Lying on the stretcher turned out to be Lu Zhi's former general Yu Shi.
This man could withstand Zhang Chong's blows for twenty-one blows before defeating him. He was considered a great general in the world. That's why Zhang Chong had someone take him off the battlefield.
At this moment, all the Taishan generals looked at Yu Shi with curiosity or admiration.
This man won their respect for both his bravery and loyalty, especially if they were put in his shoes and faced with the king alone. They might not even be able to lift a weapon.
It's not that they are not as courageous as Yu Shi, but that they already have deep respect for Zhang Chong.
Zhang Chong walked up to Yu Shi carrying a pot of water and said to him lying on the stretcher:
"It's not like we've ever known each other before. I know people well and know that you are one of the best in the world in terms of loyalty and bravery, and I really like you. If you are willing to follow me and drink from this vat of water, you will be mine."
Some people win people by crying, some people win people by being open-minded, and some people win people by coercion and inducement, but Zhang Chong doesn't win people by either of them, he only wants people who are congenial.
After hearing Zhang Chong's words, Yu Shi's eyes were full of complexity.
Even if he is a friend or an enemy, Yu Shi has to admit that if there is a truly unparalleled hero in this world, it must be this person.
Although Yu Shi had the courage of a lion and a tiger, he was not a barbarian or a common man. Although his family declined, his ancestors were tiger ministers who followed Guangwu, and their knowledge and aspirations were by no means ordinary.
If Zhang Chong was really just a man of Qingtian's bravery, although Yu Shi would be convinced by this man, he would never consider him a hero, let alone an unparalleled hero.
Didn’t you see that Xiang Yu, who had the strength to carry the cauldron, charge the three armies, and forcefully surrender the main force of 300,000 Qin troops in the Battle of Julu, was still ambushed in Gaixia from all sides in the end?
Therefore, bravery is never the only criterion for measuring whether a superior person is a hero.
On the contrary, was Gaozu a hero?
Yu Shihui answered very definitely, yes. Because Gaozu punished the Qin Dynasty and unified the four seas, so that the world would no longer be in the age of great strife in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Therefore, even though Gaozu was a knight-errant who walked horses, fought cocks, and abandoned his wife and children, he was still a hero.
And what about Zhang Chong in front of him?
He simply had the best qualities of both the great ancestor and the overlord. He was benevolent and loved his soldiers, and brave enough to defeat the army. He was also extremely righteous, and his heroic spirit reached the sky on the battlefield.
And the most important point is that although he is lying there, Zhang Chong's arrangements for his lord and young master are upright and kingly.
So in the face of Zhang Chong's almost overbearing question, Yu Shi stood up with all his strength and said respectfully to Zhang Chong:
"I would like to follow King Zhang to put an end to this troubled world."
Zhang Chong laughed loudly, put the water bag on Yu Shi's chest, and then asked people to send him down for treatment.
After that, Yu Shi was sent down.
After he left, Zhang Chong changed a glass of wine and saluted the fifty-three senior military officials present:
"This battle was won by all of us, but don't forget our brothers who died in the battle. They paid their lives for me and you. We can't forget them. Let us raise a toast to them."
The heroes of the three armies, including Yu Jin, Dong Fang, and Yang Mao, held their wine glasses high and shouted:
"Please die in Nanpaoze and drink."
Zhang Chong led his brothers to worship the sky, to offer sacrifices to Tai from afar, to offer sacrifices to Jiuyou below, and finally spread the wine with loess.
In this way, the brothers who died in this battle, including the eight brothers who were wrapped in horse leather and lying in the middle, drank the first cup of wine.
Afterwards, Zhang Chong and his brothers ate some barbecue and left.
He was going to the medical camp to see the injured soldiers. They needed their king to give them the confidence to live.
When Zhang Chong, Cai Que and others had not yet entered the medical camp, they could already smell the strong smell of blood and howls.
And it wasn't until they walked in that they saw that this place was simply a human purgatory.
Here, you can get a glimpse of the reality of war and see how fragile life is.
When Zhang Chong and others arrived, the doctors and craftsmen had been working at high intensity for a long time.
Since the beginning of the war, they have needed to treat the officials who were sent down.
Today's medical camp is no longer simply the first aid methods trained by Zhang Chong. After including some outstanding and famous doctors in this world, the medical camp has formed a treatment system from first aid debridement and bandaging to postoperative recovery and recuperation.
