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Eight thousand cavalry of the Zhou army slaughtered the Tang infantry who were slowly approaching the camp like a tide! This was the first field battle between the Tang army and the Zhou army, and the first time they faced each other head-to-head on the plain.

Looking at the dust raised by the cavalry of the 8,000 Zhou Army, Sheng Yanshi, who commanded the Tang Army's infantry attack, had eyes as sharp as needles, and he said with a sneer on the corner of his mouth: "Hmph! Luo Shixin is really crazy! Didn't he know that the cavalry attacking the hoplites, who were in full formation, would not be able to exert their shock advantage at all, and would fall into a melee? This guy really has water in his head, okay, I'll use his head to ask King Qin for credit......"

Sheng Yanshi raised his right hand at this time, and the big knife in his hand was raised high, waving it in mid-air, drawing a shining sword light.

"Archer prepare!"

More than 8,000 archers standing behind 12,000 spear and shield men removed their longbows from their backs.

"Directly in front of the target, throw diagonally upward, at a distance of fifty feet."

More than 8,000 archers drew arrows from their quivers behind their backs with a uniform movement and mounted their longbows.

At this time, Master Sheng Yan held the saber in his right hand and waved it down vigorously:

"Shoot at the front! Prepare for the back column! ”

Just listening to the sound of "buzz", from the back of the infantry camp of the Tang Army, more than 4,000 archers standing in front sent out a volley!

The rain of arrows in the sky fell on the crowd of the advancing cavalry of the Zhou army, which immediately brought a howl of pain, and the Zhou cavalry who were running suddenly had nearly a thousand people hit the arrows. However, only more than four of these fierce and brave cavalry of the Zhou army fell, and some of them who did not hit the vital point still rushed forward with the large army.

Sheng Yanshi was secretly proud, before this attack, Li Shimin expected that Yuming's Zhou army had a large number of steppe nomadic troops, and there would inevitably be a large number of cavalry. Therefore, the assault of the Zhou army will inevitably use cavalry to open the way.

Therefore, he also ordered all his archers to replace the short crossbow that the Tang army was accustomed to with a longbow, although the longbow shot slowly, but it was highly lethal, and it could easily penetrate the armor of ordinary cavalry at a distance of fifty zhang, so the first round of salvo shot down more than four Zhou cavalry.

According to common sense, when the cavalry of the Zhou army rushed to the front of their infantry formation, they had to endure a volley of rounds. At least you can shoot down about 20% of the opponent's troops. After hand-to-hand combat between the two sides, the eight thousand archers can also shoot in a covered manner. Even if the enemy's 8,000 cavalry could rush into their infantry camp and gain an advantage, more than half of them would have to be killed or wounded. At that time, when the 10,000 cavalry of his follow-up troops arrived, he would definitely be able to completely annihilate the 8,000 cavalry of Luo Shixin.

"Hehe, see how can Qin Qiong fight us without cavalry?" Sheng Yanshi said proudly. Qin Qiong is now the mainstay of the Zhou army, if he can defeat him and sweep away the Zhou army outside Xia County in one fell swoop, it will also be a very long-faced thing.

However, the sudden change that occurred earlier quickly made Sheng Yanshi's smile freeze.

I saw that the cavalry of the Zhou army in the assault all raised an iron shield the size of a round table, and it was directly in front of themselves and their horses. Almost all the sharp arrows fired were blocked by iron shields, and they had no lethal effect.

"Quick! The back column becomes the front line, and the front line is the back line! Make a second salvo! Sheng Yanshi was shocked by the equipment of the Zhou army. You must know that the shield is a kind of equipment that consumes a lot of iron, and in the past, in the Sui army, it was only the standard equipment of the hoplite, and the cavalry was generally not equipped with a shield. Therefore, only the infantry of the Tang army had iron shields, and the cavalry had a small round shield at most. But he never expected that the Zhou army would equip the cavalry with iron shields. With such sophisticated equipment, it is no wonder that it dared to launch a frontal attack with impunity.

However, now even if Sheng Yanshi knew that he was careless and underestimated the enemy, he would not be able to reverse the situation, and with the archers' shots negligible, the cavalry of the Zhou army quickly rushed to the front of the Tang army. Like a tide, it slammed into the forefront of the Tang Army's spear and shield phalanx, and this torrent seemed to be slapped on the rocks, and it suddenly sparked!!

In the dense collision of "ping pong", the strong cavalry of the Zhou army rushed into the array of Tang infantry, and the two armies finally began to fight head-on.

It should be said that Li Shimin attaches great importance to this confrontation, and the soldiers he handed over to Sheng Yanshi are brave and not afraid of death.

The shield wall in the front row was slightly untidy at the first time, and the Tang infantry immediately resisted the shield with their bodies, and the pikemen in the second row and the first row behind them also pressed forward with all their might, trying their best to use their spears to assassinate the Zhou cavalry who rushed up.

The place that was rushed out of the gap was also filled by the substitute shield soldiers in the rear, so that the Tang army could maintain the defensive formation and resist the fierce impact of the cavalry of the Zhou army!

But at this moment, something unexpected happened to the Tang infantry: I saw the Zhou army iron cavalry on the periphery take out a foot-long short spear from their own skins, and then threw it at the Tang archers who were standing in a dense group.

