"Let's wait until Osman erects the pontoon bridge and see what he does."
Liu Jingren said: "Why not take advantage of the fact that their pontoon bridge has not been erected and take the initiative to attack?"
Su Chen glared at him: "Osman still has more than 40,000 people, and most of them are elites!"
"If we push them into a desperate situation and fight to the death with us, how much loss will we have to pay?"
Cheng Wuting also shook his head: "Maybe Osman simply abandons the pontoon bridge and leads his army to continue heading north, and we won't be able to catch up."
Liu Jingren: "But once the pontoon bridge is installed, Osman will definitely run directly to the east bank of the river, right?"
Su Chen smiled: "We will use the hot air balloon to keep an eye on the pontoon bridge. Once the installation is successful, we will immediately start attacking."
Cheng Wuting nodded: "In this case, Osman will definitely be reluctant to leave the pontoon bridge, and if he wants to cross the river, he will have to block our attack."
"Who are you attacking because you want to take this opportunity to keep some of Dashi's elite?"
Su Chen spread his hands: "Osman has more than 40,000 friends after all. It's impossible for us to eat them all in one go!"
Everyone was also a little helpless: if Osman didn't take the initiative to attack, the Tang army really didn't have many methods at its disposal.
If you drag your heavy military vehicles and artillery to attack, you will always leave some opportunities for the flexible cavalry.
Moreover, the giant cannibal could not be defeated but could run away. The Tang army could not catch up with its heavy artillery.
You can only leave as much as you can when crossing the bridge on a giant cannibal.
"It is estimated that Osman will only leave a small number of troops behind, and lead a large group of troops across the bridge to the east bank of the river."
Su Chen said helplessly: "There's nothing we can do about it, just leave as much as you can!"
"I guess Osman doesn't dare to be too powerful, so the troops behind him will not be too small!"
Xue Rengui: "Commander, if we have such a plan, Osman can guess it, right?"
Su Chen smiled and said: "With the war at this point, it's not difficult to guess the plans of both of us."
"Ottoman did not go directly north, but stopped here because he was ready to sacrifice some of his troops,"
"It depends on how many cannibals we can keep!"
After agreeing on the plan, everyone went down to prepare.
…
The next morning, Su Chen led his army towards Osman's camp.
Arrive outside the Ottoman camp at noon.
The hot air balloon that had been monitoring the pontoon sounded a long whistle in mid-air, which meant that the pontoon was almost completed.
Su Chen immediately ordered all hot air balloons to take off and began bombing the Ottoman camp.
The area of the military camp is limited, and the density of personnel is much greater than that of Hilla City.
Each gunpowder charge can cause a large number of casualties.
"Commander, I think you can use these gunpowder packets to blow up the pontoon bridge."
Xue Rengui said.
"Our goal is to weaken the military power of the Great Cannibal to the greatest extent. It is not cost-effective to blow up the bridge now!"
When you use a hot air balloon to throw a gunpowder package to blow up a bridge, the gunpowder package must just fall on the bridge to explode. If it falls into the water, it will be extinguished directly.
Just the accuracy of dropping a bomb from a hot air balloon would waste who knows how much gunpowder.
Moreover, the timing is not easy to grasp: the explosion is too early, too few people are crossing the bridge, and it is too difficult here.
If the bombing is too late and all the troops are gone, what's the use?
It would be more cost-effective to eliminate more of the big food elites.
While the hot-air balloons were bombing, the army also began to approach the Ottoman camp.
Of course Osman would not let the Tang army get close to his camp.
Two groups of men and horses rushed out from the left and right camps respectively and rushed directly towards the left and right wings of the Tang army.
"There are a lot of big cannibals coming out!"
"Osman doesn't want to have a decisive battle with us here, does he?"
Master Sun Ren frowned and said.
Su Chen shook his head: "Probably not! Osman is not stupid. He doesn't have artillery, trebuchets and other heavy ordnance. With his infantry and cavalry, he doesn't have much advantage against us."
"He won't lose too much of his elite here."
After all, Su Chen was a little puzzled when he saw the charging cavalry:
The two groups of men and horses had about 6,000 or 7,000 yuan, which added up to 13,400 yuan.
Ottoman sent out almost half of his cavalry,
If it is used to cut off the queen, this can be enough to save money!
Osman currently has no more than 30,000 cavalry, of which nearly 20,000 are elites he brought from Ctesiphon.
Coupled with 10,000 elite heavy armored infantry, this is the force currently in hand by the Ottomans.
Seeing the Dashi cavalry rushing towards the left and right wings of the Tang army, Cheng Wuting and Yuchi Baolin each led 3,000 cavalry to stop them.
Without the protection of the cavalry, the remaining artillery and baggage troops of the Tang Army also stopped and stopped approaching the cannibal's camp.
And because of the fear of accidentally injuring one's own men, field artillery's support for the cavalry was relatively limited.
This is what Osman should want!
There was another sharp whistle from the reconnaissance hot air balloon,
Su Chen nodded: Osman started to cross the bridge.
"Wugang vehicles, artillery, and baggage troops continue to move forward according to the plan we agreed on yesterday!"
Following Su Chen's order, Wugang vehicles, artillery, catapults, and baggage troops were immediately divided into many groups and began to move forward.
When Da Shiren saw that the Tang army's artillery was still advancing, he immediately wanted to stop it, but Cheng Wuting and Yuchi Baolin did not stop him.
However, the number of Dashi's cavalry was more than double that of Tang's cavalry, so it was impossible for Cheng Wuting and Yuchi Baolin to stop them all.
Many Dashi cavalry got rid of the entanglement of the Tang cavalry and rushed toward the advancing Tang army's artillery and baggage troops.
At first glance, the Tang army's Wugang chariots were not in series, but were slowly moving forward together with the artillery catapults.
The big food cavalry who rushed up were overjoyed.
Without the damn Wugang chariot to stop him, he could rush directly to the Tang army's artillery!
Seeing the Dashi cavalry rushing over, the advancing Tang army had to stop again, but there was no time to form a Wugang chariot formation.
The Dashi cavalry quickly rushed dozens of meters in front of the Tang army's artillery. They raised their sabers and rushed forward to kill the gunner next to the artillery.
At this time, the artillery suddenly opened fire, bombarded with shotguns at close range,
The large food cavalry that rushed up were all beaten to pieces, including their men and their mounts.
It turns out that the cannon is loaded and moves forward with ammunition.
Although it was very dangerous to do so, Su Chen didn't really want to let the artillery carry the ammunition very far, just to attract the big food cavalry.
Moreover, the Dashi cavalry who rushed up later discovered that after firing the cannon, the gunners immediately abandoned the field guns and bowl-mouth blunderbuss and quickly ran towards the Wugang chariot next to them.
Before the Dashi cavalry could react, the Tang army's gunners had already run to the nearby Wugang chariot, pulled out long spears from the Wugang chariot, and formed a small spear array with their backs against the Wugang chariot.
