Turbulent Times Chapter 1512: The person sent by Zhai Rang
Relying on careful planning, Xu Shiji finally led his army out of the most dangerous area, but at the beginning he brought 50,000 elite soldiers to attack the crossing of Xiaohe Mountain, now there are only more than 20,000 defeated soldiers left.
They lost more than 10,000 people in front of the two army camps in Xiaohedao, and lost another 10,000 people along the way.
Of course, this includes those who surrendered to the Far East Army and those who were killed by the Far East Army.
Furthermore, Xu Shiji knew in his heart that the Wagang Army's morale was at a loss. Although the Shuitou River temporarily blocked the Far Eastern Army, it only gave them a chance to breathe. They were still more than a hundred miles away from Fengyang City. The Storm Bear Battalion is all cavalry, most of them are infantry, even if they run and break their legs, it is difficult to completely open the distance.
In short, they still need to continue to escape.
As long as it is in a state of fleeing, even if the Wagang Army still has the upper hand, it will not become a major threat to the Far East Army in the following battles.
Wang Junlin and Li Jing led about 9,000 cavalrymen of the Violent Bear Battalion across the Shuitou River. They continued to chase and kill them all the way, and after more than an hour, they caught up with the Wagang Army.
Xu Shiji tried his best to boost the morale of the Wagang army. After leading the troops personally, he used the advantage of numbers to expand the front.
Under Xu Shiji's painstaking management, the morale of the Wagang Army recovered slightly, Xu Shiji stopped decisively and continued to flee, but stationed in a passing town to confront the Far East Army.
It is more than eighty miles away from Fengyang City.
There are many such towns and forts in troubled times, and they were built by the local big clans to ward off bandits and greedy officers and soldiers.
Of course, the Central Plains is now the territory of the Wagang Army, and this town is also ruled by the Wagang Group in principle.
In fact, this town castle has always been very docile. It has never paid less tax to the Wagang Group on a regular basis, and it seems quite rich.
This is also the reason why Xu Shiji chose this town fort, because they can supply enough food and grass here.
Now, the roles of the two sides have been temporarily reversed, and the Storm Bear Battalion has instead become the attacking side, while the Wagang Army is stationed in the town fort.
Xu Shiji hoped to restore morale in this town named Blackwater Fort, and then consume as much troops as possible of the Far East Army. Junlin didn't want too many casualties among his own people, he hoped to force the Violent Bear Battalion back.
But it's a pity that Wang Junlin would never have a decisive battle with the Wagang army relying on Jiancheng, he just took the opportunity to rest and didn't even intend to attack Blackwater Fort immediately.
Just when Xu Shiji was a little suspicious and secretly guessing whether Wang Junlin wanted to mobilize siege weapons such as stone catapults and a large number of gunpowder packs and grenades from the rear, a strange change suddenly appeared in the Blackwater Fort.
Soldiers under his command began to die inexplicably.
Some people accidentally fell down while walking and hit their heads on stones to death.
Some people choked to death while drinking water, and some even walked and didn't look at the road, and hit the wall to death.
The most bizarre thing is that nearly a hundred soldiers had nightmares when they slept at night, scaring themselves to death.
What angered Xu Shiji the most was that two generals under his command had a conflict over a beautiful **** who was filial to the people of Blackwater Castle, and the conflict escalated rapidly within a short period of time.
From quarrels to quarrels, to two people fighting, and then to the two people leading the soldiers to fight.
More than 300 people were killed in this firefight. In the end, Xu Shiji personally led people to behead the two ministers on the spot, and killed all their confidantes, so that the riot and civil strife were suppressed. .
Although he did not get any evidence for the indiscriminate deaths of his subordinates, Xu Shiji had already begun to have doubts about the people in the Blackwater Fort. When he was about to kill all the people in the Blackwater Fort, he found something Since then, all the people in Blackwater Castle have disappeared.
When Xu Shiji heard the news, his expression changed drastically, and he gritted his teeth and said, "The people in Blackwater Castle have surrendered to the enemy..."
A general under his command shouted: "I will lead people to find them now and kill them all."
Xu Shiji shook his head and said: "It's too late. If I'm not mistaken, there are a lot of tunnels in Blackwater Fortress, and the enemy is probably expecting us to find them so that we can be dragged here."
The general under his command looked unwilling, and gritted his teeth: "Should we just let them go like this."
