Chapter 12: Causing the Tiger to Leave the Mountain
Yelu Zhaochang ordered his troops and horses, and rushed all the way out of the south gate. The distance from Yanzhou to Kezhou was only 130 miles, and the cavalry only needed more than two hours to arrive. At this time, the sky had become brighter.
Looking around, you can see a few embarrassed Haixi soldiers from time to time on the official road. This situation makes Yelu Zhaochang feel happy and worried. The worried thing is that looking at the appearance of these soldiers, he knows that Jinlianghe's army must be in trouble.
The good news is that since the army was defeated in twos and threes, Ke Kezhou should still be in our own hands.
It was only when he arrived at the foot of Kezhou City that he discovered that Kezhou City had already been captured by the opponent. The city walls were filled with energetic Qingfeng soldiers, and what was flying on the city tower was the Qingfeng Empire's Qingfeng Empire.
flag.
Seeing the arrival of the Mandan army, a loud shout suddenly sounded from the city tower: "Why are you here just now, Marshal? Dingzhou Haotian has been waiting for you for a long time."
"Dingzhou Haotian? I have never heard of it!" Yelu Zhaochang has great skills. Although he was far away, he could still clearly see the heroic young man on the tower, so he said without showing any weakness.
The powerful voice sounded even louder outside the empty city gate, and even Haotian on the city tower was startled.
Haotian didn't care about Yelu Zhaochang's tit-for-tat confrontation. He just laughed: "This person is originally an unknown person. It's normal that the commander-in-chief has never heard of him. It's just that he doesn't know that the commander-in-chief is facing Kezhou City guarded by Hao.
What do you think?"
Yelu Zhaochang narrowed his eyes slightly. Facing Kezhou City, which had been prepared for a long time, he only had 15,000 cavalry. Unless they were nomadic horse archers, there was nothing he could do. He cursed Jin Suhe fiercely, Yelu said
Zhaochang didn't bother to think about his face, and with a wave of his hand, the army slowly retreated. He was now worried about whether there would be an ambush from the other party on the way back. Since the other party could predict that he would rush to help Kezhou, it was impossible not to do something about it.
Without preparation, it seems that I miscalculated at first.
Perhaps due to Mandan's powerful cavalry, the Dingzhou side did not go out of the city to pursue, and Yelu Zhaochang was able to fully adjust his army and return to Yanzhou. The army actually moved forward extremely smoothly along the way, which made Yelu Zhaochang very surprised. As
As a veteran who has been on the battlefield for many years, he is destined not to like silence. Because silence often means a bigger storm. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but frown: "Fred, why are you saying that Haotian is not there?"
Intercepted midway? We have already calculated that he should have 20,000 remaining troops. Since this person can calmly conquer two cities, he must be a person who is good at using troops and cannot let anyone go.
A force that can be used.”
Fred was also puzzled and said: "The commander is right. Anyone who has been on the battlefield will not ignore a tired army like ours. But we did not see the other side's ambush along the way. Could it be that they
Is it really so badly damaged that you can’t compete with us in the wild?”
"Probably not." Yelu Zhaochang shook his head: "There are no obvious traces of war in Kezhou City, which shows that the opponent relied on outsmarting to capture Kezhou. If this is the case, then the opponent's losses must not be big. Between them
Therefore, if we let our troops go, there should be places where these troops are more needed."
As soon as the words fell, the expressions of the two people changed. They looked at each other and said two words in unison: "Yanzhou!"
"Commander, are we overthinking it? We have 15,000 elite infantrymen in Yanzhou, and there are also Sikhs stationed there. Even if the enemy has 20,000 troops, if we want to capture Yanzhou, which we have already prepared for,
It’s also hard to compare to the sky.” Fred said in disbelief.
Yelv Zhaochang had a gloomy look on his face: "The enemy is running thousands of miles away and can only use cavalry. The only way to use cavalry to attack a city, except for the nomads, is to cooperate inside and outside. At the beginning, I always thought that the target of the enemy's internal cooperation and external cooperation should be the people in Yanzhou City.
200,000 civilians and more than 30,000 prisoners of war, hey, I didn’t expect it to be a miscalculation.”
"What do you mean, Marshal?" Although Fred had already guessed what Yelu Zhaochang was going to say, he still said it with luck.
"That Haixi soldier who came to report the news! It's that Haixi soldier and the defeated generals who are still in the army. They are the chess pieces of the opponent." Yelu Zhaochang said coldly.
"But there are only a hundred people in their group, and Huikong Minhang at the south gate has a thousand people." Fred couldn't help but said.
