The car formation composed of Liu Qi's troops rushed to the front.
Five hundred local men served as horsemen, shield bearers and porters, and a thousand soldiers were waiting in formation, wearing armor and marching forward.
It's only three miles away anyway, so it won't be difficult for everyone to get through it wearing armor.
The cavalry changed their target and began to harass the vanguard. However, they seemed to be afraid of casualties and often stopped immediately. This greatly increased Liu Qi's confidence.
The main force of the Poxia Army and the 1,500 Tuan Tuan peasants followed them three to four hundred steps away. They were nervous for a long time. Seeing that Gaocheng County was in sight, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Especially when they saw someone walking on the top of the city wall. After walking back and forth and taking the initiative to open the city gate, I felt even more at ease. I finally had a temporary place to stay.
The dark city gate made people a little uneasy, but it only took a short while, and the large group of people quickly entered the city, and nothing happened. The entire county was as quiet as when they arrived before, and the only people were hiding at home. From behind the cracks in the windows and doors, he looked at them with complicated and unspeakable eyes.
The dying people are pitiful!
"Woo" the horn sounded.
Liu Qi, who was riding on the horse, was stunned for a moment. Before he could react, a volley of arrows struck him, causing his eyesight to go dark in pain and he fell off the horse.
Powerful crossbow! Powerful crossbow only found in the army! This was Liu Qi's last thought.
Numerous crossbowmen appeared on the houses on both sides. They shot ruthless arrows into Liang Jun's body from the air, causing breathtaking damage in a short time: more than a thousand Liang Jun entered the city, and the arrows rained down one after another. In one wave, the casualties had already exceeded 300, and were still increasing rapidly.
"Kill the thieves!" A large group of soldiers suddenly poured out of the street. Under the leadership of the officers, they formed a formation to kill the Liang soldiers who were fighting in chaos.
Liang general Liu Qi was already dead and suffered a devastating attack from arrows. In front of the Xia soldiers who suddenly appeared, he had almost no ability to resist and was directly killed in pieces.
Wei Boqiu personally led the team, and a spear was like a poisonous snake coming out of its hole. Every time it stabbed, a life was taken.
Encouraged by him, the sergeants had high morale and used their swords and guns to harvest the enemy's lives from behind with ease and joy.
The pursuit continued to the outside of the city. The rebels had no fighting spirit and collapsed in a ruthless manner, suffering heavy casualties.
Liang Jun outside the city actually knew that something was wrong inside. After all, the screams and shouts of killing could not be faked. Liu Qi's more than a thousand people must have been ambushed. There is no doubt that he saved everyone. The road will probably end badly. Of course, now is not the time to dwell on this. What everyone should consider is how come there are Xia thieves in Gaocheng County, and how many Xia thieves are there?
"I'm ambushed, run away!" Without any warning, the more than a thousand native villagers exploded.
Their morale was low during the retreat. When they saw the ambush, it was a waste of time! One by one, they greased the soles of their feet, threw away the obstructive spears, opened up the vehicle formation, and ignored the threat of the Xia army's cavalry, heading directly towards the mountains and forests on both sides. He retreated and ran faster than anyone else.
Zhao Lin's face suddenly turned pale. What he was most worried about happened. The Xia thieves attacked from both sides, and people were panicked. However, the Tutuan countryman ran away, which further affected morale.
The Xia army in the city did not stop at all and rushed directly towards this side. The cavalry also became active again. Dozens of cavalry gathered together, watching eagerly, waiting for them to reveal their flaws.
"Withdraw" Zhao Lin was interrupted by Du Yanqiu just in the middle of his words.
Just listen to him say: "The situation is urgent! We cannot retreat. If we retreat, the whole army will inevitably collapse. Now we can only fight bravely to fight for that slim chance."
Unexpectedly, Zhao Lin threw away his hand and said: "General Du Shi, it's not like you don't know the details of the Poxia Army. In the past, the three thousand old soldiers could probably fight a dozen, but now there are so many new recruits mixed in."
, can you fight?"
