Chapter 33 multiple kills

On the third day after the implementation of the high tax rate in the Southern Tang Dynasty, the army of the Northern Expedition of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the army of the Liao Kingdom fought a decisive battle in Shuangbaoshan (probably the current Longbaoshan). This time, Zhou Shizong Chai Rong made another personal conquest by the imperial driver, and personally deployed the battle of Shuangbaoshan.He is a man with a strong army, but he has made a lot of preparations in advance for this battle.Because after fighting the Liao army several times, Sejong discovered that the Liao soldiers will be completely different from the Northern Han soldiers. They are all sturdy and brave, and they are extremely capable of fighting alone.Therefore, head-to-head Zhou Jun under his jurisdiction can't take advantage of it, and he must use some means to minimize his losses.

Chai Rong asked the soldiers to dig a shallow trench on the north and south sides of Shuangbao Mountain during the night, and a team of 500 men in iron armor and broadswords lay down in each trench. The soldiers of the Iron Armored Broadsword Squad were all Kansai big men with strong backs, and the armor they wore was only a vest, and the rest of the position was unprotected, so that it was easy to run and swing the sword.The big knife used has a blade, but unlike the Guan knife, its blade is very short, only slightly longer than the front blade.Such a knife shaft can be held and slashed with both hands like a Guan knife, making the shots more powerful and domineering during the killing.However, the short knife shaft can be more flexible than closing the knife in the attack and withdrawal operation, and is more suitable for infantry combat.In addition, the head of the knife is also slightly different. In the past, many knives had curved and curly heads, but this kind of big knife has an oblique head, which means that in addition to slashing, it can also poke, stab, smash, knock, and pry. .This style of knife should be close to the plain knife used by the heroes of Shuibo Liangshan in the Northern Song Dynasty.

In addition to these broadsword teams, Zhou Shizong also hid two thousand light cavalry shooters in the dense forest outside the trench.These two thousand light cavalry are pedaling hard on small saddles, and they can shoot while running without controlling the reins.The weapons used are soft willow bows and arrowheads with thorns and cones.The soft willow bow is convenient for nodding and easy to draw.Arrowheads with spines and cones are slender, round-pointed, cone-shaped arrowheads, with thin spines and arrow shafts, which are light in weight and can shoot a long distance.Although the bow and arrow configured in this way is easily affected by the wind in terms of accuracy, the lethality is relatively lacking.But for unarmored horses and horses, this bow and arrow can cause great damage at a long distance.Liao soldiers seldom wear armor for the convenience of immediate action.

After the arrangement was completed, Zhou Shizong personally led the army to start a battle two miles away from Shuangbao Mountain.For a time, the banners were flying, the horses were neighing and people were shouting, the swords and guns were shining in the sun, and the helmets were shining brightly. Looking at it from a distance, it looked like an iron-cast strangulation machine, which made people shudder. The army of the Liao Kingdom was personally led by Marshal Yelu Hezhen. He brought nearly 20,000 iron cavalry, and they rushed out of the Shuangbao Mountain Pass like a tide.Yeluhe really didn't use the terrain to defend and took the initiative to attack. This was to fight Zhou Shizong to the death.

For Zhou Jun's Northern Expedition, the Liao Kingdom and the Northern Han Dynasty were originally united against the enemy.But before the Liao army and the Zhou army actually fought, the Northern Han army was completely defeated, retreated to the city, and completely gave up the way to advance east.After that, the Liao army and the Zhou army fought several times, and both sides suffered heavy losses.However, most of Zhou Junbing's generals were well prepared, while Daliao was obviously underprepared. In addition, Liao's strategic plan was not in place. They had never expected that the Zhou army would bypass the Northern Han Dynasty from the northwest road, and then go straight to Youzhou along the east line.And on this line, because the Northern Han Dynasty separated the Great Zhou and the Liao Kingdom, the Liao Army did not deploy many troops, and the Zhou Army was able to fight all the way to this place.If Zhou Jun's momentum cannot be stopped and Zhou Jun passes through Shuangbao Mountain, the next step will be the unimpeded and unobstructed Golden Beach (probably the current Tianmo).After crossing the golden beach, the Zhou army can drive straight into Youzhou.

