After Zhang Zangying personally came forward to give a lecture and mobilize, he gathered the women, children, and old people in the town into several mansions in the center of the town, and transferred 3,000 Lutai troops to distribute the four walls to defend it, while the remaining 4,500 soldiers stayed in the town as a reserve force so that they could respond to the four walls at any time. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The town was originally a dock fort, but the internal space was too narrow, and the distribution of troops at the head of the wall was too dense and crowded, which would make the dispatch inconvenient, each wall was actually only 500 people, and there were 200 people lined up under the wall to standby.

Attacking this town with a wall height of no more than one zhang and a radius of only three or four miles, with 30,000 soldiers, that is, killing chickens with a knife, Yang Gon led the main force to watch the battle in the suburbs outside the town for three or four miles, and transferred out only 5,000 soldiers from the front, surrounded by the east, west and south, and attacked on one side of the north wall.

In a moment, a group of fifty members of the Liao army, carrying a long tree trunk as a ramstick, rushed from a distance towards the dilapidated wooden gate of the town, while another thirty men lined up on both sides of the gate and fired arrows at the wall to provide cover for the soldiers who collided. A hundred people in the back were each on standby with wooden ladders, seemingly ready to use the ladder to climb the wall at any moment. A flat-faced officer with hundreds of horsemen commanded from afar.

"Bang", the battering ram hit the blocked gate, as if hitting the rock, the gate did not move, the Liao soldiers shook back and their shoulders were painful, at this moment, a rain of arrows came from the wall, six or seven soldiers were hit by arrows, fortunately, the leather armor was not deep into the flesh, and then the battering ram ran back, replaced the wounded soldiers and continued to hit the door. In this way, every time he hit the door, several soldiers were killed or wounded, and the one who was carrying the wooden ladder on standby did not move for a long time, obviously not daring to try it easily.

After striking the door more than a dozen times in a row, the gate was still stable, and there was no sign of cracking, and the big-faced officer was very annoyed, and he struck a sneer after a close look under the wall, and then changed his tactics, and ordered the soldiers to collect masonry and debris and pile them under the wall, so that the wall gradually formed a large slope to the ground.

"Not good! The walls of this town are too low, and if they rush up, we are afraid that we will not be able to defend it. Zhuang Shaoben was defending at the head of the east wall, and when he saw that there was no attack, he ran to the head of the north wall to assist in the defense.

"There's nothing to do! Get ready for a bloody battle! I have enough troops to block for a while, you go down and lead the troops to demolish the houses in the town, pile up earthen walls along the street to fortify, and when the Liao army comes in, divide into small teams to defend according to various obstacles, and fight and retreat, so that the cavalry can not play a role, and we are not afraid of him in foot combat. The situation is critical, Zhang Zangying said with a serious face.

Soon, the Liao army was covered by shields, the archers suppressed, and the steady stream of earth and stone gradually reached the level with the wall, and the two hundred armored soldiers gathered in the rear were all holding short weapons such as swords, shields, hammers, and axes, and rushed to the wall with a shout.

But the top plane of the wall is only five feet wide and less than a point, the front and rear two rows of soldiers are congested, Zhang Zangying commanded the soldiers to release a few rounds of arrows, seeing that the damage is not large, they will change to a spear at the end of the wall, the two rows of gunners are thin, the Liao army quickly rushed up, and the two sides began a white-edged battle.

The Liao army was not afraid of death, relying on the good defense of the iron armor, and an officer in the front row was stabbed by a spear but still held the barrel of the gun with one hand, and rushed up. The archers who shot in formation at seventy or eighty paces outside the walled wall did not stop, and although the equipment of the Puzhou soldiers was better, it was also difficult to parry. There were more than 20,000 Liao troops watching the battle from afar, which invisibly added huge psychological pressure.

In this unfavorable situation, it was only half an hour before and after, the outer walled wall was lost, the Liao army opened the gate, thousands of people poured in, and saw that the internal road was narrow, so they had to divide into a team of 100 people and advance slowly.

Zhang Zangying led his troops to retreat into the alley, and used archers to climb the roof to block the attack, and when he saw that the Liao army was small, he encircled and suppressed, and if there was a team next to him to support him, he immediately retreated. In this way, although the Liao army captured the outer wall, it was very passive when it entered the interior of the town, and the advance was very slow.

However, after the northern wall broke through, taking advantage of the panic of the defenders, the Liao army on the other three sides also began to attack, and the soldiers of the Zhou army fully retreated to the town, and also fell into the encirclement and suppression on all sides.

At the same time, far away in the south of the Bohai Bay Jishui estuary, hundreds of small warships of the Zhou army entered the estuary one after another, forming a long dragon slowly along the river, guided by the young men of the Lutai army who led the way on the shore and in front of them to the military city. It would be very inconvenient for the big ships to enter the river, and the wind direction was uncertain on this day, and there were no soldiers to act as slender men, so the big ships would not be able to move an inch, so they could only anchor at the mouth of the river and let the baggage horses get off the boat and land first.

Zhang Yue's car is a big boat, at this time also on the boat to meet the Lutai military judge Gao Wenmin, heard that the Liao army arrived in the Jishui area yesterday, the heart suddenly felt a little urgent, let Ming Jinpeng lead the five thousand horse army to get off the boat first to rest for a while, led by the guide along the west bank of Jishui north, from the swamp between Huangzhuang Wa and Xinhewa to the north to rescue.

Considering that there would be a continuous war in the future, and the most elite subordinates could not be lost first, Zhang Yue sent Dengzhou defense envoy Wang Lixin to lead a thousand soldiers to stay in Haikou, and returned to Cangzhou the next day to continue to transfer follow-up materials. With An Shouzhong and Zhai Tonghu leading the 9,000 troops of the Lu army as the vanguard, they changed to the north of Huangzhuangwa and took the land route and went straight to Baodi Township.

