After everyone retreated to the woods, Xu Xin'an took Niu Er, who was not good at riding, and the two of them rushed back to the creek to meet Yin Peng and others to prepare an ambush.
Xu Huai, Wang Ju, Wang Xian, Yan Xiaoyi, Yuan Lei and others had previously ambushed the soldiers. In addition to using white cloaks to cover their bodies, their clothes and armor were all pretending to be in retreat. Even if a few soldiers escaped, it would not cause any trouble.
How much attention.
After the previous fight, Xu Huai and his team's clothes were stained with blood, making them even more miserable. However, several war horses had been tied with bits and tied deep in the forest. At this time, Xu Huai and his team additionally tied the horses' backs and flanks with bits.
Smeared with blood, it looked like he was in a state of embarrassment and running for his life.
Xu Huai and the others even painted their faces black - but they were not afraid that the Red Husbands would recognize them. However, if someone among the defeated troops recognized them and were caught by the Red Husbands, they might be exposed in advance.
With everything ready, they circled out from the east side of the woods, pretending to be a broken cavalry fleeing hastily to the west, and soon caught up with the remnants of Liu Yan, Chen Yuan and the enemy cavalry who were chasing after them.
Liu Yan and Chen Yuan were chased by several groups of enemy cavalry and were unable to walk three or four miles in the snow for an hour.
Xu Huai and the others went around to the southeast of Liu Yan and Chen Yuan's remaining troops and found a higher slope to rein in their horses. At this time, they could see the situation on the left and right more clearly.
Liu Yan was not the only one nearby, the remnants of Chen Yuan's troops slowly retreated westward.
In addition to scattered broken troops, there are also several remnant troops ranging from thirty to fifty to six or seven men, located on the south side or behind the remnants of Liu Yan and Chen Yuan.
Obviously Liu Yan and Chen Yuan led the remaining troops to flee westward, encountering many defeated troops along the way.
These broken troops were blocked by the enemy's cavalry and could not join up with Liu Yan and Chen Yuan. However, not all of them fled for their lives. There were still a few remnant troops following the westward movement in the outer periphery, looking for opportunities to fight with them.
Liu Yan, Chen Yuan and others met.
It can be seen that since the Western Army cannot truly rise to the rank of a powerful army and its military discipline is lax, but it has been fighting against the Party members for many years, the combat quality of its generals is still much better than that of the Tianxiong Army.
However, this situation also attracted the attention of the Chihu people.
At this time, in addition to the two hundred-man cavalry troops closely watching Liu Yan and the remnant troops led by Chen Yuan, there was also a red cavalry group of two to three hundred people gathered together and marched slowly ten miles away to the south.
This cavalry team was not in a hurry to join them. It must have just gone through a period of pursuit and was slowing down to rest. However, if there was any movement here, more than two hundred captives would come galloping over on horseback.
It's just a cup of tea.
On the battlefield on the west wing, there were very few defeated soldiers on horseback. Xu Huai and his eight men came on horseback. They were equipped with armor, swords and bows. There were also spare spears, foot bows, foot shields and many bundles of arrows hung beside the saddle.
They had to contend with enemy cavalry that was dozens of times their own for as long as possible. Xu Huai and the others had no choice but to bring enough spare weapons and arrows - they looked like high-end combat power, and it was hard not to attract the attention of the captive soldiers.
Disaster.
Liu Yan and Chen Yuan were thousands of steps apart. They couldn't see clearly the faces of Xu Huai and others, but they thought that a senior general from the Xiao Sheng Army or the Xuan Wu Army was attacking from east to west in the encirclement, so they retreated here.
Liu Yan and Chen Yuan immediately ordered the remnant troops to stop, and the armored soldiers formed a formation with shields and spears. A few dozen people also gathered together, hoping to see if there was any chance of joining their colleagues in the inner siege to join them.
The pursuers surrounded Liu Yan, and the remnants of the army led by Chen Yuan had been waiting for almost two hours. They just caught a few soldiers of the Xiaosheng Army and recognized the identities of Liu Yan and Chen Yuan.
As the son of Liu Shizhong, Liu Yan had a higher status in the Western Army than the other commanders of the capital and the Marquis of Du Yu. Of course, the pursuers had to ensure that these two big fish were caught first.
When they defeated the seven or eight cavalry who had just entered the field of vision, they mainly drove them away. They only divided more than thirty cavalry units from two teams to advance up the slope.
Xu Huai saw more than 30 enemy cavalry approaching with bows in hand, and his intention was obvious. He immediately retreated a little with Wang Ju and asked Wang Xian, Yan Xiaoyi, Yuan Lei and others to block the enemy cavalry's view in front.
, they quickly took off the tuomu step bow next to the saddle and replaced it in their hands.
A good sword is easy to find in the army, but a good bow is hard to find.
After using the Penetrating Moon Bow, Xu Huai had yet to find a super powerful bow that could penetrate leather armor at a distance of two hundred steps.
However, the two Tuomu step bows in his and Wang Ju's hands are also rare hard bows in the army. Their string strength is as strong as a stone or six buckets. It is difficult for ordinary healthy soldiers to draw the strings standing on the ground.
On the horseback, there is no strong support for the waist and legs, and the bow string is fully drawn only by the strength of the two arms. Sufficient stability must be ensured in order to shoot the arrow accurately.
Among the Red Husbands, who are almost all good at riding and shooting, they are all very rare archery masters who can accurately shoot enemies with strong bows on horseback.
Xu Huai was actually afraid that he would encounter such an archery master when attacking from the flank.
