Tang Dynasty Mingyue Song Dynasty Pass

Chapter 801: Wu-Han Battle (Part )

The Wu army and the Southern Han army faced each other. After a brief exchange of words, the atmosphere suddenly froze.

Li Chengwo, the chief general of Southern Han, had a determined look on his face. Without further ado, he waved his hand and ordered an attack. The heavily armored elephant formation was activated, like a mobile fortress on an ancient battlefield.

"Woo-woo-woo!" The sound of the horn pierced the sky, shaking every inch of land, foreshadowing the coming of a bloody storm.

The Southern Han elephant formation, like a mountain torrent, roared and crushed towards the Wu army's position with unstoppable momentum.

The earth trembled under the footsteps of this huge creature, and the air was filled with the smoke of war and the roar of wild beasts.

"Kill! Wu Jun will die!"

The shouts of the Southern Han soldiers were like thunder, shaking everyone's eardrums. Their eyes were flashing with desire for victory and enthusiasm for fighting.

"Swish, swish, swish!" The sound of arrows breaking through the air followed closely. On the elephant's back, there was a towering battle tower where archers stood steadily. Their eyes were like torches and their fingers lightly clicked. One sharp arrow after another was like a kiss of death, cutting through the sky and pointing straight at the Wu army camp.

Faced with the Southern Han's war elephant troops charging like prehistoric beasts, some soldiers in the Wu army were quietly eaten away by fear. There was uneasiness flashing in their eyes, and the war horses beside them were panicked and neighing because of this unprecedented sense of oppression.

"This... How can we resist this?" Whispers of fear spread among the soldiers, and morale was temporarily shaken.

However, at this critical moment, Pan Mei seemed unusually calm. He scanned the entire scene with a sharp gaze and said in a deep voice: "Crossbow formation, listen to my command, prepare to shoot!"

Following Pan Mei's order, the Wu army's heavy chariot and crossbow artillery group, nearly a thousand of them, which had been ready for action, suddenly woke up like a sleeping dragon. At a distance of about 1600 meters, they launched a deadly attack on the Southern Han elephant formation with the force of thunder.

"Shhhhh-"

The bowstrings of the hundreds of heavy crossbows of the Wu army made a deafening roar like thunder when shooting, and fired heavy arrowheads nearly 2 meters long, and the arrow shafts were all covered with kerosene, burning fiercely.

  Thousands of giant armor-piercing arrowheads were shot out with the flames of death and piercing screams, smashing into the Southern Han elephant formation like a gale!

Driven by the powerful explosive force of the crossbow, the sharp steel triangular armor-piercing arrows on the arrows first easily tore through the solid armor of the Southern Tang war elephants, and even directly penetrated the elephants' strongest steel face guard and breastplate, and then penetrated the thick elephant skin, killing or injuring the war elephants.

"Crack! Plop!" accompanied by a heart-pounding sound, the huge body of the Southern Han war elephant was ruthlessly pierced like fragile porcelain under the bombardment of the Wu army's heavy chariot crossbows, and then collapsed with a loud bang, stirring up a cloud of dust.

The battle tower on the back of the war elephant seemed even more vulnerable in the face of this terrifying force. It was torn and pierced in an instant, and fragments flew everywhere. Accompanied by the terrified and desperate screams of the Southern Han soldiers, the entire battlefield seemed to be plunged into chaos and panic.

"Ah——" Those screams were the last struggle of life before disappearance, and they reflected the deep fear and unwillingness of the Southern Han soldiers towards this brutal war.

They originally thought that with the invincibility of the war elephants, they could easily crush the Wu army's defense line, but they did not expect that the Wu army actually possessed such a terrifying long-range strike capability.

On the top of the city wall, Shaozhou Governor Dou Feng witnessed all this, and his heart was filled with shock. The power of the Wu army's chariot crossbows was beyond his imagination. Even the generals wearing heavy armor were easily penetrated by the artillery fire, like paper. Not to mention the fully armed war elephants, which also fell down one after another under the shooting of the crossbows.

He knew very well that with just this type of crossbow, the Wu army was almost invincible in long-range combat. If they charged head-on, the Southern Han army would probably be even more difficult to resist.

At this time, Dou Feng realized the reason for his worry. It turned out that the Wu army was not blindly fighting, but had been prepared and knew the Southern Han's war elephant formation very well. The heavy chariot crossbows they brought were precisely to restrain this seemingly invincible war elephant army.

On the top of Shaozhou City, other generals and soldiers also witnessed this scene. The excitement and contempt for the enemy on their faces froze instantly, replaced by incredible shock and a faint sense of uneasiness. Those war elephants that they thought could easily crush the Wu army, now fell down one after another like targets under the Wu army's artillery fire, which made them feel unprecedented shock.

The battle continued. As the Southern Han elephant formation approached step by step, when they stepped into the range of several hundred meters, the Wu army's individual crossbows were like a net of death that spread out in an instant.

Countless crossbow arrows, each carrying blazing flames, cut through the sky and flew towards the Southern Han elephant formation. At that moment, the entire battlefield seemed to be set on fire, and the Southern Han elephant formation was enveloped in a terrifying "rain of fire" like purgatory, with flames soaring into the sky, smoke filling the air, and wailing and elephant calls interweaving into a tragic war song.

The fierce long-range firepower of the Wu army immediately killed hundreds of war elephants. Their huge bodies struggled and fell in the flames, turning into a scorched earth. And those war elephants that were lucky enough not to be killed directly were also terrified in the raging fire ignited by the arrowheads.

Like war horses, elephants have a natural fear of fire. However, unlike war horses, which may be able to overcome this weakness through rigorous training, war elephants cannot get rid of this instinctive fear no matter what.

