"Journey to the West"

Author: Scarlet Polyp

Chapter 25 Blood stained on the Khotan River

Fifty miles east of Wensu, in the woods on the west bank of the Khotan River.

The 5,000 warriors of the Han Dynasty tied their mouths and horses, like tigers hiding in the grass, staring at the Kushan army on the opposite bank and preparing to cross the river, quietly waiting for the moment of surprise attack. At this moment, there is only one voice in the hearts of 5,000 people: completely destroy the enemy in front of them and end this battle of the western expedition.

Zhao Guang held the spear in one hand, comforted the excited war horse beside him with the other, and looked at the Guishan army who was busy like ants opposite, his face flushed with excitement.

The countries of the Western Regions, thousands of miles west to the Central Plains, in the traditional Chinese thought, are a place outside the world, not valued, Han Shu has a cloud: "(Western Regions) is isolated from the Han Dynasty, the road is far away, it is not beneficial to gain, and it is not to be lost to abandon it." But in the Han Dynasty, the Western Regions became a sign of the dynasty's national strength.

During the reign of Emperor Xiaoxuan and Emperor Xiaohe, the Han Dynasty established rule in the Western Regions twice, and then lost it again - these two repetitions just reflect the rise and fall of the imperial court's strength. Therefore, after the Han Dynasty was revived again, Liu Shuo, the son of heaven, inherited the ambition of the Marquis of Jinyang, and took the conquest of the Western Regions very seriously, even more than cleaning up the remnants of the south. Ignoring the opposition of the DPRK and China, he invested a lot of manpower and material resources in this western expedition, and transferred the most elite troops in the army. And after this battle, there will be no enemy in the Western Regions who can resist the great Han Tianwei, and this vast land will eventually return to the grasp of the Great Han once again - and more thoroughly and solidly than the previous two times, how can the generals who participated in this battle not be proud?

But this operation can be said to have taken a great risk.

Two days ago, at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, the Han army tented.

Under the torture to extract confessions, the Han army finally obtained accurate information from the mouths of the Guishan officers captured by Zhao Guang's team - the Guishan army was indeed defeated! After the last round of feints, the remnants of the army of nearly 60,000 men abandoned the camp outside his Qiancheng, the seriously wounded, and even the large siege equipment by night, and began to retreat westward. The plan of the army was to stop at the city of Gumo on the east bank of the Khotanese River, and then start crossing the Khotan River the day after tomorrow. When Gao Shun learned about it, he immediately gathered all the officers above the Yamen general in the army to conduct a combat military discussion.

After conveying the information to the generals, Gao Shun put forward his long-considered plan - to take advantage of the main force of the Kushan army to cross the river, hit the crossing, completely break up the formation of its 60,000 army, and then break each one, leaving the main force of the Kushan people here. As soon as this plan came out, the generals who had been suffocating in the mountains for a long time agreed one after another, shouted for battle, and rubbed their hands, and even Guan Ping, who had become more and more calm since he unified the army alone, nodded his head and thought it was feasible.

"The lower officials thought it was inappropriate. The enemy is returning to the west, my morale can be used, to wait for work, to hit the crossing, to calculate the attack is unprepared, the benefit is certainly mine, but the Kushan people are not 60,000 livestock to be slaughtered, you must know that the trapped beast is still fighting! Our army consisted of only 5,000 men. Liao Hua, an experienced cavalry commander, pointed to the battle map and sang a contradictory tune with a group of impassioned young generals, "Although their troops are defeated, they are not in chaos!" Our army is too small in number, and there are many cavalry, so it is safe to let the enemy go first, and then attack his rear, and pursue all the way to Shule City, killing and wounding as many enemies as possible. ”

Liao Hua's words made the atmosphere in the tent solemn all of a sudden, although most of the generals in the tent were young, they had all experienced the cultivation of the martial arts hall and the baptism of the battlefield, and they were not unscrupulous. The difficulty of the resistance battle is obvious, and the benefits of the pursuit battle cannot be ignored. After a while, some generals echoed Liaohua's suggestion.

"Yuan Jian (Liao Hua's character), what you mentioned is indeed Lao Cheng's serious proposal, but in this way, we will not be able to achieve the goal of total victory!" Gao Shun stuck to his plan and smashed his fist a thick arrow representing the Guishan army. "The commander of the Kushan people is a very clever man, and they retreated in such a hurry, and their troops were not in chaos! But under the long battle, the morale of the Guishan soldiers has been reduced to the lowest, as long as our army finds the right opportunity to beat them hard, they can be completely disrupted and stop the Kushan people in the east of the Khotan River! In this way, when Pang Shuai leads the army up, he will be able to completely destroy this enemy! If they are allowed to fight again, our army will indeed be able to achieve victory with fewer casualties, but as long as they resolutely abandon their rear army, most of them may successfully retreat into Shule City, so that we will fight another tough battle in the future, you kings, imagine how difficult it will be? Can the provisions of my Western Expeditionary Army be supported? As a general, you can't just see the gains and losses in front of you, but you must take charge of the overall situation; This amazing army waiting behind enemy lines can't just think about how to get some cheap, but to build miracles! ”

Gao Shun has commanded the army for many years, taking the lead in every battle, invincible, and his status in his own camp is like a god of war, even among the rest of the armies of the Han Dynasty, his prestige is extremely high. Hearing his resolute tone, all the generals in the tent had no objections, even if some people did not agree with it very much, it was difficult to say anything. When Liao Hua saw this situation, he no longer insisted, and the strategy of blocking the attack was decided.

