Chapter 552 Night Black
On the six-foot-high watchtower, Guo Daifeng asked Qin Lang a little puzzled.
"Why did the Qiang thief listen to Wei Gong so much and honestly send the eighty-seven left ears?"
A group of archers are also puzzled, yes, why. And they knew in their hearts that there were at most twenty or thirty corpses brought back by the Qiang people. Did they really cut off another forty or fifty ears and send them here?
Qin Lang smiled, "You guys change shifts and go to have a rest. Actually, it's nothing, really."
The six-foot triangular fort is actually similar to a walled house, with three walls forming a triangle, and an attack platform on the top, but there are six floors below, each floor is ten feet high, and the bottom is built of stones. Built of rammed earth. Walking down the stairs, there are many shooting holes along the wall on the bottom floor for shooting arrows and crossbows.
The hollow courtyard surrounded by triangles makes this kind of small castle quite good.
A small castle can accommodate hundreds of people at most, but now there are only fifty archers stationed there.
The newly changed archers on the fort waved the red flag at the Qiang people in front of the fort, indicating that Qin Lang was satisfied with their attitude and asked them to come over to collect the corpses.
These Qiang people approached cautiously with white flags, for fear of the feathered arrows that appeared on the tall watchtowers. Fortunately, Qin Lang kept his word, and Tuoba Chici met his conditions and sent eighty-seven left arrows. Er, let him make up three hundred beheads, so he let the Qiang people take away the corpses in front of the embankment.
Although the weather has turned cold, the corpses will rot, and the plague may break out.
This team of Qiang people is very honest, they carried away the stripped and clean corpses of their own clansmen one by one. More than 200 corpses were emptied, and the Qiang people transported these corpses back to the front of the camp.
The archers of the Zhenxi Army on the watchtower saw these people set up a large firewood frame, and then put the corpses on it.
"What are the Qiang people going to do?"
"Cremation, this is the custom of the Qiang people. After death, they are burned with fire."
Compared to the cremation customs of the Qiang people, the Han people traditionally bury themselves in the soil, but the customs of the Di people are more peculiar. Many customs handed down by the Di people are actually sky burials. Near the village where they live together, there is usually a celestial burial platform. After death, people are sent to it and placed there to be eaten by vultures and crows. They believe that in this way, they can reach heaven and reincarnate.
In fact, the location of the five-star fortress used to be the celestial burial platform of the Di people in this valley.
This night.
The Qiang people lit many fires, and burned hundreds of comrades who died in battle. While burning, they sang and danced around the fires, and then killed cattle and sheep and ate them.
Some fathers, brothers, sons and other relatives of the war dead danced while holding a knife, scratched their faces, let the blood flow all over their faces, and swore to the sky that they would pay the match.
Remuneration competition, this is a revenge tradition of the Qiang people. Blood for blood, tooth for tooth, and finally cut off the head of the enemy to complete revenge.
In the five-star main city.
Qin Lang also rewarded the dozen or so soldiers who were injured, and also awarded merits and rewards to the dozen or so soldiers who performed the most bravely and killed the most enemies.
A not-so-intense offensive and defensive battle ended with killing 300 enemies and injuring 15 others. No one was seriously injured, let alone killed, and no one was disabled.
This terrible battle loss ratio has now made Xi Junmai, Liang Jianfang and other generals firmly shut up their doubts, and finally believe in the magic of this weird fortress.
They stood on the high watchtower during the day, watching the whole process of the Qiang attack from a condescending height, and almost 2,000 Qiang people were stopped by just one embankment.
This kind of battle is so cool.
If it was a city in the past, as long as it wasn't a particularly fortified city like Diezhou, or an ordinary flat city, how could it be so easy to defend.
"This castle is really not in vain, it is well built."
"The Qiang people are afraid that they will retreat in the face of difficulties, so they are going to run away?"
The generals all laughed.
Qin Lang was looking at the map. In the direction of Diezhou, he was actually not afraid of the Qiang people. This time Li Daoyan's defeat was unexpected, and the Qiang people were not prepared. road. Now Chici must still be summoning people from various ministries to come.
But he believed that the tribes that belonged to the Feiting tribe and the Yeli tribe last time would never dare to send troops this time. Their leaders were still on pilgrimage in Luoyang, and their tribes suffered heavy losses last time and died in battle. Many soldiers have lost many cattle and sheep, and even lost many armors and weapons. How dare they send troops now.
Only the Tuoba tribe waits to send troops, so there will not be too many troops.
Diezhou can mobilize about 10,000 soldiers from the prefecture, township, and city border. The five-star fortress here is only a frontier fortress, with only a few hundred soldiers. There are still many soldiers in Xijun City and Muma City in the rear town, and they are not afraid of the Qiang people's penetration.
The problem is still on the front line of Taohe, Taozhou and Minzhou states. Because of Li Daoyan's fault, they are now very empty. Last time Li Daoyan brought all the soldiers and horses he could bring, but the result was that the entire army was basically wiped out. There are no soldiers and horses in the states.
Although Qin Lang sent out a warning signal very early on, and Qin, Wei, Helan and other prefectures would send troops to reinforce them, I'm afraid that the distant water would not be able to dispel the nearby fire.
Originally, Diezhou has a new force, but if Chici is restrained here, Taozhou and Minzhou cannot be rescued.
No matter how you look at it, Tang Jun can't laugh this time.
It is not worth being happy to defend Diezhou.
