Chapter 180: The First Death

When Zhao Sen rushed back to the mouth of the canyon with his people, the 1,200 soldiers of the 1,200 battalions under his command and the 200 cavalry handed over to him by Li Xiaozong were still about seventy percent, and the infantry suffered heavy losses, and the cavalry had almost no casualties because they did not directly confront the enemy. Therefore, when Zhao Sen immediately set up a defensive line at the mouth of the gorge without letting the soldiers rest, some of the idle cavalry suffered from the contempt that made their conscience uneasy.

"Look!"

An infantryman sneered while sorting out his quiver: "The equipment on my body is almost enough to buy a Qingqi person, but while we are fighting, people are hanging out...... It's all the same life, and other people's are so expensive. ”

Another soldier covered his mouth and motioned to Zhao Sen, who had a bad face over there, looking over there.

"What are you afraid of!"

The soldier who ridiculed the cavalry shrugged his shoulders indifferently: "It's a miracle that Lao Tzu survived after this battle, and now if you don't say everything that should be said, wouldn't you be in a panic if you go to hell and have your tongue pulled out?" ”

He looked at the knife wound on his right arm, frowned, and then tore off a messy package: "When I left Qingxia, people rode horses in the front to show off their might, and when they retreated to defend Qingxia, they still ran in the front, unscathed. The reincarnation in the next life is naturally in the Great Sui, but Lao Tzu would rather be a horse! ”

Cavalry Captain Zhao Qi's face was extremely ugly, and the sarcastic words of the infantry poked him in the heart like a knife. He, like all the cavalry of the Great Sui, was full of pride when he was assigned the war horse that belonged to him. It is precisely because of the scarcity of war horses that not just a soldier can become a cavalryman. They were all very good in skill, burly and strong, and they were better fed and clothed than the infantry, and even their salaries were twice as good as those of the infantrymen.

It is also true that they sweat more than the infantry, and they are practicing when the infantry is drilling, and they are still practicing when the infantry is resting. Regardless of wind or rain, these cavalrymen kept working hard for the dream of beating Meng Yuan's light cavalry in their hearts, but ...... When he arrived on the battlefield, he found that the arrogant cavalry he had brought with him had become the most useless people.

He did not resent the ridicule of the infantry, not even the enemy.

The hand holding the horse lance trembled slightly, and there was a fire burning in Zhao Qi's eyes.

"Captain!"

A cavalryman couldn't stand the infantry's white eyes and sarcasm, he looked into Zhao Qi's eyes and asked loudly, "Are we just watching the robe fight to the death?" Could it be that we can only stand by and watch the non-stop practice in the wind and rain? ”

"Shut up!"

Zhao Qi bit his lip and said, "We are cavalry, but first of all, we are soldiers. Soldier...... You have to obey the military order, and if the general's order is not issued, you will all be honest with Lao Tzu! ”

"But ......"

"No, but!"

Zhao Qi's eyes looked at the herdsmen who were rushing towards this side after gradually spreading out in the distance, and he knew that the brothers in the camp of the tooth general Pan Mei were all dead. Just now, his two hundred cavalry were ready to charge to rescue Pan Mei, but they were stopped by the tooth general Zhao Sen.

They did watch the robes die in battle, doing nothing like useless waste.

It was more than 1,200 lives that were besieged and killed by tens of thousands of disheveled herdsmen. When those robes fought bloodily, how much did they look forward to their comrades coming to the rescue? But until they were all killed, they did not see the fiery red battle flag of the Great Sui appear behind the enemy.

Zhao Qi's heart was dripping blood, and he wanted to roar loudly to vent the dissatisfaction in his heart.

He couldn't help but withdraw his gaze from the enemy and turned to look at General Zhao Sen. At this time, the cavalry he sent to ask Zhao Sen if he was going to fight came back, his head bowed, and his face was full of disappointment.

"Captain...... The general told us to wait. ”

The cavalry spoke in a very small voice, as if he was afraid that the voice would be too loud and hurt his heart.

"Standby ......"

Zhao Qi muttered and repeated, and the hand holding the horse lance was full of green muscles.

