Datang New Order

Two months have passed since the Battle of Yuguan, and the towers on the pass have been rebuilt, and other large defense equipment such as arrow towers, shooting poles, slings, and fire oil racks have also been rebuilt.

On the top of the city tower stood two large moon-white flags with red borders. On one pole was a big "Liu" character. "Zhang Shi" and "Lulong Jiedu Envoy"; the other pole is written with a "Zhou" character, and the small characters on both sides are "Pingzhou Bingzhou Envoy, Yuguan Shouzhu Envoy" and "Guerrilla General".Two large flags fluttered in the north wind, revealing a chilling intent.

Since the news of his appointment as the head of Youying Jiadu came back to the family, Zhao Zaili, a son of a concubine, finally attracted the attention of the family.There are many children of the old Zhao family, and it is not rare to be an officer above the head of the army in the army, but there are not many like Zhao Zaili who have achieved the rank of the head of the capital through their own efforts, not to mention the development of Zhao Zaili. It seems that the trend will never stop here. At least for now, he is commanding the three capitals deployed by the Pingzhou Army in Yuguan with the titles of Dutou and Ren Yong. In terms of power, he is already a commander. Made it!

Once the old Zhao family noticed this concubine's son, they began to place high hopes on him and immediately gave them great support.In addition to the support of horses, armor, weapons and money, he also sent several servants to listen to them, so Zhao Zaili immediately repaired the war equipment, trained the soldiers, and rectified the war preparations.His family has a long history of education, and he has family members who are familiar with military affairs to assist and give advice. For him, he can get started very quickly, and the entire defense of Yuguan changed its appearance within two months.

At this moment, Zhao Zaili can be said to be proud of his spring breeze, but when Zhao Zaili, who was proud of his spring breeze, took over his new appointment from Zhang Long and passed away, he felt a little panic and shame just like Zhang Long.During the appointment, Zhao Zaili was appointed as the commander of the right battalion of the Pingzhou Army, the commander of the right battalion of the Pingzhou Army, the captain of the Yuhu school, and the eighth rank.

In any army, in order to truly stand in the barracks, apart from various factors, the most important thing must be military merit!The so-called not being rewarded for no merit, except for those villains who have no sense of shame and use flattery as a qualification for promotion, all soldiers with a conscience will feel panic and ashamed when the reward they receive is far greater than the meritorious service they have made.Zhao Zaili was born in a family of military generals, so he has a clearer understanding of this.

Zhao Zaili led the army to garrison Yuguan during this period, and spent countless efforts in training recruits and repairing war equipment.The more effort he put in, the more he understood how difficult it was for Li Chengzhong to resist the Khitans on this dilapidated pass city, especially when he found out that the situation in the White Wolf Mountain Army Stronghold was not as good as that at Yuguan. Li Chengzhong felt sincere admiration for his victory in Bailang Mountain.

I was appointed as the Commander of the Right Battalion of the Procuratorate, and Zhibie was also promoted as the Lieutenant of Yuhu, so Li Chengzhong...

After seeing the appointment and leaving, his first reaction was not surprise and excitement, but a little uneasiness and said to Zhang Long: "Brother Quanhe, I don't know Li Chengzhong..."

Zhang Long smiled, and he took out another confession and waved it to Zhao Zaili: "Don't worry, brother Qianchen, soldiers and horse envoys know about it, so you can follow this confession with peace of mind. Congratulations, brother, from now on you can add one more person to Yuguan. The flag is up." When the official rank was promoted to commander, he stepped into the ranks of mid-level officers, which was a watershed in the ranks of officers, and he was already qualified to play the banner.Zhao Zaili's general flag should be written like this: "Pingzhou Military Inspection School Right Battalion Commander, Yuhu School Lieutenant Zhao".

Hearing what Zhang Long said, Zhao Zaili heaved a sigh of relief, and the joy in his heart finally rose.He hurriedly made arrangements and ordered his soldiers to take out a thousand stones of military rations from the granary and load them into the cart brought by Zhang Long.After Zhang Long prepared all the supplies, Zhao Zaili came to him with ninety soldiers. …,

"Brother Qianchen, what does this mean?" Zhang Long didn't understand.

