Chapter 295: The Road to the South (10)

In the early morning of December 12th, a thin figure quietly approached the Zhou army camp on the south bank of the Zhang River through the night. He was extremely experienced in his movements. With the help of the night and terrain, he silently came to the trench not far from the trench, hidden behind a very small mound, and carefully observed the Zhou army camp.

When the dawn was about to break out, the thin figure confirmed that the camp in front of him was the Zhou army camp. In order not to cause trouble, he slowly lay on the ground and retreated. Just when he was about to straighten his waist, two figures suddenly popped up. The two of them moved tacitly, one hugged his feet, the other choked his throat and pressed his head, and in the blink of an eye he threw him to the ground.

When the thin shadow's throat was loosened, its hands and feet were firmly tied. The thin shadow opened its mouth and took a few breaths, and then he recovered.

The thin figure didn't wait for the opponent to speak, and said first: "What a heavy hand, I almost broke my neck. It's from the Lion Camp."

These two people were the personal guards sent by Hou Dayong. They had already discovered this thin figure and were ambushing quietly. When the thin figure wanted to retreat, they suddenly started to catch people.

"Who are you?"

At this time, there was already a dazzling light in the sky. The thin man smiled and said, "I am Wubalang, Ling Tao, let it go."

Ling Tao was the choking sergeant. He leaned his face close to the thin man and said in surprise: "It's really a turtle, why are you here alone?" Ling Tao and turtle are both old soldiers in the Lion Camp. They have been in the same team, and they are very familiar with each other.

Wu Balang said softly: "Speak softly, don't let others discover that it was General Liu who sent me to explore the camp."

Although Ling Tao was familiar with Tobalang, he had no intention of untiing the rope at all and asked, "Which General Liu?"

"General Liu Chengtong."

The man who was walking with Ling Tao said, "Why did Mr. Liu become a general?" He once followed Liu Chengtong to Lanzhou. He heard that Mr. Liu, who looked like Pan An, actually became a general, and he was curious.

Wu Balang sat on the ground. He did not blame Ling Tao, and said, "General Liu is just a mile away, let's go to see him." Ling Tao said to another man: "You go to pick up General Liu, I will take Wu Balang back to the camp first, be more alert." Ling Tao untied the rope on Wu Balang's feet and bowed, "When you get to the camp, untied the rope on your hands. This is the rule. Don't blame Hachiro for offending." Wu Balang simply said, "It's not your fault for this."

Ling Tao took Tom Balang directly to the Central Army official camp. Feng Shayi knew Tom Balang and immediately said, "Release the tie quickly, where is General Liu? Ling Tao, hurry up and take General Liu over, hide and don't show off."

Liu Chengtong was a Jinshi in Guangshun for the third year and a famous handsome man in the Black Eagle Army. He was also the one with the most missions to the enemy or foreign races in the Black Eagle Army. After several years of military career, he strangely became a general who was decisive in his civil service like a secretary.

Liu Chengtong went from literature to martial arts, which originated from a trip in the sixth year of Xiande. Liu Chengtong was appointed as the Shihu General Order. He was on an envoy to the Fangdang tribe on the eastern foot of the Helan Mountains. When he rested on a ranch in a farm of the Fangdang tribe, the young and middle-aged people on this ranch were transferred to fight with the Pugu tribe, and only a few people and horses were left to guard the ranch.

Liu Chengtong's butt was not hot yet. A group of Khitan horse thieves with more than a thousand people suddenly appeared two or three miles away in the camp. They seemed to have not discovered the Fangdang tribe's pasture, but just walked towards the pasture along the water source.

Liu Chengtong only brought fifty Black Eagle Army guards by his side. There were more than 100 young and strong men in the ranch. It was too late to move. Moreover, they could not escape the floating horse thieves. Seeing that the ranch was about to be robbed by horse thieves, Liu Chengtong remained calm in the face of danger. While sending people to help soldiers, he ordered everyone, cattle, sheep and horses to gather on the highest hillside of the ranch. Then he used all the big trucks on the ranch to surround the small hill city, and dug a deep trench in front of the big trucks, nailed wooden stakes, and made a temporary position. In this way, the Black Eagle Army is very common. Nomads have always been known for their mobile accents. There are very few opportunities to fight position wars. Therefore, it is extremely rare among nomads.

The forward of the horse thieves finally discovered the pasture next to the water source. Seeing the hillside full of lively cattle, sheep and horses, their eyes were immediately red.

As soon as the official of Xidu arrived, the horse thieves flocked to the scene, but were hit head-on in front of the simple fortification. The Dangxiangfang Dang tribe is an extremely powerful tribe. At this critical moment of life and death, all men, women, elderly people, and children who can draw bows and arrows are shot against the horse thieves with bows and arrows.

The horse thieves took turns to attack but did not rush up to the mountain. However, the horse thieves were many, and they were all guys who were afraid of life when they saw cattle, sheep and horses. After two hours of fierce fighting, most of the people who could fight in the ranch were injured and were about to be broken by the horse thieves. Fortunately, the Dangxiang people who were helping the rescuers walked not far away and encountered the cavalry of the Richie troops. The grassland men hated the horse thieves the most. When they heard that the horse thieves surrounded the ranch, the Richie troops rushed to the ranch and finally cleared the siege of the ranch in time.

