In cold weapons, or in an army without mechanization, rapid marching is a difficult task.
It can even be said that there have not been many armies since ancient times that can march hundreds of miles in a few days and nights.
By the time they could rush through this stretch of road, the outcome of the battle was basically determined. Because such an army is invincible.
Especially in the era of cold weapons, this represents good nutrition, resolute will, strong desire to fight, unity of upper and lower goals, post-incident pensions and rewards that satisfy soldiers, and absolute confidence in themselves.
In the biography of Sun Tzu Wu Qi, it is said that those who can make a profit at a hundred miles can defeat the general, and those who can make a profit at fifty miles can only reach half the army. This actually explains the problem.
This is not to say that a hundred-mile raid will definitely fail, but there are too few troops that can march hundreds of miles and then fight with others.
For most armies in the feudal era, it was normal for most of the soldiers to be gone after marching fifty miles.
But Zhang Yan's army can definitely produce the effect of a thousand-mile surprise attack.
Because this can be said to be Zhang Zhou's most elite cavalry, and it also has rich experience and insights on long-distance raids.
Zhang Gao divided the 23,000 people into three armies: the front, middle and rear. The front army had 3,000 vanguards, with Murong Nobunaga as the vanguard officer, and Zhao Kuangyin, Zhang Xibao, Feng Jiye and others as deputy generals.
These three thousand people were all light cavalry with one person and two horses. The horses were not wearing armor, and the people were only wearing light armor without arm guards, and wore skins and stomachs on their heads.
The horses are chosen from third-generation mixed blood horses that are best at long-distance running. The weapons are not equipped with horse bows, but are only equipped with two horse bows, one hard bow, sixty feathered arrows, a horse fighting sword, and a day's water and dry food. .
As hussars, their role is to explore the road ahead for the army and disperse small groups of enemies they encounter.
After encountering the target, entangle the target in advance and wait for the army to arrive before launching a surprise attack.
Of course, you can also directly disperse the enemy army when the time is right, and then drive the enemy army in the direction of the army, leaving the enemy to die on his own.
Therefore, Murong Nobunaga and his companions were very fast. The minimum requirement Zhang Gao gave to Murong Nobunaga was to cover the 550 miles from Xiangzhou to Jizhou in three and a half days, and then find the Khitan army and entangle them. .
This requirement is not low. In history, those who ran three to four hundred miles a day were either fleeing for their lives, regardless of whether they still had fighting ability, or they were general and exaggerated.
The rest are like Zhang Yan, the forwards running at all costs, discovering and entangling the enemy, waiting for the large troops to arrive.
Then the description says that he traveled five hundred miles day and night to defeat the enemy.
But for Zhang Yan, he was reluctant to waste these precious Hexi sweat-blooded horses and Hexi broken-eared horses.
Therefore, Murong Nobunaga's requirement was to run about 150 miles a day and night.
The main force of the Chinese army consisted of 18,000 men, one person and three horses. One horse carried the armor, stomach and weapons, and the other two horses took turns riding.
One horse runs thirty miles first, then the cavalry dismounts and walks fifteen miles, and the other horse runs another thirty miles to complete the relay.
The Chinese army was the main force of the battle, divided into fifteen thousand half-equipped cavalry.
The horses only wear simple masks and breastplates, and the humans wear cloth-faced iron armor. They are equipped with a horse bow, a hard bow, a projectile long-tip bow, a horn crossbow, and an iron whip/pecking hammer. , Ma Zhan has a cross sword and a pear gun.
Some elites are also equipped with a divine arm bow, which can be used as a heavy step to dismount at critical moments.
The remaining 3,000 cavalry are 1,500 fully armored cavalry, each with a brother and nephew as a vassal, both men and horses.
Equipped with a horse, a horned crossbow, and an iron whip/pecker hammer, their fighting method is the simplest, which is to attack the enemy's most tenacious place.
The two thousand people in the rear army are basically engaged in logistics work. First, the fast horses deliver supplies to the large army. Second, they pick up the straggler horses and cavalry and send the reserve horses and cavalry to the central army. Food, grass and other baggage are also in the rear army.
Of course, if the main force of the Chinese army cannot open up the situation, the rear army will immediately enter the battle.
