Tibet

Yu Changyang received the news that the army of Beyegu Xiaohan had retreated. Yu Changyang immediately turned around and attacked the 30,000-room Wei army eighty miles away.

At the second watch, Yu Changyang led 10,000 cavalry and approached the Shiwei army camp. It was still ten miles away from the Shiwei army camp. The Tang army stopped advancing. If it continued to move forward, it would be discovered by enemy sentries.

At this time, a Tang Army scout sent a map of the Wei Army's garrison in the room.

Yu Changyang is not a new general. He is one of the first 300 Pei family soldiers to follow Li Ye. He has followed Li Ye for nearly twenty years in the north and south. He is now the commander of the general capital, the champion general, and the Duke of Lu. , this time as Ma Lin's deputy general, he went to Shiwei.

Yu Changyang failed to become a general on his own because his cultural foundation was weak. When he first met Li Ye, he only knew a few characters.

But his qualifications and merits were sufficient, and he was extremely loyal to Li Ye, so he could be granted the title of Duke.

Yu Changyang unfolded the sketch and took a closer look. He found that the 30,000-room Wei army was stationed near the river. There were camp fences, trenches, and detection posts distributed about five miles away. However, there were not many detection posts to the east, and they were basically concentrated along the river. , the river is fifty feet wide, the water is very deep, and the current is fast. It is impossible for the Tang army to wade from the east to attack the Shiwei army.

Moreover, the width of fifty feet could not reach the river with bows and arrows, but Shi Weijun did not know that the Tang army also had heavy crossbows and artillery.

With the Tang army's current heavy firearms, defeating Shi Wei's army is no longer a problem. The key is to annihilate all the enemy troops and not allow them to escape. This is the principle of the Tang army in dealing with the Donghu people. The Tang army will not massacre women and children, but it will definitely kill all the enemy troops on the battlefield.

Yu Changyang stood still and waited patiently for news. At the same time, he sent people to build a pontoon bridge on the river.

At the fourth watch, news about Zhang Dian finally came. They were forty miles north of Shi Wei's army.

Zhang Dian also sent 10,000 troops to deploy eastward to prevent the enemy from escaping eastward.

General Shi Wei's troops from the south and north were surrounded. Yu Changyang ordered General Liu Wei to lead two thousand heavy crossbowmen and twenty artillery to the other side of the river.

The Tang army did not alert the sentries on the other side of the river, but first attacked the enemy with artillery.

Artillery has not played a big role before. One of the main reasons is that the synergy between the propellant match rope and the shell match rope is too poor. The artillery crew is afraid of exploding the barrel, so they leave the shell match rope very long, causing the shell to drag a long match rope when fired. After going out, the match went out after the cannonball hit the ground, and the same happened during the siege. When it hit the city wall, the cannonball entered the wall, but the match was broken, resulting in ten cannonballs, half of which were dumb guns.

The Firearms Department immediately made improvements based on the feedback. They designed a paper tube to tightly wrap the propellant and the shells, and twisted the two match ropes into a match rope. After lighting the match rope, the cannon fired first and pushed out the shells. At this time, The matchlock of the cannonball had burned into the body of the cannonball, and the cannonball exploded when or before it hit the ground.

But there is another problem with this. Because it is ignited at the muzzle, the diameter of the cannonball will be smaller than the barrel, and the edges will not fit tightly, leaking a lot of expansion gas, resulting in a short range of the cannonball.

Of course, ancient artillery has always had this problem. If the fit is too tight, the shell may get stuck in the barrel, causing the chamber to explode.

Until now, Third Brother's cannons have repeatedly exploded, let alone ancient times.

Therefore, it is enough for artillery to have a range of seven to eight hundred steps. It can replace large trebuchets and avoid transportation difficulties, which is very convenient.

Twenty artillery pieces were placed on a hillside, aiming at the enemy camp 600 steps away.

Two thousand heavy crossbowmen were ambushed about a hundred steps away from the river, while dozens of enemy sentries were distributed along the river. They prepared more than twenty haystacks and set fire to them as soon as they discovered the enemy.

Of course, the Tang Army could kill all these sentries, but the risk is relatively high. Once discovered, the entire plan will fail.

There is no need to alert the sentries. Use artillery to bombard the opponent's camp first, and then the heavy crossbow troops charge forward.

"emission!"

