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The afterglow of Raole Mountain sprinkles on the green meadow, shining the wilderness with golden light. The Raole Water in the distance turns several bends with the terrain, gathering the streams in the mountains and flowing. This is the sacred mountain in the hearts of the Khitans, the residence of the green cow and white horse god. Now it is at the foot of the army, why doesn’t it make people feel excited?
At the foot of the mountain that used to be lively, between the two gentle ridges of Raole Mountain, east and west, was the location of the Khitan King's tent, but now it is empty, and there is not even a tent. There is only stones all over the ground, stone trunks for setting stoves, broken shafts, a small hole for nailing tents on the grassland, and the messy rag fragments abandoned in the grassland, showing the prosperous scene here. It is obvious that the Khitan King's tent has been moved away, and the tribes, cattle, sheep, and utensils are all empty, leaving Yingzhou army a quiet place.
When he arrived here, the information about the scout's raid suddenly became dense like snowflakes.
"The Khitans stopped five miles away on the east side..."
"The Khitans began to line up with an intention to stop our army from moving forward..."
"The Khitans began to set up camps..."
"Three gangs of the left team of the scout in the central camp, and the fifth gangs discovered Khitan Rangers ten miles away from the south..."
"The first group of scouts in the central camp, the second group encountered the Khitan ranger eight miles away from the southwest. They were injured and the enemy cavalry had been driven out..."
"The second team of the left of the old camp scout Du Du found the Khitan Ranger brigade ten miles west, and Team Zhang was covering the logistics and supplies and meeting the central army at accelerating..."
"The Khitan cavalry found in the south direction, with more than two thousand people..."
"The brigade of Khitan soldiers was found in the Western rear, with more than 3,000 people..."
...
Li Chengzhong ordered the entire army to stop advancing, and the staff of Yu Hou immediately surrounded him and summarized and analyzed the information reported by the scouts. Soon, a clear scroll of battlefield infographic appeared in front of everyone.
To the east of the direction of the army's march were more than 2,000 horse infantry and Ada He soldiers, and more than 3,000 auxiliary soldiers who emerged from somewhere were busy building camps.
To the right side of the army, nearly 10,000 Khitan horses appeared, of which more than 3,000 were elite cavalry of warriors. After identifying them, Salanna told everyone that this was the personal army of the sergeant of the sergeant led by Abaoji, and his soldiers were drawn from the elite troops of the grassland. The combat power was the best in the grassland!
The suits and colors of thousands of Khitan soldiers on the southwest side were slightly different. The weapons in their hands were not neat, but they looked quite tough. At this time, we could see the benefits of Salanna following here. The Xi soldiers fought with the Khitans for many years. They were very familiar with the foundation of the Khitan soldiers. Under the identification of Salanna and several elders of the Xi people, these Khitan soldiers should be the soldiers of the Yishi tribe, Tulubu tribe, Tuju tribe, and some soldiers from various tribes such as Tuyuhun, Shiwei, and Wu.
In the west of the army's rear, there were Khitan soldiers mixed with squadrons and cavalry. Their helmets were decorated with colorful bird feathers, which were the Shulu family soldiers whom Shulu thought were the foundation of their existence.
After a quick inventory, summary and calculation, the staff of Yu Hou got a rough figure of the enemy - about 12,000 soldiers visible to the face, and there were nearly 10,000 auxiliary soldiers afterwards! Taking the Yingzhou Army's two years of investigation of the Khitan intelligence in all aspects and combining the Xi people's understanding of the Khitan by Salanna and other Xi people, this number is the maximum force limit that Abaoji and others can mobilize! For the grassland nation, the bravery of the war soldiers is no longer needed. Even if the auxiliary soldiers are only equipped with a knife, they are not to be underestimated.
More than 20,000 people pressed the Yingzhou army from three directions and slowly approached, trapping it at the foot of Raole Mountain with five times its strength. The gentle pasture where the former Khitan King's tent was located became the Jedi of the Yingzhou army.
A Baoji, is this the battlefield you chose? Li Chengzhong sneered secretly, it’s okay. Let’s fight you here to decide the grassland!
With Li Chengzhong's order, the Yingzhou army immediately began to arrange defenses on Raole Mountain.
The three infantry battalions in the left wing of the Yingzhou Army were all dismounted and armored, forming a semi-arc defensive array, with twenty-step passages exposed between each battalion. Behind the passage are the cavalry battalions and the central camp, one left and one right as support, and at the same time, they can go down from the high slope and launch a counterattack against the enemy. The three hundred warriors of Kumoxi were the raiders, and within two hundred steps of the periphery line, they alerted and covered the Yingzhou Army's defense system.
The 1,000 old camp of Yingzhou Army, under the command of five logistics capitals, strived to build camps.
There were no logistics soldiers in this era, and all logistics and supplies were completed by war soldiers, auxiliary soldiers and civilians. In the troops with a strict military system, if they were strictly divided, the logistics of the army was divided like this: the soldiers carried their own weapons and completed the battle as their main task; the auxiliary soldiers carried the armor of the war soldiers and the second and third weapons of the war soldiers, or carried two pots of arrows, and the cavalry with conditions were equipped with more than one auxiliary soldiers, and they also had to take care of the cavalry's war horses. Some auxiliary soldiers needed to carry felt blankets and other items used for camping in the field. At the same time, some auxiliary soldiers even had to undertake certain combat tasks; the civilians carried food, large war defense equipment, and other supplies that the army needed to carry, including tents, cooking utensils, etc.
Of course, the above-mentioned troops with a strict military system exist only in a few elite troops, and most of the troops do not have such equipment. In the heart of the Central Plains, the auxiliary soldiers of the Han army tend to be civil servants, and the functions of auxiliary soldiers are shared by war soldiers and civil servants. On the grassland, nomadic peoples rarely use civil servants. Their civil servants are auxiliary soldiers, and they can go into battle by holding up their swords.
In the Yingzhou Army, the establishment of the logistics soldiers was a cross-era reform.
Simply put, the logistics soldiers of the Yingzhou Army focused more on the tasks of auxiliary soldiers and also had the functions of civil servants. What made them different from the auxiliary soldiers in this era is that each logistics soldier is not affiliated with a certain combat soldier, but becomes a separate system and possesses an independent organization in the Yingzhou Governor's Office. The difference from civil servants is that they focus more on military functions and are no different from combat soldiers in terms of command system, military pay, rank and other aspects.
Under the jurisdiction of the Logistics Department of the Yuhou Department of the Yingzhou Governor's Office, the current logistics battalion has a total of ten capitals and one thousand people. Officers at all levels are selected from seniors with one skill, craftsmen who are proficient in manufacturing, doctors who are proficient in medical skills, or chefs who are good at cooking... When recruiting soldiers, seniors with one skill are also given priority. Both officers and soldiers must undergo three months of recruit training in the training department, become a preliminary qualified soldier, and then undergo professional training. In Li Chengzhong's vision, logistics soldiers are closer to combat engineers in later generations. Once they form an army, their combat effectiveness bonus to the army will be immeasurable.
According to the original words of Zhao Hongde, a resident of the Logistics Department, who relayed the Yingzhou Governor Li Chengzhong, "A qualified logistics soldier must first be a qualified soldier." Therefore, the establishment of the logistics battalion system took far more time than the general Yingzhou army. From the era of Bailang Mountain to now, it has been two years since the logistics battalion organization finally formed, and only a thousand logistics soldiers truly entered the army and took on logistics affairs.