Chapter 787 Grudges
In the chaotic battlefield on the Eastern Front, the collapse of the Taishan Army on the Eastern Front reported by Li Xian's tooth general was never true.
There was only one reason why Li Xian reported like this, and that was that he also had to consider the future of his family. When he heard that his fifth brother Li Dian had come from the Chinese Army, he decided to lie about the military information.
However, Li Xian did not think that he was lying, he just predicted it in advance. What he observed from his position was that the enemy's eastern front was indeed in danger.
As Li Tong's and Wen Chou's troops entered the battlefield one after another, the battlefield on the Eastern Front began to develop in a direction that was beneficial to Yuan's army.
At this time, when the war drums behind him sounded, Li Xian, who had already ordered the entire battalion to prepare, shouted:
"Let's go!"
Therefore, following Li Tong and Wen Chou, the entire army of the Right Guards, with 12,000 officers and men, also entered the battlefield.
And this was their first battle in two days.
……
The battlefield time has arrived, and the hottest part of the day has passed, but for the Taishan Army officers and soldiers on the eastern front, the most painful time has begun.
At this time, starting from Wei Bo's army in the east, all the way to the west, and all the way to Zhang Nan's Gongsheng army, fighting could be seen everywhere.
As Li Tong and Li Zheng sent troops one after another, the three legions located east of the battle line began to bear tremendous pressure.
Some battalion heads were still intact in the military formation, while others were retreating. However, while a large number of grassroots military officials were still alive, the retreating troops simply withdrew to the rear, preparing to regroup.
The Guangwu Army in the middle faced each other in a giant phalanx before the war. On his right, the defeated troops of the Wei Bo Army retreated along this huge phalanx.
Since Li Tong led three armies to directly attack Wei Bo's army, their army was the first to collapse. At this time, Xie Bi's life and death were unknown, and many battalion heads had already begun to retreat southward from the military road, and then reorganized behind the Guangwu Army.
At the same time, a large number of wounded people hurriedly evacuated north with the help of the stretcher team. Along the way, Yuan Jun's armored soldiers could be seen chasing and killing them from time to time.
Further east, a similar situation is more serious.
It can be said that as a military-level organization, Wei Bojun has almost lost its combat effectiveness, although it still has many small battalions that still hold their positions independently.
This does not blame Wei Bojun for being fragile. In fact, they have done a good enough job.
Yesterday on the central battlefield, Wei Bojun fought as the main force. Although Zhang He's troops were defeated, the attrition of the troops was serious.
In today's decisive battle, Wei Bojun actually stood in front of the formation with only more than 2,600 people, only half of the establishment, and most of the rest were recovering from their injuries in the rear.
Li Tong, who launched a general offensive in the northeast, suffered losses of seven to eight thousand people, and also lost the most elite Jianghuai cavalry, but he was still able to organize a force of ten thousand people to enter the battlefield.
In fact, because Ding Feng and the remaining Jianghuai cavalry had surrendered in front of the formation, this incident completely angered Li Tong. Li Tong, who had been hesitant at first, refused to hold back and launched a fierce attack on Wei Bo's army on the periphery of the eastern front.
Because the strength of the army was five times that of Wei Bo's army, even with the cooperation of some of the Taishan army's sudden cavalry, Wei Bo's army still could not stop it.
Previously, Zhang Nan, the commander of the Eastern Front, had transferred almost all the crossbows from the six armies in order to build a ballista position. Also because of the lack of these military weapons, Wei Bojun had no chance.
Just when Wei Bo's army collapsed, directly south of it, Li Zheng's five legions also entered the battlefield one after another, and the first to arrive was a cavalry regiment with more than 800 riders.
This was the fortune Li had earned through years of hard work in Yanzhou. After getting permission from the Chinese army to attack as appropriate, the cavalry commander Li Shao rushed to the front line without hesitation.
The Li family was on the rise, and there were quite a few elites in the clan. Li Shao was Li Jin's nephew, and his martial arts were taught by Li Jin.
It is precisely because of this that Li Shao hates the Taishan Army very much and always wants to avenge his uncle. So after receiving the order, Li Shao led the most elite cavalry to charge forward without any hesitation.
In fact, we can know from this detail that most of the Li family members do not agree with Li Zheng's actions.
Either they are simply loyal and feel that Yuan Shao is their master and they should fulfill their duties. Or, like Li Shao, he regards the Taishan Army as his enemy.
So from a certain perspective, Li Zheng may be the one who insists on having his own way, but the truth is often in the hands of such people.
It's a pity that Li Zheng failed to persist until the end.
