Zhang Shouyue looked back, the flags behind him were waving, the soldiers were as dense as ants, and the people and flags seemed to have filled the entire valley. But if you count it carefully, the number of men and horses is actually only two thousand - this is the only little force in his hands in the hands of the soldiers and horses of Qin Fenglu.

Zhang Shouyue, who is nearly sixty years old, has gray hair, and his thick eyebrows are long and pressed against his eyelids. The veteran half-squinted, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes were like deep ravines, and his dark face was full of wrinkles, as if it was a field that had dried up for a long time. There was nothing unusual in his face as usual, but his pursed lips revealed the tension in his heart.

With dim eyes, staring at the enemy in the east, there were tens of thousands of party thieves, iron harriers with horses and lances, and foot guards wearing armor and swords.

Zhang Shouyue secretly hated that he was too greedy for merit during this border patrol and fell for such a simple strategy. Gangu Castle was built at the mouth of the Great Gangu Valley, and to the south is the 60-mile-long Gangu Valley, which is also called Yuya because of the hot springs that flow in. And the north of Gangu City, out of the valley mouth, is the upper valley of Gangu water, because it is in the south of Maling, called Nangu, is the dividing line between the two countries in the Song and Xia Dynasty today.

Zhang Shouyue led the team to patrol the border, originally looking for an opportunity to expel more than 1,000 western thieves who had invaded the South Valley, but he didn't expect that those thieves were just a bait, and the real enemy had already been ambushed, waiting for him to throw himself into the net. When he took 2,000 soldiers and horses to chase and stop, twists and turns, and spent two days following the western thieves to a branch valley in the South Valley, 10,000 thieves came out of the ambush and blocked the return of the 2,000 Song troops.

The location where Zhang Shouyue and his army are now located is about thirty miles away from Gangu City. This distance does not seem to be too far, and it is only a half-day journey. But once the war starts, it is like the end of the world. In the first battle of Sanchuankou that year, the marshal Liu Ping and his men and horses were only five miles away from Yanzhou, looking at the shadow of the Yanzhou city wall, but they failed to break into the city after the fierce battle, and more than 10,000 people were wiped out outside Yanzhou City.

thirty miles apart; There were five times as many enemy troops on the way back; I chased the thief army for two days in a row and fought; After the end, he was ambushed by the thief army, and his morale was greatly damaged. The situation in front of Zhang Shouyue may be as critical as the situation that Liu Ping faced back then, and the old eunuch Zhang of Qin Fenglu also twisted his beard and was silent.

"Both...... Metropolitan Supervisor, what should I do?! ”

"What's the panic? Isn't it more than 10,000 thieves? Look at you scared of this virtue?! ”

Zhang Shouyue scolded impatiently at the frightened general. The cowardice of the generals made the old and strong Zhang Shouyue get rid of the anxiety after falling into the trap of thieves, and his will was firm again. If the morale drop caused by the thief's trap is removed, in fact, Zhang Shouyue is only bothered by enemy troops five times his size.

That's right! It's just 'just'!

Zhang Shouyue was a general in the western part of the country, and more than 20 years ago, the Song army suffered successive defeats to the Western thieves in several battles. Although he did not participate in the war, he participated in the rescue and remediation afterwards. He has a deep understanding of Liu Ping's three fiascos at Sanchuankou, Ren Fu at Haoshuichuan and Ge Huaimin at Dingchuanzhai.

Due to the geographical conditions, the border of Kansai was divided into four roads: Qinfeng, Jingyuan, Huanqing, and Yanyan, and it was natural that the Western Army of the Frontier was also divided into four parts. Judging from the total number of troops arranged by the Great Song Dynasty in Guanxi, it is indeed far more than the Western Xia, but if it is said from a single road, it is under the Western Thief.

Moreover, because the army had to be divided into troops to defend the key passes in various places, it was never possible to gather together. But the thieves can mobilize the whole country at will and storm any of them. Therefore, the three major defeats were all of the Song army, which was inferior in strength, and after falling into the trap of the cunning and deceitful Li Yuanhao, it was defeated by the Western thieves who were waiting for work with an absolute superiority of troops.

For example, in the Battle of Sanchuankou, Liu Ping's more than 10,000 tired soldiers who had been running back and forth for several days due to the strategy of the party members faced the 100,000 recuperated party army led by Li Yuanhao. Although he fell for the enemy, he could only blame himself for being stupid, no wonder the enemy was cunning. However, with the disparity in the strength of the decisive battle between the two armies, it was only over after nearly two days of fighting at Sanchuankou, among which Liu Ping could still defend the village. The party's combat strength is like this, and it is also difficult to complain that many generals of the Western Army are angry about the defeat of that year.

If under fair circumstances, with the same force to fight head-on, whether it is a field battle or a city attack and defense, the Song army actually did not lose many battles. It is not uncommon to drive away the thieves with fewer enemies. Now, it's just two thousand to ten thousand. Moreover, the thousand thieves who were used as bait had already given Zhang Shou an appointment for him to eat safely in his stomach, and he failed to fulfill the dream of the party members to be flanked back and forth.

"There's still a fight!" Zhang Lao Dujian thought with certainty. If it can be delayed a little longer, the reinforcements from Fuqiang City and Jichuan Village across the mountain should have arrived, and then it will be the Song army that will flank the western thieves before and after.

It's just that the reinforcements haven't arrived yet, the western thieves have begun to prepare for the attack, and the rising sun is shining from behind the party members. The Song army, located on the western side, had to deal with both the enemy and the challenge of the sun. The time and place are favorable, and two of the three things are lost. Zhang Shouyue thought about it, and he could only compete with the West Thief.

