With careful planning, Xu Shiji finally led his army out of the most dangerous area. However, he originally brought 50,000 elite troops to attack Xiaohe Mountain Crossing, but now only more than 20,000 defeated troops were left.
They lost more than 10,000 people in front of the two military camps on Xiaohe Road, and lost another 10,000 people during the retreat along the way.
Of course, this includes those who surrendered to the Far Eastern Army and those who were killed by the Far Eastern Army.
Moreover, Xu Shiji knew in his heart that the Wagang Army was distracted at this time. Although the Shuitou River temporarily blocked the Far Eastern Army, it only gave them a chance to breathe. They were still more than a hundred miles away from Fengyang City. The Far Eastern Army's Baoxiong Camp
They are all cavalry, and most of them are infantry. Even if they break their legs, it is difficult to completely distance themselves.
In short, they still need to continue running for their lives.
As long as it is in a state of fleeing, even if the Wagang Army still has the upper hand, it will not become a major threat to the Far East Army in the subsequent battles.
Wang Junlin and Li Jing led about 9,000 cavalry from the Baoxiong Battalion across the Shuitou River. They continued to pursue them with great momentum, and more than an hour later, they caught up with the Wagang Army.
Xu Shiji tried his best to boost the morale of the Wagang Army. He personally led the troops to break up the rear, used his numerical advantage to expand the front line, and at the cost of more than a thousand casualties, temporarily forced back the Storm Bear Battalion cavalry.
Under Xu Shiji's painstaking efforts, the morale of the Wagang Army recovered slightly. Xu Shiji decisively stopped and continued to flee. Instead, he stationed at a passing town fort to confront the Far Eastern Army.
There is still more than eighty miles away from Fengyang City.
There were many such forts in troubled times. They were built by local wealthy families to gather the people to resist bandits and greedy officers and soldiers.
Of course, the Central Plains is now the territory of the Wagang Army, and this fort is in principle under the rule of the Wagang Group.
In fact, this town has always behaved very docilely, and the regular taxes paid to Wagang Group have never been less, making it appear quite wealthy.
This is also the reason why Xu Shiji chose this fort, because it can provide them with adequate supplies of food and grass.
Now, the roles of the two sides have been temporarily reversed, with the Storm Bear Battalion becoming the attacker, and the Wagang Army stationed at the fort.
Xu Shiji hoped to restore morale in this fort called Blackwater Castle, and then use up the Far Eastern Army's troops as much as possible. After all, there were only so many people in the Storm Bear Camp, and he had also seen it these days. Wang Junlin didn't want to let
His own men suffered too many casualties, and he hoped to force the Storm Bear Camp back.
But it is a pity that Wang Junlin will not fight decisively with the Wagang soldiers relying on the strong city at all. He will only take the opportunity to rest and have no intention of attacking Blackwater Castle immediately.
Just when Xu Shiji was a little confused and secretly guessing whether Wang Junlin wanted to mobilize trebuchets and a large number of gunpowder bags, hand grenades and other siege weapons from the rear, strange changes suddenly occurred in the Blackwater Castle.
Soldiers under his command began to die inexplicably.
Some people accidentally fell down while walking on the road and hit their heads on rocks and died.
Some people choked to death after drinking water, and some even died after bumping into the wall without looking at the road.
The most bizarre thing is that nearly a hundred soldiers had nightmares when they went to bed at night, scaring themselves to death.
What made Xu Shiji the most angry was that two generals under his command had a conflict over a beautiful escort who was filial to the people of Blackwater Castle, and the conflict escalated rapidly in a short period of time.
From a quarrel to a quarrel, to two people fighting, to a fight between two people and their soldiers.
More than 300 people were killed in this fire fight. In the end, Xu Shiji personally led his men to behead the two generals on the spot, and killed all the close men of the two men, so that the riot and civil strife were suppressed.
Although no evidence was obtained about the various deaths of his subordinates in a confused manner, Xu Shiji had begun to have doubts about the people in Blackwater Castle. When he was about to kill all the people in Blackwater Castle, he found that he did not know when it started.
Everyone in Blackwater Castle has disappeared.
After Xu Shiji learned the news, his face changed drastically, and he gritted his teeth and said: "The people in Blackwater Castle have surrendered to the enemy..."
A general under his command shouted: "I will lead people to find them now and kill them all."
Xu Shiji shook his head and said, "It's too late. If I'm not mistaken, there are a lot of tunnels in Blackwater Castle, and the enemy is probably expecting us to find them so they can drag us here."
The general under his command looked unwilling and gritted his teeth and said: "Are we just going to let them go like this?"
