"The enemy general named Xue Guyan, with more than 5,000 elite cavalry, had arrived at the Jingu River the day before yesterday, and had besieged the Golden Valley City......

Gao Le, who led the ranger scouts out to investigate the enemy's situation, reported the situation one by one, and Li Tai's brows furrowed after listening.

He knew that the Eastern Wei Dynasty was by no means a soft persimmon, and the previous attack went smoothly only because of the chaos in the defense of the Heluo area caused by the Hou Jing Rebellion, and when the enemy reacted after a series of blows, he would definitely make some counterattack attempts, but he didn't expect this counterattack to come so quickly and so fiercely.

Whether it was the enemy general Xue Guyan or the more than 5,000 elite horsemen led by him, Li Tai did not dare to slack off.

Xue Guyan is a well-known general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, who was the queen of the army in the Battle of Xiaoguan, and cut off more than a dozen war knives in one day, such a fierce deed makes people can't help but be afraid when they hear it. As for the five thousand elite Jinyang soldiers, at the moment, they are enough to conquer Heluo and be invincible.

"Although the thieves are fierce, most of their arrays are lightly armed, and there are not enough supplies to accompany the army. Or they are good at cavalry and archery, but they are not good at attacking fortifications, they only need to stick to the city defense, and when their food is exhausted, they will flee and solve their dangers. ”

After pondering for a while, the deputy general Tian Hong spoke: "Besides, Taiwei Li also gave an explanation, ordering us and other forwards to stick to the city and cover the flanks of the army, and it is the best strategy to respond to the enemy by holding it steadily." ”

After hearing this, several other generals also nodded and said, even if you don't consider who the enemy general is, the five thousand elite cavalry alone is a powerful force, especially in this flat Heluo Plain, even if it is several times the enemy's team, you must be careful to deal with it.

There were only more than 5,000 real combatants in Li Tai's department, and even if they broke through several cities and captured thousands of soldiers, it was difficult to put them into battle without full reorganization.

Although there are more than 3,000 cavalry under Li Tai's department, they still do not have an advantage in quantity, and the quality may not be sure to win against Xue Guyan's troops.

Although there are many subordinates who have followed him deep into the enemy country of Jinyang, and fought with famous generals like Liu Feng and broke it, there is also a great element of tricks, which does not mean that his troops are more elite than the elite Jinyang soldiers in a hundred battles.

After listening to the opinions of the generals, Li Tai spoke: "Although the thief rider is light and does not have sufficient provisions, there is one in the Golden Barn City. Today, General Han is alone with more than 1,000 troops trapped in Cangcheng, if I don't save it, Cangcheng will be returned to the hands of thieves. The thief can take up the city, and he will not go, but also because of his swiftness in advancing and retreating, and he will attack all sides, if he is just blindly trapped in the city, how will he stop it? At that time, I don't know if the progress of the army will be disturbed, and I am afraid that all sides will attack and defend it! ”

When the generals heard this, they were speechless for a while, and after a while, He Ruodun stood up again, clasped his fists and said: "Since it is a thief who must attack and I must save, there is no trick to do, only to win bravely." The servant asked the lord of Lang to give thousands of people to rush to save Jingu City, and the light cavalry stalked so that the thief could not attack the city with all his strength, and when he was tired and begged to chase after him, he would be able to break the thief in the wilderness! ”

Although He Ruodun often offends people by breaking his mouth and poisonous tongue, this suggestion is also a more appropriate way to deal with it at the moment.

But as soon as his words fell, Li Qujian spoke again: "A few days ago, I went to Jingu City to supervise the transportation of goods and returns, and its city is fifty miles away from Guancheng. The thieves are besieging the city today to lure reinforcements, and I will make the light cavalry rescue must also be expected by the thieves, and the rush is to fight the elite division of the thieves with a tired journey, and I am afraid that it will not be too easy to advance and retreat. ”

The distance of more than 50 miles is not too far, but the light horse running will inevitably bring a lot of consumption to the physical strength of the horse, especially the consumption of the physical strength of the war horse.

He Ruodun thought for a while and then said, "What if you have two riders......

No one answered this question, and even He Ruodun felt a little stupid after asking it himself, and there was no value in discussing it.

"Although the thief ride is fierce, it is not impossible to crack. In the middle of summer, the rivers swell, and it is difficult to walk between the ravines and tidal flats. Today, I am advancing by land and water, and the cars and horses are mixed, and although there are many thieves and horses, it is difficult to stop them. ”

The living will never be suffocated by urine, and Li Tai will not be conceited enough to think that he can break the elite men and horses of Xue Guyan's troops in the field, but it does not mean that the enemy army is invincible.

The most powerful thing about cavalry is naturally its superior mobility, but if mobility no longer exists, or if mobility is no longer the key to victory, then the enemy is not as terrible as it seems. And there are actually many ways to limit and counteract the power of cavalry machines.

