The news of Liu Yu's army made Xiao Ce Ling Dun Dobu feel a little better.

Dahlin came from Almaty, and before he could fight a fight, he was killed by a cannon and his head was missing. This made the army's heart very shaken, and they had no confidence in the siege.

Fortunately, he didn't do it to attack the city, since he lured the army out, he could be regarded as having completed the task.

As for whether the army came only to relieve the siege, or whether it could follow him in pursuit, then it would have to do its best to obey the fate of heaven.

The more than 20,000 troops gathered here had already been selected for the predetermined battlefield and could not be ambushed.

Because the light cavalry of this group of Han soldiers was not weak, they reconnoitred everywhere, and 20,000 people had to scatter and graze, otherwise they would starve to death of horses.

It can only be to lure the army out of the city for two or three hundred miles, gather all the troops, and choose a battlefield to fight a decisive battle.

As long as these more than 10,000 people who are best at building and defending cities are eaten, the northern front will inevitably shake, and when the time comes, it will bypass the castle area to loot the Khalkha and sneak attack the supply line behind, and the initiative will be on the Junggar side.

Scouts reported that the Han soldiers walked very slowly, only about 20 miles a day. But the cavalry reconnaissance did a good job, and the scouts engaged several times, but they did not take advantage.

"The cannons of those Han soldiers are very powerful, they drag cannons, and there are many large carriages. It's really normal to walk so slowly. ”

Hearing that these Han soldiers were marching so slowly, Xiao Celing Dundobu was overjoyed. In this way, as long as you can trick them out of 200 miles, you will have a chance to annihilate them.

There was no time to collect the corpses under the city, and the subordinates of Xiao Celing Dundob finally looked back at the city that had brought them psychological shadows and withdrew.

After Liu Yu arrived in the small city, he let the whole army rest for half a day, and left the auxiliary soldiers early the next morning, with 12,000 Qingzhou soldiers and 3,000 government soldiers on light cavalry, and went out of the city to pursue.

The light cavalry went out to reconnoitre, the staff officers followed and drew maps, and in the evening the staff made a route for the next day's march to ensure that a suitable battlefield could be found at any time within a warning range of forty miles.

Ten days later, June 15.

Liu Yu's main force had already left the city in the rear for about three hundred miles.

Three hundred miles is not far away, and if you break and escape, a cavalryman may be able to run in a day without sparing his horsepower.

Three hundred miles is also a long way away, and for a large army, with a marching speed of more than twenty miles a day, it will take at least ten days to retreat.

These ten days are enough to wipe out this army of more than 10,000 people.

Dace Zero Dun Dob began to send orders to all the ministries to assemble, and there was no need to hide.

The grazing troops began to assemble towards the Great Tent one after another, and the Great Ce Ling Dun Dob knew that the light cavalry of the Han soldiers would definitely find out.

But there was no point in luring them out of the big city for about three hundred miles, and even if they found that it would be too late to escape according to the speed of the previous march.

Elite troops drawn from various departments were assembled in the north of the mountain.

This time, more than 28,000 soldiers were assembled, including all more than 30 artillery pieces, more than 11,000 arquebusiers, more than 40 camel cannons, and some light small cannons.

The rest were cavalry that could dismount and fight on foot and assault on horseback.

After the main force was assembled, the quasi-scouts who had been holding back also began to attack in an all-out way, fighting with those annoying Songhuajiang light cavalry.

More than 8,000 strikers quickly approached Liu Yu's main position, not to attack, but to drag Liu Yu and not let him go.

Stick to them.

Follow-up troops began to follow.

On Liu Yu's side, the light cavalry scouts brought back the news of the assembly of the quasi-department one after another, and there were excited shouts in the staff headquarters that had been waiting for this day.

In the past few days, the maps drawn along the route have been rapidly unfolded, and more than 80 people in the General Staff Department have to map and pre-select the battlefield every day so that they can fight at any time.

They have endured enough of the boring march, and they have to reduce the speed of the march every day, it is like traveling, and the Qingzhou army does not have such a slow speed.

Now the main force of the quasi-department is still far away, and the cavalry that is sticking to Liu Yu in the vanguard is still forty or fifty miles away, and there is at least one day to choose to retreat to the predetermined position.

The men of the staff had already chosen a perfect battlefield, twenty miles behind them.

As chief of staff, Wu Fangrui put forward the operational plan of the General Staff.

