Chapter 59: The Winter of Jiwei (10)

  The Yu Guan defense battle has passed for two months, and the city tower on the pass has been rebuilt. Other large-scale defensive equipment such as arrow towers, patrolling poles, pulleys, and oil racks have also been renovated.

  On the city wall, two large flags with white and red edges stood tall, one with a large "Liu" character, next to which were two lines of small characters reading "Inspector of the Ministry of Works, Concurrently Vice-Director of the Chancellery" and "Commander of the Lu Long Military Region"; the other flag had a "Zhou" character, with small characters on either side reading "Military Commissioner of Pingzhou, Commander of the Yu Pass" and "General-in-Chief". The two large flags fluttered in the north wind, exuding an aura of sternness.

  Since the news of Zhao Zaili's appointment as Youying Camp Adu returned to his family, this illegitimate son finally received attention from his family. The old Zhao family has many children, and there are not a few who serve as senior military officers above the rank of Duhou in the army, but those like Zhao Zaili who have made it through their own efforts without making a sound to become a Duhou-level officer are not many. Moreover, Zhao Zaili's development trend seems unlikely to stop at this point. At least for now, he has already taken command of three Du in Pingzhou Military Prefecture stationed in Yuguantai as the title of Duhou and Renyong Jijun, and in terms of his position, he can be considered a commander!

  Lao Zhao's family, once they noticed this son of a concubine, began to have high hopes for him and immediately gave him strong support. In addition to providing war horses, armor, weapons, and money, he also sent several servants to assist him. Zhao Zilong immediately set out to repair his equipment, train his soldiers, and prepare for battle. With the help of his family's military experience and the guidance of the familiar servants sent by his family, these tasks came easily to him, and the entire defense of Yu Guan was transformed in just two months.

  At this moment, Zhao Zaili was in high spirits, but when he took over the appointment letter from Zhang Long, he felt a sense of trepidation and shame. The appointment letter appointed Zhao Zaili as the inspector of the right camp commander of Pingzhou Military Prefecture, with the rank of Yuqiu Jiao Wei, eighth grade upper.

  In any army, to truly establish oneself in the military camp, apart from various factors, the most important thing is military merit! The so-called "no merit, no reward" - except for those who are ignorant of shame and use flattery as a means of advancement - all soldiers with a conscience will feel terrified and ashamed when the rewards they receive far exceed their actual achievements. Zhao Zilong, coming from a family of military generals, has a clearer understanding of this.

  Zhao Zhi led the army to garrison at Yu Guan during this period, and spent countless efforts in training new soldiers and repairing war equipment. The more effort he put in, the more he understood how difficult it was for Li Chengzhong to defend against the Khitan people on this broken city wall, especially after hearing about the situation of the White Wolf Mountain military camp, which was not as good as Yu Guan at that time. He had even more sincere admiration for Li Chengzhong's victory at White Wolf Mountain.

  He was appointed as the Commander of the Right Wing of the Imperial Guard and his rank was promoted to Youxun Jijun. Then Li Chengzhong...

  After reading the letter of appointment, his first reaction was not surprise and excitement, but a hint of unease towards Zhang Long: "Quanhe brother, I don't know about Li Chengzhong..."

  Zhang Long smiled and took out another letter to Zhao Zaili, waving it: "Don't worry, brother Zhang, the military commander has a plan for this. You can rest assured with this letter. Congratulations, from now on, you can add one more general flag above the Yu Pass." After being promoted to Commander-in-Chief, he entered the ranks of mid-level military officers, which was a watershed in military rank, and had the qualifications to display his own flag. Zhao Zaili's general flag should be written as "Pingzhou Military Inspector, Right Camp Commander-in-Chief, Imperial Guard Lieutenant Zhao".

  When Zhang Long said this, Zhao Zilong let out a sigh of relief, and the joyful energy in his heart finally rose up. He hastily arranged for his soldiers to take out 1,000 stones of military rations from the granary and load them onto the large carts brought by Zhang Long. When Zhang Long had everything ready, Zhao Zilong led 90 soldiers to stand before him.

  "What's the meaning of this?" Zhang Long didn't understand.

