Blood flowed in the gap in the east city, forming dazzling red streams on the chaotic loess.
The jumping soldiers fell to the ground under the spears and pistols, but most of them were Saman Persians.
Because although they are the elite border troops on the Samanid border, since their humiliating defeat to Saktu four years ago, most of their main force has been lost, especially the officers.
The current ones have all been trained and promoted in the past few years, and their strength and morale cannot be compared to those four years ago.
On the contrary, the strength of the Khotan palace guards can be said to be quite good.
They have been engaged in small-scale dogfights with the Kara Khanate over the years, and some of them are poor Tibetans from the plateau. They came from the snowy mountains just to fight for the King of Khotan and live a wealthy life.
What's more, a considerable number of them were the elite who followed Zhang Zhao in successive battles in Shule and Polu Prefecture.
The soldiers are raging, and the generals are raging. Under the leadership of Duke Zhang, these Khotan palace guards, who were no weaker than Zhang Zhao's Hanshandu soldiers, received the blessings of the two buffs of Lian Sheng and Gu Yong, and their combat effectiveness increased.
Even more terrifying.
At the same time, the archers arranged by Ma Jirong also played a big role. They kept pouring heavy arrows on the heads of the Persian army's rear ranks, causing the Persian army's rear ranks to have a higher casualty rate than the front ranks. This made Commander Ma
Sudie had no choice.
He would either ask the rear team to retreat as a whole team, or he would beat the drum and advance in, allowing both sides to melee to offset the advantage of the opponent's archers.
However, after finally opening the gap, the front is still holding on. If you retreat now and reorganize the army, not to mention whether the army will collapse because of this, even the commander-in-chief Ali Duraf will certainly not tolerate this behavior.
"Drumroll! Let the front row come up! Follow up continuously, deploy thirty archers, and be sure to suppress the opponent! Yusuf, you lead my bodyguard and go up personally." Masudi quickly made a choice,
The drumming sound sounded.
"Forward! Forward!" The Persian heavy-armored spearmen in the front row had no choice but to move forward. As they moved forward, the Persian soldiers in front of their legs were forced to move forward.
It's a pity that they were already about to collapse, but now they were squeezed forward, and their spirits suddenly dropped. Only a few dared to go up and fight, and most of them were thinking about how to save their lives.
As soon as Ma Jirong saw this situation, he knew he had won, because to stab with a spear, you always have to draw back first and then thrust out, and in order to strengthen the armor-piercing ability, the arc of the draw back is not small.
But tapping is different. You can just swing it and hit it. In this way, you will gain an extra output distance for nothing.
Sure enough, the Persian spearman was beaten hard before he could stab the Khotan palace guard in the neck and chest.
The three- to four-meter long spear was raised high and slammed down. There was a huge fine iron lump at the end of the spear. The effect of this hitting people was no worse than that of a bone.
Under the fierce blow, the heavily armored spearmen in the Persian front row were beaten to pieces, and even suffered a bloody head.
However, they were considered elite, so they still kept on thrusting forward, but the effect was not very good. Even with long spears, when faced with two or three layers of armor, their armor-breaking ability was not as good as expected.
"Stab!" Seeing the enemy approaching, Ma Jirong flexibly adjusted his tactics and disrupted the enemy's front row. Now it was time to kill him.
"Wind!" everyone roared and stabbed out together. This was much more lethal than scattered Persian spears. The ten people in the front row stabbed three Persian spearmen in one go.
"Wind!" There was another roar, and another seven or eight Persian spearmen fell down.
Many people fell down this time, not all because they were stabbed by the spears, but because the Persian jumpers who were fighting under the spears collapsed.
As soon as they ran away, the Khotan soldiers could directly take the short sword and stab the Persian spearman's thigh that was not covered by the armor leaves, or insert it specifically into the gap between the armor leaves.
Who can bear this?
Amidst the miserable cries, the four rows of Persian spearmen in the front phalanx collapsed instantly, but then, the Persian spearmen in the second phalanx came forward.
However, they were the most ruthless phalanx targeted by archers just now. When they came up, there were not all the people and their morale was not very high. They only lasted for less than three or four minutes. After eight or nine of the thirty or so people fell, another
It collapsed suddenly.
The drums sounded again, and the Persian spearmen of the third phalanx were ordered by the military order to rush in through the gap. They were behind and did not see clearly what was going on inside. As a result, they were dumbfounded as soon as they entered.
What about the promised spearmen duel? Why are there so many crossbowmen on the other side?
Thirty well-strung horned crossbows were pointed at these unlucky guys. At such a close distance, no matter what armor you have, you will never be able to withstand the combined fire of the horned crossbows with a force close to three stone.
The Khotan palace guards put down their spears and took up their crossbows. Within two minutes of the third phalanx coming up, they dropped more than a dozen corpses and retreated.
"Kill!" As soon as the enemy retreated, the Khotan palace guards rushed out immediately.
The fourth wave of Persians in the phalanx were charged by their own people, and then by the Khotan palace guards. They collapsed without engaging the enemy, which also caused the collapse of the troops behind them.
Six to seven hundred soldiers were beaten on the buttocks by dozens of Khotan palace guards, and their helmets and armor were thrown away all over the ground.
‘Ding, ding, ding!’ A sharp sound of gold and iron sounded, and the red flag indicating danger also wavered desperately.
The various fire chiefs and deputy fire chiefs began to restrain their soldiers and called back the soldiers who had been beaten up and had become hot-headed.
