Chapter 421 Cavalry to Infantry
Mengge continued to ask him: Are we going to attack Zhengzhou? That place is right beside the Yellow River. Our navy can go upstream and attack both land and water.
Subutai shook his head, thinking that this kid was really a reckless man, who only knew how to show off his sword under the moonlight. Zhengzhou has now become the core base of the Shenwei Army and a key military town. Why should we go and gnaw on such a hard bone?
He pointed to Zhongmou County in the west and said: Here, the scouts have discovered that the Shenwei Army has two corps with ten thousand troops stationed. We should send out cavalry to move in and out quickly, launch a surprise attack, and wipe out these troops.
The old man further patiently analyzed for him: Our navy is not as good as the Shenwei Army. At present, they have stationed a large number of troops east of Zhengzhou and are ready to march into Kaifeng. The terrain around Kaifeng is flat, which is convenient for the rapid maneuvering of the imperial cavalry, but it is also not easy to defend.
Although Zhongmu is small, it is also a key point to the west to Zhengzhou, with smooth water and land routes. We take the initiative to attack and eat up part of the Shenwei Army, which will help stabilize Kaifeng's defense and drive a wedge into the small Nanman, creating a situation of attacking Zhengzhou, and can contain the Shenwei Army from going south to rescue Yingzhou.
At that time, after a period of calm down and re-evaluation of the enemy and our own situation, Mengge had already planned to abandon Kaifeng and even Shangqiu and retreat to the north of the Yellow River.
Mengge is not stupid at all. He knows that the purpose of his return is to compete for the Khan position, and now is not the time to fight a decisive battle with the Shenwei Army.
He doesn't have many soldiers and horses. The Khan of the grassland asked him to come to Henan to fight against the Song army. He just happened to have the military power to dispatch the troops here to strengthen his own strength. Can we easily lose it in his hands?
What he needed was to let the grassland royal court see that the Shenwei army was powerful and that a large number of troops were needed.
Subutai's strategy was exactly what he wanted, but he disagreed with the cavalry attack.
One is that even if the cavalry rushed to the city, they still had to use catapults and cannons to attack the city. The forward guard posts of the Shenwei Army were far away from the city and were well-equipped, so it was difficult for his cavalry to launch a sneak attack.
The second reason was that he could not allow his cavalry to suffer any more heavy losses. The cavalry he brought back from the Qipchaqs had lost more than 20,000 men in Hexi. Although he looked like he didn't care, he was actually very upset.
Therefore, Mengge slightly adjusted Subutai's strategy, changing the cavalry to infantry, and continuing to advance both by land and sea. He asked the main general Liu Yuzhou who had escaped from Zhengzhou to take command and lead 50,000 Han troops to maneuver quickly and attack Zhongmu.
However, the military situation changes rapidly, and it is true. When Liu Yuzhou went there, he ran into the three columns of the Shenwei Army.
Lai Chuanfang, the commander of the Eastern Group of the Shenwei Army, immediately implemented the plan to capture Kaifeng, and the Third Column, the fist force of the Eastern Group, took action immediately.
Zhongmu originally had only two corps, but suddenly two columns of 40,000 people were added. The first corps of the third column had only advanced ten miles when it encountered the Mongolian army led by Liu Yuzhou's eldest son. The two sides started a fierce battle as soon as they exchanged fire.
Gu Shan, who was in charge of the front-line battle, felt that something was wrong, so he ordered the troops to retreat. He then set up defenses in Zhongmu County by taking advantage of the favorable terrain to consume the Mongolian army's manpower.
After receiving Gu Shan's report, Lai Chuanfang judged that the Mongolian army was going to attack Zhengzhou in order to tie down his troops and forces them to move south to rescue and support the battle in Yingzhou.
This guy was actually happy, this was the Mongolian army delivering goods to his doorstep, he didn't need to attack the city at all, the Mongolian army delivered it to him. He immediately ordered Gu Shan to delay the Mongolian army and pay attention to prevent the attack of Mengge's cavalry. He wanted to kill a lot of people in Zhongmu.