  Zhao Zilai pulled over the officer who was in charge, and introduced him to Zhang Long: "This is Yuanjia Sanlang. Spring River brother should have seen him before. Sanlang and I were childhood friends. He used to be a partner in the Yi'er army. When he heard that I had arrived at Pingzhou, he asked to be transferred from the Yi'er army. This time, Spring River brother led the army to transport military supplies, and I sent Sanlang to lead his troops to follow along. Firstly, it would boost the morale of Spring River brother's army, secondly... these new recruits have not experienced battle before, so I asked Spring River brother to take care of them and let them gain some experience. Don't worry, Spring River brother, these soldiers are all carefully selected elites, they won't cause any trouble for you. I remember Li Chengzhong telling me that there were no close combat troops with knives and shields in your cart formation, so these soldiers can fill in one or two gaps..."

  This young man, Zhang Long, was someone he had met before. Not only had they met, but Zhang Long had also personally handled his resettlement affairs. Yuan Xingqin, courtesy name Shaorong, was a direct descendant of the Yuan family in Youzhou City, and this year he was only seventeen years old. Although Yuan Xingqin was not very old, he had experienced the great battle under Hejian City with the Chengde Army, beheading two levels of enemy commanders.

  From the elite Yizi Army of Lu Longjun, Yuan Xingqin volunteered to be transferred to the bitter and cold border town of Pingzhou. Zhang Long was quite surprised at the time and asked about the reason for Yuan's transfer request. According to Yuan himself, it was in order to accompany his good friend Zhao Zaili. For an officer who had experienced battles and made military achievements, Zhang naturally welcomed him with open arms. After consulting with Zhou Zhiyu, he directly appointed him as a team officer and dispatched him to Yu Pass, where he would be under the command of Zhao Zaili.

  After listening to Zhao Zhi's words, Zhang Long thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. At present, among the Pingzhou army, except for Li Chengzhong's troops who had experienced the baptism of war, all the other troops were new recruits. Being able to experience the atmosphere of the battlefield would be an absolute good thing for the growth and development of the Pingzhou army.

  Zhang Long's convoy was composed of 300 riflemen from the middle camp and 200 archers selected from each camp, in addition to 200 civilians. With these 90 shield-bearing soldiers, they would not only help defend against the Khitan cavalry's scattered shooting but also become an effective force in close combat. However, they had never practiced chariot array warfare before, so Zhang Long re-enacted it several times under Yu Pass and let Yuan Xingqin command these shield-bearing soldiers to participate.

  The next day, before dawn broke, Zhang Long ordered the convoy to leave the pass and head northwest towards Mount Bai Lang.

  After leaving Yu Guan, the fleet proceeded in two columns according to the previous rehearsal method. Between the two fleets were 590 Pingzhou soldiers. Nearly eight hundred people and fifty horse-drawn carriages marched on the grassland, with a very majestic momentum.

  Zhang Long had been marching with the army for a lifetime, fighting in the south and north, with rich experience. However, commanding such a large troop to march was his first time in life. He cautiously sent out ten scouts to explore around, hoping to make sufficient preparations when encountering the Khitan blockade. These scouts were selected from the Pingzhou Army Scout Team, although there were only ten people, they already accounted for half of the entire Pingzhou Army Scout Team. They may not be as good at riding and shooting as the Khitan cavalry, but their horsemanship was very exquisite. As a newly established Pingzhou Army, these scouts were truly the elite.

  When dispatching scouts, Zhang Long issued strict orders, specifying the reconnaissance range of these scouts, and they were not allowed to exceed two miles from the convoy. He did not dare let the scouts go too far, and losing any one of them was unacceptable to him.

  The first twenty miles were peaceful, but as the convoy continued northward, they finally discovered the traces of Khitan nomadic cavalry in the surrounding area. Zhang Long ordered the scouts to retreat one mile and then continue advancing. As the Khitan nomadic cavalry appeared more frequently and gathered in larger numbers, Zhang Long simply ordered the scouts to return to the middle of the convoy. At this point, sending out scouts again had little significance; it was clear that the Khitans had set their sights on the convoy, and everything now depended on whether they wanted to attack or not.

  Zhang Long ordered the convoy to speed up and advance, trying to get closer to Mount Baiyue before the Khitan army arrived. According to his agreement with Li Chengzhong, the closer the convoy was to Mount Baiyue, the greater the extent of Li Chengzhong's support would be.

  When the fleet advanced to the dusk, it could already see the faint outline of Mount Bai Lang. Zhang Long made an estimate and calculated that there were still seven or eight miles away from the mouth of Mount Bai Lang. Then he saw 400-500 Khitan cavalry blocking the way two miles ahead, so Zhang Long ordered the fleet to change formation.

