Guan Yu didn't know what was causing Cao Ren's madness, why he was so persistent in attacking the car formation.
To be honest, if the positions of Guan Yu and Cao Ren were reversed, Guan Yu would definitely retreat temporarily to attract the enemy to move forward when faced with such an iron turtle. As long as the enemy left the water, the matter would be easily solved.
Guan Yu would choose to get off the ship. On the one hand, it was indeed to boost morale. On the other hand, he also felt that Cao Ren was a famous general after all, and it was impossible to kill a hundred enemies and lose a thousand to himself.
However, Cao Ren actually ordered the cavalry to attack again. Guan Yu, while puzzled, was naturally not polite and accepted the gift with a smile.
When Cao Jun attacked for the first time, Guan Yu only asked the two thousand crossbowmen in the chariot formation to shoot, and the casualties caused to Cao Jun's cavalry were not very large.
But this time, Guan Yu not only commanded the crossbowmen in the chariot formation to fire back arrows, but also asked Guan Ping to command the warships to line up on the river, allowing the soldiers to use crossbows to attack indiscriminately.
Anyway, the pedal crossbow has a long range. As long as it does not hit the vehicle array, no matter where it lands, it can be regarded as an arrow array, which can effectively prevent the cavalry from approaching.
As for Cao Jun's cavalry, this attack was simply unlucky.
Under the command of the military order, Cao Jun formed an assault formation, mobilized his horses, and began to attack the enemy's line.
When approaching three hundred steps in front of the enemy's formation, everything is normal. For the cavalry, the distance of three hundred steps is only a few dozen breaths. Soon the cavalry can rush to the enemy's formation and use Use lances to attack the vehicle array, or use sabers to kill the enemy.
Two hundred steps later, dense arrows were fired from the enemy's vehicle formation. It was indeed denser than the arrows fired from the general military formation, but it was not impossible to solve it. After temporarily spreading out the formation and dodging most of the arrow attacks, , regrouped and concentrated on attacking a vehicle formation.
One hundred steps huh? ! Why is it so dark? !
Cao Jun's cavalry raised their heads slightly and saw arrows flying all over the sky, covering up the sun. Before they knew what was going on, they were shot through by four or five long arrows. Suddenly, their eyes went dark and they fell off their horses. .
On the current battlefield, Guan Yu's army was constantly firing arrows from the ship to the chariot formation. Within a few breaths, Guan Yu's army had already poured tens of thousands of arrows into the arc-shaped area in front of the chariot formation, and This frequency continues.
The density and speed of the arrows are both quite rare.
The cavalry group of Cao's army in front of Guan Yu's army felt that they were not attacking, but seeking death.
There was rain of arrows all around, giving the impression that it was not the cavalry launching an attack, but that he was riding a horse and actively hitting the arrows. No matter how hard he tried to dodge, he couldn't dodge them. No matter how thick his leather armor was, he couldn't block so many. The siege of arrows caused instant death and injury.
However, the speed of Cao Jun's cavalry has been completely increased. Now they have to turn around to avoid the arrows, but there is no way to avoid them.
He could only rush to the front of Guan Yu's army just in case.
If he could break through the car formation and get into the melee inside Guan Yu's army, he might still have a chance to survive. If he ran back, he would most likely be dead.
In this way, most of Cao's cavalry soldiers had the same idea. They were either shot by arrows and fell on the charging road, or they were blocked by the car formation and killed by spears. Only a few of the cavalry in the rear were killed. Realizing that something was wrong, he quickly turned around and fled back to the main formation, barely escaping with his life.
Cao Ren was completely stunned by such a three-dimensional blow.
In the first attack, Cao Ren's losses were not big, that is, three to four hundred casualties, so Cao Ren didn't take it seriously and launched the second attack in a hurry.
But in the second attack, under the combined attack of the crossbows on the ship and the crossbows in the chariot formation, Cao Ren only saw his cavalry falling on the way forward.