In Jiankang Prefecture, after the warship that Hulan was on docked, the little girl flew straight to the government office like a butterfly to meet Zhao Yulin, but only the old man Fan Zhong was there.
The old man knew the identity of this woman, and no matter how much Hulan begged or begged, he would not tell her where Zhao Yulin was. This made Hulan angry, and she said to Fan Zhong fiercely: If Mr. Fan doesn't tell me, she will break into the enemy camp and die in front of the enemy to make her regret for the rest of her life.
This move also subdued the old man. He was really afraid that something might happen or that he would fall into the hands of the Mongolian army and Zhao Yulin would go to rescue him. If he harmed Zhao Yulin, it would be his fault.
The old man had no choice but to send a small team of guards to escort Hu Lan to Yingzhou to find Zhao Yulin.
At this time, Zhao Yulin was still in Dachuan Town.
After Kouxiubuhua surrounded the Shenwei Army, he immediately dispatched 10,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry from the rear to encircle and annihilate Zhao Yulin and Yu Jie's troops .
However, Zhao Yulin put stability first and ordered Yu Jie to quickly withdraw his troops to the Jinyinshan area to deploy defenses. After the Mongolian troops arrived, they charged twice, but although they achieved some results, they did not gain any advantage, let alone annihilate the Mongolian army.
Before Kouqiubuhua could achieve any results, Hubili learned that the Shenwei Army's navy was marching northward in large numbers. Zhang Rou, the Mongolian navy commander, was simply unable to withstand Zhou Ping's attack.
This was because the Mongolian general Zhang Rou was actually an infantryman who changed his career to command the navy. He was not as strong as Zhou Ping, who had been playing on boats since he was a child and had a navy that had been influenced by Zhao Yulin's advanced military management concepts.
In addition, the Mongolian army moving south were only equipped with small boats and old catapults, so how could they withstand Zhou Ping's attack? They kept fighting despite repeated defeats. The Shenwei Army's navy and infantry followed up and quickly occupied Suqian, preparing to march straight into Xuzhou.
This is what makes Hubili embarrassed.
He had to send troops to stop Zhou Ping's attack.
At the same time, the Jianghai Division of the Shenwei Army marched northward in large numbers and had already torn open Huainan's defense line, putting Suzhou in danger.
He also needs to send troops to plug the gap in Suzhou.
Hubili was now hesitant. Where should he attack first?
He also wanted to eat Zhao Yulin and Yu Jie from Jinyinshan first, because the meat here was the fattiest.
In that case, Zhou Ping might have to approach Xuzhou, and Jianghai might also want to besiege Xuzhou. If the Jinyin Mountain could not be captured for a long time, it might fall into the encirclement of the Shenwei Army, and the army would not be able to bear the fact that the food supply was cut off.
However, Kousheng was unwilling to let go. This guy was like a naughty child. He was still asking Hubili for soldiers and food.
He assured Hubili that as soon as the troops arrived, they could deal with the Divine Power Army of Gold and Silver Mountain in minutes.
As long as the Shenwei Army of Jinyinshan is captured, the whole game will come alive. Without its leader, the Shenwei Army will be eliminated in a hurry.
Finally, Hubili gritted his teeth and took a gamble, and once again sent 30,000 troops to rescue Dachuan, in order to capture Jinyinshan in one fell swoop and capture Yu Jie and Zhao Yulin alive.
However, ideals are full of hope, but reality is very bleak. Just when Kouqiu Buhua was dreaming of a pipe dream, Cao Youliang personally urged his men to use engineer shovels and any tools that could dig up the soil to dig and build criss-cross trenches, basically building a defense against the enemy's infantry and cavalry.
When Kou Tongue organized an attack again, he found it difficult to move forward.
When he went to the front line to observe, he found that the positions of the Shenwei Army were like tens of millions of pythons crawling there. The Mongolian army needed to fight for trenches one after another to cross them. It was not as easy as he had imagined.
