Ji Han Da Sima

Chapter 714 It’s hard to escape even if you have wings

As time went by, the battle between the two armies had already reached the afternoon. The blazing sun hanging in the sky was covered by dark clouds, and there seemed to be a sign of rain, but no one paid any attention.

Under the command of Huo Jun, the Han cavalry on the right wing defeated the Wei cavalry, and then went around to the left wing to help Ding Feng defeat the Southern Xiongnu cavalry.

The defeat of the cavalry on both wings made the Wei army like a sparrow with broken wings, trying to fly but with broken wings, and completely fell into Huo Jun's Five Finger Mountain.

Pang De, Gao Xin and Ding Feng, three generals, had nearly 10,000 cavalrymen. Following Huo Jun's instructions, they attacked the Wei army that had retreated from the front to rest.

Although the Han soldiers who dismounted from their horses lacked large shields, javelins, and powerful crossbows, the retreating Wei army's rear would not have the corresponding equipment. They had mostly spears and leather armor, and occasionally bows and arrows, and their soldiers were not as elite as those in the front.

Ding Feng led the dismounted cavalry to break the Wei army's square formation with long spears. Pang De led the armored cavalry to charge into the square formation, killing the already exhausted Linghu Jun's main force and causing them to retreat towards the main force of the central army where Wang Ling was.

No matter how Linghu Jun scolded them, it was of no avail. Instead, he was swept away by the soldiers and fled into the protection of the central army formation.

Fortunately, Linghu Jun bought a lot of time for the army. When the rear army was defeated, the central army where Wang Ling was located had already formed a square formation. A large number of sword and shield soldiers were arranged on the periphery, holding shields shoulder to shoulder, forming a tortoise shell-like defense, which temporarily prevented the Han army from breaking through the formation.

Many of the fleeing Wei soldiers were killed by friendly forces, and many fought to the death under the Han army and fled into the Wei army. When Ding Feng led his troops to pursue them, he saw that Wang Ling's central army was in such a strict formation, and knew that the enemy could not be attacked for the time being.

So Ding Feng led his troops to stop advancing, built a defense line on the spot with spears, and completely blocked the retreat route of Cao Wei's army.

When Ding Feng blocked the Wei army's retreat route, Pang De contacted Gao Xin, who turned his attention to Xie Jun's troops on the left wing of the Wei army.

Xie Jun's troops were fighting fiercely with Quan Cong, but Yu Shao joined the battlefield from the flank, which put Xie Jun under great pressure and made his formation shaky.

Now Pang De and Gao Xin wanted to eliminate Xie Jun's troops as much as possible. Gao Xin led the cavalry to dismount and fight on foot, imitating Ding Feng to attack the square formation from the back. Pang De, like before, led the armored cavalry to charge at the face, killing Xie Jun's rear troops and horses and making them retreat continuously, unable to stop them at all.

With Yu Shao on the flank, Quan Cong in the front, and Gao Xin in the back, they attacked the formation from three sides. No matter how strong Xie Jun was, he could not stop the Han army's repeated attacks.

Not long after, the outer troops were defeated by Yu Shao's troops, and the deserters on the flanks rushed frantically inward, which in turn affected the front and back.

In a chain reaction, Xie Jun's headquarters collapsed from the outside to the inside, the formation collapsed in an instant, and the soldiers and horses fled in a hurry. However, they were surrounded by Han soldiers on three sides, so they had no choice but to charge madly at Wang Ling's central army, trying to get their comrades to protect them.

However, to their disappointment, Wang Ling had already concluded from the information reported by Linghu Jun that Xie Jun's troops on the left wing might be defeated, so he ordered the army to use spears and large shields as a line of defense to prevent the Wei army's defeated soldiers from rushing into the formation, thus causing the army's defeat.

Attacking from three sides and blocking from one side, Xie Jun's troops had nowhere to escape. Many soldiers tried to surrender to the Han army, but the Han soldiers, who were so angry that they were mad at killing, didn't care about that at all and thrust their spears forward frantically. A large number of Wei soldiers lost the protection of the formation and were slaughtered.