Xu Shiji's face was serious, and he said, "I have a hunch that if we don't leave this damned Blackwater Fort, something very bad will probably happen."
After a pause, Xu Shiji's eyes flashed with determination, and he said, "Which direction outside the town has the least number of people from the Far Eastern Army."
A Wagang general immediately said: "There is no Far East Army stationed in the west."
Xu Shiji was a little surprised at once. This Black Water Fortress is not big, and although the number of the Far Eastern Army is not large, eight or nine thousand people can completely surround it on all sides, but now one side is vacant. One, let yourself lead the army to escape?
Even though he felt something was wrong, Xu Shiji finally gritted his teeth and gave the order: "Send the order, and evacuate the Blackwater Fort immediately."
Xu Shiji suddenly found that he seemed to be caught in a big net laid by Wang Junlin, but this big net could always leave a gap, and no one knew what was behind the gap, but the other party forced him to report to Wang Junlin. This gap escapes.
Contrary to Xu Shiji's expectations, when he led an army of nearly 20,000 to withdraw from the west gate, there was no ambush that he was worried about.
Just when half of the Wagang Army had already withdrawn from the west gate, suddenly there was an earth-shattering explosion in front of the city gate.
Wagang Army was blown up from the waist, and I don’t know how many cable mines were buried in the ground. Nearly 400 people were killed and injured on the spot. The most important thing is that the explosion was too loud Suddenly, the Wagang Army was stunned.
In this state, the cavalry of the Storm Bear Battalion rushed over from both sides.
There is no longer any suspense in this battle, and the Wagang Army was quickly defeated.
But because it was night, Xu Shiji had already made preparations, and finally escaped with nearly ten thousand people.
In the Battle of Blackwater Castle, the Wagang Army left more than 10,000 people, of whom more than 4,000 people died in battle, and the rest surrendered.
Li Jing felt a little regretful and unwilling. He knew that Wang Junlin wanted to subdue Xu Shiji, otherwise he would have killed Xu Shiji and the Wagang Army would have no leader. In this battle, the Wagang Army would not be able to escape.
Wang Junlin didn't care what Li Jing was thinking, he ordered Li Jing to continue to lead the 8,000 cavalry from the Violent Bear Battalion to pursue in the direction of Gyeongju, and the remaining hundreds of troops took more than 8,000 prisoners back to Blackwater Fort. watch.
Blackwater Castle itself has more than a thousand warriors. Although it cannot compare with the strength of the Wagang Inner Battalion, it is not much worse than the troops of the Wagang Outer Battalion. Together with hundreds of soldiers from the Stormy Bear Battalion to guard These more than 8,000 captives are nothing.
After the battle of Blackwater Fort, the Wagang Inner Battalion elite led by Xu Shiji was completely out of control. The army had no fighting spirit at all. To this extent, even Xu Shiji couldn't eliminate it.
Behind the chain of command
In ancient times, the psychology of soldiers was very easily affected. Even in later generations, when the battle ended in this place, it was extremely dangerous to retreat, and if you were not careful, you would be defeated for thousands of miles.
Since the battle of Fengyang City, Zhang Tiangang, who disappeared without a trace, led a thousand of his powerful subordinates. It can be said that they were bold enough to attack the nearly 10,000 Wagang troops who were withdrawing to Fengyang City along the way. However, the Wagang Army, who was eager to withdraw, had no intention of chasing and killing this small group of powerful troops, which gave Zhang Tiangang and the others a great deal of room for movement, and also caused great panic to the soldiers of the Wagang Army.
And Li Jing led 8,000 cavalry to follow the Wagang Army brigade, and continued to make an impact posture with thousands of cavalry as a unit, dragging the speed of the Wagang Army's rearguard. It will be separated, and at this time it will encounter a large-scale cavalry attack, and the cavalry of the Violent Bear Battalion are like a tail, closely following behind.
Xu Shiji was well aware of the seriousness of the situation, and did not dare to hand over the postponing task to his generals. He still led the guards himself, controlled the marching speed of the whole army, and prevented the guards from being bitten off piece by piece. Under the continuous attack of the pursuers, they continued to lose.
Under the containment of the pursuers, the Wagang Army only traveled about fifty miles that day, and they had to set up camp at night.
Zhang Tiangang led nearly a hundred masters and gunpowder packs to sneak into the Wagang Army camp for a night attack. This non-violent night attack caused the Wagang Army camp to roar in a small area, and more than a thousand soldiers were killed in the chaos. The most important thing is that the Wagang Army did not rest from the top to the next night.
