Chapter 118 The Power of the Cavalry
In the distance, a long black line appeared where the earth and the sky met.
The black line was getting closer and closer, and the ground began to shake gently, as low and majestic as thunder in a rainy night, waking up the armies of Wu and Wei fighting on the battlefield.
The sound of horse hooves seemed to crack the entire earth. On the flat land fifteen miles east of the trailer, thirty thousand cavalrymen of the Wei army galloped over, with fifteen thousand cavalrymen from the north and south sides, rushing straight to the west.
Whether it was Jia Kui's troops who were engaged in battle with the Wu army, or the troops of Man Chong, Le Chen and Xu Shu who were fleeing eastward and abandoning their armor and bags, or the troops of Zhu Gai who had been fighting for many days and were already exhausted, they were all excited when they saw the 30,000 cavalry of the Wei central army charging towards them.
The former general Man Chong, who was fleeing eastwards surrounded by his personal soldiers, waved his flags and beat the drums, ordering the troops, who were already running in a mess, to quickly move towards him. Zhu Gai's cavalry also used the speed of their horses to drive the scattered infantry towards the center.
More than an hour ago, when they faced the Wu army, more than 20,000 people collapsed before they could engage in battle. Obviously, they had lost all their courage. At this moment, after seeing their own cavalry surging westward like waves, they miraculously stabilized, and then each of them looked for their military flags, and gathered more than 10,000 people in half an hour.
If you lose your morale, you lose everything. If you regain some courage, you can consider everything.
But compared with the excitement of the Wei army, the situation of the Wu army was completely the opposite.
After all, Lu Xun was a famous general. Faced with this shocking change in the battlefield, he almost instinctively responded correctly.
He sat on his horse with his eyes wide open. After realizing that tens of thousands of Wei cavalry were charging westward, he was stunned for a few moments and then immediately ordered his personal soldiers to stop moving, form a battle formation on the spot and defend, waiting for the next instruction.
However, the Wu army had just been chasing the fleeing Wei army, and the team had already stretched for five miles. Although Lu Xun had given the order to stop immediately, how could he enforce the order as easily as if it were his own arm?
While Lu Xun sent messengers to inform the rear, he also ordered people to urgently wave the military flags and beat the gongs and drums to signal the troops behind to stop advancing.
The day before yesterday, the Wu army had suffered 7,000 casualties in order to capture the Wei army camp west of Guache. In addition, 3,000 defenders were left in Guache, so there were 70,000 Wu troops on the battlefield at that time. However, even with 70,000 Wu troops, facing the encirclement of 30,000 cavalry, Lu Xun did not feel much safe at this time.
Lu Xun's 5,000 troops had just formed their battle formation, and Pan Zhang's troops also began to slowly withdraw from the battle with the Wei army. The Wei army's cavalry was like a torrent, galloping westward from the north and south sides.
Lu Xun thought that even though he encountered so many Wei cavalry at this moment, he still had 70,000 people, so there might be a glimmer of hope!
Lu Xun is a native of Jiangdong.
During Lu Xun's 20-year military career, he first quelled rebellions and conquered the Shanyue people, then attacked the cities of Jingzhou where people's morale was scattered, and finally defeated Liu Bei in Yiling. Lu Xun had rich military experience and was good at fighting.
But Lu Xun had a natural weakness. As a native of Jiangdong, he had never faced a cavalry charge of such a large scale.
Wei State had just managed to support 55,000 cavalry with the whole country's strength. The five states of Yangzhou, Yuzhou, Qingzhou, Yanzhou, and Xuzhou had together raised 15,000 cavalry. In addition to the 10,000 cavalry under the command of Right General Zhu Gai, who had been fighting for many days, the remaining 5,000 cavalry, together with the 30,000 cavalry of the central army, had been recuperating for many days without strong mouths.
Farmers from Qingzhou, hunters from Jizhou and Youzhou, good families from Sanfu, and shepherds from Bingzhou all gathered in the central army and charged westward under the guidance of the military flags.
This is the best time for cavalry to use their power.
There was a wide open space of seven or eight miles between the mountains in the north and the hills in the south, and Lu Xun's infantry spread out over a length of five miles. If one looked down from the sky, the Wu army formation was just a narrow strip in the open space.
The 15,000 cavalrymen on the south side galloped to the west of the Wu army's formation and used spears and ring-handled swords to deal with those Wu soldiers who had not yet completed their formation and were still in a scattered state.
The 15,000 cavalrymen on the north side chose a weak point about two miles away from Lu Xun and cut the Wu army's formation, which had not yet been fully integrated, in half.
This was the first time that the Wu army had suffered a setback since the expedition. However, this was likely to be the last setback.
Lu Xun was almost vomiting blood in his own 5,000 troops. He had never faced such a large number of cavalry before, and today was the first time he had seen it. Was today the day he would die?
As soon as Lu Xun reached for the hilt of his sword, he seemed to be suddenly awakened. Now the Wei army only separated him. If his infantry formed a battle array, the Wei cavalry would not be able to kill many, so there seemed to be a glimmer of hope.
Besides, there was still a way out, and there were still 3,000 soldiers guarding the trailer. As long as we pushed forward to the west, we might be able to escape!