However, Xu Shiji had a solemn look on his face and said, "I have a hunch that if we don't leave this damn Blackwater Castle, something bad will probably happen."
After a pause, a flash of determination flashed in Xu Shiji's eyes and he said: "Which direction outside the fort has the fewest Far Eastern Army people."
A Wagang general immediately said: "There is no Far Eastern Army stationed in the west."
Xu Shiji was suddenly a little surprised. This black water fortress is not big, and although the number of the Far East Army is not large, eight or nine thousand people can completely surround it on all sides, but now there is one side empty. Is this an encirclement of three and one missing?
Let yourself lead the army to escape?
Although he felt something was wrong, Xu Shiji finally gritted his teeth and issued the order: "Pass the order, evacuate Blackwater Castle immediately."
Xu Shiji suddenly found that he seemed to be trapped in a big net set by Wang Junlin, but this big net could always leave a gap. No one knew what was behind the gap, but the other party forced him to escape to this gap.
go.
Contrary to Xu Shiji's expectation, when he led nearly 20,000 troops to withdraw from the west gate, there was no ambush as he was worried about.
Just when half of the Wagang army had withdrawn from the west gate, there was suddenly an earth-shattering explosion in front of the city gate.
The Wagang Army was blown off from half the waist, and no one knew how many pull-wire mines were buried underground. Nearly 400 people were killed and injured on the spot. The most important thing was that the explosion was too loud.
Zi general Wagang's army was stunned by the explosion.
In this state, the cavalry of the Storm Bear Battalion rushed over from both sides.
There was no longer any suspense in this battle, and the Wagang army was quickly defeated.
But because it was night, Xu Shiji was well prepared and eventually escaped with nearly ten thousand people.
In the battle of Blackwater Castle, Wagang's army lost more than 10,000 people, more than 4,000 of whom died in the battle, and the rest all surrendered.
Li Jing felt a little regretful and unwilling. He knew that Wang Junlin wanted to subdue Xu Shiji, otherwise he would have killed Xu Shiji directly before, leaving the Wagang army without a leader. In this battle, the Wagang army would not be able to escape many people.
Wang Junlin didn't care what Li Jing thought. He ordered Li Jing to continue leading the 8,000 cavalrymen of the Storm Bear Battalion to pursue the direction of Qingzhou, while the remaining few hundred men took more than 8,000 prisoners back to Blackwater Castle and watched closely.
Blackwater Castle itself has more than a thousand warriors. Although it cannot compare with the combat power of the Wagang inner camp, it is not much worse than the troops of the Wagang outer camp. Together with hundreds of troops from the Storm Bear camp, they guard these 8,000 warriors.
Multiple prisoners are nothing.
After the battle at Blackwater Castle, the elite group of Wagang inner battalion led by Xu Shiji was completely out of control. The army had no fighting spirit at all. This is the most likely panic to occur when being pursued. The battle has reached this point.
This is a level that not even Xu Shiji can eliminate.
In ancient times, when the command system was backward, the psychology of soldiers was very easily affected. Even in later generations, when the battle ended at this point, it was extremely dangerous to retreat. If you were not careful, you could collapse thousands of miles away.
Zhang Tiangang, who had disappeared since the battle of Fengyang City's attack and defense, led his thousand powerful subordinates. He was extremely daring. He attacked the nearly 10,000 Wagang troops retreating to Fengyang City along the way and was eager to withdraw.
The Wagang Army had no intention of pursuing this small group of powerful troops, which gave Zhang Tiangang and the others a huge space for movement, and also caused great panic to the soldiers of the Wagang Army.
Li Jing led 8,000 cavalrymen to follow behind the Wagang Army brigade, constantly making an impact posture in units of a thousand cavalry, dragging down the speed of the Wagang Army rearguard. If the main force of the Wagang Army evacuated from the front moved too fast, the rearguard would be beaten.
If it is divided, it will encounter a large-scale cavalry attack. The Cavalry of the Storm Bear Camp is like a tail, following closely behind.
Xu Shiji was well aware of the seriousness of the situation and did not dare to hand over the postponed tasks to his generals. He still led the rearguard personally, controlled the marching speed of the entire army, and prevented the rearguard from being bitten off piece by piece. Even so, the Wagang Army was still pursuing the troops.
Continuous losses under continuous attacks.
Confined by the pursuers, Wagang's army only walked about fifty miles that day, and they had to set up camp at night.
