Chapter 958 The Northern Liao Emperor escaped early
Expectations are beautiful, but reality is cruel.
Because the Emperor of Northern Liao and his elite troops were missing, all the generals in Northern Liao were uneasy when they went to battle.
The battle must be fought, and everyone knows that if you don't fight, you will die. The reason why they are uneasy is that they are waiting for their emperor to lead the elite to fight from behind the Song Dynasty's Northwest Army and the Yunzhou Army, thus providing support for the Liao army.
Open the passage to the north.
As for the so-called victory of this battle, few people really have confidence. They only hope that their Emperor can really strategize and find a way out for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Daliao.
Now we are surrounded...
The combat contact between the two sides first started from the front, that is, the Chinese army. However, as soon as the battle began, they were completely suppressed by the Song Dynasty.
Bei Liao organized a hasty counterattack. They were originally planning to launch another fire-horse formation attack against the Song Dynasty today. It was not an offensive war, let alone a defensive war.
The hastily organized cavalry had no tactics at all except for its original organization.
It’s not that Xiao Huan wasn’t a famous general, or that Beiliao’s cavalry didn’t listen to orders, but the time was too short and didn’t give them enough time to deploy.
The war started in the Mao period of the Song Dynasty. At that time, Xiao Huan was still preparing for today's fire horse formation...
When the troops of the Song Dynasty had advanced less than 50 miles to the central army of the Northern Liao Dynasty, the Northern Liao army dispatched troops in full force.
Therefore, when the battle began, Bei Liao was already at a disadvantage. Moreover, the two wings of the Song army also surrounded Bei Liao's central army at the same time. The same three services, chariots, muskets, and cavalry, advanced in a coordinated manner.
In other words, the entire war was premeditated by the Song State...
"Will Your Majesty really launch an attack from behind the Song Dynasty's North Road army?"
"Obviously, it is impossible for the Song Dynasty to launch a general offensive without finding out whether there is an ambush behind it."
"The Yunzhou Army came from the northwest of the Song Dynasty. If Your Majesty led the elite troops north to block the attack, or deployed a bypass attack, how could he not encounter them?"
"If you want to avoid the Northern Route Army of the Song Dynasty and complete the final attack from behind, you must be at least fifty miles away from the Northern Route Army of the Song Dynasty... Everyone knows that the Song Dynasty's current scouts are deployed fifty miles away...
······”
"If the elite troops led by His Majesty attack from behind when the Northern Route Army of the Song Dynasty launches an encirclement and suppression campaign, it will take at least two hours, right? Hold on for another two hours and see."
Many questions rose and fell in the hearts of the generals throughout Bei Liao. Seeing that their defense lines were penetrated by the Song army's artillery fire time and time again...it was so confusing!
Xiao Yan is also waiting for His Majesty to launch an attack from behind the Song State North Road army... He feels that Your Majesty will not really abandon the army and run away...
Wait...According to the intelligence your Majesty said at the time, the Northern Route Army of the Song Dynasty should arrive at the front line in two days at the earliest...
It's over! Your Majesty lied to everyone. On the pretext that the Northern Route Army of the Song Dynasty was a new force, he borrowed donkeys from the slope and left with his elite. Before leaving, he also plundered some of the war horses from various tribes...
My Majesty, this is your Liao, and they are all your generals. Are you like this?
Xiao Huan also figured it out.
Your Majesty did this to allow them, the nearly 200,000-strong army, to resist the attack of the Song State, thus delaying the progress of the Song Army's northward march, so that Your Majesty could calmly evacuate from Nanjing's Xijin Prefecture...
···
And they, including His Majesty, were completely abandoned.
What your Majesty took away were the only elite palace guards left in the Liao Dynasty. And these people who stayed in Nanjing Road were all so-called string-controllers...
In other words, His Majesty has completely given up on Yan Yun.
When disaster strikes, we all fly away.
Even if Xiao Ao was not in the army, he was also close to him.
"The crisis in the north. Nearly 200,000 troops are moving south. I'm afraid they won't be able to resist His Majesty's attack from behind. You will build three more lines of defense. I will go north in person to join Your Majesty..."
Xiao Huan also left. If he didn't leave, it would be too late.
On the current battlefield, the outcome seems to be doomed.
The Song Dynasty not only had an advantage in equipment, but also had an advantage in military strength.
Originally there were 200,000 troops in Hebei Province, and the total army in Hedong Province and Northwest Province was almost 500,000 to 600,000.
The Liao Dynasty's 500,000 men may be able to confront the Song Dynasty's 200,000 troops, but with the same military strength, the Liao Dynasty now has no power to fight back in front of the Song Dynasty...
The king's flag of Northern Liao fell?
