If we were to rank the armies of this era according to their execution capabilities, Zhang Zhao's army would definitely be among the best, probably only comparable to the already dispersed Silver Spear Army.
This de facto private army of King Zhang, which is mainly composed of the Fengtian Army and more than a thousand Khotan Palace Guards, is now in its most prosperous stage.
Everyone is waiting for Zhang Zhao to retire with the country after he takes down the Dragon Throne in the Daming Palace. With the image of Lingyan Pavilion, everyone is thinking about one thing and working hard towards Zhang Zhao's career as their own.
So after determining the location of the Balihar Army's military base, it only took them half an hour to determine the battle plan.
Then within an hour, the combat plan was subdivided to the officers at the team leader level. At the same time, they also broke out of the camp collectively and marched forward for about twenty miles, shortening the distance between them and the Balihar Army camp to three meters.
Ten miles.
Afterwards, they went to the underground stronghold, and the seven thousand troops slowly finished a full meal and rested directly on the spot.
Not only did the soldiers not make too much noise, but the horses were also quiet. Many Fold-eared horses even learned to lie down and sleep, a more energy-saving method.
At the beginning of Yinshi, that is, around three o'clock in the morning, the 7,000-strong army, organized by the officers, completed preparations for departure.
At this time, the moon was still hidden in the dark clouds, and the visibility was very limited. Zhang Zhao ordered a general (one hundred people) as the basic unit, and the leader of the general designated a team leader with the best eyesight to walk in front holding a torch, and the rest
The soldiers put their hands on the shoulders of their comrades in front and walked in turn.
Li Zaiyuan was the team leader who was at the forefront of the entire army. After another round of careful selection, he was successfully promoted from fire chief to team leader.
However, for a former member of Shandu, his promotion was very slow.
For example, Barbarian Xiong, Dunzhu and others who can still stay with the King and are still members of Hanshandu are the King's bodyguards and confidants who are envied by everyone.
There are only a few people who have gone out to become officers from the capital of Hanshan, and most of them are at the level of battalion soldiers and horsemen.
According to the military establishment of the Deputy Prince's Mansion, in terms of town, army, camp, capital, general, team, and fire, his team is indeed somewhat unsightly. There are no more than a hundred people in a team, and about a thousand people in a battalion.
However, Li Zaiyuan is still very easy to be satisfied. Of course, you can also say that he is very pragmatic, otherwise he would not choose to marry a second-hand woman in an environment where all his colleagues put up their trousers and refused to recognize anyone.
Because he completely took a fancy to the young lady of the Liu family whose ancestors were captives of the Talas. She was hard-working, down-to-earth, and quite capable of living a good life. If she married her, her family would definitely be prosperous.
He is also one of the few people who carefully saves every bounty after the king releases it.
Unlike Man Xiong and Wang Tongtong, they didn't save a single copper coin and still owed a lot of debt.
Li Zaiyuan gently sucked his mouth. With a copper coin in his mouth, he couldn't hold back his saliva.
The hooves of the horses around him were also wrapped in a thick layer of cotton, and the sounds of people and horses were kept to a minimum.
In the silence of the early morning, Li Zaiyuan walked around for more than an hour, because it was already dark.
"Take one! Eat cakes and drink water. If anyone dares to make any other sound, I will knock his mouth out!"
When he saw a pile of stones piled up at the fork in the road ahead, with a red strip of cloth pressed under the stones, the team leader who was walking at the front was giving the order.
A team leader dared to issue an order for the entire army to stop and eat and drink water at such a time. This was precisely the result of Zhang Zhao's efforts to implement military democracy in the army.
In his army, even the most junior officers, such as captains, can exert their subjective initiative to a certain extent without worrying about being beaten or retaliated by their superiors.
"You idiot! Why did everyone stop?" As soon as the team stopped, the battalion soldier Shanzhuer quickly walked to the front to see the situation.
"Soldiers and Horses, the people from Youyidu put the sign in front!"
Li Zaiyuan pointed forward, and Shan Zhuer also saw the stone pile on the ground. This was a mark set before departure. Seeing this kind of stone pile meant that we were about ten miles away from the enemy's camp.
