On the road, densely packed troops can be seen as far as the eye can see. The Dahua soldiers walked on their tired legs in the humid air, step by step on the road home.
They were very depressed because they finally walked through Lijiacun from Nanfengkou, and then walked from Lijiacun to Xicong.
They really suffered a lot along the way: it rained continuously when they arrived, and everyone could only walk a few kilometers every day. There was mud and water everywhere, which seriously tortured the feet of the Dahua army.
As mentioned before, this kind of weather is very unfriendly to the feet of soldiers. Wet boots will cause the feet to begin to rot. Soldiers generally suffer from beriberi. When the fungal cross-infection is serious, it can make people miserable.
Therefore, the march from Nanfengkou to Xicong was extremely slow. The soldiers complained, and the officers were also miserable.
Compared with the well-equipped Tang Army, Dahua's troops were even worse in details. They did not have enough rainproof equipment, their raincoats were of poor quality, and almost half of them did not have such equipment at all.
These people can only make do with traditional raincoats and leather, and then they get soaked while walking on the road.
Influenza is rampant in the army. If it were not for the purchase of some drug preparation technology from Datang Medicine, the Dahua Army itself might have collapsed at this time.
Despite this, the consumption of medicine is also very huge, and military doctors have to be busy for a long time every day to comfort those unlucky people who keep coughing and having fever.
It was only then that the Dahua troops who had gathered to advance towards Xicong remembered that they were here to fight.
But they haven't seen the enemies of the Tang Dynasty yet, and they are about to kill themselves. Just when these troops were waiting angrily to go to Xicong to vent their anger on the Tang people, they received the order to retreat...
…
Qian Jinhang didn't even know how to mention this matter to these troops. They had gone through so much trouble in the rain and had to walk back the same way without firing a shot.
This was desperate news for everyone. So after calming the emotions of the soldiers for more than a day, the troops who had received the order to return to defense began to slowly move away.
Due to the rain, the tent was basically soaked through, and most of the white canvas painted with waterproof tung oil had almost lost its waterproof function.
These heavy things were piled haphazardly on the carriage. The soldiers looked at the gray sky and stepped forward helplessly again.
Their shoes were covered in mud because the supply convoys had rolled over them over and over again, so the road they came from was actually very muddy.
The soldiers walked one step at a time, and from time to time they could see a group of people crowded in the middle of the road, pushing a carriage that was stuck in the mud while chanting.
Crowded on the road together with the soldiers are artillery pieces of various calibers. These are the most valuable items in the army and cannot be thrown away easily.
Therefore, when the soldiers were on their way, they had to constantly stop to help push these heavy iron lumps out of the mud pit. Therefore, the troop's marching speed could simply be described as crawling.
They were moving slowly on the ground like turtles, and within a few miles they had to consider camping again - even though they had just left the previous camp a few hours ago, and now they had to start looking for a place to stay.
Set up camp again in a drier place.
This is why after so many days of departure, the Tang army had already captured Tengyun, and they had just arrived at Lijiacun.
There was no way, morale had been tortured by the continuous rush to the point of collapse, and even Dahua's commanders did not dare to easily force these soldiers who were on the verge of exploding like explosives.
"Lijia Village is ahead. The forward troops have already crossed there... It will take about two days before we can return to Nanfengkou." A commander stood on the high ground, overlooking his troops.
Like a giant snake, his troops snaked along the road. The land on both sides was full of camps, and there were endless carriages, cars and artillery parked there.
"The road will be easy to walk soon. I heard that the road has been being built before. It has been paved with stones from Nanfengkou to Lijiacun." Another general thought of the previous message and comforted himself.
"What have you been doing?" The Dahua Army general led by him snorted coldly, obviously very dissatisfied with the logistics engineering troops.
This road should have been repaired a long time ago, or at least some stones should be paved to make it easier for the troops to walk. Improving the efficiency of supply will also make the front line more comfortable, right?
However, due to rain and war conditions, the plan to build this road was obviously delayed. Until recently, it was barely built near Lijiacun.
However, they have also arrived at Lijiacun, and there are good roads ahead. This is undoubtedly good news for the Dahua troops.
