As the first rays of sunlight in the morning sprinkled into the world, dyeing the highest peaks of the distant mountains golden and translucent, the Northern Qi infantry of the large battalion of the Qi army outside Jiaozhou City, under the command of the generals of their respective battalions, shouted and lined up in a neat queue to walk out of the camp.

As early as when the sky was not yet dawn, the Qi army camp began to cook, and now these infantry troops who are out of the camp are all preparing to attack Wang Yong's camp outside the city, Dugu Yongye is ready to pull out this nail first, and then go all out to conquer Jiaozhou City, and the tens of thousands of cavalry under his command were also sent by him to block the main road to the inland of Jiaozhou City.

Seeing that the thousands of cavalry of the Qi army this time actually regarded themselves as nothing, and went straight around the city to the rear of Jiaozhou City, Wang Yong was a black line, which was really looking down on himself; Moreover, now that the counties and counties behind Jiaozhou City are empty, if they are really seized by these cavalry, it will be a big trouble.

There are still nearly 20,000 people in Jiaozhou City today, but except for more than 1,000 ordinary people who would rather die in their hometowns than leave their hometowns, the rest are all troops mobilized by Wang Yongxin, and these troops have turned the entire Jiaozhou City into a large military camp.

At present, Wang Yong has nearly 40,000 people on the front line in Jiaozhou, in addition to the 20,000 veterans brought in the camp outside the city, there are also more than 10,000 soldiers in Jiaozhou City, but among the more than 10,000 people, in addition to the more than 2,000 veterans who were originally led by Shen Sanshui to defend the city, only the 2,000 reinforcements sent by Wang Yong to the city a few days ago to accept his command, in addition to the soldiers who accounted for most of the defenders in the city are just Wang Yong's newly recruited militia in just a few days.

Seeing that the Qi army was ready to go out of the camp to fight, Wang Yong had already arranged all the problems to Shen Sanshui, and immediately led hundreds of guards to ride to the camp outside the city.

In the long horn emitted a low 'woo······ Woo······' In the background sound, the front battalion of the Qi army was lined up in a neat and dense military formation, slowly but firmly and forcefully walking towards Wang Yong's camp, and the sound of the collision of weapons during the action brought people particularly great pressure.

Because when they were on the front line of Jeju and Jibei County earlier, these Qi soldiers had suffered a big loss from the crossbow in the hands of the crossbow battalion under Wang Yong, so before this attack, Dugu Yongye ordered his craftsmen to build thousands of large shields that were more than two inches thick and more than one person high.

These shields are all made of sturdy locust wood, elm or cypress trunks cut down in the surrounding mountains, and because there are many pear trees planted by mountain people in the nearby mountains, there are more than one person thick in a hundred years, and this time they were also cut down by the Qi army to make shields.

The main force of the Qi army attacking the camp outside the city was more than 20,000 people brought by Dugu Sheng yesterday, and Dugu Sheng, who had stayed in Northern Xuzhou for a long time, was also ready to show his skills in front of his brothers, while Dugu Yongye led the army to plunder the formation, and was closely guarded against the support of Jiaozhou City at any time for the camp outside the city.

With these tall and thick shields in their hands, the Qi soldiers in the front were very relieved to advance, and the Qi soldiers in the back were also pushing the crash car used to hit the camp wall under the protection of a large number of shields, shouting together and slowly advancing towards the camp, I have to say that the current situation is favorable to the Qi army, even the snowfall in the past few days has not formed any obstacle to their attack, but also let them push the crash to save a lot of effort.

At this time, nearly 4,000 Huaisi Xiangma who took refuge in Dugu Sheng's command were also released by Dugu Sheng, because these people had not undergone the combat training of the regular cavalry, if they were forcibly organized to fight hard with the Xia army, it would be even more uncomfortable, so Dugu Sheng threw them all out and asked them to fight freely, mainly to block the connection between Wang Yong's camp and Jiaozhou City.

The former ringing horses roared away with all kinds of strange screams, Dugu Sheng's order was very much in line with their minds, in fact, these ringing horses did not have any other thoughts, the main purpose was to be crowned an official and a half-post after the victory of the army by fighting and making meritorious contributions under Dugu Sheng.

I have to say that the idea of the official standard is deeply rooted in China, but the most lucrative benefits of all walks of life in the world are still officials, as early as the Warring States before the unification of the Qin Dynasty, Lu Buwei, his father told Lu Buwei, the richest in the world is to seek the country, so although the horses like to be free, but as long as possible, they still want to 'kill people and set fire to be recruited'.

