(Thanks to Dameng, Zhao Wuxian 2014, UFGW, Zongheng-Peng, and Yu Wenyu for their support)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the third day of the first month of June, the wind was tight, the sun was scorching, and in front of Hangu Pass.

At the beginning of the hour, as if an appointment, the drums were beating and the pace was booming, and the enemy and our armies beat the drums at the same time.

Three thousand white wolf troops rushed out from the long Hangu Pass Gate and lined up three miles in front of the pass.

And the two large battalions of the Xiliang Army, only a few hundred people were left to guard the village, and the army almost poured out of the nest - it seems that Li Dao and Guo Yan are planning to carry out the intimidation to the end.

The army of 3,000 horses, strictly speaking, the real white wolf army is only 2,000 men and horses, and it is officially divided into two standard infantry and cavalry divisions (about 1,000 to 1,500 pawns in the Han Dynasty, including regular and auxiliary pawns). Among them, there are 1,500 soldiers, and this is his main pawn, well-equipped and well-trained, and nearly half of them are veterans who have seen blood.

The army was led by the cavalry as the central army, led by Ma Han; The infantry is the left wing, with Zhou Cang as the captain. In addition, 500 Xiliangqiang Hu and Bai Bo soldiers were selected from the 4,000 Luoyang New Army, and formed a formation for the right wing of the army, with Xu Huang as the commander.

In addition, 1,000 auxiliary soldiers, medical workers, craftsmen, and miscellaneous servants were on standby after the battle.

Under the rising sun, the mountains and fields are colorful, the peaks are green and the water is blue, it is a good summer travel season, but it has become a bloody day.

On the side of the White Wolf Army, under the command of their respective team leaders and commanders, the soldiers repeatedly stood on this terrain according to their usual training and this period of time, and began to line up skillfully and quickly. According to the code of conduct of the White Wolf Army, the sword and shield soldiers are in the front, the pikemen are second, the bow and crossbow soldiers are in the center, and the axe and mallet soldiers are in the back and line up in turn.

The auxiliaries and miscellaneous servants carried down various obstacles such as deer, horses, thistles, and wooden stakes from the ox carts and laid them in front of the military formation, and the wooden carts also served as obstacles on the periphery.

The cavalry battalion of the Chinese army, in addition to more than 100 heavy cavalry and 300 light cavalry, surrounded the commander Daxu. The remaining three hundred wolf-tooth flying horsemen led their horses and scattered on the left and right flanks of the formation to hold down the formation.

The main force of the White Wolf Army is the left wing infantry battalion, which is laid out in a square formation, surrounded by a protective fence surrounded by horses, deer bars, thistles, and iron thistles, and rows of sharp wooden stakes at the back. Gates are provided every 100 steps behind the fence and chariots are modified with baffles to protect against arrows, which are connected like battlements. Behind the wall of the car are the crossbowmen of the long-range lethal output troops, and between the wall of the car and the horse rebuff are the sword and shield soldiers and pikemen who are waiting for battle. Behind the hall of the array are more than 100 axe and mallet soldiers. The axe soldiers are the elite of the White Wolf Infantry Army, and they are placed behind the formation. It can not only protect the archers and crossbowmen, but also serve as a battle commander.

There are walkways between the various formations of the army formation to prepare for attack and retreat, and the Chinese cavalry formation has set aside three wide walkways.

There is a five-zhang (Hanzhang) flying tower in the middle of the Chinese military array, and there are flag-bearers, trumpeters and lookouts on the flying tower, which transmit military information and convey military orders at any time.

Ma Han sat on a two-zhang square earthen platform built up, wearing an eagle helmet and bright light armor, majestic and murderous. Two guards on the left and right. A magic pupil bow, a pillar of overlord guns. It's like humming two generals, and the horse in the middle is like an overlord coming. And Jia Xu, who was accompanied by his side, had a long crown and a green shirt. The clothes are flying, and the hands stand among the thousands of troops, and the bearing is like that.

