Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1162 Battle
When Sima Yi rushed to the front line and climbed up to the top of the camp wall, he saw an extremely tragic scene.

The huge battlefield outside the camp was filled with trenches of varying depths, with corpses scattered in and out of the trenches.

The corpse had begun to stink and rot, and the unpleasant smell filled Sima Yi's nostrils, reminding him of the rotten eggs he had eaten when he was short of food during the battle for Yizhou, and he couldn't help feeling nauseous.

If these corpses are not buried, they will spread the disease, but Cao's army cannot take care of it now because they are digging pits desperately.

In Sima Yi's eyes, the Cao army soldiers were acting like crazy, digging the soil with simple tools. Some of them even only had a branch, but they dug the ground in front of them fiercely, as if the ground was their mortal enemy.

He saw that the hands of several soldiers who were approaching had blood blisters all over them, and blood was flowing down the branches. He frowned and said to Du Xi who was accompanying him: "General Xiahou, has he issued a death order?"

"These soldiers' arms are almost useless. How can they fight when the enemy comes?"

Du Xi, as one of the four famous scholars of Yingchuan, was actually not very old. The reason why he got this title had a lot to do with his grandfather Du Gen.

But Du Xi naturally did not want to just rely on this title to get by. After he followed Cao Cao to Yecheng, he took the initiative to volunteer to join the army and so he followed Xiahou Dun to the front line to resist the Jin army.

Now he was the chief clerk under the command, a lower rank than Sima Yi's military advisor, so Xiahou Dun asked him to be Sima Yi's deputy. When he saw Sima Yi asking him, he said, "This is certainly General Xiahou's order, but I think it is mostly because the soldiers were frightened by the Jin army in the previous battles."

"Under the offensive of the Jin army, our soldiers were beaten several times and their morale collapsed. General Yu (Jin), who was the vanguard, fought bloody battles and was almost defeated. In the end, even General Xiahou went into battle and managed to hold on."

"But after those battles, the soldiers were already afraid of the enemy. Once a battle broke out, the only way to save their lives was in these trenches. That's why they kept digging holes."

Sima Yi was confused. "The enemy is fierce. What can we do if we hide in a pit? We will just be beaten passively."

"General Yu's military achievements over the years are among the top three under the King of Wei. And he was able to defeat them like this. Did the other side have more generals or more soldiers?"

"And I've seen that this trench-digging tactic is used when defending, and most of them are used in mountainous areas. Why do we have to dig trenches even though the terrain is flat? Doesn't this mean that we can't take advantage of the mobilization of troops?"

Facing Sima Yi's series of questions, Du Xi's face turned bitter, "This is because the Jin army adopted an unheard-of tactic."

"The first few waves of the Jin army's attacks were extremely fierce. Even though our army was prepared later, we still suffered a lot of casualties. General Yu was caught off guard and suffered a great loss. The soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and he himself was also injured and almost died in battle."

"I was in the central army with General Xiahou at the time. After receiving the urgent letter, I rushed to the front line and got a glimpse of the battlefield scene."

"That scene was like hell, and it still makes me shudder."

Sima Yi seemed to be thinking about something. Although he believed that Du Xi would not lie to him, he could not imagine the scene he described. Was it because Du Xi had never been on the battlefield, so he exaggerated?

It has been nearly three years since Sima Yi took office. During these three years, he has almost always been fighting with the army, from following Xin Pi to resist the Xionghu navy in Jiangxia to conquering Yizhou. He has never stopped fighting, and has fought dozens of battles of varying sizes. There has been almost no day when he was not fighting.

Sima Yi, who had aimed to become a civil servant when he first entered the officialdom, now found this quite miraculous. He felt that he did not have much ability in domestic affairs, but his talent in battle was inexplicably discovered.

He walked close to a trench and looked at the dead bodies lying in the trench. After just a few glances, Sima Yi's expression became solemn. He lifted the hem of his armor and jumped into the pit. He picked up a wooden spear that was broken into two pieces and turned over the bodies to examine them.

The more he looked at it, the more surprised he was. The face of the corpse was charred and there were many holes on the body. It was obvious that it had not only been burned, but also attacked by unknown weapons.

Seeing this, Du Xi explained, "This is a new weapon specially made by the Jin army. They call it a fire thunder."

"It is filled with something called gunpowder, and the outer shell is made of iron sheet, which contains a large number of iron nails and iron balls. It can be thrown by a catapult and can reach a distance of hundreds of steps."

"If they fall into our army's formation, they will explode. All soldiers within ten steps will be affected. Whether they can survive depends entirely on luck."

"They also have new-style battering rams that can spit fire and shoot arrows. If several of them are launched at the same time, flesh and blood will not be able to resist them at all."

"The soldiers in front of us dug pits like this because under their attack, the wooden fences and stakes in the camp were useless. The only way to save their lives was to hide in the dug pits and trenches."

Sima Yi stood up and remained silent. Although he had not seen it with his own eyes, through Du Xi's description, he could roughly imagine what kind of scene Cao's army had faced before.

