Cao Ren's thoughts are actually not difficult to understand.
Zhang Xi stayed in Fancheng like a shrunken turtle and refused to fight with him.
As for Cao Ren, because he was eager for revenge, he took the cavalry and set off first. If it weren't for the need to set up camp, he might not even have brought the two thousand infantry.
After arriving at Fan City, Cao Ren was caught in a dilemma - he couldn't let the cavalry dismount and act as infantry to carry out siege warfare.
The time and money needed to train one cavalryman is enough to train a dozen infantrymen. Even though Cao Cao had many cavalrymen, it was not such a waste.
Therefore, after Cao Ren heard that Guan Yu led his navy to land on the north bank of the Han River, he immediately led his cavalry to intercept it.
Cao Ren's idea was to catch Guan Yu off guard.
In Cao Ren's impression, when the navy goes ashore, its combat effectiveness will definitely be reduced sharply. For this point, refer to the navy in Jiangdong.
The group of naval troops in Nanjun and Jiangdong were killed by Cao Ren and a dozen cavalrymen, and they retreated more than a hundred steps.
Now Cao Ren has eight thousand cavalry. As long as Guan Yu is in a hurry and does not allow Guan Yu to set up a stronghold, it is possible to surround and annihilate this group of naval troops who have just landed on the shore.
The place where Cao Ren camped was about forty miles away from the north bank of the Han River. If we judged based on the conventional infantry marching speed, it would have taken at least half a day. If the march did not go smoothly, it might have taken one day.
But now Cao Ren is leading cavalry. If the cavalry attacks, it will not take half a day to reach Forty Miles. If it is a tiger and leopard cavalry, it may be faster.
Unfortunately, Cao Ren now leads only ordinary cavalry, but Cao Ren feels that it is not impossible to reach Guan Yu in half a day and make a surprise attack before Guan Yu can establish a camp in time, and achieve a great victory.
As for the cavalry, their main focus is speed.
Therefore, Cao Ren led the cavalry to attack quickly in order not to give Guan Yu time to react.
Guan Yu really didn't expect that Cao Ren would give up the siege of Fancheng and come to the north bank of Han River to find his own line.
I am leading a naval force, and I have a boat.
No matter how fast your cavalry comes, there will still be time for me to retreat and get on the boat, right? Can your cavalry still fight their way to the water? !
Besides, I led my soldiers to help, how could I not send out rangers to detect the enemy's situation first? Although your cavalry is moving fast, it is not difficult for my rangers to detect your movements.
Guan Yu really didn't understand how Cao Ren, who was considered a veteran, could make such a stupid mistake.
When Cao Ren was still twenty miles away from Guan Yu, Guan Yu learned that Cao Ren led his cavalry to attack him.
To be honest, Cao Ren did send troops quickly. Although Guan Yu's rangers conveyed the news of Cao Ren's attack through some simple warning methods, Guan Yu only knew the superficial information that Cao Ren led the cavalry towards him. The specific details of Cao Ren's troops How much and where to go, Guan Yu actually didn't know.
Therefore, from the perspective of safety, Guan Yu's correct response should indeed be to retreat first, avoid Cao Ren's cavalry, and then find other suitable places to camp ashore.
But after all, it is not a long-term solution.
Now Guan Yu only received the battle report from Zhang Xi. He learned that Cao Ren went south and brought a vanguard force of 10,000 people. Zhang Xi could not tell whether there was backup or how many people there were.
Anyway, both Guan Yu and Zhang Xi felt that it was impossible for Cao Ren to attack Fancheng with only such a few people. Even the walls of Fancheng might not be able to be touched.
Therefore, Guan Yu can judge that the cavalry led by Cao Ren now should only be the vanguard force.
If Cao Ren used the mobility of these cavalry to swim along the Han River, forcing himself not to easily allow the navy to dock, and Cao Ren asked the follow-up infantry troops of Cao's army to besiege Fancheng, it would be troublesome.
Although Cao Ren's cavalry could not completely block Guan Yu's navy from landing, Guan Yu did not want to just defend Fancheng. He still wanted to build a camp in the wild and form a horn with Fancheng, so that the defense would be more layered. They can also support each other.
And if Guan Yu wants to go ashore and set up a stronghold, then Cao Ren's cavalry team must find a way to deal with it, otherwise Cao Ren will sneak attack from time to time and run away after the attack, which will be very disgusting.
Therefore, Guan Yu decided not to retreat for the time being, and asked his soldiers to move all the Wugang chariots off the ship, set up a chariot formation, and asked the soldiers and spearmen who were familiar with the Yuanyang Formation to build defense around the chariot formation, and the crossbowmen entered the center of the chariot formation. Cao Ren's cavalry must arrive.
Guan Yu and Zhang Xi had already discussed this set of combat plans similar to Queyue Formation. Both of them felt that this plan was feasible. Now Guan Yu has only officially implemented it.
Cao Ren obviously didn't know what kind of thing was waiting for him in front, and he still kept urging the cavalry to advance quickly.
When Cao Ren led eight thousand cavalry and quickly rushed to the shore of the Han River, he was overjoyed to see Guan Yu's fleet and only a small number of soldiers landing on the shore beside the fleet.
If Guan Yu had already landed his entire army and had 20,000 infantry against 8,000 cavalry, although Cao Ren would have a chance of winning, he would have to pay a heavy price in the end.
But now Cao Ren found that only a small number of Guan Yu's troops came ashore, so what are you waiting for? Let's attack directly.
