At the foot of Duotan Ridge, Lu Ketu rode his horse on the hilltop with great satisfaction.
There were corpses lying all over the ground at the foot of the hill. Most of them were quite strong, because these were the chiefs of the nine surnames Ogus and Geluolu.
Bai Congxin, Lu Sanlang and others who were still on the other side of Duotan Ridge thought that Luktu must have gone through a fierce fight before they were able to defeat the Ogus-Galulu coalition and achieved the victory of the annihilation battle.
But in fact, the situation may be a little bit different from what they thought.
Luktu touched the silver-white cloth armor on his body with satisfaction, as if he were touching his lover.
The steel plate lining this kind of armor is said to be the latest product of Tiangongyuan. Its defensive power is comparable to that of armor, but it weighs only more than thirty kilograms. Even if there is a ring lock armor twisted with steel wires inside, it will only weigh sixty-four kilograms.
Five pounds.
This weight is not particularly heavy for an ordinary war horse. It is definitely not suitable for long-distance marching, but it is absolutely no problem for short-distance and short-time charges.
Luktu's strategy for defeating the Ogus-Galulu coalition was very simple. He first asked some of the main men to bring with them a large number of retinues and a large number of righteous followers to fight with the Ogus-Galulu coalition in accordance with the usual fighting methods of the grasslands.
After arriving at the battle site, directly let two thousand regular soldiers and three thousand zhending soldiers rush towards the coalition forces. When the two sides are locked in a battle and are inseparable, they then order the armored soldiers to attack.
Most of these armored soldiers were wearing pierced armor and were extremely brave. The Geluolu people who were instantly killed jumped on their backs and looked like the best among the best.
When the opposing coalition forces saw that Luktu had unleashed all his most important killing moves, they quickly deployed their ace to block it.
The opportunity appeared at this moment. It turned out that Lu Ketu placed the most fierce and fierce one, Baiyu Guiyilang, who was wearing cloth-covered iron armor, among the main soldiers who attacked.
As soon as he saw the armored cavalry on the opposite side dispatched, he immediately asked Gui Yilang to put on cloth-covered iron armor.
At this time, the Guiyi Langs were only a few hundred steps away from the allied commander. Their armor was light and very easy to wear. In an instant, when the opponent was completely unprepared, they suddenly appeared.
Even the commander of the coalition forces, the Oghuz native Awuban, responded immediately and ordered his personal guards to stop them desperately. The nearest cavalry teams also rushed back desperately.
But the arrows they shot, the scimitars they wielded, and even the inferior carbines in their hands could not break through the armor of Gui Yilang.
In this way, under the gaze of tens of thousands of eyes, Luktu personally led the team and took away Awu, the commander of the Ogus-Galulu coalition army, in one attack, and then suffered a devastating defeat.
In fact, this tactic, which involves first disguising as a soldier, approaching the opponent's commander, quickly putting on heavy armor, and then directly killing the opponent's commander using only his thick armor and quick sword, has been tried by Luktu many times.
Whether they are Beizhu Diviners, Mierqi people or Menggu people, there are countless people who have fallen victim to his tactics.
Of course, you can also order the eagle shooter to carry the divine arm bow, rush the horse to about 150 paces, and suddenly fire arrows. These tactics are very effective in battles with thousands to less than 50,000 people.
The internal reason is actually that Zhang Gao once again opened up a small gap in weapons between the Central Plains regime and the grassland tribes by using weapons such as cloth-covered armor and divine arm bows.
Ruktu, who is very talented, keenly grasped the dividends brought by this promotion.
"Qianhu, I've found it, I've found it!" Luktu was counting his harvests, and Gui Yilang, who was born in Beizu Bu, ran over happily.
"Qianhu, we found someone from Ogusxi Dayehu."
As for the Nine Surnamed Ogus, it is not essentially an ethnic concept, but an alliance concept.
Including the Uyghurs, Basimis, Naimans, Higas, etc., they were all once members of the nine-surnamed Oghuz. Later, some tribes left this agreed-upon alliance, and some tribes joined.
More than a hundred years ago, a tribe with Ogus as its tribal name left the nine-surnamed Ogus and established its own, uh, barely national tribal alliance around the Aral Sea.
Its leader called himself Yehu, and others called him Xiyehu. Historically, they were called Ogus Yehuguo.
The later famous Loknutdin Seljuk Khan and the group of people who established the Seljuk Empire were all born out of this Oghuz Ye protectorate.
At this time, the 'Xiao Qiang', who was nearly fifty years old, and the former Saktu Khan of the Kara Khanate, took refuge in Ogus Yehu.
Moreover, with his help, Dayehu of the Ogus Yehu Kingdom and Guo Guangyi of the Talas were ready to jointly convert to Manichaeism and establish it as the state religion.
Moreover, the two sides will form an alliance and go south together to tear off a piece of flesh from the weakened lion of Samambas, and even eventually destroy Samambas.
What? You ask me if Saktu Khan doesn’t believe in Tianfang religion? Then your news is too backward.
Five years ago, Saktu returned to the embrace of Manichaeism with his remaining 3,000 herdsmen, otherwise he would not have been accepted again by the Geluolu people.
