Chapter 547: The Western Expeditionary Army is Destroyed
() Still unable to gather a large force of troops, and more than half of his sergeants were killed and wounded, Li Shentong knew that the situation was over, so he quickly ran away with a small group of his trusted soldiers!
At this time, the Yuan army was circling and strangulating the Tang army. Although some people saw Li Shentong and the small group of escapees, no one came to pursue them.
If you want to wipe out all 40,000 cavalry on this flat ground, it will be almost impossible! No matter what, there will always be fish that slip through the net!
Therefore, before this battle, the Yuan army set the goal of wiping out most of the Tang army. For those Tang soldiers who saw the opportunity early and escaped quickly, they did not pursue them relentlessly, but encouraged them to a certain extent.
Only in this way can the collapse of the Tang army be accelerated!
There was no one to stop him along the way, and Li Shentong ran very fast. However, the direction in which Li Shentong escaped was not Chang'an City, but the direction of Dashanguan Pass.
This is actually Li Shentong's plan to go back and join the rear team...
Although the rear army only has 30,000 infantry, it is still an elite force after all, and it also has a large amount of food, grass and baggage, which can barely support it even if something happens to happen.
In short, as long as you are not completely wiped out, you will always look better.
Li Shentong naturally had a good idea, but unfortunately he took it for granted.
The horses ran non-stop for one day and two nights, like a bereaved dog, and more than 800 cavalrymen lost nearly half of them. On the third day, Li Shentong finally joined the rear army!
However, those who met Li Shentong were only the remnants of the rear army, and they met eight groups sporadically, totaling less than 2,000 people.
After careful interrogation, Li Shentong found out that on the same day that his front group was attacked, the 30,000 infantry troops in the rear were also sniped by the Yuan army.
Compared to the ambush he encountered, the Yuan army's sniper attack was much more insignificant.
First, waves of cavalry harassed them continuously during the day.
There were not many Yuan soldiers coming each time. They were all three thousand cavalry. Moreover, these cavalry did not harass for a long time each time, but each of them just lit a pot of twelve feather arrows into rockets and threw them into
The Tang army loaded onto the baggage train and then retreated neatly.
Because the intensity of the sabotage was not strong enough, the Tang army was able to extinguish the flames immediately every time. However, after several attempts, the Tang army was still in a state of disgrace and embarrassment.
The marching commander of the rear army of the Tang Army was an old soldier who had raised troops with Li Shentong in response to Li Yuan's rebellion in the early years. His name was Liu Chongli. He was from the Liu family in Hedong, but only a branch.
Having followed Li Shentong on the battlefield for many years, Liu Chongli can be considered a veteran general, but unfortunately he is not a famous general. He can march and fight in a regular manner. Faced with the Yuan army's unpredictable and elusive harassment methods, the little old man Liu Chongli has to deal with it.
When I got up, I was in a bit of a hurry and full of flaws.
As a result, it only took less than a day for Liu Chongli to be exhausted and haggard by the Yuan army.
After finally waiting until evening, Liu Chongli began to set up camp. Over there, the Yuan army began to conduct night attacks again.
What made Liu Chongli a little bit relieved was that although the Yuan army attacked at night, they still mainly harassed them. They appeared like ghosts from different directions every time, and then quickly dropped a bunch of weapons into the Tang army's camp.
The rocket flew away.
After doing this five or six times, Liu Chongli consciously figured out the context of the Yuan army, that is, the Yuan army was a cavalry army and should not use forceful attacks to rob camps.
Consciously knowing the trump card of the Yuan army, Liu Chongli only ordered his people to guard the camp, stay vigilant, and not easily go out to provoke the Yuan army. If you encounter trouble, you should tolerate it if you can, and if you can't tolerate it, you must tolerate it!
That night, the Yuan army harassed the Tang army nine times, and each time they left as soon as they touched it.
Gradually, the Tang army also let go of their initial alarm and became accustomed to the harassment of the Yuan army. Every time they saw the Yuan army approaching, these Tang soldiers not only did not make noises to come out of the stronghold to meet the enemy, but some of the good guys actually gloated about their misfortune.
