Chapter 524 Father and son go into battle

A grand formation cannot be attacked. If cavalry is used to attack a well-formed infantry formation head-on, even if the casualties are 1 to 5, the infantry will gain.

But now the cavalry rushing out from the two city gates on the east side of Hefei can directly attack the Wei army formation.

In order to encircle and suppress the 200 armored cavalry led by Zhou Shixiong, the infantry formations originally responsible for the alert were ordered to gather together, turn their guns around, and cut off the retreat of Zhou Shixiong's cavalry.

Zhou Shixiong was only about 30 years old, riding a large horse from Hexi, holding a large spear, charging in front, and the armored cavalry behind him were 200 elite soldiers raised by the Zhou family in Lujiang, all of whom were the bravest warriors among the Zhou family's children. They followed Zhou Shixiong without hesitation, and their cavalry could be said to be blood-related.

At this moment, this small cavalry team was like a steel needle rushing around in the body of a giant, constantly attacking the scattered soldiers of the Wei army, and then driving the defeated soldiers to attack their own army formation, causing considerable damage.

But after all, a cavalry unit of 200 people was too small, and the Wei army had also built up the organization of its army over the years. It was far from being a makeshift team like those in troubled times that would collapse at the first touch.

They have gradually become more resilient and their organization has greatly improved. At this moment, generals at all levels are trying their best to regroup and re-form their formation, preparing to encircle the Tang cavalry that rashly broke into the encirclement.

In fact, Zhou Shixiong's cavalry had been surrounded, but as the saying goes, brothers fight tigers together, and fathers and sons fight in battle.

At this moment, Zhou Shixiong's father, Zhou Qiu, led a cavalry team consisting of one hundred Zhou family members and three hundred elite veterans of the Jianghuai army out of the main east gate, and broke into the side and rear of the Wei army's formation at a tricky angle.

Zhou Qiu, an old general in his fifties, had furious hair and beard, and was unstoppable. He stabbed and killed more than a dozen Wei soldiers with his spear in succession. Following him were the Zhou family members and the old soldiers from Jianghuai who were also elite soldiers who had experienced many battlefields. They were all wearing armor and holding spears, following Zhou Qiu and stabbing the Wei soldiers. Some of them would quickly drop their spears after a strike and immediately replace them with spare blunt weapons such as iron bone clubs and maces, and then use the impact force of the war horses to swing hard. Even the Wei soldiers wearing helmets could not withstand such a heavy blow.

The reason why the horizontal sword carried at the waist is not used is mainly because the horizontal sword is not strong enough to penetrate armor, and even if it can penetrate armor, it can easily get stuck on the armor and bones and slip out of the hand.

Therefore, the secondary weapons equipped by the Tang cavalry were mostly blunt instruments such as clubs and iron bones. They were simple to manufacture but had great lethality to elite armor-piercing troops.

On the other side, Li Feng also led his troops into the battle. Although he was not as brave as the Zhou father and son, he also led the cavalry to cause great damage to the Wei army's formation.

Less than a thousand Tang cavalrymen broke into the encirclement of a hundred thousand Wei troops. The Zhou father and son who led the charge were both extremely brave and unstoppable.

The three cavalry teams finally joined together in the encirclement of the Wei army, and then broke out again before the place where they had just been surrounded could reorganize an effective defensive formation.

Of course, there was no "General, have you abandoned me?" scene this time.

But just simply entering and leaving the battle formation caused a huge psychological impact on the Wei army.

There may have been only a few hundred Wei soldiers who died directly at the hands of the Tang cavalry, but thousands were trampled to death.

This battle was undoubtedly a heavy blow to the Wei army. It is impossible to say how much damage it caused to the Wei army.

The Wei army suffered about 2,000 casualties, with no high-ranking generals killed. After the initial panic, the Wei army quickly reorganized its formation to meet the Tang cavalry.

The Tang army had less than a thousand men, and they relied on the high mobility and impact of their cavalry, fighting and then running away.

Cao Yan, Lu Gongren and others who were watching the battle were extremely depressed, because if they were given a little more time to complete the formation change at the rear, the cavalry who entered the formation later would all be trapped in the formation.

Even if 10,000 people died, it would be worth it if 1,000 Tang cavalrymen could be trapped and killed.

But now, watching the Tang cavalry enter and then leave the battle is more painful than killing them.

It is not very harmful and extremely insulting.

It will take several days to recover from this blow.

After Zhou and his son entered the city, Yin Gong personally went down to greet them and said, "General Zhou is truly a man of unrivalled courage."

Zhou Qiu laughed roughly, "Hahahaha, I'm just an old warrior who still has some courage left. I really feel great today, hahahaha."

Yin Gong said: "Old General, you are too modest. Today, you, the virtuous Zhou father and son, have done a heroic deed. You have fought among 100,000 men and have utterly defeated the Wei army. Your name will surely go down in history."