"Bring them here immediately and I will interrogate them personally!" Luktu became even more excited. Capturing the people who came from Ogusiye Huguo was equivalent to opening up the road from Yibohai to Talos.
....
Four months ago, at the end of April, Guo Guangyi looked at Suiye City. He turned away from all his subordinates and showed a rare look of despair in his eyes.
All his plans were so good, and the environment he faced was better than that of Shi Sulu Khan, the sudden rider in the past.
He fully believed that he could completely defeat the army coming from the imperial court in the clear wilderness. From then on, he would just wait for the one-stop service of appeasement, conferment, and marriage.
But Guo Guangyi never expected that when he thought the imperial army was still training in Shule, Suiye would be attacked by surprise.
The 4,000 troops he stationed, including the 600 White Wolf Army and his younger brother Guo Guangjie, were easily defeated by a few hundred people, and Suiye City fell into the hands of the imperial court.
Guo Guangyi is deeply aware of the horror of losing Broken Leaf, because the real value of the entire Broken Leaf area, including Talas, is the long strip from Broken Leaf to Talas.
Among them, Broken Leaf is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and only the west side leading to Talas has a gap, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.
In addition, this place, which can become the Broken Leaf Basin, has rich resources such as hot lakes and Broken Leaf Water. It is the most suitable area for farming in the entire Broken Leaf area.
It can be said that Guo Guangyi envisaged that the most valuable thing in his Suiye-Talas Khanate was the Suiye area. And he also needed Suiye Jiancheng to defend it this time.
Therefore, as soon as Guo Guangyi received the news that Broken Leaf had been captured by the imperial court in a surprise attack, he immediately recruited a total of 40,000 people to 'recover' Broken Leaf.
Then, this careerist, who looked like a Han Chinese and could speak simple Chinese, but had never had much contact with Han culture in his life, saw what the Five Generations of Tooth Soldiers were like.
He had 40,000 men surrounding Suiye City and attacked from all sides. Not only was he unable to defeat them, but he was often attacked at night by armored soldiers lowered from the city walls.
Often there are more than a hundred of them, and they can defeat Guang Guangyi's two or three thousand soldiers until they howl like ghosts and wolves. It doesn't matter whether you have a White Wolf Army or not. In the eyes of these people, they are no different from civilians.
Moreover, they also have a powerful crossbow with a very long range, which can catch people outside even at the top of the city.
Therefore, even if Guo Guangyi mobilized troops to drive away these generals who descended from the city to attack, it would not have much effect at all. As long as they retreated to the city wall, Guo Guangyi would be helpless.
After two months of fighting, Guo Guangyi became more and more frightened, and the morale of his troops became even lower.
A few days ago, there was even a situation where the Zhou army did not leave the city to attack, but the military camp was directly bombed because there was not much noise.
This forced Guo Guangyi to move his troops, whose morale and combat effectiveness were relatively low, to station further west to prevent their bombing of the camp from collapsing the entire army.
....
Yao Yuanfu was leaning on the east gate of Suiye City. He even had the urge to rush out with his troops and stage a great victory from 2,000 to 40,000.
This is really not because Yao Yuanfu is too crazy, but because the other side is really rubbish.
He has never seen such a rubbish army attacking a city. Forty thousand people surrounded and fought fiercely. There were no rams, Lu Gong chariots, rams, ladders, nor a series of weapons such as trebuchets and Fuyuan crossbows.
The only means of attack is to swarm close to the city wall, use bows and arrows from below to suppress the city wall, and then have melee soldiers armed with single swords, large shields and other weapons hook the top of the city wall with grappling hooks, and then forcefully climb up.
There were only dozens of ladders, and Yao Yuanfu was unwilling to admit that they were siege ladders.
Oh, by the way! In addition, they will also have another method, which is to pile up a mountain of earth as high as the city wall. Then they will either use bows and arrows to suppress it, or they will put up a few planks to climb up here.
Yao Yuanfu was not polite at all, and immediately showed these guys what it meant to defend the city, including but not limited to boiling gold juice, digging pits on the city wall, throwing iron caltrops, setting fire to oil, etc.
Guo Guangyi besieged the city for a month and a half with 40,000 men. Not even a single section of the city wall was captured. Instead, he suffered thousands of casualties. In the end, it was basically just a siege, with no morale left to attack.
However, Yao Yuanfu still gave up the idea of leaving the city for a large-scale raid. It was not because he was afraid of being defeated, but because there was a lack of horses in the city, and there were 60,000 to 70,000 war horses on the opposite side.
Even if they leave the city for a surprise attack, they can't defeat them. Even if they are defeated, they can't pursue and expand the results.
....
At the beginning of May, Hu Guang, who had obtained the military power of the Grand Prince of the Jin Kingdom, marched to Anxi and sent 10,000 athletes from all ethnic groups in Beiting and 45,000 civilians to cross the Tianshan Mountains.
Soon the fortress built by Guang Guangyi on the bank of the Zhenzhu River (Nalen River) was captured, and the army was about to arrive at Suiye.
Guo Guangyi, on the other hand, could only hurriedly retreat from Suiye and retreated to his last stronghold, which was also the sad place for the Anxi Army.