At the end of April, Zhang Zhi's entire army moved north from Weizhou (Daming) at an extremely fast speed, passed through Beizhou, and entered Jizhou.
Just after passing Wuyi County in Jizhou, Liu Zhiyuan personally led 40,000 Hedong troops to cross Shenzhou (Shenxian) and arrived at Hengshui County, an important town in Jizhou.
Hengshui County and Wuyi County are less than 60 miles apart. Zhang Gao sneaked behind Liu Zhiyuan's army under the nose of Liu Zhiyuan's army in one dangerous degree.
This is not to say that Zhang Zhi's 23,000 men cannot defeat Liu Zhiyuan's 40,000 men, but the Khitan's 40,000 cavalry are obviously a more worthy target than Liu Zhiyuan's Hedong Army.
When Zhang Gao received the exact news and Yelu Ruan mobilized all the Khitan troops from Tokyo, Zhongjing, Shangjing and Youzhou, and gathered 40,000 people to go south, he almost burst out laughing.
This is not to attack him, it is clearly God's help!
Because even though the Khitans have strong fishing and hunting attributes, their tactics are still mostly prairie style.
The joke that the Khitan had more infantry than the Song Dynasty only happened around the time of Liao Daozong Yelu Hongji. Now the absolute main force of the Khitan is cavalry.
Historically, it was difficult for such a grassland empire not to defeat them, but how to find them and force them to fight decisively.
The difficulty is how to kill them on a large scale and severely damage their effective strength after the decisive battle.
Now that the Khitans have experienced a disastrous defeat in Yanshi City, it can be said that their elite troops have been basically wiped out. What Zhang Gao is most afraid of is actually Yelu Ruan leading the Khitans back to western Liaoning.
Then they retreated ruthlessly to Laolinzi in the northeast and later Tongliao, Xing'an League and Hulunbuir in eastern Inner Mongolia.
In that case, it would be difficult to kill them.
Zhu Di had experienced this kind of suffering in history. After working hard and mobilizing people, he could not find anyone, so he could only march in arms in the desert.
After all, China has only seen a few superheroes with built-in radars like Huo Qubing for thousands of years.
Therefore, when Zhang Yan knew that Yelu Ruan was living in Youzhou and still building Jiqing Palace, he directly issued an order to lift the embargo on Youzhou goods.
They even sold a batch of rice, flour, sugar and tea to the Khitans at a low price, just because they were afraid that Yelu Ruan would run back to the grassland.
And this sugar-coated bullet really had a great effect. Not only did Yelu Ruan not want to leave Youzhou, but the Khitan nobles were also knocked down by the prosperity of Youzhou and the large amount of refined rice, white noodles and sugar tea.
Even great talents like Yelu Wuzhi have never proposed leaving Youzhou.
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After passing Wuyi, we entered the boundary between Cangzhou and Yingzhou. Although it was in the rear, Zhang Yan was actually freer than in Weizhou and Beizhou.
Because before the army set off, Zhang Gao sent Gao Xingzhou to Cangzhou to recruit the Henghai navy in Cangzhou and the former Beishan heroes scattered in Cangzhou, Ying, and Mo.
At the same time, the Jinyi guards also went north together with Huangfuchong, Du Zhimin and others, and also received the cooperation of a large number of local tycoons in Hebei.
The entire four states of Cang, Ying, Mo, and Yi were filled with local tycoons who informed the Zhou army.
They even organized horse teams to deliver messages to the army, and attacked traitors loyal to the Khitans and small groups of Khitan troops collecting grain.
Therefore, upon arriving in Cangzhou, Zhang Gao's information about the Khitan people became clearer.
Yelv Ruan didn't know yet that Zhang Gao had arrived, but Zhang Gao not only knew that Yelu Ruan was here, but also knew exactly where he was and how many miles he marched every day.
However, Zhang Yan did not have much time, because just now the rear army You Yiqi came to report that the Tuyuhun people's cavalry in Hedong, who were under Liu Zhiyuan's orders, had reached the north of Wuyi County and had a small-scale conflict with the rear army. .
Zhang Yan knew that this must be the Hedong Army seeing the traces left by his 20,000 cavalry troops.