Zhang Tiangang led nearly a hundred masters and gunpowder packs to sneak into the Wagang Army camp for a night attack. This not violent night attack caused a small-scale camp roar of the Wagang Army. More than a thousand soldiers were killed in the chaos. The most important thing is
It was the Wagang Army who didn't rest at all from top to bottom.
At dawn the next day, when the Wagang army was most exhausted, Li Jing led eight thousand cavalrymen of the Storm Bear Battalion to charge into the camp with all their strength. The Wagang army resisted for less than an hour and completely collapsed, and began to flee towards Fengyang City.
This last battle lasted for a whole day. In the end, less than 2,000 Wagang troops fled to Fengyang City. In the next few days, more than 1,000 people fled back intermittently.
At this point, during the entire offensive at Xiaohedao Mountain Pass, only 3,000 of the 50,000 Wagang troops managed to escape. Almost the entire army was wiped out, and almost all the baggage, materials and tents were abandoned.
More than 1,100 cavalrymen of the 10,000-strong Storm Bear Battalion were killed, and more than 200 engineers were killed. More than 700 were injured, of which more than 100 were seriously injured.
Judging from this number, it is natural that the Far East Army won a great victory.
In the offensive and defensive battle of the two military camps at Xiaohe Mountain Pass, which lasted more than 20 days, the 10,000 men of the Baoxiong Battalion faced off against the 50,000 elites of the Wagang Army on their own. In the end, the elite main force of the Wagang Army's inner camp was almost wiped out.
The great victory in this war was of greater significance than the victory at Huangshi Village and the capture of Fengyang City.
Because this battle was personally led by Xu Shiji, the first man in the Wagang Army, and he led 50,000 elite troops from the inner camp.
Their five times the strength could not defeat the 10,000 Far Eastern Army, and they lost so miserably, which was devastating to the confidence and morale of the Wagang Army.
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Lanzhou City.
Li Mi saw that Xu Shiji had only brought back more than 3,000 horses, and his face was so gloomy that he could drop ink. At first, he and Xu Shiji made a plan, asking the latter to take 50,000 elites from the Wagang inner camp to attack Xiaohedao Pass. Within a month,
However, only more than 3,000 troops came back. This result was obviously not what Li Mi wanted to see, and it was even beyond the limit of what he could bear.
What's more, Li Mi knew very well how much of a blow this disastrous defeat led by Xu Shiji had on the Wagang Army.
However, Xu Shiji was the third person in the Wagang Group, and his prestige was only slightly lower than that of him and Zhai Rang. Therefore, although Li Mi was very angry, he still suppressed his anger and comforted Xu Shiji with good words, without any intention of asking for guilt.
, even if he already had doubts in his heart about Xu Shiji's defeat, after all, it was no secret that Wang Junlin wanted to take over Xu Shiji.
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On the plain east of Fengyang City, the brilliance of the sun's disc has dimmed. In the distant sky to the east, the orange and dark purple clouds seem to be within reach of the ground. I don't know if it is because of too much blood or because of the sunset.
It was also stained with a layer of dark red.
Li Jing stretched out his hand to caress the war horse, looking at the Wagang army camp under Fengyang City in the distance, with some unwillingness on his face.
Ever since Xu Shiji led the remnant soldiers to escape back to the Wagang Army camp outside Fengyang City, it had been raining continuously for nearly ten days. Apart from small-scale conflicts and fighting, the two sides had not conducted any large-scale battles.
However, after the Wagang Army failed to successfully attack Fengyang City in the rain under the constraints of Li Jing's 8,000 Storm Bear Battalion cavalry and nearly 1,000 special force soldiers, they stood still.
And under Xu Shiji's suggestion, Li Mi ordered the construction of a large number of vertical and horizontal ravines, horse barriers, pits and other defense fortifications around their camp, making the Wagang camp temporarily indestructible, allowing Li Jing and Li Xuanba in Fengyang City to
, it is very difficult for Li Shanfei to steal the camp.
It has to be said that Xu Shiji's current level of learning and application is very high. This kind of gully and trench defenses was obviously learned from the fortifications in front of the two Far Eastern Army strongholds at Xiaohedao Pass.
Of course, it would not be impossible for the Far Eastern Army to forcefully attack with the powerful gunpowder packs, but it would inevitably cause great damage to itself. Therefore, when Li Jing saw that Wang Junlin was not in a hurry to attack, he did not dare to act rashly. After all, the Far Eastern Army was in Fengyang.
The total number of troops inside and outside the city was only 50,000, and their strength was only one-third of the Wagang army led by Li Mi.
These days, Wang Junlin has completely let Li Jing direct the battle outside the city, and he is just watching from the side.
