Chapter 622 The armor light opens towards the golden scales of the sun

In the second year of Zhang Shaoming's reign, 947 AD, on the second day of June, Hedong's army and Zhang Zhou's army had been facing each other across the Zhang River for almost half a month.

The two sides continued to confront each other until Liu Zhiyuan felt that he was going to die from the severe cold. The decisive battle began when the Hedong Army voluntarily gave up three miles of the southwest bank of the Zhang River to vacate the site.

In the early morning, the sun had not yet risen. The Hedong Army, which was responsible for guarding the river section and of course insulting the Zhou army, suddenly discovered that the opposite bank of the river was full of flags. The Zhou army was already preparing to cross the river. There were already more than ten small boats in the river.

Driving quickly, I saw the soldiers from Hedong approaching, so I immediately fired a bunch of crossbows and arrows.

The Hedong Army was caught off guard and several people were shot dead on the spot, while the rest quickly ran back to report the news.

Zhang Zhaozhong stood at the bow of the boat and was ordered to be the first to land.

Sixteen years have passed since in the second year of Changxing (931), as a restless member of the Guiyi Army, he was sent by the Cao family to follow Emperor Shao Ming to Anxi.

Man Xiong, who was only 21 years old at the time, is now 37 years old. He has also changed from a soldier (ruffian) who is often noisy and has no food to eat, to a pro-army in the Zhou Dynasty - the Zuotong Army of Xianshandu.

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Back when he was in the Guiyi Army, he, Zhang Zhaozhong, was a person that a pig would hate but a dog would not love.

The superior officer thought that he was always making trouble, and his colleagues were afraid that he would go crazy and beat people, and of course they were even more afraid that he would eat all the food by himself, so when he left, everyone was jubilant.

However, the reality is that it is so unpredictable. The wild bear who followed Zhang Zhang in the hope of having enough to eat ended up wandering into a vast world.

When he came back, his original colleagues were still too poor to go out in the winter because they didn't have much trousers to wear. The family situation that made him drool with envy at first, now looked like a poor mouse in tears.

If in Anxi, Zhang Zhaozhong's loyalty to Zhang Gao was 95, then after returning, it was directly pulled to 100.

This time, Zhang Zhaozhong put on two layers of cotton armor and took his two hundred most trusted soldiers to cross the river in advance. His task was very important, but also very dangerous.

If the Hedong Army suddenly attacks after they cross the river, he will have to hold his position to provide cover for the subsequent crossing of the river.

Moreover, the time for cover was definitely not short, because the Zhou army did not have many tools to cross the river. They could only rush to repair two narrow pontoons and more than 40 ships of various types.

This amount of transportation is extremely limited for the Zhou army of nearly 30,000 people. If the entire army is to cross the river, it may not take a whole day. However, this is the purpose of Zhang Zhang's sending Zhang Zhaozhong to take the lead in crossing the river.

Not only will his two hundred heavy armored men cross the river immediately, but also Zhang Zhaojiu's four hundred jumping soldiers, Li Cunhui's right wing Lin Wei's three hundred elite cavalry, and Feng Hui's silver spears, all four hundred elite.

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These 1,300 people will establish a defense line at the forefront to protect the entire army.

Murong Yanchao watched from a distance as the Zhou troops on the opposite side continued to land. When he saw the first flag that appeared, which was a silver-white background with a golden dragon embroidered on it, he immediately became speechless.

Because Murong Yanchao, who had been in the Zhou army, knew that Shao Tianzi was very interested in various dragon patterns.

Regardless of whether it is a tuanlong or a flying dragon, he even personally designed a kind of over-the-shoulder dragon robe. Currently, only the most elite Han Shandu and the left and right Yulin guards of the Zhou Kingdom can be awarded the golden tuanlong flag.

The sound of tapping horse hooves sounded, and a man he sent to spy on the primary school returned. Murong Yanchao anxiously grabbed him off his horse and asked impatiently.

"How's it going? Have you seen who is the Zhou general who crossed the river first? Is he a short guy, or is he a tall and strong man who likes to ride a blue Pegasus?"

The principal shook his head, "No, he's a man as strong as a bear. He crossed the river with two hundred people, all wearing heavy armor. He's not easy to mess with at first sight!"

"Damn you!" Murong Yanchao gasped, then smacked his mouth twice.

"Why are the dogs like Barbarian Bear here? Aren't they in Fuyang? The dogs are here. When Barbarian Bear arrives, the Tibetan bandit who is playing spear throwing must also be here. It's not easy to fight!"

