bookmarkrole Chapter 278 Destroy the enemy in one night!
Chapter 278 Destroy the enemy in one night!
Chapter 278 Destroy the enemy overnight!
Of course Xiao Qi would not lead an army of 10 cavalry to attack the [-]-man camp of the Byzantine Empire.
It's not that he can't beat them, but Xiao Qi doesn't think it's necessary.
After all, the camp has been set up long ago and all defensive measures are in place. Although Xiao Qi can afford these losses, there are ways to reduce losses, so why not use them?
With China's thousands of years of war culture, Xiao Qi naturally came up with two.
First, the attack must be saved.The supply camp not far from the Byzantine camp here must be saved by these guys.
The second is that all Chinese people know that they have sent aid.
Xiao Qi divided the [-] cavalry he brought into [-], and ordered them to feign attack on the large supply camp that was more than ten miles away from the big camp here.
He himself led the remaining [-] cavalry troops to ambush to the place where the camp was two-thirds away from the supply camp.
In this way, the battalion over there got the news that the supply battalion was attacked here, and when the soldiers of the camp ran for nearly ten miles, their physical strength had definitely dropped a lot.
At that time, I will lead the [-] cavalry to charge all the way, and few of the Byzantine soldiers who came out to rescue will escape alive!
Xiao Qi is not worried that they have too many cavalry.
Because he knew that the military expenditure of the Byzantine Empire was not much, and a Byzantine Empire Legion could not even support four thousand cavalry.
The 15 cavalry in the vanguard are basically the vast majority of the [-] troops. Even if there are cavalry in the camp here, the number will never exceed [-].
After choosing the ambush site, we took a rest, fed the horses with some fodder and water, and ten thousand soldiers who pretended to attack the enemy's supply camp set out to lure the enemy.
Xiao Qi also hid the [-] cavalry in the woods on both sides of the main road, just waiting for the battle here to ambush the mercenaries of the Byzantine Empire who were rushing to protect the bounty.
Although this time is far away from the mainland of the Song Dynasty, thousands of miles away, it is the first time to wage war with Europeans who knew little before.
But for someone like Xiao Qi who has memories of his previous life, it's like starting a war from God's perspective.
Isn't there a saying in the Eastern Art of War: Know yourself and know the enemy, and you will never be imperiled in a hundred battles?
Xiao Qi completely knows himself and the enemy, even to the point of knowing everything.
Whether it was from movies or historical materials in his previous life, Xiao Qi knew that the most lethal long-range weapon for Europeans today is not bows and arrows.
Instead, they are short spears and battle axes with a much shorter range than bows and arrows, but with great lethality.
They will start throwing short spears and battle axes at each other when the armies of the two sides charge into each other and are 30 meters away from each other to effectively kill the opponent's vital forces.
When shot by bows and arrows, very few people were shot dead or lost combat effectiveness, but were hit by short spears or prisoners of war, they would definitely lose combat effectiveness, and the death rate was very high.
Therefore, Xiao Qi ordered [-] Changsheng Battalion soldiers to dismount and lie in ambush on both sides of the two-kilometer-long road along the woods on both sides of the road.
The remaining [-] cavalry were hidden in the distance and were not allowed to attack rashly. Only when the [-] soldiers ambushed on both sides of the road completely defeated the enemy and fled back to the camp in a panic, could they rush out and kill them.
Afterwards, the [-] soldiers in charge of the ambush rode on their horses, and followed the [-] Changsheng Battalion who rushed to kill the enemy, and chased and killed the escaped soldiers of the Byzantine Empire.
Soon the Byzantine Empire's baggage camp burst into flames.
Of course, the fire was not set by the soldiers of the Changsheng Battalion, but a signal for help sent by the Byzantine Empire's supply camp to the Byzantine army camp not far away when it was attacked.
This is the strange thing that happens because of the mutual distrust between the Byzantine Empire and those mercenaries.
Ordinarily, the supply camp has the most valuable rewards and food for the army, so it is safest to enter the big camp.
But the Byzantine Empire did not trust these mercenaries, fearing that they would not work after taking the money.
It's like the mercenaries don't trust them, worrying that they won't be able to get the bounty they agreed upon after the battle, and they must ask the Byzantine Empire to pay the bounty before the war begins.
Although the Byzantine Empire paid out the bounty, they were also worried that these mercenaries would get the money and work hard to do their jobs during the war. What if they ran away with the bounty once the war started?
