The mountain paths were rugged and difficult to navigate, so the field camp hurriedly hurriedly arrived at Baizhang Pass at noon on the third day. It was just the situation in front of the gate that surprised Ouyang Xuan: he saw the city gate wide open, and he could vaguely see many corpses lying in the streets in the city.
The houses in the city are also completely ruined, and the scene is a smoky scene. There are still embers in many places, and black smoke is rising.
Not only were there no Mongolian troops blocked in front of the pass as expected, but even the defenders in the city were missing. Cao Ergou ordered people to search the city for a long time before he found a shivering Song Army soldier in a cave in a remote room.
According to him, a large group of strong men claiming to be Yu Xing's Song Army came to the pass the evening before yesterday, shouting loudly and asking for the door to be opened.
This Baizhang Pass is a narrow town, so the noise naturally attracted the county magistrate. The county magistrate who climbed up the city tower saw that these soldiers were not friendly, so he asked Yu Xing about the situation in the army. The people in the city gave a mixed answer, and naturally refused to open the door.
Unexpectedly, the county captain standing behind him suddenly got angry, kicked the unsuspecting magistrate to the bottom of the city, and led his cronies to open the city gate.
The group of soldiers in front of the gate were the new auxiliary troops who fled with Cheri. They swarmed up and hacked the county magistrate, who was half dead, to death, and then sent a signal to the Mongolian cavalry hidden in the distance.
Although there were hundreds of defenders at Baizhang Pass, when they saw the death of the county magistrate, the county captains rebelled and dispersed. In less than a quarter of an hour, this steep and solid pass fell into the hands of the Mongolian army.
After entering the city, the Mongolian army burned, killed and looted wantonly. The defenders were caught up and shot by the cavalry before they could escape far.
This Song Army soldier was on the tower at the time and saw the situation clearly. He took advantage of the chaos to find a place to hide, and was lucky enough to survive.
According to him, the Mongolian army left Baizhang City this morning. Before leaving, they set another fire and burned all the houses in the city.
After hearing what happened in Baizhang City, Ouyang Xuan could only sigh helplessly. It is said that it is difficult to guard against domestic thieves. China has never lacked hot-blooded men, but it also has many scum and scum.
For the sake of glory and wealth, these traitors did not hesitate to use the lives of the entire city's people as evidence of surrender. He originally annihilated the Mongolian army at Baizhang City and then returned to Qiongzhou City to continue to recover the remaining cities. Now there are still counties such as Huojing and Yizheng that have not yet been captured, and the Pili Army still needs to spend a lot of money to digest the newly occupied places. of human energy.
Ouyang Xuan knew that the Mongolian cavalry was fast and it would be too difficult to catch up. The best option was to return to Qiongzhou in time.
It's just that I feel really unwilling to let these executioners go. At that moment, he rejected Cao Ergou's proposal to return to Qiongzhou and ordered the pursuit to continue.
However, despite his anger, he still retained a trace of reason and still ordered to take the mountain path to Mingshan County.
The Parthian tactics of flying kites by the Mongols were really easy to deal with infantry. Although the official roads in the mountain basins were convenient for walking, they were easily ambushed by the Mongols.
Although there were guides from Qianjiazhai to guide the way, and most of the soldiers in the field camp were mountain people, it was not easy to walk through the airtight mountain trails under the scorching sun, especially the climb up the hill, which consumed a lot of energy.
There was no need to worry about food - the Qiongzhou Mongolian army contributed a lot of horse meat, but water consumption was a problem.
The team often had to stop and send people to fetch water from the river below the mountain. Ouyang Xuan did not rush to pursue him along the way, but rested while walking to conserve his strength, because he judged that Mingshan City should be able to resist the Mongolian army for a while.
Mingshan County is the most populous and affluent place among the counties under Yazhou, and it is highly valued by Yazhou officials.
This city located in a mountain basin is large and strong, with many garrison troops. If the Mongolian army walked around the city, they might be followed and attacked, and their food and grass consumption would not be replenished. After all, the consumption of more than 1,000 people and more than 1,000 horses was not a small number.