Liu Zhiyuan is now sending the Tuyuhun Rangers from Hedong to investigate. After finding out that Zhang Gao has sneaked behind him, he will most likely stop attacking Beizhou and send the Hedong Jingqi to attack Zhang Gao with the Khitans.
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When Zhang Gao led his army to Cangzhou and began to search for the exact location of the Khitan army, the battle at the mouth of Hezhang Valley had reached its most intense moment.
After two days and nights of water release, the water at the mouth of Hezhang Valley has returned to normal levels.
However, the entire valley mouth has completely turned into a swamp. The mud can reach your ankles when you step in. It is completely impossible for a heavier war horse to gallop with a person on its back.
Guo Wei personally led 17,000 people and surrounded Zhang Zhaojun and Huang Yingda's 3,500 people in a small hill.
To the north were Bai Wenke's 5,000 men from Hezhang, to the northwest were Shi Hongzhao's 3,500 men, and in the frontal attack were 5,000 Hedong elites controlled by Li Chongjin, Bai Zairong and others.
The remaining five thousand people were personally controlled by Guo Wei and arranged in the south.
Nearly 20,000 people surrounded three and one was missing, and the battle reached a fever pitch from the beginning.
The water-soaked soil limited the mobility of both armies, making it difficult to form formations to attack each other. Both sides invariably gave up lower-body protection such as skirts and armor, and instead used crossbows to shoot at each other.
Zhang Zhaojun's troops had certain camps that could be defended, but the territory was too small to hold 3,500 men, so they had to go out to fight.
Guo Weijun used Peng Pai as the city wall and Ni Ni as the resistance horse, and attacked from three sides.
The infantry who had lost their movement speed were simply the best targets for crossbows. Both sides were sending waves of arrows towards the opposite side, completely exchanging lives for lives.
Melee prowess is completely useless. The only thing you can rely on is the strength of the body's armor and stomach, the accuracy of your archery skills, and luck.
However, Zhang Zhaojun's men were small and Guo Wei's men were large, so they could take turns fighting. Therefore, the balance of victory began to tilt towards the Hedong Army.
However, Zhang Zhaojun did not panic because he was already prepared for a decisive battle with the Hedong Army in the camp.
The Hedong Army could rely on their numerical advantage to shoot crossbows in the flooded ground, but on the hard ground in the camp, the Zhou Army's close combat advantage could be brought into play.
The fight was raging below, and in the fortress above, Li Rongzheng walked towards the camp where Shi Wen of the Hedong Army was with a smile on his face.
Behind him were only dozens of people personally accompanying him, and dozens of soldiers disguised as Imperial Guards escorting him.
At the same time, there were several large carts, with several sets of cloth-covered armor placed on top of the carts.
This kind of armor stomach unique to the Zhou Kingdom was favored by warriors all over the world because of its ease of carrying and wearing, good defensive power and extremely light weight compared to piercing armor.
The soldiers from Hedong were no exception. At least Shi Wen's eyes never left the cloth-covered armor that was said to be given to him.
However, under the long-term influence of his brother Shi Hongzhao, Shi Wen maintained a trace of reason when he couldn't help but open the door. He only allowed Li Rong to enter with no more than five personal followers.
Li Rong immediately showed a vigilant look on his face. He called Shi Wen through the village gate, and when Shi Wen arrived, he asked questions unceremoniously.
"Does Marquis Du Yu want to kill me? A certain family has arrived at the gate of the village, and dozens of relatives and followers are not allowed to enter the village?"
Shi Wen actually felt that this was indeed a bit bad. People came up to ask for surrender so enthusiastically, but he took many precautions and acted so cautiously, which was not in line with the aesthetics of a warrior at this time.
But after the words were spoken, Shi Wen could only shirk his words and said: "This is the commander's military order."
The confidants around Li Rong immediately started making noises, and Li Shousi even stepped forward and shouted.
"I have always heard that Shi Hongzhao of Zhengzhou was a hero. I don't want to be in such a bad situation, so my military commander wholeheartedly surrenders to me. Is this the courage of the Hedong military commander?"
When Shi Wen heard the generals on the other side making such a noise, he was even more certain that the generals on the other side were indeed here to seek refuge, otherwise they wouldn't be making such an angry noise.
You must know that the two armies are not yet one family at this time, and their soldiers and horse envoys came directly.
