Chapter 100 Zhang Fei breaks the formation
The morale of the Taishan soldiers has reached its peak at this time. After a slight reorganization of the military formation, they continued to walk over despite the rain of arrows from Cao Bao's army.
At this time, the vanguard of the Taishan Army has been replaced by Zhang Yu. This man is tall and has a long knife in his hand, just like Guan Zhu.
This kind of weapon is rough and easy to use. If the blade is curled, you can just replace it with another one. There is almost no difference in the feel.
Unlike special weapons, although they are easy to use, they are very troublesome to replace.
The Taishan Army's equipment was originally better than that of the Danyang Army, with an armor coverage rate of over 70%, while the Danyang Army's armor coverage rate was only 40%.
This is not because Tao Qian favors the Taishan Army. In fact, it must be the Danyang Army that is Tao Qian's thorn in the side.
It’s just that the Danyang army was defeated many times by Cao Cao. The large amount of armor and weapons all made Cao Cao’s army cheaper, and his own equipment was naturally getting worse and worse.
But the Taishan Army kept recuperating, and its armor inventory increased instead of falling, so it overtook the Danyang Army.
Just now, after just one fight and one meal, the Taishan Army defeated the Danyang Army's front line, which caused the morale of the entire Danyang Army to drop.
Although the two wings wanted to flank Zang Ba's main formation and relieve the pressure on their commander, at this time, the Taishan Army's flanks were also highly morale and refused to retreat. Instead, there were faint signs of counter-pressure.
Cao Baojun has fallen into a comprehensive disadvantage.
If there are only Cao Bao's troops on the battlefield, they can only pray that Cao Bao will show off his might and kill Zang Ba, Zhang Yu and Guan Zhu, and then it is possible to reverse the situation.
Otherwise, we can only watch Zang Ba's Taishan Army become more and more courageous as they fight until they completely crush the Danyang Army.
All Cao Bao could do was to prolong the resistance and see if it could last until dark and the two sides would stop fighting.
At the critical moment when Zang Ba was full of momentum and wanted to continue his efforts and directly defeat Cao Bao's formation, the soldiers beside him suddenly trembled and pulled his arm.
"General, General...you, you...look..."
This kind of disrespectful behavior should not have happened, but the soldier didn't notice it until he did it. own behavior.
Looking in the direction pointed by the soldier, it was his left wing. He arranged for Lu Ling to lead him to cover the main flank and block the position of a thousand soldiers of Xia Pijun soldiers.
Zang Ba took a closer look and was stunned.
It turns out his flank collapsed too.
The Taishan soldiers, who seemed to have high morale just a moment ago, are now beginning to collapse. Many soldiers have left their positions and fled in all directions. Some even panicked and ran towards the flank of the main force. They were about to directly attack them. Hit the flank of the formation.
What exactly happened?
Zang Ba didn't understand. He saw that a great victory was just around the corner. He could defeat Xuzhou's strongest Danyang army in one battle.
Next, he can go south and attack Tancheng, forcing Liu Bei to depose Xiao Jian and appoint himself as the prefect of Langya. You can also take advantage of the opportunity when Liu Bei's strength is greatly damaged and he is unable to fight anymore, and go north to directly attack Xiao Jian and replace him.
But why did the flank collapse?
Zang Ba really can’t figure it out.
It’s no wonder that he couldn’t figure it out. According to his estimation, the covering force should have just been in contact with the enemy for a short time. How could it collapse?
Did you see a ghost?
I saw a group of cavalry breaking out of the formation and appeared in front of Zang Ba. The leader was an eight-foot-long tiger general with a leopard's head and eyes, a swallow's jaw and a tiger's beard. He was riding a bay-red horse. With a sound like huge thunder, he led more than fifty cavalry and killed the entire Taishan Army's flank formation.
After this general broke the formation, he was not in a hurry to go back, but took time to look at Zang Bajun's main formation.
Finally, he discovered Zang Ba's location, raised his spear, and pointed at Zang Ba from a distance.
Zang Ba's heart tightened and he asked around him: "Who is this person?"
The people around him looked at each other, but no one could answer.
Zang Ba suddenly had a clever idea in his heart and blurted out: "Could this person be Zhang Fei and Zhang Yide?"
I only saw Zhang Fei in the distance putting away his spear, turning his horse's head, and then went back to kill him, completely disrupting the formation of the flanking troops.
"General, what should we do?"
Guan Zhu, who had just retreated, was also shocked and didn't understand why the situation suddenly took a turn for the worse.
After all, Zang Ba is not a mediocre general, and he knows how to resist the chaos.
