Although the fundamental purpose of selecting a forward cavalry formation to mix light and heavy cavalry is to penetrate the enemy's infantry and cavalry formation, if the enemy troops encountered are well-trained, well-armored, and the array is extremely solid and heavy,
The assault cavalry array cannot quickly cut through it with a fierce offensive, so it is easy to be pinned down by the enemy.
At this time, the heavy cavalry, both men and horses wearing heavy armor, would be unable to move forward and retreat flexibly, and would become a living target for the enemy's spears and halberds.
The assault cavalry array, which is composed of a mixture of light and heavy cavalry, is least afraid of the attack and bite of the enemy's light cavalry——
Cao Shixiong was more cautious than expected. He did not send a large group of infantry along the valley on the north bank of the Beishui River to rush into the east battlefield to participate in the melee. Instead, he sent a group of armored soldiers to join the frontal battlefield in an orderly array.
, strengthen the siege of Yang Qiye's lone army.
The purpose of Xu Huaiju's forward assault was mainly to attract the enemy's cavalry entering the battlefield on the east side and prevent Zuo Xiaosheng's army from rushing westward from being hit head-on.
At this time, Xu Huai also slowed down the pace of assaults on the east side of the battlefield, allowing more heavy armored cavalry wearing chain armor and fearless of bows and crossbows to enter the flanks, using long spears and spears to chop and shoot to resist the enemy cavalry.
Approaching; the light cavalry enters the inside, or shoots the enemy with bows and crossbows, or takes advantage of the enemy's scattered formation to rush out from the gap, like a hedgehog, making the enemy's cavalry unable to bite them, no matter how powerful they are, but they are covered with thorns.
Blood.
The moonlight shines like water on the earth, and the surrounding slopes and the snow on the ice surface of the Beikui River make the night clearer and clearer. The nearby mountains are clearly visible, and the distant mountains are also hazy, revealing the majestic undulations like silhouettes.
People neighed and horses roared, and the fierce cold wind blew the grass and trees.
Returning to Xu Huai near the White Tiger Battle Flag, he sat on horseback and looked around the battlefield. He held a Tumu longbow and watched which enemy soldiers were fighting without mercy. He raised his hand and shot a cold arrow.
Wave after wave of enemy cavalry attacks were ruthlessly crushed. Broken swords and broken halberds were everywhere, and arrows stuck in the frozen land were like bushes with withered branches and leaves. Corpses lay scattered on the ground.
On the battlefield, the horses filled with arrows were not completely dead. They fell in a pool of blood and struggled to stand up again, screaming helplessly...
When the soldiers of Zuo Xiaosheng's army rushed to the battlefield on the east side, the enemy general Cao Cheng finally recognized the cruel reality and led the remaining troops to retreat to the two wings, like waves broken by rocks, embarrassed and scattered.
However, Xu Huai did not take advantage of the situation to pursue and kill him.
On the one hand, the mobility of the assault cavalry formation is worse than that of the light cavalry. Chasing and defeating the enemy is not what the assault cavalry formation is good at. On the other hand, the forward army has just successfully covered Zuo Xiaosheng's army as it rushes into the battlefield, but it cannot cover the flanks.
The important task does not end here.
General Zuo Xiaosheng's army marched more than ten miles from Ruzhou City.
Wearing thirty to forty kilograms of heavy armor and holding swords, bows, shields and spears, the generals were physically exhausted.
At this time, the formation of Zuo Xiaosheng's army was even more disorganized. Its flanks were more fragile than egg shells and could be shattered with a single blow. It was unable to withstand the reorganized enemy cavalry launching an attack from the flanks.
Shi Hu's troops in the second wing of the Xuanfeng Army, although the battle lasted only half an hour and suffered heavy casualties, at this time, under the leadership of Xu Huai, they still gathered in the direction of the North Shuishui with high morale, like a sharp force
The sword was guarded on the left wing of Zuo Xiaosheng's army.
Wu Chihai led the third armored cavalry of the vanguard army, and easily tore through the blockade of the two groups of enemy cavalry, approached Zuo Xiaosheng's army from the other side, and separated hundreds of shocked enemy cavalry on the right.
Wang Xian led 300 horse infantry and galloped to the front of the vanguard soldiers led by Yang Yaozong. He abandoned the pack horses directly on the battlefield and formed a wedge-shaped attack array. With heavy shields in the front, he headed towards the front where Yang Qiye was struggling to support his lone army.
Advance on the battlefield.
The enemy troops in Heluo on the frontal battlefield were mainly Semujia soldiers and the elite Shuozhou Han army who had followed Cao Shixiong for many years. These enemy soldiers were well-equipped and experienced in combat. They formed an inner and outer array on the frontal battlefield:
The inner circle used a small number of elites to trap Yang Qiye's lone army, making it difficult for them to break out, and kept shooting them with bows and crossbows, consuming the few remaining elites of Zuo Xiaosheng's army around Yang Qiye; the outer circle consisted of teams of hundreds of men.
Units form a tight defensive formation.
The night is so bright, the vegetation between the hundreds of people can be clearly seen, and they can support each other well in the battle. At the same time, a small number of war machines such as side carriages, shield carriages, and crossbow carriages are also deployed in the array - you
Yang fell too quickly, and the Heluo enemy troops sent troops westward from the Ziluokou and Guangchengze camps in a hurry - even though the Chushan right army was well-equipped, they wanted to tear apart such a tight defensive array of the enemy in a hurry
, is not easy either.
However, from the entire battlefield, Chushan Army and Zuo Xiaosheng Army still had a wedge-shaped formation layout.
