Early the next morning, Xishan Fanqi was like a torrent, passing through the open space between Shuozhou City and the eastern foothills of Xishan Mountain, heading straight for Houerwu.
The Xishan Fan cavalry are all good at riding and shooting, and there are many people and horses. Here, they are forced to shrink all the reconnaissance cavalry and scouts. However, the Houerwu located at the mouth of the gorge is located on a high ground. Standing on the east side built of rammed earth,
On the wall of the village, you can have a panoramic view of the gathering of Fanqi.
More than a thousand cavalrymen and horses, groups and clusters, almost covered the wilderness three or four miles east of Houerwu and outside the mouth of the gorge.
The war horses looked up to the sky and roared, or lowered their heads to eat the buds of grass stems that had only emerged from the ground after a long winter.
The Tibetan soldiers on horseback all have weather-beaten, dark faces, carry carved bows on their backs, and carry scimitars at their waists; about 30% of the Tibetan soldiers also wear armor, and have spears, shields and other weapons hanging next to the saddles.
Xishan Fanhu's armored elites have always been around a thousand people for a long time. From this scene, it can be roughly judged that the size of the troops mobilized by Xishan Fanhu this time may be as high as more than 3,000 people.
Jie Zhong turned around and saw Xu Huai and others climbing up the wall of the village in a leisurely manner, and said with a smile:
"Last night I heard that the Xishan Fanhu were instigated by the Red Husbands. The larger the sudden gathering of soldiers and horses, the more it means that they will force their way into Hou'erwu and try to block our soldiers and horses outside Shuozhou City.
I was a little confused at first about carrying out annihilation in the Western Mountains, but I didn’t expect that everything was exactly as you expected. It seems that your name as Chushan Yaksha Fox is really not an exaggeration..."
After learning of the large-scale gathering of Fanhu in Xishan last night, Jie Zhong was still a little nervous and advocated withdrawing his troops and horses to Shuozhou City overnight. But at this time, he saw that everything was as Xu Huai expected, and Xu Huai, Xu Wu, Qi Guo Junpan,
Xu Xin'an, Yin Peng, Tang Pan and others were all calm, and he also calmed down.
Of course, Xie Zhong also admired Xu Huai's accurate judgment of the situation.
Another thing that surprised Jie Zhong was that people like Xu Wuqi and Guo Junpan had experienced countless strong winds and waves in their lives. It was nothing more than being calm at this time. Xu Xin'an, Tang Pan, Han Qi and even Yuan Lei,
Zhong Jitang and other middle-level military generals looked at the overwhelming crowd of Tibetan cavalry outside the mouth of the gorge without any fear on their faces.
Based on this alone, the soldiers of Tongbai Mountain are indeed beyond the reach of other soldiers of the Forbidden Army.
Faced with Jie Zhong's praise, Xu Huai just smiled faintly, walked to the crenel and observed the enemy's situation for a while. Seeing that the Xishan Fanqi were mainly continuing to gather troops and horses, and had no intention of attacking or inserting themselves into the gorge, he took everyone away.
He climbed down the narrow village wall and went to an ancestral hall that served as a command tent inside the Beizhai Gate to discuss the follow-up battle plan: "Let's discuss how the Xishan Fanhu will attack us and how we should respond..."
Since the founding of the Dai Viet Dynasty, the ancestral law of advocating civility and suppressing military affairs and using civility to control military affairs has been implemented. Military matters are decided by ministers. Military generals do not even have the information to participate in discussions. They are only capable of commanding troops and executing combat plans.
, which makes the vast majority of military generals (commanders) in Dai Viet seriously lack tactical and strategic thinking.
Figures like Ge Boyi and Liu Shizhong, who rose from the rank of mid-level general to the rank of general, had experienced large and small wars in their past lives, but Xu Huai seriously doubted their understanding of the situation they were facing at this time.
Have you thought about it comprehensively and deeply?
Xie Zhong spent half of his life in the military, and was promoted step by step from a low-level military officer to Du Yuhou - this is almost the limit of a general's promotion in the army based on his own efforts, but Xie Zhong still cannot completely overcome this limitation in a short period of time.
