Guo Song was in the right wing of the cavalry team, a hundred personal soldiers guarded him, he closely observed the instantaneous changes on the battlefield, Shatuo's cavalry combat effectiveness is indeed strong, more importantly, the horsemanship is exquisite, even more than the Tubo army, they will give full play to the high speed and flexibility of the cavalry.

The Shatuo cavalry suddenly disappeared on the horse in the gallop, suddenly the spear stabbed, and suddenly the sword slashed, and many Shatuo cavalry were always surrounded by the Tang cavalry, and they could break through through through superb horsemanship.

However, the cavalry of the Tang Army did not play individually, nor did they run at high speed, and always maintained a formation, which was the advantage of the Tang Army, with tacit understanding and strict formation, but at the same time, it also appeared to be more than stable and less flexible.

Guo Song had to admit that the Tang army was indeed inferior to the other party in horsemanship, although it was well-trained, tacit in cooperation, and twice as many as the opponent, it was never able to defeat the opponent.

However, the heavy armored infantry exerted a strong lethality, advancing step by step, killing the Shatuo cavalry on their backs, so the heads rolled and the limbs flew sideways.

It can't be fought like this, the cavalry can't give full play to its advantages, and the flexibility of the cavalry must be mobilized, Guo Song took out two arrows and said: "Order the fifth and tenth battalions to be converted into archers!" ”

"Obey!"

Two of his own soldiers took the arrow and rushed away, one found Pei Xin, raised the arrow and shouted: "General Pei, let the king order your fifth battalion to turn into archers!" ”

Pei Xin nodded and ordered: "The fifth battalion has been converted to archers!" ”

At the same time, Wu Zhiyuan also ordered, "The tenth battalion will be converted to archers!" ”

The Tang army changed its tactics, the archers did not have high requirements for the formation, and more emphasis was placed on speed and concealment, the Tang cavalry was like a tiger with two wings, and the cavalry running at high speed on the periphery appeared in the tight formation, and the Tang army's formation, which was a little stiff, was revitalized.

Two thousand cavalry galloped at high speed on the periphery, constantly opening their bows and arrows to shoot at the Shatuo cavalry, and the cold arrows made the Shatuo cavalry unable to defend themselves, and they were hit by arrows and fell from their horses.

This trick really worked, only a few rounds of cavalry shooting made more than 500 Shatuo cavalry fall off the horse, the appearance of long-range strikes made the entire Tang cavalry have been activated, the formation began to exert a strong power, constantly compressing the range of movement of the Shatuo cavalry, the Shatuo cavalry began to become like falling into the desert to fight, the advantage of high speed and flexibility was gradually suppressed.

As soon as the Shatuo cavalry could not play to their advantage, their morale began to fade rapidly.

The Tang army became more and more courageous, the heavy infantry was invincible, and even the dense spear infantry phalanx was built like an iron wall, more than a thousand Shatuo cavalry tried to break down the infantry camp of the Tang army, but instead of success, they were turned around by the heavy infantry, and the Shatuo cavalry was killed in pieces, several breakthroughs failed, and a thousand Shatuo cavalry were gradually engulfed under the front and rear flanking of the heavy infantry and spear infantry.

At this time, the Shatuo cavalry was divided into three pieces by the Tang cavalry, and only more than 3,000 people remained, and the Tang cavalry began to gradually shrink the encirclement.

Guo Song shouted: "The heavy infantry retreat!" The spear infantry pressed on! ”

The horn sounded, the flag waved, and a thousand heavily armored infantry began to withdraw from the battlefield.

The phalanx of 3,000 spears was also divided into three, joining the siege of the three battle circles, and they were responsible for plugging the loopholes and preventing the Shatuo cavalry from escaping from the encirclement.

Zhu Ximo Mountain was so anxious that he shouted, "Break through and retreat!" Break out and retreat! ”

No matter how much you shout, it is useless, the cavalry formation of the Tang army is like three tight nets, advancing and retreating in unison, and the advantage of the formation is here, which can cooperate with each other, so that each Shatuo cavalry will always face more than five Tang cavalry interceptions when breaking through.

"General, there seems to be a gap over there!"

A Shatuo cavalryman suddenly found a gap in the northwest corner, and shouted in surprise,

Zhu Xie Moshan also saw the gap, he hesitated slightly, and immediately galloped towards the gap, at this time he couldn't take care of the other soldiers, and it was a great luck to be able to save his life.