The opponent does not need to directly shoot their men, they only need to quickly draw the string and shoot the horses under them. Xu Huai and the others can only take advantage of the injured horses and the last remaining energy to be squeezed, and rush towards the mountains or dense forests.
Escape.
The thirty or so cavalry approaching were all armed with cavalry bows with an effective range of fifty or sixty steps. They did not carry any additional step bows with longer bow tips. There should be no archery masters to fear them, which is reassuring.
Quite a few.
When they approached about 200 paces, Xu Huai and the others drove their horses down the slope and galloped towards the woods to the north.
The enemy cavalry mainly drove them away, but obviously they were not willing to let Xu Huai and the others escape so easily.
The dozen or so enemy cavalry on the left front also quickly adjusted their direction, increased their speed, turned and galloped, and continued to close the distance with Xu Huai and the others.
When the red cavalry gallops, they will lean forward as low as possible, hold the reins and bow at the same time with their left hand, press it on the junction of the horse's shoulder and neck, hold the arrow with their right hand, and wait until both parties are within shooting range.
When the time is right, they will step on the stirrups, stand up quickly, nock the arrow and take aim, completing the shot almost instantly.
Xu Huai and the others wanted to spend as much time as possible with the enemy cavalry, and could not tolerate their horses being injured by arrows. They turned around and saw a dozen enemy cavalry chasing them from behind, about 120 steps away, and did not think about waiting for the distance to be closer.
He was able to shoot two or three more people recently, so he shouted to Wang Ju: "Uncle Qi, shoot the black-helmeted leader on the left front. You shoot him on the left cheek first!"
"You have enough confidence in me!" Wang Ju shouted.
If you can hit the opponent's torso with an armored rifle shot at this distance, you are considered a good archer.
Now they were on galloping horses, at such a long distance, and they had to seize the fleeting opportunity and aim at the opponent's left cheek, which was definitely a master shot.
"Do it!" Although Wang Ju said this, when he saw the opportunity to take action, he did not hesitate to take aim and shoot at the black-helmeted soldier's eyes. Xu Huai staggered for a moment and fired two arrows in succession.
The leader of the black-helmeted cavalry saw Wang Ju raising his bow to shoot at him. With the bow in his hand, he directly blocked the arrow shot from the left cheek of the front door, and then turned sideways to miss the first arrow shot by Xu Huai in the lightning flash.
Unexpectedly, Xu Huai's second arrow missed by a few inches and hit his neck just right.
The black-helmeted soldier did not die immediately, but subconsciously covered the wound of the arrow, and blood gushes out. It is unbelievable that among these seven defeated soldiers, there are two masters with such superb archery skills, and they are so cunning: they were careless.
Although the other captives were frightened, they were not black-helmeted soldiers and could not feel the three arrows shot by Xu Huai and Wang Ju. At the same time, they themselves were extremely brave. They pulled the reins instantly to adjust the direction and pulled with Xu Huai and the others.
They opened some distance, but did not give up chasing Xu Huai and the others. The next step was to spread out the formation, hoping to use their numerical advantage to suppress Xu Huai and the others when they further closed the distance.
Xu Huai and others did not dare to be greedy for credit. They galloped towards the northwest side of a group of more than 40 remaining soldiers of the Western Army and joined them, so that the enemy soldiers did not dare to approach any more. They then stopped and asked them to dismount their horses.
Take a breather.
"May I ask the general's name? You all rode on good horses, how did you escape here?"
A general who looked like a general raised his hands towards Xu Huai and the others and asked doubtfully.
"We are the generals of Shuozhou, and we have been ordered to come to rescue you. However, there is a large group of cavalry intercepting you in front. You need to go to Jingong Mountain for temporary refuge. Then you may use the hills and valleys at the southern foot of Jingong Mountain to avoid the enemy cavalry.
It is better to pursue them, or to break out at night!" Xu Huai saw that the remnant soldiers were carrying more than a dozen bows, but their quivers were empty. They had run out of arrows on the way to escape, so he immediately asked Wang Xian and others to untie a few bows from the saddle.
He bundled feather arrows to them and said, "We are behind the woods to the north, and there are still some troops. You will meet up with Liu Yan and General Chen Yuan later, and tell them to go north through the woods. Our troops will be in the woods."
I’ll meet you later!”
"Do you have anything to eat?" The general asked, "Last night we were suddenly ordered to break out of the siege south. None of the brothers were prepared to eat. They ate some raw wheat to fill the cakes along the way. They could hardly walk!"
After coming out of Shuozhou, even if they were moving with a large army, everyone would carry water, dried meat, and wheat cakes with them. Xu Huai, Wang Ju and others immediately handed over the dry food and kettles they carried.
Seeing that there was water and arrows here to replenish, a group of remaining soldiers soon came to join them.
The two groups of remnant soldiers rested for a while. There were more than seventy people in total, holding shields, swords and spears in their hands, and went to meet Liu Yan and Chen Yuan. Xu Huai, Wang Ju and other seven people were wandering around the outside.
The mobility of armored infantry is much worse than that of cavalry, but the generals are tenacious and brave enough to fight, and they use shields, swords and spears to form a tight formation. The light cavalry must pay a considerable price to defeat them.
The pursuing enemy cavalry obviously didn't want to pay a high price at this time. They couldn't stop them by driving them with bows and crossbows, and they could only watch the two teams of remnant soldiers reunite with the remnants of Liu Yan and Chen Yuan.
After confirming that Liu Yan and Chen Yuan received the message, they began to lead their troops to move slowly north, while Xu Huai and his men retreated first...