Two months have passed since the Yuguan Defense War. The towers on the Guan City have been rebuilt, and other large defensive equipment such as arrow towers, shooting poles, slings, and kerosene racks have also been rebuilt.
There are two large moon-white flags with red edges erected high on the city tower. On one pole is a big word "Liu", and next to the word "Liu" are two lines of small characters, which read "Inspector Sikong, Tongzhongshu Menxiaping".
"Zhangshi" and "Lulong Jiedu Envoy"; the other pole has the word "Zhou" written on it, and the small characters on both sides are "Pingzhou Soldiers and Horses Envoy, Yuguan Guards Capture Envoy" and "Guerrilla General". The two large flags are on
There was a hunting sound in the north wind, conveying a sense of murder.
After the news of being appointed as the capital of the capital of Youying came back to the family, Zhao Zaili, a commoner, finally attracted the attention of the family. There are many children in the old Zhao family, and there are not many who serve as officers above the capital in the army, but people like Zhao Zaili
Not many people can achieve the rank of military officer through their own efforts without any fanfare. What's more, it seems that Zhao Zaili's development trend will never stop here. At least for now, he will serve as a military commander as a military commander.
With the title of Lieutenant, he leads the Pingzhou Army deployed in the three capitals of Yuguan. In terms of his position, he can already be regarded as a commander!
Once the old Zhao family noticed this son of a common concubine, they began to place high hopes on him and immediately gave him strong support. In addition to the support in terms of war horses, armor, weapons and money, they also sent several servants to come and use him.
So Zhao Zaili immediately started repairing war equipment, training soldiers, and improving combat readiness. He had a good education in his family, and he had the help and guidance of servants from his family who were familiar with military matters. It was very easy for him to get started with these things, and the entire Yuguan garrison was on two sides.
Within a few months, it changed its appearance.
At this moment, Zhao Zaili could be said to be very proud, but when the proud Zhao Zaili took over his newly arrived commission from Zhang Long, he felt a bit of panic and shame just like Zhang Long. During the commission process, Zhao Zaili was appointed as the right officer of the Pingzhou Army in the Li Inspection School.
The commander of the battalion has the rank of captain of the imperial school, starting from the eighth rank.
In any army, if you want to truly establish yourself in the military camp, in addition to various factors, the most important thing must be military merit! The so-called no reward for no merit, except for those villains who are shameless and use flattery as a qualification for promotion.
Any conscientious soldier will feel terrified and ashamed when the reward he receives is far greater than the contribution he has made. Zhao Zaili came from a family of military generals, so he has a clearer understanding of this.
During this period, Zhao Zaili led the army to garrison at Yuguan and spent countless efforts on training new soldiers and repairing war equipment. The more efforts he put in, the more he understood how difficult it was for Li Chengzhong to resist the Khitans on this dilapidated city, especially
It was when he found out that the situation in the military camp at Bailang Mountain was not as good as it was at Yuguan that he felt even more sincere admiration for Li Chengzhong's victory at Bailang Mountain.
He was appointed as the commander of the right battalion of the inspection school, and his rank was also promoted to the captain of the imperial school. Then Li Chengzhong...
After seeing the appointment, his first reaction was not surprise and excitement, but a hint of uneasiness and said to Zhang Long: "Brother Quanhe, I don't know that Li Chengzhong..."
Zhang Long smiled, and he took out another personal report and flashed it to Zhao Zaili: "Don't worry, brother Qianchen, the soldiers and horses are well aware of this. You can continue with this report with peace of mind. Congratulations, brother, from now on, more people can be added to Yuguan.
The general flag is in one stroke." When the official rank is promoted to the commander, he enters the ranks of mid-level officers. This is a watershed in the officer rank, and he is already qualified to display the flag. Zhao Zaili's general flag should be written as "Pingzhou"
The Commander of the Right Battalion of the Military Inspection School, and the Commander of the Military Inspection School, Zhao.”
Hearing what Zhang Long said, Zhao Zaili breathed a sigh of relief, and the joy in his heart finally rose. He quickly made arrangements and ordered his soldiers to take out a thousand stones of military rations from the granary and load them with the food that Zhang Long had brought.
Cart. When Zhang Long had all the supplies ready, Zhao Zaili came to him with ninety soldiers.
"Brother Qianchen, what does this mean?" Zhang Long didn't understand.