Zhao Zaili pulled the officer at the head and introduced to Zhang Long: "This is Sanlang from the Yuan family. Brother Quanhe must have seen him before. Sanlang and a certain boy were young. Said that when a certain arrived in Pingzhou, he begged to be transferred from the Yier Army. This time, brother Quanhe led the army to escort the army, and he sent Sanlang to lead the army to accompany him. The recruits of the gang have never experienced war, so I asked Brother Quanhe to take care of them and let them practice. Don't worry, Brother Quanhe, these soldiers are all carefully selected elites, and they will definitely not cause trouble for Brother Quanhe. I heard from Li Chengzhong the other day that Brother Quanhe's chariot formation never had soldiers with swords and shields in close combat, and these soldiers can also make up for one or two..."

This young man, Zhang Long, had seen him before. Not only had he seen him, Zhang Long had personally handled his resettlement.Sanlang of the Yuan family, whose name is Xingqin, and whose name is Shaorong, is a direct descendant of the Yuan family in Youzhou City. He is now 17 years old.Although Yuan Xingqin was not very old, he had experienced a battle with Chengde's army under Hejian City, beheading him twice.

Zhang Long was very surprised at the time when Lu Long's elite Yierjun asked to be transferred to Pingzhou, a bitter border. He asked Yuan Xingqin why he asked to be transferred.For this kind of officer who has experienced wars and conquests and made military achievements, Zhang Long naturally welcomed him with both hands. After consulting Zhou Zhiyu at that time, he was directly appointed as a team officer, and according to his own wishes, he was dispatched to Yuguan to accept the command of Zhao Zaili .

Hearing what Zhao Zaili said, Zhang Long thought for a while, then nodded in agreement.Now in the Pingzhou Army, except for Li Chengzhong's unit who has experienced the baptism of war, all the troops are recruits. It is definitely a good thing for the growth and development of the Pingzhou Army to feel the atmosphere of the battlefield.

The escort convoy led by Zhang Long consisted of 200 spearmen from the middle battalion and [-] archers selected from each battalion. In addition, there were [-] civilian husbands. In addition to being helpful, it will also be an effective force in close combat.It's just that they haven't practiced the chariot battle method, so Zhang Long rehearsed several times under Yuguan, asking Yuan Xingqin to command these sword and shield fighters to participate in it.

Before dawn the next day, Zhang Long ordered the convoy to leave the customs and head for Bailang Mountain in the northwest.

After leaving Yuguan, the convoy marched in two columns according to the previous rehearsal method.Between the two convoys, there were 590 Pingzhou soldiers.A team of nearly 800 people and fifty horse-drawn carriages marched on the grassland, and the momentum seemed very majestic.

Zhang Long has been marching with the army all his life, fighting south and north, and has rich experience, but it is the first time in his life to command such a large army on the march.He very cautiously sent ten scouts to scout around, hoping to make adequate preparations when the Khitan intercepted him.These scouts were selected from the scout team of the Pingzhou Army. Although there were only ten people, they were already half of the entire Pingzhou Army scout team.They may not be as good at riding and shooting as Khitan rangers, but they are very skilled in horsemanship. As the new Pingzhou army, these scouts are the real elite.

When the scouts were sent out, Zhang Long issued a strict order, stipulating that the range of these scouts should not exceed two miles from the convoy.He didn't dare to let the scouts go too far, even losing any of them would be unacceptable to him.

The first [-] miles were safe and sound, but as the convoy continued northward, traces of Khitan rangers were finally found around.Zhang Long ordered the scouts to take back one mile of land, and then moved on.With the frequent appearance and gathering of Khitan rangers, Zhang Long simply ordered the scouts to return to the formation.It doesn't make much sense to release scouts at this time. Obviously, the Khitans have already set their sights on the convoy, and it all depends on whether they want to fight or not. …,

Zhang Long ordered the convoy to speed up, trying to get closer to Bailang Mountain when the Khitan brigade arrived.According to the agreement between him and Li Chengzhong, the closer the convoy was to White Wolf Mountain, the greater the pressure on Li Chengzhong to get out of the mountain.

When the convoy traveled to dusk and the shadow of Bailang Mountain could be seen from a distance, Zhang Long made a visual estimate and calculated that it was still seven or eight miles away from the Bailang Mountain Pass.Then, he saw four or five hundred Khitan cavalry blocking the way two miles ahead, so Zhang Long ordered the convoy to change its formation.