More than 100 heavy cavalry soldiers and drummers who were not wearing armor were clustered on both sides, and the generals and red-pupiled wolf flags behind them were huddled. The red and yellow glow, like a wave under the morning sun, there is a sound of hunting.

Two White Wolf Army. The array is distinct, the light reflects the sun, the weather is calm, and its momentum is no less than that of the ten thousand armies fighting - this is the infantry and cavalry battle array that the White Wolf Army has drilled countless times, and has tried a knife outside the White Wolf Camp, and killed the Youzhou Army of Gongsun Xu with inferior troops.

Compared with the White Wolf Army, the formation of the Xiliang Army is much simpler. The Xiliang army was divided into two camps, the left flank was the Li Wei army formation, and the right flank was the Guo Yan army formation.

Li Dao's army was about 2,300 men and horses, of which about 1,300 were soldiers, 400 cavalry, and the rest were foot soldiers. The cavalry camp was led by his nephew Li Xian, and all of them rode lightly, or led horses or rode hundreds of paces on the sides of the formation; The infantry battalion was led by Wang Chang, the general under his command and the former tiger ben Zhonglang general, and was also arranged in the order of sword and shield soldiers, spear and halberd soldiers, and archers, but the formation was obviously not as orderly as the white wolf army. This is not only a matter of training and su zhì, but also the factor of the high proportion of Qiang and Hu people in the Xiliang army and the lax military discipline - the Hu people are always inferior to the Han people in this regard.

Guo Yan's army was about 3,000 men and horses, with 1,000 and 5,000 soldiers, including 700 cavalry and nearly 1,000 foot soldiers. Guo Yan was born as a horse thief, attached great importance to cavalry, and was also very good at commanding cavalry, coupled with his personality of always charging ahead, so he personally led 700 cavalry; The infantry army formation was led by his henchman Captain Wu Xi.

From this point of view, the proportion of regular soldiers and cavalry of the Western Liang Army is also quite high, close to the White Wolf Army, which is the inherent characteristics of the armies in the northeast and northwest frontiers, which are unmatched by the armies in the Central Plains and Jinghuai.

In terms of troops, there are more Xiliang troops, but there is another thing that has no less impact on the outcome of the battle than the strength of the troops - equipment, and the Xiliang army is a little worse.

Let's look at the White Wolf Army first, not to mention the heavy cavalry, axe and mallet soldiers, crossbow soldiers, and wolf tooth flying horses, which are enough to grate the elite troops of the Three Kingdoms, such as tiger and leopard cavalry, euphorbia, first deceased soldiers, and white horse righteous servants; It is the same light cavalry, pikemen, sword and shield soldiers, and the White Wolf Army also has a unique advantage.

Light cavalry, mainly on horseback combat, the new stirrup adds three points of combat power, and the horseshoe is also enough to support the war horse to fight for a long time without stumbling, and at the same time has more advantages in complex terrain battles, so it adds two points of combat power. This means that even if the Xiliang Iron Cavalry is twice as strong as the White Wolf Light Cavalry, the White Wolf Light Cavalry can also use the advantage of the harness to draw it. Can Xiliang Iron Ride be twice as strong? If it was the Xiliang Army in Dong Zhuo's era, it might have been so strong, but the Xiliang soldiers in the Jian'an period had changed a few times, and the first-class and first-class strong army of the Han Dynasty had been exhausted in many crusades and infighting, and it was no longer as strong as it was back then.

The ace unit of the Xiliang Army: cavalry, this is still the case, but what about the infantry?

The Xiliang Army, which robbed the arsenals of the two capitals of the Han Dynasty, was once the best equipped of the Han army. It's just that weapons and armor are consumables, after a big battle, no matter how sharp the halberd is, no matter how strong the armor will be broken, if there is no strong logistics base support, repair and replenish, upgrading, no matter how good the weapon is, it will not be used.

The good equipment of the Xiliang Army was all snatched from the arsenals of Luoyang and Chang'an, and they were all one-time consumables. After all these years, except for the guards of generals and colonels at all levels, the equipment is still passable, and the rest of the ordinary soldiers can only be hehe.

