It is said that spring rain in the north is as precious as oil, but today's rain is somewhat exceptional. When the first raindrop hit the ground, the raindrops all over the sky connected into a line and turned into a rare heavy rain. It fell with crackling crackles and washed away the accumulated blood flowing on the ground. It seemed that even God was He couldn't bear to see this bloody scene and wanted to stop this war between the two countries.
But at this time, the two armies were already ready to fight. How could they stop fighting because of a sudden heavy rain? What's more, the trumpets sounded again in the Liao camp, and the battle had resumed.
In the front army, the flag was rolling, pointing directly at the Western Army. The Liao Army had already launched an attack first. However, those who came out of the formation were not the black-armored cavalry as imagined, which could break up the enemy's formation, but thousands of light cavalry. They rushed forward quickly and roared out, without any delay despite the wind and rain.
The two armies were only three or four miles apart at this time. Seeing that the enemy was moving first, the Western Army did not dare to slack off at all. As the commander of the army shouted orders and flags were suddenly raised, the entire army formation suddenly pressed forward to form a formation. The four-sided battle formation, which is most conducive to defending against cavalry attacks, waits for the enemy to arrive.
A head-on duel just now had clearly exposed the gap between the cavalry between Song and Liao. Now that they were fighting again, it was naturally impossible for the division to make the same mistake again, and they decided to focus on defending first. Even if Zhong Jing asked for battle again and wanted to make meritorious deeds and lead his army to meet the enemy, he was sternly dismissed by him: "What you have to do now is to recharge my energy. There will always be a time when you can make meritorious deeds again!"
Zhong Jing had learned his lesson at this time and dared not make any more noise. He could only retreat to the side and then watched with worry as the enemy cavalry rushed to the front of the army. Without the city wall and military stronghold as a cover, he With only their flesh and blood, can the soldiers of the Western Army really withstand the fierce attack of the Liao Army's cavalry
The same question also emerged from Sun Tu's heart. After witnessing the ferocious maneuvers of the Liao Army's cavalry just now, he really didn't think that the Western Army could withstand the continuous onslaught just by relying on defensive formations, especially when there were sharp weapons like heavy armored cavalry behind the enemy. If a flaw is exposed, the Western army on the empty plain may not even have a chance to retreat.
This made his heart skip a beat, and his eyes fell on Tong Guan again. He really wanted to persuade him to send troops to rescue him quickly. But Tong Guan just looked forward silently at this time, with no hint of intention on his calm face, but he obviously had no intention of sending troops immediately.
At this moment, the two armies were connected again.
But this time the Liao army's offensive was very different from what everyone thought. It was no longer as fierce and domineering as it had shown before, marching straight to the middle palace and defeating the strong with force. Instead, when approaching the Song army's formation, the cavalry suddenly dispersed. Attacking both sides of the formation, the originally flat cavalry formation turned into two long lines in the blink of an eye, piercing the weak points on the side of the Song army like two sharp blades.
Seeing this change of formation, Zhong Shidao's two gray eyebrows trembled suddenly: "Here it comes! The Liao army's corner-cutting tactics!"
As a veteran with decades of war experience, Zhong Shidao could see at a glance the power of the opponent's different moves. This move was a ruthless attack aimed at the Song Army's current defensive phalanx.
The Song army's square battle formations often had large shields in front to withstand the onslaught of enemy cavalry. Spearmen in the rear saw the right moment and used special spears of more than one foot and five feet to attack the blocked cavalry. And between these two groups of soldiers,
There is also a row of swordsmen and axemen who are ready at any time. Once an enemy is hit by a spear and falls from his horse, it is time for them to step forward and kill the enemy.
Coupled with the groups of crossbowmen located at the rear, an infantry battle formation was formed that was capable of dealing with a considerable number of cavalry. This is also a self-protection battle formation that the Song Dynasty army has continuously developed and perfected over the years when fighting the Liao army, which is mainly cavalry. Even in the wild, they can use this formation to maintain their own effective strength, or wait for reinforcements to arrive.
However, after many years of fighting and suffering losses in this formation, the Liao army has learned to be obedient and adopted the same targeted tactics, which is the corner-cutting tactic currently being used.
As its name suggests, this tactic is to attack the weak points in the corners of the Song army's formation, because the defense there is the weakest, and as long as the Liao army cavalry rushes to the enemy's side, their attacks will not be blocked by the large forces directly in front. Blocked by the shield. Under its repeated impact, the two corners will inevitably collapse, thus completely affecting the defense of the entire square, and even being completely pierced and torn apart.
"Command the two corners to retract, and the crossbowmen attack with all their strength!" Zhong Shidao immediately ordered.
At this time, the front corner has been attacked by the enemy, and the two groups of people in the corner have fallen. If the Western Army generals and soldiers were not strictly disciplined and fearless of death, I am afraid that after this round of attacks, the formation will be collapsed. Open a corner, revealing the unobstructed comrade behind.
