The battle is on the verge of breaking out!

The 3,000 soldiers of Yuan's army marched forward bravely, facing the iron cable chain horse formation like a torrent of steel, without a trace of fear, but with great excitement.

That's because Yuan Shao gave an order, promising to kill one enemy soldier, reward ten gold, behead one person to get 100 gold, if you can kill the leader of the enemy army, there will be a thousand gold rewards.

Under the heavy reward, there will be brave men!

These 3,000 soldiers are all for that reward, so they mustered up the courage to move forward bravely. If they learn that they are just cannon fodder, it is unknown how many people will be willing to work so hard.

The sound of rumbling horses' hooves came from far and near, and the earth trembled, and the chain of horses rushed towards the three thousand infantry of Yuan's army.

"Boom!"

With a loud bang, the front of the iron chain horse formation rushed into the battle formation of the Yuan army, and the soldiers of the Yuan army who rushed to the front were immediately knocked away, and the sharp blades on the head of the war horses also pierced the bodies of many infantrymen, and the cavalry on horseback waved the mace in their hands and kept hitting.

In just a split second, Yuan Shao's infantry had more than 200 dead, while the chain horse formation was unscathed and continued to advance.

There are some more intelligent infantrymen, low to hide from the gap in the war horse, but they were stopped by the iron rope locked in everything, the iron cable is hit with some thistles, under the violent impact, the iron thistle directly pierced the armor of the Yuan army's soldiers, deeply embedded in the flesh, the blood flowed, dozens of soldiers were stopped between the war horses, dragged by the advancing war horses, let out painful screams.

"Whoosh ......"

The archers who had been hiding behind the chain of iron horses shot up to the sky and scattered. Arrows were fired into the dense crowd of enemy soldiers rushing towards him.

"Change formation! Outflanking left and right! Xu Chu himself was in the fifth row. After seeing the battle ahead. He shouted behind him.

With a bang, the five rows of iron cables behind the horse formation, two of which detoured to the left, the other two to the right, and the remaining row slowly advanced, always blocking the front of the archers, forming a steel-like wall to prevent the archers behind them from being harmed.

As soon as the battle began. The infantry of the Yuan army was at a disadvantage, and was ruthlessly trampled by the iron chain horse formation, and the ironclad cavalry that rushed to the front had already been stained red with blood, and the cavalry who followed behind raised the crossbow machine and shot wildly at the enemy army on the opposite side.

The crossbow is evolved from the bow, which is said to have been made by the Yellow Emperor, also known as the nest bow and the cross bow, which is a weapon used to shoot arrows in ancient times.

A crossbow is a kind of bow equipped with a crossbow arm, which is mainly composed of a crossbow arm, a crossbow bow, a bowstring and a crossbow machine, and is a powerful long-range killing weapon in ancient times.

Because the launch of crossbow arrows does not rely on manpower. Rather, it is used with a machine, so the range of a crossbow. Basically, it's finalized, different crossbows have different ranges, and the number of people operating them is also different.

When firing, first place the arrow on the arrow path, pull the bowstring back, hang it on the hook, aim at the target, and pull the trigger to shoot the arrow.

Since the operation of the crossbow is very simple, it does not require much training at all compared to the bow, so it is easy for the soldiers to master.

For this reason, Zhang Yan deliberately made more than 100,000 crossbows to equip the whole army, basically, in Zhang Yan's army, from the general to the soldiers, each person has a crossbow hanging from his waist.

However, the range of crossbows is limited, and the range of the crossbow machines equipped by the whole army is only about eighty or ninety paces, and those crossbow machines with a range of more than 100 paces, or even 200 paces, cannot be operated by a single person. So Zhang Yan basically didn't use it much, but continued to use the bow and arrow, which was enough for long-range use.

The reason why the whole army is equipped with crossbow machines is because Zhang Yan means that there are no guns at this time, and within a hundred steps, the frequency of crossbows is much higher than that of bows.

Shooting with a crossbow machine is like holding a pistol, in the event of an encounter, there is no bow and arrow in time, but with a crossbow in hand, at least you can snipe the incoming enemy.

The cavalry in the back rows held crossbow machines and shot out the crossbow arrows, killing the enemy in the front row, shooting arrows in the back row, and the iron cable chain horse formation was vividly played at this moment.

Yuan Shao, Tian Feng, Zhang He, Gao Lan and others were all paying close attention to the entire battle, and the infantry commanded by Wen Chou was at a disadvantage from the first confrontation in front of the iron chain chain horse formation. These 3,000 soldiers, although not as elite as the cavalry led by Wen Chou, are also the Jizhou army that followed Yuan Shao's southern expedition to the north and experienced in a hundred battles, and they are the elite of all Yuan Shao's armies.

In that year, he had a brilliant record on the battlefield of Youzhou, not only resisting Gongsun Chan in the heyday of the strong period, but also completely defeating Gongsun Chan's army in the later war, which can be described as a great achievement.

But it is such an elite division, but in front of Zhang Yan's iron chain horse formation, it looks vulnerable!

The soldiers of the chain horse formation cooperated tacitly, the formation was not chaotic, the front sprinted, the back shot, and more than 1,000 archers assisted in shooting behind the chain horse formation, and most of the 3,000 soldiers were killed and wounded in just a moment.

