Chapter 781: Moths Throw Fire
When Zhao Hao set up a formation to watch the enemy, Wang Ying, the main general of the Yuan army, Yidu Zibo, also came to the front of the battle. In this battle, he secretly sent elite soldiers to infiltrate the enemy's formation, launched a surprise attack, and won the battle, breaking through two ditches in a row, and driving the enemy back two miles. He was overjoyed and swept away the worries of the past few days. The day before yesterday, the Southern Army came to help with reinforcements from thousands of miles, and before they could go ashore, they wiped out the Baoding Navy in one fell swoop, and the whole army was shocked.
After the Song army withdrew that day, Wang Ying was ordered to go to Yangluo Fort to inspect and collect the remnants. But when he landed on the north bank, he found that the four forts of Yangluo Fort had been destroyed, and the middle fort was still raging and could not be extinguished, and the stench of roasted meat could be smelled from a distance. Several forts were littered with corpses, most of which had been blown up and burned, and the corpses were torn apart and miserable, and there were also those in the streets who had not escaped and were choked to death by the smoke, but they were also burned beyond recognition.
The warships anchored in the harbor were half-sunk in the water, and some of them did not even put away their anchors, and the cables were still tied to the bollards. At the gate of the wall, many warships were piled up, apparently colliding with each other in the rush to escape, causing them to sink themselves. The corpses floating on the surface of the water almost obscured the water, and at least half of them were naked, apparently in the face of the sudden attack, they did not have time to get dressed before they jumped into the water to escape, and were frozen to death by the cold river water.
Wang Ying searched around Yangluo Fort for a long time, and only gathered about 200 people, but they were all stupid. When asked what had happened, all I knew was that a thunderbolt from the sky overturned the warship, blew up the camp, and then caught fire. There was chaos everywhere, and everyone scrambled for their lives, and they couldn't care for each other. Some people said that the Lord would be blown up, and the seal letter was picked up by the Southern troops who came ashore.
After returning to the city and learning about the battle of Yangluo Fort, all the generals looked at each other. The southern army has this sharp weapon in hand, how can this Ezhou city be defended, everyone discussed for a long time and thought that the naval army had been destroyed. And after the death of the Great Khan, the new Khan has not been decided, and there is no date when the Jiangbei reinforcements will arrive. The only way to do this is to take advantage of the new arrival of the southern army and the fact that it has not yet rested to immediately launch a decisive battle, defeat the enemy in front of it, relieve the siege of Ezhou City, and then plan for the future.
Wang Ying's plan was to break through the left flank of the southern army with surprise troops, and then quickly develop in depth and detour back to the enemy's right flank to encircle and annihilate it. But what he didn't expect was that the Southern Army reacted quickly, and just after the left flank was broken through, they abandoned the entire defense line and retreated to reorganize the defense line. This surprised him very much, in the past, the southern army always refused to give up an inch of land, desperately fighting, and its broken wrist made his plan completely frustrated.
Seeing that the Song army had escaped from the trap he had laid, Wang Ying couldn't help but be disappointed, but when he found that the Song army's front army had been replaced by a group of people who were not wearing leather armor and holding strange-shaped weapons, and the depth of the defensive line was only a few horizontal formations, and the thin formation seemed to be able to be broken down in just a while. This made him feel even more strange, and he couldn't figure out what the Southern Army was going to do, whether it was an empty plan, a bluff, or a trap set for himself.
There is no turning back from the start of the project, and those who lead the troops can die in battle, but they cannot be scared to death. Wang Ying then sent a team of light horsemen to the test, but they did not expect that they were struck by lightning before they could engage in battle, and saw that the three hundred-man team that went out of the battle were killed and wounded in a moment, and only more than ten horsemen fled back to the formation, and all of them were injured and frightened. He was shocked in his heart, although he was not yet middle-aged, he could be regarded as a veteran of a hundred battles, but it was the first time he had seen such a scene.
"General, the last general is willing to lead the troops to fight again!" Pingyang Taiyuan Wanhu Zhang Heng Shili said.
"Don't worry, these Southern troops are weird!" Wang Ying raised his hand to stop.
"General, listen to the shouts from the other side!" Dian Erchi pointed to the opposite side.
"It's the puppet emperor of the remnant Song Dynasty who is here!" Wang Ying listened to it, and the camp on the opposite side kept chanting 'My Emperor is mighty', and he frowned.
For the puppet emperor of the remnant Song Dynasty, Wang Ying and the generals present are no strangers, although they have not met, they have heard of his name for a long time. Qiongzhou and Huguang Province border, the conflict between the two continues, and many major wars have broken out, but they have never been cheap, but they have lost their troops, and even Ali Hague's pro-unified army went to crusade and returned, and then did not dare to plunder its edge.
"What's so scary about a little cub!" Zhang Heng's Wanhu Mansion was only transferred to Longxing Mansion after this reorganization, and of course he never fought with the Qiongzhou Army, but he was still a child, so he couldn't help but despise it.
