For the upcoming battle, Li Siye began to prepare very early. He led his men for half a year to train the jumping soldiers to fight in charge, strengthen the coordination between sword and shield soldiers and spear soldiers, and also the offensive cooperation of crossbowmen.
.
He also asked the two brigades on the left and right to conduct confrontation exercises. For this purpose, he also spent a sum of money to make a batch of wooden swords and wooden guns to try to prevent the soldiers from being injured in the confrontation.
Another training subject for them was city climbing. The Tang army had hooks and centipede ladders for climbing city walls. These were easy-to-carry night attack siege equipment. Li Siye modified them and used the hooks and centipede ladders.
Combined together. But for the soldiers of the Tang Army who were wearing heavy armor, it was tantamount to increasing the difficulty. It was difficult to throw the anchor claw onto the city wall with arm strength alone.
He tried to combine the anchor hook with the lengthened crossbow arrow, and the first test shot was thrown on the city wall. After continuous modification, the finished product was finally formed.
The recruitment order arrived at Diawuan City not long ago. Li Siye ordered the Huotou Army in the regiment to start making bacon, compressed biscuits and other military rations. He taught him hands-on skills and constantly adjusted the proportions of flour, millet flour, and highland barley flour, and added sugar to them.
and salt; the air-drying technology of cured meat is also being continuously adjusted, and the shelf life of the two types of dry food for combat readiness is gradually lengthened. Unfortunately, he does not have extra time to develop packaging technology, otherwise the shelf life of compressed biscuits and cured meat can be increased to six months.
On the day before departure, the sergeants of the Eighth Regiment each carried a month's supply of dry food, which was also waterproof and insulated, a cowhide water bag for each person, a quilt for each person, and of course 80% of the food.
Everyone has a private horse.
In the early morning of the next day, Ren Chengsi's third regiment set off out of the city first, followed by Li Siye's eighth regiment, and finally Zhao Yuanwei's twelfth regiment. Flags were flying in the middle of the road, and the three regiments slowly headed toward Bodaling.
Go in the direction.
The command center of the Tang Army issued orders. The team is the most basic unit and the smallest flag-granting unit. The team has a flag head dedicated to carrying flags. The team flag is called "旆", which means the flag with a spike on the tail. The color is very light blue.
It is eye-catching and very easy to identify. Each of the left and right brigades has a flag that is slightly longer than the team flag. The flag of the Eighth Regiment has two poles. One is the Chao flag indicating that this is the establishment of a regiment, and the other is the Flying Leopard flag.
The regiment's arms type is Tiaodang.
A regiment of more than 200 people will have eight flags. If it forms an army, if 10,000 people line up on the battlefield, there will be more than 400 flags. When the army marches, aren't the flags covering the sun?
During the march, the distance between the three regiments must not be more than a stone's throw away, and they communicate with each other using semaphores. Moreover, even if a small force sets off, a Tangqi team must be temporarily set up for reconnaissance to constantly explore the enemy situation and terrain ahead.
By the time they led their troops into the city of Dundo, it was already the afternoon of the second day. There was originally a brigade of troops stationed in the city, and the brigade commander personally greeted Chief Paoze who had come from afar.
Dundo City is far inferior to the scale of Diaohua City. There is only one inn, one warehouse, one stable, several granaries, dozens of adobe houses and a city tower.
The three captains and the brigade commander sat on the ground and discussed the issue of garrisoning. Ren Chengsi proposed to station in the city near a city gate, but the garrison commander laughed.
"If I were you, I would not choose to be stationed in the city."
Ren Chengsi, a stupid, black and rough captain, asked without knowing what he was talking about: "Why?"
The brigade commander did not dare to lose his temper in the face of the three officers who were older than him. He only explained patiently: "Think about it, you three captains. In the future, not only your three regiments will be stationed here, but also the left and right Yu."
The Hou army, the left and right Xiang armies, and Gai Zhongcheng's central army will all be stationed here."
There is no need to go on about the rest. Ren Chengsi is really stupid if he doesn’t understand. In the future, Dunduo City will gather a total of more than 12,000 Tang troops. How can a few thousand people be stationed in a small place in the city?
When Gai Jiayun's Chinese army arrives, they will inevitably drive the troops in the city out. By then, the feng shui treasure land outside the city has been occupied by others, and they can only drink the northwest wind at the wind outlet.
Li Siye patted Ren Chengsi on the shoulder and said, "Let's go and occupy a camp outside the city with a leeward side and close to the river."
Dundo City is located at the intersection of the Nalen River and the Bohuan River. Outside the city, there is a triangle formed by the river. There is a beacon fort near the river. Although the three of them do not understand Feng Shui, they can still see the beacon fort.
