"You are the county magistrate and the inspector of the capital. This appointment requires you to sit in the government office, manage the government, care for the people, and keep the peace of the area. Why do you have to lead troops to fight when you have nothing to do? Besides, Uncle Wu Qi, Uncle Qi
, Master Ya, Uncle Seventeen, Xu Xin'an, Tang Pan, they can't stand alone, you should give them more opportunities!"
The camp was simple and there was no way to bathe or change clothes, and she didn't know how long it would take for Xu Huai to come back from his trip. Liu Qiong'er used hot water to help Xu Huai wipe his body, scrubbing away the dirt on his back bit by bit.
"My seventh uncle and uncle Wu Qi are veteran generals. Crow Lord, Tiger Lord, Xin'an, and Tangpan have experienced banditry and two expeditions to the north to conquer Yan." Xu Huai sat in front of the brazier and said, "If it takes three years
In the previous anti-bandit battle, any one of them can be pulled out to stand alone. I don’t have any worries, but what we have to face is the Red Husband cavalry! The Red Husbands rose up in Mobei. From the beginning, there were only a dozen small and weak soldiers.
The tribes united, then swept across, annexed the northwest vassals, and then went west to kill the Dajinshan vassals. They heard the news and surrendered, annexing Khitan and Bohai. They fought for thirty or forty years, almost never stopping for a year. How many elite soldiers did they have?
General, I dare not respond with all my strength?"
Xu Huai led his troops to fight against the Red Husband Cavalry at the southern foot of Jingong Mountain. He did not suffer any losses. It was purely the 300 cavalry he led, which assembled the most elite combat power of the Tongbai Mountain soldiers. In the direction of generals, except for his personal leadership,
, and a group of people including Wang Ju, Wang Xian, Niu Er, etc. accompanied them to fight.
At the same time, they had to take advantage of the enemy's flanking cavalry to be unprepared, so that they could fight one against two without losing.
However, in fact, the average combat effectiveness of the soldiers of Tongbai Mountain is still at a disadvantage compared with the flanking troops of the Red Husbands, not to mention that the Red Husbands are not without more powerful and elite armored cavalry.
On the one hand, the small-scale contact operations at the southern foot of Jingong Mountain, and on the other hand, Yue Yulou's unremitting collection of information and intelligence related to the Red Husband's cavalry campaign in all directions, and on the other hand, the fragmented pictures and memory fragments in the dream, called Xu Huai's confrontation
At this time, we now have a general understanding of the Chihu people's army structure and combat methods.
In fact, Xu Huai and others have not had the opportunity to contact the most elite cavalry of the Red Hu people. The Red Hu cavalry they came into contact with at the southern foot of Jinggong Mountain were mainly surrendered vassals recruited by the vassals in the northwest during the rise of the Red Hu people.
soldiers.
The Red Husband internally calls these vassal forces tribes with various names, and drives them to fight in all directions. At present, in addition to the siege troops and horses, the Red Husbands also mainly use the Semu tribe as the main wing cavalry.
These men and horses lack long soldiers and strong armor, and due to the order of integration with the Red Hu people, their combat effectiveness may be strong or weak, but they are generally weaker than the elites of the Red Hu people.
According to the information collected so far, the main tactics of the elite cavalry of the Chihu tribe are no longer simply cruising, but rely on skilled combat skills, riding skills, archery, and the use of long and short soldiers, strong bows, and strong armor and other excellent armor.
, developed mature cavalry formation and charging tactics very early.
The characteristic of the Chihu people's cavalry charge combat is that they mix light armor and heavy armor cavalry to attack the enemy formation from the front. If they cannot defeat the enemy from the front, the engaging cavalry will quickly spread out to the two wings to seize the four corners of the enemy's formation.
After forming an encirclement, they launched a fierce attack from all sides.
This process sounds simple, but the actual tactical requirements are surprisingly high.
When the enemy's formation cannot be attacked from the front, on the one hand, the cavalry engaging in the battle must disperse parallel to the two wings; on the other hand, the following cavalry must continue to kill them, and continue to launch attacks from the front to contain the enemy. Thousands of cavalry
In order to ensure orderliness and avoid chaos when traveling at such high speeds in a narrow battlefield, the requirements for cavalry formations are unimaginably high.