"Everyone, this time our Great Tang suffered an unprecedented defeat and lost more than 20,000 troops. Why are you still laughing? Now Taomin is empty and is being attacked by Qiang people. Diezhou is the nearest reinforcement. If we can't rescue Taozhou, it will be the failure of our Diezhou Governor's Mansion and the Zhenxi Army!"
As soon as Qin Lang said this, all the generals who were happy at first lost their joy.
This meeting was a meeting of officers above the brigade commander level in the army. There were more than 20 officers from the West Army of the Five Hundred Towns, and the newly reorganized more than one thousand soldiers were also chaired by people Qin Lang sent from the West Army. Officers at all levels, therefore, the dozens of military academies here are actually members of the Zhenxi Army.
"Liang Junshi, I am going to hand over the five-star fortress to you to take charge of the defense. I will take 200 light cavalry out of the city at night with Xi Duwei, return to Diezhou first, and then organize troops to go north to Mingzhou to rescue Taozhou. Can you Are you up to the task?"
The five-star fortress originally only had three regiments of 600 troops, one regiment of cavalry and two regiments of infantry. Now Qin Lang wanted to take all these regiments of cavalry away, leaving only 400 infantry.
The task given by Qin Lang was not light, in addition to guarding the fortress, he also had to restrain the tens of thousands of Qiang people in front of him here, preventing them from going deep into Diezhou, or turning north to Taozhou.
If the Qiang people abandoned the Five Star Fort and left, Liang Jianfang would have to go after the attack.
"Don't worry, Mr. Liang, I will be able to guard the Five-Star Fortress and control these Qiang people." Not only are there four hundred infantrymen in the castle, but there are more than twelve hundred reorganized defeated soldiers. That's a whole six regiments. All of them are government soldiers and cavalry.
Now under the command of the officers of the Zhenxi Army, this combat force is still very impressive.
Xi Junbuy raised objections.
"It's good for the governor and Liang Junshi to stay in the five-star castle. My old Xi will go out of the city by night with my own soldiers. When I arrive in Diezhou, I will take the commander's warrant and take one or two thousand Qingqi to Dangzhou first, and then find Lao Gao." Seconded one or two thousand riders, and then went to Minzhou for reinforcements, and decided to teach the Qiang people to come and go."
Leaving from the Five-Star Fort at this time is still dangerous. Although the Qiang people are not good at attacking the city, they are nomads. They are easy to ride and there are many people. There are still about 200 miles to Diezhou City, so it is difficult to guarantee Safety along the way.
Xi Junmai meant that he didn't take his soldiers away at all, but only took his own soldiers and ran secretly, so that he ran faster.
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In the middle of the night, some Qiang people were still eating wine, drinking meat and dancing, while some Qiang people had already fallen asleep.
In the dark, some Qiang sentry cavalry were patrolling.
Xi Junmai set off at night.
He took his own guard, a total of ten riders.
A person holds a piece, and a horse wraps its hooves.
It's dark tonight, but it's also suitable for going out of town.
Being promoted by Qin Lang due to meritorious service, Guo Daizhao, who is now the temporary lieutenant of the fourth regiment after the reorganization of the defeated army, also stepped on the horse's back.
Behind him was an entire light cavalry regiment of two hundred horses.
"Mr. Wei, all five sects have prepared a group of light cavalry, ready to attack at any time!"
Qin Lang nodded, he patted Guo Daizhao's horse's neck, "Remember, your task tonight is just a feigned attack, not a real attack on the camp, remember."
Guo Daizhao still expressed his opinion, "Wei Gong, actually, I think the attack is also a good opportunity. The Qiang people probably didn't expect us to dare to go out of the fort to attack at night."
Qin Lang just shook his head, "Follow the military order."
"Yes!" Guo Daizhao immediately responded seriously.
A red light was lit on the Bell and Drum Tower in the center of the main city.
Guo Daizhao patted Qin Lang's chest as a signal, and then urged the horse to move forward, followed by the two hundred defeated Minzhou soldiers who had already suffocated in their hearts.
The Five-Star Fort has five walls, five bastions, and five gates.
The drawbridge was lowered, and the knights filed out. They first entered the triangular fort opposite the city gate. After passing through the triangular fort, they passed the drawbridge to reach the half-moon fort outside the second ditch. After arriving at Fangdunbao, we crossed another suspension bridge before finally stepping on the opposite embankment slope.
Turn left and turn right, several suspension bridges, pass through several forts, cross two ditches and three embankments.
Guo Daizhao led his troops to line up on the slope.
Two hundred Qingqi gathered.
Raising the long spear, Guo Daizhao shouted.
"kill!"
Two hundred Qingqi descended like a tiger.
The sentry cavalry of the Qiang people found Tang cavalry coming out of the city and immediately blew their horns.
In the big camp of the Qiang people, the lights kept going on, and many Qiang riders got out of their tents and mounted their horses, and gathered out of the camp holding torches.
Qin Lang boarded the Bell and Drum Tower and watched from the highest place in the city.
In the dark night, countless torches gathered from the Qiang camp, and then the fire dragon galloped to meet Tang Qi who rushed out in the dark night.
The two armies fought at night.
Guo Daizhao and the others did not hold up the torches, but rode their horses forward, and fired several arrows as they approached. When they were about to collide, they steered past them.
Standing on the watchtower, Qin Lang breathed a sigh of relief, and was really worried that the young Guo Dalang would be impulsive, disobeying the military order, and pretending to attack would become real.
Just looking at the Qiang people's reaction, one can tell that Tuoba Chici has been guarding against his night attack. If he really fights, there will never be any chance.
"Let the fifth regiment attack!"
(end of this chapter)