sovbooks Chapter 1387 Kinship Becomes Blood Feud
Chapter 1387 Kinship Becomes Blood Feud
Chapter 1387 Kinship Becomes Blood Feud
The grassland in late winter, under the gentle brushstrokes of the setting sun, presents a tranquil and profound picture.
The sky was gradually dyed with a mixture of orange and lavender, as if it was the most delicate brushstrokes of nature, slowly outlined on the vast sky.
Sitting on the horse and looking around, the entire grassland is covered with a layer of light golden color, echoing the sunset in the distant sky.
The accumulated snow sparkles with a soft light under the setting sun, like a jade blanket covering the world, adding a bit of fantasy and mystery.
There was still a chill in the air, but it was also mixed with a unique fresh scent of soil soaked in snow water.
General Zhendong took a deep breath, looked up at the eastern sky, and couldn't help but sigh:
"If the Grand Marshal were here, he might be able to recite some good writings, but we are not good at writing, so we can only say it is good."
In the distance, several low hills have clear outlines, surrounded by a light snow mist. Under the reflection of dusk, they appear more distinct and layered, like an exquisite ink painting.
In such a beautiful ink painting, there are two groups of people fighting fiercely at an inappropriate time.
The warm blood was spraying freely, and the remaining snow, which had long been trampled into mud by horses' hooves, was occasionally splashed with the still warm blood.
The remaining snow, blood, and mud mixed together, making the muddy water not only have a strange color, but also a bit sticky.
The chill in late winter could not prevent the ground from becoming muddy, which shows how brutal the war was.
Human blood adds a touch of sadness to this exquisite ink painting.
Compared to the relaxed and carefree General Zhendong, Tuoba Liwei was much more irritable.
"Dou Bin, you bastard! You are a hybrid of a mole and a vulture, worse than livestock!"
"I want to fuck your mother! I want to peel off your skin, I want to..."
Although he knew that cursing would be useless, Tuoba Liwei still couldn't suppress his extremely manic mood and kept barking like a mad dog.
But the fact is, in the eyes of Tuoba Liwei, who was barking like a mad dog, Dou Bin and the troops he brought with him were the mad dogs of all sizes.
They are simply human mad dogs!
As soon as the two sides met, Dou Bin immediately sent a large army to rush over.
No probing, no testing, no foreplay, just jump on the horse, gun raised, and do it!
Although Wuhuan King Kuxian gave himself some time, he was able to be more prepared.
But in fact, Tuoba Liwei was almost caught off guard by Dou Bin's unconventional behavior.
Fortunately, the Tuoba tribe is the largest allied tribe on the grassland.
There isn’t much else, but there is definitely a lot of manpower.
There was originally a ditch where the Suotou spent the winter, which was used to prevent wolves on weekdays - and also to prevent sneak attacks by humans.
After learning that Dou Bin was coming, Tuoba Liwei ordered people to dig another one.
Finally, he learned from Ku Xian that Dou Bin had the help of the Han army, so Tuoba Liwei urgently ordered people to dig another trench at the outermost edge overnight.
In fact, this extra trench was mainly used to deal with the Han army.
The wars on the grassland are not as varied as those in southern Xia.
Because there were no cities, the terrain was flat, and the two sides were mainly cavalry.
Therefore, by learning to use the terrain and digging trenches to stop the enemy, they were able to surpass most of the tribes on the grassland.
Don't look down on digging trenches, the most basic civil engineering work. As long as it is deep and wide enough, it is enough to make the grassland cavalry complain.
The Qin Straight Road, which led directly from Jiuyuan to Chang'an, was artificially dug in the early Later Han Dynasty. One important reason for this was to prevent harassment from the Hu people in Henan (i.e. Hetao).
After General Feng reconquered Henan, he repaired the Qin Straight Road, which was also a task that the Han Dynasty had never stopped over the years.
There was no other way. At the end of the Later Han Dynasty, some of the dangerous places on the Qinzhi Road were dug up again...
From this we can see that digging trenches may seem simple, but it is a powerful weapon against cavalry.
But now, the trench dug overnight has been filled up by Dou Bin.
It was filled with corpses, both human and horse.
One can imagine how crazy Dou Bin on the opposite side was.
It seemed that he didn't care about the casualties of his troops at all, and was simply driving them to sacrifice their lives.
Enter his mother!
When did the Mei Lu Hui tribe become so brave?
It’s not that there is no Dou Bin-like fighting style on the grassland.
However, such disregard for casualties and the willingness to risk the last bit of one's fortune basically only occurs when the tribe is facing the final moment of life and death.
Otherwise, even if they win, it will be a pyrrhic victory. With their vitality severely damaged, they may be caught by other tribes while they are waiting behind.
That would be a defeat without being defeated.
And if you lose, it will be even more tragic, you won’t even have a chance to start over.