On the second day, when the Wagang Army was most exhausted, Li Jing led the 8,000 Violent Bear Battalion cavalry to charge the camp with all their strength. The Wagang army completely collapsed after resisting for less than an hour, and began to flee in the direction of Fengyang City.
The last battle lasted for a whole day, and the Wagang Army finally fled to Fengyang City with less than 2,000 people, and in the next few days, more than 1,000 people fled back intermittently.
So far, during the entire Xiaohedao Mountain Pass offensive, only more than 3,000 of the 50,000 Wagang Army finally escaped.
More than 1,100 cavalrymen of the 10,000 Storm Bear Battalion died in battle, and more than 200 engineers. More than 700 people were injured, more than 100 of them were seriously injured.
Judging from this figure, it is natural that the Far East Army won a big victory.
During the offensive and defensive battle of the two military strongholds at Xiaoheshan Daokou, which lasted more than 20 days, the 10,000 soldiers of the Stormy Bear Battalion faced off against the 50,000 elite Wagang Army. .
The victory of this war is more significant than the victory of Huangshi Village and the capture of Fengyang City.
Because, this battle was personally led by Xu Shiji, the number one member of the Wagang Army, and he led the 50,000 inner battalion elite.
Five times their strength could not defeat the 10,000 Far Eastern Army, and they lost so miserably, which was devastating to the confidence and morale of the Wagang Army.
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Lanzhou city.
Looking at Xu Shiji only bringing back more than three thousand horses, Li Mi's face was so gloomy that he could drip ink. At the beginning, he and Xu Shiji made a plan to let the latter take 50,000 Wagang inner battalion elite to attack Xiaohedao Mountain Pass, but in less than a month, only more than 3,000 horsemen came back. This result is obviously not what Li Mi wants to see, and it has even exceeded the limit he can bear.
What's more, Li Mi knows very well how much this fiasco led by Xu Shiji has dealt a blow to the Wagang Army.
But Xu Shiji is the third person in the Wagang Group, and his prestige is only slightly inferior to him and Zhai Rang. Therefore, although Li Mi is very angry, he still suppresses the anger in his heart and comforts Xu Shiji with kind words. The meaning of questioning guilt, even though he already had some doubts about Xu Shiji's defeat, after all, it was no secret that Wang Junlin wanted to accept Xu Shiji.
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On the plain to the east of Fengyang City, the brilliance of the sun has dimmed. In the distant sky to the east, orange and dark purple clouds seem to be within reach from the ground. Because the setting sun was also stained with a layer of dark red.
Li Jing stretched out his hand to caress the war horse, while looking at the Xiawagang army camp in Fengyang City, there was some unwillingness on his face.
Since Xu Shiji led the remnant soldiers back to the Wagang army camp outside Fengyang City, it has been rainy for nearly ten days. Apart from small-scale conflicts and killings, the two sides have not engaged in large-scale battles.
The Wagang Army tried to attack Fengyang City in the rain under the restraint of Li Jing's 8,000 Violent Bear Battalion cavalry and nearly 1,000 Special Forces soldiers, and they did not move.
And under Xu Shiji's suggestion, Li Mi ordered to build a large number of fortifications such as vertical and horizontal ravines, horse rejection, and pits around their camp, making Wagang Camp indestructible for a while, and Li Jing and Fengyang City. It is very difficult for Li Xuanba and Li Shanfei to steal the camp.
It has to be said that Xu Shiji's level of learning and application is very high. This kind of fortification of ravines and trenches is obviously learned from the fortifications in front of the two military camps of the Far Eastern Army at Xiaohedaoshankou.
Of course, it would not be impossible for the Far Eastern Army to attack by force with the power of gunpowder packs, but it would inevitably cause great damage to itself, so Li Jing was not in a hurry to fight when he saw Wang Junlin, and he did not dare to act rashly. After all, the Far Eastern Army The total strength of the troops in Fengyang City and outside the city is only about 50,000, and the strength is still only one-third of the Wagang Army led by Li Mi.
These days, Wang Junlin has completely let Li Jing go to direct the battle outside the city, and he just watched from the sidelines.
While Li Jing sent people to find a way to get in touch with Li Xuanba, Li Shanfei, and Zhang Tiangang of the Special Operations Brigade in Fengyang City, while thinking of ways to deal with the Wagang Army, he finally used the old method to cut off the enemy's food first. Say it again.