There were many calculations in my heart, one after another, and then one after another was denied, and after the most lucrative, there was only one name left in my heart: "Wang Junwan!" ”

"The last general!"

Just a dozen paces away from Zhang Shouyue's side, a tall and handsome officer jumped off his horse in response, and his flexible movements were not affected by the heavy armor. He knelt down on one knee in front of Zhang Shou's horse: "Please command!" ”

Zhang Shouyue raised his somewhat heavy right arm and pointed to the enemy formation in front of him, "You take the soldiers and horses of your headquarters and rush forward." The tone was so flat that it was like asking Wang Junwan to go to the street to make a pot of wine and buy vegetables.

"Rush?" Wang Junwan looked up suspiciously.

The dizzy old eyes became sharp as thorns in an instant, Zhang Shouyue's eyes regained the vigor of his youth, and he asked sharply, "You dare to ...... Still don't dare?! ”

Wang Junwan has a pair of slightly delicate phoenix eyes, with a good appearance, and his fair skin makes him not look like a military man who is exposed to the wind and sun all day long. But it was this handsome young man, not yet thirty years old, whose armor and robes were still stained with blood, which were the marks of the bait he had led the team to annihilate the western thieves.

Wang Junwan heard Zhang Shouyue's rhetorical question, and Huo Ran stood up. The phoenix's eyes were raised, his face was red, he held the handle of the knife at his waist, and roared angrily and replied: "Why don't you dare!" ”

With a gust of wind, he turned back to his horse, pulled out the spear that was stuck in the ground, and shook it vigorously above his head. The howling of the spear blade caught the attention of the soldiers under his command, and he roared like thunder: "Sons! Kill me in the past! ”

Wang Junwan, as a cavalry commander, commanded 400 cavalry, and his official rank was only for the palace attendants of no rank, and there was still a long way to go before he was borrowed from the third class of the ninth rank. can see the appearance of him leading his troops to charge into battle, but it is the momentum that only a famous general in a hundred battles has.

Four hundred cavalry rushed out of the valley like a whirlwind, and the thunderous sound of hooves echoed in the valley. Under the leadership of Wang Junwan, he crashed headlong into the Western Xia array gathered in the South Valley. Wang Junwan held a spear in his hand, and the tip of the bright silver spear flickered, like a pear blossom flying. People and horses passed by, bringing up a wave of blood. Four hundred cavalry rushed after Wang Junwan, like a light boat breaking through the waves, forcing the enemy troops in front of them to retreat.

The white Western Thief General Banner was in front of him, Wang Junwan's roar was even stronger, his spears were swallowed, and several party warriors were overturned one after another, leading the team to break up the blocking of several Western Xia iron cavalry, and rushed straight under the banner, vowing to cut off the head of the leading enemy general.

Seeing that Wang Junwan was about to smash the main formation of the Chinese army in Western Xia, the horn in the party formation sounded a few times in a hurry, and there was a shout, and a few infantry troops with different armor and different colors stabbed out, and they used their flesh and blood to block the front of the Song cavalry.

Zhang Shouyue breathed shortly and clenched the reins of the horse suddenly: "Not good! ”

The team that blocked the front of the Song cavalry, called the Collision Linglang, was a legion organized and trained by the Han people in the Western Xia Dynasty, and whenever they encountered a strong enemy, they would be forced to rush forward. Won, the rear team followed to cover up, defeated, and died only as a Han Chinese. It is this traitor army that has caused no less bloodshed on the Fourth Road in Kansai than the party thieves.

was entangled by Ling Lang, and Wang Junwan's 400 cavalry gradually slowed down. A group of Iron Harriers seized the opportunity and slammed into them. Wang Junwan commanded properly, pulled the reins, and led the whole team to avoid the oblique stab. But their offensive also collapsed. A team of party and army shouted and rushed forward, like a pack of wolves besieging a hungry tiger, surrounding Wang Junwan and them. Although the tiger is vicious, every time it fights, it will be torn off a piece of flesh by the wolves.

The cavalry of the Song army that had entered the enemy line was rapidly decreasing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and every moment someone was injured and fell from his horse. Wang Junwan looked back, and his eyes suddenly cracked. With a loud shout that shook the entire battlefield, Wang Junwan's spear roared again in the wind, and the rolling shadow of the spear swept over the throats and chests of more than a dozen Western Xia warriors one after another, and the tip of the spear shone with blood. In an instant, the surging enemy army that was blocking the way was forced back by the fierce Wang Junwan.

"Follow me!"

Wang Junwan shouted again, clamped his mount between his legs, and led the remnants of the army under his command to rush out of the city before the party members surrounded it again. A group of cavalry rushed left and right in the Western Xia formation, and with great difficulty they found a gap, and finally retreated to their own position. In the enemy formation, although hundreds of enemies were killed, there were only more than 300 iron horsemen under Wang Junwan's command who were swaying on their horses and everyone was injured.

Note 1: The self-proclaimed party members of the Western Xia are still white, and many times they call themselves the Great White High Kingdom, the Great White Shangguo.

ps: It is said that the strong Han Dynasty is prosperous and the Tang Dynasty is weak in the Song Dynasty, but after the Northern Song Dynasty established itself, the number of defeats was not much, and the victory rate was at least better than that of the Tang Dynasty, especially the frontal defensive battles, which often repelled the enemy army. Of course, this is also related to the national situation of the Northern Song Dynasty, losing the Yanshan barrier, losing the horse breeding land, the Northern Song Dynasty cannot afford to lose, as long as it has several consecutive defeats, it will fall to the point of destroying the country.

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