As Li's cavalry appeared on the battlefield, Zhang Yi and the Taishan Army's cavalry had no choice but to be expelled from the battlefield.
After fighting until now, their horses had long been exhausted, so with a short blast of horns, the Taishan Army's sudden cavalry, in groups of twenty or thirty people, retreated to the northern lowlands through the narrow gaps in the battlefield.
After Zhang Hao and the other assault cavalry were driven away, the remaining Wei Bo army finally began to abandon their positions and sadly retreated north under the cover of the friendly forces next door.
……
At this time, in the Guangwu Army, General Li Wuzheng anxiously scanned the chaotic battlefield. He was afraid that he would hear the enemy shouting something about taking Xie Bi's head.
But after scanning for a long time, Li Wu couldn't find Xie Bi, but the good news was that he didn't hear that the enemy had captured Xie Bi.
Li Wu still wanted to continue searching, but the current situation was no longer tolerated, because the enemy troops coming from the front and east were already pressing over.
Especially the one in front of them should be the phalanx belonging to Yuan Jun's right guard.
Of course Li Wu knew who the right guard army was, and they were none other than Li from the Cheng family. Unfortunately, Li Wu and the Li family had a deep hatred.
At that time, he, Wang Zhang and Yang Mao were all swordsmen in the Prince's Palace of Jibei, but they were forced by Li Jin in Onoze, and then a bloody massacre broke out.
It was also in that conflict that his friends and colleagues died tragically. He, Wang and Yang also reunited with Zhang Chonglin and embarked on an unprecedented path together.
But this does not mean that Li Wu is relieved of this hatred.
In this decisive battle, when he learned that he was facing the army of his former enemy, Li Wu could not wait to lead his troops to fight against him. If the king had not planned the main attack direction before the battle, he would not have spared his life. of these people.
But now, I kindly let them go without fighting, but I didn't expect these people to be so ignorant and take the initiative to attack, so let's bleed them.
Let's settle our old and new grudges together.
But when the military formation on the opposite side spread out, Lao Li's heart tightened, and the previous contempt disappeared.
It turned out that the Li's regiment on the opposite side obviously had strict discipline. With the help of the sudden cavalry, they formed a neat square formation and pressed over.
Behind them, there are about two battalions that have not moved, obviously arranged as a reserve force. Similar arrangements also appeared in other directions on the front, and this was what made Li Wu wary.
Because this combat method is very similar to some of the tactics of their Taishan Army.
In the Taishan Army's standard squad tactics, they must attack in succession by alternating commandos, stormtroopers, and reserves, and now the enemy forces on the opposite side are also arranged according to similar tactics.
In other words, the enemy army is obviously trained in small-scale tactics and is a well-trained elite. And sure enough, just as Li Wu was watching the formation, an enemy battalion rushed up amidst fierce horns, and it was a battalion from the Guangwu Army's front line that they chose.
This battalion belongs to an independent military formation, with a strength of about 800 people. The infantrymen, longbowmen, and archers are arranged in a ratio of six, two, and two. It is the head of a typical resistance line battalion.
As a line-resistance force, they only started to lower their rifles when the enemy was approaching 200 steps in order to save physical energy.
The long archers in the back row were firing arrows continuously under the command of their respective team leaders, but the people on the other side were well prepared, and a large number of archers and armored soldiers were deployed in the front line of the military formation.
These arrows obviously didn't do much harm to them.
But that's not the worst part. Just as the enemy infantry formation slowly pressed forward, a group of cavalry rushed out from the side.
They directly bypassed the Taishan Army in front of them and got in from the left, that is, the gap between the Guangwu Army and Zhang Da's Xiongwu Army.
This behavior greatly exceeded the expectations of the leaders of the two armies. Their arrangement in this gap was relatively weak. In addition, Wei Bo's army to the east collapsed. Li Wu believed that Li Tong's army to the east would be The main attack direction, so two battalions were specially mobilized from the west to strengthen this area.
Because of this, the right wing of the Guangwu Army was relatively fragile, but Li Wu believed that his right wing would be covered by Zhang Da next door, so he didn't take it to heart.
This emotion naturally also affected the attitude of the officials on the western defense line. They all looked at the east and front with their necks bowed, and became more relaxed about their own side.
But this slackness was immediately caught by Yuan Jun on the opposite side.
So, with a cavalry commander blowing the horn, a group of about 800 riders rushed towards this side.
The Li knights have uniform attire, which is actually not easy.
A well-known reason is that in this dynasty, the price of clothes is very expensive. Unless the country has strong financial resources and the team is a master of economics and management, it will generally not be equipped with clothes, let alone uniform attire.