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Ye, Zishi, also known as Zhongye or Midnight, is the first hour of the twelve hours. It is also the time when humans sleep the deepest. One of the three shipments of food and grass sent by the Wagang Army to the camp in Fengyang City from the rear ushered in a group of uninvited guests who were like ghosts.
I have to say that even in the hinterland of the Wagang Army's territory, the Wagang Army's **** team is very cautious. There are two layers of sentries on the outer perimeter, and there are mobile sentries in the camp. The camp layout is also very good. Reasonably, the grain and grass are in the middle, and the camping tents are surrounded by the periphery.
However, all of this is nothing in front of this group of experts from the Special Operations Brigade of the Far Eastern Army who are no longer in the category of ordinary fighters.
A total of seventy-four sentries were silently covered with their mouths and throats cut on the outer two layers of cordon without making a sound.
There were no more than fourteen special forces masters who finally sneaked into the camp. However, these fourteen were the fourteen most outstanding members of the special forces team for night travel. In the slightest reflection, everyone has a backpack, which contains the key items for them to complete this mission.
Soon the twenty-one mobile sentries had all died without a sound. The fourteen people successfully sneaked into the middle of the camp where the grain and grass were piled up in the Wagang Army grain team, quickly opened the backpack, and took out the fuel pack from it. , and then fell on more than a hundred grain carts one by one. Everyone placed a gunpowder bag in a place where the fire would not be able to burn for a while.
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"Enemy Attack!"
"It's on fire."
"It's over, all the food and grass are on fire."
When the fourteen people left quietly and quickly to the edge of the campsite, the flames on more than one hundred grain and grass trucks were already very large, and finally the Wagang army escorting the grain and grass were alarmed. After running out, some officers shouted to put out the fire, and some shouted to kill the enemy. There are also headless BlazBlue running around.
However, generally speaking, this Wagang Army still responded quickly, and it also brought certain fire-fighting tools with it. The generals leading the team were also very effective in organization. Some were on guard outside, but most of them were fighting fires.
However, when they rushed forward to put out the fire, ten gunpowder packs hidden in the grain and grass exploded. This gunpowder bag is the largest gunpowder bag produced in Yancheng of the Far East Army, weighing 25 catties. One can imagine the power of the explosion.
The final result was that more than 400 to 500 Wagang Army troops participating in the fire fighting were killed and more than 100 people were injured, and the most important thing was that more than 100 vehicles of grain and grass were all burned to ashes.
Almost at the same time, this scene also happened in the other two teams of Wagang Army transporting food and grass and a team of luggage.
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Chengyang County is a county in the direction from Fengyang City to Wagang Village. It was originally a granary in the Sui Dynasty.
When the Wagang army captured the city two years ago, because the incident happened suddenly and the city gate was opened by the insiders, a large amount of food and grass in the official warehouses in the city could not be transferred or destroyed by the officers and soldiers in the future. Gang Jun also regarded this place as the location of Granary City.
If it is in accordance with the provisions of the Far East Army's combat readiness regulations, the grain and grass in the official warehouse of Chengyang County can feed 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry for a month.
And this time the Wagang Army dispatched troops, Li Mi has mobilized a large amount of food and grass these days and stored them here. The food and grass are five times more than before, which means that the food and grass here can feed 80,000 troops for a month.
So, this has become the largest grain and grass supply station for the Wagang Army besides the Wagang Village base camp. For the same reason, this is also the number one target of the Far East Army's Special Operations Brigade.
For this reason, Zhang Tiangang personally led a group of master elites under his command to sneak into Chengyang County.
This grain and grass supply station is extremely tightly protected by the 3,000 elite Wagang Army. There are as many as 100 sentries at night. In addition, the official warehouses of the Sui Dynasty were extremely strong. The doors are all iron doors. Difficult to break open. Even if Zhang Tiangang did it himself and broke through the iron gate with a single sword, it would inevitably alarm the guarding Wagang Army, and it would be difficult to carry out subsequent destruction.
However, in addition to the iron gate, the official warehouse also has iron windows, but when designing the official warehouse at that time, it was considered that someone would sneak in. The windows are not only four or five feet high, but also very small. Adult men are not allowed to enter.
However, there was a petite female expert in the Special Operations Brigade who was very good at light kungfu. She carried a large bag of special fuel, and used the power of the grappling hook to climb up the window and get in.