As the Han soldiers advanced in a tight formation, large numbers of Wei soldiers were killed, which rekindled the resistance of the Wei army. Seeing that there was nowhere to go, Xie Jun ordered his cavalry to surrender to Yu Shao with a white flag, hoping to buy a way out for his soldiers.

Knowing that Xie Jun intended to surrender, Yu Shao immediately stopped his advance and ordered the Wei soldiers to lay down their weapons before allowing them to surrender. Xie Jun agreed to any of Yu Shao's requests.

Seeing this, Yu Shao ordered his men to open a passage so that the surrendered soldiers who had abandoned their weapons could escape. With a way to survive, a large number of Wei soldiers abandoned their weapons and went out to accept the protection of the cavalry.

There was no lack of chaos, but under the blood and cold weapons, more than 2,000 Wei soldiers, led by Jie Jun, surrendered to the Han army. Gao Xin sent hundreds of cavalry to guard the surrendered soldiers to prevent them from escaping and even disrupting the war.

After the left and rear wings of the Wei army were eliminated, the Han army had completely surrounded the Wei army, and Huo Jun was halfway to achieving his goal of completely annihilating the Wei army.

After the left wing of the Wei army was eliminated, Quan Cong ordered a change of formation, concentrating the elite troops on the flank of Wang Ling's central army to cooperate with Ding Feng in attacking the Cao Wei central army.

Yu Shao moved to Qian Zhao's troops on the right wing in order to cooperate with Zhou Qian to eliminate Qian Zhao's troops; Pang De withdrew to Huo Jun's tent to rest because his armored cavalry was tired; Gao Xin and Ding Feng's armies were responsible for blocking Wang Ling's army's retreat and cooperating with Zhou Qian's troops.

With command flags waving, the various Han troops deployed themselves around Cao Wei's central army.

Under the gorgeous umbrella, Huo Jun was in a particularly good mood and said, "I will lead Wang Ling to deploy his strong troops to the central army, and use the snake infantry to block them in formation, and stop their momentum of breaking through the formation. I will use strong cavalry to defeat the Wei cavalry, cut off their wings, and then attack their tail."

"The Wei army has been surrounded by me on all sides, and the retreat route has been blocked and cut off. Xie Jun was defeated in the battle, and Wang Ling can't escape even if he had wings!"

Jiang Ji bowed and said with admiration: "The commander-in-chief has surrounded a large army with a small number of troops. This is rare in the world. Now the Wei army is trapped. How to kill them depends on the commander-in-chief's mind."

After fighting for so long, this was the first time that Jiang Ji had seen a team encircle a large enemy army in a field battle using fewer troops than the enemy. This was extremely rare in the world.

Jiang Ji once again refreshed his understanding of Huo Jun's military capabilities. It is easy to defeat the enemy in a field battle, but it is difficult to annihilate the enemy. Without more troops than the enemy, it is impossible to encircle them. Huo Jun sipped the water in the water bag and asked, "What do you think, Zi Tong?"

Jiang Ji pondered for a moment and said, "The trapped beast may fight to the death. It would be better for the commander to open his mouth and let the enemy flee in panic."

Although the Wei army was surrounded on all sides, the Wei army still had a large force and was still fighting tenaciously. In order to quickly make the Wei army lose its will to fight, surrounding three sides and leaving one side behind might be a good method.

Huo Jun wiped the water stains from his mouth and said, "Zi Tong understands my intention very well. He ordered Gao Xin and Zhou Cang to attack Qian Zhao from both sides, and ordered Ding Feng, Quan Cong, and Yu Shao to besiege the Wei soldiers from three sides, so that the Wei army can flee to Sishui and defeat the Wei army's infantry formation."

Surrounding three sides and leaving one side open does not mean letting the Wei army go. Giving up the passage now is intended to destroy the Wei army's square formation. Once the infantry loses its formation, the Wei army will also lose its formation, and it will be like a lamb to be slaughtered by the Han army.

"promise!"

The order from the General of Cavalry was passed on to Yu Shao and Gao Xin. After receiving the news, they changed their previous plan and carried out the latest military order from Huo Jun.

Yu Shao took over Ding Feng's troops and launched a strong attack on Wang Ling's central army with a tight infantry phalanx, with javelins and bows and crossbows leaning towards the army formation.

