Chapter 180 The Qi Army Who Copied the Rear Road
Speaking of which, in the past year or so, some powerful people in Sanqi have either because they have done a lot of evil on weekdays, Wang Yong needs the heads of these people to buy the hearts of the people, or they have tried to raise troops to respond to the Qi army, but they were liquidated by Wang Yong after the failure, and a considerable number of these people were more clever, and immediately fled to the mountains south of Qingzhou after seeing that the situation was not good, and escaped Wang Yong's pursuit.
It's just that although these people have escaped Wang Yong's liquidation, the life in the mountains and forests is not so easy, not only the lack of food, but also the necessary oil, salt, and clothing on weekdays are also extremely scarce.
In the past, these heroes and remnants of the heroes were all people who were accustomed to food and clothing, and the hard days in the mountains certainly made them extremely uncomfortable, and their hatred for Wang Yong was even more unforgettable; Therefore, when these people learned that the Qi army had crossed the Yellow River and Jishui to attack the land of Sanqi, they all went down the mountain to join the Qi army.
Because most of these Haoqiang remnants are distributed in the mountains and forests near Qingzhou, and they are the closest to Pi Jinghe and the army, the number of Haoqiang remnants who came to Pi Jinghe is more.
At this time, the peninsula is the coldest time of the year, the white snow still covers the earth, the damp and cold sea breeze sweeps from the Wuhu Sea across the peninsula and into the East China Sea, the howling cold wind makes the remnants of the heroes who are still wearing shabby clothes can't help but shiver, it looks too cold and miserable.
At this time, not far from the outside of Gaomi City, Pi Jinghe, who was observing the movement in the city in front of the army, inadvertently turned around, and happened to see the miserable appearance of these powerful remnants around him, and his heart was also very shaken, these people are pure rabble, it is okay to use them to fight a good fight, if you expect them to win the battle, it is delusional.
When he thought of the cavalry he led, Pi Jinghe was on fire, and when he led the army to cross the Yellow River and Jishui, there were still more than 30,000 cavalry, although the total strength of the two Qi armies was much less than that of Hu Luxie and Murong Qi, but in terms of cavalry alone, it was the largest number of the three Qi armies.
At that time, Pi Jinghe and Hu Lawyer's Association attacked the land of Sanqi in the east and west, considering that the entire prefectures and counties in the east of Qingzhou were extremely empty, so Pi Jinghe, who had just occupied Le'an County, gave an order that he regretted very much later.
He divided more than one-third of his troops to capture the Yidu Arsenal not far from Qingzhou, of course, this army also undertook the heavy task of capturing Qingzhou City, but within a few days this army failed and returned, not to mention, and even more than 5,000 people were left when the original more than 10,000 cavalry returned to his side.
As for the other 20,000 cavalry who originally followed Pi Jinghe, they were divided into several units by Pi Jinghe when he set out from Le'an County and swept through many counties east of Qingzhou.
It is said that at this time, there were not many troops in the prefectures and counties of Qidong, not to mention the local county seats, and thousands of Xianbei elite cavalry were used to attack a county seat.
But what Pi Jinghe never expected was that at this time, an unexpected situation appeared, and when several soldiers and horses that swept through the counties came to gather outside Gaomi County one after another, Pi Jinghe found that there were only 20,000 cavalry left under his command.
Pi Jinghe was immediately taken aback, could it be that these cavalry had an encounter with Wang Yong's troops on the road? After careful questioning, I learned that these cavalry actually suffered a great loss when they plundered the food and property of the people along the way, and even more than 2,000 cavalry were ambushed along the way and almost all the troops were wiped out.
In fact, Pi Jing and himself are to blame for this, when they set out from Le'an County, in order to reduce the burden and drag and speed up the marching speed of the various departments, the cavalry of the various departments did not carry any military baggage from the beginning, and even the food only brought three catties of fried rice and fried noodles per person.
In ancient times, fighting was the most food-consuming thing, and a sergeant had to eat at least one and a half catties of food every day, so such a little food was definitely not enough, so these cavalrymen began to collect from the people in the countryside along the way in order to obtain sufficient food supplies, that is, armed robbery.
At this time, the remnants of the powerful people who were originally hiding in the mountains and forests in Qingzhou and other places came down to the mountains one after another, and most of these people were the remnants of the local heroes in Qingzhou, and they also hated the people who occupied their fields after Wang Yong forcibly promoted the Juntian order, and the contradictions between the two were also very acute.