Therefore, it was the army of the Byzantine Empire that escorted the luggage, and there were a small number of mercenaries in it. These mercenaries were in case the bounty was dropped by the empire halfway.
Here comes the problem, no one trusts anyone on both sides, how dare this heavy camp enter the front camp, what if those unreputable guys suddenly attack, kill them and steal the bounty.
And the people in the mercenary camp in front don't want them to be too far away. They are also worried that if they are too far away from themselves, what will you do with those bounties? We have so few people there.
That's why there are things where the two sides can obviously camp together, but they have to camp at a place only ten miles away.
Xiao Qi is very clear about this point. The number of foreign mercenaries in each battle of the Byzantine Empire is much larger than the number of their own army.
Moreover, most of the mercenaries are composed of Turks, Pechennies, Kumans, and Uzes, among which the Turkic ministries have the largest number of mercenaries.
Speaking of the Turkic people, Xiao Qi found it interesting. This nation used to live in Mongolia and caused a lot of trouble for the Central Plains people.
But in the Han and Tang Dynasties, the Huns were defeated by the Han and driven out of the East Asian continent, while the Turkic people who originally belonged to the Huns grew rapidly.
The slaves who originally belonged to the servants of the Huns quickly grew in Eastern Europe, trampling the original ancestors of the Huns under their feet.
Don’t look at them being beaten by the Han Chinese like bereaved dogs in East Asia, but when they arrived in Eastern Europe, they became a powerful force with lightning bolts. Later, they not only wiped out the Roman Empire, but also established the so-called 600-year-old Ottoman Empire!
Of course, Xiao Qi didn't have a good impression of these Turkic people, and he wouldn't think of taking these barbarians who only know how to shake their fists as his subordinates.
Now anyway, they are using other people's money to fight with themselves, so let's beat them comfortably first.
Not long after, a scout came to report that many Byzantine soldiers rushed over from the front camp, the number should be around [-], and there were about [-] cavalry ahead, and they would arrive here in about a moment.
Xiao Qi immediately ordered the [-] cavalry to ambush the [-] cavalry three miles behind, and the battle must be resolved quickly.
Sure enough, in less than a quarter of an hour, there was a sound of horseshoes on the road ahead, and then thousands of cavalry rushed over, and a group of infantrymen with torches came galloping like a long snake a few miles away. .
For cavalry, the distance of three miles is too short.
Those Byzantine mercenaries who ran desperately with torches in their hands, intending to protect their bounty, hadn't entered the ambush range yet, and there were already shouts of killing three miles away.
Xiao Qi strictly ordered the soldiers not to shoot without a military order, and the infantry must be brought in before they can fire.
Soon the infantry running in front heard the shouts of killing several miles ahead, and suddenly someone shouted loudly, conveying the anomaly to the rear.
Immediately afterwards, these guys increased their speed again and rushed towards the battlefield a few miles away. It seemed that they wanted to enter the battlefield earlier to help those thousands of cavalry.
This situation made Xiao Qi very satisfied. He waited until the vanguard of the Byzantine mercenaries rushed out of the ambush range by several thousand people before giving the order to open fire.
Xiao Qi knew very well that even a few thousand people in the past would have no effect on the [-] Changsheng Battalion cavalry, on the contrary, if he opened fire on his side, the thousands of mercenaries rushing past would definitely be confused.
They must hesitate whether to help the cavalry a few miles away, or to help the infantry behind them first.
Following Xiao Qi's order to fire, gunshots erupted in the woods on both sides of the road, and those mercenaries holding torches to illuminate the road fell down one by one like felled wheat.
What frightened these mercenaries even more were the cast iron bombs that were thrown from both sides of the road by the soldiers of the Changsheng Battalion into their crowded places.
Those things exploded into a large piece. In an instant, the Byzantine mercenaries who entered the two-kilometer-long ambush range seemed to have fallen into hell.
There were explosions and broken limbs and broken arms flying everywhere. The officers who led the team couldn't command these people at all. Another dead body.
At the beginning, some people threw the short spears and battle axes into the woods on both sides. Unfortunately, Xiao Qi had already ordered the soldiers of the Changsheng Battalion to hide behind the trees as much as possible and fire.
