Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The river in front of us is called Hongliugou, because red willows grow in some sections of the river.

It passes through the desolate Gobi Desert, and the water source is melted snow and springs along the way. Due to the instability of the water source and the large amount of evaporation, it will dry up seasonally every year.

At this moment, it is close to the dry season.

From Xingxing Gorge to here, Hongliugou is the "first major river", and it relies on several springs to maintain life along the way.

Therefore, it has great strategic value!

Before the Ming army conquered Yizhou City (Hami), Hongliugou would be the only drinking water supply for the Ming army. And the fortress blocking here is also a stronghold that the Ming army must take.

The Western Liao army slowly retreated towards Hongliu Village, and Wu Jie's troops accelerated all the way to pursue.

Among Wu Jie's 800 cavalry, 300 were light armored cavalry and 500 were medium armored cavalry.

When the infantry fighting vehicles were chasing, these 800 cavalry also went out to protect the two wings. They didn't need to kill many enemies, just slightly delay the enemy cavalry to flank and prevent the chariot infantry from changing formation in time and being attacked from the side.

In order to cover his main force approaching Hongliu Village, Xiao Chalaobu sent out all the cavalry.

These miscellaneous cavalry dared not approach the chariot, but they dared to attack the Ming cavalry relying on their large numbers.

The 800 Ming cavalry did not want to fight, but shot and retreated with bows and arrows, leading the Western Liao cavalry to the front and side of the chariot.

"Woo woo woo~~~"

Countless Western Liao cavalry horns sounded, and the nobles or chiefs were frightened to lead their troops to other directions when they were five or six hundred steps away from the chariot formation.

They were scared by the chariot and didn't dare to get too close.

Wu Jie also felt a little helpless about the enemy's cowardice. There were too many enemy cavalry, so he had to change his formation slightly, which made it impossible to quickly pursue the enemy's main force.

In fact, during the retreat of the Western Liao infantry, except for the elite in the central army, most of the infantry had no formation to speak of.

They ran towards Hongliu Village in a mess, not caring about the front and the back, not caring about the left and the right, and the generals could not control them at all.

If Wu Jie had two or three thousand cavalry, he could rush straight at this time and kill the Western Liao infantry.

After all, there were not enough cavalry.

It was too difficult to get here from Xingxing Gorge, and as a vanguard, it was impossible to bring too many cavalry. Their chariots, artillery, and ammunition were already extremely difficult to transport, and if there were thousands of cavalry to drag the logistics, they would not be able to move fast at all.

More than 10,000 miscellaneous soldiers fled to the vicinity of Hongliu Village in a mess, and Xiao Chala Abu personally led the elite infantry to cover the rear, and let more than 9,000 Western Liao miscellaneous cavalry delay the Ming army.

It took a long time for the entire Western Liao army to retreat to the fort and re-arrange.

"All the food and grass will stay in the village, and send 1,500 more people to guard the village!" Xiao Chala Abu quickly issued a military order.

They came from Yizhou City, more than a hundred miles away, and did not bring too much food and grass. The food and grass that could only sustain the army for a few days were all stored in Hongliu Village, just for the soldiers guarding the village to continue using.

By the way, the number of Hongliu Village defenders was increased to 4,500 to prevent the Ming army from easily occupying this place.

Seeing that the Ming army's chariot formation was getting closer and closer, Xiao Chala said: "The cavalry will stay and delay, and all the infantry will cross the river and withdraw!"

He did not think of an orderly retreat because the troops were too mixed.

However, the nobles of all sizes, with their own small number of elites, and countless miscellaneous soldiers with little combat effectiveness, rushed into Hongliu Valley in a mess.

The knee-deep river water can be waded through quickly.

The riverbed is full of gravel, and once the dry season comes, even the riverbed will become a Gobi desert.

About 9,000 Western Liao miscellaneous cavalry ran back and forth around the chariot formation from a distance. As long as the chariot dared to turn into a Queyue formation or a horizontal formation to advance, they would rush from all directions, forcing the chariot formation to adjust its formation and distance themselves.

Wu Jie was annoyed by this tactic. He could not leave the Western Liao infantry behind, so he could only leave some cavalry corpses.

"Send an order..."