The charge tactics of the elite cavalry of the Chihu clan is definitely not to have hundreds or thousands of generals on horseback charging forward with the leading general.
It is relatively easy to interrupt the cavalry charge in the latter way. As long as the elite soldiers in the front line are fierce and defend with strong shields and spears, they can stay invincible by suppressing the speed of the cavalry. You can even use two to
Three layers of defensive lineup to delay the impact of enemy cavalry.
The former method of cavalry charge requires that the generals in each direction of the headquarters are elite enough. At the same time, they cannot be forced to retreat half a step under the pressure of the red cavalry charge, and there must be enough space in the formation.
Xu Huai, Wang Ju, Xu Wuqi and others have carefully deduced that with the eight battalions of horse infantry currently organized by Tongbai Mountain Soldiers, any battalion of horse infantry in an open area will encounter even half of the elite cavalry of the Red Army.
, without the terrain and the city wall to rely on, it is difficult to escape the bad luck of collapse.
If the main force of the Chihu East Route Army rushes towards Zhengzhou, most of its temporarily dismounted siege troops will be mainly Semu tribes, and a large number of their own elites will be deployed on the periphery to intercept reinforcements and interceptions from Tongguan.
The Western Army marching eastward.
Under such circumstances, how could Xu Huai dare to lead three or four thousand Tongbai Mountain soldiers to take the initiative to collide with the many wandering iron plates? Only by gathering the most elite three to five hundred cavalry can he be able to fight on the battlefields in Zhengzhou and Gyeonggi.
Interspersed in the gaps.
Xu Huai's true plan, or the opportunity Dai Viet can seize in the future to win, is indeed to exchange space for time.
After all, the elites of the Chihu clan are limited, and in addition to Dayue, there are still party members in the southwest of the Chihu who have not yet been solved. Beyond the Dajin Mountains and to the west, there are many grassland tribes or countries waiting for them to conquer.
As the Chihu people occupied Hedong one by one, the important towns in Hebei Province also needed to disperse some of their own elites to guard them. By then, the main force they could really drive to carry out large-scale operations in the Jianghuai area could only be conquered by them in these years.
The tribes of Semu surrendered their troops.
At that time, we had the opportunity to enter the stalemate stage, and through a large number of battles, our own soldiers and horses were able to experience, grow, and build elite combat power on a large scale, and finally have the strength to compete with the elites of the Red Hu clan.
However, this does not mean avoiding the fight.
If he only seeks peace and nothing else, Tongbai Mountain will not be able to open up even this small situation.
Liu Qiong'er was worried about the danger of the war, so Xu Huai caught her behind him, put his arms around her slender waist, and asked her to stand in front of him to be gentle with him.
…………
…………
At the end of January, although the river ice has not yet melted, you can still feel that the climate in the Hehuai area has become warmer. Although the north wind is cold, it no longer has that biting feeling; the snow in the fields has gradually subsided, revealing the
Dots of dark brown soil.
It hasn’t snowed much since the New Year. The snow on the official road has receded faster, and the withered trees on the side of the road have been exposed. From the remaining snow, you can see the traces of the Red Husband Cavalry galloping by. Many corpses lie beside the road, and the fields
, there were old people, children, and women on the edge of the woods, and there were relatively few young and middle-aged people. Not all young and middle-aged people were kidnapped by the soldiers, and in times of war, they were strong and could escape faster leaving behind women, children, the old and the weak.
This is the southern part of Yanling County. Yanling County is more than 20 miles away to the north. It is blocked by shallow hills and cannot be directly seen. However, columns of black smoke are billowing from the distance.
Yanling is located to the north of Yingshui River. It used to belong to Xuzhou. After the establishment of the Dayue Dynasty, it was included in the Gyeonggi Road.
Xu Huai was one day later than Lu Xiongbei, and led his 500 cavalrymen to the north disguised as prisoners of war.
On the way, he learned that Yanling had been captured by the Japanese soldiers. He did not know whether Lu Xiong was in Yanling at that time, or he had noticed the movements of the Japanese soldiers in advance and avoided Yanling.
Although Yanling belongs to the Gyeonggi Road and is uniformly defended by the Gyeonggi garrison, in fact before the main force of the Chihu East Route Army moved south from the east of Weizhou, the imperial troops garrisoned in Yanling, Weishi and other subordinate counties withdrew into Bianliang on a large scale, and the subordinate counties relied on the old and the weak.
