Genghis Khan suddenly came to kill him earlier. It would be a lie to say that the soldiers were not nervous. If it were not for the equally invincible Guo Ning in our own formation, many of the soldiers' legs would become weak. Moreover, the more experienced the soldiers were in the military and the more experienced the backbone soldiers were in fighting the Mongols, their nervousness would be even greater.
As a result, when the two sides collided, everyone worked together to win a great victory, killing more than a thousand elite troops of the Xue army who killed and wounded the Mongols, and suffering less than 500 casualties on their own side. This was an unquestionable victory.
Many officers from military academies said that such an "exchange ratio" had never been seen since the war between Jin Dynasty and Mongolia. Even the two victorious battles Guo Xuanshi fought in Shandong and Liaodong were inferior.
Being able to exchange the lives of so many Mongolian troops with such a small loss, and surviving unscathed, all soldiers who thought about this were extremely happy. Even if someone has a brother or friend who died in battle and their mood is slightly affected, grassroots officers at all levels will promptly comfort them and remind them that their companions will receive high-standard pensions and treatment in the ancestral hall.
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As a result, everyone's fighting spirit became more and more high. Many people began to plan to kill a few Mongolian soldiers to avenge their families. Some people also thought about what kind of rewards they would get after victory.
That night, Ambassador Guo announced that 50,000 reinforcements from Shandong would arrive and would deliver a heavy blow to the Mongolian army in Zhongdu, and the soldiers became more and more encouraged. Many soldiers in the army were from Zhongdu, and they had great expectations to return to their hometown and perform heroic feats to save the locals.
However, Guo Ning suddenly issued an order early the next morning, and the entire army immediately withdrew to Yijin Pass.
This order to retreat was so sudden that no one among the soldiers expected it.
Why?
Why don't you kill Zhongdu again? Why did we have to retreat urgently after we won the battle?
Everyone's anger has just been raised, and this is the result?
The soldiers suddenly became suspicious.
What went wrong? Is our Ambassador Guo Xuan afraid of the Tatar Khan? Or is there something behind the Tatar Khan that forces us to flee?
I also heard that because the Jurchens were defeated by the Mongolian army, the direction of Hebei may be unstable? In that case, there will be questions about whether everyone can return to Shandong safely!
After all, Dinghai Navy operates far away from its base in Shandong, so doubts can easily arise and spread. With such a mood, when the soldiers packed up their supplies and tidied up their queues, there was even a rare state of chaos.
Ding Haijun brought a large amount of grain and supplies, originally intended to be transported to Zhongdu. There was a sudden retreat, and without the cover of the Hebei Meng'an Mu Ke Army, a large number of troops and horses had to be left on guard. Therefore, there was an immediate shortage of manpower, and many supplies could not be shipped in time.
These were all saved bit by bit by the people of Shandong through their teeth. The lieutenant leading the team was reluctant to throw them away, and he was even less happy that these supplies would fall into the hands of the Mongols. In his hurry, he did not ask Guo Ning for instructions, but directly ordered it to be burned, causing black smoke to rise into the sky.
In the plain wilderness, this thick smoke can be seen even from thirty or forty miles away!
Guo Ning was furious and immediately summoned the lieutenant to scold him.
It turns out that the so-called "50,000 reinforcements are coming" was basically the smoke released by Guo Ning. He spread the news to the whole army because the Mongols would always catch a few civil servants or Alixi who accompanied the army during subsequent disturbances. And this news may divert the attention of the Tatar Khan and buy time for the navy to retreat.
But when the smoke rises, unless all the Mongolians are blind, who will miss it?
Ding Haijun's hasty posture, through this puff of smoke, has completely fallen into the eyes of the Mongols. With the Mongolians' sense of smell as sharp as wild beasts, would they not be able to guess what Ding Haijun was doing?
In this case, what use are the rumors that "reinforcements are coming and there will be a fierce battle"?
