Chapter 2474: The Great Victory of Haojing (9): Baima Yicong VS Flying Bear Army
The White Horse Yi Cong may not be the most powerful cavalry in the Qin Dynasty, but they are definitely the most impressive and eye-catching elite.
The White Horse Yi Cong of the Qin Dynasty rode all white war horses, and equipped with silver helmets, silver armor, silver spears, white robes and other silver-white equipment, they were simply gorgeous to the extreme.
Everyone who meets him says he is handsome.
Such a gorgeous and powerful elite cavalry is obviously the dream of all generals, but Qin Emperor Ying Hao has never changed its leadership.
That's right, Gongsun Xuanyuan has always been in a good position as commander of Bai Ma Yi Cong.
It wasn't until half a year ago that Gongsun Xuanyuan took the initiative to resign from the post of General Baima, perhaps because he thought Baima was too ostentatious, or for other reasons. This elite leader was replaced and transferred to Liangzhou.
As the only elite battalion of the Qin Army in Guanzhong, Li Shimin was naturally very concerned about Baima Yicong.
When he learned that the sworn brother Baima had been transferred, Li Shimin asked his subordinates to confirm many times. All they got was that the sworn brother Baima had indeed gone to Liangzhou, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
But what Li Shimin never expected was that Baima Yicong, who was supposed to be in Liangzhou, now appeared on the battlefield in Haojing.
Although the elite cavalry in front of him was no longer riding a white horse, and its equipment was not the most flashy silver-white equipment, Li Shimin could still easily recognize it as a white horse Yi Cong.
There is no other reason. This is the slogan of the White Horse Yi Cong: "Where justice comes, life and death will follow it. The sky can learn from it, and the white horse is the proof." 'Li Shimin has heard it too many times.
Each elite battalion has its own slogan, and each army is also proud of itself. Generally, they will not shout the slogans of other armies. First, it is disdainful, and second, it does not make much sense.
So it is obvious that this cavalry is the white horse Yi Cong.
After coming to this conclusion, Li Shimin felt even more uneasy.
It turns out that Bai Ma Yicong's transfer to Liangzhou was a conspiracy, and Da Qin had been planning for this day as early as half a year ago.
But I don't know whether this plan was devised by Wu Qi or Wang Jian's idea.
The plan to transfer Baima Yicong was actually Wu Qi's idea. He deliberately let another cavalry force, which may not even be cavalry, put on the equipment of the white horse regents and ride away all the white horses, in order to mislead Li Tang.
Under the inertial thinking, Li Tang's senior officials, including Li Shimin, all thought that the white horse and silver armor were the white horse Yi Cong, and also thought that the White Horse Yi Cong had been transferred to Liangzhou, and the Qin Army no longer had an elite battalion in Liangzhou.
But in fact, Baima Yicong was still in Guanzhong, and he was under Li Tang's nose. He just changed his equipment. As a result, no one in the entire Tang Kingdom discovered it.
Li Shimin didn't discover the whole conspiracy, not because he was careless or anything else, but because he never thought that Da Qin would use such a little trick.
Facing different opponents, the behavior styles are completely different.
Even in the face of powerful opponents, Da Qin was upright and focused on integrity, supplemented by cunning tactics.
When faced with weak opponents, it is obvious that they will use force to suppress others and force them to push, and basically will not use conspiracy and tricks.
With the size of Great Qin, it is obvious that it can push forward when facing a weak country like Li Tang. There is no need to use such little tricks.
But the Qin army not only used it, but also used it at the most critical moment, which made Li Shimin feel a little uncomfortable.
The senior officials of the Qin Army never underestimated the Tang Army from beginning to end. On the contrary, he underestimated the Qin Army's general Wang Jian.
At this thought, Li Shimin felt regretful, but things had already happened, and it was already too late for him to regret it again.
The most important thing at the moment is to defeat Baima Yicong. Only in this way can the Qin army be defeated and win.
"Flying Bear Army, kill them."
Li Shimin drew his sword and shouted, actually preparing to participate in the fight himself.
Among the eight thousand Tang cavalry, only three thousand were from the Flying Bear Army, and the other five thousand were ordinary Xiliang cavalry.
Seeing that the lord personally participated in the battle, the cavalry of the Tang army increased greatly. They all rushed towards the Qin army with red eyes, roaring and shouting. As a result, they were hit by a hail of arrows.
The Qin army's crossbows had a longer range than the Tang army. If the cavalry faced off head-on, based on the distance, they would shoot the Tang army two more rounds.
