Chapter 263: Defeating Cavalry with Foot
Because of the moon formation formed by the Han army, the galloping Wei army's cavalry could only surround it from three sides.
Fu Wei, who was at the front of Queyue Formation, looked at the Wei army's cavalry who had already entered within a hundred steps. From this distance, Fu Wei could even see the joyful look on the Wei army's cavalry's face.
They were delighted that the Han army had once again made a fool of themselves.
But before the thousands of Wei army's cavalry could be happy for a long time, Fu Shu calmly raised the command flag in his hand, and then waved it fiercely towards the thousands of Wei army's cavalry that were surrounding him.
When the flag in Fu Xu's hand fell, the Han troops on the chariot, inspired by the majestic drums, took out the big yellow crossbows they carried.
Different from the chariots in the Spring and Autumn Period that only carried soldiers, the chariots currently used by the Han army are larger in size and can not only carry more than 20 soldiers, but also lay down a weapon to kill the enemy.
That is the big yellow crossbow.
Crossbows are the most commonly used long-range weapons in ancient military affairs, and there are big differences between the two.
Compared to bows, crossbows have greater lethality.
Even at a long distance, the lethality of the crossbow arrows fired by the large crossbow is still terrifying.
Crossbows have been widely used as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in China. At that time, there were mainly four types of crossbows, namely: clip crossbow, thin crossbow, Tang crossbow and large crossbow.
By the Western Han Dynasty, whenever the infantry resisted the Xiongnu cavalry, the Han infantry defending the city and fighting in the field often used crossbows to kill and injure the Xiongnu cavalry.
For example, when Li Ling led 5,000 infantry troops and encountered tens of thousands of Xiongnu cavalry at Junji Mountain, he relied on the power of crossbows to inflict great damage on the Xiongnu cavalry.
Among those who are good at crossbows in the world, and the most powerful crossbow machine, Jingchu is the best!
At that time, most of the 5,000 infantry troops led by Li Ling were Jingchu people.
Now, after hundreds of years of development, in the land of Jingchu, which was already good at crossbows, an extremely lethal large yellow crossbow has appeared.
The Dahuang Crossbow is also called the Yellow Shoulder Crossbow. The strength of the crossbow in the Han Dynasty was calculated by stones, ranging from one stone to ten stones. The strongest ten-stone crossbow was called the Dahuang Crossbow.
Soldiers who use the big yellow crossbow must be very strong. Only such people can use the big yellow crossbow, and such people are currently gathered on these hundreds of chariots.
Under the command of Fu Xu's flag, hundreds of Han troops raised the large yellow crossbows they carried.
The Jingchu warriors who were good at using bows and crossbows stood on the chariot, almost as tall as the Wei cavalry riding on their tall horses.
This allowed them to easily target the Wei army's cavalry rushing forward.
Even because of the three-way encirclement of thousands of Wei cavalry, the Han troops on the chariot did not need to take precise aim at all.
A moment later, under Fu Xu's command, hundreds of crossbow arrows flew out rapidly, carrying cold murderous intent and shot towards the Wei cavalry in front.
Most of the Wei cavalry currently present are armored cavalry, and the combat methods of armored cavalry are different from light cavalry.
The light cavalry troops may be deliberately scattered around, mainly harassing and killing with bows and arrows.
However, since the day the cavalry army was formed, it has given up a certain degree of mobility in exchange for unparalleled impact.
For example, Cao Cao used 5,000 cavalry to break through Liu Bei's infantry formation in Dangyang. For example, Cao Cao used 5,000 cavalry to resist Ma Chao's Xiliang cavalry in Liangzhou.
Therefore, the formation of thousands of Wei cavalry was very dense, which greatly enhanced the lethality of hundreds of crossbow arrows fired by the Han army from an objective condition.
The Wei army's cavalry were well-dressed in armor, but after hundreds of years of development in the Han Dynasty, crossbow arrows had already become a weapon for the infantry to specifically restrain the cavalry.
In Chinese history, the arrows of the Dahuang Crossbow even had records of directly killing enemy generals from a long distance, not to mention the iron cavalry of the Wei army who were less than dozens of steps away now?
So when hundreds of powerful crossbow arrows braved the cold air and shot into the formation of thousands of Wei cavalry, many of the Wei cavalry at the forefront were hit by arrows and fell to the ground.
