Chen Zhi deceived the mob under his command to continue to advance towards Huaili County. Guo Huai's army and the Northern Army led by Wu Yi outside Huaili County finally met and were ready to go to war.
Guo Huai led his troops to prepare for the battle early, and Wu Yi did not make the mistake of underestimating the enemy and ordered his soldiers to prepare for battle early.
The two sides faced each other at the foot of Huaili City. As soon as Wu Yi saw the direction of Guo Huai's army's formation, he naturally understood that Guo Huai had been prepared for a long time and it was impossible to win by surprise.
Similarly, when Guo Huai saw the marching speed of Wu Yi's army and the orderly appearance of the army, he also knew that the enemy generals were not just ordinary people. It was probably unrealistic to defeat the enemy's unsteady foothold.
Both sides understand that this is probably a head-to-head battle.
But Guo Huai is confident.
He has 11,000 infantry, plus 5,000 cavalry. Facing the enemy's 8,000 infantry and the 3,000 remaining troops in Huaili City, he can't lose no matter what.
Especially the cavalry gave Guo Huai strong confidence.
Therefore, Guo Huai took the lead in launching the attack after the two armies formed their formations.
On the one hand, attacking can effectively improve morale and show that he is confident. On the other hand, Guo Huai does not think that he has reached the point where he needs to defend passively.
After all, he has the advantage in military strength and combat power.
Of course, Guo Huai is also a famous general after all, and he has his own caution and fighting methods as a famous general.
Guo Huai did not press the army at the beginning and launch an all-out attack. Instead, he asked Qin Lang to lead five thousand cavalry to the flanks to press the formation, and he commanded his five thousand infantry to launch the attack.
This is a tentative attack. Guo Huai needs to understand the opponent's infantry strength and also needs to see the enemy general's command method.
Wu Yi's response was relatively simple and crude - press forward across the board.
From Wu Yi's point of view, this is normal.
Wu Yi only brought 8,000 Northern troops to Huaili in advance. The reinforcements behind him were still two days away. As for the garrison stationed in Huaili City, Wu Yi did not dare to count on it. He had to attack them from the beginning. Do your best to meet the challenge and take the initiative.
Therefore, when Guo Huai sent 5,000 soldiers to test the attack, Wu Yi chose to attack the entire line without any hesitation.
Then Guo Huai was dumbfounded.
It's not that Wu Yi's response was dumbfounded, Guo Huai still had this experience.
What really dumbfounded Guo Huai was the combat effectiveness of the Han army.
Five thousand Wei troops faced eight thousand Han troops. Guo Huai did think that his soldiers might be at a disadvantage. However, less than a quarter of an hour after the two sides fought, Guo Huai discovered that his soldiers at the front showed signs of being unable to hold up. .
This was beyond Guo Huai's expectation.
Guo Huai actually fought against the Northern Army of the Han Dynasty. It was during the Second Northern Expedition of the Shu Han Dynasty five years ago. At that time, Guo Huai led Cao Wei's elite Central Forbidden Army against the Northern Army of the Han Dynasty, which had just formed an army less than two years ago.
As a result, the Central Forbidden Army was able to suppress the offensive of the Northern Han Army. Although the fight was a bit troublesome, they still had the upper hand.
Therefore, Guo Huai came to the conclusion that the so-called elite northern army of the Shu thieves was probably slightly stronger than the ordinary county soldiers of the Wei Dynasty, but weaker than the central imperial army.
Now Guo Huai's army attacking You Fufeng is indeed no longer the central imperial army, but the county soldiers in the Sili area. Their combat effectiveness is slightly inferior to that of the Northern Army of Shu thieves. Guo Huai had expected this.
But even if the overall combat power is inferior, in Guo Huai's view, it should not be too difficult to block the attack of the Northern Army of Shu thieves in the short term.
The formation that was beaten within a quarter of an hour was unstable and there was a possibility of defeat. This was not because their combat effectiveness was slightly stronger than that of the county soldiers, but because there was a clear gap in their combat effectiveness between the two.
It was impossible for Wei's central imperial army to completely defeat the local county soldiers within a quarter of an hour.
Looking back and carefully observing the weapons and equipment of the Shu thieves, there is no big difference between the Shu thieves' northern army and the northern army of the Shu thieves they encountered five years ago, but there are still some differences in small details.
The Northern Army of the Shu Thieves five years ago, like the Central Forbidden Army of the Wei Dynasty, had almost all front-line combat troops covered with armor, and the weapons in their hands were all well-cast, so that they could have relatively high combat effectiveness.
On the basis of inheriting these characteristics, the biggest difference between today's Sichuan Northern Army and the Northern Army is the difference in ordnance.
Five years ago, in the Northern Army of the Shu Thieves, except for the thousands of soldiers who retained strange weapons, most of the soldiers' combat weapons were long spears and Miao knives. But now, the soldiers of the Shu Thieves are even more diverse in the use of weapons.
There are not only spears and long swords, but also strange shields, Miao knives, and a strange weapon similar to a halberd, but with a hook on the side.
It was the cooperation of these strange weapons that made the Wei army's forwards unable to respond and fell into a completely passive situation.
This was a change in ordnance, and the change in formation also surprised Guo Huai.
The Shu thieves did not use the common arrow formations, circular formations and other formations in this era, but used a very strange combat formation.
