The success of the ambush boosted the morale of the coalition forces, but of course, it was the troops who left the state that had been demoralized. As for the Eastern Navy, it has long regarded this kind of victory as inevitable, and has not clearly shown the excitement of the officers and soldiers. But in any case, the reduction in the number of defenders of Tail City is undoubtedly good news, and even the dreamers are happy about it.

Early the next morning, Li Erhu even took the initiative to ask Huang Zhi and others to fight, "Boss Shixin, let Erhu and I take the lead with the 'trapped camp', and guarantee that we can grab the head of the tail city!" ”

"So confident?" Huang Zhi asked him with a smile.

"Of course!" Li Erhu slapped his chest vigorously, making a sound like a drum, "I think this tail city was taken by Erhu and me from the hands of the Lizhou Army!" Now it's more certain to fight again, and I can make a military order for the two tigers! ”

Li Wei's face on the side was a little ugly, two years ago, Weicheng fell into the hands of the rebels, and he was a member of the official army in Weicheng. It's just that he didn't sit in his current position at that time, and he was just a lieutenant, but at this moment, he was inevitably a little embarrassed when Li Erhu mentioned this disgraceful past.

But the reason why Li Wei was able to climb to his current position is due to the success of the rebels in Wei County, which led to the direct downfall of the senior officers in charge of Wei County, and he had a chance to ascend to the throne. Later, in the battle against the rebels in the East China Sea territory, he finally accumulated military achievements and rose to the rank of a leader.

Although Li Wei was not directly responsible for the defeat of the end of the city, this history is a stain on his military career after all, and it can never be erased. This time he instigated the Donghai team to lead the army to attack Tail City, and he did have a shameful idea in his heart. It's just that he didn't expect that the rebel general who brought him shame at the beginning would now become an activist who wants to help him wash away his shame.

Li Erhu doesn't know anything about Li Wei's past, but even if he does, with his surname, I'm afraid he won't say it tactfully in order to save the other party's face, and I'm afraid he will still mention this past without scruples, just like he is still used to calling Du Ziteng Boss Du until now.

Except for the delicate-minded Sima Fuqiang, no one noticed Li Wei's abnormality, but he would not be stupid to ask what was going on. Although Li Wei personally does not have much weight in the eyes of the dream, at this moment, he still needs to rely on the strength of the Lizhou Capital Army to make a deployment against the rebels around Weicheng.

"Boss Shixin, you can't speak!" Li Erhu was a little anxious about the reluctance of people to express their stance in his dream.

At this time, Zhang Wei, who had not spoken, finally asked him a question, "I believe that you can take the city, but can you tell me how many troops will be lost by the 'trapped camp' under your command if you attack under the current conditions?" ”

Li Erhu raised his head when he heard the words and looked at the southern wall of the tail city, although he did not have Sima Fuqiang's ability to "climb high and look far away", but he could still see that there were nearly two hundred rebel soldiers standing on the city wall. Not to mention that Du Ziteng has more men and horses under his command who can be used to support this defense line, even if the opponent only uses these two hundred people to defend, in order to successfully climb this section of the city wall, his "trapped camp" will have to lose at least more than half.

Thinking about it like this, his face became solemn, he scratched his head a little embarrassedly, and replied to Zhang Wei, "Boss Wei, I was wrong about Erhu...... If you attack it like this, the 'trapped camp' will have to be crippled, and it is lucky to have a hundred people left. ”

Li Erhu's biggest advantage is that he has a real surname, and he never has the kind of behavior of dying to save face and ignoring the surnames of his subordinates, otherwise people in their dreams really don't feel at ease to put the elite force of the Eastern Navy such as the "trapped camp" into his hands.

Seeing that Li Erhu shrank back again, Li Wei was anxious at this moment, "We can't drag it out any longer!" ”

"Why?" Sima Fuqiang, who had been watching from the sidelines, suddenly asked.

