The guard hurried into the military tent and reported breathlessly: "Your Highness, the Metasequoia Army has retreated!"
Before Alek Jiang could react, Durham's bloated body bounced off the carpet, his eyes as wide as copper bells: "What did you say? They retreated?!"
The guard was frightened by Durham's terrifying momentum and nodded. Just as he was about to explain in detail, Alek Jiang had already stood up, grabbed Durham and ran outside.
"Master Hou, hurry up and take a look!"
The two of them rushed out of the tent, got on their horses, and ran towards the shore.
When they came to the east bank of the Ulundu River and looked at the west bank, they were stunned by the sight in front of them.
The Zhenjiang Army camp not far across the street was buzzing with people and war horses. Groups of soldiers lined up neatly and were leaving the camp one after another. The oars, shieldmen and archers who were on guard on the river bank also began to shrink their formations at this time, apparently because the retreat of the large army was coming to an end, and they, as rearguards, were also preparing to withdraw and leave.
Durham and Alekjiang looked at each other, not knowing how to react for a moment.
"Master Hou, what... is this going on? Did Li Jiangyao notice it?" Alek Jiang was stunned for a long time before he asked this question.
Durham was confused, thought for a moment, and suddenly slapped his thigh: "Damn it, we must not let Li Jiangyao escape!"
Alek Jiang also nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, no matter whether he sees through our plan or not, we must not let him run away so easily. The prince's army will arrive here soon. If we miss it..."
Alekjiang didn't dare to say any more. If the elite Turkic cavalry finds that they have been defeated after a long-distance attack of hundreds of miles, although it is not a loss, Durham and Alekjan, as frontline commanders, will definitely not have any good fruits.
Of course Durham understood this and shouted hurriedly: "Alik Jiang, quickly mobilize your troops, cross the river immediately, catch up with Li Jiangyao, and entangle the Metasequoia Army!"
Then, he turned to his deputy and said: "Immediately send someone to cross the river and go to the other side to meet Deputy Marshal Mohadi's army. Tell him that the situation may change and ask them to come as soon as possible to surround the enemy!"
"Yes!" the deputy shouted, turned around and ran to deliver the order.
At this time, the rapid sound of horn horns sounded in the camp of the Western Xinjiang Allied Forces, and the soldiers and horses of each battalion and team quickly gathered to prepare to forcefully cross the Ulundu River.
-
"Hey, sir, what if your judgment is wrong?" Holia looked at the panic on the other side and said to Li Jiangyao beside her: "If there is no Turkic army as you imagined, then wouldn't we? Lost the most important river bank defense line in vain?"
Li Jiangyao smiled slightly: "If you had asked me this question half an hour ago, I would have been really unsure. But now it seems that my guess is probably close to ten."
Holia glanced at the other side again and nodded gently: "The reaction over there is indeed not normal. Generally speaking, when the enemy sees us suddenly abandoning our position and retreating in large numbers, no matter what, they should be suspicious and send people first. Let’s investigate and figure out our intentions before we make the next step. But they were lucky. As soon as we planned to leave, we panicked."
"So, what they really want is not just the river bank defense line," Li Jiangyao stared into Holia's eyes and said with a smile, "but us ourselves, right?"
Horiyah also showed a "figured it out" expression: "Well, you are right. Since the enemy is so sure of eating us, he must have an unexpected killing move. Now that we haven't had time to use the move, we have to take action. If you run away, of course you won’t be willing to do so!”
Li Jiangyao said in a relieved tone: "Okay. Now there are two things. One is to find the Turkic army I guessed as soon as possible, and the other is to run away for one's life. Don't let Durham really bite us, otherwise It’s going to be so sad!”
Holia smiled and said: "Don't worry! The infantry battalion of the Third Army left for more than an hour in advance, and will soon be able to meet up with Lin Feng, who is responsible for the response, and return to Metasequoia safely. Now here are the most elite white-robed troops, even if they fight head-on I'm not afraid of fighting them, let alone just retreating. I'm really worried about General Xu, I wonder if they can receive our news in time."
