In a military battle, personal force and fighting will cannot turn the tide of the war.
As long as you panic enough, even a foot-deep river can drown someone.
In a massive rout, even dozens of people with the best equipment and morale were unable to resist.
They could only follow the routed troops and pursuers and stage a panic escape at the western foot of Fenghuang Mountain.
The sound of the strings burst out, and the feather arrows flew, shooting down the pursuing flag troops who were snatching food.
Amidst the sound of horse hooves, Liu Chengzong picked up the child on the ground and placed him on the horse's back. He urged the woman: "Ignore the food, let's go quickly!"
The woman struggled to get up, gritted her teeth and ran forward, her footsteps getting heavier and heavier, and she didn't even have the energy to respond.
Liu Chengzong looked back at his pursuers and fired another arrow. His forearm was shaking when he drew the bow, knowing that the shot was inaccurate.
He said anxiously to the woman: "If you run a little longer, you can enter the mountains ahead. You go into the mountains and hide and don't come out!"
Having said that, Liu Chengzong no longer cared about this, and acted like a fire captain to cheer up the hungry people and tired soldiers behind him, and at the same time persuaded them to put down some food to delay the enemy's speed.
Finally, I met a man who could ride a horse and let the horse out.
With him taking the lead, many sergeants on horseback also turned back and gave up their mules and horses to the women and children who could not run.
They used bows and crossbows to block the enemy while running frantically for their lives.
Even so, many stragglers were caught up by the army.
Liu Chengzong ran desperately, and Liu Chengzu also ran wildly on the other side.
"Hurry, hurry, don't fall behind! Hurry!"
On the official road at the foot of the mountain, which allowed only three people to walk abreast, the border troops, the Black Dragon Mountain soldiers, and the thieves and soldiers as thick as tigers joined forces, forming two teams and running quickly with weapons on their backs.
They were moving very fast, and some who couldn't keep up reached the wasteland on the other side of the ditch next to the road, and continued to move forward with their weapons in hand.
On the official road, the tail winds four or five miles.
Every once in a while, border troops on horseback gathered them up, took a breath along the road, and continued on their way.
Liu Chengzu was leading the horse and running at the front of the team. He was very anxious.
Plans never keep up with changes.
The Yan'an Guards responded too quickly, and Liu Chengzong did not evacuate according to the original route.
Liu Chengzu received the news too late and had to choose another route. The ambush position he had prepared earlier was completely destroyed.
Not to mention how anxious I was.
As we ran to the northern foot of Fenghuang Mountain, we saw smoke and dust billowing from the western foothills.
Liu Chengzu finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The situation of the defeated soldiers was not as bad as he imagined.
There were even two groups of people in front, led by the leader in front and protected by the leader in the back. Apart from being too tired to talk, there was basically no chaos.
The situation behind them is not so good, but they are also led by leaders.
But then Liu Chengzu frowned again. The situation of the soldiers was good, but what about the generals?
He didn't see any of the big leaders in the team, including Liu Chengzong, Cao Yao, Li Wanqing, and even Cheng Yun.
Thousands of terrifying speculations ran through his heart in an instant, making Liu Chengzu furious.
Then he saw his father.
Mr. Liu rode a small donkey and was surrounded by Cai Zhongpan and several fugitives in plain prison uniforms.
The little black donkey's hooves clattered all the way, knocking Mr. Liu's back all over, and he ran very happily.
"Da, where is my brother?"
Mr. Liu had already vomited once on the donkey's back. He vomited all the porridge he drank in the prison in the morning. When he saw Liu Chengzu, he was so excited that he couldn't speak at all. He could only turn around and point behind him.
The huge crowd ran past him. When Liu Chengzu looked behind him, he could only see layers of heads.
There was no need to give an order, Liu Chengzu pointed his finger casually, and the border troops following him understood what it meant.
People let go of the official road, the cavalry led the horses in formation in the wasteland beside the road, and the swordsmen and spearmen also lined up under the command of the border troops to prepare for counterattack.
There were also several farmers from Heilongshan carrying hoes and shovels on their shoulders, digging the soil on the spot to create a small slope of soil to support their bead-blasting cannon.
Several other people ran over with the hungry people and gathered them up.
Only then did Mr. Liu finally recover. When he could speak a little, he hurriedly said to Liu Chengzu: "Chengzu, there are four to five hundred people pursuing you. They have also fallen behind, and Zhang Xiong is also behind."
