In the thirteenth year of Hongwu, on May 16, Shile sent troops to attack Gaochang County again, and the situation in Gaochang suddenly became critical. The Han people in the city were expecting reinforcements from the imperial court day and night, but this time, the reinforcements from the Great Jin Dynasty really arrived.

Although there were only 3,000 men, this was an elite cavalry force. The support army was all lightly armoured, and as the elite of the elite, each had three horses to ride in turn. Their purpose was to harass Shile's siege forces and try to keep Gaochang alive.

Ma Qiu didn't take this small team seriously, he sent 20,000 cavalry to meet it, and the main force still stormed Gaochang City. In Ma Qiu's opinion, the 3,000 Jin army is simply not enough for the impact of 20,000 cavalry, and those few men and horses will soon be completely annihilated. Perhaps the recent streak of victories made Ma Qiu involuntarily swell.

However, what Ma Qiu didn't expect was that the battle ended very quickly, and in just half an hour, 20,000 cavalry were actually beaten back by 3,000 people, and no less than 3,000 people were lost.

Before Ma Qiu could figure it out, Jin reinforcements had already rushed into his camp. If you don't understand Ma Qiu, you don't think about it, he thinks that no matter how powerful the Jin army is, there are only so many people, he has nearly 100,000 horses, and he can crush the Jin army to death.

Indeed, it is indeed too reckless to rush into a camp of 100,000 people with only 4,000 men and horses. The sneak attacks launched by a small number of troops that have occurred many times in history are basically sneak attacks at night, but this part of the Jin army is in broad daylight and open fire.

But sometimes recklessness is courage. Courage, on the other hand, can inspire others. Before the main force under the command of Zhang Fang arrived. In the entire Western Regions, there are only 10,000 Jin troops led by Ma Xian, and he still has to guard the garrison of the Changshi Mansion in the Western Regions, and the 3,000-strong reinforcements in front of him are already the only mobile force of the Great Jin in the Western Regions.

Since Shile shook the Western Regions, in view of the disparity in strength, the Xiang army stationed in the Western Regions has always avoided a head-on conflict with Shile's army. The Jin army only held on to Gaochang and Gaohai and other strongholds, and Ma Xian was always worried that Gaochang City would really be lost, so he sent a cavalry army to hover near Gaochang.

Now that the situation in Gaochang is critical, the Jin army, which has been wandering around, has to muster up the courage to attack Maqiu's army with weak forces. Everyone knew that once Gaochang was lost, the Qiang people would control the entire Northern Western Regions. The connection between them and Mobei will be completely opened. No more worries about the danger of being cut off.

This raid by the Jin army was not without effect, and Gaochang City was already in danger under the siege of tens of thousands of troops. But the Qian, who were concentrating on the siege in front, suddenly heard a shout of killing from behind, and a large number of men and horses killed from behind, and many enemy troops were stunned in the face of this situation.

Really. The courage of the Jin army shocked the enemy for a while. Look at the red-eyed, wolf-like opponent. Many timid enemy troops. Avoid it. Fortunately, Ma Qiu reacted quickly and immediately sent enough troops to intercept him, but Ma Qiu's troops were too many after all.

Although the Jin army of the sneak attack had great courage. In this battle, the Jin army also suffered a lot of losses, and the two sides could only be regarded as a draw, and the Jin army killed more than 5,000 enemies, and they also lost nearly half. Therefore, after a fierce battle, the Jin army still chose to retreat. And Ma Qiu was also worried that he had fallen for the plan to divert the tiger from the mountain, so he did not choose to pursue.

However, Ma Qiu's attack on Gaochang City can only be suspended.

On May 19, another batch of reinforcements from the Great Jin Dynasty arrived in the Western Regions, and this group of soldiers and horses was originally stationed in the area of Zhangye and Dunhuang, which was relatively close to the Western Regions. After receiving Gaochang's letter for help, this part of the soldiers and horses advanced to Gaochang under the leadership of Captain Zhao Ting.

In order to rescue Gaochang, the Xiang army had to take a rapid march. However, the rapid march still caused a lot of losses to the Jin army, and the 20,000 troops at the time of departure, after continuous non-combat casualties on the way, arrived at Gaochang with only 12,000 people, and the attrition on the way was as high as more than 8,000 people.

From the Central Plains to the Western Regions, the difficulty of the march can be imagined.

On the 20th, the Jin army outside the city suddenly made a move to attack the Maqiu army, and Maqiu did not dare to be careless, leading the troops to counterattack, but the Jin army retreated without a fight...... This went back and forth several times, leading part of the Ma Qiu army north for more than 20 miles, and the people of the Qian tribe were so angry that they smoked. In the face of the harassment of the light cavalry of the Jin army, the people of the Qian nationality are really annoying, everyone is a cavalry, they can't catch up, they can't get rid of it, they really hate it.

And taking this opportunity, the Jin army outside Gaochang City suddenly attacked the limited Western Regions Alliance army left outside the south gate of Gaochang Mansion City with 3,000 cavalry, and the Jin army of the Western Regions Alliance Army with low combat effectiveness easily tore a hole, and the 3,000 infantry army and a part of the baggage were able to enter Gaochang City, which greatly enhanced the confidence of the soldiers defending the city.