When they knew that these Qi troops did not carry food at all, these people volunteered to take the Qi army to loot various villages and towns, because these people knew the wealth of the local villages and towns very well, so the Qi army was also willing to let these people lead the way, which can be regarded as a typical leading party.
The vast countryside between Qingzhou and Gaomi County is the same as other places in Sanqi, and during the occupation of Wang Yong for more than a year, because of Wang Yong's unremitting large-scale promotion of new agricultural technologies and the reduction of agricultural taxes, coupled with the fact that the prefectures and counties east of Qingzhou were not on the front line without burden, the people of Qingzhou and Gaomi County became richer and richer.
After solving the basic problem of food and clothing, as the days became more and more affluent, the people here began to pay more attention to the safety of their villages, and many people still remember the things that Taishan robbed and plundered the entire Qingzhou and affected Donglai County a few years ago.
At the beginning, Wang Ze recruited a large number of people from the displaced people who fled from Qingzhou and Donglai to Changguang County, and quickly occupied a large area of mountainous areas east of Jiaolai.
Since the people have a demand, Wang Yong took advantage of the situation, first used a large number of weapons eliminated in the army to sell them to the people in various places at a relatively cheap price, among which the people around Qingzhou bought the most.
After having weapons, Wang Yong also regularly sent troops to various villages and towns to organize the training of people in various places, especially the training of young and strong militiamen, after all, a large number of well-trained militia means a huge source of soldiers and a strong national fighting endurance.
In this case, in the face of so many trained and armed people, Pi Jing, who did not know the specific situation, and a large number of Qi troops sent out, even went to forcibly seize the people's property, how could the fierce people of Sanqi be willing to rest?
So the Qi army and the villagers quickly had a fierce conflict, at the beginning because these Qi army was quite contemptuous of the people, the result was a big loss, but the people who rose up to resist killed a lot of people, but when the Qi army paid attention to these people suffered a big loss, many villages were slaughtered because of the anger of the Qi army.
However, the brave resistance of the fierce people before death also killed many Qi troops, and when these Qi troops were concentrated outside the city of Gaomi County for the last count, it was found that in this series of small battles, the various units of the Qi army had lost five or six thousand people, which made Pi Jinghe, who only learned about the loss of the troops afterwards, very angry.
Although a large number of Haoqiang remnants who came to defect made up for the losses of the troops a little, which made Pi Jinghe feel a little comforted, but when he saw these Haoqiang remnants who were like beggars and bandits, it really made Pi Jinghe unable to raise too much enthusiasm.
However, so many Sanqi Haoqiang remnants came to join him, after all, he had some help for himself, and Pi Jinghe was not good at treating others coldly, so he had to pinch his nose and organize the remnants of Haoqiang, which had a total of more than 10,000 people, into an army, and temporarily appointed a stronger Haoqiang as the leader.
The county seat of Gaomi County is located on the plain not far east of the Wei River, it turns out that Pi Jinghe has felt that something is wrong since he crossed the Wei River, but he doesn't know what is wrong, but when all the Qi troops came to his side, he finally knew why.
In Qingzhou and other places, which were originally strong and powerful, the people there were already very supportive of Wang Yong's rule, and the vast land east of the Weihe River to the Laihe River and Donglai County was full of newly built villages in the past year, and the people living there were full of gratitude to Wang Yong.
The villages here are basically newly built, and when these villages were built, they were built with the possibility of defending against the invasion of the Qi army or bandits in the future, so each village was almost built to be very suitable for defense, so it can be said that it is a small fortress.
Originally, Pi Jinghe was going to take advantage of the emptiness of Gaomi County's troops and quickly march to take it down, so that Wang Yong's various states and counties in Qidong could not be connected into a whole, so as to lay the foundation for quickly seizing the entire Qidong in the future.
However, Gaomi County suddenly increased the number of defenders by 20,000 and became impregnable, and the strong attack could not be attacked, but he was really unwilling to let Pi Jinghe withdraw in such a gloomy manner, so tens of thousands of Qi troops camped outside Gaomi City and stopped.
At this time, Pi Jinghe encountered the same big problem as the previous Qi army, that is, Pi Jinghe didn't even carry much food when he set off, let alone the tents and other things used to set up camp. Worry-free love book network
For this kind of problem, Pi Jinghe and the Xianbei cavalry led by the original can still endure hardships, even if it is a cold and snowy environment, as long as there are two sheepskin blankets wrapped in it, you can sleep peacefully, anyway, compared to the cold in the northern Xinjiang, the climate in front of you is really nothing.
