Chapter 473 Counterattack

After receiving the news of the capture of Dalun Mountain, Dai Yun launched a full-scale attack on the middle route without waiting for the concentrated troops to reorganize Dalun Mountain. With the morale and exquisite battle plan, in just three days, the middle route army drove the Western route army for more than 40 miles and captured several small and medium-sized towns. Although the middle route army still had to disperse a little energy for the residents who were hostile to themselves in the towns and refused to cooperate in all aspects, the middle route army had at least several support points. The subsequent development was smoother. The Yunzhou army never worried about local cooperation. They did not collect grain from the local area, had strict battlefield discipline, and always traveled in groups to ensure that they deal with battles of all sizes at any time.

One day after the full attack on the middle lane, the Blood Qi Army began to take over the enemy. At the beginning, it was just a small-scale ambush and harassment. In the much more complex road environment than the middle lane and the northern lane, the Blood Qi Army needed to be vigilant at all times. In the first two or three days, the Western Lane Army actually caused more than 200 casualties to the Blood Qi Army. In addition to the thirteen people who died and twenty-nine people were injured in the first battle, it was all caused by the Western Lane Army using various non-combat means. Gao Senqi broke the scout troops of the Flying Tiger Camp into pieces and divided them into pieces.

Many groups have set up various traps on the road. On the rugged mountain road, a small-scale landslide may be reimbursed for several soldiers of the Blood Qi Army. The Blood Qi Army is indeed strong in combat, but in addition to light infantry, archers and cavalry, the most combat-effective heavy infantry and heavy equipment battalions need to rely on the protection of friendly troops during the march, and their combat effectiveness is a mess. In the marching of the mountain road, when those artificial landslides, rolling wood and rocks and small-scale harassment and raids were combined, the Blood Qi Army was in trouble.

In the following days, the Blood Qi Army had to greatly reduce the speed of the march, relying more on the prior reconnaissance of the airships, and more on the anti-harassment of the scouts. This situation lasted for nearly ten days until the Light Infantry Battalion of the Blood Qi Army, as the vanguard, finally walked out of the mountains and brought Wangchuan Town into sight. In the ten days, the Blood Qi Army suffered more than 600 casualties. Although the loss of combat power was insignificant, the Blood Qi Army's belief that it would win had not changed at all, the entire army fell into an irritable mood. Everyone was thinking about fighting a good battle in Wangchuan to relieve their depression.

However, Gao Senqi seemed to have grasped the mood of the Blood Qi Army, and Wangchuan Town was completely unprepared. The 6,000 garrisons in Wangchuan Town had all evacuated one day ago. Gao Senqi only left a small school, holding a battlefield handover document waiting for the Blood Qi Army. The document stated the population of the entire Wangchuan Town and the current food, medicine and other daily conditions, and stated that the battlefield handover aims to reduce civilian casualties. The local residents of Wangchuan Town will not cooperate with the military operations of the Blood Qi Army, but will not hinder them. I hope the Blood Qi Army will not harm the local people.

This move made the Blood Qi army even more depressed. Although Zou Shuangwen commanded the Blood Qi army for many years, in general, he was an administrative-style general more than a war general. After Ye Tao led the guards to the Blood Qi army, he had always served as Ye Tao's deputy, conveying Ye Tao's instructions to the entire Blood Qi army. In this strange situation, Zou Shuangwen relied more on Ye Tao's decision.

"For such an opponent, you must not measure it with your usual ideas. In fact... I have no choice. I can't think of what kind of tricks the Western Route Army is playing now. Now, our direct opponent is indeed Gao Senqi himself." Ye Tao said.

"Sir, you can't do anything?" Zou Shuangwen was a little anxious: "It's not a solution to continue like this."

"Don't worry," Ye Tao said calmly: "There are indeed many wonderful ideas on the battlefield, but the trajectory of these wonderful ideas can be pursued. Gao Senqi wants to do only a few things, either disperse our troops so that he can form local advantages to defeat them one by one, and must be able to fight quickly. He knows that once the combat power of the Blood Qi Army is exerted, it will definitely not be easily solved by the same force or less than three times the force. Or, it will prevent us from completing the combat purpose normally. This is very likely. If we cannot quickly open up the road to Zhenbei Pass and rely on the supply line that crosses the mountains, the Blood Qi Army will do the same.

It is difficult for the troops to continue fighting. But he still has confidence in us... he doesn't even use the trick of stabbing the wall and clearing the wilderness. He saw that we were always gentlemen on the battlefield, and always. Or, he tried every means to block our supplies and let us slowly consume our combat power. This is not easy. In fact, there is really such a danger. We directly open the road to Zhenbei Pass regardless of the situation. With the support of Qiu Haohui and Xue Yuan, it is probably only three days. Three days of supply is nothing. But what should I do with the baggage battalion? The baggage battalion does not have the power to protect itself, but if it is facing a team like the Flying Tiger Camp, it is another thing."

