At first glance, when he heard Feng Yi say that "the generals cherish their bodies, why should they ask the generals to use their lives", Han Duan's chest also felt a little enthusiastic, and he pulled Han Chengmeng and Chen Zhiyong overnight with his uncle Han Daoming and father Han Daochang to catch up with the army and go west.

Han Duan also deliberately took off the armor from the family soldiers and put it on, wanting to show the heroic side of the Han family's children in front of thousands of generals.

However, in order to ensure that the rhythm of the westward march of the large army was not disrupted, not only were hundreds of reconnaissance cavalry scattered outside the northern flank, but Han Qian and other generals on horseback could only go to the north side, which had been abandoned for two or three years and had potholed fields.

Han Duan sat on the back of a horse, wearing forty or fifty pounds of armor, with a longbow and quiver hanging on both sides of the saddle, walking through the potholed fields, not only to be careful of the horse lost and fell, but also to be careful not to be bumped by the long lance hanging in the saddle.

When the morning light appeared in the sky, Han Duan's intuition was scattered, and he couldn't wait to find a thatched pile to lie in on all fours.

At this time, Guo rushed back with several horsemen in the morning fog to report that more than 2,000 enemy horsemen had gathered in the southeast of Chuzhou overnight.

"Zhao Mingting is still unwilling in the end, he wants to try our reality, he is really a difficult person!" Han Qian turned over and dismounted, asked Han Donghu to take out the map, spread it out on horseback, and looked at it carefully with Zhou Yan, Feng Xuan and other generals.

From their position, it was more than twenty miles away from the place where the enemy cavalry had assembled, and in the middle was a flat river.

At this distance, there is no terrain obstacle between friend and foe.

Even a few shallow and narrow streams were frozen solid in the last few days of the second year of Yanyou - it could be seen that the enemy cavalry outside Chuzhou City was dispatched at this time, and they still had to take advantage of the convenience of the terrain to fight with them.

Of course, these streams are no more than three feet deep, and even if they are not frozen, they can prevent enemy horsemen from wading directly into the water to kill them.

On a one-night march, Han Qian said very little, but before Han Duan crossed the river, he knew that the enemy general who led 3,000 cavalry to monitor Chuzhou City at this time was Zhao Mingting, the former Shouzhou army Zhongli defender and the commander of the naval army.

At present, Liang general Chen Kun led more than 20,000 Liang army infantry battalions into Zhongli, before the river between the Yangtze River and Huai River was thawed, the warships of the Lou Boat Army had no way to go south for the time being, and Zhao Mingting, as the vanguard general designated by Xu Mingzhen, led 3,000 cavalry through the Mopan Valley ten days ago, and entered the vicinity of Chuzhou City, mainly monitoring and containing the remnants of the southern escape in the Wujian Mountain and the Chuzhou defenders did not dare to break through at will, so as to wait for their soldiers and horses in the rear to be reorganized and then come forward to encircle and annihilate them.

However, Han Qian dragged his troops to Tingzi Mountain until this time, but it was not a big deal, it was really that it would take time to reconvene the old division of the Zuoguang German Army into the battalion, and it was impossible to form a combat effectiveness to resist the impact of enemy cavalry in the field.

Yesterday, it was also detected that the enemy army had tens of thousands of cavalry and foot soldiers moving from Zhongli and Chaozhou to Chuzhou, and Han Qian had to make corresponding military deployments; Otherwise, Han Qian hoped to have more time to stay in Tangyi to prepare his troops and horses.

Han Daoming and Han Daochang knew that the battlefield was not what they were good at, so they stood on the periphery and watched Han Qian and how they dispatched troops; Han Duan and the others saw that even Guo Ke and He Liufeng, the former slaves and maids of the Han family, were qualified to come to Han Qian's side to discuss the next battle plan, but they couldn't squeeze in, and they felt a little unhappy.

Han Duan turned around and looked at the south bank of the Chu River, the mountain crest of Qingdai Sè's big thorn mountain seemed to be a dragon lurking in the mist, but it was still more than thirty miles away from the eastern foot post station of Tingzi Mountain, the target of this trip.

