Chapter 365: Opportunity
At the end of Shenshi, the magnificent rosy clouds turned the sky and grassland into a golden color, which was particularly magnificent; more than 3,000 young women squatted by the sparkling Wild Wolf River, scraping and washing the burned cattle and sheep carcasses with daggers; On one side, there were three to four thousand women washing gauze made of white folded cloth, blood-stained leather armor and clothes.
Behind these women were more than two thousand Sui army cavalry who supervised and assisted them. Whenever a woman washed the cattle and sheep, they would be sent to the military camp and handed over to another group of women for moxibustion and roasting.
These women are one of the trophies of the Sui army these days. In addition to the Turks, Tiele people, Xianbei people, Hu people, and Sogdians living in this grassland, there are also some Qiang people and people captured from the border by the Turks. Han people, their common identity in Turks is slaves.
The status of women among nomads is far lower than that of women in the Central Plains. Women from ordinary families are equivalent to slaves in the Central Plains, and slaves are equivalent to goods. They are almost all "items" that can be bought, sold and given away, so they have little influence on the original tribes. A sense of belonging. For them, if the Sui people could give them a stable home, it would be an unimaginable blessing.
Yang Ji asked the Sui soldiers to collect these female slaves, not out of pity or sympathy, nor because they had any physiological needs for such people, but because they had an urgent need for population. He hoped that these women would become slaves after the Sui Dynasty. The mother who reproduced the population caused the population of Sui Dynasty to increase slowly.
This urgent need for population is especially obvious among the northern nomads. When Xianbei and Rouran declined and were replaced by the Turkic Khanate, their population could not keep up with the territory of the khanate, so the need for population became More intense. Over time, a nomadic civilization full of animalistic nature was formed, and the former Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Rouran were no exception.
Now that Yang Ji has taken these women away, it can be regarded as a way to weaken the Turks; after all, without women, even if the Turkic men play with boys, they will not be able to have children, and if they cannot give birth to children, there will be no herdsmen who can produce food and fight. Soldier, how can we talk about being strong in the future?
After asking Anming about the situation in Madam Fan's City, Yang Ji was not in a hurry to deploy his troops. Instead, he planned to wait for the various partial divisions to come together and then capture Madam Fan's City in one battle. After making arrangements for the night's defense, he returned to the back tent and took a hot bath to get rid of the stench of sweat and blood, and then soaked in a tub.
It had been a long time since I had taken such a gentle bath. At this time, the hot water soaked the stiff skin, and the hot air seemed to penetrate from the pores. The muscles all over the body seemed to relax. It was really comfortable.
Not long after soaking, Liu Rumei walked in with a basin of hot water in her hand.
She had already bathed before Yang Ji, and now she put on a set of more casual clothes. Only her black hair was still wet, and she only wore a charming bun and a bamboo hairpin. It exudes a mature charm, elegant and generous with a touch of charm.
Seeing that she had a dagger in her hand, Yang Ji couldn't help but asked in confusion: "What are you doing?"
"Sir, you have become unshaven. Let me help you clean up." Liu Rumei put the hot water on the table nearby, and then put a towel on the edge of the bucket.
Yang Ji understood and put his head on the towel as a pillow, then stretched out his hand to touch his chin, feeling a little prickly, and said with a smile: "If you think about it carefully, since the Northern Expedition, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, I have been having trouble eating and sleeping. My hair and beard have grown like crazy, it really feels like time flies.”
"It's good that Mr. Lang knows!" Liu Rumei came over with a smile. She put a hot towel on Yang Ji's chin. After waiting for a long time, she took the dagger and sat on the stool behind Yang Ji, gently His beard, which was not too thick, was carefully trimmed.
Her movements were very gentle, and when her white and tender hands brushed her cheeks, Yang Ji couldn't help but feel a warm feeling in his heart.
He suddenly thought of something, but he was afraid of being hurt, so he asked in a low voice: "Rumei, are you afraid of Aying?"
Liu Rumei was stunned, and then said: "My aunt treats me very well. I only respect and be close to her, but have no fear. Why do you ask?"