Liu Wei gave an order, and the soldiers lit the match ropes on the muzzles at the same time. At this time, the enemy sentries on the shore also discovered the bright torches of the Tang army. Something happened! They set fire to the haystacks.

At the same time, two thousand heavy crossbow soldiers jumped up and rushed towards the shore. Almost everything happened almost at the same time.

The artillery exploded loudly, pushing the shells out. The match rope on the shells had burned into the body in the air. Twenty shells fell into the camp and exploded instantly. Flames shot out and black smoke rose into the sky. Hundreds of soldiers were killed. Blast injury.

The whole camp was alarmed. The Shiwei soldiers got up one after another. Two thousand crossbowmen quickly rushed to the river and raised their crossbows together to shoot at the camp. In an instant, a thousand arrows and thunder exploded in the camp, and the tiny venom was quenched. Iron pellets flew in all directions, and countless Shiwei soldiers were concentrated by poisonous pellets.

This is why the artillery is fired first. The Shiwei soldiers need to be alerted to stand up and run before the explosion of arrows and thunder can kill a large number of enemy soldiers. If the enemy soldiers are all lying down, the small poison-quenching iron pellets will have no effect.

At the moment when the artillery exploded, eight thousand Tang Army cavalry also rushed towards the enemy camp five miles away.

At this time, the second and third rounds of artillery and arrows exploded in the enemy's camp, causing the Shiwei soldiers to cry for their fathers and mothers, wailing all over the place. What's even more terrible is that the Shiwei army did not set up a sheep and horse camp, but The war horses were tied directly to the big tent. As a result, the violent explosions in the camp frightened the war horses. In extreme panic, the war horses broke free and ran wildly in the camp, knocking down countless soldiers.

More than 10,000 horses without cavalry rushed out of the camp and fled in all directions, causing countless Shiwei soldiers to become infantry, or two people riding one horse to flee.

At this time, the attack with arrows, thunder and artillery stopped. Eight thousand cavalry of the Tang Army came to cover up the attack and rushed into the camp. The Shiwei army was defeated. In the dark night, countless Shiwei soldiers and cavalry ran north in panic. Many soldiers and cavalry The war horses fell down while running. They had all been hit by poisonous projectiles before and were only injured, but now the poison has taken effect.

The Tang army killed Shiwei soldiers mercilessly. Almost all the horseless infantry were killed. More than 7,000 Shiwei cavalry escaped for more than 20 miles. Intercepting Tang cavalry appeared in front. To the west was the surging river, and many soldiers He fled eastward again, but was intercepted by 10,000 Tang army cavalry in the east.

One side was surrounded by a fast and wide river, and the other three sides were filled with Tang Army cavalry. The last few thousand Wei cavalrymen were surrounded and had no way to escape. They wailed and fought desperately with the Tang Army, but what greeted them was a salvo of thousands of arrows from the Tang Army's cavalry. Inside Mixed with countless individual arrows and thunder, explosions occurred one after another, and the smoke filled the air.

After three rounds of archery and explosions, when the smoke cleared, the battlefield became completely quiet.

But the war was not over. Yu Changyang led another 10,000 cavalrymen to turn south and kill the little Khan King in the ancient tribe of Beye.

The Tang army sent troops to help the Great Khan Dada to destroy the young Khan Shaji. According to the agreement between the two parties, the Tang army would receive half of the cattle, sheep and other property, while the other half of the cattle, sheep, property, population and land belonged to the Great Khan.

On the grassland, horns were wailing and drums were beating. Two 60,000-strong armies were fighting on the grassland. Both of the two ancient tribes had invested all their troops, trying to completely defeat each other in this battle.

At this moment, a ten-thousand-strong Tang Army cavalry force came from the east and rushed directly behind the central army where the young Khan Shaji was. The Tang Army cavalry fired individual arrows and thunderbolts while running. There were explosions all of a sudden, and the people were all over the place. The ancients had never seen such a terrifying weapon. Everyone was frightened and panicked, and the little Khan's army was in chaos.

When Shaji saw the explosions one after another, he was so frightened that he urged his horse to run westward. Seeing his lord fleeing, the fighting army also abandoned the battle and ran away. Dada shouted excitedly, "Our reinforcements are here, chase me." kill!"

The morale of Dada's army was greatly boosted, and they pursued and killed him bravely. The army of the young Khan was defeated.