The rumble of horse hooves dispersed the thick morning fog, in a small village called Mapao Spring on the north bank of the Weihe River.
This place is only more than twenty miles away from Xiwei Bridge. The residents of the village either hid in the mountains or were dragged away by the rebel army. The women were used as sexual objects and reserve army rations, while the men died in the ravines.
Zhang Xiaoguo plunged into Mapaoquan Village in an extremely embarrassed manner. The thatch, branches, door panels and other items covering the houses in the village had long been looted.
But the half-collapsed earthen walls of the houses made Zhang Xiaoguo feel a little more at ease. The advantage of the fast horses of the Hexi cavalry could not be used at least.
The cavalry under Zhang Xiaoguo's command almost rushed into the village like hungry dogs eating shit. Everyone was disgraced. Even Zhang Xiaoguo's general's identification flag was torn, and the flags and drums of each capital and general were basically lost.
The terrain of Mapaoquan Village is higher than the surrounding areas, and there is a spring water in the village that is not very sweet.
During the Tang Dynasty, the nobles of Chang'an City liked to race horses or go on horseback trips around Mapaoquan Village, which is why it got its name.
After Zhang Xiaoguo felt a little calmer, he climbed up to the tallest earth building in the village and started observing.
Around Mapaoquan Village, fierce cavalry chases are still taking place, but they are much less than a few days ago, and the results have begun to show a one-sided trend.
The Hexi people's horses were fast and their riding skills were even better than those of the rebels. During the more than thirty miles of fighting between them from Xingping County to Mapaoquan Village, they inflicted heavy losses on the rebel cavalry.
Fortunately, after Sun Xiaoguo set out, he specially ordered a large number of horn bow and crossbow equipment, so he was not directly destroyed.
As a standard equipment used by the Tang army specifically for cavalry, the horn crossbow was powerful, had a long range, and had excellent armor-breaking effects.
In the past, when Zhang Zhao was in the Western Regions, they were used by the infantry. The rebels relied on the sharpness of the horned bows and crossbows to barely block the constant attacks of the Guiyi cavalry.
And they began to lose their support gradually, also because the crossbow strings made of horn bow sinews began to loosen and the arrows ran out.
The entanglement of small cavalry units is called a dog fight, which is a very vivid metaphor.
In this kind of chase battle involving more than ten or twenty riders, the two sides are like two fighting mastiffs, with their mouths open. Sometimes you pounce on me, sometimes I pounce on you, and sometimes they fight together.
Until one party cannot defeat them and runs away in despair.
Li Cunhui is riding on a yellow horse, holding a sword in his left hand and a pecking hammer in his right hand.
The so-called pecking hammer is also the standard weapon of cavalry after the Middle Tang Dynasty. One end is a hammer and the other is a beak. The end is a good weapon for dealing with heavy armor.
At this moment, Li Cunhui led more than a dozen of his cavalrymen to entangle more than twenty rebel cavalrymen. The rebel cavalrymen lowered their bodies on their horses, took out their bows, and kept firing arrows diagonally backwards.
The arrows shot out kept flying past Li Cunhui's head with a soft whizzing sound, and some of them hit Li Cunhui's pocket and shoulder armor, but Li Cunhui didn't care at all.
Because there is no horned crossbow, it is still not easy for an ordinary horse bow to break through the cotton armor on his body.
Moreover, there is a small round shield on his right arm. Li Cunhui raised his right hand slightly. The round shield can also play a certain protective role. As the sound of arrows piercing the air became more and more intensive, Li Cunhui was lying on the horse.
, risk raising your body a little.
The distance is getting closer and closer. He needs to attract some firepower for the war horse. The man is wearing armor, but the war horse only has a piece of iron to protect his forehead and a small piece of armor hanging down to protect his chest. If he is unlucky, an arrow will do.
Let the horse suffer a big loss.
As they got closer and closer, the cavalry behind Li Cunhui also took out their bows and arrows and shot at the rebel cavalry.
At least a dozen arrows were inserted into the back of this unlucky little rebel cavalryman, which made him scream in pain, but he was probably guilty of guilt.
He was wearing ring mail, so he wasn't seriously injured.
But he couldn't run, because the rebel cavalry horse had several arrows stuck in its butt. The horse's butt was wet with blood, and the horse's running posture began to twist.
Li Cunhui's horse was fast and he quickly arrived at the cavalry's side. Seeing that he could not run away, the 'hedgehog' cavalry could only turn around and look at Li Cunhui with desperate and frightened eyes.
However, Li Cunhui, who had experienced the tragedy in Jingzhou and Fenzhou, would not be soft-hearted towards these beasts.
