Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The battlefield seemed to be suddenly quiet.

Richard's infantry formation was there, and the Ming cavalry did not forcefully charge the formation, but lined up to guard various parts of the battlefield, searching for wounded soldiers and the bodies of the dead and bringing them back.

The grassland cavalry attached to the Ming Dynasty concentrated on picking up arrows in a safe area.

They repeatedly harassed the Xixia army formation in a loose formation, and the arrows they brought were almost all shot out.

These people had special small sticks with a hook tied to the end of the stick, so they could lie down and pick up arrows while riding horses.

In the Ming Dynasty, the tip of the bow also began to have a hook, so there was no need to bring a special tool for picking up arrows. The tip hook of a Kaiyuan bow was particularly obvious.

Richard's side was also assembling the team, especially the personal soldiers and iron kites who fled back to the formation.

The Xixia light cavalry that fled to the periphery of the battlefield also gathered towards the side and rear one after another, but did not dare to get too close to the Ming cavalry.

The auxiliary cavalry helped the heavy cavalry dismount, stood in place to restore the horse's physical strength, and even took the time to feed the horse water and salt.

The cavalry also dismounted, keeping an eye on the movements of the Xixia light cavalry.

Both sides were waiting.

The Ming army was waiting to recover their strength and collect more arrows. Then they would let the grassland light cavalry shoot arrows to disrupt the Xixia infantry formation, and once they got the chance, they would charge with the cavalry and heavy cavalry.

So what was Richard waiting for?

He was waiting for the 8,000 light cavalry sent to attack and break through the castle behind the Ming army. Blow up the siege artillery there and burn the food and grass piled up in the castle.

In this battle, Richard had already lost because of the disastrous defeat of the Xixia cavalry. But if he could destroy the artillery and food and grass of the Ming army, he could still withdraw to Wulahai City and defend it. If the attack failed, Richard would even give up Wulahai City and lead the cavalry to flee back to Keyimen.

The Ming army had a huge advantage, but Yang Yizhong was furious at the moment.

He blamed himself for not being brave enough. When he saw the Iron Harriers rushing over, his first reaction was to distance himself and run away. If the Iron Harriers dared to fight and Yang Jin and Yue Fei did not rush to rescue, the 1,500 cavalry under Yang Yizhong would be scrapped and would be trapped in the enemy's encirclement.

He also complained that the Iron Harriers were too useless, and they were just for show, and they didn't dare to chase and fight.

If he had known this, he would not have run away, and would have directly confronted the Iron Harriers. With Yang Jin, Yue Fei, and Li Shifu following up, if Yang Yizhong dared to rush to the Iron Harriers and swept over, the Xixia infantry formation would have been broken, and Brother Richard would have had no time to deploy troops.

But he didn't dare to rush at that time, resulting in 200 Ming cavalry being intercepted by the enemy when they fled, and only more than 30 cavalry escaped after a bloody battle.

Those were all his soldiers, each of them was brave and fearless, and Yang Yizhong blamed himself more and more.

Yang Jin had similar thoughts at this time. He was sent to support Yang Yi Zhong, but he saw that Tie Yao Zi did not dare to charge hard, so he subconsciously kept his distance and went around to join Yang Yi Zhong.

Yang Jin thought to himself, if he had dared to charge at that time, he would have made a great contribution now.

Damn it, the group of trash of Tie Yao Zi actually scared me!

…

After an unknown period of time, Han Shizhong called the chiefs of various tribes: "You take turns to pretend to charge and shoot arrows to disrupt the enemy's formation, and the matter of breaking the formation will be left to the Ming Iron Cavalry. If we win this battle, the captured Xixia weapons and armor will be distributed to various tribes according to the merits. Yue Duhu and I will not take any. Including the armor of Tie Yao Zi!"

As soon as these words came out, the spirits of the chiefs of various tribes were greatly boosted.

When the Ming cavalry charged forward, the various tribes on the grassland had been fighting, dragging Xixia infantry and tens of thousands of light cavalry. And because of this, they suffered heavy losses, especially when they were shot by the Xixia strong crossbowmen. Nearly a thousand people have been killed so far, and many wounded soldiers are in urgent need of medical treatment.

With a casualty rate of more than 10%, the cavalry of each unit did not even want to fight. Of course, they did not dare to withdraw directly, but planned to perform paddling skills in the next battle to preserve their own strength.

However, they want to fight again now.

Because all the captured weapons and armor, including the Iron Harrier Armor, were distributed to them.

Under Han Shizhong's arrangement, the cavalry of each unit of the grassland, in teams of 100 people, formed a sparse formation and rushed forward in waves. When they were close to more than ten steps, they shot an arrow and immediately swept away.

Specially shoot those Xixia infantrymen with insufficient armor!

