Just after I made the decision after careful consideration to ambush the Luobi people's eastward invading troops near Jiantoupo on the East Tengger Prairie, Ling Tianfang's reply came into my hands. There was only one short sentence in the letter: "If If we can keep the troop march confidential, this plan is actually the best way to deal with the Luo Bei people." In fact, regardless of Ling Tianfang's support, I have made up my mind to implement my plan.
In accordance with my order, the Guards Regiment disguised itself as two groups of horse thieves and sneaked out of Qingyang under the pretext of changing defenses and sneaked into the East Tengger Prairie. The two groups were led by Yue Shan and Yuchi Bin respectively. They were responsible for cleaning up the Luobei herdsmen in the area from Qingyang to Jiantoupo. The order I gave them was that no matter what method they adopted, they could do it cheaply. There was only one requirement: strictly keep their identity secret to avoid alerting others.
News soon came back that the cleanup operation was going very smoothly. Since the Luobei people had no regular garrison in this area, the "horse thieves" led by Yue Shan and Yuchi Bin frantically carried out burning, killing, and looting in this area, and continued They sent people to spread rumors that the horse thieves would be operating here for a long time and would rob the herdsmen and their property. The herdsmen, both men and women, would be sold into slavery in the Heathrow Empire. These news soon spread among the herdsmen in this area. Many herdsmen simply moved their families north, driving their livestock, dragging their children with them, and fled the area.
Yue Shanze and Yuchi Bin led the "horse thieves" to conduct a continuous sweep of this area. Fortunately, there were not many herdsmen in this area, so they quickly cleared this area into a vacuum zone. Even the passing caravans learned of this. After a large number of horse thieves appeared in the area, they also took a detour.
On September 14, 693 in the Continental Calendar, I received an intelligence report that the Luobei people's expedition to the east had been mobilized. On September 8, the entire army set off to begin the eastward invasion. According to their normal marching speed, it was estimated that the invasion would begin in September. Arrive in the Jiantoupo area around the 27th of March. I immediately made corresponding arrangements and ordered both Qingyang Prefecture and Jinzhou Prefecture to be under martial law. Especially Qingyang Prefecture, starting from September 15th, only people are allowed to enter and not leave the city. No one is allowed to enter the city without my warrant. Act at will, the Security Bureau and the Police Department also go all out to execute my orders and prevent enemy spies from spying.
Cui Wenxiu's Qingyang Second Guard Division only retained one regiment of infantry to garrison at the junction of Qingyang, Jinzhou and Bonan, and all of them were withdrawn to Qingyang. At the same time, Qingyang's city defense was strengthened, and they pretended to be there. Qingyang Fucheng looked like a showdown with the Luobei people. In addition, it ordered government officials in the rural towns outside Fucheng to organize local people to move to remote areas off the road in order to paralyze the Luobei people's spies deployed in Qingyang.
At the same time, I frequently mobilized the troops day and night and declared martial law in Qingyang. No ordinary residents were allowed to go out at will, otherwise they would face imprisonment. These measures were mainly used to prevent Luobei people's spies from effectively grasping the mobilization of my army. I also used these true and false mobilizations to continuously mobilize the troops out of the city and secretly assemble outside the city. On September 20th, he personally led the army to set off. On September 23rd, he secretly sneaked into the Jiantoupo area on the East Tengger Prairie and hid in a prepared ambush site.
Before setting off, I ordered the troops to carry ten days' worth of dry food, drinking water and fodder, and the small engineering troops that sneaked in early also secretly built some facilities in the ambush to facilitate the subsequent garrison of the large troops.
Time passed day by day, and I had been staying in this damn place for five days, but there was still no news about Luo Bei's main army. In order to prevent the enemy's scouts from discovering problems, I strictly restricted the access of my own scouts. Except for a very small number of elite guards scouts, I did not send any other personnel to conduct reconnaissance. According to analysis, the Luobi people should have arrived at Jiantoupo yesterday. However, the news brought back by the scouts was that there was no sign of any army for fifty miles nearby.
Is it difficult for the enemy to really discover us? I immediately rejected this idea. If we were discovered, all we had to do was go behind us and attack. I'm afraid we would have been completely wiped out. That means the Luobei people were delayed on the road, but if we really delayed for a long time, I'm afraid there would be no need for the Luobei people to attack us. We ourselves would have to flee back to Qingyang in despair with our tail between our legs. The food and fodder could only support us at most. It's been two days.
I couldn't help myself, but on the surface I had to pretend to be confident and calm, as if everything was under my control, and from time to time I led other officers to various barracks to inspect the lives of the soldiers. situation, cheering up the already restless soldiers.
"Report!"
"Come in!"
It was already evening, and just as I was sitting in the big tent worrying about the whereabouts of the Luobi people, Kang Jianguo and other people who went out for reconnaissance finally came back and brought me the good news I had been dreaming of.
"Your Majesty, several brothers and I were delayed for some time because the reconnaissance range was larger and we had to verify it more. Please forgive me." Kang Jianguo was also a little excited. Since this reconnaissance was of great importance, he personally led several brothers with quick skills and quick minds to go out for several days, and finally got the reward today.
I could see the joy in his eyes, and knew that there must be good news. I calmed myself down a little and asked, "What did you find?"
