because of the existence of the camp under the city, the Youzhou Allied Forces cannot truly launch an encirclement attack on Shicheng. Before attacking the city,
The first thing they have to do is to pull out the nail in the city camp.
As a matter of common sense in military affairs, a city cannot be defended only by its walls. If you abandon the defense outside the city and huddle within the walls, it will be quite dangerous for the defenders. This means that the siege team can concentrate their forces to block a limited number of buildings.
Instead of wasting troops on blocking the entire city, you can just send a few teams of rangers to run along the city wall to keep alert, so that the enemies in the city cannot escape.
In the same way, if the siege party does not completely clear out the defensive strongholds outside the city, it is impossible to truly launch an attack on the city wall. Any defensive stronghold left outside the city is likely to become a fatal weakness behind the attackers.
A siege war can only occur when the defenders are absolutely weak in terms of troops or strength and are not able to defend everywhere outside the city. Therefore, generally speaking, the troops of the siege force are often several times that of the enemy, even up to ten times.
It is also normal for the enemy.
It is precisely because of this that many large cities often build many gates, such as Chang'an, which has twelve gates on the outer wall. This construction method not only facilitates entry and exit, but more importantly, it creates huge difficulties for the siege party.
If the siege party wants to besiege Chang'an, they must block all twelve city gates with heavy troops. Otherwise, the defenders can deploy troops from any of the gates to attack at will, posing a huge threat to the siege.
Of course, Shicheng does not have so many city gates, but there is a camp outside the city. The existence of the camp ensures that Shicheng will not be blocked by the Youzhou coalition forces inside the city gate. Before the Youzhou coalition forces clear out the city camp, Shicheng's ingress and egress are relatively small.
With smooth traffic, the Yingzhou army in Shicheng can mobilize troops to attack at any time and support each other with the camp below the city.
Liu Shouguang believed that his troops could not really pull out the camp under the city and trap Shicheng. His speculation about the strength of the Yingzhou army was very different from the reality. Various intelligence he obtained showed that Shicheng and the camp under the city had a total of tens of thousands.
Among the enemies, the Yingzhou Army and the Huaiyue Alliance Army were the main forces, and they also included some local town troops.
If you count the civilians and auxiliary troops brought by Yingzhou, he speculated that Li Chengzhong had 20,000 troops on hand. Half of them were auxiliary troops. If there were any more, the small stone city would not be able to accommodate them. In fact, even two
With a force of ten thousand troops, Shicheng could not accommodate it, which was another reason why the camp under the city was built.
With a strength ratio of five to two, it was impossible to attack the city. Especially when the Jizhou Army and Badu Cavalry were not very obedient, so Liu Shouguang's intention was not to remove the camp under the city, let alone attack the city. He hoped
By attacking the camp under the city, it will be easier to draw the main force of the Yingzhou Army out of the city to fight on the flat ground.
The first battle must be imposing and majestic. This is the calculation of Liu Shouguang and Liu Zhiwen. Even if they don't actually fight, they must show momentum and prestige, not only to show Li Chengzhong, but also to the military leaders of all sizes.
look.
So Liu Shouguang ordered the entire army to dispatch, with a total of 50,000 soldiers, auxiliary soldiers and civilians, to surround Shicheng and the camp below the city from three directions. The Yier army formed a formation outside the west gate, and the Jizhou army threatened the north.
Gate, Badu Cavalry was divided into two cavalry armies to monitor the lower camp of the south city and the east gate.
The deployment went smoothly this time. Not only were the ruffians in the rear camp very obedient, but even Zhao Jing and Zhao Ba obeyed the orders completely without bargaining. As for the foreign military leaders scattered around, they were all respectful.
They rushed to the front of the volunteer army and waited for dispatch.
However, although they claim to be "on call", in fact they are unable to accept any "missions". Each military leader only brings a few people, dozens more, more than a dozen less. What can such a small number of people do? Liu Shouguang doesn't either.
He thought he was satisfied. He had never thought of asking these people to contribute. Isn't the reason why these people have so few troops the result of his hard work in the past two months?
In fact, from this perspective, the army-building ideas of Liu Shouguang and Li Chengzhong are very close to a certain extent. Both of them are working hard to eliminate the Shantou doctrine prevalent in Lu Longjun. However, Liu Shouguang's approach treats the symptoms rather than the root cause. In a few years, he will
A new group of military leaders will appear under his command, and Li Chengzhong will be much more thorough.
Tens of thousands of troops were arrayed under the city. The scene was very spectacular. Li Chengzhong led his generals to observe carefully at the top of Shicheng.
Strictly speaking, the top brass of the Yingzhou Army have no record of commanding troops to fight against Tang armies in various towns within the pass. Even to the town of Lulong, the top brass of the Yingzhou Army are relatively unfamiliar. Even Zhang Xingzhong, Zhou Kan and others have mixed up with the Lulong Army.
The same is true for veterans of the military for several years. Their level back then was too low. Every time they fought or exercised, they were part of the "array" and did not have the opportunity to look at the entire military formation from such a high perspective and vision.