Zhao Zaili pulled over the leading officer and introduced to Zhang Long: "This is Sanlang of the Yuan family. Brother Quanhe must have seen him before. Sanlang and a certain person were childhood friends. He had previously served as a group leader in the volunteer army. I heard that
When someone arrived in Pingzhou, he asked the volunteers to be transferred over. This time, Brother Quanhe led the army to escort the military supplies, and someone sent Sanlang to lead the troops to accompany him. First, Brother Quanhe came to see his troops, and secondly... this
None of the new recruits in the gang have experienced war, so I asked Brother Quanhe to take care of them and let them practice. Brother Quanhe can rest assured that these soldiers are carefully selected elites by You, and they will never cause trouble to Brother Quanhe.
I heard Li Chengzhong say that day, Brother Quanhe's chariot formation did not include any melee warriors with swords and shields. These soldiers can fill one or two positions..."
I have met this young man Zhang Long. Not only did he meet him, Zhang Long also personally handled his resettlement. Sanlang of the Yuan family, whose name is Xingqin and whose cousin is Shaorong, is a direct descendant of the Yuan family in Youzhou City. Now Fang Fang
Seventeen years old. Although Yuan Xingqin was not very old, he had experienced a battle with the Chengde army under Hejian City, and had two levels of beheadings.
The elite volunteer army from Lu Long's army requested to be transferred to Pingzhou, a borderland with bitter cold. Zhang Long was very surprised at the time and asked Yuan Xingqin why he requested the transfer. According to Yuan Xingqin's own words, it was to keep company with his friend Zhao Zaili.
Zhang Long naturally welcomed this kind of officer who had experienced war and conquests and achieved military merit. After asking Zhou Zhiyu for instructions, he directly appointed him as a team officer, and according to his own wishes, he was dispatched to Yuguan to accept the command of Zhao Zaili.
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After hearing what Zhao Zaili said, Zhang Long thought for a while and nodded in agreement. Now, in the Pingzhou Army, except for Li Chengzhong's troops who have experienced the baptism of war, all the troops are new recruits. They can feel the atmosphere of the battlefield more. For Pingzhou Army,
This is definitely a good thing for the growth and development of the state army.
The escort convoy led by Zhang Long consisted of 300 spearmen from the middle camp and 200 archers selected from each battalion. In addition, there were 200 civilians. With these 90 sword and shield men, they were able to defend against the diffuse attack of the Khitan cavalry.
In addition to the help of the enemy, they will also be an effective force in close combat. However, they have not practiced the chariot battle method, so Zhang Long rehearsed several times under Yuguan and asked Yuan Xingqin to command these swords and shields.
Hands are involved.
Before dawn the next day, Zhang Long ordered the convoy to leave the customs and head for Bailang Mountain in the northwest.
After leaving Yuguan, the convoy marched in two columns according to the previous rehearsal method. Between the two convoys, there were 590 Pingzhou soldiers. Nearly 800 people and a team of fifty carriages marched in
On the grassland, the momentum seemed very majestic.
Zhang Long has been marching with the army all his life, fighting in the north and south, and has rich experience, but it is the first time in his life to command such a large army to march. He very cautiously sent ten scouts to explore around in the hope of encountering the Khitan.
You can be fully prepared when intercepted by people. These scouts were selected from the Pingzhou Army Scout Team. Although there are only ten people, they are already half of the entire Pingzhou Army Scout Team. They may not be as good as the Khitan Rangers.
They are good at riding and shooting, and their equestrian skills are very superb. As for the newly established Pingzhou Army, these scouts are the real elite.
When dispatching the scouts, Zhang Long issued a strict order, stipulating that the scouts' surveillance range should not exceed two miles of the convoy. He did not dare to let the scouts go too far, even if any one of them was lost, he would not accept it.
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The first twenty miles were uneventful, but as the convoy continued to go north, traces of the Khitan Rangers were finally found in the surrounding area. Zhang Long ordered the scout team to recover one mile of land and then continued moving forward. As the Khitan Rangers
With the frequent appearance and gathering of more and more people, Zhang Long simply ordered the scout team to return to the car formation. At this time, there was no point in releasing the scouts anymore. It was obvious that the Khitan people had already set their sights on the car team. It all depended on whether they wanted to fight or not.
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Zhang Long ordered the convoy to speed up, trying to get closer to Bailang Mountain when the Khitan brigade arrived. According to the agreement between him and Li Chengzhong, the closer the convoy was to Bailang Mountain, the greater the intensity of Li Chengzhong's response to the mountain.
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When the convoy traveled to dusk and could already see the shadow of Bailang Mountain in the distance, Zhang Long made a visual estimate and calculated that there were still seven or eight miles away from Bailang Mountain Pass. Then, he saw two miles ahead
There were four to five hundred Khitan cavalry blocking the way, so Zhang Long ordered the convoy to change its formation.