"My lord, we should withdraw our light horses and not dwell on them. Make a posture that you have been fooled and retreat backwards. ”

"With the attitude that we are going to retreat, we have two options. One is to leave a guard, delay the quasi-department, and the main force retreats; Or the main forces are concentrated and retreat together. ”

"Both of these attitudes, either way, the people of the quasi-ministry will believe it. So we can choose to retreat all, shrink the scout light horse, and turn to the retreat. ”

After speaking, he pointed to the battlefield that would be pre-selected every day and said, "Here, here is twenty miles away from us. The terrain is flat, and the troops can be deployed. In this way, the people of the quasi-department think that we have discovered their plan to lure the enemy, and they will definitely choose to catch up. Although it is not clear how many enemies there are, it should be between 30,000 and 40,000, and they were too numerous to nomadically secure food for their horses. ”

"We retreated here and fought them in the field. There is a hillock on the north side of the place that serves as a support point. ”

"Since we pretend to retreat, they will surely attack our southern flank with all their might, cut us off, force us to retreat to the knoll, and thus besiege us on all sides."

"We should gather our reserves behind the hill and induce the enemy to attack our southern flank or center. When the enemy is trapped, concentrate forces to counterattack and surround from the side of the hillock, so as to maximize the damage to the enemy. ”

"Once the enemy has been routed, we should pursue it with cavalry at all costs, and not allow the enemy to regroup and continue to pursue. Our main force is taking advantage of the situation and ...... along here."

Pointing to the pastoral road of Sunduruk Ridge on the map, he said: "From here, cross the Altai Mountains." Beyond the mountains, the Chelan River can be followed down the valley to the Irtysh River. There are pastures along the way, and it is the summer season for herders to change fields, so there will be no shortage of supplies. ”

"After that, whether it will attack the wheel platform or go straight into the Ili River Valley and make immortal achievements, it depends on the situation."

Zhang Jin, the deputy general of the Qingzhou Army, was the first time to see such a battle, Liu Yu only gave a general order, and the people in the staff department formulated a march, camp, and even a pre-war plan according to Liu Yu's general order.

He didn't know much about fighting, and when he heard this, he asked, "Brother Shouchang, how can you be sure that the people of the quasi-department will definitely do this?" ”

Liu Yu smiled and pointed to the preset location on the map and said, "They want to beat us, naturally they are afraid that we will escape." As long as they break our side, we can only stay where we are, waiting for help or abandon our baggage and flee. If it were you, would you attack the difficult hills? ”

"I'm just doing this to kill them as much as possible, and I don't want to fight a rout. If they don't, then we can concentrate the main forces on the north flank, weaken the forces on the south flank to resist the front, and the main force sweeps from the north. That's it...... They will run. ”

"In the end, the choice of battlefield is mine. Or, as envisaged by the General Staff, they attack our southern flank, and we slowly retreat, trapping them into our trap. ”

"Either we take the initiative and storm on the north flank and crush them."

Of course, this is just a compromise strategy. The General Staff prioritizes the submission of a compromise strategy that guarantees undefeated, not a big victory. If there is a conspiracy, it still depends on the Lord to play on the spot. ”

"In the future, if Brother Zhang is the main general, it is good to choose more conservative and compromise strategies."

Zhang Jin pondered for a while and felt that it seemed reasonable.

It is true that he is not very good at fighting, especially since the fighting style of the Qingzhou Army is different from the past. But now it seems that if he comes to be the chief general of the Qingzhou Army, there seems to be no problem.

As Liu Yu said, the General Staff will formulate various plans, most of which are conservative. As long as it's not a big defeat.

If you want to win a big game, you need to have enough insight into the battlefield, and you need to take risks. Liu Yu means that he can take risks, such as this pursuit, but the followers don't have to take risks, just fight step by step.

Zhang Jin thought to himself, whether it would be as predicted by the General Staff, this will have to be carefully seen.

Looking at the map again, he asked, "What if the enemy doesn't fight, but goes around behind and besieges us?" ”

"I can't surround it. Surrounded on all sides, the troops on all sides are weak. Without five times the number of troops, do not think about a field battle surrounded on all sides. The quasi-troops are also people, and they also have to eat, and the troops assembled together are only 30,000 or 40,000 people. ”

"I'll do the math for you, from the time we left the city, they began to assemble, ten days, after half of it, that is, six or seven days, how big is it?"