He couldn't help but feel a little toothache. If this was really the case, the armor battle would be several times more tragic than when he attacked Yizhou. Before he came, he thought this was just an ordinary attack and defense battle!
But now that things have come to this, the only thing to do now is to find a way to break the impasse as soon as possible. Otherwise, how many waves of attacks can Cao's army withstand in this state?

Before Sima Yi came, he did some calculations himself. He found that not only was the number of casualties of Cao's army far higher than that of Jin's army, but the rate of casualties in the past half month had also greatly accelerated.

Sima Yi initially thought that it was Xiahou Dun's poor leadership that caused the defeat. Now, if it was true as Du Xi said, the reason for the defeat could not be blamed on Xiahou Dun. He said to Du Xi: "Defending without counterattack is not a defensive strategy. If you want to repel the enemy, you must make the enemy suffer losses beyond their tolerance limit."

"The weakness of the defense is that no point can be lost,"

"Even if we can defend this road, it will be useless if other directions are breached."

"What do you think about this, Zixu?"

Du Xi thought to himself, if I had an idea, would the king ask you to bring the troops here?

But Sima Fang was half the leader of the Yingchuan nobles, and Sima Yi held a higher official position than him, so Du Xi had no choice but to say honestly: "I think our army has no chance of winning in a head-on attack."

"So when facing the enemy head-on, we should use multiple trenches and fortifications to block the enemy. Once the enemy army is tied up, we can use surprise troops to raid the enemy camp. If we can kill the enemy's main general, we will be successful."

Sima Yi thought it was all nonsense. Everyone knew that killing the main general was the most effective, but how could the main general be so easy to kill?
Why did you go and kill the ferocious tiger without saying anything?

He was moved and said, "Is it true that Xionghu went to fight General Cao Xiu in Yuzhou as the rumors say?"

"This is not normal no matter how you look at it. Could it be that he spread false information?"

Du Xi also knew that Cao Zhen had been in a bad situation before, so he was called back and replaced by Cao Xiu, the most outstanding member of the Cao family, to fight against Wei Yan. He replied: "General Le has already rushed to Yuzhou. According to the news, Xionghu himself is indeed in Shouchun."

Sima Yi fell into deep thought. He had already studied Xionghu's experiences over the years, and his record was indeed very impressive. But after Sima Yi thought about it, he always felt that there were many suspicious points about Xionghu.

Sima Yi found it difficult to find a suitable word to describe the ferocious tiger in his heart. If he had to use a word to describe it, it would be hypocritical.

He later discovered that Xionghu was not the kind of person who killed people without scruples as the legend said. On the contrary, he would reveal his hidden weakness for some unimportant things.

Sima Yi even wondered if the fierce tiger knew his weakness, so he used such ruthless and iron-blooded means to cover it up?
Just like what he had heard before about the Xiliang army massacring a village in retaliation, there was no need to do these meaningless things. The so-called reverse scale might also be a weak spot!

If you can figure this out, you will be able to find a way to restrain the ferocious tiger!

"Enemy attack!"

A shrill cry interrupted Sima Yi's thoughts. He and Du Xi looked outside the camp involuntarily, and saw smoke and dust billowing in the distance. Hundreds of chariots pulled by war horses were rushing towards them, and thousands of cavalry and infantry were protecting and supporting them.

Du Xi panicked, "Isn't General Yu stationed a dozen miles ahead? How did they get around?"

"Military advisor, be careful, these chariots are very troublesome!"

The Cao army soldiers who were digging trenches below also saw the Jin army launching an attack, and immediately fled frantically into the camp, wishing their parents had not given them two more legs. The camp gate was so crowded that the sound of trampling was endless.

Sima Yi frowned and said, "How are we going to fight if we are so flustered?"

"Why are they so scared?"

Du Xi said in a hoarse voice: "Previously these chariots were still manned, but later they gave up the cavalry, installed the horses on the chariots, and used infantry for protection, making the battlefield return to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period!"

"But the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry are unable to restrain them. This is because their offensive capabilities are beyond our tolerance limit!"

Sima Yi looked at the strange equipment on the chariots in the distance and thought to himself, I must see what powerful these chariots are.

A moment later, Sima Yi's question was answered. Amid the overwhelming explosions, he saw a round iron ball fall among several soldiers, blowing them into a sieve. It then jumped off the wooden wall of the camp extremely quickly and rolled into the deep ditch.

Du Xi climbed down in amazement, but because he moved too slowly, the exploding steel ball above his head broke his forehead and blood flowed down.

He screamed and stumbled into the ditch. Seeing this, Sima Yi, who was defending himself with his head in his hands, had to grab Du Xi's ankle and crawl into the ditch.

From time to time, round balls exploded above his head, and iron beads fell like rain, then embedded several inches into the soil. The Cao army soldiers around who had no time to hide screamed and fell to the ground. Sima Yi then understood why the morale of Cao army soldiers was so low.

This thing is different from an arrow. Although the arrow is fast, its trajectory can still be seen. However, the moment the iron ball explodes with the sphere, it scatters in all directions at a speed that is difficult for the human eye to distinguish. There is no way to dodge it. No wonder Cao's army was so panicked!
(End of this chapter)