Chapter 783 Begging to Surrender
In the third year of Taiwu, on May 29th, at the end of noon, the battlefield was on the eastern front.
When Li Tong, who was on the east wing, saw the Taishan Army on the opposite side using crossbows to kill friendly troops unscrupulously, he finally decided to attack.
He is different from Li Zheng. Li Tong understands that his glory is ultimately tied to the Yuan family. If Yuan Shao falls in this decisive battle, what can Li Tong gain?
Therefore, he decided to dispatch the only Jianghuai cavalry in his hand to attack the Taishan Army's ballista position.
The person responsible for leading this assault force of about 800 cavalry was none other than Ding Feng, the powerful general under Li Tong.
……
Ding Feng, who had been deprived of his military power before, was ordered to attack the enemy's ballista position in a critical situation.
Ding Feng was not happy when he received this order. He already had a lot of opinions about Li Tong.
Especially the words that Chen's township party members said before they died, such as "Lujiang people will be killed", have always lingered in Ding Feng's heart.
But when the order came, Ding Feng didn't dare to say a word "no" when he looked at the Jianghuai cavalrymen around him who were watching eagerly.
So, Ding Feng could only put on his armor, organize the cavalry a little and set off.
He did not rush straight towards the Taishan Army's ballista position, but was carefully observing the battlefield, because he saw that the Chinese Army seemed to have sent a considerable number of assault cavalry to attack that position.
But after Ding Feng took a brief look, he realized that the group of assault riders didn't seem to be going well. Not only had they been broken up into several small groups, but the speed of their horses had even slowed down, and they were almost struggling to move forward.
Then these assault cavalry who lost their speed were bombarded by enemy ballistae, causing many casualties.
Seeing this, Ding Feng wanted to ask the cavalry to slow down, but the battlefield was so noisy and everyone's adrenaline was racing. The Jianghuai cavalry couldn't hear what Ding Feng said at all, so they shouted and rushed. Toward the enemy's position.
At this time, no matter how rational Ding Feng was, there was nothing he could do. He could only grit his teeth and chase after him. Otherwise, he would be punished by Li Tong if he went back.
At this moment, Ding Feng was lying on the horse, shrinking as much as possible. He didn't care whether he was about to give instructions. Anyway, at this time, everyone should protect themselves first.
The attack position of Ding Feng and others was relatively hidden, because there was no Taishan Army directly in front of them, but the ballista position arranged by Taishan Army was on the side of Wei Zhou's Fengxiang Army.
In other words, if they want to rush to the ballista position, they need to pass through the formations of Xie Bi's Wei Bo Army, Li Wu's Guangwu Army, Zhang Da's Xiongwu Army, and Zhang Nan's Gongsheng Army.
Thanks to the suddenness, Ding Feng and the others quickly passed through the Wei Bo Army's formation, but when they were about to arrive at the handover between the Guangwu Army and the Xiongwu Army, the Taishan Army discovered them and organized arrow cover.
Thousands of arrows instantly covered the grassland Ding Feng and his companions passed by. Riders fell off their horses and fell to the ground. Fortunately, thanks to their increased speed, their casualties were not large.
At this time, no need for Ding Feng and other cavalry officers to say anything, the Jianghuai cavalrymen knew that there was only one choice in front of them, and that was to continue charging towards the enemy's crossbow position.
They can either break out of this bloody road or die here, with no other choice.
At this time, the Jianghuai cavalrymen who rushed to the front could already see the Taishan Army's ballista position, but as far as they could see, they saw corpses everywhere more than 20 steps away from the position.
That was the assault cavalry that came from the Chinese army before, but now it has been tragically wiped out on the road of charge.
But these Jianghuai cavalry followers could not care less about mourning for these friendly troops, because they soon discovered that their situation was not much better.
Because the Taishan Army's ballista position was previously used to bombard Wenpin's army, the direction of the stone-firing carts and ballistas was fixed to the southwest.
Therefore, it stands to reason that the Jianghuai cavalry rushing from the southeast would not be bombarded by these crossbows at all, because they happened to be coming from the opposite direction.
But when Jianghuai's cavalry and followers rushed here, they suddenly discovered that a considerable number of enemy cavalry suddenly rushed out from the passage between the Taishan Army's formations.
They were the sudden cavalry of the Taishan Army, headed by the four generals Zhang Ai, Xue Ping, Gao Ao, and Yan Rou.
These people were wearing khaki military uniforms, iron helmets with ultivation caps, and pierced armor. They were holding nine-foot-long horse poles with various triangular flags hanging on their heads. They rushed towards them at charge speed.
At this moment, the Jianghuai cavalrymen who thought they could survive the arrows suddenly fell to the bottom of their hearts.