When the war horses charge at high speed, even if the cavalry on the horses are not shot to death by crossbow arrows, once they fall to the ground after being hit by arrows, the end may be even worse.
When many Wei cavalry troops landed, screams kept ringing in Xiahou Ba's ears.
Some of those screams were the screams of pain when the cavalry was hit by arrows, but more often they were the screams of pain caused by the strong pain caused by the cavalry's body hitting the ground after landing.
What's more, after landing on the ground, many Wei cavalry were trampled by friendly horses rushing from behind because they were unable to dodge.
The powerful impact instantly caused the Wei cavalrymen who landed on the ground to spurt blood from their mouths and noses, and died on the spot.
Xiahou Ba relied on his strong posture to barely escape the first round of crossbow attacks by the Han army.
Xiahou Ba saw that the Han army had lost a lot of people in just one crossbow attack, and his contempt for the Han army instantly turned into anger.
Xiahou Ba looked at the Han soldiers in front of him who were continuing to draw their bows with eyes boiling with angry flames. He had no intention of shrinking back.
It is well known throughout the world that Jingzhou is good at bows and crossbows.
When the Wei army's cavalry attacked the Han army's grain transport team before, they were also attacked by many arrows.
It is true that those arrow attacks did not cause as much damage as the thousands of Han troops in front of us today, but this was still an expected damage.
At this time, tens of thousands of Wei cavalry troops gathered quickly from a short distance away and appeared on the river bank.
Seeing the shouts and shouts ringing out from all around, Xiahou Ba felt great peace in his heart knowing that most of his troops had arrived.
Even though he had lost many men just now, the thousands of Wei cavalry he led were already less than a hundred steps away from the Han army's formation.
At this distance, relying on the high maneuverability of the war horse at the hip, it can be reached in almost a gritty time.
And as long as these thousands of cavalry troops rush to the front of the Han army's formation, the impact brought by their own speed is enough to tear the thousands of Han troops in front of them into pieces.
With this idea in mind, Xiahou Ba did not hesitate at all. He continued to lead the thousands of Wei army cavalry behind him to rush forward.
At this moment, Fu Xu in Queyue Formation issued a new order.
The Rhubarb Crossbow is very powerful, but it also consumes a lot of physical strength of the soldiers.
So when the Han army finished firing a round of crossbow arrows, the hundreds of strong men stepped back from their chariots to rest.
Then thousands of archers who were originally standing behind hundreds of crossbowmen began to stand in front of the two armies.
After thousands of archers came forward, they all raised their long bows and aimed at the thousands of Wei army cavalry ahead.
What was different from usual was that the thousands of archers held bundles of arrows in their hands.
After the arrows in each Han army archer's hand were gathered together, they had at least several arrows.
Xiahou Ba may have thought that the Han army in front of him was less than 3,000 men, but what he didn't know was that all the Han troops of less than 3,000 men were veterans who had followed Guan Yu when he conquered the North Road.
In terms of physical strength, experience, and level of training, these two thousand seven hundred Han troops are the best among the best.
Only such elites can have the ability and confidence to kill the enemy by clustering arrows at a certain point in time.
When these thousands of archers, who can be regarded as elites among the Jingchu warriors, pointed the cluster arrows in their hands at the Wei army's cavalry that was galloping forward.
After they pulled the long bow in their hands into the shape of a full moon, they shot the cluster arrows in their hands without thinking.
With the number of rapid-fire arrows, this round of cluster arrow shooting caused great damage to the thousands of Wei army cavalry in front of them.
Thousands of Han archers fired at least thousands of arrows in this round of archery.
Moreover, due to the distance, these thousands of arrows were all most powerful when they were shot into the dense array of Wei cavalry.
Coupled with the special structure of Queyue Formation, these thousands of arrows almost covered the charging Wei cavalry.
When thousands of arrows were fired in this round, the Wei cavalry who were less than a few dozen steps away from Queyue Formation almost fell down in large pieces.
Waves of louder screams began to appear in front of the formations of the two armies. These miserable screams almost covered up the rumble of the Wei army's cavalry on the ground.
The two rounds of crossbows killed at least a thousand Wei cavalrymen.
