Three years later, the Yarkand Khanate, which had slowed down, came back again, dispatching 30,000 troops, intending to regain the lost land around Bosten Lake.
This time, we learned from the previous lessons and instead of sending troops into two groups, we divided them into twenty groups, with about 1,500 men in each group, each equipped with two horses.
In this way, the attack can be dispersed, wandering around the war zone, making it difficult for the enemy to see the enemy from head to tail, annihilating the enemy in motion, and finally achieving the expected victory.
However, both Li Zicheng and Chai Shihua were not ordinary people. After winning the first battle and capturing the tribal chief, they learned about each other's tactics from oral confessions.
Li Zicheng had many generals under his command, so he decided to use the general's strategy and divide his troops into ten groups.
The Five Tiger Generals Tian Hualong, Tan Shousu, Liu Xiyao, Liu Fangliang, and Liu Tichun, as well as the left and right lieutenant generals Xin Sizhong, Liu Rukui, Niu Wancai, Li Laiheng (Li Guo's adopted son), and Liu Tiren were ordered to each lead a force of 1,000 people to attack. enemy.
However, they mainly used the favorable terrain within Datang to adopt tactics of ambush, night attack, and cover-up killing against the invading enemies. They could not take the initiative to attack unless they had the superiority in troops.
Liu Zongmin, king of Zhenxi, Li Guo, king of south, Li Zijing, king of north, and Yuan Zongdi, king of east, each led thousands of troops as backup. Guojiu Gao Yi led his troops to provide support.
Before the formation of the children's army, the number of troops that Li Zicheng could mobilize was only about 20,000. With such an arrangement, it was basically the maximum number of troops.
If the Dog Prince Zhu Cihong and the Dog Emperor Chongzhen could send some exiles or even prisoners, Li Zicheng would be willing to exchange cattle and sheep. After all, he was a Ming Dynasty man, so he was much more at ease than a herder.
We can no longer daydream. Such is the situation in the Western Tang Empire. We can only assess the situation, adapt to local conditions, and find ways to repel the enemy.
Li Zicheng was also a court official and was by no means a pure poor peasant. He had generally heard of the examples of Prime Ministers Shang Yang and Cao who cultivated fields to raise troops.
After coming to the Western Regions, he followed this strategy and achieved good results, which also enhanced the cohesion and loyalty of his generals and soldiers.
Now is no longer the time to wander around the pass. Once they have their own territory, the generals will naturally not give it away casually.
After finally escaping from death in the pass, I came to this beautiful place surrounded by mountains and rivers. Anyone who dared to rob me would have to give up my life!
The soldiers of the Tang Empire also understood that this time they were actually defending their country. Once they were defeated, they would really have to start from scratch.
The generals under Li Zicheng knew very well about the barbarian cavalry raid tactics, because that was how they dealt with the dog officers' army.
The other party knows how to do it, and Li and Tang's troops know how to do it, and they also know roughly what tactics to use to check and balance.
Set up a small battlene on the top of the mountain and deploy sentries. When the enemy is detected, they will immediately light up the warning smoke.
If the various units are in open areas, and if the distance is far, they can use signal flares of different colors to communicate.
Horse traps were dug on the only roads around fertile fields, poisoned arrows were used, and a large amount of gold juice was used for village defense.
There is basically no need to take care of the crops in the fields, and at least people will be fine.
If we save some food, we can definitely hold on until spring.
What to eat after spring?
Let’s wait until then!
If that doesn't work, you can go back to fishing, hunting, and robbing livestock from surrounding tribes.
The Yarkand Khanate sent troops in the summer because it also wanted to transport food from the war zone back in the autumn.
Therefore, before sending out troops, the entire army was notified not to set fire to the crops in the fields, because after the war, they were all the rations of the Khanate.
The chiefs have no objection to this, because now that it is burned out, there will be nothing to eat in the autumn.
The enemy's livestock is not as numerous as our own, so the main target of attack is food.
If he sets fire to lose the food, he will be in vain...
This led to a bizarre situation during the war, with the two sides engaging in a melee involving thousands of people in the farmland.
The crops were crushed or even broken, and they were covered in mud, but they didn't set fire to it. It was just pure fighting.
Li Zicheng had no intention of strengthening the walls and clearing the country. Farmland was the foundation of the Tang Empire.
Burning all the farmland is equivalent to annihilating the retreat, which has greater side effects than burning the boat.
If those group of Westerners could defeat him, Li Zicheng would accept his fate, and the worst he could do was pack up and leave again.
On the contrary, as long as the crops are still there, even if the harvest is reduced by half, the people of the empire will not starve to death.
Li Zicheng also planned to use the captured horses to exchange for some goods in the customs with merchants from Turpan.