"Ahahaha, thank you, thank you, General Yin." In the first battle of Hefei, the Tang army's less than 1,000 cavalrymen defeated the Wei army's 100,000 troops. The Wei army decided to move their camp back a few miles and make targeted deployments against the Tang cavalry, setting up a large number of antler chevaux de frise outside the camp and digging trenches to prevent cavalry raids.

The siege plan originally formulated by the Wei army was also delayed, and the team needed to be reorganized.

In general, this raid cannot be compared with Zhang Liao's performance in the old city of Hefei.

At that time, Zhang Liao almost rushed to Sun Quan, and after breaking out of the Wu formation, he entered the formation again to pull out the remaining troops, which really made the Wu army lose their courage.

In addition, the incident at Xiaoyaojin almost captured Sun Quan alive, which brought a great nightmare to the Wu army.

Although the surprise attack by Zhou father and son and Li Feng outside the new city of Hefei was also very loud, it did not cause great losses to the Wei army, nor did it cause any damage to the organization. It did have a certain impact on the morale of the Wei army, but there was no problem with the organization and morale could be restored.

However, this battle was of great significance to the Tang army in the city, and it greatly boosted the morale of the defenders.

It also once again demonstrated the suppression of the Northern Army's cavalry over the Southern Army's infantry in land battles. After all, the Eastern Wei Army was not the Wu Army of three hundred years ago and was not without defense.

A few days later, the Wei army began to besiege the city again, and Chaohu continued to transport wood and semi-finished products for siege equipment. The Wei army's siege equipment was ready and ready to start the siege. The Tang defenders took advantage of the time to reinforce the city defense again.

The Eastern Wei infantry began to carry soil to fill the trenches under the threat of thousands of arrows fired from the city walls, and the siege of Hefei began.

Hundreds of miles away, the Japanese troops in Shouchun, as the vanguard, arrived in Huainan first.

Xu Qiande and Fu Weixue were the first to arrive in Shouchun as the vanguard of the army. Not long ago, after the death of Xie Xun, the former governor of Yangzhou, Li Baishi, who was transferred from the governor of Southern Yuzhou to the governor of Yangzhou, personally rushed to the water fort outside the city to greet them.

Li Baishi was now the governor of a state, so he didn't need to come to greet him personally. It would be better if Li Yaoshi came instead. But Xu Qiande and he were both from Huainan, old men from Jianghuai, and they had some friendship in the past, so he brought many of his subordinates to the water fort to greet him.

"Mr. Li, it's been a while since we last met. I hope you are doing well."

"Hahaha, General Xu, how are you?"

The two men greeted each other. Li Baishi was older, almost fifty years old, while Xu Qiande was less than forty, so he always respectfully addressed him as "Mr. Li".

After a brief greeting, Xu Qiande also introduced Li Baishi to the Right Governor Fu Weixue, the General of the Central Army Li Bao, and Zhu Wenzhen.

Upon learning that the two young men were Zhu's nephew and nephew, Li Baishi smiled and encouraged them.

After the polite exchanges, Li Baishi directly took the battle report and started talking to Xu Qiande about business.

"The Wei army is said to have 200,000 troops. They have already moved north from Chaohu Lake and arrived at Hefei. Hefei currently has 7,000 defenders, guarded by Yin Gong. Lu'an, Zhongli, and Shouchun can spare more than 10,000 county soldiers, but compared with the momentum of the Wei army, it is a drop in the bucket. General Zhang has to save his strength to defend Guangling and Liyang, and he cannot come to support. As for General Lu, he is far away in Jiangzhou and it is difficult to contact him, but I believe he will not sit idly by and watch the enemy attack Hefei with all his strength. He will definitely lead the navy to support him from behind. But now that General Xu has led his army to Shouchun, I don't have to worry about Hefei."

Xu Qiande nodded repeatedly as he listened to Li Baishi's introduction of the situation. The situation was similar to what he had imagined. Hefei City was small but strong, with sufficient military equipment and food supplies, and veteran generals guarding it. There was no need to worry for at least a month.

This time, the Eastern Wei army sent out all its elite troops, and they also had to be wary of the Tang Dynasty's Jiangzhou navy.

So what would be the result if we launched a surprise attack on the quarry at this time?

Thinking of this, Xu Qiande looked at Fu Weixue standing aside.

"Brother Fu, do you dare to make a bet?"

Fu Weixue laughed when he heard this and said, "Brother Xu, are you planning to attack Jingkou or Cai Shi?"

Jingkou and Caishiji are the two gateways of Jianye and the two most important river defense locations on the left side of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

If the surprise attack was successful, the gates of the Eastern Wei capital Jianye would be wide open.

(End of this chapter)