The Tiger Battalion, Tornado Battalion, Steel Knife Battalion, and Iron Spear Battalion responsible for this troop dispatch have been preparing intensively for war these days. The Far East Army, both inside and outside the army, and civil and military officials are all excited.
Fanyang County, Shanggu County and Donglai County are still too small, and the civil and military officials under Wang Junlin still feel that they are not enough.
These days, no one who is an official does not want to make contributions, and this is especially true in the Far East Army where merit speaks for itself.
Nowadays, among the civil and military officials of the Far Eastern Army, there are many fierce generals, many capable ministers, and even more ambitious ones.
If so many people do not conquer the world, where will they get the credit? Therefore, everyone is waiting for this day to happen, waiting for Wang Junlin to issue the final order to send troops.
But in fact, only a few people knew that the strategic deployment of sending troops had already been completed. Even the commanders of each battalion and a few people such as Du Ruhui, Liu Ziming, Shen Guoer, etc. already knew when to send troops.
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On October 17, the eleventh year of Daye, under the expectation of the civil and military officials of the Far Eastern Army, the fourth battalion of the Far Eastern Army marched towards the target with four lines of soldiers and horses.
Boling County still belongs to the imperial court in name, but in fact it has been controlled by the Cui family of Boling. Even the three groups of rebels who occupied the three counties of Boling County were actually secretly supported and even supported by the Cui family.
Yuchi Jingde led the 40,000 men of the Tiger Battalion to rely on various sharp siege weapons to defeat five counties in Boling County within seven days. In one of the counties, people from the Military Intelligence Bureau incited the people in the city to riot and gathered a small number of masters. In the chaos, the city gate was opened directly from the inside when the Tiger Battalion troops came to the city.
Cui saw that the Far Eastern Army was attacking the city sharply, especially with the presence of gunpowder weapons. The ordinary city could not be defended at all, so she gathered 70,000 soldiers and horses to fight in the field outside the county city. 70,000 vs. 40,000 field battles. Once the fierce battle began, This surprised Cui, who had expected to at least be able to block the Far Eastern Army's offensive, and made her feel cold.
Cui's 70,000 soldiers and horses are composed of 30,000 county soldiers and 40,000 Cui's private soldiers. With the support of huge financial resources, everyone has armor, and the weapons and equipment are extremely sophisticated, even better than the soldiers of the Sui Dynasty. In addition, the generals who are skilled in military affairs have been strict in training. They have suppressed many bandits in the past two years and have no shortage of practical combat experience.
Therefore, these 70,000 soldiers and horses have always been the Cui family's support. In their opinion, they are at least comparable to the imperial soldiers.
However, after the battle, they discovered that the gap between their own support and that of the Far Eastern Army was so huge.
It's not that the individual combat effectiveness of Cui's army is much worse than that of the Far East Army. The main reason is that the Tiger Camp no longer wears iron armor, but instead wears steel plate armor, and the iron weapons in their hands have also turned into steel knives. gun.
The defense value of armor and the sharpness of weapons have been greatly improved, which directly greatly improved the combat effectiveness of every soldier of the Far Eastern Army.
Cui's army still has the same armor and weapons as before. Although it is better equipped than ordinary county soldiers and rebels, and everyone has iron armor. But when compared with the Far Eastern Army, the gap widens.
However, Cui's side relied on 30,000 more troops, and the two sides had an uneventful fight at first. However, when the Far Eastern Army used trebuchets to fire powder packets at their rear, twenty more were suddenly launched. After carrying a hundred rounds of crossbows and throwing hundreds of grenades, Cui's more than 4,000 people fell in an instant, and a rout followed.
Sure enough, not long after, Cui's army was defeated, leaving nearly 20,000 corpses behind, and retreated to Boling County to shrink its troops.
To be honest, the army carefully built by Cui can be regarded as an elite soldier, and they fought with more and fewer, but they were defeated so easily by a legion of the Far Eastern Army. Of course, among them were the Far Eastern Army's excellent equipment and sharp weapons.
reasons, but another reason is that the Far Eastern Army has a too fierce reputation. In addition, the military's morale is unstable and its morale is less than half of its heyday.
When the family members, relatives, and friends of the officers and soldiers on the Cui family became refugees, the Cui family controlled the local government and did not provide relief. Although the Cui family also issued an order to the county and county towns, all family members of the officers and soldiers they belonged to would be released.
Go into the city and provide some rescue. But don’t forget that in addition to family members, a person also has relatives and friends, as well as neighbors and playmates from the same village and hometown.
This affected the military morale of the vast majority of the 70,000 soldiers. How could their morale not be affected, and how could their combat effectiveness be maintained at its peak?
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On October 18, the Tornado Battalion led by Luo Shixin began to attack Hengshan County according to the original battle plan. They also captured all the county towns within a few days, and two county towns surrendered directly. In the end, only the county town remained.
, caught in the tug of war between offense and defense.
The situation in Hengshan County is more complicated than that in Boling County. Two county towns have been occupied by two groups of sizable thieves. The other three county towns and county towns are still barely under the control of the government, and they are not controlled by local aristocratic families.
The county governor and General Ying Yanglang are Yang Guang's confidants.
The Steel Knife Battalion led by Wei Dao'er also attacked Zhao County at the same time. Because the Steel Knife Battalion was formed relatively recently, and the main force was originally rebels from Shanggu County, although the training methods of the Far East Army were followed in the past year,
Although they received intensive training, their combat capabilities were still much lower than those of Tornado Camp and Tiger Camp, so the attack did not go so smoothly. After capturing two counties, they reached a stalemate.
When the Iron Spear Battalion led by Lu Han attacked Xindu County, it was actually the most difficult one to conquer, because Xindu County is mostly covered with high mountains. From the direction of Fanyang County, there is a dangerous pass called Yangshan Pass.
On October 7, Lu Han commanded 40,000 men from the Iron Spear Battalion, and an additional 500 men from the Special Forces Brigade, and marched to Xindu County and marched straight to Yangshanguan Pass.
Yangshan Mountain is extremely dangerous. If you go eastward from here, you can control Fanyang County and Donglai County. If you look southward, you can seize all the land in Shandong, stretching for hundreds of miles.
During the entire battle, Wang Junlin's operational requirements were to minimize losses as much as possible, use more wisdom and less force, never use force if you can use peaceful means, and make full use of the hearts of the people and officials to support the Far East Army.
With their thoughts in mind, the Military Intelligence Bureau secretly contacted the civil and military officials guarding the city to implement a strategy of instigating rebellion and alienating the people.
Therefore, the battle for these four counties is destined to be a combination of fighting and pulling. This is not an absolute conquest. Excessive killing will instead arouse the hatred of the soldiers and civilians of these four counties, which is not conducive to the implementation of the plan.
Of course, Wang Junlin will never be like Yang Guang, who likes to dictate and do everything personally. He wishes he could directly command the specific actions of each team and interfere in the frontline battle, resulting in defeat.
Therefore, he had no specific requirements or instructions for the four-pronged army. Fighter planes were changing rapidly and could not be controlled by Wang Junlin who was hundreds of miles away. Therefore, he had given full authority to the command of each battalion commander, giving frontline commanders full autonomy.