"It's a matter of victory!" Gao Shun, like all the soldiers, lowered his body in the bushes, calmly observing the enemy's movements. By this time, the Kushans had a force of 10,000 men of lightly armed infantry crossing the river, scattered on the shore to rest, and more troops were crossing the river with their baggage. The corners of Gao Shun's mouth curled slightly, and he stood up. He first moved his arm, ordered people to immediately invite Guan Ping and several other main generals of each team, and then quickly arranged the combat mission to everyone. After the generals had gone away under their orders, he said to the drummer in a majestic manner:

"Give the order to blow the trumpet and beat the drum!"

In a few breaths, the drums and trumpets in the woods shook the heavens and the earth. Three thousand cavalry rushed out of the bushes, like a galloping wind. In the middle of the day, the sound of horses' hooves, shouts of killing, and war drums rang out, and a few puffs of smoke and dust rolled towards the Kushan army by the river.

Due to the eagerness of the Kushan army to return westward, there was a shortage of ferries and rafts, but fortunately, although the Khotan River was wide and the water was turbulent, the deepest part could not be topped, so except for important baggage, ordinary soldiers and soldiers crossed the river hand in hand. After crossing the river, most of the soldiers were exhausted, and many of them took off their clothes and armor to expose themselves to the sun, and rested on the ground or lying or sitting on the ground, scattering a defensive position, completely unprepared for battle. The cavalry of the Han army came quickly and attacked fiercely, and after a few rounds of arrow rain, they cut like a blade to the troops of the Kushan army who landed first.

This cavalry rushed into the middle of the Kushan infantry and slashed and slashed, causing confusion among these troops at first, and then affecting the troops that landed next to the shore, affecting the whole line. Zhao Guang, who was in the vanguard, took advantage of the enemy's formation to begin to waver, took the lead, stabbed three enemy generals to death in a row, opened a gap, and rushed into the Guishan formation. Although the vanguard cavalry he personally led was small in number, once it rushed into the enemy line, this cavalry of several hundred men became a very terrifying, irresistible great force, like a hammer that smashed through the Kushan defenses. These Kushan light infantry on the shore lacked both adequate protection and long weapons, and lacked the courage to fight the cavalry, so the organized and orderly resistance soon disappeared, and chaos ensued, fighting for their lives and trampling each other. Kushan's commander Morodo beheaded several soldiers in a row, but he still couldn't stop the terrible situation of the collapse of the whole line, so he had no choice but to care about the lives of his soldiers and the prestige of his general, and the guilt of the commander Kibonada, etc., and fled with dozens of personal soldiers.

Ji Bonada had not yet crossed the river at this time, and when he saw the chaos in front of him, although he was surprised that the Han army appeared on the retreat road, he was not very flustered. Seeing that the Han army did not have many men and horses, he urged the troops to cross the river quickly, and on the other hand, ordered the men and horses who landed on the shore not to rest, and immediately participated in blocking the Han army. He also strictly ordered that crossing the river must be desperately against the enemy, and that he must not flee in panic, otherwise all the generals will be beheaded. The men and horses crossing the river received this order, and knew that he had no way to retreat except to break through the resistance of the Han army in front of him, so he really did not dare to flee again, and turned around one after another to form a resistance.

As more and more troops landed on the shore, the battlefield also fell into a stalemate: in the narrow space, the impact of the Han cavalry gradually became difficult, and the troops began to suffer casualties under the battle of each other. Hou Cheng, Zhou Cang, Zhang Bao and other major generals took the lead and hung up in the chaos, but they still fought bravely. Seeing this, Guan Ping, the main general of the cavalry, roared again and again, and fought more and more bravely, like a furious lion, while dancing the green dragon giant knife and slashing indiscriminately, while shouting to the cavalry to move closer to him. An enemy general had just arrived in front of him, and suddenly heard him roar, and he was startled, and before he could parry, he was cut down in two. Guan Ping's hands and cuffs were stained with blood, and the horse's hooves had long been stained with the blood of the dead and wounded. But the Kushan soldiers were numerous and well-trained. He struck to the east, and the enemies in the east retreated, but the lineup was not chaotic, making it impossible for him to break through, and the enemies from the west poured in like a tidal wave. When he returned to his horse and went to slay the enemy to the west, the enemy from the east came back. He suffered a few minor wounds on his body, and more than a dozen of his own soldiers around him were broken, but he finally gradually gathered the cavalry that rushed into the enemy formation.

