Hearing the shouts of the yellow-bearded man outside, Liu Yu cursed in his heart, "I'm a fool to fight your grandfather."
Liu Yu's men marched quickly for more than 40 miles in the cold and snow, and were already exhausted. However, the barbarians under Shi Le came on horseback, and the distance was shorter than them. They must have an advantage in physical strength.
Liu Yu estimated that Shi Le must have wanted to take advantage of the rapid maneuverability of the cavalry after receiving the reward from the cavalry, and suddenly attacked him. However, by the time he arrived, Liu Yu and the others had already completed setting up camp.
Thinking of this, Liu Yu couldn't help but feel a little lucky. Fortunately, his troops had never slackened their training. Especially the marching and camping training, Liu Yu personally supervised the training every day and became very skilled.
After all, Liu Yu understood that he only took advantage of some experience accumulated by later generations. In a real battlefield, his ability to make strategic decisions would be difficult to match that of experienced cunning men such as Wang Mi and Shi Le.
Therefore, Liu Yu simply directly learned the method of "fighting stupidly" from the slave-building minister Zeng, and used rigorous training to build a solid defense, with the idea of making no mistakes first and then seeking victory.
However, although Liu Yu did not intend to actually go out to fight, the barbarian had already shouted out the big words first. If he did not express anything, he would lose the prestige of his own army.
At this time, the Hu'er outside the camp had been riding his horse and seemed to be waiting for Liu Yujun's reply.
Liu Yu visually measured the distance and took out his big yellow bow.
The bow and arrow were drawn in one go, and with a bang of the bowstring, a sharp arrow flew towards the barbarian with its white tail feathers.
The Hu man had rich battlefield experience and was extremely alert. He had been paying attention to the situation on several watchtowers in the camp for a long time. At the distance he was now, as long as he was alert, he could probably avoid even an enemy sneak attack.
However, this time, just relying on visual inspection and feeling, he discovered that an arrow was shooting towards him, and it was coming very fast. Such an arrow was not coming from a strong bow or crossbow, and it would not have such strong momentum.
He didn't dare to slack off and quickly raised the shield on his left hand to cover his vitals.
But the arrow was not shot at the rider, but at the mount. Just when the rider raised his shield, the horse under his crotch was shot into the chest by an arrow.
The war horse was in pain and frightened, and the rider on the horse was almost thrown to the ground on the spot. Fortunately, these barbarians were good at equestrian skills and barely managed to avoid falling off the horse. However, the flags and shields in his hands were all thrown to the ground. It looked very embarrassing, far away There is no longer the appearance of showing off in front of the camp and inviting battle.
Seeing that their general had hit the enemy with an arrow, even though he only hit his mount, the sergeants who were watching cheered loudly together.
The barbarian was in a very embarrassed state, but he did not dare to stop any longer. Instead, he finally turned his horse's head and tried to escape behind him.
"I didn't expect that there are such good archers among the Jin people."
Jiehu Shile, who was watching from a distance, saw everything just happened and couldn't help but sigh.
The cavalryman had been wandering around irregularly just now, but he was able to hit the target with one strike. Shi Le, who boasted himself as an expert with bows and horses, did not dare to boast that he could have such skill with arrows. He thought for a moment, who could be more powerful than this person? Perhaps the only one was Liu Yao, the nephew of Liu Yuan, the leader of the Xiongnu Han Kingdom. Shi Le had seen Liu Yao's magical archery skills.
After hearing Shi Le's words, his right commander Shi Diao Ying spoke.
"There is no shortage of capable archers in the Central Plains. The flying generals among the Han people are the famous generals who can ride and shoot to defeat the Huns."
"Uh, who is the flying general?"
Shi Le asked with some confusion.
At this time, Shi Le was completely illiterate.
However, Diao Ying had studied some textbooks in Wuxiang County, Bingzhou, and was able to write and calculate. He was an outlier among the illiterate Hu people. This was one of the reasons why Shi Le appointed Diao Ying as You Changshi as his deputy.
"The flying general is Longxi Li Guang." Diao Ying said.
"Okay, when we reach Longxi, we will go meet this flying general for a while."
"..."
At this time, the Hu cavalryman whose mount was injured had already ran back in a panic.
Shi Le said a few words to him casually and asked him to return to the formation. Shi Le's men were a group of bandits who gathered together when things were good for them and dispersed when things were bad for them. They didn't care too much about these face-related issues.
Seeing the Qingzhou Jin army that had already set up camp, they had no intention of leaving the camp to confront them.
Shi Le saw from a distance that the military camps of the Qingzhou Jin Army were very neatly and firmly arranged, with all kinds of horse-repelling stakes and pits. The four thousand cavalry he brought could not defeat this kind of thing no matter what. Camping.