Soon, the Ming army's chariot formation changed into a half-moon shape and accelerated forward, and half of the infantry was separated to defend in a relatively backward position.

The Western Liao miscellaneous cavalry that was cruising around the back came from different tribes and had not received a definite military order, so their choices were different.

At the beginning, they all rushed forward, wanting to scare the Ming army soldiers.

After rushing to a certain distance, some cavalry slowed down and retreated, and some cavalry swept to the side. These were all relatively cowardly, and did not dare to take the risk of continuing to charge, for fear of being hit by the chariot formation.

There were also a small number of Western Liao miscellaneous cavalry who thought that the Ming army's chariot formation had no time to change its formation for defense, and actually took the opportunity to choose to speed up and rush forward.

The chariot formation was indeed too late.

But the cavalry had been waiting for a long time!

There were only 300 Ming army light cavalry and 500 Ming army brave cavalry, forming more than 30 cavalry squads. They split into two groups, and in a relatively dense formation, they rushed towards the Western Liao cavalry, which was three times their number.

This was completely beyond the enemy's expectations, because from the beginning of the war until now, the Ming cavalry had never engaged in battle.

They subconsciously believed that the Ming cavalry had little combat power.

What's worse is that because many Western Liao cavalry retreated, the cavalry that chose to continue to charge forward became sparse groups. They had no friendly support on either side, and were afraid of being bombarded, so their formation was extremely scattered, with the distance between cavalry being more than eight meters.

From the data, it was 800 Ming cavalry charging more than 2,000 enemy cavalry.

In the real fight, it was 800 Ming cavalry divided into two groups, encircling and annihilating more than 200 enemy troops in a local area.

Cavalry General Yang Zheng rushed to the front. His cotton armor on his shoulder was hit by an arrow, and his horse's light armor was also hit by two arrows. At this moment, he had rushed into the sparse enemy cavalry formation, and with one spear, he knocked away a Western Liao cavalryman, and then withdrew his spear and swept down another cavalryman. The third spear even knocked down a chieftain.

These more than 200 Western Liao cavalrymen melted almost instantly.

The Ming cavalry in the back row slowed down and swept towards the enemies farther away on both sides.

Those enemies also had a loose formation, and there was no friendly army nearby to support them.

Facing the sudden attack of the Ming cavalry, the Western Liao cavalrymen who chose to retreat or swipe away did not rush to rescue them by relying on their numbers. Instead, they fled in fear and kept the distance even greater!

These chieftains or nobles usually did not subordinate to each other, and they might even have grudges against each other.

In the absence of clear military orders, how could they risk rescue?

What's more, Xiao Chala Abu and Yelu Songshan were already retreating with their main forces. The order they received was only to slow down the enemy, and only those who were stupid would fight to the death.

The eight hundred Ming cavalrymen only shot and wounded more than twenty light cavalrymen, but they caught and chased more enemy cavalrymen.

They chased and killed all the way, and the Western Liao cavalrymen farther away fled.

The Western Liao cavalrymen in front of the chariot formation and on both sides had no idea what was happening at this time, as they had no vision of the battlefield where the cavalrymen were fighting.

Seeing that friendly troops kept escaping, those guys thought they were defeated and chose to flee without saying anything.

The famous scene appeared.

The Ming cavalrymen, who were less than 800 people, chased and killed nearly 8,000 Western Liao cavalrymen.

Those cavalrymen bypassed Hongliu Village and the main force of infantry crossing the river, and fled across Hongliu Valley before gradually slowing down to check the situation.

The Western Liao infantrymen were completely confused by this scene, and even some elite Gaochang infantrymen threw down their weapons and pushed to speed up the crossing of the river.

Xiao Chala was not angry, and personally led more than 2,000 elite cavalrymen to cover the rear, including hundreds of heavy cavalrymen.

Those heavy cavalrymen did not even have time to wear heavy armor during the retreat, and now they went to fight without armor.

Wu Jie, who was standing on the watchtower to observe the battle situation, put down the telescope and said: "Blow the horn, let Yang Zheng withdraw, and the chariots speed up."

The more than 2,000 enemy cavalrymen who were left behind were real elites at a glance.

