When an outsider looks at an army fighting, it is easy to think that the generals and commanders at the front are incompetent in command, poor in planning, and that all of them are idiots. All because the real battlefield was completely different from what was described in the documents from behind.
When reviewing the situation after the war, the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy and ourselves and various realistic situations have been settled and made clear at a glance. Making accusations based on this will naturally lead to disadvantages. But when actually on the battlefield, no matter how outstanding a general is, it is difficult for him to see these clearly immediately. What they see in front of them, not to mention the enemy, sometimes even the situation of friendly forces is just chaos.
Therefore, since ancient times, people who are good at using soldiers are described as knowing the situation well, or as handling their subordinates like an arm and a finger. These two points are both extremely high praise, but they are both extremely difficult to achieve.
Regardless of the influence of weather and geography on generals, a general with three to five hundred people under his command has to rely on many lieutenants, commanders, team leaders, and generals to be assigned in order to be able to command satisfactorily. Even so, it is inevitable to be disturbed by the complicated situation.
When they get to higher positions, those general managers, governors, governors, and marshals have frightening authority and can command tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of troops into battle, but what they can really see is limited to what they can see; what they can really control, There are only these followers and elites around me.
Therefore, in the early days of the Kingdom, the Jurchens were less than 10,000 and were invincible. Later, they often had an army of tens of thousands, but they were repeatedly defeated by the Song people in the Southern Dynasties. Similarly, with Genghis Khan's great talent, the Qixue army under his direct command only numbered 10,000 people.
Most of the Jurchens in the Kingdom of Jin, who have been away from the army for a long time, don't quite understand this truth.
Therefore, on the day of the decisive battle with the Mongols, people such as Duji Sizhong, Wanyan Chengyu, Ao Tunxiang and others all raised hundreds of thousands of troops in order to achieve great power and shake the heaven and the earth.
In their view, numbers are strength. The general only needs to wave his hand, and the soldiers will obey and crush the enemy layer by layer.
But generals like Han Xuan, who had been promoted from the ranks of veterans, had long known the ropes and would never make such a mistake.
In Han Xuan's opinion, a man like Guo Liulang, who often led thousands of troops across the battlefield, was truly an overlord and could not be matched by others. Han Xuan himself, relying on his own bravery and courage, the limit that he could smoothly dispatch when he directly led the troops to charge was three to five hundred men.
This number will not change at all just because he was promoted from Commander Han to Manager Han.
If all the elite soldiers were used, this number would be higher. However, Han Xuan could not afford the loss of elite soldiers. As a result, his resilience in battle was greatly reduced. The subtleties are only understood by experienced veterans.
At this moment, Han Xuan broke into the Mongolian camp with his elite troops, but he only wanted to be seen as a favor. When the Mongolian army pursued him fiercely, he had no choice but to flee in confusion.
But an outstanding general can never rely on this small number of direct troops for the overall situation.
When Han Xuan was appointed as the Liaohai Defense Envoy, Guo Ning specifically ordered him to observe the overall situation as much as possible besides fighting with his head covered. Even if you can't strategize, you should try your best to work closely with your colleagues and give full play to their talents. Don't always think about using your own efforts to achieve greater things.
As Guo Ning's long-time friend in Changzhou, Han Xuan found Guo Ning's words a bit funny. Because Guo Ning's family likes to use elite soldiers and strong generals to do things that use small things to achieve great things. However, over the past two years, Han Xuan has become accustomed to following Guo Ning's words to the letter.
Therefore, although Han Xuan, the general manager, personally led the troops to raid, the means of setting up the navy went far beyond raids.
Wang Bao'er immediately understood that Manager Han looked honest and honest, but he actually had a back-up plan!
"Who is there? How many people are there?" He asked repeatedly with joy on his face.
When Han Xuan was about to answer, a Mongolian cavalry suddenly appeared in front of him on the left. Dozens of riders seemed to emerge from the dark night and approached Han Xuan and others in an instant.
This team of light cavalry, when Zhebie, who was behind, noticed that Han Xuan's troops suddenly turned to the hilly area, he sent people to outflank and block them at full speed. At the same time, the roar of horse hooves from behind suddenly became much louder.
You must not get entangled with this team of light cavalry.
Han Xuan stretched out his hand: "Knife!"
His own long sword fell off during the fight, and another servant immediately offered him a spare weapon. Han Xuan held the handle of the knife with his right hand, frowned, and then raised the long knife high.
The arrow cluster in his shoulder could not be taken out. The wound was pulled several times and was dripping with blood. He could not lift it up at all before. But at this moment, he was raising his sword in a powerful gesture, and it seemed as if he was not injured at all.
Wang Bao'er saw this and suddenly whipped his whip repeatedly, beating his own horses indiscriminately.
