Just as the top brass of the Perak Army was dealing with the obstruction of the Yazhou trade route, the northern route of the Ancient Tea Horse Road to Wei Mao was also facing increasing pressure from the Mongolian army. The checkpoint is two miles away from Guankou Village. Although this section of the road is within the fire coverage of Guankou Village, it is not protected by low walls and trenches. Mongolian cavalry often launched attacks when caravans passed through these two miles, but due to the infrequent frequency and the counterattacks of the escorts, they did not have much impact on the caravans. In recent times, the frequency of attacks by the Mongolian army on this section of the road has increased significantly, and they have changed their previous strategy of wandering far away to fire arrows. Instead, they used the gap between Guankou Village's artillery reloading to rush into the caravan and kill them. Although they themselves The losses were heavy, but it also caused heavy casualties to the caravan personnel, and even burned a lot of goods with kerosene.
At first, the Perak Army was puzzled by the Mongolian army's life-saving style of play. The Mongolian cavalry has always been known for its flexible tactics, and now this style of fighting regardless of casualties is purely to vent their anger. Qian Laoer, who is in charge of the trade between Wei and Mao states, speculates that it may be related to the surge in transaction volume. In recent times, due to the absence of Mongolian restrictions, the volume of transactions between the Perak Army and Maowei has increased several times. However, as the trading peak has passed, the current trading volume has returned to normal levels, but the intensity of the Mongolian army's harassment has not decreased. It is still the style of killing one thousand enemies and losing one hundred. Seeing that the Mongolian army refused to stop, Shi Zhongshu had to organize people to start digging the trench from Guankou Village to the checkpoint. He also applied to Li Shuang for the transfer of cement to build a wall next to the trench to protect the passing caravans.
Among the current mature trade routes of the Pili Army, the Yazhou direction was cut off by Cao Zhizhou, and the waterway to Jiading was blocked due to shallow water and the Mongolian army's water barrier. Only the remaining trade routes to Wei and Mao were still open. This is not only the most important trade route for the Perak Army. Not only can they obtain copper, saltpeter, medicinal materials, and meat, but they can also obtain resources such as pack animals and war horses. This is also the nearest commercial road. It is only more than a hundred miles from Chongqing Fucheng to Maozhou. The top brass of the Perak Army attached great importance to this trade road and ordered it to be defended no matter what. Therefore, in addition to agreeing to the request of Guankou Village, a cavalry company from the Reconnaissance Battalion of the Internal Guard Brigade was sent to support. Some of this cavalry company are peasants who have been riding since childhood, and there are also former and new auxiliary soldiers who are familiar with equestrian skills. Their equestrian skills are more skillful than those of the field battalion cavalry company, and are more suitable for dealing with Mongolian army rangers.
With the construction of trenches and walls, and the arrival of scout cavalry, it became almost impossible for the Mongolian army to attack the caravans. Another attack would be almost equivalent to suicide. The checkpoint defense has been strengthened a lot in recent times, so the Mongolian army had to return to its original shrinking state. However, due to the small camp and insufficient food and grass, the three hundred cavalrymen of Yelvmaizhu had to withdraw to Muma Mountain in Shuangliu County. Only the initial new vassals and cavalry remained in the camp. After this period of consumption, the 500 new auxiliary troops only had more than 300 people, and the cavalry only had more than 70 people.
The reason why the Mongolian army built forts was, on the one hand, to block the expansion of the Perak Army, and on the other hand, to lure the Perak Army to attack, and then use cavalry to encircle them from the flanks and defeat the Perak Army in the field. But Ouyang Xuan had already seen through the Mongols' plan to lure the snake out of the cave, and ordered Shi Zhongshu to hold on. Over time, the Mongolian army also saw that the Perak Army had no interest in these camps.