After all, Cao Wei's current cavalry army has not yet reached the terrifying level of defense in the form of iron pagodas in the later Southern and Northern Dynasties.
When thousands of Wei cavalry fell off their horses, this scene caused quite a commotion in the formation of the remaining thousands of Wei cavalry.
But before the commotion could spread, the tens of thousands of Wei cavalry who had already rushed behind the friendly forces began to push the front troops toward Queyue Formation.
The cavalry generals of Cao and Wei who arrived with the troops, such as Cao Tai, Sima Yi, Jiang Ji, Wen Qin, etc., all saw that the cavalry at the front had already arrived in front of the Han army's formation.
Under this situation, the Han army's crossbows had lost their effectiveness.
And anyone can see that the Han army that can use cluster archery is definitely an elite force.
The status of a general who can command such an elite Han army will certainly not be low.
Since the Battle of Xiangfan, the whole Wei army has been in desperate need of a victory over the Han army.
Although I don't know who the Han general protected by the Han army's formation is, based on basic judgment, if he can be captured, it will be a great achievement.
No general can resist the temptation of having all the armies defeated but his own army winning the first victory.
What's more, they still have nearly 20,000 cavalry!
The heavy losses just now were due to the Han army adopting some special techniques. If they had fought head-on, they would have definitely been the victor in the end.
As all the cavalry generals had the same mentality, more and more Wei cavalry began to gather towards this place.
But at this moment, the Han army on the chariot, under the command of two powerful generals Fu Wei and Liao Hua, began to take out a special weapon with a weird shape.
This weapon is somewhat like a spear or spear, but is longer.
This is a special kind of weapon.
There are different opinions on the origin of 槊, some are from the pre-Qin period and some are from the Han Dynasty, but no matter which view they are, they all believe that the period when 槊 really rose was after the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
At present, the weapon is not a mainstream standard weapon in the military.
Many soldiers in the world did not recognize this uniquely shaped weapon.
The spears in the hands of thousands of Han soldiers were made of hardwood and were divided into two parts: the handle and the head.
The handle is generally six feet long, the head is in the shape of a round hammer, and the head is filled with iron nails.
So when the Han army took out their weapons, the Wei cavalry who were about to arrive in front of the Queyue formation were a little strange.
The strange-looking weapons in the enemy's hands were actually longer than the spears in their hands.
But before the Wei cavalry could be surprised, under the command of Fu Wei and Liao Hua, the Han troops on the east and west sides raised their spears and stabbed at the Wei cavalry in front.
Because the Wei army's cavalry rushed to Queyue Formation with huge impact, the Han army did not need to expend much effort to stab them, they just rushed straight towards the tip of the mountain with a roar.
How powerful the impact of the Wei army's cavalry was, the deeper the damage they received would be.
Many Wei cavalrymen were caught off guard and were stabbed off their horses by the spears in the hands of the Han army.
When the Wei cavalry wanted to fight back with their spears, they sadly discovered that the length of the spear was longer than the spear.
Therefore, when they wanted to fight back with their spears, they would often be knocked off their horses by the spears in the hands of the Han army.
What's even more amazing is that before a large number of Wei cavalry arrived, Fu Wei asked hundreds of soldiers to drive Chang Li on the railing of the chariot.
The extremely sharp tip of the spear pointed directly at the fast charging Wei cavalry. When the tip of the spear was about to contact the enemy, Fu Wei immediately ordered the Han army to hammer the end of the spear with a sledgehammer to increase the impact.
In this case, a spear can easily penetrate at least four or five Wei cavalry, just like the "mutton skewers" of later generations.
And when hundreds of branches once again harvested the lives of thousands of Wei army cavalry, the morale of the Wei army suffered a huge blow.
In the eyes of the Wei cavalry at the front, their comrades were strung together on a "spear". Such a frightening scene made many Wei cavalry shudder.
However, because of the large number of Wei cavalry, many Wei cavalry crossed the distance and came to the Han army after suffering many casualties.
For the Wei cavalry who rushed forward, Fu Wei immediately ordered the Han soldiers to draw their long swords and fight in close combat.
When the Wei army and the Han army were in close combat, a burst of extremely violent shouts of killing began to sound on the river bank.
This violent cry of killing came from the mouths of more than two thousand Han soldiers.