However, the imperial court suddenly appointed ministers as commanders. Most of them had not been tempered by long-term military careers. They lacked a comprehensive understanding of the actual situation of the army and large-scale operations. The combat plans and judgments of the situation were all based on wishful thinking.
It is seriously out of touch with reality and can only be described as talk on paper.
Although the Dai Viet military system has serious shortcomings, in the past hundred years or so, it has been evenly matched with the Khitan and Dangxiang people in the northern and northwest regions. Xu Huaize believes that on the one hand, Dai Viet occupies the most prosperous Central Plains and Jiangnan regions, with hundreds of millions of people.
The population provided sufficient taxes, allowing them to maintain a large frontier army with a larger amount of money and food. On the other hand, there were the Dangxiang people. After the founding of the Khitan people, the area and population controlled by the Khitan people were able to satisfy the desire for pleasure of the nobles within them.
Ambition and greed for external expansion are not manifested.
It is a pity that the last phantom of the century-old comfort and prosperity has not been shattered. Before the chaos that crashed over like angry waves, Xu Huai also felt as helpless as a lonely boat gliding over the waves.
However, if you want to struggle, you must first build an elite force that can survive the chaos before you can find more hope.
In view of the various shortcomings of the current military system, during Xu Huai's camp in Huaiyuan, in addition to his own efforts to absorb and learn, he also deliberately involved lower-level military officials in discussing and judging the enemy's intentions and corresponding countermeasures. At this time, he would only
Implement it more thoroughly and let Xu Xin'an and Tang Pan stand alone as soon as possible...
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The Xishan Fan cavalry gathered in large numbers at the entrance of Houerwu Gorge. They had no siege equipment and were not good at attacking cities and seizing strongholds. Of course, it was impossible to directly attack Houerwu suddenly.
They did not rush to penetrate into the inner side of the Houerwu Gorge, but controlled the woods and gentle slopes outside the Houerwu Gorge. They had an absolute advantage in strength and more mobile cavalry to cut off Houerwu and Shuozhou City.
contact.
Obviously, in their opinion, it was impossible for Tongbai Mountain soldiers to bring many sufficient supplies if they entered the hinterland of Xishan Mountain in large numbers to besiege Wuchi Village.
Being so close to Shuozhou City, the soldiers carried ten days to half a month's supplies for the expedition, and then the logistics troops and horses regularly transported the grain and fodder from Shuozhou to Chazhai. This was the most efficient way to save transportation capacity.
Even if the supplies stored in the front fortress are relatively sufficient, there is no troop in the world that can maintain the morale of the army after the retreat route is cut off.
In Xishan Fanhu's view, after the retreat route was cut off, any army in the position of Tongbai Mountain's pawns could only have two choices.
Either they can capture Wuchi Fort by force as soon as possible, gain a real foothold in the hinterland of Xishan Mountain, and at the same time seize a certain amount of grain from Wuchi Fort to supplement the shortage.
Either gather troops and horses to the mouth of the gorge as soon as possible to open up the connection with Shuozhou City.
Therefore, in addition to blocking the entrance of Houerwu Gorge with their superior cavalry, they also sent more than a hundred skilled soldiers to climb mountains and ridges, enter Wuchi Village from outside the channel blocked by Tongbai Mountain Soldiers, and strengthen the defense inside Wuchibu Village.
As for the Wuchi stronghold, which is facing a severe water shortage at this time, the current choice of the Xishan tribes is to ask the Wuchi tribe to keep only a small number of war horses, and the other tens of thousands of animals should either be slaughtered or allowed to die of thirst due to lack of water.
At present, the only option is to allow the two thousand people in Wuchizhai to rely on limited water sources to sustain them for ten more days.
If Xishan Fanhu had enough patience, or they could completely ignore the fact that the two thousand tribesmen in Wuchi Village suffered from water shortages every day, their strategy would undoubtedly be effective; it was obviously impossible for Cao Shixiong to dispatch troops from Lanzhou. The main force of the heroic army moved northward for reinforcements.