While Li Jing sent people to find a way to get in touch with Li Xuanba, Li Shanfei and Zhang Tiangang of the special operations brigade in Fengyang City, he was also thinking of ways to deal with the Wagang Army. In the end, he used the old method, cutting off the enemy's food routes first.
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Night, midnight, also known as midnight or midnight, is the first hour among the twelve hours. It is also the time when human sleep is the deepest. One of the three teams of Wagang Army sent from the rear to Fengyang City Camp to transport grain and grass.
A group of ghostly uninvited guests arrived.
It has to be said that even deep in the hinterland of the Wagang Army's territory, the Wagang Army's team escorting the grain and grass was very cautious. There were two layers of sentries on the outside. There were also mobile sentries in the camp. The layout of the camp was also very reasonable.
In the middle, camping tents surround the perimeter.
However, all this is nothing in front of this group of experts from the Far Eastern Army's special operations brigade who are no longer ordinary warriors.
A total of seventy-four sentries in the outer two layers of cordon were silently covered with their mouths and throats cut without making any sound.
In the end, there were only fourteen masters of the special forces team who sneaked into the camp. However, these fourteen people were the fourteen people who were the most outstanding in the special forces team's night walking skills. They all wore special night walking clothes, which would not reflect at all under the moonlight.
Everyone has a backpack with them, which contains key items for completing their mission.
Soon, all the twenty-one mobile sentries died silently. The fourteen people successfully sneaked into the middle of the Wagang Army Food Team camp where the food and grass were piled. They quickly opened their backpacks, took out the fuel packs from inside, and then ordered
They fell on more than a hundred grain and grass carts. Everyone placed a gunpowder bag in a place where the fire could not reach them for a while.
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"Enemy attack!" "Fire."
"It's over. All the food and grass are on fire."
When the fourteen people left quietly and quickly to the edge of the camp, the fire on more than a hundred grain and grass trucks was already very strong, and finally alerted the Wagang Army who was escorting the grain and grass. All the Wagang Army ran out in disheveled clothes and roared.
, some officers shouted to put out the fire, some shouted to kill the enemy. There were also some headless blue wings running around.
However, in general, the Wagang Army responded quickly and brought certain fire-extinguishing tools with them. The generals leading the team were also very organized. Some were on guard at the periphery, but most of them were putting out fires.
However, just as they rushed forward to extinguish the fire, ten gunpowder bags hidden in the grain and grass exploded. This gunpowder bag was the largest model of gunpowder bag produced by the Far Eastern Army in Yancheng, weighing 25 kilograms. You can imagine the explosion.
power.
The final result was that more than 400 to 500 Wagang troops who participated in the firefighting were killed and more than 100 people were injured. Most importantly, more than 100 trucks of grain and grass were burned to ashes.
Almost at the same time, this scene also happened in two other Wagang Army teams transporting grain and grass and a team of baggage.
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Chengyang County is a county in the direction from Fengyang City to Wagang Village. It was originally a granary of the Sui Dynasty.
When the Wagang Army captured this city two years ago, due to the sudden incident and the city gate being opened by insiders, a large amount of grain and grass in the official warehouses in the city had no time to be transferred or destroyed by the officers and soldiers. In the past two years, the Wagang Army has also
Think of this as the location of Granary City.
If the provisions of the Far Eastern Army's combat readiness regulations are followed, the food and grass in the Chengyang County official warehouse can feed 10,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry for a month.
As for the Wagang Army's launch this time, Li Mi has mobilized a large amount of food and grass and stored it here in the past few days. The food and grass are five times more than before, which means that the food and grass here can last for 80,000 troops for a month.
Therefore, this has become the Wagang Army's largest grain and grass supply station besides the Wagangzhai base camp. For the same reason, this is also the number one target of the Far East Army's special operations brigade.
For this reason, Zhang Tiangang personally led a group of elite masters under his command to sneak into Chengyang County.
This grain and grass supply station was extremely tightly protected by three thousand elites of the Wagang Army. There were as many as a hundred sentries roaming at night. In addition, the official warehouses of the Sui Dynasty were extremely solidly built. The doors were all iron doors. Once locked, they were difficult to break.
Open. Even if Zhang Tiangang takes action himself and breaks open the iron gate with a sword, it will definitely alert the guarding Wagang Army, and subsequent destruction will be difficult to proceed.
However, in addition to iron doors, the official warehouse also had iron windows. However, when the official warehouse was designed, people were considered to sneak in. The windows were not only four to five feet high, but also very small. Let alone whether they could climb up. Adult men would
Inaccessible.
