Zhang Wei fully anticipated the dangers on the way back. He marched extremely steadily, only covering 60 to 80 miles a day. He deployed a few chariots and cavalry around the military formation, and a large number of archers were always ready to attack.
The reconnaissance cavalry with the suffix should be at least twenty miles away from the main group, and the campsites at night were also chosen on relatively high ground, giving the cavalry no chance to charge.
Although he received military reports from time to time that enemy cavalry was chasing behind and blocking the front, Zhang Wei did not take it seriously and marched at his own pace. After all, there were many more people. However, these news still affected the rest of the army. After setting up camp,
, the army was divided into two groups and took turns to watch the night, but even the soldiers who had their turn to sleep could not sleep well for fear of night attacks by the cavalry. Sure enough, when the army camped on the third day, they encountered a fierce attack by the Jin King's cavalry!
Fifty miles east of Shannan Town, General Zhang Wei stationed his army on the slopes of a mountain ridge north of the official road. At midnight, the soldiers in charge of the night watch in each battalion began to change their defenses, and then rushed out of the large group of cavalry in the night. Braving the rain of arrows from the sky, the King of Jin
After losing two to three hundred cavalry, the cavalry rushed to Zhang Lei's outer camp and instantly killed the archers and spearmen to a rout.
At this time, the surrendered soldiers who were returned to Zhang Wei's army also played a role. Some people set fire to the camp, and some shouted "You can't hold it anymore, run for your life" and other words, which made the morale of Zhang Wei's army shaken again.
The Zhang family has been in power in Gansu for decades. Although Zhang Li has stolen the Zhang family's real power and military power, most people's hearts are still towards Zhang Xingchu and Zhang Zhiren's lineage, especially many soldiers at the bottom, who do not want to be enemies of Zhang Zhiren, so many people
When given the opportunity, they were prepared to leave the army and even turn against each other. Under the night attack of the King of Jin, many people took the opportunity to escape from Zhang Wei's army and defected to the enemy army that attacked at night.
Zhang Wei is indeed a good general. He has already considered the difficulties. Before setting off for the expedition, he had replaced all the officers at the rank of sentry commander. He also set up triple defenses inside and outside the camp. After identifying the enemy's attack, he
After taking the direction, they immediately organized personnel to launch a counterattack. On the hillside, the cavalry that had lost speed was far less terrifying than the impact. They were quickly pushed back and roared back into the night.
The riots in the camp quickly subsided. After Zhang Wei beheaded several captured troublemakers and deserters, he ordered the entire army to continue camping and set off at dawn! After the battle, more than 2,000 people were killed or escaped.
, and the enemy lost 400 cavalry in the force attack, which was not a big loss, but Zhang Wei felt somewhat reassured.
Just before dawn, a second group of cavalry attacked. This time it was Han Chong. On the way back, the army of the King of Jin encountered Han Chong who was pursuing them. The news that the attack suffered heavy losses also came to light.
He brought it to the other party, but Han Chong still decided to give Zhang Chi a surprise!
In this surprise attack, Zhang Wei lost another 2,000 men, and Han Chong lost 300 cavalry. Although Zhang Wei did not feel that he was suffering from such battle losses, the morale of the 70,000 infantrymen had begun to waver violently.
!
On the fourth day, Zhang Wei entered Shannan Town. Jin Wang's people in the town had already evacuated. There were three sneak attacks by cavalry in the evening. Although most of them were sneak attacks with arrows from a distance, they kept the army awake all night and many soldiers escaped.
Thousands of people!
On the fifth day, while still on the march, four to five thousand cavalry launched an unprecedented attack during the day. This time, the losses on both sides were 400 cavalry and 5,000 men! That night, there were still cavalry attacking all night long.
Although more than 20 captured deserters were killed on the same day, as many as 3,000 soldiers escaped that night! Most of these people joined the army of the King of Jin and Han Chong.
On the sixth day, there was no need to attack. As soon as Zhang Wei's army heard the sound of horse hooves, people fled from the camp. In the morning, Zhang Wei counted the number of people. There were only 40,000 people left when they set out from Suzhou.
Eighteen thousand people. Due to the non-stop fighting every day, the mileage of a day's march has changed from the original seventy or eighty miles to forty or fifty miles. The camp is still fifty miles away from Ganzhou City. Although the entire army is close to
The daily food supply has been reduced by half, but even so, the military rations were exhausted last night!
The morale of the entire army was on the verge of collapse. Even Zhang Wei was not sure whether he could reach Ganzhou. As soon as the army set off, the enemy's cavalry might attack again! But at the last moment when they were preparing to set off, the good news finally came.
They came anyway, and the Bingzhou Army and Yunzhou Army that were chasing the King of Jin came over at the same time, with a total of 20,000 horses! The reason why they arrived so late was because there was no food and grass! Before the King of Jin arrived in Ganzhou, he looted all the horses and horses along the way.
The official warehouse of the town!
It's better to be late than late. The arrival of the 20,000 cavalry finally helped Zhang Lei lead the remaining soldiers back to Ganzhou City.
After days of hard fighting, the King of Jin and Han Chong had actually reached the end of their strength. After all, they only had more than 7,000 cavalry. Facing an infantry force that was ten times their own relied on the morale of continuous battles and victories. However, the reconnaissance cavalry reported that a large number of enemy cavalry rushed forward.
After arriving, the two troops immediately retreated to Suzhou.
A total of more than 10,000 people were surrendered during this pursuit. The civilians, young and old, who accompanied the King of Jin had returned to Suzhou first. Therefore, facing the officers and soldiers coming from Bingzhou and Yunzhou, the King of Jin and Han Chong easily escaped from the pursuit.
