Chapter 54: Defeat
Sun Zhuang held the lance in front of the horse, put down the visor, and looked at the enemy formation opposite the grassland through the gap in the visor, the muscles and bones of his body were tense, as if there was infinite strength gushing out, and the war horse that stepped down could also feel his soaring murderous aura, and he neighed.
The speed of the heavy armor rider is not fast, and it is not even as fast as the infantry armor on the two wings, but when it moves, the armor of the human armor and horse armor struck each other, and the momentum was terrifying. Ordinary bows and crossbows have a poor ability to strike against heavy armor, and bed crossbows themselves are heavy equipment. Extravagant Feihu led his troops to travel nearly 500 miles in four days, all of which were mountain plank roads and post roads, with very few accompanying horses, and very few heavy crossbows, not to mention bed crossbows.
Looking at the heavily armored cavalry team coming in front of him, the Flying Tiger organized people to immediately step forward to form a shield array, and organized more than 100 spears to reach the ground with spear shafts and tails, and stabbed out obliquely from the middle of the high shield to prevent the impact of the armored cavalry, and even gathered the heavy crossbows to the middle road. However, in the face of the adjustment on their side, the infantry armor of the Huaidong army on the two wings accelerated their pace, breaking forward from the two wings, forming a huge jaw formation.
In terms of preventing the impact of armored cavalry, the Ba Min soldiers have rich experience. The fatal thing is that in such a short period of time, Xuan Feihu only had time to organize a defensive force of six or seven hundred people on the right flank of the camp, and he interspersed harassment with the light cavalry of the Huaidong Army at the beginning, and the array formed in a hurry was also a little messy.
In the frontal battlefield, the Huaidong Army suddenly invested more than three times their troops, and there were more troops on the two flanks that were rapidly deploying, and the speed of deployment was far greater than theirs.
Looking at the jaws of the two wings of the Huaidong Army to attack the array, Luxury Feihu couldn't organize more soldiers and horses to suppress it at all, so he could only shrink to the inner line as much as possible to form a tighter defensive array. He only hopes to withstand the first wave of the offensive and gain more time so that he can spread the forces in the camp and regain the disadvantage.
The sky is getting clearer and clearer, and there is a thin mist rising from Taibai Creek, and the scenery looks like a reality, but no one is in the mood to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and rivers at this time.
Zhang Gou accompanied Chen Yan on horseback and guarded the high slope of the rear wing, watching the battlefield below.
The key is the battle in front of us, if we can defeat the six or seven hundred people who are deployed on the right flank at once, we can achieve absolute superiority before the Zhuji reinforcements arrive; If not, it is likely that a brutal tug-of-war will ensue, and even if it is ultimately won, the casualties will be extremely high.
On the tips of the two wings of the frontal battlefield are reinforced arrays of crossbowmen.
In the face of the enemy's defensive array shrinking to the inner line, the crossbowmen quickly pressed on, and unscrupulously projected a dense rain of arrows into the enemy formation, relieving the pressure on the main sword and shield armor and Mo sword armor soldiers who attacked from both flanks.
The pincer attack array formed on the two wings is mainly to hit the flanks of the enemy's defensive array, and the passage for the heavy armored cavalry to advance should be set aside in the middle. Seeing that the enemy formation was slightly disturbed, and he didn't care about waiting for a better opportunity, Sun Zhuang led the heavily armored cavalry team in the center to rush forward with sharp arrows fired from heavy crossbows.
Even if the enemy formation is as solid as a rock, you must gather all your strength to smash this heavy blow down and smash the rock to pieces!
The heavy crossbow can shoot from 200 to 250 steps, but it has almost no damage to the heavy armored cavalry team 100 steps away, and under the blow of the two wings, the bow and crossbow array in the center is also messy, unable to form a uniform rain of arrows to cover, and the damage formed is even weaker.
At the point of advancing to a hundred paces, even if the war horse is draped in heavy armor, its speed is raised to the extreme. A hundred paces away at a rapid pace, and it was only thirteen or fourteen breaths, Sun Zhuang simply ignored the three or four crossbow arrows that Ling scattered, and also ignored the spears stabbed from both sides of the high shield, peeping at the opportunity, his body leaned forward, poked out the long lance that was more than a zhang long, and used the head of the lance as a heavy hammer, and used the momentum to hit the high shield in front of him.
The moment of the attack, Sun Zhuang immediately let go of Changshuo, and sent the current enemy soldiers out with shields, and also knocked the spearmen on both sides away.
By the fraction, the spear slashed through the armor of the left chest of the war horse, and the lightning flashed, and the abnormal sound caused pierced the eardrums, but it did not hurt the war horse. When sprinting, the war horse was hit by a crossbow arrow in the chest, pierced into it from the gap between the armor pieces, two or three inches deep, and the reins were in the hand, and the war horse roared and kicked its hooves, but it did not affect the battle. As for whether the horses will survive after the war, it is another story.
