170. Attack on Wemao

The second direction of the Perak army to contain the Mongol army was in Wei and Mao states. Although these two states were mixed areas ruled by local officials, the Tibetan people were deeply influenced by the Han land, and there were many Han Chinese. In fact, Maozhou is 400 miles north of Songzhou, which is the border city at the junction of Tang and Tubo. After the Perak army occupied Guankou Village, although it stuck the throat of the western Sichuan Plain into the two states, there were still a small number of Mongol cavalry who could sneak through. Later, after the Perak army set up a checkpoint to the two states, there were still Mongolian officials and emissaries who ventured to the two states, and they reached the two states through mountain trails in Pengzhou, Hanzhou, Mianzhou and other places. Although these mountain trails are extremely difficult, they can pass sporadically by travelers if they are guided by local hunters and herb pickers.

During this time, trade between the Thunderbolts in the two states was tepid. This is not because there is no deepening willingness on both sides to buy and sell, but because the Mongols are obstructing. In fact, the Thunderbolts sold a lot of daily necessities, but they didn't buy much, so that the trade with the two states was seriously overstated. Although the caravan obtained a lot of gold and silver, these things were not of much use to the Thunderbolts, who wanted horses, fire, and other items, but these items could not pass the Mongol checkpoints.

After the Perak army strengthened the defense system of Guan Kou Village, the two states of Weimao cut off contact with the Mongolian army. However, there were still Mongol officials and a cavalry of 100 men stationed in these two states, and they did not dare to prevent normal trade and trade, because this would cut off the local livelihood and make the local officials and people turn their faces directly, but they strongly did not allow the sale of horses, copper, nitrate and other materials to the Perak army. The officials and people of the two states are helpless in this regard, of course, they can make more money by selling these things, but it is not cost-effective to lose their heads for money. After all, the brutality of the Mongolian army is well known, and if they lay down Guan Kou Village and come to liquidation in the future, Weimao and the two prefectures will not be able to stop it at all.

Since the two states of Weimao were afraid of being enemies with the Mongols, Ouyang Xuan sent a reconnaissance battalion of the Internal Guard Brigade to solve the local people's heart problems and attract Mongol troops. The first to do so was the cavalry company of the reconnaissance battalion, which used Guankou Village as a base and made frequent sorties within twenty miles of the perimeter. Not only used small artillery to attack and harass the Mongolian army fortress, but also surrounded and annihilated a small group of Mongolian troops. This forced the Mongols to bring in new annexes from elsewhere to strengthen the line of defense, and sent hundreds of cavalry. The cavalry company of the Perak army did not engage the Mongolian cavalry head-on at all, and adopted the tactic of "the enemy advances and I retreat, and the enemy is tired and I fight", and the Mongolian cavalry retreated to Guankou Village when they were in a hurry. The Mongolian army did not dare to approach Guankou Village at all, as long as they entered the two-mile area, they would be greeted by dense shells.

The cavalry company was only fighting in Guankouzhai to attract the attention of the Mongolian army and disrupt the enemy's hearing and hearing, and Ouyang Xuan's real target was the Mongolian officials in Weimao and the Mongolian army's hundred-man cavalry team. As long as these Mongols are resolved, they can be freed from the control of the Mongols. Of course, Ouyang Xuan did not let the two states rejoin the Great Song Dynasty, but suggested that the two states superficially submit to the Mongols. This will not only deepen trade, but also buy the supplies that the Thunderbolts urgently need; It was also to appease the pro-Mongolian forces in the two states and prevent annoying the Mongols and allowing them to attack in a big way. Of course, the Perak army was impregnable at Guankou Village, but the Mongol army could start from the grassland area and attack Weimao from the direction of Songzhou.

It was two other companies of the reconnaissance battalion that carried out the removal of the Mongols from the two states of Wemao. These two companies mixed into the caravan in batches and had already lurked in the territory of the two states. The Mongols focused their surveillance on the horse trade, and interrogations of people and searches of goods were not strict. They stood on the high watchtowers next to the trade routes, watching the caravan below, and as long as there were not too many horses with them, they did not go down to inspect it themselves, but let the native soldiers go down to inspect it. The local soldiers were very willing to do this, because when the caravan passed by, in order to avoid being troubled, they would often secretly stuff some silver money into them. Over time, these native soldiers were also fed by the Thunderbolt caravans.

