A few days later, the decisive battle finally came.
It is the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, and the weather in the north is still hot. It seems that in the Little Ice Age, there are no autumn and spring, only winter and summer.
The moon is very full these days, and Yan Liang practices martial arts from morning until dusk every day. No one knows what he is thinking.
The Jizhou soldiers only knew that there seemed to be a terrifying power in his body.
It's a feeling.
When a person only concentrates on doing one thing, people will always feel that he is working hard for this thing.
Although no one knows whether he will succeed or not.
But it is this fighting attitude that inspires every Jizhou soldier.
Since Yan Liang's last depression, Yan Liang, whom the Jizhou Army regarded as the god of war, seemed to have been knocked off the altar overnight.
He is no longer a legend, and he no longer represents the Jizhou Army.
Facing Guan Yu.
It seems that he can no longer display his former bravery.
But to this day, at least until now, what they see is the kind of spirit that regards death as a return.
Even if it means death, we must fight to the death!
Throughout the army, rumors are spreading that General Yan Liang will fight Guan Yu to the death. If he wins, the Jizhou army will be victorious. If he loses, he is also covering the retreat of the army.
For a time, inspired by this news, the morale of all the soldiers in Jizhou began to continuously improve, and they actually felt that the soldiers would win.
In fact, this was a message that four captains were ordered to spread among the army in order to let the soldiers know that Yan Liang was fighting for them, so that the Jizhou army could always maintain a certain morale.
The armies of both sides have been busy since morning, and both sides have a tacit understanding to draw water from the Huan River to make rice.
Huanshui is only a medium-sized river. The widest part of the river is only 70 to 80 feet, and the narrowest point is only 20 to 30 feet. It is not far away, and as it gradually enters the dry season, the water flow is very shallow. In some places, you can even walk across the river.
A few days ago, when the two sides were fetching water from each other to make food by the river, they would ridicule and curse each other when they were far away, and shoot arrows at each other when they were close.
But today, the soldiers look at each other across the river, and they are not as tense as they were a few days ago. They are just doing their own thing silently.
Everyone knows that the war is coming, and it has reached the edge of life and death.
Smoke curled up from the camps on both sides. After lunch, at around 9 o'clock in the morning, the camps on both sides slowly opened and became densely packed. Countless soldiers came out of the camps and began to assemble for battle.
Guan Yu and Chen Mu mounted their war horses and looked far away on the hillside by the river. A steady stream of soldiers were coming out of the camp opposite. The officers from top to bottom kept urging the soldiers to line up and come according to different arrangements.
Form several orderly square arrays.
The formation lasted from the end of the meal to the end of the corner, almost an hour. If it was a group of tourists, it would be understandable, but if it was a well-trained army that took so long to form the formation, it would be
Obviously a big problem.
Because the formation itself is a regular training item in the army, including the ten major formations in "Sun Tzu's Art of War", Cao Ren's Eight-door Golden Lock Formation, and Zhuge Liang's Bagua Formation, all of which bring the art of formation to a very high level.
.
Although Yan Liang's leadership level is not necessarily very high, formation is the foundation of the basics. No matter how low his leadership level is, he will not have an army of 40,000. It will take that long to form the team.
If this situation occurs in the Luoyang Army, the generals at all levels will basically be beheaded and questioned.
"Something weird."
Chen Mu's eyes kept darting across the field. The formation on the other side was almost in place, with a sea of people and endless crowds.
Guan Yu asked strangely: "Fourth brother, where does this weirdness come from?"
Chen Mu said: "I saw that the enemy's formation was very chaotic at first, with a large number of people spreading out outside the camp. But it seems that the total number has not changed. It seems that people are constantly taking advantage of the chaos to enter the camp, and then leave the camp, creating
It feels like the enemy’s entire army has been wiped out.”
In ancient wars, once the number of people exceeded 10,000, it was very difficult for the scouts to count them.
Therefore, how to determine the number of enemies is often judged by observing the number of enemy tents and the number of fires and meals. For example, in the battle to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao, Sun Bin devised a plan to increase troops and reduce stoves, and successfully allowed Pang Juan to ambush him.
Defeated in one fell swoop.
The scouts of the Luoyang Army have long observed that the total number of enemy troops is about 40,000. There is still a difference between the number of 40,000 troops and the number of 30,000 troops. However, it is indeed difficult to observe it with the naked eye and can only rely on feeling.
Chen Mu has been on the battlefield for a long time, and he can roughly estimate the number of enemies by just looking at them. But today, when he looked at them, he felt that the enemies seemed to be many, but the number was less than 40,000.
