The impact of the soldiers of the Xia army is obviously much greater than that of the Liao army, not only because of the advantage of numbers, but also because of the advantage of speed, although both sides can not charge on horseback, but the speed of the Xia army's sleigh chariot is several times faster than that of the other party, eat the essence and drink water, and the resting energetic war horse gallops under the drive of the long whip, and the snow powder on the ground is flying, like a layer of giant snow waves rising on the vast land.

When the two sides were fifty paces apart, they all started the first wave of bows and arrows, the rain of arrows as dense as flying locusts staggered at low altitude, the sound of arrows breaking through the air and trembling like a low muffled thunder rolled overhead, and the next moment, people neighed and horses screamed, a large number of soldiers and war horses were hit by arrows, and the fallen war horses and soldiers rolled forward on the snow, and the mines generally ploughed out deep ditches.

The Liao army suffered from the slow speed, the cavalry became infantry, and had to stop when shooting arrows, while the Xia army on the sled chariot was able to charge quickly while releasing arrows, and the momentum did not decrease at all; Of course, the speed of the Xia army also brought them greater casualties, and the damage caused by the collision of chariots and horses caused heavy losses to some of the overly dense charging teams.

In order to give full play to the advantage of numbers, Su Jin had already ordered before the charge, once the enemy was contacted, the sled chariots in the front row must go straight to the depth of the Liao army, to make room for the rear, this can be done, with the ability to charge with high mobility, the more than 10,000 chariots that rushed to the first did not stop at all, and the soldiers on the chariot drove the horses pulling the cart to the depth of the enemy while dealing with the blades beckoning from the left and right.

No Liao soldiers were willing to resist the rapidly advancing chariots at the head of the horse, they avoided a passage one after another, allowing one chariot after another to rush into the depth of the army, these sleigh chariots were like a sharp knife, breaking the big cake of the Liao army, plowing the roadway; The follow-up Xia army concocted the same method, and in just half an hour, the entire battlefield has become a pot of boiling water, bloody battles everywhere, and blood is shed everywhere.

The Liao army's individual combat ability is higher than that of the Xia army, and if it is a cavalry charge under normal circumstances, even if the Xia army has 50,000 more horses, it will be difficult to resist; But at this time, the Liao army stood in the ice and snow that did not reach the calf, while the Xia soldiers stood condescendingly on the sled cart, and they had already suffered a big loss in the combat terrain; What's even more disadvantaged is that the configuration on each chariot of the Xia army has greatly improved the ability of small-scale combat, three archers, two large shield soldiers, and two pikemen The configuration is not only guaranteed in the ability to strike at a long distance, but also after entering hand-to-hand combat, the three archers are also incarnated as sword and shield soldiers to ensure melee combat ability.

Lancers can stab from a distance, swords and shields can slash enemies who try to get close or climb into the car, and large shieldmen can hold shields in both hands to block enemy attacks.

The Xia army took advantage of the prestige of the first battle, relying on the advantage of numbers and taking advantage of cooperation, and quickly affected the situation of the battle; The soldiers of the Liao army gradually showed a trend of decline, and the war horses were scurrying around with the sleigh carts, which also greatly affected the follow-up pursuit of the Liao army.

Xiao Hui was so anxious that he immediately ordered: "Kill all the war horses drawn by the enemy army, and force them to stay where they are." ”

The soldiers of the Liao army immediately turned on the mad dog mode, and the guy in his hand turned from a man to a horse, and hundreds of thousands of war horses fell on the battlefield in an instant, of course, the price paid for doing so was also huge, and cutting horses without cutting people undoubtedly allowed the Xia soldiers to calmly kill the enemy, and tens of thousands of soldiers died in the horse cutting operation.

The soldiers of the Xia army, who lost their mobility, could only stay in place, relying on the condescending geographical advantage to fight with the Liao army, but they were confined to the carriage, and the efficiency of the enemy was greatly reduced. The Liao people mastered this characteristic, and the guerrilla of moving forward and retreating made the Xia army in the car miserable.

Su Jin watched all this from the rear of the battlefield, of course he had a way to reverse this gradually passive situation, but he still made up his mind and did not rush to order, leaving Zhang Yuan and others by his side anxiously asking him to think of a way quickly, but he was silent.

The casualties of the Xia army still increased, and the Liao army, which had found the trick, began to pull away, saw the opportunity to rush up and greet a person with weapons, taking advantage of the small space in the car and the disadvantage of being inconvenient to move to kill a person instantly, and then retreat before the enemy counterattacked, the tactics adapted to local conditions were very effective, the casualties of the Xia army began to increase, and the soldiers on thousands of sled chariots had been killed in this way, the corpses were on both sides of the carriage, and the snow water flowed down along the gaps in the carriage.

Under the elimination of the other, the casualties on both sides gradually approached, with more than 70,000 dead and wounded of the Liao army and more than 50,000 casualties of the Xia army.

