Zhang Qi's army made a large-scale dispatch from the eastern part of Jizhou this time, and the vanguard alone had more than 10,000 cavalry. Counting the soldiers and horses of the headquarters of the arrogant commander and the people who have already been mobilized, a total of no less than 100,000 people have been mobilized. If the follow-up troops and civilians continue to be invested as planned, the number of people participating in this campaign will directly exceed the 300,000 mark.

Of course, the purpose of such a large-scale military operation will not be for the sake of just one Leling county. In fact, Zhang Qiang planned to swallow Qingzhou's territory in one go. If there is a good opportunity, he doesn't mind taking Yanzhou and Xuzhou in one fell swoop.

However, in order to achieve the suddenness of the surprise attack in terms of attack time, Zhang Qiang carried out quite strict control over the mobilization of the people, not only reducing the number a lot, but also in the name of building water conservancy. And the espionage activities of the southern princes have never been as good as the ability of the Taiping Dao espionage system under Wei Xiao's jurisdiction. The news of the dispatch of the arrogant army was not noticed by Qingzhou in the south in time, but Wei Xiao and his deputy Guo Jia did not have a small credit.

The cavalry unit under the command of Le Jin was the vanguard of the arrogant 50,000 southbound army. According to the battle plan formulated in advance, the main task of this Qingzhou pacification battle was completed by 13,000 cavalry of the former army under the jurisdiction of Lejin. The conquest of Leling is only the beginning of this battle.

In the military plan formulated by the governor's office, Le Jin, as the governor of the front, and the cavalry corps under his command will determine the duration of the entire battle. If everything goes well, with the speed of the cavalry of the Lejin Division going south, it will be possible to run through the entire Qingzhou within a month, and burn the war to Xuzhou, thus ending the attack on Qingzhou.

But if Lejin's attack is blocked, it means that the strategy of the southbound army to achieve a quick victory will be bankrupt. In the next battle, the main force of the successor army will launch a comprehensive attack on the coalition forces of the southern princes. The time can go on for months, or even more than half a year.

To be honest, when Le Jin first saw the strategic plan given to him by Zhang Madness, he was horrified for a long time. Because in the arrogant plan, the task of Lejin in this battle is equivalent to leading his subordinate cavalry to go deep alone. If you are not careful, it will be a situation of total annihilation!

The plan that Zhang Crazy made for Lejin is actually not complicated. He just borrowed from the large-scale strategic maneuver tactics of the later Mongols and the German mustache's principle of "blitzkrieg", and planned to use the advantages of his cavalry to give Yuan Tan, who was entrenched in Qingzhou, a "black tiger heart".

The terrain of Qingzhou is flat, there are not many rivers, and the rivers are flat. It can be called an excellent battlefield for cavalry to gallop. The important cities of Qingzhou are also located on the plains, except for the Yellow River, which has a limited amount of water, and there is not enough natural shield to act as a defense. If there is a cavalry that does not need logistical supplies, and suddenly quickly intersperses from Jizhou in the north and crosses the river to the south, as long as it does not force the attack on those city defense strongholds along the way, it will take ten days. You can let the state of Qingzhou rule Linzi and have to face the soldiers from the north!

But. This kind of tactics that do not need to be heavy at all is obviously not an easy thing to achieve. The Mongols could do without the rear, without thinking about logistics, which was the result of their ability to march with their flocks and at the same time plunder the areas they passed. The Jizhou cavalry obviously couldn't do that.

Fortunately, Zhang Qiang obviously has an extremely in-depth study of the tactics of large-scale outflanking. After years of refinement. He was well prepared for many details of the new tactics of the cavalry. Although Zhang Qi will not copy the way the Mongols march, it is not a big problem to learn from it in some aspects.