Not far from him, the tooth general Zhao Sen ordered the soldiers to set up defenses at the mouth of the canyon, and before the enemy had yet to rush, the soldiers hastily dug a lot of traps dozens of meters outside the mouth of the valley. These pits are shallow and not big, but a fast-running horse loses its center of gravity once it steps on it.

"Luckily!"

Zhao Qi wiped the sweat on his forehead and said to himself: "Fortunately, those herdsmen don't know what to do, and they have lost their minds because of the red eyes of killing and killing, and they all rushed around Pan Mei's camp and did not divide men and horses to occupy the canyon at the first time, I am afraid that this is something that the wolves in Mandu did not expect." These untrained herders don't know what tactics are, otherwise I'm afraid I'm a sinner. ”

"General!"

The lookout standing on a high place shouted downward, "General Li's situation is not very good!" The enemy cavalry wandered around the army formation and shot arrows and did not attack directly, and our army formation is getting smaller and smaller! ”

"What a vicious tactic!"

Zhao Sen's eyes lit up, and after a moment of silence, he shouted loudly: "Herald, bring the cavalry captain Zhao Qi to see me!" ”

"Whoa!"

The herald said yes, turned and galloped out.

……

……

Li Xiaozong's forehead was already full of sweat, his eyes looked at the Meng Yuan cavalry galloping by, the corners of his mouth kept twitching, and his expression looked extremely painful. Before marching, he thought that he had thought of all the tactics of Meng Yuan's light cavalry charge, and also thought about how to deal with it, but the only thing he ignored was that the enemy's cavalry relied on the speed advantage to wander outside the formation, relying on bows and arrows and soft knives to grind the military formation little by little.

The enemy whizzed past forty paces away, but could not inflict any damage on the enemy. The boxwood riding bow in the enemy's hand has a faster rate of fire than the standard foot bow of the Great Sui, and the most troublesome thing is that the enemy's speed is faster, and the arrows shot by the archers of the Great Sui often fall behind the enemy. Even though he ordered the archers to shoot their arrows not at people, but in front of them, there was still a huge disparity in the ratio of casualties between the two sides.

The only thing that shocked the enemy was the thirty heavy crossbows. But the heavy crossbow is too clumsy and can be extremely powerful if it is a frontal enemy. But the enemy's wandering tactics make the crossbow very powerful.

There were less than one hundred and fifty Giant Shieldmen, and they couldn't protect the entire battle formation. But even if the giant shield hand can protect it, what can it do if it is curled inside and has no power to fight back?

After struggling for a long time, Li Xiaozong, who bit his lip, finally issued a military order.

"Attack!"

He raised his horizontal sword and shouted, "It is better to charge and die than to do nothing!" ”

"Onward!"

Less than 1,500 Great Sui infantry erupted into a roar and immediately changed formation. The giant shieldmen lined up on either side, the archers at the end, and the lancers in front. At the front, Li Xiaozong and his dozen or so personal soldiers. This is also the only cavalry in the current Sui army.

But when it was time to charge, Li Xiaozong and his own soldiers jumped off their precious horses and ran forward with the infantry, without the slightest reluctance to their mounts.

"Onward!"

"I'd rather charge and die!"

The soldiers let out a reluctant cry, and everyone's face was resolute.

Mandu Wolf looked at the Sui people on the opposite side and changed their formation, and couldn't help but let out a smug laugh: "Such a Sui person, how dare you claim to be undefeated in a hundred battles?" I wiped out nearly half of his men with just a group of herdsmen, and I could even continue to grind them to death with the tactics of cavalry wandering if I wanted to. But I won't do that...... Since they chose to attack, let them see how the strongest army in the world kills people and how the strongest army attacks! ”

"Bragg, fight!"

He drew his scimitar and pointed forward, and the heavy horn whined. All the cavalry returned to their camp, and then followed behind the Mandu wolf and killed the Sui people.

The Sui people are proud, and so are the Mengyuan people. When the enemy chose to charge, the pride of the Mandu wolf did not allow him to avoid the fight. He just wants to defeat Li Xiaozong head-on, this guy who has been an opponent for three years across the mountain from him.

