Ye Rongcheng's plan to lure the Zhenjiang Army into an attack was discovered by Xu Youchang. The Xuanjia rebels immediately adjusted their formation and lured the enemy deep into a full-scale charge. The armored cavalry of the Gale Wind First Army faced tit-for-tat and pushed forward without giving an inch. In conjunction with Du Jian's formation-breaking cluster, it disrupted the opponent's deployment.
At this time, both sides were moving forward, and neither could maintain a strict formation system. Therefore, whoever can be more decisive and resolute will have the opportunity to gain a clear advantage in the chaos and completely overwhelm the opponent.
Xu Youchang and Du Jian had the same idea, and immediately directed the surrounding troops to move closer to the main force. They saw the right direction, took the lead, shot and slashed through the enemy group as if they were in uninhabited territory, charging fast and fiercely. After continuously breaking through two rebel defense lines, they finally successfully merged with the large forces of the First Army.
The successful reception of Xu Shuai and General Du immediately raised the morale of the entire army. The gale force soldiers quickly organized their formation and once again aimed at the enemy with a huge sharp formation.
While Xu Youchang ordered people to give orders to the Second Army and Sixth Army behind him to start advancing, he also issued charge instructions to the First Army beside him:
"Brothers, the rebels launched an early attack, and their formation has been disrupted! Everyone aimed at the enemy's core main formation and the commander's flag, and began to charge through it!"
With an order, the whole army moved together.
The earth-shattering sound of horse hooves sounded again. This time, the Zhenjiang Gale Army charged even more fiercely. Several rebel infantry phalanxes located on the path of the cavalry charge were torn to pieces in almost the blink of an eye.
Ye Rongcheng, who was riding behind him, couldn't help but feel dark when he saw this. Just now, he failed to intercept Du Jian's formation-breaking troops, but Xu Youchang successfully took the lead and placed the armored cavalry very close to the Xuanjia Army. On his side, because of his eagerness to advance to intercept, all parties involved The formations of the battalion could no longer maintain the previous mutual defense status, and a large number of infantry were in the awkward position of being too afraid to advance and too late to retreat.
Once Xu Youchang and the others are asked to charge at full speed, no matter how many phalanxes they have, they won't be enough!
Ye Rongcheng was extremely familiar with this style of fighting, because it was the favorite and most accustomed fighting method of the Xuanjia Legion back then. Therefore, no one can be more clear-headed than him at this moment: we must fight to the death to stop the first army of Zhenjiang!
Ye Rongcheng took off his spear from the hook next to the saddle and waved it vigorously in the air: "Blow the drum to give the order! All armies move to the two wings and give up the middle position. General, follow me to face the enemy!"
The 30,000 cavalry behind him shouted in unison, and at the same time they urged their mounts to surge towards the Zhenjiang cavalry in the distance like a wave.
Tens of thousands of war horses on both sides quickly approached and collided fiercely. The knights on the horses waved their weapons, swords and arrows flew. Some people were hit by the opponent and fell off their horses, fell heavily to the ground, and then were trampled mercilessly. .
In the end, the limited battlefield space was almost unable to accommodate these cavalry galloping and competing. More and more war horses were crowded together, like infantry, piled on the spot and stabbing each other with swords and guns.
The exquisite competition of equestrian skills and martial arts soon turned into the most primitive and barbaric hand-to-hand fighting in human nature. The battle is no longer about who has better training, who has better skills, and who has more courage, but who has better luck and whose fate is tougher.
Whether the opponent can be killed with one slash of the sword becomes a matter of probability.
Whether a spear will pierce oneself is also a matter of probability.
The battlefield is like a crazy grinding of meat, with guns like dense forests, knives like silver fish, and people becoming consumables.
At the same time, the rebel infantry phalanxes that retreated to both sides also faced a fierce attack from the Zhenjiang Second Army and the Sixth Army.
Especially the raging soldiers of the pure heavy armored corps. When they were defending, they were like iron lumps and iron turtles. But now when they attacked, it turned into a stormy sea in an instant, making the rebel formation miserable.
Ordinary bows, arrows, swords and guns are difficult to effectively damage the heavy armor of the Sixth Army. Although they carried a heavy load and suffered a huge loss of physical strength, since the cavalry of the First Army had disrupted the enemy's main formation, the Sixth Army was able to rush to the front of the formation without much effort, and then broke through the formation in one go.
Swords and axes kept flying up and down, and the rebel infantry couldn't resist them at all.
Soon, the phalanx battle on both wings gradually became one-sided. The rebels were pushed back by the surging troops and horses, and almost collapsed.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Xie Bao endured the pain and led his cavalry to attack the flank of the Second Army. This temporarily delayed the general offensive of the Suppressing Army and gave the rebels as a whole a chance to survive.
Woo——
The horn of retreat finally sounded.
After a whole day of fierce fighting, the rebel positions were piled with corpses and rivers of blood, and they could no longer hold on.
After Ye Rongcheng left some of his troops to form formations on the spot, the rest quickly retreated and moved to the south.
The total strength of the rebels far exceeded that of the Zhenjiang Army crossing the river, so they set up two lines of defense behind them. Although the troops stationed there are not strong enough, they are enough to form an echelon cover and provide a way for Xuanjia's main force to survive.