Although these people have been miserable in the mountains for more than a year, they have a place to sleep peacefully at night even if it is hard, and now they can't stand it if they are asked to spend the night in the icy and snowy Gaomi County City.
In fact, Pi Jinghe was not willing to spend the night in the field, after all, the cold of the winter night was likely to cause a large degree of non-combat attrition. Since there are no tents and there is a lack of warm supplies, then you have to think of a way to do it yourself, and the army at this time does not have the discipline of the people of later generations who do not take a stitch from the masses, and since they don't have it, they will rob it.
Since knowing that the rivers in the entire land of Sanqi have frozen, even the Wei River, which could have been used as a natural danger, has lost its barrier effect, before the Qi army crossed the frozen Wei River, the people in a large number of small villages around Gaomi County began to gather in the nearby large villages under the organized guidance.
These large villages are actually equivalent to a small town, and the fact that so many people have gathered here has greatly improved their defenses, and many people have brought all their food and livestock with them.
This led the Qi army to either concentrate a part of its forces to besiege these large villages to obtain a large amount of food and labor, or in order to reduce unnecessary casualties, they only collected a small amount of food and warm clothing in some small villages.
However, when Pi Jinghe found that the defenders in the city lacked cavalry assistance the next day, he suddenly had a plan and scattered a large number of cavalry to attack two large villages that were only more than eight miles away from Gaomi County.
Because there is a large contiguous plain in the lower reaches of Gaomi County, the villages established here are relatively large, and there are many people who come to take refuge in the surrounding small villages, but these people did not expect that the safe shelter in their hearts has become a target for leather scenery and aim.
Although Pi Jinghe's attack on these two villages was very weak, and sometimes when the people in the village were about to be unable to stop, Pi Jinghe would even temporarily stop the attack so that the militia and young people inside could rest for a while, but the young people in the village still had a very difficult time to resist.
Although the two villages are only more than eight miles away from Gaomi City, they can still be seen very clearly from the high head of Gaomi City, not to mention that Zhao Kun also has a telescope ground out of jade from the East China Sea in his hand, after seeing the movement of Pi Jing and the army, Zhao Kun, who was originally very calm, suddenly clasped the brick crack on the city wall and said fiercely: "These Qi troops are really shameless!" ”
Pi Jinghe's meaning is obvious, that is, he wants to force Zhao Kun to lead his troops out of the city to fight him, otherwise Pi Jinghe will take the ordinary people in these two big villages.
Zhao Kun's heart fluctuated, what should he do? Although there are now more than 5,000 veterans under his command, the remaining 10,000 or so are basically all new soldiers, and these people are more than enough to defend the city, but pulling these people out of the city to fight against the Qi army is not looking for death.
But Zhao Kun finally had to decide to go out of the city to fight against the Qi army, not only Wang Yong and Wang Ze were very protective of the people under their rule, but more importantly, a quarter of the more than 10,000 recruits under Zhao Kun came from the countryside around Gaomi County.
These soldiers are worried that if everyone does not go out of the city to fight, then the Qi army is very likely to attack the people in all the villages around Gaomi County, although there is no family of their own in the villages attacked by the Qi army now, but when the Qi army aims at all the surrounding villages, won't it be too late to regret it?
Seeing the heavy gate of Gaomi County City that was originally tightly closed slowly opening, Pi Jinghe, who had seen it from afar, couldn't help but smile, no matter how many means you have to defend the city, you can't escape my hand, as long as the defenders in the city go out of the city to fight, then you will win half of it.
Thinking of this, Pi Jinghe also began to order the trumpeter to blow the horn trombone, and with the sound of the 'woo' trombone, the Xianbei cavalry, which was originally scattered around the two large villages, also quickly gathered here to Pi Jinghe, only tens of thousands of Yuan Haoqiang's remnants reluctantly twisted for a long time before returning, and the formation was still chaotic.
It seems that he is going to kill people in the future, Pi Jinghe squinted his eyes slightly, and stared sharply at the remnants of the Haoqiang who were half a day slower than the Xianbei cavalry, some people were born to be despised, but they couldn't give him a good face.