"Is it so fast? We traveled twenty miles in just over an hour?"
The mountain pigs, who were the camp soldiers and horsemen, were all shocked. They were not walking empty-handed, but they were marching in the cold wind in the dark night with swords, guns and crossbows on their backs, and they were actually able to walk so fast.
Li Zaiyuan took a sip of water and finished a pancake. After waiting for a while, the team wearing cotton armor and other iron armor came to the front.
Most of these people look like Persians and Uighurs, and they were selected from the left and right armies of Shunyi.
However, they are not the vanguards of this raid, but are the tool men of the vanguards. Their biggest role is to transport armor to elites like Li Zaiyuan.
It was very inconvenient to set off in the early morning, as one could not ride a horse, nor could one person control three horses. Therefore, except for each person holding a horse, the other horses were behind, and the movement would only take place after dawn with a small number of logistics troops.
So in order to ensure the elite combat effectiveness, armor weighing dozens of kilograms can only be transported by people.
The two thousand soldiers marching in armor have already exhausted their physical strength by now. They can take off their armor and take a good rest before setting off again when the fight begins, as the second echelon to fight downwind.
"Your Majesty, the enemy camp is still undefended. There are only a few sentries within five miles, and they are all open sentries, and they have all been dealt with!"
Ma Shacai gasped and said, this time he brought dozens of elite Youyi troops as the frontline sentinels of the army.
"Then according to the established plan, we will start from the two ends and drive the enemy to the main camp in the center.
Li Ruotai, lead your 600 armored cavalry and be ready. Once the enemy has gathered at the main camp and the cavalry archers and heavy infantry have demolished the roadblock, I want you to use all your strength to break through it at once! As long as you can break in, this battle will be a success.
You’ll win for sure!”
Li Ruotai nodded, then stepped in and saluted, "Here! Don't worry, Your Majesty, the iron horse will complete the mission."
.....
The main camp of the Palihar Army was set up by a big river. Just as Zhang Zhao suspected, the soldiers below also thought that the Kshatriya master and the king above must be seriously ill, otherwise they would not have thought of setting up a stronghold here.
of.
It's early spring and February, and the weather is still very cold, and the humidity near the river is especially heavy. Often, even after sleeping for an hour, the water mist can soak through my clothes.
Moreover, with more than 60,000 troops gathered here, not to mention the firewood for drying clothes and heating, there is not even much firewood for cooking.
Yesterday, a unit that went out to collect firewood did not come back. It was said that it was attacked, which caused panic in the camp.
Slender Pig is such a frightened and dissatisfied person. He was originally a fisherman on the riverside, but as a Sudra, his life was still pretty good.
Slender Pig is not his name, but his nickname, and Slender Pig does not refer to a pig, but to a giant catfish that grows in the Ganges River - the Tankard.
It is not a good thing for a Sudra to get such a nickname, because the skin of tank platypus is black and yellow.
As a mixed descendant of Aryans and Dravidians, if the skin color of his descendants continues to darken, they may become Dalits at some point.
And precisely because of his dark skin, he could not escape from being drafted again and again. Not only did the Kshatriya masters above him look down on Sudras with dark and yellow skin like him, but the lighter Sudras also often ostracized them.
"Damn it! I eat peas and wild vegetables every day without adding any salt, and I don't get any rewards for grabbing good things."
The slender pig was awakened by the need to urinate. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and began to murmur.
In the original battle against the Polo Dynasty, if the victory was achieved, the people above would make a huge profit, and they, the lower-level soldiers, would always get three melons and two dates.
But this time, in order to win over the nobles and monasteries of the Polo Dynasty, Krisila II did not carry out large-scale plundering, and of course there was nothing to distribute to the people below.
"What is that? How can it move? It's quite fast!" A Sudra spearman who was sleeping in the same earthen nest as the slender pig poked his shoulder and asked in a low voice.
At this time, most of the people at the bottom suffered from night blindness due to nutritional problems and lack of vitamin A. This was the case with the spearmen who stabbed the slender pig arms.
Under the dim moonlight at five o'clock in the morning, he couldn't see clearly what was in the distance, but he could feel something approaching flickeringly.
This guy has night blindness, but the slender pig doesn’t!
