Chapter 350 Don’t fight anymore

Wen Tong carefully controlled the speed of his warhorse and headed westward, while thousands of infantrymen moved slowly around the commander’s warhorse.

His tactics were simple. He would fight to the death for a while, forcing the enemy army to reveal their weaknesses. Then he would concentrate all his efforts on commanding the infantry and cavalry to pretend to break out to the west, but in fact he would suddenly turn south midway and advance to hide in the nearest county town.

As for Liu Qin and his personal soldiers who were tied up and gagged, they were to be regarded as gifts of heads left for the rebel army – the rebel army had made the request to block the road, and he had tried his best to satisfy it, so they should not fight to pursue him anymore.

But the enemy army’s actions were beyond his expectations.

Hundreds of enemy cavalry ignored the two or three hundred “human dumplings” tied to the ground, and seemed to prefer the more than 5,000 government troops.

The enemy cavalry kept a following distance, circling the army formation like a pack of prairie wolves hunting bison.

The bandits would sometimes catch up on horseback, sometimes stop a few dozen steps ahead, and then raise their muskets to shoot at the government troops.

The smoke exploded into gray flowers in the morning light, and the soldiers in the outer circle seemed to hear the buzzing of locusts.

Half the bullets struck the shields, sending sparks flying. Thirty or forty officers and men still collapsed, clutching their chests, blood oozing from the cracks in their cloth armor. The screams and howls of the wounded, echoing through the center of the battle formation, had faded into muffled groans.

The government troops were also trying their best to fight back, drawing their bows and shooting with their guns, but the arrows and bullets could only reach a hundred steps at most. Against the “Thunder Gun” that could reach two hundred steps, it was like a loli punching a strong man, but the other party held her head down with one hand.

Even if some bandits were unlucky and were hit by stray bullets and fell off their horses, they could still stagger to their feet and get back on their horses.

The rebel army was very fair. After attacking the government troops in the north and south columns, they switched positions and shot at the government troops heading east and west, just like they were wrapping big walnuts in both hands and rolling them hard.

Wen Tong was puzzled. He had clearly contributed great merit to the rebel army, so why didn’t they want it?

Didn’t he know that the person left behind was a deputy general, or was he so greedy that he wanted to capture all his troops?

The marching infantry began to become restless, and fatigue and casualties tortured every soldier. If he did not respond, he would lose control of the entire army.

The enemy soldiers’ greed for both sesame and watermelon shattered Wen Tong’s plan.

He no longer had any hope of luck.

Without cavalry, he would not be able to fight against the enemy army.

But if all the cavalry were used up, he would be left alone. He also thought about abandoning the infantry and leading his personal soldiers to escape, but he didn’t dare to do it.

He didn’t dare to confirm how much ammunition the enemy army had left. If the enemy army still had ammunition to attack his horse when he abandoned his army and fled, he would be finished.

“All troops, halt!” When the army had marched a few hundred steps beyond their original position, Wen Tong suddenly pulled the reins, his right hand clenched into a fist in the air. He glanced at the officers and nodded helplessly, “Go.”

The remaining cavalry pulled the spare horses and mules and came side by side, forming several rows of wavy lines on the south side.

The infantry at the rear immediately followed, clashing their swords and shields.

As the rumble of the horn penetrated the earth, the last cavalry led the “four-legged meat shield” to charge south.

The rebel army closely observed the movements of the government troops, and when they found that the government cavalry were charging, they quickly distanced themselves from them, and from time to time threw props everywhere to harass the soldiers behind them.

The rebel army’s war horses had better endurance and speed than the government army’s. The government army’s cavalry could not catch up even after chasing them for a thousand steps, and the government soldiers and infantry following closely behind could only eat their dust.

“Hit me! Hit me!” Some of the bandits with excellent riding skills stuck out their buttocks to taunt, and did not forget to fart extremely loudly.

The government troops were so angry that they picked up their bows and shot arrows, but they could not touch the enemy’s butts. They could only watch the ironic butts shaking up and down with the bumps of the horses’ hooves.

If the government troops slowed down and returned, the rebels would immediately turn around and pursue them, firing a barrage of bullets at the government troops.

So the officers and soldiers had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue to pursue the enemy army as “four-legged meat shields”, sacrificing the lives of each meat shield.

The enemy troops were running in front, and the government troops were chasing them from behind. As both sides chased them, they plowed deep scars on the ground.

The war horses under the control of the master can constantly correct their direction, but the horses and mules that act as meat shields soon fall out of the team due to injuries and lack of control.

The huge assault team, which originally had hundreds of livestock, gradually lost its “disguise” and became thin.

Suddenly, the enemy troops running in front were like butter being split by a hot knife. Half of the cavalry were accurately separated and drew an arc to the flank.

The bandit cavalry that had been keeping a close eye on the government troops’ infantry had already disappeared. Upon closer inspection, they found that they had abandoned the infantry and rushed towards the cavalry.