Du Yanqiu said with emotion: "Whether we can fight or not, we have to fight to know. In the end, the general is willing to lead the army to charge and kill without regrets. The military envoys can just sit back and never abandon the army and run away."
"We can't fight! Do you know how many thieves there are in the city? Five thousand? Ten thousand? Can they stop it?" Zhao Lin didn't listen at all. He called to his soldiers, helped him mount his horse, and knocked away the sergeant blocking the way.
Fell toward the south.
He is the son of Zhao Ji and the nephew of Chen Xu Jiedushi Zhao Jue. Who dares to touch him? It is important to save his life right now.
"Zhao Lin, rat!" Du Yanqiu's roar was earth-shattering.
Wang Yanzhang, who had already led his men to fight, couldn't help but glance over here, and was shocked. The general ran first, how could the soldiers still have fighting spirit?
Sure enough, after the Xia army shouted "Zhao Lin has run away" in unison, and Zhao Lin's flag did fall down, thousands of soldiers of the Po Xia army collapsed. Everyone abandoned their obstructing armor and ran into the mountains and forests on both sides.
.
Wang Yanzhang tried to save the situation, but was defeated like a mountain. No one wanted to fight, so he could only sigh and run away.
The collapse of more than 6,000 troops actually took only a moment.
Who should be blamed? It's hard to say. I can only blame Zhu Quanzhong. Even the Poxia Army, which was urgently expanded before the war, was dispatched. It was destroyed in one battle. It is your own fault. There is nothing to say.
…
Zhang Guihou hesitated for a while in Dengfeng County.
Zhu Hanbin was sent to Taigu Pass by him, with more than 4,000 men and horses to reinforce the defenders and resist the Xia bandits' attack.
If he withdraws from Dengfeng, then the Xia thieves can march westward to Yingyang and cut off the retreat route of the Taigu Pass defenders. If the defenders resolutely resist and are unwilling to surrender, then it will be another tragedy like the tragedy in Heyang Nancheng.
Because most likely no one will come to save them.
After all, they all came out together. Zhang Guihou sighed, found a close soldier, and asked him to ride westward and inform Yingyang County. He could only go so far. Zhu Hanbin's fate could only be determined by himself.
.
After finishing all these matters, Zhang Guihou led more than 2,000 people on foot and cavalry from the hall to retreat south. Basically, they followed Zhao Lin's old path, about a day's journey behind.
It rained heavily and the roads were muddy. The cavalry on both sides were almost turned into decorations, and everyone walked with their horses.
For some reason, Zhang Guihou suddenly thought of the Yellow River. Although the rainy weather has been intermittent since this spring, it has generally been much more rainy than in previous years. The river water should have risen a lot, right?
"Commander, the scouts sent to Gaocheng County have not returned yet." After walking for a long time, because the rain was too heavy, they had to find a village next to the post road to take temporary shelter. At this time, someone reported to him.
"No one came back? Are they all dead?" Zhang Guihou frowned and asked.
"None of them came back."
Zhang Guihou waved his hand to indicate that he understood.
The scout may not necessarily be dead. He may have been stopped by someone and had to take a detour, or he may have been blocked by bad weather and unable to return in time. But no matter what, he must be vigilant.
Another thing that puzzled him was that Zhao Lin didn't send anyone to contact him. Is this normal? It's definitely not normal.
After carefully comparing the map, his eyes stopped on the word "success".
Those two words are like a bottomless black hole, everything that goes in becomes silent, as if it has never appeared.
"Have you received any news from Pangdutou in Mengzhou?" Zhang Guihou called the staff responsible for sending and receiving the ultimatum and asked.
"Return to the commander, no." The staff member was all wet and looked a little embarrassed, and he immediately replied.
"Where's Ding Shuai?" Zhang Guihou looked back at the map and asked.
"nor."
"Are you still undecided now?" Zhang Guihou sighed regretfully.
By now in this battle, the situation has become very clear.