The Ming Dynasty's Xiaoqi and heavy cavalry all mounted their horses to protect the cavalry of each unit of the grassland. As long as the Xixia cavalry dared to obstruct, the Ming Dynasty's iron cavalry would immediately rush forward.

Round after round of arrow rain flew out, and the Xixia infantry formation became visibly chaotic.

No matter how strong the Xixia strong crossbowmen were, there were only 3,000 of them after all. The chieftains of the various tribes on the grassland all carefully avoided them, not wanting to be attacked by the strong crossbowmen.

Of course, Xixia also had other archers, and the horse archers were at a disadvantage when they met the foot archers, and the grassland tribes suffered even greater losses from the shooting.

It depends on who can't stand it first!

Yue Fei led his troops to stand on the outer side of the right wing of the Xixia army. He saw it more clearly than Han Shizhong, and suddenly sent a flag signal to Han Shizhong.

Han Shizhong immediately responded with a flag, allowing Yue Fei to decide the timing of the battle on his own, and let Yue Fei unify the command of the right wing troops.

Yue Fei immediately summoned all the generals nearby, including the generals under Han Shizhong.

After a series of instructions, the cavalry led by Yang Jin was divided into four teams to attack first. They charged alternately with the grassland cavalry, ignoring the rest of the enemy troops, and only caught one of the troops with a lower armor rate and repeatedly pretended to charge and shoot.

Yang Yizhong and Wang Gui led their troops to move to the west to prevent the Xixia light cavalry from rushing over to cause trouble.

Li Shifu's heavy cavalry advanced dozens of steps and waited, looking for an opportunity to charge directly.

Xu Qing led his troops in the area between the various troops. He was responsible for providing support when they encountered danger and charging into the battle line when there was an opportunity to expand the results of the battle.

The Xixia infantry that was attacked by the Ming army was the Qinsheng Army brought by Richard from the Chaoshun Army.

Normally, when the Qinsheng Army was first drafted into the army, each person would be issued a horse and a camel. Their ancestors also had armor issued by the Xixia court, most of which were leather armor, and a few were iron armor. They maintained it from generation to generation, and checked their armor every once in a while to see if it was intact.

If their war horses died, they had to find a way to replace them.

If their armor was broken, they would be fined by the inspectors and the court would allocate and replenish them, which was considered to be using the fines to buy armor.

These rules were very strict decades ago, but now they are not taken seriously.

Especially in the counties and prefectures around Xingqing Prefecture, many tribes have switched to farming. There are more and more Qinsheng Army, unwilling to pay for their own military horses, and the court can only acquiesce to the status quo, and even no longer issue military horses to new recruits, and gradually become infantry.

They are too lazy to check the armor, and even if they check, they are perfunctory.

The leather armor of the capture army in front of them was as tattered as a beggar's, and it was all heirlooms passed down for two or three generations.

The defeat of the Xixia cavalry had already made them feel terrified, and now they were being concentrated by the cavalry, and they were hit by a rain of arrows one after another.

They were also fighting back with bows and arrows, but the bows and arrows were poorly maintained and shot out lightly without much power.

Brother Richard also felt something was wrong and quickly transferred the elite infantry over.

At this moment, Yue Fei shouted: "Blow the horn!"

With the dull sound of the horn, Li Shifu's 300 heavy cavalry set out. They followed behind a group of brave cavalry, and when the brave cavalry shot arrows and swept through the formation, the heavy cavalry suddenly rushed towards the capture army that was about to collapse.

"Run for your life!"

The front-row spearmen of this beggar-like capture army threw away their weapons, pushed each other and turned to flee.

The Xixia infantry commanders on both sides seemed to want to come to remedy the situation. Li Shifu's heavy cavalry had already rushed into the gap and chased the fleeing soldiers to the rear troops.

Xu Qing, who was in charge of the coordination, followed closely with his troops without waiting for Yue Fei's order, and rushed into the gap to attack the troops next to the fleeing soldiers.

Richard commanded the Xixia light cavalry to go out while dispatching the right-wing infantry to fill the gap.

He still wanted to fight at this time, maybe he could use the infantry to block it.

But he overestimated his troops. Xixia was no longer the Xixia it used to be.

Fear spread like a plague. As Li Shifu and Xu Qing charged, three consecutive Xixia infantry collapsed. Yang Jin also launched a charge to further expand the results of the battle.

The light cavalry sent by Richard were first intercepted by Yang Yizhong and Wang Gui, and then encountered Yue Fei personally leading his team to attack.

"Beat the drums, blow the horns, and attack with all the troops!"

Han Shizhong also seized the opportunity and ordered all the troops to charge together, and even he himself led his personal soldiers to charge out.

The Xixia infantry formation, shouts and killings came from three sides.

The left wing and the front army didn't understand what was going on at first, until they heard the earth-shaking cries of the friendly troops on the right wing, and then they realized that they might have been defeated. They threw down their weapons and fled frantically, completely losing their minds, and no longer considered that they would be slaughtered at will if they lost their formation.

