Chapter 231 Battle of Hukou
It’s almost the end of the year and the weather is getting colder.

Finally, Cao Xuan, who had fought with the Yan army in Ye County for more than half a year, retreated.

Murong Deyu could finally breathe a sigh of relief. After Cao Xuan withdrew his troops, the Western Wei general Ma Jingzhen also withdrew his army back to Jingzhou, leaving only a few thousand soldiers to guard Yiyang.

The truce on the Jing-Yu battlefield brought a sigh of relief to the Luoyang court.

However, Li Yuanhui felt a lot of pressure when he heard the news.

In the direction of Yuzhou, there are currently more than 10,000 Yanzhou troops led by Lou Jushi, more than 20,000 central troops, and the volunteer Tianxiong Army and Tianwu Army of Youzhou and Jizhou, totaling more than 20,000.

The Wagang Army under Xu Maogong had more than 30,000 troops, and the foreign troops under Murong Deyu had more than 60,000 troops.

That is to say, there are currently 150,000 troops in Yuzhou north of the Huai River, or possibly even more.

With so many people, after the ceasefire with Jingzhou, would they set their sights on Jianghuai?
Li Yuanhui felt that he had to be on guard, especially in the current situation. So he thought of shrinking the front line, abandoning Jiangnan and defending Jiangbei with all his strength, and then freeing up more troops to be mobilized on the Huaihe River line.

But after discussing with his staff, Chaisang still couldn't give up.

Because this place is very strategic. With Chaisang and Xunyang in hand, we can control the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

But he himself had to return to Hefei and Shouchun to take charge. After all, Xunyang was hundreds of miles away from the Huaihe River. If there was any emergency, there would be no time to react in Xunyang.

So Li Yuanhui decided to do something big before leaving.

If we take the lake mouth west of Chaisang, that is, the area from the north of Mount Lushan to the Yangtze River, we can form a pincer attack with Chaisang and pose a threat to the Wei army.

Three thousand troops of the Eastern Wei army were stationed here, and they originally chose to set up camp near the river in order to control the river.

But after the defeat in the naval battle, Linjiang Water Fort was often attacked by the Yan army's navy.

The Wei army could not bear the harassment and could only retreat to a place five miles away from the river to set up camp. As a result, if the Yan army's navy prime minister launched a surprise attack, he would have to go ashore and walk a distance, which greatly increased the difficulty.

However, if the Yan army wanted to land and fight, the Wei army would not be able to immediately counter-land. In general, there are pros and cons.

In early November, the Yan army, under the personal command of Li Yuanhui, launched a campaign to capture Hukou.

The battle plan was to advance both by water and land. Lu Qin led the main force of the navy and was responsible for blocking the lake mouth to prevent the Wei navy from leaving Poyang Lake and interfering with the Yan army's landing operations.

Li Su, the Eagle General, and Zhou Ao, the school lieutenant, led 4,000 infantrymen to be responsible for the landing operation.

When discussing how to seize Hukou, Li Yuanhui told them not to rush to attack the Wei army camp, but to gain a foothold on the shore first. If the Wei army took the initiative to attack, they should immediately set up chevaux deer horns and be prepared to continue to consume the enemy.

Li Su and Zhou Ao led the infantry on large and small boats and quickly landed at the mouth of the lake. They then began to form a battle array and used the boats to transport the deer antlers aboard.

When the Wei army saw this, they originally thought it was another attack. The commander Li Bao ordered the soldiers to guard the camp, be on high alert, and mobilized archers to prepare to drive away the enemy.

As soon as he landed, Li Bao found something wrong.

In the past, the Yan army that carried out surprise attacks were all naval soldiers who were lightly equipped and would never engage in entanglement.

But the Yan army that landed now looked like heavy infantry, wearing shiny iron armor, holding long spears and large shields. They even brought deer antlers up with them?
If Li Bao had led his troops to counterattack and launch a counterattack immediately when the Yan army's infantry landed, it would have been difficult for the Yan army to land smoothly.

Even if they succeed in landing, they will suffer heavy casualties.

But just a misjudgment led to a very serious consequence.

After landing, at least several hundred armored soldiers of the Yan army raised their spears and large shields and formed a square formation.

Those are heavy armored infantry!

The armor rate of the Yan army is still much higher than that of the Wei army.

Especially the number of armors.

The Yan army in Jianghuai had about 100,000 soldiers, and about 40% of them were armored.

Of course, these 40% were not all in iron armor, in fact only about 15,000 of them were in iron armor, and the rest were mostly in leather armor.

In this respect, the Wei army was much worse. They didn't even have uniform clothing.