"They have to be scattered everywhere to graze, and within this range, there are only 30,000 or 40,000 people at most, and it is impossible to have more. No matter how much more, they won't be able to gather together in more than ten days. ”

Zhang Jin really didn't understand this very well, so he could only pretend to understand and nodded.

Liu Yu looked at the map again and made sure that it was indeed a good place, and it was exactly a day's journey.

"Then let's do it. Order: Retreat with light cavalry and reconnoiter the enemy situation for ten miles around. The main forces turned back, and the whole army advanced in battle marching columns, with battalion intervals widened. ”

Doodoo ...... The whistle blew, and the herald gave the order to march in battle and turn around.

After a brief build-up, the whole army began to retreat. After a day's march, we arrived at the open area of the hill we had passed yesterday.

I climbed the hill and looked at it, and it was indeed a very suitable battlefield.

The hill is not high, on the north side.

The open area to retreat to the rear was to the south, and there was no place to ambush the troops nearby, and the main force could be deployed.

The more than 8,000 quasi-cavalry chasing Liu Yu's main force had already approached, but they did not choose to attack, but just waited in the distance.

On the way back, the light cavalry constantly clashed with the cavalry scouts of the quasi-division to ensure the safety of the rear.

The vanguard cavalry of the quasi-department used standard entanglement tactics.

If Liu Yu wanted to run, these cavalrymen would bite.

Or Liu Yu chose a strong man to break his wrist, leaving a part of the guard to entangle these cavalry, and the main force slipped away.

But the latter is of little significance, and it is left to be less and cannot be stopped. If you stay too much, you might as well go together.

Liu Yu didn't want to run at all.

It was so easy for him to wait for the main force of the quasi-department, how could he run?

After observing the terrain, the sappers began to dig the barracks.

The first regiment was deployed on the basis of the hills, digging the breastwork.

The sappers dug artillery positions on the hills, but the main forces of the artillery did not go up the hill, but in the positions of the middle troops. When you need to go up the mountain, choose to spread it on the hill.

The general staff's prediction was that the limited artillery of the quasi-department would not choose to attack the hill first, but would choose to attack on the south flank or in the center.

The artillery should be in the position of the Chinese army first, and once the battle starts, the enemy's guns should be countered first. Wait until the enemy is fooled into storming the southern flank, then move to the preset position on the hill and blast a gap for the reserves.

The second regiment, as a reserve, was hidden behind the side of the hill.

The cavalry was assembled south of the central position, the third regiment was in the middle army, and the fourth regiment was on the south flank.

After waiting here for about a day, the main forces of the quasi-department arrived one after another.

Looking at the Qingzhou army that was already waiting in the distance, Da Ce Ling Dun Duobu let out a long sigh of relief.

"What I'm most afraid of is that he will leave some defenders behind and the main force will escape. Since this was not chosen, the destruction of these Han armies was inevitable. ”

After observing Liu Yu's deployment, Dace Ling Dun Dobu was very unimpressed.

"Those who hesitate will fail. He shouldn't have chosen this place, but he chose this place instead. The hill was good for defense, but it was useless to defend it. There is no water source on the hillock, so why do we have to attack the hillock? ”

"As soon as we defeat the one on their south flank and cut off their retreat, they will have to retreat to the hill where there is no water source. The hillock can be defended, but without water, how many days can it last? ”

"If I use soldiers, I will leave some people behind, and the main force will quickly run back."

"But these Han soldiers couldn't bear their cannons and baggage, and they even fled so slowly."

"This Liu Yu is a very kind general, but he is not a qualified general, he is reluctant to leave people behind, then he can only be wiped out."

"Perhaps, this is also the reason why he is good at defending the city, right? Those who defend the city must not think of fleeing by themselves. Such a person is suitable for defending the city, but not for field warfare. ”

"These Han infantry can only defend the city, they are all armed with muskets, how can they guard against the onslaught of cavalry? The only thing to pay attention to is their cavalry. These cavalry are good, as long as their cavalry is defeated, Liu Yu can only retreat to the hill and wait for death on the hill. ”

After observing the situation, he called the Swede Renate over and arranged the artillery to the south.

Dace Ling Dun Dobu wanted to attack the southern flank first, forcing the Han cavalry to gather on the south side to cover the flank, and the Chinese infantry also supported to the south. Once the Chinese army was supported to the south and the Chinese army was weak, Xiao Celing Dundobu led the cavalry, charged the Chinese army, cut it off in one fell swoop, and after the division, first annihilated the Han army on the south side, and then besieged the hills.