Wei Yan's approach is quite similar to Man Chong's intention to kill Ma Mingzhi when he persuaded Cao Ren to stick to Fancheng.
But... Wei Yan was actually wrong about one thing.
What Man Chong killed back then was his own horse, which meant that he would never abandon his soldiers and guard Fancheng with his soldiers until the end. Wei Yan wanted to kill all the horses in order to stop the group of Liangzhou cavalry from breaking out to survive. of retreat.
The meanings of the two are completely different, and the results are naturally different.
What Man Chong did at that time really boosted the morale of the Fancheng defenders, although it was of no use. An unreasonable bastard loaded a catapult on the ship and was smashed. In the end, he could only escape by paddling through the door panel. Cao Pi has been beaten to this day by Cao Pi. , Cao Rui's two generations of emperors stayed in Yecheng as cool officials to look after the house, basically cutting off the possibility of leading troops.
I have to say that Man Chong is actually quite miserable.
Well, let's not mention this unlucky guy, let's go back to Wei Yan. Wei Yan ordered all the horses to be killed, but it aroused public outrage.
The reason is very simple. What Wei Yan did was to kill all the Liangzhou cavalry in various senses.
The relationship between cavalry and war horses is very close.
In these days, war horses are very scarce, causing cavalrymen to have a strange feeling when dealing with their horses - I can die, but my horse cannot be hurt.
Now that Wei Yan wants to kill the horses in the army, it is impossible for these Liangzhou cavalry to remain indifferent.
Another, and most important point - the Liangzhou cavalry really regarded their horses as their last escape route.
Once the war situation is unfavorable and the enemy army really breaks through Tongguan, then these Liangzhou cavalry will definitely not be able to run as fast as four legs if they run on two legs. Now someone is going to cut off their retreat. Do the Liangzhou cavalry really dare to follow Wei Yan? Desperately.
Therefore, Wei Yan's military order immediately caused a lot of turmoil in the army, and even directly affected the morale and morale of the defenders.
Wei Yan quickly realized this. Seeing that the morale of the army was now in such turmoil, if he continued to insist on killing these horses, he might not have to wait until the Wei army attacked the city again later, and now the army would have internal strife.
After all, these are not Wei Yan's own troops, and now his personal guards have lost only seventeen people. Once the mutiny occurs, Wei Yan will be unable to suppress it.
However, the military order has been issued, and Wei Yan cannot just take it back. Otherwise, who will be able to believe him and obey his command in the more difficult battle to defend the city? !
In desperation, Wei Yan could only make a compromise - he killed the horse that had been following him for ten years, and announced in public that he would live or die with Tongguan.
If I cut off your retreat, I will cut off my own, but you bastards, let me defend the city with peace of mind until I die in battle - this is probably what Wei Yan meant by killing his own horse.
A potential mutiny was calmed down for the time being.
But this response made Wei Yan see that in his current situation, he could not expect these Liangzhou soldiers to fight to the end. He still needed to make all preparations after breaking the city.
Originally Wei Yan didn't want to do this, but now Wei Yan secretly summoned his personal guards and asked them to prepare for the worst according to their own ideas.
Then, continue to defend the city for as long as one day.
Just when Wei Yan himself had pessimistic thoughts about guarding Tongguan, the front battlefield of Tongguan changed again.
The reason for the change was that Cao Zhen was in the middle and could not withstand the wheel attack launched by Zhang Xi. He dispatched a thousand reinforcements from his right wing, where Dai Ling's army was, to support the middle.
There's no way, Cao Zhen can't move troops from the left wing. The pressure there is also great. He just sent a thousand soldiers to stabilize the current situation. If he moves back to the left wing again, the left wing will definitely collapse.
Therefore, Cao Zhen could only mobilize troops from Dai Ling's side.
But the problem is that it is already very difficult for Dai Ling to fight against 3,800 cavalry with 6,000 infantry.
Facing the cavalry, the infantry will most likely be beaten passively and deploy defenses on the spot. Without the assistance of the two thousand archers, Dai Ling would not be able to survive now.
Now it's okay. In this case, Cao Zhen has to transfer a thousand people to support the Chinese army. What can Dai Ling do? He can't say that he won't give it, right? !
Therefore, Dai Ling, who lacked a thousand men for defense, could only choose to temporarily shrink the formation and shorten the defense space to deal with the threat of Zhao Yun's cavalry.
But by doing this, Dai Ling also gave Zhao Yun a chance.
Originally, Zhao Yun had no intention of breaking through the Wei army's right-wing defense line set up by Dai Ling. After all, Zhao Yun's combat mission was to contain and mobilize the Wei army's force distribution to create conditions for the center and left wing to break through.
After all, Zhao Yun was leading cavalry. Even if he broke through the defense line and entered Tongguan, it would be the same as Wei Yan's sneak attack on Tongguan. The cavalry was dismounted and used as infantry, which wasted the combat effectiveness of the cavalry.
