In Qinling North Road, tens of thousands of Liu Bei's troops were on the way back to Hanzhong. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Although the strength of these tens of thousands of troops cannot be fully deployed due to the limitation of the mountain road type, and the overall formation is a bit narrow and long, it still has a thick defensive formation in the middle of the queue/center, obviously protecting the most important figures.

In the defensive array was a Chinese car, and Liu Bei was lying in the middle of the Chinese car. However, this generation of heroes, who can be said to be famous in the troubled times of the late Han Dynasty, is not showing the majesty of his hard work in the Chinese car at this moment, but because he was seriously injured, he was unconscious there, but he also worried the doctor who was also taking care of him in the car.

It is said that the years are not forgiving, after all, Liu Bei at this time is an old man over sixty years old, once he is injured, it is not easy to recover, but it is also easy to trigger a series of physical deterioration reactions, and Liu Bei's injury this time is really serious, he was hit by an arrow in the back, an arrow in the thigh, and an arrow in the ribs, although they are not fatal injuries, but with Liu Bei's current age, where is the joke?

Pang Tong was sitting at the front of the car at this time, and from time to time he would turn his head to look at Liu Bei in the car, with a worried look on his face. Occasionally, Pang Tong would stand up on the wheel, turn around to look at the vigilance of the rear team, and then look around the terrain very carefully, so as not to encounter any accidents on the march.

After another round of visits confirmed that there should be no problem, Pang Tong, who was already physically and mentally exhausted, sat down again, leaned back against the wall of the car, closed his eyes and rested. It's just that the eyes have just closed, and the nightmare-like scene some time ago has resurfaced in front of Pang Tong's eyes......

On that day, Liu Bei led tens of thousands of soldiers to approach Tianshui County with the "turtle shell" tactic, and on the way to it, he naturally encountered the attack of a large number of cavalry of the Western Regions Alliance.

In the face of the light horses and fast horses of the Western Regions Alliance, Liu Bei's soldiers up and down have long been accustomed to it, and the "turtle shell" tactical formation adopted now has always been a good prescription for dealing with the fast horse rangers of the Western Regions Alliance, and they have easily repelled too many attacks of the Western Regions Alliance Army before, so Liu Bei's soldiers are not flustered, and they are still meeting the enemy according to the corresponding tactical configuration.

However, it may be because it is already close to the Tianshui County City, and the number of enemy troops participating in the attack this time is indeed a bit large. Although Liu Bei's soldiers relied on the "turtle shell" tactics to not fall into a bitter battle, they were indeed a little tired in the face of waves of enemies.

In this way, the battle situation fell into a stalemate for a while, and if nothing else, the fight would continue until it was dark, and the two sides would not stop their own fights. Judging from the current proportion of battle losses, Liu Bei's "turtle shell" is really a big advantage, which can be seen from the large number of corpses left around the "turtle shell" by the Western Regions coalition army.

Seeing such a result, Liu Bei, who was in command of the Chinese army, was quite high-spirited, and his gaze towards Tianshui County, which was faintly visible in his field of vision, also showed a bit of disdain. Maybe in Liu Bei's opinion at this moment, this Tianshui County City is already in his pocket, right?

At this time, a large wave of cavalry troops of the Western Regions Coalition Army roared towards Liu Bei's battle formation, and Liu Bei still snorted with disdain, and ordered the soldiers to still move according to their respective formations to deal with the enemy army.

According to the normal tactics at that time, Liu Bei's order was not wrong, and the soldiers up and down Liu Bei's army did not feel that there was anything wrong. Because according to the experience of many previous battles, these light horses of the Western Regions Alliance Army could not break through the gun forest shield wall of the "turtle shell" when they rushed into battle, and the horse arrows they shot when they rode around the formation could not cause much damage to the well-protected soldiers in the battle array, so as long as Liu Bei's soldiers stood in their respective positions, they should be able to easily deal with this wave of cavalry impact of the Western Regions Alliance...... Perhaps, this is already Liu Beijun's inertial thinking, right?

