Chapter 214 213 Launch

At the side door of the temporary government office of Baoan Prefecture, not long after all the generals left, a soldier in full armor looked at the three people who left, sighed, and just waited there quietly.

After a while, the side door was opened, and a soldier dressed the same as him walked out.

"Are you sure there is no master here?"

The soldier asked the man outside the door.

"I didn't see him. I only saw Commander Zhang Heng, Zhang Zong, and Liao Yuan. I just knew the others. They have only a general relationship with the master and the master. By the way, what did they say inside?"

The man asked after answering.

"Not bad. The Marshal sent Ma Fang to pick up the convoy. Let's go back and report the news immediately."

After a brief conversation, the two went to the stable next to them to lead out four war horses, greeted the guards, and rode away.

The two of them rode out of the south gate of Baoan Prefecture and ran directly to the Sanggan River before turning west. This route was also the route set by Wei Guangde and his team before.

But less than half a day after they left Baoan Prefecture, more than a dozen horses rushed into the east gate of Baoan Prefecture.

It was obvious that the dozen patrolling cavalrymen on the periphery were protecting the two knights in the circle. The two looked dusty and exhausted. One of them had an arrow stuck in his back, but the arrow seemed to be blocked by the armor and did not penetrate deep into the flesh.

However, from the bloodstains on the gauze wrapped around the arrow, it can be seen that the bandage was very sloppy, just to stop the bleeding, but for some reason the arrow was not removed.

Soon, the cavalry rushed to the temporary government office in the center of Baoan Prefecture. The cavalrymen dismounted one after another, and then helped the injured soldier dismount. Someone had already gone to the side to ask the military doctor to come and remove the arrow, while another person took off the bamboo tube from his back and ran into the government office with his right hand held high.

Two days later, in the morning, the gate of Huailai Weicheng, which had been closed for a long time, suddenly opened. As teams of cavalry rushed out of the fort gate and dispersed towards the surrounding plains, they soon disappeared from sight.

Wei Guangde stood on the tower and watched the cavalry go away, then turned to Li Zhen and said, "Lord Li, tell them to set off."

"Okay."

Li Zhen agreed and nodded to the commanders of Huailai Guards beside him, then turned and went down the city wall. Soon after, with the creaking sound of wooden wheels rolling on the ground, a number of carriages filled with grain bags and fodder slowly drove out of Huailai Guards.

Until most of the convoy had left and Dong Yiyuan led a large group of cavalry to the city gate, Wei Guangde turned around and bowed to the commanders of Huailai Guards and smiled, "Sorry for bothering you these days. When we leave this time, please keep guarding the city tightly and don't make any mistakes."

"Don't worry, Lord Wei, we all have the responsibility to defend the land and the people, and we dare not neglect it in the slightest."

The commander of Huailai Guards responded quickly.

Wei Guangde nodded with a smile, "When the Datong army arrives, you will give them the handwritten order I wrote and ask them to come to Huailai County immediately without delay."

In fact, this is the key point. Wei Guangde cherishes his life very much and does not want to die in Huailai County.

As far as the so-called powerful border army he has seen so far, Wei Guangde has no hope. It seems a bit far-fetched to expect them to defeat the Altan Khan's tribe.

He can only play to the advantages of the Ming army, that is, to defend the city and go to Huailai County, hoping to attract some of Altan Khan's men to attack the city here, and use the Xuanfu army and Datong army to win a battle, and his mission will be successfully completed.

After getting off the city wall, Li San came up with a horse. Wei Guangde skillfully jumped on the horse and met with Dong Yiyuan's troops and rode out of Huailai City.

Soon after leaving the city, Wei Guangde slowed down his horse and asked Dong Yiyuan beside him: "Have you told them? Let a Tatar scout come in."

"Don't worry, sir, there will be no mistakes."

Dong Yiyuan clasped his fists on his horse.

"Is Ma Fang really good at fighting?"

This side has been prepared, so the remaining is whether the people transferred from Xuanfu can hold the field at the critical moment. If they are still weak in the end, he, Wei Guangde, will be in danger.

The emergence of the grain transport convoy is absolutely attractive to the current Altan tribe, even if it costs a certain price.

According to the current war reports from various places and Wei Guangde's analysis, one of the 20,000 troops of the Altan tribe is stationed near Yanqing Prefecture to monitor the movements of the Ming army in Yanqing Prefecture. This part constantly sends out scouts to explore the road between Yanqing Prefecture and Juyongguan, and is also responsible for the investigation in the direction of Yongning.

However, Wei Guangde did not think how many Tartars there were here. The preliminary judgment was that there were several thousand cavalrymen. It was not difficult to guess their mission. They were definitely prepared for the reinforcements from Jizhen in Guannei. Whether they were stopped or retreated, they had a warning function.

