In September of the second year of Guangxi, the Xiliang rebels were trapped in Chang'an. In the face of the huge disparity in the strength of the enemy and us, the defender Zhong Xuan showed extraordinary organizational ability and tenacious will. With a small force, he struggled with the enemy for more than half a month. Just when he fell into his final moment of despair, a miracle happened.

Zhong Miao stood on the city wall and looked at the bursts of fire in the enemy camp not far away, and the first thought in his heart was "trick me out of the city"?

However, this idea was quickly discarded by him. Now that he is already meat on the chopping board, he will be wiped out as long as the rebels launch an attack tomorrow. I think the rebels will also realize this, so they can't afford to lure themselves out of the city at all.

It's not that Zhong Miao didn't think about the reinforcements, but he knew the situation of the imperial court and didn't have much hope for the imperial court's rescue. However, even if it was really the reinforcements from the imperial court that came, with the current situation of Chang'an City, it was impossible to send troops out to attack. All Zhong Xuan could do was to lean on the city wall and watch the excitement.

The camp of the Xiliang rebels was already in chaos, and an army raided at night and set fire everywhere in the camp. And the commander of this army is Jiang Qi, the lieutenant general of the Xiyuan Army.

In order to rush to the aid of Chang'an, Liu Wei almost said that he came out of the nest. Brought out the only two elite troops in his hands, the Western Park Army and the Northern Army.

Along the way, they traveled day and night, and the Xiyuan Army has always had excellent training quality, and the marching speed is naturally much faster than that of the Northern Army. As the vanguard army, when it arrived near Chang'an, it happened to see the end of the daytime siege, and the Xiliang rebels slowly retreated from under Chang'an City.

In order to avoid the enemy's probe cavalry, the Xiyuan Army has been marching in the form of day and night, so that the rebels did not discover their whereabouts, bringing favorable conditions for surprise attacks.

Seeing this scene, Ling Xun You, the military advisor of the Xiyuan Army, suggested to Jiang Qi: "Jiang Zhonglang, Chang'an has been trapped for a long time, and it is estimated that it will not last long. I couldn't even see a single soldier standing on the tower of the city from this distance. If there is any slowness, I am afraid that Chang'an itself will also collapse internally. And now that the enemy is clear and I am dark, if we sneak attack at night and decide a battle, we will definitely be able to relieve the pressure on Chang'an City.

Jiang Qi was deeply convinced by Xun You's words, so he sent someone to report to Liu Wei in the back to make a decision, and on the other hand, he made a surprise attack plan with Xun You and ordered the soldiers to rest in place.

After nightfall, the soldiers sent out to make contact brought Liu Bian's decision: to order a raid.

Jiang Qi immediately set up his troops and horses and launched an attack.

Jiang Qi personally led 7,000 Xiyuan troops to attack from the southeast corner of the rebel camp, at this time the rebels had just experienced the fierce battle during the day, and they were exhausted, how could they have expected that someone would rob the camp late at night. Before they could wake up from their sleep, they were killed by the Xiyuan Army like chopping melons and vegetables.

At the same time, Chen Wei, a lieutenant of the Chinese army, took advantage of the chaos to infiltrate the camp with a thousand men and horses, waiting for an opportunity to find grain and grass and burn it. In addition, Zhao Yun led a thousand cavalry to lie dormant in the dark, staring quietly at the rebels' Chinese camp with eagle-like eyes.

Xun You's tactics were very simple, first Jiang Qi launched a frontal attack to attract the attention of the enemy, and then Zhao Yun led the cavalry to launch a surprise attack when the enemy's main force was exhausted and the Chinese army was empty, and directly smashed Huanglong to carry out a beheading operation against Li Dao, Guo Yan and others. And after the failure of the most unfortunate tactics, if Chen Wei can burn the enemy's grain and grass, he can also achieve a situation of victory without a fight.

This tactic is very similar to Jiang Qi's copy of eliminating the Black Mountain Bandits such as Zuo Zhangba, but after all, the Xiliang Iron Cavalry is not a peasant rebel army like the Black Mountain Bandits, and after a short period of confusion and passivity, it gradually organized an effective resistance.

Li Wei also walked out of the Chinese army's tent neatly at this time, looking at the chaos in the southeast corner, but he felt a burst of doubts in his heart.

In his opinion, the defenders of Chang'an are already unable to fight, and they will be captured when they break the city tomorrow, how can they have the ability to attack the camp late at night? Li Wei guessed that it might be that the defenders of Chang'an felt hopeless, so they ran out to fight to the death with him. In his heart, he never thought that the reinforcements from the imperial court would come so quickly.

Because of this idea, Li Wei restrained the army from gathering in the Chinese army camp on the one hand, and only sent a small number of troops to intercept Jiang Qi's frontal attack. This deployment made Li Dao lose the battle in the end, but he also accidentally saved one of his lives.

In addition, Li Dao also sent his subordinate Yang Ding to take Hu Chi'er to the rear camp to protect the grain and grass, which also caused great trouble to Chen Wei, who went to burn the grain and grass.

Although the rebels had begun to defend against Jiang Qi's night attack, they still couldn't stop the tide of the Xiyuan Army due to their small numbers. The A-type crossbow in the hands of the Xiyuan Army played a huge role in the battle, and the rebels who did not have time to wear leather armor in a hurry were concentrated and fired, and many soldiers fell in a pool of blood before they could rush in front of the Xiyuan Army, and suffered heavy casualties for a while.

