"That's enough! Clean it up and make some plans to seize it." After dawn, the rain became less intense, and Liang Hanyong finished his breakfast and ordered.
Qin Ke, the Marquis of Feilong Army, responded and went to deliver the order.
This man was born in Shao Shude's personal army, and later joined the Tielin Army, where he stayed for five years.
Five years later, Ji Gong was promoted to deputy general, and was transferred to the commander of Songzhou Prefecture Army. After a short term of service for one year, he was promoted to Yuhou of Feilong Army, where he assisted Xue Li, Duyuhou, in handling military affairs and was responsible for passing orders.
He is also a well-established Kansai martial artist and was born in the Qin family of Lanzhou.
It has been more than ten years since the Qin family became the envoy of the capital tribe, and they have become a big family in Lanzhou. This is the benefit of following the right people. Their interests have been tied up with Shao Shude, assisting the Lanzhou government to organize households and people, and slowly assimilate the local people.
Tubo, Qiang, Qiang and other tribes have a promising future.
Liang Hanyong looked at the map carefully again.
After they set off from Daning, they basically headed east along the northern foot of Yanshan Mountain. The Anle County they just captured last night was not originally Khitan land, but the stronghold behind the mountains in Youzhou Town that they gradually encroached on.
Of course, it is not entirely accurate to say that it is behind the mountains, because it is still in a hilly area. Tribes graze their herds on gentle slopes, river valleys, and basins, and all post roads are mostly in mountain valleys. If the Yan people want to cheer up, they must go here
Forts and troops were set up in this area, but it's a pity that they don't have the energy now.
There is a reason why the Feilong Army took this route. It is conducive to infantry fighting and is not afraid of the charge of cavalry groups. As long as the enemy is not given a chance and they are exposed in the wide river valley, it will be very difficult to gather a large group of cavalry to surround and annihilate them.
The only problem is probably raising supplies.
The strongholds outside the pass that the Khitans encroached on, regardless of whether they were Tibetan or Han people, were all forcibly moved away. They were replaced by the newly arrived Khitans and their vassal tribes, who herded horses and sheep here and used them as forward bases to advance further towards Youzhou.
"Right hook..." This is what King Xia said, but Liang Hanyong thought it was very appropriate.
The large group of cavalry assembled in the direction of Tanshan made a left hook, walking on the flat grassland, heading straight for Khitan, an important nomadic land for the Xi people.
The two groups advanced in tandem, but there was no strategic goal. They didn't say where they would stop. This made Liang Hanyong a little strange.
However, he also got to know Yang Yue somewhat, and felt that this was the most consistent attitude of the old man. To put it bluntly, this war was a punitive war against the Khitan, a war for hegemony to establish who would rule the "barbarians in the southwest".
If you fight well and far enough, you can even shake the Khitan's prestige among the vassal tribes and weaken their influence. Influence often means the ability to recruit supplies and soldiers, which often means how many servants you can mobilize.
.
"Food, now we have to solve the food problem." Liang Hanyong put down the map and pushed open the wooden door.
It's still raining outside.
The bloodstains on the streets have been cleaned up.
Some people came out of their homes, with panic and fear on their faces. They silently carried the body, placed it on a cart, and then took it to the wild for burial.
The origin of the corpses is very complicated. Xi people accounted for more than half, followed by Khitans, and some Han people and miscellaneous people. They were all killed at this moment. It is not known whether they were soldiers or civilians. Anyway, on the grassland, all adults
Men are considered soldiers by default - to a certain extent, this is exactly the same.
Some people in the city are slaughtering livestock and making fires to cook the meat, which will later be made into dry food to supplement the daily consumption of the Flying Dragon Army soldiers. But the most lacking thing is grain, which is difficult to get on the grassland, which is really annoying.
Grain is like a cheating device on the grassland. It takes half a day to graze the horses, but I fed them grain in just half an hour.
"Who are the people in Anle County, have you figured it out?" Liang Hanyong asked quickly when he saw Xue Li walking over.
Xue Li held a bloody riding crop in his hand, and there was a lot of blood on his body. It seemed that he had just finished torturing the prisoners. He immediately saluted after hearing the words, "The returning envoys, a total of more than 1,900 households, are all Khitan people who moved here last year."
Some of the people who came here were herdsmen and slaves. They were herding cattle nearby and making a living."
