Pizhou City.
Qi general Xu Erzhu led 10,000 troops to garrison the city and guard the Song army's way north.
The Song Army was dominated by infantry, and infantry operations relied heavily on transportation of supplies from the rear.
This characteristic determines that when they fight, it is difficult to bypass the fortified city and fight deep into the enemy's territory.
Because if they bypass the fortified city and go deep into the enemy's territory, the defenders in the city can come out to attack their food routes. Once the food routes are cut off, the infantrymen who go deep will not be able to retreat even if they want to retreat.
For the Qi army, although the Song army had 300,000 soldiers, it was actually much easier for the Qi army to defend than against the Mongols.
At this time, the flags of the Qi army were flying at the top of Pizhou City, and outside Pizhou City, it became a sea of Southern Song military tents.
This is an extremely magnificent picture. Outside the small city of Pizhou, a company of Song troops is encircling the city. As far as the eye can see, there are military tents.
Not only outside Pizhou City, but also on the road south of the city, there are temporary camps of the Song Army every few dozen miles.
This time Zhao Tai was attacked by Mongolia and Song Dynasty. After Zhao Tai was destroyed, Mongolia and Song Dynasty had not yet discussed how Shandong would belong.
Zhao Tai was a rebel in the Southern Song Dynasty. In theory, Shandong would return to the Southern Song Dynasty after the rebellion was suppressed. However, if the Mongolian army occupied the prefectures and counties in Shandong, they would definitely not hand over the occupied prefectures and counties to the Song army.
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In the past, the Song Army wanted to use Mongolia to consume Zhao Tai and was not very active in sending troops. Now that the war has begun, the Song Army has to seize more counties and counties.
At this time, outside Pizhou City, the Song Army's camps were spread all over the city. The dense military tents surrounded Pizhou City. Soldiers in armor shuttled through the camp, making preparations to attack the city.
In the center of the camp was a tall tent with flags flying in front and soldiers holding spears surrounding it.
This is the headquarters of former army commander Shi Zhaizhi.
Inside the tent, an outdated map of Shandong from the Northern Song Dynasty hung, and many generals were surrounding the map, discussing the attack plan.
Shi Zhaizhi successfully crossed the Huaihe River, captured Lianshui, and then attacked the city all the way until he reached the gates of Pizhou City, where he encountered real resistance.
After crossing the river, the Song army encountered the city and was defeated in one day. However, Pizhou was not defeated after three days of fighting, and the Song army did not even reach the top of the city, which made Shi Zhaizhi very angry.
At this time, Shi Zhaizhi glanced sharply at the generals in the tent and said with dissatisfaction: "This attack on Shandong is not just as simple as quelling the rebellion, but also affects whether peace can be maintained between Song and Mongolia in the future. You fight like this , Can you be worthy of the officials and the court? If the Mongols see you being such a waste, what will they think of me, the Song Dynasty?"
The generals in the tent lowered their heads, having been trained so that they did not dare to raise their heads.
Seeing that no one said anything, Shi Zhai said angrily: "Are they all mute?"
Each general buried his head lower, and the last general came out and said: "Ms. sir, we have never encountered such resistance before, so we are not well prepared. If we wait for the siege equipment to arrive from behind, we will surely capture Pizhou!"
Hearing this, Shi Zhaizhi's anger subsided, "This battle is not only to destroy the thieves, but also to demonstrate the prestige of our Song Dynasty. Mongolia cannot be underestimated. Do you understand?"
When the Song and Jin Dynasties united to destroy the Liao Dynasty, tens of thousands of people from the Jin Kingdom pursued Emperor Tianzuo and destroyed the Liao Kingdom along the way.
The Northern Song Dynasty sent more than 100,000 troops to attack the Liao Kingdom, but they were defeated by the defeated Liao soldiers. The Northern Song Dynasty was humiliated in front of the Jin Kingdom, and the Jin Kingdom saw clearly the weakness of the Northern Song Dynasty.
This time Song and Mongolia united to destroy Qi, and the Southern Song Dynasty naturally had to learn a lesson.
Although Shi Songzhi advocated peace, he knew that the basis for peaceful coexistence was that the Southern Song Dynasty had the ability to protect itself.