The soldiers who were in combat may not be able to see it, but the ministers and ministers of the Chinese army who were standing on the chariots, following the army and looking out with clairvoyance to observe the battle situation, could see it.
"Guan Jia, the emperor's flag of Bei Liao is gone!"
Zhao Xi did not watch the battle scene... the scene where cold weapons faced hot weapons. He could not say that he had seen it in later generations, but he had seen many descriptions.
Besides, even if the Song Dynasty could crush the Northern Liao Dynasty, people would still die in large numbers. That feeling is not good...
There were loud killing cries on the battlefield, as well as the overlapping explosions of gunpowder bombs. But Zhang Dun howled and shouted, "The flag of the King of Northern Liao is gone," and Zhao Xi still heard it.
The Emperor of Northern Liao escaped? This is the only possibility.
"Inform the Northern Route Army and send 50,000 cavalry to the east, setting up a battlefield as much as possible in Xijin Prefecture, and striving to complete the interception of the Northern Liao Emperor!"
"In addition, let the entire army shout to Bei Liao and tell the Emperor of Bei Liao to run away!"
It cannot be said that Zhao Xi's arrangement was wrong. He also knew that it was impossible to form an airtight encirclement on the vast plains of Hebei Province.
In the northwest, the Yunzhou Army only has 200,000 troops at full strength, which cannot be compared with the South Road Army here in Hebei Province.
The southern route is the result of continuous troop reinforcement planning in the past two years. The number of chariots and cavalry has almost reached the same level. However, the northern route does not work. The 200,000-strong army still attacks long distances and is mainly based on cavalry. It is difficult to
Forming a seamless encirclement.
Doing this can be regarded as being prepared, and there may be the possibility of intercepting the Northern Liao Emperor...
The King's Flag is indeed gone. The Song Army's shouting made the soldiers of Northern Liao pay attention to the Chinese Army. The result is: the King's Flag is indeed gone. In other words, His Majesty has withdrawn from the battlefield.
The battlefield was already showing signs of being one-sided, but the disappearance of the King's Flag completely deprived the soldiers of Bei Liao of morale to continue fighting.
At this moment, the outcome is basically determined.
Perhaps the soldiers at the bottom were still hesitant, but the generals and tribal leaders at the top of the Northern Liao court understood it in an instant.
Your Majesty not only escaped, he also escaped three days ago...
As long as they are leaders and generals, they have not left themselves a way out. They seem to be preparing for failure in this battle. They probably did not expect that the defeat would be so miserable...
Therefore, when the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Song Dynasty, on this battlefield with a radius of several hundred miles, all shouted that the Northern Liao Emperor had fled, it was not only the lower-level cavalry of the Northern Liao that lost their morale, but also all parties
The leaders of the forces, as well as the generals with some status.
Some generals would send scouts to the Chinese army to verify it, while some generals believed it directly.
This is Xiao Huan's point. After confirming that His Majesty has left the battlefield, when he led his guards to break through, he asked the guards of the Chinese army to withdraw the King's flag... His Majesty abandoned Yan Yun, and the soldiers
There is no need to continue fighting for Yan Yun of Daliao.
In short, after everyone was sure that His Majesty the Emperor of Daliao had retreated, the battlefield was deserted... because the Northern Liao cavalry, who were still fighting bravely, could no longer find their superior officers...
In fact, the chaos in this battle in the Northern Liao Dynasty started at Mao o'clock today, or in other words, it was already doomed when Yelu Hongji personally led his elite to escape three days ago.
Still in the Gaoliang River area, after more than a hundred years, history repeated itself, but the winners and losers were swapped...
As a result, pursuit battles began in the area of Nanjing Road in the Northern Liao Dynasty, north of Hebei Road in the Song Dynasty, and throughout the entire territory of Hebei in later generations...
"Guan Jia, there is no decent defense in Bei Liao anymore. The army is advancing now... No, or marching is more suitable."
Zhang Dun was still watching the battlefield with his clairvoyance. The central army was like this, and presumably the two wings should be like this too. If there was really a war, it was probably the northern route army that was doing more.
As for large-scale battles, based on the current morale of the Bei Liao army, even the Northern Route Army cannot encounter resistance of more than a certain intensity from the Bei Liao... Bei Liao has no morale.
"Guan family, maybe the army can capture Xijin Mansion today!"
Zhang Dun was very excited, or perhaps everyone in the Zhongjun palace was excited, even the clerks who kept delivering documents were walking briskly.
Recovering Yanyun has been the obsession of the Song Dynasty since the founding of the Song Dynasty. One can imagine what kind of reward the court will give to the victory of recovering Yanyun this time.
Anyone who participates in this battle will receive corresponding rewards...
"Let all the cavalry go out and let them fight freely. Now it's a pursuit battle, and the chariot soldiers and musketeers still can't keep up..."
