The war on the northern front was getting increasingly intense, and coupled with Yelu Yanxi's extravagant spending in previous years, the treasury was naturally tight. In order to appease the soldiers in the north, the imperial court could only allocate a small amount of money and food to the north.
The army in the south had no food and grass, so naturally they could only follow the example of their ancestors and go to the Song Dynasty in batches to harvest grass and valleys.
When Cai Jing was in power in the Song Dynasty, he was dedicated to whitewashing the peace. After receiving border notifications and seeing that there was no large-scale invasion by the Liao Kingdom, he suppressed the news and did not report it to the emperor.
After Liang Shicheng and others came to power, they conspired to unite the Jin Dynasty to destroy the Liao Dynasty. When they did not understand the situation of the Liao and Jin Dynasties, they did not want to conflict with the Liao Kingdom, so they still ignored it and only ordered the border states to guard the city and not provoke a riot.
The war only caused suffering to the border villagers.
Although Yelu Dashi was familiar with poetry and books, he did not know who was right or wrong. He just hated Zengtou City for intercepting and killing many of his Liao cavalry. He had long planned to attack Zengtou City, but the Liao Kingdom was also afraid of provoking the Song Dynasty.
In the war between the two countries, the Liao cavalry was prohibited from invading the Song Dynasty on both sides.
However, the heavy snowfall during the winter solstice was much larger in the Liao Kingdom than in the Song Kingdom, and the severe cold weather in the north made it harder for the snow to melt. The thick snow buried all the withered and yellow grass stalks, and the livestock of each tribe were greatly affected.
Masses froze to death and starved to death, and a large number of hungry people also appeared in various state capitals.
The northern front continued to press for money and food, and Yelv Chun, who was left behind in Nanjing's Xijin Prefecture, had to order the border states to increase the scale of plundering into the Song Dynasty, and assigned the amount of money and food to each state.
Yelu Dashi was no longer bound by the imperial court, so he immediately led a large army across the border and set up an ambush, preparing to annihilate the main force of Zengtou City first and then loot the city.
Yelu Dashi watched as the Zengtou City soldiers and horses at the foot of the mountain were about to enter the encirclement under the yin* of his small group of cavalry. In another two miles, the Zengtou City soldiers and horses would not be able to escape the fate of the entire army being destroyed.
The soldiers who were preparing to set off the smoke had already lit torches.
However, the Zengtou City soldiers and horses suddenly made a small circle, turned around and went back.
As the soldiers watched Zengtou City's soldiers and horses retreating, they couldn't help but said anxiously: "Maybe they were discovered by these barbarians. Lin Ya should give the order to pursue them quickly. It won't take ten miles for our Daliao cavalry to catch up with these barbarians."
Yelu Dashi originally wanted to wipe out all the soldiers and horses in Zengtou City, and then attacked Zengtou City, but there was less resistance. But now that the plan failed, Zengtou City soldiers and horses fled back, and he did not want to let it go.
All the troops and horses in Zengtou City were withdrawn.
"Light up the smoke."
Yelu Dashi shouted loudly, got on his horse and rushed down the mountain.
When the Liao cavalry who were lying in ambush saw the smoke, they no longer hid, and they all chased the soldiers and horses towards Zengtou City.
The soldiers and horses of Zengtou City couldn't help but panic when they heard the sound of horse hooves that shook the mountains and the ground behind them. The soldiers and horses who were still in some formation suddenly became chaotic.
After the heavy snowfall in the winter solstice, the Liao cavalry began to enter the country and plunder on a large scale. Several hundred Liao cavalry even arrived near Zengtou City and plundered several villages.
In the past, the Liao soldiers only had more than a hundred cavalry, and after the five tigers of the Zeng family began to hunt the Liao cavalry, the Liao soldiers rarely came near Zengtou City.
Zeng Tu only thought that there was another famine in the Liao Kingdom after the heavy snowfall, so the Liao soldiers came in large groups, and he did not suspect a fraud. He immediately led two thousand men from Zengtou City to set up an ambush, preparing to ambush the Liao cavalry. Unexpectedly, he only killed them
Dozens of people were killed by this group of Liao cavalry who broke through the encirclement.