This made the short spears and battle axes thrown towards the dark woods indiscriminately have almost no effect, but those who threw the weapons were shot and killed immediately.
After the mercenaries who had the courage to fight back were quickly killed, the mercenaries who were still alive completely collapsed and began to run back along the way they came.
I hope to escape from this hell-like place and quickly escape back to my camp.
Amidst the gunfire that barely paused on both sides, those who only wanted to escape for their lives were knocked down in large numbers.
In the end, there were only about [-] people who threw away the torches and ran out of the ambush range in the dark. These guys did not look back, and fled to the way they came at twice as fast as when they came.
But they were destined to be unable to escape. These people had just run for less than two miles when they were overtaken by the [-] Changsheng Battalion cavalry who had already dealt with [-] cavalry and several thousand infantry.
Needless to say the result, except for the more than 2000 people who reacted quickly and fled desperately into the woods on both sides that had frightened them, the remaining 7000 people were all hacked to death.
After dealing with these tens of thousands of reinforcements, Xiao Qi left [-] cavalry to clean the battlefield.
He took the remaining [-] cavalry and rushed straight to the rear of the supply camp, which was the focus of Xiao Qi's trip.
As for the remaining tens of thousands of enemy troops in the front battalion, Xiao Qi didn't take them seriously at all. As long as the luggage was robbed, those mercenaries would definitely disband because they couldn't get the reward.
But he also knew that the tens of thousands who were in a hurry to rescue the supply camp were probably the main force of the mercenary army.
There are not many mercenaries left in the front camp now. The rest are the real armies of the Byzantine Empire. Although these people's combat effectiveness is much worse than that of the mercenaries, they do not dare to disobey the empire's orders.
Without the order to retreat, these people hid in the big camp and waited for rescue at most. They must not know that they would soon be waiting for Qin Tu's tens of thousands of Changsheng battalion soldiers.
Following the arrival of Xiao Qi with [-] cavalry, the original [-] cavalry from Changsheng Battalion who had been feinting to attack also listened.
Xiao Qi didn't dare to order the [-] pro-army to rush over to the already well-prepared camp, even though that would quickly take down the heavy camp.
But the opponent's short spear, battle ax and bow and arrow will also bring a lot of losses to the Changsheng battalion, which is now in the clear.
Xiao Qi ordered the remaining cast iron bombs to be gathered and handed over to the five thousand cavalry, who would take turns riding near the enemy camp to throw them.
In order to prevent the opponent's tomahawks, short spears and archers from posing a threat to the five thousand cavalry.
He also ordered [-] soldiers who were equipped with new-style rifles to dismount and approach the opposing camp to shoot and kill all the enemies who tried to attack the [-] cavalry.
This method is very effective. If the enemy wants to attack these cavalry, they must be exposed from their hiding place.
As long as someone shows up, he will be shot and killed indiscriminately.
The attack of these five thousand cavalry troops throwing cast iron bombs was very effective, although they did not even bring small trebuchets in order to march quickly.
However, in many battles before, the sergeants had already figured out a good way to throw cast iron bombs by themselves, that is, to tie the cast iron bombs with hemp rope, and leave a two-foot-long rope to throw the cast iron bombs more easily. Far.
Under the double blow of the new rifles with long range and high accuracy and the huge lethality of cast iron bombs, the sergeants and mercenaries of the Byzantine Empire in the supply camp all collapsed.
They have never encountered such a battle. You can't even reach a short spear prisoner of war when others are far away from you, but they can attack you.
And it can even hit your vitals. This situation quickly disintegrated the fighting spirit of these people, and soon some people started to run away, and then more and more people followed.
Then they have nothing to do, no matter how fast you run, how can you outrun the war horse, not to mention that they have already surrounded your camp!
Many who could not escape simply chose to surrender on their knees, and there were also many who refused to surrender or wanted to surrender because of language barriers and were killed by mistake.
Later, these guys discovered that kneeling down and throwing away the weapons in their hands was the correct way to open the surrender to these Easterners, and these guys hurriedly followed suit.
Some people also shouted loudly to their companions to do the same, which made the guys who surrendered survived.
Just when Xiao Qi led the [-] cavalry to take down the supply camp, and spent half a day cleaning up the two battlefields and counting the seizure.
Qin Tu also arrived with the [-] Changsheng Battalion, and directly attacked the Byzantine troops who were at a loss in the big camp.
(End of this chapter)