When Zhao Sen led his men back to the mouth of the canyon, about 70% of the 1,200 soldiers who had broken into the camp and the 200 cavalry that Li Xiaozong had given him were left. The infantry suffered heavy losses, and the cavalry suffered heavy losses. There was no direct confrontation with the enemy and there were almost no casualties. Therefore, when Zhao Sen immediately deployed a defense line at the mouth of the canyon without letting the soldiers rest, some of the idle cavalry suffered contempt that made their consciences uneasy.
"Look!"
An infantryman was arranging his arrow pot and sneered: "The equipment on my body is almost enough to buy a shepherd, but while we are fighting, they are wandering around They all have the same life, and theirs is So precious.¡±
Another soldier covered his mouth and motioned to Zhao Sen, who was looking down over there, to look over here.
"What are you afraid of!"
The soldier who ridiculed the cavalry shrugged his shoulders indifferently: "It's a miracle that I survived after this battle. If I don't say everything I need to say now, wouldn't I be in trouble if I went to hell and had my tongue pulled out?"
He looked at the stab wound on his right arm, frowned and tore off a piece of clothing with a messy hem: "When we left Qingxia, people on horseback were at the front showing off their power, but when we retreated to defend Qingxia, people still ran away. At the front, unscathed, I will naturally be reincarnated in Sui Dynasty in my next life, but I would rather be a horse!"
Cavalry Colonel Zhao Qi¡¯s face was extremely ugly, and the sarcastic words from the infantrymen were like a knife piercing his heart. Like all the cavalrymen of the Sui Dynasty, he was filled with pride from the moment he was assigned his own war horse. Precisely because of the scarcity of war horses, not just any soldier can become a cavalryman. They are all very skilled and tall and strong. Their food, clothing and clothing are better than those of the infantry. Even their pay is twice that of the infantry.
They indeed put in more sweat than the infantry. They were practicing when the infantry was practicing, and they were still practicing when the infantry was resting. Regardless of the wind, rain, cold or heat, these cavalrymen kept working hard for their dream of defeating the Meng Yuan Qingqi. However when they arrived on the battlefield, he found that the arrogant cavalry he brought with him turned out to be the most useless. people.
He didn¡¯t resent the ridicule of those infantrymen, he didn¡¯t even resent the enemy.
The hand holding Ma Shan's hand was trembling slightly, and there was a fire burning in Zhao Qi's eyes.
"Colonel Captain!"
A cavalryman couldn't stand the white eyes and sarcasm of the infantry. He looked into Zhao Qi's eyes and asked loudly: "Are we just going to watch Pao Ze fight to the death? Can we just stand by and watch as we keep practicing in the wind and rain?"
"Shut up!"
Zhao Qi bit his lip and said: "We are cavalry, but first of all we are soldiers. Soldiers must obey military orders. If the general's order is not issued, you all will just wait for me!"
"But¡¡"
"No but!"
Zhao Qi¡¯s eyes looked at the herdsmen who were gradually dispersing in the distance and rushing towards them. He knew that all the brothers who rushed to the camp, such as Yajiang Pan Mei, were dead. Just now, his two hundred cavalry were ready to charge to rescue Pan Mei, but they were stopped by the tooth general Zhao Sen.
They indeed watched the robes die in battle, as useless as useless trash.
That was more than 1,200 living lives, besieged and killed by tens of thousands of disheveled herdsmen. During those bloody battles in Paoze, how much did they expect their companions to come to rescue them? But until they were all killed in battle, they did not see the bright red battle flag of Sui Dynasty appear behind the enemy.
Zhao Qi¡¯s heart was bleeding, and he wanted to roar loudly to vent his dissatisfaction and unwillingness.
He couldn't help but look away from the enemy and turned to look at General Zhao Sen. At this time, the cavalry he sent to ask Zhao Sen for instructions on whether to go to war came back with his head lowered and disappointment on his face.
"The captainthe general asked us to wait for orders."
The cavalryman spoke in a very low voice, as if he was afraid that speaking too loudly would hurt his heart.