Li Rong's face was also full of anger. He waved his hand to stop the noise of the soldiers.
"Since there is a military order from the commander, then a certain family should return to the stronghold and wait for the commander's call.
However, since these ten sets of cloth-covered armor were said to be given to Marquis Du Yu, there is no reason to take them back. I, Li Rong, keep my word. "
With that said, Li Rong personally stepped forward and pushed the cart with cloth-covered iron armor to the entrance of the village.
Ten sets of cloth-covered iron armor are not light, weighing more than 300 kilograms. Of course, they cannot be transported in unless the gate of the village is opened.
Shi Wen hesitated for a moment, then waved his hand and asked the soldiers to open the gate of the small village in front of him.
This was because Li Rong's expression was extremely normal, and Shi Wen didn't feel anything was wrong.
Second, there were dozens of people standing next to Shi Wen, all wearing leather armor, and there were at least a hundred people not far from the village entrance.
On the other hand, Li Rong's side did not wear armor, but only wore long robes. Even if prisoners were included, the total number did not reach a hundred. Shi Wen believed that he could completely suppress the opponent.
Of course, there was also the negotiation just now. His side did seem a bit unsatisfactory. Shi Wen couldn't help it, and he didn't want to worry about whether to open the village door anymore.
If they turned around and went back, the ten sets of precious cloth-covered armor would soon be lost in vain.
Shi Wen felt this way, and the soldiers around him felt the same way, especially several of Shi Wen's confidants, who were even more eager to think that these cloth-covered iron armors had their own way of doing things.
With a creak, the village door was opened, and immediately, Shi Wen's personal entourage felt something was wrong.
Because at this moment Li Rong suddenly let out a low shout, exerted force with both hands, veins popped out on his forehead, pushed the cart, and slammed into it.
The follower was caught off guard and was knocked to the ground in an instant. The surrounding Hedong soldiers were all stunned for a moment, their heads still in a down state due to shock.
Li Rong took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and quickly took out the tied hard bow from under the cart. The follower behind him handed Li Rong the feather arrow hidden in his clothes.
You must know that the Bingzhou warrior who once served as Li Congrong's personal entourage was most proud of not the strength of his arms, but his archery skills.
At this moment, Li Rong reached the peak of his lifelong archery skills. He stood on the cart, and a personal attendant helped him stabilize the cart.
The bow string flows into the rising tide, and the hands spread like eagle wings.
Amidst the sound of rapid shooting, the arrows seemed to have eyes, shooting down the surrounding Hedong Army soldiers one after another.
A soldier from Hedong shouted loudly and was about to come up to fight for his life because he was wearing armor. Li Rong shouted loudly and shot an arrow, hitting the soldier in the face.
The soldier howled miserably like an injured beast, fell directly to the ground, and twisted like an earthworm.
Soon, two more people came up, and Li Rong fired another arrow, hitting one of them in the neck. The soldier who had not put down his sword was weak at the knees, and he covered his neck violently and did not dare to charge again, in order to avoid heavy blood loss. And die.
The other one had already rushed in front of Li Rong. Li Rong put down his bow, picked up a meteor hammer from the cart, and hit it with his head.
The spiked meteor hammer, enhanced by the chain's traction, directly dented the soldier's cheek.
In an instant, Li Rong had killed seven or eight people, and all the soldiers in Hedong were shocked.
At this moment, several arrows were shot from a distance. One of them hit Li Rong's chest, but it did not penetrate. Instead, it hung crookedly on Li Rong's chest. It turned out that he was also wearing a A piece of chain mail.
The one who shot Li Rong was also a good archer under Shi Wen. Unfortunately, due to extreme nervousness, he only hit one of the three arrows in a row, and it was blocked by Li Rong's inner armor.
Li Rong roared in pain, drew his bow and shot, with just one arrow, he shot the man to the ground.
At this time, Zhang Quan, Li Shousi and others roared loudly and rushed in through the village gate. It turned out that they, like Li Rong, were all wearing inner armor.
And the dozens of Wuwei Town Imperial Guards who were being 'held' suddenly rose up and revolted. They were not tied up tightly, and they were still wearing the dusty armor and stomach openly like prisoners.