"......" Wang Ying listened for a while, how to answer.
I said I was afraid, it was self-destruction of prestige, and how could I lead troops. said that he was not afraid, this little cub commanded 3,000 people to capture the city of Guangzhou at the age of five and plundered away; At the age of six, he commanded the navy to defeat Liu Shen and destroy thousands of warships; became an emperor at the age of seven, defeated Zhang Hongfan in Yashan, and slaughtered all his brothers, speaking of which, he was still their young master; At the age of eight, Quanzhou was captured, all the officials of the state government were killed, and the Pu family was wiped out, and all the family wealth was plundered. Instigated the capital not only to be defeated, but also to catch his son Baijia slave.
After that, the little cub defeated Jinghu and coastal naval armies in succession, united with Annan and Zhancheng to resist the Yuan, resulting in a great defeat, and instigated the death of Du and Li Heng. At the moment, he was only fourteen years old, but he waved his army to the north, and only more than a month of four thousand households guarding Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and ten thousand households of grain transportation by sea were annihilated, and all the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang fell, and then Lin'an, Jiankang, Wuhu, Jiangzhou and other downstream towns along the river were conquered one by one. Where the fuck is this little cub, that is, Genghis Khan's age is not to chase the enemy around!
"General Zhang still has to be cautious, don't underestimate the enemy, you still need to ......" The Longxing 10,000 households of Pla'er Chi are basically equal to reconstruction, and they are still 10,000 households, and their combat effectiveness is the weakest, if it is not for the identity of the Mongols, they will have to be trampled to death, but at the moment they can only whisper and breathe.
"It's all at this time, what's the point of hesitation, it's still optimistic that your subordinates don't learn from Chen Yi, I don't know how to lose my head at that time!" Zhang Heng didn't appreciate it, interrupted his words and ridiculed.
"You ......" he kindly persuaded him, but he was insulted by him, and he was furious, and he stretched out his hand to draw a knife.
"Stop, or military law will be engaged!" Wang Ying said in a deep voice, and he was also extremely annoyed in his heart, only ten years after pacifying Jiangnan, he was immersed in drunkenness and gold, and was softened by wine and women, and fought for power and profit between each other, so that the armies lost harmony, and even swords and soldiers fought against each other from time to time.
"Yes!" Seeing that the lord was annoyed, the two of them hated and returned the knife into the sheath, and said with a salute.
"General Zhang, how do you think you should fight the enemy?" Wang Ying suppressed his anger and turned his face to ask Zhang Hengdao.
"General, I think that the southern army's defense line is weak, although the firearms are sharp, but it is difficult to resist the impact of the iron cavalry, if you first charge the cavalry into battle, and then the infantry army will follow, they will inevitably take care of one or the other, as long as they break through their first line of defense, they will directly take the Chinese army to capture and kill the little cub, you can win the battle, and the siege of Ezhou will be solved." Zhang Heng said.
"Just now you also saw the power of the firearms of the Southern Army, before we rushed into the range of the bow and arrow, they were all lost, and we couldn't rush forward at all, how could we break the formation?" Wang Ying shook his head and said.
"General, only three hundred rangers were sent just now, and the southern army can concentrate its forces to deal with it, so it is naturally difficult to parry. If a large army attacks, as long as there is no fear of casualties, you can break through the enemy formation! Zhang Heng said.
"Hmm!" Wang Ying nodded and said, "Zhang Heng, you lead the cavalry of your headquarters to break through the enemy formation." Copying Erchi, you lead the troops and horses of your headquarters to feint on the enemy's left flank and contain its troops, and you will lead the army to respond to the rear and strive to break the enemy in a battle! ”
Zhang Heng led tens of thousands of households, with more than 10,000 soldiers, including 3,000 cavalry, which is still relatively rare in the Han army, which is dominated by infantry troops. He immediately ordered his troops and horses to prepare to attack, but this time he also had a good eye, and divided into three waves in units of 1,000 people. However, the forward army still used an evacuation formation to charge the formation, and once it began to charge, it immediately raised the horse speed to the highest, in order to break through the Song army's fire blockade and rush to the Song army's defense line with speed.
The horn sounded......, and the cavalry vanguards, after rushing out of the formation, quickly dispersed, directly omitting the process of slow to fast walking, and directly turned to jogging, and then to fast running in fifty paces, and in two hundred paces had already increased their speed to the maximum, and the riders roared loudly, brandished long knives in their hands, and kept knocking their horses on the belly with their heels, like a whirlwind rushing towards the enemy formation.
Zhang Heng watched the forward army in the rapid movement, and the cavalry seemed to have opened a large distance, and there seemed to be no clear direction of attack, but they were all in a position where they were close to their own centurions, and each small group formed a collective with the centurion, constantly adjusting the direction of the assault and their own positions according to their command, so that the Song army could not figure out their specific attack position.