It is a pity that this confrontation only lasted for six days. Xu Huai and the others had no way of knowing what Xishan Fanhu's motives were, but Xishan Fanhu obviously lost his patience.
On the second day of April, Xishan Fanhu gathered more than 3,000 soldiers and horses outside the mouth of Houerwu Gorge. They had an absolute advantage in strength. After they lost their patience, they directly dispatched more than 1,000 Fanhu soldiers to dismount and insert themselves into the inside of the mouth of the gorge, intending to attack them. Houerwu formed a close siege in order to completely cut Tongbai Mountain into three parts and then divide and annihilate them.
Xu Huai sent Xu Xin'an in advance and led 300 infantry out of Wuzhai to meet the enemy, intending to create an opportunity for Xishan Fanhu to cut off; in Xishan Fanhu relied on their superior strength to forcefully crowd in front of the main village gate at the exit of Houerwu Gorge. Xu Xin'an led his troops to withdraw to the inside of the gorge.
Whether it was chasing the 300 infantry soldiers led by Xu Xin'an, or preventing the 300 infantry soldiers led by Xu Xin'an from joining up with the thousands of soldiers and horses in the hinterland of Xishan and then fighting back, Xishan Fanhu had no choice but to send more Fan soldiers to dismount and enter. Inside the rugged gorge.
Seeing more than 2,000 Xishan Fanhu soldiers dismounting and entering the inside of the gorge mouth, more than a thousand of them gathered in front of Wuzhai and were working hard to dig trenches and crudely made horses. Xu Huai knew that it was time to close the net.
Xu Huai put on the phoenix-winged bag, tied the leather cord tightly, and straightened out the curtain armor covering the back of his neck to ensure that everything was safe, then bid farewell to Jie Zhong and others, and said with a smile: "Please come to the Jie Jun envoy to come with me for five days." My uncle is supervising the battle on the wall of the village. You can also ask someone to warm the wine first, and I will come back as soon as I go..."
Xie Zhong looked at the dense crowd of Tibetan soldiers outside the village, and his face jumped.
At this time, Jie Zhong also understood Xu Huai's overall battle plan, which was to attract as many Xishan Fanhu cavalry as possible to dismount and enter the inside of the gorge. Then they sent elite troops and horses to fight out of Hou'erwu and destroy Houerwu. Seal the gap more than 200 feet north from the village gate, cutting off the communication between Xishan Fanqi's soldiers and horses inside and outside the gorge, and then concentrate on annihilating Xishan Fanhu's soldiers and horses cut off in the mouth of the gorge, so as to severely damage Xishan Fanhu. strategic purpose.
The key to the cutoff operation at Chuwu Village was to not only fight through the formation of more than a thousand Tibetan soldiers assembled outside Houerwu, but also to intercept the Tibetan soldiers outside the gorge and fight through the gap.
Therefore, Xu Huairu left Xu Wuqi on the wall to supervise the battle. He wanted to personally lead Tang Pan, Yin Peng, Han Qi, Zhou Jing, Yan Xiaoyi, Shen Zhene, Yuan Lei, Xu Xin, Niu Er and other generals. He led 600 soldiers to fight, leaving only 200 reserve soldiers for Xu Wuqi in Houerwu.
At this time, Guo Junpuan also put on armor, carried a long bow on his back, and held a halberd to make up for the lack of high-end combat power.
Xu Huai and the others were confident, but Jie Zhong was somewhat worried that they had too few troops.
Jie Zhong knew that the Xishan Fanhu had been ready to make a move in recent years and their combat power was not weak. He was worried that Xu Huai and the others might have a hard time killing the more than a thousand Fan soldiers in front of the stronghold, not to mention that Xu Huai would have to use his limited resources later. The elite troops, in addition to intercepting the more than a thousand Tibetan cavalry at the mouth of the gorge, also had to cooperate with the main force of infantry fighting back from the gorge channel to eat up the two thousand Tibetan soldiers blocking the inside of the gorge mouth.
However, no matter what, Xie Zhong could not destroy his own prestige at this time, so he smiled at Xu Huai and said, "Wait until you come back from the battle and drink!"