Among Li Bao's 3,000 men, including those wearing iron armor and leather armor, there were less than 100 people wearing armor, and they didn't even have a uniform style of clothing, but wore a variety of different styles. In this regard, although the Yan army that landed were all from powerful families, they were dressed relatively neatly.

And the 600 people at the front are all armored soldiers.

These were the iron armors that Li Yuanhui allocated to the heroes of Lujiang after they led their people to surrender. There were also 400 sets of armors that were temporarily transferred from the Central Army Camp and the Wuwei Camp because of the need for landing operations.

These six hundred armored soldiers standing in the front had a great psychological impact on the Wei army.

However, no matter how great the impact was, Li Bao had to bite the bullet and fight the enemy. Otherwise, if he let the enemy all go ashore and gain a foothold in Hukou, how would he explain to the Emperor Cao Yuanjing and his uncle, former general Li Xiong?

So Li Bao gathered his troops and launched a counterattack.

The Wei army, which was supposed to be on the defensive, now took the initiative to attack. Li Bao ordered his troops to form a battle formation according to the order of spears, swords and shields, and bows and crossbows, and launched an attack on the Yan army.

After the archers and crossbowmen fired their weapons at each other, the two sides finally engaged in close hand-to-hand combat.

At this time, the equipment advantage of the Yan army began to show.

The Wei army's original weapons were not very good, and it was difficult to break armor, but the Yan army's spears, bows and crossbows were a fatal blow to the Wei army, which had almost no protective equipment.

The situation on the battlefield soon became one-sided. With swords, shields and spears working in coordination, the Yan army advanced like a wall, and the Wei army was beaten so badly that they had almost no power to resist.

Li Yuanhui was watching the battle on a ship on the shore. Facing the scene before him, he breathed a sigh of relief. If the situation continued to develop in this way, the outcome would be decided.

Looking at the soldiers at the front, bravely moving forward, the role of armor is undoubtedly evident. So how can we make the 100,000 soldiers under our command have more armor?
Although it is said that Jiang Huai has 100,000 armored soldiers, how could Li Yuanhui not know whether there are 100,000 soldiers or not?

This is just a bluff. Where did the 100,000 pieces of armor come from? The cost of making the armor is very high.

Li Yuanhui has recently begun to experiment with making wooden, bamboo and rattan armor to equip his troops.

After all, the cost of these things is relatively low, and they also have certain defensive functions. They can defend against arrows at a long distance and reduce fatal injuries.

As for whether or not you will be burned, you don't have to worry too much about it. The conditions for fire attack actually require a very high battlefield environment.

Any successful fire attack that can be recorded in history requires the combination of many conditions to be successful.

Season, humidity, temperature, wind direction, terrain, etc. all need to be taken into consideration.

Even if there is no armor at all, at least you have to provide people with wooden shields or rattan shields. You can't let them fight in uniform without any protective equipment.

Even if you wear one more set of clothes than others, it may enhance the morale of the army invisibly.
Oh, right, Mian Jia.

Li Yuanhui suddenly remembered the cotton armor that was popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It seemed that it was not difficult to make at the current level, and its protective ability was not bad.

Although the armor has good protection, it is very expensive. And most importantly, the cotton armor is very effective in cold areas, and it has both warmth and protection. It seems that the manufacturing method is simpler than the armor. It looks like it is just sticking iron sheets into the clothes, and there are buttons.
While Li Yuanhui was thinking about the issue of technological innovation, the situation on the battlefield had gradually become one-sided.

The two sides fought for less than half an hour before the outcome was decided. The Wei army was defeated and fled.

The Yan army did not pursue in a swarm, because the heavy infantry were in the front. It would be a joke to ask them to chase the light infantry while wearing iron armor. They would be exhausted after running a few steps, and the heavy infantry would turn around and take your life while you are weak.

Therefore, after the situation changed, the first ones responsible for the pursuit were the cavalry. In the absence of cavalry, the unarmored light infantry and archers were the ones responsible.

In addition to bows and crossbows, archers also carry secondary weapons, such as broadswords, bone sticks, wooden sticks and other blunt instruments.

After the enemy formation has been broken and the soldiers begin to flee, the light infantry will be the main force of pursuit.

Beat up the drowning dog.

Li Bao sent people to ask for help while fleeing to the camp, hoping to use the camp's defenses to fight against the Yan army.

However, he underestimated the speed of the Yan army's pursuit and the impact of his own defeated soldiers. The Yan army drove the Wei army's defeated soldiers directly into the enemy camp, making the Wei army's camp completely defenseless.

At one time, those who surrendered were like clouds.

The entire battle took only two hours from launch to end.

Even the Yan navy didn't wait for the Wei navy to come to their rescue, and their interception was in vain.

(End of this chapter)