The people's hearts are set, and the march continues.
Within a moment, the entire army crossed the Xiangshan Pass.
Correspondingly, the smoke rising in the distance kept approaching, and below the smoke, the Mongolian army rolled towards them.
The smoke and dust stirred up where the army marches is called military spirit. Some people believe that the various appearances of military spirit can indicate the success or failure of the war. Guo Zhongyuan didn't believe in such mysterious things, but he could indeed feel from the smoke whether the enemy's footsteps were rapid or not, and whether the queue was neat or not, and then he could roughly estimate the ratio of soldiers to knights in the team. .
The scout was right. It was indeed a surrendered Jin army, fully equipped and with high morale.
In this kind of open terrain, it is difficult to carry out ambush and interception operations. When two armies meet, they can only fight head-on. The stronger one will win.
About three miles apart, the two armies each slowed down and gathered into battle formations.
Although the number of enemy troops was smaller, their morale was extremely high, as if they did not take Guo Zhongyuan's troops seriously. They faced Guo Zhongyuan's troops and formed a sharp triangular formation.
At the front of the sharp formation was a group of arrogant soldiers. They shouted loudly, provoking Guo Zhongyuan, and insulted him in contemptuous tones. Some laughed maniacally, ran out of the queue, picked up gravel or cow and horse excrement on the ground, and threw it at them.
In response, Guo Zhongyuan only ordered: "Anyone who acts rashly will be killed."
He is not very good at arranging troops and formations, and his soldiers improvise, let alone master any complex formations. Therefore, the formation sent out is the simplest and most basic square formation.
In the front row are vehicles connected end to end with thick ropes. The crossbowmen stood leaning on the vehicles and put the quivers on their backs in front of them. The officers leading them walked quickly while shouting loudly to remind them that they must watch. If the military flag is not swaying, you cannot shoot.
Compared to the total force of five thousand men, the number of crossbowmen was very small. There were three columns of carts, but only two columns of crossbowmen.
Behind the crossbowmen were infantry armed with spears. They lined up densely, stacked in front and back, arranged in five or six columns.
Behind them are many small square formations mixed together. These phalanxes were a mixture of sword, shield, and spearmen, as well as Guo Zhongyuan's experienced soldiers, prisoners, and strong men. Every soldier plays a backbone role at this time and must maintain the stability of the entire team he leads.
Guo Zhongyuan himself is in these small square formations.
And those at the very back were the elite soldiers led by Xiao Molle. The cavalrymen led their horses, sitting or standing relaxedly, sometimes looking ahead with hawk-like eyes to intimidate those who showed the slightest sign of wavering.
Some people even raised their heads to signal. The heads were dripping with blood. They were people who disobeyed military orders during the formation and were beheaded.
One of them was standing in a small square next to Guo Zhongyuan when he was killed. He was not a prisoner or a defeated soldier, but a soldier of Guo Zhongyuan's headquarters. Xiao MoLe holds a golden sword and kills without any scruples.
This made Guo Zhongyuan very satisfied.
Most of the generals under Guo Ning are border guards stationed in northern Xinjiang for a long time. Some even served in the army on the frontier for generations, witnessing the rise of the Great Mongolia from scratch and from weakness to strength. Everything in the army is as natural to them as breathing. Although most of them were subordinate to their subordinates, in terms of commanding operations, the fat-minded Jurchen generals in Zhongdu were far inferior to them.
But Li Ting, Guo Zhongyuan and others are different from these soldiers guarding the border. They originally had their own identities and professions, but in recent years, after the imperial court had been unsuccessful in fighting with Mongolia, they had been signed to the northern Xinjiang one after another. Then, he suddenly faced the strongest military group in the modern era and died with blood flowing everywhere.
People who survive in this environment may have high or low military abilities, but their common characteristic is that they are ruthless.
Li Ting is very cruel to himself, and his leadership style is no less than that of Guo Ning.
Guo Zhongyuan, on the other hand, was very cruel to the soldiers.
Many people who are familiar with Guo Zhongyuan regard him as a generous brother and a reliable partner. Guo Zhongyuan himself knows that he is more than just such a person. When Japan and China were fighting, Pu Xian's team lured the soldiers to die for themselves, and Guo Zhongyuan spotted something fishy at a glance. Because Guo Zhongyuan also had the same style on the battlefield.
In his view, victory is always built on human lives. No matter how generous we are to our soldiers in daily life, no matter how caring we are with our heart and soul, in the end, on the battlefield, as long as death can bring victory, we must give up without hesitation. Soldiers, die.
In this world that cares little about human life, what is there to miss? I don't know how many soldiers died under the leadership of the incompetent general. They died in a miserable and meaningless way. In this case, it is better to die with more value!