Faced with this situation, he resisted the idea of dividing his troops again to stop Chen Deng and Zhang Fei's troops. Instead, he categorically ordered that the rear army be the palace army and the entire army retreat.
At the same time, he ordered his soldiers and flying cavalry to return to the city quickly to report. At the same time, he ordered the crossbowmen to retreat first. After returning to the city, they immediately went up the city wall to cover the main force of the army.
Orders were passed on one after another, and the Taishan Army took action quickly.
Since the battlefield situation was advantageous, the Taishan Army easily got rid of the entanglement of the Danyang Army and successfully broke away.
Subsequently, Zang Ba also detached a group of soldiers to pick up the defeated flanks, hoping to gather them as much as possible. At the same time, the rear army became the palace army and slowly retreated.
Cao Bao suddenly felt that the frontal pressure had been reduced. He had originally planned to press the reserve team up, and the messengers who sent reinforcements to the flanks had also set off.
As a result, the Taishan Army actually retreated.
When Cao Bao first heard the previous report, he almost killed the messenger, thinking that he was lying about the military situation.
But cheers came from the military formation in front, which made Cao Bao confused.
Soon, the soldiers he sent came back to report that the Taishan Army had indeed retreated, and they retreated resolutely. The long-range troops simply turned around and ran towards the city.
Other troops were also retreating, but the previous rear troops began to form formation, looking like they were at the rear.
Cao Bao breathed a sigh of relief, and then a surge of anger surged into his heart, and he roared loudly: "Tie Cao Ruyi over to me!"
After Zhang Fei broke through the formation of a thousand people, It wreaked havoc back and forth again, messing up the formation to pieces.
The infantry behind them charged directly, completely shattered, and turned into pieces and ran towards Kaiyang City.
Zhang Fei chased behind him calmly, like butchering a fat pig, cutting off the fat piece after piece, and then threw it to the infantry behind to be devoured.
When these defeated troops were finally blocked and gathered by Zang Ba's rear army, there were only three or four hundred people left.
Most of them were taken prisoner, and a few died under the hooves of horses and spears.
Faced with Zang Ba personally taking charge, there is also a reserve team of soldiers led by two fierce generals, Guan Zhu and Zhang Yu, holding the battle line. There is even a group of more than thirty cavalry hanging far behind, ready to go at any time. Launch a side attack.
Zhang Fei did not attack rashly, but stopped outside the formation.
There are not many cavalry under Liu Bei's command, especially war horses, which are more precious than people.
No matter how crazy Uncle Zhang is, he can't really attack the turtle shell head-on.
As for the wave just now, there was another reason.
Perhaps it was because it was too easy to win the main battlefield, which infected the Taishan Army on the flanks.
Seeing that his side's morale was high, Lu Ling wanted to set up a trap to kill Zhang Fei's dozens of riders.
What I didn’t expect was that the trap failed. Instead, Zhang Fei seized the opportunity and successfully broke through the formation. He repeatedly ravaged it and finally collapsed completely.
Lu Ling's Taishan Army was considered brave and resourceful, but the hardware conditions were a bit poor. He wanted to set up a trap to catch the tiger, but he didn't expect that the net was not strong enough and he was eaten by the tiger.
If Lu Ling can be more careful in the future, he should grow into a good general, but it is a pity that he has no future.
Just because Lu Ling was eager to perform his meritorious service, he personally led his people to set up a trap, but he did not expect that Mr. Zhang would break the situation with his strength. He killed Lu Ling on the spot and broke out of the siege. At the same time, he also took advantage of the situation to disrupt the formation and finally broke the formation. And out.
Now, Lu Ling’s head has been trampled into pieces by Mr. Zhang’s horse hoofs.
Zhang Fei looked back and saw that although Chen Deng and Cao Bao had already chased them, they really didn't have enough time.
The radiation distance from the bow and arrow on the city wall is no more than one mile. The opponent is fighting and moving, and there are cavalry covering the flanks. I have no ability to break the formation again.
Not to mention that even if the formation is successfully broken, it will still be within the killing range of strong bows and crossbows on the city wall. This is not asking for death.
Sure enough, Zang Ba then went into battle in person, leading the cavalry and heavily armored soldiers to cover the retreat of the rear army. The whole army was cautious, and there were even a lot of powerful crossbowmen standing ready to guard against Zhang Sanye's sudden attack.
Even after entering the protection range of the city wall, he still felt like he was facing a formidable enemy and refused to relax.
Zhang Fei saw that there was really no advantage to be taken, so he led his troops and withdrew.
The first battle between the two sides ended like this.