"I went to tell you that some Khitan people robbed many women, children, cattle, sheep, and property heading eastward. Which way did they take?" Liang Hanyong asked again.
"They don't know either. There are too many mountains, rivers, valleys and forests here. If you don't take the initiative to contact us, you can only search the valleys one by one. Military envoy, there's no point in asking. They really don't know. We still have to send people to find them ourselves. If we find a group of
If you really can't find a group of them, you might as well continue eastward and rob the Khitans directly." Xue Li said.
Going east is risky, everyone knows this.
More than 200 miles east of Anle County, you can reach Bailang garrison, one of the eight garrison gates outside the pass. Since it fell shortly after the fall, there was still a city there, but I don't know if the Khitans took advantage of it.
In addition, there must be many tribes grazing in the local area. I don't know where they live, how many people there are, whether they can fight, or whether there is a Khitan brigade nearby. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a blind eye.
The most important thing is, can we get food?
This is different from the Central Plains. If you grab any village in Henan, you can get a lot of food. Most of the areas outside the customs are inaccessible, and it is not easy to meet anyone. If you don't know the pastures of the Khitan people and don't know the inside story of the place, it is actually very dangerous.
.
The simplest way is for them to fortify the walls and clear the country, then harass you, delay you, and let you linger in any ravine for a few more days, and then they run out of food. What should you do? The entire army is inevitable.
"Did anyone run away last night?" Liang Hanyong suddenly asked.
"Probably not." Xue Li was not sure.
This dilapidated city has been abandoned for many years, and the Khitan people regard it as a treasure. With the wind leaking from everywhere, and the heavy rain from the sky, it is as dark as ink. Who knows if anyone has escaped?
"We'll wait until the Tibetan soldiers from Zhuang Lang's tribe come up. After continuous marching and fighting, everyone is tired. Let's graze and rest near Anle City." Liang Hanyong made a decision.
The Tibetan soldiers were herdsmen from the Zhuang Lang family in Yuanyuquan, and there were thousands of them.
The combat mode of the Xia army's mounted infantry is already very clear. The infantry is the main force, and the Tibetan light cavalry is responsible for reconnaissance, warning, cover, and pursuit in case of victory.
This type of high-speed motorized infantry is different from traditional infantry. Because they do not have carriages and all their luggage is on pack horses, they can save as much supplies as possible, generally to ensure field operations. Attacking a city is not impossible, but if
It's not necessary, I won't do it forcefully.
The simplest, ordinary infantry can carry a lot of supplies, tools, craftsmen, and build siege vehicles in case of war, but it is very difficult for the Feilong Army. It would be good to have simple wooden ladders. Sometimes if the tools are lost, even making ladders is difficult.
Difficult because they don't go out of their way to carry many backup tools.
He didn't carry much food and medicine with him, and he also had very few spare weapons, arrows and other consumables. He didn't have the ability to fight a long-term tug-of-war.
To put it simply and crudely, the difference between them and ordinary infantry is just like the elite airborne division and the heavy infantry division. The latter has tanks, armored vehicles, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and extremely abundant supplies. They do not have these heavy equipment and ammunition.
It's not particularly abundant, so it can only be attacked by surprise.
Sometimes when you shoot too many arrows, you have to find a way to pick them up and reuse them after the war. It's very hard, and they are far from being as calm as they appear. Therefore, all the soldiers in the army are under tremendous pressure all the time, and they try their best to
Avoiding being held back, insisting on mobile warfare, and sometimes relaxing military discipline are also tacitly approved by senior officers.
"Follow your orders." After Xue Li heard this, he immediately prepared to organize people to disperse and graze the horses.
"Check the supplies. Collect the Khitan birch bows, arrows, bones, etc., maybe you can save your life." Liang Hanyong ordered: "Also, let's send people to search eastward first. Don't use too many people.
, try to avoid being discovered. According to previous news, the main force of the Khitan has returned to the army, but the local area is not fully protected and there are still troops left behind, so try not to alarm them."
Having said that, Liang Hanyong waved his hand and asked Xue Li to do it as soon as possible. He himself went down to the military camp and worked with the soldiers, making fires, making bacon, and stocking up on supplies.
****
The right uppercut had already hit the enemy's soft abdomen, and the left uppercut was also advancing rapidly.
On August 14, on the grassland near Ruyuan, with the cavalry army as the main force, supplemented by tens of thousands of Fan cavalry, they defeated another group of Khitan cavalry in a field battle, and then marched eastward.
