Chapter 159 The tiger is strong and strong

On September 5 of the first year of Baoqing of the Great Song Dynasty, it was one hundred and fifty miles away from Xuzhou City on the east and west roads of Jinguoshan.

Although it is only the weather in September, the cold wind has already penetrated people's bone marrow. Tian Jiehu tightened the tattered clothes on his body, although he was covered with a layer of iron armor, but the wind still poured in through the cracks in the iron armor, making him tremble a little.

"The weather in Laoshzi, could it be that the Yellow River is going to freeze again this year?" He muttered an curse, and glanced enviously at the convoy that was on the march like him.

Compared with him, the escort team was wearing half-body armor and thick cotton clothes under the armor, although it looked a little bloated, but none of them shivered from the cold, even the slightest pawn, and he Tian Jiehu was a low-ranking officer in the loyal army.

"Grandma's, eat the same rice and raise a hundred kinds of people, at the beginning, I was just an ordinary appearance, just because I went to Liuqiu, and now I come back like this......" Tian Jiehu thought jealously.

No wonder he was jealous, nearly half of the guards were young and strong who had gone from the Red Jacket Army, and Tian Jiehu recognized two little children who ran behind him back then, but now they have their faces washed clean, like the eldest young master of the rich and noble family, with bright armor on their bodies, and they walk like the wind. Looking back at his subordinates, Tian Jiehu was blushing, all of them were in tattered clothes, with yellow muscles and thin muscles, like an army of beggars.

What embarrassed him the most was that at first he thought that these guards were nothing more than silver spears, but in fact, these guards were not weaker than his subordinates in terms of marching discipline, speed, and endurance. When the loyal and righteous army marched, they were squeezed together, but they were lined up in a column and were absolutely silent when they were resting; The loyal and righteous army will mourn and sigh for fifty miles a day, but people will also travel these fifty miles, but their faces will not change and they will not breathe!

Tian Jiehu also inquired about his acquaintances, and then he learned that the Liuqiu Escort Brigade had to go out for training almost every day on weekdays, and a training was three or four hours, and it was commonplace to forcibly march and train in the stormy and windy climate of Liuqiu, and every 15 days there would even be a rapid march drill on foot for 100 miles, and those who could not support it would have been eliminated long ago.

First of all, there is no allowance and food for the escort team, and secondly, after quitting the escort team, they can't find a good job to do, and the normal retirement of the escort team at the age of 24 can be arranged by the Liuqiu Office with a good salary and high status!

In Liuqiu, men had to be selected by the escort team at the age of eighteen, and before the age of eighteen, most of them studied in the Liuqiu primary school, that is to say, the two thousand five hundred Liuqiu escort team in front of him were all literate!

Thinking of this, the jealousy in Tian Jiehu's heart was even worse, thinking that at the beginning, he could have gone to Liuqiu, but because he wanted to follow Li Quan, he stayed, but now Li Quan has become a chaotic minister and thief in the Great Song Dynasty, and the one who went to Liuqiu has become a protégé of the Son of Heaven of the Great Song Dynasty.

"This thief is the same person." I sighed again.

He knew the future of these guards, and a small low-ranking officer of the Loyal and Righteous Army did not care about the other party at all. He was jealous of his own future, but his subordinates were jealous of the treatment of the Loyal Army.

has two meals a day, but others have three meals a day. Their two meals consisted of nothing more than coarse grains and bran, but they had fish and meat – the kind of stuff called "canned" that was served in glass bottles, each of which contained large pieces of meat that were tender and tender, or salted fish with marinade. These days marching with them, the loyal and righteous army is also blessed, they also share these foods, and eat the tearful appearance of everyone!

Naturally, the good food of the Liuqiu escort is not eaten in vain, if you want to eat, you must keep up with their marching speed, and move along the Huaishui, wherever they go, the supply ships of the Liuqiu escort will follow, if they can't keep up, they will only eat what their own dogs don't smell. Fifty miles a day is said to be less than fifty miles, which was originally extremely difficult for the loyal and righteous army, but the Liuqiu Escort taught the loyal soldiers to wear leggings, straw sandals, and broken blisters, and saw that the big leader of the Liuqiu Escort Army was called the team and walked like the small soldiers, and the loyal and righteous army actually followed.

