Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 242: Breaking the Underworld
Zhao Yun's killing of Wen Chou in battle was the last straw that broke the camel's back for the halberd soldiers. Nearly half of the halberd soldiers had been injured in the clash with the Yuanyang Army, and the army was defeated...
And at this moment, finally... the Yiyang light cavalry played the role of harvesters that light cavalry should play!
Chasing and killing them all the way not only further increased the casualties of the Halberd Soldiers, but also drove the Halberd Soldiers to rush towards Huang Qi's army behind them.
The army led by Huang Yi was the remnant of Yuan Shu's Nanyang troops. At this time, they were in the back and saw the halberd soldiers retreating "inexplicably". They were angry and shouted: "Circle the formation, circle the formation!"
After shouting but no one paid attention to him, he finally realized that there was no way to go around in this terrain, so he changed his words: "Form a formation and move forward, form a formation and move forward!" He wanted the soldiers with halberds to re-form themselves in front of his infantry phalanx to form the vanguard.
However, no one paid any attention to him. They were still rushing back. Huang Yi couldn't help but said angrily: "Qu Yi! What are your people doing!"
"They need to rest. Let's open up the formation first to let them in! With the elite halberd soldiers, they will find gaps to sneak in after the formation is open and will not attack the army formation!" Mi Yi said hurriedly.
Huang Yi looked at Qu Yi strangely, and after a moment of silence, he said, "Do you think my soldiers can quickly disperse their troops and then recover?"
Unfortunately, although the army that Yuan Shu once recruited in Nanyang was his family fortune, it was well-trained and well-equipped, but... now both military discipline and training have been neglected for a long time, and they have long been trained into useless people. In addition, the current generals are too incompetent, and it can be said that they are getting further and further away from the word "elite".
Mian Yi: ...
"If you can't stop it, then we'll have to block it together!"
At this time, under Huang Yi's urging, the Nanyang Army raised the round shields on their arms, wanting to block the halberd soldiers outside the formation...
Qu Yi was almost furious, but he could only stamp his feet - after seeing the defeat of the halberd warriors and Wen Chou being beheaded, Huang Yi no longer had the respect he had before.
The halberd soldiers were indeed elite troops. Most of them held on and did not charge into friendly forces. Instead, they wanted to turn around and fight. Unfortunately... their formation was in chaos, and there were also Nanyang soldiers around to cause more trouble!
They were dispersed by Yiyang's light cavalry, and then the infantry followed suit...
Deciding a battle in a narrow pass is different from a normal battle on a plain - normally in a close combat, even for veteran elite soldiers, 30% casualties will cause a rout, and inadequately trained recruits will be even less able to withstand it.
However, in the terrain of the narrow pass, the enemy can only collapse backwards, which can easily trigger a chain reaction. Therefore, the situation in the decisive battle in the narrow pass will be very "special".
During the initial battle, even if the army in front was defeated, it would be unable to retreat because it was blocked by the army behind.
However, once the disadvantaged side begins to collapse uncontrollably, it will instantly trigger an avalanche-like chain collapse. At the beginning, morale will not be greatly affected because there is nowhere to escape. However, once it exceeds a certain critical point, it will completely chase away the rear army!
This is the current Nanyang Army ...
Starting from the collapse of the halberd soldiers, the entire front line collapsed uncontrollably.
After a chaotic battle, the Nanyang army was kicked and chased back to Mingyan Pass.
When the momentum of the Yiyang light cavalry had been exhausted due to the huge casualties on his own side and the enemy infantry had not yet followed up, Qu Yi wanted to organize a counterattack to curb the situation. However, he did not expect that... Huang Yi's general's flag was empty. He had !
The front troops, lacking a commander, were almost given to the Northern Army as walking military merits and prisoners...
Qu Yi had no choice but to curse that "this boy is not capable of making plans" and had to hastily organize the remaining halberd soldiers and retreat.
Fortunately... no matter how miserable the halberd soldiers were, they still ran faster than their friendly forces!
With friendly forces acting as a buffer, the army was not completely wiped out.
…
After the war, both sides counted their casualties and collected the bodies.
Of the eight hundred halberd soldiers, only two hundred were left after one battle. This was the heaviest casualties since the founding of the army.
Nearly half of the 12,000 Nanyang troops at Mingyan Pass suffered casualties. The narrow pass terrain further increased the casualties of the loser. Moreover, the remaining half were either the old and weak who stayed behind or the "winners of the race". Their morale can be imagined.
On the side of the General's Mansion, the army that suffered the most serious casualties was the "Yuanyang Army", which was the greatest contributor to this battle.
Even though it was a great victory, the opponents were real generals after all. Among the 1,800 Mandarin Duck soldiers, more than 300 were killed, but the loss of generals was only 30 - after all, in the Mandarin Duck formation, the generals in command were all at the back of the small formation.
More than a hundred Yiyang light cavalry were killed, most of whom were killed by the halberd soldiers who came to their senses and turned back to cover their retreat.
As for the ordinary infantry, they suffered more than 600 casualties, which was more in number than the Yuanyang Army. However... there were more than 10,000 ordinary infantry as the main force, and 3,000 to 4,000 of them were engaged in the battle - there was no other way, due to the narrow terrain, the ones behind were all queuing up!
After this defeat, the Nanyang Army could only defend the low Mingyan Pass, and the morale of the soldiers in the pass was low...
That night, the scouts discovered that there was a sudden noise in the Mingyan Pass, which seemed like a military riot. After reporting the noise, Zhao Yun immediately wanted to take advantage of the chaos to launch a night attack, but was stopped by Jia Xu.
"General, the enemy is weak now. If this mutiny is an enemy plan, we may be in danger of being defeated. If the enemy is really in chaos without being attacked, all we need to do is sing the songs of Chu tomorrow and Mingyan Pass will fall without being attacked. Why don't you just watch the fire from the other side of the river?" Jia Xu advised.
Zhao Yun hesitated for a moment and then said, "Alright, send some people to the frontier to watch. If they encounter any deserters from the enemy army, bring them back first."
Jia Xu was also very conservative. In fact, a strong attack was not a bad idea at this time. Jia Xu also did not think that anyone in the border would take such a risky approach to lure his side into attacking.
The characteristic of Jia Xu's use of troops is neither conservative nor radical, but "clear goals"!
This was the case when I advised Li Jue and Guo Si in Liangzhou, it was the case in Wancheng, and it is still the case now.
Killing more enemies and reducing the number of his own people were just "trivial matters" in his mind, and he had little desire for military exploits.
Since the most important thing is to capture Mingyan Pass, if the enemy's morale is really in chaos, we can just try to lure them into surrender tomorrow. Even if we fail to lure them into surrender, they cannot stop our attack. Why should we follow the enemy's rhythm and take the risk of a night attack?
Unless he can see the key to victory or defeat, Jia Xu will not fight a battle without confidence...
Just like in Wancheng, after assisting Zhang Xiu in plotting against Cao Cao, Jia Xu's advice to Cao Cao, who fled in panic without even caring about his son, was still "don't chase after a desperate enemy" - not that he really expected that Cao Cao would have a backup plan, but... the goal had been achieved, so why take the risk?
Not being greedy can be said to be a characteristic of Jia Xu's military operations...
