Chapter 574 The First Confrontation
The earth trembled.
On the distant horizon, a Qingqi dressed in black began to accelerate.
At first there were only a few cavalry, then dozens, then hundreds...
The infantry marching in the field suddenly stopped.
The soldiers looked pale and looked at the officers in panic.
Only from this point of view, we can see that they are somewhat organized. If it was a mob, they wouldn't even look at the officers and just run away - at the end of every dynasty, the rebels who started the uprising were at this level.
The officer swallowed dryly. They didn't understand, where had the scout gone? Why didn't anyone come back?
"Form up!" the leading Buqudu shouted, and then the drums sounded and the flags were fired continuously.
After receiving the order, the lower-level officers immediately led their troops and acted under the golden drum banner.
The messengers rushed back and forth, conveying subtle adjustment orders to various places.
The sergeants were thirsty and trembling all over. They piled the only vehicles in the front, and then piled various sundries and even anti-horse guns in other directions.
While working, I watched the cavalry getting closer and closer, and my hands and feet became more and more inoperable.
Among the entire team of more than a thousand people, only the three hundred or so people in the center were relatively calm.
They are from Wuxing County and are part of the Qian family, a local tycoon in Wuxing.
Soldiers have a deep-seated respect for their superiors. Even if their superiors do not retreat, they do not dare to retreat even if they are very frightened.
The equipment in hand is also good. Some people are wearing iron armor and holding long spears. There are also infantry archers and crossbowmen. Judging from the way they work together, it doesn't look like they have not practiced.
Overall, it’s actually OK.
These people are the basis of the Jiangdong regime's separatist rule since Soochow: private soldiers of wealthy families.
After entering the imperial dynasty, Zhang Chang and Shi Bing started a rebellion, and the governors of Jingzhou and Wancheng who suppressed them were all defeated. King Xinye even died in battle. The final pacification was mainly due to them.
A typical example is the Yixing Zhou family, who sent out more than 10,000 private troops every time to put down the rebellion. Zhou Qi even gained the reputation of "Three Destinations in Jiangnan".
Today, the main force of the troops suppressing Du Tao's rebellion is still the powerful tribes in Jiangzhou, Xiangzhou, and Jingzhou, and even barbarian chiefs.
Of course, Sima Rui is also trying to build his own troops. After all, he can't always rely on Jiangnan's wealthy families, right? However, time was still short, and only a few fifteen thousand people were recruited to guard Jianye, so they could not be dispatched easily.
Furthermore, Sima Rui also encountered difficulties in recruiting sergeants...
Most of the population in Jiangnan is in the hands of powerful nobles. There are not no farmers, but they are relatively small, making recruitment difficult. In the end, it was really difficult to find a solution among the refugees from the south and the gentry villagers. Historically, the Beifu soldiers were mainly composed of northern refugees who went south. It was not without reason. You want to recruit locals from the south of the Yangtze River. It’s not easy either.
"Behead those who retreat!" Qian Ci, the commander of the unit, stepped forward quickly, thrust his sword in front of him, and shouted fiercely.
"Those who retreat will be killed!" Qian's tribe, led by the officers, shouted with weapons in hand.
The slightly chaotic soldiers on the front and left gradually stopped commotion and stared at the cavalry that was getting closer and closer.
The tremors on the ground became more and more violent, and the cavalry charged faster and faster.
The infantrymen were a little commotion again.
There's really nothing I can do about it, it's so scary when a tall horse rushes forward, I'm scared to look at it.
Some people have already begun to slip back.
Qian Ci immediately assigned several small officers and asked them to go forward with their men and kill more than ten escaping soldiers on the spot.
The commotion subsided again when the bloody heads were thrown to the ground.
"嘘嘚..." The sound of horse hooves continued.
However, when approaching the enemy's position, the horse's speed slowly slowed down.
The officers skillfully changed their formations. Hundreds of cavalry were divided into two groups within a stone's throw, and each moved to the left and right to outflank the enemy - not frightening the enemy, which shows that the enemy is face to face. If you are not a mob, then take the second step, ride around and shoot.
"Whoosh! Whoosh!" The dense arrows shot through the air and were thrown into the crowd of infantry.
The people on the outermost periphery began to cry for their fathers and mothers and run around.
Qian's tribe killed a dozen more soldiers who were running around. Then the shieldmen stepped forward and the archers took the time to shoot, taking advantage of the range and power to cause damage to the cavalry.
The crossbowman was also clumsily loading the crossbow arrows, but he was too nervous, his hands were shaking, and the loading movement was very slow.
The riders kept screaming and falling off their horses, but the arrows fired by the riding bows also kept killing people.
If the power is not enough, just use quantity.
The five or six hundred horsemen who rushed up were all archers. They kept spinning in circles on their horses, picking up their bows and arrows, and they were as dense as locusts.
At this time, if there were three hundred archers, under the cover of shieldmen, they would have shot these cavalry to death, but it is a pity that they did not...
Be the first to go out The problem is the rear.
This is an encounter after all. The infantry encountered the enemy in a hurry and failed to make complete preparations. The three hundred infantry sent to set up obstacles in the rear were natives of Xuzhou. They had only joined the army for a short period of time and were not as elite as Qian's troops. After being shot twice by the cavalry, they were killed and wounded. .
At the critical moment, more than a hundred cavalry suddenly rushed out from behind the cavalry archers, holding a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, and directly scattered the crumbling Xuzhou infantry.
"Jie Nu!" someone shouted.