It didn't take long for the battle to start, and at the beginning, the situation was just as Liu Bei's lieutenant generals thought, the fast horses and light cavalry of the Western Regions Alliance Army did not dare to rush in the face of the gun forest shield wall, and a large number of cavalry were in contact with Liu Bei's military formation, and they were like the tide meeting the stone of the pillar and diverted to the left and right. In addition to not daring to rush into the formation, he could only shoot feather arrows into the formation from the side, but he could not cause any casualties to Liu Bei's soldiers.

The battle situation seemed to be biased in favor of Liu Bei's side, but at this time, a sudden change occurred, and a large number of cavalry from the Western Regions no longer shot feather arrows into the military formation, but struggled to throw bags and cans of things into Liu Bei's military formation. The bags of things broke a lot after falling into the array, and the smell of saltpeter and sulfur was diffused by the wind, and after the bottles and cans that were thrown in fell to the ground and cracked, a black thick liquid flowed out, and the smell carried by the wind was very unpleasant.

No one in Liu Bei's army knew what the liquid was, but the smell of saltpeter and sulfur could be immediately distinguished. On the other hand, because Lu Ren also had a lot of ordnance support for Liu Bei, some people in Liu Bei's army immediately understood what the Western Regions Alliance Army threw into the formation as soon as they saw this thing:

"It's gunpowder! The enemy wants to set fire!! ”

Don't underestimate the war wisdom of the ancients, the "turtle shell" battle formation is known for its tight defense, and it also has a corresponding way to deal with fire attacks, otherwise the opponent's wave of rockets will be able to break the formation. So at this time, some soldiers in the formation immediately picked up the tools used to extinguish the fire and prepared to extinguish the flames, plus they had a certain understanding of gunpowder, so some people immediately dug up sand to cover up the gunpowder.

There was nothing wrong with these countermeasures, but Liu Beijun's soldiers ignored the black liquid on the ground, maybe it was because these black liquids didn't seem to be easy to ignite, right?

But it was precisely because of this ignorance that Liu Beijun was defeated next. When the cavalry of the Western Regions Alliance Army fired rockets into the formation, the black liquid was ignited almost instantaneously, and it was difficult to extinguish. And because of the previous flow of the liquid, the gunpowder that had previously been hidden by the sand was ignited. And many of the soldiers who had been splashed with black liquid before that turned into fire men almost instantly.

In this way, Liu Bei's "turtle shell" formation appeared to a certain extent chaotic, but in general, it was not out of control at this time. One is that Liu Bei's soldiers have been on the battlefield for a long time and know how to deal with some chaos; Second, the Western Regions Alliance Army throws gunpowder and black liquid on horseback with the arm strength of a normal person, and the actual distance thrown is relatively limited, and there are not many of these things in the Western Regions Alliance, so the fire that can be released with these is not very large.

Therefore, Liu Beijun's "turtle shell" only collapsed a few corners of the surface of the military formation because of the fire at this time, and as long as Liu Beijun's soldiers pounced in time and filled the position of the battle formation personnel in time, the "turtle shell" could still be as hard as ever.

But what followed was an unforgettable scene in Pang Tong's heart: with the left and right diversion of the light cavalry and fast horse troops of the Western Regions Alliance, a heavily armored cavalry unit that could almost be said to be armed to the teeth appeared in front of Liu Bei's soldiers and began to launch a group charge towards a certain collapse of Liu Bei's army formation.

Solid horse armor and heavy armor bring a huge impact. And a corner of the military formation that collapsed due to the impact of the fire was almost instantly broken through by this heavy armored cavalry unit that seemed to be like a steel monster. And the follow-up Western Regions Alliance Army's fast horses and light cavalry also smashed into Liu Bei's military formation along the gap caused by the heavy armored cavalry.

Were there any heavy cavalry in China during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty? There is no clear record in the historical documents, and as far as Lu Ren knows, it is only a prototype, and the real heavy armored cavalry in China has also been obtained from the Jin and Tang dynasties.

Also, according to Lu Ren's understanding of playing internal affairs for many years, the heavy armored cavalry failed to develop effectively in the late Han Dynasty, and another very important reason was that the social economy at that time had been greatly damaged, and it was very good that the ordinary candidates could form a good light cavalry unit.