The war horse Herod neighed and galloped forward. Wang Bao'er held a knife in his hand and shouted loudly: "Ignore the Mongolian arrows. Hurry up, hurry up! Rush over! We will definitely win this battle!"
Among his subordinates, more than ten veterans were transferred here. Although I don't know where the confidence came from, everyone waved their swords, and then the generals glared and roared, while desperately urging the horses to speed up. Several people took out the daggers from their waists and stabbed the horse in the butt.
The war horse screamed loudly, and its potential was suddenly aroused. Its iron hooves flew forward, and it galloped forward at full speed. Instead, Han Xuan and others were pushed to the back.
The distance between the two groups of cavalry varied from thirty steps, to twenty steps, to ten steps, to staggered.
The Mongols turned sideways on their horses and opened their bows to shoot arrows.
However, riding a horse in an unfamiliar wilderness late at night is a difficult exercise that requires extreme concentration. Even the Mongolian elites would be hard-pressed to hit by Xinshi. A dozen arrows were scattered in the night, without causing much damage.
Only one naval knight suddenly fell down, including his man and his horse. Because the horses were running so fast, the knight's bones were broken when the horse rolled over, and he died instantly.
When the Mongolian knight was about to fire a second round, Wang Bao'er and his men roared, urged their horses to charge, and slashed with their swords.
"Quick! Quick!"
The fight started in the front, and a little further away from Han Xuan in the back, Zhebie was also urging his men.
When the war horses are galloping at full speed, the distance of more than ten or twenty miles seems to have passed by in a blink of an eye. The Mongolian army chased their enemies to the north, which was often the case. Although they could not capture Han Xuan's troops for a while, Zhebie was not in a hurry.
According to common sense, the only direction for the navy knights to flee was Gaizhou City. Zhebie was absolutely sure that he could kill all the fleeing enemies on the way. Even if there were one or two fish that slipped through the net, if they were sent to Gaizhou City to kill them, they might still be able to frighten the defenders. .
With the common virtue of the Jin army, this kind of intimidation can sometimes scare the defenders into abandoning the city and fleeing. The tenacity of the Ding Navy is definitely better than that of the ordinary Jin Army, but if they knew that their leader failed to attack and died, would they be shaken?
Zhebie was looking forward to this.
If we could really kill this Han Xuan and take advantage of the situation to take Gaizhou, then all the losses today would be nothing, and we would actually make a profit.
But why did they suddenly change direction? Are you going north?
What's to the north? It's just a few barren mountains. Is there any way for them to escape?
Or maybe they knew they would die, but were unwilling to die under Gaizhou City and shake the morale of the defenders?
Zhebie couldn't understand the reason at all, and it was really not the right time to think about it again and again at this moment. So he just shouted loudly: "Hurry up and catch up! Kill them!"
The cavalry suddenly accelerated.
After running for more than a hundred steps, they passed the place where the Dinghai navy cavalry and the previous batch of cavalry that blocked the road were fighting. The Mongols suffered a slight loss, half of them died, and there were still more than ten horses lingering around. Jebie ran through the cavalry without stopping, shouting: "Continue to follow me!"
The fleeing cavalry in front was already approaching Chi Chi.
But at this moment, the wilderness suddenly came to an end. Under the heavy night cover, a series of hills and peaks appeared in front of Zhebie. There seems to be a peak towering in the distance. Although the clouds in the sky are gradually dispersing and the stars are falling, it is still dark and cannot be seen clearly. However, the nearby area is covered by the moonlight, and it can be seen that the mountains are continuous and not dangerous.
Han Xuan's cavalry rushed into the mountain canyon.
Zhebie felt anxious, suddenly drew out his bow, and fired rapidly at an enemy general who was guarded on the left and right.
His archery skills are really outstanding, unlike his companions who can only shoot and diffuse. Under the dim moonlight, he suddenly opened his bow and nocked an arrow without even aiming, but the heavy arrow flew out from the string, crossed dozens of steps, and hit the general.
Many people exclaimed at the same time, but the general still sat upright on his horse and led Ding Haijun's cavalry into the valley.
Hundreds of iron hooves took turns trampling the ground, rumbling and echoing. Judging from the sound, this canyon is not a dangerous place.
But Zhebie sighed sadly.
That's all!
He suddenly had a strange premonition, as if this arrow could not kill the enemy general, and there would be no chance in the future.
The mood of a war horse is easily affected by its owner. Zhebie felt relieved and his horse slowed down a little.
Na Ke'er and Batu'er who followed along the way all felt that they had an opportunity to make meritorious deeds. They had already lost their temper in pursuit, and now they all showed off their majesty and horsemanship, crossing Jebie and heading into the canyon.
