Chapter 27: Birds of Prey Attack Wild Beasts

Style: Historical Author: Chen RuicongWords: 3033Update Time: 24/01/12 09:45:24
While Liu Bei led the left army to attack the Liang army, Chen Chong also led the central army to slowly advance westward. There were about 40,000 cavalry in the entire army, and nearly 30,000 were handed over to Liu Bei, leaving the rest The cavalry under Chen Chong was only 3,000 from Xu Huang's Taiping Army, so they moved more slowly.

However, although the movement of the army was slow, all the Liang people were in full preparedness and did not dare to relax even a little. After all, no matter what, the soldiers and horses of the Right Army are the most powerful, with flags forming a sea and steps like the tide, like a huge foothill rolling from the sky. Every step raises huge smoke and dust on Longshou Plain. No one knows how much this foothill weighs before a human body.

However, Chen Chong only advanced to the edge of Hongguyuan and Longshouyuan, and stopped here. His front formation formed a diagonal line, and when it was only five miles away from the left wing of the Liang army, it stopped like this. He stopped, and then made a confrontational stance with them, completely ignoring that the left wing was already in a massacre.

The Liang army, which has not yet engaged in battle, is now faced with a choice: whether to ignore the eyeing merged army in front of them and assist the fighting left wing, or to actively change their defense strategy and change their formation to attack Chen Chong's central army in front of them.

The battle line that is too broad can no longer be decided by one person, but relies more on the judgment of frontline officers. Except for Wang Fang's and Jia Xu's troops who were in reserve, the right-wing troops of the Liang Army quickly made their own choices. They chose to change their formations and attack Chen Chong's central army directly in front of them.

During this period of formation change, the two armies on the left wing had already entered into an unprecedentedly brutal hand-to-hand battle.

Zhang Ji was disdainful when he saw that the Huns were sent to fight with the Han army. He sneered at his subordinates and said: "Since Emperor Shizong repeatedly defeated the Huns, I have never heard that Hun dogs can be compared with the Han army. Now Liu Bei has sent the Huns to die. This is Are you afraid that I won’t be able to kill well enough?”

Having said that, Zhang Ji immediately ordered his cavalry to assemble, with Zhang Xiu as the leader, to charge towards the Huns cavalry. After giving the order, a whirlwind was seen blowing from the army, and the sound of horse hooves was heard. Zhang Xiu immediately led the army to attack from the right formation, hoping to split the Hun cavalry in front of him into two.

But not long after the attack began, Zhang Ji discovered that the enemy's tactics were different from what he had imagined.

When Zhang Xiu led his troops to approach the Huns, he found that this group of Hun knights had no intention of facing the enemy head-on. Instead, they actively dispersed, stretching the already loose battle line even longer. There was often only one person standing for more than twenty steps. This allowed Liang Qi to infiltrate into the Huns' formation as if nothing existed, but failed to fight any Hun knights.

Seeing that there were enough Liang cavalry in the battle, these nomadic knights rode their horses to a place about an arrow's distance from Liang's army, stretched their bows and fired a round of arrows. Due to the evacuation of the formation, this round of arrows did not appear to be densely packed, as if a gust of autumn wind blew through the forest shades, shaking down some fallen leaves, but when they hit Liang Qi, they were not as light as fallen leaves. Knights continued to be hit by arrows in the rain. Although they were not fatal, they were enough to destroy morale. Seeing that the charge failed in hand-to-hand combat, Liang Qi also responded with arrows. However, due to the convenience of the light cavalry, the Hun knights came and went as fast as the wind. As a result, the arrows fired by Liang Qi were greatly missed, and no one or two out of ten could hit the target.

It turned out that this Hun cavalry was different from the previous Hun cavalry. It was a new army reorganized by Qiequ Zhiyas after all the wars. Because it was trained in Hequ, it was named the Hequ Division. The Hequ Division's idea of ​​building an army was to attack the slow with the fast, the heavy with the light, and charge with the cavalry with rain of arrows from the sky. This battle was the first battle of this new army. After the first battle, it was indeed very effective.

Zhang Xiu's charge was brave and he quickly rushed to the infantry that had merged to maintain the front line. However, more than a hundred of his subordinates had fallen from their horses due to arrow wounds. Some of the armored knights had no injuries, but had dozens of bullets stuck in their bodies. The arrow is like a hedgehog, which greatly affects the movement of the horse.

Seeing that Zhang Xiu at the forefront was in trouble, Qu Zhiya pointed at them and said: "These knights in iron must be brave warriors in the enemy army. When hunting, we should first shoot the beasts. In battle, we should shoot at the heads of thieves. Let's surround them first." Kill!" After saying that, more than two hundred light cavalry surrounded them like magpies. Arrows were really flying like rain at this time. The black arrows were connected one after another and one after another. Zhang Xiu and others I have never been hit by such a dense rain of arrows. Not to mention the arrows on the men and horses, even the grass on the ground was smashed by the arrow clusters.

The soldiers around Zhang Xiu suffered heavy casualties as a result, but this did not mean that they did not have ways to deal with it. Years of experience in fighting had enabled them to see too many novel tactics. These armored knights dismounted one after another, immediately used their vests as cover, quickly formed a circular formation, and continued to kill the infantry array. When the surrounding cavalry saw them entangled and fighting in the rear array, they were unable to fire their bows and could only turn to surround and kill the other Liang people.

But since Zhang Xiu had stabilized his position, Zhang Ji naturally made adjustments accordingly. He sent another three thousand knights to continue to support Zhang Ji from the right, while he personally led most of the troops and slowly entered the formation from the left. He planned to use slowness to beat fastness, and use footwork to control riding. This idea may seem foolish, but it is the result of Zhang Ji's careful consideration. In a very short period of time, he had already seen some flaws in the tactics of the Hequ Division.