Even some cavalrymen couldn't stand the density of arrows and planned to break up and flee, but they still couldn't escape the arrow circle established by Guan Yu.
In this attack, Cao Ren invested half of his troops. Except for more than 200 cavalry who luckily did not enter the circle of arrows and reined in their horses and escaped with their lives, none of the remaining cavalry could escape and were all killed in the rain of arrows. within the circle.
Cao Ren was completely dumbfounded, and Guan Yu was also very upset now.
Really, it would be great if I could have a thousand cavalry on hand.
Given the current morale of Cao Ren's army, if he had a thousand cavalry on hand and launched a pursuit of Cao Ren's cavalry, even if Cao Ren could not be completely annihilated, he would at least be able to defeat Cao Ren. In this case, the siege of Fancheng would be completely resolved.
But unfortunately, Guan Yu had no cavalry, so he could only watch as Cao Ren gathered his mood, gathered his remaining cavalry troops, and slowly withdrew.
After losing four thousand men, Cao Ren finally calmed down. With his current strength, it was no longer possible to think about defeating Guan Yu's reinforcements and killing Guan Yu.
But fortunately, he is a cavalryman, and he can come and go like the wind. It is unrealistic for Guan Yu to keep him.
It's just that Cao Ren can't always take the cavalry to eat and drink in the wild. The purpose is to have a stalemate with Guan Yu here, because he has a naval force and there is no shortage of supplies, so he can't consume him.
Therefore, Cao Ren, who calmed down, finally decided to retreat to his camp in the north of Fancheng and wait until Xiahou Shang led his troops to come for reinforcements before making any further calculations.
Cao Ren, who understood his current situation, finally slowly regained his style as a famous general. He immediately broke off, led his cavalry, and retreated slowly.
Guan Yu did not dare to pursue him. On the one hand, he could not catch up, and on the other hand, he was afraid that Cao Ren would kill him.
Although Cao Ren's previous performance could not be said to be very brilliant, Cao Ren's reputation is still there, and he can be regarded as the only two generals among Cao Cao's relatives who can conquer and fight. Guan Yu really does not dare to be careless.
By the way, another one named Xia Houyuan was just beheaded by a veteran named Huang Zhong in Dingjun Mountain.
Well, Guan Yu didn't pursue him anyway, and allowed Cao Ren to retreat, while he organized the remaining soldiers to go ashore, choose a suitable place to build a camp, and form a horn with Fancheng.
Cao Ren retreated all the way, and finally retreated to his camp north of Fancheng when it was dark.
But Cao Ren had just entered the camp, and no one had gotten off their horses. He suddenly realized something was wrong. Why was it so quiet in the camp? !
I have left two thousand men to garrison the camp. As the commander-in-chief of an army, if I return to the camp now, not only should everyone come out to greet me, but at least the deputy general Chang Diao and some of the remaining school captains should come out. Where are the people? !
Cao Ren suddenly discovered a problem after this suspicion. Why did some parts of the camp look so strange, and why were there so many potholes on the ground? !
Cao Ren immediately realized something was wrong and quickly shouted to stop the cavalry who continued to enter the camp, but it was already too late.
A fire suddenly broke out behind Cao Jun's camp, and the fire quickly grew bigger. A group of people quickly appeared outside the main entrance of Cao Jun's camp, and the leader was Zhang Yi.
To be honest, Cao Ren left a camp of 2,000 people to defend the camp. If Zhang Xi didn't do something, he would be really sorry for such good conditions.
Cao Ren scolded the formation because he had 8,000 cavalry as his support. Zhang Xi thought that there were only 7,000 soldiers in his city, and they were all infantry. There was a high probability that they would not be able to defeat Cao Ren's 8,000 cavalry.
So no matter how much you, Cao Ren, scolds you, we just won’t go out.
As a result, early this morning, Cao Ren led his cavalry to the east. Zhang Xi sent out cavalry to investigate, saying that Cao Ren had traveled more than 20 miles in a short time.
