The law of the prairie is that the winner is king. Most of the losers have no bones left. Since Helian has not shown up so far, Yan Liyou decided to defeat the Han army that invaded the grassland first. Otherwise, if the Han army is allowed to sweep all the way like it is now, I am afraid that in the next three or five years, the tribes under Yan Liyou will not be able to recover the losses caused by these Han troops.

With the advantage of the home field, more than 3,400 herdsmen were gathered in three days. At the same time, the news from the spies lurking in Danhan Mountain confirmed that the main force of Helian had returned to Danhan Mountain. In other words, Yan Liyou can let go of a big battle with the Han army without worrying about the sudden appearance of Helian's army.

The number of the Han army has also been clarified by Yan Liyou's subordinates, scout ranger masters who are proficient in exploration skills. The total number of Han troops was between two thousand and three thousand, of which a considerable number of Xiongnu auxiliary cavalry were mixed. In terms of the number of people alone, the banquet has an absolute advantage.

Of course, if you really count the combat effectiveness, then it will be a different matter.

Without the threat of the Helian army on one side, Yan Liyou couldn't wait to take all the 5,000 cavalry and took the initiative to find the Han army who was roaming and hunting in the grassland.

The Battle of Sunset Plains that year provided Yan Liyou with enough courage to dare to directly confront the Han army. Otherwise, according to the original view of "one Han and five Hu", which had prevailed for a hundred years, Yanliyou needed to bring 10,000 nomadic cavalry in order to fight the Han army head-on.

In order to reduce the losses of his subordinate tribes, Yan Liyou couldn't wait to appear in front of the Han army. This kind of move is also in the hands of arrogance.

Zhang Mad led the troops to the grassland this time, and he actually sweated in his heart. After all, the number of troops available to him at the moment is inevitably a little too small.

In the arrogant arrangement, he stayed in the Forbidden Department and was responsible for the defense of Meiji Castle; He also divided the guerrillas into two parts, and let Han Dang lead half of the guerrilla knights, stay in Meiji, and assist in the rear of the forbidden stability.

In this way, Zhang Qi only took Lejin's cavalry, Xie Xun's mounted infantry and half a guerrilla army on the road. Even if you add the hundreds of recruited Huns, as auxiliaries, the total number of arrogant troops is only about two thousand six hundred.

However, to Zhang Yan's relief, those Huns who had not been recruited for a long time showed extremely good combat effectiveness in the process of "sweeping" the team.

These Huns, who turned into servants of the Han army, gave full play to their superb riding skills and superb archery skills, and acted as guides and scouts for the army with great dutifulness. When looting and killing the steppe tribes found, these Hun auxiliaries were ruthless, and they did not look like "things hurt them" at all.

Regarding this question, after asking a few Huns who had made more meritorious contributions, Zhang Qiang had a number in his heart.

It turned out that in the Xiongnu tribe, the difference between the top and bottom was extremely obvious. Ordinary Xiongnu herdsmen (farmers) worked hard all year round, and most of the cattle, sheep, grain and grass produced needed to be supplied to the nobles and warriors in the tribe.

Moreover, the personal safety of lowly herders is not guaranteed at all. With a small excuse, nobles and samurai, it is reasonable and legal to kill a herdsman without any compensation.

That's not enough, there's something worse. Due to the aristocratic status, in the Xiongnu tribe, it is inherited from generation to generation. Therefore, those ordinary herdsmen basically have no chance of climbing up in their lives. On the contrary, due to the power struggle between the nobles, some of the nobles who failed would be punished as slaves and become the new oppressed.

However, ordinary herders are not entirely hopeless in their way to get ahead. For them, the most likely way out is to join the Han army, even if it is as a miscellaneous servant.

For hundreds of years, the reason why the Han army has been able to maintain the prestige of "invincible" is related to the strict military law system and relatively fair reward and punishment system of the Han army. Although the Huns were in the Han army, they would still encounter some discrimination. However, if they do do make some contributions, they are usually rewarded accordingly.

Even in the eyes of the Han people, it can only be regarded as an ordinary reward, but in the eyes of those poor Huns who only have one horse, it is an out-and-out reward! For many herdsmen, it is worth it to sacrifice their lives for the reward provided by the Han army.

Therefore, those Huns who served in the Han army, under the command of the Han generals, had a high combat effectiveness far more than when they fought under the command of the Xiongnu nobles.

In fact, not only the Huns were like this, but all the foreign warriors hired by the Han army often had far more combat effectiveness than being commanded by the nobles of their own clan.

When Zhang Qiang recruited those Huns, the rewards and punishments he proposed were originally based on the tradition of the Han army. Under the stimulus of this kind of extremely rich reward for ordinary Huns, the Huns' will to fight naturally became extremely high.

What surprised Zhang even more was that during the sweep of the nomadic tribes of the Xianbei people, many captured herdsmen heard about the conditions for the Han army to recruit servant troops, and actually offered to join the Han army. As a result, after this battle, not only did the Taixing army have almost no casualties, but the entourage team was slowly getting bigger.