Ding Feng was replaced and led his troops to fight. They were divided into two parts. One part cooperated with Gao Xin to attack from both sides, while the other part cooperated with Yu Shao to attack the Wei army's phalanx.

Wang Ling has the largest number of soldiers in the central army, with about 16,000 to 17,000 men. Even with such a large square formation facing attacks from three sides, it can still handle it easily in a short period of time and it is difficult to be broken through.

However, the quality problems of the Wei army's manpower were soon exposed. For example, the Wei soldiers at the rear who were attacked by Yu Shao were mostly unarmored and only had shields to cover their bodies, so they used large shields to block Ding Feng's advance.

But after Yu Shao defeated Jie Jun's troops, not only did their morale rise again, they also received javelins transported by vehicles.

To break a large shield or heavy armor, only a javelin can do it.

Facing the huge shields of the Wei army, the Han soldiers took out the short spears on their backs, leaned forward, and threw a large number of short spears. The short spears, with a sharp sound of wind, crossed the sky in an arc and were thrown fiercely into the densely packed army formation.

"call!"

Throwing at close range would maximize the power of the short spears, either smashing the shields or hanging on them. Some strong men even pierced the bodies of Wei soldiers with short spears, causing blood to spurt out and internal organs to shatter.

Even though the Wei soldiers dispatched archers to fight back, Yu Shao still ordered his soldiers to use shields to block the rain of arrows and throw javelins at the Wei soldiers.

Hundreds of javelins continued to hit the Wei army's phalanx, breaking the shield formation, which made many Wei soldiers feel frightened.

Observing the change in the situation, Yu Shao led his troops to launch an attack. The army's infantry slowly pressed forward and fought against the Wei army's infantry with large shields and spears. The front line was broken by the rain of spears, and faced with the charge of the Han soldiers, they were directly rushed into the square formation by the Han soldiers.

In order to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible, Yu Shao sent all his elite troops. The armored infantry used shields and spears to beat the miscellaneous soldiers back step by step. First, they were defeated at one point, and then they formed a whole area and directly broke through the shield formation of the Wei army.

In the fierce close combat, the unarmored Wei soldiers were unable to stop the Han army's charge and were directly defeated by the elite troops. The defeated Wei soldiers fled behind them, and their panic spread to everyone, causing them to retreat.

The chaotic escape of the Wei soldiers directly attracted the charge of Ding Feng's cavalry. The Han cavalry entered the battle array with spears, hacking and killing soldiers along the way, and driving the defeated soldiers into the battle array to cause greater panic.

At the same time, due to the defeat in the rear, Quan Cong's troops opened up the situation on the rear flank, and the Wei soldiers fled to the center. The entire battle line was like a domino, with a chain reaction, and the defeated soldiers led to the retreat of the entire flank.

The soldiers on the flanks fled to the center, while the soldiers at the rear fled to the center. The central troops were instantly dispersed by the fleeing army, and the crowd surged, unable to distinguish who was the fleeing soldier, and did not know where their own column was.

Wang Ling's armor was splattered with blood, perhaps from killing the ignorant fleeing soldiers. Linghu Jun was in a state of panic, looking nervous, not knowing where to go!

As the Wei army continued to push towards the center, Qian Zhao was finally defeated by the attack of the Han army's infantry and cavalry. As the front and rear were attacked, the defeated Wei soldiers fled frantically to the empty Sishui River.

The flank was empty, and many people took advantage of the empty space and followed Qian Zhao's defeated troops to flee to the empty riverside of Si Shui in order to avoid being hunted down by the Han army.

Not long after, because a large number of Wei soldiers in the central army fled to the banks of the Si River, the Xiongui heavy infantry, which had been attacked for a long time, switched from defense to offense under the leadership of Ding Feng, and charged with the Xiongui armored cavalry led by Pang De with a swift offensive.

In an instant, the Wei soldiers under Le Chen's command were defeated and scattered, fleeing westward toward the banks of the Si River along with the crowd.

Today, the defeated soldiers of the Wei army are scattered all over the banks of the Si River, with no way to escape!
(End of this chapter)