In order to prepare for Lejin's southward trip, it was more than a year ago. Zhang Qi specially set up three "motorized cavalry" training camps in the three counties of Wuyuan, Shanggu, and Yuyang, which are close to the grasslands of northern Xinjiang. The main purpose of these three cavalry training camps, which were respectively in charge of Zhao Yun, Zhang Yan and Li Dao, was to use the excellent horses from the northern nomads to form a powerful mobile cavalry that could complete a thousand-mile run.

As for the unified leader of the three camps, of course, he was faintly happy for the number one cavalry general under his arrogant men.

According to the arrogant requirements, this cavalry team that is responsible for the task of advancing thousands of miles will not have heavy armor and horse armor, but will be equipped with a large number of good horses, so as to reach the level of one person, two horses, or even three horses.

For the horses needed by the cavalry, they will try to choose a mare that can produce milk after giving birth to foals. Soldiers who are trained need to learn how to use the mare's milk and a small amount of dried meat and grain to satisfy their hunger during the march.

At the same time, each hundred-man team is assigned to a herd of sheep that is good at running, and the soldiers have to learn how to manage the flock, how to milk the sheep, how to slaughter the sheep effectively, and so on to make the best use of the edible parts of the sheep.

It is not too difficult to learn these grassland survival skills in a year. Since Zhang Qiang successfully captured and annexed Youzhou, the Hu tribes in the two places were killed by his army. According to the Hu people's worship of the strong, when the arrogant agreed to recruit a group of elite horsemen among the obedient Hu people to fill the army, the arrogant cavalry became the largest cavalry in the entire Han princes.

In just one year, several cavalry battalions composed of low-ranking Han officers as the backbone and Hu riders as the main force became a cutting-edge force under Zhang Qiang. These cavalrymen themselves were born as shepherds, and they were of course familiar with their old professions.

Of course, in order to maintain the control of the Han people, all Hu people who joined the army must practice sinicization, wear Hanfu, and learn Chinese characters. Orders in the army are also all in Chinese. And to become an officer, Hu people also need to pass their Chinese and Chinese character proficiency tests. This military regulation effectively ensured that the entire army was always controlled by the Han people, and would not be countered by the Hu people. You know, those Hu people who have learned Chinese and Chinese characters are more like a Han people than Han people in many cases!

The 13,000 cavalry under the command of Lejin in this southward journey were mainly composed of lightly armed cavalry who had passed the "mobile cavalry training". In this largest cavalry force today, there are about 6,000 Han Chinese, and the remaining 7,000 are naturalized Hu people. Among the cavalry under the direct jurisdiction of Lejin, there are not many Hu people. But in those battalions that were formed later, the number of Hu people occupied a great advantage.

The battle to conquer Leling did not reflect the combat effectiveness of the "motorized cavalry". It only shows the power of the Taiping Dao espionage system. However, the next performance will make the "mobile cavalry" tactics that have been brewing for a long time officially show in the eyes of the princes of the world.

On the first day of the fourth month of the sixth year of stability [198], that is, the day before Zang Ba led the army to break through the interception of the Qingzhou army and enter Taishan County. Lejin took Leling. Subsequently, he did not stop, taking advantage of the favorable situation that Yuan Tan's side was completely defenseless, and quickly led the leading troops south.

On the second day of the first month of April, Lejin commanded the mobile cavalry and successfully raided the county again. Next, on the fourth day of the fourth month of April, Le Jin led the vanguard of the motorized cavalry. I have come to the Yellow River, and at a glance I can see the land that belongs to Qiancheng County of Le'an Country on the opposite side.

The Yellow River is in April, which is the dry season of the year. The rainy season had not yet come, and the river, which had reached the lower and lower reaches of the river, did not show any hindrance in front of thousands of well-prepared motorized cavalry.

Le Jin asked his subordinates to rest overnight on the north bank of the Yellow River, and the next day he followed the news brought by the spy system. A section of the shallowest river channel was selected, and several sheepskin rafts were erected. A small amount of armor and baggage from the accompanying army was transported across the river.