This was Zhang Long's first time commanding a battle, and it was also the first time that most of the Pingzhou Army soldiers in the convoy faced the enemy. Almost everyone's breathing was a little short, and the palms holding the weapons began to sweat, and they were in a state of tension.
Fortunately, we had rehearsed for many days before. Although everyone was very nervous, they still changed the formation of the vehicle formation according to the previous arrangement. The civilians quickly closed the ten large vehicles at the beginning and end of the two teams horizontally, and then tied each vehicle with ropes.
The driver pulled the hook of the cart, and the convoy turned into a square formation that was twenty carts wide and thirty carts long. The farmer took out the black scarf that he had prepared, blindfolded the horses to prevent them from being frightened and running around, and then got out of the car.
Take a thick felt blanket and cover it on the horse's back to minimize the chance of the horse being hit by an arrow.
After the preparations were completed, most of the civilians hid in the car formation, leaving only a few who were skilled in driving. They put on their leather helmets and drove the horses inside the cart to keep the car formation moving forward.
Sixty spearmen, wearing helmets and armor, formed two rows of spear formations. They went out to the outside of the cart formation to protect the horses pulling the carts in front. Twenty sword and shield bearers were evenly stuffed into the first row of spear formations. They held their shields high.
Try your best to protect the spearmen from the enemy's diffuse attack. The remaining spearmen and shield bearers are in the chariot formation to defend against the Khitan threat to the sides and rear of the chariot formation. The entire chariot formation is set up during the tea time, and the muzzle rushes
Outside, there are spears and thorns like a forest.
The attack on the Khitans was launched by two hundred archers. They hid in the car formation, each carrying three pots of arrows, forming a four-wave diffusion queue. In Li Chengzhong's design, he planned to follow the "three-stage
However, during the actual rehearsal, he found that the archers of the Pingzhou Army were shooting at a slower rate. Shooting according to the "three-stage strike" method would cause large gaps and loopholes, so he simply
It was changed to "four-stage strike", and fifty arrows will be fired for each strike to ensure an uninterrupted rain of arrows to cover the strike. Because the range of the foot bow is longer than that of the mounted bow, when the Khitan people charge on horseback,
By the time he was within a shooting range of the Pingzhou Army, he should have been hit by at least two hundred arrows.
The arrangement and combat methods of this car formation were the result of racking his brains after Li Chengzhong emptied his mind of the memories from later generations, combined with his experience in fighting the Khitans. To be honest, this car formation
The real combat effectiveness is not great.
First of all, the cost of this chariot formation is too expensive. Not only do the spearmen who go forward need a lot of armor, but the proportion of archers in the chariot formation is also very high, and the cost of arrows is very staggering. In order to prepare for this military transport, the Pingzhou Governor's Office
, it can be said that it cost a lot of money and almost emptied the treasury. During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the equipment of the Tang army should be considered the best in the world. Not only did everyone have armor, but also everyone held a bow, and the ratio of archers reached a terrifying 100%. At that time,
In addition to being good at melee combat, almost everyone in the Tang Army was an excellent archer, and everyone carried bows and arrows. What frightened the opponents even more was that at the beginning of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, the proportion of crossbowmen in the Tang Army was as high as 30%! But now in
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, in this era of great destruction of productivity, not only was there a lack of armor, the proportion of archers was too low, but also crossbows were extremely rare, not to mention the large number of Mo Dao, iron axes and even heavy cavalry equipment as in the past. Nothing else.
, Guolier!
Secondly, from the perspective of tactical effectiveness, the most suitable place for the vehicle array is to transport military supplies. To put it bluntly, this vehicle array can only be used to transport food at most, and is not suitable for an upright decisive battle. Because the actions of the vehicle array are too excessive
Slow and clumsy, the initiative on the battlefield will inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy. When to attack and when to retreat, everything depends on the enemy's mood.
Finally, if it is a long march, the vehicle formation will also expose great weaknesses. Under the watchful eye of the enemy cavalry, the defenders in the vehicle formation must always remain highly vigilant. Once the journey is too long, everyone will be nervous
Weakened by fatigue and exhaustion, the enemy troops only need to follow the formation of vehicles from the side, and after three to five days, they can easily break through the formation.
However, although the vehicle formation has so many weaknesses, it is just right for transporting military supplies to Bailang Mountain.
Following Zhang Long's order, the arranged vehicle formation began to move towards the large group of Khitan cavalry on the opposite side, moving slowly but firmly.