Zeng Tu immediately led his troops to catch up, and when he was about to catch up, someone from Zengtou City sent word that the Liangshan army was coming to attack, telling them to lead their troops back quickly.
Zeng Tu was afraid of losing Zengtou City, so he had no choice but to abandon his Liao cavalry and go to Zengtou City.
Su Ding turned around and looked at the dust swirling up behind him, and said in shock: "It turns out that the Liao soldiers and horses were setting up an ambush here. Fortunately, the people sent by the Grand Duke were a step ahead. Otherwise, if it were later, we might have been surrounded by the Liao cavalry.
"
Zeng Tu's expression changed drastically when he heard the thundering of hooves behind him. He hit his horse hard and shouted, "Quickly, don't worry about the infantry."
Zeng Suo was surprised and said: "There are 1,500 infantry troops."
Zeng Tu glared at Zeng Suo and said, "The Liao dogs are here well prepared. If the cavalry army can escape, we will be in danger. How can we take care of the infantry."
Zeng Suo turned around and took a look. Liao Qi had already appeared in the endless distance. He didn't dare to say anything anymore and ran away with Zeng Tu Lang under his horse's belly.
The infantry behind them were quickly overwhelmed by the charge of the Liao cavalry, which did not stop the Liao cavalry.
The Liao cavalry just drove their horses to knock down and trample the young men in Zengtou City, or cut down the young men next to them with their scimitars like cutting wheat. If they were lucky enough to slip through the net, the cavalry behind them would naturally deal with them.
Ding Zhuang of Zengtou City, who had no one under his command, caused almost no damage to the Liao cavalry before the entire army was destroyed.
Many of the war horses of Zengtou City's cavalry were nothing more than rogue horses. Although they were initially several miles ahead of the Liao cavalry, after running for more than ten miles, the lagging cavalry was overtaken by the Liao cavalry.
Zeng Tu heard the screams of the cavalry behind him and did not dare to look back.
Yelu Dashi held the horse's belly between his legs and sat motionless on the saddle, with his bow and arrow ready, staring at a Zengtou City horse trooper who was just running away in front of him. He shot an arrow and the horse trooper fell off his horse.
When Yelu Dashi reached out to touch the arrows in the arrow pot, he found nothing. Only then did he realize that all the arrows in the pot were empty.
Seeing that there were less than two hundred horsemen left in front of him, Yelu Dashi reached out and asked for another pot of arrows from the soldiers on the side.
I saw a man coming from far south on flying horse and shouting: "Report, there is a large group of soldiers coming from the south towards Zengtou City."
Yelu Dashi shot another Zengtou City cavalry soldier off his horse and asked, "Is it the frontier army of the Song Dynasty?"
"Unlike the soldiers and horses of the Song Dynasty, those soldiers and horses were all wearing black armor. We met a few probing horses riding black armor before, so we went to the south to scout out. There were always thousands of black-clad and black-armored soldiers and horses heading towards us from the south.
Come."
These distant warriors under Yelu Dashi were the few remaining elite cavalry of the Khitan. When the two armies were fighting, they would stay far outside the battlefield to spy on information to prevent an ambush.
Yelu Dashi couldn't figure out the whereabouts of these soldiers and horses for a while. To be cautious, he reined in his troops and horses, and then sent a distant blocker to find out where the troops from the south were coming.
Zeng Tu and others had previously pursued the Liao soldiers for a while, and were pursued for dozens of miles by the Liao cavalry who were waiting for work. Their horse power had already declined. Just when they thought they were doomed, they saw the Liao soldiers suddenly stop.
After escaping into Zengtou City, Zeng Tu dared to turn around and count his troops.
When I heard that less than 200 horsemen had returned, I felt like crying without tears. I originally thought that hundreds of Liao cavalry could be surrounded and killed in this battle. Unexpectedly, in the end, they were almost surrounded by Liao soldiers. Even the two thousand soldiers and horses escaped.
Less than two hundred.
In addition, there were more than a thousand casualties in the last battle with Liangshan. Now Zengtou City has only two thousand soldiers and horses left to fight. Moreover, with the loss of so many people, the Zeng family has to spend a lot of gold and silver to appease them.
There are people in town.
When the Zengtou City garrison saw Zeng Tu leading an army of less than 200 horses back in embarrassment, they were also panic-stricken. (To be continued. Please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!)