On the other hand, the enemy army, relying on this strange battle formation and extremely defensive armor, was stunned that there were no casualties, which is really staggering.

Such a powerful army made Yuan Shao and the others feel creepy after seeing it, and a chill was born in their hearts.

Yuan Shao, who had been frowning all the time, couldn't bear it anymore when he saw such a scene, and immediately said to Tian Feng beside him: "Strategist, did you find any flaws in it?" ”

Tian Feng said: "Not for the time being. However, I already know the strength of the chain of horses, and I will come up with a solution tonight. The lord can give the order to withdraw the army, and if he doesn't withdraw the army, the 3,000 soldiers will be wiped out. The enemy army has already outflanked from the left and right, and now the withdrawal is still in a hurry! If it is too late, not only will the 3,000 soldiers be wiped out, but even General Wen Chou will be unable to escape. ”

Yuan Shao nodded, and immediately ordered: "Mingjin retreats!" ”

The sound of fighting on the battlefield continued, and the screams were endless.

At first, all the soldiers of Yuan's army were filled with righteous indignation and wanted to risk their lives to earn a bounty.

But it wasn't until they really confronted the chain of horses that they found that the other party was too strong, and they kept waving the blades in their hands and slashed at the cavalry on horseback, but it was only a clanging sound, and the blades were all chopped up, and the cavalry wrapped in the thick armor was unscathed, only a thin mark was drawn on the armor of those cavalrymen.

It's so perverted!

Yuan Jun couldn't cut these cavalry, but he could be killed by these cavalry, and the rush of the charge was instantly extinguished by a cold torrent of steel, and the rest was just a fearless struggle.

There were many soldiers of the Yuan army who wanted to cut the horse's legs, but before the knife was swung, they were beaten by the cavalry wielding maces, and after falling to the ground, they were ruthlessly trampled to death by the enemy's horse hooves, their stomachs were trampled by the horses' hooves, and their intestines flowed out, and some even had their heads trampled by the horse's hooves, leaving their brains on the ground.

At this time, the chain of iron horses also outflanked from the left and right, attacking from three sides, showing a fan-shaped state, and the archers behind them were constantly shooting, bringing fatal blows from the air.

Three thousand soldiers of the Yuan army, in less than a while, more than 1,500 people were killed, but the other party did not even hurt a single person, the difference is too great.

Wen Chou commanded the whole army, and he was also anxious, and if he continued like this, he was afraid that there was a possibility that the whole army would be annihilated. In this case, even the elite of Wen Chou's subordinates came to come, and they were helpless. But there is a slight advantage, that is, if you run fast enough, at least not so many people will die.

At this time, the battle had basically been reduced to a one-sided slaughter, the iron chain horse formation was unstoppable, and the soldiers of the Yuan army were all frightened, and they had already begun to retreat. And Wen Chou was also anxious, and was about to give the order to retreat!

At this moment, in Yuan's camp, Mingjin's voice suddenly came out, and Wen Chou immediately shouted at the soldiers in front: "Retreat!" Retreat! ”

As soon as the words fell, Wen Chou was the first to run, riding a war horse, running fast, and with a little fume, he had already run without a trace.

And the remnants of Yuan's army were defeated, and they all ran away, scrambling one by one, for fear of dying under the iron hooves of the chain of horses.

The defeat was like a mountain, and the remaining more than 1,000 Yuan soldiers quickly ran back to their camp, but the iron chain horse formation did not chase, but just picked up the crossbow machine and fired at the defeated army, and after the defeated army ran out of range, they stayed in place.

Subsequently, Yuan Shao listened to Tian Feng's opinion, retreated three miles, set up camp, and when he thought of a way to deal with the chain of iron cables, it was not too late to attack.

After Yuan's army retreated, Zhang Yan ordered his subordinates to go out of the city to build a battlefield, and buried all the soldiers killed by Yuan Shaojun.

In this battle, Xu Chu and others annihilated 1,836 enemy troops, although the number of enemies destroyed was small, but at least it showed the strength of the army to Yuan Shao's whole army, so that Yuan Shao did not dare to underestimate Zhang Yan anymore.

The sky gradually darkened, Zhang Liao and Gao Shun led the headquarters of the army, arrived in the twilight, Zhang Yan personally received, and let Zhang Liao and Gao Shun enter the city to rest, in the small Xiancheng, gathered an army of 32,000 people, immediately looked crowded.

Nearly an hour later, Bao Xun also arrived in Xiancheng with an army of 50,000 militiamen, and there were no less than so many people in Xiancheng, so Zhang Yan had to let Bao Xun lead the 50,000 militia to camp outside the city as a reserve.

……

Outside the Tiger Prison Pass, the Cao army camp.

Within one day, Cao Cao received two texts in a row, one was announced by Zhang Yan to the world, and the other was announced by Yuan Shao, and the two texts scolded each other, but both mentioned a very important information, Liu Xie, the son of heaven, was killed.

Whether it was killed by Yuan Shao or Zhang Yan was killed, none of these matters to Cao Cao, the important thing is that the death of the Son of Heaven will inevitably cause turmoil.

Cao Cao smiled sadly, and said to himself: "This war is getting more and more interesting......" (To be continued......)