Zang Ba defeated a large formation of Danyang soldiers, causing heavy casualties to 2,000 people, with at least 30% battle damage.
If the casualties on the left and right wings are added, the casualties of the Danyang soldiers should be around a thousand.
It’s a credit to Zhang Fei’s victory. Otherwise, if the Taishan Army had continued its fierce attack, the Danyang Army might have lost two to three thousand men today. The losses of the Taishan Army were actually similar. The main reason was that the troops covering the main force on the side collapsed and were pursued and cut by Zhang Fei's cavalry, resulting in the loss of five to six hundred people.
The main force lost only more than 400 people, and the total was about a thousand people.
It's just that the situation on the main force's side is dominant. It's the Taishan Army that covers the battlefield, and it's the Taishan Army that takes the initiative to disengage.
Therefore, in addition to the more than 400 people who were killed on the spot and the more than 100 people who were seriously injured, the Taishan Army lost more than 400 people on the main battlefield. The other more than 200 wounded people also retreated safely with the army.
The two sides seemed to be fighting a draw, with one victory and one loss, and the losses were almost identical.
But in fact, it was Liu Beijun who suffered a big loss.
With three times the strength of the opponent, the fight ended in a draw. The opponent still went out of the city to fight in the field, which was simply embarrassing.
But in terms of the ending, Zang Ba was much more uncomfortable than Liu Beijun.
After all, he only had 4,000 men in total, and he only came up with the idea of attacking with the entire army to completely defeat Cao Bao in one battle.
Now that Cao Bao was not killed, but he also lost a quarter of his troops, Zang Ba was so heartbroken that he almost shed tears.
Not to mention that it was Liu Bei's army who finally controlled the battlefield, which meant that all the weapons and armor belonged to the opponent.
Based on Zang Ba’s armor-wearing rate of 60%, among the more than 600 people who could not be brought back, at least 400 sets of armor had to be lost, and there were even several iron armors among them. This was what Zang Ba lost in a year. Numbers that cannot be accumulated.
In the end, judging from the outcome of the war, Chen Deng successfully blocked Zang Ba's attack and destroyed Zang Ba's plan to break out of the siege. From this point of view, the Xuzhou Army won a complete victory anyway.
The two sides fought fiercely for only an hour, but hundreds of corpses were left behind.
The sky is still very bright, and the soldiers of Xiapi County continue to prepare their barracks and fortifications.
Under the command of Cao Bao, in addition to dedicating a thousand men to gather the defeated troops, the rest were also rushed to repair fortifications.
This battle was a huge humiliation for the Danyang soldiers. It almost caused the entire army to collapse, and it was even more likely to become the culprit of the entire war.
Cao Bao felt very guilty at this moment. Who let Chen Deng be the coach?
It’s not like Cao Bao has never complained to Liu Bei before, why he can’t be allowed to be the commander-in-chief. Regardless of his official position or experience in commanding the army, he is much better than Chen Deng.
But he also knew that Chen Deng was Liu Bei's closest confidant, the direct descendant of his direct descendants, and the good ones all wore a pair of trousers.
It is indeed difficult to force oneself to surpass Chen Deng as the commander-in-chief.
And at least he was given the position of deputy commander. This comfort made Cao Bao feel much better.
More importantly, Liu Bei personally promised him that after winning the battle, he would move Cao Bao to the position of Prime Minister of Xiapi, asking him to assist Chen Deng well this time and help him perform meritorious services, which would also be a good way to ease the relationship between them.
What Liu Bei said made Cao Bao very comfortable. It was not impossible to put himself in the position of a senior and lead Chen Deng, a junior, to help him become talented.
But reality was like a basin of cold water, pouring on Cao Bao's head.
Not to mention helping Chen Deng, he was saved by Chen Deng.
After a while, I went to the commander's tent to meet Chen Deng. Cao Bao didn't know how to explain the battle just now.
Thinking of this, Cao Bao felt itchy with hatred.
It’s just that the person he hates so much is not Chen Deng, but his nephew Cao Ruyi.
“Have you found that beast Cao Ruyi?”
“Not yet. Captain Cao ran towards the river at that time. The people who looked for him only found the armor by the river, but not the armor. Find someone.”
“What a beast!”
Cao Bao was really furious. This beast could run so well. Looking at his posture, was he trying to swim across the Yishui River and escape to the other side?
Cao Bao was furious here, but Zang Ba was crying in anger.
What a great victory, but the goal was kicked away.
I wanted to find someone to vent my anger on, only to find that Sima Luling from another department, who was flanking the main force, had been killed.
Zang Ba had to hold his nose to express condolences to Lu Ling. After all, this was also his favorite general of Zang Ba.
