In the autumn of the twentieth year of Hongwei, when the first snow was ushered in in the northwest, the main force of the Apocalypse Army was more than 70,000 people, the servant army was 40,000, and the new army was 90,000, a total of 200,000 troops were completed.

At this time, it was only five days since Xu Rui received the news of King Wuling's attack.

Because Du Ruo secretly sent an envoy to the northwest, he used flying pigeons to transmit a message, which was much faster than the post station to transmit information, and the state capitals along the way loyal to King Yu still did not know the news of King Wuling's big move north.

Hearing that the Northwest Army was pouring into the nest, the four provinces closest to Tianqi Pass thought that Xu Rui was going to attack Changxing, and suddenly sent local garrisons to guard the traffic arteries and intercept the Northwest Army.

Zhang Zuofeng advocated that the news of King Wuling's northward journey should be immediately notified to the provinces, and the banner should be shown to rush to the northeast, and the provinces along the way should be allowed to go.

Lin Shaodong believed that under the situation of political instability in Changxing, no matter what banner the Northwest Army had, it would not be enough to convince the provinces along the way, and if they blindly waited for the provinces to let them go, it would be very delayed, and if they did not do well, they would be attacked by surprise.

Xu Rui agreed with Lin Shaodong's opinion, believing that it was not appropriate to waste time in the current race against time, so he ordered that the strikers should not wait, and all those who obstructed along the way would be quickly eliminated.

On the third day of November, Cao Siyuan led the 1st Brigade of the Apocalypse Army, which was the vanguard of the army, to Zhanghua, and was blocked by a garrison of 20,000 troops of Mo Changlin, a guerrilla general in the northwest province.

Cao Siyuan did not hesitate to give the order to attack, and the artillery regiment seized the high ground on the spot and established positions, and nearly 60 artillery pieces immediately bombarded the local positions indiscriminately.

The garrison still maintained the old tactics, concentrating men and horses on the front line to prepare for a charge, such a formation was simply a live target for artillery, and only four salleys were defeated.

As soon as the local formation dispersed, Cao Siyuan immediately ordered the infantry to cooperate with the Apocalypse chariot to storm the front, and the cavalry outflanked from both flanks to block the passage where the enemy army was scattered.

The main force of the Northwest Army has been fully equipped with hot weapons, in addition to the Reaper rifle in each person, each infantry squad is equipped with two submachine guns, a latest-style light machine gun, and a sniper rifle modified from the Reaper rifle.

The overall firepower and tactical tactics have even surpassed the era of World War I and have begun to overdeploy to World War II.

In the case of poor weaponry and tactics, although the local garrison of Zhanghua was superior in numbers, it did not have any ability to fight back at all, and it was completely annihilated in only half an hour.

In this battle, more than 3,000 enemies were killed and 14,000 were captured, including Mo Changlin, the guerrilla general of the Northwest Province, and six other generals and officers from the fourth rank and above.

Except for Mo Changlin and Liu Wei, the first brigade did not have time to deal with the prisoners, so Cao Siyuan ordered the prisoners to be thrown on the side of the road and let them surrender to the main force of the army that arrived later, while he led his headquarters to continue to advance.

In this way, the First Brigade was like a bamboo, continuously defeating all the armies, and the longest time was only one hour, and none of the troops were the generals of the Northwest Army, and the army advanced at an astonishing speed.

On the sixth day of November, the 1st Brigade, which was at the forefront of the Northwest Army, had arrived in the central Wei province of Shenzhou, where they met an uninvited guest, Wang Yi and his 50,000-odd Chinese left guard.

Wang Yi did not know what method he used, but before the 1st Brigade arrived in Shenzhou, he had already controlled the entire territory of Shenzhou, and built many fortifications along the way.

Unlike those local garrisons that first encountered the Apocalypse Army, Wang Yi obviously knew the Apocalypse Army very well.

Judging from his defensive arrangement, he was not confined to the victory or defeat of one city or one place, but scattered the army, held as many checkpoints as possible, and tried to exchange space for time, and used the defensive positions to block the footsteps of the Northwest Army.

This just confirms Xu Rui's guess, King Wuling's Western Route Army is not to attack Changxing, but is specially designed to block Xu Rui's footsteps, and the real main direction of attack is the southeast.

