Chapter 105 The First Battle
Yin Er, Wu, Ma Lao Qi, the first batch to arrive at Nanyang Mansion, spent most of the day in excitement. When they arrived, the west gate and the north gate were both wide open, so they entered the city with ease. The defenders and government officials of Fucheng have followed Master Qian's instructions and, with the help of the local officials, assigned tasks to each household in advance.
Most of them were rogues in the city. They were promoted based on their ruthless and ruthless achievements for the Lord. Therefore, they did things without any scruples, and they knew exactly how many people should live in each household. The residents were used to it. Anyway, the government gave each person half a liter of black mixed noodles mixed with bran per day according to the quota. They could also benefit from steaming and baking steamed buns. They all smiled and said good things, and asked for help. The dough bag was holding a wooden spoon in one hand and shaking out half a spoonful more.
The city was full of people, and the houses that had been abandoned for a long time became lively again. Because they arrived early, Yin Erwu and others were led into a large house. Although the house is large, there are also many people living in it. About two hundred people from Yangzhuang have been temporarily settled here, and people are sleeping in the corridors and courtyards. Ma Laoqi didn't find Zhang Mazi, and the person who led them over was a strange face. However, the familiar soap clothes still made Ma Laoqi nod and bend down to greet him with a smile. The order of the yamen servant was very simple: "Tomorrow morning when you hear the gong, go out to the north gate and kill the thieves." Yin Erwu and Tao sixteen people demolished two low houses and built a stove with bricks to bake steamed buns. While gnawing, they talked longingly about how to kill the thief, and compared how they would torture the thief who was about to fall into their hands. From time to time, they burst into joyful laughter.
The situation is worse if you arrive late and have to sleep on the street. Those who arrived at dusk had no choice but to sleep in the fields outside the city, but fortunately most people received dry food. Everyone was very excited, and while eating steamed buns, they discussed enthusiastically the generous official rewards after killing the thief, and the happy life in the future.
Guan Shengyunbu had a very busy day.
According to Luo Shao's instructions, the most time-consuming and laborious task of digging trenches was not needed. Only the front and two wings of the camp wall were built. The construction work was stopped, and the construction auxiliaries were sent to build two sets of fortifications. Said to be fortifications, each group is actually three firewood piles. Firewood stacks, three to five feet long and three feet high, were scattered two or three miles west from the river bank. The second pile of firewood is more than ten steps away from the first, blocking the gap directly in front of the first vacated passage. A dozen steps back is the third road, but it is only half a mile long. The first group of firewood fortifications is erected two miles south of the camp, and the second group is about a mile away. Behind each group is a five-foot-long firewood pile fortification. A high and simple lookout. There is also a group of people busy in the open space 40 to 50 feet away in front of the camp.
A large open space was opened behind the camp. There was a thick layer of soft soil on the ground, which was covered with thatch. The thatch was also covered with linen cloth. A row of dense wooden fences was erected not far away. Thirty to forty feet away was a densely packed auxiliary troop. In front of the troop there were archers explaining, and the three or five people surrounding them listened carefully. After the explanation, the veteran handed the bow to a guy and taught him how to draw the bow. When he saw that it was almost done, he took out a feather arrow and let him shoot it. If three arrows in a row can land on the linen cloth, the auxiliary officer on the side will use a split brush dipped in red cinnabar to draw a line on his forehead, so that the person who is drawn will be happy and proud. He walked aside and said, "Don't worry, we are still an auxiliary soldier. We have broth to drink at night!"
Seeing that there are almost enough arrows planted in the open space, the team officer will blow the bamboo whistle, and the archers will shout to stop the guys who are thinking about drinking broth. A group of people ran out from behind the fence, pulled out the arrows in the open space, and ran back to hand them to the students - the total number of arrows was limited. Military Master Luo only gave Guoqinglin five thousand feather arrows for training purposes, so they had to be reused. . If you shoot directly into the open space, most of the arrows will be useless, and it will be difficult to control the flight path of the arrow again, and the training will be meaningless. Even so, until the end of the unsatisfactory assault training, these arrows were almost completely useless. Despite repeated orders from the archers not to let the string go empty, and even twitching their mouths, dozens of bows were still broken. Fortunately, there was no need to practice accuracy. By late afternoon, more than 9,000 people were eligible to drink the broth.
