Cui Qianyou saw that his former soldiers and horses were killed and wounded by a large number of archers of the Tang army, and immediately ordered: "Order, let the men and horses in the front protect the arrows of the Tang army, and transfer 20,000 crossbowmen to move to the front army and release arrows at the front of the Tang army!" ”

The range of the bow and crossbow is limited, unlike the artillery of later generations, which can shoot very far, both sides have former soldiers and horses fighting desperately, and the crossbowmen lack protection, so they can only use the front of the former soldiers and horses as a cover to carry out long-range strikes on the enemy's front, and cannot suppress the enemy crossbowmen. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The crossbowmen of the Yan army are not vegetarians, although the 20,000 crossbowmen are not neat in the military formation, but they can also shoot 20,000 arrows, but due to the lack of training of the Yan army, not only the team is not neat enough, but even when the arrows are released, some people release arrows first, and some people release arrows later.

The soldiers listened to the general's order to release arrows in unison, which is called a salvo! The time, angle, and strength of the arrow are all highly consistent, and under the same number of arrows, the more neat the arrow, the higher the hit rate! On the contrary, the more untidy and uniform the time, angle and strength of the arrow, the lower the hit rate! This can be calculated, at the same point in time, against the enemy in the same area, 20,000 arrows fired at the same time and only 10,000 arrows fired, it must be that the former is much more effective, and the effect is by no means more than twice as high. The effect of salvo on the denser the number of troops in the formation is greater, if the enemy is scattered, the enemy on the same area is very sparse, the effect of the salvo on the enemy will be greatly reduced, if the hit rate is low to a certain extent, the salvo is a waste of arrows, at this time the commander needs to order the crossbowmen to scatter freely, free scattering in addition to not aimlessly release the arrow when there is no other restrictions, the crossbowmen are basically aiming at an arrow, free scatter is generally used in the defense of the city, the defenders scatter freely on the besieging soldiers below the city, but the besieging side can also strike at the defenders with a salvo.

Arrows continued to fly from the Yan army formation to the front of the Tang army, and the Tang soldiers began to suffer casualties, especially some Tang troops at the front, who needed to fight with the Yan infantry and could not prevent the arrows from the sky in time, while the Tang infantry in the back were much more calm, and they had time to hold their shields for collective defense.

The arrows kept falling on the shield overhead and made a clanging sound, and the soldiers of the Tang army slowly moved forward with the arrows that kept flying, and the Yan army was quickly occupied by the Tang army because the soldiers in front were killed and injured a lot, and the vacated position was quickly occupied by the Tang army, and the Yan army behind could not be replenished in time, resulting in the scene of the Yan army being beaten and retreating.

The Tang army only had 20,000 infantry in the front army, and the Yan army increased to 50,000, even so, the casualties rate of the Yan army greatly exceeded that of the Tang army, which made the Yan army generals extremely worried, the morale of the Yan army was not high, but more than half of these people were the elite under Cui Qianyou, and some of them were the soldiers and horses that were divided after Cai Xide's death, all of them were elite soldiers and horses, but they were in the position of the rebels, and now they were in an unfavorable strategic situation, and their morale could not be raised, but this did not weaken their will to fight, and these rebels held on for longer and longer.

The battle began in the morning and lasted until midnight, and at dusk, the battle had not yet been decided, and the number of dead on both sides was increasing, and the wounded soldiers were also increasing, and the battle was fought for a day, and the soldiers on both sides were extremely tired.

The number of troops of the Tang army is more than twice that of the Yan army, Zhao Ziliang has the intention to send more troops, to defeat the Yan army in terms of numerical superiority, but this idea is not realistic, the area of the battlefield is only so large, and it will not be able to exert more troops, it will only make the soldiers squeeze each other on the battlefield, and it will have no effect.

The air is exuding an extremely strong smell of blood, the ground is full of corpses and stumps and broken arms, weapons, arrows are also spread all over the battlefield, the battle to this, Zhao Ziliang and Cui Qianyou feel very helpless, at this time no one can take the initiative to withdraw the army, unless the commanders of both sides discuss and at the same time Mingjin to withdraw the troops, otherwise as long as there is a side to retreat first, morale will inevitably plummet, and immediately follow the pursuit, the first to retreat will be killed to lose their armor and return defeated.

In the era of cold weapons, once a battle starts, before the winner is not distinguished, either side can not take the initiative to end the battle halfway, no matter how large the scale of the battle, unless there are irresistible natural factors to forcibly separate the two sides, such as the battle of Yecheng the year before last, when the Tang army and the Yan army were fighting, suddenly a large area of tornadoes fell from the sky and forcibly separated the two warring sides, causing heavy casualties on both sides, which ended the battle.

Zhao Ziliang and Cui Qianyou are very clear that in this situation, the competition is who can hold out to the end, and as long as either side shows the slightest sign of being unable to bear the need to retreat, it will inevitably form a large-scale rout, resulting in a fiasco.

The battle finally fought until dark, the enemy and us were still fighting, and the enemy was almost out of sight, and the soldiers of the Tang Army and the Yan Army at the forefront were exhausted, and the reason why they were still waving their weapons and slashing and stabbing was supported by instinct and inertia.