The violent and barbaric Mandu Banner herdsmen used crowd tactics to fill Pan Mei's Zhichong camp. 1,200 well-trained elite soldiers of the Great Sui Right Xiao Guards died in this way. Although none of them surrendered, the fact that the enemy was not Meng Yuan's regular army made each of them a little indignant.

And the herdsmen who killed the red-eyed did not stop the pace of the war horses because of the huge losses. When they found that the Sui people around them had been killed, they immediately turned their horses and rushed towards the canyon. Though...... When the Mandu wolves confessed to them before, they forced them to take the canyon as the first priority, but after the killing began, they could no longer control their human nature.

About 6,000 male and female herdsmen roared towards the mouth of the gorge, because the rulers of the Mengyuan Empire stipulated that each herdsman was only allowed to have one bow, so the pressure on the defending side of the Great Sui infantry was slightly less. Otherwise, these 6,000 herdsmen kept washing the army formation with a rain of arrows during the charge, and they would not be able to bear it for long.

The frenzied herdsmen shouted and urged their horses forward, and many of the people in front fell because they had stepped on the pit. But the companions who rushed behind did not give them a chance to dodge, and soon the herdsmen who had fallen from their horses were trampled into pulp. The horse's hooves clattered against the dirt mixed with flesh and blood.

An eyeball that didn't know who it belonged to was covered with dust, but it stubbornly looked ahead.

"Shoot the arrows!"

Zhao Sen gave the order loudly, and the few Sui infantry poured the feather arrows out. The herdsmen, who had no combat experience, did not know how to dodge, and those who were shot by the feathered arrows fell like dumplings.

The antlers that the Sui army had arranged at the mouth of the canyon to repel the horses had played a role, and the herdsmen did not know how to dismantle these things in the shortest possible time, so they jumped off their horses and clumsily tried to move the things that stood in the way, but how could the archers of the Sui army give them time?

Soon, the antlers were covered with corpses.

The ground at the west entrance of the canyon seemed to be moving, and a high hill of flesh and blood grew higher and higher.

When the Sui soldiers had shot the quiver, they used the lance as a throwing spear and threw it. When the lance was gone, they drew their horizontal knives and prepared for hand-to-hand combat. The herdsmen, who had suffered heavy losses, could no longer ride over the high piles of corpses, so they climbed off their horses and rushed towards them with all kinds of weapons. Like bows and arrows, scimitars are not something that everyone in the herdsmen is entitled to have.

In any age of the world, in any kingdom, the monarch would not allow the people to have weapons in their hands that could resist his rule. Moreover, Mengyuan is a country with a shortage of iron tools. Therefore, many herders are wielding a sharpened wooden stick in their hands.

How could the herdsmen who got off their horses have an advantage in the face of the elite Sui army? Of course, when there are ten times the number of the enemy, the herdsmen can also see the dawn of victory.

When hand-to-hand combat began, the Sui army had less than 400 men left. They barely formed a three-layer defense line at the mouth of the canyon, and they looked a little pitiful.

The herdsmen fell one by one, and the Sui soldiers also decreased one by one.

Just when the last sixty or seventy Sui soldiers were struggling to support, there was a sudden chaos behind the herdsmen. The herders, who were already on the verge of collapse, finally lost their fear of death and began to flee in tears. If they find out that there is only a cavalry of less than 100 men behind them, they may regret their choice to escape.

Li Xiaozong came back, with three arrows in his body, and his iron armor was covered with blood.

The cavalry returned, losing half of its men and horses. But they used their horse lances to declare that although they were small in number, they were more terrible than Meng Yuan's cavalry!

The infantry did not return, and all of them were killed. Their bodies were left on the grasslands, and it was not known if their souls would be able to fly back to the garden through the canyon.

This was the first battle of the first day, and there were less than 200 of the 5,000 men and horses left of the Sui people out of Qingxia. Although they killed more than 8,000 herdsmen and more than 1,600 Mengyuan cavalry, was this the first victory?

Perhaps, it's just the first death.

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