On this day, a Mongolian official who was drinking in the city of Maozhou received a report from a Qiang soldier that a caravan had clashed with the Mongol army at the outpost outside the city, and the Mongol officer at the outpost sent him back to ask for reinforcements. The Mongol cavalry in Weimao and Weimao were only stationed in the sentry posts of Maozhou and Wuli north of the city. The city of Maozhou was small but unusually strong, and the sentry post in Wuli north of the city was the key pass from the two prefectures and even Songzhou and other Tibetan regions to the western Sichuan Plain, and the Mongol army stationed 30 men here. Next to this sentry post is a stone watchtower more than 20 meters high, and the Mongols who used this watchtower as a base can easily block the road with bows and arrows. These thirty Mongol archers plus dozens of native soldiers, not to mention the caravan, even hundreds of soldiers could not be easily captured. The caravans passing by on weekdays never dared to have a dispute except to pay the money obediently, let alone need to send reinforcements. Seeing the suspicious look on the Mongolian official's face, the Qiang soldier added that the caravan was from the steppe people north of Songzhou, and that it was accompanied by hundreds of horses in addition to yaks.

Hearing this, the Mongolian officials who had been drinking did not dare to be careless, and immediately led the seventy cavalry in the city to the sentry post, and ordered the local soldiers in the city to follow on foot. These steppe folks have a violent personality and are accustomed to solving problems by force. Although they also submitted to the Mongols, they did not submit to the rule. Now they have come from hundreds of miles away, apparently to the Han land in exchange for tea and other materials urgently needed in the grasslands. When the guards saw that they were carrying horses, they would definitely not let them pass, which would obviously anger these people, and it was inevitable that they would rush through the pass by force.

The Mongol officials hurried to the sentry with their cavalry, but when they ran for a while, they found that the native soldiers did not follow, but that the native soldiers could not follow on foot. When I approached the sentry post, I saw that the gate of the sentry was wide open, and I could see a large number of yaks and horses in front of me. It's just that the gate of the watchtower next to the road is closed, and you can faintly smell the blood in the air. This anomaly made the leading Mongolian official aware of the problem, and he was about to give the order to turn around and retreat to the city of Maozhou, when suddenly a series of loud roars sounded in his ears, and the tingling and dizziness brought about an unreal feeling of lightness. The last thought in his mind was how he could fly in the air.

As soon as the smoke of gunfire passed, Wu Qing, deputy brigade commander and reconnaissance battalion commander of the Perak Army's Internal Guard Brigade, ordered the battlefield to be cleared. This operation was extremely difficult, so Ouyang Xuan personally ordered him to command. In fact, it was not difficult to wipe out more than 100 Mongolian cavalry in this deep mountain valley area with the strength of two reconnaissance companies, but the difficult thing was to prevent the Mongols from escaping and reporting the news. Because once the news leaks, the two states of Weimao will inevitably be retaliated against. Therefore, Wu Qing used the tactics of ambush and money to open the way this time, and used a huge amount of money to buy off the native soldiers of Maozhou City and the sentry, as for the Qiang soldier who reported the news, he was originally a Qiang soldier in the reconnaissance battalion. According to Ouyang Xuan's idea of meritocracy and eclectic employment, there were many foreign soldiers such as Yi, Fan, and Qiang in the Perak army, and even Khitan, Western Xia, and Jurchen soldiers who took refuge in him.

The local soldiers used honey wine mixed with Mongolian sweat medicine to bring down all the Mongol soldiers at the outpost. This method worked well in the special battalion's rescue of hostages in Meizhou, so it was borrowed by the reconnaissance battalion. It's just that this time another procedure was added - to mend the knives one by one, and the native soldiers were afraid that the Mongol soldiers would not die thoroughly, so they repeatedly stabbed them several times. Although strong Mongolian slaves can be sold to the grasslands of the Tibetan region for a large sum of silver, for the native soldiers, the Mongols who will not leak the news are good Mongols, and the only way to keep them from leaking the news is to let them go to another world. The more than 70 Mongols who were lured out of the city were also heavily killed and wounded by the bombardment of mines and grenades. In terms of mending knives, those native soldiers can be called small experts, and under their skillful techniques, none of the Mongol soldiers can get out of the Ambush circle of the Thunderbolt army alive.