Chapter 1099 Rewarding the King

War is nothing more than you kill me, I kill you, life or death, everyone is content with fate. If you kill the other side, you will be happy, but if your own people are killed, you will be hysterical and target them, which seems a bit unplayable.

However, war is not a game, and life and death are also very different. Especially as a human being, it is impossible to be absolutely fair and objective.

Although Li Tai did not show too much emotion about Guo Yan's death, he was also very sad and regretful in his heart. In particular, because of the hard work of Guo Yan and others, the Jinyang troops of the Northern Qi Dynasty failed to seize the Jiashi Ridge Road and came from the north of Wusu City, and had to turn to the south, so that the Western Wei army could still fight with the enemy even though the troops were far inferior to the enemy.

Regardless of the outcome of this battle, Guo Yan and others have made great contributions and died for what they deserved. What Li Tai can do, in addition to posthumous praise, is to make full use of the situation they fought for with their lives to make their sacrifice more valuable.

In addition to the huge gap in military strength between the Western Wei army and the Northern Qi army, there is no obvious gap in combat effectiveness, whether in individual combat quality or group battle formation coordination.

Even though the Guanzhong government soldiers have completed localization, the government soldiers were not the mainstream armed forces in Guanzhong before, nor were they weak in combat effectiveness, but because they could not obtain the full trust of the government and lacked an overall coordination organization. Without these two constraints, the Guanzhong government soldiers are now no less than any contemporary opponent.

Li Tai's personal reward for Xue Guyan boosted the morale of the Wei army soldiers who were fighting in the front and counterattacked more fiercely, and the pressure was immediately transferred to Xue Guyan who was leading his troops in the battle.

Although many Wei army soldiers did not know Xue Guyan, they could always identify the enemy general's dress and the personal guards of the front and back attendants. Stimulated by the high rewards of official titles and money, many Wei army soldiers were fearless and rushed directly to the place where the enemy generals appeared, and this naturally included Xue Guyan.

Xue Guyan was a brave general who even dared to fight against thunder. However, when he heard the soldiers in the enemy camp shouting his name like crazy and running and killing in the battle formation to find his trace, he felt restless.

At the beginning, he was not too worried about his own safety, but the swarm of enemy troops made it difficult for him to run on the battlefield, and the transmission of some orders was also greatly blocked. He was very angry. While riding his horse and leading the crowd to run to the open area on the side, he roared: "How can a man be frightened by thieves? Xue Guyan is here, thieves, come and die!"

Xue Guyan's roar immediately attracted the attention of all the Wei army soldiers on the battlefield. Then these Wei army soldiers abandoned their current opponents and rushed to the direction where Xue Guyan was. The entire battlefield turned into a huge vortex with Xue Guyan as the center!

"Xue Guyan, you bastard, don't run away. I'm here to take your life!"

For the Wei army soldiers on the battlefield, although they targeted the enemy general Xue Guyan because of the bounty issued by Lord Tang, they were not just fighting for the bounty.

There must be a reason why Lord Tang issued a bounty for this man. They may not know the reason, but since Lord Tang wanted this enemy to die, what reason did this guy have to live?

On the battlefield at this time, although Xue Guyan was not frightened by the enemy, the attendants and guards around him were complaining. The enemy seemed to be crazy and rushed in from all directions.

The first to bear the brunt were naturally the personal soldiers around the main generals. Before, Xue Guyan was still clamoring to kill the enemy like mowing grass, but now they were being harvested like weeds. In order to kill the general they were protecting, the Wei army soldiers who had gathered around them were ready to kill any god that stood in their way. Any soldiers who were not careful were killed on the spot.

"My lord, the enemy is too fierce. Let's retreat to our camp and make plans later!"

Seeing the guards around him dying in battle, Xue Guyan's trusted confidants could not help but give advice.

Xue Guyan was just wielding a horse lance to kill an enemy soldier who had come around to intercept him. He glared at him when he heard this and shouted angrily, "You want me to be laughed at by the thieves..."

Before he finished speaking, a gust of wind suddenly blew from the side. When he turned around, he saw a horse galloping over. On the horse, an enemy general in his thirties was holding a large lance. Before he could reach the lance, the confidant who had been advising Xue Guyan to retreat temporarily had his head smashed down by the horse lance before he could turn around. The gushing blood splashed on Xue Guyan's face.

Xue Guyan was also shocked when he saw this, and hurriedly waved his spear to block the enemy's attack. The enemy's arm was also strong, which made his palm numb. He couldn't help but ask in a hurry: "Who is the thief?"

The man kept swinging his spear to attack, cursing: "The thief is hated by heaven, and my lord has to personally announce the reward! He is still greedy for life and refuses to commit suicide. I will enter the battle to kill you now, and don't expect to have a whole body!"

Xue Guyan was furious when he heard the curse, and immediately fought with him. However, he was no longer strong and strong after fighting with the enemy for several rounds. His arms were shaking and numb. Seeing that the enemy was still approaching, he simply gritted his teeth and swung his arm to throw out the horse spear in his hand, and took advantage of the enemy's side to avoid it and turned his horse to escape.

At this time, the two sides were fighting in a mess on the battlefield. As a general in the army, Xue Guyan had a group of trusted guards around him. As he abandoned his weapons and left, he no longer fought on the battlefield. His personal soldiers who had been waiting for a long time came forward to block the enemy for him.

