Chapter 1591 What is the Southern Tang barbarian thinking?
The reason why Lu Yu did not launch a fierce attack at the beginning was to avoid putting too much pressure on the Tatars and adopted the tactic of boiling frogs in warm water.
Surrounding them first without attacking them gives the Tatars the illusion that they can hold on.
The purpose of surrounding Sanjueyi was just to give the Tatars the illusion that they could escape at any time.
He has two cavalry corps under his command. The cavalry of these two cavalry corps are all standing cavalry of the Tang Army, with a total strength of more than 25,000 cavalry. Even if the Tatars escape from the west city gate, he will not be able to do it by then.
You can catch up with the cavalry and hold them back, then wait for the main infantry to attack and annihilate them all.
After all, out of the 30,000 to 40,000 Tatars, most of them were infantry and artillery, and their retreat would not be that fast.
But he didn't expect that the Tatars on the opposite side abandoned more than 20,000 infantry and artillery and fled with only their cavalry.
As a result, Lu Yuzhi's idea of encircling and annihilating the enemy forces in Hami City went bankrupt!
However, if the enemy cavalry fled, it would not affect the overall situation anyway. It was just the difference between killing more enemies and less enemies. The most important thing is that they captured Hami City, and then they could rely on Hami City to continue
March westward and enter Turpan.
The core goal of the Western Expeditionary Army is to occupy the Western Region and then send troops forward to Central Asia.
And now, we are still moving firmly towards this goal.
But this incident still alerted Lu Yuzhi that the Tatars on the opposite side were difficult to deal with!
Ulihan ran away with his cavalry, and the more than 20,000 Tatar infantry and artillery composed of various Central Asian ethnic groups under the city of Hami also collapsed without a fight. When anyone saw that their most important cavalry ran away regardless of friendly forces,
, they all don’t have any determination to fight.
Surrendered, fled in rout, and after the more than 20,000 infantry and artillery collapsed, the Western Expeditionary Army of the Tang Dynasty easily entered Hami City. Unfortunately, when they entered the city, Hami City was already in flames.
Before Wulihan retreated, he set fire to Hami City. All the material warehouses were burned to the ground, and even ordinary buildings that could be blown up were blown up.
However, this did not have much impact on the Tang Dynasty's Western Expedition.
Anyway, this place is just a military fortress, and it can be used with just a few repairs.
After capturing Hami City, the Western Expeditionary Army also sent a good news to Jinling City, telling them that Hami City had been successfully captured.
Thanks to the complete railway network, Li Xuan of Jinling City received the good news within a few days.
He was quite satisfied with the performance of the Western Expeditionary Army. It didn't matter how many Tatars were killed. What mattered was that the railway was built to the city of Hami.
Transportation is the key!
Immediately, Li Xuan ordered the imperial study to organize immigration settlements as soon as possible and to immigrate along the railway line. Although the Western Region was desolate, it was possible to immigrate to a certain extent, and relying on the railway, one could advance and retreat independently.
More importantly, only after immigration has passed can we better solve the problem of food and ammunition on the spot.
Although there is a railway, all materials cannot be transported from the rear area by railway.
Compared to Li Xuan who knew the result of the Battle of Hami within a few days, Anda Khan wanted to know the news only after several months.
After all, Hami is too far from Kiev.
To a certain extent, the Tatar army on the Eastern Front fought independently, and Antar Khan had no way to directly control it, but even if he knew it, it didn't matter.
More than ten years ago, Anda Khan knew that the Western Regions and even Central Asia could no longer be defended, so he marched all the way westward into Europe and set the capital of the Jin Kingdom in Kiev in order to avoid the Tang Dynasty.
The edge of the army.
In his opinion, with the Western Region and Central Asia separated in between, it should be safe enough.
The future of Tatars is not in the Western Regions or Central Asia, but in Europe.
As for today's summer offensive in Europe, it is not going well either.
The European barbarians have changed their previous situation of fighting separately. Starting this summer, they began to unite. In particular, the Central European countries formed a coalition. Even the Spanish and Portuguese sent reinforcements to fight in Central Europe.
Although the Tatar army still fought consecutively and conquered large areas, the further west they went, the greater the pressure, and the more various castles they encountered on the way.
Compared with the vast Eastern Europe, Central Asia and other regions, there are bastions almost everywhere in Europe. Such bastions give the Tatars a headache. It is not that they cannot be defeated, but it takes too much time to defeat them, and the casualties are also relatively high.
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On average, it would take the Tatars two to three months to conquer a medium-sized bastion, and they would not be able to defeat a few in a year.
If they were left alone and bypassed, those in the fortresses would come out to attack the Tatar supply lines, which would be extremely troublesome.
More importantly, Anda Khan discovered that these European barbarians were also equipped with a large number of plate armors!
It's not an ordinary plate armor, but a Tang Dynasty plate armor.
Europeans have their own plate armor, but the plate armor of Europeans and the plate armor of the Tang Dynasty are two different things.
Over the years, the Tatars used many methods to collect a lot of Tang Dynasty plate armor and equip their troops, but they were still unable to make them. The cost of making them by hand was also prohibitively high, so they had to give up in the end.