To put it mildly, at that time, everyone couldn't even eat, and where was the money to form a heavy cavalry that would have to spend a lot of money to assemble? Lao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry is a bit of a shadow of heavy cavalry, but if Lu Ren wants to describe it, it is between light cavalry and heavy cavalry, which is also because Lao Cao burned a little money after implementing the tuntian system, and the scale of tiger and leopard cavalry has not been large...... It's too much money!

Lu Ren had the conditions to engage in heavy cavalry, but Lu Ren was not interested in it. Because the armor of the heavy cavalry in history is 60 to 80 kilograms or even higher, the horse is too heavy and easy to fatigue, which will greatly reduce the most prominent speed advantage of the cavalry, and the infantry has been trained, and the frontal assault of the heavy cavalry can not be played, so in the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, the weakness of the heavy cavalry has been exposed. The armor-clad light cavalry formed by Li Yuan's father and son defeated the armor and cavalry of the Sui Dynasty, and repeatedly performed miraculous feats in the process of unifying China. The Turkic light cavalry defeated the Rouran heavy cavalry and became the new generation of steppe overlords.

Therefore, after Lu Ren occupied Liaoxi, although he developed cavalry, he did not deliberately develop heavy cavalry. To be precise, Lu Ren took advantage of the technical advantages at hand to create a batch of horse armor with light weight but good protective effect, and formed a quasi-heavy armored cavalry and handed it over to Lu Lingqi to command. And this kind of heavy armored cavalry, which only has a few thousand people, performed well in the First Battle of Jinzhou......

However, these have nothing to do with the current battle situation, anyway, due to many limitations, the Chinese people do not have much understanding of the heavy armored cavalry, so in the face of the powerful impact of the heavy armored cavalry of the Western Regions Alliance, the position of the "turtle shell" was finally disrupted.

What followed was a chaotic scuffle. In the melee, the strong impact of the heavy armored cavalry was almost unstoppable, and the waves of powerful impact were like a heavy hammer hit the hearts of the soldiers up and down Liu Bei's army.

The result of this melee was that Liu Bei was defeated, but the defeat was not complete, after all, the soldiers led by Liu Bei were all elite divisions that had experienced a hundred battles, and they were commanded by strong generals like Zhao Yun and Ma Chao. On the other hand, although the powerful impact of the heavy armored cavalry was terrifying, it was not enough after all, and after a few shocks, it had to withdraw from the battlefield due to excessive consumption of horsepower. When Liu Beijun's "turtle shell" finally closed again, it was difficult for the fast horses and light horses of the Western Regions Alliance Army to play a big role.

But in the previous chaotic battle, Liu Bei was hit by three arrows. In order to stabilize the morale of the army, Liu Bei still insisted on commanding. These three arrows are not fatal, but Liu Bei's age is there after all, and the wound has lost too much blood due to the failure to treat it in time, which is a big problem for an old man over sixty years old.

So so, after repelling the enemy army, Liu Bei finally fell because he couldn't hold on. And the result of his fall can only be that Liu Bei's troops have to return to Hanzhong because of this. At that time, the commander-in-chief of an army fell due to wounds, and the army was afraid that there was no possibility of any further fighting......

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"Liu Bei! You are still a hero of the same generation as my father, how did you fight!? ”

At this time, Cao Pi didn't know what was going on on Liu Bei's side, so he could only curse Liu Bei like this. Zhao Yu looked at Cao Pi coldly on the side, and waited until Cao Pi finished cursing with his jumping feet before saying: "Cao Zihuan, you are also a person who is good at leading troops, and now that Liu Xuande has retired because of serious injuries, what are you going to do here?" ”

Cao Pi jumped and scolded several times before he calmed down. After a little groaning, Cao Pi shouted: "Someone! ”

Someone entered in response, Cao Pi gritted his teeth and ordered: "Immediately send an expedited horse, and order the troops that have marched into Anding to return to Chang'an as soon as possible!" If there is a violator, behead! ”

The guard took the order and left, and Cao Pi sat back in front of the desk and sulked. Zhao Yu glanced at Cao Pi, and didn't say anything more, just gave Cao Pi a casual salute and left quickly.

