Xiao Heda had fought a war, and before he was sent by Xiao Baoxian to serve as a patriarch in Jiehe Shang City, he was an official in the Northwest Recruitment Department of the Liao State, and he had been dealing with the Bukelie Department for several years, and he knew too well how to fight a war on horseback.

In his opinion, the border between the Northern Song Dynasty and Western Xia was long and the terrain was complex, especially in the Hengshan Mountains and the Wuding River Valley. Although the Song army always had the upper hand in the battle for forts, the occupation and construction of a large number of forts also increased the burden of defense. For the cavalry of Western Xia, there were countless targets for invasion and attack.

Unless the Song army can seize the entire Wuding River valley and squeeze the power of Western Xia out of the southeast of Hanhai. Otherwise, the Western Xia cavalry could launch a fierce and short assault to break the fortress on the edge of the Song army. Even went a little deeper, to loot the valley where the people of the Song Dynasty reclaimed their lives.

After all, the Song army on the Eastern Front was dominated by infantry, and even a little cavalry was scattered among the generals or generals, and it was impossible to assemble in a hurry. By the time they gathered to counterattack, the Western Xia cavalry had already returned with a full load.

If there were a few more such lootings, the morale of the Song army would drop sharply, and their forces would be forced to disperse. By next spring, the forces they can concentrate on the offensive may be greatly reduced.

Thinking of this, Brother Cha nodded heavily, and then said to Qianshun: "Your Majesty, my brother thinks that General Xiao's method is feasible. He thought for a moment and said, "But it's not time yet, Qin Wangchuan City, Xiazhou City and Youzhou City have not yet been built, and it will be inappropriate to attract Song soldiers to attack." ”

"When is the best time to send troops?"

"But after the twenty-third day of the lunar month sends the god of the stove." Cha Ge said, "The officials of the Song people will lock the seal and take leave after the 23rd and 24th days of the lunar month. Although it is wartime now, the Hengshan-Wuding River line is still relatively calm, and it is estimated that the Song army on the east road will still relax. ”

……

On the north bank of the Yan River, Wangjiaping.

Dozens of horsemen in leather armor flew past as if they were heading straight for the straw men a few hundred paces away. The knights on the horses deliberately controlled the speed of their horses, so that the dozens of horsemen barely maintained a wide horizontal formation with a front, like a fast-moving long wall, slammed into a group of strawmen, and immediately stabbed most of the life-size strawmen with wheat stalks and stabbed them with wooden poles.

"Hurry up, withdraw and don't stop!"

Murong Parrot's loud voice like thunder immediately sounded, urging the cavalrymen who had just completed an assault to retreat. But the cavalrymen didn't seem to hear his roar, but stopped their horses one after another, as if they wanted to check the "results" of the charge, and a few cavalrymen even used their wooden poles to knock down the straw men who were still standing there.

"Straight mothers and thieves, do you have long ears for such thieves and soldiers!" Murong Parrot didn't seem to be in a good mood, and when he saw the performance of such a cavalry, he immediately jumped like thunder, rode his horse and galloped over, raised the whip in his hand and whipped it indiscriminately.

"Run for grandpa! What are you doing standing stupidly? Waiting for the spear staff of the thief? If it is a battlefield here, you thieves and troops will all see the king of Hades......"

With Murong Parrot's scolding and whipping, a group of utility cavalrymen who were having a good time had no choice but to drive their horses and gallop towards their starting position.

The one who is training to charge into battle is the utility cavalry of the Imperial Horse in front of the palace, that is, the cavalry hired by Wu Haogu through various channels to supplement the shortage of knights. However, it does not include 200 fake knights and 50 raw Jurchen knights. They had already mastered the ability to charge in turns, and they didn't need Murong Parrot to train at all. These days are being led by local guides to familiarize themselves with the terrain of northern Shaanxi.

By the way, Wu Haogu, who had the right to "act cheaply", arrived in Yan'an and immediately carried out reorganization and personnel adjustments after taking over all the soldiers and horses of the three direct emperors from Gao Yu.

First of all, Wu Haogu transferred 200 knights who had been trained by the Military Academy Division and could act as the commander of the infantry army and the head of the capital, and used them to lead 10,000 government soldiers to form 20 "infantry commanders".

Then, Wu Haogu adjusted the Dragon Warrior Straight, and organized more than 3,000 warriors into 10 "warrior commanders", and each warrior commander was 500 people when he was full, and now there is a quota of 200 people, waiting for the arrival of the warriors selected by the second imperial martial arts to make up for it.

After that, Wu Haogu was organized into a "box" according to the standard of 2 infantry commands, 1 warrior commander and 1 auxiliary commander, that is, a temporary unit was added between "straight" and "command".

20 infantry commanders, 10 warrior commanders and 10 auxiliary commanders, also composed of government soldiers, a total of 10 compartments were organized. Respectively assigned to the dragon warrior straight and the dragon inner guard straight, the two straight respectively commanded 5 compartments, and the number of people in each straight exceeded 10,000 people in the case of full formation.

In order to facilitate the management of the troops by the two Zhidu Yu Marquis, as well as his own three Zhidu Yu Marquis, Wu Haogu transferred 150 knights who had entered the Military Academy Division from the Imperial Horse Zhizhong in front of the palace, plus some doctors who graduated from the Jiehe Yuntai School Palace, to form three "staff groups".