Li Wei took out a letter from his bosom and handed it to the captain of the East China Sea, "This is a letter for the rebels that my subordinate Tanma intercepted in the early hours of the morning. ”

Since Li Wei was indeed quite familiar with the Tail City generation, the scout work of the coalition army was handed over to the Lizhou army. At this moment, he took advantage of the fact that people were circulating the letter in his dream, and said his analysis, "Although Wei County is also hilly terrain, compared to your East China Sea, the transportation is still much more convenient. The central part of the area is a small plain with five routes from south to north, and Ojo is located in the middle of Oxian. ”

Sima Fuqiang also understands what Li Wei said, because on the way here, Liu Yuanzhi has roughly introduced it to the three decision-makers of the Eastern Navy. These five passages around Weicheng lead to the four directions of the border of Weixian County, communicating the border passes and important towns of Weixian.

There are two passages to the north, one more than the others. One of the most elite troops of the rebels was guarding a pass in the passage due north, directly to Xinxian County, defending against the offensive of the army from the state capital from north to south. and the other leads to the junction of Xin County and Fang County in the northwest. Therefore, the rebels of Wei County had two troops stationed in the north, each with 2,000 men and horses.

Li Wei was repeating what Liu Yuanzhi had said to the people in his dreams at this moment, "Excluding the direction of Weidongguan, the rebel troops leading to the remaining four passages have a total of more than 10,000 troops, even if they only divide half of their troops to come to the rescue, there are as many as 5,000 people. At that time, they will have a siege with the garrison in the tail city, and our 2,000 soldiers and horses are really not enough to see at that time. ”

He still had a sentence hidden in his heart that he didn't say, "My 5,000 troops who left the state capital were defeated and retreated like this a few days ago, and my memory is still fresh!" ”

If the truth is indeed as Li Wei said, then the fate of the coalition is really in jeopardy, but as far as the people in the dream know, this is not the case. At least one thing is certain, the southern rebels no longer exist, and the Weixian rebels are only 4,000 in the north and 1,500 in the west after deducting the 1,500 people who are guarding Weicheng at the moment.

And even if these 5,500 troops can really be divided into half to rescue Weicheng, the coalition forces may not be able to deal with it, so the first thought that came to Sima Fuqiang's heart was to "encircle the point and send reinforcements", even if there was really no chance to take Weicheng in the end, he would have to peel off another layer of skin from the Weixian rebels who had already lost troops in the last few battles.

When he proposed this idea, he was unanimously supported by Huang Zhi and Zhang Wei, and Li Wei naturally expressed his opposition vigorously. For Li Wei, it was not in his interest to simply consume the strength of the rebels in Weixian County, and it was a great credit to attack the city, not to mention that Sima Fuqiang's proposal might not be effective.

Although it had been decided as early as Weidongguan that the command of this operation was on the side of the Donghai team, the Dream Man could not really take away Li Wei's military power, unless they wanted to learn from the rebels to rebel. Therefore, they must come up with enough evidence to prove to Li Wei that the tactic of "encircling the point and sending reinforcements" is profitable, otherwise this Dingyuan general can suspend cooperation with them and lead the army to retreat on the grounds that the East China Navy has temporarily changed its combat objectives.

First of all, he found a reason to take Li Erhu, who couldn't hide his words in his heart, away, and Huang Zhi casually fabricated a piece of information to show the fact that the rebels in the south no longer existed.

Perhaps it was Huang Zhi's charm that was too strong, or the effect of the "incitement" effect, thinking that Du Ziteng, the rebel general who was supposed to be guarding Huicheng, had indeed left the southern part of Wei County, Li Wei accepted this statement.

Next, it was Liu Yuanzhi's turn to go out, and on a map of Weixian County contributed by Li Wei, he pointed to an area in the center and said, "This is the central plain of Weixian, excluding the two routes to Weidongguan and Wanghui City, in fact, the rebels can only come to aid from three directions." ”

Li Wei nodded, he had no objection to this. But this was not enough, the coalition army only had 2,000 men, how to eat reinforcements when the total number was at a disadvantage, at least he couldn't think of it.

Sima Fuqiang smiled, took Liu Yuanzhi's words and said, "The garrisons in these three places are two thousand, two thousand, and one thousand and five respectively. Let's not talk about whether they really dare to ignore the containment of the officers and troops and divide half of the troops to rescue, even if they really send thousands of people to rescue everywhere, General Li, you say, if we are prepared for an ambush in advance, do we have the ability to eat any reinforcements? ”

Although he felt that it was useless to just eat all the reinforcements, Li Wei still had to admit that it could be done.

