Wei Yan did use a strategy of virtuality and reality, but Wei Yan's strategy of virtuality and reality was different from what Guanqiu Jian thought.
Guanqiu Jian thought that Wei Yan would play tricks on the number of people leaving the city, sometimes more, sometimes less, to adjust his own mentality, and quickly send out relief troops when he couldn't figure it out.
But in fact, the entire change in the number of soldiers leaving the west city gate was all an illusion put up by Wei Yan.
After sending a thousand soldiers out of the city for the last time, Wei Yan had already assembled the remaining four thousand soldiers in the city, and all of them were on standby near the east gate of Mei County.
After the last group of thousands of soldiers left the city and attracted the attention of all Guanqiu Jian's scouts, Wei Yan directly led the remaining four thousand soldiers out of the east gate of Mei County and took a detour to meet Wu Ban and others.
This is indeed a false and true plan. It can be said to be an attack in the east or in the west. But that is the name given to the later generations when summarizing the classic battles. On the battlefield, when the generals use it, in the final analysis, it is the same thing. This kind of alternation between reality and fiction is just a way to create an illusion and deceive the enemy.
But to be honest, Wei Yan also took a big risk with this method. If Guanqiu Jian really sent troops to attack the thousand people who came out of the west gate, these thousand people would definitely not be able to stop Guan Qiujian's attack. If Qiu Jian continued to pursue him, Mei County would be basically an empty city with no one to defend him.
But there is no way, fighting is like this, there is no way to be perfect, and Wei Yan feels that even if he thinks from Guanqiu Jian's point of view, he probably will not choose to attack immediately, even if he chooses to attack and succeeds , and it is unlikely that he would choose to follow and kill him. After all, Guan Qiujian did not know the true situation of Mei County.
The fact was exactly as Wei Yan predicted. Guan Qiujian did not choose to send his cavalry to attack, nor did he find that Wei Yan led his troops out of the city from another city gate. When Guan Qiujian discovered Wei Yan's whereabouts, Wei Yan was far away from Wu Ban and others. People are only less than ten miles away.
Guanqiu Jian could sense Wei Yan's movements, and it was impossible for Wu Ban, who had been paying close attention to the response in the direction of Mei County, not to notice it.
After learning that Wei Yan had led more than 4,000 troops to support him, Wu Ban made a decisive decision and asked Wang Ping to lead the Wudang Flying Army of 1,500 people plus the 3,000 soldiers Wu Ban gave to Wang Ping to command, a total of four The 1,500 men were responsible for cutting off the rear, while Wu Ban himself took the remaining 7,000 soldiers to adjust their formation, retreat slowly, and join Wei Yan's army first.
Retreating and responding are both technical tasks, especially when there is pressure from enemy forces, so care must be taken.
Wu Ban's retreat is not about leaving people behind to delay the retreat. If he leads his troops and runs away, with the speed of Guanqiu Jian's cavalry, Wu Ban will not be able to run away, and he might even disperse the troops brought by Wei Yan to help him. The formation of soldiers.
Wu Ban is also a veteran general in Shu. He may not be as capable as his brother Wu Yi, but he has always been cautious in using troops and is a very qualified military commander.
Although they were retreating, Wu Ban still kept his soldiers in a certain defensive posture. To deal with the surprise attack launched by the enemy cavalry at any time, they just changed the circular formation used for on-site defense into a square formation for convenient retreat.
As for intercepting the pursuing troops, Wu Ban was not careless. He sent Wang Ping to be responsible for the interception. However, he also knew that although the Wudang Fei Army led by Wang Ping had excellent combat power, it had too few troops, so he specially added Wang Ping. Three thousand soldiers of the headquarters.
These people don't mean that Wu Ban has given up completely, that's not what they mean.
The 7,000 retreating troops led by Wu Ban and the 4,500 retreating troops led by Wang Ping always maintained a distance of less than five miles. Once either side encountered danger, they could rescue each other in time.
This is a true retreat, an orderly retreat.
But obviously, Guanqiu Jian will not give Wu Ban such an orderly retreat. If these Shu troops are allowed to retreat to Mei County in such an orderly manner, with the city wall as a support, who will guard so many Shu troops? They can't even defeat Mei County.
Although Guan Qiujian was fooled by Wei Yan, not only missing the opportunity for a cavalry raid, but even allowing Wei Yan to send a response force under his nose, Guan Qiujian did not have no chance.
It is no longer possible to completely attack the Mei County defenders or trap the Shu army in Wu Ban. In terms of the overall strategy, Guanqiu Jian is indeed at a disadvantage and has no way to complete his combat mission.
However, Guan Qiujian could still use his infantry to entangle the rear wing of Wu Ban's army and attack with cavalry, killing a large number of Shu troops and reducing the Shu army's defensive strength.
But at this time, Guanqiu Jian himself didn't know how many Shu troops he could kill in less than fifty miles. But it was better to do better than never. The smaller the number of Shu troops defending the city, the more likely it would be for Governor Cao and Guo to fight in the future. After the governors gathered together, it became easier to attack Mei County.
At this time, Guan Qiu Jian had no room for extra thinking. When he saw Wu Ban beginning to organize a retreat, Guan Qiu Jian also made his own decision.
Guanqiu Jian ordered Zhu Zan to immediately lead more than 3,000 central imperial troops to slow down Wu Ban's retreat. He led 3,000 elite cavalry to start circuitous on the battlefield, increasing the speed of the cavalry while trying to attack Wu Ban's retreating army. flank.