The Western Liang Army is dominated by Qianghu cavalry, and the source of its infantry is the Guanxi Han people, and the second is the Qingqiang in Shuzhong, these Qingqiang soldiers are also called "Suo soldiers", I don't know what it means. The customs of these soldiers are very different from those of the Han people, they are aggressive and unruly by nature, and they often rub with the Han soldiers in the military camp, and even commit disorder.

During the Chang'an Rebellion, Jia Xu used these soldiers to make Lu Bu suffer a big loss. After the death of Dong Zhuo, Situ Wang Yun prepared to liquidate the Xiliang army. Just when the generals of Xiliang were frightened and ready to abandon the army and run away, it was Jia Xu who offered a poisonous plan to collapse the Han Dynasty, so Li Wei, Guo Yan, Fan Chou, Li Meng and other fierce generals of the Xiliang army counterattacked Chang'an. In the end, Wang Chong conferred the title, Lu Bu ran out, the Son of Heaven became a prisoner, and the two hundred years of the Han Dynasty came to an end.

Although the result is well known, there is a crucial variable in this, which is often overlooked - in fact, at that time, Chang'an City was strictly guarded, and the defender Lu Bu took the prestige of killing the national thief, and the Xiliang army, which lacked siege equipment, failed to attack for more than ten days. But at this turning point in history, Jia Xu played the strategy he is best at attacking the heart. As a result, the soldiers opened the gate of Chang'an that night, and the Xiliang army swarmed in...... Even if it's the god of war, he only has the share of running away.

This kind of soldier really makes the Xiliang generals love and hate, but they can't do without it, but it is certain that even if they dare not deduct their salaries, they don't have to think about good equipment, and even their own equipment is difficult to guarantee. Quite a lot of soldiers, the weapons used, the sword notch, the spear halberd rusty, the armor and shield are not replaced, the bowstring is not replaced all the year round, can only be self-made, self-made, its quality can be imagined.

With such equipment, the gap between the pikemen and the white wolf army's steel-filled spearhead and the sword and shield soldiers of the new broadsword cannot be calculated.

The White Wolf Army has abandoned the conventional long weapons of the infantry since the Qin and Han dynasties, and is uniformly equipped with Zhangba (three meters) spears, the head of which is one foot long, iron, and only in the tip of the spear, steel is used. The soldier's vigorous stabbing could break through the leather armor and wooden shields of most infantry of this era.

At the same time, the White Wolf Army eliminated the ring head knife, which is more like a sword than a straight knife like a knife, the blade is narrow and straight, which is very inconsistent with mechanics, and it is weaker to slash and kill, which is more suitable for assassination, but if it is a stab, how can a knife compare to a gun? Ma Han used the hand knife of the head of the "Eight Colors of Knife" of the later Song Dynasty, which is the most common kind of large blade.

The new broadsword of the white wolf sword and shield soldier, the blade is all iron, its width is as wide as a palm, the back is thick and the blade is thin, the knife is four feet long (Han ruler), slightly curved, the handle can be held with both hands, and its tail has a ring, which can be tied with cloth strips to prevent slipping. Battlefield encounters, short combat, in addition to the big axe and iron mallet, what short weapon can be compared to the big blade?

Compared with the number of people, the Xiliang army has the advantage; With the help of equipment, the White Wolf Army won a complete victory.

In the comprehensive combat power assessment, the ratio of the Xiliang Army to the White Wolf Army is 5:5, which will be an evenly matched showdown.

At the end of the hour, the two armies lined up.

The mountain wind is howling, thousands of horses are dark, people are silent, and the heavens and the earth are slaughtered.

Before long, the white wolf Chinese army rode out of a small flag on the back, and the knight ran to a place a stone's throw away from the Xiliang army, and shouted: "General Hanwei rebelled on behalf of the Son of Heaven!" Just ask you, is it a fighting general or a fighting formation? The fighter will let the horse come! Let the dog come over in the fighting array! (To be continued......)