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"Marshal, are you going to abandon your camp to meet the enemy?" In the central camp of the Song army, Liu Xi, who had been staring at Dongpo for a long time, turned around and looked at Wu Jie with a look of surprise.
"It's not that I want to, but once the Jin army occupies Jinsu Mountain, they can see our true strength, and then occupy the east slope, they can divide and break the main camp." Wu Jie frowned and looked at him seriously. "And don't forget, when we argued about setting up the camp before, I said that occupying the high ground was more for vision and command, and I didn't refute Liu Dutong's argument that swamps are the best for delaying cavalry... Now the area of the swamps has been halved, but it can still delay the Jin army cavalry. Moreover, some swamps are still muddy without water, and it may have a miraculous effect. Do we have to abandon these swamps and let the Jin army climb the east slope calmly and then besiege the camp? Besides, the summer weather is hot, if the Jin army approaches the camp, what can we do with fire attack?"
Liu Xi was stunned for a long while, then he angrily said: "If you had listened to me earlier, what would have happened if you had set up a camp at the foot of Dongpoyuan?"
Wu Jie was too lazy to pay attention to such meaningless complaints, since the other party had already agreed to the strategy of fighting.
However, Liu Qi, the governor of Lizhou Road, stepped forward and advised his brother: "General, what the Marshal said makes a lot of sense... and even if we had set up a camp in Linze at the foot of the plateau, how could we abandon our superior military strength and stay in the camp? The camp is so large that we can't provide effective support. If we stay in the camp, we will most likely be defeated one by one. We have to take the initiative to fight."
Liu Xi was completely speechless, while Zhao Jiu, who was sitting next to Wu Jie, did not say a word, but glanced at the brothers at this time.
But regardless of all this, it is undeniable that the Song army lost the first battle and the Jin army won the first battle, but what followed was an unbearable blank period on the battlefield.
After the Song army withdrew, they guarded the camp carefully. To put it nicely, they were waiting for the enemy to tire themselves out. To put it bluntly, they could not grasp the initiative in the battle and could only respond passively. After the victory, the Jin army did not intend to take the opportunity to launch an attack. Under the leadership of Wanyan Loushi's five-colored sun-holding flag, the 30,000-strong army marched calmly towards Jinsu Mountain... Armor and cloth bags were piled on the marching baggage carts, and the war horses were free, without any hesitation or restlessness.
This is understandable, of course, as they are also gathering their strength and preparing for the upcoming battle.
Moreover, a few high-ranking officials of the Jin Dynasty also understood that they were also trying to buy time and seize the opportunity to fight for the reinforcements of the Fourth Prince Wanyan Wushu... In a word, it was impossible to start a full-scale war too early, nor could it start a war too late.
In this way, time passed little by little, until it was almost noon, when the sun was about to reach due south, the sunlight began to gradually dim, and the air became a little stuffy.
"Will it rain?" In the midst of silence, Song Dynasty official Zhao Jiu finally asked the first question of the day.
"It's hard to say." Without Wu Jie saying anything, Wang Yuan, the commander of the Imperial Camp, took the initiative to speak up. "The clouds are not heavy, maybe it will rain, maybe it won't..."
"Is rain a good thing or a bad thing?" Zhao Jiu asked seriously.
"If it rains, pouring rain, it will be a great benefit." Wang Yuan hesitated for a moment before saying, "The Jin army's cavalry, heavy armor, and heavy arrows will all be ineffective, and our army has multiples of them, which is enough to win in a hand-to-hand battle in the rain. But if it doesn't rain for a long time, this kind of weather will be a great benefit to the Jin army who are afraid of heat - without direct sunlight, they can go out at noon."
Zhao Jiu nodded... There was an unstable variable in the war, but it could not be relied upon. On the contrary, any commander should consider these variables from the worst perspective. It was no wonder that Wu Jie was so restless.
"Let the whole army stop right here, put on their armor and horses, and prepare for battle."
There were tens of thousands of troops stretching for more than a few miles, with most of the troops still lagging behind him. Lou Shi had already arrived at Jinsu Mountain and was looking far ahead. He withdrew his gaze from the five-colored sun flag above his head and simply issued a military order on the stool.
The military order was quickly passed on, and it took tens of thousands of troops several quarters of an hour to completely stop. After waiting for a while, Lou Shi carefully observed the positions of his own troops and the positions of the enemy's camp. After glancing at the top of his head, he gave the second military order without hesitation:
"Let Wanyan Zhehe's tribe be the vanguard, lead fifty of our tribe's moukes, carry cloth bags, and set out immediately. When we come across swamps and marshes, we will use the bags to pad the ground and rush to the northernmost camp of the Song army!"
The military order was immediately issued, and then, around noon, Wanyan Zhehe's Jin army launched a large-scale attack.
Seeing Wanyan Zhehe sending out troops, Lou Shi was not in a hurry and issued the third military order:
"Let Yelu Ma's five troops seize the hillside on the east side of the Song army camp, and let Deputy Commander Balisu lead 10,000 Haner troops as the rear, and march out immediately!"
Bali turned around and said, "General, I will lead the Han army. Who should I hand over the dozens of Mouke besides my own Meng'an to? Xie Buchu or Pei Mantunian? Who should I choose as the commander?"
"No need to command the troops." Lou Shi looked at Balisu and ordered calmly. "I will personally assign them to support you!"
Balisu said nothing more and turned around and went down the mountain.
In the afternoon, the Song army discovered the movements of Wanyan Zhehe's troops, but the camps were connected and they had no time to mobilize troops. A small camp on the northernmost side was easily broken by two Meng'an and more than ten Mouke of the Jin army. The defeated soldiers scattered into other camps, causing chaos.
"Liu Qi!"
Wu Jie observed the situation from afar and without hesitation, he ordered his troops to go out. "The Yilizhou army will leave the camp and rush north to fight this army. The left wing (north side) of this battle will be handed over to you!"
Being the left wing of the army was a task that they had undertaken when they formed the battle line and marched forward. Liu Qi did not hesitate and immediately took the order and set off.
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