Thief Emperor

Chapter 575: Two Battles in One Day

From an absolutely rational point of view, there is nothing wrong with Captain He's analysis.

Khitans are also human beings and they also need to eat.

When they fight, there will be losses.

They mobilized several thousand men to Jizhou, but did not attack the city. In one night, they only captured a dozen or twenty Han people.

No matter how much they kill, they will still lose.

But at this time, no one can be absolutely rational.

Li Zheng was also looking into the distance with a telescope at this moment, but he remained silent. After a long time, he walked behind Li Yun and whispered, "Sir, we have never seen such a thing before."

Because there were many people around at the moment, Li Zheng spoke obscurely, but Li Yun could understand it.

What he meant was that even when he was a bandit, he had never seen such a scene.

When they were bandits, they were relatively simple bandits. They became bandits mostly because they could not survive. They were quite different from those thieves.

Even those bandits who were known for their cruelty rarely did such a thing.

Li Yun had a cold face and did not speak for a long time. After a while, he used a telescope to look at the enemy's position farther away.

Further away, some cavalry were cruising around, providing support for the Khitan positions.

He put down the telescope and said, "We can't fight in the daytime. If we fight in the daytime, even if we win the charge, we will be taken away by their cavalry."

"Skinny monkey."

At this moment, he was thinking and subconsciously called out this most familiar name. Li Zheng did not hesitate, bowed his head and clasped his fists and said, "I'm here!"

"You will lead your troops out of the city to fight them later. Bring more shields, remember..."

Li Yun said softly: "I can lose but I cannot win."

"You can only contact them for an hour at most, then retreat. You have two tasks on this trip out of the city. The first task is to feint and confuse these Khitans."

"The second task is to test the quality of these Khitans for me."

Li Zheng nodded, then asked, "Sir, how many people should I take out of the city?"

"Two to three thousand people."

Li Yun said without hesitation: "Any less, it won't be true."

"it is good."

Li Zheng nodded without hesitation and said, "I will go and prepare now. I will definitely go out of the city to meet the enemy in half an hour!"

He strode away and went downstairs to make arrangements.

Meng Qing was also nearby, he also stepped forward, bowed his head and said: "Go ahead, I will go too!"

Li Yun looked at him and shook his head slightly: "Don't worry, don't worry, don't leave the city this time."

Meng Qing clenched his fists, but did not refute. He stood obediently behind Li Yun and said nothing.

For the entire military and political system of Jiangdong, Li Yun's prestige is absolute, and no one can resist him.

And in the military and political system, there are two people who are more obedient to Li Yun than others.

Xu Ang among the civil officials and Meng Qing among the military generals.

No matter what the matter was, as long as Li Yun opened his mouth, neither of them would have any objection.

Half an hour passed quickly, the gate of Jizhou city was opened, and Li Zheng, who was already wearing full armor, led three thousand people and charged towards the Khitan position in a mighty manner!
The Khitans outside the city, who were originally laughing, burst into laughter when they saw that the Han army dared to come out of the city to fight.

Some of the Khitan soldiers mounted their horses, while the other part, holding weapons, rushed towards Li Zheng's troops with strange shouts!

During the entire process, Li Yun was on the city wall, watching the whole process through a telescope.

The distance of one hundred feet was covered in a flash. From the time Li Zheng led his troops out of the city to the time the two sides engaged in battle, only a cup of tea passed.

These Khitans dared to act so rampantly in Jizhou, so they naturally had some abilities. However, the 10,000 people brought by Li Yun were also elite troops within the Jiangdong Army. As soon as the two sides fought, they immediately collided with each other.

Li Zheng held a sword horizontally in his hand and chopped at the waist and ribs of a Khitan man. The Khitan man blocked the sword and kicked Li Zheng. Li Zheng took the kick head-on, then exerted force with his hand and chopped the Khitan man's shoulder with his sword. He chopped down with the sword horizontally, directly cutting open the Khitan man's leather armor, and blood splattered everywhere!

At this time, the Khitan reinforcements had arrived. Fortunately, Li Zheng also had his own guards. Several guards rushed forward and dealt with all the Khitans around Li Zheng.

Li Zheng wiped the blood off his knife and began to look around the battlefield.

These Khitans are not good at fighting on foot.

After the battle between the two sides, the Jiangdong soldiers even had a slight advantage.

But the problem is that the Jiangdong Army has almost no available cavalry, and the enemy is excellent in both cavalry and archery. Once they confront each other on the open battlefield, they will still suffer a great loss!

