Soon, firelight and gunpowder smoke rose up in the mist, and the pungent smell soon spread to the rear of the Han camp. Wang Ping and others who were fighting were shocked. They immediately abandoned the Wu army in front of them and rushed to the pontoon. Zhu Ran also knew that he could not let him go, so he followed closely behind him with his soldiers to bite him to death.
At this time, the sergeants on both sides only carried weapons and no armor. This caused the casualties on the battlefield to rise rapidly, and the situation became unprecedentedly tragic. In almost every fight, the soldiers on both sides can cut into the muscles and bones. Those who were lightly injured had a piece of flesh and blood cut off, while those who were seriously injured had their hands and feet cut off directly. Their flesh and blood flew everywhere for a while, and they wailed all over the place. Although there has never been a shortage of blood on the battlefield, there is not much blood as cruel as it is today. Perhaps this is no longer called fighting, but mutual slaughter.
After Zhu Ran smelled the smell of fireworks, he was very excited, thinking that victory was close at hand, but he did not expect that the Han army in front of him was so tenacious and refused to retreat under such a disadvantage, causing great damage to his own side. Seeing the soldiers around him fall down one by one, Zhu Ran was filled with anxiety. These were the direct subordinates of Lü Meng, the governor of Danyang, not his own. If they were allowed to be exhausted here, how could he explain to Lü Meng?
In desperation, he rode his horse back and forth between the two armies in search of the enemy general. If he could behead him, he might be able to end the war. But the Han soldiers in front of them had all taken off their armor and only had autumn clothes to keep out the cold. It was impossible to distinguish their official rank. This caused him to spend a long time wandering around the battlefield without achieving much. However, the carved feathers on his saddle revealed his identity as an officer of the Wu army, causing some Han soldiers to surround him and try to pull him off his horse. Zhu Ran was embarrassed for a while.
However, misfortunes never come singly. An arrow hit the skin of Zhu Ran's entourage, and gold, silver, pearls, jade and other objects rolled out and scattered all over the ground. It turned out that Zhu Ran had reserved it as a reward for the soldiers, so he always carried it with him. None of the troops who followed this time were his personal followers. Before leaving, he specially prepared several bags of gold and jade to reward people, but unexpectedly lost them to the Han army. Seeing the gold and jade rolling down, many Han troops hesitated, and then rushed over to pick it up. This caused the formation to be disrupted and they could no longer follow up to pursue Zhu Ran. This allowed Zhu Ran to finally escape from the siege.
Although Zhu Ran was out of trouble, he was still depressed when he thought that he still had not found the Han general. However, before riding the horse very far, the attendant beside him suddenly shouted, then turned over and fell off the horse. Before Zhu Ran understood the reason, an extremely sharp sound piercing the air suddenly sounded in his ears. His left hand subconsciously passed over the source of the sound, and with a hand, he could barely catch the arrow that was shot. When he caught it, the arrow cluster was less than an inch away from his face, and the arrow body was still shaking slightly.
Throwing the arrow on the ground, Zhu Ran immediately looked back at his opponent. He saw Wang Ping holding a bow not far away. When he saw Zhu Ran catching the flying arrow, he couldn't help but feel a shiver in his heart. He was already moving forward with his other hand. He has arrows in his quiver, but he is not in a hurry to take action. On the other side, Zhu Ran also leaned over slightly and already held the bow with one hand. The two sides looked at each other and understood each other. They knew that the other side was the commander in chief of the army. At this time, both sides were within arrow range and it was too late to withdraw. The two are like two beasts trapped in a cage. Only whoever kills the other first can retreat safely from the battlefield.
Although people were coming and going around them, the two of them remained motionless, staring at each other intently while mentally planning their next move. The pontoon was already on fire, and time was not on Wang Ping's side, so he took the lead and took out three arrows from the quiver decisively. After putting on the bowstring, he pulled and released it. With his fingers moving back and forth, the second and third arrows were immediately stringed and shot. . Zhu Ran was already on guard. When he saw Wang Ping making a move, he immediately turned sideways and fired back. Unlike Wang Ping's three arrows, he only fired one arrow back. But what is surprising is that it was clearly Zhu Nan who took action, but the arrow came later. Wang Ping did not see the path of his arrow clearly, and felt a pain in his waist. He had already been hit by the arrow!
In severe pain, Wang Ping looked towards Zhu Ran and saw that Zhu Ran had been hit by an arrow in his left shoulder and his left leg. He also showed a struggling look, but it was obviously not fatal. After he took a few breaths, the place where the arrow hit him felt numb and weak, and his vision gradually became dark. Finally, he lost all his strength and fell to the ground with a plop.
Although Zhu Ran was hit by an arrow, he couldn't help but feel happy when he saw that the enemy general fell first, so he ordered his followers to come forward and cut off his head. However, when he was about to speak, he was keenly aware that something was wrong with the situation on the battlefield. Logically speaking, the enemy had been defeated in front, and the only remaining general who joined the army was defeated by him. The Han army should have lost its fighting spirit. But the current Han troops just looked frustrated and still refused to retreat. How could the Han troops be so elite?
