Chapter 232 The First Battle of the Huns
After Du Yi received the order, he immediately led the cavalry and galloped away with Ling Feng and other twenty cavalrymen.
The distance of more than ten miles, under the rapid gallop of the war horse, is a few minutes. So in a few moments, the men and horses arrived in a wooded area on the edge of a village. Sure enough, there was a fierce battle going on here. I saw a group of thousands of Xiongnu soldiers launching a fierce attack on a village.
Like other villages, this village is also protected by a wall more than two feet high, but at this time many Xiongnu have already climbed to the top of the wall on foot, and the villagers are tearing and killing, and some Xiongnu are running around the wall on horseback outside the wall, and shooting arrows at the wall, it seems that this village will not last long. And about 500 meters on the north side of the wall, there are hundreds of Hun soldiers, in the middle of which is a nine-fold flag, under which is a Hun general, who is riding a horse and stationing, watching the battle in front of him.
Du Yi, the chief general of the Xiao cavalry army, was one of the first people he knew when he first arrived in this era on the plateau, and in the past two years, he had experienced a lot of battles, so he quickly judged the shape of the shì, and Du Yi also immediately ordered Zhong Sun Qi to lead a thousand cavalry, first to attack the Hun generals who were watching on the side, and the others temporarily stood still.
After Zhongsun Qi received the order, he immediately led a thousand cavalry from his headquarters and rushed towards the onlookers.
After waiting for the horses to kill out of the woods, they were immediately discovered by the Hun soldiers, and the Hun general saw it, and immediately ordered, and personally led the cavalry around him to meet the battle. And many Hun soldiers who were besieging the city saw it, and they also turned their horses' heads and rushed back to rescue their own generals. However, in a short period of time, the other Hun cavalry could not catch up, and only these hundreds of Hun soldiers fought against the Wu'an army.
At this time, the distance between the two sides was gradually approaching, and the cavalry in the front row of the Wu'an Army raised their crossbows one after another, only to hear the sound of "whooshing" breaking the air, and more than 100 arrows fired rapidly at the Hun cavalry. In fact, at this time, the Xiongnu soldiers were also ready to shoot arrows, but they were a line later than the Wu'an army, because the range of the crossbow was slightly farther than the Xiongnu's bow and arrow.
And it was this gap that allowed the Wu'an army to shoot crossbow arrows first, but because the Hun soldiers were one step slower, nearly half of the Hun soldiers were shot by the opponent's arrows before they could shoot arrows, and they fell off their horses.
As the distance between the two sides narrowed, more and more soldiers joined the shooting, and many soldiers on both sides were shot and fell, but on the whole, the losses of the Hun army were greater than those of the Wu'an army. Because the number of the Xiongnu army was smaller than that of the Wu'an army, and the Wu'an army was the first to take the lead, and launched a fight against the Xiongnu army first.
However, in the hedging of the cavalry, the bow and arrow could only fire two or three rounds at most, so in the blink of an eye, the soldiers on both sides faced each other directly, each took out his weapon, and started a white-knuckle battle.
The melee weapons of the Xiongnu soldiers were mainly spears, and only a few Xiongnu generals were equipped with long swords. After more than a year of preparation, the cavalry of the Wu'an Army has all been equipped with sabers, and in close combat against the cavalry, the sabers are much larger than spears, and each cavalry is also equipped with a round shield to strengthen its own protection. Because the cavalry of the Wu'an Army all used double-high bridge saddles and bronze stirrups, the stability on horseback should also be greatly increased. Naturally, it is much better than the Hun cavalry.
As a result, after a fierce battle broke out between the soldiers of both sides, most of the soldiers who were shot down and dismounted were Xiongnu soldiers. Such a result also greatly surprised the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu is a northern nomadic people who have only risen in the past 100 years, brave and good at war, although they have not reached the peak of the Xiongnu at this time, but at this time in the grasslands of the north, there is no tribe that can compete with the Xiongnu.
And even in the battle with the nations, the Xiongnu also did not fall behind, even in the face of the Qin army, which was recognized as the strongest combat effectiveness of the nations, the Xiongnu could also rely on their excellent cavalry skills to gain the upper hand. The Qin army was also able to rely on its strong military strength and strong bows and crossbows to resist the Xiongnu, while the Yan army was simply vulnerable and almost defeated in one fight. If it weren't for the fact that more than ten years ago, the Xiongnu suffered a big loss at the hands of Li Mu, losing more than 100,000 soldiers, so they fled far away from the north of the desert and did not dare to go south, which not only ensured the peace of the border of Zhao State, but also made the northern border of Qin and Yan a lot more stable.
But if it is simply a comparison of the art of cavalry and archery, the Xiongnu have full self-confidence, all the armies of the Central Plains countries are not opponents, but this time the situation is completely different, is the cavalry combat ability of this army still above the Xiongnu?