In terms of ferocity and violence, the Yerkang cavalry were far from rivals of the Li and Tang soldiers who loved killing.
Now they have settled down in the Western Region. Previously, these people were wreaking havoc everywhere in the pass.
If others touch the fundamental interests of this group of people, they will attract no less than ten times the retaliation.
This is because the main control area of Yarkant is relatively far from Bosten Lake, and Li Zicheng does not have many troops, otherwise he would have killed them long ago.
The right general Li Laiheng was very proud of Li Zi. He won the first battle, wiping out no less than 300 enemies and scaring the remaining troops away for dozens of miles.
Then Tian Hualong and Liu Xiyao, two of the Five Tiger Generals, got off to a good start one after another, wiping out nearly a thousand enemy cavalry in total.
The other generals also made gains within a few days of the war, defeating the opponent's multi-channel siege tactics.
Liu Zongmin, the king of Zhenxi, couldn't bear the loneliness and directly led his troops to catch the opponent off guard and killed no less than 400 enemy soldiers.
The Yerqiang ministries were very uncomfortable with the night attack tactics adopted by Li Tang's army. They had trouble sleeping at night and were listless during the day.
Many times, the Tang army did not attack at all, but just made noises at night to stir up trouble. Night attacks turned into night disturbances.
After daybreak, the minds of the Yarkand soldiers felt dizzy. When the wind blew them while riding their horses, many of them suffered from severe headaches.
After days of hard work, the combat effectiveness naturally dropped sharply, and it was not surprising that they were defeated against the Tang army.
Even on the plains that are conducive to cavalry group assaults, due to the previous division of troops tactics, the Ye army's team of more than a thousand people, mainly light cavalry, could not produce much assault force.
Facing the Tang Army's counterattack, and also using signal flares to call nearby friendly forces, Ye Jun not only had to deal with frontal enemies, but also defended against enemy reinforcements that appeared from time to time.
At first, because Tang Jun was completely confused about the direction of the opponent's attack, Ye Jun's troops attacked very smoothly. They all thought that the opponent was nothing more than this, and they couldn't help but underestimate the enemy.
With the intelligence provided by the prisoners and the battlefield information constantly coming from Tanma, the Tang army made effective use of this content about ten days later and began to exert continuous efforts to launch a counterattack.
At the beginning, the Tang Army could only be led by the Ye Army. After winning several battles using night attacks, ambushes, sieges and other tactics, they reversed their previous decline and took the initiative on the battlefield.
The generals are very aware of the moral character of the tribal armed forces. They are a group of selfish people. When they win a battle, they become arrogant, and when they lose a battle, they lose everything.
To put it bluntly, the psychological endurance is extremely poor. They fight with the mentality of grabbing a handful and making a profit, which is worse than the rebels that were popular in the pass before.
If the rebel army fought like this, they would probably have been wiped out by the dog officers and soldiers long ago.
The Xiyi people can survive here for a long time only because the dog officers and soldiers are beyond their reach.
Now, Tang Jun will teach these forgetful barbarians a lesson!
Ye Jun was not good at attacking fortified areas and could not even defeat a well-defended village.
There are pits for rejecting horses and trapping horses on the outside, and inside there are iron barrel cannons that fire golden juice.
Li Zicheng equipped each village with iron barrel cannons, which gave the defenders long-range firepower.
When the village was first built, defense was also considered. The houses were built very densely, and the village was completely unsuitable for cavalry to attack.
Village Min hides in the corners and can kill invading enemies with spears, swords, bows and arrows, and grenades.
Ye Jun could capture the village if he didn't care about the cost.
But taking down a village requires forty or fifty casualties. There is no doubt that this is very uneconomical.
After doing it forcefully a few times, I decided to give up on this costly action with little return.
The goal is to fight the enemy in a field battle, hoping to achieve a decisive victory in the field battle.
However, the Tang Army did not have a strength advantage, so it basically would not engage in large-scale "play" with the opponent in the wilderness during the day.
You can fight if you want, but you have to do it according to me!
When it started to snow, the two sides were still fighting in the Bosten area.
However, Ye Jun's offensive was almost zero, and he was eventually forced to embark on a return journey.
After Li Zicheng heard the news, he hurriedly ordered people everywhere to harvest crops. If they didn't harvest crops, they would lose everything this year.
The areas close to the village had long been mowed down by the village minsters at night, but the fields further away had not been touched much.
It's about the stomachs of yourself and your whole family, and you have to survive the long cold winter. Without the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, the people will take matters into their own hands.
After repelling the Western Yi, the people in the Tang Dynasty, as long as they could still move, were braving the wind and snow to harvest crops.
An extra pound of grain harvested at this time can provide the whole family with one more meal in the future.
This is much better than drinking nothing from the northwest wind!