He sent cavalry to make a flanking attack on the Shenwei Army's transportation line, but they were cleverly ambushed by Yu Jie. After suffering heavy losses, they dared not attack again easily.
He continued to launch a frontal attack, but no matter how hard he tried, it was to little avail, and he was helpless in the face of the enemy.
The Divine Might Army seemed to have turned the mountain of gold and silver into a lump of iron that he could neither chew nor move.
On the mountain, Cao Youliang, Yu Jiezheng and Zhao Yulin were chatting and laughing. Cao Youliang praised the earthwork method proposed by Zhao Yulin. The fortifications they built offset most of the enemy's offensive advantages. His subordinates were fully capable of fighting a positional battle with the enemy.
Yu Jie was also very surprised when he saw the Shenwei Army's positional attack and defense tactics for the first time. He estimated that the other two attacks of the Shenwei Army were about to succeed. If the Mongolian army did not retreat, he would have to wait for them to hand over Xuzhou.
Here, two more columns of the Shenwei Army's reinforcement troops came up. He planned to launch a counterattack on the enemy and change the difficult supply situation on the mountain.
Zhao Yulin did not object. The enemy in front of him had been successfully held back. It was up to his brothers to figure out how to cut the flesh. Let them do it freely.
The next day, the Second and Third Column of Jiangnan launched an attack , attacking the flank of the Mongolian army.
Kouxiubuhua sent out 10,000 cavalry to fight, but the Shenwei Army did not retreat and did not dig trenches for defense. Instead, they displayed their special weapons to attack the cavalry. They used a large number of small vehicle-mounted iron barrel cannons and thunder chariots to form two circular positions for defense, and fired intensively on the sniper line to prevent the enemy cavalry from attacking.
This is a small artillery specially made by the Shenwei Army to deal with the attacks of cavalry clusters. Although it is not as long-ranged and powerful as the Red Cannon, it is easy to make and available in large numbers. Once the Mongolian cavalry formation is disrupted, it will be much easier to solve the problem by using Thunderbolt Chariots to fire rockets.
No matter whether the Mongolian army was charging with infantry or attacking with a combination of infantry and cavalry, they would come to a standstill once they entered the interception position and could not get through no matter how hard they fought.
Or maybe they had just occupied one or two trenches, but after stopping the attack, the Shenwei Army quickly took them back.
After a long battle, the Shenwei Army successfully blocked the Mongolian Army's attack. The Second and Third Columns rolled forward as a whole. After breaking through the Mongolian Army's position, Cao Youliang ordered a full-line counterattack. The soldiers hiding in the trenches charged with all their might, and the Mongolian Army's position was immediately shaken.
Yu Jie saw it clearly, and took the opportunity to release his 8,000 cavalry reserve to fight the enemy. The Mongolian army immediately showed signs of defeat, and Kouqiu Buhua ordered a retreat. The Mongolian army retreated towards Dachuan Town. He also learned from the Shenwei Army and built fortifications relying on the terrain of Dachuan to block the Shenwei Army's attack.
Yu Jie was overjoyed to see such results. The troops from all directions almost surrounded Dachuan like an iron barrel. The development of the situation was extremely favorable to the Shenwei Army.
After being besieged in Jinyin Mountain for seven days, Zhao Yulin finally returned to the yard of a small landlord in Xiaoli Village to sleep.
In Dachuan Town, you will feel depressed if your tone is not elegant.
This guy was very annoyed. He watched Zhao Yulin slip away from his hands, while he himself became a turtle in a jar.
The lieutenant general who defected to the Mongolian army was even more miserable. He was forced to fight against the Shenwei Army without any words. He remembered a blood feud and could never go back. Less than half of the 3,000 troops he brought with him were left, and most of them had become war-weary. The squadrons and companies began to plan how to escape and return to the Shenwei Army.
At this time, the scout sent an urgent report. Kou Shubuhua took it and looked at it: Damn, this is not good. Suzhou was surrounded, their logistics transportation was blocked, and the remaining food for the whole army was less than five days.