Therefore, after Zhang Xi and Zhao Yun discussed it, they still felt that Zhao Yun should be used as a feint to contain the attack, and the main breakthrough direction should be on the infantry in the middle and on the left side of Tongguan.
But Wei Yan took the initiative to go out of the city to fight.
The fact that Wei Yan took the initiative to go out of the city to fight actually had a very obvious symbolic meaning. If Wei Yan could rely on the Tongguan Pass Wall to defend the Wei army's attack, there was really no need for him to risk going out of the city to burn down the siege equipment.
After all, Wei Yan only had so many troops, which were not enough to defend the city. How could he risk a lot of battle losses and take the initiative to go out to fight in the city.
Zhao Yun believed that Wei Yan was not the kind of person who made brainless decisions just for the sake of recklessness. There was only one possibility for Wei Yan to take the initiative to go out of the city to fight - the siege equipment outside the city posed a great threat to the defenders.
Coupled with the situation of today's siege, even if Zhao Yun is far away, he can still vaguely see the Wei army climbing the city wall. This shows that Wei Yan is likely to be unable to withstand the city wall and has to risk leaving the city. , chose to burn the Wei army's siege equipment.
In other words, Tongguan may face the risk of falling at any time.
And if Tongguan falls, then it won't be a question of who will attack and who will contain it.
Zhao Yun made an instant decision, and he began to take the initiative to attack the junction between Dai Ling's army and Cao Zhen's army.
Zhao Yun did this and shocked Dai Ling - it was at this point yesterday that Zhao Yun found an entry point and led his troops to directly attack Cao Zhen's central army.
Of course, Dai Ling could not let Zhao Yun's old tricks succeed, so he immediately gathered his troops and deployed horizontal defenses in the direction of Cao Zhen's central army.
Dai Ling's deployment of defense will naturally lead to a reduction in the defensive area. In addition, Dai Ling himself has been transferred to another thousand people, making the defensive area even narrower.
As a result, a gap appeared in the defensive area on the other side of Dai Lingjun.
As soon as Zhao Yun saw that the enemy had moved out of the way, he immediately divided his troops without hesitation. More than 2,000 cavalry continued to attack the joint between Dai Ling and Cao Zhen's central army to contain Dai Ling's soldiers, while he personally led a thousand cavalry. , to the flank in the opposite direction, trying to bypass the Dai Ling Army's defense area, and through the exposed gap, penetrated into the main battlefield in front of Tongguan.
Zhao Yun suddenly changed his formation, and Dai Ling's expression suddenly changed.
It's not that Dai Ling saw through Zhao Yun's combat intentions. On the contrary, Dai Ling misunderstood Zhao Yun's combat intentions. Dai Ling thought that Zhao Yun was trying to bypass his defense range, penetrate into the Wei army, and attack Cao Zhen's central army from the inside. Backstab attack.
Cao Zhen's central army, plus the reinforcements he sent, now only has more than 3,000 people. They will face the siege of seven or eight thousand Shu thieves from the front. If another thousand cavalry attack from behind, the entire battle situation will collapse immediately.
Therefore, while Dai Ling continued to face the threat of more than 2,000 cavalry in front of him, he had to bite the bullet and divide his troops into 800 men, asking them to quickly intercept the 1,000 cavalry. They were not required to block it, but if they could delay it for a little time, Wang Chang could Just have reaction time.
At the same time, Dai Ling quickly called for help from Wang Chang behind him, asking them to try their best to block the intrusion of the thousand cavalry and protect General Cao's back.
Dai Ling tried his best, really tried his best. If Cao Zhen didn't transfer the thousand infantry in his hand, the gap on the flank of the battlefield would never have appeared.
But again, when this gap appeared and was caught by Zhao Yun, the interception troops sent by Dai Ling could not completely block the intrusion of this cavalry. The most they could do was bite the tail of this cavalry and delay their attack speed. That’s all.
Even though Zhao Yun's cavalry had to circle half a circle to get through the gap in the battlefield, the speed of the cavalry was much faster than that of the infantry.
In this way, Zhao Yun rushed into the main battlefield through the gaps in the Wei army's defense before the soldiers sent by Dai Ling were in place, and then quickly advanced in the direction of Tongguan.
At the same time, Wang Chang, who received Dai Ling's warning, quickly dispatched the three thousand reserve troops he held in his hand, preparing to deploy defenses in the direction behind General Cao Zhen.
But, soon, Wang Chang discovered that something seemed not right. Why did this cavalry come straight towards Tongguan? !
If we want to attack General Cao Zhen, we should head towards the left wing of Tongguan, right? !
But then, Wang Chang was shocked, and suddenly understood the intention of this cavalry, and immediately ordered the 3,000 infantry in his hands to set up a defense line in front of the Tongguan battlefield. Even if all 3,000 people were exhausted, this cavalry could not be defeated. Rush into Tongguan and increase the defensive strength of Tongguan.
Tongguan is the real core of this battle.
(End of chapter)