This posture obviously did not mean to set up an ambush with an empty camp to lure Zhang Xi into sending troops, thereby defeating Zhang Xi in the field.
In this case, it is true that my 7,000 infantry cannot defeat your 8,000 cavalry, but if I cannot even defeat the 2,000 infantry in your camp, then I really don’t want to be a general.
After Zhang Xi was sure that Cao Ren was not using a trick to force him out of the city, he immediately asked Zhang Ni to mobilize 5,000 men and horses, take five catapults, and attack Cao's camp.
Well, when someone uses it, Zhang Xi rarely goes into battle in person. After all, this guy is very afraid of death.
Having said that, Cao Ren is not careless.
According to common sense, if a camp is defended by two thousand people, even if the enemy sends five thousand people to attack, it will take at least several days to attack it. It is not that easy to break through a camp.
With the speed of Cao Ren's cavalry, from marching to defeat Guan Yu to returning to the military camp, Cao Ren felt that about two days should be enough.
If Chang Diao, his deputy general who stayed in the camp, could not hold on for two days, then Cao Ren would really have nothing to say.
Chang Diao also felt that he could hold on, but who knew that Zhang Xi didn't have martial ethics.
Not only did they send Zhang Yi, a general who was good at attacking cities, to lead 5,000 troops to attack the camp, he was also equipped with a catapult.
Yaoshou, have you ever seen anyone use a catapult to attack a camp? !
No matter how strong the fortress is, its outer walls are only made of wood and are not at the same level as the city walls.
Zhang Ni did nothing. Five catapults continued to bombard the outer wall of the camp, and in half an hour a large gap was opened in the outer wall.
It's not that Chang Diao did nothing. When he saw the opponent dispatching catapults, he also bravely organized his soldiers to go out to fight in the camp, hoping to defeat the enemy and burn the catapults.
Chang Diao personally led a thousand soldiers out of the camp to fight. It can be said that he took the lead.
As a result, without even touching the edge of the catapult, the opponent's general commanded two thousand soldiers and blocked him back to the camp.
What was even more frustrating was that Chang Diao found that even if he did not return to the camp, he would probably not be able to defeat the enemy soldiers.
Although the opponent was fighting with more, the weapons of the opponent's soldiers were too sharp. During the battle, many of his own soldiers were killed or injured because of the disadvantages of their weapons.
Chang Diao even found that his spear had several gaps on its head, and there were obvious marks cut out in several places on the barrel, and in some places a layer of wood had been cut off.
This is a pewter gun shaft. It's very hard.
The subsequent fighting in the camp further proved Chang Diao's point of view. Even with the same strength, Cao's army could not gain the upper hand and was suppressed by the enemy.
Cao's army could not last long in such a battle. After a large number of Fancheng troops poured into the camp, Cao's army collapsed.
Chang Diao was panicked and quickly ordered people to collect the scattered remnants of the soldiers, so he relaxed his protection. Zhang Ni saw the opportunity and led his bodyguards to attack Chang Diao. Together with his bodyguards, Zhang Ni easily Chang Diao was captured alive.
The battle lasted for less than two hours before Zhang Ni defeated Cao Ren's camp.
After Zhang Yi captured the camp, he found Zhang Xi and asked Zhang Xi to burn the camp, so that even if Cao Ren returned to the army, he would have no place to stand and would have to retreat and wait for reinforcements.
But Zhang Xi thinks, well, it can actually be burned a little later.
Then Zhang Xi quickly made arrangements, asking Zhang Yi to repair Cao Ren's camp first, try to erase some traces of the battle, and prepare sulfur and other fire starters in the camp in advance.
After doing this, he asked Zhang Yi to lead three thousand troops to ambush outside the camp, while he led two thousand troops to observe the opportunity in the rear camp.
As long as Cao Ren returns to the camp, he lights a fire to create chaos, and Zhang Ni then rushes out of the camp. There is no chance that Cao Ren will be defeated.
(End of chapter)