The main force still had more than 20,000 soldiers, carrying a large amount of baggage along the river, except for some soldiers who took the small boats and rafts of the Lutai Army to meet them, most of them had to wait for the forward fleet to return while walking. Although Ma Junming's Jinpeng Department would be closer by land, it would take hundreds of miles to reach the battlefield, which was actually much slower than the forwards An Shouzhong and Zhai Tonghu.

In the afternoon, An Shouzhong led his troops into the north of the mouth of the Chaobai River in Huangzhuang and landed on the shore, and then the whole army as a whole team, in a combat formation to advance to Baodi Township, thirty miles to the northwest, twenty miles away from the outskirts of the town, soon discovered by the Liao army Tanma, An Shouzhong ordered the soldiers to beat the drums and march, which was not only strong, but also to support the Zhang Zangying Department who was in a bitter battle in the town.

After advancing ten miles, the Liao army rode over with 10,000 steps to intercept it, lined up in the suburbs, of which the cavalry accounted for half, divided into two teams and put on a posture of outflanking and advancing in the middle. An Shouzhong's Pinglu Ya Army was also a cavalry, and at present, after the 3,000 horse army was divided into two Hebei flanks, 6,000 infantry lined up in a small north to prepare for battle.

The front army has four command columns in a long horizontal row to resist horses, and two commanders on the left and right are flanks, and the four command formations of the Chinese army are relatively independent and complete, that is, a miniature version of the front, left, center, and right four phalanxes. In this way, even if the front army and the left and right armies were defeated, the Chinese army would still be able to fight independently.

In the final analysis, army combat is a group fight with many people, but it is by no means as simple as fighting a group fight. The Chinese farming nation has always been dominated by infantry, with formation as the key and bow and crossbow as the first. All formations revolve around the concentrated long-range strikes of strong bows and crossbows, so the spear and shield rejection array is also a compulsory course for all armies in previous dynasties, and whether its formation is strict or not is also the embodiment of whether each army is elite.

A moment later, the Liao cavalry launched a tentative field attack, and the light cavalry of the Pinglu Ya army did not show weakness, and the two armies rushed back and forth in the wilderness in pursuit. But the Pinglu cavalry soon discovered that the Liao army's tactics were very cunning.

Although they were speeding up their horses, they did not charge head-on, but when they approached the range of eighty paces of their bows, they turned diagonally, and at the same time turned around in a rain of arrows, and turned back in a circle, repeating their previous tactics.

In this way, the whole formation was elongated, forming a large circle and constantly rotating, and the cavalry of the Pinglu army ran back and forth in place, and did not dare to easily let go of the infantry formation, so as not to be disturbed by the Liao cavalry, which was very passive.

The cavalry of the Liao army has the advantage, but the infantry formation is the rear army, composed of Xi people, Muwei people, and Yan people, and the formation queue does not look very good.

After the three horizontal rows of repulsors, the sword and shield soldiers with strong defense against bows and arrows were used to stab the advancing pikemen, and the archers who killed and wounded the enemy at medium distances were placed between the gap between the horse rejection formation and the sword and shield soldiers.

The cavalry galloped back and forth several miles on both sides, and the horses' hooves trampled the earth like thunder, stirring up dust in the sky. Seeing that the Liao army's infantry was approaching two hundred paces, An Shouzhong led his troops forward, and the two sides approached within the range of bows and arrows. Frontal engagements are usually fought with bows and arrows from a distance, causing confusion in the front row of the opponent and then taking the opportunity to attack, so the first few rows are coordinated by pikemen, sword and shield hands, and archers are mixed in the array to shoot.

The Pinglu army was not equipped with strong crossbows, which was not much different from the combat strength of the local garrison of the Liao army, and there were certain casualties after a few rounds of arrow rain, and then the gunners received the enemy's spurs, attacking step by step, step by step.

The horse army of the two Hebei is outnumbered, and has been disturbed by the light cavalry of the Liao army to release arrows, but it is difficult to engage head-on, and there are some casualties after a few rounds, showing an invincible trend, but it is still struggling to support and continue to cover the two Hebei.

Seeing this situation, An Shouzhong knew in his heart that if he couldn't defeat the Liao army's infantry formation in a short time, he was afraid that this formation would have to deal with thousands of Liao cavalry next, and it would take time for the main force to arrive, so he suddenly felt as depressed and uncomfortable as pressing a boulder in his heart.

The Liao army's formation was relatively scattered, which gave its own side an opportunity, and the front army advanced steadily, gradually engaging with the Liao army's infantry formation, and the scene was a little chaotic. An Shouzhong looked back at the small river behind him, his own infantry formation had advanced about two or three hundred steps, and he had gained an advantage to a certain extent, and he was still continuing to move forward, while the Liao army's infantry formation was difficult to take a step forward.

But at this time, the horse army on the periphery of Zuoji suffered four or five hundred casualties after the formation was scattered, and the Liao army's light cavalry was no longer harassed with bows and arrows as before, but took the opportunity to rush head-on, and the chaos of killing the Zuoji horse army was cut in half, and the small team near the open space outside was quickly surrounded, and the remaining half was suddenly defeated and retreated, and was chased by the Liao cavalry from the riverbank behind the infantry formation, and joined up with the right Hebei. At this time, Zuo Ji lost his protection and was completely exposed.

"Herald! The left army turned to pay attention to protection! An Shouzhong shouted, and the herald behind him immediately raised the big red tooth flag and walked towards the left army through the gap in the military formation.