He was a fisherman who grew up by the river. Although many things were not allowed to be eaten according to the teachings, the people down there often couldn't fill their stomachs. Who cares? They ate whatever they found. At most, they ate in hiding.
Because the slender pig eats a lot of fish offal and many people don't eat big catfish, its nutrition is much better than that of ordinary people, and it doesn't suffer from night blindness or anything like that.
But as soon as he raised his head, a cold feeling suddenly hit him, because the slender pig saw what was approaching quickly. It was some unsheathed long swords and spear heads, reflecting the light of the torches.
The slender pig wanted to roar loudly, but the huge fear completely overwhelmed him. His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn't make a sound. His legs became even stiffer and were stuck in place like nails, unable to move at all.
‘Boom!’ Li Zaiyuan sent his right hand, and an arrow flew across like a meteor, and then accurately hit the frightened guy.
The slender pig made several clicks in its throat and staggered down to the river bank. In the end, he didn't even utter a scream.
Li Zaiyuan's arrow seemed to be a signal from the general public, and countless soldiers wearing cotton armor suddenly poured out of the darkness.
Twos and threes were unable to bear the cold, and the Balihar troops who stood up and turned around or released water kept falling down, and the screams began to increase.
There was a commotion in the camp. Some people were still sleeping, but others were awakened by screams.
Many soldiers of the Balihar Dynasty ran out of the tent where they slept, but as soon as they went out, they found that the enemy soldiers wearing blue and black armor had already reached them.
The smarter ones were howling and running around, and the stupid ones who were still rubbing their eyes were stabbed to death. The howls and screams were superimposed, and the sound became louder and louder, causing chaos in the entire military camp.
There are people running around everywhere, many of them are naked. They don't know what's going on. Many don't know why they are running. Because they don't see the enemy.
But the collective panic and howling infected them. The howling of one or two people soon developed into the howling of dozens or hundreds of people.
The first wave of attacking heavy infantry opened the wooden fence outside the military camp, and the horse archers holding pear-shaped spears rushed in.
While throwing the tung oil cans on their backs around, they used pear blossom guns to set them on fire. Especially the warehouse where grain and grass were stored suddenly burst into flames.
The raid was launched simultaneously on both sides of the Balihar army camp. Heavy infantry lined up in horizontal rows armed with long spears and bows. They would shoot those who picked up weapons and wanted to resist, and stab those who were running around.
A team of them formed a basic unit, fast advancers, and set fire to the enemy as they advanced, continuing to cause chaos.
The horse archers who had already charged were even more hateful. They ran around, and when they encountered a tent, they inserted their pear spears into the tents and sprayed them randomly, scaring the soldiers of the Balihar Dynasty who had just woken up from their sleep. They were even more frightened.
Running around.
However, in just a quarter of an hour, chaos quickly spread everywhere. These low-level soldiers were very dissatisfied with this battle because they received nothing and their treatment was extremely poor.
Although the Balihar Dynasty was a big country in the Tianzhu region, it was still somewhat unable to organize an army of 60,000 to 70,000 people at one time. The supply of military supplies was insufficient.
Coupled with the extreme corruption and inequality caused by the caste system, the people at the bottom have accumulated too much resentment.
Many of them even wished that the king would be defeated so that they would not have to continue fighting on the land of the Baltic Dynasty and could return to their hometown.
With this kind of inner encouragement, countless soldiers of the Balihar Dynasty took the initiative to add fuel to the chaos.
They howled exaggeratedly. If they saw one Ju'er Khan soldier, they would say there were a hundred.
If they fall down and get injured while running around, they will say that they were stabbed by the enemy. The enemy will kill anyone they see and is unstoppable.
Soon, the Long Snake Formation military camp by the river was in complete chaos. There were blazing fires everywhere, and there were cries and screams everywhere. Each military camp was like a lit lantern, and the entire riverside was lit up.
All the soldiers of the Balihar Dynasty ran towards the main camp of the Chinese army with different moods.
Some people are simply afraid that the Chinese army's main camp is safe, some people really want to seek command to resist the enemy, and some people just blindly follow everyone.
The flames of war burned towards the central army of the third prince of Balihar.