But it was too late. The sharp iron sword pierced the belly, and the sharp saber slashed on the neck. Where the blood spurted out, the infantry scattered and fled.
The cavalry seized the opportunity and risked the horse's speed to slow down. They advanced forward and then advanced again, inserting themselves deeply into the enemy infantry and causing a large amount of chaos.
The infantry made noises everywhere, and the originally orderly counterattack formation collapsed instantly.
The crossbowman gave up loading and was at a loss.
The archer turned around and looked back, subconsciously shooting the Jieren cavalry rushing from behind.
But behind them, a denser rain of arrows than before struck quickly, breaking through the interception of the shield hand, getting through the gaps and gaps, knocking down the archers in pieces. It turned out that the Xiongnu and Jie people's light cavalry cruising in the periphery saw their own assault cavalry wedge into the enemy formation from behind, disrupting their rhythm. They immediately boldly approached and shot with better accuracy at a distance of thirty steps. Jiangdong infantry.
Under attack from inside and outside, this group of more than a thousand infantrymen immediately showed signs of defeat.
Liu Hezhu, who was fighting on the outside for more than a hundred steps, decisively invested in his reserve team: three hundred cavalry archers and two hundred close combat cavalry.
The five hundred cavalry raised up smoke and quickly approached the Jiangdong infantry who had fled in a large area. They fired with bows and waved their sabers, easily harvesting lives.
Qian Ci, the governor of the army, led more than a hundred infantrymen and fought their way out of the center of the battlefield where men and horses were intertwined.
They did not flee, because if they fled they would die, but if they fought they would not die.
More than a hundred people formed a formation around the chariot, with shield-bearers on the outside and spearmen and archers on the inside, trying to resist.
No one paid any attention to them.
Liu Hezhu commanded his light cavalry to pursue the defeated troops and eliminate as many of the enemy's effective forces as possible.
Qian Ci and others were so stunned that they could not do anything.
More than a thousand cavalrymen wreaked havoc for a while, and after killing the last Jiangdong infantry still standing on the battlefield, they gathered their formation and looked at Qian Ci and others from a distance.
There was no persuasion to surrender.
A moment later, the horn sounded, and the group of bloodthirsty cannibals circled around Qian Ci and others again.
The circle was relatively large at first, but slowly began to shrink. When the first arrow fell, it meant that the bloody final battle had begun.
It was almost a one-sided massacre.
There were very few Jiangdong infantry archers surrounded in the center, and they only caused casualties to a few dozen riders, who were soon nailed to the ground.
The remaining spearmen and sword and shield wielders had almost no power to fight back.
In desperation, they rushed out of the car formation and launched a desperate charge towards the Jieren cavalry.
It's too late.
The Jie cavalry scattered around and surrounded and fired, quickly extinguishing the last embers.
Liu Hezhu slowly stepped forward and silently looked at the messy battlefield.
For a moment, he regained his confidence.
The tried and tested tactics of riding around and shooting failed once, making him doubt his life. Now it seems that it is still useful.
But he quickly thought of the overwhelming rain of arrows from the Silver Spear Army, damn it!
What kind of brain is there to train every soldier to be an archer, a sword and shield bearer, and a spearman?
A troop whose members are all capable of archery and close combat is simply the nemesis of light cavalry like them.
Actually, the Jiangdong Infantry Army encountered today is not too bad.
At least, when Shi Le first arrived in Yecheng, his soldiers were only at this level, as Liu Hezhu saw with his own eyes.
But these Wu people were not equipped with a large number of archers and crossbowmen. This was their mistake, or it may be that they did not react. After all, there are rarely such large-scale cavalry charges in Jiangnan.
A desolate song sounded on the battlefield.
The light cavalry have dismounted and buried the bodies of both parties on the spot.
Amidst the singing, the rivers and lakes in the south are faintly visible.
There is Xiapi, a city surrounded by water.
Outside Xiapi City, there are many naval officers and warships. That is not their home field.
"Report Xi Shuai's victory and kill 1,230 people under Qian Ci, the pioneer general of Zu Ti." Liu Hezhu ordered.
The civil servants accompanying the army spread out their pen and paper and began to write a victory report.
The ancients said that "a boat in the south and a horse in the north" is true.
There is also the saying "use one's own strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses".
The first confrontation between the two major military and political groups, Shao Xun and Sima Rui, ended twenty miles northeast of Xiapi.
After the victorious party cleaned up the battlefield, they left in a hurry.
The losing side arrived near the battlefield by boat in the evening. After sending people to search, they finally determined the location and results of the battlefield.
The frontline commanders Xi Jian and Zu Ti of both sides flew to Xuchang and Jianye as quickly as possible.
In the next few days, there was calm between the two sides. Each side reduced its troops, trying to find out the other side's deployment and how to avoid fighting in the opponent's advantageous situation.
Xi Jian tried to use the relatively good field combat capabilities of cavalry and infantry to defeat Zu Ti's main force in one fell swoop.
Zu Ti tried to take advantage of Xiapi's terrain surrounded by water and nearby rivers and lakes to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop.
Plus, he's waiting for another advantage.
On May 18th, the heavy rain came as expected, lasting for several days.
Between Xiapi and Pengcheng, it seems as if the sky has collapsed, and there is a watery land.
At this time, the news also reached Kaocheng via Xuchang.
Shao Xun, who had just met with scholars from all over Yanzhou, opened it and read it immediately.
In addition, he also received another "good news": someone came to look for him because he had not been home for a long time.
(End of this chapter)