"Your Excellency, my brothers and I discovered the enemy's scouts about 30 kilometers away from here this afternoon, and also discovered the enemy's vanguard force about 60 kilometers away from here. Later, we sneaked on foot near the enemy's main force. We have conducted reconnaissance and have basically figured out the enemy's situation." His chest was still rising and falling rapidly, and he didn't know whether he was overly excited or physically exhausted, or both.
While I deliberately controlled my excitement, I motioned Kang Jianguo to sit down and speak slowly.
"When we left, the enemy's vanguard force was already setting up camp and preparing to rest on the flat land by the river about thirty kilometers away from us. The enemy's vanguard force was armored heavy cavalry, numbering about 40,000 people. The Chinese army was based on Infantry is the main force, heavy infantry is deployed behind the vanguard of the armored cavalry, followed by light infantry and baggage troops, and finally some light cavalry and heavy cavalry. The enemy's flag can also be seen there, which is probably the enemy's camp. The entire army was dragged for several miles, with no end in sight."
I pondered for a while and then asked: "In your opinion, is there anything unusual about the enemy? How alert is the enemy?"
Kang Jianguo thought for a moment and immediately answered, with a very firm tone: "I can't see anything unusual, and the enemy's alertness is also very average. Their scouts are just routinely searching a mile or two on both sides of the road. I think It's all perfunctory, after all, this place is still about three hundred kilometers away from our border, and the march will take four or five days, and we have to pass one of their villages."
I quickly calculated in my mind that if the enemy's alertness is very high and they may notice something abnormal here, I will lead the cavalry to attack the camp tonight. However, my cavalry only has 30,000 people. I don't know whether I can defeat the enemy's main force in one fell swoop. not sure. Since the enemy was so careless and did not notice our presence at all, I decided to proceed with the original plan and ambush at the predetermined location tomorrow.
The order was quickly conveyed to all departments, and it was another sleepless night. I looked at the moonlit night sky with sparse stars, and prayed silently, hoping that tomorrow's war would give me a satisfactory ending.
After dinner, General Wu Le lay contentedly in the big chair in the commander's camp, and the tea set on the desk was exuding a delicate fragrance. "Buda, have the scouts come back?"
"I'm back. There's nothing special. But I heard from the scouts that horse thieves were quite rampant in this area some time ago, and many local herdsmen fled to the north. I always feel that something is wrong, but I can't tell what. That's not right." The person who replied was Ule's deputy general Buda. He was a very cautious general, and Ule always felt at ease with him when doing things.
"Perhaps they are horse thieves among the Mote people or the Qiur people. They may want to follow us. After we defeat the Tanghe people, they can take advantage of the situation and get a share of the pie." Ule did not think about other unfavorable situations at all. On the other hand, after all, this place is still far away from the boundaries of the Tanghe Empire. "I'm afraid they don't dare to attack us. We don't even know where they are hiding now."
Although Buda felt that something was wrong, he couldn't figure out what was wrong after much consideration, so he had to order all levels to strengthen night duty patrols to avoid any accidents.
But the night passed quietly, and nothing happened. Buda, who had not slept all night, felt a little suspicious. The troops were assembled and followed the normal marching route, like a winding giant snake, slowly Marched forward.
It's not yet dawn, and the entire army is like a giant that has awakened, making various preparations before the war in an orderly manner. The soldiers have finished breakfast, placed their weapons, bows and arrows properly, and the horses have been fed and drank enough, just to prevent them from neighing. The muzzle of the sound is still hanging on his mouth.
Soon the soldiers from each department were assembled under the leadership of the officers and entered the designated ambush area as planned. Everything was carried out quietly, everyone knew the importance and seriousness of this battle, and war mobilization had been carried out many times before departure.
According to the plan, Liang Chongxin, Cui Wenxiu, and I led 30,000 light and heavy cavalry in ambush on a shallow hill about four miles away from the river bank plains where Luo Bei's army marched. There was a dense forest growing there. After the hard work and camouflage of the engineering soldiers, we were far away. The Luobei scouts two miles away had no way of discovering that there were so many troops ambushed here. Kamapov led nearly 30,000 light infantry to follow the cavalry. After the cavalry destroyed the enemy's defense line, he followed up to eliminate the remaining elements.
Mulige's task was also quite arduous. He led 15,000 heavy infantry, 10,000 spearmen and a small number of engineers to ambush in the woods at the bend of the pointed slope. He was responsible for blocking the enemy's forward 40,000 armored heavy cavalry. This was also a battle. A battle of life and death. The heavy infantry he led must firmly stick to the enemy's forward troops and not allow the enemy to escape. Because the enemy does not know whether there are cavalry ambushing behind Mulige's troops, they must break through Mulige's defense line and defeat them before they can be free to deal with our main cavalry. Otherwise, if they return rashly, they will be in danger. If there is cavalry ambushed behind an infantry, it will cause the entire line to collapse. But once the enemy breaks through our heavy infantry defense line in a short period of time, he can quickly return to form a pincer attack on our main force, and the situation will be very passive.
This battle will first start on Mulige's infantry defense line. Mulige also issued a military order to me to ensure that I can withstand the impact of the enemy's armored cavalry. Whether the shield of the heavy infantry composed of the Gaoyue people is stronger, or the spear of the armored cavalry of the Luobi people is sharper, who wins this contradictory battle needs to be verified by the facts.