"Then why don't you want to go home?" When Yang Ji was resting by the Ulan Lake, he couldn't bear Liu Rumei to suffer with him, and thought that illusion and disguise were useless, so he sent the Suzaku Guard home, but Liu Rumei Thinking that he might need her, he refused to leave even if he died.
She didn't want to leave, so Zhang Chuchen, Murong Xianyue and others naturally didn't leave either. This also led Yang Ji to mistakenly believe that Liu Rumei did not dare to be alone with Xiao Ying.
Liu Rumei smiled softly: "I can't help you with big things, but I don't want to be like a waste, so I can only use my own strengths and stay close to you. Master, you don't know! I regret it now. I didn’t learn martial arts back then, otherwise I would have been able to fight alongside the young master.”
Yang Ji couldn't help but laugh when he heard the little pride in her voice. He felt sorry for Liu Rumei, but Liu Rumei felt that this was a kind of happiness. This was in line with the famous saying "You are not a fish, how can you know the joy of a fish".
Since it was not a family conflict, Yang Ji didn't bother to ask.
Just let her go now. When you have children in the future, it will be difficult for you to want her to follow you.
Neither of them spoke, and fell into silence. There was only the slight sound of the dagger scraping on the face. After a moment, Liu Rumei wiped Yang Ji's cheek carefully with a hot towel, and said softly: "Okay, you Are you satisfied or dissatisfied?"
Yang Ji sat up straight, took the breast shield from her hand, and looked in the mirror. Liu Rumei did not shave off all his beard, but trimmed it carefully.
After cleaning up, the two of them walked out of the back tent, attracting the attention of countless maidservants.
Yang Ji looks like a beautiful beauty, but when he didn't have a beard before, he looked more immature and girly, which did not meet the aesthetic standards of Sui women. On the contrary, some men liked this style.
Now with a trimmed beard, he has the charm of a mature man that he didn't have before. The gazes of those maidservants were like locusts, biting hard on his face and unwilling to look away.
Yang Ji couldn't stand their gazes, so he quickened his pace and ran to the front camp to have dinner.
"Your Majesty!" Yang Ji had just taken a few bites of roast beef when Zhu Can rushed over with a group of cavalry and shouted loudly from a distance: "Your Majesty, there is a Turkic elite cavalry running towards the camp. .”
"Oh?" Yang Ji stood up immediately and asked in a deep voice, "How many people are here? How far is it from here?"
Zhu Can said solemnly: "Based on the smoke lit by the scouts ahead, there are about 20,000 enemies coming, and they are still more than 40 miles away from our camp."
"Your Majesty, do the Turks want to fight us in a night battle?" Yu Chigong asked next to him.
Yang Ji slowly shook his head: "Absolutely not!"
Yuchi Gong was silent for a long time, and then asked: "How can you see it?"
"The Turks have not been specially trained to fight at night. They will not fight with us at night." Yang Ji raised his head and looked at the sky and said: "It is the end of Shen Shi, and there will be another hour and a half before the sky becomes completely dark. If According to the wartime marching speed, they will be ten miles away in another hour, and the remaining half hour should be used to rest and recuperate."
Yuchi Gong nodded. The Turkic soldiers came rushing from a hundred miles away and needed to rest. No matter how stupid the general in charge was, he would not stupidly come to attack the Sui army who was waiting for work. An idea flashed in his mind, and he suddenly said: "Your Majesty, could it be that the Turks want to implement a plan to exhaust the army?"
"I think that's what the enemy general thinks!" After years of training, Yang Ji is no longer the Zhao Kuo who went on an expedition to Yiwu; he can now judge some of the enemy's movements based on instinct alone.
"Your Majesty, what should we do? Fight or not?" Li Daliang asked at the side.
"The Turks came here to die on their own. If we don't fight, wouldn't we be betraying their good intentions?" Yang Jizheng was worried about how to conquer Mrs. Fan's city. The Turks actually came out of the city to fight. Naturally, he wanted it. If he annihilates the 20,000 troops in the wild, it will not only reduce the resistance to the siege, but also shake the morale of the defenders.