As for the cavalry soldiers and horses in the army, in this shallow river that can only be crossed by horses, as long as a long rope is pulled between the two banks, the soldiers can lead the horses and swim through the Yellow River.

In this way, it broke through the Yellow River very quickly, and it reached the seventh day of the fourth month. Lejin has already taken the vanguard and directly won the two counties of Qiancheng and Le'an along the way. Wherever the army passed, to the surprise of the defenders, there was almost no resistance.

At this time, Lejin's vanguard corps. It is only more than 100 miles away from Linzi City, where Yuan Tan's lair is located!

And it was only at this time that Yuan Tan in Linzi City received a report that the north was arrogantly moving south and had crossed the Yellow River!

However, the continuous full-speed gallop consumed a lot of horsepower from Lejin's forward troops. More than 300 horses died from overwork along the way. If this rate of advance continues, the number of deaths of the warhorses in the army will definitely skyrocket.

As a result, Lejin temporarily stopped the 4,000 people from the headquarters who had been serving as the task of opening the road for a day, and let the two cavalry of Li Dao and Guo Yan, who followed later, cross Le'an County without stopping and become the vanguard army approaching Linzi.

After Li Dao and Guo Yan were defeated in Chang'an and defected to Zhangqiang, they only made one sortie in the pursuit of Yuan Shao five years earlier. And in that battle, Li Guo and the others defeated Yuan Shao's tens of thousands of troops with 5,000 cavalry, and once again proved to the world the strength of the Liangzhou army. Through that battle, Li Dao and Guo Yan also successfully gained a foothold in the arrogant army full of strong generals.

However, Li Dao and Guo Yan also understand that compared with other generals, they obviously cannot be counted as arrogant descendants. Therefore, in the past five years, the two of them have also behaved quite obediently and honestly, and when they have nothing to do, they stay in the army in a proper manner, and do not get involved in the mess in those places.

Zhang Qi was obviously quite satisfied with the posture shown by the two. Although he did not promote the two of them to official positions, he often summoned them to understand their thoughts and suggestions. The two men's forces were also slightly expanded in a few years, each with a strength of 3,000 men.

However, this does not mean that the two of them are left to their own devices. In the past few years, using gentle methods such as promotion and scheduling, Zhang Qi has mixed a large amount of sand into Li Dao and Guo Yan's subordinates.

Especially Li Dao, his family is quite large, from a large number of younger brothers, nephews, nephews, and clansmen, turning his subordinate army into a "Li family army". With the degree of arrogance in authority, how could he be assured that such a situation would arise? Fortunately, Li Dao also knows how to keep his light and keep his eyes dirty, and he is resigned to Zhang Dao's sand-mixing behavior, which makes Zhang Dao really feel at ease with Li Dao.

This time the army went south, and the arrogant army was actually divided into two parts. The 13,000 cavalry under the command of the front capital Le Jin was mainly composed of Li Dao, Guo Yan, Tai Shici and Le Jin's headquarters. Their task was to attack the hinterland of Qingzhou in one fell swoop and disrupt the defense of the entire Yuan army. If there is a chance, he will take Linzi in one fell swoop and capture Yuan Tan.

As for the other part, it consisted of an orthodox infantry army with a small number of cavalry, totaling 38,000 men. Under the personal command of the arrogant, this army marched step by step, occupying and swallowing all the Yuan army and cities along the road. In this way, even if there is any big mess in the front cavalry of Lejin, the Zhang Madman Army still has enough combat effectiveness to continue to maintain an offensive posture and not suffer strategic defeat.

However, the movement of this large army was somewhat slow. When Li Dao's troops appeared under Linzi City, the main force of the arrogant had just conquered Banxian in the south of Leling, and the next step was to attack West Pingchang. (To be continued......)

PS: Some of the essays are incorrect?

Foreshadowing, this is foreshadowing. The next section guarantees that it lives up to its name.