In the direction of Baoan Prefecture, the main force of the Altan tribe was gathered there, with tens of thousands of troops gathered there. At the same time, the main force of the Ming army, the Xuanfu Army, was also gathered here.

According to Dong Yiyuan, the Ming army had no problem defending the attack of the Altan tribe in Baoan Prefecture, but it seemed difficult to attack the Altan tribe, let alone defeat the opponent.

The upcoming Datong army, in Dong Yiyuan's words, was actually about the same in overall strength as the Xuanfu Army, and because the Xuanfu Army had been fighting with the Altan tribe for many years, it seemed to be slightly better.

The Altan tribe was divided into two branches, and it was difficult to fight either one, at least with the current military strength of the Ming army.

Wei Guangde could only choose to find a way to disperse the military strength of the Altan tribe, hoping to find an opportunity to defeat a relatively weak force.

However, after Li Zhen and Dong Yiyuan joined in the analysis, they keenly realized that Wei Guangde's idea was correct, but his approach was very dangerous, that was the attraction of food and fodder to Altan's tribe.

Once it is confirmed that there are a lot of food and grass in Huailai County, if Altan Khan chooses to attack with all his strength and seize the food and grass, the Ming army in Baoan Prefecture or Yanqing may not dare to go out in full force to fight the Tatars, and they will all be in danger.

If only a small number of Ming troops appeared in Huailai County, Altan Khan would not pay attention to them, because with the field combat strength of the Ming army, he would not believe that the Ming army dared to go out of the city to block the passage between Yanqing Prefecture and Baoan Prefecture.

Then it is necessary to increase the attractiveness of Huailai County, so they still loaded a lot of food out of Huailai Weicheng, but the number of food carts was reduced by more than half, and the soldiers escorting the carts were only 800 soldiers recruited from Huailai Weicheng and the cavalry led by Dong Yiyuan.

The remaining grain carts will depart from Huailai Weicheng in the afternoon. Their destination is not Huailai County, but the long route they abandoned before. After leaving Huailai Weicheng, they will move along the west bank of Yongding River, and then cross the river to Baoan Prefecture after a while along the Sanggan River. At that time, Li Zhen will send a messenger to contact Baoan Prefecture to send troops to meet them on Yanghe River.

The reason why Li Zhen still has to lead most of the grain carts to take a detour to Baoan Prefecture is mainly because the remaining grain and grass of Xuanfu Army are not much, only enough to support about ten days.

What will be the final result of attracting some of Altan's troops this time is still unknown.

The final evolution of the battle situation is either that one of Altan's troops is repelled by the Ming army, or that they form a triangular formation to contain each other.

The main forces of the Ming army in Xuanfu defended in Yanqing Prefecture, Baoan Prefecture and Huailai respectively, and Altan's troops were also divided into three parts.

In this situation, at least the Ming army remained undefeated. If they needed to win, they could only ask Lord Weng Pu at Juyongguan to mobilize the town army to go out of the pass, and defeat the enemy in front of them together with the Yanqingzhou garrison, so as to win the battle.

However, even if the Jizhen army went out of the pass and entered Xuanfu, would they be able to defeat the Altan tribe?

In short, after weighing the combat power of the Ming army and the troops that could be mobilized, Wei Guangde chose a battle plan that at least guaranteed victory or defeat.

In fact, Weng Pu's strategy before was roughly the same. Even if the Datong army rushed to the battlefield, it was to maintain a balanced situation, hoping to win a victory at a certain point to force the Altan tribe to withdraw from the Great Wall.

If it couldn't, it would not be forced, that is, to maintain a stalemate. It was really that the overall field combat capability of the Ming army had declined greatly at this stage.

Since Emperor Hongzhi ascended the throne of the Ming Dynasty, especially the implementation of the silver-receiving and opening-up laws, the Ming border army's combat power began to decline rapidly. Although it rose briefly during the reign of Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, and defeated the then grassland overlord Dayan Khan on the battlefield many times, due to Zhu Houzhao's short life, this military reform failed to reverse the downward trend of the Ming army's combat power.

In the eyes of Wei Guangde, who went to the battlefield for the first time, in order to win, the Ming army needed to have an overwhelming advantage on the battlefield, otherwise it would be better not to take any military adventures.

He also wanted to be like Zhuge Liang in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", giving a bunch of brocade bags to the generals of Xuanda, and then winning the war.

Well, with the explosion of information in later generations, Wei Guangde already knew that most of the things in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" were fictional, and Zhuge Liang did not have a very good military command ability. He should be said to be an outstanding politician with strategic vision.

The burning of Bowang was commanded by Liu Bei, and the burning of Xinye was completely fictionalized in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Zhou Yu contributed the most to the Battle of Chibi. In fact, until Liu Bei's death, Zhuge Liang was not able to conduct a truly independent military operation.