The specialty of the Mongolian cavalry is flexibility and maneuverability, while the specialty of the Mongolian navy is that the infantry is as stable as an anvil and the cavalry is as sharp as a hammer. When the two sides were fighting head-on, Ding Haijun responded steadily and was not afraid at all. As long as he did not reveal any flaws, there was nothing the Mongols could do.
But when the army retreats quickly, how can it not expose its flaws? Marching and fighting are two different things. No matter how elite the army is, there will be flaws when marching. And the Mongols' scattered harassment and camera attacks will tear small flaws into big ones that are fatal. By then...
The Mongolian army is the most ferocious wolf on the grassland. As long as they catch the Dinghai navy's flaw, a swarm of swarms will come up and bite them bloody!
Guo Ning had no choice but to urge the soldiers to act faster and faster. The distance from Liangxiang to Yijin Pass in Bazhou is one hundred and seventy miles. Ding Haijun relied on his usual emphasis on armed cross-country training and moved very quickly. He walked nearly a hundred miles in just two days and entered Gu'an County.
However, the danger is imminent.
On the day they retreated, they were repeatedly harassed by the Mongolian Aljinchi. On the second day, a large number of Mongolian knights approached Ding Haijun's brigade with little concealment. Ding Haijun needed to keep more than a thousand light cavalry running back and forth in order to drive them away.
This constant nuisance does not stop even at night. Even Ding Haijun's Qingqi had to deal with it.
In order to cover the area around the camp and block the Mongols' approaching reconnaissance, many Dinghai navy cavalry stayed up all night, chasing, staggering, driving, and intimidating each other with the Mongols on the large plains. When a battle breaks out occasionally, it is bound to be short and intense.
There is no doubt that the Mongolian army is filled with the best knights, the best shooters of this era, and also has the best cavalry tactics. Their top-down system, smooth channels and means of delivering orders, and even the military literacy brought about by their daily hard life have huge advantages over any surrounding nation.
With the establishment of the Great Mongol Kingdom, many tribal barriers were broken, and elite warriors gathered on an unprecedented scale. After that, the Mongolian army received a huge supply of ordnance and war horses from the continuous wars with the Xia Kingdom and the Jin Kingdom. Their combat effectiveness has continued to improve in just a few years.
Especially in an environment where small groups of cavalry came and went at night, the Mongolian harassment and guerrillas put tremendous pressure on the navy's cavalry.
After working hard all night, the tired light cavalry didn't have much time to rest.
Because the army pretended to be a baggage team heading north, the number of cavalry that Ding Haijun brought with him on this trip was not very large. Except for the heavy cavalry of Tiefutu, which was directly commanded by Guo Ning, most of the light cavalry were under Dong Jin's command. There were only a few hundred cavalry in total, and the number of cavalry that the Mongols could use was a full twenty times!
In the early morning of the third day of the rapid march and retreat, the Mongolian cavalry all over the wilderness left like an ebbing tide. The experienced veterans knew that this was a gap for the Mongols to mobilize new troops. The Aljinchis would take a break during the day, and a new team of thousands would replace them and continue the harassment.
Therefore, the cavalry did not delay, and soon contacted the other cavalry who replaced them, urging their horses to return to the camp, seizing every moment to recharge their batteries.
The cavalry who can undertake the task of looking for sentries at night are all good soldiers, and they all have two horses. Most of them changed horses between battles. At this time, the horses were more energetic than the people.
Under the twilight sky, the war horses were jumping forward, always trying to gallop happily. The knights had no choice but to keep bracing themselves and tightening the reins to calm down the excited horses.
During the rapid march, the camp was set up entirely on baggage vehicles, which was much simpler than normal. The main entrance of the camp is an opening formed by the intersection of three rows of large vehicles.
As the cavalry entered the camp, they noticed an open area with obvious traces of iron artillery explosions. There were several Mongolian corpses on the ground that had not been cleaned up, lying on the grass in twisted postures.
The cavalry leader leading the team was a little frustrated: "The loud noise last night scared my horse. I didn't expect the Mongols to pass through our sentinel-seeking cavalry and rush to the camp gate!"