However, the special operations brigade had a petite female expert with very good dexterity skills. She carried a large bag of special fuel and used the power of a grappling hook to climb up the window and get in.
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In this way, Zhang Tiangang led the elusive special operations brigade to cut off the Wagang Army's food route.
Today was a rare good day. Wang Junlin, Li Jing, Shen Guoer and others analyzed that due to the impact of Xu Shiji's tragic defeat and the interruption of his retreat and food routes, Li Mi would probably lead his army to withdraw to Wagang Mountain soon.
Li Jing was anxious, so he led the entire army to attack the Wagang Army's camp, regardless of the consumption of gunpowder packs, in an attempt to provoke the Wagang Army to leave the camp and fight in the field.
Sure enough, the Wagang Army was unwilling to be beaten passively. The most important thing was that Li Mi was worried that the Far East Army would have a lot of gunpowder packets. Xu Shiji had the same concerns and had to lead 50,000 troops out of the camp to fight in the field. The remaining people had to guard against the three enemies in Fengyang City. The troops from the Ten Thousand Violent Bear Camp and flying near Wanli Mountain.
In this battle, the Far East Army never engaged in a frontal melee, so it took a full day, using whirlwind tactics like peeling an apple, and a lot of grenades, so that the Wagang Army gradually fell into a disadvantage.
In the end, Xu Shiji led the Wagang army to retreat decisively, slowly and orderly. Because it was very close to the Wagang camp and Xu Shiji personally commanded it, even though most of the 50,000 troops were from the Wagang outer camp, the Wagang army was not defeated. momentum.
The battle was over, and the battlefield was completely silent at this time. Only a small group of troops sent by both sides were working in tacit agreement to retrieve the dead and wounded on their side.
In this battle, the Far East Army only suffered more than 300 casualties, while the Wagang Army suffered more than 4,000 casualties, a death-to-injury ratio of more than ten times.
But even so, Li Jing was still not satisfied.
Because just a few days ago, Wang Junlin had an in-depth discussion with him. According to Wang Junlin, their real enemy in the future will be Taiyuan Li Yuan and his son. To fight against opponents like the Wagang Army, all battles must be based on the premise of completing the combat purpose. The strategic goal must be achieved with as little damage as possible.
Moreover, Wang Junlin particularly emphasized that in field battles, "injuring one thousand enemies and damaging one's own eight hundred" is always a bad idea. Even if the Far Eastern Army has strong combat power and sharp weapons and equipment, it can often achieve a one-to-one victory against the enemy in a head-on confrontation.
In fact, Wang Junlin knew very well that as long as the Far East Army suffered too many losses in the battle with the Wagang Army, Taiyuan Li Yuan and his son, and even the imperial army, might launch troops against the ten counties under his control at any time.
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At the same time, in the Wagang Army camp.
After half a day of hard fighting, Wagang's army suffered more casualties than the Far East Army. In addition, they were defeated again and again these days, especially when Xu Shiji faced the disastrous defeat of the Far East Army, and its strength was five or six times that of the opponent. .
Therefore, from Li Mi and Xu Shiji down, almost all Wagang generals looked very depressed.
The dull atmosphere made the fatigue after the battle even more tiring. Everyone in the Far East Army was a little listless. Many generals were even dissatisfied with Li Mi in their hearts.
Suddenly, there was a loud noise outside the handsome tent. Li Mi was startled and asked: "What's going on? Go and have a look."
One of the soldiers agreed and immediately went to inquire. Li Mi and others sat uneasily in the commander's tent, waiting for a return.
It didn't take long for the soldiers who came to inquire about it to rush over. They rushed to Li Mi's ear almost in a panic and whispered: "Mi Gong, Li Xuanba personally led a small group of people to sneak into the camp in Fengyang City. Burn...burn...part of our camp."
"What did you say?" Li Mi's eyes widened. Hearing the soldier repeat it in a trembling voice, Li Mi's face became extremely ugly.
"It's not a big deal. This bastard Li Xuanba just took advantage of him." Xu Shiji, who had been frowning next to him, glanced sideways at Li Mi and said expressionlessly.
"It's not a big deal!" Li Mi almost roared in his heart, but when he saw Xu Shiji's expression, he felt a chill in his heart. He glanced at the demoralized generals next to him and suppressed the anger and worry in his heart.
However, at this moment, he saw a group of two to three hundred cavalrymen galloping from the direction of Wagangzhai. He guessed that they were probably sent by Zhai Rang, the head of the Wagangzhai base camp, and an unknown feeling suddenly appeared in his heart. Feel.
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ps: The first update of 6,500 words is sent late at night————————