After Qiu Huiluo went down to the Chinese Army, various orders were issued much faster. In the gaps between the ranks of the army's march, messengers carrying brightly colored flags passed by one at a time, and another at another time.
There was a whooshing sound in the distance, and a soldier beside Zhang Peng subconsciously stopped and reached for the shield hanging on his back. But everyone else was calm and kept walking. So he was pushed by the soldiers following him, and he staggered to catch up with his comrades in the same platoon.
Several people burst into laughter. Someone said: "Don't be cowardly. The Ming Dy is at least two miles away. It's probably the second team of Tatar sentries coming. Lao Kong, please raise your shield now, your arms will be tired after a while."
The soldier who was called Lao Kong blushed, and the veins on his forehead popped out, and argued, "Prepare in advance, don't call me coward... Prepare in advance, just in case... This is battlefield experience, can you call me a coward?" Cowardly?"
There were words that were difficult to understand one after another, such as "Don't rely on anything that won't come, rely on me to be ready", "Think carefully and be prepared, and be prepared for trouble" and the like, which caused everyone to burst into laughter; for a while, several rows in the queue were filled with people. Cheerful air.
Lao Kong is a battle-hardened expert, and of course he is not afraid of the enemy. However, he had just passed the basic courses of the military school before this expedition. He had a background in private school when he was young, and he remembered many of the art of war items taught in the military school very well. Even if other soldiers had received the same training, few would quote it casually like him.
This habit of Lao Kong is often treated as a joke by the soldiers, but the battle is right in front of us, and it is not good to be too relaxed.
"Stop laughing." Zhang Peng shouted in a deep voice.
The queue immediately fell silent.
The officers who join the Forbidden Army from other ministries are usually downgraded one level. Even an ordinary regular soldier is a senior and meritorious corps commander when he is placed in an outside ministry. Therefore, an ordinary officer's casual remarks may not necessarily be able to suppress the fierceness of the Forbidden Army. Death.
When Zhang Peng himself was first transferred to the Forbidden Army, he had to shout at the top of his lungs when giving orders. The attitude of the people below him was quite contemptuous, which could make Zhang Peng half angry to death.
But after all, Zhang Peng had made meritorious service in the army and had been promoted from the lowest level. He had already reached the rank of officer before, but was later transferred to the Forbidden Army and became a general again. He understood the routines in the army and the mentality of soldiers very well, so he quickly established authority in the army.
Zhang Peng slightly raised his voice and said: "The movements of the enemy's cavalry cannot be hidden from our colleagues on the hot air balloon. We just follow the orders. But Lao Kong said, be prepared before anything happens. That's right! None of you are afraid of the Mongols. This is very dangerous." Okay, but if someone doesn’t take the war to heart, he will definitely suffer a big loss! Team A and Team B, stop laughing and hold the shields in your hands!"
"yes!"
Following his shout, the soldiers of teams A and B all turned their hands to take out their shields.
The officers and soldiers of Long Xiang's army are all well-equipped.
Because everyone is equipped with a horse, they can carry much more equipment when marching than if they were simply walking. Therefore, the wooden shields they carry are all covered with a thickened layer of iron. If they are lifted for a long time, their arms will really get tired.
The excellence of the equipment is not only reflected in the proportion and quality of the equipment itself, but also in the daily maintenance of the equipment by the soldiers.
For example, at this moment, almost all the shields held by the soldiers were painted with large black and yellow stripes interlaced. Some soldiers were more careful and painted a clear tiger head according to the animal face on the shield surface.
It is said that the war horses on the grassland have not received special training and are naturally very afraid of the black and yellow stripes. Therefore, when going north to fight on the grasslands, soldiers usually paint their shields like this. When they went south to fight with the Song people, the soldiers would polish the metal surface of their shields to make them shine and shine, so as to resist the long-range aim of the Song archers.
Whether these practices are useful or not is hard to say because they were not included in the textbooks during training at the military academy. However, veteran soldiers always have some small tricks that they firmly believe in, and then pass them around privately, becoming a common habit for everyone.
Just when the two columns of soldiers on the left and right took the shields, the sound of the firing of the dynasty was replaced by the sound of arrows piercing the sky. It can be seen that the probing of the sentry cavalry on both sides has turned into a fight between the light cavalry of the front team.
Zhang Peng was holding the horse and walking in the right front of his team. At this point he got on his horse and stood up with his knees against the pommel to watch.
He looked past the layers of flags and spears and saw a large group of Mongolian cavalry in front of them, wearing black or khaki leather robes.
Gao Xin and his subordinates dealt with it leisurely.
Sometimes, he led dozens of cavalry in a circular formation and rained arrows on the approaching Mongols. Sometimes, he gathered his men and suddenly rushed out to one side, catching the loose Mongolians off guard. When the Mongols retreated and tried to open a distance to shoot, Gao Xin relied on the speed of his horse to rush and ravage the retreating cavalry. His guns were everywhere, and blood was everywhere.
A part of the Mongolians who originally outflanked the Zhou army's cavalry, saw that the middle of their column was attacked, and immediately turned their horses' heads and roared back. They stared at the rear of a group of Zhou army cavalry. Because they were biting tightly, they did not need to ride bows, but threw bulu, short knives, etc. to cause damage.
The Zhou army's cavalry tactics originated from the Jurchen tradition of combining speed and heavy cavalry for assault. In recent years, the army has continuously summarized the experience of fighting with the Mongols, and combined it with the expertise of the Hu tribe in the grassland.