"Hey, hey! I understand! Zhang Wei couldn't help but laugh out loud as he looked at the map.

Sima Fuqiang was not surprised by Zhang Wei's quick reaction, otherwise he would wonder if the former special forces soldier was in vain.

"Liu Yuanzhi, tell me about the distance from these three border passes to Weicheng and the marching time." Once again, he turned his gaze to the commander of the Eastern Navy.

Liu Yuanzhi is also a smart person, and now he also understands the intention of the supreme commander of the Eastern Navy, and he admires it at the moment.

He pointed to the map again and said, "There is a big straight road from Weicheng to the north, and the distance to Wangxinguan is only more than 150 miles. Thinking about it this way, from Du Ziteng sending people to ask for help, to Wangxinguan sending the fastest cavalry source, it will basically arrive tomorrow morning. ”

"There's still half a day, enough time for us to set up an ambush." Zhang Wei was already thinking about how to eat the reinforcements that had not yet set off.

Liu Yuanzhi paused, and waited for Zhang Wei to finish expressing his opinion before continuing to say, "The second is this road to the west, which is two hundred and fifty miles, that is, five hundred miles back and forth. This one back and forth, two days and one night is absolutely indispensable. After we packed up the reinforcements from Wangxin City, we still had a whole day to prepare. ”

Hearing this, if Li Wei didn't understand, he wouldn't have been able to sit in his current position. Sima Fuqiang is playing the time difference of the reinforcements, although the total number of reinforcements plus the defenders of Weicheng must be much more than the coalition army, but as long as they make full use of the time difference when they arrive at the Weicheng Plain, they can use the tactic of "encircling the point to send reinforcements" to eat these small forces one by one.

And at that time, not only was Tail City still isolated, but even the three border fortresses that sent reinforcements were also damaged, as long as they didn't go crazy enough to come out en masse, it was only a matter of time before the coalition forces wanted to clean them up.

Taking Liu Yuanzhi's words, he pointed to the northwest road, "The northwest road is three hundred miles long, and the mountain road is difficult to travel, and it takes four days to go back and forth." After we have eliminated the reinforcements from the west, we will have a full day and a half of rest before we can wait for the reinforcements to arrive. You are really a master! Li Mou now confidently handed over the command to you. ”

While Du Ziteng was anxiously waiting, the coalition forces did not launch any offensive against Weicheng, but instead cowered in the camp as if they were sleeping, and only occasionally sent some cavalry to parade around.

He didn't feel anything abnormal about this kind of performance of the coalition army, after all, after running for two hundred miles, the coalition army fought another battle last night, and naturally needed to cultivate well for a day or two before he could restore normal combat effectiveness.

It's just that Du Ziteng regretted the failed stealing operation last night, not only failed to achieve the expected results, but also turned over to take almost all the war horses in the tail city. Having lost the highly mobile cavalry unit, even if he wants to play stealing the camp again tonight, it will be difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice.

As for using foot soldiers to steal camps, this idiotic idea was no different from sending him to death, and he didn't have that many troops at hand to gamble on such a small chance with a chance of less than 30% of the odds. Unbeknownst to him, after a long day's rest, the coalition forces had left the camp overnight, leaving only a few scouts to keep an eye on what was going on in Tail City.

Because he had personally come here to explore the terrain in the morning, Sima Fuqiang's familiarity with the official road in the north was not even comparable to Li Wei and others who had lived here. The official road is close to the end of the tail city, where there is a ditch, where there is a road, he knows it in his heart, and soon chooses the best ambush terrain for the coalition forces.

Fearing that the rebels would send a lead scout, the coalition forces did not dig a pit on the official road, but prepared several tripwires and covered the matter with floating earth.

In the second half of the night, while everyone was sleeping, a faint fire suddenly flickered on a hill a few miles north of the ambush site. The frequency and frequency of the flickering of the firelight represented the message of reinforcements, and according to the situation at this moment, Wangxinguan sent a total of five hundred elite horsemen to help.

This time was about two hours earlier than Liu Yuanzhi expected, which shows that the rebel generals who are watching over the heart still attach great importance to the safety of Weicheng, and I am afraid that this also shows in disguise that there is indeed a large amount of property looted by the rebels in Weicheng.