Li Rong's entourage, who did not have an armor-piercing stomach, quickly took off the cloth-covered iron armor from the cart and quickly put it on his body. More than a hundred people rushed into the Hedong Army's stronghold like a torrent.
The Hedong soldiers wearing heavy armor were quickly pushed to the ground. Several people held down their hands together, lifted up their necks and stabbed them in the neck. Those who were not wearing armor were chased and chopped by Zhou Jun who was wearing light armor.
Li Rong's attack, calculated with intention and without intention, immediately achieved good results.
But when Li Rong and others took action, the soldiers on the mountain had their armor and stomachs pierced, and rushed down after making noise.
As soon as they arrived, the Hedong Army's defeat was already decided.
Because even if they are camping in the wild, except for soldiers on duty, the rest of the people cannot wear armor at all times.
Therefore, the main force of the Hedong Army was the hundreds of people in front of Li Rong, while most of the Zhou Army was wearing armor, so their combat effectiveness was naturally different.
At the foot of the mountain, Zhang Zhaojun saw that it was very difficult to shoot with bows and crossbows, so he took the initiative to shrink his troops and huddled everyone around the mountain.
Let the Zuo Jinwu guards outside wear two layers of cloth-covered iron armor to surround the camp and form a steel human wall. The Uyghur Yi never wore armor and held a strong bow, and fired at the Hedong Army from a high place.
Guo Wei also used the heavy armor holding Peng Platoon as a cover and attacked one after another, constantly consuming the physical strength of the Zhou army's soldiers.
It can be said that Guo Wei's plan has achieved at least 60-70% of its goal.
More than 3,000 Zhou troops were trapped and unable to move, and could only fight to the death in the mud with the Hedong army, which was more than six times their number.
The muddy ground was extremely slippery. Not to mention the cavalry, even the soldiers would fall to the ground if they lost their balance even a little bit, and then it would be difficult to get up.
The two sides fought from the beginning of the hour, which was nine o'clock in the morning, to the middle of the hour, which was around one o'clock in the afternoon.
Two hours of bloody battles made the soldiers of the Zhou Army extremely exhausted, and the crowded camp was too chaotic to rest and rotate properly.
Zhang Zhaojun was very reluctant to give up and selected the dead soldiers. Taking advantage of a break in the fighting, he ordered the dead soldiers to ride on the war horses as the leader, and let all the more than 3,000 war horses in the camp go out.
The war horses that can be selected by the main bodyguards in the pro-army like Zuo Jinwuwei are all good horses.
Therefore, as soon as thousands of good horses were released, the formation of the Hedong Army outside suddenly became chaotic.
There were fewer people attacking, and there were more people trying to grab the horses.
Even many generals at the level of Marquis Du Yu ordered their personal followers to seize horses. Even Guo Wei couldn't stop him from killing several people.
The appeal of a good horse, a Pegasus from Hexi, to soldiers and generals cannot be restricted by the military laws of the Hedong Army.
Any of Zuo Jinwuwei's Hexi Tianma could be worth sixty or seventy guan in Hedong, and most of them would be even higher.
This is not a war horse, that is moving money! Only fools follow the rules and don’t rob.
Zhang Zhaojun immediately took advantage of this opportunity and asked Huang Yingda to lead a forceful charge to push back the Hedong Army that had already taken advantage. Then he immediately adjusted his deployment and used the space vacated by the war horses to shrink all the soldiers into the camp.
Guo Wei was so angry that he was completely speechless when he saw that his nephew Li Chongjin was commanding people to rob Hexi horses.
And not long after, there was a conflict between Bai Zairong's personal entourage and Guo Congyi's personal entourage, because both parties believed that they had caught the Pegasus with golden light.
Of course I have to grab it. This is the mount of Zhang Zhaojun, the horse-killing talent. It is named Shalijin. It is the half-brother of Murong Nobunaga's second-generation Xueli Yanchen. Even in Hexi, they are both rare horses.
Guo Wei looked at Guo Jin next to him painfully and said: "As long as we defeat the Zhou army on the opposite side, what kind of Pegasus doesn't exist?
At this time, we are looting. When the main force of the Zhou army arrives, our painstaking plan will be over before we can capture the camp.