"But, but, Taiwei Li's order is for us to stick to the city......"

Seeing that Li Tai had decided to send troops to rescue Han Xiong's men and horses in Jingu City, Tian Hong said with some hesitation, he was also a brave general, and he was not afraid to fight, but he had some scruples about the commander's military order.

"Therefore, General Lao Tian must stay here to defend Guancheng, and I will lead a group of men and horses to reinforce Jingu City, repel the thief army, and make the flanks of the army worry-free."

If the enemy breaks through Jingu City and regains this Luoxi base, then these 5,000 elite cavalry can exert more power on the Luoxi battlefield, and even if Li Tai wants to go further, he will be blocked in the city and will not be able to advance an inch.

Therefore, it is reasonable for Li Tai to rescue Han Xiong's army, and he can't be ashamed to answer when Han Baohu asks him where his father has gone.

So after some preparation and preparation, Li Tai led 3,000 horses to leave Guancheng and went along the Gushui River in the direction of Jingu City.

Several boats accompanied the army, carrying more than 500 sergeants and many ordnance supplies. However, there are still more than 50 carts on the shore, on which are hung with tall compartment walls and each with hardwood protrusions, and each cart is equipped with 20 soldiers, equipped with half of the sword, shield, and gun.

In addition to the armor of this vehicle and ship, there are more than 1,500 cavalry, divided into three battalions, the front, the middle and the rear. These cavalry did not break away from the formation, but moved together between the chariots and the boats, and the actual effect seemed to be that the chariots protected the cavalry. And in order to match the speed of each other's marches, the cavalry in the chariot formation even simply led their horses and walked in the formation.

Not long after this group of men and horses left the city, they were watched by enemy scouts and quickly reported to the commander.

Because of the lack of repair in recent years, the Qianjin Weir in Luoxi has been silted up and unstable, and now it has no longer been the grand occasion of the daily harvest of thousands of gold, and has become a pond filled with stench, and the valley water is injected into the pond from the southwest side, and then overflows from the east side and flows into Luoshui.

The Golden Barn Castle is located on the south side of the pond, half on the water trestle and half on the embankment, and the stone embankment on the bank is also part of the Cangcheng wall, stretching for several miles to the left and right.

At this time, a large military camp has been built outside the river embankment, which is distributed on several sides, blocking all the passages on the bank of Cangcheng, and there are also many floating platforms made of reeds, branches, wooden planks and other things in the camp, which can carry people and horses to pass through on the bank of the muddy mud, and can bypass the embankment wall to attack Cangcheng.

But capturing the Golden Grain City is not only the only purpose of Xue Guyan's trip, recapturing the city and sweeping the western thieves out of Heluo is his goal, if he wants to achieve this intention, the Cangcheng in front of him is an excellent bait, so he did not urgently order his troops to attack Cangcheng, while methodically preparing for the siege, while dispatching troops to bring the surrounding areas of Luoyang back into control.

When he learned that the enemy army in Guancheng finally couldn't hold back and sent men and horses to reinforce him, Xue Guyan couldn't help but sneer, even if he led a thousand light horsemen in the battalion to go west along the valley to test the strength of the enemy army first.

The two sides rushed to each other, and soon encountered each other on the south bank of the valley, and when they saw the somewhat strange marching formation of the western army, there was no shortage of knights of the eastern army who looked suspicious.

"Hmph, what a wise and brave talent the thief army commander is, he dared to attack my city and enter Luoyang, it turned out to be just a timid and mediocre rat!"

Xue Guyan pointed to the military formation that was still marching by the river and sneered: "This formation is a turtle formation created by the southerners because of their cowardice. Now this thief will be especially timid, although he has considerable riding power, he does not dare to use the outside of the formation, and he thinks that he will not be damaged in the array, but he is only more ugly and cowardly! ”

When all the relatives heard Xue Guyan's explanation, they all laughed, and they all fought with their arms and bows.

Xue Guyan didn't pay attention to the clamor of his subordinates, although he broke the mystery of the enemy's formation, it didn't mean that he knew how to crack it, this kind of formation based on the car battalion was called the letter box formation by the southerners, which was originally to restrain light cavalry in the field, and it was often set up near the water, and it was difficult to attack it with fire.

As many people know, cavalry wins quickly, but it is not possible to conclude any miracle tactics against cavalry. When the light cavalry troops encountered this kind of turtle shell box array, they could only break through the formation by strong attack.

"The thieves will follow the example of the southerners, but this chariot is much more humble than the southerners. Erlang and the others look carefully, this blow will break the thief army! ”

Xue Guyan roared, and with a shake of the horse lance in his hand, he rushed straight to the front of the enemy formation, the distance between the two sides quickly narrowed, and the Western soldiers between the car battalions retreated to the back of the car.