In the past, Zhang Zhao heard people say that war is an art, and he basically nodded in agreement like a chicken pecking at rice.
But five or six years after traveling back in time, Zhang Zhao felt that this sentence was not so accurate.
At least when it comes to the battlefield, it has nothing to do with art.
Some are just cruel.
The Guiyi Army and the Fengxiang Army have the same tactics and similar equipment.
The only difference is that the Guiyi Army's left and right wings are equipped with highly maneuverable cavalry, while the Fengxiang Army, which lacks cavalry, can only put its precious crossbowmen on the two wings for passive defense.
Therefore, the entire battlefield situation is that the two armies are shooting at each other with bows and crossbows in the middle, and then stabbing each other with heavy armor.
On both wings were the cavalrymen of the Rebel Army, constantly circling, testing, or dismounting and firing, so that the crossbowmen on both wings of the Fengxiang Army could not rest. After finding a flaw, they would rush in and strike.
After all, the Fengxiang Army has a large number of people, so the crossbowmen on the two wings will suffer a loss. Lu Duan in the center will immediately dispatch the reserve team to make up for it, and then drive away the cavalry of the Guiyi Army. The two sides continue to repeat this kind of whack-a-mole on the two wings.
game.
In the middle, the brutal crossbow shooting was almost over, with both sides firing tens of thousands of arrows at each other.
Afterwards, the archer's arm strength reached a limit, and the crossbow was no longer usable due to loose strings and damaged triggers.
By this time, both sides have a clear understanding of each other's strength. The outcome of the following battle will depend on fighting with heavy armor.
And this kind of fighting is difficult to cause a large number of casualties in a short period of time like crossbows, so it is even harder to defeat the opponent. The war will change from comparing who can kill the fastest during crossbow shooting to a battle of energy and perseverance.
contest.
The cruelest moment has arrived.
Amidst the beating of war drums, both sides lined up in long rows and stabbed each other four times within two hours.
The fighting was so fierce that warriors like Qiongre Duojin and Cui Huxin were stabbed and unable to continue fighting.
Especially Cui Huxin, if he hadn't tied a breast shield to his chest, he might have died on the spot.
From the Fengxiang Army side, bursts of calls for "Wan Sheng" came. It was Li Congxia who was already red-eyed and had released a reward of 50,000 guan.
Zhang Zhao's fighting skills were slightly higher, and he offered this battle as a reward for entering the battle.
According to the military merit system of the Tang Dynasty, fighting with less and more with a fight to the death is considered as entering into battle.
After such a battle, even the lowest-level soldier, as long as he can behead one level without any major fault, will be considered meritorious and can at least receive a second rank.
The second rank of Xunce corresponds to the seventh-grade Yunqi Lieutenant.
In Zhang Zhao's Hexi, Yunqiwei's honorary officer could be exempted from 20% of the land tax or ten guan of commercial tax.
He was also given an annual gift of three hundred kilograms of corn and other coarse grains, fifty kilograms of polished rice, fifty kilograms of white flour, ten kilograms of tea, ten kilograms of salt, five kilograms of sugar, and two sheep.
Suggestions etc.
It can be said that after the second turn of the service, soldiers fell out of the category of ordinary people.
As long as one can survive and do nothing for the next year, four hundred kilograms of grain plus salt, tea, and sugar can ensure that a person will not die of hunger, and his status will be greatly improved.
Compared with simple rewards, the military merit system for returning to the rebel army is undoubtedly more attractive.
Moreover, Zhang Zhao is also considering learning from the military attaché system of the Song Dynasty and merging the titles of Gui Yilang and Zhongjie Xiaowei into the honorary officer system to make it more relevant to the needs of soldiers.
"Wind! Wind! Wind!" As soon as Zhang Zhao's second-level reward came out, the Guiyi army cheered loudly, and even the drummer in charge of playing the drum became more energetic.
However, Zhang Zhao's expression was a little gloomy. Damn it, now there are two to three thousand Yunqi Lieutenants! Just raising them costs 70,000 to 80,000 yuan a year, and that doesn't include daily expenses.
At the same time, Li Congxia's face was also green. In addition to the reward of 50,000 guan, he invested hundreds of thousands of guan successively. In addition, if he wins, he will be rewarded once, and if he loses, he will get a pension.
I'm afraid it will cost more than 200,000 guan.
However, the entire Fengxiang Jiedushi's annual income is only a few hundred thousand yuan, so he must pay for it from his own small treasury.
If Zhang Zhao and Li Congxia knew that the other party was so difficult to deal with, they might not have fought like this, but they had already fought to this point and had to go on with it.