, and returned to Suzhou in two days.
Although Zhang Wei had 20,000 more cavalry to help him, the morale of the army was scattered and the food and fodder were insufficient. They were unable to attack the city. They could only collect food and fodder while replenishing soldiers in preparation for a comeback.
Suzhou City suddenly had 20,000 more people, and it also faced the problem of insufficient food and grass. Fortunately, the trade routes were maintained. Zhang Zhiren sent people to buy food from the countries in the Western Regions, and at the same time sent envoys to Tuyuhun, hoping that the other party could cooperate with them.
Work together to fight against Jiang Shan.
When Jiang Lang evacuated Jinyang, he took almost all his family property with him. Money to buy grain was not a problem for a while. After two years of drought, there were almost no natural disasters this year, so the Anxi Racecourse had abundant fodder, enough to handle nearly 8,000 war horses.
need.
In order to cope with Zhang Wei's next attack, Suzhou City promoted the King of Jin as the respected one, with Zhang Zhiren in charge of the troops. He appointed Han Chong, Ling Kong as general, Zhang Cheng, Jiang Shuo and others as deputy generals. They vigorously trained the army and sent people to various places in Gansu.
, issued a message to attack Jiang Shan, recruited heroes from all over the world, and prepared to conquer the world with just one corner.
In a few days, more than a thousand warriors and scholars from Gansu Province went to Suzhou, and hundreds of people from neighboring provinces came. Zhang Sheng, the magistrate of Xihe County, was one of them. He organized a team of over a hundred people to avoid Yongzhou.
Ganzhou and other major cities detoured from the wasteland and mountains, and rushed for several nights to Suzhou.
Another team of more than a hundred people was the Anxi Escort Bureau in Ganzhou City. Taking advantage of the opportunity to escort many family members of civil servants in Ganzhou City to escape disaster, the Escort Bureau was broken into pieces. Several escort teams robbed the families of several corrupt officials.
The property was also detoured from Beiliang Mountain and the wasteland area to Suzhou. In addition to more than a hundred soldiers, it also brought property worth more than 100,000 taels.
Feng Yan, who had been traveling as a bodyguard, met again after many months. The latter had become the captain of Han Chong's barracks and had fully accepted Feng Yan's affection a year ago.
Already engaged and planning to get married next year. Now that the Zhang family has undergone tremendous changes, the Anxi Escort Agency, which has an old relationship with the Han family, decided to defect to Han Chong without much consideration.
The Anxi Escort Bureau also brought some not-so-good news. The escorts who came back from Chang'an reported that they found a huge escort team when passing through Lanzhou. The prisoners turned out to be Liu Yan, the second assistant of the former dynasty, and his family. There were about fifty people in total.
There are only a few people left, and there are hundreds of officers and soldiers escorting them!
After receiving the news, Han Cong immediately informed Zhang Zhiren and Jiang Lang of the matter, and the two hurriedly convened everyone to discuss what to do.
Zhang Zhiren said: "Nowadays, more and more people are defecting to Suzhou. We have no shortage of generals for the time being, but we are in urgent need of civil servants. Liu Yan is of good character and resourceful. He is also a popular figure among the courtiers. If we want to assist His Highness the King of Jin in becoming emperor,
, Liu Yan is the best candidate, we must send someone to rescue this person!"
"Liu Yan is indeed a rare talent. If we can invite him here, it will be a major blow to Jiang Shan!" Jiang Lang nodded.
"I'm going to Yunzhou!" Zhang Mufeng shouted immediately.
"Are you anxious to save Liu Junzhi or Liu Yingzhi?" Xu Muxue asked in a low voice. Since He Qizhou had made up his mind, Liu Junzhi invited several friends from the armament hall to play at home every three days. One of the purposes was to impress his older sister.
Ying Zhi can empathize with others, and Zhang Mufeng is the perfect match for her.
As an elder sister, Xu Muxue knew that her younger brother liked Liu Yingzhi. Liu Junzhi never turned down any invitation from the Liu family, but Liu Yingzhi did not give any hint. Zhang Mufeng, who was shy by nature, always kept a distance from Liu Yingzhi.
"Save everyone." Zhang Mufeng replied in a low voice with a slight blush on his face.
Han Chong said: "Yunzhou is still a thousand miles away from here. Now Ganzhou has sent more people to block the road to Suzhou. It will be difficult for the benevolent and righteous people who defected to us to get here. If we want to send people to Yunzhou
Prefecture, we must defeat the Ganzhou cavalry first, otherwise even if we rescue Liu Yan and others, we will not be able to reach Suzhou!"
Devour
"Then find a way to seize Ganzhou! Zhang Wei has been desperately recruiting food and soldiers these days, which has aroused public anger. Although we are small in number, we have high morale and are united as one. We can definitely fight against them!" Jiang Shuo said decisively
.
"Well said!" Zhang Zhiren applauded: "Tomorrow we will send troops to attack the various checkpoints outside Ganzhou City to lure Zhang Lei into a decisive battle. Ling'er, as soon as the battle begins, you will take Mu Feng and Xiaoxue to Yunzhou in disguise.
Help!"
"I will go with you, poor Taoist." Master Lingxu was worried that his beloved disciple would be in danger, so he proposed to go with him.
"It's best. Let's all rest early today and gather our troops to march into Ganzhou tomorrow morning!" Zhang Zhiren said with high spirits.
The Suzhou Army for the Eastern Expedition consisted of 8,000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry, which was equivalent to the entire military strength in Suzhou City. More than ten days of recruitment and reorganization gave the Suzhou Army a considerable size. The prince of Jin won the
As a vanguard, he leads two thousand elite cavalry to attack first.