After three days of intense preparations, in the early morning of the eighth day of the seventh month of the tenth year of Baoda, Wu Ping's main and deputy soldiers and horses Liu Jiangsheng and Luo Erhu as the vanguard, led 10,000 light horsemen to the west along the Jiashan trail, and the commander of the horse army made Chai Kewu lead 10,000 soldiers and horses to the south and went straight to Chenzhou, and Wuping Jiedu made Li Yuan lead the main force of the army of about 20,000 soldiers and horses along the official road to the west.

With the experience of the last expedition to the west, Li Yuan knew the drawbacks of the two-front battle, and since he chose to conquer Xizhou first to solve his worries, it would be difficult for the army to return to the division in a short time. If the city of Tanzhou in the south is broken, once the Han army learns that the Wuping army has poured out of the west, it will inevitably take advantage of the weakness to go north, and there are only 20,000 newly recruited soldiers left in Langzhou City, so the 10,000 personal soldiers sent by Lin Sichang and the Ebony Special Service Department are particularly important.

Originally, the role of this elite army was only to attack the Han army outside Tanzhou with the advantage of cavalry and delay the siege of the city, but this time it shouldered a more difficult task, and the pro-congregation army had received a death order from the commander Li Yuan, which was to find a way to defend the Yiyang defense line to block the Han army from going north before the Wuping army returned to the division.

Langzhou is Li Yuan's base camp, and there must be no mistakes, otherwise not only will the gains outweigh the losses, but the consequences will be even more unimaginable.

In addition to paying close attention to the movements of the Han army in the south, Li Yuan also made serious considerations and preparations for the upcoming battle of Xizhou, the surrounding terrain, the route of the march, and the deployment of troops.

The lesson of the previous car is the first, the former Chu king Ma Xifan folded in Youshui, and after two years of fighting, he finally saw the head of Xizhou City until he negotiated peace, Li Yuan never wanted to repeat the mistakes of the past. Last time, Li Yuan only led the army to Linyuan City, and the soldiers were almost in a state of confusion about the situation of continuing to advance westward.

This time, thanks to Peng Shiyu, the young master of Xizhou, as a guide, the selection of topographic maps and marching routes was the first to be taken.

According to the topographic map drawn by Peng Shiyu, after the westward advance, almost all of them are deep mountains and dense forests, scattered with all kinds of Menghu beasts, and if you are not careful, you may also run into a poisonous miasma pool, and you must guard against the Dongxi barbarians who occupy the advantage of the terrain, they can naturally shuttle flexibly between them, and they may appear at any time to point out in secret, giving the Wuping army a fatal blow.

Li Yuan knew in his heart that the soldiers under his command did not have the ability to shuttle between the mountains and forests at will, so he could only pin all his hopes on the march route chosen by Peng Shiyu, and equipped the whole army with medical officers to accompany him, bringing a large number of medicinal materials for treating symptoms such as water and soil adaptation, dizziness, brain fever, and poisonous insect bites, so as to minimize casualties on the way, and arrive at the city of Xizhou as soon as possible, and enter the most ideal state of engagement - siege.

If Tian Hongyou ordered to defend Xizhou City, Li Yuan would not be afraid at all. The Tang army was already good at siege tactics, and this trip carried 150 new trebuchets, and based on the model diagram of the last Battle of Shouzhou, it was re-improved and tested in terms of structure, and its power should not be underestimated.

And if the Dongxi barbarians dare to go out of the city to engage in battle, it is even more in Li Yuan's arms, in the Wuping Army's personnel allocation, Li Yuan has already made timely adjustments, these barbarians who are only covered with simple leather armor first have to eat a set of fine cavalry to rush into battle, just to test the combat power of the Wuping Army after the whole army.

Since the expansion of the army, Li Yuan has been thinking about how to improve the combat strength of the Wuping Army almost every day; in addition to setting up an ordnance supervision to develop new types of ordnance and equipment, it is also about the rational distribution of troops.

Take the current 60,000 soldiers and horses of the Wuping Army as an example, including 30,000 Langzhou soldiers under the former Liu Yan's department, although they are veterans of a hundred battles, but according to the training tradition of the original Chu State, almost all of them are trained in the way of infantry.

On the contrary, looking at the forbidden army of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the left wing of the Weisheng Army under Li Yuan during the previous western expedition had about 20,000 soldiers and horses, 5,000 cavalry, and the rest were infantry, and the ratio of the two was roughly four to one, which was much more reasonable. But as a cavalry, the most important thing is the war horse, although the number of war horses in the Southern Tang Dynasty is the richest among the ten countries, but it can't get rid of the restrictions of the times, that is, it likes to use the so-called "high-headed horse".

Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty expelled the Xiongnu and set up the four counties of Hexi, the Qilian Mountains have become the most important horse breeding ground of the Central Plains Dynasty in the past dynasties. Gradually, the world's habitual perception is that the bigger the horse, the better, with the "high" and "big" of the horse to price the war horse, every inch taller, the price can be thousands of dollars more.

Therefore, the price of Longxi war horses, as well as the taller Jurchen war horses of later generations, is often extremely expensive.

In contrast, the short Khitan war horses and Goryeo war horses are naturally not the first choice of all countries, and the price difference is more than five times, and the weak Sichuan horses and Yunnan horses produced in the south are even more unpopular.

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Although the Southern Tang Dynasty only has the land of Jianghuai, but fortunately in the developed commerce, since the ancestor Li Yu dynasty, every year at the expense of spending a lot of money to purchase Longxi war horses, in order to supplement the forbidden army, a Longxi war horse has to consume more than 25 catties of concentrate feed per day on average, and the cost of raising horses is also quite amazing.

Therefore, when Li Yuan formed a private army, he had already made up his mind and adopted Khitan war horses.

The Khitan war horse belongs to a typical grassland horse breed, the world only saw its height is not high, but ignored its excellent adaptability, this kind of war horse that can adapt to the harsh environment of the grassland, the skeleton is sturdy fur insulation, and can resist the cold, the center of gravity is low, the endurance is high and the speed is fast, and it is good at preserving physical strength, which is very suitable for long-distance running.

And the Khitan horse is the ancestor of the Mongolian horse.

In the era when Genghis Khan, a ruthless man, had not yet appeared, Li Yuan made a choice without hesitation, and the most important thing is that the Khitan war horse is cheap! Not only is the price low, but the feed is not picky, and it is very easy to raise.

Over the years, Khitan merchants have traveled thousands of miles to Jianghuai by boat, almost every time they are disappointed, Li Yuancong asked his father-in-law Zhou Zong to purchase a large number of them, these merchants are like crazy, every time they make a move, it is thousands of horses, and later even took the initiative to lower the price, for fear of losing such a big customer.

However, Zhou Zong has always had a skeptical attitude towards his son-in-law's willingness to purchase these short war horses, although he didn't say it, but after all, it was his own money, and he had already regarded Li Yuan as a wronged leader.

Since Yangzhou's merchant ships diverted to the west of the Yangtze River, every month Langzhou City will be included in a steady stream of Khitan war horses, so today's Wuping Army, the number of war horses has risen sharply, and the formation of cavalry has long been worried.

Li Yuan also gradually changed the ratio of horse infantry to two to one, these short war horses obviously could not be built into heavy cavalry like the Western Xia Iron Harrier and the Jin State Iron Futu, and could only be formed as light cavalry or cavalry archers, one person and two horses, and won by speed and quantity.

As for the world-famous "mangu" tactics of the Mongolian cavalry, Li Yuan completely gave up after several rounds of experiments in the barracks, and he could not learn it at all.

The core of the tactics is also to rush into battle and pounce on the enemy, but the essence lies in the subsequent actor-level performance, immediately riding and shooting ten thousand arrows, and then suddenly turning around and running away, pretending to be frightened and defeated, turning around and shooting arrows while running, teasing the other party to rush towards their pre-arranged traps like stupid dogs, so it is also called "dog fighting" tactics or "pocket" tactics.

But the Mongols can't learn the cavalry and archery of the Han people in the Central Plains, let alone the southerners. Except for the Hui troops of the Ebony Special Service, who were barely able to shoot while riding, the rest of the soldiers, including Li Yuan, could not do it at all, and they had to stop before they could draw the bow and shoot, and the crosshairs could not be guaranteed, so you can imagine how difficult this "Mangu" tactic was.

Therefore, Li Yuan could only learn from the actual situation to make up for the weak points and make breakthroughs in the tactics and weaponry of the cavalry, so as to achieve the appropriate length and be prepared for both offense and defense. Charge with a long lance, supplemented by a sword to chop a horse, the long lance can be abandoned in time after the first formation, and instead kill the enemy with a sword, forming a weapon configuration that complements each other from far and near, from the soldiers to the war horse are also covered with light and hard cold forging armor and equipment, not afraid of the enemy encirclement and strangulation, once victorious, the cavalry archer will supplement the pursuit and harvest.

Although Li Yuan gave priority to the armor and blades made by the ordnance supervisor to Lin Sichang and the 10,000 personal servants of the Ebony Special Service, a large number of cavalry in the army that went to Xizhou could not be equipped with long lances and cold forging armor in time, but fortunately, the Khitan war horses could adapt to the harsh combat environment, and the opponent was a poorly equipped Dongxi barbarian, so Li Yuan was still full of confidence.