Many light cavalry appeared in the fields outside the city. They galloped in the fields, sometimes gathering and sometimes scattering.
The wheat seedlings were trampled horribly, and it looks like next year's summer harvest will be greatly affected.
To be honest, it wasn't intentional, but fighting is like this, and you can't really control that much when it comes to killing.
Furthermore, the fields are indeed flat and suitable for infantry and light cavalry to march.
"There must be more than three thousand cavalry." Zhu Quanzhong made a rough estimate and said: "Thief Shao is becoming more and more hopeless. Even if Hu Ma goes south and causes trouble in the Central Plains, how can such thieves last long?"
Jingxiang and the others followed behind, echoing incessantly, with reserved smiles on their faces, but the smiles looked stiff.
Everyone knows that this is the second time that the Xia thieves have approached outside Bianzhou City.
From a military point of view, Bianzhou is really in a bad situation. It is located in the center of a vast plain and is completely undefendable. Once the cavalry breaks in, how to defend it is a huge problem.
Moreover, if the Bianzhou defenders have no fighting spirit, they may simply surrender, which is the worst thing. Fortunately, there is a Changzhi Army in the city now, which is the magic needle of Dinghai. Not only can they defend the city, but they can also fight in the suburbs of the city.
, drive the enemy troops away and prevent them from getting too close. As for places farther away, nothing can be done. After all, Bianzhou is important and cannot allow any loss.
"You don't have to worry too much." Zhu Quanzhong looked at the faces of several close aides and said with a smile: "I have made a plan. In a few days, Caozhou and Suzhou will be able to dispatch a group of soldiers and horses.
Especially the cavalry."
Desheng's army on the left and right had a full strength of 3,000 cavalry, many of which suffered battle losses. However, they tried their best to replenish their strength and still had 3,000 cavalry. However, the whole army only had more than 3,400 horses, which was somewhat missing.
The two armies of riding and seizing students were full of thousands of cavalry, but now the number is incomplete, one is 900 and the other is 800. Now there are only six or seven hundred cavalry in Tabaidu. After fighting for six or seven years, for the Xuanwu Army, the cavalry
is the most difficult to replenish.
Jingxiang was a little surprised when he heard this, but he remained calm and thought to himself.
Why can't the troops camped in Caozhou and Suzhou be transferred? Because the right wing of the Feilong Army led by the traitor general Liang Hanyong is in that direction. The width of 900 miles from south to north is an endless plain. People can just find a wheat field and insert it diagonally.
If they come, they will harass you for a few days and then run away. You must station a large army for defense.
In fact, this is not enough. Because each of them has more than one horse, and Liang Jun’s cavalry only has one horse. If they chase, they will not be able to catch up. Therefore, the best way is to let Zhu Xuan drive away Liang Han’s Yong tribe and prevent them from doing so.
Use the Tianping Army as a base to rest and replenish supplies, and then attack the various states in the Liang region.
If possible, the Taining Army had better close the door to Liang Hanyong, so that the threat from the east would be eliminated, and more troops could be mobilized to march westward to replenish the extremely empty hinterland of Boying and Song Dynasty.
"Thief Shao doesn't know how to fight." Zhu Quanzhong laughed again and said: "If I had changed places with him, I would have robbed all the people outside the city."
Zhu Quanzhong had done this matter of plundering the people many times before in Yun and Yaner towns. The establishment of the army to capture the living beings had this factor in it.
As for massacring people, that is absolutely not feasible. At least so far, except for Qin Zongquan, a fool, others have shown great restraint in massacres and even massacres of cities. It can be said that there is almost no such thing.
Given the low moral bottom line of warriors, it sounds unbelievable, but it is true. In the decades of the late Tang Dynasty, this kind of situation only happened once, when Zhu Youning drove the people of Bochang to fill ravines and attack the city.
Are warriors cruel? Brutal. But why don't they kill people at will and even massacre cities? It's puzzling.
Maybe it's because the people are not without any martial virtue. If you loot, they can tolerate it and even cooperate. But if you massacre the city, they will be besieged by a group.
"Your Majesty, the bandits have broken into the hinterland of Bianzhou. It's best to drive them out." Jingxiang said: "It's not easy to let them plunder and wander around like this. I heard that Yuanwu County in Zhengzhou has been robbed.
After killing more than a thousand people, how did you know that the Xia thieves would not be able to plunder people in Bianzhou?"
"The Desheng Army has arrived from the west," Zhu Quanzhong said briefly.