Seeing that the forward army had already run out of Lixu, Zhang Heng ordered the second wave of cavalry to set off, but ordered them to follow up only by jogging, and once they found that the enemy formation was loose or broken through by the front army, they would immediately accelerate their assault in this direction, expand the breakthrough, and disrupt the entire defensive line. However, he also knew that judging from the battle situation just now, the forward army basically had no return, and they were acting as a target to attract enemy firepower, and he only hoped to find the weakness of the Song army's defensive line.
"Let's go!" After the second wave of cavalry advanced a stone's throw away, Zhang Heng personally led the cavalry of the rear army to follow quickly, they were the main force to break the formation, after the first two waves opened the enemy's defense line, he would lead the army to take the enemy's middle army directly, and capture and kill the little emperor among the ten thousand troops.
The horn sounded again, ......and the Long Xing army moved, and then marched forward.
'Boom, boom, boom...... Zhang Heng looked forward, the fire was shining in the dust and smoke in the sky, the forward army was intercepted by the fire of the Song army at a distance of 300 steps to resist the enemy, although he couldn't see the specific situation, but listening to the continuous explosions, he also expected that the forward army was not much better.
"Speed up!" Zhang Heng shouted loudly to the flag officer beside him, and he immediately pressed the flag forward. The Chinese army immediately switched from jogging to fast running, and constantly increased the speed of their horses. Then the army also changed from fast pace to jogging, and after 100 steps also turned to fast running, he looked back and saw that the handsome flag was also moving forward, the whole army had started, and the decisive battle had been achieved.
The speed of the war horse is getting faster and faster, and the sound of the explosion is getting denser and denser, Zhang Heng keeps asking the neck of the war horse to appease the frightened and uneasy, at this time he can no longer see the general flag of the front army, but he has already seen the corpses of people and horses on the road, which have already turned into flesh and blood under the trampling of the horse's hooves, and he can't tell whether it is a person or a horse. But they can only turn a blind eye to the horses.
Zhang Heng got up on the horse, and the speed of the horse did not decrease, he condescended to see the scene ahead, at this moment there was no longer the banner of the front army, and the Chinese army had approached the enemy formation within 200 steps, but did not see the Song army in front of the fire flashed and several horses fell off the horse, as if an invisible barrier was erected in front, and they met here to break the blood. But as more cavalry rushed forward, someone finally crossed the line of life and death, but was shot off his horse before he could reach the range of the bow and arrow.
"Drive, drive!" Zhang Heng returned to the saddle, he still saw that the Chinese army's general flag was pointing directly at the enemy's Chinese army, he drew his war knife and pointed forward, and the flag officer immediately waved the general flag a few times, and then pressed forward, and the whole army immediately adjusted its direction and rushed to the general flag.
"Chirp!" Zhang Heng whistled a short whistle, his legs clamped the horse's belly fiercely, the war horse rushed forward in pain, and rushed to the front of the team with the front horse, followed by the pro-soldiers and the flag officer. He wanted to take advantage of the Song army's firepower to concentrate on the accelerated advance of the Chinese army and break through its fire blockade line. After approaching three hundred steps, the corpses of Lala, which had been sparse before, were already in pieces, and the horses stepping on them would stir up a piece of flesh and blood, which was also mixed with the screams of the undead. But no one will slow down, or he will be knocked off his horse by his companions behind him, and if he falls off his horse during the charge, he will be like death.
'Boom! Zhang Heng suddenly heard a loud noise in his ears, a cannonball exploded behind his horse, followed by the two personal soldiers who fell off their horses in response, a few pieces of shrapnel flew past the helmet, and the mane of the war horse was raised, he quickly pulled the reins of the horse to subdue it. He looked at the two soldiers who followed him with their mouths wide open as if they were saying something, but there was only a constant chirping in his ears, and he couldn't hear what they were saying.
"Boys, rush!" Zhang Heng ignored them anymore, raised his sword and slashed down, and shouted as he lifted the reins of the horse past the horse corpse in front of him. Looking at the Chinese army at this moment, it is like throwing itself into the mouth of a man-devouring monster, and there is no way back to fall in front of the battle, and the blood of men and horses dyes the land purple red. There are frightened horses running around on the battlefield, and a corpse that has been dragged to a bloody mess hangs from the stirrups.
'Whoosh! Zhang Heng suddenly saw a black shadow pass in front of him, and before he could react, he felt that his face was covered with slimy things. He stretched out his hand and wiped it to see, but it was a human brain, and the soldiers around him had lost their heads, their bodies were still sitting on their horses, and the war horses did not feel that their master was dead at all, and still ran forward with the brigade.
"Kill, kill, kill!" Zhang Heng slashed off a deserter who tried to escape, but ran to his horse in a daze, and the scene in front of him made him feel terrified. More than a dozen hundred-man teams, more than 1,000 flags and moths were still within a hundred paces of the enemy's formation, their corpses piled up in several layers, and some soldiers shot arrows on the strings indiscriminately before they entered the firing range, and scattered their horses to the enemy's two wings. Looking at the soldiers around him, there was no one left, and only the flag officer holding the flag was left to follow him......