Liao soldiers will leave Shuangbao Mountain Pass in sequence.Immediately after the fast horse team came out, the goose wings lined up. Yeluhezhen led the iron armor team, spear team, and shield knife team to occupy the central army. The rear team was a cavalry and archery team, which was far away from the central army.They are mainly to cover, respond and defend against attacks from both sides.And at the end is the wagon train, these wagons are loaded with a lot of arrows and many weapons.Arrows are consumed very quickly on the battlefield, and they can be replenished here. Soldiers killed in the front can also replace their weapons after their weapons are damaged.Moreover, these carriage convoys also had a function. If the formation could no longer be defended, they would rush to the front and assemble the carriages into fortifications to block the incoming enemy troops.

But before the Liao army could fully stand firm, the Zhou army had already acted.This timing was calculated by Chai Rong. He chose to launch the attack at the moment when the cavalry and archery team of the Liao Army had left the mountain pass, and the horse team had just started to leave the mountain pass. Hundreds of fires suddenly ignited in Zhou Jun's camp, which was a carriage pulled by more than a hundred strong galloping horses.The firewood piled on top was sprinkled with kerosene and ignited, and the carriage with huge flames rushed straight to the Liao army formation. Liao soldiers were very rude and unruly in combat, so Zhou Jun was often caught off guard in the past and suffered a lot.But it's different now, you should be even more unruly when dealing with unruly people.The army of the Central Plains has quick brains and quick reactions. Once they adopt rogue and obscene tactics, how can those Liao army be opponents.

The Liao army camp was basically composed of cavalry, and the horses under their seats panicked when they saw so many fires rushing towards them, circling and neighing endlessly.Before the burning carriage got too close, the whole formation had already disintegrated. Immediately afterwards, the flag gate in Zhou Jun's formation flashed again, giving way to a row of heavy vehicles with steel shields.The body of this car is entirely made of fine iron, and the front is equipped with a shining steel shield, which cannot be damaged by any strong bow or crossbow.The four wheels are connected by the front and rear one-way toothed chain buckles, which can only be pushed in one direction forward, unless the car is overturned in the backward direction.

"Get out of the way! Block!" Yeluhe's words were a bit messy, making people wonder whether to let or block.However, the meaning of the long-handled hammer in his hand was clear. Immediately, some cavalry in the formation bypassed the fire chariot in two lanes, rushed to the front of the heavy steel shield cart, dismounted and held the cart from the front to prevent it from approaching.But this can only slow down the speed of the car, because the front and rear of the wheels are connected by reverse tooth chain buckles, pushing forward a little bit, but pushing back can not move a little bit.

The fire carriages that broke into the Liao soldiers' formation were quickly stopped, because the Liao people had seen too many situations similar to fire carriages, but the difference was that there were more carriages on fire today.As soon as the fire carriage broke in, the Liao soldiers immediately ran in the direction the carriage was running.Approaching the body from the side, cut off the cables and frame.Let the galloping horses out, and let the car stay where it is and continue to burn.Then they still immediately regrouped into a tight offensive and defensive formation, but kept the hundreds of fires out of the way.

