Chapter 111: Launching Another Attack

  Li Mu smiled and said: "What? Are you tired of waiting already?"

  Gao Yuan also said: "General, if we engage in a war of attrition, we will definitely not be able to outlast the Qin state. Therefore, we must use surprise tactics to gain the upper hand. Now that our armies have been locked in a stalemate for almost two months, our rotating troops are arriving, and the next batch of grain and supplies should also arrive for the Qin army. We cannot continue to defend ourselves within the walls of the Jingxing camp; instead, we should take the initiative to launch a surprise attack on the Qin army's logistics team, focusing on disrupting their supply lines."

  Li Mu also put away his smile, nodded and said: "You're absolutely right, we should take the initiative to attack this time. You'll still need to lead the team personally."

  "I am entirely to blame."

  Although Li Mu had been intentionally cultivating Gao Yuan as his successor, Gao Yuan was still just one of the generals in Zhao's army and sometimes had to take the field himself. This time, the raid on Qin's supply line must be led by Gao Yuan himself because the main force for the raid could only be the new-style cavalry trained by Gao Yuan, so now he is the only one who can lead this cavalry.

  Li Yinghong said on the side: "That's great, I've been holding back for a while and feeling a bit impatient. This time, I'm going to have a good fight."

  Li Mu looked at her and couldn't help but laugh: "You're already a married woman, yet you still have such a childish air about you."

  Li Yinghong's face also turned red with anger, and she scolded: "Father."

  Li Mu smiled and said, "Alright alright, I won't mention it again. Gaoyuan, how many men are you planning to bring this time?"

  Gao Yuan Dao: "Soldiers are valuable for their quality, not quantity. I only need to bring three thousand cavalry, two thousand main forces and one thousand auxiliary troops. Each person will have two horses and bring seven days' worth of rations. At the very least, we can fight two or three battles."

  Li Mu nodded and said, "Alright, let's do it as you said."

  Gao Yuan and Li Yinghong also bid farewell to Li Mu and returned to their own camp. After the rotation, half of Gao Yuan's troops were also rotated, and the remaining troops were replenished with new soldiers. Compared to infantry, cavalry training is much faster. A normal cavalryman can get used to the new-style horse armor in about ten days, and after another twenty or so days, they can basically master various cavalry combat techniques and tactics and go into battle. An infantryman, on the other hand, needs at least three or four months of training to master the Mandarin Duck Formation.

  After returning to his own camp, Gao Yuan immediately gathered the main generals of the cavalry and began to deploy. There are now 3,000 new-style cavalrymen, divided into three thousand-man teams. Du Yi and Ji Hua, who had previously followed Gao Yuan, have both been promoted from Bingwei to Jiangwei and can command a thousand cavalrymen. Another Jiangwei is named Zhou Wen, who was appointed later. At this time, in the Jixing camp were Du Yi and Ji Hua. The other Jiangwei was called Deng Chengxiu, also an old acquaintance who had gone with Gao Yuan to attack Chou You last time, because they had fought side by side before and got along well, it would be smoother.

  Although Zhong Sunqi, Wu Zhanpeng and Wu Honglian were excellent in martial arts, they had not been in the army for a long time. Now Zhong Sunqi and Wu Zhanpeng are only Bochang, each can only lead 50 cavalry, while Wu Honglian can only accompany Li Yinghong.

  Learning that they were about to attack, everyone was very excited, rubbing their fists and palms, eager to try. Because in the last raid on Yu, although a great victory was won in the cavalry battle, but in the later attack on the Qin army, it went very badly, not even a single quick battle was fought, despite the fact that in the later large-scale battles between the two sides, the new cavalry corps again took to the field and performed well in that battle, greatly destroying the Qin army's war chariots. However, that battle did not count as a victory, but only as a slight advantage.

  Since that war, the new cavalry has been put away and has not fought again. They have been cooped up in the camp for more than a month, and they are indeed getting impatient. Therefore, after getting the opportunity to go into battle, they naturally want to win a few more victories.

  Everyone's enthusiasm is high, and Gao Yuan is also very satisfied, it seems that the morale is still good.

  The next day, Gao Yuan led 3,000 cavalrymen to leave the Zhao army's Pingcheng camp, and the second phase of the Battle of Zhaoqin also officially began.

  Because the south of Gaixia is the continuous Taihang Mountains, the three large camps of the Qin army are basically distributed in the northwest direction of the Zhao army, and no troops are deployed on the south side. Therefore, after Gao Ying led the army out of the main camp, he did not directly advance westward, but first marched south along the Taihang Mountains before turning westward. Fortunately, he was leading a full cavalry army, with very fast movement speed, taking only more than a day to circle around and finally reach the flank and rear of the Qin army.

  Zhao Jun was very familiar with the terrain in this area, so he found a mountain valley to rest and regroup. At the same time, the highlands also sent out a large number of scouts to investigate the Qin army's supply troops.

  However, Zhao Jun did not have to wait for too long. On the second day at dawn, Gao Yuan received news that Qin's grain transport team had been discovered.