Speaking of this, Liu Xiangyu showed a ruthless look on his face: "Father, beat him to death!"
Liu Chengzu was stunned for a moment by his father's words, wondering what Chengzong was doing in the city today. It seemed like his father had changed.
Immediately afterwards, Liu Xiangyu nodded heavily and said: "The matter has come to this, there is no way out."
This has nothing to do with personal honor or disgrace. Two generations of the family have studied hard for twenty years, but they were forced to go to waste by this guard making trouble.
How could Liu Xiangyu not hate him?
Liu Chengzong saw his younger brother.
At the very end of the team, the most dangerous place for the entire team.
Liu Chengzong, Cao Yao, Li Wanqing, Gao Xian, Feng Yu and others were all there. They protected the weakest hungry people and fought against the most fiercely pursuing officers and soldiers.
Then run away.
But as soon as they run away, hungry people will be overtaken and killed.
It is hard to see frail women, children and the elderly in the team.
The pursuit team of the officers and soldiers was also stretched extremely long.
Seeing this scene, Liu Chengzu immediately ordered the cavalry soldiers to mount their horses and advance with the brigade.
That small cannon is no longer the key to victory, the new force is!
In the sound of galloping horse hooves, Liu Chengzong saw his brother leading more than ten horses rushing from the fields and river beaches.
This scene made him feel weak all over, and he almost collapsed to the ground in relief.
Fortunately, he still had anger in his heart.
At this time, he looked embarrassed, his hair scarf fell off at some point, and his hair was disheveled.
When crossing the river, my head was smashed by a stone from the Crouching Tiger Cannon, and my body was covered with blood, sweat, and mud from nowhere.
The leather belt around his waist was lost at some point when he was escaping, and the quiver and scabbard disappeared without a trace, leaving only the wild goose wing knife with several notches in his hand.
The horse soldiers fired arrows from the flanks, instantly knocking over the leading pursuers.
Then someone rushed up the official road with a thread gun, stabbed a guard on the loess mountain, threw the thread gun, jumped off the horse, drew his sword and killed him.
Before the horse could take two steps, the reins were grabbed by Liu Chengzong, who was running back. He turned back, his legs went weak and he lay on the horse. After steadying himself, he controlled the horse to join his brother on the river bank.
Liu Chengzong raised his sword and said, "Brother, that bastard Zhang Xiong is right behind me. Taking advantage of the crowd, he chased me for ten miles like a rabbit!"
Seeing how embarrassed Liu Chengzu was, he clutched his bow and said, "Can we still fight?"
"Yes! I'm tired and he's tired too." Liu Chengzong propped up his horse and changed his sitting position, looked back at the cavalry, and shouted loudly: "Follow me to take his life!"
The cavalry from Yuhe Fort responded in unison, urging their horses to quickly pass by the guard flag troops vying for victory from the river beach, and then galloped towards the road.
Zhang Xiongshang urged the soldiers from behind to continue the pursuit. The more he pursued along the way, the more frightened he became.
The Liu family and his son were much more difficult to deal with than he thought.
If he had known that they were collaborating with bandits and would even dare to rob the city, Zhang Xiong would rather blackmail the squires who were serving as officials elsewhere than dare to offend Heilongshan!
The more this happened, the less he dared to ask Liu Chengzong to run away.
Otherwise, if there is such a person hiding in the mountains, he will never have peace!
But the flag army couldn't move when they saw the food. Moreover, their physical strength had reached the limit, and they had no strength or motivation to continue the pursuit.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of horse hooves coming from ahead.
In just an instant, the hair on the back of Zhang Xiong's head stood up, and he instinctively ran back.
An arrow shot out quickly and hit his turned back. The armor-piercing arrow penetrated the armor, causing pain in his back.
But how can I care about the pain at this time? He jumped over the grain bags blocking the road and fled.
At this moment, he heard a roar coming from behind, like a ghost demanding life: "Zhang——Xiong——!"
In a hurry, he only had time to turn half of his head when he felt his body lighten up. His eyes first drifted upwards, then turned over and then fell downwards.
All he could see was the blood-stained back of the cavalryman on horseback. The disheveled young man turned his face slightly, with hatred and anger in his eyes, and waved his hand to shake off the blood on the wild goose-wing knife.