Yelu Zhaochang said with regret: "Have you forgotten that we asked them to help contain the defeated Hercynian soldiers? They could have used this order to let the enemy troops disguise themselves as defeated troops and sneak into the city, and then take advantage of our
When you focus on the people and prisoners in the city, use a trick to kill Huikong Minhang and then lead the army into the city. What a good trick. I didn't expect that the other side's army has such talents."
Fred also looked worried at this time: "Commander, what should we do now?"
Yelv Zhaochang reined in his horses and ordered the whole army to rest, and then said: "Yanzhou should have fallen now. We are rushing back to Yanzhou now. Our only purpose is to add another glorious step to the opponent's glorious record."
Pen. If this is not what I expected, they must have laid a trap in Yanzhou and are just waiting for us to exploit it."
"Then why don't we use our strategy? The enemy's strength is about the same as ours. As long as we arrange it properly, even if we can't recapture Yanzhou, we will definitely suffer a big loss." Fred offered a plan.
Yelv Zhaochang shook his head: "No, the enemy's strength was equal to ours at the beginning. As long as they could attack the city at that time, not to mention the ordinary people in the city, even the tens of thousands of prisoners of war in the prisoner of war camp, they could defeat them.
Their troop strength has increased several times. Moreover, the morale of the other side is high, but our morale is low, and there is no stable logistical support. This battle can be said to be defeated before the battle." At this point, Yelu Zhaochang felt regretful again. If he had
After quickly escorting those prisoners of war back to the country, how could there be today's defeat? After the six-ethnic coalition defeated Qingfeng's Northern Expedition Army, except for the legions directly under the three major families, the remaining 300,000 soldiers died in the battle except for a small number.
and escaped, and more than 200,000 soldiers were captured. Faced with this huge wealth, it was naturally impossible for the six tribes beyond the Great Wall not to be tempted. After bargaining, the six tribes finally divided up the prisoners of war according to their contributions in this battle.
.However, due to the rush of time, they had not had time to negotiate the redemption price of these prisoners of war with the Qingfeng court, so they were all still detained in their respective territories. As a result, every time the other party occupied a city, they rescued a prisoner of war, and their military strength increased several times.
Wan. Although he ordered Sik to eradicate these prisoners of war when necessary, since the other party had already planned it, Sik might have been eradicated by these prisoners of war by now.
Thinking of this, Yelu Zhaochang did not hesitate anymore, turned to Fred and said: "Fred, pass the command to the commander, and the entire army will immediately adjust its direction and advance to Anzhou in the northeast to meet up with the local garrison in Beijing."
Fred was startled and couldn't help but said: "Commander, have we just given up on Yanzhou? Moreover, we have always been at odds with Beijing. Will they add insult to injury at this time?"
"No. Although Shenjie is arrogant and arrogant, he still understands the truth of the cold. We, the three Northeastern countries, have always been on the same page. Even if he is dissatisfied with us, he cannot just sit idly by and ignore us. And Shizhou's Iron Eagle
They are feuding with us, and the road conditions in Qiumen in Jizhou are too bad, which is not conducive for our army to move forward, so we have to go to Anzhou first to avoid the limelight."
Yelu Zhaochang was right. As soon as his army left, Haotian's army had already lurked outside the south gate of Yanzhou. With the help of Guanying, a pretended Haixi soldier, hundreds of elite cavalry were all dressed up as Haixi defeated troops.
He entered Yanzhou City in a swaggering manner. Hui Kong Minhang, the guard at the south gate of Yanzhou, did not doubt that he was there. In addition to Yelu Zhaochang's order from the beginning, he did not put too much thought into it. But when
After the number of soldiers who entered reached a thousand, Feng Jing, who led the army to infiltrate, finally launched his attack.
After using a trick to kill Hui Kong Minhang, Feng Jing immediately led his troops to the prisoner-of-war camp in the city. His experience told him that if he wanted to surprise these aliens outside the Great Wall, the best way was to release these prisoners of war.
Xin Ke and Xue Sha, who had already been waiting impatiently outside the city, rushed in without hesitation after receiving Feng Jing's signal. Only the sound of horse hooves was heard, and Yanzhou City suddenly fell into a chaos of war and chaos.
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At this time, Sik was sitting in the city guard's house. Since Yelu Zhaochang had entrusted the overall situation of Yanzhou to him, he naturally did not dare to neglect. While sending people to step up inspections, he asked his subordinates to keep an eye on the prisoner of war camp, while he himself
He led five thousand elite soldiers to personally guard the city as the final reserve team.