The Desheng troops on the left and right are cavalry. To deal with the Xia thieves running around, they can only use cavalry. The infantry often requires several times more troops to capture some of them. The cost is too high, not to mention that there are no troops at all.
"Your Majesty, I'm afraid the Desheng Army alone is not enough." Jingxiang said seriously: "I would like to ask the elite troops of the Zhi Army to go out of the city and cooperate with the Desheng Army to wipe out the thieves who have invaded Zheng and Bian. Most of the thieves are from the countryside.
If you are brave and don't have the determination to fight to the death, you can do it. If the troops are insufficient, you can also mobilize Ge Cong, a part of Zhou Long's military army, to support you."
Zhu Quanzhong was silent.
Suddenly there was a burst of warm cheers outside the city.
Everyone on the top of the city looked over and saw a Xia Army cavalry firing his bow from left to right, shooting down two Liang Army scouts in succession. Seeing that the third man could no longer escape, he immediately turned back to fight.
"Huh!" When the two riders were dozens of steps closer, a short spear was thrown at them like lightning.
The Liang Jun scout was caught off guard and was shot off his horse.
The Xia army cavalry jumped down lightly, drew out the iron sword from his waist, grabbed the Liang man's helmet, and wiped it horizontally, causing blood to spurt out.
"General Wang is mighty!"
"General Wang killed three thieves in a row, who can match this skill?"
"I, Gao Youqing, also killed a thief, no one recognizes me?"
"What bullshit Liang Wang? Such a huge reputation, but the result is that he is a turtle."
"You are already being sent to Bo Bianzhou for the second time. Are you ashamed? Do you think this can be done? Brothers Liang Jun, we might as well tie up Zhu Quanzhong and surrender."
Wave after wave of sounds rang out not far away. Zhu Quanzhong's expression remained unchanged, but the defenders became angry and fired their powerful crossbows from the top of the city, driving the Xia army's cavalry far away.
Zhu Quanzhong walked down to the top of the city calmly.
Jingxiang, who was following him, suddenly said: "Your Majesty, Bianzhou is empty, and the Xia thieves must know it, so they sent many Banqi to provoke me and lure me to encircle and suppress them. If we can earn Yingshui frontline soldiers and horses, then we can do it again."
It couldn't be better. Now we still have to calm down. If the king is unwilling to send the Changzhi Army to fight, the Shenwu Eighth Army has been training for more than a year, so he can be ordered to garrison in Wansheng Town, Suanzao County and other places to restrict the movement of the thieves and cavalry."
In fact, for the encirclement and suppression of the Xia Army cavalry, Caozhou Zhuzhen once proposed a quite effective plan, which was to use obstacles such as rivers to divide defense areas. A certain number of troops were stationed in each defense area.
Slow cutting, narrowing the range of activities of the Xia army's cavalry.
Jingxiang deeply agreed, but after careful calculation, he found that it would cost a lot of troops. Doubling the total strength of the Cao and Su camps would not be enough. Now he suggested that the new soldiers of the Shenwu Eighth Army be deployed to guard the traffic nodes. In fact, it was Zhu who
Just an old skill.
This is what is meant by drawing rivers to enclose the territory, using static methods to stop the movement, and then sending mobile troops to pursue and suppress it.
"The Eighth Army of Shenwu..." Zhu Quanzhong hesitated, but he still felt uneasy.
They are all a bunch of new recruits. They have been trained roughly for more than a year and have never fought in a battle. Is this useful?
Jingxiang observed the situation and immediately said: "Your Majesty, you must not send the soldiers and horses of the Yingshui camp to the north. The Xia thieves are keeping a close eye on them."
After arriving behind the scenes, Zhu Quanzhong finally sighed.
He had already seen that the Xia thieves wanted to eat up Pang Shigu's tribe. In late May, the thieves swarmed into Ruzhou, but they were mostly concentrated in Linru and Liang County areas.
?Haha, don’t you want to attract Pang Shigu’s army to march westward and have a decisive battle with it?
Zhu Quanzhong was sure that once Pang Shigu entered Ruzhou westward, the Xia thieves would definitely retreat step by step, and even suffer two small-scale defeats, attracting Pang Shigu's more than 100,000 troops to the vicinity of Yique Pass. Subsequently, Yang Zhai
The troops and horses from the direction were sent out to control Yingshui and Rushui, and cut off Pangshi's ancient grain road. Zhe Zongben's powerful army then marched north in large numbers, and attacked Li Tangbin's troops from the north and south, annihilating all the 100,000 horses in Ruzhou.