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In this way, Zhang Tiangang led the elusive special warfare brigade to cut off the grain road of the Wagang Army.
Today is a rare good weather. Wang Junlin, Li Jing, Shen Guoer and others analyzed that due to Xu Shiji's disastrous return and the impact of the back road and food road being cut off, Li Mi will probably lead the army back to Wagang soon Mountain.
Li Jing was worried, so he led the whole army to attack the Wagang Army's camp regardless of the consumption of gunpowder packs, trying to provoke the Wagang Army to go out to fight in the field.
Sure enough, the Wagang Army is unwilling to be beaten passively. The most important thing is that Li Mi is worried that the Far Eastern Army will have a lot of gunpowder bags, and Xu Shiji has the same concern. There are more than 30,000 violent bear battalion and nearly ten thousand Li Shanfei's troops in Yangcheng.
Because the Far Eastern Army never engaged in frontal melee combat consumption, it took a full day, using whirlwind tactics like peeling apples, and spending a lot of grenades, which gradually made the Wagang Army side gradually lose the wind.
In the end, Xu Shiji led the Wagang army to retreat decisively, slowly and orderly. Because it was very close to the Wagang camp and Xu Shiji personally led it, even though most of the 50,000 troops were from the Wagang camp, the Wagang army would not There was no tendency to collapse.
The battle was over, and the battlefield at this time was completely silent, only a small group of troops sent by both sides tacitly retrieved the robes that were killed or injured on their own side.
In this battle, the Far Eastern Army only suffered more than 300 casualties, while the Wagang Army suffered more than 4,000 casualties, a ratio of more than ten times.
But even so, Li Jing was still not satisfied.
Because just a few days ago, Wang Junlin had an in-depth conversation with him. According to Wang Junlin, their real enemies in the future are Li Yuan and his son in Taiyuan. For opponents like the Wagang Army, all battles must achieve the strategic goal with as little damage as possible under the premise of completing the combat goal.
Furthermore, Wang Junlin especially emphasized that in field battles, "injuring the enemy a thousand, injuring oneself eight hundred" is ultimately the worst strategy. Even if the Far Eastern Army has strong combat power, sharp weapons and equipment, and the enemy is confronted head-on, it can often achieve a one-to-many record.
In fact, Wang Junlin knew very well that as long as the Far Eastern Army lost too much in the battle with the Wagang Army, Taiyuan Li Yuan, his son, and even the imperial army might send troops to the ten counties under his control at any time.
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At the same time, in the camp of the Wagang Army.
After half a day of hard fighting, compared to the Far Eastern Army, the Wagang Army suffered more casualties. In addition, these days, they have been defeated again and again, especially Xu Shiji faced the disastrous defeat of the Far Eastern Army, and his strength was five or six times that of the opponent. in the case of.
So from Li Mi and Xu Shiji down, almost all Wagang generals looked very depressed.
The dull atmosphere made the exhaustion after the battle even more exhausting. Everyone in the Far Eastern Army was a little listless. Many generals even felt dissatisfied with Li Mi in their hearts.
Suddenly, there was a commotion outside the handsome tent, Li Mi was startled, and asked, "What's going on? Go and have a look."
A soldier agreed and went to inquire immediately, while Li Mi and others sat in the tent anxiously, waiting for the return.
It didn't take long for the soldiers who were going to inquire about it to come at a gallop, and they ran to Li Mi's ear in a panic, and whispered: "Mi Gong, Li Xuanba personally led a small group of people to sneak into Fengyang City. Big camp, burn... burn... a part of our big camp."
"What did you say?" Li Mi's eyes widened. Hearing the soldier repeat it again with a trembling voice, Li Mi's face was extremely ugly.
"It's no big deal. It's just being taken advantage of by that **** Li Xuanba." Xu Shiji, who had been frowning beside him, glanced at Li Mi sideways, and said expressionlessly.
"It's not a big deal!" Li Mi almost roared in his heart, but when he saw Xu Shiji's expression, his heart trembled, his eyes swept over the demoralized generals beside him, and he let out the anger and worry in his heart pressed down.
However, at this moment, he saw a group of two or three hundred cavalry galloping from the direction of Wagangzhai. He guessed that most of them were sent by Zhai Rang, the head of the Wagangzhai headquarters. A sense of foreboding.
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PS: 6,500 words sent late at night————————