The migrating team was followed far behind by several Shiwei cavalrymen. When the migrating tribe was captured by the Beye ancient army, several Shiwei cavalrymen immediately turned around and rushed back to report.
A few days later, in a huge king's tent in the north of the Blackwater River, Wei Khan Halder, the chief minister, looked solemn. The soldiers' report made him realize that they could no longer move westward, and the ancient tribe of Beye had blocked it.
They headed west to the passage.
Aludun, brother of the Western Wei Khan Wusu, said: "Khan, what if we give benefits to the Zuju Luobo tribe and borrow a road from their territory to go west?"
Halder shook his head, "To the west of the Juluobo tribe is Zhulong Mountain, which stretches for thousands of miles. There is no way to go. We can only go south along the mountain, either to enter the territory of Beyegu or the territory of Pugu tribe.
, one is more cruel than the other, which one will spare us?"
Alu Dun wanted to say something more, but Khan Wusu stopped his brother with a wave of his hand, "Don't think about anything lucky anymore. The grassland has been divided up long ago. Wherever we still have our share, we can only fight for it through war."
Halder also sighed and said: "It is impossible to go west, either to the north or east. In fact, it is not possible to go east. There are only two ways, south or north!"
Wusu Khan gritted his teeth and said: "Brother, let's fight to the death with the Tang army! If we win, we will keep our homeland. If we lose, we will retreat north."
Alu Dun also said: "Khan, if we continue like this, our morale will be gone."
Halder nodded, "We can organize a group of people to retreat north first, as pioneers, find settlements, make all preparations to avoid a hasty retreat, and then the army will go south to fight to the death with the Tang army."
Halder thought carefully, and Wusu Khan also deeply agreed.
The Shiwei people began to take action, and all Shiwei people were asked to pack up and prepare for migration.
But no one knew where they would move to, and although it was not stated explicitly, all families packed their belongings consciously.
The scouts of the Tang Army also discovered the strange movements of the Shiwei people and immediately went south to report to the commander.
Ma Lin also just received the news sent by Ba Yegu Khan. They captured a small Shiwei tribe who was preparing to move westward. This immediately alerted the Tang army. This was a signal to retreat. The Shiwei tribe had plans to migrate.
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In the big tent, the generals stood in front of the sand table to discuss the next move. Ma Lin highly praised Wei Feng's previous judgment and asked, "What does Wei Changshi think?"
Wei Feng smiled slightly and said: "It's normal to run away if you can't fight. The key is where to run. This small tribe moving westward should be a test. To be honest, I don't think it is realistic for Shiwei to run westward. The grassland has long been occupied."
If the grassland is full, there will be no pasture for them. More importantly, the Shiwei and Tiele people are of different species and origins, and the grassland cannot accommodate them. If they really want to forcefully migrate to the grassland, they will inevitably be uprooted.
The joint encirclement and suppression by the Pugu, Huihe, Sijie and other tribes ended up being divided up, so I never thought Shiwei would evacuate westward, and they are not stupid either, they should know better."
Zhang Dian pondered for a moment and said: "If we don't retreat to the west, we will retreat to the north or east."
Wei Feng stroked his beard and said: "To the east is our Bohai Mansion, which is the boundary of the Tang Dynasty. They will never go there. In the end, there is only one choice."
All the generals said in unison: "Go north!"
"That's right, I believe Shi Wei must want to retreat north!"
Ma Lin couldn't help but feel a little anxious. He thought for a moment and said, "In this case, we should take action. We can't wait any longer. What do you think?"
Zhang Dian and Yu Changyang both supported Ma Lin's decision to attack. At this time, everyone's eyes turned to Wei Feng. He was the military advisor and he had veto power.
Wei Feng thought for a long time and said: "I believe that no one is willing to give up their hometown. The Shiwei people will not move north unless they have to. If we go north, we are likely to encounter their army. I am not worried about defeating them, but I
The consideration is to annihilate the enemy, so an army is needed to detour to the north of the enemy and cut off their retreat. This army must not have less than 30,000 people, otherwise it will slip through the net."
"How many troops does Chang Shi think the other side will have?" Ma Lin asked.
"At most five to sixty thousand! After all, thirty thousand have been annihilated before. They don't have much population. This also includes the ten thousand troops of the Kulubo tribe."