In the face of Wang Yi's turtle play, Cao Siyuan did not have the slightest surprise and immediately ordered the army to attack.

After a new round of redressing, the firepower of the Apocalypse Army has intersected, and the army that Wang Yi knows has made a qualitative leap.

Even if Wang Yi set up positions on the back slope in a targeted manner, and blocked the official road with barbed wire and horse chasing pits, the artillery advantage and chariot advantage of the Apocalypse Army were greatly weakened.

However, what he did not expect was that even if the position established on the back slope could block the frontal artillery salvo, it could not stop the indiscriminate bombardment of thousands of mortars, and those fortifications designed by Wang Yi who had been thinking about it for many years and personally lasted only one afternoon before being breached on the entire front.

And the blocking system on the official road, which was given high hopes, also became a laughing stock under the powerful engineering operations of the Apocalypse Army.

The application of chainsaws, sapper shovels, and modular bridge-erecting vehicles has given the First Brigade the ability to bypass some official roads and quickly open up roads.

A day later, the 1st Brigade had successfully passed through Wang Yi's layers of defense and appeared under Yong'an, the capital of Shenzhou.

The walls of Yong'an City are low, and there is no danger to defend all around, so there is no possibility of holding on to the Northwest Army equipped with heavy firepower and waiting for reinforcements.

Wang Yi naturally knew this well, and after hearing that many of his methods had failed, he immediately led the rest of the men and horses to flee to the southwest.

However, he only set off an hour earlier than the First Brigade, and his luck was too bad, and the strong northwest wind kept Wang Yi's army under the surveillance of hot air balloons.

Two hours later, the left guard of the Chinese army was caught up by the rapid reaction cavalry regiment of the 1st Brigade, and the cavalry used the range and power advantage of the Reaper rifle to constantly attack Wang Yi's army, and when Wang Yi's army was angry and wanted to counterattack, they used their speed advantage to quickly break away from the battle.

Under such entanglement, the escape speed of the left guard of the Chinese army was greatly delayed, and it was finally bitten by the main force of the 1st Brigade in the afternoon of early November.

The same irreparable difference in weapons and tactics made the left guard of the Chinese army, one of the twelve guards of the Beijing Division, powerless to fight back.

The huge power of the artillery quickly shattered the defense of the left guard of the Chinese army, and in the face of the artillery positions that had been spread out several miles away, the traditional field charge tactics completely lost their vitality, and there were only two options left, either die or escape from the range of the artillery as soon as possible.

However, Cao Siyuan was determined to leave Wang Yi behind, and while the artillery was firing, the cavalry had already outflanked from both flanks, cutting off the retreat of the army.

Now that the defeat was decided, Wang Yi took advantage of the fact that the "pocket" was not completely tightened, and once again led his own soldiers to escape alone, throwing tens of thousands of troops to Cao Siyuan as bait.

Cao Siyuan is also not polite, since you are so sincere, then he naturally accepts everything.

In this way, the left guard of the Chinese army, which once belonged to the 12th Guard of the Great Wei Jing Division and the absolute main force of the army, was almost reduced to the same fish belly as the local garrison when it suffered heavy losses one after another and was abandoned by the commander.

More than 50,000 horses were routed on all fronts in the time of a pillar of incense, and the Apocalypse chariots and cavalry equipped with light machine guns ravaged back and forth, and nearly 40,000 surrendered.

Because the left guard of the Chinese army was defeated too quickly, Cao Siyuan originally had time to continue to pursue Wang Yi, but after weighing the time cost, Cao Siyuan still dispelled this tempting idea, and led the army to continue eastward, so that Wang Yi, the loach, once again sneaked away from between his fingers.

And just when Cao Siyuan's First Brigade was marching forward, Xu Rui, who was in the middle of the Chinese army, suddenly met Li Kuang, who rushed to the southeast in advance to establish an intelligence network.

"Why are you back?"

In Xuanyuan, Xu Rui was very surprised when he saw Li Kuang.

With a gloomy face, Li Kuang took out a blood-stained secret letter and handed it to Xu Rui and said, "Look at this." ”

"What is this?"

Xu Rui took the secret letter with a suspicious face, opened it and saw that the handwriting on it was very sloppy, and a large piece of words was stained dark red by blood, and it was not clear at all.

But Xu Rui's face changed just by the first few lines, and he was shocked: "How is it possible? How is this possible?! ”