Mobility is a big issue.

If you win, you can’t catch up, and if you lose, you can’t escape. In a real wild encounter, once you lose, it is very likely that the whole army will be wiped out.

After all, Li Zheng had a lot of experience in leading troops. After only observing for a while, he basically understood the situation on the battlefield.

Thinking of what Li Yun had told him just now, Li Zheng took a deep breath and shouted, "Cover me!"

A group of personal guards immediately surrounded him. Li Zheng, holding a broadsword in his hand, strode towards the two upright wooden poles.

The wooden poles were not too far from Jizhou City. Li Zheng soon rushed to the two poles. He swung his sword horizontally and cut off one of them after a few strokes.

The white flag on the pole fluttered down.

Along with the falling, there were also a dozen hung human heads.

Li Yun took a deep breath and shouted, "Cut off the other pole as well, pile them together, and burn them!"

Because infantry combat was advantageous, the Jiangdong soldiers had already advanced, leaving a large space for Li Zheng. Plus, there was strength in numbers, so soon all the heads and corpses were piled together.

Several Jiangdong soldiers stripped the Khitans of their clothes, covered the pile with them, and then set it on fire.

Li Zheng looked at the vaguely visible Khitan cavalry in the distance and shouted, "Charge again, charge again!"

The Jiangdong soldiers rushed forward again, pushing the battle line from one hundred feet outside Jizhou city to about two hundred feet.

At this time, the Khitan cavalry had already started to approach.

These cavalrymen have excellent riding skills. They can ride their horses freely to any corner of the battlefield, and they can shoot arrows in any posture and from some extremely strange angles.

After these cavalry joined the battlefield, the effect was immediate.

Soon, Li Zheng felt the strain.

Thinking of Li Yun's instructions, he didn't waste any words and gave the order directly.

"Retreat, retreat in an orderly manner!"

This kind of orderly retreat on the battlefield does not mean just retreating on your own, but also means transporting the wounded and even the bodies of the fallen soldiers to the rear.

Fortunately, at this time, the two sides had not been fighting for long, and the Jiangdong soldiers had some advantages in the initial period. Therefore, there were many wounded soldiers, but not many deaths.

After another half hour, Li Zheng led his troops and retreated to Jizhou City in a "shambolic" manner.

The Khitans who had been repelled by them surrounded them again, saying something that Li Yun and others could not understand at all.

Li Yun did not go to see these Khitans again, but went to the city to greet Li Zheng.

After seeing Li Zheng, Li Yun stepped forward, patted him on the shoulder, and praised: "Good job, brother!"

Li Zheng had no obvious wounds from sharp weapons on his body, but he had quite a few other minor injuries. After all, it was a fight for life on the battlefield, and being kicked by an adult with all his strength would definitely not be pleasant.

After Li Yun patted him on the shoulder, he felt a dull pain all over his body and almost fell to the ground. He was supported by Li Yun.

Li Yun was startled and panicked: "Shou Hou, what's wrong with you?"

"No, it's okay."

Li Zheng shook his head, and with the help of Li Yun, he found a wall to sit down, then looked at Li Yun and forced a smile on his face: "I was kicked a few times by a barbarian."

Li Yun was relieved. He looked at Li Zheng and asked, "How do you feel?"

"They can't fight on foot."

Li Zheng said directly: "They don't even have a decent formation, they rely entirely on brute force, but once they are on horseback, it's a different story. Even two Khitan cavalrymen can cooperate with each other."

"It's amazing."

Li Zheng looked at Li Yun and said with a wry smile, "Brother, if they have a lot of cavalry like this, it seems that we can only...fight with them in the city."

Siege is the absolute weakness of cavalry.

Apart from this shortcoming, the only remaining shortcoming of cavalry is that it is expensive. Apart from that, it has almost no other disadvantages.

Li Yun nodded and said enviously: "When will we have such a cavalry?"

At this point, he paused, sat down next to Li Zheng, and said, "Based on the situation just now, if the Khitans are all this powerful, it won't be a problem for us to defend Jizhou for three months."

"But what these Khitans did was too much."

Li Yun said expressionlessly: "We can't just stay in the city like this."

"We went out of the city to fight once during the day. In their eyes, we should have fled back to the city in a panic."

"They probably wouldn't have guessed that we would dare to go out of town to look for them on the same day."

Having said that, Li Yun narrowed his eyes.

"Tonight, I will go and fight them myself!"

(End of this chapter)