Then Sun Hao discussed with Bai Qisheng, the Grand Commander of Nankang Protectorate, and Li Zhe, the Commander-in-Chief of the Left Guard of Zhenrong Army, and decided to first destroy the two camps built by the bandits outside the city.
The Nankang Army and the Zhenrong Army will be responsible for the camp on the west side, while the Zhenxi Army will deal with the camp on the east side. In addition, the Zhenxi Army will also send cavalry to prevent the bandits in the city from supporting the two camps.
However, before the Zhenxi Army, Zhenrong Army and Nankang Army launched an attack on the two camps, the grassland cavalry in the camp east of Yingshan City actually abandoned the camp on their own initiative and rushed towards the Zhenxi Army, Zhenrong Army and Nankang Army.
Then Xue Rengui, commander-in-chief of the Right Guard of Zhenxi Army, personally led 5,000 Xuanjia cavalry from the First Brigade of the Right Guard and 5,000 Beiwei cavalry from the Second Brigade of the Right Guard to meet them.
Although the grassland cavalry had 10,000 Southern Qiang cavalry, 8,000 Western Qiang cavalry and 7,000 Khitan cavalry, their strength was greater than the 10,000 heavy cavalry of the Zhenxi Army.
However, the 5,000 Black Armor Cavalry and the 5,000 Beiwei Cavalry easily defeated the 25,000 grassland cavalry. Among them, tens of thousands of grassland cavalry were killed on the spot, and the remaining more than 10,000 grassland cavalry all fled in disarray.
Sun Hao's hatred for the four Khanates of the grassland was engraved in his bones since childhood.
So even though Sun Hao had previously learned that the grassland Tatar cavalry in Yingshan City were all hired by the bandit leader Cai Wu, Sun Hao was not willing to easily let go of these grassland Tatar cavalry who had entered the territory of Liang State.
So Sun Hao ordered Huo Qubing and Long Ju to lead 10,000 white horse volunteers from his personal guards to hunt down the scattered Steppe Tatar cavalry. In the end, none of the more than 10,000 fleeing Steppe Tatar cavalry could escape back to the Khitan Khanate alive.
The powerful fighting capability displayed by the Zhenxi Army completely frightened the bandit leader Cai Wu in Yingshan City, and he did not even dare to send troops out of the city to support the hired grassland cavalry.
When the Zhenrong Army and the Nankang Army launched an attack on the camp west of the city, Cai Wu sent out his only 13,000 cavalry to try to provide reinforcements.
However, the 13,000 bandit cavalrymen who left the city were crushed by the 10,000 Tiger and Ben cavalrymen of the Zhenxi Army's personal guards, and most of them were directly captured by the Zhenxi Army.
This made Cai Wu doubt the knowledge of marching and fighting that he had learned before. He built two camps outside Yingshan City according to what was written in the military book. However, after fighting with the officers and soldiers, the process was completely different from what was written in the military book.
The left and right guards of the Nankang Army, as well as the left guard of the Zhenrong Army, were much more powerful than the bandits. It took the two armies only one morning to capture the bandit camp west of Yingshan City.
Of the 50,000 bandits stationed in this camp, nearly 10,000 were killed in the battle, and the remaining 40,000 were taken prisoner. Even the bandit leader Qian Tie was injured and captured.
Early the next morning, the injured Qian Tie was released back to Yingshan City.
Cai Wu saw Qian Tie with a bandage on his arm and asked with concern, "A Tie, is your injury serious? Let the doctor in the city check you carefully again."
Qian Tie smiled bitterly and said, "Brother, my injury is not serious. It's just that I embarrassed you. Fifty thousand people couldn't even hold out for a day."
Cai Wu sighed, "A Tie, I can't blame you, the two camps being breached are all my responsibility.
If I hadn't been so naive and insisted on building those two camps outside the city, I wouldn't have lost 50,000 of my men in one fell swoop, and also lost the 25,000 Tartar cavalry I had hired with great difficulty."
Qian Tie then said, "Brother, it was Sun Hao, the Grand Commander of the Zhenxi Protectorate, who released me this time. He hopes that you can open the city and surrender.
Grand Commander Sun promised to forgive our past misdeeds and to relocate all of our hundreds of thousands of righteous troops to Xizhou."
Cai Wu hesitated, "I heard that the bandits in Pizhou and Yuzhou were relocated to Xizhou after joining the Zhenxi Army.
But after so many years of hard work, I finally built a foundation, and I really can't bear to give it up!"
"Brother, with the strength of the Zhenxi Army, Zhenrong Army, and Nankang Army, Yingshan City can't stop them at all, not to mention that most of the original people in Yingshan City are not on the same page with us.
Now that General Sun is willing to accept us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us.
If Prince Yong'an leads his army to attack Yingshan City, we probably won't even have the chance to surrender."
Cai Wu sighed and said, "Forget about surrendering to Prince Yong'an. More than a decade ago, Prince Yong'an slaughtered hundreds of thousands of surrendered rebels, even the elderly, children, and women."
"Brother, surrender! At least it will give our brothers a chance to survive."
"Alas—it seems that destiny is not with me!"
In the end, Cai Wu, one of the four major bandit leaders in Zibo Prefecture, led the remaining 300,000 bandits in Yingshan City and surrendered to the Zhenxi Army.
Together with the captives captured in the camp west of the city and the captured bandits and cavalry, Sun Hao captured a total of 400,000 people.
Afterwards, Sun Hao dispatched another 10,000 troops to escort the 400,000 bandits back to Xizhou.
Compared with the ease of the Zhenxi Army, Zhenrong Army and Nankang Army, another army sent to suppress the rebellion encountered extremely stubborn resistance in Wanqiu County, Zibo Prefecture.
The bandits who occupied Wanqiu County, led by their leader Tang Ba, fought for almost every inch of land with the army that was sent to suppress the rebellion.
Outside the city of Changle County in Wanqiu Commandery, Fan Cheng, Grand Commandant of the Huaide Protectorate, said to Cao Tingjin, Grand Commandant of the Ganyang Protectorate, with a gloomy look on his face: "The bandits in Changle City have gone crazy. Even women, the elderly, and children have climbed onto the city walls.
They stubbornly blocked two sieges by the Huaide vanguard, causing over 2,000 casualties to the vanguard."
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