Now there are nearly 200 soldiers in Yuguan from both cities and a hundred young people. As long as the gate is built, in terms of military strength alone, the small Yuguan will be safe. But Li Chengzhong knows that this is only on the surface.
Wuyou, he knows very well what kind of virtue these recruits are. If the Khitans are really determined to attack the city, they don't need those complicated siege facilities and just use wooden ladder ants to attack them.
Kill more than the courageous refugees can resist.
Seeing that the gate was almost completed, Li Chengzhong did not intend to take the huge risk of going out of the city to form an array again. Therefore, he planned to seize the time to train these new soldiers to defend the city.
Li Chengzhong first called together the three team officers Jiang Miao, Zhang Xingzhong and Zhou Qidao for a meeting. In order to better implement his city defense plan, he wanted to break up the establishment of A and B and readjust it. Logically speaking, he
He is currently the highest officer in Yuguan designated by Zhou Zhiyu. He has the power to make temporary adjustments. However, the three team officers are all brothers who withdrew from Weizhou with Li Chengzhong and came to Yuguan to guard the border. He did not want to do anything for them.
This matter created a rift.
What pleased Li Chengzhong was that the three team officers supported his suggestion and expressed their willingness to obey the deployment. Li Chengzhong's suggestion was to divide the 180 soldiers in Capital A and Capital B into five teams, two of which
A group of spearmen, a group of sword and shield soldiers, a group of archers and a group of reserves.
Zhang Xingzhong and Jiang Miao each led a team of 50 spearmen to defend the front of the wall during the battle. Zhou Maidao led 30 sword and shield soldiers on standby on the city wall. If any area was tight or was broken through by the Khitans, Zhou Maidao would
Bring someone up to fill the defensive holes.
Li Chengzhong also mobilized 20 recruits who could shoot bows and arrows to form an archery team, led by Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao, and climbed to the fortress on the hillside. The fortress was much higher than the Guanqiang, and the enemy was from bottom to top.
It is difficult to attack. Because the position of the hillside is slightly protruding, the fortress can overlook the entire Guancheng. Archers are arranged here, and their shooting range can control the entire defensive front. The remaining thirty soldiers were handed over to Wang Dalang and Li Chengzhong.
I plan to stay with you as a strategic preparation, and wait until the critical moment of the war to invest again.
After the teams were assigned, Li Chengzhong began to train troops. His requirements for training were very detailed and mechanical.
He asked the gunmen to be divided into groups, with two people in each group, to defend a wall crenel. One of them was the commander, standing in front of the crenel, and the other was a team member, standing on the side of the crenel. When he saw the enemy boarding,
After climbing the city wall, the commander issued an order, and the two men fired their guns and stabbed together. He further broke down this step and required that the commander must wait until the enemy exposed his body above the thighs before issuing the order. After the commander issued the order,
The two people must stab at the same time. Among them, the command leader stabs the enemy's chest, and the team member stabs the enemy's thigh. Because the enemy is likely to be holding a shield, the command commander stabs the enemy's chest area as a feint, and the team member stabs the enemy's thigh root.
Real killing. Li Chengzhong also demonstrated the bayonet movements learned by the troops before crossing the battlefield for each gunner's forward stabbing action, and then asked two people to start repeated training in pairs.
Li Chengzhong did not say much about the sword and shield melee soldiers led by Zhou Machete. He thought that he was not as good as Zhou Machete in the use of swords and shields. He only emphasized to Zhou Machete that the sword and shield soldiers should be divided into groups of three.
To move quickly, you must either quickly kill the enemy on the top of the city or push them off the city wall.
Zhou Qidao blinked and grinned: "Li Lang, don't worry, you may not be able to kill quickly. Pushing down the city wall... I have some ideas."
Li Chengzhong didn't ask him too much about what he could do. He believed that Zhou Maidao's bravery should be no problem. He had already seen it during the retreat from Weizhou to the north. The next thing he was concerned about was Meng Xuxing and
The archery team led by Jiao Chengqiao. The Khitan people are famous for their good archery. Competing with their opponents in archery is a typical way of using their own shortcomings to attack the enemy's strengths. Therefore, Li Chengzhong planned to train these people according to the artillery coverage method he learned from the troops before crossing.
Help the archers.
He took Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao to the city outside Yuguan and found many small stones and hammered them into the soil. These stones divided the ground under the wall from one step to one hundred steps into nine sections. Li Chengzhong marked them in order.
He explained to Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao: "When shooting, don't shoot indiscriminately. Each of you will lead ten people to start practicing. During each salvo, the two of you will give the order, requiring ten arrows to be shot at the same time to cover an area."
Seeing that the two people seemed a little confused, he pondered for a while and said: "For example, when Meng Da saw an enemy in an area, he issued an order to have ten archers under you shoot arrows in an area at the same time. As long as each shot
If an arrow can hurt an enemy, the shot is considered a success."
Their eyes lit up, and they happily went back to organize the people to start training. This archery method does not require the archer to shoot accurately. For these new recruits, they can master it with a little practice.
As a result, a large-scale military training began in Yuguan. The new recruits began to perform repeated mechanical exercises according to the responsibilities they had to bear. There were shouts of killing in Yuguan.