In this way, they can rush back to Nanfengkou more quickly. Once there, they can enter the city, where they can at least have a few hot meals, live in a covered house for a few days, and let the troops rest and recuperate.
As for the Tang army going south to threaten Nanfengkou, it was actually not a big deal in the eyes of the commanders of the retreating Dahua troops.
After all, as long as they reach Nanfengkou, with more than 200,000 troops stationed in a supply transfer station with strong fortifications, the Tang army may not be able to do anything against them in a short period of time.
"I don't know what's going on with General Ding Hong. It should be fine for two days, right?" Breathing the humid air, the leading commander asked with his hands behind his back.
There were only two drizzles in the past two days. Overall, the weather was pretty good. At least there were no obstacles to the march. It was obviously much better than the heavy downpour.
Although the clearing of the weather is not good news for the overall war situation, for the retreating Dahua troops, the increasingly clear weather is obviously good news.
"Don't worry, the previous message said that General Ding Hong has at least 50,000 troops in his hands, and he will only defend for two or three days. There shouldn't be any problems." The general next to him said with certainty.
Not to mention that the Tang army came all the way from afar, but there were still 50,000 people. Dahua troops relied on permanently prepared fortifications, so they should be very confident in holding on for two or three days.
"What's more, didn't Ding Hong just send a message a few hours ago, saying that he repelled another attack by the Tang Army and that the outer defense line at Nanfengkou is still there and is impregnable?" Then, the general added.
"The battle situation is changing rapidly, so we should be more cautious." The general with his hands behind his back was a little worried. He couldn't tell what would go wrong, but he was always worried about what might go wrong.
This feeling can be said to be the sixth sense or intuition, like a rat on a ship that is about to be silenced, like a suspicious wife whose husband has cheated on her...
While the two people were talking, a fast horse galloped down the road. The knight on the horse shouted loudly, and regardless of the cursing soldiers on the way, he rushed through the crowd without slowing down.
The soldiers walking on the road gave way, but soon the knight rushed off the roadbed and rushed towards the high ground here.
The knight waved his whip and kept whipping his mount. He reached the front of the hillside and met the guards, and then he got off his horse.
He staggered all the way up to the high ground, panting, and came to several generals. He pointed in the direction of Lijia Village and lowered his voice and cried: "It's not good! Tang Army! Tang Army is coming to kill us!"
"What?" The general who came up to help the signal soldier was frightened when he heard the news and almost threw the signal soldier to the ground.
The signal soldier staggered, raised his head and repeated mournfully: "Oh no! The Tang army is coming! They have arrived at Lijia Village! They have already arrived at Lijia Village!"
"Nonsense! How could the Tang army appear in Lijia Village!" The leading general scolded the other party with a downcast face.
The knight quickly defended himself: "General! I am the communications soldier of the 1st Regiment of the 204th Division of the Pioneer Force... We just arrived at Lijia Village, but when we entered, we found that there were Tang Army tanks in the village, and then they started fighting, and the entire 1st Regiment was captured.
It was defeated, and most of the 204th Division's headquarters was lost. I was ordered to report the news!"
The signal soldier spoke more and more fluently and gave a brief report on the situation. Such detailed battle conditions made several generals believe that there was indeed a Tang army troop coming from nowhere in Lijiacun.
"Tank troops...this...can't be the Tang army coming from both wings and surrounding us?" A general frowned and guessed a possibility.
"There is no news from the troops in the north. Logically speaking, it is unlikely..." Another general immediately retorted. However, his tone of voice was not firm, and his voice became a bit softer as he spoke.
However, someone soon raised another possibility: "Could there be a problem at Nanfengkou? If the Tang army came from Nanfengkou, it would be terrible."
Hearing what he said, many people turned pale with fright: If Nanfengkou was really lost, then their situation would be really not good: "It's unlikely, right? How could Ding Hong lose it?
Nanfengkou?”
On the other side, the leading general frowned and looked in the direction of Lijiacun - he was no longer willing to guess whether Nanfengkou was lost or the Tang army behind him was catching up from the flank.
Because these issues are no longer important, all he can think about now is: where should his nearly 200,000 troops go?
They don't have the strong defenses at Nanfengkou, and they don't even have many tanks to cover them. How can they face the Tang army's attack in this wilderness?