When Wang Yong returned to the camp outside the city, all the generals and soldiers in the camp were already ready for battle, because the snowfall had not melted in the past few days, and the ice and snow everywhere made Wang Yong's cavalry very uncomfortable.

Among the more than 20,000 people brought by Wang Yong from Jibei County to support here, the cavalry under the command of Shi Haiguang and Fa Yan had nearly 6,000 horsemen, but they lost a lot in several battles with the Northern Qi cavalry a few days ago, especially in a small battle two days ago, Wang Yong actually lost nearly 1,000 people, not to mention that even Shi Haiguang was almost injured.

It stands to reason that the icy and snowy environment in front of them is very unsuitable for large-scale cavalry operations, but these Northern Qi cavalry from northern Xinjiang are very adaptable to this ice and snow weather, and their combat effectiveness in this environment far exceeds that of the rookie cavalry under Wang Yong.

Because Wang Yong had already arranged the combat mission of the generals in the camp, he came back at this time without saying much and went straight to the front of the camp, where a high lookout had been built early, which was specially built for Wang Yong to observe the situation on the battlefield.

The high platform was built with a thick tree trunk, which was buried three or four feet deep in the soil, and then a large piece of bluestone was filled into a deep pit and buried. If you add that the ceiling on the high platform is seven or eight zhang high, not to mention that you can see the situation of the entire battlefield outside the city clearly, even the defensive situation in Jiaozhou City can be seen similarly.

With Wang Yong's order, Han Biao and Zhou Guang each led tens of thousands of soldiers under their command to stand by, for this battle Wang Yong made full preparations, on the way to help from Changbai Mountain, Qingzhou Yidu two arsenals brought a large number of weapons and armor, so that more than 20,000 soldiers even reached seven or eight out of ten.

Of course, the cavalry under the command of Shi Haiguang and Fa Yan needless to say, in order to ensure the speed of the cavalry, most of them are equipped with iron armor, and the infantry led by Han Biao and Zhou Guang wear iron armor at a higher rate, in addition to most of the infantry is leather armor, there are at least five or six thousand soldiers in the front wearing iron armor.

The iron armor worn by these infantry is still different from the iron armor of the soldiers of Luo Huan's ironclad battalion next to them, the armor of the soldiers of the ironclad battalion is heavier and thicker than the iron armor on these infantry soldiers, and the weight is enough to be equal to one and a half of the weight of the iron armor of the soldiers of the infantry battalion.

The original ironclad battalion can now be renamed the Modao Battalion, because the Modao in the Sui and Tang dynasties is actually the same as the horse cutting giant sword in Luo Huan's hand, which is also developed from the horse cutting sword of the army during the Han Dynasty, and it is also a long-handled straight sword with a two-sided blade.

However, now the infantry army and the ironclad battalion are not the first row, in front of these soldiers is now the crossbow battalion, and the captain of the crossbow battalion, Zhou Duo, is stepping up to urge his soldiers to hurry up and prepare all the crossbow arrows, bed crossbows, rockets and other weapons, and after a while, the Qi army will approach the battalion and the first wave of attacks will be launched by the crossbow battalion.

As the Qi army approached, Zhou Duo ordered the soldiers of the crossbow battalion to first wind the crossbow arrows, and then ignite the fire sacs on the crossbow arrows in the brazier beside them, and then heard the powerful and powerful sound of the 'bang bang bang' bowstring, and the rockets in their hands were shot out one by one.

The Qi soldiers who had been prepared for a long time saw the rockets flying in front of them like raindrops shooting towards them, so the Qi soldiers in the first row of the Qi army formation and the soldiers in the second row immediately erected the shields in their hands, and the tall and thick shields were stacked together in two layers almost blocking the fire and rain in the sky, and only a few arrows crossed over the high shields and shot the body of an unlucky person in the military formation and let out a miserable scream.

According to Zhou Duo's past experience, it usually only takes two or three rounds of rocket salvos to burn the shields in the hands of the first two rows of Qi soldiers, and then these Qi soldiers will be quickly exposed to the long-range attacks of the crossbow and arrow battalion.

To Zhou Duo's surprise this time, the soldiers of the Qi army obviously made a lot of progress, not only that the shields they used were made of fresh trees that were not easy to be burned by fire, but more importantly, the Qi army was obviously prepared for this situation, not only the first two rows of soldiers were equipped with shields, but even the soldiers in the back followed behind with shields as substitutes.