This is what Guo Zhongyuan thought when he was serving as general. Now that he is serving as the general of the personal army under Guo Ning, he still thinks this way.
Now, most of his subordinates are newly surrendered prisoners, and the rest are young men who have recently joined the army. It is difficult for the army formed by them to remain stable in the face of sudden heavy pressure. Guo Zhongyuan's method of coping is also very simple, that is, to relieve the pressure in advance.
If the soldiers are accustomed to the sword of their own leader who kills people at every turn, then the ferocity of the enemy's army will be nothing!
On the battlefield, people have their shortcomings and strengths, and their energy waxes and wanes. No one dares to say that he is always victorious and invincible. But at any time, if one person surrenders his life, he will be afraid of thousands of people, let alone five thousand people who dare to die?
Guo Zhongyuan looked ahead calmly.
He saw the enemy approaching quickly, saw his own crossbowmen firing arrows continuously, saw the enemy's crossbowmen shooting while running, and saw his own crossbowmen being quickly suppressed and had to rely on vehicles to retreat.
He saw the enemy troops spread out in front, divided into countless small groups, passed through the car formation, and broke into the spearmen's queue without hesitation; he saw the spearmen were in chaos, and the Puchan leading the team somewhere could not hold up. , a little panicked, but as soon as he turned around and took half a step back, he was beheaded by the military judge who came from behind. The military judge then stepped into the line with a knife and took over the command.
He saw the enemy troops shouting and fighting like wild beasts, with blood and flesh flying everywhere they went; he saw the ranks of spearmen becoming more and more loose, and the small phalanxes at the back filled in one by one.
One of the officers in the small square formation was Guo Ning's old acquaintance, a defeated soldier from Yehuling, a Liaodong native named Zhang Chi. On that day, Guo Ning gathered people at Xiangjun River, and Zhang Chi was one of the first to arrive, with very senior qualifications.
On weekdays, Guo Zhongyuan treated him very politely and did not simply regard him as a subordinate.
Zhang Chi rushed to the front of the battle line, ducked sideways to avoid the thrusting spear, and slashed with his sword. The enemy on the opposite side screamed and fell to the ground. He reached out to cover the wound on his chest, but the blood vessels in the injured area twisted and blood spurted out. He couldn't cover it!
Zhang Chi did not look at the enemy who fell to the ground, and with one stroke of his sword, he deflected the spear thrust by the second enemy behind him.
But at this moment, the third enemy leaned over and sprinted, grabbed Zhang Chi's side, pushed him to the ground violently, and then suppressed his legs. He immediately threw away the long knife and took out the short knife at his waist and stabbed randomly. After stabbing twice, the hand holding the knife was stepped on by the fourth enemy.
This is hard!
Zhang Chi shouted loudly, and two companions around him hurriedly came to the rescue. In the blink of an eye, one person was hit by an arrow and another was hit by a gun, and their bodies lay on the ground.
The enemy knelt down to suppress Zhang Chi's flabby arms, and stabbed Zhang Chi in the throat with a half-broken iron spear. Fortunately, the third enemy who had been stabbed by Zhang Chi with a short knife was already dead. At this time, the corpse swayed twice and suddenly fell on Zhang Chi, just blocking the path of the iron spear.
The enemy with the spear quickly turned around and stabbed Zhang Chi in the belly.
Just as he was about to strike, another of Zhang Chi's subordinates pounced on him and pushed him away. The two of them tore at each other, turning over and over again, without even bothering to pull out the short soldiers around them. Zhang Chi took a step forward, saw a gap, and thrust his knife into the gap between the enemy's helmet and shoulder armor.
The enemy twitched twice, blood flowed from his neck, steaming, and he stared dead.
"Boy, good job!" Zhang Chi withdrew his dagger and praised, reaching out to pull his subordinate who fell to the ground.
Holding hands together, Zhang Chi was about to exert force when a cold light flashed before his eyes.
A soldier rushed out of the enemy formation and cut off the fallen soldier's arm with a sword.
The soldier's left arm was broken at shoulder level, and he couldn't help but scream loudly, and then his head was beheaded.
Zhang Chi was unsteady on his feet, staggering back with half of his arm in his hand. After taking a few steps back, I saw the front line wavering, and I could already see the figure of the military judge from the corner of my eye!
Military law is strict and no one dares to violate it. If you retreat from the battlefield, you will die immediately! Instead of dying in the hands of one's own family and dying humiliatingly, how can one kill the enemy and die like a hero while still leaving some pension and land for the family?
What's more, I just didn't stand firm! Guo Zhongyuan is crazy, and Xiao Mole is also crazy. Why are they so anxious?
Zhang Chi yelled, threw half of his arm forward, hit the soldier in the face, and then stepped forward to fight to the death.
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