"I'm not worried about this." Li Jiangyao said in a relaxed tone: "According to our latest judgment, Duolun is definitely not the main force of the left army, so it will not pose much of a threat to Xu Youchang and the others. As long as Xu Youchang strictly follows the military exercise When commanding operations according to the military disciplines learned in the classroom, he will definitely pay attention to keeping the information flowing and receive our new orders in a timely manner. And that guy seems to be loyal, but in fact he is full of evil, so he will definitely be able to cooperate with us as planned. "
Holia nodded firmly, drew out the sword from her waist, and shouted: "Brothers, it's time to take action. Listen to my order and set the camp on fire!"
-
Duolun hid in the dense forest and secretly observed the phalanx of the Xinjiang Army in the distance.
He arrived here at noon the day before yesterday on the order of Prince Ronya of the Temple. What followed him was a pure cavalry force composed of the garrison patrol and the Gerhan Left Army, with a size of 6,000 people. . The infantry of the Left Army remained in Dabancheng, led by Geerhan, and continued to besiege the Shenhua Army.
Duolun looked at the situation outside the forest while chewing on the flower seeds.
The scene in front of him was somewhat different from what he had imagined, which made him worry secretly.
According to Ronya's pre-war analysis, this time Li Jiangyao led the main force of the Metasequoia Army to rely on the Urundu River to block the Western Xinjiang Middle Route Army. In terms of the strength of the Alek River, it may be difficult to break through the defense line from the front, let alone Said to have successfully eliminated the opponent's elite troops of up to 50,000 people.
However, if the left army is rashly deployed to outflank the enemy, not only will the defenders of Dabancheng become a huge threat behind Geerhan, but there is also no guarantee that they will not fall into Li Jiangyao's trick again and accidentally sneak into the opponent's way. The ambush they set was the same as that of Tani's Right Army.
Therefore, if you want to completely annihilate the remnants of the Shengtang Army, you have to use another new force - the main Turkic force stationed in the two camps.
But the problem is that the two camps also have their own tasks. The strength of the Shengtang troops gathered at Zijin Pass and Shengyuguan should not be underestimated. Although the two sides are currently in peace, if Shengtang suddenly turns his back and marches out of the pass just after the troops on his side are transferred, there will be big trouble. .
Under this situation, the maximum force that Ronya could mobilize was only about 10,000 people.
If you want to achieve a decisive victory with a mere tens of thousands of troops, the only feasible strategy is to disperse the enemy as much as possible, attack over long distances, and defeat them one by one.
Therefore, Prince Ronya of the Turkic Temple set up the situation in front of him.
On the one hand, he ordered Durham to lay out a suspicious formation, so that Li Jiangyao and the others were convinced that the plan of the Central Route Army to attack from both front and back had been accidentally exposed, so that they could make sufficient preparations, safely and boldly guard the river bank, and wait for work.
On the other hand, he ordered Duolun to lead a highly mobile cavalry unit to approach the Metasequoia Army from the side and rear, bluffing, causing the left army to come to cooperate with the center army. At the same time, he was accidentally noticed by the Zhenjiang Army, which in turn caused Li Jiangyao and the others deployed superior forces to give the left army a head-on attack.
The real killing move was for 10,000 cavalry led by Mohadi, another deputy marshal of the Turks, to set off from the Liangguan camp and march at starry night to directly attack the commander of the Zhenjiang Army who was guarding the west bank of the Ulundu River.
After Mohadi succeeded, the Turkic cavalry joined forces with the Western Xinjiang Middle Route Army, and then attacked the main force of the Xinjiang Army that was attracted by Duolun's suspicious soldiers from behind, completing the final encirclement and strangulation.
The reason why Ronya deployed this relatively complicated tactic was mainly because he was worried that if the tactics were too straightforward, Li Jiangyao would take the initiative to retreat to Metasequoia City when he realized that he might be surrounded. By that time, not only will the siege be protracted, but the cost of casualties paid by the attacker will be extremely high, which is not cost-effective.