Moreover, even if he could fight for some lives to defeat it, Shi Le would not use his direct descendants of the Hu people to attack such a camp. If too many men were lost, it would be completely outweighing the gain.
Shi Le then ordered his cavalry to disperse in all directions, hoping to see if they could plunder some villages or lone people in the surrounding area.
Anyway, Shi Le already knew that these Qingzhou troops did not have many horses and did not pose much of a threat to him.
However, when Dong Ping of Jinan County learned that Wang Mi and Shi Le were invading, he had already ordered the scattered civilians and military households to take refuge in the city or fort. Shi Le and his companions traveled several miles around this time. , none of them got any valuable gains.
As they watched, the sky was getting darker. If they didn't go back, Shi Le and the others would probably have to camp in the wild. Camping in the ice and snow was a life-threatening chore.
Shi Le immediately led his cavalry and returned to the military camp of Ei in Licheng.
At the Qingzhou Army's camp, Liu Yu snorted coldly when he saw thousands of barbarian cavalry retreating in a mighty manner under the leadership of the "stone" banner.
During the Western Jin Dynasty, these Xiongnu, Jiehu, and Wuhuan had always been vassals and land guests for the powerful powers in the Central Plains. Although they still retained some bravery, they were still much worse than the indigenous barbarians in the grasslands, mountains and forests.
The place where Liu Yu camped at this time was not close to a water source. If he wanted to get water, it would not be enough to melt snow into water.
To get water, you need to walk a long way and dig ice into a river to get water. If these barbarian cavalry cut off the water source, it will be enough to force Liu Yu to lead his army into battle.
But this requires camping in the cold wilderness.
Later generations of peak-level barbarians such as the Jurchen Wanyan and the Mughals often carried out such sieges and ambushes in the ice and snow, and often achieved miraculous results.
However, these Hu cavalrymen under Shi Le were obviously still in the style of erratic guerrilla bandits and were not qualified elites. Of course, they were unwilling to engage in such high-risk and high-intensity adventures.
The next day, early in the morning, when the sky was just getting dark, Liu Yu had already led the army to complete the departure.
All this is to prevent the army from being attacked by Shilehuqi during the chaos of breaking out of camp and re-forming.
Sure enough, when Liu Yu and his army had just marched a short distance and had not even reached Gongyangli, which was five miles away, the scouts in front reported that there were no more than 10,000 cavalry coming this way.
If these infantrymen under Liu Yu are allowed to enter Licheng, then even if Shi Le kills all the captive Jin people, it will be impossible to capture Licheng, so he must defeat these Qingzhou Jin troops who come to the rescue in a field battle.
When Shi Le led 10,000 cavalry to arrive, he could see that on the open ground not far away, more than 10,000 Qingzhou troops had completed donning armor and forming formations.
It was too fast. The speed of departure, march and formation of these Qingzhou Jin troops far exceeded Shi Le's expectation.
Originally, he thought that the Qingzhou Army at this time would be panicked by his arrival, and would even be unable to form its formation.
But now these Qingzhou Jin troops are in a state of leisure.
Shi Le was riding on his horse and saw the more than 10,000 Jin troops standing in neat order. They were not like the useless state and county soldiers he had encountered before.
Moreover, under the shining of the morning sun, these Qingzhou Army soldiers reflected bursts of cold light.
This is armor!
There are so many armors, almost everyone is wearing armor? !
Shi Le saw the sunlight reflecting off the patches of armor in the distance, and felt that the scene in front of him was beyond his imagination.
You must know that even though Shi Le had looted and captured a lot in Hebei in the past few years, due to years of war, the armor in the arsenals of Hebei prefectures and counties had long been exhausted, and many of the armors that fell into Shi Le's hands were damaged. There were no craftsmen at all in the chaos of war. to mend.
Therefore, among Shi Le's Hu army, there were only one or two thousand sets of armor, especially qualified armor.
Most of the Hu cavalry's armaments are nothing more than a pair of bows and arrows, a knife and a long gun. As for armor, they have no armor. At most, they wear two thick leather jackets.
Shi Le thought: "No wonder Wang Mi wants to fight back to Qingzhou. It turns out that Qingzhou is so rich, even iron armor is so abundant."
In fact, Liu Yu's army did not have such high armor at all, but in order to frighten these barbarians in terms of momentum, he arranged all the armored soldiers in the front row.
There were less than 6,000 actual armored soldiers, and the rest were defended by ordinary leather armors and shields. Of course, 6,000 armored soldiers were enough to shock Shi Le.