Ye Tao's explanation was also to clarify his own ideas. He immediately ordered his guards to turn around and enter the mountains, assist in protecting several baggage battalions to strengthen defense, and clear out small groups of enemies along the way. Although it was in the mountains, there were many small and medium-sized villages. The troops stationed along the way strengthened their vigilance and assisted in the transportation of supplies. For a moment, although Gaosen Banner did hide some soldiers in some secret caves that had been operated for a long time in the mountains, it was not so easy to find a chance to start. Gaosen Banner's old suspicion array in Wangchuan has achieved the due effect. The Blood Qi Army has indeed become more and more cautious due to the previous harassment and now.

He was cautious and slowed down the speed of advancing to the southeast, but Gao Senqi's idea of ​​finding an opportunity to eat a baggage battalion and some auxiliary troops in the mountains was not successful. He never expected that when the entire Xueqi army assembled in Wangchuan, the troops stationed in the mountains wanted to withdraw from their wings, and the baggage battalion completely gave up the work of transporting materials and retreated to Yunzhou. Not only that, this baggage battalion even moved southward, preparing to return to Dongping in a marching manner, and then marched all the way to Zhenbei Pass, and restarted transportation work at Zhenbei Pass. After closing the two wings of the mountains, Gao Senqi's deployment in the mountains suddenly became a joke.

For Ye Tao, such a deployment is only a prudent thing. Maintaining the supply line without full protection for ten days does not conform to Ye Tao's war aesthetics of seeking stability and integrity. When Wangchuan had an airship station and a forward base, and the Blood Qi army had rations of about twenty days, it was enough for Ye Tao to complete the preliminary tactics. Ye Tao immediately ordered the Blood Qi army to attack and successively captured Tiemen Town, Daxing Town, and Yongxing City. In five days, the Blood Qi army advanced to a place only two days away from Zhenbei Pass. As long as Xiangning City is conquered, the entire road will be opened. The Blood Qi army will be able to obtain supplies directly through Zhenbei Pass.

At that time, with the cover of the Blood Qi Army and the Tianxuan Army, which had not yet fully completed the war preparations, the Zhenbei Pass and the Imperial Army, can also gradually put the completed parts into combat.

At this moment, bad news came: Wangchuan fell!

After the Blood Qi army left, the battalion of the tribes on the Benlang Yuan was stationed in Wangchuan, with the part of the Rong Army's camp, plus the technical troops that maintained the airship station, as well as the Blood Qi army's own baggage battalion. There were more than 5,000 people in total, less than 6,000. The combat power was quite good. However, unexpectedly, Gao Senqi actually concentrated the 70,000 troops that were reserved for the final decisive battle of the Blood Qi army on the southern front, and pushed down more than 10,000 people who had just been reorganized from the middle road, and invested them in Wangchuan's attack at one time. With a ten-fold advantage of force, a large number of divine arm bows used to block air forces, overwhelming crossbows, and a lifeless attack method.

The continuous rotation of attacks without any gaps, coupled with the support of the "people" in Wangchuan City, a large number of enemy troops rushed into Wangchuan at the seventh hour after the attack began. The Rongjun Camp fought to the death and finally gave the grassland camp a chance to break out of Wangchuan with its baggage troops and airship technicians and evacuated south. The 1,200 soldiers of the Rongjun Camp were all killed... They finally ignited the accumulated sulphur bombs and burned half of Wangchuan. The so-called battlefield handover of Gaosen Banner was eventually proved to be a trap. If it weren't for the people, the hundreds of dead soldiers who had been well protected, caught them off guard. They had a great chance to defend Wangchuan and persist until the reinforcements arrived.

When attacked, there were four airships in Wangchuan's airship station, and two of them broke through the enemy's air defense array. In this battle, small airships hanging with explosives, rockets and other air defense weapons "prophetic" by Ye Tao were unveiled, proving that the craftsmen in Bei Liao were not vegetarians. One airship flew to Yunzhou to report to Dai Yun, and the other went south to report to Ye Tao.

Wangchuan's change of hands also means that the Blood Qi army was temporarily cut off from the ground route with Yunzhou. For the time being, except for the airship station in Zhenbei Pass that can continuously drop all kinds of supplies into them, they cannot obtain bulk supplies. Gao Senqi seized this opportunity. After capturing Wangchuan, he took advantage of the Yunzhou troops not restoring this ground route. Gao Senqi planned to fight the Blood Qi army. He felt that nearly 100,000 troops were not enough. At the risk of a complete retreat of the middle road in the middle road, he actually transferred more than 20,000 elite troops from the middle road, and in addition, more than 20,000 troops were transferred from the general reserve team of the Western Route Army. A total of nearly 150,000 people were mostly trained elite troops. Gao Senqi led them to the south in a mighty manner, seeking a battle with the Blood Qi army...
Chapter completed!