Zhao Kun only led 10,000 people out of the city, including 4,000 of the entire army under his original command, and more than half of the soldiers who dared to fight under the command of Xu Yong, the Qingzhou thief who defected to Wang Ze, were less than 1,500 people, and the rest were all soldiers who were born in Gaomi County and were willing to fight for the people of Gaomi County.
When Zhao Kunlin left the city, he said to the deputy general in charge of defending the city: "If I have died in battle, you must not go out of the city to fight no matter how the Qi army kills outside the city!" If you defend the city, the prince and the little marquis will still have a chance to avenge us, if the city is lost, the prince and the prince will inevitably retreat to the East China Sea, and I am afraid that there will be no chance to avenge us in the future! ”
The deputy general turned out to be a lieutenant under Shen Sanshui, but he knew the seriousness of the matter, and after listening to Zhao Kun's words, he only watched Zhao Kun and the others out of Gaomi County with red eyes.
Zhao Kun didn't go far after leaving the city, but he refused to move forward after lining up against the city one hundred and ten meters away from the city, and the cavalry under Pi Jing and his command were arrayed at a distance of one hundred and fifty zhang from Zhao Kun's front army.
It seems that you can feel the tense atmosphere before the war, whether it is the soldiers on both sides or the war horses under the crotch, they are silent, only the leather scene and the remnants of the heroic remnants of the army are constantly noisy.
Although seeing Zhao Kun leading the army out of the city to line up and fight made Pi Jinghe frown, but Pi Jinghe didn't care too much about this, the Xianbei cavalry was not best at cutting people immediately, they were better at using bows and arrows, whether it was shooting arrows immediately or using a foot bow after dismounting.
Pi Jinghe was worried that he was afraid that Zhao Kun would be beaten too miserably, and he was just forced out of the city by himself, but he was immediately frightened by himself and fled back to the city to hold on, after all, behind Zhao Kun's troops was the city gate, and it was too easy to escape into the city.
A group of hundreds of Xianbei cavalry galloped dozens of steps in front of Zhao Kun's army formation, shooting a wave of arrows at Zhao Kun's headquarters, and almost at the same time, hundreds of archers suddenly stood up behind the sergeants holding big shields on the front line, and shot heavy arrows in their hands at the Xianbei cavalry galloping by.
On the first day of the first day, both sides were killed and wounded, but most of the Xianbei cavalry used riding bows, which caused more than 100 soldiers to be injured, but less than 10 soldiers were killed, while the Xianbei cavalry was killed by the infantry bow more than 20 people, and dozens of cavalry horses were injured.
Pi Jinghe was a little surprised, he thought that the defenders defending Gaomi County were just some new soldiers, and he didn't expect that there would be such a group of infantry soldiers with superb archery skills, but he didn't know that these people were all thieves from Orion under Xu Yong, and their archery skills in shooting and hunting for a living on weekdays were really not comparable to ordinary people.
Seeing that Zhao Kun's department still has strong combat effectiveness, Pi Jinghe has to pay attention to it this time, if he is defeated by an enemy army with fewer people than himself like Dugu Yongye, then don't live, thinking of this, Pi Jinghe can't help but secretly despise Dugu Yongye, and flee back with the guilt of losing his teacher!
Although he thought so in his heart, Pi Jinghe was still secretly vigilant, this time he no longer deliberately concealed the combat effectiveness of the Qi army, and even in order to kill and injure the living force in Zhao Kun's hands to the greatest extent in the first wave, he invested thousands of Xianbei cavalry in the next wave of offensives.
These cavalrymen did not stupidly ride war horses and rush into Zhao Kun's military formation, but under the cover of the Xianbei cavalry who dismounted behind them and shot with a foot bow, they took turns riding horses and harassing the army in front of them with their riding bows.
Anyway, there are more than 40,000 cavalry plus the remnants of the first three Qi Haoqiang, and these people take turns harassing the 10,000 people in front of them, and it won't take long to polish these people's will to fight.
Similar to Pi Jinghe's imagination, the soldiers who followed Zhao Kun out of the city to fight were full of fighting spirit at first, but as the Qi cavalry launched wave after wave of fatigue offensives, these soldiers, especially the recruits, gradually became mentally exhausted due to high tension.
When the time slowly moved to the ugly hour in the afternoon, Pi Jinghe felt that the time was ripe to eliminate Zhao Kun's troops outside the city, and he couldn't help but smile when he looked at the thousands of Xianbei cavalry behind him who had temporarily changed their careers to become infantry troops, one by one holding the long weapons and big shields that had been improvised in their hands.