After seeing the camp of the Jiaozhi and Gao coalition armies, Yang Yan returned to the camp of the Song army. As soon as he returned to the camp, Yang Yan immediately gathered all the generals to discuss the strategy of marching together.

Liu Renxian said: "Lord Yang, according to the report of the spies, Gao Jianming is now mobilizing people everywhere to prepare for a decisive battle with our army, and I heard that he sent people back to Dali City to transfer the elephant army. ”

Yang Yan frowned slightly, and said: "The weapons to deal with the elephant army are escorted by the rear army of the infantry army, and they have not yet arrived in Dali, if they fight a decisive battle with the elephant army now, I am afraid that the loss will be too great." He looked at the map again and said, "It is about three or four days' journey from Dali City to here, which means that if we can't defeat the enemy army within three days, we should retreat to the Aning Department and garrison, and don't fight hard with the elephant army."

Liu Ren said first: "Lord Yang, the elephant army will not come here so soon, you don't know much about the target army, although the speed of the elephant's action is not slow, but the amount of food is amazing, the food of an elephant is as low as ten war horses, so once the elephant army wants to be dispatched, it must first mobilize enough food, so the elephant army will arrive here, at least six or seven days." ”

Yang Yan nodded and said, "That means we should have six days." So what do you think is a good way to defeat the enemy army. ”

Liu Fuwu said: "The enemy camped on his back, which seems to be a taboo for soldiers, but it is precisely because the enemy is behind a big river that our army cannot go around from both sides to their back to attack, and can only attack from the front." ”

Yin Shibiao said: "What are you afraid of, just attack from the front!" Don't we have armoured cavalry? Just use the armored cavalry to attack head-on, I don't believe that those turtle grandsons can stop us. ”

Yang Yan shook his head and said: "The enemy's camp is very strong, we only have two thousand armored cavalry, if the frontal attack is too great, and once the enemy is defeated, we can also retreat from the pontoon bridge to the west bank to garrison, with the cover of the arrow tower, it is difficult for us to take advantage of anything." ”

Yin Shibiao was a little deflated and said, "Then what should I do?" Are we just going to go back to the Anin Ministry? ”

Liu Fuwu said: "My lord, can you build some rafts to cross the river?" ”

Yang Yan said: "First, there is not enough time, only five or six days, so you have to build a raft in a hurry, and second, it is easy to be seen by the enemy army when you cross the river with a raft, so prepare early." \\" turned his head and asked Liu Renxian: "By the way, General Liu, is there a place near here where you can wade through the water and cross the river?" ”

Liu Renxian said: "There is no within a radius of 100 miles, only around the southwest near the horse cage, the Lishe River is divided into more than ten trickles, you can wade and pace the river, but it is 1780 miles away, and it is not possible to go back and forth for six or seven days." Moreover, the horse cage is Gao Jianming's place, and it is also easy to be seen. ”

Yang Yan smiled slightly and said: "That's okay, we can use the cavalry army to attack, one hundred and seventy or eighty miles can be completed in two days at most, and we are all cavalry, even if the enemy is present, it will be too late to inform Gao Jianming."

Liu Renxian's whole body was shocked, and he said, "My lord is right. Why didn't I think of using cavalry? ”

In fact, it was not that Liu Renxian did not think of it, because the countries in the southwest did not produce many horses, and the cavalry army was few, and there were few large-scale use of cavalry in combat, let alone the concept of using cavalry to cover the super, so the combat ideas were all based on the infantry army. On the contrary, the use of cavalry to make a large-scale detour is Yang Yan's forte, which happened to surprise Liu Renxian and Gao Jianming.

Yang Yan said: "Liu Fuwu." ”

Liu Fuwu immediately came out of the queue and said, "The last general will be." ”

Yang Yan said: "You immediately take all the men and horses of the Xuan Feng Army, leaving only a thousand armored cavalry, cross the Lishe River from the horse cage department, outflank in a roundabout way, and arrive near the enemy's camp on the west bank, immediately give a signal to the camp, we will immediately send troops to attack the enemy's camp on the east bank, and then you immediately lead the men and horses to attack the enemy's camp on the west bank, and set fire to their grain, grass and baggage." ”

Liu Fuwu said: "The last general will respect the order." ”

Yang Yan said again: "After you capture the enemy's western camp, if there is a defeated army in the eastern camp that escapes across the river, you don't intercept it head-on, that will only force the enemy to fight to the death, but wait for them to flee, and then cover up and kill, you know if there is any."

Liu Fuwu nodded and said, "The last general understands." ”

Yang Yan said to Liu Renxian again: "General Liu, please arrange a guide and guide them." ”

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In the middle of the night, the lights in the camp of the Jiaozhi and Gao coalition were dim, and the soldiers had eaten dinner and went back to the camp to rest. And Gao Jianming, Gao Jianxun, and Chief Ruan were drinking together in the camp to discuss things.