Just when he was surprised, he suddenly felt a shock behind him. He turned around and looked over, only to see hundreds of feet behind him. At some point, more than a hundred flags had emerged, and thousands of Han troops were gathered under them. Just as they came from He took a roundabout approach to kill him at the river beach. Observing those flags, although we can't see them clearly, we can vaguely guess that they should be the left wing of the Han army that did not participate in the war during the war, that is, the majority of them led by Li Dian. He actually escaped completely and ran over in a detour. When the fighting Han troops saw the reinforcements arriving, they all cheered loudly and burst out with courage. They were already timid, but now they came up with swords to fight with the Wu people.
Seeing this situation, Zhu Ran couldn't help but hesitate. If the Han army is allowed to occupy the river beach, even if it destroys the pontoon bridge, I am afraid that it will not be able to escape intact! He ordered his attendant Wang Qi to take off the baggage tied around his waist. The baggage was full of jewels. He stood up, grabbed a handful and threw it at the Han army in front of him. The stars in the sky were eye-catching. Wang Qi shouted again at the top of his lungs: "You have already been defeated at Bagong Mountain, and the pontoon bridge has been set on fire again. If you haven't picked up the jewels and escaped, why are you still working hard there?" The pearls fell into the Han army's formation, causing a chaos. Only then did Wu Ren break away from the fight in front of him.
However, before Wu Ren could take a breath, the battlefield changed again. In the Han army camp not far away, an unknown person was beating a large cowhide drum. Dozens of large drums were making sounds together, like the tide overflowing the beach, instantly suppressing all other sounds on the battlefield. Although many people were still shooting arrows and fighting each other, they all subconsciously slowed down their movements and paid attention to every move on the battlefield. At this time, the second group of Han army reinforcements also appeared on the road where Wang Ping came. It turned out that the Dongfu soldiers gathered by Chen Qian arrived.
Chen Qian originally planned to gather more people and come to the rescue, but when the scouts came to report, the situation waited for no one, so he had to join the battlefield again after leading 2,000 people. He knew that facing the enemy head-on would not necessarily lead to victory, so he assigned more than a hundred people to play drums and then join in the fight against the enemy. Although the number of people was small, the momentum was extremely amazing. Seeing the continuous flow of reinforcements from the Han army, the Wu soldiers hesitated about whether they could win, but Chen Qian seized this opportunity and forced Zhu Ran back half a mile in one breath.
Caught between two sides, Zhu Ran felt very helpless, and the arrow wounds on his hands and legs made him feel even more painful, so he sent someone to urge the Huainan army who destroyed the pontoon bridge, and asked when the fire would be burned down after the fire had been lit for a long time. Unexpectedly, after another two moments of hard fighting, the envoy came to report: "General, Lu Du ordered us to withdraw our troops. I'm afraid this battle will not be successful."
"What?" Zhu Ran almost couldn't believe it, and almost said a sentence in his mouth: "I heard the smoke of fire was booming! How could he return without success!"
The messenger whispered: "General, in the heavy fog a few days ago, the rebels actually built two more pontoon bridges. Including the original two, there are four in total. The governor said that now only two have been destroyed, and the newly built Those two, I’m afraid we are powerless.”
Hearing the reason, Zhu Ran was speechless. He thought he would win a hearty victory, but it turned into this situation. However, he also knew that if what Lu Su said was true, then it would indeed be impossible to cut off the Han army's return route. If they did not leave, they might turn victory into defeat. He nodded very seriously and said: "In this case, you can inform the governor and ask them to clear the way to the river beach first, and we will follow behind to prevent the bandits from pursuing them."
Soon, the Wu formation began to gather at the river beach, and their intention to leave was clearly revealed. In order to seize the pontoon bridge, Li Dian did not want to fight to the death with this group of Wu people. He only resisted symbolically, then opened the way for them and watched them leave.
By this time, the entire war was not over yet, and the Wu people in the east were still taking advantage of their victory to pursue the rear of the Han army. However, as they approached the camp, the resistance of the Han army gradually increased, making their results smaller and smaller and the cost higher. In addition, the Wu army had no cavalry, so this offensive gradually dissipated and was already on the verge of stopping. Commander Guo Huai was aware of this, so he gathered his troops in front of the camp and ordered his cronies to launch a counterattack against the Wu people. After only one counterattack, Wu Jun simply gave up the attack and instead waited and watched the situation in front of the camp.
At about Youshi that day, they waited for Lu Su and Zhu Ran to return and brought back news of the failure to destroy the bridge. Disappointed and seeing the tragic casualties of the two troops, they gave up the idea of continuing to fight and agreed to a temporary truce. As most of the Wu army retreated to Bagong Mountain, the fighting between the two armies was basically over.
After the Wu army withdrew, Guo Huai learned about the bloody battle on the pontoon bridge in the rear. Guo Huai shouted that it was lucky and did not dare to let the army stay on the east bank anymore. So he gathered the defeated troops and maintained order across the river. Finally, in the early morning of the second day, the right army was brought back to the west bank. Only then did he count the losses in this battle. The number of casualties in the army was much less than expected, but there were still about ten thousand people. It was considered a big defeat. The only good news is that Wang Ping, who fought with Zhu Ran to the death, did not lose his life due to arrow wounds. After emergency treatment that day, his injury gradually stabilized.