People have died fighting for you, can you still enforce military law, pull out the dead and behead them again?
Besides, the legal principles are nothing more than human feelings. At this time, morale and military morale must also be taken into consideration.
So Zang Ba sent people out of the city to redeem the bodies of Lu Ling, the wounded, and the soldiers who died in the battle.
At the same time, Zang Ba gave an order to Zang Ai, asking him to quickly recruit the best men in the city and organize them into the army to prepare for another battle in the future.
Zang Ai didn't understand that Zang Ba was so urgent, and the latter had to explain to him.
"Liu Bei's army suddenly attacked and took the waterway to directly cut off our army's way out of the city. Needless to say, Ji Qiu is right under Tancheng's nose. Even if it has not fallen, it is definitely under siege."
"Zhencheng is too far away, and communication is inconvenient, so don't think about it. The only ones that can be contacted now are Yangdu and Linyi. Since the main road is blocked by the enemy, we can only send people out of the city to sneak into the enemy camp. In this way, it will take at least two or three days for Yangdu and Linyi to know the situation here."
"Two or three days are enough for Liu Bei's army to set up camp at the pass and block Yangdu. and Linyi's reinforcements. At that time, Kaiyang will finally have to break the siege on our own."
Zang Ai then realized that he had no reinforcements from outside.
Zang Ba’s trapped beast still fights, mainly because he wants to make a time difference.
Although his allies cannot come to his aid, they can certainly contain some of the Xuzhou Army for him.
As long as Liu Bei's army outside the city is defeated while this part of the containment is still effective, the situation will be reversed immediately, allowing him to make a comeback from a desperate situation.
This idea is indeed correct, and it fully proves Zang Ba's strategy, ability, courage and confidence.
Unfortunately, the gap in intelligence is still too big.
Zang Ba had no idea that Chen Deng was about to arrive with a large number of reinforcements, otherwise he might not be as motivated as he was.
After Zhang Fei returned to the camp, he left all the arrangements for setting up camp to his two army commanders, while he asked his own soldiers to bring water to boil and rinse his body.
In the battle just now, Zhang Fei led his cavalry to directly break through the opponent's trap, and repeatedly attacked and tore apart. This was the first achievement of today's battle.
By the time Zhang Fei returned to the camp, his whole body was almost soaked with sweat.
If Liu Feng were here, he would definitely persuade Zhang Fei not to take off his armor in a hurry. It would be hard to take it off and he would catch the cold, but he would be like Chang Yuchun, who would die immediately.
Fortunately, it is winter now. Although Zhang Fei is sweating all over from fighting, the probability of the wind coming off his armor is very small.
Soon, Zhang Fei took a shower after gulping down the tea.
That night, in the Chinese army tent in the camp, Zhang Sanye washed himself, put on his plain robe, and came outside the Chinese army tent.
"The last general Zhang Fei, please see the governor."
Yes, Mr. Zhang dislikes the poor and loves the rich. No, he dislikes the love of Guizhou. To the common people, he is an ordinary person. His attitude towards soldiers and officials is too rough and cruel, but towards famous scholars, it is well-known.
Compared with staying at Liu Ba's house in the future and refusing to leave until midnight, now it is more reasonable to go into the commander's tent at night to report the war.
"General Zhang, please come in."
In the commander's tent, Chen Deng was having a meal. The army was outside, and the affairs were complicated. It was not until the moon had risen that it was half in the sky, and Chen Deng had time to have a cold meal. .
Although the rice was cold, Chen Deng ate it very deliciously. When he saw Zhang Fei coming, he invited him to share some with him.
Zhang Fei came over full, but as soon as Chen Deng invited him, he immediately said that he happened to be hungry too.
Chen Deng immediately asked someone to serve another portion. Zhang Fei picked up his rice bowl and chatted with Chen Deng while eating in small bites.
No way, this bowl is too small. If the third master is willing, he can finish it in two or three mouthfuls. Will it leave a bad impression on Chen Yuanlong as a loser?
There is absolutely no talk between the two of them as Confucius said when they eat and sleep.
While eating and chatting, Chen Deng specially offered tea instead of wine and toasted Zhang Fei, thanking him for taking a dangerous charge today, defeating the Taishan Army and saving the crisis.
Zhang Fei was so happy that he couldn't close his mouth. He kept being humble, but his round eyes turned into a gap when he smiled. Finally, he remembered to praise Chen Deng for his commanding and insight into the overall situation. He was just a brave man. .
Just at this time, the soldiers from outside came to report that Cao Bao was also here and was asking to see Chen Deng outside the commander's tent.
(End of this chapter)