The Khitans did not want to fight at all. When they received Xia reinforcements and quickly arrived, they immediately retreated into groups.
The retreat is a steppe retreat.
There are people running in all directions. Try to disperse the troops as much as possible without massing. Some are responsible for luring and misleading the pursuers, some are responsible for using the terrain to ambush, and some are responsible for turning around and cutting off the rear.
Sure enough, starting from the Xiongnu, a thousand years later, the grassland people still played the same routine.
The cavalry envoy Oritsugu was also faced with a problem at this time: According to the system, the cavalry had one man and two horses, so how could he chase the Khitans who had three horses and one man?
Ruyuan and Yuyi Town were almost robbed. It was impossible to replenish the horses. Even replenishing food was difficult and had to be squeezed out. The food and water carried by the entire army was about the same as that of the Feilong Army, which was only enough for more than ten days. Follow us.
If the Khitans chase after them, nothing will happen, but it is not appropriate to just watch them run away.
After much deliberation, there is only one solution: you hit yours, I'll hit mine, see who can outlast the other.
On August 15th, the entire army of 20,000 cavalry and more than 40,000 horses divided into multiple routes and marched northward in large numbers.
They marched along the Rushui River Valley, where there are rivers that can provide drinking water for people and livestock, which is very important on the grassland.
In addition, river valleys are generally rich in water and grass, and if you are lucky, you can harvest a lot of supplies.
At noon on the 16th, we arrived at Shaye.
A group of more than 3,000 Khitan cavalry were still working hard to "lead the way" in front, not knowing where they wanted to lead them.
They even slowed down their horses. The Xia army stopped to herd their horses, and they also stopped to herd their horses. The Xia army pursued them, and they immediately fled. They even hid in the mountains at night and kept sending people out to harass them, but they were suddenly raided.
After a moment, and after losing more than 300 riders, they disappeared.
Geshu, the inspection envoy of Nuozhen Water, reminded Oritsugu that this was an old wisdom from the prairie. The Khitans wanted to tire them out until they were exhausted, and then lure them into an ambush by the main force of the Khitan and annihilate them together.
Oritsugu Hiroshi ignored it and only selected the march route. At night, he cut down trees and set up camp. He fenced the horses and sent out sergeants in turns to guard them. During the day, he continued on his way and moved forward along the established goal.
On the afternoon of the 19th, we arrived at Luquanshui, where the three springs merged into Rushui (near today's Zhaosu Naimu). There was a small tribe here that was attached to the Khitan, but it had moved away at this time and its whereabouts are unknown.
The Khitans finally realized something was wrong.
This marching direction is obviously heading towards the flat pine forest!
After co-authoring the temptation for a long time, they actually lured the Xia people to their own territory, right?
Without any hesitation, the two sides immediately started a fierce battle.
It was an evening filled with red clouds.
High hills stand opposite each other in the distance, with more than five thousand horsemen on each side standing on horseback.
On the plain at the foot of the mountain, there were already riders fighting to catch each other.
The scale of the fighting gradually increased, with lightly armored or unarmored Tibetan soldiers constantly joining in.
Standing on the mountainside, Oritsugu Yu could see the starting position of the Khitan people on the opposite side in the distance.
Their cavalry were crowded together, numbering in the thousands, and it seemed that many soldiers from the vassal tribes had joined them.
The cavalry at the front had spread far apart and began to sprint hard. The middle part was still slowly increasing speed, while the knights huddled together at the back were noisy and kept urging the people in front to make room.
"Dong dong——" the drum beat.
Oritsugu Yu descended to the gentle part of the hill.
Groups of cavalry soldiers have begun to form a formation.
The horse kept snoring, and the knight pulled the reins and controlled it carefully.
"In the battle at Yuyi Town, the Khitans were nothing more than this. Today the thieves actually invited a fight, so let's teach them a lesson." Oritsugu Yu said to the generals who came to listen to the order: "Your Highness is about to do something big. If you all fight to the death,
If you make great achievements, it will be easier than before to win the favor of his old man. On the other hand, if you make a mess, it will be difficult to turn around."
The generals called for battle one after another: "Envoy, please give the order."
"Okay, in today's battle, we promise victory but no defeat. Anyone who dares to look back will die! Everyone returns to their respective camps and obeys orders." Oretsugu said loudly.