Ma Lin immediately made the decision to leave 10,000 troops to guard Liucheng's home base. He and Yu Changyang led an army of 60,000 people to the north to fight head-on. Zhang Dian led an army of 40,000 men to intercept the enemy's retreat, and ordered General Wang Zhao to lead an army of 10,000 men to directly attack northward.
The enemy's lair is where the four armies each perform their duties.
Ma Lin and Yu Changyang led an army of 60,000 people to the north. At the same time, the 60,000-strong Wei tribe's coalition army also happened to move south.
The two sides met north of Lake Kulen.
In the past few days, the sky has been gloomy and dark clouds shrouded, and a decisive battle concerning the fate of the people of Shiwei has slowly begun on the grassland north of Lake Julen.
To the surprise of the Tang army, Shiwei's army actually set up camp, built fences around the camp, and cut a large number of wooden thorns, which were inserted within 300 steps of the camp.
The layout of the Shiwei people confused the Tang army. Did the Shiwei people want to use defense to weaken themselves?
In fact, the Shiwei army had no choice but to garrison the camp. The great Shiwei Khan Halder fell ill at this critical moment.
Shiwei's army could only choose to go on the defensive and wait for Khan's condition to improve before engaging in a decisive battle with Tang's army.
But the Tang army did not have the patience to wait for their Khan's illness to recover. That night, the Tang army went into a night battle.
'Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!' The passionate drums beat in the dark night. Ten thousand troops guarding a thousand bullock carts slowly approached the Shiwei army camp. Each bullock cart had a body and a swarm of bees.
The launcher is also equipped with five boxes of gunpowder arrows.
A thousand bullock carts quickly formed a large formation 380 steps away. This distance not only avoided the wooden spikes on the ground, but also was within the shooting range of the opponent's bow and crossbow.
The Swarm of Bees launchers were made of pig iron and were relatively expensive to produce. The Tang Ordnance Department invested a lot of manpower and material resources, and it took a year to produce a thousand Swarm of Bees launchers, which were controlled by 4,000 soldiers for positioning and shooting.
Extremely lethal.
It is a bit like a multiple rocket launcher. A launcher has eighty-one tubes. After being ignited, it is propelled by gunpowder. It can fire eighty-one crossbow arrows at the same time, with a range of about 600 steps.
Gunpowder is tied to each arrow, and there is a bus. After the bus is ignited, the match ropes of the eighty-one rockets will be ignited.
These are relatively simple. The highlight is its modular design. The arrow boxes are all ready-made. They only need to be replaced on site. They can be directly installed into the launcher and fastened. It is very simple.
Four thousand soldiers lined up in front of the bullock cart. Four people controlled a launcher. They put the arrow box into the launcher and closed the iron door. Only the bus match rope was exposed.
A thousand launchers were aimed at the camp fence in the distance that was brightly illuminated by torches.
Behind the launcher are 30,000 Tang army cavalry. The Tang army has opened eight channels, pulled out the wooden thorns planted by the enemy, and sprinkled kerosene on both sides. As long as the kerosene is ignited, eight channels will appear on the ground.
At this time, the Shiwei army camp had discovered the Tang army's intention, and immediately fired thousands of arrows. The sky became darker, and overwhelming arrows were shot at the Tang army, but whether it was a bow with a range of a hundred steps or a hundred and fifty steps
Even the crossbow arrows at a certain range could not hurt the Tang army 380 steps away.
"emission!"
Following Yu Changyang's order, there was a rapid banging sound, a flash of fire, and 81,000 gunpowder arrows shot at the enemy camp from all directions like a storm.
Arrows fell like raindrops, hitting the chests or heads of the enemy soldiers inside the camp fence one after another, causing blood to burst out. Soon, the second round of 81,000 arrows came like a rainstorm, and countless screams rang out in the enemy camp.
West Shiwei Khan Wusu was standing behind the camp fence. A rocket shot past him and hit his horse. The horse neighed and fell to the ground, slamming him to the ground. More than a dozen soldiers rushed forward.
Lifting him up, he ran towards the back along the camp fence.
The gunpowder arrow array of the Tang army was not as powerful as arrows and thunder, but it was extremely large in number. Four hundred thousand arrows were shot out in five rounds. It showed more of the powerful national power.
It was supposed to be a charge against the enemy, but the enemy actually adopted a defensive posture.
Ma Lin ordered it to be put into use to test its power.
In the darkness, round after round of gunpowder arrows were fired into the enemy camp from all directions, and the enemy's casualties were unknown.
When all 400,000 gunpowder arrows were shot, the camp became silent.