In the history of warfare in ancient and modern times, Chinese and foreign wars, a large number of annihilation wars in which the opposing side was formed and eliminated were usually the turning point that changed the contrast between the strengths and weaknesses of the two sides. For example, the Battle of Stalingrad in the Soviet-German War, the three major battles in the War of Liberation, etc. This is due to the fact that after a unit is eliminated by a formed unit, the new unit will not be able to form a combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

During the years that the Song-Jin War lasted, the Song army was in a state of escape and defense, and not only did there be very few cases of annihilating a unit of more than 1,000 people of the Jin army, but there were not many cases of annihilating the 100-man team of the Jin army. Although the casualties under the blows of the Zhongxing Army in the later period were not small, because they were rarely eliminated by the formation, its damaged troops were replenished into the miscellaneous soldiers and the box army, and the old and the new could also quickly recover their combat effectiveness.

Zhao Ta mobilized nearly 50,000 troops from 18 brigades of the Lion Generals, Wolf Generals, and Tiger Generals of the Zhongxing Army, as well as the directly subordinate teams, plus the more than 100,000 troops of the Righteous Army and the State Army in Hebei, which not only surpassed the Han Li Bubu in terms of quantity, but also surpassed the enemy in terms of the quality of the Zhongxing Army. Emperor Taishang has been safely sent back to Henan, and all the ministries responsible for 'Zha Kouzi' have been deployed in place, and the moment of decisive battle has come.

The purpose of this battle was to annihilate the Jin army of 3 to 40,000 people, severely damage the rest of the army, make it impossible to form combat effectiveness for a long period of time, force the Jin army to turn to the defensive, and change the passive defensive posture of the Song Dynasty. Gain time for reorganizing internal affairs, restoring the economy, and training the army, so as to lay the foundation for future counteroffensives.

The most elite of Hanli's department is the 10,000-strong team composed of the three Jurchens Wanyan Lou Room, Wanyan Xiyin and Wanyan Zongpan, as well as Hanli's direct pro-army, and then the Han army led by Liu Yanzong. Zhao Ta pointed the finger at them, and Zhao Lian formulated a battle plan according to the prince's intentions. Now because the Wuma cottage has not been broken for a long time, these elites have been put into battle one after another. Be drawn in the mountains.

The Jin army has now mobilized most of its forces and divided into two groups, east and west, to attack along the main line of mountains from Tiebi Pass to Chaotian Pass. At present, the Jin army only occupies some small positions around it, some of the heights and slopes of the mountain peaks, and does not shake the Song army's defensive line, and they still firmly control the Tiebi Pass and the surrounding commanding heights. In order to achieve the goal of encircling and annihilating the Jin army, all units of the Song army must act in concert, and the key lies in encirclement and separation. The key to encircling and destroying the enemy is to close the siege and prevent the enemy from escaping; The second is to cut off the besieged enemy so that each one can be annihilated...

On May 30, after being besieged for more than a month, the Zhongxing army exerted its strength. The first target to be hit was Wanyan Lou Chamber, which can be said to be the backbone of the Jin Army, and has been the vanguard of its department to attack the city and plunder the land, very fierce, and Lou Mur is also a rare fierce general among the Jurchens, cruel, resolute, brave, wise, it can be said that he has all the qualities of a general. First of all, the annihilation of the Lou Chamber Department can not only boost morale, but also deal a heavy blow to the Western Route Army, which is equivalent to cutting off its right arm.

The Lou Chamber is arranged on the east side of the main vein of Wuma Mountain. Recently, his troops took over the exhausted Wanyan Zongqi Division, launched a series of attacks with the coordination of the Han army, captured the Tiebi Pass, and entered the hinterland of the cottage. It can be said that victory is in sight, but he doesn't know that he has fallen into Zhao Ta's plan to lure the enemy deeper.

By the time the hour had passed, it had become cooler. Without the heat of the day, the wolf general of the Zhongxing Army also showed his long-hidden fangs. They set out from the village in three ways, and one was responsible for closing the mountain pass. cut off the retreat of the Jin army; all the way to capture the high ground on the east side of Tiebi Pass to block enemy reinforcements; The other road was tasked with severing the connection between the enemy forces on the east and west routes, blocking their way to break through from the west.

The moonless night was as dark as ink, and the shadows of the mountains blocked the last bit of starlight in the sky. The Valley of the Bird is a narrow and winding valley in the mountains, like a thin knife mark left by a sharp blade on the mountain, because birds flying in it may hit the mountain wall, hence the name. At this moment, the 2nd Brigade was led by a guide through it, and they had to rush to the mountain pass ten miles away before the battle began, and preemptively block the retreat of the Jin army.

In the dark, the eyes of the people can see no more than three feet away, and the enemy army has a post on the ridge, so there can be no light, but there are many forks in the valley, and those who are not familiar with walking during the day will be lost in it, and the soldiers marching in the dark can only stare closely at the white cloth tied to the backpack of the person in front of them, so as not to fall behind and go in the wrong direction.

Darkness was not yet their worst enemy, for the valley was overgrown with thorns and rocks, and only two people could stand side by side in the narrowest places, and only four columns could be lined up in the wide places, and a brigade of men was miles apart from each other. Once discovered by the enemy, the consequences are unimaginable, but it is precisely because it is difficult for people and horses to travel here, so there is no army stationed.

"How far is it from the mountain pass?" The lush vegetation in the valley blocked the night wind, and the heat was unbearable, Zhang Yue wiped his sweat and asked the soldiers who returned to report the situation.

"The brigade rate, the forward is less than two miles away from the mountain pass!" The Sharpie whispered.