But just when these thoughts flashed through his mind, suddenly, the 'hedgehog' cavalry smiled coldly, and his desperate eyes were instantly replaced by pride. He took out a loaded horn crossbow from his arms.
"Hey! How dare you, thief!" Li Cunhui roared fiercely, like a thunder exploding in the ears of the 'hedgehog' cavalry.
While roaring, the long sword in Li Cunhui's hand slashed past like lightning.
The 'hedgehog' cavalryman was also very nervous, because he only had this one arrow in his horned crossbow. If he could not hit Li Cunhui, he would die.
Faced with a tense moment between life and death, the "hedgehog" cavalry was frightened by Li Cunhui's roar. He tightened his hands habitually, and the arrow suddenly flew into the air and floated to nowhere.
Finished!
Before he even had time to regret it, severe pain came from his hand.
It turned out that almost at the same time, Li Cunhui's long sword had already struck. This heavy sword, which weighed five or six kilograms, was polished to a very sharp point. It cut the "Hedgehog" cavalry's horn crossbow and its fingers into pieces like a cucumber.
one slice.
"My hand! Ah! My hand!" The 'Hedgehog' cavalryman covered his bloody right hand with his left hand and screamed loudly, but it stopped suddenly.
Because Li Cunhui made a beautiful twist on the horse, pecked the tip of the hammer's beak, and hit the "Hedgehog" cavalryman on the back of the horse, directly carving a bloody hole in his forehead.
As the "hedgehog" cavalry fell, Li Cunhui and a dozen others caught up with the rebels' twenty-some cavalry.
They ran side by side and at the same time used the weapons in their hands to kill each other fiercely.
Li Cunhui's left and right hands rotated like flying. He used the heavy sword to deal with those with light armor, and used the pecking hammer to deal with those with thick armor. He knocked three or four enemy cavalry off their horses in an instant.
On the other side, Murong Nobunaga, Zhang Xibao and others also drove away the rebel cavalry who had not had time to enter the village and killed them all.
The most important thing about cavalry is nothing more than equipment, horses and riding skills. When the rebel cavalry loses the power of bows and crossbows, they are completely in a passive situation of being beaten.
Sun Xiaoguo saw it clearly in Mapaoquan Village, and his face was miserable.
Thirteen hundred cavalrymen left the city and were careful all the way. In less than two days, only about 900 cavalrymen were left, and now they were driven into the village.
When the cavalry loses its mobility, death is not far away.
"Boom! Boom!" A violent explosion sounded, followed by brilliant fireworks at the east end of the village.
Not long after, an officer with half of his hair burned off and several blisters on his swarthy face ran up to Sun Xiaoguo, who fell headfirst into the dust.
"General! A band of thieves with magic skills came from the east of the village. Their spears could spit fire. The soldiers occupying the high places at the end were burned down by their fire-breathing spears. The exit at the east end, at the end, was
Will not be able to defend it!"
"This is to surround us and use us as bait to draw out the army from Xiwei Bridge!"
Sun Xiaoguo let out a long sigh. Since these Guiyi troops from Hexi had surrounded them, they wanted to capture the entrance to the east of the village. Moreover, they did not rush to attack after capturing it. It was obvious that they wanted to block them so that they could not escape.
What I was thinking behind my back was that I still had to gather around and support.
"Lei Bao'er! I will give you fifty people and a hundred good horses. Later today, you rush out to Xiwei Bridge to report the news!" Zhang Xiaoguo pointed at Lei Bao'er who was burned and had flowers all over his face.
"Are you going to tell Ambassador He not to be fooled?" Lei Bao'er said hesitantly.
"Fuck your mother? Was the dog slave beaten stupid by the people from Hexi?" Zhang Xiaoguo laughed angrily.
"I didn't want to come out at first. It was because that thief in He Chuan was so smart that he tried to trick the enemy. I swore to him that we would share the joys and sorrows. Now that I am surrounded, who will come if he doesn't come? Forget it, you bastard.
It doesn’t matter if people don’t go!”
With that said, Sun Xiaoguo pulled over the bodyguard beside him. This was his clansman and was far more reliable than someone like Lei Bao'er.
"Jiulang, when you go this time, tell He Chuan that there are 8,000 Hexi soldiers around Mapao Spring, including 2,000 cavalry and 6,000 infantry. Come and fight in the field quickly. Kill them and no one will dare to come again.
We are being conquered."
Sun Xiaoguo thought for a moment. If He Chuan didn't come, he would die. If He Chuan came, it would be a decisive battle with tens of thousands of troops.
He has all cavalry under his command. If you can defeat them, you can stay. If you can't defeat them, you can leave. The probability of survival is at least much higher than now.
This chapter has been completed!