Yang Ji thought of the two pieces of news An Ming said, asked someone to get paper and pen, quickly wrote a letter, and handed it to Ling Jing beside him: "Jingzhi, you immediately arrange a team of troops. Once the enemy army is defeated, Then he followed the defeated troops into Madam Fan's city, tried to find Zong Luohu, and asked him to surrender."
"Here!" Ling Jing took the letter and ran to arrange the manpower.
"Send the order, and prepare the whole army for war!" Yang Ji picked up a roasted leg of lamb, took a big bite, and sent an order to the soldiers on standby: "Tell the soldiers that we will set off in two minutes, and the food will be there." Eat on the road, anyone who dares to delay will be killed!"
"Here!" The soldiers heard the sound and left.
Since Yelang Lake is only more than a hundred miles away from Mrs. Fan's city, the soldiers of the Sui army have always been in a state of being able to fight, and everything seemed in order. Therefore, when the order to assemble was sounded, the soldiers gathered quickly.
In this Western Expedition, although Yang Ji led an army of 50,000, all the partial divisions composed of surrendered troops had not yet arrived. His strength at this time was only 20,000 Sui troops and 20,000 surrendered troops, but the invading enemy was only 20,000, Yang Ji arranged for 10,000 Sui troops to garrison the camp, and the remaining soldiers lined up to go out.
Yang Ji seriously considered the Western Expedition before going out. He felt that it was very likely that he would have a large army battle with the Turkic soldiers whose strength far exceeded his own. If he was in such a war, he would continue to use the previous tactics of all light cavalry. , they will definitely suffer heavy losses; even if they win the final victory, they will suffer heavy casualties; and both sides are cavalry. If the enemy chooses to retreat at the critical moment, it will be difficult for him to achieve the goal of annihilating the enemy's vitality. In view of this, the 20,000 Sui troops were changed into many more units.
Although the 20,000 Sui troops were all on horseback and could fight on horseback, once they dismounted, they formed a tacitly coordinated multi-arms infantry battle formation, including crossbowmen, spearmen, and sword and shield soldiers. , Jumping soldiers.
As for the descending troops who have not systematically learned the art of battle formation, they are still cavalry who mainly fight on horseback. After their weapons and equipment were optimized, Yang Ji divided them into formation cavalry, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, and horse archers, each of which The responsibilities are different.
This method of combining infantry and cavalry and fighting with multiple arms was actually created by Yang Su. Before Yang Su, the generals of the Central Plains were worried that the military formation would not be able to withstand the collision and shooting back and forth of the cavalry, so they long used the tactic of infantry, chariots, and cavalry cooperating with each other.
Outside each military formation, there are antlers, horses, iron caltrops, etc.; and the cavalry is led by the chief general of each square and deployed in the middle of the military formation. Only when the enemy is defeated will the cavalry leave the military formation. Heading towards the enemy to cover up the enemy. However, due to the large number of obstacles outside the military formation, when the infantry was cleared and the cavalry charged out, the enemy had already fled. In many cases, they were even defeated one by one by the reorganized enemy cavalry formation.
Yang Su believed that the Central Plains army paid too much attention to defense rather than offense. In vain, the initiative to attack always belonged to the enemy. Even when to fight and when not to fight, the Hu people had the final say. In the end, what should have been A war with a big victory turns into a small victory, and a small victory turns into a draw with considerable losses. If this shackles that lasted for more than a thousand years were not broken, the Central Plains army would always be at a psychological disadvantage and would continue to be afraid of Hu Qi. Therefore, when he fought with dozens of Turkic soldiers, he abandoned the outdated and backward conservative formation of vehicles, cavalry and infantry protecting each other, and boldly adopted the strategy of cavalry assault, and finally achieved a brilliant victory.
After the war, the generals were inspired by the battle and improved their tactics one after another, resulting in various effective new tactics springing up like mushrooms after a rain. But no matter how good the battle formation is, it still depends on whether the coach directs it properly. If he cannot assess the situation and make correct judgments, the final result will be in vain.
As for Yang Ji, although he has achieved a series of great victories, he has always focused on cunning tactics. After all, he still lacks the experience of large-scale operations in an upright manner. Therefore, in the eyes of veteran commanders like Yang Su, Yang Ji is still a general. A young boy who is just starting out and cannot rely on a big fight.