Let's make a bet that the Yuan army can set a few tents on fire this time.
After getting used to it for a long time, you start to feel numb!
This was the case with the Tang troops under Liu Chongli.
After being tortured by the Yuan army's harassment tactics all night, everyone in the Tang army began to feel numb, thinking that the Yuan army's methods were nothing more than this.
More importantly, after being tortured for nearly a day and night, Tang Jun was exhausted, and his upper and lower eyelids were fighting!
After the nine night attacks, the Yuan army guarding the camp waited for nearly an hour, but still no Yuan army came to attack the camp. Looking at the sky again, it was almost Yin time and more than an hour later, it should be dawn.
The Yuan army must have been tired from all the hard work and went back to camp to sleep.
Thinking like this, everyone in the Tang army relaxed their vigilance, and even many of the sergeants on duty began to be lazy and doze off!
What the Tang army didn't know was that at this moment, not far from the Tang army's camp, groups of Yuan troops, with their titles and horses wrapped in hoofs, were quietly approaching the Tang army's camp under the cover of pre-dawn darkness.
This time the Yuan army did not light a torch at all, nor did they make any noise. Instead, they staged a sneak attack and used a small force to quickly approach the Tang army's camp. While the Tang army did not react, they struck three times, five times and two times five times.
The ground path opened the fence of the Tang army's camp, and then the Yuan army's cavalry rolled in and began a bloody massacre of Tang Jun.
At the beginning of the camp, the Tang army, under the arrangement of Liu Chongli, set up many hidden sentries in order to prevent the Yuan army from raiding.
It's a pity that all the hidden sentries outside the camp were completely eliminated during the harassment by the Yuan army.
But this time when the Yuan army attacked here, they did not take the usual route. They abandoned the camp gate and directly opened a hole in the camp fence. As a result, all the means Liu Chongli arranged inside the camp gate were nullified!
As for the fence inside the camp, although Liu Chongli had some arrangements, his methods were not sufficient. Under the continuous crushing of the Yuan army's cavalry, they all failed and the Yuan army easily broke into the camp.
Being attacked suddenly, they were already a little nervous. The Tang army was in chaos. They only persisted in resisting for less than half an hour, and were completely overwhelmed by the Yuan army. They herded sheep all over the ground in a chaotic manner! The only thing waiting for them was
The fate of destruction!
After a fierce battle all night, the battle ended with a complete victory for Yuchi Gong's troops. Of the 30,000 infantry under Liu Chongli's command, less than 5,000 were able to escape alive in the end.
Li Shentong was able to miraculously gather nearly two thousand men and horses here, which is no small miracle.
Knowing that there was no point in staying any longer, Li Shentong immediately took a little more than two thousand men and horses, took a detour, stayed overnight at dawn, and galloped towards Chang'an.
After digging tree bark, eating wild vegetables, and killing war horses for nearly three days, Li Shentong and his party finally arrived outside Chang'an City.
Glancing at the soldiers behind him who were no better than refugees, Li Shentong decisively gave up attacking the Yuan army camp, and Wang Nian, who rescued Li Jiancheng in Chang'an, honestly found a remote corner and settled down carefully.
Li Shentong's idea is naturally to take advantage of the battle between the two sides to wait for an opportunity to attack, and maybe he can accomplish a miracle.
In this case, when you enter Chang'an City in the future, your face will look better.
After waiting outside Chang'an City for nearly two days, Li Shentong and others not only failed to find an opportunity to make atonement, but became increasingly desperate.
Because, the Yuan army on the opposite side gathered more and more, and now it has grown from the original 50,000 to 60,000 troops to the current army of nearly 100,000. The scope of the Yuan army's scouts and examinations has also become larger and larger. In the end,
Li Shentong had to withdraw more than a hundred miles away from the Yuan army's camp.
At this distance, even Li Shentong could not know the movements of the Yuan army, and even if he knew, he would not have time to react!
What can be done?
Just when Li Shentong was in a dilemma, the Yuan army on the opposite side finally made a new move!
On this day, a group of tens of thousands of Yuan troops slowly drove out of the camp, taking advantage of the night to approach the west gate of Chang'an City. (To be continued.)