However, in just two moments, the government cavalry discovered that the enemy cavalry was rushing in from all directions in the west.

be cheated!
Only then did the officers and soldiers realize that they were being led around by the nose and had unknowingly fallen into the enemy’s encirclement.

But the bandits hadn’t fired signal arrows or blown horns to rally their troops, so how did they issue the command?
If there had been the sharp sounds of horns and arrows, the government troops would not have fallen into such an obvious trap.

But by the time the cavalry commander realized this, it was already too late. The bandits coming from both wings were all holding loaded muskets.

The galloping war horses on all sides surrounded the officer cavalry in the center, and the enemy and us were relatively still. The dust trampled by the horses’ hooves was like pale yellow flowers blooming in the air.

At this moment, the government cavalry was still struggling hard, picking up their bows and shooting at the enemy on the left in their last resistance.

However, the bandit cavalry controlled the distance very well. The rain of arrows thrown by 200 war bows only hit 10% of the targets. Some bandits even had arrows stuck in their chests, but they were still shouting excitedly, “Useless, useless, useless!”

“Take my Crescent Moon Sky Strike,” “Starburst Air Stream Slash,” “Finger of Death”…

Declarations of victory like these were punctuated by the sounds of bullets flying out of the gun barrels and popping like popcorn.

The two columns of bandit cavalry seemed to have transformed into a cold-blooded execution squad, hiding in the white smoke and mercilessly shooting the officers and cavalry.

As the “encirclement” more than a hundred steps away was disbanded, only about a hundred war horses were still galloping on the road, and the other horses and riders had already fallen in a pool of blood behind them.

“Ahaha, the government cavalry is completely eliminated!”

“Guo Ziyi” reined in his warhorse with satisfaction, and the corpses of hundreds of humans and animals formed an intermittent dark red road behind him.

But killing the cavalry was not the end of the matter. The enemy’s infantry was seizing the opportunity to move south and had already run thousands of steps while the cavalry was engaged in a decisive battle.

The enemy soldiers are trying to escape.

“The second round of battle is about to begin.” Guo Ziyi dismounted, grabbed a relatively strong warhorse, and sat on it. He then checked his weapons and equipment. “Brothers, are you ready?”

The brothers dismounted, and the friction sounds of stepping on the stirrups and sitting on the saddles came one after another. After a while, someone looked up and responded, “Oh, oh.”

“The Thunderbolt’s ammunition is low, and we’re almost out of items. Let’s stick to the original plan and take out as many enemy soldiers as we can!”

“Oh!” More than 600 cavalrymen split into two groups again, one group went around and stood in the northwest corner of the infantry formation, and the other blocked the road that the infantry had to take to escape to the south.

Seeing a group of ferocious hungry wolves returning again, thousands of infantrymen had to regroup and huddle together for warmth.

Unexpectedly, this time, fifty of the bandits in the northwest corner dismounted. They did not ride horses or carry guns, but only carried spears and shields and walked to the center of the enemy.

Are the bandits crazy?

Or is it that they have run out of ammunition, so they have to change their tactics and attack the remaining four or five thousand infantrymen?

Wen Tong looked into the distance in disbelief. No matter how brave your bandit army is, it is impossible for you to break through my infantry formation with only fifty people, right?
The rebel infantry had distanced themselves from the main force and almost reached the northeast corner of the government infantry formation.

They stood outside the range of the gunbows, lifted their shields and made mocking and provocative gestures, and some even took off their pants and satisfied their needs in front of everyone.

Wen Tong secretly cursed this bandit army for seeking death!

We can’t defeat the enemy cavalry, but you, a small infantry team, dare to be so arrogant. You are simply courting death!
He immediately ordered 800 infantrymen to annihilate this small group of bandits in order to boost the morale of his own men.

Just as the eight hundred infantrymen were engaged in a battle with fifty bandits, the bandit cavalry in the south moved, and more than three hundred of them came slowly stepping on the ground.

Although the warriors on horseback were dressed in strange clothes, they were all wrapped in heavy armor. The swords, hammers and clubs in their hands hung at the sides of their horses, drawing arcs of death in the air.

The riders kicked the horses’ bellies in tacit coordination, then whipped their buttocks with whips.

The beast’s screams of pain and the crackling of bones mixed together. As the speed continued to increase, the tendons in the warhorse’s neck bulged like steel cables.

The earth trembled beneath the iron hooves, and the flying dust filled the air like a yellow mist. The crisp sound of armor colliding was like the scraping of thousands of daggers on a whetstone.

Seeing that the enemy cavalry seemed to be rushing towards them out of control, Wen Tong hurriedly ordered them to form a battle formation to resist them. Thousands of infantrymen were frightened and crowded to the south.

The swordsmen and shieldmen half-knelt on the ground, several spears pierced out diagonally from the gaps between their shields, and the crossbowmen behind them put arrows on the strings.

The officers and soldiers met the charge of the bandit cavalry with an absolutely defensive posture. Apart from the 800 infantrymen who went into battle, the more than 3,000 infantrymen who stayed behind were enough to stop this group of bandit troops.