However, battlefield conditions were limited, and doctors and craftsmen could only simply classify these injured officers into minor injuries, serious injuries, and dying ones.
Those with minor injuries will simply be debrided, apply some herbal medicine to stop bleeding, drink some willow bark water, and then be sent to the wounded barracks to rest. These tasks can be done by some medical apprentices.
The seriously injured people have broken limbs. For those who will die without treatment, formal doctors will take over and start amputation operations.
This kind of scene is horrific. Even the cruelest slaughterhouse cannot compare to the operating room here. Those severed limbs are placed on the ground. Anyone who sees it will never forget this horror for the rest of their lives.
This is where Zhang Chong first visited.
In a large sealed tent, every time an official was amputated, the next one would be arranged. Like pigs on an assembly line, they were sent into the dark tent to be slaughtered.
This is the truest thought in the hearts of the wounded soldiers waiting outside.
They were outside, listening to the screams inside, and their entire spirits were on the verge of collapse. There were even one or two tough guys inside who were trying not to make a sound even if their limbs were amputated.
But little did they know that this silence made the wounded soldiers outside even more frightened.
Until then, they saw the king coming.
The king was wearing a khaki military uniform and had no ceremonial guard. He just stood on the side of the team and looked at them.
These wounded soldiers were slashed with knives and axes, and either their legs or feet were chopped off. And often the incisions of these wounds were not neat. If they were not completely cut off, they would not be bandaged at all, and they would bleed to death.
So even if they saw the King coming, they could only lie on the stretcher and look at the King helplessly.
Zhang Chong looked at everyone silently, feeling that any language here was so pale and hypocritical.
But as a leader, Zhang Chong cannot really say nothing.
Therefore, Zhang Chong had no choice but to preach:
"Brothers, you don't have to be afraid. Our doctors have been blessed by Huang Tian. You have to believe that they can completely save your lives."
Zhang Chong rarely talks about superstition or Huang Tian, but for today's officials whose will to survive is about to collapse, maybe there is Huang Tian in their hearts who can help them.
Zhang Chong's words really comforted many officials present. They prayed, praying that Huang Tian would give them the courage to accept all this calmly.
Just like this, Zhang Chong looked at the officials being sent into the big tent like flowing water, listened to the painful wails inside, and thought about their pain, his heart ached.
But Zhang Chong had no choice. Without sufficient instruments, no matter how good the surgeon was, he would be at a loss.
Not to mention, they lack anesthesia.
Thinking of this, Zhang Chong took out a small note from his arms and wrote down the word anesthesia on it.
"I still need anesthesia."
Zhang Chong also had another task during this trip, which was to check the number of casualties and casualty ratio in this battle.
Generally speaking, Zhang Chong should wait for each battalion to report the casualty data of each battalion, and then summarize it. But now many battalions are still scattered on the battlefield, and each battalion still cannot submit complete figures.
So Zhang Chong prepared to get the news from the medical camp.
It was also around this time that the general of the medical battalion was Lao Suntou, an old man who had followed Mr. Zhang since his days in the Taishan Army.
He took a young military officer with him and quickly ran to Zhang Chong to explain.
Zhang Chong shook his head and asked directly:
"Now calculate how many casualties there are."
Old Suntou smiled apologetically, and then asked his nephew behind him to answer. His nephew studied at a military academy for five years and was a wise man.
The military officer first glanced at Zhang Chong excitedly, and then gave the figures very professionally:
"There were 1,700 corpses of our troops sent down from the front line, 1,536 seriously injured, and 3,000 475 slightly injured."
Seeing that Zhang Chong was still listening, the soldier said again:
"Based on past experience, 80% of those who are seriously injured can return to the team, the remaining 10% have to transfer to other places, and the other 10% do not survive. And only 20% of those who are seriously injured can survive."
Zhang Chong looked up at the soldier in surprise and asked:
"Did you get this experience?"
The military officer looked nervous and hurriedly explained:
"I often find that the occurrence of certain things always follows a certain pattern. As long as the number of times is enough, the closer it will be to this pattern. Although the experience I just mentioned is from the past, it can still be used to predict the future of this war.
There is a general range for the number of casualties to be recovered."
Zhang Chong nodded. Although he did not ask the person's name, he remembered him in his heart.
Zhang Chong was still very uncomfortable with this number.
Although it is now clear that the number of dead is 1,700, if the serious injuries and some uncounted people counted as missing are included, the real death toll is at least 3,000.
