In Shule King City, Li Shengtian was having a banquet for the generals. For the Khotan Kingdom, this was an unprecedented victory.
The Jin army not only captured the city of Shule, but also captured alive the queen of Buglahan Saktu and the governor of Shule, Ittihad.
At the same time, most of the seven thousand Askars left by Saktu in Shule City were killed or injured, and the rest either escaped or were captured, especially the eight or nine thousand divine warriors, who had harassed the Khotan Jin Kingdom in recent years. , happened to be served in one pot.
Most of the vendettas in Shule City these days occurred among converted believers and divine warriors. Everyone, including the believers of the three religions in Shule City, hated these divine warriors.
Askar may still have a chance to survive if he is caught, but these divine warriors from Baghdad, Isfahan, Samarkand and other places will almost die as soon as they are caught.
However, after more than ten days of vendetta, and the Xicheng was blown up by Zhang Zhao, the entire Shule City may not be able to recover in a year and a half.
The only ones that are relatively intact now are the East City, which has commercial functions, and the West City, where believers of the three religions live together. The North City was even killed and no one was around.
After three rounds of wine and five dishes, the atmosphere in the hall had reached its climax. Li Shengtian walked to the center and raised a jade bowl. The jade bowl was filled with the finest grape wine, with a color like blood and a rich aroma.
"My loyal Amozhi! The descendants of King Nanta! The brave generals! Today we captured Shule and moved away the huge boulders of the Kara Khanate that were pressing on our heads.
But Bragg Khan Saktu, who deserted us and went to the Persians, was not completely defeated. He has now led his army to Lower Atush in the north. What do you think we should do? "
Amozhi originally meant the chief minister, and was also the original surname of the Pei family of King Shule. However, with the destruction of the Shule Kingdom by the Pei family, Amozhi gradually evolved to refer to the feudal lord who occupied one side.
As soon as Li Shengtian finished speaking, the generals and civil servants attending the banquet knelt on the ground, and Governor Pei, who was of Pei family blood, cupped his hands.
"Emperor, since the battle of Esksaburg, I have not made any achievements, Shule City was also conquered by Fengtian County Duke in a bloody battle, and now Bragg Khan Saktu dares to station troops in Atush, then let us Attack! I am willing to kill this thief for the emperor's formation!"
"What Governor Pei said is right. I have long wanted to defeat Karakhan for the emperor. Now we have been repairing for more than ten days, and our morale is high. It's time to go north and decide the outcome in a battle!" Another Khotanian general came out. Please give me your life.
Li Shengtian nodded with satisfaction. He deliberately held this banquet after Zhang Zhao left, just to stimulate the generals to the west.
The Fengtian County Government has made such a great contribution and went to the north without sparing any effort. How dare you stay in Shule City?
And this is indeed useful, because in this battle, the Jin Kingdom of Khotan has the upper hand. If Saktu is defeated, the sacred land near Shule will belong to Khotan.
Originally, the combat effectiveness of the Khotan army was superior to that of Karakhan, and Shulejian City was not there. Everyone felt that the chance of victory was great, so the fighting spirit was very high.
. . . .
Zhang Zhao was no longer in Shule City for a long time. On the second day after talking with Li Shengtian, Zhang Zhao didn't even have time to go to Monk Daozhen to inquire about the descendants of the Anxi Army. He left the city directly because according to the news from the scouts sent by Li Shengtian , Prague Khan Saktu had returned with his army overnight and was stationed in Lower Artush.
Although Zhang Zhao had doubts about how Saktu led a large number of soldiers across the Naryn River and returned to Lower Artush in April, he was still keenly aware that something was wrong.
The Khotan army, including Li Shengtian, believed that without Shule, there was nothing to worry about.
But Zhang Zhao didn't think so. This was a ruthless man who single-handedly brought the Tianfang Sect into the Western Regions and made it stronger.
In the end, if the Liao Kingdom had not acquiesced to several nomadic Khitan tribes to cooperate with the Gaochang Uighurs in fighting, Saktuji's descendants might have even swallowed the Gaochang Uighurs.
How could such a person who could be called the Green Taizu not have two brushes?
I'm afraid Saktu is much more powerful than Li Shengtian and others thought!
"Your Majesty! Fifteen miles ahead is Lower Atush. The banner of the thieves chief Saktu was found at the top of the city. There are heavy armored soldiers patrolling the city. They are very similar to the Ghulam Guards of Saktu!"
small book booth
Lower Atush was the city of Atush in later generations, and it was only about 90 kilometers away from Shule. This Saktu was really bold. Shule had already been captured, and he actually dared to come to Lower Atush.