After all, although strangeness is good, the risk is also high; if Yang Ji cannot combine the right and strange, he can usually only fight a dozen ordinary wars. If he is allowed to command the kind of war that determines the fate of the country, he will easily be defeated by the enemy generals. They were exploited and defeated, which ultimately caused the national destiny of the Sui Dynasty to be severely damaged.
Yang Ji also realized his shortcomings, so this time, he decided to use upright battle formations to fight the invading enemies, which should be used to train his commanding power.
Yang Ji was wearing armor and standing on the general's stage holding the "Penetrating Armor Black Golden Sword", and in front of him were thousands of Xuanjia guards who had experienced hundreds of battles.
Not long after the army was assembled, a commander flew on horseback to report: "Your Majesty, the time has come!"
"Among you are Han people, Qiang people, Xianbei people, Tiele people, Hu people, and Sogdians. In the past few years, many of you have killed the most vicious Turks with me. The Turks were driven out of the Great Lakes area. However, damn Murong Bei betrayed everyone. For his own selfish purposes, he once again introduced the Turks into the Great Lakes area, hoping to exploit everyone with the help of the Turks. As a result, we had to go to war not long ago. See you there." Yang Ji looked at the dark army in front and shouted: "But the days of hostility have passed. Now and in the future, you and I have only one common identity, that is, soldiers of the Sui Army; our common mission is Kill all the ferocious Turks."
After listening to Yang Ji's words, many people's already numb hearts suddenly felt hot, and as his words continued to accumulate, the long-lost blood felt like it was ignited at this moment.
Yang Ji waved his sword and said: "Soldiers, we will not destroy the Turks today. Let's go!"
Yuchi Gong stood in the audience, feeling as if his blood was boiling. He turned his horse's head and waved his horse's spear at the soldiers: "Soldiers, I swear not to return the Turks until they are destroyed! Let's go!"
"Woooooooooooo..." The horns of the expedition sounded in unison, and groups of cavalry and infantry set off in formation, with war horses like a tide and swords and spears like a forest. The west-slanting sunlight shone on the bright armor of the Sui soldiers, reflecting a cold light. .
. . . . . . . . . . .
At the same time, 20,000 elite Turkic soldiers were advancing towards the Sui army camp.
This army is the elite army of Ashina Bulishe, and the commander is naturally him.
Ashinabulishe's army was not marching very fast. He also had to maintain the physical strength of his men and horses in order to cope with unexpected battles. At the same time, he was waiting for news from the spies.
"Prince!" Three cavalry spies came on horseback. When they were inquiring about the enemy's situation, most of them were killed by Sui army scouts. In the end, only three of them escaped. One person on horseback loudly reported: "Prince, we The main force of the Sui army was found in front, with more than 30,000 people, running towards this direction."
"Are they all cavalry?" Ashina Bulishe's heart tightened. The Sui army's arrows were sharp and powerful, and now they had more troops than him. If they were all cavalry, then he would have no choice but to stop and rest.
"No!" The scout shook his head and said, "Report to the prince, they have both cavalry and infantry."
"What did you say?" Ashinabuli couldn't believe his ears and asked in shock: "The Sui army actually has infantry? Did you read that correctly?"
The scout loudly said: "We are not mistaken, they really have a large number of infantry."
"Haha!" Ashina Bulishe was overjoyed. He laughed wildly and said: "Yang Ji dared to use infantry on the prairie. This is simply a tribute to us! Warriors, follow me to defeat the Sui army."
Although his mission was not to fight the Sui army, but to delay Yang Ji and buy time for Ashina to move troops and generals. As long as they succeeded in dragging Yang Ji under Madam Fan's city, the Turkic North Khan's court and the surrounding grasslands would not be poisoned by the Sui army, and at the same time they could help their father Khan gain time for peace negotiations. But Yang Ji gave him a good opportunity to defeat the enemy. If he could repel and defeat Yang Ji, then they could even negotiate terms with the Sui Dynasty.
This so-called condition is certainly not to ask for benefits from the Sui Dynasty, but to reduce the difficulty in the peace talks and reduce the price they have to pay.