But, actually this is not easy.
Wu Ban is not a fool. Although the retreat arrangements he made are nothing special and just satisfactory, these days, on the battlefield, being satisfactory means there are no mistakes.
If Wu Ban was eager to escape and asked his soldiers to form a long snake formation, then Guan Qiujian's approach could easily cut through Wu Ban's military formation and split Wu Ban's army into several pieces. Guanqiu Jian was not allowed to completely defeat Wu Ban's army, but he could still create chaos and kill a large number of Shu troops.
But the problem now is that when Wu Ban retreated, they put up a square formation. This is a formation that still maintains a certain defensive ability, but can also move and retreat.
Although it is not as fast as the long snake formation in terms of traveling speed, at least it is not the kind of formation that will fall into a passive position when encountering a flank attack.
Guan Qiujian wanted to break into the phalanx organized by Wu Ban from the flank. At the first level, he had to face the shields and spears set up on the outside of the phalanx.
When facing such a battle formation, although the cavalry still has the advantage of impact and speed, it does not mean that the cavalry will not suffer casualties. Even the elite cavalry of the Wei Dynasty are just men covered with leather armor and horses without armor. , can't make heavy armored cavalry with both men and horses.
But at this time, Guanqiu Jian had no other choice. Even if he spent all the 3,000 cavalry he brought out, he must kill the enemy as much as possible, otherwise the entire strategy would lead to serious consequences due to his carelessness. .
The next battlefield is no longer an occasion for strategy, it is simply a battle of life and death.
Guan Qiujian commanded the cavalry to circle around Wu Ban's troops, looking for a breakthrough. Once he found a slightly weak defense, he immediately commanded the cavalry to launch an assault, charging through with shields and spear formations.
The Wei cavalry on the front line ran directly into the shield formation and spear formation without any surprise.
The horses pierced by the spears neighed and fell to the ground. The cavalry on the horses were also thrown off the ground. They either fell into the Han army's formation and were killed, or fell on the path of their own friendly troops. In a blink of an eye, they fell to the ground. He will be trampled to pieces by his colleagues who follow him.
As for the shield soldiers in the first row of the Han army, after encountering the first wave of cavalry impact, even if the shield soldiers were in groups of two and resisted the cavalry impact with shoulders to shoulders, they were still knocked away seven or eight steps by the horse impact. Far away, under such a huge impact, the possibility of survival is slim.
The most important thing is that in some places directly facing the cavalry attack, without the protection of the shield soldiers, a gap immediately appeared in the formation.
Guanqiu Jian immediately seized this opportunity and commanded his cavalry to rush in through the gap, fighting all the way, trying to expand the scope of the gap. Wu Ban also commanded his soldiers desperately to fill the gap at any cost, using human lives. Go and face the cavalry who burst into the gap.
When Guan Qiujian discovered that the speed of his cavalry had dropped, or that he was unable to widen the gap between Wu Ban's army, he immediately and calmly ordered the cavalry to retreat temporarily and continue to cruise the battlefield, speeding up while looking for the next opportunity to break through.
Wu Ban also quickly mobilized his soldiers, rearranged the defensive formation, and retreated while fighting. While preparing for Guan Qiujian's next assault, he tried to get as close as possible to General Wei's supporting troops.
There is no way for Wu Ban to divide his troops again to resist Guan Qiujian's cavalry. Firstly, the infantry cannot outrun the cavalry. Secondly, Wu Ban currently only has 7,000 men. If they divide their troops again, that is what Guan Qiujian is most happy to see. If the situation is serious, he can rely on the high mobility of the cavalry to eliminate Wu Ban's troops one by one.
Therefore, Wu Ban must gather the soldiers together and retreat slowly. When Wei Yan's response comes, as long as Wei Yan's army joins the battlefield and he has a second barrier, he can retreat calmly for the remaining 40 miles.
After all, it's almost evening now.
I have to say that Wei Yan really chose the time to go out of the city to meet him very well.
We set off before noon and marched for more than two hours, covering a distance of forty miles to meet them. After another hour, it was completely dark.
For the infantry, although darkness affects the marching speed, they can still march with torches. After all, they are retreating now and it is not a time to pay too much attention.
But for the cavalry, it is very dangerous to drive with torches in the middle of the night. Once the cavalry picks up the speed, relying only on the lighting range provided by the torches, even if there is a tree in front, the cavalry will not have time to react, let alone to Fighting with torches.
Therefore, for Wu Ban, as long as they find a way to hold on until General Wei comes to take over, they can retreat all the way, and then march with torches at night, and retreat to Mei County first.
And Wei General Wu Ban believed that if General Wei Yan chose to come to rescue him at this time, he must have a way to escape unscathed.
Therefore, Wu Ban continued to maintain the square formation, retreating while fighting, trying his best to move closer to Wei Yanjun's direction.
Just after Guanqiu Jian ended his third cavalry attack on Wu Ban's army, four thousand infantry led by Wei Yan rushed to the battlefield.
At this time, Guan Qiu Jian had no way out, or in other words, Guan Qiu Jian had already thought of Wei Yan's arrival.
Therefore, Guanqiu Jian did not continue to let the cavalry attack Wu Ban's headquarters in a roundabout way, but directly turned around and rushed towards Wei Yan's supporting army.
Guanqiu Jian wanted to take advantage of the opportunity when Wei Yan had just arrived on the battlefield and was not yet stable, to launch a wave of surprise attacks in an effort to break up Wei Yan's army in one go.
(End of chapter)