What is the reason for this?
"I suspect that Yuan Jun hid some of his troops as an ambush. There are hills in the distance, and the ambush army should be behind the hills."
Chen Mu thought for a while and said: "They are using false and true tactics to confuse me. I'm afraid it's Yecheng's plan. Unfortunately, their generals are not very good at implementing it. If they don't pass through the formation in time, they will be easily defeated.
I figured it out."
Guan Yu stroked his beard and said: "It seems that the enemy has also made two preparations."
"There's no rush, let's cross the river first."
Chen Mu turned his head and looked at the messenger beside him.
The ordering soldiers understood and waved the big flags in their hands. The generals Guan Ping, Guan Hai, Wang Dan, Guan Cheng, Zhang Rao and other generals who had already arranged the soldiers in battle formation on the far river bank began to lead their soldiers to move.
The first was naturally the vanguard general Guan Hai. He led 3,000 men and began to cross the river at the ford about four miles away from Yanliang's headquarters camp in the downstream direction of Huan River.
During the dry season in autumn, the river water level drops sharply. In some wide waterways, because of the serious diversion, people can walk across. The deepest point only reaches a person's waist, and the shallowest point only covers the ankle.
Since a decisive battle was announced in the afternoon, it was natural for the Luoyang army to go over. No matter how stupid Yan Liang was, he would not have foolishly led his army across the river after accepting the challenge. Wasn't he afraid of an ambush by the Luoyang army?
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Failure to cross the river to attack is full of dangers for either side. Even if the Luoyang army has high morale and is not afraid of ambush, they cannot just go there.
rush.
The Battle of Guandu and the Battle of Feishui were actually both river-crossing battles, but why were the situations on the two sides completely different?
Because Cao Cao set up camp on the south bank of the Guandu River. Although the Guandu River was just a small river, the sediment accumulated and there was a large alluvial fan area, which made it impossible for Yuan Jun's formation to be deployed. Even if he crossed the river to attack Cao Jun's camp, he could not break through Cao Jun's camp. In the end, due to the lack of food and grass
It was burned, forming a huge rout.
The Battle of Feishui was completely different. This was not a matter of terrain, but an error in decision-making. Fu Jian planned to attack halfway across the river, so he temporarily retreated the front line. When the Jin army was halfway across the river, he sent cavalry to attack.
.
As a result, he did not expect that his order to retreat made the front line think that the army had been defeated, which directly caused chaos among the soldiers, allowing Xie Xuan to successfully cross the river and attack.
Therefore, looking at the cross-river wars of the Battle of Guandu and the Battle of Feishui, it is not difficult to find that in the cross-river war, terrain factors and decision-making factors are often the key to winning the war. No matter which one of the terrain and decision-making has problems, it will lead to
The defeat of the war.
Chen Mu had been studying the Huanshui River for a long time. He found that the river beach four miles downstream from Yuan Jun was not only shallow, but also had an extremely open terrain. In the distance was a vast plain, making it almost impossible to ambush an ambush.
It would be feasible to use cavalry to attack. You only need to wait until the Luoyang Army's army is halfway across the river, and then use cavalry to suddenly launch an attack from a distance.
It is a pity that the Jizhou cavalry was defeated in the first battle, and Yan Liang no longer had cavalry in his hands.
This is also the reason why Chen Mu dared to cross the river.
After Guan Hai crossed the river, he immediately reorganized his troops and formed a formation on the spot to cover the troops behind him and continue to cross the river.
After Guan Yu saw Guan Ping's troops also starting to cross the river, he said to Chen Mu: "Fourth brother, let's go, we have to prepare to cross the river."
"Um."
Chen Mu nodded, turned his horse around with Guan Yu, went down the hillside, and headed into the distance.
Starting from the beginning of the day at noon, the soldiers crossed the river one after another. Until the third quarter of the day, that is, at 12 o'clock at noon, it only took about an hour for the 20,000-strong army to have crossed.
After forming the battle formation, the army began to move slowly to the west. At the same time, Yan Liang's tribe was also slowly moving to the east, and both sides were moving closer to each other.
On the north bank of Huan River, on the west side is Yan Liang's army, and on the east side is Guan Yu's army.
To the north is a vast plain area. In addition to the endless river in the south, the entire battlefield is extremely vast. The forward troops of both sides lined up in a line for nearly a mile. After reaching a stone's throw away, they finally stopped.
Yan Liang was at the front of the team, and Guan Yu was also at the front. The two looked at each other from a distance, and the scene was extremely quiet.
Chen Mu is not here.
A war was about to break out between the two sides, and he was seeking death by running to the front line.
