Overlord!

Chapter 58
Liu Yao's army began to march out of the camp, and Sun Ce immediately arranged for Cheng Pu to lead the army out of the camp, ready to meet the enemy.

Then he personally led hundreds of cavalry to investigate the enemy's formation, and Sun Lang's banner galloped along with the cavalry, waving in the wind in front of the enemy's line.

But the enemy's front line is really too grand and magnificent. The square formations stand tall one by one, with spears like forests and banners flying, stretching for more than ten miles.

Jiang Qin rode his horse and followed Sun Ce, looked at the continuous enemy line, and asked, "General, have we been running for a quarter of an hour? The enemy line has not yet reached the end, how many people are here?"

"There are ten thousand people, and there are no boundaries." Sun Ce said solemnly, "We have to go around from the flanks to the back of the enemy's phalanx to find out the thickness of the enemy's phalanx, so as to know the real number."

This battle will be the most severe battle Sun Ce has faced in his many years of fighting.

He commanded all the troops he created, against the tens of thousands of troops commanded by Yangzhou Mu Liu Yao, one of the thirteen prefectures of the Han Dynasty.

Neither side can afford to lose.Once this battle is defeated, Jiangdong's hegemony will no longer exist.

Sun Ce personally led the iron cavalry, and had to find out what was true about the enemy's left and right wings.

With so many troops under Liu Yao, it is impossible for them to have the same combat power. There must be a certain general in the left or right wing who is full of wine and food, and his subordinates are not disciplined, and they are mobs.

This is the weakness of Sun Ce's key attack.

The group of iron cavalry following Sun Ce also looked dignified. The south of the Yangtze River is densely covered with water, and six rivers have been encountered in the ten miles or so, which is completely unsuitable for iron cavalry.

If you can't find the enemy's weaknesses before the battle, you can only attack the enemy's formation directly when you wait for the hand-to-hand combat. There is almost no chance to switch between the left wing and the right wing.

Because in this kind of terrain, it takes too long to go around for more than ten miles.

More than ten miles!At this distance, it would take half an hour for the infantry to advance, regardless of the formation.If the formation advances, it will take an hour if there is no fight.

Even if the cavalry moved faster, they would only switch once or twice at most, and the battle would soon be decided.

When Sun Ce led his iron cavalry all the way to the left wing, he saw that Liu Yao's army had already deployed under the city of Qu'a, and his face became completely serious.

The soldiers in the rear also cursed a few words in a low voice, the situation was more serious than imagined.

Banners and banners were flying on the walls of Qu'a City, and there were people everywhere, obviously there were elite soldiers gathered.

No one dared to imagine how the soldiers on the left wing would fight against the enemy.

It's not a win, it's not a loss, it's not a stalemate!

If you win the battle, you will never move forward.The enemy army rushed out from the city of Qu'e violently, attacking its abdomen and back, and the whole army was in danger of hanging upside down.

During the stalemate, if the enemy troops rushed out of the city, the army would also be caught off guard.

Needless to say, if you lose, it is an unbearable burden for everyone.

But for this city, there is nothing one can do about it.The enemy's elite troops are stationed here, and they can wait for work at leisure.The law of guarding the city is that the gates are more expensive than few, and the gates are expensive to open but not expensive to close.

Whether it is construction or garrisoning, Qu'a is deployed according to this idea.All the city gates are wide open, and you can even vaguely see the heavily armed phalanx behind the gates.

Cheng Pu, Wu Jing and others brought the main force of the army out of the camp, and it was still more than ten miles away from here.

Sun Ce then stationed at the foot of the horse city, and said to Jiang Qin, "Go into the battle and check the enemy's strength."

Jiang Qin got the order, without any fear, he immediately took a long shot and said with a big smile: "Second and three sons, follow me to break the front and capture the flag."

After speaking, he took the lead and led more than ten horsemen to rush into the formation, and more than ten elite black armor knights immediately followed behind him, helping the riders advance.

This was originally just the first and most basic tactic of the cavalry tactics mentioned by Shao Yulie. When encountering an enemy, a small number of cavalry troops would be sent to lightly rush into the enemy's position to detect the enemy's reality.