Under the leadership of Guan Ping, this cavalry was invincible in the overwhelming numerical Guishan army, suddenly to the left, suddenly to the right, suddenly to the encirclement, and suddenly to the core, looking for the enemy's main general. Most of the Kushan army were infantry, although they also resisted desperately, and tried to surround and eat this group of men and horses several times, but they always collapsed like a flood under its impact, and fell down one after another, dodging a bloody path. Their horses often trampled and leaped over those who had lost their breath and those who had not died, who were bleeding and fleeing for their lives. Although the Han cavalry's charge was still unstoppable, the Kushan people were still able to use their numerical advantage to plug the gap, and the battlefield situation began to slowly develop in the direction of the Kushan people.

In the woods, Gao Shun, the main general of the Han army, was still as steady as a pillar, carefully observing the situation on the battlefield. Now that the enemy's momentum seems to have recovered, the battle situation is at a critical moment, victory or defeat is a matter of breath, and he knows that he can't delay more, and must take advantage of the Kushan's defensive position before it is fully formed, and carry out the final blow! When he saw Zhao Guang rushing to the shore with a spear and prancing horse again, his heart was overjoyed, but in an instant, he saw him being killed back by an enemy who was like an impregnable wall, which made his heart suddenly cold. At this moment, he took off his cloak and threw it back, and then he was heard raise his long sword and roar, like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, and at once the drums and trumpets rose again, and the infantry of the trapped camp finally began to march forward.

At this time, the Guishan soldiers suddenly found that several terrifying black flags appeared in front of them, and several hoplite phalanxes under the banner were advancing firmly and neatly towards the shore. Although the reinforcements of the Han army this time were only a few thousand, the Kushan army was already struggling to support, and suddenly saw that the Han army had added more men and horses, and it looked so murderous, the spirit suddenly collapsed, and they could no longer resist, like a landslide, many people threw away their flags and turned around to flee for their lives. The cavalry of the Han army took the opportunity to break away from the battle line, split the two sides, and began to harvest the enemy's lives with bows and arrows. The trapped-camp infantry began to charge three hundred paces from the riverbank, shouting "Trapped!" Trapped! Trapped! Like a flash flood and tsunami, it broke through the fragile riverbank front of the Kushan people and pressed the Kushan army directly into the river. The shore was soon filled with dead and wounded Kushan men and horses, and the living ones were still struggling, and when the rear team landed on the shore saw this scene, they did not dare to resist, and jumped into the river one after another, trampling each other, crowding each other, and slashing each other. Those who had no chance to flee back to the river were captured in the melee, some knelt down and surrendered, some were shot in the wilderness, and some fled in the wilderness. At first, the elite Kushan infantry who landed on the shore were still able to support, but later as the friendly troops fled, the more panicked they became, and the more panicked they became, their front line was not long after being broken through by the trapped camp that forced up, and they also began to flee separately. When they saw a place where there were Han soldiers, they avoided it, thinking that other directions were the way to live, but in fact, there were cavalry of the Han army in other directions to surround and intercept them. As long as the cavalry of the Han army shouted after encountering it, the elite of these Kushan army at sunset dropped their weapons and armor, and the birds and beasts were frightened, and there was no resistance.

Looking at the floating corpses in the river, the red water and the routed soldiers who were constantly struggling in the river, Ki Bonada closed his eyes in pain, he was finally unable to bring this army back to Kushan, and the gods and Buddhas (due to the historical and geographical characteristics, the Kushan people believed in various gods of Greek, Wo, and Hindu religions in addition to Buddhism), and this time stood on the side of the powerful Han people. He recalled that half a year ago, he was full of ambition and led an army of 100,000 to the east, and the people of the country said that the army was grand and unprecedented, and in the end, he ended up with the annihilation of the whole army, and returned to China without shame to face the Lord and his father. When the veteran thought of this, he was discouraged for a while, and took out the family heirloom knife and wiped it on his neck, but fortunately, he was quickly blocked by several personal soldiers around him, but he also cut a hole, and everyone hurriedly wrapped him away. As soon as the commander was lost, the Guishan army on the east bank suddenly became chaotic, but fortunately, the Han army on the opposite side had no intention of crossing the river to fight in addition to constantly shooting and killing the routed army in the river, so that the Guishan generals could hastily collect the remnants of the army on the east bank and retreat to Gumo City.

"Victorious! We won! Dahan Tianwei! There is nothing wrong with me! Dahan Tianwei! There is nothing wrong with me! When the Han army on the west bank saw the Kushan army on the other side retreating, they raised their weapons and shouted loudly. The sunset, the blood-colored river, and the ecstatic warriors intertwine a magnificent picture for a while.

In this battle, 5,000 Han soldiers broke the main force of Guishan, beheaded 12,456, captured more than 8,000, and destroyed nearly 30,000 enemies with the enemy who drowned and washed away in the river. The accumulation of carcasses of Kushan men and horses almost cut off the flow of the Khotanese River.