Whenever the shield in the hand of a certain Qi soldier in the front two rows was about to be burned by the attached grease, a soldier with a new shield in the back immediately came up to take the place of the soldier in front, and the burning shield was quickly covered by the soldiers behind with ice and snow, and the flames on it were quickly extinguished.

In this way, although a large number of Qi army's shields were constantly burned by the rockets of the crossbow battalion, the losses of the Qi army so far were only a dozen people shot dead, and even its advance was not disturbed in any way, and it was still slow but firm. Twenty fifty thousand

No, it seems that we have to use powerful firearms in advance, Zhou Duo couldn't help but shake his head, the rocket that he thought could be used to make a certain threat to the Qi army turned out to be in vain, it seems that the progress of the Qi army is also getting bigger and bigger, and it seems that the status of the military power of the Northern Qi will last for a few years.

Seeing that the Qi army had advanced to a distance of three hundred meters, but when the Qi army's formation changed, Wang Yong, who was standing on the high platform, noticed that behind the shield of the Qi army's formation, there was a group of ironclad troops with an indefinite number of more than two thousand to three thousand, wearing iron armor and holding a giant axe.

This army is impressively dressed in the same costume as the heavy armor soldiers of the Hu Lawyers Association who had fought fiercely on the Jeju front line and the ironclad battalion of the Zhou Tong Division, and it seems that this should be one of the killers that Dugu Yongye has hidden for a long time.

The strength of these Northern Qi heavy armor soldiers is still very strong, although the lethality of the heavy axes in their hands is far less than the horse cutting giant sword equipped by Wang Yong's side, but it is still very useful to attack the armored soldiers, and it is also very useful to destroy the camp of the army.

So under Wang Yong's suggestion, Zhou Duo immediately asked the soldiers of the crossbow battalion to move the bamboo rocket, this bamboo rocket is different from the previous rocket that was mainly used for fire prevention, but the rocket invented by Zheng Kui before that filled with gunpowder will explode, and it also has another name called Zheng's rocket.

At first, the danger of this rocket was relatively high, because without a tail, the rocket was likely to turn around and explode in its own team, but when Jiang Chuan and others attacked Liu Damo's army, this problem had been solved, and a few thin triangular tails solved this problem very well.

When the forward soldiers of the Qi army marched to only two or three hundred meters away from Wang Yong's camp, they began to run and charge, and at the same time, the big drum in the rear of the Qi army also began to sound, Wang Yong raised the binoculars in his hand and saw from a distance that it was Dugu Sheng personally beating the drum to cheer for the soldiers under his command.

Perhaps encouraged by Dugu Sheng's personal drumming and cheering, the speed of the Qi army's charge increased even more, although a large number of soldiers continued to fall to the ground or die, but they still rushed forward without hesitation.

At this moment, dozens of black shadows with a sharp whistling sound suddenly shot out of Wang Yong's camp, drew a rounded arc in the sky, and then shot straight into the crowd of Qi troops who were charging, and with a deafening explosion, a large open space appeared in the dense military formation of the Qi army in an instant.

This wave killed hundreds of Qi soldiers, dozens of large pits on the ground, large areas of snow were blown up to reveal the soil underground, and a large number of human stumps were also scattered around, and large swaths of snow were stained red with blood and then frozen again.

However, Zhou Duo shook his head when he saw this, obviously very dissatisfied with the results of this killing, when he was on the front line in Jeju and Jibei County, at that time, because the Qi army had no experience in the face of the rockets that came out of nowhere, it still charged intensively according to the early combat methods, and as a result, after each rocket was launched, it would at least cause dozens of Qi soldiers to be killed and wounded.

It turned out that the soldiers of the Qi army had changed their formation after hearing the whistling sound just now, from the original brigade cluster to a small group of two or three hundred people, which reduced their casualties while ensuring the intensity of the attack.

Although Dugu Yongye was on guard against Jiaozhou City when Dugu Sheng's department attacked, he was also paying attention to the battle here at any time, and when he saw that Dugu Sheng's department was defending in an orderly manner against Wang Yong's attack, he couldn't help but nod his head to express his satisfaction.

At this moment, suddenly a scout came to Dugu Yongye, but was immediately stopped by Dugu Yongye's personal guards, so the scout waved a token in his hand and shouted at Dugu Yongye: "General, I am the first commander of the scout battalion, and the commander Guan Chuanxin said that the situation in the rear has changed!" ”

Dugu Yongye was immediately shocked in his heart, but his face remained silent and said, "You come over and say what's going on?" "I just transferred Dugu Sheng and 20,000 soldiers, could there be any changes in Northern Xuzhou? It shouldn't be, because he still has at least tens of thousands of soldiers left in the area of North Xuzhou, and it is impossible for the heroes of North Xuzhou not to worry about this!