The large ship loaded with baggage sailed upstream again, vacating a section of the river for about two or three miles, and a long empty boat was parked in the vacated river.
Early the next morning, shortly after breakfast, Gao Tengdou's three flying beast battalions were covered in half armor and slowly drove towards Nanyang Mansion with the support of two thousand auxiliary soldiers. At the same time, the empty ship anchored in the Feishui River also unmoored its moorings and sailed slowly downstream alongside the team. What was different from the past was that the auxiliary soldiers did not carry large shields, pickaxes, ladders and other siege equipment. Each of them had a large branch in his hand. The dust was rising so high that those walking behind started coughing, so they all wrapped their mouths and noses with rags. The watchman on the north wall of Nanyang saw smoke and dust billowing seven or eight miles away, and immediately struck a series of bangs.
Following the sound of bangs, the soldiers, government officials and court officials on the street also knocked on the gongs in their hands. In an instant, countless heads of people poured out of each house, shouting and cursing, and marched toward the north gate in a dark crowd. Go. However, they were not the first batch of attackers. Those who stayed in the fields outside the city last night were already at the forefront, and were only three miles away from the oncoming group of thieves.
Takatozu, who was riding a horse, had a better view than the others. Five miles outside the city, I just saw a large group of ant-like black dots coming from the direction of Nanyang, so I raised my hand to stop the group. After the two gunshots were fired, a series of responding whistles came from the river. The fleet stopped, and each ship docked one after another. There were no trees on the shore. Someone jumped off the boat, nailed wooden stakes into the soil, and tied the boat to the shore. He took the cable and began to scramble to put up the planks leading to the river bank.
Several messengers rode back and forth between the military formation and Feishui, shouting and shouting, reporting the situation of the boats to Gao Tengdou at any time. In the first day, Gao Tengdou and several people had already surveyed and selected the current location. It was faster than expected, and all the boats in the river were ready. Gao Tengdou galloped up a hill, and his field of vision became wider. He saw that the small black spots in the south were rapidly growing in size, and they were densely packed and endless. He estimated in his mind that there must be 30,000 to 40,000 people? No, there should be more, but the ones behind are too far away to see.
Gaotou Bean shook his head and sighed inwardly. Judging from the speed at which the crowd is advancing, they don't know how to save energy at all. If they don't reach the fighting distance, they will be out of breath. At that time, they can only stop and take a breath - and the distance has already determined the battle method. It is still too far for the military formation. Fortunately, in order to prevent the troops from being bitten by the crowd when they were evacuating, the cavalry team, which had borrowed three fruits from Gu Baisong in advance, was cut off, so they made a prompt decision, explained a few words to the three battalion officers, clamped the horse's belly with both legs, and led After removing the bodyguards and cavalry, more than fifty cavalry broke out of the formation and rushed towards the crowd.
Seeing the thunderous armored cavalry rushing towards them, the people running at the front were all frightened. They have never experienced a real battle, and their minds are filled with images of themselves being brave and invincible, holding up hoes and sticks to drive away thieves. At this moment, I saw that the thief did not run away, but rushed towards me with great force. It was so unexpected that I couldn't help but slow down. The people in front stopped their legs, but those behind were still running. They bumped into each other in an instant, and many people fell down. You pulled me and I got tangled in a pile. This is what Takato Bean, who is running five or sixty feet away, is looking forward to! With a whistle, the horse team, which was always controlled at half full speed, began to slow down again and approached the huddled crowd at a broken pace.
The horse soldiers calmly thrust their spears and horses into the human body struggling on the ground, then turned their horses' heads and trotted away towards the road. Some of the brave ones even stabbed two or three people in succession before running away. After jogging for a while, he turned back again and rushed to another place... The crowd rushing towards the military formation finally stopped temporarily outside Li Xu.
Upon seeing this, Gao Tengzu led the armored cavalry back to their own military formation quickly.
The crowd that had almost run out of energy stopped involuntarily after this moment, and the sight of the flying beast camp soldiers was filled with darkness. However, the casualties of less than 200 people are just a drop in the bucket for tens of thousands of people. The people behind have been immersed in excitement and have no idea what is happening in front. They are blocked by the people in front and huddle together, just in time to rest. My legs took a breath, but my mood was still high. When I heard someone in front of me shouting that the thief had run away, I became even more excited. I wished I could grow wings and fly over to kill the thief.
