However, Zhao Kuo wanted to connect perfectly, but it was not that easy. Without him, just when King Zhao, Lou Chang and others were planning how to force Zhao Kuo to return to the army, Zhao Kuo was also giving orders to attack in Sangqian City on the front line of Daijun.
In the Chinese military tent, a large sand table has been arranged in place. Zhao Kuo naturally stood at the front end alone. On Zhao Kuo's right hand side was the newly promoted and popular spicy chicken - General Li Mu. On Zhao Kuo's left hand side The original chief general Chen Xun, Sun Gu and Zhou Qi were ranked behind Li Mu and Chen Xun.
These five generals are already all the generals participating in this military meeting. Small meetings are often the most important meetings.
As the saying goes, small meetings handle big things, and big meetings handle small things. This has been true since ancient times. In fact, the reason why Chen Xun appeared here was because Zhao Kuo reluctantly called out after considering the mood of the generals on behalf of the land.
In fact, he is not among the protagonists this time. Of course, as a veteran, Chen Xun is very suitable to play the role of Dinghai Shenzhen in Sangqian City.
The eyes of the five people were all staring at the sand table in front of them. Even Chen Xun was extremely excited at this time.
There is no other way. I went to the general last night.
The words "If the enemy can go, I can go too" were too burning. Although he also knew that he was destined not to be the protagonist in this battle, it was a great blessing to be able to witness it with his own eyes and participate in its glory!
On the sand table that everyone is staring at, dotted are the military arrangements of Zhao and Beihu.
The red side is Zhao State, which still uses the three cities of Macheng, Sangqian City and Dangcheng as the frontline support points. During this period, dozens of hundreds of fortresses connected the three cities into a bow-shaped line.
There are two differences from the previous layout: First, Zhao Kuo increased the number of troops to Ma City, which originally had only more than 8,000 troops, which was the westernmost city of Dai County where Li Mu was stationed, to a total of 10,000 troops. There are more than 4,000 people, which almost increases the combat strength by more than half.
The reason is also very simple. First, Li Mu's transfer will weaken Macheng's defense. Second, it is to cope with the Hu people's offensive layout this year.
The second, and the biggest, difference lies in Dai City in the rear and Sangqian City where Zhao Kuo and others are now.
The 20,000 cavalry troops who were supposed to be on standby in Dai City were all transferred by Zhao Kuo to Sangqian City at the forefront, along with the 10,000 horses Zhao Kuo himself brought from Shangdang County and more than 12,000 troops already stationed there. Soldiers and horses, there are now more than 36,000 soldiers and horses gathered in Sangqian City.
So many soldiers and horses gathered in Sangqian City, obviously not to defend the city. But in the Dai City at the rear, there are only a few thousand people left to deal with emergencies.
Such an arrangement of troops with heavy forces at the front and light at the back, especially without enough reserves left, is obviously a desperate move.
Even Chen Xun, who had been convinced by Zhao Kuo, couldn't help but be shocked by Zhao Kuo's courage to fight hard when he saw Zhao Kuo's final deployment of troops.
But, to be honest, Chen Xun still felt that it was a bit risky in his heart. Perhaps it would be a better choice to withdraw 10,000 cavalry to Dai City as a strategic reserve force.
After all, this battle is not to destroy Hu, but to try to eliminate the strength gap between the two armies. There is really no need to be so desperate.
Putting less troops on the front line is just to defeat a few tribes, but if there is a slight accident... In Chen Xun's vision, as long as we hold on, our army will expand or reinforce in the coming year. Will achieve final victory.
As if he had seen through Chen Xun's doubts, Zhao Kuo just said a few words and made Chen Xun, who still wanted to remonstrate, obediently shut his mouth——
"If we don't have the courage to make a desperate move today, how will we be able to defeat the invaders next year, and how can we have the confidence to go there?" Of course, this was just Zhao Kuo's provocation to stop everyone's random thoughts.
The actual situation is that he has received information that the Yan army is about to move south. He must take advantage of the fact that the Yan army has not arrived at Handan and the King of Zhao has not recalled him, so as to reduce the fighting strength of the Hu people to the lowest level. It can be defended with only 40,000 people.
For this reason, Zhao Kuo even decided to reveal one of his trump cards! Compared with Zhao Jun, whose troops were relatively concentrated, the Hu people's formation seemed a bit disorganized.
The largest force, far to the northwest, should be Beihu Shanyu and his vassal tribes. The strength is about 70,000, and judging from the direction of their march, they should be heading towards Macheng in the west.
Scattered tribes and soldiers merged into it. It is expected that when they arrive at the gates of Macheng, the number of troops will reach nearly 80,000 to 90,000.
In the direction directly north of Sangqian City, perhaps because it is not the main direction of attack, the various tribes have not even formed a joint force. They are almost in one piece in the east and west. The largest tribe, King Zuoxian, has about 20,000 troops. , are gathering various tribes along the way, heading towards Sanggan City. It is expected that the total force will reach about 40,000 to 50,000 after arriving at Sanggan City.
