The breeze blew from the horizon, picking up a few withered yellow leaves, but it could not disperse the haze on the battlefield. The rumble of war drums spread throughout the countryside, and the shouts of killing were deafening. The whistling wind brought a strong smell of blood.
The battlefield was littered with corpses, broken and damaged weapons, and overturned chariots.
The fierce battle lasted from morning to evening. The two fighting parties had rotated several times, but the winner was still undecided on the battlefield.
With this intensity of fighting, Huai and Qin had been fighting on this narrow land for ten days. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, but the outcome was still undecided.
This battlefield is inherently narrow. One side of the battlefield is the Yellow River, and the other side is the rolling mountains. Only the area between the mountains and the Yellow River can carry out large-scale battles.
Bai Qi and Le Yi have been competing here for nearly two months. Because the terrain of the battlefield is narrow, only so many troops can be invested. If there are more troops, even the formation will be unable to be deployed.
Of course, on the surface, the casualties on both sides should be close, but only Le Yi knew that Huai's casualties were less than Qin's. After all, the weapons and equipment of Huai State are better, and because Huai State pays more attention to medical skills, especially surgical skills, the probability of soldiers being killed or injured on the battlefield is lower than that of Qin State.
In this era without antibiotics, sometimes a small cut on the body can lead to loss of life. Thanks to the tradition of emphasizing medical skills in the Zijue era, the death rate of Huai soldiers after injuries was 30 to 40% lower than that of other countries.
The combat casualty rate of cold weapons is about 30%, many of which are injuries. However, because there are no antibiotics, the mortality rate of wounded soldiers is extremely high. Almost 60%, while Huaiguo's casualty rate was only 30%. This ensures that more veterans can survive.
Recruits and veterans are two completely different concepts.
The Qin army and the Huai army fought here. Due to the superior equipment, the Qin army suffered more casualties. After treatment by doctors, the Qin army's mortality rate was much higher than that of the Huai army.
This situation will not be visible for a while, but after a long time, it will be very obvious.
After Le Yi saw that the Qin army was so elite and Bai Qi's command was flawless, he changed his mind about a quick victory. It is basically difficult for generals at their level to make mistakes, and all kinds of strategies are almost impossible to implement. The next step can only be a competition of national strength between the two sides.
Bai Qi wanted to gather superior forces to attack Shangyang and then occupy Hangu Pass. The terrain of Hangu Pass is difficult, and the number of people attacking each time is limited. However, this also means that the number of defenders will not be too many. After all, the space of the city wall is not large. If the rear of Hangu Pass can be continuously replenished, it will be a refueling tactic. Moreover, Hangu Pass consumes less and is convenient to replenish.
However, if they attack together, Hangu Pass will be cut off and the logistics will be replenished. After the personnel are replenished, as long as the attacker is willing to pay casualties and is willing to expend all their strength, they can all be killed. In addition to the difficult terrain, the reason why Hangu Pass is difficult to break is that it can always obtain logistical supplies, and you will never lose money even if you fight for casualties.
Le Yi firmly held Shangyang City in his hands, preventing the Qin army from forming a pincer attack on Hangu Pass, and then fought with the Qin army here. Even Maojindu, an important place for the Qin army to transport food and soldiers, was not attacked in order to turn this place into a bleeding port and continue to bleed Qin.
At first, Bai Qi wanted to fight the Huai army, but after this battle lasted for ten days, he keenly discovered that the Huai army was lower than Qin in terms of casualties and consumption. If this consumption continues, there will only be one result, and that is that Qin will be exhausted of soldiers and food by Huai.
After seeing everything in front of him clearly, Bai Qi's face became more and more gloomy. He understood that the more it was consumed, the more detrimental it would be to Qin. He quickly made a decision in his heart and prepared to withdraw his troops.
For commanders like Bai Qi, they are very calm and rational, and they will never act sloppily when they find that something cannot be done. After the day's battle ended, Bai Qi began to prepare to withdraw his troops.
The armies of both sides were intertwined and entangled, making it very difficult to withdraw. An army retreat can easily turn from retreat to rout. Bai Qi ordered the army to retreat alternately, cover each other, and mobilized Qin's Iron Eagle warriors as a reserve force. Once the Huai army attacked, he would let the Iron Eagle warriors attack.
After Le Yi saw the Qin army retreating, he immediately understood that the Qin army was preparing to withdraw, and immediately ordered the army to attack. At the same time, he sent a large army to attack Maojin Ferry, hoping to cut off the Qin army's retreat and swallow up this Qin army.
Maojin Ferry, as the Qin army's retreat, has always been heavily controlled by the Qin army. The Huai army attacked and directly sent out a crossbow formation. Three thousand crossbowmen were arranged in formations on the left and right to suppress the Qin army's archers. At the same time, they mobilized the Tengjia army in the Huai army to launch a large-scale attack.
Compared with crossbows, bows and arrows are easy to make, low in cost, flexible to use, fast in shooting speed, and powerful, but their range is much shorter than that of crossbows. Even though it is difficult to wind, has a slow attack speed, is expensive, and is easily damaged, it has a long range, high accuracy, and powerful attack. Although there are various shortcomings, in the eyes of Huai Jun, who is wealthy and wealthy, these shortcomings are acceptable.
After the Yi army adopted three-stage shooting, they were able to suppress the Qin army in a short time. Crossbow arrows continued to shoot out like rain. Even if he was wearing heavy armor, he could not withstand the crossbow arrows.
The three-stage shooting caused the Huai Army's crossbow formation to explode with astonishing lethality in a short period of time. The Qin Army suffered heavy casualties under the crossbow formation. The buzzing sound of the bowstring was like the call of death. The crossbow arrows easily penetrated the Qin people's armor and penetrated their bodies. If you look at it from a high altitude, you will find that the Qin army's battle formation looks like a piece has been suddenly chewed off.
The dense crossbow arrows continued to fire, and the Qin Army's military formation fell into disarray in just a few breaths. The Qin Army soldiers fell down row after row like cutting leeks.
The Qin army is well organized and has harsh criminal laws, but they are still human beings with flesh and blood, and it is impossible to break through the limits of human beings. They will still be afraid, die, and panic. They were suppressed by the harsh Qin law in the past. When these emotions accumulate to the limit, they collapse.
Prince Kang saw the Qin army being defeated by the all-out explosion of the Huai army's elite troops, and then the elite Tengjia army charged and broke through the Qin army's defense line in an instant. He was shocked and turned pale, and quickly commanded the army to continue to resist. However, the Huai army was well prepared, and the Tengjia army raised their crossbows one after another, and fired at the Qin army that rushed towards them.
This kind of hand crossbow is less powerful and difficult to cock, but it has excellent armor-breaking effect at close range and is specially used by the Tengjia Army when attacking. It can break the enemy's battle formation in an instant, causing chaos, allowing the Tengjia Army to take the opportunity to break into it.
(End of chapter)