This was the first time Zhang Long commanded a battle, and it was also the first time that most of the soldiers of the Pingzhou Army in the convoy faced the enemy.Almost everyone was short of breath, and the palms holding the weapons began to sweat, and they were in a state of tension.

Fortunately, after many days of rehearsal, although everyone was very nervous, they still changed the car formation according to the previous deployment.The civilian husband quickly closed the ten carts at the head and tail of the two trains horizontally, and then fastened the hooks of each cart with ropes, so the convoy became a square formation of twenty carts wide and thirty carts long.The farmer took out the black scarf that had been prepared and covered the horse's eyes to prevent the horse from running around in shock. He also took a thick felt blanket from the cart and covered the horse's back to minimize the chance of the horse being shot by an arrow.

After the preparations were completed, most of the peasants hid in the chariot formation, leaving only a few people with good riding skills, put on leather helmets and leather armor, and drove the horses inside the cart to keep the chariot formation moving forward.

Sixty spearmen with helmets and armor formed two rows of gun formations, and stepped forward outside the chariot formation to protect the horses pulling the carts in front. Twenty sword and shield fighters were evenly packed into the first row of spear formations. They held their shields high, Try to resist the enemy's diffuse for the spearmen.The rest of the spearmen and sword-shieldmen were in the chariot formation to defend against the Khitan threat to the sides and rear of the chariot formation.The entire car array was set up at the time of cup of tea, and the muzzles of the guns rushed out, and the spears stabbed like a forest.

The attack on the Khitans was carried out by two hundred archers.They hid in the chariot formation, each with three pots of arrows on their backs, forming four waves of diffuse formations.In Li Chengzhong's design, he planned to allocate the frequency of archers' archery according to the "three-stage strike" method, but during the actual rehearsal, he found that the archers of the Pingzhou Army shot arrows at a slower rate, and they shot arrows according to the "three-stage strike" method. , There will be a lot of gaps and loopholes, so it is simply changed to "four-stage strike", and fifty arrows will be sent out in each blow, so as to ensure an uninterrupted rain of arrows covering blows.Because the shooting range of the step bow is farther than that of the riding bow, when the Khitan people rode their horses to the distance where they could shoot at the Pingzhou army, they should have been hit by at least two hundred arrows.

The arrangement and combat method of this chariot formation were thought up by Li Chengzhong after he exhausted the memories from later generations in his mind and combined with his experience in fighting the Khitan people.To be honest, the real combat effectiveness of this car array is not great.

First of all, the cost of this car array is too expensive.Not only do the forward spearmen need a lot of armor, but the proportion of archers in the chariot formation is also quite high, and the consumption of arrows is astonishing.In order to prepare for the transportation of the army supplies, the governor's office of Pingzhou spent a lot of money and almost emptied the treasury.During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the equipment of the Tang army should be regarded as the best in the world. Not only everyone has armor, but also everyone holds a bow, and the proportion of archers reaches a terrifying [-]%.In Tang Jun at that time, except for being good at melee combat, almost everyone was an excellent archer, and everyone carried bows and arrows.What makes the opponent even more frightening is that at the beginning of Kaiyuan, the proportion of crossbowmen in the Tang army was as high as [-]%!But now it is at the end of the Tang Dynasty. In this era when productivity has been greatly destroyed, not only is there a lack of armor, the proportion of archers is too low, but also extremely rare crossbows, let alone a large number of equipped with Mo Dao, iron axes and even heavy cavalry as in the past. up.Without him, Guolier!

Secondly, from the perspective of tactical effectiveness, the most suitable place for the chariot formation is to transport military supplies. To put it bluntly, this chariot formation can be used to transport food at most, and it is not suitable for an upright decisive battle.Because the movement of the chariot formation is too slow and clumsy, the initiative on the battlefield will inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy. When to attack and when to retreat, everything depends on the mood of the enemy.

Finally, if it is a long-distance march, the car formation will also expose a great weakness.Under the watchful eyes of the enemy cavalry, the defenders in the car formation must maintain a high degree of vigilance at all times. Once the journey is too long, everyone will be dragged down by tension and fatigue.The enemy army only needs to follow the chariot formation to the side, and after three to five days, the formation can be easily broken.

However, although the car formation has so many weaknesses, it is just right for transporting military equipment to Bailang Mountain.

Following Zhang Long's order, the array of chariots that had been arranged started to move slowly and firmly towards the opposite brigade of Khitan cavalry.