Of course, most of the Xianbei people who enthusiastically joined the army were not Xianbei people. Judging from their hair ornaments and clothes, most of them are Huns. These guys who are mixed in with Xianbei's banner will certainly not have much loyalty to Xianbei, and it is no wonder that they will "rebel" so quickly and simply. So much so that Le Jin privately told his cronies that those servant troops were a group of guys who "have milk and are mothers".

In addition to the large number of captured Xiongnu herdsmen, many tribes also more or less drove a group of Han slaves. Wherever the arrogance passed, these Han slaves who were captured by the Xianbei people were naturally liberated.

The Han people, of course, were more reliable than the Xiongnu race. However, among these Han slaves, not many were physically strong. Because of the harsh drive and labor of the Xianbei people, many of them were unable to undertake high-intensity combat missions without a period of cultivation.

For these herdsmen who have just joined, whether they are Xiongnu or Han, Zhang Yan will naturally not use them with confidence. However, judging by the performance of these herders in driving cattle and sheep, lighting fires and cooking, and providing guides, they are still extremely competent.

At first glance, the grassland looks boundless, as if it is vast. In such a vast land, it may sound like a difficult task to find the scattered nomadic tribes.

Not really.

Although the grasslands are wide, there are not many places suitable for grazing livestock. Otherwise, according to the area of land occupied by the Xianbei people, who are no more than a million people, a herdsman can be allocated several square kilometers of land. With such a large territory, where can a person make use of it?

The grassland on the grassland, there is a lot of land, the grass grows very poorly, and naturally it cannot feed the livestock. However, there is some land where the grass grows tall, but there are no herders coming to graze.

This is because, in addition to grazing, livestock also drink water. Just like people, if you don't eat, you can last for seven days. If you don't drink water, I'm afraid you won't be able to survive even three days. The so-called "living in water and grass", aquatic grass and aquatic grass are not grass in the water, but grassland close to the water source.

There is a lot of grassland on the grassland. However, the number of rivers is quite limited. Where there is water, the grass will grow better. For thousands of years, the struggle for these places with water sources and abundant pasture has been the direct origin of the struggle between various tribes on the grassland.

The subordinates had Xiongnu guides who were familiar with the distribution of local water sources, and they led the army to sweep away the nomadic tribesmen. Of course, even if there is no guide, as long as the Zhang Madman keeps walking along the Yellow River, he will always meet the unlucky ones who can't dodge in time.

The Taixing army killed all the way, and the loot obtained was quite rich. Of course, this abundance, only in quantity. Due to the large number of cattle, sheep and horses captured, there was no way to drive all the servants on the road with less than a thousand servant troops and thousands of old and weak Han people.

In this regard, the practice of the Taixing army is to slaughter the livestock that cannot be taken away, and then throw the corpses into the wilderness, never leaving them to those foreign herdsmen who have escaped.

As a result, the cattle and sheep that were slaughtered by the Taixing army and then abandoned in the wilderness can only be counted in tens of thousands. The livestock that can leave a life from under the Taixing saber is only the horses that the Taixing army is relatively lacking. The reason why Yan Liyou didn't wait for the army to completely converge, so he hurriedly found the Taixing Army, that is, because of the Taixing Army's devastating tactics.

There is no way, if Yan Liyou dares to continue to delay, then the herdsmen and livestock under him will continue to suffer huge and irreparable losses. When the time comes, even if Yan Liyou wins this battle, it will outweigh the losses.

The loss of livestock is only one aspect. According to Yan Liyou's experience, the carcasses of livestock that were slaughtered and abandoned in the wilderness were likely to be the source of the plague. Once this happens, within a few years, these good plots of abundant water and grass will become unsuitable for herders.

However, if it is the other way around, as long as the Han army's "sheep slaughtering tactics" can be stopped in time, even if Yan Liyou loses the battle and loses a thousand people, it can be regarded as an acceptable price.

No way, that's how it is on the grassland, human life is not valuable. On the contrary, as long as there are enough livestock, thousands of herders can easily gather in the grasslands.

As a result, with 500 people guarding Yanliyou as the core, and an army of 5,000 composed of more than 4,000 nomads, it appeared "in time" on the route of the Taixing army.

- It's finally here!

Zhang Qiang and the generals of the Taixing Army are very settled.

The war between the Han army and the grassland peoples has never been afraid of head-on battles, but they are afraid that the enemy will not come. Especially when the Hun scouts found out that the other side only had about five or six thousand people.

"Tomorrow there will be a battle, and the whole army will move forward bravely. Break through the enemy's formation, and our army will win! ”

Insolence made this deployment before the war. In fact, he was not familiar with simple cavalry combat. And once the battle starts, since the enemy walks on four legs, the change of the situation on the battlefield is undoubtedly much faster than the confrontation between the infantry. Therefore, no matter how detailed the arrangement of the arrogance before the war, once the fight starts, it still depends on the immediate response of each general.

That night, there was only a little hook left in the moon. Yan Liyou tried to use the cover of night to interfere with the rest of the Taixing army. However, the scout team under the leadership of He Man, taking advantage of their own equipment, set up several small traps and ambushed more than ten Xianbei. Receiving such a blow, the Xianbei people retreated happily.

The casualty rate that these steppe peoples can afford has never been too high.