Zhang Zhao smiled coldly. Sometimes he was so bold that he could become famous throughout the ages like Li Shuo's visit to Caizhou on a snowy night. He could also run into an iron plate and have his legs broken.
Obviously, Saktu still didn't take the Khotan army seriously. Of course, it could also be that the capital was destroyed, all the treasures were lost, and the queen was kidnapped, and he was a little anxious.
Of course, Zhang Zhao was actually making a surprise. Saktu wanted to defeat Khotan and regain Shule as soon as possible. Zhang Zhao was afraid that Saktu would assess the situation and pull up his troops and run away.
We must know that there are hundreds of thousands of Geluolu tribes that have surrendered to Saktu in the Qihe Basin and Ili Basin. If Saktu is allowed to take his Gulam Guards and Iqta Cavalry to the Qihe River, Once the river basin is gone, Shule will be very busy from now on.
"It's getting late today. We'll camp here and notify the officers at the first level to come to my camp immediately!" Zhang Zhao immediately issued an order to Wu Yuan'er.
After a while, dozens of officers poured into the temporary camp. Zhang Zhaoke was now rich. This was the support he received after Li Shengtian revealed his true feelings and had a long talk.
At present, Zhang Zhao has a total of fifty-two Shandu soldiers in his hands. The number of casualties in the battle to break the city of Shule a dozen days ago was far smaller than Zhang Zhao imagined. Not only did Wang Tongtong survive, but only seven died in the battle. People, the most killed were Li Shengtian's palace guards, a total of forty or fifty people were killed.
After all, they were all soldiers wearing two or three layers of heavy armor. In the era without muskets, it was not so easy to die. Compared with Karakhan's Askar and the God Warriors, hundreds of people died in battle. The verdict was clear, but The injured would not recover for a while, so Zhang Zhao only brought fifty-two people with him.
In addition, his small Youyi Army cavalry had almost no casualties, including ten armored cavalry and twelve elite light cavalry.
The second part of the supplement comes from the Yueqi of the Guiyi Army given to him by Cao Yuanxin. This Yueqi was the dowry of Cao Yuanxin's marriage to Khotan twenty-one years ago.
At that time, in order to show the strength of Cao's Guiyi Army, these one hundred Yue cavalry were carefully selected from the Guiyi Army, especially the group of fifty Dadan cavalry.
These Zubu Dadan tribes who surrendered to the Guiyi Army were the predecessors of the Mongolian Tatars. They originally lived in the Bingzhou area of Monan.
Twenty or thirty years ago, Li Keyong and his son gathered tens of thousands of them into the Central Plains. There were many Dadan cavalry in the famous Shatuo Ya'er Army.
The tribe that returned to the Yi army was unwilling to follow Li Keyong into the Central Plains and chose to move westward.
After they migrated to the grasslands north of Guasha and converted to Han Tantric Buddhism, they accepted the rule of the Guiyi Army Jiefu.
These Dadan people are the best light cavalry. After being equipped with the sophisticated armor of the Guiyi Army, they have become a cavalry team that the Guiyi Army relies heavily on. In several battles with the Ganzhou Uighurs, the Guiyi Army relied on the Dadan people to cross the cavalry to carry out search and cover. task.
After Cao Yuanxin settled in Khotan, the Yueqi of one hundred people multiplied over the past twenty years and indeed had a population of 433.
Just hearing that Cao Yuanxin was so familiar with this number, he knew their importance, and Cao Yuanxin also looked at them differently.
Zhang Zhao selected 300 elites from them to form a new Youyi army, with Bai Congxin as the captain of Zhechong and Hu Cile from Dadan as the captain of Guoyi.
Since then, Zhang Zhao's cavalry team has finally formed. Three hundred elite light cavalry equipped with buckle-style chain mail, armed with long spears, sophisticated horn bows, and hammer-picking in close combat are enough to undertake tasks such as cover and search.
In addition to these 322 cavalry, Zhang Zhao also had one more cavalry, and it was also an armored cavalry, with a number of about 150 cavalry, with Li Ruotai as the captain.
That's right, this Li Ruotai is the second brother of his aunt Li Ruoliu who rolled into the same bed as Zhang Zhao.
This is also the secret why the descendants of Yuchi Sheng, headed by Li Ruoyu, have been able to maintain their status in Khotan.
From Li Ruoyu to Li Ruotai and Li Ruohai, these three brothers turned out to be the few warriors in Khotan who could play heavy armored cavalry.
Don't underestimate this ability. The weight of a man and a horse weighs over a hundred kilograms at least, and the weight of the knight himself is even more terrifying.
With such a heavy load, it is definitely not easy to be able to shoot from a distance, poke in close combat, and charge when charging.
In addition to the knight's own martial arts, it also requires an extreme tacit understanding between the knight and the horse. The horse can understand the meaning of each movement of the knight, and the knight knows how to save the horse's effort.