Just as the Wu army was trying hard to form a battle formation and attempt to launch a cavalry attack on the periphery while still slowly moving westward, the military situation at the trailer was completely different.
The 3,000 Wu soldiers sent by Lu Xun to guard the trailer were just ordinary people. In their eyes, the Wu army had already won a great victory in this battle, and the commander had already pursued eastward. In addition, they had already worked hard to attack the city for two days, so how could they not take a break?
The Wu army soldiers at the trailer thought so, and so did Xian Yudan, the Wu army general who commanded 3,000 infantrymen.
Xian Yudan chose the largest and most spacious tent. After assigning his own troops to clean up the battlefield and collect the scattered military supplies, Xian Yudan asked his personal soldiers to cook some soup and noodles for him, and also added a few eggs. When Xian Yudan was lying in the tent that originally belonged to Jia Kui, he had just slept for less than an hour when he heard the panicked voices of his personal soldiers outside.
Xian Yudan was woken up and had just walked out of the tent. He was about to scold his personal soldiers, but when he looked in the direction the personal soldier was pointing, he was immediately stunned.
Somehow, from the rolling hills in the south, large groups of Wei troops continued to pour out, rushing towards them from west to east, following the direction in which the Wu army rushed into the Wei army camp a few hours ago.
Xian Yudan was terrified.
The Wei army infantrymen who emerged from the hills were none other than the troops of Wang Ling, Han Zong, Zhai Dan, and Hu Zhi, who had been lying in ambush for a long time, totaling 15,000 soldiers.
In fact, when the Wei army retreated eastward this morning, the camp fortifications in the trailer were still intact. If Xian Yudan gathered his troops and occupied the narrowest pass in the trailer for defense, he might be able to hold out until Lu Xun led his troops back.
But the difference between a famous general and a mediocre general does not lie in how bravely they charge into battle when times are favorable, but in their choices and judgments when facing the enemy in danger.
Xian Yudan was completely unaware that this was a strategic trap and blockade of the Wu army by the Wei army. Instead, he thought he could occupy the original camp of the Wei army and hold it for a while.
A single thought destroyed Wu Jun's last glimmer of hope.
Wang Ling led his 8,000 infantry and easily found a weak spot in the defense line. After charging into the original Wei army position, he quickly rushed to the most dangerous pass in the trailer. After occupying the pass, he attacked Xian Yudan's 3,000 men from behind.
At this time, Xian Yudan was in the position and saw the army rushing towards him, with the leader holding a flag with the words "Annan General Han" behind him.
Xian Yudan could not help but be extremely angry. He knew that he was surrounded by the Wei army, which was several times larger than his own. Since he could not escape death anyway, he might as well take Han Zong, the son of Han Dang, who was a rebel general in front of him, with him.
Xian Yudan gathered his troops and rushed towards the direction where Han Zong was rushing, completely ignoring the fact that Wang Ling's troops were not far behind him. Han Zong's troops were only 4,000, while Xian Yudan's troops were more than 2,000, and for a while they were evenly matched.
Before half an hour had passed, Xian Yudan, a lieutenant general of the Eastern Wu Central Army, was killed in the chaos of the battle. However, before his death, Xian Yudan had pierced Han Zong's chest with his own sword.
Han Zong stared at Xian Yudan's face with his round eyes full of reluctance. It was unclear whether it contained anger at dying before the upcoming victory, or resentment towards Xian Yudan for ruining his own career. As Xian Yudan was dying, a smile slowly appeared on his face.
After the main general was killed in battle, the remaining more than a thousand soldiers of the Wu army lost their will to fight, and they dropped their weapons and knelt down to surrender.
After arranging his generals to surround and take over the surrendered Wu soldiers, Wang Ling, surrounded by his personal guards, slowly rode his horse to the battlefield.
After Wang Ling saw the bodies of Han Zong and Xian Yudan, he couldn't help but shake his head and sighed, "One lost his life for wealth and honor, and the other lost his life for loyalty and righteousness."
After that, Wang Ling said to the military officer beside him: "Immediately record the battle here and quickly send it eastward to His Majesty. Tell His Majesty that Wang Ling has occupied the trailer according to the military order and is ready to stop the Wu army."
He joined the army and left.
At this time, on the battlefield where Wei and Wu were in a stalemate, the Wu army was divided into two parts by the infiltration of Wei cavalry.
One part was in the west, which was the group of troops that the Wu army had slowed down in pursuit just now, about 40,000 people. The other part was in the east, which was the front team in the pursuit just now, and Lu Xun was in this part of the army.
At this time, Lu Xun was anxiously giving orders in the formation, trying to drive his several large formations of 30,000 people in the east to move westward to join the remaining 40,000 Wu troops.
This effort was somewhat effective at first. Whenever the Wei cavalry approached, the bows and arrows in the Wu army's formation rained down like rain, shooting many Wei cavalry off their horses.
But the Wu army had limited arrows. As the arrows fired from the Wu army gradually became sparse, the cavalry attacked from the sides of the Wu army formation, killing more and more Wu soldiers with each charge.
At this time, more than a mile away from Lu Xun, Cao Rui led 5,000 central cavalry, including 4,000 cavalry from the Five Colonel Battalions and 1,000 tiger guards led by Xiahou Xian, and was observing the entire battlefield from the north.
(End of this chapter)