After the viewing, it’s time to eat, usually with high-calorie food, such as glutinous rice poured with honey or syrup, and broth with plenty of salt.
The Guiyi Army will also be provided with salty and sweet milk tea (butter tea), but they will not give too much, as eating too much will not be conducive to fighting. Half an hour of shooting with crossbows, and more than three hours of stabbing six
This time, the fighting stopped, and the two sides fought from three poles above the sun until the sun was tilted.
People on both sides understand very well that according to the resilience of the two armies, the next final fight will basically be the last one.
More than two thousand prisoners of the rebel army also sat on the ground and ate and drank. Everyone devoured the sweet glutinous rice with syrup and the salty milk tea.
These captives of the rebel army sat together in a circle around the city. Around them, the soldiers of Hanshandu had finished donning their armor and were supervising and intimidating them.
Zhang Zhao also came over wearing a blinding golden armor. There was no room for failure in this battle. He still had to fight on his own, but the first batch of cannon fodder to die were these rebel prisoners.
"I won't say much. After this battle, those who are willing to follow me, as long as they are willing to change their ways, will be rewarded with your glory and wealth. Those who are unwilling to follow will receive thirty guan per person and return home with money.
But I also want to tell you that if you dare to delay on the battlefield, I will chop you into pieces with my sword.
There are two thousand of you, half will die and half will live!"
The defense envoy Wu did not die because he released thousands of men and women as promised, but Zhang Zhao did not spare him either.
Except that he and his entourage were not allowed to be publicly tried by the Wei River, there was no preferential treatment. Now they still have to go to the Palace of Hell.
"Think of yourself as dead! If you die, you can live.
Our hometown has been sold by Shi Jingtang's Nashatuo thieves. Those who are alive should remember to take the ashes of the dead home.
Commander Wu stood up and shouted loudly to the rebels behind him.
Most of these tooth soldiers of the Jingnan Army are from the Sixteenth Prefecture of Youyun, because they were recruited by the township party Zhang Xichong, the previous governor of the Jingnan Army, and Zhang Xichong was from Youzhou.
They chose to follow He Chuan in the rebellion this time and also kidnapped Jiedushi An Shuqian. The biggest reason was that Shi Jingtang betrayed Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures and sold their parents, wives and children to the Khitan people.
The few words spoken by the defense envoy Wu made the captives of the rebel soldiers remain speechless, and occasionally a few low sobs could be heard.
After eliminating their status as rebel soldiers who committed all kinds of evil, these people were also poor homeless people. Their hometowns were lost to Khitan, and the later Jin Dynasty would not allow them to return to their hometowns.
"Distribute weapons to them!" Zhang Zhao said to Guo Tiance beside him, and then looked at Wu Defender.
"Blood crimes must be washed away with blood, fight to the death!"
‘Dong dong dong!’ The war drums sounded again, and even the sun in the sky was hidden among the dark clouds, and the world seemed to darken all of a sudden.
Under the guidance of recognizing the flags one by one, tens of thousands of people shouted slogans of "Hey! Hey!" and slowly approached.
A small number of sharpshooters who could still shoot arrows would throw arrows in the opposite direction from time to time, and a few unlucky ones would scream and fall down, without even affecting the people around them.
Everyone moved forward mechanically, sweat dripping down their faces, and the fingers holding the weapons turned gray due to the extreme exertion.
Twenty steps, ten steps, slowly, the two sides came closer to the sound of drums.
Suddenly there was a loud roar, and everyone seemed to come to life, and the long spears began to hit each other's heads rhythmically.
However, for the elites in the front row who are all wearing iron armor, such an attack is not fatal. The fatal one is at the bottom.
Beneath the clashing spears, rows of gunmen squatted half-crouched, holding hooks and sickles that could hook people.
A heavy armored soldier of the Fengxiang Army was careless and his thigh was instantly hooked by a hook and sickle spear.
The soldier howled in horror and threw away the spear in his hand, pulled out the sword from his waist, and slashed wildly at the barrel of the hook and sickle gun. There were two people beside him who wanted to help him break open the hook that had caught his thigh.
Curved hook, unfortunately still a step too late.
Amid the desperate roars of the soldiers, he was dragged from the ground to the formation of the Guiyi Army.
Several rebel soldiers armed with the sharpest barrier knives rushed forward. They used all their strength to hold down the Fengxiang Army soldier. One of them lifted his penis, while the other two stared at him and fucked him randomly.
Jiatu's painful limbs flicked wildly, and his wails made people tremble, but they soon stopped.
Because in his desperate resistance, the Tiaodang soldier still stabbed the barrier knife into his throat and cut open the main artery of his neck. The soldier finally stopped moving. He stared at the sky with his eyes wide open and his expression changed quickly.