He was at an ambush point. Since he was fighting across a river, he had already sent people to investigate the terrain on both sides of the river.
The Luoyang Army landed four miles downstream of Yanliang Camp. If the two sides met, they would probably meet about two or three miles downstream of Yanliang Camp. There happened to be several hills in the northeast where you could watch the battle.
This hilly area is located directly north of Guan Yu's army and northeast of Yan Liang's army.
Chen Mu arranged some axemen and archers here. Once the two sides start a decisive battle, according to the plan, Guan Yu will lure Yan Liang here. Once Yan Liang wants to turn around and run back to his camp, all the ambush troops will be released, plus
The whole army besieged him together and killed him.
In fact, this ambush plan is quite crude, because it is on a plain, and the nearby hills are the highest point that both sides must occupy. If there is a person like Shenpei Xu You among the Yuan army, this plan will not work.
The problem was that Yan Liang's tactical literacy was very low, and he had no idea of seizing key terrain. This resulted in him not sending anyone over to seize a high point very close to the north of the enemy's army.
You know, if he was smarter and set up some high oars and troops here, the constant shooting of bows and arrows and crossbows from the hills alone would be enough to drink up Guan Yu's army.
Chen Mu stood on the hillside and looked down. This place was very close to the battlefield, less than a mile away.
But even one mile is still four hundred meters away, so in his field of vision, there are countless dense black spots floating in the distance, like a colony of ants. He can only see the general situation clearly, but not the specific people.
.
At this moment, on the battlefield, the autumn wind was bleak, stirring up the dust on the ground. The green grass on the river bank slowly swayed in the wind, and the water flowed quietly. Except for the fluttering flag, everything seemed to be still.
A cold and murderous aura seemed to sweep across the entire battlefield.
Yan Liang gently urged the horses to come to the formation, pointed his sword directly at Guan Yu in front of the formation, and shouted loudly: "Guan Yu, don't you want to fight me to the death? My head is right here, let's see if you have the ability to come and get it!"
"
"Hmph! Piffle!"
Guan Yu snorted coldly, stretched out his hand, and Guan Hai next to him handed over the Qinglong Yanyue Sword. After taking the sword, he urged the horse to gallop forward, dragging the sword backwards to the ground again.
Yan Liang's pupils shrank. He had already experienced this move before dragging the knife with him. He first lowered the knife as low as possible, and then suddenly pulled it up to chop.
In fact, this kind of chopping physically uses inertia and acceleration. If you hold a knife with both hands and chop at close range, you have to rely on your own strength. If you increase the slashing amplitude, the greater the amplitude, the greater the inertia and acceleration.
, the strength will be greater.
In theory, the most powerful and destructive chopping method is to hold the knife upside down with both hands, put the back of the knife against your back, and then chop hard, which is the kind of chopping method used when chopping firewood.
And it's best to jump and slash from high to low.
The power of such a sword will be very astonishing. If it is used by a strong man, it will be even more terrifying.
Because Guan Yu was on a horse, he couldn't slash with both hands, but with the inertia of a horse, even one-handed power was very powerful. Yan Liang suffered this loss last time. When he went to block, the knife in his hand was almost missing.
Being knocked down.
But this time, Yan Liang had already thought of a way to deal with it.
When Claw Huang Feidian was less than ten feet away, he immediately pulled the horse's reins, and at the same time clamped the horse's belly with his legs, urging the horse to turn.
The war horse immediately spread its hooves and jumped to the right, leaping ten feet away.
Seeing that the enemy actually moved, Guan Yu had to temporarily withdraw his move. While pulling on Zhu Huang Feidian's horse rope, he made Zhu Huang Feidian brake suddenly. At the same time, he immediately lifted the Qinglong Sword from the ground and lowered the horse rope with his left hand.
, holding the knife in both hands, he stabbed Yan Liang in the direction.
boom!
The weapons exchanged and sparks flew.
"It was difficult to change directions in the army that day. Now in this open place, do you think I will still stab you like before?"
Yan Liang sneered.
Guan Yu remained silent and did not respond. He only used his sword to deflect Yan Liang's sword, then reached down and slashed at Yan Liang's waist.
Yan Liang pinched the horse's belly, causing the horse to move and block with his side knife at the same time.
Zhu Huang Feidian also quickly followed up with the enemy's horses. The two horses actually spun in a circle. After Yan Liang blocked Guan Yu's blow, he quickly counterattacked, forcing Guan Yu to return his sword to block it.
Three moves!
Guan Yu's first three most violent strikes were easily broken by Yan Liang!