On the handsome stage, Cen Shen said to Zhao Ziliang: "Dashuai, it's dark, I can't see this, how can I fight?" Why don't you withdraw your troops and fight again tomorrow? ”

Erzhu, who has rich combat experience, immediately objected: "No, as long as we retreat first, the morale of the soldiers will be discharged, and the whole army will inevitably be defeated on a large scale. ”

Zhao Ziliang nodded and said: "Yes, before the battle is divided, you can't take the initiative to retreat, this is not a siege war, there is a city in the way, we can withdraw when we want, but the field battle is not good, once the back is left to the enemy, the enemy catches up, the soldiers are afraid that they will run away desperately, and the rout will be formed, so now we can only fight to the end!" Our officers and men have gone through rigorous training, and I believe they will persevere to the end! I don't know what happened to the 20,000 cavalry of the rebel army, and there is no news yet! Wang Can, hasn't the person who went to inquire about the news come back yet? ”

Wang Can said: "Dashuai, you haven't come back yet!" ”

Everyone was talking, at this time, a fire dragon appeared from the northeast, this is an army, a cavalry, all of them holding torches from the northeast direction quickly inserted into the rear of the Yan army, the rear of the Yan army was attacked, and soon caused a large-scale rout.

"This ・・・・・・" Zhao Ziliang and the generals on the stage were stunned when they saw this situation.

Chen Qing shouted: "This is my military horse, Dashuai, could it be that Xuan Ba led the Youyi army to defeat the rebels' 20,000 horses, and then made a surprise attack on them by detouring the back of the Yan army?" ”

Zhao Ziliang touched his chin and said: "I'm afraid it's Xuanba, the Eastern Route Army is now attacking Puyang and Weizhou, and they don't know our situation here, except for Xuanba's Youyi Army, there are no other soldiers and horses nearby!" Pass the order, let the soldiers cooperate with the Guerrilla army to launch the final blow, and the rebels must be defeated! ”

"Yes!" Chen Qing immediately conveyed the military order after agreeing.

Zhao Ziliang instructed his own soldiers again: "Ben Shuai prepare horses, let the heavy cavalry get ready, Ben Shuai will lead them to attack the enemy formation!" ”

The officials were shocked, and Wang Wei persuaded: "The handsome can't, the handsome person is in danger of the world, how can he personally risk the battle?" If the handsome man makes a mistake, it is definitely not the blessing of the Tang Dynasty and the soldiers! ”

Zhao Ziliang shook his head and said, "You don't understand, at this moment, the soldiers need me!" You don't need to say more, I know it! ”

Everyone was helpless, and could only wish Zhao Ziliang a great victory. The pro-soldiers had already prepared their horses and weapons, Zhao Ziliang walked off the platform and took the weapons and turned over on his horse, and came to the escort army with the pro-soldier escort team, Erzhu had already completed the whole team, and the 5,000 cavalry of the heavy cavalry army had all raised their torches, and were ready to charge with weapons in hand.

Zhao Ziliang and the pro-army team came to the front of the heavy cavalry formation, and the pro-soldiers raised the handsome flag, and the heavy cavalry standard-bearers also played Erzhu's general flag and military flag.

Xuan Qice immediately stepped forward and saluted with his fists in his fists: "Qi Qi Marshal, the five thousand heavy cavalry are ready to charge into battle, please give instructions to the marshal!" ”

Zhao Ziliang instructed Chen Qing: "After I leave, you will command, give orders to the officers and soldiers of the front army, separate from the middle, and make way for the heavy cavalry to charge into battle!" ”

"No!"

Zhao Ziliang said to Xuan Qi again: "The heavy cavalry will attack with me!" ”

"Command!" Xuan Qi agreed, and waved his hand: "All the soldiers listen to the order, we will follow the commander to rush into battle and set off!" ”

Zhao Ziliang held a torch, grabbed the horse lance in one hand and rode forward, the cavalry team of three hundred cavalry followed closely, these people all changed into heavy armor, and the war horse was also covered with Ma Kai, all of which were equipped with heavy cavalry, Xuan Qi followed closely with five thousand heavy cavalry, and the whole team was as neat as a whole, this was the second time that the heavy cavalry followed Zhao Ziliang from Beiting to the Central Plains to participate in the battle.

"Everyone obeyed the order, retreated to both sides, and let go of a thirty-zhang passage" The generals of the Chinese army had already received the order, and when they heard a large number of dull horses' hooves from behind, they knew that Zhao Ziliang was rushing over with heavy cavalry, and immediately ordered his subordinates to get out of the way.

As Zhao Ziliang led the heavy cavalry all the way forward to trot and accelerate, the Tang army formation in front of them gave way to the passage in turn, and when the Tang army in the front gave way to the passage, the rebel soldiers thought that the Tang army was going to retreat, and a large number of rebel soldiers rushed into the passage, but soon a large number of horse hooves made them feel fearful.

"Run, run, the Tang army is here, run!" The rebel soldiers turned around in horror and ran, but the rebel soldiers behind them kept coming in and could not escape at all.

"Boom boom" burst out loud sounds, Zhao Ziliang's five thousand heavy cavalry rushed over at a super high speed and crashed into the rebel soldiers in the passage, the rebel soldiers were knocked away, crushed, trampled into flesh, after the five thousand heavy cavalry ran over, leaving a thick layer of corpses and blood in the passage. (To be continued.) )