But the result was beyond everyone's expectations. Jiang Qin led more than ten cavalry into the enemy's formation, beheaded more than fifty horses and returned them.

Jiang Qin returned with his army and laughed excitedly: "General, there are no strong bows and crossbows in the enemy's formation, no strong soldiers and good generals, and the lineup is large and uneven. And we rushed back out of the formation, and the enemy general has not yet deployed."

The iron cavalry clustered around Sun Ce were all excited.This at least shows one thing, the combat effectiveness of the opposing army is far inferior to that of the elite cavalry.

One of the important reasons why the elite iron cavalry can become the king of the battlefield is that they can concentrate the elite soldiers and attack the weaker enemy troops.

Sun Ce looked towards Qu'e County, suspecting that this might be Liu Yao's deliberate arrangement.Put the underdog next to Qu'a County to lure himself to attack.

Immediately Sun Ce laughed, hunter and prey, sometimes the switch is just an instant.He Liu Yao wanted to seduce himself, but he didn't know that he also wanted to take the opportunity to sweep his entire army.

Let's wait and see who will have the last laugh.

Sun Ce waved his hand and shouted to everyone, "Return to the army and prepare for a decisive battle!"

All the cavalry immediately rode back and disappeared behind the dense army formation.As the iron cavalry retreated, a large-scale and well-organized infantry slowly pressed up.

Sun Ce's army has more than [-] soldiers. Although it is not as numerous as Liu Yao's army, it is more brave and good at fighting.But densely packed with knives and guns, and countless red flags flying, the enemy soldiers could not see the truth at all.

Sun Ce rode his horse back to the central army, and Cheng Pu immediately went up to meet him and asked, "Bo Fu, the two armies are approaching soon, what's your plan?"

Sun Ce said calmly: "I have checked the thickness of the enemy army. Although it stretches for more than ten miles and cannot see all of them clearly, the size of the number will not vary too much. It is about [-]. Moreover, the left, middle and right armies all have extremely thick phalanxes. Waiting to be sent to the battlefield for reinforcements."

"Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to attack and crush the opponent."

Cheng Pu's face was solemn: "If the opponent has more than [-] people, it is almost five times that of us. According to the law of war, if there are five rules to attack, the enemy will definitely launch a fierce attack. It will be very difficult for us to defend."

Sun Ce nodded and said, "The enemy's tactics should be to attack across the board. However, the energy is sharp, the energy of the day is lazy, and the energy of the evening returns. I will avoid their energy and attack their idleness, so as to prevent chaos! I will personally command this battle."

Hearing this, all the generals around were excited!The general no longer led the cavalry to the battle, but sat in the middle army, and everyone felt much more solid in their hearts.

Cheng Pu was overjoyed and said: "The general uses his troops like a god, and with all the three armies, he can decide between the two battles. No one in the world can compete with him. If the general personally commands this battle, our army's chances of winning will greatly increase."

Sun Ce got off his horse, stood under the banner, and encouraged all the generals: "The enemy's army is nothing but brave, just fighting for a moment! Every time our army sticks to it, our chances of winning will increase by one point! If we stick to it until the sun goes down, our army will surely win a big victory." Win!"

Setting a clear short-term goal for everyone, a clear sign that victory is in sight, can greatly inspire the courage of all soldiers.

The soldiers glanced at the time. As the two armies approached, it was almost noon.That is to say, as long as you persist for two or three hours, the sun will be over!

Countless people are more confident, fighting with cold weapons, even if one is against ten, it is not difficult to persist for two or three hours.

The morale of the generals was like a rainbow, and they all entered the formation and began to command the troops.

In this battle, Sun Ce's elite soldiers and generals came together, and it was really a gathering of fierce generals.

At the first level of generals alone, there were Cheng Pu, Han Dang, Wu Jing, and Sun Ben. Among them, Cheng Pu and Han Dang personally guarded the central army, Wu Jing guarded the right flank, and Sun Ben guarded the left flank.

Under these commanders, there are countless brave generals, from Jiang Qin, Ling Cao, Song Qian, Cheng Zi, Chen Wu, Zheng Bao, Xian Yudan, to Yang Xiao, Xian Yulie, Rui Liang, Rui Xuan, Deng Dang, etc. , Yuan Xiong and so on.