As the fierce shouts of killing rang out, the sound of war drums behind thousands of Han troops became more and more intense.
The intensive sound of war drums was continuously boosting the morale of the Han army.
During the handover, although the Wei cavalry relied on their numerical advantage to continuously surround him.
However, because the Queyue Formation is an arc-shaped attack surface with a small area, the number of Wei troops facing the Han army in the Queyue Formation will not be too large.
As for the Wei army, the more they continue to attack the arc-shaped Queyue Formation, the more lethal they will be.
Coupled with the presence and protection of chariots, the Wei army's cavalry had no advantage of being at a high position.
Now if we ignore the land at the feet of the two armies, the current situation on the battlefield is not that the cavalry is hitting the infantry square formation, but that the two infantry armies are forming a formation to charge.
Among the two infantry armies, the Han army's Queyue Formation was undoubtedly more lethal.
Under this situation, Wei troops were constantly shot down by the Han troops with long swords and swords.
Compared to the Han army, which was protected by shields, the Wei army did not cause much damage to them.
As time went by, more and more Wei troops fell off their horses screaming.
At this point in the war, the morale of the Wei cavalry at the forefront had long since disappeared.
The cavalry of the Wei army attacking at the front were none other than the thousands of cavalry led by Xiahou Ba.
Under the repeated attacks by the Han army, the thousands of Wei cavalry he led had suffered many casualties, and how long had it been since the two armies fought?
Xiahou Ba, who was at the forefront just now, is undoubtedly the one among the tens of thousands of Wei cavalry who best understands the horror of the strange formation in front of him.
Now Xiahou Ba no longer has anger and contempt in his heart. With his son and son constantly dying, he has already begun to think about quitting.
However, the large number of Wei cavalry in the rear were not very clear about the situation in front, and they kept rushing forward.
So Xiahou Ba couldn't make up his mind for the moment.
But at this moment, a large number of Han warships suddenly appeared on the Han River. Each Han warship had flags planted all over it, as if it was full of Han troops.
After seeing this scene, Xiahou Ba could no longer remain calm!
Only now did Xiahou Ba understand that the Han army had set up this strange Queyue formation on the shore today in order to lure him into fighting with them.
Then they used this formation to take the opportunity to make the cavalry lose their mobility, and then mobilized a large number of Han infantry to surround and annihilate them.
Once the Wei cavalry is confined together and loses mobility, then the Wei cavalry on tall battle horses will undoubtedly be a living target.
Xiahou Ba, who thought he had seen through Guan Yu's plan, immediately made the most common move at the moment - retreat.
Xiahou Ba had a rough temper and did what he said. He began to retreat towards the rear.
As the commander of thousands of Wei cavalry, Xiahou Ba's actions were watched by many people.
When he began to retreat, many of the Wei cavalry around him who had long lost their will to fight also began to retreat crazily.
Xiahou Ba, who lacked leadership experience, overlooked one point.
That is, when tens of thousands of Wei cavalry are gathered together, as a former soldier, he suddenly retreats, which will lead to terrible consequences.
When Xiahou Ba's front army began to turn their horses and retreat towards the rear, the tens of thousands of Wei cavalry in the rear were still charging forward.
In this way, under the collision between the two, the already dense formation of tens of thousands of Wei cavalry instantly became extremely chaotic.
The cavalry is different from the infantry. Sometimes the chaos of the cavalry formation can lead to more serious consequences.
As the front army and the rear army collided with each other, many Wei army cavalry were knocked off their horses by their comrades, and then trampled to death by tall horses.
The tragic cries of those cavalrymen before they died further triggered a commotion among a large number of Wei cavalrymen.
In this case, a large-scale flight of Wei cavalry occurred a moment later.
At this time, Cao Tai and others in the rear looked at the Wei cavalry that was constantly retreating. They could not stop this phenomenon, and they could only lead the Wei cavalry they belonged to and fled in the distance.
Because at this time they had also seen a large number of Han warships appearing on the Han River.
Xiahou Ba understands the truth, and they naturally understand it too.
It's important to escape first.
When tens of thousands of Wei cavalry began to retreat on a large scale, because there was no unified command, a large-scale cavalry stampede was spreading to the entire army at an extremely fast speed.
(End of chapter)
This chapter has been completed!