When Tuoba Liwei was attached to Dou Bin, he often led his people to follow Dou Bin to fight against the leaders of the Xianbei tribes in the west.
In the most disastrous defeat, Dou Bin was almost caught by the enemy - if Tuoba Liwei had not given his warhorse to Dou Bin in time.
Even so, Dou Bin fled back to his clan, rested for a few years, and was able to recover.
If Dou Bin had been as crazy as he is today, he would have been eaten up by others over the years without leaving a single bone.
Where is the Meiluhui tribe, the second largest tribe on the grassland?
"Ke Han, please be patient. The number of people in the Moluhui tribe who can hold the bow and arrows is no more than 20,000, and the number of people who can charge into battle on horseback is no more than 10,000."
The black-clad butler who followed him like a shadow waited until Tuoba Liwei finished yelling and cursing and was catching his breath before speaking in a deep voice:
"People like Dou Bin have no rules and only care about driving the warriors of the tribe to fight. Even if they rely on their courage for a while, they will not be able to last long."
Tuoba Liwei exhaled forcefully, stared ahead, and tried to calm his tone:
"I know that. I am angry not only because of Dou Bin's betrayal, but also because he colluded with the Han people to attack us!"
Doesn’t he know what the Western Xianbei is like now?
Didn’t he see what happened to Kebi Neng, Xie Guini and others of the Central Xianbei?
They even dared to collude with the Han people, and the person they colluded with was Feng the Plague God, who was notorious on the grassland for his cruelty and ruthlessness.
It’s simply asking for death!
Tuoba Liwei couldn't believe that Feng Wenshen would be so kind to help.
It would have been fine if Dou Bin was just seeking his own death, but his purpose was to drag the Tuoba tribe into the water. How could Tuoba Liwei not be furious?
This ungrateful bastard!
I wish I could marry all the women in his family!
We should not have given the horses to this old beast. He should have been caught and killed by Lord West!
However, if I hadn't saved the old beast that time, I'm afraid there would be no Tuoba Xianbei now...
Tsk!
When Tuoba Liwei thought of this, he couldn't help but curse again:
"I wish I could be his mother!"
"Kehan, we are facing a powerful enemy. We must not act rashly."
When the black-robed butler saw that Tuoba Liwei refused to listen to his advice, he almost wanted to say "Ru Kehan's mother" in his heart.
Just think about it, Tuoba Liwei's mother's surname is Han, so I can only give up.
As if he heard the anger in the black-robed butler's tone, Tuoba Liwei finally restrained himself a little:
"Don't worry, Deacon. I have sent people around from the north. As soon as we see movement from the left rear of the opposite side, we can launch a charge from the front."
There's nothing wrong with filling a ditch.
Aren’t there two more?
As long as the cavalry is sent out to look for opportunities on the enemy's flank and harass the enemy's flank and rear, it will be enough.
Cavalry in different eras has different uses.
In the Former Qin Dynasty, it was mostly used for raids, cutting off food supply, pursuing defeated armies, etc. It did not have much room for use on the front battlefield.
But by the time of the Chu-Han contention, cavalry had begun to be used in frontal charges.
It is not known when and by whom the cavalry's frontal charge was first invented, but the promotion of this tactic is inseparable from one person.
Xiang Yu.
During the Chu-Han contention, Liu Bang was driven to death by Xiang Yu's cavalry.
Therefore, it is not surprising that cavalry began to be used in frontal charges since the Western Han Dynasty.
During the Western Han Dynasty, so many horse farms were opened in the border counties and hundreds of thousands or even millions of war horses were raised. It cannot be said that all of them were used on the side battlefields to assist the infantry, right?
As for the Huns of that era, they were rubbish compared to the Han army in terms of the use of cavalry.
Tens of thousands of cavalry surrounded 5,000 Han infantry on the grassland, but suffered more than 10,000 casualties.
In the end, they had to rely on the terrain to stop the Han army's advance, which finally wore the Han army down. This is enough to show that the Xiongnu cavalry at that time had no ability to charge head-on.
In the Later Han Dynasty, the "Tuqi" under Emperor Guangwu played a huge role in reviving the Han Dynasty.
The name of Tuqi, as the name suggests, means a sharp cavalry used to conflict with the enemy.
If a certain bumpkin hadn't intervened, cavalry would have reached its peak a hundred years later - armored cavalry.
The Black Armor Army under Li Shimin's command was a group of armored cavalry.
But armored cavalry equipment is not without weaknesses.
Its biggest weakness is that it is expensive. Very expensive, extremely expensive.
Once used, if it cannot make the final decision on the battlefield, its cost-effectiveness will become extremely low, or even a huge loss.
Therefore, whether it was the Tang or Yuan Dynasty, although both had a large number of cavalry, light and heavy cavalry were used in coordination, and there was no emphasis on either one.