As a result, the frightened war elephants screamed and threw off the battle towers on their backs, and like out-of-control beasts, they turned around and rushed into the Southern Han army. They trampled and ruthlessly harvested the lives of the Southern Han soldiers. For a time, the Southern Han army was in chaos, morale collapsed, and they fled one after another.

"Retreat quickly, the elephant is going crazy!"

The Southern Han soldiers howled one after another. They shouted in fear, as if they were in hell on earth. Their voices were full of despair and helplessness. "The Wu army's crossbows are too strong. We can't stop them!" Facing the Wu army's crossbows that rained down like raindrops, the Southern Han soldiers lamented that their defense line was like paper and was easily torn apart under the fierce attack of the Wu army.

Pan Mei stood on a high place, watching all this, but he was extremely calm in his heart. He knew very well that this was the best time to seize the opportunity and pursue the victory.

Therefore, Pan Mei immediately ordered the long-range firepower to move forward and continue to fire crossbows at the Southern Han army to maintain suppression of the enemy.

At the same time, Pan Mei ordered the entire army to take the lead in charging with cavalry. With his order, the charge horns of the Wu army resounded through the sky, and the horses roared, pedaled hard, and charged into the battle.

Immediately afterwards, the infantry followed closely, shouting, waving their weapons, and rushing towards the phalanx of the Southern Han army like a tide.

"How could this happen!" Li Chengwu was dumbfounded, and the shock in his heart was hard to describe. He never expected that his trump card elephant formation, which he was so proud of, would be so vulnerable to the crossbows of the Wu army and collapsed in an instant.

He had originally imagined that he could easily crush the Wu army's square formation and win the victory with the charge of war elephants. However, reality dealt him a cruel blow. Thousands of war elephants fell under the crossbows of the Wu army, and the remaining ones fell into madness and fear, which disrupted his own army's formation.

Seeing Wu Jun launching an attack, Li Chengwu hurriedly shouted: "Stop, stop Wu Jun!"

But his voice seemed so weak on the battlefield, as if swallowed up by the endless noise.

Boom! Thousands of Wu cavalrymen rushed forward like a rolling torrent. Their confidence was boosted because they saw the defeat of the war elephants and knew that their chance to make a contribution had come.

At this moment, three thousand cavalrymen of Southern Han also came forward and tried to stop the cavalry of Wu army.

However, the Southern Han cavalry was still inferior to the Wu army's Black Cloud Cavalry. As soon as they met, the Southern Han cavalry was severely damaged, beaten, and retreated continuously, with heavy casualties.

Then, Pan Mei calmly surveyed the battlefield and decisively issued a new order: "Troops on both wings, attack diagonally!"

"Understood!" Generals Pan Weide, Pan Weigu, Pan Weizheng, Bian Zhanyu, Li Saidong, Chai Songyun and others were already eager to try and were ready to fight. They had been waiting for a long time and finally got the military order. They led their troops and rushed out like tigers descending from the mountains.

The Wu army launched another charge. The left and right armies launched at the same time, each with 20,000 horses, rolling out. When they approached the Southern Han phalanx, they split again. The left army was divided into two, and the right army was also divided into two. They inserted into the Southern Han phalanx from the side like a sharp blade. This sudden offensive caught the Southern Han soldiers off guard and they were completely stunned.

The previous random shooting of the Wu army's chariot crossbows had already caused heavy losses to the Southern Han army. Now, with the frontal cavalry charge and the insertion of troops from the left and right armies on both wings, the Southern Han army was instantly cut into several pieces and lost its overall combat effectiveness.

The Southern Han army of 60,000 to 70,000 people was in chaos at this moment. They could not get effective command and could only fight on their own, like a pile of loose sand.

Li Chengwu's face was extremely ugly at this time. He was at a loss, and his heart was filled with panic and helplessness. He had originally only thought about how to defeat the Wu army in one fell swoop and win the war, but he never thought that he would be frustrated and defeated. Therefore, he did not prepare any backup plans to deal with this extremely passive situation.

He could only order not to retreat and to continue resisting.

However, this meaningless command will only further dampen the soldiers' desire to fight when morale is low and there is no sign of victory.

The Southern Han army was no longer able to effectively fight against the Wu army, and their formations and coordination had long since disappeared.

In contrast, the Wu army seemed to be in good order. They had practiced many times how to cooperate with each other to penetrate and cut through the Southern Han army formation, and then encircle and annihilate them.

The Wu army moved and attacked skillfully, coordinating their forces in an extremely clever way, surrounding the Southern Han army layer by layer like making dumplings, preventing them from joining forces and trapping them like turtles in a jar.

At this time, Dou Feng, the governor of Shaozhou, saw that the battlefield situation was critical and the main force of the Southern Han army was about to be destroyed. He made a prompt decision and immediately ordered to go out of the city to rescue. He knew very well that if he did not take action, these 100,000 Southern Han soldiers would probably be buried here.

However, Su Chen had predicted this. He was well versed in military tactics and knew that Dou Feng would definitely come out of the city to rescue him, so he sent Jing Hong to lead an elite guard to rush out in advance to block Dou Feng's troops from leaving the city.

Su Chen’s intention was very clear. He not only wanted to defeat the main force of Southern Han, but also to take the opportunity to capture Shaozhou City. That would be the perfect ending to this war.

The guards led by Jing Hong were like a tiger descending from the mountain, unstoppable. They met Dou Feng's troops and a fierce battle broke out in an instant. Although Dou Feng was brave, he also felt a lot of pressure facing the elite guards led by Jing Hong. He knew that if he could not break through this line of defense, the main force of the Southern Han would be completely destroyed.

So, Dou Feng personally went into battle, wielding weapons, and led his troops in a desperate fight with the personal guards led by Jing Hong.