After Li Ruotai arrived, Zhang Zhao also handed over his ten armored cavalry to him, which would be used as the final decisive force for Zhang Zhao's small army.
Liu Zaisheng wiped the sweat from his face. He had just gone personally to inquire about the enemy situation outside the city of Atushi.
Now that Liu Zaisheng had been promoted to the rank of captain, the Khotan palace guards suffered heavy losses in the battle of Shule City, with hundreds of people lost, but Li Shengtian quickly replaced them.
Moreover, they were supplemented by a hundred Tubo people who came down from Qiangtang, and their combat effectiveness was even stronger than that of the original palace guards.
The current military composition of Khotan, in addition to more than 6,000 people gathered by various Amo tribes and small feudal lords such as governors, its main force is the Shenwei Left Army, the Shenwei Right Army and the Palace Guards.
Among them, the Shenwei Left Army has approximately 11,000 people, almost all of whom are heavy infantry. They are one of the core of the Khotan Infantry Army.
Most of the Shenwei Right Army were cavalry, including tribes that had surrendered to Khotan and domestic people who were good at riding and shooting. They numbered about 3,500 people.
Finally, there are 10,000 palace guards. These palace guards are the standing army of Khotan, and they are usually scattered in various cities or key passes.
Among them, there are as many as 5,000 people living in Khotan City, and 2,000 of them are stationed in the royal city headed by Taihe Palace all year round.
However, the number of people is not fixed, but takes turns among these ten thousand people. However, there are exceptions. Liu Zaisheng is one of the palace guards who never have to go to other places and always guards the Taihua Palace. People like him are all Khotan Xunchen There are about two hundred people selected by the noble families.
Zhang Zhao signaled Liu Zaisheng to sit down quickly and handed him a kettle.
Li Shengtian's uncle was still very capable. Almost all of Liu Zaisheng's five hundred palace guards were selected from the elite Khotan palace guards.
Except for the four hundred flying cavalry of the palace guards that Li Shengtian kept to save his life, they were the most adept at fighting.
In addition to them, Master Zhitong led Shenji with more than 300 people, Shi Chongmin's share of gold with more than 300 people, and Li Qilang's brother Huitong, with more than 500 righteous followers, also followed Zhang Zhao to the front line.
Therefore, the number of people that Zhang Zhao can now command is no longer the same as the hundred men at the beginning, but almost 2,200.
Among them, the armor rate has reached more than 70%, and the core force of one thousand people is quite powerful. If you include the thousands of civilians and thousands of mules and horses under the control of Zhang Zhong and Wu Yuan'er, he can already be called ten thousand people.
'Dong-dong-dong! "There was an urgent sound of drums outside the camp. The so-called beating drums to gather generals refers to this thing. If the three drums cannot be used, the coach can kill people and establish his authority.
Of course, after Zhang Zhao looked around, no one dared to challenge his authority. From low-level officers like Duizheng to mid-level officers like Colonel Lieutenant, they had all arrived long ago and were obedient. No one dared to give me a big answer. The Duke showed his unruliness.
Just kidding, Zhang Zhao's record is real, and he is also Li Shengtian's most trusted and beloved nephew. Khotan is such a big country, and there are really those who can't understand the situation without opening their eyes, and they can't get to the level of an officer.
Seeing that his cheap second uncle Li Ruotai had a serious and well-behaved look on his face, Zhang Zhao nodded with satisfaction. He spread out a piece of white paper produced in Xuancheng County on the desk, which was also the famous rice paper in later generations. The paper was densely packed with words and pictures.
It's a pity that Zhang Zhao's careful preparations didn't have much effect, because there are only a dozen or so officers in the room who can read and read Chinese characters, and the rest of them are They were all trying to look like I couldn't understand, but they were shocked.
"General, this seems to be a formation diagram?" The speaker was Li Ruotai. As a descendant of Wudu County Prince Yuchi Sheng, he was certainly literate. Not only was he literate, but he was also quite knowledgeable.
"That's right! This formation is called stacked formation, and it is a formation designed to defeat cavalry with foot based on the characteristics of the Karakhan army, which has more cavalry and less infantry."
Formations are not as mysterious as those written in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but they are indeed a very important part of war in the era of cold weapons and hot and cold weapons. To a certain extent, the three-three system of later republics can also be called formations. .
The founder of the stacked formation was Wu Lin, a famous general and strategist in the early Southern Song Dynasty. When the Southern Song Dynasty faced the Jurchens of the Jin Kingdom with extremely fierce cavalry, Wu Lin made innovations and inventions based on the chariot-based cavalry tactical system of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and designed the This set of stacks.
