"The enemy general's name is Xue Guyan. He has more than 5,000 elite cavalry under his command. He arrived at Jingu River the day before yesterday and established a camp based on the weir. He has also surrounded Jinganggang City..."
Gao Le, who led the ranger scouts out to investigate the enemy's situation, reported the situation one by one, and Li Tai frowned after listening.
He knew that the Eastern Wei Dynasty was by no means a soft persimmon. The previous successful attacks were only due to the chaos in defense in the Heluo area caused by Hou Jing's Rebellion. When the enemy reacted after a series of attacks, they would definitely make some counterattack attempts, but he did not expect this.
The counterattack came so quickly and so violently.
No matter the enemy general Xue Guyan or the more than 5,000 elite cavalry he led, Li Tai did not dare to neglect him.
Xue Guyan was a well-known fierce general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty. He was the rear of the army in the Battle of Xiaoguan, and cut off more than a dozen swords in one day. Such heroic deeds make people feel fearful when they hear them. As for the five
Thousands of elite Jinyang soldiers are now an invincible armed force capable of running across Heluo.
"Although the thieves' cavalry are coming with ferocity, most of their formations are lightly armed and do not have enough supplies to accompany the army. They may be good at riding and shooting, but they are not good at attacking fortresses. They only need to stick to the city defenses and when they run out of food, they will definitely escape.
Go and relieve yourself from the danger."
After pondering for a while, Lieutenant General Tian Hong said: "Besides, Lieutenant Li's order also stated that we and other forward troops should be ordered to defend Guancheng and cover the flanks of the army. Holding steady is the best way to deal with the enemy."
After hearing this, several other generals also nodded and said, even if you don't consider who the enemy general is, the five thousand fine cavalry alone are a powerful force, especially in the flat Heluo Plain, even if it is
Large groups of men and horses that are several times larger than the enemy must also be carefully prepared and dealt with.
Li Tai's actual combatants were only about 5,000. Even if he captured several cities and captured several thousand soldiers, it would be difficult to join the battle without sufficient reorganization.
Although Li Tai's cavalry also had more than 3,000 men, they still did not have an advantage in quantity, and their quality was not necessarily as good as Xue Guyan's men.
Although there are many tribesmen who followed him deep into the enemy country of Jinyang, and fought against famous generals like Liu Feng and defeated them, there was also a great element of trickery, which does not mean that his tribe is better than the elite of Bai Zhan.
Jinyang's soldiers must be even more capable and brave.
After listening to the opinions of the generals, Li Tai said: "Although the bandit cavalry are advancing lightly and without sufficient supplies, they are in Jinganggang City. Today, General Han is trapped in Cangcheng with more than a thousand troops. If I don't save him,
The Cang City is restored to the hands of thieves. The thieves can then fortify the city and linger around. Moreover, because of their rapid advance and retreat, they can attack in various directions. If they just stay trapped in the city, how will they stop it? I don't know if the progress of the army will be disturbed by then.
I’m afraid things will go wrong for both offense and defense!”
When the generals heard this, they were all speechless for a while. After a while, He Ruodun stood up again, clasped his fists and said: "Since the thief must attack and I must save him, there is no clever way to do it. The only way is to seize it bravely."
Victory. I ask Master Lang to send a thousand men to rescue Jingu City. The light cavalry stalks the thieves so that they can't attack the city with all their strength. When they are exhausted and chase after them, they will be able to defeat the thieves in the wild!"
Although He Ruodun often offends people with his harsh words, this suggestion can be regarded as a more appropriate response method at the moment.
But as soon as he finished speaking, Li Quji spoke again: "A few days ago, I went to Jingu City to supervise the return of supplies and goods. The city is fifty miles away from Guancheng. The thieves are besieging the city to lure reinforcements. I will send Qingqi to rescue the thieves.
As expected, the charge up is a tiring journey with an elite force fighting thieves, so the advance and retreat may not be too easy."
A journey of more than fifty miles is not too far, but running with light cavalry will definitely consume a lot of physical strength of the people and horses, especially the physical strength of the war horses. If we fight against an enemy army that is many times stronger than our own,
When fighting with fine cavalry, one can imagine that there will be more disaster than good.
He Ruoden thought for a while and then said: "What if it's paired with two cavalry..."
No one answered this question, and even He Ruoden himself felt a bit stupid after asking it, and there was no value in discussing it.
"Although the bandits are ferocious, they are not impossible to crack. In midsummer, the river surges, making it difficult for iron hooves to move between the ravines and tidal flats. Now we are marching together by water and land, and the chariots and horses are mixed. Even though there are many bandits, it is difficult to stop them."
A living person will never suffocate to death, and Li Tai will not be so conceited as to think that he can defeat Xue Guyan's elite troops in a field battle, but this does not mean that the enemy is invincible.
The most powerful thing about cavalry is naturally its super mobility, but if mobility no longer exists, or mobility is no longer the key to victory in battles, then the enemy is not as scary as it seems. And the mobility of cavalry is limited and offset.
There are actually many methods.