  Actually, at this time, the Qin army was stationed in Jinyong with nearly 400,000 troops, and the amount of food and supplies consumed every day was extremely large. Almost every day, various materials were transported to the Qin army's camp. Therefore, as long as they were guarding between Jinyong and Choujian, they would not worry about not encountering the Qin army's logistics team.

  This grain transport team was enormous, with over 7,000 large carts, of which 5,000 were loaded with food, totaling around 200,000 dan. Another 2,000 carts carried fodder for the war horses, approximately 100,000 dan, making a total of 300,000 dan of grain and fodder. Although this was an enormous quantity, it could only sustain 400,000 troops and over 100,000 war horses for half a month at most.

  The vehicles carrying grain were slightly wider than the war chariots, still with two wheels, and had a load capacity of about 40 dan (approximately 1.2 tons in modern units). Each vehicle was pulled by two horses or donkeys and was manned by five soldiers, one of whom was responsible for driving while the other four followed on foot because the road conditions were poor and two animals were not enough to pull the vehicles in many places, requiring human assistance to push and pull. Therefore, this grain transport team mobilized more than 35,000 civilian laborers. In addition, there were 5,000 Qin soldiers who escorted them along the way.

  The entire team stretched out in a long line, and from a distance, it was impossible to see the head or tail. The front and back were probably tens of miles apart. Although there were 5,000 Qin soldiers escorting them, such a small force could not possibly protect the entire grain transport team.

  It's not that the Qi army can't send enough troops to escort the grain, but because the soldiers and civilians are also hungry, from Qi to Jixian, although it's only 150 miles away, the speed of the grain team is about four or five days, plus the return time, at least seven days. With only 35,000 civilian workers, the food consumption for seven days is close to 10,000 stones, and adding the horses and donkeys that pull the carts, the grain and grass transported to the front line are all discounted. If more soldiers are added to escort along the way, the consumption along the way will be even greater.

  This is just a calculation of the consumption from Quyuan to Jingxing. If we calculate the transportation from all over Qin State, thousands of miles away, to Quyuan, the loss rate will be at least around 50%. And if we also consider the consumption of other human and material resources, as well as the impact on social production, the overall utilization rate is only about 20-30%, sometimes even less than 10%. Therefore, it can be said that fighting a war is actually fighting for logistics supply, which is a fight for the country's overall strength, not at all false.

  In this case, the Qin army could only reduce the number of soldiers escorting the grain to ensure a higher utilization rate of food transportation. Moreover, from the perspective of the Qin army, although the Zhao army had launched a surprise attack on the Qin army before the war, running over 150 miles, now that the main force of the Qin army has arrived at Jinyang, the Zhao army is defending on Mount Jinyang, relying on the danger to defend itself, and cannot take one step further westward. Therefore, this section from Jiuyuan to Jinyang is also absolutely safe, and there is no need to dispatch more troops to escort it.

  The transportation of food is the most important part of a large army's logistics supply, and it is also the largest consumer. This is because the people who transport food also need to eat and drink along the way. Therefore, in this era, military strategy and famous generals all emphasized "just grain from the enemy", that is, trying to seize food from the enemy as much as possible for oneself.

  In the "Sunzi's Art of War" * "Chapter on Warfare", there is a saying "Food enemy one zhong, my twenty zhongs". The meaning is that if you can seize one zhong of grain from the enemy, it is equivalent to saving yourself twenty zhongs of grain.

  However, it's not easy to seize the enemy's grain on the battlefield. Many armies would burn all their remaining food when retreating or fleeing, and absolutely wouldn't leave any for the enemy. Therefore, Li Mu's capture of nearly 500,000 dan of Qin army rations in the previous Battle of Pingyang was one of the greatest gains of that battle, aside from occupying Pingyang.

  The Qin army's supply convoy was right in front of them, and Gao Yuan naturally couldn't let go of this great opportunity. Moreover, the Qin army's supply convoy stretched for tens of miles, making it difficult to defend both ends, which was perfect for launching a surprise attack on the supply convoy.

  The main force of the attack was, of course, Zhao Jun's new cavalry. Gao Yuan divided these two thousand new cavalry into ten teams, each with two hundred people, and they set out in ten different directions to attack Qin Jun's grain transport team, making it difficult for Qin Jun to defend himself, while another thousand cavalry left two hundred people to guard the horses, and the other eight hundred people also went out to battle, responsible for setting fire to the grain after the cavalry in front scattered the Qin army and civilians.

  After all tasks were assigned, Gao Yuan immediately ordered the whole army to ambush in the forests on both sides of the mountain road, preparing to intercept the Qin army's grain transport team halfway.

  Sure, here is the translation:

  As expected, after Zhao Jun had set up everything, less than an hour later, the Qin army's grain transport team arrived. However, because the Qin army's grain transport team was too long, the ambush site of the Zhao army was also very wide, so they waited for another half an hour until the Qin army's grain transport team had completely entered the ambush site of the Zhao army.

  Gao Yuan gave the order, and the entire army launched a surprise attack on the Qin army's supply convoy.