It is no exaggeration to say that even after the Industrial Revolution, a large number of recruits in World War I still wore military uniforms from dead people. These clothes were stripped off from the dead, washed at will, and given to the next recruit. .
It can be said that it is no exaggeration to say that one piece of clothing can be passed down to three people.
At this time, everyone in Li's cavalry was wearing brand-new uniforms, and some generals and warriors were wearing double-breasted blouses. This was in sharp contrast to the officers and soldiers of the Guangwu army who had been fighting fiercely for a long time.
Because the timing was so good, these Li's assault cavalry rushed into the flank of the Guangwu Army and immediately caused a one-sided massacre.
This scene once again verifies the battlefield truth:
"One ride counts as ten steps!"
Li Shao was the commander of this cavalry. At this time, after killing one person from a high position, he was about to continue to break into Li Wu's territory.
But at this moment, the subordinates behind kept shouting:
"Journey Shiro, retreat quickly, the enemy's sudden cavalry is coming."
Hearing this, Li Shao was shocked, because he had obviously seen that the enemy's sudden cavalry had been driven away by Li Tong before. Why was there another sudden cavalry now?
But when he looked back, he saw a huge plume of smoke and dust blowing from the north on the same narrow passage between the two armies, and a cavalry army with a big flag with the word "李" in it was moving towards this direction at high speed.
Without thinking any more, Li Shao shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Withdraw, withdraw!"
After speaking, Li Shao rode away on his own without any hesitation. As for the subordinates behind him who had no time to retreat, he didn't care.
By the time Li Shao withdrew in disgrace, the situation had deteriorated to an irreversible level.
The Taishan Army's sudden cavalry, numbering as many as a thousand, galloped all the way from the rear of the Chinese army. Under the leadership of the cavalry general Li Bi, they immediately bit the tail of Li's cavalry.
Li's cavalry simply had no ability to resist. After being annihilated by several rear-guard troops, the remaining cavalry fell into a rout and the scene was very chaotic.
During the retreat, Li Shao failed to fulfill his responsibilities as a general. In order not to expose himself, he not only threw away the robe that represented his identity, but also asked the flag-bearing soldiers following behind him to leave him.
He himself fled towards the south alone.
Behind Li Shao, Li's cavalry kept screaming and fell off their horses. It was the crossbowmen of the heroic military army next door who were firing arrows. Therefore, this section of the road became the road to death for these people.
But this has nothing to do with Li Shao. He has already rushed out of this passage, and the price is that arrows are inserted in both arms.
Because his arms were injured, Li Shao could no longer control the horse and could only let the horse carry him forward.
But the war horses were also afraid of sounds and crowds, so they bypassed the chaotic battlefield and carried Li Shao directly to a raised slope on the right side in front of the Xiongwu Army formation.
It was also there that the horse missed the mark and Li Shao fell off the horse.
After a short period of breathlessness and dizziness, Li Shao recovered. He first checked his body and saw that there was nothing serious except for injuries to his arms, and then he got up unsteadily.
Just as he was about to look for the direction of his formation, he suddenly heard a hideous laugh behind him, and several You Yi and casual soldiers from the Xiongwu Army were approaching.
These people are skirmishers placed in front of the military formation, and they are mostly brave and capable people in the army.
Previously, the front of the Xiongwu Army was also attacked by another army of Li's army. These few skirmishers had just retreated from the battle.
Although Li Shao had discarded items that would reveal his identity as much as possible, he had forgotten that he himself was a kind of proof.
A sharp soldier of the Xiongwu Army came up directly and held down Li Shao, then pinched his chin, looked at Li Shao's teeth, and then said to the robes behind him with great joy:
"I didn't expect that we would encounter a big fish here. No matter who he was, I chopped off his head and gave it to the sergeant, which is just the right way to atone for my sins."
Li Shao's whole body was shaking like a fish on the beach, and he shouted:
"I am willing to surrender!"
But alas, what's the use of talking about this on the battlefield?
With one slash of the knife, Li Shao's throat spurted out a column of blood, and he lost his life in an instant.
The last thoughts and remnants of Li Jin left in the world also quietly disappeared on the Yiluo battlefield. Since then, the grudges eight years ago have finally ended at this moment.
After killing Li Shao, these elite soldiers of the Taishan Army cut off his head very skillfully. Then they went through Li Shao's belongings and found a piece of jade, a piece of gold foil with an inscription and a letter.
Then, these people took their bloody heads and retreated towards the formation.
Behind them, the Eastern Front battlefield also entered the final bloody battle.