Therefore, Shi Songzhi, Shi Zhaizhi, and Li Zhixiao discussed before the war and believed that since the war started, the Song army should take advantage of Zhao Tai's presence in Hebei and the lack of troops in Shandong to occupy as many prefectures and counties in Shandong as possible to prevent Mongolia from occupying Shandong and threatening the Huaihe River defense line. .
In addition, Shi Songzhi also pointed out that the Qi army was fierce. In order to prevent Zhao and Tai from fighting even after being trapped, all ministries must fight cautiously and must not suffer defeat in Shandong, lest Mongolia underestimate the Song Dynasty after the war.
Under the guidance of this idea, Shi Zhaizhi wanted to invade Jinan while Zhao Tairen was in Hebei. Now that the army was blocked by Pizhou, he was quite annoyed.
Many Song generals in the tent looked ashamed after being reprimanded, but they also had reasons to say that when Kublai Khan led an army of 100,000, he was unable to defeat Pizhou. No matter how good we are, it is not normal for us to be unable to defeat it in three days. What?
At this time, Shi Zhaizhi reprimanded the generals in his tent, asking them to fight bravely and make meritorious deeds in defeating the thieves. Little did he know that Zhao Tai had led the cavalry fifty miles north of Pizhou City.
At this time, in the Song Army camp outside the city, some soldiers were sitting together eating and drinking, while some were carrying wood and preparing siege equipment. The camp was peaceful and normal.
The Song army lacked horses, and the scouts had a limited detection range. Fifty miles away was the blind spot of the Song army's vision.
After Zhao Tai arrived in Jinan, he only rested for an hour outside the city. The cavalry had a hot meal and the horses were fed, and then went south with ten days' rations.
The Qi army's cavalry changed horses without changing men along the way, and it took only two days to reach Pizhou.
At this time, in the woods, the cavalry of the Qi army were lying all over the woods, and snoring could be heard all around.
Zhao Tai was wearing armor and sitting on a stone, surrounded by several generals.
"Although there are many soldiers from the Song Dynasty, they are infantry and cannot maneuver easily!" Zhao Tai held a tree branch and scratched it on the ground. "According to the scouts' investigation, the Song army set up strongholds on the east, west, and south sides of Pizhou City! The Song army led the troops There are not many soldiers and horses in each camp. They are spread out in the wilderness for dozens of miles around the outskirts of Pizhou City. It is difficult to support each other when attacked!"
Wanyan Chenghu and other generals looked at the logo painted on the ground and nodded.
Zhao Tai used branches to row from east to west, like threading through candied haws, and strung together a circle representing the Song army's camp. He said solemnly: "The idea of being alone is to take advantage of the fact that the Song army did not know that it was alone and returned to Shandong, so as to catch it by surprise and lead it." The cavalry army rushes in directly from the east and gives the Song army a horse-trampling company camp!"
It was a very arrogant idea to send 10,000 cavalry to attack the camp of tens of thousands of Song troops, but the generals of the Qi army did not question it, as if it was a matter of course, and this was what the Qi army should do.
When the generals heard that they were going to attack the Song camp directly, they all rubbed their hands excitedly and made suggestions one after another along Zhao Tai's train of thought.
Wanyan Chenghu said: "Your Majesty, the Song army is good at infantry and is good at controlling cavalry with foot. According to my observation, they rely only on heavy armored infantry and divine arm archers to fight against cavalry. We want to attack the Song Dynasty. As long as one of them is destroyed, the Song army will be vulnerable."
Zhao Tai nodded, "The heavy infantry of the Song Army cannot be killed by cavalry, but the divine arm archers of the Song Army can kill the cavalry from a long distance. If we defeat the divine arm archers of the Song Army, we can use cavalry archery to kill the heavy infantry of the Song Army from a long distance. If we defeat the heavy infantry of the Song Army, we can If we catch the heavy step of the Song Army, we can rush forward and massacre the Song Army's divine arm archers."
Zhao Tai paused and said in a deep voice: "In this battle, I will ride forward with a sudden fire lance and blast away the heavy infantry and armor of the Song army. The heavy cavalry will then attack and tear open the gap in the enemy's formation. Finally, I will follow up with light cavalry and drive the defeated Song army to sweep away." Each camp of the Song Army!"