This is indeed a small gap in the encirclement of the Tang Army, which is caused by the speed gap between the cavalry and the infantry, the cavalry is too fast, and the infantry did not keep up for a while, but this loophole is also fleeting, Zhu Ximoshan led more than 100 Shatuo cavalry to seize this extremely short opportunity and break out of the encirclement.

Looking back, the small gap had disappeared, and the hundreds of cavalry behind had not been able to kill it.

At this time, the Tang Army scout cavalry on the periphery killed them, the arrows were shot intensively, dozens of Shatuo cavalry fell from their horses with arrows, Zhu Xiemoshan was frightened, hugged the horse's neck and ran wildly, running out of more than 30 miles in one breath, and only a dozen cavalry were left behind him.

Zhu Ximoshan wanted to cry without tears, so he had to flee to Shatuo's lair in a panic.......

With the last group of Shatuo cavalry being killed by random arrows, this fierce battle, which had been fought for three hours, finally came to an end.

The battlefield was littered with the corpses of the war dead, and more than a thousand Shatuo prisoners of war sat in the open space with their heads bowed down, surrounded by hundreds of Tang guards.

In this battle, the 8,000 Shatuo cavalry were all wiped out, with more than 6,700 killed and more than 1,200 captured, most of whom were slightly wounded.

The Tang army also suffered more than 1,000 casualties, including more than 500 killed and more than 700 wounded.

Pei Xin led thousands of soldiers to clean up the battlefield, the corpses of Shatuo soldiers were burned and buried deeply, various items were piled up, and more than 5,000 war horses were collected.

In the distance, a camel team full of food and supplies was walking towards the battlefield, Guo Song got up and said to several pro-soldiers: "You go and inform Jinman County and tell them about the situation!" ”

Several of his own soldiers turned on their horses and galloped in the direction of Jinman County.

At this time, Li Bing brought the surrendered commander over, this commander is very young, in his early twenties, and he looks a little like a Han person, especially the face shape and eyebrows, there is no unique flat circle and wide eye distance of the Shatuo people, Guo Song's heart moved, could it be that this person has Han blood?

This commander was very timid, standing in front of Guo Song tremblingly, Li Bing smiled and said: "Envoy, this is the commander of the thousand commanders they surrendered, called Zhu Xie Tengyun, Han name Xu Tengyun, is the son of Zhu Xie Jinman. ”

Zhu Xie Jinman is the special envoy of Shatuo who came to negotiate with Guo Song twice, and is currently the prime minister of Shatuo, Guo Song groaned and asked, "Your mother is Han?" ”

Zhu Xie Tengyun nodded, and said in fluent Chinese: "My father lived in Luoyang when he was young, and met my mother there, and my mother followed him to Shatuo, but he was not accustomed to the water and soil, and died of illness soon after, and my father later married the daughter of the great chief of the secret department, which is my current mother, but they have no children. ”

"You're an only child?" Guo Song asked again.

"Yes."

Guo Song nodded, pondered for a while, and asked, "How is the situation in Shatuo now?" ”

Zhu Xie Tengyun's eyes were gloomy for a while, and he shook his head and said: "The Moon Department and the other six departments are relatively loose, there is meat to eat, everyone respects the Moon Department as the eldest brother, but there is no meat to eat, everyone is a little out of style, especially Zhu Xie Jinhai failed twice, the six departments lost tens of thousands of strong, those elders were eager to cramp and skin him, and he fell out the first time, but because of the artificial pressure of Ge Lulu, everyone had to unite again, and now there is civil strife in Ge Lulu, and the external pressure is gone, and the six departments want to get something from Shazhou, As a result, Zhu Xie Jinhai failed again in Shazhou, this time it was in big trouble, and the six departments threatened to split up and put forward unacceptable conditions to the department of the moon. ”

"On what terms?" Guo Song asked.

"Choose one of the two conditions, either Zhu Xie Jinhai will be executed, or three million sheep will be compensated, there are less than five million sheep in total, how can it be possible to give them three million sheep?"

"Then hand over Zhu Xie Jinhai to them, this kind of bane, you khans are still reluctant?"

"Impossible!"

Zhu Xie Tengyun shook his head and said: "Zhu Xie Jinhai is in Xizhou, that is his lair, he has five thousand troops in his hands, and the Khan can't do anything about him." ”

"Then how many troops are there in the Moon Department now?"

Zhu Xie Tengyun sighed, "There are currently six thousand troops in the Chu Yue Division, in addition to the one thousand guards around the Khan, it is the five thousand troops of Zhu Xie Jinhai on the side of Gaochang. ”

Guo Song was stunned, would Sha Tuo be so miserable?