Among the current generals in command of the Yingzhou Army, the one who led the most troops in the old Lulong Army system should be Yuan Xingqin, but he was just a small team leader back then, and he is not in Shicheng at the moment. This is a young group,
They are an officer class with a very low starting point. They have achieved dazzling achievements outside the customs, but they are quite unfamiliar in the Lulong Army.
The Yingzhou generals greedily observed the Youzhou coalition forces below the city. Dozens of Yuhou had already been divided into three groups, standing on the west, south, and north city walls. They were holding charcoal pens and nervously writing on the white silk nailed to the wooden board.
It outlines the military formation lines of the Youzhou Allied Forces, and the number of people, types of arms, and flag numbers of the generals under their jurisdiction are marked on each square from time to time.
Li Chengzhong led Zhang Xingzhong, Jiang Miao and other major generals to the Ximen Tower and looked at the formation of Liu Shouguang's Chinese Volunteer Army in the distance.
The Yier Army was established in the second year of Guanghua. At the beginning of the establishment of the army, it defeated the Chengde Army in Hejian. It defeated the Chengde Army who tried to fish in troubled waters and made great contributions to stabilizing the precarious situation in Youyan. Later, the Lulong Army dealt with the south.
Xuanwu and Weibo also performed well in the successive battles. Although later on, the Yier Army had the idea of self-protection, which led to the collapse of the Lulong Army in Laoyadi, but this army always remained relatively intact.
The strength is not much damaged.
After Liu Shouguang took control of Youzhou, he took as much care of this direct lineage as possible. He selected the best soldiers from Lulong's broken armies and stuffed them into them. He also spared no effort in armor, weapons and supplies. Therefore, it appeared in Yingzhou.
The formation of the Yier army in front of the generals is quite good.
Compared with the Khitan people, the armored soldiers of the Yier Army are far superior to the former. Almost everyone in the military formation is wearing armor. In terms of the number of armored soldiers, it is almost the same as that of Yingzhou. Currently, the Yingzhou Army has more than 6,000 soldiers.
As for the armored troops, the Wyoming Allied Forces had 5,000 armored troops, totaling more than 11,000 troops. In addition to the more than 1,000 reserve battalions in each city equipped with light armor, the total armored troops were not much higher than those of the Yier Army.
However, the number of armors on the Yingzhou side is much higher. In the combat doctrine, when a large-scale frontal battle occurs, the Yingzhou army's armor regulations are two for three, that is, two soldiers prepare three sets of armor. In addition, the newly compiled
The five new battalions of the Wyoming Alliance are also being equipped with armor, but it will take at least another four to six months to be fully equipped.
At the same time, the Yingzhou side has studied the armor of the Lulong armies in Guan Nei, and found that the armor classification of each army is one level lower than that of Yingzhou. For example, the light armor of the Yingzhou army is already considered the heavy armor worn by the pro-army in the pass.
, the heavy armor of the Yingzhou Army belongs to the heavy armor of middle-level generals in Guan Nei, while the iron armor of the Yingzhou Army is completely absent from the Lulong armies in Guan Nei.
The armor of the Yier Army is much simpler than that of the Bohai Army. Many of these armors have been worn and look somewhat unsatisfactory when worn on soldiers. Relatively speaking, the armor of the Bohai Kingdom is much more beautiful, but
The Bohai Kingdom has been at peace for a long time, and the armor produced is more luxurious than practical. Many of the armors worn by nobles are carefully crafted, but if you mention them casually, you can find characteristics such as "light and transparent". And the armored soldiers of the Volunteer Army in front of you
After wearing the armor, it looks more substantial.
Through the observation of the volunteer army, Yingzhou also found that the formation of this army was not strict, nor did it pursue the orderly formation required by Yingzhou. In terms of military formation, they all gathered together. Although it was not orderly, their actions were
It seems to be more flexible. Moreover, in each formation, the weapons in the hands of the sergeants are also different. Often a small formation of a hundred people is filled with archers, spearmen, sword and shield hands, and even iron weapons.
Sticks, heavy axes and other weapons.
This kind of military formation is directly related to the composition of the Yier Army. After the Yingzhou generals briefly thought about it, they understood it.
After the volunteers set up a large formation, they drove several horses to the west gate, but because of the existence of the camp below the city, they did not dare to get too close. These horses galloped back and forth under the west gate wall, shouting at the top of the city, because they were far away from each other.
It's not close, so I can't hear clearly from the top of the city, but I don't have to think about it to know that there must be nothing good to say.
These knights have been riding in the city several times. Their riding skills are quite good. They often perform difficult riding skills on galloping horses. They may stand up tall and put their feet on the saddle; or they may stand with one hand on the horse's back.
The whole body was spinning... In short, it was so exciting that it occasionally caused bursts of cheers from the soldiers of the Volunteer Army. Even Li Chengzhong on the top of the city took the initiative to applaud.
When these knights had had enough, Li Chengzhong reluctantly stopped cheering and said to Zhang Xingzhong: "Everyone has seen enough, it's time for us to take action." (To be continued...)