You must know that archers are not spear and shield soldiers, their armor is thinner, and many people even wear leather armor at all, let alone shields and other defensive weapons. Where could they stop this sudden javelin shot? One by one, they were shot through and fell to the ground. There were even some Tang archers who were thrown by the cavalry of the Zhou army because they stood close, and pierced two soldiers at once...... The array of archers of the Don Army soon tended to collapse.

When the narrow meets, the brave wins. After resisting for more than half an hour, the shield soldiers of the Tang Army in the front rows finally collapsed completely due to the loss of the suppressive support of their own archers. The cavalry of the Zhou army took advantage of the situation to kill the rear, using their spears to harvest the lives of the Tang soldiers who were already in disarray.

Sheng Yanshi was already sweating at this time, and although he still had 8,000 cavalry not far away, he didn't dare to let them go into battle immediately. Because the cavalry is good at charging and killing, it is not conducive to melee. Right now, their own soldiers are in a mess, and they only get caught up in a scuffle when they come in. In the face of the excellent equipment of the enemy's cavalry, even if the cavalry joined the battle group, it would not save much of the situation. And he can increase his troops, and Qin Qiong can also increase his troops. If this continues, it is still impossible to win.

"Withdraw!" Sheng Yanshi saw that the defeat had been achieved, and if he didn't run, he might have to be a prisoner. Immediately the order was given to retreat. Anyway, according to Li Shimin's order, this attack was only a tentative attack to see how the Zhou army's combat capability was, and there was no requirement that it must win at all costs. Now, he can be regarded as having achieved his goal and tested the strength of Zhou Jun.

The soldiers of the Tang Army, who were still barely resisting, saw that the main generals had run away, and their morale suddenly collapsed, and they also hurriedly retreated, all of them scrambled to run away, just wanting to escape back to their camp.

Qin Qiong knew that the poor should not chase after him, and the Tang army still had a large cavalry on the periphery, and Luo Shixin really couldn't get cheap if he caught up, so he also ordered Mingjin to withdraw his troops.

After Sheng Yanshi returned to the big tent, he was not blamed more by Li Shimin, because he saw the whole battle process, although Sheng Yanshi's command was not very good, but there were no big loopholes, the main reason was that he did not expect that the Zhou army had such a powerful javelin, and the cavalry was equipped with iron shields, and the well-equipped Cheng could not even compare with the previous Sui army, so he caught himself off guard.

……

The next day, the Don army launched another massive onslaught. And it was the infantry and cavalry that went out, and it seemed that yesterday's fiasco made Li Shimin's face a little unbearable, and he tried to break the enemy in one fell swoop today.

At this time, Qin Qiong ordered to give up the open space in the front line, retreat to the camp en masse, and defend it with the fortifications, traps and ditches in front of the camp.

The Tang army soon arrived at Yuzhang in front of the Zhou army's camp, and Li Shimin was obviously prepared this time, sending arrow blocking vehicles, siege vehicles, and catapults to attack this Zhou army's camp as a city.

I saw dozens of chariots in the front, slowly attacking the Zhou army's camp, with the elite cavalry of the Tang army on both flanks, and all kinds of light and heavy infantry in the middle. At a glance, the total strength of the attack was at least 50,000.

Several of the former Liu Wuzhou's subordinate generals who had just joined Yuming turned a little pale when they saw this, obviously shocked by Li Shimin's clever tactics and strong troops. They couldn't help but secretly rejoice, fortunately, King Zhou had already ordered that if they could not defend it, they would retreat into the city of Xia County, so as not to suffer heavy casualties. That way, they just have to prove that they did their best.

At this time, the catapults of the Tang army had already begun to bombard the camp of the Zhou army, and some soldiers of the Zhou army waiting at the gate of the camp were immediately hit by boulders because they could not dodge, and they became a puddle of meat in an instant.

Seeing this, Qin Qiong also frowned, and after thinking for a moment, Fang ordered: "Let the shield soldiers and archers attack and shoot the enemy's trebuchetmen." At the same time, he asked Luo Shixin to lead the cavalry team to prepare. If the enemy's cavalry rushes up, he is responsible for interception. ”

As soon as Qin Qiong gave the order, he heard the sound of killing again, and the Tang army poured up a group of more than 2,000 archers, all of whom mounted rockets and shot at the Zhou army camp, it seems that they wanted to break the morale of the Zhou army by setting fire to the camp tent of the Zhou army camp and causing a fire.

But fortunately, Qin Qiong had thought of this before, and he had already ordered that all the camps near the periphery be moved to the rear, and they would be moved to the rear where the enemy's bows and arrows could not shoot, so the rockets fired by the Tang army did not play much role.

At this time, the camp gate of the Zhou army was wide open, and thousands of shield soldiers and archers poured out, reflecting back to the group of Tang army archers who were firing rockets, and the enemy was overwhelmed and forced to retreat.

And those catapults of the Tang army also became the focus of the archers of the Zhou army, and under the fire of the rockets of the Zhou army, many catapults were ignited. The Tang army's action of throwing stones into the Zhou army camp was forced to be suspended.

Sheng Yanshi finally lost his breath and ordered the cavalry of the Tang army to attack immediately.

...