Shu Chen

Chapter 446: No Return
After all, nearly [-] of the horses that were frenzied with pain crashed into the cavalry formation of the Southern Huns.

Although they were all killed and fell to the ground after only a few dozen steps forward, it inevitably disrupted the pursuit.

For example, Fei Yao's troops in the back row and other cavalry who had time to buffer, turned their horses' heads to the side when they saw something bad, making the originally dense pursuit formation messy.

This is also the opportunity that Li Tangmang, who supervised two hundred Xiliang iron cavalry behind him, had expected.

The riots caused by hundreds of horses alone cannot delay the pursuit for too long!
At least, Zhang Bao and others cannot be allowed to cross the river.

Jiang Wei on the other side had already deployed a strong crossbow array and released crude rafts, but there were too many cavalry against Wei.They can completely kill the Han army crossing the river with bows and arrows outside the range of the crossbow array.

Based on the calculation of the thousands of string-controlling soldiers of the Huns in the south, the crossing Han army could not avoid it without the protection of shields and sculls.

In this way, Li Tangmang had to take advantage of the chaotic formation of the opponent, charge and delay for a while, buy more time for Zhang Bao's troops, and let more robes cross the river back.

Although he knew that this move was moths to the fire.

Yes, even if he killed the enemy, he would not be able to return.

Wei Guo's thousands of cavalry had already gathered together, and the huge superiority of troops made him have no chance to stand up and fight back again.

And it doesn't take much thinking to know that the gap where the Wushui River Valley flows into the Dahekou on the south side and the Mingsha Mountain-Helan Mountain gap on the north side will inevitably be guarded by the Wei army, and they will have no way back.

But Li Tang Mang didn't have time to think about these, and there was no need to think so far.

He knew that "a scholar dies for his confidant".

Although he doesn't know how to write these few Chinese characters, and he was born as Lu Shuihu, a leader of horse thieves.

But he is also a man from Hexi.

He is a man in Hexi who is favored by others and should be repaid regardless of death or life.

In the past, his father, Yijian, who was a concubine, came to Fuyin City Fortress to surrender to the Han army with the indignation that his tribe was exploited against the Wei Dynasty. In order to serve as a follower, let him follow with a knife and spear.

Yes, if he had evil intentions, he would have countless chances to take Zheng Pu's head and become Wei's prince.

This kind of trust at the price of his life was deeply felt in him, and he never forgot it for a day.

Moreover, Ma Dai promoted him to be a school lieutenant and granted him the right to supervise more than a thousand Xiliang iron cavalry, which is why Zheng Pu believed in him.

After all, according to the old system of the Han Dynasty, Qianghu in the border areas were not allowed to award heavy soldiers.

Don't you see, in the past, Hu Boju, the master of Baosai of the Xiongnu in the Wei Dynasty, and Liang Yuanbi, a branch of the Xiongnu, both supervised two hundred cavalry as scouts for the army after entering the Han Dynasty?
Zhang Bao is Zheng Pu's brother-in-law.

Allowing Zhang Bao to return to Hexi is also a kindness he can repay Zheng Pu.

"Woo~heh!"

Letting go of the horse's reins, holding a spear in both hands, he roared the whistle of Liangzhou Qianghu's charge, and crashed into Wei Guo's cavalry formation first.

And the two hundred Xiliang iron cavalry who had been silently following behind him, also carried the courage of life and death, bursting out with the heroism of swearing to die.

"Woo~~heh!"

Facing the Southern Xiongnu cavalry head-on, they had just let go of the shock of being trampled by the horses, and then ushered in the Xiliang cavalry's charge.

Therefore, Li Tangmang broke in at one stroke, and the already chaotic Wei formation became even more chaotic.

The yelling of generals at all levels, the wailing of soldiers being killed by spears, the panic of being pushed away by robes, and the frightened neighing of war horses floated through the entire Wei cavalry formation like ripples.

Only Guanzhong Jingqi led by Fei Yao remained calm.

But he couldn't drive his troops to stop Li Tangmang's advance, or continue to pursue Zhang Bao's troops.

Under the turmoil of those Southern Huns cavalry, many cavalry rushed towards Guanzhong Jingqi in a panic, blocking Fei Yao's way of advancing and retreating, making him feel helpless.

There was no way, if he ordered to kill these chaotic cavalry of the Southern Huns in accordance with the military law of the battle, it would only cause more chaos.

After all, they came to help in the war, and they would not recognize Wei's laws.

However, the number of people from Tang Mang was really too small.

When he took advantage of the chaos to penetrate the Wei cavalry formation, there were only a hundred or so Xiliang iron cavalry behind him, and they were more or less slightly injured, but their morale was still like a rainbow.

Li Tang Mang was also cut on the arm, blood stained his clothes.

"Woo~heh!"

With the excitement of defeating the enemy's formation, he shouted, and led the Can Qi all the way to the east without slowing down.

When he looked back and saw that Wei Guo did not send Qingqi to chase after him in time, he slowed down his horse speed, and said to his subordinates with a smile, "I will go deep into the Wei territory and the way back has been cut off, so you just follow me as bandits for now!"

Hearing this, more than a hundred riders were silent for a while.

But after a short time, everyone suddenly agreed and laughed heartily.

Without him, with the treatment of military households by the big men, their family members will definitely be treated kindly, and there is nothing to worry about.The men from Xiliang, who care about life and death, have swords and spears in their hands and horses in their hips, so why fear the bigness of the world!

It's just unavoidable, when the horse's hooves are facing east, people look west, with a little bit of reluctance in their eyes.

And when Li Tangmang looked back, there was still a ray of relief in his heart: at this moment, General Zhang has already crossed the river, right?

In the middle of winter, the river is not yet frozen over.

Moreover, the water level in the dry season has obviously dropped a lot, which greatly reduces the distance between the two banks and makes the water flow no longer turbulent, which provides a lot of convenience for raft crossing.

On the banks of the big river in Yiqu Wushan Camp, many members of the Shaodang tribe either led their horses to walk on the pontoon bridge, or abandoned their horses to go back on rafts.

However, Zhang Bao, who was guarded by dozens of personal guards, was still stationed on the opposite bank, and from time to time he used his horse to pick away sparse arrows, and from time to time he urged his subordinates to cross the river.

In the past Zhang Fei respected gentlemen but not soldiers.

The first emperor Liu Bei often said, "Your punishment and killing are too poor, and you are whipping the athletes every day, and the order is around, this is the way to bring disaster", but he still doesn't change it, so there are deaths.

As the Son of Man, Zhang Bao took this as a warning.

Since leading the army, he has always been sympathetic to the soldiers, and now he is letting the Shaodang people cross the river first.

It was only a few months since these people moved from the West Sea to the Han territory, more than half of them had been lost. This made him feel guilty as the general, so he let them cross the river first.

Furthermore, because Li Tangmang's charge hindered the Wei army's pursuit, they had enough time to cross the river.

But sometimes, things are often not absolute.

Just after most of the Shaodang people crossed the river, Zhang Bao, who had been persuaded many times by his personal guards, was about to drive his horse onto the pontoon bridge, when something happened suddenly.

I saw more than a dozen fire boats going down the upper reaches of the big river, not only knocking over three or five rafts full of burning people, but also directly affixed to the pontoon bridge.With the help of the new wind in midwinter, the flames of the fireboat were so strong that the pontoon bridge built with small boats and wooden boards was burned down in a short time.
And at this time, the Guanzhong Jingqi and the Southern Xiongnu cavalry were already close at hand, and a figure of infantry also appeared on the side of Quwu Mountain.

It was Deng Ai who led the army to arrive.

(End of this chapter)