The cavalry team had long been suppressing their energy. Seeing the deserters from Beiliao, they could not leave the coordinated fighting team and could only advance in sync with the chariot soldiers.
At this time, the officials ordered the cavalry to attack. Just like Doumen was released, the cavalry teams, auxiliary cavalry teams, and later recruited cavalry teams from all armies all rushed out...
The chariot soldiers, who were originally the main force of the battle, now became the ones cleaning the battlefield...Continue to carry out the march style, both wings and the central army, all marched towards the Jinfu of Beiliao...
After more than a hundred years, the scenes are so similar. Unfortunately, it was the Emperor of Northern Liao who escaped first.
The so-called large-scale encirclement is completely unnecessary. In fact, deploying encirclement and suppression on the entire Hebei Plain cannot be accomplished by these hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
I remember that one of the three major battles in later generations was also on this land. At the time, the two sides had nearly two million troops. They only achieved a sweep, not a total annihilation. They only achieved total annihilation on specific battlefields. Compared with such a large battle,
In this current era, with the current equipment installed, total annihilation is not possible.
However, the effective annihilation of Beiliao's active forces planned before the war should have been completed.
At this time, the four armies of the Song Dynasty no longer moved closer to the middle route, and were no longer needed. At the moment of the defeat of Bei Liao, the palace account had already ordered that the armies of each route, based on the original strategic objectives, move towards
Heading north······
Zhe Kexing attacked Zhuozhou, Zhou Dong attacked Miaoyin, Wang Shunchen attacked Anci, Gao Jingting led the Yuzhou army to attack Liangxiang, Zhe Keshi led the Yunzhou army to attack Gaohe, Zhongyi defended Juyongguan, and swept the entire Fenghua and Guihua prefectures.
Ruzhou, Cao Lin went north to Tanzhou...
According to the established strategy, after defeating the defense line of Bei Liao, various armies will separately sweep the cities around Xijin Prefecture in Bei Liao to ensure that all surrounding cities are returned to the Central Army, that is, the central part of Zhongjian, before attacking Xijin Prefecture.
The Song Dynasty occupied it.
At the same time, this kind of deployment can minimize the possibility of the Northern Liao Emperor and the nobles from all parties escaping, or cut off their escape routes to the greatest extent.
As a result, the entire Nanjing Road in Bei Liao became a battlefield...
Zhang Dun also gave up watching the battle, because looking around the Central Army, there was no fighting at all. At this time, the Central Army turned into a pure march.
The ministers and servants in the palace tent asked the soldiers to open the compartments of the chariots, and they were all talking about the scenery of the Nanjing Road in the Northern Liao Dynasty... There was really nothing to do.
Even those who had been envoys to Bei Liao were recalling the road they had walked...
At this time, Zhao Xi fell asleep in his carriage. He had not had a peaceful sleep in two months.
The army shifted from offense to defense in order to wait for the shortage of supplies in Northern Liao and the panic of the people, to wait for troops to be sent from the northwest, and to wait for the Yunzhou army to cross Juyong Pass... From then on, the Song Dynasty had some problems in the war situation.
Passive.
Bei Liao used the Crazy Horse Formation to attack. The ministers and ministers suggested that the Chinese army retreat from the palace tents. Zhao Xi carried it forcefully. In fact, at that time, he was not sure that he would be able to carry the Bei Liao Crazy Horse Formation.
attack.
If it had not wanted to eliminate as many effective forces as possible in the Northern Liao Dynasty, the Song Dynasty could have used artillery fire to open the way and advance directly as it did today.
Fortunately, there were no surprises in the result, and the expected goal was finally achieved.
At this moment, Zhao Xi felt at ease. He originally wanted to take a rest, but ended up falling asleep.
Wang Zhongzheng was leaning against the door... He really felt sorry for the official family.
"Report·······"
Wang Zhongzheng stabbed the messenger to death, and the officials slept for more than an hour.
This is a battlefield, and Wang Zhongzheng does not dare to stop the messengers...
"Officials, the vanguard has arrived at Xijin Mansion. A report came from the vanguard camp. The gate of Xijin Mansion is wide open. The fortifications on the city wall are still there, but there are no soldiers."
"The scouts in front of the Qianfeng camp entered the city to find out that there were no Beiliao officials left in the entire Xijin Mansion, and the prisons were empty..."
When Zhao Xi arrived at the palace tent, Wang Anshi excitedly stated the report from the forward camp. But Zhao Xi was not happy at all.
"Everyone, I'm afraid Yelu Hongji escaped before our army launched a general attack!"
Although he is not sure, Zhao Xi is 60-70% certain that this will be the result. Otherwise, it is impossible for Yelu Hongji not to arrange guards for the Xijin Mansion, and it is impossible for him to give up the Xijin Mansion just like this...