"What? The South Gate has fallen?" After receiving the report from the soldiers, Sikden was sweating profusely. The biggest reliance on Yanzhou's defense was Yanzhou's city wall. Now that the South Gate fell into the enemy's hands, the opponent must be ignoring it.
And he only has 5,000 infantry in his hands. The rest of the soldiers are either patrolling the city walls or being held in prisoner-of-war camps. The commander's cavalry has already rushed to Kezhou. What should we do now?
After walking back and forth uneasily for several times, Sik finally gritted his teeth and ordered: "Pass this general's order, and all the soldiers in Yanzhou City will immediately abandon their current missions and gather them all at the City Guards Mansion. Then multiple groups of messengers will be sent,
Immediately report to the commander-in-chief and ask the commander-in-chief to respond immediately."
The Mandan Dynasty is worthy of being the most powerful military kingdom in the north. The quality of their soldiers is indeed first-rate. Although they are at a disadvantage, they did not panic. Under the command of their superiors, they occupied the favorable terrain of the city guard house and prepared to fight with the city.
The enemy troops who invaded from outside fought desperately. The city garrison was not big to begin with, and the walls were high and thick, making it look like a small city. Coupled with the defense of nearly 10,000 soldiers, the entire city garrison suddenly became a giant
The turtle's shell was filled with thorns, which made Xin Ke, who had organized several attacks but failed, curse his mother angrily.
"Xing Ke, what on earth is going on?" After completing the mission of rescuing the prisoners of war, Feng Jing immediately led his troops to the city guard mansion for support, and Xue Sha, who had already eliminated the remaining enemies, also arrived here at this time.
Xin Ke touched his head and said with some embarrassment: "The fortifications of this city guard are very sound, and the soldiers inside are not as soft-hearted as we have encountered before. There are really many troops. I have already attacked
I tried several times, but still couldn't get in."
Feng Jing looked at the heavily defended city guard, nodded and said: "It seems that the person in charge is really capable. He was able to build such a complete fortification in such a short period of time. The most powerful country outside the Great Wall.
It truly lives up to its reputation.”
Xue Sha said calmly: "But he gave up the counterattack completely and huddled inside. If we continue like this, as long as we have enough time, we will starve them to death even if we are hungry."
Feng Jing frowned: "But Yelu Zhaochang's army may be racing back now. If we cannot eliminate all the resistance forces in Yanzhou City in time, then we will suffer heavy losses if attacked from two sides."
Xue Sha smiled slightly. Before this, Feng Jing and others had never seen him smile before. In the flickering light of the torch, his smile turned out to be so cruel and bloody. Feng Jing and others could even see it from his smile.
He felt a strong breath of death: "The only thing they rely on is this high wall. As long as we are willing to pay the price, it is not difficult to annihilate them all."
Fengjing was also a smart man, and he immediately understood what he meant, so he asked tentatively: "Do you mean Huogong?" Neither Fengjing nor Xinke were very interested in this adoptive father recognized by God. However, it was not in the way of God's will.
Because of their relationship, the two of them had to maintain the necessary respect in front of him, so every time they addressed him, they would say "you" vaguely.
Xue Sha nodded: "Yes. The City Guards Mansion is an independent building. Even if a fire breaks out, it will not spread to other places. It's just that such a beautiful City Guards Mansion will be destroyed like this.
It’s a bit of a pity.”
Feng Jing nodded in agreement, but secretly said in his heart: It's not really a pity to see you like that. But he also understood that this was the best way to solve the problem, so he waved his hand and asked his soldiers to go and prepare.
When the sky-wide fire ignited in the city guard's mansion, Sik already understood that the situation was over, but he didn't expect that the other party would be so cruel. A fire not only reduced the entire city guard's mansion to ashes, but also destroyed the things in his hands.
Nearly 10,000 soldiers were buried in it. Instead of fighting to break out like his soldiers, Sik just sat quietly in the hall of the city guard house and ended his life with a gentle knife. In the raging fire, the hall together with
The body of Sikh inside was also burned to charcoal. Only the bright command knife in front of him proved the extraordinary life of this man.
However, the plan of Xue Sha and others to ambush Yelu Zhaochang also failed. No one thought that Yelu Zhaochang was so cunning. As soon as he smelled the slightest thing wrong, he immediately dropped his soldiers and fled.
It was a pity for Sha and others. However, their troops ambushing outside the city were not without success. When it was almost noon, Haotian Tianyi Xuanji and even Luo Xiang who were still in Dingzhou and Kezhou actually came to Yanzhou together.