"Waiting for orders"
Zhao Qi murmured and repeated it, the veins on the hand holding Ma Shan showing.
Not far away from him, General Zhao Sen ordered the soldiers to set up defenses at the mouth of the canyon. Before the enemy could rush in, the soldiers hurriedly dug many horse traps dozens of meters outside the mouth of the canyon. These pits are shallow and not large, but a fast-running horse will lose its center of gravity once it steps into a pit.
"Fortunately!"
Zhao Qi wiped the sweat from his forehead and said to himself: "Fortunately, those herdsmen don't understand the importance of things. They lost their minds because of their red-eyed killing. They all surrounded Pan Mei's Zhechong camp and rushed to kill it instead of occupying it immediately. Canyon, I¡¯m afraid this is Mandu Wolf??Something unexpected. These untrained herdsmen don¡¯t know what tactics are, otherwise I would be a sinner by now. "
"General!"
The lookout standing on a high place shouted down: "The situation over General Li is not very good! The enemy cavalry wandered around the military formation and shot arrows without attacking directly. Our military formation is getting smaller and smaller!"
"What a vicious tactic!"
Zhao Sen¡¯s eyes flashed, and after being silent for a moment, he shouted loudly: ¡°Commander, bring the cavalry school captain Zhao Qi to see me!¡±
"Here!"
The ordering soldier agreed loudly, turned around and ran out.
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Li Xiaozong's forehead was already covered with sweat. He looked at the Mongolian and Yuan cavalry galloping by. The corners of his mouth kept twitching, and his expression looked particularly painful. Before marching, he thought he had thought of all the tactics of Meng Yuan Qingqi's charge, and had figured out how to deal with it, but the only thing he ignored was that the enemy's cavalry relied on their speed advantage to wander outside the formation, relying on bows and arrows to softly attack them. Like a knife, the military formation is thinned and reduced bit by bit.
The enemy was whizzing past forty steps away, but it was unable to cause damage to the enemy. The boxwood cavalry bow in the enemy's hand shoots faster than the standard foot bow of the Sui Dynasty. The most troublesome thing is that the enemy is faster. The arrows shot by the archers of the Sui Dynasty often fall behind the enemy. Even though he ordered the archers not to aim at people when shooting, but to aim in front of them, the ratio of casualties to both sides was still very different.
The only thing that shocked the enemy was the thirty heavy crossbows. But the heavy crossbow is too clumsy, and the enemy is extremely powerful if faced directly. But the enemy's roaming tactics made the heavy crossbow exert very little power.
There are only less than 150 giant shield bearers and cannot protect the entire battle formation. But even if the giant shield hand can protect it, what if it is huddled inside and has no power to fight back?
Li Xiaozong, who struggled for a long time and bit his lip, finally issued a military order.
"Attack!"
He raised his sword and shouted loudly: "I would rather charge and die than do nothing like this!"
"Forward!"
Less than 1,500 Sui infantry roared and immediately changed their formation. The giant shield bearers were arranged on both sides, the archers were at the end, and the long spear bearers rushed in front. At the front was Li Xiaozong and his dozen or so soldiers. This is also the only cavalry in the Sui army now.
But during the charge, Li Xiaozong and his soldiers all jumped off their precious horses and ran forward with the infantry, without leaving their mounts behind.
"Forward!"
"I would rather charge and die!"
The soldiers shouted unwillingly, with determination on everyone's face.
Mandu Wolf saw that the Sui people on the opposite side had actually changed their formation, and couldn't help but laugh triumphantly: "Such a Sui people actually dare to claim to be invincible in a hundred battles? I only used a group of herdsmen to kill almost half of them. If I want, I can even continue to use cavalry roaming tactics to kill them, but I won't do this Since they have chosen to attack, let them see how the strongest army in the world kills people. , how the strongest army attacks!"
"Blow your horn and fight!"
He drew out his scimitar and pointed it forward, and then the thick sound of horns began to whine. All the cavalry returned to their own formation, and then followed Mandu Wolf to fight against the Sui people.