Baima Yicong's best skill was mounted archery, and his arrows were far more accurate than those of ordinary Qin cavalry. In just two rounds of shooting, six to seven hundred Tang cavalry fell from their horses.
Seeing this, Li Shimin was determined. Of the nine thousand Qin cavalry, they only shot down six or seven hundred people in two rounds of fire. It seemed that the White Horse Yi Cong was not that good either.
What Li Shimin didn't know was that he was deceived by Wang Jian again. He thought that the Qin Qi opposite had 9,000 people, but in fact there were only 6,000, and 3,000 more were hidden by Wang Jian.
Li Shimin calculated based on nine thousand, that's why Qin Qi's cavalry shooting hit rate was definitely low. But if it was six thousand, he could shoot down one-tenth of his own enemy troops in two rounds. This hit rate is already quite high.
After the Tang army received two rounds of crossbow arrows, they also fired back, and the two sides began to shoot at each other.
After three rounds of shooting, the distance between the two sides' cavalry had shortened to fifty meters, so both sides tacitly put away their crossbows and replaced them with javelins.
Seeing that the Tang army was also equipped with javelins, Wang Jian and Huang Tianhua both showed pain in their balls, obviously surprised by this.
"Li Shimin indeed has a trump card." Wang Jian sighed.
He is not a person who likes gambling, but at this moment he is praying in his heart, hoping that Li Shimin has no other trump card to show, otherwise even if the Qin army wins in the end, it will only be a miserable victory.
The javelin was also the first equipment used by the Qin army, and it shined in cavalry battles.
But before this, no other country except Qin had ever used javelins on a large scale.
The reason is that the javelin consumes too much steel.
The javelin consumes a lot of iron. A javelin made entirely of metal can weigh at least eight kilograms.
The heavy javelin weighed against heavy cavalry weighs fifteen kilograms.
If the cavalry is equipped with javelins, it will be better if the battle is won. After all, they can be recovered and used repeatedly.
But if they don't win or lose, those thousands of javelins and hundreds of thousands of kilograms of steel will be given away in vain, and this is just a war.
In this era when spearmen from many countries still use wooden bodies and iron spearheads, equipment such as javelins is too luxurious and cannot be afforded by ordinary countries.
If there is steel to make javelins, it is better to replace all the spearmen's spears with full-metal ones.
This is also the main reason why only Da Qin keeps using javelins.
It’s not that other countries don’t want to use it, but they simply can’t afford it.
Da Qin will not use javelins in all wars, but will only use them in some key battles. After all, a big battle will have dozens or even hundreds of small battles. If javelins are used in all battles, it will indeed be somewhat It was too extravagant, not even Great Qin could afford such consumption.
Even Li Tang's spearmen were still using wooden spears, so they obviously couldn't afford javelins.
However, Li Shimin equipped the cavalry with javelins in this battle. Apparently after a long period of planning, he secretly built a large number of javelins just for use in this battle, in order to catch the Qin army by surprise.
Li Shimin used the javelin as a trump card, and his plan did succeed.
Neither Wu Qi nor Wang Jian expected that the Tang army would fight with javelins.
For the cavalry, the distance of fifty meters is very short, and both sides' cavalry fired two rounds.
The Tang army threw more than 15,000 javelins, causing only more than a thousand casualties to the Qin army. Although the hit rate was less than one-tenth, it was already the highest hit rate of the Tang army.
The Qin army threw more than 11,000 javelins, but caused more than 1,500 casualties to the Tang army, with a hit rate of more than one tenth.
It can be seen from this that there is still a big gap between Tang's use of javelins and Qin's.
After two rounds of long-range attacks with crossbows and javelins, the Tang army had 5,500 cavalry left, while the Qin army had 4,500 cavalry left.
Even before a head-on battle, the Tang army suffered casualties of 2,500 cavalry, while the Qin army suffered 1,500 cavalry casualties, two-thirds of which were killed by javelins.
Li Shimin's insidious trick made the Qin army pay a heavy price, but it was still within the tolerable range.
Before the war started, Wang Jian had a rough estimate of the casualties in this battle. As long as the number of casualties and cavalry did not exceed 10,000, it would be a great victory. If the number of casualties exceeded 10,000, it would be a tragic victory.
Although it seems a bit thrilling now, the casualties can still be controlled to less than 10,000.
boom……
After long-range attacks, the cavalry of Qin and Tang finally collided head-on.
Before the two armies collided, Li Shimin finally realized that something was wrong with the number of Qin's cavalry.
He couldn't estimate the exact number, but it was certainly not nine thousand.