When a few people were drinking and drinking, Chief Ruan said closely: "In the past few days, the Song army has come to our camp every day to challenge, it seems that the Song army is in a hurry to fight us?" ”

Gao Jianming said: "Let them be anxious, we don't have to worry, no matter what, we have to wait for the elephant army to arrive, and then fight the Song army, Jianxun, when will they come out?" ”

Gao Jianxun said: "According to the letter from Ji Neng, they have come out today, and they can arrive here in three days, and then we don't have to be afraid of the Song army anymore." ”

Chief Ruan said closely: "I really hope they can arrive earlier, to be honest, I have been hiding in the camp for the past few days and not fighting, listening to the Song army shouting and scolding outside, I am really a little unwilling, I really can't wait to go out and fight with them." ”

Gao Jianming laughed and said, "General Ruan, why do you bother? The big husband must be able to bend and stretch, and the little one can't bear to mess with the big plan, why bother with Song Jun scolding Song Jun? Didn't Han Xin endure the humiliation of stepping down back then? And we are not really afraid of the Song army, we just don't fight uncertain battles, otherwise even if we win, we will also lose troops and dismantle generals, wouldn't it be worth the loss? As soon as the elephant army arrives, we will immediately go into battle, but then we will have to rely more on General Nguyen's bravery? ”

Chief Ruan also smiled and said: "There, there, it's all Gao Houye's strategizing to ......"

Before he finished speaking, a soldier rushed into the camp tent and said, "Report to Lord Hou, two generals, the Song army attacked our army's camp at night."

When Gao Jianming heard this, he was also taken aback, it was difficult to get through because he was invulnerable during the day, so Song Jun chose to sneak attack him at night? It's quite possible. Hurriedly said: "The Song army is attacking by night, let's go out and have a look." ”

The three of them walked out of the camp tent and came to the front camp, only to see a rocket across the night sky and flew into the camp of the coalition army. There were even a few arrows that flew past a few people, startling them into a cold sweat. Gao Jianxun hurriedly called someone to bring a few shields, each with a blocking arrow, and asked a few soldiers to hold shields to protect around a few people, so he felt much safer.

The camp walls of the Jiaozhi and Gao's coalition armies are all built with wooden piles with the thickness of the bowl, more than one zhang high, and there is a wooden platform five feet high from the ground on the inside of the camp, and there is a battlement every two feet, and the soldiers in the camp can stand on the wooden platform to defend.

Gao Jianming held a shield in one hand, and under the protection of several soldiers, he came to the camp wall, stepped on the wooden platform, and looked out from the battlement. I saw that the Song army had already lined up horizontally a hundred steps away from the camp of the coalition army, and the front row was densely arranged by a row of tower shields, blocking the Song army behind it tightly. And the archers of the Song army were also divided into dozens of platoons, constantly firing rockets into the large battalions of the coalition army.

The arrows cut through the ink-stained night sky, and the eye-catching lines of fire, like flying fire meteors, continued to fall into the big village of the coalition army, colorful and splendid, just like a fireflower. Some arrows fell on the tents, and the flags burned, but fortunately there were no flammable items such as grain, grass, and baggage in the front camp, and although there were many fires, they were not large. Although it can't cause a fire for the time being, it's hard to say after a long time.

However, Gao Jianxun and Chief Ruan are also experienced in the battlefield, and after a short panic, Gao Jianxun immediately ordered the soldiers in the battalion to take out all their shields, one for each person, to block the arrows, and cover the soldiers without shields, carry water and shovel soil, and extinguish the flames. The chaos in the camp suddenly changed dramatically. Chief Ruan recently brought in 500 archers to climb the wooden platform and fire arrows at the Song army from the battlements of the wooden wall. Seeing that the front row of the Song army was covered by a tower shield, five hundred archers were transferred under the wooden platform to shoot arrows diagonally at the sky.

At this time, the Song army in the back row all held their shields diagonally upwards to block the arrows falling from the air, although the bows and arrows of the Jiaozhi and Gao coalition armies were not useless, but they hardly posed much danger to the Song army. Under the cover of the shield, the Song army slowly advanced while continuing to shoot rockets into the camp of the coalition forces.

However, now that the Jiaozhi and Gao coalition forces are also ready to take precautions, the Song army's bows and arrows do not cause much damage to the coalition army, and the fire can gradually be controlled, which reassures Gao Jianming a lot, but the Song army is still advancing slowly, although the speed of the Song army's advance is not fast, but it does not take too long to complete the distance of more than 100 steps. During the period of the coalition army's own adjustment, the Song army advanced more than thirty steps, and the tower shield in the front row was less than seventy steps away from the camp wall.