The spearman's training movements are relatively simple, that is, taking a step forward, thrusting the spear in the direction of the situation, but these recruits have never done this kind of movement, and their accuracy is terrible. They often shoot to one side and miss the target.
It can even reach half a human body. But this is not a problem that is difficult to solve. As long as you practice more, the accuracy will naturally adjust slowly. The most difficult part is overcoming the tension.
Facing the enemy, no one can avoid being nervous, but being too nervous to thrust out the wooden spear in your hand will be fatal when facing the battle. For this reason, Li Chengzhong divided these spearmen into two groups, one of which acted as an imaginary enemy.
, that is, the Khitan people. He asked the soldiers to build some high platforms with a height of one person on the ground using mounds of earth to simulate the crenellations of the city wall. He asked a group of two soldiers to stand on one side of the high platform, and asked the soldiers playing the role of Khitan people to jump on with their shields.
A high platform, imitating the Khitan people ascending the city.
After practicing more, the soldiers gradually adapted to this kind of stabbing, and they were no longer so nervous that they couldn't stab the wooden spear in their hands. But then the problem came again. When the soldiers saw their companions playing Khitan people showing up, they would endure it.
He kept thrusting out his wooden spear without waiting for the enemy's whole body to be exposed. Li Chengzhong's solution to this problem was to take severe punitive measures. Any group that failed to achieve the expected results would be required to do thirty push-ups.
Li Chengzhong did not interfere too much in the training of sword and shield soldiers. He was surprised to see Zhou Machete go to Minfu Camp to make ten large wooden shields. This kind of wooden shield could cover most of the body and required both hands to lift it. Then he
I saw these soldiers with wooden shields playing a game of bull-butting each other. After pondering for a moment, I suddenly understood Zhou Machete's idea and couldn't help but smile.
The training of archers is mainly about how to draw the bow with force. As for the accuracy, it doesn't matter much. Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao found some wooden stakes and placed them ten steps away. They required the arrows shot by these recruits to be stuck in the wood.
Above. Fortunately, these twenty soldiers were herdsmen outside the customs who were first selected in capitals A and B. Most of them had shot arrows before, so they all passed the test quickly. Then the two men summoned them to the fortress and started
Practice shooting arrows by area. Because the targets in each area are large, you don’t have to worry too much about accuracy. After these recruits find the feeling, they can basically shoot into the designated area, forming a slightly sparse arrow screen. I believe that with time
, the effect will be better.
During the few days of military training in Yuguan, the Khitan people sent out rangers to investigate every day. These rangers appeared twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, about three to four hundred paces away from Yuguan.
From a distance, watch for a moment, then turn around and leave.
The day before, Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao asked Li Chengzhong for orders, rode on the horses unloaded from the Minfu Camp's cart, and rushed out of the city to challenge them. These two were from outside the customs as a ranger. They were proud of their bravery and were very good at riding and archery.
Yes, I wanted to capture a few people alive. But the Khitan people didn't engage in the fight at all. After seeing the two people riding out of the city, they drove away from the city. The two people were riding cart horses, which were not as serious as the Khitan people.
Because of this, he couldn't catch up with the war horse at all. After leaving the city to challenge twice with no results, he simply became discouraged and stopped asking for orders to leave. He just stepped up his training of his brothers.
When the gate was finally fixed at the pass and the gate was officially sealed, the Khitan Rangers never appeared again. Two days later, Li Chengzhong sent Wang Dalang, Meng Xuxing, and Jiao Chengqiao to go out to investigate, but found the Khitan military camp ten miles away.
No longer there.
The Khitans just withdrew? Li Chengzhong couldn't believe it, so he called Jiang Miao, Zhang Xingzhong, Zhou Qidao and other officers to discuss it. Everyone was completely confused about this, so he went to ask Feng Dao again.
After thinking for a while, Feng Dao told Li Chengzhong that the Khitan's main camp should not have been moved yet, and was probably still in place. Perhaps a bigger move was brewing.
"If they have follow-up actions, why haven't you come here in the past few days?" Li Chengzhong was a little confused.
"So far, the Khitan people have not really taken over the battle with us. It seems unreasonable to withdraw at this point." Feng Dao explained, "In addition, in these days, there is still no common people who have escaped from outside the pass, which shows that the Khitan people
The camp is still blocking the passage outside.”
Li Chengzhong became more and more convinced of Feng Dao's vision and judgment, so he became more strict during military training. When talking to several of his officers, he often mentioned that the Khitans were coming.
, always reminding everyone to be more vigilant and never let down. At the same time, he asked Wang Dalang to start investigating the farther periphery.
Just as Li Chengzhong was stepping up preparations, the Khitans had already uprooted their camp and left Yuguan. They followed the lower reaches of Xuanshui, crossed the clear and shallow tributary of Xuanshui, and walked 30 miles north to a camp. This camp
Located by the water, there are thousands of large and small leather tents, covering the entire grassland. In the middle of the camp, there is a huge tent, whether it is the huge fine velvet carpet extending from the outside of the tent or the tent roof.
The precious eagle feathers decorated on it exude a sense of luxury and magnificence, showing the honorable status of the tent owner.
The Khitan bearded man, who had been confronting Li Chengzhong for a while at the foot of Yuguan City, led his men to the camp and hurriedly set up the tent. Then he rushed outside the tent and asked to be let in.