Among the three passes in Luonan, the only one that leads directly to Ruzhou is Yique Pass. Taigu and Fuyuan have to take detours, and the mountain roads are difficult and dangerous, which is very expensive from a logistical point of view, and once they go deep south, they can easily be cut off.
Grain Road.
From the Xia thief's point of view, the most ideal thing is to capture Yique Pass. If you can't win here, the next best thing is to capture Taigu Pass, and then go west behind Yique Pass to attack from both sides.
Fight on the border to persuade them to surrender, seize this important pass as soon as possible, and open up the road south.
But now it seems that the Xia thieves have a huge appetite, and they actually want to go directly south to Chenxu and capture Ding Hui's tribe in Ruzhou. The defenders of Yique and Taigu are of little value in their eyes.
As for it, it is not the main target.
Xia Thief has a really big appetite, and he acts decisively without any hesitation. He has already taken the lead and gained a certain advantage.
But this advantage cannot be broken? Not necessarily. At least Zhang Guihou thought of a way. The Bianzhou Military Office should have a similar plan. It depends on how and when they implement it.
"It's so slow!" Zhang Guihou sighed again. If you had come up with your idea earlier, why wouldn't I even be able to keep my title?
It is not clear what the rules of Ruzhou are, whether to keep it or to run away. How Pang Shigu's tribe mobilized capable people to go south has no clue.
If he had made the decision, he would have ordered Dai Siyuan to lead the Feilong Army to leave Guancheng and go to Xinzheng. If he had acted quickly enough, he would have reached Xinzheng before the heavy rain fell, and even passed Yangzhai.
King Liang is surrounded by a bunch of trash!
"Commander, my servant has something to say. I don't know whether to say it or not?" the staff suddenly said.
"Say it." Zhang Guihou said: "It's already this time, but there's no harm in talking."
"Commander, although our army is strong, it only has more than 2,000 soldiers. It's hard to say what Gaocheng County is like. If we insist on going south, we will only have enough food and grass for six or seven days. If we are entangled by thieves, it will be unthinkable." The staff said: "
It is not appropriate to go west to Yingyang; it is easy to become a turtle in a urn. It is better to go east, cross Yangcheng Mountain, and go to Mi County. The thieves said that I went south, but they would not have thought of this. In this way, the danger can be turned into peace."
Yangcheng Mountain, in the northeast of Gaocheng County, has no major post roads directly leading to it, only mountain trails. It is definitely not very convenient to pass the army, because it is very troublesome when it comes to logistics, but their halls now have no large teams of baggage, except for the mules and horses accompanying the army.
Apart from the cargo and equipment, it carried nothing. It was not troublesome to take the mountain road to Mi County.
But once you get to Mi County, it will be much easier. You can send a small group of troops to harass Dengfeng. If you succeed, you don't need to bring much food. Three days is enough. The light troops advance quickly and hit and run. If you want to retreat, you can also contact Zhengzhou.
, it’s really convenient.
Zhang Guihou slapped his thigh and said with a smile: "You usually come up with bad ideas, but here is a rare trick."
The staff member smiled awkwardly and said: "I think the Xia thieves have been fighting too well a while ago and have developed an appetite. They have formulated such a grand strategy that swallows tens of thousands of soldiers and horses. It is quite ambitious, but it is not impossible to crack it.
Fa. When marching and fighting, you come and go, and you see what's going on. It's normal. It's not like writing a 'city man's novel'. You have to follow the strategy of the Xia thieves. If the general goes to Mi County, it won't matter."
Having said this, he lowered his voice and said: "The Xia thieves used a lot of troops this time, estimated to be no less than one hundred thousand. As long as the weather improves and the roads are no longer muddy, as the Xia thieves advance, the situation of each army will be different."
It would be so beautiful. When all the armies are in disgrace, naturally no one will pursue the matter of the commander's retreat to Mi County."
Zhang Guihou nodded.
It’s not that I don’t want to fight, but it’s really hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice. If the King of Liang was willing to give 10,000 yamen troops, he would have already been fighting Xia thieves in Dengfeng. Why is it like this? Why is it like this!