Tens of thousands of Xixia soldiers were defeated in an instant!

Those with war horses fled quickly, especially those Xixia light cavalry, who were hiding in the side and rear, and at this time they charged in the opposite direction at the front.

Brother Richard also acted quickly. Before Han Shizhong's war drum sounded, he had already fled with his personal soldiers and the remaining iron harriers.

In addition, they did not flee in the direction of Wulahai City, but fled to Keyi Gate, the station of Chaoshun Army Division, which was the northern barrier of the Xixia capital.

Defending Keyi Gate, Xixia could continue to fight.

If Richard led his troops to flee to Wulahai City, once the city was broken, Han Shizhong might go directly to the Xixia emperor to drink!

Yue Yun followed Li Shifu and fought hard. He was extremely excited now.

In the previous battle, he killed three iron harriers with his own hands, and now he was rushing through the enemy camp again. This was enough to make a young man who had just entered the battlefield excited to the point of losing his mind. Now he only had the enemy in front of him.

There were too many fleeing soldiers, and they fled randomly to block the way of the Ming army.

Han Shizhong shouted: "Order the generals of the Ming Dynasty to ignore the Xixia infantry and chase those Xixia cavalry. Then order the grassland tribes not to kill prisoners indiscriminately, and capturing enemy troops is also a credit!"

The Ming Iron Cavalry on the right wing of Yue Fei's side was chasing the Xixia cavalry that had just rushed over.

On the left wing, Li Yu and Liu Zhengyan bypassed the fleeing infantry and chased the nearby Xixia light cavalry.

All the Xixia infantry were handed over to the grassland tribes. Those guys seemed extremely excited. They divided their teams to intercept and kill the fleeing soldiers, forcing the Xixia infantry to surrender in large numbers.

The Ming cavalry chased for more than 70 miles and did not return until midnight. Some even got lost at night.

Richard fled from dusk to dawn. Some of the more than 20,000 Xixia light cavalry followed him to flee south, some fled to Wulahai City, some fled to the farther Zhenyan Army Division, and many locals surrendered directly to the Ming army.

After Richard fled back to Keyimen, it took a few more days to gradually gather the cavalry who fled back.

Only 12,000 cavalry were left.

Another 8,000 went around to attack the castle and the situation was unknown. Another 4,000 or 5,000 cavalry fled to Zhenyan Army Division. Another 3,000 or 4,000 cavalry fled into Wulahai City, and there were several thousand infantrymen left in the city.

The rest of the Xixia soldiers were either killed or captured. More than 50,000 were either killed or captured by the Ming army.

Brother Richard seemed a little dazed. Xixia had suffered such a big defeat before. But this time was obviously different. The Ming Dynasty was too powerful and was heading straight for the destruction of Xixia.

This year's war is just the beginning, and the real general offensive will be launched next year.

The Ming army in Shaanxi may kill hundreds of thousands of people!

The Iron Harriers have been crippled, with only more than 400 people escaping, and the Strong Crossbowmen were completely wiped out. Will we use the Infantry and the Capture Army to deal with the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Ming country next year?

Brother Richard began to reflect that he should not have gone to rescue Wulahai City, but should have let the Wei Fu Army withdraw to the south, fortify the walls and clear the fields to lure the Ming army to go deep... No, no, this is the routine used to deal with the Song army in the Hengshan area, and it is useless to deal with the Ming army outside the Hetao area.

Brother Richard found that no matter how he commanded, he could not defeat Han Shizhong.

The army under his command was too weak.

The Iron Harriers were actually defeated by a group of cavalrymen!

How can they fight?

The infantry was even worse. Because the time for dispatching troops was too tight, he could not mobilize the Infantry from a long distance to fight, and could only use the garbage Capture Army recruited nearby.

The Qinsheng Army, which had not gone out to plunder for more than ten years, had extremely poor equipment and extremely poor morale.

The news was sent back to Xingqing Prefecture, and the court and the people of Xixia were shocked.

The fifteen-year-old Li Renxiao was extremely panicked. The Prime Minister Li Renzhong said: "Your Majesty, don't panic. When the King of Jin led the reinforcements to the north, we had already sent envoys to contact the Liao Kingdom (Yelü Dashi). The Liao Kingdom is becoming stronger and stronger in the Western Regions, and they will come to rescue with a large army."

Li Renxiao asked: "What if the Liao Kingdom does not send troops?"

Li Renzhong said: "They will. I have asked the envoy to promise that as long as the Liao Kingdom sends troops to help, I will teach them how to make firearms. Your Majesty can also send another envoy to Luoyang to see if it can be..."

"Can it be done?" Li Renxiao asked.

Li Renzhong said: "Can we cede territory in exchange for a truce with the Ming Dynasty."