Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator.

At this moment, near Li Ji's chariot, stood not only the great standard, but also more than twenty command flags of various colors.

On the battlefield, commanding troops was done through flags, horns, drums, and so on.

This is why, once the main general's central army is breached, the entire army immediately falls into widespread paralysis and chaos.

Without unified command, ordinary soldiers in the midst of the crowd with limited visibility would be like headless flies, and even a slight impact could cause a rout and escape.

At Li Ji's command, the many command flags directing the various units moved accordingly.

The Yangzhou army, mostly composed of military household soldiers, also slowly advanced.

Compared to the Yuzhou army's dark and oppressive presence like a black cloud, the Yangzhou army, far smaller in scale, appeared exceptionally organized.

In Li Ji's judgment, qualified military household soldiers were undoubtedly inferior to true elites in terms of personal combat experience and courage.

However, in terms of obedience to orders and morale, military household soldiers far surpassed ordinary county soldiers, and the individual qualities of military household soldiers were relatively balanced.

As the two armies began to advance towards each other, this point gradually became apparent.

The Yuzhou army led by Yuan Shu had also experienced many battles, and with the support of abundant money and supplies, it had naturally cultivated a group of elites.

The soldiers arranged by Yuan Shu in front of the army formation were naturally not mere rabble.

However, as the Yuzhou army's formation advanced, even with many generals coordinating and commanding in the center, it was still easy to see that the soldiers in different areas appeared somewhat uneven.

In contrast, during the Yangzhou army's advance, the distance between the various units did not change much, and even the sound of their footsteps began to become uniform.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

The increasingly uniform footsteps of the Yangzhou army gradually overwhelmed the sound of the drums, creating a strange sense of power.

"Just bluffing!"

Yuan Shu squinted his eyes and watched from afar, saying with a hint of disdain.

As the direct son of the Yuan clan, Yuan Shu was by no means ignorant.

On the contrary, during Emperor Ling's reign, Yuan Shu had served as a Colonel of the Vanguard and a General of the Tiger Braves, commanding and directing the true elite of Sili.

Therefore, even though the military household soldiers showed extremely high quality, Yuan Shu could easily see that these soldiers lacked the feeling of battle-hardened elites, and were more like newly trained recruits.

And these recruits who had not experienced many battles, no matter how well they performed, were nothing more than "outwardly strong but inwardly weak" in Yuan Shu's eyes.

Five hundred paces.

As the two armies approached each other, it only took a moment to cross the distance.

As the two armies continued to approach, some soldiers with extremely good eyesight could even see the faces of the enemy soldiers.

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

Suddenly, the sound of drums on the Yuzhou army's side changed first, short and rapid.

Almost at the instant the drum sound changed, the archers who had been waiting for a long time within the Yuzhou army's formation simultaneously drew their bows...

"Raise shields!"

Just as Li Ji's order was issued, as the corresponding flags were constantly waved, the shield-bearing soldiers in a certain area of the vanguard uniformly raised their shields diagonally upwards, and a large number of soldiers without shields followed and hid behind the shields.

At this instant, a large rain of arrows rose into the sky within the Yuzhou army's formation, covering the Yangzhou army like a dark cloud.

However, in terms of results, it could be said to be better than nothing.

Yuan Shu was not disappointed by this.

Both sides were Han troops, and they knew each other well, so the battle tactics they were accustomed to were naturally similar.

The arrow rain washing the ground was naturally useful against alien races lacking armor, or rabble like the Yellow Turbans, but when the opponent was the Marquis of Guoshi, Yuan Shu did not expect to create much of a result.

Releasing the arrow rain was more to suppress the opponent and create combat opportunities.

While Yuan Shu commanded the archers to continue to launch arrow rain towards the Yangzhou army from afar, he ordered the various units of the vanguard to accelerate their assault.

Immediately, the Yuzhou army's vanguard accelerated towards the Yangzhou army.

"Hold the line!"

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

Faced with the Yuzhou army's infantry advancing, the soldiers at the forefront of the Yangzhou army stood firm with their shields at Li Ji's command.

The next moment, the two armies officially clashed in close combat.

Unlike the Yuzhou army's active attack, the Yangzhou army's vanguard formed a formation in place, holding their shields and counterattacking.

After the two sides officially engaged in close combat, the three waves of arrow rain continuously launched by the Yuzhou army also stopped, to avoid the arrow rain easily injuring their own troops.

Although the elites arranged by Yuan Shu in the vanguard had superior individual combat strength compared to the military household soldiers, it was obviously unrealistic to directly break through the Yangzhou army facing the shield formation.

However, with the two armies engaging in such close combat, there were casualties on both sides, but the situation was undoubtedly temporarily at a stalemate.

For a full half an hour, under the successive fierce attacks of the Yuzhou army's elites, the military household soldiers showed resilience and cooperation, constantly resisting and counterattacking like a rock.

"Want to buy time and let the new soldiers adapt to the battlefield?"

Yuan Shu, standing on the chariot, looked at the battle line from afar, guessing Li Ji's thoughts.

Immediately, Yuan Shu's eyes narrowed slightly, ordering the vanguard to strengthen their offensive to suppress, and mobilizing Chen Lan and Lei Bo from the central army to each lead 10,000 troops to advance from the two wings, encircling the Yangzhou army.

In order to prevent Li Ji from sending out cavalry to intercept, Yuan Shu also gave Chen Lan and Lei Bo each 1,000 cavalry.

Compared to Yangzhou, which could continuously import warhorses from Youzhou, Yuan Shu, who was located in the Central Plains, even if he was wealthy, could not just buy horses with money in this chaotic world.

Therefore, Yuan Shu's army was not short of infantry, but only had 4,000 cavalry.

This time, he sent out more than half of his cavalry at once, in order to delay the Yangzhou army's cavalry.

At present, it was true that the Yangzhou army was maintaining a stalemate with inferior forces, but as long as they directly attacked the flanks of the Yangzhou army and threatened Li Ji in the central army, then Li Ji would fall into a dilemma.

Either send additional troops to protect the flanks and open up two more battle lines, so that the Yuzhou army's strength advantage could be further magnified; or choose to retreat, so that the Yangzhou army's defensive momentum could be disintegrated, allowing the Yuzhou army to take advantage of the situation and kill.

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

Perhaps, Li Ji privately ridiculed Yuan Shu as a "skeleton in the tomb", but Yuan Shu, as the direct son of the Yuan clan of the Four Generations and Three Dukes, undoubtedly received the top education of this era.

Moreover, Yuan Shu, relying on the resources provided by family support, had served as Colonel of the Vanguard and other official positions early on, contacting and commanding the truly top-level court elites of the Great Han.

This starting point alone was often a height that ordinary generals could hardly reach in their lifetime.

(End of this chapter)