The generals immediately galloped back to their respective camps.
"Dong dong..." The second tom sound sounded.
As if they understand the military orders, the horses gently scratch the ground with their hooves. Some of the impatient horses even want to jump forward, but are held back by the knights.
The war horses sometimes take two steps forward, and sometimes take two steps back, but generally maintain their formation - they are trained war horses, not the kind of barbaric horses that don't understand anything, nor can any horse be used as a war horse.
The third tom sounded.
"Advance slowly!" the military commanded, and the cavalrymen jogged downhill one by one.
At the foot of the mountain is a large expanse of barren meadow. The grass is withered and yellow and has grown very tall. After the cavalry from both sides poured in, almost only the area above the shoulders was visible.
"Those who dare to look back will die!" the officer leading the charge shouted.
"Those who dare to look back will die!" everyone echoed in unison.
And this was also a signal. The horse speed began to slowly increase, and the sergeants took out their long and short weapons and got ready for battle.
Yelu Laogu gave the order to speed up almost at the same time.
He was defeated from Ruyuan and today he no longer dares to retreat. He can only fight hard and survive in death.
The tall dead grass fell down under the powerful impact of the war horses.
Within a hundred steps, dense arrows flew to both sides at the same time.
This time alone, the Khitans suffered a big loss because they had too little iron armor.
"Boom!" The two torrents collided.
Looking from the high slope, Oritsugu Yu could clearly see the entire battlefield situation.
The cavalrymen who passed by fell down in large areas.
At this moment, no matter you are brave or cowardly, no matter you are a newcomer or a veteran, under the intensive confrontation of war horses, you can only leave your fate to God. You can't even hide, you can only use your body to carry the opponent to greet them.
weapons.
The auxiliary soldiers gathered at the foot of the mountain.
One group of people were on guard with long guns and rifles, and another group of people stepped forward and waited quietly.
After a while, a large group of empty-running horses emerged from the decaying grass.
The sergeants swarmed forward, blocking their way and gathering their horses.
Needless to say, every empty horse means a lost life.
"Dong dong..." Another war drum beat.
The auxiliary soldiers who were gathering their horses had different expressions.
The newcomers were confused and didn't know what was going on.
After staying for two years, the envoy knew that he had sent in a large group of cavalry.
Only the experienced old man comforted everyone: "There are fewer empty horses running over, which means that the Khitan people have turned and returned in defeat. The military envoy has sent people to pursue them."
The result on the battlefield was just as the veterans said.
In just one charge, the Khitan cavalry suffered a big loss. Except for the first wave of high-speed hedging, there was not much difference with or without armor. When they entered the low-speed close-quarters combat stage where men and horses were mixed, there was a huge gap in equipment and martial arts.
It's reflected.
If the Khitans chose the wrong tactics, they would have to bear the consequences.
Thousands of riders were rolled back and pushed back.
The cavalry soldiers shouted loudly. They waved their swords and chased behind them, killing them wantonly.
Seeing the enemy running further and further away, some people simply put their weapons back into their sheaths and took out their riding bows to shoot.
The wave of galloping war horses gradually spread to the opposite hill.
The flag on the hill was waved, and he jumped back first, not wanting to fight.
The herdsmen of the vassal tribe who were fighting on the flanks lost their fighting spirit when they saw their own banner retreating, and fled in disarray.
The chase lasted until nightfall.
The results of the battle were mainly obtained by the Tibetan Qingqi.
They rode back talking and laughing, and many of them had heads hanging under their saddles.
In contrast, the cavalry soldiers who returned to camp did not gain much, because they could not catch up with the enemy. However, when the Tibetan people saw it, they stood aside and treated them respectfully.
Oritsugu Yu was still standing on the hillside with a smile on his face.
If you don't want to fight, I'll force you to fight.
Tomorrow we will go plunder in the wild. There must be tribes fleeing nearby, just in time to obtain key supplies.
Later I will drive into the flat pine forest, will you come?
There is no doubt that he is very courageous. He never thought that if he encountered the main force of the Khitan and attacked and surrounded them with several times the number of light cavalry, he would still be able to escape unscathed.
Maybe he had thought about it, but it didn't matter. He felt that he could continue teasing until the main force of the Khitan brigade arrived, and it would not be too late to retreat.
In a war, how can one not take risks? Sometimes God favors warriors who dare to take risks, and maybe they can make a big profit.