Murong Yanchao said the two "dogs" in succession, then immediately calmed down and waved his hand to the primary school.

"Call all the sons back. Let Bai Zairong, Wang Yin and the others fight this battle. We can go back and protect the king!"

Murong Yanchao originally wanted to compete for the vanguard, because Liu Zhiyuan offered a reward of 30,000 yuan for the vanguard, but compared to others, Murong Yanchao was more familiar with the abilities of Zhou's famous generals.

If each team brings more than 10,000 athletes to compete for supremacy, Murong Yanchao is confident that the bear will not be able to find the north. But if one or two thousand people fight fiercely, the bear will definitely beat him completely.

This money is not easy to get, and there is a high probability that it will be taken but not spent.

What can I say about Murong Yanchao? He is definitely a tough guy, but he has been in the low-level "underworld" for a long time and has been tainted with too much gangsterism. He has developed a personality that bullies the weak and fears the strong.

Therefore, although he, Huangfu Yu, and Fu Yanqing were among the three most powerful enemies of the Later Jin Dynasty, they were mostly despised by the people of the time.

It can be said that it is a typical example of how it is difficult to achieve big things if the structure is small.

Here Murong Yanchao could no longer argue, and Bai Zairong and Wang Yin successfully got the vanguard job. They quickly fired up two thousand warriors each, and waited for the Zhou army to attack when they were halfway across.

Liu Zhiyuan also knew that this was a crucial battle and was not stingy at all. He immediately sent a hundred pieces of gorgeous brocade to Bai Zairong and Wang Yinhe's military tents.

Well! Fortunately, this is not my Song Dynasty. Otherwise, for a penny less, even if the soldiers saw the other party landing and immediately came to hack him to death, they would never attack. They can do without anything, and the rules cannot be broken.

Murong Yanchao had already sneaked up to Liu Zhiyuan at this time. He had actually been telling Liu Zhiyuan that the Zhou army was strong, but Liu Zhiyuan was not willing to listen, so Murong Yanchao didn't say much now.

However, as a general with superb martial arts skills, Murong Yanchao did not think that Bai Zairong and Wang Yin were capable of defeating Man Xiong and Dunzhu on the opposite side, so he suggested to Liu Zhiyuan in a low voice.

"Brother, we must make more preparations for the decisive battle. My brother, please go down and arrange the car formation. If something goes wrong in the front, we can still fight with the Zhou people in a dignified formation."

Since he knew that Zhou Jun's Hexi cavalry was brave and brave, Liu Zhiyuan certainly would not fail to make preparations. Moreover, the Hedong Army also had rich experience in fighting cavalry, so Liu Zhiyuan still brought hundreds of large vehicles, and the vehicle formation was still arranged.

So he nodded, feeling that what Murong Yanchao said made sense, "Silang, let's go down and make arrangements, but I believe that Bai Zairong and Wang Yin are both strong generals, and they will definitely win the battle."

Murong Yanchao curled his lips in his heart, what time is it, and he is still dreaming!

Suddenly, he felt that his brother was no longer the calm, courageous and resourceful brother he had been before.

Zhang Zhaozhong breathed a sigh of relief, because behind him Zhang Zhaojiu's 400 jumping soldiers had arrived, Feng Hui's 200 silver spearmen had also arrived, and Lin Wei, the right feather leader, was also pulling down the war horses by the river bank.

Now he is no longer afraid. With more than a thousand people, he is confident that he can withstand an attack that is five times more than the enemy on the opposite side.

Zhang Zhaozhong directly placed his team on the flat ground on the river beach, without covering the two wings at all.

Because there was no way that hundreds of people like him could completely cover the entire river beach, so they simply left it open and not covered it up.

Of course, the biggest reliance is that he has one hundred divine arm bows for two hundred people, and Feng Hui, who is on the left and right, has two hundred silver spears, all of them are soldiers with superb shooting skills.

Not to mention that Zhang Zhao, who only wore a layer of cotton armor, had 400 soldiers, equipped with bows, crossbows, and throwing spears. With this firepower, anyone who dared to bypass them and counter-encircle them would cause the enemy to suffer heavy losses.

Bai Zairong and Wang Yin came a little late, but this is not their fault, because the first two hundred people who came were Zhang Zhaozhong. They gave up a battlefield, and it was not just for these two hundred people. Naturally, they had to give up a battlefield.