It turned gray
After he was stabbed to death, people continued to be dragged away by both sides, some from the Rebel Army and some from the Fengxiang Army.
"Disperse! Disperse!" A loud roar came, and the soldiers in the horizontal row in the middle of the Guiyi Army suddenly dispersed after losing a little contact.
After they dispersed, a dark group of soldiers wearing messy armor rushed over, screaming. They were the prisoners of the rebel army.
These prisoners did not have long weapons. They all held short horizontal knives and round shields. They howled and ran directly into the spear forest of Fengxiang Army.
Many of them were quickly pierced by the spears from the opposite side, but their fearless fighting style still caused the Fengxiang Army's formation to be dented in the middle.
"Do it!" Zhang Zhao shouted, and the Hanshandu warriors behind the rebel prisoners immediately began to swing their swords.
But they are not killing Fengxiang's army. They can't kill them at this distance. They are killing the rebel army who is at the end. They kill them directly with Mo Dao!
In an instant, fifty or sixty rebels were hacked to death from behind!
Seeing this situation, the rebellious army who had originally wanted to cheat and cheat knew that they could not escape and they would die before and after them. They screamed louder and desperately launched waves of desperate attacks into the depressions of Fengxiang Army.
The face of Lu Duan, who was commanding the Fengxiang Army's formation, darkened. He sensed the danger and saw that the place where these people were desperately attacking was the main direction of the Guiyi Army's attack. He hurriedly asked the messenger to order the Wangfu Ya soldiers in reserve to fill in.
Zhang Zhao watched coldly as the rebels were being killed from both sides. He waited until the tooth soldiers of the Fengxiang Army came to support them with several red-bottomed Feng banners before waving his hand.
The Mo Swordsman in Shandu stopped slashing, and when he saw Zhang Zhao waving his hand to the captives, their hearts collapsed. They cried and retreated together.
But their mission was accomplished! They created a big gap in the Fengxiang Army's formation, forcing Lu Duan to use his last reserve force.
The tooth soldiers of Prince Qi's Mansion, wearing red shirts, rushed over from behind in a mighty manner. They were all in iron armor and their morale was high. "Hahaha!" Zhang Zhao laughed loudly, and the soldiers around Shandu also
Laughed loudly
This operation made the tooth soldiers of Prince Qi's Mansion who came to block the gap a little confused.
But they were no longer confused immediately, and flying rocks all over the sky hit them like falling stars with a whistling sound.
Zhang Zhao has been holding back from using the cyclone cannon until now, just to wait for this moment.
More than sixty trebuchets (some were damaged and unusable), in half a cup of tea (two or three minutes), threw thousands of flying stones, and the more than a thousand tooth soldiers of Prince Qi's Mansion were wiped out.
More than three hundred.
Li Congxi burst into tears of distress. These were elite soldiers that two generations of his Li family spent countless efforts raising! Hundreds of them were lost just like that.
"Song Zhong! You're such a stupid farm slave, you're really here to see me die!"
Li Congxia looked to the right and couldn't help crying. At this point in the battle, Song Zhong's 3,000 men, under the command of all the soldiers and horses in the Xiongwu Army Office, remained motionless.
"Your Majesty! We can't fight! If we continue to fight, the two generations of Prince Qi's family foundation will be lost!"
Lu Duan, who was in charge of the command, pointed to Zhang Zhao who was slashing people with his sword in the distance and said, "The leader of the Guiyi Army went into battle in person, and his morale suddenly surged, and the Fengxiang Army who was killed was retreating step by step."
Li Congxia's face was filled with tears, without the expression of a fierce tiger fighting a rabbit not long ago, with a sure chance of victory. He asked Lu Duan sadly, "Silang, what can I do?'
"After leaving the four thousand people who couldn't escape, we headed east, where there was a mountain forest. It was getting late now, and with the cover of night, we could still hold on.
This war was started by An Shenqi. He wanted to fight two tigers and would never sit back and watch one side be annexed by the other. He sent all his horses to inform the third brother and asked him to raise troops and come with An Shenqi."
Li Congzheng asked hesitantly: "An Shenqi is willing to come and help us kill the Hexi Army?"
Lu Duan shook his head bitterly, "How is that possible? Let's not think about killing the Hexi Army. Let's ask An Shenqi to mediate and give money and food to the Jinbo woman! Let's admit defeat! As long as the king can return safely.
To Fengxiang."
After Li Congxia heard this, he covered his face and burst into tears. Hundreds of people left the city, and now almost four thousand were gone, and they were still the most elite four thousand.
This wasn't a big loss, he was about to become a soldier! But he didn't have the courage to continue fighting.