On the afternoon of the third day, when the team walked in the scorching sun to a hill ten miles away from Mingshan City, they were already tired and hot, and there was not much water left.
At this time, the guide suggested to Ouyang Xuan that everyone rest where they were, while he led a few people to get water. He has been to this place many times. There is a mountain stream two miles ahead on the left with sweet water. Drinking from it is very good for quenching your thirst.
In less than half an hour, the person who took the water returned. Just when Ouyang Xuan was wondering how quickly he could get water, the guide walked up to him and whispered: "Mongols."
It turned out that when they were still a mile away from the mountain stream, they faintly heard the neighing of horses, the sound was louder than the noise of the cicadas.
This guide was also a businessman in Qianjiazhai who traveled all year round. He felt that the sound of the horse was different from the ponies of the local caravan, so he asked the people accompanying him to stop and quietly went to check it out.
It didn't matter at this glance. I saw at least hundreds of horses in the mountain stream and nearby forests, and there were people walking around.
At that moment, he judged that this was the Mongolian army's horse team, because as far as he knew, there were not as many horses as the local caravan. More importantly, those horses were saddled, and pack horses did not need saddles.
Cao Ergou and others broke into a cold sweat after listening to the guide's words. Some people had previously suggested that the Mongolian army was frightened and would definitely not fight back.
Even if the cavalry charges, the field battalion can still fight. Now it seems that this idea is so radical.
These Mongolian cavalry hidden in the ravine made them understand why Ouyang Xuan insisted on taking the mountain path.
These cavalrymen were certainly not hiding in the ravine to enjoy the cool weather. They have only one purpose, and that is to launch a surprise attack from behind.
If the field camp takes the official road, it will inevitably be attacked by cavalry in the wide basin. With the current training and equipment, the field camp may be able to block the Mongolian army coming from the front, but it will never be able to block the attack from the rear in a hurry.
Now that the hidden Mongolian army has been discovered, the Pili Army no longer treats them politely. It only needs to use the language they understand best - killing, to communicate with them.
Ouyang Xuan still let Cao Ergou take command of this ambush, while he stopped where he was to rest. To deal with these Mongolian troops, Cao Ergou's plan was to use artillery to bombard the Mongolian troops beside the mountain stream from above and drive them to the exit of the ravine.
On the hillside at the exit of the ravine, there were muskets and grenades waiting for them. Since this was a lightly armed operation, the field battalion did not bring new field guns, but only the light Tiger Crouching Cannon, which had a short range but was easy to carry.
In order to ensure close combat firepower, new trigger grenades were also brought. Compared with the above two weapons, the new musket is the most expensive weapon in this field camp.
Before the Battle of Hengyuan Fort, Ouyang Xuan had all 200 new breech-loading guns produced by the military factory in recent times be equipped to the field camp.
This kind of gun is easy to use and has high shooting accuracy and long range. Although the firing speed is still not as fast as that of bows and arrows, the distance is twice as far as that of bows and arrows, reaching about half a mile. It has initially achieved the goal of being comparable to Mongolian bows and arrows in terms of individual weapons. High or low.
But this kind of musket also has a fatal weakness, that is, it is too expensive. First of all, the manufacturing cost is high, especially the high precision requirements for the rifling of the barrel, which is very labor-intensive, so that the manufacturing cost is almost as much as that of a squatting tiger gun.
Secondly, the cost of use is also extremely high. In order to ensure its range, its bullet casing is made of soft and high-expansion copper. In order to ensure rapid shooting, fulminant primer technology is used.
We must know that copper is not only lacking in the Perak Army, but also in the entire Southern Song Dynasty. Although there is no shortage of raw materials for mercury, its explosiveness makes its production process quite difficult.
Therefore, the cost of this kind of musket is so high and it is so difficult to make. There is great controversy within the Perak Army. Many people think that muskets are inferior to artillery.
However, at Ouyang Xuan's insistence, the military factories and research institutes continued to improve the musket process, because Ouyang Xuan knew that muskets were the future of individual weapons.
Although it currently has many shortcomings, these problems will be solved as the problems of production machine tools and raw materials are solved.