When the Wei general killed several enemy soldiers in front of him, he turned around to look for him, but saw that Xue Guyan had already escaped several feet away. There were several people and horses between them, and it was difficult to catch up.

After the short battle just now, Xue Guyan also realized that he was not invincible on this battlefield. After all, he still couldn't face death with equanimity. His courage was lost, and he felt cold in his heart. He was reluctant to give his life to the enemy in exchange for the founding duke, so he evacuated to the rear under the cover of his personal soldiers.

But now many Wei soldiers on the battlefield were attracted to fight here because of his previous roar. At this time, as he was defeated and retreated, the battlefield naturally moved with him, sweeping towards the western battle formation of the Qi army.

At this time, the rear troops of the Qi army were forming a long and narrow battle formation on the north bank of the Tongdi River. Because Xue Guyan and his troops were retreating from the battlefield in the west, a gap appeared in the battle formation to receive the returning troops.

However, the Wei army soldiers in the rear were chasing and biting very urgently. Although Xue Guyan successfully retreated into the battle formation, the gap in the formation did not close with it, but was completely torn apart by the chasing troops in the rear. The Qi army soldiers in the formation were killed and wounded immediately under the charge of the Wei cavalry, and even the battle formation here was shattered by the impact.

After the Qi army battle formation collapsed here, many Qi army soldiers continued to flee backwards to avoid the attack, and some even jumped directly into the muddy Tongdi River channel behind them that had not been filled up, struggling to retreat to the south bank.

Fortunately, the Qi army formation was a long and narrow horizontal formation from east to west. Although the collapse of a side caused thousands of soldiers to be unable to defend, it also bought a certain amount of reaction time for the enemy formation in the east.

After entering the battle formation, Xue Guyan was still in shock, but he quickly summoned the heavy-armored infantry to form a battle formation to stop the pursuit. After the bloody battle of these heavy-armored infantry, the formation was gradually stabilized. Finally, the enemy did not take advantage of this opportunity to break the formation, and still maintained a certain victory.

However, after experiencing the previous encounter, Xue Guyan did not dare to leave the battle formation easily, but stayed in the battle formation, regardless of the provocation of the enemy outside the battle formation, and concentrated on building and strengthening the camp defense line on the north bank of Tongdi River. Finally, he fulfilled the order of His Majesty the Emperor and established a stable offensive camp on the north bank before dusk.

However, due to the harassment of the enemy, the area of ​​this offensive position was not large, and it could barely accommodate more than 10,000 soldiers to assemble in it. Although as the sky darkened, the enemy outside began to shrink back, and the intensity of the harassment was reduced, but the already built battle line could not be abandoned.

So Xue Guyan ordered his men to extend some protruding parts outward from the built camp. Although the capacity inside did not expand, the overall area and scale of the camp increased a lot.

Xue Guyan thought he could report to the emperor with this, but the commander of the imperial army who was watching the battle in the rear had already reported the process of the battle on the north bank to the central army tent, which naturally included Xue Guyan's passive conservatism in the second half of the battle.

In the evening, when it was getting dark, Qi Lord Gao Yang came to Hebei in person with a light outfit and a few followers to inspect the camp. Although he did not say much outside, his serious expression and frowning eyebrows showed that he was quite dissatisfied in his heart.

Xue Guyan, who was accompanying him, beat the drum secretly. When he followed the emperor into the camp, he knelt on the ground and said in a hurry: "Your Majesty, the battle today is because..." Gao Yang was too lazy to listen to Xue Guyan's explanation. After entering the tent, he immediately drew his sword and put it on Xue Guyan's neck, and said angrily: "Everyone is mortal? Since you are wearing armor and fighting the enemy, why are you afraid of death! I have tens of thousands of elite troops for you. After fighting for a whole day, you only get this small piece of land. It's really ridiculous! If you value your life, resign from the position of vanguard immediately. I will spare your life for your old merits! Otherwise, If you are still afraid to fight tomorrow, it is not only the Qiang bandits who can take your life! Now we are fighting the bandits, and we cannot afford to lose. If you win, you will be rewarded with the title of a famous king. If you fail to return, your heir will inherit the title. It is up to you to decide whether to fight or retreat! "

Xue Guyan's face changed after hearing this. After a long time, he bowed deeply to the ground and said in a trembling voice: "Your Majesty's great grace has bestowed on me, which really makes me ashamed. I did want to avoid the enemy before, but from now on, I will advance without retreating. I will not return to my country until I defeat the Qiang bandits!"

Gao Yang's face improved slightly after seeing Xue Guyan's statement. If it were based on his past temperament, he would never retain this guy even if he was not arrested and punished on the spot just based on his passive and lazy performance.

But now is the critical moment of the decisive battle. Even if he does not consider the blow to morale caused by the replacement of generals on the battlefield, he really can't find a candidate with enough talent and qualifications to replace Xue Guyan for a while. Few of the young and strong generals he had appointed in the past performed well in the battles with the Wei army, which made people feel uneasy in the current war.

I just changed to a new keyboard and I am not used to it yet. There are a lot of typos. Please forgive me. I will correct them as soon as I find them. . .