Of course, this does not deny Zhuge Liang. He should have military talent. After all, after Liu Bei's death, Zhuge Liang went south to defeat the barbarian tribes and gentry armed forces in the southwest, and also went north to attack Cao Wei several times. Although he failed in the end, it at least shows that he was able to command troops.

Wei Guangde's soul came from the future. He knew very well what he should do as a novice on the battlefield at this time. If he didn't want to become a meteor in the Ming officialdom, he should honestly arrange the battle plan.

Now let's go to Huailai County first. Huailai County is defended by 3,000 infantrymen. According to Dong Yiyuan, even if Altan's troops mobilized 10,000 troops, it might not be able to be taken in a short time.

In Huailai County itself, there are soldiers from two thousand households of the Ming army. In addition to the soldiers they brought in, there are also local young and strong men who can be recruited at any time.

As for the transfer of Ma Fang from Bao'an Prefecture, Wei Guangde's little idea was that if there were not many troops from Altan's army, he would mobilize the Ming army to eat them up. If the enemy was strong, he would just guard the city gate tightly.

If he really couldn't hold it, he could follow Ma Fang and Dong Yiyuan's cavalry to withdraw to Huailaiwei.

In the end, fighting still depends on strength.

There are many cases of wars in history books where the sword was taken out of the ordinary and the army won by surprise, but relatively speaking, it is still very rare.

Sun Tzu has an explanation for the way of the strange and the normal, "In any battle, the normal will unite and the strange will win."

Just looking at this paragraph, it seems that Sun Tzu is saying that when the two armies fight, the front battlefield is often in a stalemate, and it is difficult to see who is better and who is not.

The sudden appearance of the strange troops of either side breaks this dynamic balance, thereby changing the situation on the battlefield, and the war tilts towards the side that is in favor of the strange troops, so that the "good at surprising" side has the initiative in the war and wins.

But in fact, there is another sentence behind this statement, which is "The situation in war is nothing but strange and normal, and the changes of strange and normal are endless."

There are no fixed surprise soldiers, and there are no fixed regular soldiers. As for who is a surprise soldier and who is a regular soldier, it will change according to the situation on the battlefield. There is no fixed truth, so it is invincible.

As for how Wei Guangde knew these things, it was also thanks to the Internet of later generations. Although I don’t know whether the author who wrote these things was right or not, Wei Guangde thought it made sense at that time, and it still makes sense now.

As for why Wei Guangde wanted to come here, it was also because when they ran from General Shiguan to Huairou, Wei Guangde went to find a copy of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" to cram into it.

We have to rush the ducks to put them on the shelves, can you not be in a hurry?

Wei Guangde had read a lot of books, but not many military books, almost none. He never realized that one day he would go to the battlefield and become a small commander.

As the large group was marching, as expected, two groups of people appeared on the hills in the distance. The group in front of them had a slightly smaller number of knights, with only about a dozen horses, while there were more than 20 horsemen behind them.

"Sir, here we come."

At this time, Dong Yiyuan, who had been following Wei Guangde, whispered.

"Go ahead and hunt them down with all your strength."

Wei Guangde pointed in that direction with his riding crop, and Dong Yiyuan turned his horse's head and rushed forward with nearly a hundred cavalry.

Although the smoke and dust splashed by the horse's hoof is not large, it is enough to indicate the target.

When the cavalry galloped here, they were obviously surprised when they saw the long convoy in the distance. However, they did not slow down. Instead, they slightly adjusted their direction and drew a perfect arc from one side of the convoy to the other. Running in the distance, two groups of cavalry behind them were already chasing them, one on the left and the other on the right.

Watching Dong Yiyuan chase the group of Tatar scouts away, Wei Guangde suddenly became nervous.

It was just a plan before, but from this moment on, it was really put into action. As the saying goes, there is no turning back.

After finally suppressing his nervousness, Wei Guangde waved his riding crop and hit the horse's butt to make the horse run faster. At the same time, he turned to Zhang Ji behind him and said: "Inform the team officers below and ask them to urge the soldiers to speed up. Rush to Huailai County as soon as possible."

Yes, the Xuanfu wilderness is not safe at this time, and you may encounter a surprise attack by the Tatar cavalry at any time.

In fact, no matter how hard they traveled, they would not be able to reach Huailai County tonight, and they would have to spend the night in the wild.

But it doesn't matter, as long as the temporary camp is set up, a hundred or ten Tatar scouts around here can't make any big waves.

As for whether the Tatar reconnaissance team would rush back to deliver the message, Wei Guangde was not worried. Even if they ran away, neither the security nor the Anta troops under Yanqing City would have time to intercept them halfway.

At this time, only by entering a city protected by city walls can Wei Guangde feel a little safer.