Xiang troops, archers and local soldiers were stationed.
"Tongxu and Yongqiu also fell yesterday, and tens of thousands of captive soldiers are mainly in Weishi territory at this time!" Zhou Jing reported the latest battle situation in the Gyeonggi area to Xu Huai, Wang Ju, Xu Wujiang, Guo Junpan and others.
.
During this trip to Gyeonggi and Zhengzhou, Xu Huai not only dispatched elite cavalry from Wu Chihai, Yuan Lei, Fan Zongqi, Wei Daya, and Xu Sihu, but also specially sent Wang Ju, Xu Wujiang, Guo Junpan, Niu Er and others to accompany him.
, to make up for the lack of high-end combat power, the lineup can be said to be quite luxurious.
However, if they encounter the elite cavalry of the Red Army, they can only avoid their sharp edges.
When they entered the capital, they were frightened at every step. They could not even release cavalry scouts to attract the attention of the captive soldiers. Xu Huai could only ask Zhou Jing to lead men who were good at lurking and strong enough to intersperse between the battlefields to detect the enemy's situation. Xu Huai
This time, the timid Zhu Tong was specially brought to practice.
Zhu Tong was extremely reluctant, but Xu Huai did not give him a chance to refuse, and either followed him or tied him up on a horse and took him away. At this time, he looked at the situation of women and children being slaughtered with a pale face.
It has been twelve days since the advance troops of the Red Army entered the Gyeonggi area, but there were not many refugees fleeing south from the Gyeonggi counties. At that time, the people in the countryside either fled to Bianliang City or took refuge in the nearby walled city.
At this time, judging from the number of victims lying on the road and the fire that was burning in Yanling and spreading throughout the city, the Chihu people still deliberately drove the refugees towards Bianliang City——
"It depends on the situation. If the Red Husbands can capture Zhengzhou and block the Western Army's eastward advance, they will not retreat even if the ice and snow melt!" Guo Junpan said with emotion.
But it's not that Guo Junpan has a high strategic vision, it's that Xu Huai analyzed all the situations thoroughly before setting off.
When the ice and snow melt and the rivers thaw, the Red Husband's cavalry will be greatly restricted in their movements between the Hehuai and Huaihe Rivers. However, if the Western Army's eastward advance channel can be blocked in advance, there will be no threat to the Red Husband's cavalry between the River and the Huaihe River.
Of course, due to the existence of people, they can not rush to retreat north, but can slowly surround Bianliang City and consume the vitality of this empire to the maximum extent.
"There are some people hiding in the woods to the east, like soldiers and horses who escaped from Yanling..." A sentry dressed as a villager and wearing straw sandals on a cold day came back to report.
"..." Xu Huai said to Zhou Jing, "Go over with Zhu Tong and ask them about the situation of the Japanese troops attacking the city..."
There are still captive soldiers stationed in Yandou. Although Xu Huai and the others are pretending to be captive soldiers, they can't get close easily.
Now they can only find the surviving people who have fled and ask about the specific situation of the attack on the city, so as to continuously summarize the tactics of the enemy's attack on the city.
Zhou Jing and Zhu Tong, who looked reluctant, took several people and ran towards the woods to the east. After a while, they saw Zhu Tong galloping back alone and shouted: "Master Lu is in the woods and is injured!"
"How injured is Mr. Lu?" Xu Huai's heart tightened. He didn't expect to meet the injured Lu Xiong here after two days apart. He took a horse and was about to get on it. He heard Zhu Tong say behind him, "Lu Xiong."
My injuries are not serious, but there is an arrow wound on my right shoulder. I just wanted to come over and tell you!"
"..." Xu Huai was startled.
"Is there anyone important around Mr. Lu?" Guo Junpan asked later.
Guo Junpian doesn't have a good strategic vision and can't see the overall situation, but he still has some cleverness.
Lu Xiong was not seriously injured. Since they met here, he should have rushed over with Zhou Jing and Zhu Tong to meet him. It is impossible for Xu Huai, the general, to abandon 500 cavalry and run to meet him, right?
No matter how much Xu Huai respects Lu Xiong, there must be limits.
It would be different if there were other important people around Lu Xiong...