Wen Tong could even imagine the enemy army being beaten to a pulp and suffering heavy losses. This would wash away the humiliation of his repeated defeats.

Come on, traitor, charge into your grandfather’s infantry formation and die!
However, just as the bandit cavalry was about to hit the “hard rock” on the ground, they suddenly split into two torrents, turning sharply to the left and right like poisonous snakes. The centrifugal force of the sharp turn turned the sweat on the horse’s back into a fan-shaped white mist.

There were only more than thirty riders who could not stop their horses and charged straight into the government army’s infantry formation.

A forest of spears instantly blocked the flesh and blood, causing screams and neighs, and warm blood splattered everywhere. The warrior on horseback allowed the forward momentum to throw himself into the battle.

Some of them were pierced by the spear tips in mid-air, some were hit by stray arrows and fell off their horses, and some successfully got into the formation and rolled down several times, holding their swords tightly and fighting desperately with the officers and soldiers.

Wen Tong looked at everything in front of him in astonishment. The bandit cavalry actually turned in front of the formation and did not charge foolishly!
But before he could rejoice in killing more than twenty bandits in battle, the roar of iron hooves emerged from the ground in the north, gradually turning into a shriek that tore at his eardrums.

A panicked roar came from behind him. Wen Tong turned his head and saw that the enemy cavalry in the northwest corner had rushed to within 200 steps.

This was the enemy army’s strategy of making a noise in the south while attacking the north. The exaggerated movement of the southern army’s charge was to cover up the charge in the north!
And those fifty bandit soldiers who fought bravely were actually abandoned pawns used to disperse the government troops!

“Form a formation! Enemy attack!”

Wen Tong’s reflexive command was still too late. The warhorse entered the sprint state, like a god of war on earth, and approached him in an instant.

The panicked infantry had no time to form a battle formation and were pierced by the three hundred bandit cavalry.

The cavalry in the front row threw their spears with all their might. The spears, with their inertia, penetrated the shields and nailed the swordsman squatting behind the shields to the ground.

The saber and the mace produced bloody circles, and the iron-clad wooden shield exploded into pieces. The arms of the weapon bearer were still in a blocking posture, but half of his head had been smashed off by the hammer.

The second wave of cavalry rushed in through the bloody mud of the gap, and their sabers, reflecting silver light, swept through the panicked crowd, sweeping up the limbs like a sickle cutting wheat.

The war horses were like heavy motorcycles with the accelerator turned to the bottom, plowing out more than ten bloody mud roads.

In just the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a large hole had been pierced through the infantry formation of three to four thousand people by the enemy cavalry.

A warhorse that has lost its speed is like a lamb to be slaughtered. The bandit cavalry quickly broke out of the infantry formation and moved to a safe distance before counterattacking.

The shock and panic of being attacked from behind had not yet subsided when the two groups of bandit cavalry that had just made an emergency turn had already made a 180-degree turn, like two iron spikes piercing into the already frightened infantry formation.

“Ahhhh!” Frightened screams and pleas for mercy began to rise and fall.

The thief’s mace swirled around with pieces of flesh, and each swing plowed a fan-shaped wave of blood in the crowd.

An officer and soldier stood firmly on horseback and had just stabbed his sword into the belly of the slowing warhorse when he was knocked away by another warhorse rushing from behind.

His body twisted into a strange arc in mid-air, and the crisp sound of his broken spine almost drowned out the roar of horse hooves.

A small flag officer was curled up under a pile of corpses pretending to be dead, when he suddenly felt a burning sensation on his back.

The broken limbs trampled by the bandit riders fell on his neck. Warm blood mixed with mud seeped into the chain mail. The smell of blood, more pungent than death, prompted a whimper in his throat. The slight sound immediately attracted the precise strangulation of a steel knife.

Even though the remaining government troops still had a numerical advantage in theory, it was almost impossible for them to form a battle formation again.

The speed at which the bandits and cavalry were fighting was so fast that Wen Tong’s mind was in a mess.

He looked at the infantrymen screaming on the ground, not knowing what orders to give. He only knew that the dozens of bandits acting as bait outside the formation were still fighting.

Just when he was at a loss, he suddenly heard someone shouting, “Be careful, Marshal!”

Wen Tong saw a warhorse charging towards him, and the bandit soldier on the horse clenched his spear and threw it at him, hitting the horse under his crotch on the forehead.

Exactly!

The warhorse under his crotch fell backwards, and Wen Tong experienced the pain of falling from the horse’s back. He felt dizzy and as if the world was upside down.

He stumbled to his feet in a daze, his head buzzing.

Something warm flowed down his forehead and seeped into his eyes, causing him unbearable pain. Wen Tong shook his head and blinked his eyes. In the center of his blurred vision were several personal soldiers blocking his way.

But they were immediately knocked away easily by the running horses like light straws.

(End of this chapter)