Li Shimin never expected that Wang Jian's 13,000 infantry and cavalry were facing his own 25,000-strong army. Even if he did not go all out, he would dare to divide his troops.
No one else has such courage. Ying Hao is not as courageous as him.
When things developed to this point, Li Shimin roughly guessed Wang Jian's next purpose, which was to block his own central army, and then use the hidden cavalry to attack his two wings in a roundabout way.
The battle situation on both wings is now in a tense state, and the intervention of any Qin army may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
As soon as he thought of this, Li Shimin immediately gave an order to Hou Junji in the rear, ordering him to bring a thousand men and horses to transport the fuel truck prepared in advance to the only road leading to the fighting areas on the left and right wings. Once he found that the Qin army was approaching, he Immediately set fire to prevent the Qin army's cavalry from supporting the left and right wings.
If there is a fire blocking the way, the Qin army can only take a detour, and detouring is a waste of time.
As long as the Qin army can be delayed for an hour, the Tang army will definitely win this battle.
"Wang Jian, Wang Jian, I don't believe you have other trump cards. No matter what your purpose is, as long as the Chinese army cannot hold it, you will lose this battle."
Li Shimin shook his head, and after throwing away his distracting thoughts, he asked Yu Wentai and Changsun Wuji, who were leading the infantry in the rear, to lead all the infantry to surround the Qin army from the flanks.
Even if the Tang Army's cavalry were one thousand more numerous than the Qin Army, and had the "Zhenguan" force increase, there was still a gap between the overall combat power and the Qin Army.
The Qin army cannot be defeated by cavalry alone, so it is possible to defeat the Qin army by relying on infantry, or the superiority of troops.
Yuwentai and Changsun Wuji had been waiting for a long time. After receiving the order, they each led an army of 8,000 to attack.
Since then, the Tang Army's 60,000-strong army has been dispatched, and there is no fresh force to mobilize. However, the Qin Army still has 3,000 cavalry and 4,000 infantry left to fight.
With only 23,000 infantry and cavalry, Wang Jian was able to hold back Li Shimin's 60,000-strong army. This battle commanding ability was second to none even in the Qin Dynasty, which had many famous generals.
Qin army camp.
When Ji Dan saw that 16,000 Tang army infantry were surrounding Guolai, but only 4,000 infantry were left on his own side, he couldn't help but feel a little scared. He asked Wen Zhong on the side: "Sir, it's not that I don't have confidence in you." , but Changsun Wuji and Yu Wentai are both famous generals in the world with extraordinary abilities, Yu, are you really sure that you can block them both at the same time?"
Wen Zhong said confidently: "They are just two juniors. Today I will let them see how the older generation of soldiers fight."
Wen Zhong is not an arrogant person. The reason why he is so confident does not care about himself, but because of the four thousand troops that Wang Jian entrusted to him.
The four thousand troops left by Wang Jian are called "Qin Wuzu". They have been trained by three famous generals: Li Jing, Wu Qi, and Wang Jian. Although they are not yet called elite battalions, they already have the combat power of elite battalions. They cannot be famous. It's a matter of time.
Wang Jian had elite cavalry with white horse followers, and elite infantry with Qin soldiers. It was with these two elites that he dared to fight Li Shimin head-on with 30,000 infantry.
On the other hand, although Li Shimin had many troops under his command, he only had the elite Feixiong Army, and the Xuanjia Army was left behind in Chang'an.
If the Xuanjia Army were also there, the outcome of this battle might be hanging in the balance.
Of course, if Wang Jian knew about it, he would definitely make other arrangements.
Seeing that Changsun Wuji and Yuwentai wanted to cooperate with Li Shimin to double-team Wang Jian, Wen Zhong decisively ordered: "Send the order and the whole army will attack."
"kill……"
The four thousand Qin warriors roared angrily. There were only four thousand soldiers, but they shouted with the force of forty thousand people. Each of them was holding a sword but wearing light armor.
This is of course not because the Qin army cannot produce four thousand heavy armors, but because the position of Qin soldiers is such that they need to retain a certain degree of mobility.
Under the leadership of Wen Zhong, four thousand Qin warriors were like tigers descending from the mountain. Five people formed a small pair, and a hundred people formed a squadron, a total of 400 squadrons, and went straight towards Changsun Wuji and Yuwentai.
Neither Changsun Wuji nor Yu Wentai obviously expected that the last four thousand Qin troops would be so powerful, and they also contained such a strong general as Wen Zhong, so that they were beaten by a pawn and were unable to defend themselves, resulting in heavy casualties. .