Even during the great war between the two dynasties, because they were beaten up, they gained experience and were able to develop tactics to restrain cavalry.
As a result, the heavy cavalry such as the Crooked Horse in the north were once again reduced to a type of troop on the flank battlefield.
Of course, thanks to a certain country bumpkin's illegal travel through time, a complete set of armor and cavalry equipment was developed in advance, allowing heavy cavalry to enter their peak era ahead of time.
At this time, the productivity of both Wei and Wu was at least one generation behind that of the Han Dynasty.
As for the tribes on the grassland, there is no need to mention them.
Tuoba Liwei fought with Dou Bin in the front, and at the same time arranged a cavalry to go around the flank, looking for flaws, waiting for an opportunity to launch an attack, and disrupt the opponent's flanks and rear.
There was nothing wrong with this - although in the past he would have sent out one force each to the north and south, but now, half of the elite cavalry in the tribe were nowhere to be found.
But he was wrong. He underestimated his opponent and did not understand him.
"General, a cavalry unit of the Xianbei Hu is coming around from the north."
Zhao Sanqian raised the telescope and took the initiative to assume the responsibility of lookout, reporting the situation to General Zhendong.
Taking the initiative to rush to the enemy's preset battlefield, there is no way to select the commanding heights in advance, so you can only let someone set up a temporary command platform.
General Zhendong stood on the command platform with his hands behind his back, seemingly admiring the picturesque scenery of the grassland, and did not care too much about the latest enemy situation discovered by Zhao Guang.
Of course, in his eyes, this battle was not worthy of taking the opponent too seriously.
There was no way out. The opponent had proactively weakened half of his strength in advance, which undoubtedly allowed General Zhendong to crush him easily.
He just hummed to indicate that he heard it.
Then he raised his chin again and asked:
"Where's the front?"
"Dou Bin has broken through the first line of defense of the Xianbei Hu and is continuing to advance,"
After a pause, Zhao Guang lowered his voice a little, "General, in my opinion, the situation of the Meiluhui tribe seems to be a little bad."
Although he couldn't see the specific situation clearly, but from the telescope, Zhao Guang could see that the formation of the Meiluhui tribe had become somewhat messy.
And this mess has continued and has not been restored.
This is not normal for a team that just won a round by a small margin.
Zhao Guang may not be good at other things, but he has some experience in leading troops.
At a glance, he could guess roughly:
The Meiluhui tribe was probably exhausted and had no strength left.
At this time, Dou Bin still dared to lead his troops forward, which might be dangerous.
From the telescope, we can see that although Tuoba Xianbei had lost a line of defense, the formation in the rear was still neat and the flags were not in disarray.
Comparing the two sides, the Tuoba Xianbei is indeed much stronger than the Meiluhui tribe.
In this situation, if Tuoba Liwei realized that the Meiluhui tribe was at the end of its strength and organized troops to counterattack, Dou Bin would probably not be able to stop them.
"Oh?" General Zhendong's gaze finally shifted from the distant scenery back to the front of the battle, and a faint arc appeared at the corner of his mouth:
"Since Dou Bin didn't send anyone to ask for help, then don't worry about him."
"What if there is no Lu Hui and the defeated troops counterattack?"
"Notify Tufa Tianli and others and have them be ready at any time."
After sending the order as instructed, Zhao Guang smacked his lips with some regret, "Too many Hu people died with this kind of fighting style."
That’s a lot of money for a laborer!
"not enough."
"Ok?"
Zhao Guang turned around with some surprise and looked at General Zhendong.
General Zhendong looked solemn and indifferent, "Not enough people have died."
"The Tuoba Xianbei are a large tribe. If we can destroy them as planned this time, we will have at least 200,000 to 300,000 laborers."
"Adding the Meiluhui tribe, I'm afraid we can capture nearly 500,000 Hu people this time."
Even though Zhao Guang had been with Chief Feng Laoli for many years, he couldn't help swallowing when he heard this number.
Too much……
General Zhendong exhaled, "But this is deep in the grassland. Even if we include the Huqi Yicong, we only have less than 50,000 people."
He shook his head. "How can fifty thousand people watch over five hundred thousand people on the grassland?"
Even if all the hemp ropes in the army were used, they would not be able to tie up so many people.
Because of this expedition, the General Staff's deduction estimated that being able to recruit 200,000 or 300,000 people would be the limit.
Not to mention the countless horses, cattle and sheep.
"Although the Meiluhui tribe is fighting fiercely with the Tuoba Xianbei now, they are relatives after all. If something unexpected really happens after the war, our expedition to the border this time may be in vain."
The Hu people cannot be trusted.
"So I can only feel at ease if I let them fight to a blood feud."
How does it become a blood feud?
Of course, more people will die on both sides.
Compared to making money from selling heads, General Zhendong pays more attention to the arrangements after this battle.
The battle went so smoothly that General Zhendong had some new ideas.