And after the transfer of 350 knights, the palace in front of the palace Yu Ma Zhi got a batch of supplementary utility cavalry, including 50 "Gundam" of Wanyan Xianye, 200 fake sons brought by Murong Parrot, and less than 200 ordinary utility - that is, those who are now being trained by Murong Parrot.

The three straight chief officers were also adjusted by the meaning of Wu Haogu. Zhao Zhongge, who was originally appointed as the direct commander of the Imperial Dragon Internal Guard, was adjusted to the position of the palace under the command of the military machine. Yang Keshi was appointed as the Marquis of Yu, the Imperial Dragon Guard, and Wang Yu was still the Marquis of Yudu, the Imperial Dragon Warrior. The former Imperial Horse Direct Commander was served by Murong Parrot, who only had the official status of the Nine Ranks.

In the end, the three direct capital Yu Housi also had a lot of direct commands. It includes the command of the first engineer, the command of the second engineer, the command of the pro-soldiers, the command of the baggage, and the command of the military machine. Among them, the military commander is Wu Haogu's staff group, and in addition to dozens of "knight staff officers", there are also horsemen, drummers, trumpeters, standard-bearers, clerks, and so on.

After some adjustments, the army, which numbered more than 30,000 people, immediately became orderly and easy to mobilize.

Not to mention, this way of using the knightly officers trained in military schools to standardize the management of the troops is actually enough for a military revolution!

For a large country like the Great Song Dynasty, where industry and commerce began to develop greatly and the manor system had long ceased to exist, as long as it could train one or two hundred knight officers every year and recruit hundreds of thousands of compulsory soldiers, it would be enough to maintain a large army with quite acceptable combat effectiveness.

And Wu Haogu, a "semi-layman", was also happy to be the shopkeeper, and handed over the training and management of the troops to Zhao Zhongge, the commander of the military machine. He himself took Olga and Bai Feifei and walked around Yan'an.

Today, Wu Haogu took two female companions to visit the Pagoda Mountain and climbed the Yan'an Pagoda, which was built in the Tang Dynasty and rebuilt in the Song and Qing dynasties. After enjoying the mountains and rivers of Yan'an, I went to watch the cliff carvings of Fan Shumo, and only returned to Wangjiaping on the north bank of the river at dusk, and I was bumping into Murong Parrot loudly reprimanding a group of undisciplined utility cavalry.

Finding that Wu Haogu drove his horse over, Murong Parrot stopped scolding, disbanded this group of utility cavalry, rode his horse to Wu Haogu, and saluted on horseback: "Xuanzan, you can come back." ”

"How?" Wu Haogu smiled, "Someone looking for me? ”

Murong Parrot said, "It's Wanyan Xian and Wu Tian who are back." ”

Wu Tian was Wu Haogu's "chief dummy", so he was appointed as the commander of 200 fake knights. These 200 false knights and the 50 Jurchens brought by Wanyan Xian were combined into a single conductor, with Wan Yan Xian also serving as the commander and Wu Tian serving as the deputy commander (the deputy commander is not a formal official), in fact, it is jointly controlled by Xian Ye and Wu Tian.

"It's been a long time...... Wu Haogu suddenly noticed that Murong Parrot's expression was a little abnormal, and hurriedly asked, "Something happened?" ”

Murong Parrot nodded, "Something is wrong, they seem to have taken the opportunity to explore the terrain in the Hengshan-Wuding River area to enter the territory of Western Xia. ”

Wanyan Gundam and the Fake Knight are both top-notch in horseback kung fu, so naturally they don't need to stay in the camp on the north bank of Yanshui for basic training. Therefore, Wu Haogu and Zhao Zhongge asked them to follow the guide sent by the Western Army to the Wudinghe-Hengshan area to check the terrain. This has been going for more than ten days, and of course Wu Haogu is not worried about them. There is a complete Yan slanting is also there, how can there be a problem?

"Entered the territory of the Western Thieves?" Wu Haogu hurriedly asked, "You didn't suffer a loss, did you?" ”

"How can they suffer?" Murong Parrot shook his head and said, "They went to other people's territory and robbed it...... burned a few villages, robbed and killed a team of soldiers and horses of western thieves, cut off more than 100 heads, brought back hundreds of horses, thousands of cattle and sheep, and captured hundreds of feudal people. ”

"Is there any damage?" Wu Haogu asked.

"The Jurchens have no losses, Xuanzan's false son was injured two, both of which were not serious, and the knight auxiliaries who followed were three dead and six wounded."

Wan Yan Xian also had a total of 251 regular soldiers under the command of Wu Tian, and Wu Haogu assigned them 502 auxiliary cavalry, with a total of 753 cavalry. In addition, there were some light cavalry of the Western Army leading the way, a total of 758 cavalry. The first attack was good, and the losses were negligible, which seemed to be of great use.

"That's a good thing!" Wu Haogu smiled, "I have to give them credit." ”

"Don't be busy remembering your merits just yet," Murong Parrot said, "they're in trouble!" The Western officers who accompanied them in the attack said that they attacked without an order, and that they ...... They still refused to hand over the captured vassals. Say it's their slave! ”