The Tatars themselves couldn't produce so many. Where did these Europeans get so many plate armors?
Finally Anda Khan found out the truth.
These plate armors were sold to them by the Tang Dynasty. They were not bought in sets of two, but sold in thousands!
This discovery made An Dahan particularly depressed!
The world is so big, why are those barbarians from the Southern Tang Dynasty still lingering?
In the past, in Central Asia and other regions, the barbarians of the Southern Tang Dynasty supported the Mughal Dynasty, the Safavid Dynasty and even the Ottoman Empire, and sold them weapons and equipment, which caused the Tatars' attacks in the above-mentioned areas to be quite unsmooth.
Now these Southern Tang barbarians have come to Europe again to support the European barbarians against themselves!
This is simply...
Unreasonable!
I have been hiding from you Southern Tang barbarians all the way from the Hetao area to Kiev. What do you still think? Do you have to kill them all!
Damn it!
So angry!
In anger, Anda Khan ordered to recruit more craftsmen to build various types of ordnance, especially artillery, matchlocks and other firearms. Even if those European barbarians were supported by the barbarians of the Southern Tang Dynasty, he did not believe that these three-legged cats could stop them.
The attack of one's own army.
In addition, Anda Khan also began to change his tactics, forcibly attacking the fortress was not worth the loss. For example, leaving a part of the infantry and artillery troops to surround them first, and then his cavalry army continued to advance into their hinterland, destroying their cities and their villages.
By then, those so-called bastions will be nothing more than rootless duckweeds!
I have to say that Ada Khan’s idea is very practical.
Because there is a very big difference between the Tatar and European armies. Although the Tatars have many infantry and artillery and have good attack capabilities, their core combat strength is cavalry.
It is impossible for cavalry to go and attack fortifications such as bastions!
But now that winter has come, large-scale wars cannot be fought. In the busy season of universities, both sides are locked up, waiting for the arrival of next spring.
At that time, Anda Khan is going to show those European barbarians what modern warfare is!
When Anda Khan was planning next year's Western Expedition and planning to enter Central Europe, Xu Zhenchuan was writing a report in his office on the second floor of the Tang Dynasty's Embassy in Europe in Cadiz, Spain.
This is a report to be sent back to China, mainly reporting on a series of intelligence in the past two months.
The core of which is naturally the war between the Tatars and the European Allied Forces. The so-called European Allied Forces specifically refers to the army with the Austrian Habsburg family as its core.
Combining many principalities and noble territories of the Holy Roman Empire at this time, this is the main force and the most desperate force.
Because they are fighting at home!
The Tatars have already taken over Poland and have reached the Holy Roman Empire. If they don't resist desperately, they will be completely finished.
In addition, France, Spain, and Portugal also sent reinforcements, totaling more than 20,000 people.
The entire European coalition has about 100,000 troops fighting on the front line.
However, these are not all enemies of the Tatars.
In fact, there are several other armies in Europe that are also strong enemies of the Tatars.
Then Sweden in Northern Europe also resisted the Tatars in Finland.
In the Balkans, it was the Ottoman Empire that was fighting against the Tatars, and the Ottoman Empire was much stronger than the Holy Roman Empire. They were resisting the Tatar invasions in both West Asia and Eastern Europe, at least containing them.
He defeated the Tatar army of 70,000 to 80,000 people.
If you turn over the global map, you will find that the Tatars are at war with almost all enemies in Asia and Europe!
The Far East is the Tang Dynasty!
Central Asia was the Mughal Empire.
Western Asia was dominated by the Safavid dynasty.
The Ottoman Empire spanned Western Asia and Southeastern Europe.
The European region is a big mess of European countries.
The above-mentioned countries basically include most of the civilized countries of this era!
The most important thing is that the Tatars have a total population of more than 100, and their strength is only about 100,000. Even if the alien infantry and artillery troops are included, the total strength is actually only about 300,000.
But with such a small number of people, the Tatars occupied a large territory from the Western Regions to Eastern Europe.
The Tatars were able to do this because of their cavalry.
A huge number of cavalry!
These large numbers of cavalry gave the Tatars sufficient strategic initiative, so that in this year's European war, the anti-Tatar forces in all directions suffered varying degrees of losses.
In particular, the European coalition forces in Central Europe lost tens of thousands of people. This situation worried Xu Zhenchuan.
He has already begun to apply for more military assistance. Otherwise, if this continues, Central Europe will not be able to survive for long, and maybe it will be over next year.
It was not only Xu Zhenchuan who saw that the situation was not good, but also the Europeans themselves!
Especially the Spanish and Portuguese, although their lands are far away from the front line, as maritime countries, they are also countries that have had a lot of contact with the Tang Dynasty. They even understand the terror of the Tatars better than the Holy Roman Empire on the front line.
After the news of the frontline's defeat spread to the Western European Peninsula, someone from Spain immediately found Xu Zhenchuan and made a request to purchase a large amount of ordnance and weapons.
Even though they were still far away from the Tatars, they were still very uneasy.