Let's wait until more enemies have crossed the river.

In the view of the Hedong soldiers, the best time to attack was when the Zhou army crossed the river with more than 2,000 men.

Liu Zhiyuan was not stupid. Murong Yanchao's silly half-crossing attack tactic was not adopted by Liu Zhiyuan.

Liu Zhiyuan knew very well that even if the battle at the Zhangshui River was a tragic victory, the Hedong Army would still have only one way to go: destruction.

Because Hedong is really too barren and is no longer the Hedong it was 20 years ago. A miserable victory means a loss.

With the current situation, he could only maintain the possibility of taking control of the Central Plains by severely inflicting heavy losses on the Zhou army at the Zhang River and even capturing Zhang Yan.

Therefore, Liu Zhiyuan's strategy was to use the Zhangshui beachhead as an anvil, Hedong's elite as a hammer, and let the Zhou army cross one or two thousand people as red-hot iron blocks.

He asked the Zhou army to cross the river with one or two thousand men, so he defeated one or two thousand men, and then retreated to make way for the Zhou army to cross the river again.

After defeating him two or three times in this way, the morale of the Zhou army was low, and then they retreated again to the selected battlefield in the northeast of Jize County, where they decided the outcome in one battle.

To achieve this goal, we should not send too many troops. If there are too many troops, after one loss, the Zhou army will probably not cross the river again.

Only by making the Zhou army feel that they are almost victorious every time, so that they will keep crossing the river, until finally the Zhou army loses its mind and the whole army attacks, then great things will be done.

The idea is very beautiful, but there is an important prerequisite, that is, the Hedong army must fight fiercely and be able to quickly eat the one or two thousand people of the Zhou army crossing the river with four thousand men.

If Guo Wei were here, he would definitely advise Liu Zhiyuan not to play like this, because Guo Wei had experienced it and knew that Zhou Jun's infantry fighting ability was also very good.

But Liu Zhiyuan didn't know that he, like Guo Wei before the Battle of Hezhang Valley, made the mistake of stereotypes. They both believed that the rise of the Zhou Kingdom was due to the bravery of cavalry, and that infantry was not as abundant as in the Central Plains.

These guys, it has been two years since Zhang Xi entered Tokyo, and they still regard Zhang Xi's Hexi Group as a foreign race like the Khitans outside the Great Wall who are good at cavalry.

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Four thousand people can actually form an army of thousands, and Hedong Yabing is even better at this style of fighting.

Under the leadership of Bai Zairong and Wang Yin, they not only spread out far apart, but also wore shoes that were much larger than ordinary shoes. When they walked, they kicked twice and suddenly filled the sky with smoke and dust. Looking up close, it was a mess, but

From a distance it looks like it's blocking out the sky.

However, this did not scare Zhang Zhaozhong (Barbarian Bear), the light cavalry in Anxi, and Hezhong were better at using smoke and dust to build momentum, but in the end they all proved to be frivolous. With the combination of cloth-covered iron armor and crossbows, without exception, they were defeated

All fell down.

But soon, Zhang Zhaozhong realized something was wrong, because the arrows shot from the dust on the opposite side were very fierce.

A heavy arrow with white tail feathers fell from the sky and hit Zhang Zhaozhong's chest, making a loud clanking sound.

Another arrow shot from a distance, smoothly penetrating his outermost cloth armor, and then hung softly on Zhang Zhaozhong's body. It turned out that it was not a crossbow arrow but a bow arrow.

"The bandits from Hedong have kept their crossbow arrows. They must be trying to get closer and shoot!"

Everyone around him shouted loud reminders, and Zhang Zhaozhong's expression became serious.

Generally speaking, the standard for testing the combat effectiveness of a cold weapon era army is not actually close combat, but long-range projection capabilities.

A powerful army must have elite archers who wear heavy armor, are good at shooting from a distance, and can fight hand-to-hand at close range.

Before the habit of archers not practicing hand-to-hand combat appeared in the Song Dynasty, all the elites of an army were in the hands of crossbows.

A qualified warrior must be able to step forward, wear heavy armor and shoot a strong bow.

And from the strength of the arrows fired, the strength of the enemy can be accurately judged.

Even though there are thousands of weak enemies, they cannot shoot a dense rain of arrows. Enemies with average strength can shoot a rain of arrows, but the penetrating power is not strong, because most of their soldiers can only fire seven or eight soft bows.

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To be continued...