Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

At this moment, near the chariot where Li Ji was, there was not only a large banner, but also more than twenty flags of different colors.

If you want to command your troops on the battlefield, you can do so through flags, trumpets, drums, etc.

This is why once the central army where the commander-in-chief is located is breached, the entire army will immediately fall into large-scale paralysis and chaos.

Once there is no unified command, ordinary soldiers with limited vision in the crowd will be like headless flies, and will likely be defeated and flee at the slightest impact.

At Li Ji's command, many command flags commanding various departments moved.

The Yangzhou army, which was mostly composed of military households and soldiers, also slowly advanced forward.

Compared with the Yuzhou army's mighty momentum that looked like a dark cloud, the Yangzhou army, which was far smaller in size, behaved in an unusually orderly manner.

In Li Ji's judgment, qualified military soldiers were undoubtedly inferior to the real elite in terms of personal fighting experience and courage.

However, in terms of discipline and morale, military household soldiers far surpassed ordinary county soldiers, and the quality of individual military household soldiers was relatively balanced.

This gradually became apparent as the two armies began to advance against each other.

The Yuzhou Army led by Yuan Shu was also battle-hardened, and with a large amount of money and food, they naturally trained a group of elite soldiers.

The soldiers who could be deployed by Yuan Shu at the front of the army were naturally not just miscellaneous soldiers.

However, as the Yuzhou army advanced, even with a large number of generals coordinating and commanding, it could be seen from afar that the soldiers in different areas seemed somewhat uneven.

In contrast, as the Yangzhou Army marched, the distance between each unit did not change much, and even the footsteps began to become more regular.

"Bang bang bang!"

The increasingly orderly footsteps of the Yangzhou army gradually drowned out the sound of the drums, creating an inexplicable power.

"bluff!"

Yuan Shu squinted his eyes and looked at him from afar, speaking with a tone of disdain.

As the legitimate son of the Yuan family, Yuan Shu was by no means an ignorant person.

On the contrary, during the reign of Emperor Ling, Yuan Shu served as the Colonel of the Zhechou Army and the General of the Huben Army, and commanded the real elite troops of the Sili Army.

Because of this, even though the military soldiers showed extremely high qualities, it was not difficult for Yuan Shu to see that these soldiers lacked the feeling of being elite soldiers who had experienced many battles, and were more like new recruits who had just been trained.

No matter how well these new recruits who had never been in battle performed, in Yuan Shu's eyes they were just "strong on the outside but weak on the inside."

A distance of five hundred steps.

As the two armies approached each other, it would only take a moment for them to cross over.

As the two armies continued to get closer, some soldiers with excellent eyesight could even see the faces of the enemy soldiers clearly.

In such a large-scale battle, all the soldiers' nerves were instinctively tense.

Suddenly, the drum sounds on the Yuzhou army side changed first, becoming short and rapid.

Almost at the moment when the drum sound changed, the archers who had been waiting for a long time in the Yuzhou army formation drew their bows...

"Raise your shield!"

Just as Li Ji gave the order, as the corresponding flags were waved continuously, the shield-bearing soldiers in a certain area of ​​the front army raised their shields in an orderly manner at an angle upwards, and a large number of soldiers around them who were not holding shields followed suit and hid behind the shields.

At this moment, a large rain of arrows rose into the air from the Yuzhou army formation, covering the Yangzhou army like a dark cloud. However, in terms of the results of the battle, it was better than nothing.

Yuan Shu was not disappointed about this.

Both sides were Han troops, and they knew each other well, so their tactics were naturally similar.

The tactic of raining arrows to wash the ground is certainly useful against foreigners who lack armor, or miscellaneous soldiers like the Yellow Turbans, but when the opponent is a national hero, Yuan Shu did not expect to achieve much results.

Releasing rain of arrows is more for suppressing the opponent and creating opportunities for battle.

While Yuan Shu directed the archers to continue shooting arrows at the Yangzhou army from afar, he also ordered the front troops to speed up their advance.

Suddenly, the vanguard of the Yuzhou Army accelerated and headed towards the Yangzhou Army.

"Hold on!"

Li Ji, who was observing from afar, gave orders calmly while synchronizing Yuan Shu's "moves" in his mind.

Facing the Yuzhou Army's infantry advancing forward, the Yangzhou Army's frontline soldiers held their ground with shields under Li Ji's orders.

The next moment, the two armies came into close combat.

Unlike the proactive attack of the Yuzhou Army, the Yangzhou Army's vanguard formed a battle formation and set up shields on the spot, defending and counterattacking.

After the two sides officially engaged in close combat, the Yuzhou army stopped firing three waves of arrows to avoid the arrows from accidentally injuring their own troops.

Although Yuan Shu arranged elite troops in the front army, whose individual combat power was higher than that of the military households, it was obviously unrealistic to directly defeat the Yangzhou army when they were defending with their shields.

However, although the two armies suffered casualties in such close combat, the situation was undoubtedly in a temporary stalemate.

For a full half hour, under the fierce attacks of the elite troops of Yuzhou Army, the soldiers showed their tenacity and cooperation, and continued to resist the counterattacks like rocks.

"Want to delay time and allow the new soldiers to adapt to the battlefield?"

Standing on the chariot, Yuan Shu looked out at the battle line and guessed what Li Ji was thinking.

Immediately, Yuan Shu narrowed his eyes slightly and ordered the front army to intensify the offensive to suppress the enemy. He also mobilized Chen Lan and Lei Bo from the central army to lead 10,000 troops each to advance from both wings to encircle the Yangzhou army.

In order to prevent Li Ji from sending cavalry to stop them, Yuan Shu also gave Chen Lan and Lei Bo each a thousand cavalry.

Compared with Yangzhou, which could continuously import war horses from Youzhou, Yuan Shu, who was in the Central Plains, was wealthy, but he could not just have money to buy horses in troubled times.

Therefore, although Yuan Shu's army had no shortage of infantry, it only had 4,000 cavalry.

More than half of the cavalry were sent out at one time in order to delay the cavalry of the Yangzhou army.

It is true that the Yangzhou Army is maintaining a stalemate with its weak force at the moment, but as long as they directly attack the flank of the Yangzhou Army and threaten Li Ji where the central army is located, Li Ji will be caught in a dilemma.

Either send another force to guard the flanks and open up two more battle lines, which would further magnify the Yuzhou Army's advantage in strength;
Or they could choose to retreat, which would break the Yangzhou army's defensive momentum and allow the Yuzhou army to take advantage of the situation and kill them.

Yuan Shu's response made Li Ji couldn't help but nod secretly.

Perhaps, Li Ji occasionally jokingly called Yuan Shu the Skeleton King with "dry bones in the tomb" in private, but as the legitimate son of the Yuan family, who had been three generations of officials for four generations, Yuan Shu undoubtedly received the best education of that era.

Moreover, relying on the resources provided by his family's support, Yuan Shu had early on assumed official posts such as Zhechou Xiaowei, and had come into contact with and commanded the real top elite of the Han Dynasty's court.

This starting point alone is often a height that ordinary generals can hardly reach even if they work hard throughout their lives. (End of this chapter)