In the blink of an eye, the cavalry arrays on both sides had already staggered past each other, and the casualties of the Hun cavalry reached nearly two hundred, while the Wu'an army had less than one hundred and fifty people. The Hun general was also taken aback, he didn't expect this cavalry army to be so strong in combat.
At this time, the cavalry of the Wu'an army turned their horses' heads and charged the Huns, and the Hun soldiers were also aroused to fight on horseback, and the Huns had never been afraid of anyone, so they also urged the horses to meet the soldiers of the Wu'an army.
Horses neighed, warriors roared, saddle bridles rubbed against each other, spears stabbed shields, sabers slashed spears, and some were shot off horses, while others had their arms and heads cut off, bringing out a rain of blood, flying into the sky, and then falling again. The original corpse was covered with a new corpse, and by the time the two sides staggered past again, the number of people killed and wounded on both sides had almost increased.
After two rounds of fighting, more than half of the Hun army had suffered casualties, less than 300 horsemen remained, and nearly half of the personnel were injured, even the Hun general was stabbed twice, and there were about 700 people left on the side of the Wu'an army, and more than 500 people were basically intact.
Fortunately, at this time, other Xiongnu soldiers besieging the village rushed back to the rescue, which can be regarded as saving this Xiongnu army. In this way, the village was temporarily safe, so many villagers climbed the wall one after another, watching the army that came to rescue them from nowhere. However, the Hun army was several times larger than the Wu'an army, and the Wu'an army was surrounded at once.
But at this moment, I saw another cavalry army coming out of the woods and heading straight for the battle group, it turned out that Du Yi led the remaining 1,000 cavalry out of the woods to reinforce Zhongsun Qi. At this time, the Hun soldiers were besieging Zhongsun Qi's cavalry with all their might, and there was no defense to kill the army, only a few Hun soldiers found out, but it was too late to inform the others, some people turned their horses' heads and faced the cavalry led by Du Yi, and some people did not find out, and they were still attacking Zhong Sun Qi, and some people were in a dilemma and did not know what to do.
However, the Huns who met the cavalry led by Du Yi were only a few, and they could not resist the attack of the cavalry led by Du Yi at all, and they were killed in a blink of an eye. If it was the armies of the other countries, the overall situation would have been decided, but the Xiongnu army had never had many formal tactics, and most of the battles were mainly chaotic battles, so it did not have much impact. However, the Wu'an army turned the situation around because of this, and although the number was smaller than that of the Huns, it also began to slowly gain the upper hand.
At this moment, I saw the gate of the village open, and a group of people rushed out of the village, enough for a thousand people, and killed them in the war group. Although the vast majority of this group of people did not have armor, and nearly half of them did not carry formal weapons, all of them had furniture such as hoes, sickles, iron picks, etc. But this group of people is very brave, they don't want to die at all when they start a battle, in terms of morale and courage alone, they are not inferior to the soldiers of the Wu'an Army, and what is even more surprising is that there are still a considerable number of women among the people, but the courage of this group of women in battle is not below the male children.
Originally, the Hun army had fallen into a disadvantage, and this group of people was naturally not an opponent, so they all turned their horses' heads and turned around and fled. This is also the advantage of the cavalry, and in a short time, all flee from the battlefield.
But the Huns only escaped a few hundred paces away, only to see a group of infantry in front of them, has set up an array, blocked the way of the Hun army, it turned out that it was the plateau led the follow-up 3,000 troops to catch up with the support, seeing that the Hun army had been defeated by Du Yi's army, so he immediately ordered to send 2,000 infantry to line up in front of the formation, intercepting the retreat of the Hun army.
In fact, at this time, there are about 2,500 people in the Hun army, if you rush with all your strength, it is not impossible to rush through the array laid by the Wu'an army, after all, the cavalry still has a considerable advantage over the infantry army, and now the Wu'an army is still under the mandarin duck array, and against the impact of the cavalry, the mandarin duck array is obviously not as effective as the spear array.
It's just that at this time, the Xiongnu army was already defeated, and it didn't have the courage to attack the array of the Wu'an army again, so they turned one after another, some fled to both sides, and some people pulled their horses' heads and ran backwards.
But now there are still 1,000 cavalry troops in the hands of the plateau, which have already been divided into two roads, left and right, and outflanked the two Hun army. And Du Yi also led the cavalry army to kill from the back of the Hun army, but the Hun army was attacked by the enemy at this time, and the left and right were blocked, and there was no way out at all, so they had to be forced to fight again.
But at this time, the mentality and morale of both sides were not on the same stage at all, and the number of Wu'an troops was far above the Hun army, so the whole battle situation was completely one-sided, the Hun army was killed and wounded countless by the Wu'an army, and many soldiers saw that the general trend was gone, so they had to dismount and surrender, and finally only a very small number of cavalry troops fought out of the encirclement and fled to the northwest.