"But, but, Lieutenant Li's previous order is for us to stay in Guancheng..."
Seeing that Li Tai had decided to send troops to rescue Han Xiong's troops in Jingu City, Tian Hong said with some hesitation that he was also a brave general himself, and he was not shy about going into battle. He just had some concerns about the commander's military orders.
"So General Laotian will stay here to guard Guancheng. I will lead a group of troops to reinforce Jingu City and repel the bandits so that the flanks of the army will be safe."
If the enemy breaks through Jingu City and regains the Luoxi base, then the power of these five thousand elite cavalry on the Luoxi battlefield will be even greater. By then, even if Li Tai wants to go further, he will be defeated.
Blocked in the city, unable to advance even an inch.
Therefore, due to emotions and reasons, Li Tai had to rescue Han Xiong's troops. He could not be embarrassed to answer when Han Qinhu asked him where his father was in the future.
So after some preparations, Li Tai led 3,000 men and horses to leave Guancheng and headed towards Jingu City along the Gushui River.
Several boats followed the army, carrying more than 500 sergeants and a large amount of ordnance and supplies. However, there were still more than 50 carts on the shore, with tall carriage walls hung on them and hardwood protrusions on each cart.
There are twenty soldiers in the car, equipped with half swords, shields, and half spears.
In addition to the armored soldiers assigned to the chariots and ships, there were also more than 1,500 cavalry, divided into three battalions, front, middle and rear. These cavalry did not break away from the military formation, but moved forward together between the chariots and ships. In fact,
The effect seems to be that the chariot formation protects the cavalry. In order to match each other's marching speed, the cavalry in the chariot formation even lead their horses and walk in the formation.
Not long after this group of troops left the city, they were observed by enemy scouts and quickly reported to the general.
Due to lack of repairs in recent years, the Qianjin Weir in Luoxi has become silted and unstable. Now it is no longer the grand occasion of collecting thousands of gold every day, and has become a pond filled with odor. Valley water flows into the pond from the southwest side, and then turns into a pond.
It overflows from the east side and pours into Luoshui.
Jinganggang City is located on the south side of the pond, half of it is on the water trestle, and the other half is located on the river embankment. The stone embankment on the river bank is also part of the city wall of Canggang City, extending for several miles to the left and right.
At this time, a large-scale military camp had been built outside the river embankment. This military camp was distributed on several sides, blocking all the passages on the bank of Cangcheng. There were also many piles of reeds, branches, wooden boards and other materials tied up in the camp.
These floating platforms were placed on the muddy river banks of the tidal flats and could carry people and horses to pass by, and they could bypass the embankment wall and launch an attack on Cangcheng.
But seizing the Golden Granary City is not the only purpose of Xue Guyan's trip. His goal is to recapture Guancheng and drive the Western thieves out of Heluo. To achieve this goal, the Granary City in front of him is an extremely dangerous place.
It was a good bait, so he did not urgently order his troops to attack Cangcheng. While making preparations for the attack in an orderly manner, he dispatched his troops to regain control of the surrounding areas of Luoyang.
When he learned that the enemy troops in Guancheng finally couldn't restrain themselves and sent troops to come for reinforcements, Xue Guyan couldn't help but sneered, and even led a thousand light cavalry in the camp to the west along the valley water to test the enemy's strength first.
The two sides rushed towards each other and soon met on the south bank of Gushui. When they saw the somewhat strange marching formation of the Western Army, many knights of the Eastern Army looked suspicious.
"Hmph, the traitor general is such a wise and brave man. He dared to attack Guancheng and enter Luoyang. It turns out he is just a cowardly and mediocre rat!"
Xue Guyan pointed at the military formation still marching by the river and sneered: "This formation is a huddle formation created by the southerners because of their timid cavalry. They used chariots as a barrier to block my attack. There were many bows and crossbows on board.
It makes me dare not bully those who are close to me. This thief general is particularly timid today. Although he has considerable riding power, he does not dare to use it outside the formation. He hides in the formation thinking that it will not be damaged, but it only makes him more ugly and cowardly!"
When all the soldiers heard Xue Guyan's explanation, they all laughed and geared up to fight.
Xue Guyan ignored the clamor of his subordinates. Although he revealed the secrets of the enemy's formation, it did not mean that he knew how to crack it. This formation, which was mainly composed of chariots and camps, was called the Hanbox Formation by the southerners. It was originally meant to restrain light cavalry in field battles, and
They are often set up near water, and it is difficult to attack them with fire.
Just as many people know that cavalry wins with speed, but they cannot sum up any miraculous tactics for cavalry. When the light cavalry troops encounter this kind of tortoise shell and box formation, they can only break the formation through strong attacks.
"The thieves will imitate the southerners' chariot formation, but the chariots are much cruder than the southerners. Wait and see carefully, this attack will destroy one chariot of the thieves' army!"
Xue Guyan roared loudly, shook the horse in his hand, and rushed straight to the front of the enemy formation. The distance between the two sides quickly closed, and the soldiers of the Western Army between the carriages and camps retreated behind the carriages.