At this moment, Ding Feng, who had been hiding, stood up and shouted:
"When we meet on a narrow road, the brave will win. Follow me and find a way to survive!"
After saying that, Ding Feng suddenly increased his horse's speed and hit a Taishan Army officer in front who was dressed like a cavalry general.
The person on the other side was also surprised. The one he had been staring at was another enemy, but suddenly one appeared in front of him. He was caught off guard, and before Ma Shan had time to sweep, he was knocked off his horse by Ding Fengyi Shan.
Then, this man was trampled into a pulp by the friendly horses behind him.
Everything seemed to happen in an instant. The moment the two sides collided, the world suddenly turned gray. After a while, when the wailing and desperate cries of the fallen horse reached my ears, the colors gradually faded out.
Red, yellow, white.
At this moment, those who were still alive after falling from the horse wished that the world was still gray, because then they would not be frightened by the "colorful" in front of them.
In the end, less than four hundred Jianghuai knights survived the collision. They plowed a bloody road and fought their way out of the mountain of corpses and sea of blood. One-third of our partners got stuck on this path.
Li Tong's son Li Xu was the actual leader of this group of Jianghuai cavalry, and he fell on this bloody road to break through.
After swinging away two rounds of horses, his horse was stabbed by the third Taishan Army's sudden cavalry. Without his mount, Li Xu could only draw out his sword in despair and watch the surroundings, and was eventually killed mercilessly beside his horse.
An iron ax penetrated directly into the back of his head, without any extraneous force, and he died in this killing field with his beloved horse.
This place is already less than a hundred steps away from the Taishan Army's ballista position, but now it has become a natural chasm and can never be reached.
On the right side of Jianghuai's cavalry, the equally young and brave cavalry general Shen Cheng was also killed by a horse spear that pierced his armor.
Because the 200 Jianghuai cavalry he led were the closest troops to the Taishan Army's horse racing track, one of their units was completely lost in this round of collision.
Except for a few dozen riders who broke out, the rest were either killed or injured and fell off their horses, waiting for the mercy of fate.
There is also a "lucky man" here. He is an ordinary knight. He is so ordinary that he does not even have a name. He is only called "Crow" in the army.
Ya'er was the last person on the Jianghuai Cavalry on the right. When he finally broke out of the jungle of horses and spears, he carelessly stepped on a pit and fell to the ground with him and his horse.
Before Ya'er could get up, the nearby Taishan Army's assault cavalry rushed over. One of them struck Ya'er in the head, knocking off his helmet.
Before Ya'er could recover from her buzzing and dizziness, the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry on the opposite side struck her again, and this time she cut off half of Ya'er's fingers that were protecting her helmet, including all the front fingers from the little finger to the middle finger. Ya'er rolled to the ground and howled in pain, but he just happened to avoid the stabbing horse spear. When he was about to turn around again, an iron bone flower came down and hit Ya'er's front breastplate directly.
But even so, he only beat Ya'er until there was blood in his mouth.
The Taishan Army assault riders who were surrounding him and taking turns beating him became a little angry. One of them was so anxious that he jumped off his horse, holding a ring-head knife in one hand and pulling Ya'er's hair bun with the other, intending to cut him off. 's head.
But even so, the knife actually hit an iron collar and only cut a few small wounds on Ya'er's neck.
At this time, a thick voice came from outside, but it was Zhang Yi, one of the four great cavalry generals.
"Get out of the way, you're a bunch of disgraceful people."
After saying that, Zhang Hao opened the few assault cavalry and squeezed in. He first shook away the blood on the ring-shou sword, while looking down at the Yuan Jun cavalry at his feet.
While looking at it, Zhang Hao suddenly smiled and pointed the knife at the Ya'er:
"This is a tough one, I accept it."
After saying that, Zhang Hao threw a bundle of hemp rope to Ya'er, then turned around and left a message:
"I tied myself up and left you here. If my life is really tough, I will naturally come to you after the war."
After saying that, Zhang Hao took these assault riders and continued to chase the group of Jianghuai assault riders who had just broken through.
Ya'er was left on the battlefield, looking at the sky with empty eyes and confusion. The sun was so dazzling, but it couldn't bring him any warmth when it shone on him.
"This world is really hard for people to live."
With a sigh in his heart, Ya'er tried his best to support himself. He first dragged the body of Paoze who died in the battle next to him, then cut a long strip of cloth from his military uniform and wrapped it around his severed finger.
After completing this, Ya'er had time to look at the corpse in front of him, but unfortunately he didn't know this person.
Although there are only six to seven hundred people in the Jianghuai Tuqi, not everyone can know everyone. In fact, Ya'er only knows him and not the others.