Of course, the Liao army also paid some price during this period. Those cavalrymen who rushed too quickly and too close were injured by the spearmen who turned rapidly, and dozens of them fell off their horses. The cavalry behind them turned urgently, almost grazing. The corner of the Song army rushed to the side and rear.
At this time, countless arrows were fired from the rear, falling densely towards the Liao cavalry who were still charging forward. However, they were also prepared. In addition to wielding swords with one hand, many of them also raised small leather shields and hid most of their bodies behind the shields, thus greatly reducing casualties.
Although these leather shields were not too big, they could completely cover the heads and torsos of the cavalry, preventing the Song army's random arrows from achieving success. However, their forward speed was only slightly affected, and they continued to rush towards the corner where the flaw had appeared.
Dozens or hundreds of repeated attacks in a short period of time had already caused heavy casualties to the soldiers at the corners, and there were not many shield hands left, which also exposed the sword hands behind them.
Obviously, the Liao army wanted to break through the Song army's defensive posture through such an attack, and Zhong Shidao and the others now had only two choices left, either to add more troops to this corner, or to send cavalry to fight. Meet the enemy.
"Two tigers of the Zhong family, what choice will you make?" Yelu Xiongge, who was standing on a high platform in the camp, watching the battle ahead in the rain, raised the corners of his mouth and muttered in a low voice. These are all arrangements he made. It seems that although the Western Army is powerful, it is still far behind the elite Liao Army under his command.
"Give me arrows to back them up and force them back. As well as the rear, don't give them the chance to charge in again!" The masters shouted again and issued orders. He knew the enemy's intentions very well, and he also understood that the Liao troops rushing to the rear still posed a great threat to him - when they turned around and reorganized their offensive, his back would also be attacked, and if they cut corners again, There is a real possibility that this defensive posture will collapse.
The arrows kept flying out, but after a few rounds, a cry of surprise rang out, and a soldier ran over in horror: "My dear sirs, it's bad, half of our crossbows have failed. I’m afraid I won’t be able to use the others too many times!”
"What..." Zhongshizhong's expression changed drastically. After wiping the rain off his face, he looked up at the sky where the heavy rain continued to pour down: "Are you going to help the thieves instead of helping me today? "He quickly understood that the constant erosion of the heavy rain actually made the bowstring soften and stiff, and its strength was no longer as good as before...
This is really a huge and unexpected trouble. You know, the biggest reason why the Song army dared to compete head-on with the Liao army was that it had far more and sharper crossbows than the enemy. But now, this sudden heavy rain has completely destroyed this advantage. How can we fight against the enemy with only these infantry, when the formation may be broken at any time
"First deploy the central army to make up for the damage in the four corners. We must survive this round of fierce attacks!" At this time, Shidao Zhong's calm voice quickly sounded. Following his words, the Zhongshi no longer said anything. They just looked worriedly at the half of the main force of the Liao army that remained unmoved in front, guessing what they would do next.
Under this order, the Western Army changed again, and more troops rushed to the corners. While filling the empty spaces, they also launched a counterattack against the Liao Army cavalry that was constantly attacking.
For a moment, swords flashed, and the sound of killing continued. Both sides were injured. This round of highly targeted corner-cutting tactics was finally resolved.
Sun Tu, who saw this scene from a distance, breathed a sigh of relief. The sight of the corner being about to be broken through just now frightened him so much that he even thought that if he led the Shandong Army to face the enemy like this, it would be difficult to do better than the Western Army. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Western Army was the strongest army in the Song Dynasty.
However, he still felt a little uneasy in his heart. Although the Liao army's corner-cutting tactics were powerful, they were not powerful enough to defeat the Western army's formation with just this one move. So did he have any other tricks behind him? What will you do next? Also, why hasn’t that armored heavy cavalry been released again until now? Are they accumulating strength, or do they have a deeper plan
In fact, this was due to Sun Tu's failure to fully understand the specific arrangements of the Western Army while looking a few miles away. If he finds out that the Western Army has deployed a lot of troops and horses to supplement the four corners, I'm afraid he will be even more nervous.
At this time, as the horns sounded again in the Liao army's formation, their battle formation suddenly separated on both sides, and then the ten thousand cavalry galloped out again, rumbling towards the Song army's formation like countless steel chariots.
As they rushed out, less than 30% of the Liao army's infantry left followed closely, charging straight towards the front of the Western Army with great momentum. At the same time, the light cavalry also turned around, raised their long swords sideways, galloped, and then cut the four corners.
The real trump card of the Liao army was finally revealed. This time, they wanted to defeat the entire Western army in one fell swoop. No matter how strong the Western Army is, it is impossible to defend against this round of ferocious attacks if they focus on one thing and lose the other.
"This Song army is indeed powerful, what a pity..." Yelu Xiongge sighed lightly, and then showed a proud smile that he was sure of victory.
As far as he was concerned, the battle was over. But is this really the case