Jiang Qi led the Xiyuan Army to advance towards the Chinese army camp at a very fast speed, and it was only then that Li Wei realized the seriousness of the problem. The defenders in Chang'an City will not have such strong combat effectiveness, it is reinforcements, it is reinforcements from the imperial court!

Although Li Wei understood that the army in front of him must be reinforcements from the imperial court, he still did not order the whole army to press on the whole line, but only ordered Guo Yan, Fan Chou, and Zhang Ji to lead the headquarters to resist.

At this time, the scene was chaotic, and there were not many soldiers and horses under the command of the three generals, but there were nearly 5,000 people, if they could compete with the Xiyuan Army for a while, Li Dao took this opportunity to stabilize the army's morale, stop the chaotic scene, and then regather the 30,000 soldiers of the whole army to attack together, and there was a great chance of victory against the Xiyuan Army.

Jiang Qi originally wanted to bluff and attract the main force of the rebels, so as to create conditions for Zhao Yunjun, who was hiding in the shadows, to behead him. Unexpectedly, he did not encounter resistance from the main force of the rebels, so he had to take advantage of the situation and push the boat to break through to the rebels' Chinese army camp.

Guo Yan and others led the army to intercept it, but did not stop the Xiyuan Army from attacking. Jiang Qi didn't think about fighting them at all, but ordered the whole army to sacrifice another big killing weapon:

Type A and C grenades.

Nowadays, Type A and C grenades have been widely used in the West Park Army, but they are restricted by the cost of production. It was only possible to ensure that each soldier had two on his waist. And in terms of usage, it has also been greatly improved.

Jiang Qi changed the previous random throwing to concentrated firepower projection, which was orderly and orderly. The specific performance is as follows:

When encountering an enemy charge, the soldiers in the first row of the front line unhooked the grenade on their waists, unscrewed the iron knob and lit the fire twist and threw it. The soldiers in the back row unscrewed the grenade from their waists when the soldiers in the front row unscrewed the handle, and then also unscrewed the handle and ignited and threw it. Then the next few rows of soldiers all repeat the previous movements. Such a continuous attack on the enemy.

This kind of wave-style attack is Jiang Qi's transformation of the three-stage attack invented by Liu Wei, and the effect is very obvious. After a burst of roaring and choking black smoke, a large number of soldiers fell to the ground and wailed in pain, and more soldiers who had never seen firearms turned around and fled under the flames of lightning and thunder, exposing their backs to the enemy.

Guo Yan and the others also hung up their colors, their faces were completely black with black smoke, and their eyes were red. Fortunately, they stayed in the rear army to command, and if they had led the troops to attack in the front, I am afraid that they would have been blown up long ago.

After throwing the grenade, the Xiyuan Army drew his waist knife, and Zhonglang rushed Jiang Qi to the front first, leading the Xiyuan Army to rush towards the chaotic rebels.

At this time, even if Guo Yan and others had the heart to resist, they could no longer organize an army, so they had to retreat back mixed with the rout. Before Li Dao, who was in the middle of the camp in the back, had not yet assembled all the troops, he was immediately dispersed by the defeated army in front.

Li Wei scolded angrily, and slashed one or two soldiers who retreated to his side with his sword, but he still couldn't stop the tide of retreat.

Seeing Guo Yan, Fan Chou, and Zhang Ji throwing away their armor and retreating unkempt, they couldn't help but shout angrily: "I ordered the three of you to go to stop the enemy, why did you lose so quickly?" ”

To be honest, Guo Yan and the others, who had never seen a grenade, did not understand what weapons the enemy used to make them lose so quickly. They saw only pieces of iron flying in the air, and when they landed in the midst of them, they made a loud roar and flew shards.

Guo Yan had no choice but to reply: "The enemy army used a demon method, and it was difficult for our army to resist, so it was defeated. ”

Sorcery? Li Dao has always been superstitious, usually accompanied by wizards and Taoists, just now he also heard a roar in front of the Chinese army, and he felt a little strange in his heart at that time, but now when he heard what Guo Yan said, he believed it.

However, at this time, the situation was pressing, although he was afraid of the enemy's demon law, Li Dao still pretended to be fearless, and scolded loudly: "What kind of demon law, it is obviously incompetent, and it is also demagogic. If it weren't for the current great enemy, he would have to wait for military law to deal with it. Wait and gather the army, return to the army to attack, if you take another step back, you will take your life! ”

Guo Yan and the others were originally lieutenants on an equal footing with Li Wei, but now they were shouted and commanded by him, and they were resentful in their hearts. However, because no one was strong, they had to swallow their breath and go to gather the remnants of the army and organize resistance.

Li Dao ordered his own soldiers to form a battle team and kill the defeated soldiers. This trick was so effective that most of the soldiers had to turn back and continue the fight under the threat of butcher knives.

Since the Xiyuan army was killed near the camp of the Chinese army, Li Wei had already found that the number of enemy troops was not as large as he imagined, and realized that he could still rely on the superiority of troops to win, so he immediately ordered all departments to concentrate men and horses to prepare to press on the whole front.

And Jiang Qi's Xiyuan Army encountered desperate resistance from the Xiliang rebels, and the two armies were at a stalemate for a while.

This gave Li Dao a certain amount of time, just when he was constantly concentrating his troops and horses, and wanted to carry out a decisive battle, suddenly there was a sound of killing behind him, and when he looked back, a cavalry came in from the southwest of the camp.

(To be continued, stay tuned for the next chapter)