If the right time, the right place, the right people, and the right people are in place, and Master Zhou cannot be severely damaged, the world will be named Zhang! "
When Guo Jin was serving as the Jiedushi of the Baoda Army in Yanzhou, he was attacked by Yin Yaozi sent by Zhang Zhi. Later, he escaped back to Hedong after many hardships. Naturally, he had no good impression of Zhang Zhou. Hearing this, he cheered up and comforted Guo Wei.
"The generals have acquired so many good horses. From now on, the majesty of our Hedong fine cavalry will be restored to a certain extent.
They all deployed and quickly informed the generals that there were thousands of sets of cloth-covered iron armor on the opposite side. After the stronghold was broken, they would all be given to the generals, and perhaps some combat effectiveness could be restored. "
Guo Wei took a deep breath and whispered: "This is the only way. I hope the main force of Zhou's army comes a little later."
However, Guo Wei was obviously overthinking. An hour later, Guo Wei urged the Hedong Army to attack Zhang Zhaojun's camp twice. Instead of the Zhou army rolling in the mud, they shared the same hatred with the enemy. Thousands of people worked together to defeat the attacking Hedong Army. He retreated embarrassedly.
After two attacks, let alone taking down the camp, they couldn't even suppress it.
At this moment, fires broke out on the other side of Zhangshui. Guo Wei looked at it in horror. It turned out that after Li Rong took the fort, he did not choose to attack Guo Wei's army, but instead attacked Guo Wei's camp on the other side of Zhangshui.
In this battle, Li Rong fully displayed his talent.
After capturing the Hedong Army Yingzhai, Li Rong immediately boasted among the Hedong Army, claiming that the Emperor of Zhou had appointed him as Luzhou Zhaoyi Jiedu Envoy, and that as long as Shi Wen's thousands of Wujie troops joined him, he would share with them. The property of Zhaoyi Army's three states and nineteen counties.
Seeing that Shi Wen had been killed, Wu Jie's army expected that Shi Hongzhao's strict military management would not allow them to survive. They were also tempted by Li Rong's promise of twenty guan per person, and immediately went to the same place with the consent of several Yuhou Hous. Betrayal.
Li Rong still understands Ya Bing's thoughts at this time. If Zhang Zhaojun comes, this effect will definitely not be achieved.
After recruiting more than a thousand Wujie troops, Li Rong had more than 2,000 people in his hands. They used the Wujie army's rafts to cross the river and directly attacked Guo Wei's military camp where he had stored food and grass. They set fire to it and fought at the same time. They even almost broke into Guo Wei's camp. Main village.
Guo Wei on the other side of the river was shocked. He was about to arrange for Li Chongjin to lead his troops across the pontoon bridge to cross the river for rescue, when suddenly there was a huge smoke in the east.
This was sent by the scouts arranged by Guo Wei, indicating that another Zhou army group had arrived.
Two-quarters of an hour later, Yan Jin ordered Zhang Zhaojiu (Dundup) to lead a thousand forwards to the battlefield.
Zhang Zhao took out the white sun flag with golden edges symbolizing Zhang Zhou's royal family, the yellow luogai umbrella symbolizing the emperor's presence, the silver-white gold-edge Sanchen flag symbolizing the commander of the army, and the high-tooth silver-white banner with gold tassels hanging down.
When the Zhou army in the camp saw the emperor's arrival, they cheered loudly. The exhausted troops suddenly came to life and beat the attacking Hedong army even more miserably.
When the Hedong Army saw the arrival of the Emperor of Zhou and another fire broke out in the Dazhai on the other side of the Zhang River, the Hedong Army was shocked. Bai Zairong and other troops rushed to leave the battlefield and seize the pontoon bridge. The battlefield was in chaos.
Guo Wei was furious and ordered Guo Jin to uphold his banner and kill dozens of people to stop the chaos.
But the soldiers were heartbroken, and the Zhou army was attacking from two sides. Guo Wei had no choice but to give up the siege, abandon the baggage, burn the pontoon bridge and cross the river.
Zhang Zhao immediately joined forces with Zhang Zhaojun and Huang Yingda and pursued them in the slippery mud.
The Hedong troops who did not have time to cross the river trampled on each other, drowned themselves in the Zhang River, and lost countless lives. Almost all the horses they had captured were lost.