As for the northeastern part of Sangqian City, it is the army of King Youxian of the Hu people. They are marching a little faster, and more than 30,000 soldiers and horses have gathered together. There are also scattered tribes of thousands of people on the road. It is obvious that they The target is Dangcheng, the easternmost city.
The total strength of this barbarian group should be between 40,000 and 50,000. It is not difficult to see from the above that after several years of exploration, even the Hu people from the North who have never read the art of war have gradually gained some insights and changes.
The most important manifestation is the choice of their attack direction. From the reckless three-pronged approach at the beginning, to the main attack in the middle in an attempt to attack Huanglong, to today's focus of attack on Ma, who is farthest away from Handan and Daicheng. city.
Being far away from Handan and Daicheng means that the supply line is lengthened, which means that for every grain transported to Macheng, three grains of grain, or even more, need to be consumed on the road.
This is one of the reasons why the city wall of Ma City is so narrow but has never been expanded. Not only the city walls, but also weapons and supplies such as bows, crossbows and arrows, Ma City is almost always the least among the three cities.
Fortunately, Ma Cheng had a good general, Li Mu, who was able to block almost the same enemy attack with far less supplies than the two cities.
Although it was blocked, even those who were as powerful as Li Mu could not prevent the Hu people from seeing any flaws. After all, the Hu people had eyes. As long as they had seen the walls of Macheng and Sangqian City, they would soon know The difference, whether it is width, length or height, is much inferior to Macheng.
Three years was enough for the barbarians to know which city was the weakest. It has to be said that even the barbarians have been making progress. From rushing blindly to learning to concentrate their forces, from eager for quick success to learning to find the weaknesses of their opponents, it took the barbarians in the North three years and hundreds of thousands of warriors. life.
I just don’t know, what will the Hu people learn from Zhao Kuo after this battle? Fortunately, Zhao Kuo has already carried out a large number of reinforcements to Macheng, and the last few thousand soldiers in Dai City are also ready to rush to Macheng's aid at any time.
Coupled with the perfect defensive system left by Li Mu, it is not so easy for the Hu people to break through.
The masters present were all experienced generals. Just looking at the sand table, they had roughly guessed Zhao Kuo's strategy. Zhao Kuo didn't need to explain it anymore.
It's just a "Tian Ji horse racing" strategy - pitting one's inferior horse against the enemy's superior horse. The winner of the war lies in whether Zhao Kuo defeats the Hu people first, or whether Ma Cheng is defeated by the main force of the Hu people first.
But what everyone didn't know was that Zhao Kuo's appetite was so big! Now that the strategy is clear, the next step is nothing more than tactics.
"Zhou Qi." Zhao Kuo immediately began to point to the general.
"The general will be here." Zhou Qi immediately agreed.
"How about heavy armor training?" Zhao Kuo continued to ask.
"Three thousand heavy armored cavalry have completed preliminary training, and the riding formations have been mastered. However, they do not have battle armor and have not yet been able to form sufficient combat power." Zhou Qi replied calmly.
Zhao Kuo nodded and continued to ask: "How many sets of armors have been sent?"
"More than three hundred." Zhou Qi replied immediately, as if he was afraid of Zhao Kuo's punishment, and quickly added: "General Zhao Wei has stopped the production of Modao and is working hard to build heavy armor for cavalry, but... ....." Zhao Kuo sighed slightly when he heard this. The difficulty of making heavy armor was obviously beyond Zhao Kuo's expectation.
However, Zhao Kuo was a little lucky that he had adjusted his strategy in time. If he had followed his previous plan and launched the battle to destroy Hu this year, he would have suffered a big loss.
Three hundred tools, more or less. It may be impossible to completely destroy the enemy in a large-scale battle, but it is obviously not a big problem to use it to penetrate barriers.
In this way, you may be able to keep your other trump card for a while.
"Three hundred." Zhao Kuo murmured and repeated: "Select three hundred cavalry to form a charging group to open up the enemy's formation for our army and inherit the order of the vanguard."
"Yes." Zhou Qi agreed immediately. Then Zhou Qi asked hesitantly: "General, the heavy armored cavalry naturally needs to be equipped with stirrups, and the rest of the cavalry?" Zhao Kuo hesitated slightly after hearing this. There were three hundred cavalry equipped with stirrups, covered with armor, so they were not afraid of being discovered by the barbarians, but if The rest of the cavalry also fastened their stirrups. When there are more people, it will be difficult to control them. If this sharp weapon is learned by the Hu people, it may bring unimaginable difficulties to the extermination of the Hu people in the next year... In short No, just destroy a Hu tribe when you see one. That would really be a blood feud and a fight to the death. This is obviously not consistent with Zhao Kuo's operational ideas of assimilating the Hu people and annihilating their culture.
What's more, it is extremely difficult to annihilate them all in the vast grassland.
"The rest will temporarily protect the central army." After Zhao Kuo thought for a while, he decided to hide his hand a little more. He expected that another 300 heavy cavalry would break through the enemy's formation, and the subsequent 20,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry should be enough. All resistance was shattered.
"Yes." Zhou Qi replied again.