Diao Ying, Kui'an, Kong Chang, Zhi Xiong, Taobao, Lu Ming and other Huru generals beside Shi Le had already looked at the armor of the Jin army on the opposite side and almost drooled.
"I thought that only Youzhou soldiers had so many armored soldiers." Diao Ying said in surprise.
Previously, when Shi Le led his army to invade Hebei, he was defeated by the Youzhou army sent by Wang Jun, the governor of Youzhou. These people still dare not forget that disastrous defeat.
"I heard that these Qingzhou soldiers are all raw melons who have not experienced much fighting. As long as we use a little bit of tactics, we will definitely be able to peel off their iron skin."
Kong Chang, who had a bad temper, couldn't help but said.
"Don't be anxious. They are the ones who want to reinforce Licheng, so they should be anxious. We have plenty of time, so wait patiently."
Shi Le calmed down and must be steady and eat all these Qingzhou soldiers. In that case, he would really have the capital to control Hebei, and he might even have the capital to fight against the Youzhou Jin army.
Soon, after all the Hu cavalry under Shi Le arrived, Shi Le quickly led these cavalry around the Qingzhou Army, and from time to time made a posture of preparing to attack, waiting until the Qingzhou Army infantry made a defense After their sexual adjustment, they suddenly ran to the other side and repeated their old tricks.
Liu Yu had a panoramic view of all this. He knew that this was because the Hu cavalry wanted to use the mobility of the cavalry to force their own infantry square formation to make adjustments, and then hoped that their own infantry's mistakes would cause chaos, giving them the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. An opportunity to take advantage of.
This method is relatively feasible to deal with poorly disciplined troops. Large-scale formation adjustments will indeed cause confusion among soldiers and give the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of them.
However, Shi Le's usual move didn't seem to be of much use to the Qingzhou Army in front of him.
With the frequent movement of these barbarian cavalry in the outer circle, the Qingzhou Army, which had the advantage in the inner circle, was always able to respond the fastest, and each march and assembly of the military formation was completed at an extremely fast speed.
In Shi Le's view, these Qingzhou Army soldiers were all like wooden puppets, controlled by an invisible hand, making all kinds of dazzling formation movements and changes without any confusion.
Moreover, in the previous rounds of cavalry shooting, the gong nu counterattacks in the Qingzhou army formation were also very sharp. The power of the mounted bows was far incomparable, so Shi Le's Hu Qi were at a disadvantage.
After a few rounds of testing, Shi Le stopped his attempt to force the Qingzhou Army to change its formation.
After all, if this continues, I am afraid that the enemy infantry will not do much, and the horses on our side will be exhausted due to frequent running.
Seeing that the Hu cavalry who had been gathering and dispersing just now all retreated, Liu Yu was a little lucky. It seemed that the famous Wu Hu general Shi Le was still just showing his prominence at this time, and his men were not strong enough to attack the determined infantry head-on. array.
In history, during the Battle of Bucheng in the Yongjia Rebellion, Shi Le used light cavalry to pursue Wang Yan's large army of Jin Dynasty officials. He used wandering cavalry to create panic, and more than 100,000 Jin Tingjun were frightened. The officials trampled on each other, giving Shi Le's light cavalry a chance to pursue and annihilate them.
According to time calculation, it should be the year after tomorrow, that is, the fifth year of Yongjia.
From this point of view, Shile's army two years later will still use nomadic tactics based on guerrilla cavalry and shooting. If the more than 100,000 people led by Wang Yan and others were not too useless, even only half of them would dare to look back and fight. With their courage, I am afraid that these Western Jin clan members and bureaucrats will not all die on the outskirts of Kucheng.
Liu Yu was originally worried about Shi Le's reputation in history, but when he actually saw these barbarian bandits ravaging the Central Plains with his own eyes, he found that they were nothing more than this.
In the array confrontation just now, the Hu people who were guerrilla horsemen and archers did not take any advantage at all. Instead, they were killed a lot by the Qingzhou Army's powerful foot bows and crossbows.
What the infantry array is really afraid of is the cavalry cutting off supply lines and raiding weak points. For the light cavalry like Shi Le's mounted guerrillas, as long as his armored infantry are determined, there is no need to worry too much.
Seeing them, the barbarian cavalry stood facing each other in front, waiting for an opportunity to move.
Liu Yu was worried that he could not wait any longer. These Hu cavalry only numbered more than 10,000, so the remaining tens of thousands were still besieging Licheng. If he did not quickly provide support, Licheng would be in danger of falling at any time.
They are just 10,000 lightly armed Hulu bandits, so there is nothing to be afraid of.
"Send the order! Beat the drums, maintain the formation, Xu Jin will engage the enemy!"