The Shu thieves divided the eight thousand soldiers into eight thousand-man teams, distributed on the front, rear, left and right. As the Wei army attacked, these Shu thieves first used thousands of soldiers with spears and shields to block it. After blocking the first wave of Wei army's attack, they The Changqiang team will retreat, and the Changge team and Miaodao team will step forward to engage in close combat, continuing to maintain offensive pressure on the Wei army.
What's even more terrible is that the cooperation between these thousand-man teams is very tacit, and they will never be reluctant to fight. It seems that each thousand-man team will choose to retreat after attacking for a period of time, allowing other thousands-man teams to come up and continue. Attack, and with the constant changes in the formation, it constantly squeezes the Wei army's forward army, thereby producing the effect of dividing and encircling it, creating a situation of more attacking and fewer in a local area.
This is the fundamental reason why the Wei army's forward showed signs of being unable to hold on after a quarter of an hour of fighting.
The advantages of its own formation cannot be brought into play, and the reinforcements on the left and right wings are separated and blocked. The forward army has to continue to face the attacks of thousands of troops with weapons with different attack ranges. Sometimes, they even face the enemy with fewer attacks and more attacks. It's strange that the situation can be sustained.
When Guo Huai saw that if this continued, his infantry might not last long and would collapse, he immediately ordered Qin Lang on the flank to lead five thousand cavalry into the battlefield.
In terms of infantry battle, Guo Huai had no way to restore his disadvantage without finding a way to break the enemy's formation.
But cavalry is different.
No matter how sophisticated your infantry tactics are or how powerful your combat power is, facing the suppressed cavalry, Guo Huai doesn't believe that the Shu general opposite can still use infantry to fight against the cavalry! ! !
After Qin Lang saw Guo Huai's flag command, he did not hesitate and immediately ordered the cavalry to organize the attack formation, began to speed up, and directly attacked the flank of the Shu army.
As for Wu Yi, when he saw Qin Lang sorting out the cavalry formation, he guessed that the cavalry would launch a surprise attack and immediately responded.
A force of 5,000 men was divided and began to move to the flanks of the battlefield. The remaining 3,000 men continued to attack and suppress the Wei army in front.
This adjustment directly made Guo Huai stupid. Was the Shu general on the opposite side short-sighted? ! He wants to use 5,000 infantry to resist the attack of 5,000 cavalry? !
Really, let alone five thousand infantry, even if Guo Huai was given ten thousand infantry, Guo Huai would not be able to do such a heartless thing.
But the Shu thieves general opposite did just that.
After Guo Huai was dumbfounded for a while, he also sneered in his heart. It seemed that this battle would be over soon.
Not only Guo Huai thought so, but Qin Lang, who commanded the cavalry, also thought so.
In Qin Lang's view, the Shu general's response was not to block his cavalry assault, but to give him military merit.
If Qin Lang didn't seize such a good opportunity, he would be crazy.
Therefore, Qin Lang immediately ordered the entire cavalry army to attack and charge towards the flank of the Shu thieves.
Just when Qin Lang thought that this battle would be over soon and he would gain true military merit. The next development made Qin Lang and Guo Huai stunned.
Facing the impact of five thousand cavalry, the Han army formed a spear formation with a scale of one thousand people. At the same time, behind the spear formation, crossbowmen were in position to launch arrows towards the cavalry's impact route.
This is not an unexpected response. This is the standard configuration of infantry against cavalry. There is nothing new. Qin Lang and Guo Huai saw it and didn't think there was anything strange.
As long as the cavalry quickly approaches the infantry camp and breaks down the spear formation in front, the remaining infantry will be unable to resist the cavalry's back-and-forth charge, and there is only one way to go: rout.
Therefore, at this time, Guo Huai and Qin Lang were waiting for the cavalry to quickly pass through the area covered by arrows, approach and overwhelm the spear array.
But Guo Huai and Qin Lang couldn't understand the next battle.
The cavalry did quickly pass through the area covered by arrows, quickly approached the spear formation, and immediately launched an attack on the spear formation.
As for the spear formation of the Thousand-Man Corps, which had to defend the entire flank of the battlefield, it was destined to be short of troops. Therefore, the defense thickness of the spear formation was naturally not strong enough. It would not be difficult for the cavalry to break through the defense of this spear formation.
But when the Wei cavalry broke through the spear formation, they discovered that there was a long shield formation behind the spear formation. The archers and crossbowmen who had just been responsible for throwing arrows had given up their crossbows and switched to shields, quickly rushing behind the spear formation. A second defensive position was established.
At this time, the soldiers of the spear formation who were broken through did not panic as Qin Lang expected. Instead, after responding to each other, they retreated to the rear of the entire military formation, seemingly to reorganize their formation and fight again.
At this time, Cao Wei's cavalry, after breaking through the spear formation, no longer cared about what the spearmen behind them did. They had to continue to maintain speed and impact to break through the shield formation in front of them.
Therefore, the only option for the cavalry was to continue charging against the shield array.
To be honest, it is impossible to stop the charge of thousands of cavalry just by relying on the shield array.
However, this time in addition to the shield formation, the Wei cavalry also faced the infantry soldiers holding strange halberds behind the shield formation.
What's even more terrible is that the targets of these soldiers holding strange halberds are no longer the Wei army's cavalry, but the horses under their crotches.
The strange halberds in the hands of these soldiers also had a resounding name in later generations - hook and sickle spear.
(End of chapter)
