The Liao army had a total of 85,000 people in Datong Province, of which 5,000 Khitans stayed in Datong City.

The remaining 80,000 troops participated in the decisive battle with the Song army.

The 80,000 Liao army also approached step by step, stopping about five miles away from the Song army, and they also laid out a formation, and the 30,000 mature Jurchen army was the front army, responsible for continuously attacking the main formation of the Song army.

The Naiban and Lieshan divisions were the left and right flanks, the Dadan division was the rear army, the 10,000 Xi troops and the 10,000 Bohai navy were the central army, and Yelu Wanshan personally commanded the army to fight.

Among the 30,000 former army were 20,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry, and they were the key to the whole war.

Yelu Wanshan was very conflicted in his heart, the combat effectiveness of the mature Nu Zhenbu was far inferior to that of the Birth Jurchen, was it wise to let them fight the front army?

But he must carry out the intention of the Son of Heaven Yelu Hongji and use the war to weaken the strength of the mature woman, that is, these 30,000 troops must all be consumed on the battlefield of Datong.

This is a political task for Yelu Wanshan, but if it is carried out, it will be militarily weakened, in fact, according to his original intention, it is to let the three steppe tribes as the vanguard.

On the one hand, the three steppe tribes resolutely refused, and on the other hand, it was the political pressure of Yelu Hongji, the Son of Heaven, that made Yelu Wanshan finally formulate this formation that was not very satisfactory.

The 30,000 Mature Men were ready, the first and second waves were cavalry attacks, and after the cavalry broke through the opposing lines, the third wave of infantry would enter the enemy line.

But they were facing 150,000 Song troops, and the huge pressure simply made them desperate.

Mature Jurchens are Jurchens who have entered the agricultural civilization, and they are very different from the Jurchens of the Wanyan family, they settled on the north bank of the Yalu River, some live in the city, do small business and other livelihoods, and some live in the countryside, so they mainly live from farming.

The Jurchens have always had a close relationship with the Goryeo, and when the relationship between the Liao and the Goryeo deteriorated, the Jurchens would naturally be suspicious of the Liao court.

Especially now that the financial resources of the Liao court are exhausted, in order to seize more wealth, Yelu Hongji began to play the idea of many races, needless to say, the Han people were the first to be deprived of wealth, and then the birth of Jurchen and Kerebu, after a round of internal cleansing in the Khitan, Yelu Hongji's eyes were on the mature Jurchens who were relatively wealthy, but had a bad relationship with the court.

Send the Jurchen young men to the battlefield, and the remaining old people, women and children will be left to their disposal.

'Boom! Boom! Boom! ’

The drums ready to go to war have been beaten, the Jurchen Liao army, which was preparing for the first wave of impact, tightened the war horse, and there was a serious pig iron crisis in Liao, and 500,000 Han people were rescued by the Song army, while other ethnic groups could not keep up in mining and smelting, so that the pig iron output of Liao State was sharply reduced by seventy, and the quality was not up to standard.

The Jurchens were all in leather armor, carrying old spears and a wooden shield.

The war horse snorted and kept hitting the ground, and at this time, Yelu Wanshan's war knife waved, and the sound of war drums suddenly tightened.

The Jurchens shouted, "Kill—"

10,000 cavalry took the lead in killing, and 10,000 horses galloped, stirring up dust in the sky, and slaughtered the Song army........

In the crossbow array of the Song army, Yang Ying, the commander of the capital, shouted: "The horse baffle is raised, the ballista is ready, and the crossbowmen are ready!" ”

The yellow flag waved, and the horse guards were quickly erected to form a two-mile-long barrier, followed by three hundred and sixty ballistas loaded with iron box crossbow arrows, each with two strong soldiers struggling to wind up.

Nine thousand crossbow soldiers lined up in three rows, raising their crossbows together to aim at the rushing Liao cavalry.

In the distance, the second 10,000-strong cavalry team also galloped, 20,000 war horses galloped, forming a sea of war horses, the earth was trembling, the yellow-red dust covered the sky and the sun, and the war horses seemed to rush out of the chaotic world, with long manes flying.

The cavalry was getting closer and closer to the Song army, five hundred, three hundred, two hundred......

The cavalry at the front was the first to enter the killing range of the ballista.

The red flag waved, 360 ballistas were fired at the same time, and countless small black dots rose into the air, forming a black cloud like locusts, which shot overwhelmingly into the enemy's large array.

Like a storm, the rain of iron arrows shot into the enemy group, the iron crossbow arrows were extremely strong, and they swished into the cavalry group in a straight line, shooting through the shield and leather armor, and shooting through the soldiers' bodies, countless cavalry rolled to the ground, and the war horses were also shot, and they fell directly to the ground, throwing out the cavalry on their backs, and lost more than 2,000 cavalry in a round of arrows.

Immediately after the first round of 3,000 crossbow troops also released arrows, 3,000 crossbow arrows rose into the air and shot at the overwhelming enemy troops, the first row finished shooting, and began to quickly pull the string and release the arrows, followed by the second row of fires, and a moment, the third row fired.

At this time, the steel ballista began to fire a second time.

The cavalry of the Liao army only ran a short hundred steps before encountering a fierce blow from nearly 30,000 arrows, including 20,000 iron crossbow arrows and 9,000 crossbow arrows.