The pasture in front is a treasure.
Three regiments from Dashi City were already stationed here, but the remaining space was quite spacious, and they also set up camp side by side by the river.
Since the Youyuhou Army and the baggage regiment under their command have not yet arrived, they can only simply set up camp. But setting up camp is a technical job, and the two things that must be done are digging a pit and setting up a felt tent. The location of the pit is very important.
First of all, you need to identify the direction of the monsoon wind. If the wind direction is wrong, the latrine is upwind, but the tent is set up downwind, you will smell the stench carried by the wind all day long, which will affect your mood at best and your morale at worst.
Li Siye sent someone to dig a latrine that was two feet deep and one foot wide, with two horizontal boards erected on top. The sergeants brought their own latrines. In this wilderness, there was not much care, and any dirt or rocks would do. According to his
It is speculated that they will gather here until the end of July. With the amount of manure produced by the entire group of 260 people, the hole should not be filled by then.
Since the direction of the monsoon is north, he chose the location of the latrine on the bank of the river. However, the distance to the river must be controlled to prevent it from polluting the river water. After all, the drinking water problem of more than 10,000 people will depend on it.
It was solved by a river.
Almost everyone in the Eighth Regiment had a private horse, so simple stables had to be built. Many trees were cut down along the Diaohua River, and wooden stakes were nailed to tie the horses to build shed roofs. Don't throw away the rotten tree trunks, you can dig them out.
Split the hollow in half to make a food trough.
Each soldier carries two rolls of sheep felt, one of which is used to build a tent. Each team of fifty people builds a tent. Everyone's sheep felt is tied together with horsetails and overlapped up and down to prevent leakage.
The principle is the same as armor weaving.
They used wooden piles to nail hexagonal pillars on the ground to build the outline. This contains the knowledge of utilizing space. Even bees said that hexagonal houses are the most reasonable in terms of space. After the construction was successful, the whole team turned their heads outward.
Lie down side by side in a circle, with a bonfire in the middle, and the center of the felt tent is ventilated and uncovered. When it rains or snows, as long as one person climbs up the pillar, the panoramic skylight can be blocked with two sheep felts.
It only takes a skilled soldier half an hour to set up the entire team's felt tent. As for him, the captain's felt tent was built jointly by the soldiers, and he slept with the soldiers at night.
At night, there were people who were responsible for keeping watch, keeping watch, and looking out. The soldiers slept side by side with their heads resting on arrow pots. If there was an emergency, they could just take out the horizontal knife on their waist, lift the bottom of the felt tent, and rush out to do the job.
Li Siye stipulated that only half of the people in each team could take off their armor and sleep at night. All sentry and patrol soldiers were rotated by the other half, and the next day they would take turns to take off their armor and sleep. Although this reduced their sleep quality, it effectively prevented attacks.
In the camp, those who did not get enough sleep on the first day could catch up on a full night's sleep the next day. In this way, the sergeants were basically full of energy.
The first night they were stationed outside the city of Dondo came. The captains did not participate in any manual labor. They just rode their horses and shot a few roe deer on the nearby hillside, and gave them to the Huotou Army to cook or grill them. The fattest ones were
Only the captains and brigade commanders were left with that, and the rest of the regiment was divided and eaten.
Li Siye, Ren Chengsi, and Zhao Yuanwei sat around in the felt tent, discussing some war issues, such as in which months the army would be assembled, and when Gai Zhongcheng would choose to kill three animals to sacrifice to heaven and the flag. They needed to be here
How long to wait.
Whenever this happens, Ren Chengsi and Zhao Yuanwei will stare at his mouth, waiting for his insider remarks.
"What do you think I'm doing? I'm not Gai Zhongcheng, how do I know?"
Ren Chengsi and Zhao Yuanwei winked at each other, smiled and said nothing, as if they had all his secrets under control. Li Siye was not guilty, and knew that the two of them might have guessed something else.
Only when the hole breaks through the sky can we guess that he is the possessed Li Siye.
"I know you don't know, but I'm just asking you to predict when the troops might be dispatched?"
"If I were to guess, I would say August or September."
Zhao Yuanwei nodded in realization: "If that's the case, we're inseparable."
They then talked about something else, about Fumeng Lingcha, who led them to the left and right of Yuhou's army. During the chat, they accidentally discovered that the three of them had interacted with General Fumeng. This was not an accident. Li Siye had a vague sense of it.
As the essence of a general, the total number of Yuhou's troops on the left and right is more than 5,000, including twenty-five and six regiments. He selected all captains who he knew and had a certain understanding of. This can be seen from the details.