Once the Xia thieves succeed, Zhu Quanzhong will become like Zhu Xuan, Zhu Jin, and Shi Pu. He can only defend the city and has no ability to fight back, and will be attacked and destroyed at any time.
The Xia thieves were patient. They even deliberately waited for three months. However, they did not wait for Pang Shigu to advance westward. Instead, they saw him overhauling the fortresses and forts and consolidating the Yingshui defense line, so they could not help but go south and advance eastward.
The two armies faced each other across the Yingshui River for more than two months. During this period, dozens of large and small battles were fought, and thousands of people were killed and wounded on each side.
The Battle of Yingshui is related to the fate of Xia and Liang. It can be said to be a decisive battle.
For some reason, Zhu Quanzhong thought of Shi Pu.
In the first year of Wende (888), Zhu Zhen led a large army to attack Xuzhou, and Shi Pu led 70,000 infantry and cavalry to fight. The two sides fought in Wukang Town.
Using 70,000 horses, it was almost a decisive battle for Shi Pu in which the main force was exhausted. As a result, Zhu Zhen defeated Xu Bing, and Shi Pu fled back to Xuzhou in a hurry with the remaining defeated soldiers, suffering casualties along the way. The main force of Xu Zhen was annihilated.
If Liang Jun's last mobile force was annihilated in Yingshui, could he continue to hold on for five years like Shi Pu?
Of course, it will not be destroyed on the spot. This is the era when warriors rule the country, and it is not so easy to be destroyed. In other dynasties, they were basically destroyed after losing the decisive battle. The local states and counties could pass on the message, but the dynasty could not. This may be the only way.
Advantages to Bianzhou.
But no matter what, even if Yingshui does not win, it cannot suffer a disastrous defeat. The consequences of a disastrous defeat are too serious to bear.
"But the situation in the two states of Ying and Cai is critical. How to solve it?" Zhu Quanzhong asked: "In the area of Bian and Zheng, I can let the bandit army run away and tolerate the bandits entering the city of Bo Bianzhou. Even if people's hearts fluctuate, there will be no immediate trouble. But
Yingzhou is empty and powerful, so who can stop the Huaining army?"
"Your Majesty, you can mobilize the troops and horses of the Suzhou camp to advance westward. There is no need to defend the east, and it will be impossible to hold it." Jingxiang said: "Now we have to cut off the wrists of strong men to have any chance of victory."
Zhu Quanzhong thought silently for a long time, and then said: "I want to send an envoy to Yunzhou to explain my interests to Zhu Xuan. How about that?"
"Yes." Jingxiang said: "If Zhu Xuan can be persuaded, the thieves will have nowhere to go and Liang Hanyong will have to use the road to return to the town, or fall out with Zhu Xuan and attack Puzhou or Yunzhou. Either way is a good thing. The other is
, Huainan also needs to send envoys. The Huai people have repeatedly failed to conquer Anzhou, which is not very interesting. Now they can persuade Xingmi to invest the main force and attack Shouzhou again. The Huai River is not peaceful, and the Huai Ning army will naturally have no way to continue.
retreat."
"I didn't expect that now I alone can no longer suppress Shao Thief." Zhu Quanzhong laughed at himself: "Even if I try my best to find him, I can't find a chance."
"In a battle, the most important thing is to be undefeated. In the past, Emperor Taizong challenged Xue Rengao. The main forces of the two armies fought and the stalemate lasted for more than sixty days. Rengao challenged him repeatedly, but Emperor Taizong had deep trenches and high fortresses, strictly prohibiting his soldiers from going out to fight, and finally won a great victory. Today,
The main force of Xia's Luoyang camp has arrived at Yingshui, so patience is what matters now." Jingxiang advised: "There is still a chance. In the battle of Yingshui, if the main force of 50,000 Xia's thieves can be annihilated, the towns of Tang and Guang will be shocked.
, Ruzhou is back in my hands."
Jingxiang spoke very nicely, but Zhu Quanzhong was not very happy after hearing it. It turned out that even if Yingshui won the battle, it would only make Xia Thief vomit out of Ruzhou, but it would not be able to reverse the current situation? Will he continue to be passive? When will Shao Thief
Have you accumulated so many advantages step by step?
"Send envoy Yun Yang as soon as possible." Zhu Quanzhong said impatiently: "This situation cannot be delayed too long. The longer it is delayed, the greater the advantage of the Xia thieves."
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
On May 1st, we entered the stage of closed production, building floors, and time was a bit tight.
The conditions are too bad. You can't even see an ambulance selling cigarettes.
In addition, thank you all for your rewards. I still owe two chapters. I will find time to make up for it in the next few days.