The Liao cavalry suffered more than 6,000 casualties, which frightened them.

But no matter how frightened they were, they couldn't retreat, and the 10,000 cavalry behind them had already followed and killed, and they could only rush towards the enemy camp.

At this time, the thousands of cavalry at the front were only eighty steps away from the Song army, and the steel ballistae had already withdrawn, and the nine thousand crossbowmen raised their crossbows together and aimed at the Liao army that was getting closer and closer.

Nine thousand arrows were fired together, like the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, and after a group of people turned on their backs, only more than 1,000 people were still on their horses.

And the second group of 10,000 cavalry was only one hundred and fifty steps away from the Song army, Yang Ying shouted: "The crossbow army retreats, and the pikemen form a large formation of spears!" ”

The 9,000 crossbow soldiers quickly retreated, and the 30,000 pikemen stepped forward, and the two-zhang long spears were densely packed, forming a sea of spears.

In front of the thirty thousand pikemen was a two-mile-long horse guard, covered with dense stake spikes.

More than a thousand cavalry finally took the lead in front of the Song army's large array, and they saw clearly that there was a long row of wooden planks in front of them, and the planks were covered with spikes.

The horses couldn't jump at all, they could only crash into it, and many soldiers screamed in fear.

"Boom!" Thousands of cavalry crashed into the horse guard, some smashed the horse plate and rushed directly into the dense spears, some of the horses stopped quickly, and people flew over, but most of the horses could not stop their hooves, and directly hit the plank, and were pierced through the body by the long wooden stake spikes.

But in any case, the horse shield unloaded the impact force of the cavalry, greatly reducing the impact pressure of the pikemen behind.

The first batch of 10,000 Liao cavalry was almost wiped out, and this time the second batch of Liao cavalry came up, and the real battle began.

After paying the price of 2,000 casualties, the Liao army finally smashed the horse shield and entered the Song army's spear array.

At this time, the Liao army was fully killed, and the two steppe cavalry, one left and one right, also killed the two wings of the Song army.

Fanning saw it clearly and shouted: "The left and right flanks assault the enemy's flanks and kill them back!" ”

"Kill—"

The seed roared, and the left and right 50,000 cavalry killed the enemy's left and right flanks, and the cavalry instantly mixed together, only fighting fiercely for less than a stick of incense time, the Lieshan Department on the left flank was the first to be unable to support it, he led his men to turn their heads and escape, and then the Naiman Department on the right flank also quickly retreated.

The Dadan tribe had not even engaged the Song army, they also retreated, and the three steppe cavalry ran lifeless in the wilderness, fleeing straight to the grasslands in the north.

The Song army did not pursue the three parts of the grassland, the blue order flag waved, and 50,000 Song cavalry surrounded the main force of the enemy's central army from both sides.

Yelu Wanshan got the news that the three tribes of the grassland were defeated and retreated, and he was so angry that he scolded, where is this retreat without being invincible, it is clearly an escape from the battle, and it is an agreed escape from the battle, otherwise the Dadan Department would not have even encountered the enemy army, so they turned around and fled.

Fanning seized the opportunity and ordered all 150,000 troops to press, and 150,000 troops surrounded 40,000 enemy legions to form a huge iron bucket array.

The 40,000 Liao army suffered heavy casualties, but there was no chance to turn the tide of the war, seeing that the army was getting smaller and smaller, the Song army was more and more courageous, the western army was very brave and good at fighting, and the cavalry also fired arrows from the periphery to the Liao army inside, in just one hour, the 40,000 surrounded army had suffered more than half of the casualties.

The adjutant general Yeluhan shouted: "Great commander, we are already bound to be defeated, give the order to break through!" ”

Yelu Wanshan also knew that the defeat was decided, and he shouted: "The whole army is breaking through to the north!" ”

The remaining 18,000 soldiers struggled to break through, but the Song army's spear formation was so strong that they could not break through at all, and the casualties continued to increase.

The lieutenant general Yeluhan was shot by a flurry of arrows, turned over and fell off his horse, and was trampled like mud by thousands of war horses.

Yelu Wanshan was covered in blood, but he finally found an opportunity, the Song army in the northeast corner was a little weak, and it seemed that the cooperation could not be connected.

"Kill me with me! Break out. ”

He led the main army to storm the northeast corner, desperate to break out.

At noon, Yelu Wanshan led thousands of cavalry to finally open a bloody road from the northeast corner and rushed out, but was blocked by 20,000 Song cavalry.

In the end, only a few hundred people broke out of the encirclement of the Song army, and Yelu Wanshan was panicked like a lost dog, and did not dare to return to Datong City, but fled in the direction of the northwest grassland.

The battle, which lasted for nearly four hours, finally ended in the afternoon, and the 80,000 Liao soldiers fled except for the three parts of the grassland, and the remaining 50,000 troops were almost wiped out, and only a few hundred escaped.

The Liao army lost more than 40,000 casualties and surrendered more than 8,000, while the Song army also paid a heavy price of more than 6,000 casualties.

In the evening, Fan Ning led 80,000 troops to the city of Datongfu, 5,000 defenders had fled, the city gate was opened, and Liu Zhi, the prefect of Datong, led the officials of Datong out of the city to surrender.