And as the time spent together between the two sides increased, the loyal and righteous army were also infected unconsciously, and there were fewer people who deserted halfway, and there were fewer chaotic situations during the march. It is also a shame to say that a general of the Loyal and Righteous Army may not be able to organize the sequence, and often begs the guards to come casually and arrange them in an orderly manner. It is said that they are all literate and can count, and they are better than the elders of the loyal army.

But just a few years ago, half of these people were members of the Red Jacket Army who were just like them, running around Jingdong!

"Lao Tian, you said that we should go to the escort team, will they accept it?"

A loyal soldier full of this kind of thought came to Tian Jiehu's side and muttered in a low voice.

Peng Yibin's plan is very simple, these people are not his descendants, and they can be sent to the escort team, which can not only respond to the secret edict of the Son of Heaven, but also sell a face to the escort team, and also send these guys who are not easy to settle. Therefore, Tian Jiehu's treatment is really not good, these days with the escort team, their morale is also high, just think that if they can follow the escort team, wouldn't it be far better than living cautiously under Peng Yibin's account?

"Daydream, look at the spirit of others, and then look at ourselves!" Tian Jiehu said very dejectedly: "Even if you give you a set of escort uniforms, you will still be a Gu Sangou if you wear it!" ”

The hehe, who was called Gu Sangou, smiled, and said in a low voice: "How do you know if you don't try, Lao Tian, Brother Hu, let me tell you the truth, most of our gang have this mind, and the rest are just afraid that they won't be able to stand the suffering of the escort team. ”

Tian Jiehu sneered, but didn't speak, he has a lot more brains than this Gu Sangou, the escort team has always been forbidden, their combat effectiveness is needless to say, now it depends on whether they will panic because of the first battle, if they can become veterans, these 2,500 escorts will be 20,000, 50,000 or even 100,000 people.

As he was thinking, he suddenly heard the sound of horses' hooves, and then three scouts on horses rushed past them, and Tian Jiehu was so close that he could see that all three of them were covered in blood. The three of them ran to the front of Li Ye, the escort team, dismounted and saluted, and then whispered a few words, Li Ye also saluted, and then waved them away. This is also the escort team that makes Tian Jiehu feel strange, the officers and generals actually have to salute the soldiers, isn't this no distinction between respect and inferiority?

Even in the area controlled by the Loyal Righteous Army, the escort team will send scout cavalry, which is close to Xuzhou, and the Loyal Righteous Army even threw the scouts out like a net, and these three scouts brought the news of the Jin soldiers.

On the way, they encountered a small group of golden scouts, the opponent was outnumbered, and they were outnumbered, and both sides circled for several hours, almost exhausting the horse's strength, before they looked for an opportunity to get rid of their opponents. In the process, one of them was killed and one was wounded, and there were only three people left in the original five-person squad, but there were as many as eleven people in the golden scouts who were driven and killed by them.

This has a lot to do with Liuqiu's improved hand crossbow, because cavalry archery can be practiced day and night, in order to increase the attack and survivability of cavalry scouts, as early as five years ago, Ao Sayang led more than ten skilled craftsmen to develop a lighter and more suitable for cavalry use of hand crossbows. This crossbow is hung next to the saddle, and the arrows are loaded in the arrow box, and can shoot six short arrows at a time, which is lethal within thirty meters, although the range is too close, but it is still stronger than the bow. The original assassination of Shi Miyuan's henchman Qin Tianxi was used with this kind of crossbow.

Li Ye came out of the ranks of soldiers, and a guard brought a horse for him, he got on the horse, and when he saw Tian Jiehu, he said: "Your name is Tian Jiehu, right?" ”

Tian Jiehu didn't expect that Li Ye would still remember his name, his heart jumped, and he responded loudly: "The villain Tian Jiehu is now the leader of the Loyal and Righteous Army." ”

"You and your people stop here, and the loyal and righteous army behind you should be gathered first, pass my order to go down, rest on the spot, and don't go any further." Li Ye said helplessly.

The military discipline of the loyal and righteous army is really not good, so if they don't leave someone to stop them, they can huddle together, and instead mess up the queue of the escort. Tian Jiehu's face was so excited that he showed a red tide, he shouted yes, and then shouted at his subordinates: "Didn't you listen to General Li, go quickly!" ”

He glanced at the convoy again, only to find that at some point, the convoy had stopped and began to form rapidly.

The news sent by the scout was very simple, the Jin State had learned the news that the Loyal and Righteous Army had crossed the Huai, and the Jin State Military Department Shangshu Quan participated in the governor's affairs, and the people who were greedy and cruel were greedy and cruel, even when there was nothing to do, they also wanted to cross the border and plunder, so they immediately sent light cavalry to kill, according to the itinerary, their troops were less than ten miles away from the coalition army.