Han Qian's side quickly made a response plan, and as the generals went to their own departments, a team of soldiers marched

Moving very quickly to the north into the wilderness, the knots on the north side of the official road were staggered and orderly, and the defensive formation was clearly layered.

However, most of the soldiers could not hide the fatigue and distress on their faces when they traveled lightly overnight.

"You want to fight the enemy horsemen here?" Han Duan looked at the unobstructed terrain on the left and right, although he had never had the opportunity to lead his troops and horses to fight on the battlefield, he was very doubtful at this time that the five thousand foot soldiers with poor armor could block the attack of the two thousand enemy cavalry in the unobstructed field.

Behind them was the Chuhe River, which was more than a hundred zhang wide and had not yet frozen at this time, and once it was rushed to the heart by the cavalry enemy, it was impossible to retreat.

Besides, even if they relied on their superiority in strength and could barely block the attack of the enemy cavalry for a while, they were delayed in the wilderness and could not advance or retreat, and the situation was extremely bad.

The enemy army still has tens of thousands of infantry and cavalry from Chaozhou in the west and Yongyang in the north to quickly advance to this side, once they delay until they are besieged by a large number of enemy troops from the west and north, they will not escape defeat?

Han Duan's mind was a little apprehensive, and he thought to himself, he had already known that he would take the initiative to ask to stay in Tangyi to keep an eye on Han Jun.

Han Qian left Chen Jingzhou and Feng Yi to accompany Han Daoming and Han Daochang to stay behind the battle, and he shuttled between the armies surrounded by Han Donghu, Xi Fa'er and other guards, talking with the generals who had entered the defensive positions one after another, and inspiring their morale to fight bravely.

Han Duan could only hope that Han Qian and the generals under his command would be worthy of their reputation, and also hoped that the enemy army would be able to be intimidated by Han Qian's prestige, but he only approached tentatively, but in fact, he didn't dare to easily test the reality here.

Han Qian soon returned to the rear with Zhou Yi and the others, and Han Duan listened to the conversation between him and Guo Ke and other sentinels, and only then did he know that the two thousand enemy cavalry more than ten miles away had been divided into three teams, and they were attacking in a zigzag shape.

Han Daoming was also a little breathless, and walked over to ask Han Qian: "Infantry and cavalry field battles, it is usually said that you need more than three times the strength advantage to win, before the enemy reinforcements arrive, are you sure to defeat the enemy's forward cavalry?" ”

Han Daoming also knew that holding the formation and not being scattered or defeated by the enemy cavalry did not mean that they had escaped from danger, and the more important thing was to guard against being dragged by the enemy's forward cavalry and unable to advance or retreat, and whether they could inflict heavy damage on the enemy cavalry that covered the first wave was very crucial.

"Liu Yuchuang of the Southern Song Dynasty was famous for his chariot formation, but this method of warfare was not popularized in later generations because of the lack of corresponding conditions," Han Qian looked at the mist floating above the field and said, "Whether this tactic can effectively curb the assault charge of the enemy cavalry depends on the actual combat to test ......"

Han Duan also read military books in his spare time, and also knew that the foundation of the Qiyue Array was chariots and crossbows, and was about to ask Han Qian's men, who only had 5,000 soldiers and simple armor, why they deployed the Qiyue Formation, when he saw a fleet of ships breaking through the mist from the west and approaching this side.

The warships of this fleet are not very large, probably specially designed to facilitate the entry of the Chuhe River to fight, but they are all full of sails and oars, flying the flag of the Xuzhou Water Battalion, and sailing extremely fast in the morning fog.

After the fleet approached, the boatmen and oarsmen on the ship jumped into the cold shallow water without hesitation, dragged the boats as close to the shore as possible, set up pallets, and soon saw light chariots being dragged up the river beach, and then quickly extending north from the two wings of the shore defense array.