Later, the Dangxiang tribe members of the ranch learned that this group of horse thieves were the only officials who had been in the Khitan for many years. They had a very bad reputation on the grassland. He was cruel and vicious, and he took money and made a fortune, and even the elderly and children were not spared. The Dangxiang tribe members could not help but be afraid when they remembered this. If it weren't for Liu Chengtong, they were instructing everyone to gather together to resist, they would be afraid that the pasture would have been killed by the horse thieves.

After this battle, Liu Chengtong became famous among the Dangxiang clan. His interest in commanding operations increased greatly. As soon as the Black Eagle Army expanded rapidly, there was a serious lack of generals. Shi Hu saw that Liu Chengtong, the chief secretary, could actually fight, so he asked Liu Chengtong to abandon his civil and military affairs. After several confrontations with the Khitan army, Liu Chengtong withstood the test and became the commander-in-chief of the Dangxiang camp.

Hou Dayong was naturally very happy to see Liu Chengtong. He closed the door and put a small banquet in the tent, and asked the chef Daliang to make a table of Daliang-style wine and food. After he had enough wine and food, Liu Chengtong and his entourage quietly left the military camp on the south bank of Zhangshui River.

In the early morning of December 14, the Zhou army on the south bank of the Zhangshui River suddenly crossed the Zhangshui River and advanced towards Cizhou City.

At this time, Li Yun's men were all outside the city of Cizhou. The people and horses participated in the siege were mainly united soldiers. His main force, the 30,000 Iron Duwei, suffered basically no losses. Like Liu Jiye of the Northern Han Dynasty, he was reluctant to use the most tax-oriented troops to attack Jiancheng. When the Zhou army crossed the river, Li Yun personally led the Iron Duwei and 10,000 Iron Duwei soldiers to force the Zhou army.

When Li Yun's Iron Capital Guard vanguard appeared in front of the Zhou army, the Zhou army immediately stopped advancing.

The Zhou army crossed the Zhangshui River, but was not in a hurry to attack. When the vanguard of the Iron City Guard appeared, the former Junshi Shouxin had 10,000 people in his hand. He formed a densely defended infantry formation and quickly placed the antlers and fences in front of the position.

The rear army led by Wang Tengxiang was divided into two units, each with 5,000 people, protecting the two wings of Shi Shouxin's troops. Behind the left and right wings is Hou Dayong's central army. Hou Dayong's central army had a total of 5,000 people, including 500 crossbowmen.

The four thousand cavalrymen in the Great Week did not appear in the battle formation under the leadership of Guang Zitu.

At the 19th of the morning, the battle began.

Li Yun observed the Zhou army's formation for a while, waved his hand and said, "The thousand-man cavalry team attacked the right wing of the Zhou army."

A thousand light cavalry rushed into the Iron Du Guard cavalry. They avoided the front of the arc formation and detoured towards Wang Tengxiang's right side. Wang Tengxiang happened to be on the right side. He stroked his long beard and looked at the light cavalry of the Pijie abnormal subway, and ordered: "Arrowers are ready."

Several fences were placed in front of the right. These fences were not to block the attack of the Iron Du Guard, but to indicate the range of arrows. As long as the enemy reaches these fences, it means that they have entered the range of arrows.

The cavalry of the Iron City Guards were holding spears. They came to the right wing like a whirlwind, and rushed towards the right wing of the Zhou army with all their horse speed.

When the first war horse quickly approached several fences as markers, Wang Tengxiang's troops heard a loud sound of bronze horns, which was a signal of the attack of bows and arrows. Five hundred long archers had already pointed the arrow at the sky. After the sound of bronze horns, the long arrows soared into the air like a group of frightened wild mountain bees.

Although the 1,000 cavalry of the Iron Du Guard came in a strong momentum, it was divided into three echelons, each echelon had a distance of about a hundred steps. The first echelon was attacked by a longbow and suffered losses. The second and third echelons bypassed the first echelon at high speed and divided into two groups on the left and right rushed towards Wang Tengxiang's army.

The first row of soldiers on the left wing of the Zhou army were sword players, with short archers behind the sword players, and spearmen behind the short archers.

The Iron Du Guard was extremely fast, and the longbowmen had no time to shoot the second arrow. The murderous Iron Du Guard rushed to the side of the team and could only hand over the task of shooting these amazingly fast Iron Du Guard cavalry to the short archers. Compared with the Zhou army's short archers, the shooting range was nearly half, but the firing speed was much faster. They tried their best to shoot the alive power of the Iron Du Guard cavalry.

In front of the dense rain of arrows, the second and third echelons suffered heavy casualties, but dozens of riders in the two echelons still rushed into the left wing of the Zhou army. Although these cavalry had a shocking impact, they were too small. After entering the position, they were surrounded by Zhou infantry, swordsmen and spearmen, and were all annihilated in a blink of an eye.

At the cost of these thousand cavalry, Li Yun confirmed his view: the Zhou army's right wing was weak and could conduct full-strength assault.

With the sound of war drums and the waving red flags of the Tiedu Guard, the Tiedu Guard launched a decisive attack.

In the arc, the Iron Du Guard and the Unite Army were pressing forward step by step towards Shi Shouxin's Forehand Army.

Four thousand heavy cavalry with full armor passed the infantry and still raided towards the right wing that Wang Tengxiang defended. The other two thousand light cavalry swam on the left wing of Wang Tengxiang's troops, but did not launch an attack, but used only to restrain the left wing and prevent the left wing from moving at all.
Chapter completed!