The Sui people were proud, and so were the Meng and Yuan people. When the enemy chose to charge, Mandu Wolf's pride did not allow him to avoid fighting. He just wanted to defeat Li Xiaozong head-on, the guy who had been his opponent for three years across a mountain.
The violent and savage Mandu Banner herdsmen used human sea tactics to forcefully fill Pan Mei's Zhechong camp to death. Twelve hundred well-trained elite soldiers of the Great Sui Dynasty Youxiao Guard died in battle in a somewhat aggrieved manner. Although none of them surrendered, the fact that the enemy was not the regular army of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty made each of them a little angry.
And the herdsmen whose eyes were red from the killing did not stop their horses because of the huge losses. When they found that all the Sui people surrounding them had been killed, they immediately turned their horses and rushed towards the canyon. Although Mandu Wolf had told them before that they must make occupying the canyon their first priority, but after the killing started, they could no longer control their own humanity.
About six thousand herdsmen, both men and women, roared towards the mouth of the canyon. Because of the regulations of the Mongol and Yuan Empire rulers, each herdsman household was only allowed to have one bow, so the pressure on the Sui infantry on the defensive side was slightly less. Some. Otherwise, these 6,000 herdsmen would not be able to withstand it for long as they continued to wash away the military formation with rain of arrows during the charge.
Crazy herdsmen shouted and urged their horses to move forward. Many people at the front were trampled on.?Caught in a pit and fell down. But the companions rushing behind them gave them no chance to dodge. Soon, the fallen herdsmen were trampled into pulp. The horse's hooves stepped on the soil mixed with flesh and blood, making a slapping sound.
An eyeball that I don¡¯t know belongs to is covered with dust, but it looks forward stubbornly.
"Fire the arrow!"
Zhao Sen gave the order loudly, and the few Sui infantrymen poured out their feather arrows. The herdsmen who had no combat experience did not know how to dodge, and those who were shot by the arrows fell like dumplings one after another.
The antlers placed by the Sui army at the mouth of the canyon to block the horses had played a role. The herdsmen did not know how to dismantle these things in the shortest time. They jumped off the horses and clumsily tried to move away the things blocking the road, but the Sui army's How could the archers give them time?
Soon, the front of the antlers was covered with corpses.
The ground at the west entrance of the canyon seemed to be in motion, a high hill made of flesh and blood getting higher and higher.
When the Sui soldiers shot the quiver empty, they threw the long spear as a spear. When Changshu was gone, they drew out their horizontal knives and prepared to fight in close quarters. The herdsmen who had suffered heavy losses could no longer ride over the high piles of corpses. They climbed off their horses and rushed over brandishing various weapons. Like bows and arrows, not everyone is eligible to own a machete.
In any country in any era in this world, the monarch will not allow the people to hold weapons that can resist his rule. Moreover, the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty was a country lacking in iron weapons. Therefore, what many herdsmen are waving in their hands is simply a sharpened stick.
How could the dismounted herdsmen take advantage of the elite Sui army? Of course, when the number reaches ten times that of the enemy, the herdsmen can also see the dawn of victory.
When the hand-to-hand fighting began, the Sui army had less than 400 men left. They barely formed a three-layer defense line at the mouth of the canyon, which looked pitifully thin.
The herdsmen fell one by one, and the Sui soldiers also decreased one by one.
Just when the last sixty or seventy Sui soldiers were struggling to support, there was a sudden chaos behind the herdsmen. The herdsmen who were on the verge of collapse finally couldn't bear the fear of death and began to run away crying. If they find that what is attacking behind them is a cavalry force of less than a hundred men, they may regret their choice to escape.
Li Xiaozong came back. He was hit by three arrows and his armor was covered in blood.
The cavalry came back, losing half their men. But they used their horses to declare that although they were small in number, they were more terrifying than the Mongolian Yuan cavalry!
The infantry did not come back, they were all killed. Their bodies were left on the grassland, and it was unknown whether their souls could fly back home through the canyon.
This is the first battle of the first day. The Sui people left less than 200 of the 5,000 troops who left Qingxia. Although they killed more than 8,000 herdsmen and more than 1,600 Mongolian cavalry, was this their first victory?