"Has there been any change in the hostile situation?" Zhang Yue asked.

"The brigade rate, the situation is as usual, it is still a team of five hundred people in the mountain pass!" Sharp Soldier Road.

"Well, tell the commander of the first battalion to concentrate his forces to break through in one fell swoop, and don't throw troops into a war of attrition one by one!" Zhang Yue said that after receiving the order, the top soldiers could return to the front army to deliver the order.

Knowing that the advance arrived on time, but Zhang Yue did not dare to slow down, their task was the most arduous, if the follow-up troops could not catch up, then more than 10,000 iron cavalry in the valley would swarm out, relying on a battalion without strong fortifications in any case, so that the enemy escaped from the city, and the battle plan that had been planned for a long time would be in vain, and then the prince would have to peel his skin...

When the sky was light, the battle for the mountain pass was the first to start, and at this moment, Zhang Yue didn't care about concealing his whereabouts, and rushed to the mountain pass at the speed of a rapid march, ignoring the fact that there was no big threat to intercepting the Jin army. By the time he reached the pass, the battle there was over, and the first battalion had captured the Jin camp and controlled the commanding heights on both sides, but the situation was still not optimistic.

The mountain pass is a hundred zhang wide, and there are no tall trees on Wuma Mountain, and the valley is gravel, and the mountain is mostly solid stones, and it is impossible to build fortifications at all, and the flat ground fortification must withstand the attack on both sides, and the difficulty can be imagined. After Zhang Yue arrived, after a little thought, he ordered the engineer team to choose a hillside with loose soil and rocks to carry out blasting, using the soil and rocks that slid down to reduce the width of the mountain pass, and using it as a cover. The middle gap was sealed with a rucksack filled with gravel as a sandbag, and the pass was closed in the shortest possible time. Subsequently, Zhang Yue ordered the second and third battalions to capture a number of commanding heights on both sides of the mountain pass and completed the combat preparations...

The mountain siege and annihilation battle was also a fierce battle for positional battles. The Song army launched a general offensive in the Yin period, launching assaults from all directions and multiple directions. Relying on the mountains on both sides of the occupied Tiebi Pass, relying on huge boulders, the enemy Lou and the Han army constantly launched counterattacks against us, and sent troops to fight for the mountain passes in an attempt to restore contact with the outside world.

Tactically speaking, relying on the counterattack of the position, it can give the opponent considerable damage, not to mention that in order to compete for every hill and high ground, the Song army has to attack from the bottom to the top, and each gram is a little bit, often after several or more than a dozen charges, repeatedly fighting, until the bayonet is red, and its intensity is rare since the Zhongxing army went into battle.

Relying on its sharp firearms and tenacious fighting style, the Zhongxing Army smashed the enemy's stubborn resistance one by one and narrowed the encirclement. Under the weight of the powerful offensive of the Song army, Wanyan Lou Room organized a large-scale counterattack, first to the south, then to the west, and then to the east to find a gap to attack, trying to break out of the encirclement, but was repulsed by the Zhongxing army and suffered heavy casualties. By the end of the evening, the besieging Jin army had been compressed into a narrow mountainous area of three miles from east to west and two miles from north to south. There are very few grass and trees in the area, and there is a shortage of water, and the Jin army is in a shortage of arrows, cannot get effective reinforcements, and is in an embarrassing predicament of extreme hunger and thirst.

On the morning of the next day, the Song army launched another attack, first concentrating powerful artillery fire and fiercely bombarding the enemy's dense hills and high grounds. In the smoke and firelight, the enemy's flesh and rock fragments flew together, forming a chaos, the infantry under the cover of powerful artillery fire fiercely attacked, the more brave the battle, the cottage rebels also joined the battle of encirclement and annihilation, they have killed the red eye, where there is an enemy, they will rush to the ground, the Jin army is scattered...

Reinforcement battles are tough positional defensive battles. After discovering that the mountain pass was occupied, Han Li did not have the order to recapture the mountain pass, and the 2nd Brigade used the existing field fortifications to carry out a stubborn resistance, like a strong embankment, blocking the enemy's wave after wave of impact under the condition of being attacked on both sides. Liu Yanzong's troops tried to attack and meet Lou Room from the relatively gentle terrain of the eastern foothills of Wuma Mountain, but they were blocked by the third brigade of the wolf general, and the fierce battle only advanced less than one mile, and they could not meet Lou Room across two mountain beams.

The Jin army on the west road of Wuma Mountain was originally used to intercept the Song army that broke through from Chaotian Pass, but at this time, in the case of the failure of reinforcements from various departments, when they were ordered to prepare for reinforcements, they found that a large number of Song troops appeared in the direction of Jingcheng Road, and they crossed the Huaishui River and killed this side, so that they did not dare to move.

At the same time, Han Li also received a report from the reconnaissance cavalry that the Song army in Zhongshan Town had captured Zhending and quickly approached Zanhuang, and the Song army in Guide and Xinde Fu also marched north towards Zhaozhou, and the Zhongxing army that confronted Zonghan in Jizhou also suddenly turned around and went straight here. He realized that the Song army was going to encircle his own troops and leave him here.

Now there are two ways in front of him, one is to rescue Lou Room with all his might, and then concentrate his forces to fight a decisive battle with the Song army, but he also knows that if he has no chance of winning in this way, he will inevitably pay a heavy price for rescuing Lou Room, and he will fight against the Song army with the remnants of the army; The other way is to abandon Lou Mur, gather all the strength and strength, and use the advantage of his cavalry to quickly retreat and jump out of the encirclement before the Song army completes the siege... (To be continued......)