The number of people participating in the Taishan Army this time was probably more than 40,000. In other words, there were 10% casualties. Generally speaking, the estimated total casualties in a battle may be only 10%, and now
This human pavilion accounted for one-tenth of the number of deaths.
This shows how intense the war in Zhongrenting was this time.
However, as the victorious side, the Taishan Army had such casualty figures, the loss figures of the Han Army on the opposite side can be imagined.
Although Zhang Chong did not have time to count the corpses of the Han soldiers who were still abandoned on the battlefield, he judged that the Han army's battle losses should be three times his own.
Before the war, the number of Han soldiers participating in the war was more than 50,000, close to the level of 60,000. Now the number of surrenders is probably more than 20,000, more than 10,000 were killed, and more than 20,000 were injured. This number is roughly in line with the intensity of this battle.
Alas, three thousand of his disciples died in this battle, and Zhang Chong and the Taishan Army captured the Northland for him.
You, Zhang Chong, really have to deal with these brothers who died.
…
No matter how gorgeous the bonfire is, it will fall into ashes, and no matter how noisy the banquet is, it will all come to an end.
The night was getting dark, but no one could sleep.
The auxiliary soldiers in the army had no sleep because they had to work with the strong men of the army in the baggage camp to carry the corpses of the Han soldiers on the battlefield and carry away the wounded.
Although they did not suffer any casualties in this battle, it was still hard work. During the celebration banquet, they ate a fist-sized piece of meat, drank a bamboo tube of wine, and added a lot of corn. After finishing the meal
After dinner, they continued to the front line to carry the wounded.
During the day, they had already transported almost all of their own people down for rescue. This time they went up to treat the injured Han soldiers who were abandoned on the battlefield.
This is a fairly abundant human resource, and the Taishan Army needs them very much. In the future, these local officials will be needed for in-depth governance in the North.
Originally, both sides were their own masters. If you were injured and lying there, you would be dead. But now that the Taishan Army has brought them down from the battlefield and saved their lives, it is a great kindness to them.
Along the way, the Taishan Army would rescue wounded enemy soldiers in every battle, and these wounded soldiers would choose to join the Taishan Army after they recovered. It is in this way that the Taishan Army has grown to its current level.
However, we cannot overestimate the moral level of these strong men who follow the army.
There are some reasons why they are strong men and not Taishan soldiers.
On this battlefield, although they did not dare to touch the relics of their own people, they showed no mercy to those on the corpses of Han soldiers.
Although the military regulations for these people were that everything captured should be returned to the public, they could always find some way, either secretly burying their property in the ground and leaving it behind to dig up later, or using the corpses of Han soldiers to carry it away.
In short, these people do not have the honor of Taishan soldiers, they are only interested in profit.
Under the bonfire and the moonlight, they searched for everything on the corpses of the Han soldiers. But they also honestly followed the tasks assigned by them. After all, everything in their family depended on the Taishan Army.
They support the Taishan Army and are willing to obey orders.
But this does not prevent them from making a little fortune in the process.
While the strong men were like hard-working bees, going back and forth between the battlefields, the regular soldiers in the camp were also digesting their sorrow.
This is how grief often begins.
When the brothers in a tent began to brag about their military exploits during the day, and some people didn't believe it, that person said, if you don't believe it, just ask so-and-so.
And until everyone started shouting so-and-so's name, there was no response in the darkness. At this time, the brothers in the tent realized that he had died in the battle.
These are still some battalion heads with relatively light casualties. Maybe one or two in each tent were killed or injured.
But for some battalions who were at the head of the right wing and center where the fighting was fiercest during the day, this sadness has reached the point of heartbreak.
They often go out in groups of ten, and when they finally come back to sleep, they are alone in the tent.
Even if a unit was trapped in a camp, five hundred soldiers were ordered to go out to fight, but only sixty-seven returned to the camp in the end. One can imagine how many tents were empty that night.
In fact, think about it, how terrible this war is happening here.
Nearly 100,000 people fought on a battlefield of less than 10,000 acres like Zhongrenting. The bodies of as many as 10,000 of them were left on the battlefield. Corpses and blood were everywhere they stepped.
The rich blood made the beasts in the nearby mountains and forests unable to hold back. If it weren't for the rows of torches on the outside of the battlefield, they would have rushed in long ago.
In short, this night, the sounds of wild beasts, moans, and cries constitute the most realistic battlefield here.
But fortunately, this night has to end.
Until tomorrow, this Northland.
The old king is dead and a new king should be established.