Sun Zhuang lowered his head and flashed a spear stabbed from the inner line, pulled out the combat knife at his waist, and cut off the head of the enemy soldier on the left side with his neck. The armored cavalry on the left and right sides also broke the current high shield, and a person stabbed the spear in the middle of the slanted spear by the neck of a war horse, and lost the horse and rolled down, fortunately, the armored cavalry in the second column was still separated by a distance, and the spear did not lose when he got up, so he stuck close to the side of Sun Zhuang's war horse and rushed forward to kill. Sun Zhuang shouted: "Give me the gun!" "He took the spear, and with full strength and subtle marksmanship, he rushed in with the momentum of his horse, and at the same time struck left and right, and stabbed a gap two or three zhang wide, covering the sword, shield, and other soldiers who had lost their horses into the gap......
When the first column of the defenders could not take advantage of the advantage of the equipment to seal the armored cavalry outside and open the gap, it would be extremely difficult. The sharp spear will be blocked by the soldiers on both wings, and the sword and shield soldiers will not be able to break through the heavy armor of the armored horseman, and the crossbowmen will not be able to squeeze in front of the shot, and will have to fill it with more lives. The key defenders were severely under-manned and had only a slight advantage in the terrain, and to fill this gap, an even larger gap would be created elsewhere.
Luxury Feihu also saw that the cavalry general who attacked the front of the Huaidong army frontal attack array was particularly brave, and almost no one here could block him in front of him, in just a hundred breaths, the cavalry general actually broke three cavalry spears in a row, and then took the spear from the Huaidong army soldiers behind and continued to fight forward, and the gap left and right was the largest, and there were signs of collapse.
The cavalry general was wearing a mask and couldn't see his appearance clearly, but he didn't think it would be Zhou Pu, the chief general of the Huaidong Army Cavalry Battalion, but apart from Zhou Pu, how could there be such a fierce and abnormal cavalry general in Huaidong?
Seeing the danger of the gap over there, he wanted to lead the elite soldiers to press up, hug him left and right, and prevent him from going up to fight.
The main general of the Huaidong Army who rushed to Dongyang (Dongyang County, Huiji Prefecture) was still standing on the opposite hill to watch the battle. If there is a mistake in the luxury flying tiger, this battle will not have to be fought again.
The strength of the Flying Tiger in the camp was still sufficient, and the entire right flank was constantly retreating under the powerful and fierce offensive. The left flank is Taibai Creek, and the gap between the battlefield on the right flank and the barracks is getting less and less. The constant transfer of troops from the outside can only increase the density of troops on the inner line of the battlefield on the right flank, but it is not beneficial to expand the troops. The more crowded the inside line, the more the front will collapse, which will only cause a greater rout......
In addition, the crossbowmen of the Huaidong Army were not threatened by the two flanks, and they could boldly shoot at the center of the formation with bows and crossbows at close range.
At present, Hu Feihu can only take the initiative to break a hole in the right rear flank of the camp, as a channel to send troops and launch a counterattack, so as not to collapse the Huaidong army that is rushing in the case of superiority......
The war horse neighed and fell, his neck was almost broken by the hammer, and Sun Zhuang's spear stabbed into the chest of the enemy general with a sledgehammer, and his body also lost his balance and fell. Fortunately, the soldiers and soldiers on the left and right were all there, and the array was complete, seeing Sun Zhuang fall crookedly, some people took their shoulders and backs, and some people rushed forward to protect him on the inside - Sun Zhuang struggled to stand up, in addition to the old wounds on his legs, the shin guard deck did not know when to knock it off, and pierced a bloody hole in the spear, and the hemp gray breeches were dyed blood red.
Sun Zhuang's legs are not good at walking, but he still has strength, which is thanks to the fact that the left and right soldiers go hand in hand, sharing a lot of pressure for him, he is very strong, and roared loudly: "Horses, guns!" "Help him to get on the war horse left and right, only to see that he can still shake the long lance out of the flower ball at this time, and his strength is amazing, and before he knows it, he will kill the enemy formation!
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The elite of the reinforcements in southern Zhejiang was stationed in the camp on the east bank, and the defenders of Dongyang County on the west bank had 1,500 or 600 people, but there were not many soldiers, and the miscellaneous soldiers were thin and armoured and held spears, and they could defend the city, but they crossed the Taibai River by fishing boat in a hurry, which only increased the number of defeated soldiers.
When the camp on the east bank of Taibai Creek was broken from the flank, and the 5,000 elites of the reinforcements in southern Zhejiang were divided into several sections to fight separately, the defenders of Dongyang County could only organize fishing boats to come to shore to receive reinforcements as much as possible.