Seeing that the enemy was retreating in full force again, Xu Youchang could only do nothing. After six or seven hours of fierce fighting, the soldiers of the three armies have now reached their limit and can no longer pursue the victory. He reined in the reins and looked around. When he saw Du Jian's figure, he quickly shouted: "Old Du, withdraw your troops! We can't chase anymore!"
Du Jian nodded when he heard this, rode up to him, and sighed depressedly: "Ye Rongcheng ran away again!"
"He just raised his most elite soldiers and horses to fight to the death of the rear, no matter the cost." Xu Youchang took off his iron helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead: "As soon as the sky darkens, there is no chance that the enemy will send a large force to counterattack. We are at a disadvantage."
Du Jian glanced at the rebels who were running further and further away, and snorted coldly: "I guess they don't have the courage, but the brothers are indeed too tired and must take a rest."
Xu Youchang nodded slightly and also looked into the distance and said: "The opponent has at least 300,000 troops and has set up four lines of defense in the north of Xuancheng. Although the strength will be greatly diluted, it will be very difficult for us to kill them one by one. "
Du Jian responded: "Previously, the Protector-General asked Jigriz to bring a message, saying that if the battle situation is not good, he will give up the attack on Xuancheng and withdraw to Jiangbei. Xu Shuai, what do you think?"
"How many days have we been crossing the river?" Xu Youchang suddenly asked.
"Counting today...seven days." Du Jiandao: "Five battles have been fought, large and small, and the battle lines have been advancing. Now we can already see the head of Xuancheng."
Xu Youchang murmured to himself: "It's still too slow. It's four days later than the original planned siege time. Ye Rongcheng seems to have seen through our thoughts, so he adopted the strategy of delaying step by step. The enemy is still there With two lines of defense, and then relying on fortifications and guarding the city, I estimate that it will be difficult for us to reach Xuanzhou City in less than two or three days, and the siege will take even longer."
He thought for a moment, then turned around and said: "I originally planned to concentrate my efforts today to completely defeat Ye Rongcheng, but now it seems that there is no way to do it. The enemy is smarter and more prepared than I thought. Lao Du, we are here tonight Just retreat to Jiangbei and return to a safe area."
Du Jian agreed: "Okay, I will deploy immediately and the Second Army will cut off the rear for the brothers."
"No, let the Sixth Army set up a blocking position and be responsible for covering the entire army," Xu Youchang ordered: "When you fought as a forward, your losses were already huge. You have been fighting continuously in the past few days. You are very tired up and down. Listen. My order is for the Second Army to board the ship and return first."
Du Jian was about to fight for it again, when a messenger suddenly rode up from a distance and ran up to the two of them: "Commander Xu, the order to protect the army!" After saying that, he took out an order from the mailbox behind his back and presented it with both hands. To Xu Youchang.
Xu Youchang opened the order letter, read it, and then said to the ordering soldier: "Go back and report to the Grand Protector, and we will take action immediately."
Du Jian asked casually: "Are you asking us to retreat?"
Xu Youchang shook his head: "No, there is a new mission."
"New mission?" Du Jian was immediately curious: "Aren't you going back to Jiangbei? Are you going to attack other targets?"
Xu Youchang turned his head and glanced at the rebel defense line in the distance, and said solemnly: "Yes, the Grand Protector ordered us to go downstream and attack Jinling."
Seeing that Du Jian was confused, he explained: "A few days ago, the rebel Jinling fleet came to intercept our troop transport, but was attacked head-on by Nie Xianzeng and his Tenth Army, causing heavy losses. So the Great Protector decided to let us fight with the navy Cooperate and take advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Jinling and destroy the enemies there in one fell swoop."
Du Jian thought for a while, nodded and said: "Well, the main force of the rebels is concentrated in the Xuancheng area. Both the army and the navy in Jinling are empty of troops. This is indeed an opportunity."
Xu Youchang smiled and said: "Then get ready and set off overnight!"
-
The emergency mobilization of the Zhenjiang Army immediately attracted Ye Rongcheng's attention.
Originally, he thought that Xu Youchang was going to lead his troops to retreat to Jiangbei, but he did not expect that with the repeated reports from the scouts, a clearer action intention was completely revealed in front of him: the three armies of Zhenjiang did not move towards the river bank. Instead of heading in the opposite direction, turn to the northeast, aiming directly at Jinling, the important town in the south of the Yangtze River!
This sudden situation was a bit beyond Ye Rongcheng's expectation. Although Xu Youchang went deep alone and it was quite risky to do so, the Jinling Navy had just suffered a defeat not long ago and suffered a heavy loss. At this time, it did make sense for the Zhenjiang Army to attack Jinling.
He pondered for a moment, then immediately called his general Feng Tuo and asked him to assemble 40,000 troops and horses, take a shortcut to the lower reaches, and rush to the rescue of Jinling City.
According to Ye Rongcheng's idea, Xuancheng is about 240 miles away from Jinling. As long as Feng Tuo can arrive at Jinling before Xu Youchang and defend for three days, his main force will be able to outflank Xuancheng from behind. The Zhenjiang Army caught Xu Youchang by surprise.
The opponent is far away from Jiangbei and lacks supplies and soldiers. Once they are trapped under Jinling City, they will inevitably die!