Of course, Cao Ren is not Xu Chu's fool who doesn't know how to command. Before the attack, he still needs to organize an attack formation. It is not the kind of attack that swarms forward. It is divided into several batches of continuous attacks, so as not to give the opponent time to reorganize its defense. Use cavalry to its fullest potential
Cao Ren immediately ordered the cavalry to adjust into an attack formation as soon as possible during the march, divide into three echelons, and launch an attack on Guan Yu's shore navy.
Although Cao Ren has been making frequent mistakes recently, his qualities as a commander are still there. Cao Ren did not charge personally, but mainly commanded the battle.
Seeing his cavalry charging forward, Cao Ren temporarily slowed down his advance and took command of the rear army while organizing a second wave of cavalry offensive.
But Cao Ren saw arrows filling the sky, shooting at his first group of cavalry.
At this time, Cao Ren did not realize the seriousness of the matter.
After all, it is common for cavalry to encounter bows and arrows when attacking. The correct response at this time is to ignore these arrows, speed up the cavalry as much as possible, and rush through the area covered by the arrows.
When the cavalry rushes to the enemy's camp, uses speed and impact to break through the enemy's defenses, and rushes into the infantry camp, there will be no room for the arrows to be used.
The rest is just one-sided killing.
Therefore, when Cao Ren saw the arrows fired from Guan Yu's camp, he didn't pay attention. Instead, he directly sent out the second batch of newly organized cavalry teams and asked them to speed up the sprint, immediately behind the first batch of cavalry teams, and attack them. Guan Yu's army launched continuous attacks.
But the rain of arrows is still shooting out.
Now Cao Ren was not calm. Could it be that the first batch of attacking cavalry did not break through Guan Yu's army's front defense? !
Well, it's not impossible. After all, Guan Yu is a famous general, and the navy went ashore. It's impossible for there to be no defense at all. It's probably because Guan Yu set up a long shield and spear formation as a defense.
In this case, let the first wave of cavalry retreat and cruise around, attack the enemy with mounted fire, let the second wave of cavalry launch an attack, and then take advantage of the situation to form a third wave of cavalry to attack.
Cao Ren didn't believe it. With this temporary shield wall defense, Guan Yu could continuously block his cavalry attacks.
Sooner or later there will be a time to break through the shield wall and charge into the middle army.
Then Cao Ren was puzzled, why did Guan Yu prepare so many crossbowmen? !
Generally speaking, the army is still mostly equipped with spearmen and long sword soldiers. Although there are crossbowmen, they mainly play the role of suppressing the enemy during charge or defense. The ratio in the army will not be too high.
But now, Cao Ren saw Guan Yu's army firing crossbows non-stop, killing and injuring his cavalry. Even if his cavalry was allowed to roam and shoot, Cao Ren's cavalry did not dare to get too close because of the difference in range. Guan Yu's soldiers.
And Cao Ren was even more curious, why his cavalry had been charging for so long but failed to break through even a single bit of Guan Yu's army. Are Guan Yu's soldiers so good at defense? !
Suspicious, Cao Ren asked his cavalry to retreat temporarily and carefully observed Guan Yu's military formation.
Now it was finally clear that Guan Yu had arranged a car formation in the front army, and this car formation was arranged in an arc along the water bank.
This means that unless Cao Ren can launch an attack from the water, there will be no defensive blind spots in this car formation.
When he looked at the chariot formation, some bad memories began to reappear in Cao Ren's mind, and he recalled that when his cavalry attacked Zhou Yu in Nanjun, he had suffered enough from this chariot formation.
Cao Ren knew how difficult this kind of chariot formation was, and he also knew that if this kind of chariot formation was equipped with enough bows and crossbows, it would be very lethal to the cavalry.
This put Cao Ren into a dilemma again.
Regardless of this chariot formation, Guan Yu can rely on the chariot formation to slowly let his soldiers ashore and build a camp, while his own cavalry can only watch from the side.
In this way, the goal of quickly defeating Guan Yu's reinforcements and isolating Fancheng cannot be achieved.
If we let the cavalry attack regardless of casualties, it would be possible to break through the chariot formation, kill the crossbowmen in the chariot formation, and even repel Guan Yu's reinforcements. But the chariot formation is made of wood after all, and our own cavalry are made of flesh and blood. Pile up with money and food.
Guan Yu could build as many chariot formations as he wanted. Although Guan Yu felt distressed by the loss of a few crossbowmen, Cao Ren felt even more distressed by the loss of his cavalry.
Cavalry, from men to horses, is not cheap. Even Cao Cao's family fortune cannot afford such a waste.
Cao Ren had to make a decision, whether to risk losses and continue to let the cavalry charge into the battle, or to retreat and wait until reinforcements led by Xiahou Shang, Zhang Liao and others arrived before finding a way to attack the city.
Just when Cao Ren was hesitant, Cao Ren saw Guan Yu's handsome flag.
A huge handsome flag slowly disembarked from the boat and came to the middle of the car array.
Obviously, Guan Yu, as the coach, personally came to the car formation to boost morale and organize soldiers to defend. So what did Cao Ren have to hesitate?
As soon as Cao Ren saw Guan Yu's banner, he couldn't control the anger in his heart again. His mind, which had finally calmed down slowly, exploded with a buzz.
"Commanders, Guan Yu is right in front of you, but you still haven't moved forward with all your strength to avenge General Zhengxi, avenge this governor, and avenge the King of Wei!!!!"
Cao Ren roared, then waved his hand, and three groups of cavalry took turns to attack the car formation again.
(End of chapter)