This battle lost its lead from the beginning, and the hastily organized defensive position on the right flank of the camp was ruthlessly shattered, and the Luxury Flying Tiger was no longer able to organize a powerful counterattack.
No matter how much he hated it in his heart, no matter how unwilling he was, no matter how unwilling he was, he also knew that the general trend was gone, so he retreated to the ship and fled to the west bank in a hurry. After arriving on the west bank, Hao Feihu calmed down and ordered the Dongyang County guards to organize fishing boats and use ropes to build an improvised trestle bridge between the west bank and the beach positions that were still held on the east bank, so that more defeated troops could withdraw to the west bank.
On the one hand, he organized more strong bows and heavy crossbows, and while guarding against the Huaidong army taking the opportunity to fight from the improvised trestle bridge, he could also support the resistance of the remnants on the east bank
The Taibai River that flows around the east side of Dongyang County is the upstream main stream of the Lanxi River, and the dry embankment that passes through the Dongyang County section is more than 30 zhang wide, which is within the range of a 100-step strong bow.
This battle lasted from dawn on the 29th to mid-afternoon, when the outpost of the Zhuji reinforcements entered the territory of Dongyang County from the western foot of Dongbai Mountain, and the Huaidong Army let go of the remnants of the southern Zhejiang army that was still stubbornly resisting on the shore and beach, and retreated to the valley road at the northwest foot of Luohe Mountain.
Chen Yan also sweated back like a pulp, took off the hood, held it in his hand, and scolded angrily: "The last few hard bones are really hard to gnaw!" ”
"The name of the Ba Min soldier, you should be fake!"
Lin Tie stood on the slope of the grass with his hands in his hands, chuckling and talking to Chen Yan, but his eyes looked at the water of Taibai River sparkling in the sun.
After the Shangyu reinforcements arrived in Shengzhou, Lin Jian personally led the second group of soldiers and horses to Dongyang for reinforcements.
However, at this time, Tian Chang also led six or seven thousand reinforcements from Zhuji in the north to approach the border of Dongyang County, and Lin Liansuo led the second army with only 2,000 elites, so he did not rush to press up and fight, but rushed to build a fortress on the valley road leading to Shengzhou at the northwest foot of Luohe Mountain.
In addition to the soldiers and horses that had previously withdrawn to the west bank, the reinforcements that came from southern Zhejiang with the Luxury Flying Tiger, in the end, there were more than a thousand remnants of the soldiers who resisted stubbornly and did not annihilate them - Chen Yan was resentful about this, regretted Mo Die, and even complained that Lin Lian had ordered the troops to be withdrawn early, but on the whole, this battle was fought very happily.
If the casualties are counted, the battle of the Flying Tiger will be attributed by at least more than half.
In fact, the casualties of the five battalions and 3,000 soldiers led by Chen Yan and Zhang Gou were almost half. If it weren't for the opportunity of the surprise attack, it is hard to imagine that the 5,000 elites of the reinforcements in southern Zhejiang led by the Luxury Feihu could be completely disabled.
But no matter what, the Huaidong Army's attack this time was a great victory. Although the casualties were heavy, the morale of the soldiers was still high, and they had the will and morale to continue fighting. Especially in the case of effective control of the battlefield, the wounded and soldiers were also smoothly withdrawn, and they could receive timely treatment, and in the end, almost seventy or eighty percent of the old soldiers could be reorganized into the battalion.
The southern Zhejiang army was defeated by the attack, and the wounded soldiers who could be withdrawn were extremely limited, and more of them were mended for the Huaidong army to follow behind, and more than half of the casualties were almost half of the real battle deaths.
Even if more than 2,000 people escaped the catastrophe in the end, the reinforcements in southern Zhejiang crippled the morale of this battle, and it was difficult to restore the original combat strength in a short period of time.
"The soldiers of Fujian are no worse than the Huaidong Army! If it weren't for the big... The adults took the lead in calculating, and let the luxury Feihu calmly lead the troops to approach Shengzhou, and the situation is probably much more difficult than now. "Sun Zhuang, who was forcibly dragged down from the battle formation at the end of the battle, is the most qualified to evaluate the combat power of the elite in southern Zhejiang. Although the elite combat power of the Huaidong Army is not superior to that of the Eastern Fujian soldiers, Sun Zhuang also knows that the Huaidong Army has a great advantage in the first place under Lin Bin's calculations, and can calmly choose the fighters and battlefields that are beneficial to him.
Sun Zhuang's legs were injured in many places, even if he wore an extra layer of inner armor in the scale armor, he still shot through many heavy crossbow arrows, but fortunately the flesh was not deep, and Zhang Gou had already sent someone to forcibly drag him down the battlefield and bandage the wound. At this time, Sun Zhuang was already unable to stand up, sitting on the soft couch, watching the cruel battlefield stained with blood in the afternoon.