The tactics of the Hequ division are mainly hunting. They need to ensure a distance of one arrow and constantly harass the enemy. This requires extremely fast horse speed. In order to achieve this goal, the Huns all wore light armor. Once they got close, If you don't have a body, you won't have much power to resist. Therefore, if you want to defeat the enemy, you must start from how to get close.

Zhang Ji made a decision: to this kind of hunting-like tactics, he should respond as if he were hunting. Therefore, while the cavalry continued to maintain the battle line, he led the infantry to detour from the far left and march forward slowly but firmly.

The master of Hequ repeated his old trick, stepping forward to throw a rain of arrows, and then retreated as soon as he fired. But the Liang soldiers in the front row held their wooden poles high, letting arrows fly past their ears and heads: some hit their limbs, some hit their chests, and even worse, some arrows grazed their ears, causing arrow clusters to fall off. The eyes were pierced, the arrow feathers were buried in the skull, and blood mixed with pieces of meat of various shapes fell on the dragon's head. Even so, Zhang Ji remained unmoved. He kept urging his men, ignoring the fact that people around him were constantly hit by arrows and fell to the ground. He let the army march forward for nearly three miles, stepping on flesh and blood, until they were close to Liu Bei's main right force. Nearby, Zhang Jicai issued an order to his men to stabilize the front.

Qi Quzhiyasi was originally quite confused about Zhang Ji's response, but he didn't realize it until Zhang Ji was about to stop. Unknowingly, the Liang Army's infantry and the cavalry on the right flank formed a double-team. Such a force surrounded most of the Hequ troops in a semicircle.

Seeing that Zhang Ji had initially achieved his goal, the tight strings in his heart finally relaxed a little. He said to his generals: "If it is a hasty encounter in the field, the sky is huge, and these dogs are allowed to come and go, we will have no choice but to capture them without mercy." , but now that the two armies are facing each other in a life-and-death battle, how can they be allowed to roam freely? Since they cannot retreat and are surrounded by me, it is time for them to be slaughtered by us."

After that, he personally beat the war drums accompanying the army. The drums beat like waves, and the infantry quickly moved to the right, like an iron wall lined up in a row, squeezing the knights who were shooting arrows in front of them to the right. Shoot an arrow, and your side will immediately respond with bow and arrow.

But unlike before, every time there was a shooting, more Hun knights fell. After twenty rounds of shooting, the number of Huns who fell from their horses was about the same as that of Liang people. By the thirtieth round, the Huns had suffered more damage than Liang people because they were not wearing armor. Horses without their owners could be seen everywhere. They stood there blankly, letting the Liang soldiers rush past them.

Moreover, Qu Zhiyasi was among the guards of a group of knights. Seeing this scene, he felt very guilty. As a commander, he only focused on besieging Zhang Xiu, but ignored Zhang Ji's movements, so that the hunter turned into a net. At this time, Zhang Ji compressed his wings, just like a hunter tightening the mouth of a net to catch all the prey in the net. Many of the people who followed the army saw something was wrong and said to him: "Da Qiequ, why don't you retreat to the rear position first? It won't be too late to reorganize the army before fighting."

Liu Bao, the Xian King of the Left, was on the side. When he heard this, he angrily said: "Our army has taken on the task of stopping the enemy from attacking first. How can we return after a setback? Zhengxi is heading south to attack forcefully. Dragon Head is confronting the enemy's main force. We have retreated slightly. , our army is in the predicament of not being able to respond to two troops, so by doing this, isn’t it just that the safety of one unit is affecting the entire army?”

As soon as this statement came out, no one dared to refute it, but they still had to think of a way to defeat the enemy. Liu Bao had no idea, so he decided to let Qu Zhiyasi decide: "Although the left wing is infantry, its formation is deep and difficult to break. When we gather the elite to fight with the thieves and knights, break the enemy's right wing, and then surround it, we will have The odds are against us.”

With their purpose in mind, everyone immediately dispersed and gathered the Hun knights who were scattered and shooting. Before the two wings of Liang's army were completely encircled, nearly a thousand knights united. After a moment to adjust the formation, Liu Bao fired a horn into the sky. The sound was like a sudden crack of cloth, and the knights galloped to the right like rabbits.

At this time, the right wing of the Liang army was led by Zhang Ji's brother-in-law, Zou Ming. He was leading the cavalry to wreak havoc among the infantry of the merged army, trying to rescue Zhang Xiu, who was heavily surrounded by the merged army. Just when the two met, they Hearing the sharp whine of Liu Bao's command, everyone turned and squinted their eyes, only to realize that some of the scattered Hun knights had formed a cavalry formation at some unknown time and were galloping towards them.

This group of Huns all held three arrows in their fingers and one in their mouths, like wild men who were born with arrows in their bodies. Just when they entered the cavalry's arrow range, their hands intertwined like lightning and flint, the bowstring seemed to move, leaving some afterimages, and a dense rain of arrows pressed down from the sky. But before Liang Jun could react, they shot two and three more arrows. They only paused slightly when they replaced the arrows in their mouths, but before Liang Jun counterattacked, they also shot the fourth arrow.

No matter how thick the armor is, there is no reason why it will not be injured under the four-fold rain of arrows. The Liangqi facing them were all shot down almost in an instant, and a gap was immediately opened in the long battle line.

The Hun knights didn't give Liang Qi a chance to react. They dropped their bows and arrows, pulled out their only knives, shouted killing sounds, and ran into the wasteland after the arrows were flooded.

Chapter 27: Birds of Prey Attack Wild Beasts