I don't know if it's because the overall quality of the rebels is so low, or if they are very confident in their speed, these reinforcements still haven't sent out the lead scouts, so that all the measures that the dreamers prepared to fool the scouts have been in vain.

At this time, it was Xiao Qi on duty, he had been staring intently at the mountain, and when he saw the fire shining, he immediately woke up all his teammates excitedly.

At this moment, the reinforcements were still five miles away, and they would arrive in about ten minutes, and the coalition soldiers immediately picked themselves up and began to make the final preparations before the battle.

Cavalry is highly mobile and powerful, but it is also quite vulnerable to premeditated ambushes. Last night, Du Ziteng's 500 cavalry was consumed by two or three simple traps, and after losing the speed of the impact, they were covered by bows and arrows, and in the end there were only a few hundred people left, and they were unable to resist the pursuit of the cavalry of the coalition army.

Although this trick is ordinary, the effect is surprisingly good, and it is tried and tested, and no one can prevent it at all, unless it is those heavy cavalry equipped with Mingguang armor, they can resist the bow and arrow covering the shot, and at the cost of paying a certain amount of casualties, forcibly break through the trap position and strike at the enemy.

But the disadvantages of heavy cavalry are particularly obvious, first of all, the requirements for war horses are very high, and horse breeds with insufficient load-bearing capacity simply cannot bear the weight of a full set of armor. Even the breeds with better weights end up being paid for high weights at the expense of speed. Although such heavy cavalry has the advantage of high defense, when facing light light cavalry, it does not even have a chance to hit the opponent at all.

Moreover, its expensive equipment is not something that ordinary armies can afford, and the cost of forming a heavy cavalry is enough to form three or four light cavalry of the same size, but the effect that can be achieved may not be as good as three or four light cavalry, which can be said to be quite low. Therefore, in ancient Chinese wars, the heavy cavalry began to decline from the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty until it withdrew from the stage of history.

At this moment, the Dongzhou Continent, as Sima Fuqiang judged, whether it is the formation of the army or military technology, is equivalent to the level of the late Sui and early Tang Dynasties. Therefore, only the wealthy Dongzhou Imperial Court has a heavy cavalry, and other state capitals cannot equip it, let alone the rebels of Weixian County, who were born from bandits.

In the end, even if the same trick is used repeatedly, as long as the ambush plan itself is successful, the Eastern Navy cavalry cultivated by the dreamman himself will also be unable to crack the trick they are using at the moment.

A moment later, the Wangxinguan reinforcements experienced an even more miserable encounter than Du Ziteng's cavalry last night. Because of the limitation of the width of the official road, they did not even have room to turn, and after being thrown on their backs by several tripping ropes in a row, the cavalry behind could only helplessly slow down and stop, and then accept the baptism of arrow rain.

A small number of skilled riders had just had time to turn around and prepare to flee, but they found that they had killed a bunch of people behind them, and the first few were particularly fierce, and they didn't give them a chance to fight back.

In the end, this cavalry was also unable to escape the fate of total annihilation, adding fuel to the burning morale of the coalition army, and it will never be extinguished by the occasional fear of Li Wei. At this time, if this Dingyuan general suddenly decides to retreat from Weidongguan, I am afraid that it will trigger the military admonition of his subordinate junior officers.

After the "trapping camp", the next goal of the three decision-makers of the Eastern Navy was to establish a pure cavalry battalion, with an initial structure of 500 people. However, at present, there are only 300 cavalry out of the 2,000 people in the Eastern Navy, which are scattered among the other three units except for the "trapped camp", which is really unable to meet the establishment of a cavalry battalion.

After two consecutive nights of ambushes, the Eastern Navy added dozens of cavalry prisoners of war. The military literacy of these people is generally higher than that of ordinary rebel foot soldiers, and they are the objects that people want to fight for in their dreams, and they are remembered by the East China Sea team early.

They first experienced the "might" of the Eastern Navy's strong blow in the battle, and then felt the "grace" of Li Sha's healing regardless of their previous suspicions, and finally relied on Huang Zhi's "social" skills to become a member of the future cavalry battalion of the Eastern Navy.

After briefly cleaning the battlefield, the coalition forces followed Sima Fuqiang's order and moved to the western passage of the Weicheng Plain to wait for the next rebel victim.

(To be continued)