After the war, statistics showed that the output of all crops in Datang was reduced by nearly 50%. Fortunately, half of it was harvested, so the work was not in vain.
This time they annihilated about 3,000 enemies, captured 2,500 people, captured more than 8,000 horses, and no less than 2,000 muskets.
Our own losses were probably less than 2,000 soldiers, plus about 3,000 civilians, which was considered a great victory.
Li Zicheng was quite satisfied with this.
If the weapons and equipment of the Dog Officer Army were available, the Tang Army's battle loss ratio would be even higher.
Li Zicheng had previously asked his brother-in-law Gao Yigong to go to Turpan and exchange war horses from the Western Regions for weapons and equipment in the pass.
Although the quantity is not much, fortunately I got some.
Including twenty mini-Flang machines, one thousand muskets, two thousand grenades and matching ammunition, two hundred sets of heavy armor that could not be damaged by muskets and arrows were exchanged for two hundred sets.
Unfortunately, it cannot be equipped on a large scale and can only be issued to the most elite guards.
However, it was through the effective use of this batch of weapons and equipment that the Western Tang army was able to defeat Yerkang's tens of thousands of cavalry again.
Chai Shihua also tried trading horses for weapons, but with little success.
This guy didn't know that even if a certain prince at that time supported Li Zicheng, he would not support Chai Shihua.
Li Zicheng was forced to take another path because of arrears of pay and the dismantling of the inn by his father. In general, it was the court that owed him.
Chai Shihua had received military pay, and halfway through his service to the emperor, he actually used the excuse of insufficient military pay to instigate his subordinates to build a new mountain with him!
I gave you money, but you still have the nerve to play with me?
This is something a certain prince cannot accept!
The weapons and equipment originally flowing outside the customs are strictly controlled. Not only are they small in quantity, but they are also directional.
The annual transaction volume is ten small French guns, five hundred muskets, one thousand hand grenades and matching ammunition.
Otherwise, you can only order next year's share...
It is even more impossible to flow to Chai Shihua. A certain prince also warned Zuo Maodi and Sun Chuanting.
In addition to the designated arms, any general who dares to sell weapons without authorization will be severely punished!
The arms exit point is Hamiwei, and then traded in Turpan through merchants who often travel this route.
The royal merchants will not get direct profits from it, but as long as they can get novel products produced in Beidu, they are willing to pay for it.
The war horses obtained from selling arms can be equipped with Shaanxi local troops, which is equivalent to improving the combat effectiveness of the border troops in disguise.
Li Zicheng had already figured out the situation, but because the batch was too small, this small amount of munitions could only be used to soothe his throat, but could not quench his thirst.
But it’s better than nothing, it’s not enough, it’s more than Chai Shihua!
Li Zicheng promised not to send troops to invade the area east of Turpan, but the other party also had to ensure that transactions could be carried out on time and with high quality and quantity every year.
In contrast, Chai Shihua, who was not supplemented by "Yecao", was severely beaten by Yarkant's cavalry. It can be said that both sides suffered losses.
He had also heard the news before that Li Zicheng was actually able to purchase weapons and equipment from within the customs, so he took advantage of the situation and sent people to investigate, but he was rejected.
Even though he paid twice as much as Li Zicheng, he couldn't buy the goods, either with war horses or cash. This made Chai Shihua extremely depressed.
Why do they treat the two of them differently?
Chai Shihua was puzzled...
In desperation, he could only back up generous gifts to Li Zicheng to see if he could get a piece of the pie.
Li Zicheng declined directly and shared weapons with others here?
Even my subordinates can’t make much, it’s not even enough!
Rather than giving a little and having people complain, it’s better not to give anything at all!
This is what Li Zicheng thought and did!
Chai Shihua wanted to rebel, but he had no way out, so he could only endure it for the time being.
I contacted Ye Erqiang before, hoping that the two parties could get back on good terms, but the other party actually rejected his good intentions.
Chai Shihua originally hoped to unite with Ye Erqiang to eliminate Li Zicheng's tribe and then eat his tribe, but he failed to do so.
After Yarkant's defeat at Bosten Lake last time, he regarded the intruders along the lake as a serious problem.
Regarding Chai Shihua's sudden kindness, he thought it was probably just a trap to induce his own side to send troops.
Instead of joining forces, it would be more appropriate to find Heshuote, Dulbert, Huite and other troops to send troops together to destroy this enemy!
If you can do this yourself, there is no need to bother other allies.
This led to the war caused by the Yarkand Khanate sending troops to Bosten Lake again!
Unexpectedly, the enemy was so good at fighting, causing the Khanate to lose tens of thousands of people and severely weaken its vitality.
After another defeat, Ye Erqiang had to consider uniting the northern tribes to attack this enemy.
If it is allowed to develop for a few more years, it may threaten the safety of the entire Khanate...