However, at this time, the three hundred armored soldiers led by Wang Xian formed the front end of the wedge formation and were the first to engage the enemy on the frontal battlefield.
It is indeed difficult to tear apart the tightly organized enemy forces. The two sides were like two giant trees crashing into the city, and they found that no one could shake the other:
The front-line soldiers of both sides were mainly equipped with heavy shields. The strong generals roared and tried their best to squeeze the opponent with their shoulders against the heavy shields; spears and halberds struggled to find attack opportunities through the gaps.
, slashing with the long sword, hitting the shield or armor hard, the edge of the blade cracked and could not hurt the opponent at all; like a rain of locust arrows thrown out from behind, it covered the opponent's formation, but most of them fell into the air.
Or they would clank against each other's armor or armor and be bounced off.
There was no time to light the kerosene cans and throw them at each other. The two sides were fighting so closely, with people touching each other and flesh next to flesh. No one knew which direction the fire would spread after the fire started. The soldiers whose bodies were soaked in kerosene and started the fire,
The chaos and casualties caused by rushing towards the opponent's array may far exceed the damage caused by the fire oil tank.
The Zuo Xiaosheng army entering the battlefield had extremely fragile flanks, but they were protected by the selected forward armored cavalry. Without a solid forward line, it was difficult to directly tear apart the opponent's solid formation from the front, but they actually acted as the entire wedge.
The winger part of the formation.
Team after team, filled with grief and anger, wishing they could not die on the battlefield, Zuo Xiao's victorious army rushed out from the side of the wedge formation without any regard for casualties. Like sharp arrows of revenge, they continued to shoot with the will to die.
, gouge the enemy's relatively weak flank.
This actually fully conforms to the essence of wedge formation tactics.
The wedge formation seems to have the strongest attack power at the tip, but that is also true. The advancement of the wedge formation will attract the enemy's attention, more enemy elites, and limited war equipment to the engagement point pointed at the front.
, thus making the arrays on both sides weak.
The soldiers and horses on the flanks are far away from the enemy's formation when they engage the enemy. They can effectively avoid the threat of enemy crossbows and spears. Even if the formation is scattered, the physical strength is excessive, and the toughness is insufficient, it will not become fatal for the time being.
weakness.
When the enemy's front end is blocked, teams of soldiers and horses on the flanks begin to rush forward to fight. Even if they cannot tear apart the enemy's formation sharply at once, they will have enough space to withdraw to both sides and find a place to regroup.
, without worrying that it will in turn disrupt your formation.
I have to admit that the enemy army is very tenacious. There are a large number of armored soldiers who have been converted from Semu cavalry to infantry fighting. They fight extremely fiercely and bravely. But the question is how many times can they withstand Zuo Xiaosheng's victorious army from the flank one after another, regardless of the cost.
A surprise charge?
When the enemy's left wing array became loose, Xu Huai organized two groups of heavy cavalry from the selected vanguard army, and coordinated with the left Xiao Shengjun Jian Rui to launch an assault at the same time, completely tearing the enemy array apart, with horses and spears ruthlessly attacking
He slashed and stabbed the scattered enemy soldiers, ruthlessly killing them one after another in a pool of blood.
Meeting up with Yang Qiye who had only thirty or forty elite guards around him, who was covered in blood and barely standing with a sword in hand, Xu Huai saw Yang Lin's body that had been trampled beyond recognition and plunged the blade into a wounded soldier who was still struggling to stand up.
Chest, asked excitedly:
"Qi Ye, do you still have the strength to fight again?"
"Save Xu Hou and help him," Yang Qiye refused to let the generals on the left and right help him, bowed deeply to Xu Huai, and said, "You can take a break tonight, don't be in a hurry to kill the enemy!"
Yang Qiye, who entered the enemy camp alone and seized the body of his father Yang Lin, has struggled to support himself until now. Even though he initially entered the battlefield with the determination to die, he saw hundreds of soldiers dying beside him and fell in a pool of blood.
During the battle, you can also calm down and take a longer-term view of the subsequent battle situation.
In the final analysis, Zuo Xiaosheng's army suffered too many casualties.
Not to mention the ten elites around Yang Qiye, when the five thousand elites rushed from Ruzhou City to the battlefield, almost none of the capital troops was complete. It was purely the grassroots generals and military officers who led the soldiers with the determination to die, regardless of the cost.
After fighting desperately until this point, it is of course difficult to avoid tragic casualties.
Thousands of troops on the enemy's left wing were defeated, but their right wing was not greatly affected.
The choice of assault cavalry for the vanguard army is still too limited. At the same time, it has already suffered a lot of casualties and does not have the combat capability to continue to gallop and cut the battlefield.
Now they can take advantage of the collapse of the enemy forces on the left wing and withdraw from the battlefield towards the Pishan military camp with a tragic victory. However, if they continue to fight, no one can say whether the battle situation will be repeated.
Although more than 2,000 elite right-wing troops from Chushan have rushed to the west of Renruzhou, which is only seven or eight miles away from the battlefield, the 2,000 elite right-wing troops marched in the ice and snow for two consecutive days before dusk, and marched more than 40 times to the battlefield south of Pishan.
Here, I was already very tired.
A large number of war equipment previously carried by the elite forces of the right army were also abandoned behind. There was no way to bring them with them for emergency marches, which severely limited the combat effectiveness of the elite troops of the right army.
If you hastily throw the best of the right army into battle, even if you can win, it will be a tragic victory.
Under the current severe situation, the Chushan Army won a tragic victory on the battlefield west of Ruzhou, but it could not repel the Heluo enemy forces from Ruzhou. Expelling them was meaningless and would only change the situation.