At this time, the tactics displayed by the two families were very similar. Suddenly, it was like several flying snakes flying fast against the ground, intersecting and biting each other, and suddenly like clouds and mist, gathering and dispersing, constantly penetrating and entangled.
As the number of cavalry participating in the battle continued to increase, the battlefield suddenly spread to a radius of several miles, and people kept screaming and falling from their horses. Because the smoke and dust gradually rose, Zhang Peng was further away. Sometimes, just by looking at the figures, he couldn't tell whether the person who fell from the horse was the Mongolian cavalry or the Zhou army cavalry.
This kind of scene made Zhang Peng not know who to cheer for. He felt a little uncomfortable, so he got off the horse again.
"How is it?" The soldier next to him took the shield in his hand and asked while adjusting the leather strap.
Zhang Peng thought for a while and felt that his side's armor coverage rate was higher than that of the Mongols, and the armor was stronger, so there must be much fewer casualties.
He laughed twice and said: "Back then, I thought the Mongolians' riding skills were like gods and ghosts, and they would make you breathless when you look at them from a distance. But now, it's nothing more than that."
The riding skills of the Mongols were accumulated little by little on the grasslands since childhood, and they often had the advantage of crushing the knights of the Central Plains. In the early years of the war between Mongolia and the Jin Army, an elite Mongolian cavalry could drive dozens of Jin Army cavalry to flee wildly.
This is of course because the Jin army is devastated, but also because the difference in strength will be reflected in the moment of the confrontation.
Riding, archery, swordsmanship, physical strength, judgment, courage, etc., if you are inferior to any one of them, you will die immediately. And horses greatly negate the effect of numerical superiority. No matter how many people are piled up, the weak will only become slaughtered animals.
The Mongols in front of them still maintained their specialties, but the speed of the Zhou army's cavalry pursuit was beyond imagination.
The Zhou army's cavalry are either the best who have survived many years of brutal fighting, or they are selected from tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. They train much longer every day than ordinary infantry, and the training intensity is more intense. It's terrifyingly high.
Such generous treatment and high status are not for nothing. Just in daily training, the cavalry of the Long Xiang Army would hear news of death almost every few days. And can this kind of training make a Haner a knight on par with the Mongols?
The answer is yes!
No matter how powerful your riding skills, archery skills, or even the tricks and methods of responding to rescues on the battlefield are, there is always a limit to how high they can be. A Mongolian who has been on horseback for more than ten years can never be more than ten times better than a Han'er who has been training for a year or two. It is just that the details are more polished, the technical essentials are more personal, and even the movements are smoother. , respond faster.
These can all be made up for by equipment and fighting spirit.
More importantly, to cultivate a Mongolian with excellent riding skills, time accumulation is indispensable. After the main Mongolian army marched westward, the number of warriors on the grasslands was obviously at a critical point. However, it was much easier for the Zhou court to cultivate qualified cavalry.
There is no shortage of war horses in the Great Zhou Dynasty, there is no shortage of soldier base, and there is no shortage of investment in training and training. As for the mentality of the soldiers eager to make meritorious deeds, they are even more like wolves and tigers. At this moment, fighting began in the front, and more cavalry were gathering in the rear. The sound of horns and the thunderous sound of horse hooves continued.
Zhang Peng and his companions turned around to look when they heard the continuous roar from behind. They saw the shining armor of countless cavalrymen, and the huge cavalry looked like waves rushing on the grassland, with every drop of water reflecting the sunlight.
"Look, Tie Fu Tu is here too!"
Amidst the cheers of the infantry, the heavily armored Tiefutu lowered their visors one after another.
The messenger cavalry passed by the military formation again and again, shouting loudly: "Every unit does not stop! Press on! Press on!"
Zhang Peng raised his hand to indicate that the drummer following him started beating according to the rhythm of the drum beat from the direction of the Chinese army. Amidst the banging of drums, roars came one after another from various queues not far away. But the military formation was still strict and advanced slowly, as if the mountains were moving.
From the first moment it appeared on the battlefield, the Zhou army was constantly advancing. They adjusted their formation as they advanced and prepared for battle as they advanced. They will put increasing pressure on the Mongols, and the good show on this stage has only just begun.
From the command position of the Chinese army, Qiu Huiluo suddenly said:
"Yesterday, after the meeting of the generals of the Chinese army, Sukhbalu asked to see His Majesty privately and made a suggestion. He said that our army might as well squeeze under the Usha Fort and confront the Mongols for a few days. In the meantime, he could We went out with our companions to win over the Thousand Households in the eastern part of the grassland, incited reinforcements from the Western Regions, and lobbied the spies sent by the other Thousand Households. Those people had no intention of fighting us head-on. They would be in chaos within a few days and would leave. Let's go again Attacking can lead to the disintegration of Belgutai's military force at the lowest cost."
Xiao Mo Le, Zhao Xuan, Zhang Shao, Tian Xiong and other generals exchanged glances with each other.
Tian Xiong frowned, feeling that doing so would be a waste of the previous hard work in luring the enemy. He coughed lightly, and when he wanted to speak, Qiu Huiluo said, "Your Majesty refused."
Everyone was refreshed: "What does your Majesty mean?"
"Your Majesty said that the planning techniques that should be used have already been used. We only need to act in accordance with the predetermined battle plan. All ministries will enter the battlefield as soon as possible, launch the most direct attack, and cause the most violent damage! The grassland in front of us is the most A good stage. We want to crush Belgutai’s troops at once under the eyes of all parties; we want them to see clearly with their eyes wide open the consequences of going against me, the Great Zhou!"