Su Jin saw that the time was almost up, and the momentum of the Xia army was weakened after such a drain, and it was difficult to turn the tables, so he turned around and shouted: "The cannon sounded three times, and ordered the flank ambush to attack." ”

The guards around him got the order and hurriedly went to pass the order, Zhang Yuan was stunned and said: "Ambush? Where did we get the ambushes? ”

Su Jin smiled and said, "Do you still remember the order I ordered the army to wait for Tianming to pursue after the annihilation of the Liao State's broken army?" ”

Zhang Yuandao: "Didn't you say that the morning is easy to hurry, and there are traces of the enemy's escape, so you don't have to worry about escaping at all?" ”

Su Jin said: "Yes, but in the half hour of waiting for dawn, I sent General Mo Luo to lead 50,000 people to bypass from the southeast, and the enemy's large army was far away, and they were already behind the enemy's flank at this moment. ”

Zhang Yuandao: "Where did the 50,000 soldiers and horses come from?" ”

Su Jin shook his hand and said: "There are 20,000 guards in the capital, plus 30,000 defenders in Longzhou and Xiazhou, the Empress Dowager of your country promised me that she would send another 50,000 troops to my command, and it was delayed for seven or eight days, and it happened that they arrived in the afternoon before yesterday, so I sent General Mo Luo to take over, and to fight, even if there are many people, there needs to be a new force to suppress the formation, which just comes in handy at this time." ”

Zhang Yuan was silent, this kid still has such a hand, keeping 50,000 fresh troops to wander outside the army as a surprise soldier, and what's even more odious is that he doesn't even let out a fart, just hide it from others, and even keep himself in the dark.

On the plain, a huge explosion sounded dozens of miles away, and the three mushroom-shaped black smoke rising up were also particularly conspicuous against the blue sky; As soon as the cannon fell, I heard the screeching of the southeast direction in the left rear of the battlefield coming with the wind, which was the echo of arrows; On the horizon, the black and oppressive Xia soldiers swept across the snow like the wind, rushing straight towards the battlefield, and in tea time, seven or eight thousand chariots had already rushed into the battle.

The originally stalemate of the battle situation was immediately passionate by the addition of this fresh force, and the passion of the soldiers of the Xia Army was naturally the arrival of reinforcements and the multiplication of strength; The Liao army was like a blow to the head, one by one in a daze, they were already exhausted, soaked with blood and sweat, and their feet were still stepping on the bloody muddy ice water, and the rise of the war had forgotten these, but now they were like falling into an ice cellar, and the strong wind in the wilderness was blowing, and it was cold from head to toe.

With its fierce momentum, the Xia army quickly turned the tide of the battle, the Liao army no longer had the heart to fight, and the soldiers in a small number of places had begun to flee; Xiao Hui saw it in his eyes, sighed, knew that the general trend had gone, and did not dare to delay for too long, so he ordered his guards to drive a large group of war horses to the battlefield to run and trample, and at the same time, he quickly fled from the battlefield with more than 1,000 people and chased after the king of Liao Xingzong.

The news of the commander's escape became the last straw that crushed the fighting spirit, and the Liao soldiers began to flee in all directions, and the horses that were driven were already exhausted, and they could not play any role in the muddy and slippery snow, but blocked the retreat of the Liao soldiers who ran back, allowing the Xia army to easily chase and kill tens of thousands of heads.

Su Jin gave the order to pursue freely, but only these 50,000 fresh troops could be pursued, and they had sled chariots to help, while the others could only watch the Liao soldiers scatter and flee in a hurry because they lost the mobility of their horses.

Since they couldn't chase people, Su Jin asked them to catch horses in all directions, and Mo Luo's pursuit was extremely fierce, and he chased the Liao army until he reached Helan Pass, only to give up because of the steep terrain, and countless corpses fell along the way, killing people like hemp.

When it was dark, the battlefield was cleaned up, and the number of casualties and annihilation of the enemy was also counted, the Xia army suffered nearly 80,000 casualties in this battle, plus the battle last night, the casualties were as high as 110,000, which is a staggering number; The Liao people were even more miserable, sending 320,000 troops before and after, less than 50,000 escaped, and 260,000 were annihilated, which was an unprecedented huge casualty.

No one expected that the battle between Xia and Liao had a cumulative loss of nearly 400,000 troops, although Xia was the victorious side, but the price paid was not small, in addition to the loss of 110,000 soldiers and horses, the war horses also lost 200,000 heads, if it was not for the final capture of a lot of Liao horses, the entire Xia cavalry would exist in name only; For a long time, the Xia Kingdom actually began to lack war horses, which is a joke in the Xia Kingdom, which is rich in horses.

After this war, the Liao people basically lost the power of the first battle, although they were known as millions of iron cavalry, in fact, the main force of the Liao State was 300,000 palace tent troops plus 400,000 tribal soldiers, and the rest were Hu slave soldiers, that is, the army composed of miscellaneous township regiments and other people, which had little combat effectiveness; This battle consumed 100,000 palace tent troops of the Liao people, plus 170,000 tribal soldiers, and the 700,000 army was less than two-fifths. 、

(At the end of this volume, please see the next volume: Rib Life Wind and Thunder Stepping Song)