Chapter 197 Dou Jiande has no choice but to withdraw his troops based on Hulao

"General Cheng, what a blessing!" As the party involved in the battle, Hou Junji was even more difficult to truly understand the pressure on the battlefield. The situation was very critical at that time, and the entire army was almost defeated. However, Cheng Zhijie didn't know what was going crazy about his mind. He jumped up with a spear and carried two wide-body axes to kill all directions.

Li Shimin nodded, and he set his sight on the battlefield. The battle at this time was basically over. After all, it was an internal struggle. As long as one side surrenders, the other side would not kill them. After all, they were all descendants of Yan and Huang. The battle between Zheng and Tang was only the ownership of the world, but the enemy of each other's life and death.

Whether it is Wang Shichong, Li Yuan, or Dou Jiande, they have no idea of ​​being in a corner and living a lifelong life. They all want to unify the world and create peace for all generations. However, ideals are full, and reality is too skinny. It is precisely because of this war that smoke of gunpowder is lit everywhere on the land of hundreds of miles of the Central Plains, and killings are everywhere.

"It's over for the time being!" Li Shimin touched his back, and he was already in a cold sweat at this moment. The Tang army suffered heavy losses in this battle, with at least 3,000 killed in battle and 3,000 slightly injured in three or four thousand. Fortunately, he obtained five or six thousand Zheng army prisoners, which could make up for the losses of the Tang army. These prisoners, through the Tang army's military, had a spoiled trick, and they slowly took off the armor served by the Zheng army and replaced them with the armor of the Tang army. If there was no replacement, they took off the armor from the corpse and began to change their clothes.

Of course, not all the prisoners were willing to follow Li Shimin, and they continued to be prisoners very simply. Under the surveillance of the Tang army soldiers, more than a thousand prisoners who were unwilling to be adapted acted as coolies and began to restrain their bodies, move away to resist horses, clear out all obstacles, and repair the chariots, and the Tang army continued to advance.

The next few fierce battles were not very large in scale. Zheng's army used deer forts, trenches and horses as cover to build defense lines, and fought extremely resolutely. However, due to the dispersed forces, the forces on each line of defense were not large, usually hundreds or thousands of people, and Li Shimin's main army did not need to take action. Qin Qiong and Cheng Zhijie led the jumping soldiers in front to solve the battle.

At this time, the Tang army's vehicle array was like a road roller, rolling forward slowly and unstoppable, shattering the Zheng army's defense line mercilessly, and advancing forward. After several victories in a row, the morale of the Tang army rose to an extreme. Even the more than a thousand prisoners who were unwilling to surrender to the Tang Dynasty were hesitantly joined the Tang army's big family. As for other soldiers, they no longer had to be threatened and tempted by officers, and the advancement speed was greatly accelerated, and the kinetic energy became stronger and stronger.

Later, like the defense line guarded by one or two thousand Zheng soldiers, almost a regiment of Tang soldiers were solved in a few rounds. In just one morning, they captured seven or eight defense lines of Zheng's army and advanced twenty miles towards Xin'an. They were very close to their destination, less than thirty miles away.

The situation is very good, and everyone is optimistic.

However, Li Shimin frowned because he noticed that the Zheng army retreated in an orderly manner every time, without any panic. Although the Tang army fought bravely, the troops to annihilate the Zheng army in each battle were actually very limited, and rarely more than a thousand. Obviously, the Zheng army was not really defeated. They were luring the enemy into depth. These lines of defense with weak defense were just bait they threw out the appetite of the Tang army.

Li Shimin looked at the Zheng Jun scout who was looming in the distance, and his heart fell into deep thought. Where is Wang Shichong's main force? What is his real purpose?

"The whole army stopped advancing!" Li Shimin immediately issued a military order when he thought of this.

Li Shimin's order caught the generals off guard. Especially Cheng Zhijie, who lost his ancestral horse spear and had not had time to relieve his hatred. He listened to Li Shimin's order to stop moving forward, looked at Li Shimin in confusion and said, "Your Highness, King Qin, we can reach Xin'an City in more than an hour. Why should we stop moving forward at this time? Can we still stay in this deserted village?"

"Don't General Cheng feel surprised? Zheng's army clearly has the strength to compete with us, but it disperses its forces, as if we are giving us a chance to defeat them one by one!" Li Shimin said with a serious expression: "It's abnormal, and it's probably weird. On the banks of the Luojian River, Zheng's army was defeated by our full-strength assault and retreated. That's normal. Just like just resisting the horse formation, if Wang Shichong sent twice the force, it would be difficult for us to break through. If he sent three times the force, we could block us there. Does Wang Shichong think that he has too many soldiers and asks us to reduce the essence? This is not common sense, and it's a bit strange."

"What's so strange about this? Maybe Wang Shichong is just making a fool of himself!" Cheng Zhijie said: "No matter what Wang Shichong's real intention is, if the soldiers come to block the generals and the water comes to the garrison, why are he afraid he will do it!"

Hou Junji sneered at Cheng Zhijie. After all, Cheng Zhijie was a newly surrendered general. He was embarrassed to speak sarcastic, but his eyes were already filled with a little coldness and summarized Cheng Zhijie as a brave but unscheming man. He said seriously: "What if... Wang Shichong is using tricks again, what if... he wants to catch us all!"

"What about that?" Cheng Zhijie smiled disapprovingly: "Prudence is a good thing. It was not a big deal, but now... we can't do it!"

Li Shimin looked at Cheng Zhijie in surprise and smiled: "General Cheng means..."