The knight next to him said angrily: "That's why Dong Qianjie was so angry. He personally selected a hundred elite men and went to fight with the Mongols overnight... He didn't take me with him!"
The cavalry general was waiting for a reply when the knight who was ahead turned his horse back and said with a joyful face: "General of the capital, come quickly, come quickly, I killed a sheep this morning to reward everyone!"
In the past few days, the soldiers had been marching in a hurry and had to deal with enemy harassment. Everyone was very tired. Fortunately, everyone's food has always been good and very satisfying. There are also special preferential treatment for our knights who are responsible for expelling the Mongolian sentries.
At this time, Alixi of the cavalry found a dry slope and dug dozens of stove holes to cook mutton. When the water boils, the unique aroma of mutton permeates everywhere, along with the smell of wild onions, making people salivate.
In the infantry formation preparing to set off, Old Brother Liu and his companions were in the downwind several dozen steps away and could just smell it. So everyone stopped chatting and stared in the direction of the stove.
The pay for Dinghai soldiers has always been good. They have enough wheat cakes and grain cakes, so no one will go hungry. But when it comes to meat, there is still a gap between the treatment of ordinary infantry and elite cavalry.
"I can see, there are big pieces of meat in the soup. Even the skin, most of it is fat, as big as a palm!" The young man who loves cooking and has thought about becoming a soldier opened his mouth. The five fingers of his right hand signaled to the people around him: "Take a bite, and the fat will flow in your mouth and slide down your throat... Think about it, how beautiful it must be!"
"That's so beautiful!" Everyone nodded repeatedly.
There are also people who are very greedy but can't eat, and feel angry: "I smell the smell of mutton, it's a bit familiar."
"How come we are so familiar? Have you eaten something secretly in the past two days?"
"After the Mongolian cavalry was killed by the iron artillery, their bones and flesh were all rotten. The smell was similar to mutton, fragrant and a little bit stinky."
Before he finished speaking, Lao Liu slapped him on the head with such force that there was a cracking sound.
"Those mutton eaters have been fighting all night to let you sleep all night! Look at the stove in the west. Isn't that Lao Wang? There were twenty people under him. The day before yesterday and yesterday Nine people died in the battle in a row, and three more were lost last night. Only eight people are left, and all of them are injured. Even Lao Wang himself... look at his arms, are they tied? They must be bones. He was shot in pieces by a Mongolian shovel-shaped arrow! He can still speak now. If he eats, he will have a high fever in a while and may die! Why don't they eat something good!"
His voice was a bit loud, but the soldiers around him were silent.
There was a lieutenant who was leading the troops and was listening from a distance. He felt that these words were too demoralizing and wanted to come over and yell at him. When I walked up to him, I found that the veteran Pu Liyan was speaking. He frowned and turned back.
Pu Liyan also holds the position of captain of fifty people. He is the lieutenant's deputy in the Dinghai navy and is usually held by experienced veterans. These veterans failed to pass the military academy examination for various reasons, but in the army, their prestige and trust were real.
At this time, there was an atmosphere of tension everywhere among the queues of soldiers, and everyone's heart was tense. Fortunately, the key officers and soldiers have all experienced hundreds of battles, so they can at best be a little dignified. And even if they say some outrageous words, they might eventually find that they are useful.
At this moment, a soldier from another team asked in a low voice: "So many kidnappers died, they can't hold on for long. Last night, the Mongols rushed to the camp several times, and shot and wounded several brothers... …What will it be like today?”
Old Liu glanced at him and tapped his chest with his knuckles.
Only then did the soldier notice that Lao Liu and his companions all wore armor and stomachs directly on their bodies, but the cart was a little empty.
"You are not too tired..." The soldier laughed and cursed for a while, and his expression immediately became serious.
He bowed his hand to Lao Liu, turned around and ran towards his own queue.
From the front of the queue came the dull sound of wheels rolling over the ground and the rumble of footsteps. It was the soldiers in the front team who had set off.