Zhao Yu didn't have any opinions on the orders issued by Cao Pi, and even if she had opinions, it wasn't her turn to point fingers. Speaking from the heart, Cao Pi's order was not wrong, because after Liu Bei's defeat and retreat, the Western Regions Coalition Army would immediately be able to free up their hands to support the stable Xiongnu, so the tens of thousands of troops sent by Cao Pi would be dangerous. Of course, fighting a war requires perseverance, but you can't push the troops into the fire pit indiscriminately, right? When it is time to retain the strength, of course, it is better to retain it, and the next battle still has to be fought.

With a long sigh, Zhao Yu left Cao Pi's garden and walked towards his residence. The emergency army intelligence was given to Cao Pi, and Zhao Yu could be regarded as having completed the most important task at present, and Zhao Yu had other things to do next, such as getting more detailed information from Liu Bei, and reporting these details to Lu Ren to know.

Holding Ma Fu and looking up at the sky, Zhao Yu secretly said in his heart: "Brother, how are you now?" How did you fight the battle at that time? What the hell did you encounter that caused you to fight so badly? Brother, are you alright? ”

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A few days later, Yizhou Mangjia.

"The assault of the heavy cavalry? Where did the Western Regions Coalition get the heavy cavalry!? Can they afford heavy cavalry with their pitiful economic level? And what kind of black oil is just a little bit and hard to extinguish!? Wrong!! These heavy armored cavalry are definitely not from the 36 countries of the Western Regions!! ”

Lu Ren slapped the message in his hand on the table, and his eyebrows were already twisted together. Xun Yu stretched out his hand and copied the telegram to look at it, and asked, "Yihao, what do you mean when you say that these heavy armored cavalry are not from the Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Western Regions?" And what about all that black oil? ”

Lu Ren, who was furious, tried very hard to calm down before explaining to Xun Yu: "Xun Yu, you don't know, heavy armored cavalry is not so easy to raise, and the real heavy armored cavalry is not as simple as you think. As for the tiger and leopard ride of Lao Cao that you know......"

Saying that, Lu Ren shook his head: "At least in my opinion, although Lao Cao's tiger and leopard cavalry can be called the elite of the world, it is not a heavy cavalry in the true sense. ”

Xun Yu frowned, he didn't know much about these things, so he was still waiting for Lu Ren to explain further.

Lu Ren was silent for a moment, and then continued: "The heavy armored cavalry that Liu Bei encountered should be Guishuang's, and it is even very likely that they were secretly dispatched by Anxi. Xun Gong, there are some things that I don't know how to explain to you for a while, as long as you know that if Liu Bei encounters this kind of heavy armored cavalry, it will be normal for them to suffer a big loss because they have no corresponding tactical countermeasures. I also deserve to die, I have long known that behind the thirty-six countries of the Western Regions is Guishan and Anxi, but I didn't remind Liu Bei and Cao Pi to pay attention to this...... Oh, I didn't expect Guishan and Anxi to send such troops to the Western Regions!! ”

Lu Ren would express such indignation, and naturally there was a reason for him. Rest in peace or Kushan, they are both from Persia, and the Persian cavalry is famous in history, among which it is still known as the heavy armored cavalry that is nicknamed "iron can" by later generations.

Of course, Lu Ren knew about this thing, but Lu Ren really didn't expect that Guishuang or Anxi would actually send the "iron can" to the Liangzhou battlefield. Let's put it this way, people in later generations will certainly talk about "canned iron" with relish, but they tend to ignore that these "canned iron" are not sent out casually.

In fact, in Guishan or Anxi, the cost of these "iron cans" is high, and the personnel also need long-term professional training, which means that these "iron cans" cannot be commoners or slaves, but can only be the children of the nobles of Guishan and Anxi, and only the children of the nobles of Guishan and Anshen have the money to engage in equipment and have the time to train.

Therefore, whether it is rest or Guishan, the number of "iron cans" is very small, and under normal circumstances, it would be good to have seven or eight thousand, and it is a military strike force that will not be easily used until the critical moment. For the current Liangzhou battlefield, Guishan is driving the men and horses of the 36 countries of the Western Regions to be cannon fodder, even if Guishan has follow-up troops, it stands to reason that he will not send these "iron cans" to such a battlefield. Because of this, the appearance of "tin cans" was really too unexpected for Lu Ren......

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(It's a bit of a, so that Liu Bei ran into the Parthian cavalry, hehe...... ）