This formation can be regarded as a great invention in Chinese military history. Wu Lin relied on this formation to defend most of Shaanxi for the Southern Song Dynasty, and then preserved the wealthy land of Sichuan, avoiding further expansion of the Jurchen Jin Kingdom.
Historically, the use of stacked formations continued throughout the Southern Song Dynasty, and was still in use in the Ming Dynasty. The nine-into-ten chain formation used by the green battalions in the mid-Manchu Qing Dynasty was also an improved version of this stacked formation.
Li Ruotai squinted his eyes for a long time and glanced at this man who didn't know whether he was an eldest nephew or a cheap brother-in-law.
No matter what the formation is, those who can design the formation have been upgraded from the so-called brave generals to commanders.
But the more he watched, the more frightened Li Ruotai became. As Zhang Zhao explained, he could see how this formation worked.
In this formation, several rows of spearmen and horsemen are first arranged in front of the formation to serve as a city wall, followed by strong archers with more than eight dou, ordinary archers with less than eight dou, and finally the divine arm archers.
At the same time, there are phalanxes on the left and right wings guarding the main formation, and the main formation is surrounded by Juma. It is almost the concept of using Juma to form a city wall, and all the soldiers of the main formation are framed inside.
Behind the square formations on the left and right wings, that is, on the left and right sides of the formation, there are two cavalry units.
"The essence of this formation is defensive counterattack!" Zhang Zhao said a word that did not exist in this era. He pointed at the formation drawn on rice paper and talked.
"When meeting the enemy, first place the resisting horses in front of the formation. The spearmen in the front row squat down on the ground. When the enemy is seventy steps away, the strong archers with eight or more steps will take one shot. When the enemy is sixty steps, the archers with eight or less steps will take one shot. After that, he knelt on one knee and fired arrows one after another. When the enemy was close to fifty steps, the divine arm archer fired arrows again!
The enemy was under continuous strikes from bows and crossbows, and as the Karakhan army looked upon it, its formation and morale would inevitably decline rapidly.
If there is still a strong charge, the spearmen will stand up to meet the enemy at this time, and the bows and crossbows will fire thousands of arrows again. If they are still not defeated, the archers will use Mo Dao to hit them with big sticks, and the divine arm archers will kill them accurately.
Repeat this way, until the enemy's morale collapses and they are exhausted, the light cavalry on the left and right wings will come out to drive the enemy together. In the end, the armored cavalry will stand out and the battle will be decided! "
This thing is actually a Nassau phalanx from the cold weapon period, with elite crossbowmen serving as musketeers, long gunners to protect the formation, and a bit of cavalry mixed in for harvesting purposes after defeating the enemy.
However, since the continuity and destructive power of crossbows cannot be compared with that of muskets and cannons, the crossbowmen in the array must also have the ability to fight hand-to-hand, or, like the Southern Song Dynasty, several stacked formations can be arranged to cover each other.
But coincidentally, the soldiers in the Tang Dynasty were not like those after the Northern and Southern Song Dynasty. The crossbowmen could not fight in close combat and the hand-to-hand soldiers could not shoot arrows, which just met the requirements.
"But General, please forgive me for being blunt. Although this formation is exquisite, the placement of the horses is not appropriate.
All our troops are blocked in the formation by horseback. If the situation is unfavorable, they will be like turtles in a urn with no way to escape. Secondly, this formation mostly uses bows and crossbows. I'm afraid we don't have that many arrows to use! "
Zhang Zhao looked at Li Ruotai, who was frowning. This man was indeed quite capable. The two problems he pointed out were the initial puzzling aspects of the stacked formation.
Well! No, the Southern Song Dynasty did not have the latter problem, because the country's economy was developed during the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Song army had a tradition of relying on crossbows, so the consumption of crossbows was nothing at all.
But it was really a problem in Khotan because the cost of arrows, especially arrow shafts, was very high at this time.
There were no machine tools in ancient times, so the round arrow shafts had to be cut out manually, and then they had to be heated, straightened, painted, and finally the ones of the same material and length had to be selected together.
The cost of an arrow shaft in Khotan is approximately equal to two days of living expenses for two adult men, which can be called a sky-high price.
Therefore, Li Ruotai's problem is very realistic. In this battle, arrows are raining down like rain. If he cannot win, not to mention casualties, he will lose money and lose people to death.
But this also just shows that in Anxi now, the powerful Tang Army and Tubo Army are not behind them. Even if the Kara Khanate seems to be powerful in attacking the east and west, in fact it is just a relatively capable fighter among the rookies. In the final analysis, it is still You're a noob, you can't even use a qualified bow and arrow in a battle, and most of the time you have to rely on close combat.
Thinking of this, Zhang Zhao became more confident about his next plan.