  This was Zhang Long's first time commanding a battle, and for the majority of the soldiers from Pingzhou, it was their first time facing an enemy. Almost everyone was breathing slightly faster, with sweaty palms gripping their weapons, in a state of tension.

  Fortunately, they had rehearsed for many days before, and although everyone was very nervous, they still changed the formation of the chariot team according to the previous deployment. The civilians quickly pulled together the first and last ten chariots of each column horizontally, then tied every chariot's ring with a rope, so the chariot team became a square array twenty chariots wide and thirty chariots long. The civilians took out the black cloth they had prepared early, covered the horses' eyes to prevent them from being frightened and running wildly, and also took thick woolen blankets from the chariots to cover the horses' backs, in order to minimize the chances of the horses being shot by arrows.

  After preparations were complete, most of the civilians hid inside the chariot array, leaving only a few skilled drivers to wear leather helmets and armor, drive horses on the inner side of the large vehicles, and maintain the chariot array's advance.

  Sixty arquebusiers in helmets and armor formed two rows of musket arrays, advancing to the outside of the chariot array to protect the horses pulling the carts at the front. Twenty shield bearers were evenly inserted into the first row of musket arrays, holding up their shields to deflect enemy stray shots as much as possible for the arquebusiers. The remaining arquebusiers and shield bearers defended against the Khitan's threats on both sides and rear of the chariot array. The entire chariot array was deployed by the time it took to have a cup of tea, with muzzles pointing outward and spear tips like a forest.

  The attack on the Khitans was launched by 200 archers. They were hidden in the chariot array, each with three quivers of arrows on their backs, forming four waves of scattered shooting teams. In Li Chengzhong's design, he intended to allocate the frequency of the archers' shots according to the "three-stage strike" method, but during the actual rehearsal, he found that the archers of the Pingzhou army had a slower rate of fire, and using the "three-stage strike" method would result in large gaps and loopholes. He simply changed it to "four-stage strike", with 50 arrows fired in each strike, to ensure continuous arrow rain coverage. Because the range of infantry bows is farther than that of cavalry bows, when the Khitans charged to a distance where they could exchange fire with the Pingzhou army, they should have already experienced at least 200 arrows' worth of attack.

  The arrangement and combat method of this chariot array were thought out by Li Chengzhong after racking his brains, combining the memories from later generations with the experience gained from fighting against the Khitan people. To be realistic, the actual combat effectiveness of this chariot array was not great.

  Firstly, the cost of this chariot array is too expensive. Not only do the front-line gunners need a large amount of armor, but the proportion of archers in the chariot array is also very high, and the consumption of arrows is astonishing. The Pingzhou Governor's Office spent a lot of money to prepare for this military expedition, almost emptying the treasury. In the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the equipment of the Tang army should be considered the best in the world, not only did everyone wear armor, but also everyone carried bows, with an archer ratio of 100%. At that time, the Tang army was excellent at close combat and almost every soldier was an excellent archer, carrying bows and arrows on their backs. What's more frightening to the enemy is that in the early years of the Kaiyuan era, the proportion of crossbowmen in the Tang army reached as high as 30%! But now it's the late Tang Dynasty, in this era when productivity has been severely damaged, not only is armor lacking, but also the proportion of archers is too low, and crossbows are extremely rare, let alone the heavy cavalry equipped with halberds, iron axes, and other weapons. It's all because of national power!

  Secondly, from the perspective of tactical effectiveness, the chariot array is most suitable for transporting military supplies. In other words, this chariot array can at best be used to transport grain and is not suitable for a formal decisive battle. Because the movement of the chariot array is too slow and clumsy, the initiative on the battlefield will inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy army, when to attack, when to retreat, everything depends on the mood of the enemy.

  Finally, if it is a long-distance march, the chariot array will also expose its greatest weakness. Under the enemy cavalry's watchful eyes, the defenders in the chariot array must remain highly vigilant at all times. Once the journey is too long, everyone will be dragged down by tension and fatigue. The enemy only needs to follow the chariot array for three to five days before easily breaking through.

  However, although the cart formation has many weaknesses, it is just suitable for transporting military supplies to Mount Bai Lang at present.

  With Zhang Long's order, the deployed chariot array began to start, slowly and steadily moving towards the large Khitan cavalry formation in front of them.

  ;