More than a dozen people gathered around a light chariot, the chariot was equipped with a huge shield and bed crossbow, and from the gap between the lattice plates, there were dozens of spears piercing out to prevent the enemy cavalry from rushing directly to the front of the chariot, and the light soldiers who fought in the chariot did not wear much strong and heavy armor, and all carried strong crossbows and short blades.

Of course, the chariots extended to the north, and they did not form a separate formation, but seven or eight

chariots in a squad, integrated into the defensive infantry formations formed in advance on the periphery and flanks.

At this time, the enemy cavalry was already close to three or four miles, and some of the cavalry had already pulled up their speed to cover the sky and the sun to rush over, and they also noticed the abnormality here, but they were unwilling to give up the charge that had been launched, and the horses' hooves rolled up the residual snow and dust, as if the waves of flesh and blood rushed over.

The sound of arrows breaking through the air is like a howling wind.

The dense accumulation of fire caught the enemy cavalry off guard, and more than a dozen people on the left front flank were suddenly shot off their horses, causing the cavalry charge formation on the left front flank to scatter with it......

Han Qian led everyone to ride up a five- or six-zhang high dirt slope to look at the battle on the periphery.

The two troops and horses led by Dou Rong and He Liufeng on the front flanks and directly facing the impact of the enemy's cavalry were not many in number, but they were the first elite members of the Chishan Society to move into Baihogang from the beginning of June.

This part of the soldiers and horses have been assembled and reorganized for the longest time, and the armor is complete, and the landing chariots are coordinated, and the position is extremely stable, and at present, the disturbance of the enemy cavalry is firmly blocked on the periphery, and the Jiangzhou soldiers, whose combat effectiveness and fighting will are relatively weak, are sheltered inside.

Seeing that it was difficult to make a sudden attack, the enemy cavalry did not blindly assault, but did not retreat, but patrolled on both flanks, and from time to time divided small groups of cavalry teams stepped forward to provoke and disturb the attack, trying to find gaps and flaws that were conducive to the rapid entry and penetration of large groups of cavalry.

Although the strength of the troops here is more than twice that of the enemy army, the enemy troops on the periphery are all cavalry, and the remnants of snow and dust are flying in the field between the wild runs, and the momentum is even more shocking.

Han Qian frowned slightly, and said to Zhou Yan: "Zhao Mingting has a brush for the thief queen to be the leader of the secret spy, but the ability to lead the army is not weak, depending on the situation, if they can't find a good opportunity to attack, they probably want to delay the battle until the infantry reinforcements from Chaozhou come over......"

Although the cavalry has the shortcomings of being more severely restricted by the terrain, loose formation, and difficult to stabilize on the battlefield, compared with these shortcomings, the advantages of cavalry are also more prominent.

Riding on horseback with a condescending pawn has a larger slashing range, a stronger assault ability, and a mobile cavalry has more time for rapid outflanking and encirclement of the enemy.

Not to mention the main cavalry of the Liang army, it has been nearly 20 years since the founding of the Great Chu, and the only formed cavalry unit has also fallen into the hands of Xu Mingzhen.

When Han Qian decided to establish a defensive line in Tangyi, the first thing he had to consider at the tactical level was how to counter the superiority of the Shouzhou army and the Liang army's cavalry in the Jianghuai Plain.

The simple moon formation, relying on chariots and strong bows and crossbows, is of course not afraid of the enemy's cavalry assault, but Zhao Mingting is obviously not a weak hand.

He was not stupid enough to send 2,000 cavalry to rush up and tear up their defenses, but to delay them here as much as possible, obviously waiting for their main foot force to rush over from Chaozhou City, and then they could use the denser and stronger infantry formation to get close to the Qiyue formation, and then find a gap and then use the cavalry to assault.

Han Daoming and Han Duan are more worried about this possibility.

"Do you want to try to stagger the formation to the west?" Zhou Yan asked.

"I look at the terrain around here, let's settle down here, let's not go to Tingzi Mountain for the time being!" Han Qian said.

"Settle here?" Han Daoming looked at the four fields, in addition to a few abandoned villages in his field of vision, there is terrain to borrow from the Great Thorn Mountain eleven or twelve miles away from the south bank of the Chu River.