Today, there are still more than 80,000 Maqiu troops outside Gaochang City, including more than 10,000 elite people of the Qian nationality, and the rest are the results of the rectification of the Western Regions. Ma Qiu is also nervous now, as Gao Chang is unbreakable, but the reinforcements of the Jin army are coming, the situation he faces is becoming more and more tense.

Although he again gritted his teeth and ordered the siege of the city, the morale of the defenders, who had been replenished with baggage, was high and gave the enemy a head-on blow. Especially after the ammunition was replenished, the firearms in the city were once again in full force. If it weren't for the limited ammunition replenishment, the defenders in Gaochang would have wanted to go out of the city to fight.

Gaochang temporarily relieved the crisis, but it was still too far from the real relief of the siege, after all, the reinforcements that came after the rapid march were too few firearms, and most of them still used cold weapons as the main means of warfare. Coupled with the inferiority in troops, the Jin army outside the city could only harass the enemy and could not drive them away or eliminate them.

Reinforcements were waiting for reinforcements in Gaochang City, but new problems arose. There are thousands more mouths to eat at once, and the city has been besieged for half a month, and the grain storage is to save food, and it can last for another ten days. You must know that the Jin army can rush into the city to transport things, after all, it is limited, so it has to do its best with ordnance and medicine, and there is no food.

Finally, after waiting for ten days, the main force led by Zhang Fang finally came to Gaochang City, with a total strength of nearly 100,000 all-firearms troops. This is a "motorized army" equipped with a large number of pack horses, but because it carries a large number of cannons, gunpowder, etc., the marching speed is naturally much slower than that of light horses.

Because this army did not need to march in a hurry, and because it was quite dedicated all the way, it did not lose a single person or horse when it came to Gaochang. They were much luckier than the previous light cavalry, which had suffered heavy losses due to the rapid march.

In order to expedition to the Western Regions, the imperial court specially mobilized a large number of light artillery for the Northwest Jiedu Embassy, compared with hundreds of catties of "heavy artillery", only less than 100 catties, which can be transported by war horses, and is more mobile. The shells of the "light artillery" are only more than two catties, and the charge is less than two catties, which may not be powerful enough to attack the city, but the battle with the Qiang people is basically a field battle.

Moreover, the light artillery is also equipped with a large number of flowering shells such as "iron sand beads", which is most suitable for dealing with cavalry. Of course, the range of the "light artillery" was slightly closer, only two hundred steps.

There were four men per gun, two gunners, one of whom was also the commander of the gun, two guards equipped with crossbows, one of whom was also a mito (the horse that controlled the pack cannon), fifteen hundred men, three hundred guns, two thousand, five hundred horses (and gunpowder, shells, and gun carriages), and a number of heavy crossbows - the range of the light artillery was too short, and the rate of fire of the artillery at this time was slow, so it was very dangerous to have no guards.

Seeing the Jin army arriving one after another, Ma Qiu was also a little nervous. He originally wanted to take Gaochang before the arrival of the main force of the Jin army, but he didn't want Gaochang to be so difficult to gnaw, and he spent twenty days and lost tens of thousands of people, but he had not yet captured it.

The only thing that reassured Ma Qiu was that the reinforcements that arrived under Gaochang City were basically the army, and even if he was defeated in the end, he would have the confidence to escape. Moreover, Ma Qiu believed that under field conditions, the cavalry of the Qian tribe was not afraid of the Jin army. If Liu Yuan, Murong Diao, and Tugu Hun were there, they would definitely scoff at Ma Qiu's thoughts, and if they hadn't fought the Jin army head-on, they wouldn't have felt the power of the Jin army's firearms.

The decisive battle began, and after an earth-shattering loud noise, several flowering bullets fell on the cavalry that rushed to the front, and after a few roars, the enemy cavalry fell one piece.

In fact, most of the horses did not die at this time, some of the horses had their intestines beaten out, and they were half-lying on the ground and wailing, and some of the horses were beaten to the ground, and his horses were neighing and turning around. More people instinctively fled back after the loud bang.

In fact, the power of 300 light guns is limited, and the real power comes from psychology. Who has seen this scene in the Western Regions before? Even the Qian people had not experienced the baptism of artillery head-on, so when the Jin army fired thousands of cannons, the Maqiu tribe had collapsed. In fact, if they really want to charge hard, the Jin army's artillery will fire three rounds at most, and the opponent's war horses will come to them, and they will be able to knock down two thousand at most.

It's just that Ma Qiu has been frightened, and listening to the loud noise behind him, the people of the Qiang tribe ran faster. Tens of thousands of iron horsemen of the Qiang tribe immediately collapsed and dispersed.

It is advisable to win and chase after the poor! The Jin cavalry took advantage of the situation to chase out more than 30 miles, killed more than 10,000, and captured more than 8,000, so that the siege of Gaochang was finally relieved.

After the battle, Ma Qiu gathered the military horses and got rid of the scattered people, and there were still 70,000 people. He consulted with several subordinates and decided to return to Yanqi first and report to Shile.

On the day when Maqiu besieged Gaochang, Ma Xian, the general of the Western Regions Governor's Mansion, was planning how to counterattack Khotan after rectifying 20,000 defeated troops of various ethnic groups in the Western Regions. Since Shi Leqin led the main force to conquer Wusun, the main force in Khotan was only 30,000 people. Ma Xian prepared to take Khotan first to consolidate the defense line of the southern Western Regions, but sure enough, Khotan's Shile army was about to collapse at the first touch, and most of them quickly withdrew to the west. (To be continued......)