Because a large number of archers have been mobilized from the opposite side, especially the catapults have been prepared.
A shower of arrows came, and a few hot-headed Khotan soldiers were shot into hedgehogs and fell outside the city. Most of them followed the instructions and slowly retreated into the gap.
As soon as they entered, whistling stones were thrown at them. Ma Jirong smiled proudly, and while calling the soldiers to avoid the stones, he asked someone to notify Guo Guangsheng and Guo Dalang.
This is just the Persians venting their anger. When the trebuchets are tired, they can continue to repair the East City!
"Pass my military order! Third, all officers above the captain of the fourth phalanx will be killed! Let Masudi prepare elite troops again. If he can't attack again this time, I will let him attack by himself!"
There was a trace of murderous intent in Ali Duraf's eyes. He blasted open the city wall and couldn't get in, so why attack the city? He might as well retreat!
However, he was also a little confused, where did Balasagon come from so many elite soldiers?
Ali Duraf knew very well about this kind of tribal alliance-style city-state. They could not obtain or maintain so many elite soldiers.
Even if the armor was left behind after Saktu retreated last time, what about the people? It can’t be that people also belong to Saktu, right?
A soldier cannot be called a soldier just by putting on armor. From ancient times to the present, soldiers have been inherited and need to be taught by words and deeds and trained from an early age.
For example, how to distinguish the sound of horn drums, gold and iron? How to queue up? How to fight in the square formation? How to stand in the Yanyue formation? How to cooperate with multiple people? These all need to be taught by someone.
Only those who have mastered these, refined their martial arts, and trained their bodies with unlimited amounts of rice and noodles every day and a large amount of refined meat can be called armored men when they put on armor.
The most elite among them are those who wear several layers of iron armor and can fight intermittently for several hours. They are the elite armored soldiers.
This is an extremely precious existence in any country. It can be said to be a strategic weapon, and its status is almost equal to that of today's intercontinental missiles and heavy bombers.
Currently, in the world, except for the Tang Dynasty, which was at its peak, there was no other country that could use martial arts and a large military aristocracy to raise two to three hundred thousand soldiers, equipped with iron armor.
Being able to recruit and fight is a very high standard!
A farmer pulled up in the field cannot tell the difference between left and right, and is at a loss of whether to advance or retreat. He will look around in panic at the slightest sign of disturbance. After fighting for three to five minutes, his breathing will be like blowing a bellows. Even if you put ten layers of armor on him, he will not be called a soldier.
That's why the peasant rebel armies in history were so miserable when facing professional officers and soldiers.
Only when the elite members of the official army can no longer survive, or join with the desire to gain wealth, can the peasant uprising army succeed.
This is also the reason why Goguryeo in those days was worthy of constant conquest by the monarchs of the Sui and Tang dynasties, and also expressed the emotion that they should not leave their descendants behind.
Just because they have at least thousands of strategic weapons like this, so what if it makes them stronger?
Goguryeo must be uprooted from the state to the nation.
So Ali Duraf should be confused, because behind these soldiers, they must represent a country.
A combined group of religious figures like Balasagon and leaders of large and small tribes simply cannot produce such soldiers.
Could it be that the defeat of Saktu was fake news released by the Karakhanids? Or was the Jin Kingdom, which he didn't know much about, involved in this war?
However, Ali Duraf was no longer in the mood to think about this. As soon as the guards who passed the order walked away, thick smoke began to rise from the southwest of the army station, and there were noisy people shouting and horses neighing.
Ali Duraf felt as if he had been punched in the chest. That was where his army was hoarding food and fodder. This must not be missed!
"Quickly, raise my banner, Amira, and take my bodyguards and knights with me to have a look!"
Ali Duraf panicked. The grain route from Asbrai City to here was constantly being harassed, and several grain storage points and transfer points along the way were attacked and burned.
If this largest granary is lost, it will be over and the whole army will starve.
Bai Congxin was laughing wildly. He had never expected that the cavalry of the Saman Persian Kingdom would be so weak.
The equipment looks pretty good, but it's all fake and can't even form a slightly square formation.
The horses are all big-assed horses. They look mighty, but they lose their energy after charging twice.
When I first started shooting against myself, I was quite arrogant, but as soon as I rushed in, I immediately became panicked.
"Captain Li, another cavalry group has arrived. I will lead the tiger general and two hundred men to hold the battle for you. You charge at them and scatter them directly so that the Nestorian light cavalry can burn this granary."
Bai Congxin was finally able to command the three hundred Yue cavalry led by the Hu family, because Zhang Zhao drove away Hu Wei and the thirty or so people who were close to him without mercy.
Huwei managed to get three beauties like flowers and jade, but the others were miserable.
All the property worth more than 20 guan was taken away from them. It is unclear how Queen Cao will deal with them when they return. In this way, everyone who is left will be honest.
Hu Guang is more honest because he knows what his father Hu Tile means.
What my father wanted most was to return to the rebel army with Zhang Erlang, because Hu Cile felt that Zhang Zhao had the ability to revitalize the rebel army. He wanted to follow Zhang Zhao back to be a "hero from the dragon", and later gain a certain place to suppress and even suppress the rebel army.
A high-ranking official like the governor of Suzhou should be considered.
As for Hu Guang himself, of course he has no objection. He also wishes that his elder brother would be defeated.
Because they were not born from the same mother, they had fought a lot since they were young, especially when they were young, their eldest brother Huwei often bullied him.