In fact, the Perak Army could use the method used to defeat the Mongolian army in Mingshan City, dig trenches and fortifications layer by layer, and bring artillery close to the Mongolian army camp. The reason why this was not done was because the Mongolian army had a dozen such simple forts on the border of the areas controlled by both sides. The amount of artillery shells required to destroy these forts was huge, and it was really not worth the precious artillery shells consumed by the Perak Army. The Mongolian army discovered during the Battle of Hengyuan Fort that trenches were a powerful weapon against artillery, so the Mongolian army dug many trenches both inside and outside the camp. Even if these fortresses are destroyed, casualties will not be large, and they can still retreat a little and rebuild.
Just when the Mongolian army was paralyzed and careless, the Perak Army was mobilizing troops and horses, preparing to launch a thunderous strike. Ouyang Xuanzhi changed his mind and captured the Mongolian barracks in Guankou Village. In addition to combating his arrogance, it also made the enemy understand that the Perak Army was not unable to capture these barracks, but also wanted to pull out the thorn stuck near the trade road. Although this thorn no longer poses a threat to the business road, it is still a hidden danger. The Perak Army also learned from the prisoners that there was a considerable amount of kerosene in the camp. This thing is too much of a threat to the Pili Army warships. The more it can be destroyed, the less it will be. After all, even if the Mongols had many horses, it would still be extremely difficult to transport kerosene from distant West Asia.
What really made Ouyang Xuan decide to take action was the defection of the small leader of the Perak Army caravan. This little boss was originally an accountant in Jiangyuan City. He was later recruited into the caravan by Qian Laoer and was responsible for the financial accounting of Wei Mao Commercial Road. This man was also a conscientious person, but some time ago he made a private life-long arrangement with a Qiang woman from Weizhou, but she was opposed by her parents. The Pili Army encourages freedom of marriage, but Weizhou is not the territory of the Pili Army, and people still obey "the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers." This woman had already been betrothed to the heir apparent of a large local family. Although she was reluctant, she had no choice but to do so. The accountant made an appointment with the woman to elope, but was caught and beaten by the locals and returned to the caravan. After Qian Lao Erdai lost money, he did not punish the accountant. Unexpectedly, the accountant complained that the Pili army did not stand up for him, so he slipped out of Guankou Village at night and threw himself into the Mongolian army a few miles away.
Ouyang Xuan's goal in this battle was not only to completely destroy the Mongolian camp, but also ordered the traitor to be killed. In the early stage, the Perak Army and the locals spent a lot of trouble to quietly kill the Mongolian army in Wei and Mao. Now that Liu Heima knows what happened in Wei and Mao, he will definitely retaliate wildly against the officials and people of the two states, and even massacre the people of the two states. Although the Mongolian army could not attack from the direction of Guankou Village, they could enter Songzhou from the grassland and attack the two states along the river valley. More importantly, after the Mongolian army learned from this traitor the types of strategic materials needed by the Perak Army, they would inevitably restrict or plunder these resources everywhere to block the rapid development momentum of the Perak Army. "There are more than a hundred people, all kinds of people." Although Dong Hu's counterintelligence personnel are smart and powerful, they can't guard against these moles with ulterior motives. The traitors must be thoroughly investigated for their crimes in order to deter those who harbor disloyal intentions.
To kill the traitors with one blow, we must use absolute strength and firepower to defeat them quickly. This was to prevent the traitors from escaping and to prevent the Mongolian cavalry from coming to support them. Currently, the Perak Army in Guankou Village has sufficient defense but insufficient offense, and the navy's gunboats are unable to attack the Mongolian camp. Therefore, Ouyang Xuan used the field brigade, the main land force of the Perak Army.
In order to prevent the Mongolian army from detecting abnormalities in the camp, the Perak Army increased their reconnaissance and harassment efforts, attacked, killed and suppressed the Mongolian army's reconnaissance cavalry, and frequently attacked the Mongolian army's camp with light cannons. After the two infantry battalions of the field brigade arrived from Qiongzhou, they were not in a hurry to enter Guankou Village. Instead, they entered the village in batches at night and hid there. The cavalry battalion was hidden further away, preparing to fire the artillery of the infantry battalion, and then, together with the cavalry company of the reconnaissance battalion, quickly detoured back to the rear of the Mongolian camp to intercept and kill the fleeing enemies.