But what the Liao soldiers didn't expect was that the hundreds of fires that were still burning in the middle of their formation suddenly moved, exploded, and scattered, and scattered into countless small fireballs.Some of these small fire balls are scurrying around the ground, and some are dancing in the air.It turned out that there were cages covered with fireproof leather cloth hidden among the burning firewood, and many mice and birds were filled with kerosene.When the piles of firewood burned the ropes at the four corners of the cage, the cage fell apart.And those rats and birds, whose bodies were coated with kerosene and already suffocated by the smoke and high temperature, rushed out and caught fire immediately, turning into countless small fire balls flying around. This time the formation of the Liao soldiers was really chaotic, and the horses could no longer control them, jumping around and running around.And this large-scale chaos made the Liao soldiers who blocked the steel shield and heavy vehicles panic. They didn't know what happened behind them.A few who were timid and afraid of death gave up blocking first, got on their horses and slipped back.Then almost all the Liao soldiers who stopped the steel shield and heavy vehicles gave up at the same time, some on horseback, some running on foot, all retreated and fled. The steel shield heavy vehicle moved forward quickly again, and it was less than a stone's throw away from the formation of the Liao soldiers.Yelu Hezhen swung his long hammer again, so his two generals each led a team of cavalry to gallop to both sides.They were trying to bypass the two ends of the steel shield heavy vehicle team and enter the Zhou army team. Almost at the same time, there was a flag waving in the Zhou army, so the armored broadsword team in the east and west trenches suddenly rushed out.The light of the knife was flickering, and the rain of blood was flying. This was a sudden and fast slaying, and only horses and people were seen everywhere.The main task of the Broadsword Team was to prevent the cavalry of the Liao Kingdom from protruding from the side, so the Broadsword shot straight to the horse's leg, the sword flashed and the leg broke, and the rider fell off the horse. The two teams of Liao soldiers were forced to retreat a little, but they did not stop there. Instead, they formed an formation not far away, preparing to take action against the Broadsword team first.Seeing this situation, the Broadsword Squad of 500 people on each side immediately slowed down their charge. They were waiting for the light cavalry shooters who had rushed out of the woods behind. The light cavalry archers arrived soon, and they followed behind the broadsword team, shooting random arrows.This shooting method is the best if you can hit a person, but if you can't hit a person, you can shoot a horse.The horse fell, the rider fell, and the sword team caught up with the sword shadows flying, blood spattered and broken, and there was no escape.And it doesn't matter if you can't hit anything, the arrows flying by with the wind can make the Liao soldiers lose control of their mounts even more flustered when the fire balls are flying around. So the current state of the battlefield is actually that steel shields and heavy vehicles suppress the Liao soldiers in a narrow and long cylindrical area, while the armored broadsword team and light cavalry archers block the openings on both sides of the cylinder, and then shoot arrows first and then swords, layering the Liao army's formation Strip and kill. Yelu Hezhen raised the long-handled hammer again: "The front team charged forward, the rear team blocked the two sides, and the Chinese army retreated to Shuangbao Mountain Pass." This Yelu Hezhen has fought countless battles, big and small, counting the battles he lost, but he can't remember the battles he won, so the battlefield command responds very quickly.Moreover, all the commanders only need to wield a hammer, which shows that the Liao army's usual drills are extremely strict, and Yelu Hezhen must have personally participated in the drills.As for the soldiers of the Liao army, although they were nomadic and hunting at ordinary times, the adults participated in the war almost all the year round, and they simply relied on fighting and plundering for food.Such bloodthirsty and warlike lunatics, coupled with strict drills, have a very well-organized overall attack and kill, and their individual fights are even more brave.Yelu Hezhen's so-called "the front team rushes forward" means that the front horse team should jump over the heavy steel shield cart.The rear team blocked the two sides, and the cavalry and archery team wanted to cover the two wings.And when the Chinese army retreats to the mountain pass, it can rely on the terrain to hold the pass. There is no problem with the previous two instructions, and the former cavalry team and cavalry and archery team acted immediately.On the contrary, the problem lies with the Chinese army. Under the disturbance and attack of the fireballs and random arrows, the Chinese army's men and horses were unable to gather their formation, and there were chaotic scenes everywhere. It was precisely because the Chinese army was in chaos and could not be gathered together that Yelu Hezhen's previous two instructions would also turn into errors.As long as those two defenses are breached, then his central part no longer has any outer defenses.And the chaotic Chinese army and horses couldn't organize themselves to defend, which was equivalent to laying Yeluhe's real commander in front of Zhou Jun.