Peng Yibin's own family did not come with the army, and it was a subordinate general who came to him, who was vulgar, but extremely loyal to Peng Yibin, Peng Yibin repeatedly told him to obey Li Ye, so he has always had no objection to Li Ye's arrangement.

Seeing the whole team of guards, Tian Jiehu looked at his own soldiers, although they were also shrinking and gathering, they still looked chaotic, and he felt extremely ashamed. The convoy was in formation, and the 2,500 men took less than five minutes to move in the direction from which the enemy was coming, and the loyal army tried to keep up, but was stopped.

"If the two armies of yours and us are mixed together, it is not appropriate to command, and it is better to separate them as horns." Li Ye said it very politely, but Tian Jiehu, who heard this, knew that people were obviously afraid that their family would be in chaos and make a mistake.

This made him feel indignant in his heart, and even with the bright-looking recruits of the escort team, he dared to compare with the veterans of a hundred battles on his side! He held his breath and shouted at his group, and finally formed a formation.

On the battlefield, I don't know how long I waited, seeing the tense appearance of the Liuqiu escort team, Tian Jiehu sneered, sure enough, they are some new soldiers, the enemy army is still ten miles away and so nervous, if the enemy army appears, this spirit is exhausted, see how they clean it up.

After another moment, a second group of scouts arrived, this time with only one man, the only one, also with an arrow wound on his back. He said something to Li Ye, Li Ye nodded, saluted him to step back, and then began to issue military orders.

"Everyone knows that this is the first battle of our escort team for the Great Song Dynasty, and our master is the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty." Facing these young faces, Li Ye found a high place and shouted: "It doesn't matter if you die, if you lose the prestige of our liuqiu and the face of our master, then he will teach his whole family to live in peace!" ”

"Ho!"

What he said was targeted, when Tamluo Island was in the first battle, some people cowered, and afterwards, he and Li Yunrui, who were in charge of training, were ridiculed by Yang Miaozhen. Although there are only 2,500 escorts this time, nearly half of them have fought against Goryeo and Turen in the past few years, and they cannot be regarded as having no experience in battle formations.

Wu Fang is one of them, looking at an eighteen-year-old team member beside him trembling slightly, he shook his head, after all these years, he has been promoted to the main school of the escort team, and he is in charge of more than 100 subordinates: "This can't be done, you are so nervous, you will exhaust your strength without waiting for the Jin people to come, you should learn from me, look, you can take a nap while standing." ”

The team member was so nervous that he didn't hear him say anything, until he pulled it and said it a second time, and then he understood, and couldn't help but smile sheepishly.

Wu Fang patted him on the shoulder again, and then squinted his eyes to look northwest, and under the sky over there, there was a faint cloud of smoke and dust connecting heaven and earth. Judging by his experience, the other side had at least three thousand horsemen, and the distance from them was less than five miles.

The general of the Jin army, who was actually a close confidant of Tu Shan Wudian, learned that the Song people had set up a formation on the flat ground to invite attack, and the number of them was fourteen or five thousand, and he was a little hesitant at first. But after discovering that most of them were loyal and righteous soldiers, he was overjoyed: "The red jacket thieves have recently been infighting, and if the war is unfavorable, they will disperse in a hurry, but they can be broken!" ”

It was under this circumstance that the first battle between the Escort and the Kingdom of Jin began.

It was both an encounter and an expected battle. The two sides met on the left bank of the Yellow River, and the Liuqiu escort was shielded by 100 carts carrying heavy loads, each with seven people on board, all of whom controlled crossbows. This kind of crossbow modified by Ao Sayang, which is wound with a curved arm winch, has a range comparable to that of an ordinary bow and arrow, but it is too heavy and can only be erected on a cart. The hundred carts lined up in formation, forming a crescent-like arc, protecting the escort in the middle of the formation. Except for the people in the chariot, the rest of the men stood behind the chariot with shields or spears.

Less than twenty minutes after they completed the formation, the golden soldiers took cover. Because there are many loyal soldiers, few escorts, and many carts, so Najin will think that the escort is a heavy force on this side, and the escort is in the front, and the loyal and righteous army is behind, and if he wants to fight the loyal and righteous army, he must pass before the escort, so Najin will almost without thinking, and launched an attack on the escort.