Seeing that it was not Pao Ze, Ya'er felt better for some reason. He saw a red rope around the neck of the corpse, and with a sudden move, he pulled the red rope off.
I didn't have time to see what this thing was, but just by weighing it, I knew it was a good thing.
Then Ya'er stuffed the object into the cuff, touched the body, found the water bag and drank a lot, then picked up the hemp rope that Zhang Gai had thrown away and sat back down.
He casually wrapped the hemp rope around his hand a few times, then pulled the body over again. Then he found a comfortable place to lie down, covered the body with the body, and waited for the war to end.
Ya'er's disguise was too hasty, but in such an environment it was natural.
Yes, dirt, blood, corpse pillows, anyone would think this is a pile of unfortunate corpses.
Afterwards, Crow's child fell asleep on the battlefield lying on the corpse.
……
Compared to the brutality of the others, Ding Feng, who was the first to bear the impact, was not injured at all.
At this moment, after narrowly escaping from the nightmare Taishan Army's cavalry charge, Ding Feng had already rushed to the crossbow position of those people.
Because these Jianghuai cavalry were gradually approaching, the leader of this crossbow position, Qian Zhao, ordered the entire army to abandon the position early and retreat to Guo Mo's army formation to the west.
This kind of behavior of abandoning the formation and leaving is a dead end in any army, but it does not apply to this army.
In terms of real value, these crossbowmen and school shooters with elementary mathematical abilities are far higher than that pile of wood.
Whether it is a ballista or a stone cart, any craftsman battalion of the Taishan Army can mass-produce it, but it will take years to recruit this group of gunners.
Therefore, the Ballista Battalion was granted certain privileges by Zhang Chong when it was first established. That is, Qianzhao can judge the battlefield situation on his own to save living personnel to the greatest extent, even if the ballista is abandoned.
At this moment, looking at the empty ballista position, Ding Feng looked at the pile of wooden machinery with a kind of confusion in his eyes.
Was it this pile of wood that killed so many of them? So they died so many people just to burn this pile of things?
Ding Feng didn't have time to look at these exquisite ordnance carefully. At this moment, the Taishan Army's assault cavalry surrounded them again. He took off the wooden handle stained with rosin from the side of the horse, then used a flint to ignite a strand of grass and set the wooden handle on fire.
Beside him, the hundreds of Jianghuai raiders who broke out also lit torches, and then imitated Ding Feng and threw them on the ordnance.
But unfortunately, even though these ballistas and stone-throwing machines are made of wood, it is very difficult to light them with a torch.
Therefore, Ding Feng and the others soon saw that the torches they threw could not even ignite the grass, let alone start a fire.
The heavy rain in the past two days made the grass very wet. This torch only burned the ground into clumps of smoke, and had no other effect.
After seeing such a desperate scene, many Jianghuai cavalrymen cried. So many of them had died and they had already reached here, but they couldn't even burn the ballistae.
Ding Feng also sighed. Seeing the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry getting closer and closer, he sighed, then jumped off his horse and sat on the ground.
Several Jianghuai cavalrymen who were friendly with Ding Feng understood something, hesitated, jumped off their horses, and sat around Ding Feng.
Slowly, like an infection, more and more Jianghuai cavalry chose to jump off their horses and sit cross-legged on the ground.
No one said anything, and no one blamed anything. They all had a vague consensus:
"This number of days cannot be accomplished by humans."
Yes, as warriors, they have done what they can, and now, they just hope to survive in a "humble" way.
So, when Gao Ao led the assault cavalry to the ballista position, what he saw was a hundred Jianghuai knights sitting cross-legged on the ground. They put their weapons flat on their legs and looked at him with a trace of unwillingness. , but more of a prayer.
Behind these Jianghuai knights, several ballistae were lit and smoke was rising, but most of the ballistae and stone-fired carts were generally intact.
So, Gao Ao understood something, and he looked at the person in the middle of the group of knights. He was a majestic warrior. His armor was very clean, and there were no traces of hacking. He should be the member of this group of knights. The commander is in command.
When Gao Ao looked at him, Ding Feng stood up. Behind him, a guard with the hair on his lips still standing was holding a general's flag.
Ding Feng turned around and carefully lowered the general's flag. Seeing the guard's eyes filled with tears, he sighed, patted him on the shoulder, and then turned back.
When Ding Feng stood still, he stared at Gao Ao, raised the military flag with both hands, and shouted loudly:
"Ding Feng of Lujiang, exhausted, begged for surrender from your army."
Ding Feng lowered his head, his eyes were filled with tears, and the tears fell on the grass. The green was so bright.