As a favorite general trained by Ronya himself, Doron naturally has a deeper understanding of the coach's combat intentions.
He led his cavalry troops and rushed to the outside of Feixing Gorge covered with stars and moonlight. After waiting for a long time, he saw the banner of the Zhenjiang Army from a distance. Duolun's heart, which was originally hanging, was finally relieved. It was obvious that the plan of the Temple Prince worked.
Feixing Gorge is not very close to Pansong Ferry. Even with a quick march, it will take more than half a day to arrive. At this time, the main force of the Metasequoia Army came here, which meant that the other party was convinced that they could defend the ferry while also eating their "suspicious soldier."
And this idea will definitely give Deputy Marshal Mohadi, who is rapidly approaching the Ulundu River, an excellent opportunity to attack.
Now that the river side is basically certain of victory, the task on Duolun's side has become clearer: to do everything possible to hold back the main force of the enemy in front of them and buy time for Mohadi. After Li Jiangyao is eliminated, he will launch an encirclement here.
However, a strange phenomenon at this time aroused Duolun's doubts.
Not long after the main force of the Zhenjiang Army had just formed their combat formation, they suddenly stopped all movements without warning and turned to standby.
Duolun quickly ordered the troops to deliberately expose their targets so that the Zhenjiang Army on the opposite side would find them. But I never expected that even after seeing Duolun's soldiers and horses clearly, there was still no reaction from the other side to fight.
The forty-thousand-strong army, less than three miles away from Duolun and the others, remained quiet and motionless, as if asleep.
Dolan was a little frightened by this scene.
He had the intention to send troops to actively provoke, but he had no choice but to have limited troops at hand, so a rash attack would feel like hitting a rock with eggs. At the same time, he couldn't figure out what medicine the other party was selling in the gourd, so he didn't dare to act rashly.
Just when Duolun was confused, the Zhenjiang Army in the distance suddenly moved!
The four thousand-man armored cavalry squares originally deployed on both sides now advanced a hundred steps forward, facing Duolun in the distance. The rest of the army turned back together, and the rear team changed to the front team, and then they didn't even look back. Just take a step back and leave.
Obviously, those cavalry moving forward were acting as rear guards for the entire army.
not good! They want to withdraw! Duolun was startled, and immediately an ominous premonition arose.
The officer beside him asked anxiously: "General Doron, they ran away, what should we do? Chase them?"
Duolun weighed it in his mind: only a small part of the six thousand cavalry under his command were his own Iron Pigeon Army, and the rest were miscellaneous armies from various countries in Western Xinjiang. These people use the fight-and-escape strategy to barely catch the other party. But if they were to challenge the opponent's armored cavalry head-on on this vast plain, they would probably collapse within a few rounds.
Duolun shook his head helplessly: "Forget it...Oh, Li Jiangyao is too cunning!"
-
"General Xu, how are you doing? Is it safe?" Du Jian asked in a low voice. In fact, there was no need for him to speak softly. He was surrounded by armored cavalry and he was not afraid of being heard by the enemy.
Xu Youchang opened his helmet visor and took a long breath: "Huh--, judging from the reaction of the enemy on the opposite side, it should be the same as your judgment. What we have in front of us is not the main force of the left army at all, but a weak and suspected army."
"I think so!" Du Jian showed a relaxed look and called to the ordering soldiers: "Pass my order to the brigade to speed up the march. Don't be nervous anymore!"
At this time, Xu Youchang and Du Jian were in the cavalry phalanx that had left a broken rear.
The two of them had been worried before that if the army retreated, a large force of the left army would suddenly appear on the other side of the canyon and suddenly cover them up. However, the other party obviously does not have the strength, let alone the courage.
Xu Youchang pulled the reins and whipped the horse whip: "This is just a suspicious soldier! Let's go! Your Excellency is waiting for us over there!"
