When the army is marching, the scouts who serve as border tasks twenty or thirty miles away often concentrate at least a hundred or so horsemen within a few miles to prevent all kinds of accidents, Xiao Xuan also wants to know that the elite of the volunteer army can win more with less under the limit of how many times the difference in strength can at least be, and even where the limit of combat effectiveness is, so he did not give orders to the troops serving as alert troops without much consideration: the Mongols in the Monan area are closer to Jianzhou, and they are more hostile to their own side. If you find a Mongol army that is not too large, you can launch a surprise attack or even a pursuit within a distance of forty miles from the main army. In this way, the team can also have all kinds of seizures on the march, sometimes the captured cattle and sheep are difficult to eat all at once, and they can't keep up with the team, so they can only spend a lot of effort to make cured meat in case of emergency.

When the large army in the westward march approached not far from the Hetao area, it encountered a relatively large enemy attack, and thousands of Mongols suffered a lot of losses in the confrontation, and were ready to eat at least a hundred or so enemy scout squadrons with dozens of times the strength advantage in an ambush, so that at least they could find out a lot about this enemy army.

Because at this time, the Monan and Moxi Mongols, who were attached to the Jianzhou regime, also seemed to hear a legend. Emperor Chongzhen's pro-army is said to have a strange characteristic: when deploying the arrangements for campaign operations, often even some officers and soldiers at the grassroots level can learn a lot of information, which is contrary to the dogmatic policy of foolish soldiers.

When 3,000 cavalry suddenly appeared in the field of vision a few miles away with the help of the meadows and even hills, which were still lush in the summer, the mighty momentum still made it difficult to tell how many enemy troops were approaching in a short time.

Different from the confrontation of tens of thousands of people against thousands of people, when thousands of people fight against a team of about 100 people, you can rest assured and boldly engage with skirmishers, so that it is difficult for the opponent's arrows to hit effectively, and achieve the ultimate victory through a war of attrition one by one under the condition of mastering the advantage of mobility.

Of course, the ambush soldiers under Lin Dan Khan are of course also very clear that the elite cavalry of the Ming army of more than 100 people certainly does not exist in isolation, and it is necessary to fight quickly to escape in time.

When the rain of arrows of thousands of enemy troops came from all directions, more than 100 horses were quickly killed under the rain of arrows, perhaps because these Mongols lacked the elite strong archers in the main force of Jianzhou, so they did not bring too much threat to the team in the concentrated fire projectile from a hundred paces away, but even so, at least three people of the second division of the Volunteer Left Army were killed and injured because of the arrows in the leader's hand.

Under normal circumstances, when encountering such a sinister situation, it is difficult for the inferior side to effectively fight back under the suppression of the rain of arrows, and even if it fights back with the blows of the rain of arrows, it is impossible to have any decent accuracy.

However, these reconnaissance archers in the 2nd Volunteer Division seemed to be like green pines in the wind and rain, facing the enemy arrows that were constantly shooting around them one after another, and even occasionally shooting on the armor on their bodies, bravely and calmly launched a counterattack, and in a short period of time, they launched four or five rounds of fire in small groups, and in a short period of time, nearly 100 enemy cavalry were shot off their horses with an average hit rate of less than 10 arrows killing and wounding one person.

Sporadic Condor marksmen, many Mongols have seen them among generals or individual people around them. However, it is almost common for a team of 100 people to have archery skills at the level of an archer or a marksman, which is something that no one has ever thought of. What's more, these tough shooters also have unimaginable calmness and bravery, and they are not afraid of losses in such a rain of arrows...

The fierce confrontation did not last long, and when twenty or thirty people were wounded and withdrew from the battle, and the arrows fired one after another were still accurate, the Mongols, who had encountered at least two or three hundred casualties, finally began to feel a little moved, as if they realized that even if they had dozens of times the number of troops, they might not be able to easily eat each other.

Subsequently, the ambushed Mongols also changed their tactics, and selected some people with more outstanding archery skills and elites to carry out a war of attrition and raiding warfare in turns. But those people even had heavy thoughts in such a situation, and they didn't seem to be moved by the arrows thrown from a hundred paces away, but avoided most of the arrows that came by constantly dodging. Only when there are more people gathered to fight and the target is more obvious, do you launch a counterattack to maximize the killing efficiency.

Seeing the opponent's strong archery skills, the besieging Mongols also thought of using shields and stragglers to carry out infantry assaults and cover the assault like the Jianzhou people. However, it was found that the arrows fired by those elite enemies were not only very accurate, but also very ferocious, and they were not at all improvised ordinary shields that could be fought within the effective range of fire.

After the tentative attack continued more than ten times, but still in the end, the cavalry of Lin Dan Khan, who felt the sound of the hooves of the reinforcements, had to finally give up the siege of this small and strong enemy, which was not large.

In this way, more than 100 scouts of the 2nd Division repelled an opponent dozens of times the size of their troops at the cost of 40% casualties and the loss of all horses. After Xiao Xuan learned some of the circumstances of this battle, he also had a general understanding of his own combat effectiveness.

Although these people did not create a case of defending the Tatars with a hundred against a hundred against tens of thousands, as the Polish hussars did. But such a field battle is completely different from a village defense operation. Moreover, there will be discrepancies and discrepancies between skirmishers of 100 against 10000 men and hundreds of thousands of skirmishers. In this way, even if the combat quality of the reconnaissance cavalry of the Second Volunteer Division is one level higher than the general level, the basic combat effectiveness of the core and main force of the volunteer force has reached a level similar to that of the Polish hussars.

After this encounter, Xiao Xuan did not try to save trouble, but planned to completely capture the Hetao area, so he gathered the strength of the whole army to launch a sweep of the entire Hetao. In the face of absolute superiority in combat capability, the opponent was completely wiped out in just a few days. In order to maintain actual control of the area, Xiao Xuan did not hesitate to leave at least one division of strength for guarding. In this way, although the force to continue the western expedition was reduced to less than 30,000 and less than six divisions, which was further weakened, judging from the combat effectiveness shown by the team before, it was enough to at least complete the strategy to cut off the area around Hedong. As for facing stronger opponents, they will not only rely on the main force of the volunteer forces to complete all the operations.

(End of chapter)