"The Zheng army is small and scattered. If we stop moving forward, we will definitely be considered timid and end up as a brave man. In the future, we will not be able to use our power. Besides, the newly encamped soldiers will also develop a second thought. If we look at it for a longer period of time, it will be detrimental to us in the future."

It seems that Cheng Zhijie’s statement makes sense. Hou Junji did not refute it.

Li Shimin frowned and turned to Qin Qiong: "What does General Qin mean?"

Qin Qiong raised the steel halberd in his hand and smiled: "Your Highness the King of Qin said that I will fight as much as I want. I will be the striker!"

Li Shimin suddenly remembered something and said to Lei Yongji beside him: "Lei Yongji, you sent a scout to expand the scope of reconnaissance and see where the main force of Wang Shichong is. It is best to notify General Changsun Shunde in Xin'an City..."

Lei Yongji followed Li Shimin for many years and was also an experienced person. After receiving the order, he thought to himself: "This is a matter of life and death!" He did not dare to neglect, and thought to himself: "If you swagger to explore, it will attract attention." But he sent all his troops to change to the Zheng army's defeated soldiers, and walked around intentionally or unintentionally to find out the news.

...

Paomaling, the originally isolated camp, had already been continuous at this time, forming twelve sentry forts, forming a chain of camps with winding trenches, solid soil and dense deer forts, extremely solid. Even since Dou Jiande raised his army and broke the city countless times, he couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly when he saw this scene.

Dou Jiande observed this line of defense for a long time and knew it in his mind: the Xia army could not get rid of this line of defense!

It’s not that he really can’t get rid of it, but he just needs to suffer extremely heavy casualties. With Dou Jiande’s character, he would never force his soldiers to fill the trenches and traps of the Tang army with their lives. Tens of thousands of troops are advantages in the eyes of others, but in Dou Jiande’s eyes, it is a responsibility.

He brought these Hebei children and fellow villagers out from Hebei and wanted to bring them back safely and force them to fight this kind of battle of blood and blood. Dou Jiande felt sorry for his conscience!

Dou Jiande sighed and said, "Now you can only give up Hulao Pass and bypass Paomaling!"

Hearing this, Ling Jing immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, he had known that this Paomaling was not easy to fight, and Dou Jiande was preparing to attack Chen Ying's Mo Dao Army with fire. Although his idea was wonderful, his executability was still to be verified. Dou Jiande's command had only 300 barrels of fierce turmeric oil concentrated under him and 15,000 kilograms, which was not a small amount.

However, Chen Ying is not a fool, especially the twelve sentry forts nowadays. These sentry forts are made of stones and three-piece soil on the mountain. There are underground trenches connected between the sentry forts. Such trenches are actually Chen Ying imitated the traffic lane of later generations, dug out more than one person high, with wooden boards laid on them, and covered with soil. Unless there is heavy artillery bombardment, through this traffic trenches, Chen Ying can transport reinforcements to any sentry fort without knowing it.

In other words, during the attack process, Chen Ying could defend with all his strength every time the Xia army attacked. Moreover, as long as the Xia army's catapult appeared in front of the formation, Chen Ying would definitely take countermeasures. Without destroying Chen Ying's traffic trench, the pitiful range of the catapult would not hurt Chen Ying at all.

Ling Jing thought of this and suggested to Dou Jiande: "Your Majesty, at this time, the elite Li Tang Dynasty was either in Luoyang or in Hulao, Hedong and Guanzhong, and it would be empty. Why don't we take the strategy of surrounding Wei and saving Zhao, using Li Yang as a stronghold, attacking Hedong north, crossing the Yellow River west, and threatening Tongguan. Li Shimin was bound to be in a dilemma and had to withdraw troops from Luoyang. Chen Ying did not have to defend Hulao Pass. Dou's army could be invincible, and the worst result was to withdraw back to Hebei!"

"This plan is very wonderful!" Dou Jiande nodded and said, "In fact, there is no need to retreat in the entire army. Leave Liu Jintang and his group in Xingyang. Although Liu Jintang cannot do anything to Chen Ying, Chen Ying cannot do anything to Liu Jintang. With Chen Ying's thousands of troops, can he still conquer Xingyang? Anyway, Xingyang is also Wang Shichong's, so he will lose it!"

Ling Jing deeply agreed that the Xia army was worthy of being a peasant army. It was cruel to loot the land. Not only did the Xingyang Chengfu treasury not save a penny, but there was no grain left, but even the major clans in Xingyang robbed the Xia army.

The worst of these is the Zheng family in Xingyang. Xingyang is the base camp of the Zheng family. The Zheng family is veritable Zheng Bancheng, more than half of the shops in Xingyang, more than two-thirds of the cultivated land, and more than 60,000 fertile land, all of which are the land under the name of the Zheng family. Especially around Xingyang City, the Zheng family has more than 460 farms.

However, all the food and money in these farms were robbed by Xia soldiers. Unlike Chen Ying who robbed the Zheng family courtyard in Xin'an, Chen Ying was only robbed and did not hurt anyone, and he did not touch Zheng's women and maids.

However, Xia Jun did not have so many concerns, and dared to come out to stop him, and then slashed with a knife. The maids and female relatives with good looks were also carried away.

At this time, the Zheng family suffered a particularly heavy loss when the Xia army passed by like locusts. Although the century-old savings were not wiped out, it had as much as 500,000 stones of food and more than 600,000 jin of money. The Zheng family's vitality was greatly damaged.

Just as Dou Jiande was about to withdraw his troops, there was also a man in a brocade robe in the Modao Army in Paomaling who cried loudly in front of Chen Ying.
Chapter completed!