The shouts of tens of thousands of people completely drowned out the screams of the injured, and they stopped for a while for a cup of tea. The crowd, who had calmed down for a while, rushed towards the military formation of the Flying Beast Battalion again. Standing on the mound, Takato Dou gave the order for the auxiliary troops to evacuate. The two thousand auxiliary soldiers threw down the branches in their hands, started to form a team under the command of the team officer, and returned to the camp unhurriedly.
A long trumpet sounded, and more than 300 archers came forward - these were all the archers from the three flying beast camps, the Poxiao camp, the Zhenyong camp and the Pili camp - more than fifty feet away from the military formation, and just now there was another archer. The crowd who once again ran to the limit of their physical strength were greeted by the first wave of arrows today.
Rapid fire.
Except for Gu Baihua's Gangfeng Battalion, who firmly believes that a man can only be considered a hero if he fights face to face with swords and guns, the other battalions of archers are all elite soldiers. No need to conserve stamina, just rapid fire in ten rounds. Following the command of the archer officer "Zhang, let go! Zhang, let go!", even though they were so far away, the covering fire of nearly four thousand feather arrows still caused more than a thousand casualties to the dense crowd—— The targets were civilians huddled together without armor, shields, and no battlefield experience.
It was like being blocked by a cavalry team, no, the effect was obviously better. More than a thousand people fell in front, and the struggling and crying of the wounded once again blocked the exhausted crowd in front of the formation. After ten rounds of rapid fire, right in front of their eyes, the officers of each battalion calmly shouted slogans and led the team to the Jishui River.
Unlike the auxiliary soldiers who left on foot first, in order to preserve their physical strength, the soldiers wearing half armor boarded boats as a team and evacuated the battlefield.
One after another, small boats left the west bank of Feishui River and sailed slowly and laboriously upstream along the east river. The people who rushed to the shore watched helplessly as the thieves on board Zhang Xuwai were helpless and had no choice but to vent their anger with vicious curses. Many people picked up dirt and rocks from the shore and threw them at the thieves who were just around the corner. However, despite only wearing half armor, these things did absolutely zero harm to the soldiers. The archers unfurled their bows and arrows with unsatisfied intentions, aiming and shooting at the crowds on the shore. The hit rate for a face-to-face shooting at such a close range was almost 100%, but the archers were ordered to deliberately avoid the fatal spot. Seeing the companions who were throwing stones around him being hit by arrows in the blink of an eye, and rolling in the mud beside the water, struggling and crying, the frantic crowd gradually calmed down. Some people secretly threw away the stones and soil in their hands, and cursed and closed their mouths. More people retreated in fear, trying to hide themselves behind others. There were stones flying out of the back row of the crowd, and then the archers quickly aimed their bows in the direction of the flying stones. The crowd where the arrows were pointing immediately went into chaos. You were pushing and shoving to avoid it. The young man rolled into the river and struggled on the mudflats. The gunmen stood by the boat to prevent anyone from jumping into the water and swimming over, but no one went into the water and they were all crowded on the shore. So the soldiers on the boat cast indifferent looks at the crowd who had just turned from excitement to fear.
Gao Tengzu's cavalry did not board the ship and galloped directly towards their own camp.
The thief boat in the water has gone away. The frightened crowd gradually recovered from the initial fear and recovered most of their physical strength. Especially the group of people who lived in the city the night before caught up, and their emotions infected the crowd again.
"What's so great about this is that we scared you away!"
"There are only so many people, so what's the use?"
"I saw it really. Before the arrows were fired, there were many thieves running back!"
"Those with knives and guns don't dare to come forward. The thieves only rely on the hundreds of archers!"
"Chase! I don't believe they can run to the horizon!"
The ones shouting the loudest were the guys who just secretly threw away the stones in their hands and shrank behind their companions. At this moment, they all tried to use the loudest volume to wash away the fear and shame in their hearts. If the battle is won, if a thief falls into their hands, they will vent their fear and wash away their shame through unimaginable cruelty!
Yes, if.
Unfortunately, there is never an if.