I heard the scout team leader say: "General, the defenders of Nanqingzhou have found that a large number of bandits are now gathering in the mountains and forests north and west of Nanqingzhou City, and the number is probably nearly 10,000, and the specific purpose is not clear!" The defenders in the city can only hold the city because the number is too small, and I hope that the general will send troops to support it soon! ”

Dugu Yongye was irritated when he heard this, although South Qingzhou City is not a necessary place to connect North Xuzhou to Jiaozhou City, it is also the political center of South Qingzhou, and it controls a large area of strategic points in the upper reaches of Yishui, and it is also a strategic place that threatens the hinterland of Sanqi.

But it is not realistic to send troops to support Nanqingzhou, Dugu Yongye looked back at Dugu Sheng's department that had already joined the enemy, and now the battle under Jiaozhou City has officially begun, although his strength is more than Wang Yong, but if he wants to defeat Wang Yong, he still needs to concentrate all his forces.

Think about it carefully, Dugu Yongye said to Meng Lingtong: "Mr. Meng, I remember that there were still 2,000 soldiers and horses left in Guan Shuai Guancheng, it is better to withdraw 1,000 soldiers and horses from Guan Shuai and return to Nanqingzhou, although 1,000 people are not much, but it should be used to increase the defense of Nanqingzhou!" ”

Meng Lingtong, who was wearing extremely thick clothes, was a little puzzled: "Although what the general said is reasonable, but Guan Shuai Guancheng is a strategic place between Northern Xuzhou and Jiaozhou City, if the army is empty, I am afraid that it will be attacked by others, and I still can't ignore it!" ”

Meng Lingtong also has to pay attention to this problem, if Guan Shuai Pass is reoccupied, then it can be said that the logistics route of the Dugu Yongye army will be cut off, and the grain and grass required by tens of thousands of troops will be cut off, which will lead to more serious consequences than the occupation of bandits in Nanqingzhou.

"Mr. Meng, at the beginning, the commander of the garrison was only a few hundred people who could stop my army for nearly ten days, and I only transferred half of the people and still left a thousand people to garrison, so it should be no big deal!" Dugu Yongye thought about it and decided to withdraw Guan Shuaiguan's army.

Dugu Yongye is the commander of the army after all, since he has made up his mind that Meng Lingtong still has to respect it, but he still suggested: "In this case, the general might as well take another 500 people from the army to the south to manage the commander, and then draw 500 people from the surrounding areas of North Xuzhou to the commander of the city, so that the safety of the commander can be prevented!" ”

"It's still thoughtful, in this case, I will take these hundreds of people from here to take charge of the commander, anyway, there will be no shortage of these hundreds of people on the front line! It's just that the bandits gathered outside the city of Nanqingzhou are Taishan thieves or other bandits, and I don't know what they are going to do when they gather in Nanqingzhou! Dugu Yongye praised Meng Lingtong, but he still had some doubts about the changes in Nanqingzhou.

Meng Lingtong thought for a while: "It is said that Wang Yong was born as a bandit before he started his family, and now he has become a prince of his own country, and the traitors of Zhangwu in Hebei have also swept several states and counties to establish their own Yan country, isn't it that these thieves in Nanqingzhou also want to be like them?" ”

It's just that Meng Lingtong immediately overturned this speculation by himself, "But why didn't these thieves make any movement last year if they wanted to divide the state and county, and now Wang Yong is under the attack on the back of our east and west, I am afraid that he will be pacified next spring, these thieves should not be so stupid and can't see the situation clearly!" ”

Dugu Yongye looked up at Jiaozhou City not far away, and said to Meng Lingtong: "We don't care so much for the time being, as long as we defeat Wang Yong and occupy Jiaozhou City, even if those bandits want to make trouble, it will only add some merits to us!" ”

"What the general said is very true! The most important thing at the moment is to conquer the big camp outside the city first! Meng Lingtong also turned to look at Wang Yong's camp, which was fighting fiercely.

The front of the Qi army has already braved all kinds of powerful blows from the crossbow battalion to engage Wang Yong's army, one side is the elite of the Qi army in Northern Xuzhou for many days, and the other side is the veteran soldiers brought by Wang Yong from Jibei County to fight the Qi army many times without falling behind, so the battle here has entered the white heat from the beginning!