Even if the Ming cavalry could win, it would inevitably suffer heavy losses. What's more, those scared Western Liao miscellaneous cavalrymen had stopped after escaping the river, and continuing to let the Ming cavalry fight would likely overturn.

Wu Jie felt sorry for the elite soldiers he had trained, and was unwilling to throw them all into the gamble.

When the Ming army's chariot formation advanced to the river, the main force of the Western Liao had all retreated far away - many miscellaneous soldiers did not retreat at all, but fled to Yizhou in a mess, and were even scared to abandon their weapons and armor along the way.

There were also 4,500 unlucky Western Liao people who were left to defend Hongliu Village.

These guys were basically abandoned. Xiao Chala Abudu was still waiting for reinforcements. How could he send people back to rescue them?

In this battle, the Ming army lost 6 people and 23 people were injured.

Except for two cavalrymen who were injured by the stones on the Gobi Desert when their horses stepped on them and fell off their horses, the rest of the casualties were from light cavalrymen who were shot by arrows during the charge.

Of course, the Ming army also lost a lot of gunpowder...

More than 3,000 Western Liao cavalrymen died in the battle, some of them were killed by firearms and close-combat infantry, some were killed by Ming cavalry, and the rest died when auxiliary soldiers were cleaning the battlefield.

More than 1,000 Western Liao infantrymen also died, and they were trampled to death by friendly forces when retreating and running away.

The auxiliary soldiers and civilians came out of the camp, cleaned the battlefield, burned the bodies, and took back the captured horses and armor.

Wu Jie led a large army and blocked the outside of Hongliu Village, which had no moat.

The four thousand five hundred defenders were trembling with fear.

Wu Jie said to the guide who was fluent in Uighur: "Go and persuade them to surrender!"

The guide was a spy who had been in the merchant team for many years. He said: "General, these are dead soldiers. Their families are all controlled by Western Liao. Once they surrender, their whole family will become slaves. If an officer surrenders, the men in his family will be executed."

Wu Jie said: "Tell them that if they lose their wives, they can remarry, and if they lose their sons, they can have new ones. Their parents don't want to see them lose their lives. As long as they surrender the fortress, I will be the matchmaker to select women for them to start a family after the capture of Yizhou City. If they don't surrender, the subsequent million troops will come, and Western Liao will definitely be defeated. I will find their families and kill them all!"

The guide came to the outside of the fortress wall under the protection of the shield bearer and shouted continuously.

Soon, the defenders of the fortress were in turmoil.

Some people who were afraid of death no longer cared about their parents, wives and children at home, and only hoped that they could survive after surrendering.

What's more, Wu Jie was still threatening to kill their whole family.

They had just seen how powerful the Ming army was, and they didn't think that the Western Liao could win. What if they defended the fortress to death, but the Ming army broke through Yizhou and Gaochang and killed their whole family?

Some of the defenders of these fortresses came from Gaochang, and some came from Yizhou, mainly Buddhists and Nestorians.

If the Gaochang Uighur Kingdom was still there, they might have a little sense of belonging.

After Yelu Dashi's death, in order to prevent the King of Gaochang from colluding with foreign enemies and surrendering to the Ming army, Empress Gantian had already captured the king and completely destroyed the Gaochang Kingdom.

What sense of belonging can they have to the Western Liao?

Why would they sacrifice their lives for the Western Liao?

After a round of persuasion to surrender, the guide came back to drink water to moisten his throat.

The defenders still did not move, but the generals and officers were already arguing in private.

Their only burden of surrender was that the Ming army did not keep its word. In order to resist the invasion of the Ming army, the Western Liao Dynasty used all its propaganda to smear, and the Han people were almost turning into cannibalistic demons.

Wu Jie used binoculars to observe the defenders' reaction. After a while, he ordered: "Feint an attack on the fort to scare them."

360 small artillery pieces were dragged to a nearby location to fire, all aimed at the battle shed and arrow tower of the fort.

As the battle shed and arrow tower became riddled with holes, the gate of the fort slowly opened.

Wu Jie smiled and said to the officers around him: "Send the light cavalry back to Shankou Village and tell them that I have won a great victory. The bastard Sang Zhong must be there. He didn't come to rescue me when I was surrounded. I will slowly deal with him later!"