These people are all fierce generals who take the lead and dominate the border captives.

It may be a bit difficult to fight against a hundred with one, but it is a trivial matter to fight against ten with one.Each of them stepped forward and fought the enemy bravely, and they were able to kill more than ten people, thus repelling the full-scale attack of a hundred-man formation of the enemy army, and disintegrating an important offensive that the enemy army had placed high hopes on.

Sun Ce can say that there are not many other things, but there are many fierce generals under his command!
The two armies opened up, and the confrontation officially began.

Both sides are in a majestic formation, the banner of righteousness, so the deployment is almost identical, both bows and crossbows are in front, long soldiers are behind, and they shoot at the front.

That's right, although Sun Ce's army is mainly defensive, it still advances with infantry, because the enemy's crossbowmen are too huge.

There are more than 3000 people in Liu Yao's army, and the proportion of archers is less than one-tenth, and there are also close to [-] people.Three times as many crossbowmen as Sun Ce's army.

However, in terms of killing and wounding, the enemy army was not much stronger than Sun Ce's army.

The crossbowmen in Sun Ce's army are all selected elites, and the military discipline is extremely strict.Don't shoot if you don't shoot at fifty paces.

Even if the enemy's [-] crossbowmen started shooting arrows at a distance of hundreds of steps, Sun Ce's army still couldn't bear it and moved forward slowly.

Seeing this scene, the soldiers of both armies were equally shocked.

The opponent fired ten thousand arrows, and the flying arrows covered the ground. Even if the soldiers of one's own side continued to fall down, they were still as slow as a forest, advancing steadily.This shocked the enemy and boosted the morale of one's own side.

An archer's hit at a distance of a hundred steps depends entirely on faith.But with a distance of fifty steps, not only the accuracy has been qualitatively improved, but also the lethality has become extremely impressive.

At a distance of fifty steps, thousands of crossbowmen from Sun Ce's army fired a volley, and at least six to seventy people from Liu Yao's army fell to the ground instantly like cutting wheat.

At this time, the classic scene was once again highlighted. Whether an army is elite or not is absolutely proportional to its armor rate.

Sun Ce's army was selected from a large number of captives, and the armor of countless surrendered soldiers was simplified, which greatly increased the armor rate of Sun Ce's army.

The soldiers are all covered with leather armor, and the elite like crossbowmen are all wearing two tiers of armor.

The bows and arrows shot by Liu Yao's soldiers at a distance of [-] steps cannot penetrate iron armor, but the arrows shot by Sun Ce's army at a distance of [-] steps all penetrated several inches into the body!
This kind of arrow array is a majestic division that even black armored cavalry will not directly attack.

Liu Yao's troops, more than [-] archers and crossbowmen could not gain the upper hand in the confrontation.

This made Liu Yao, who was watching the battle, very angry and unbelievable. He was displeased at the rear and shouted: "What's the reason? What's the reason! Why can our army of more than [-] bowmen shoot and kill, but they can't defeat the enemy's thousand soldiers?" ? Soldiers are different from brave and brave, so can there be a gap between bows and crossbows?"

These three thousand crossbowmen are one of the main forces he has high hopes for!

It is also the most important means of decisive victory that countless generals and schools in Liu Yao's army have hoped for.If Sun Lang's army could be defeated with arrows, then everyone would not need to go up to fight the fierce and skilled enemy army.

But now that the crossbowmen failed to defeat the enemy army, they were comparable to the enemy army in terms of damage. The main force of the infantry had no choice but to cross the arrow array under the military order and prepare for hand-to-hand combat.

Unlike the psychology of Liu Yao's soldiers, Sun Ce never expected that bows and arrows could decide the outcome of a battle involving tens of thousands of people.

Sun Ce even felt that the more troops relying on bows and crossbows, the weaker their combat power would be, and the easier it would be for them to be defeated by a small number of elite enemy troops.It is a well-recognized fact that it was not until the Civil War that the number of soldiers killed by long-range wounds surpassed that of close hand-to-hand combat for the first time.

Therefore, in the era of cold weapons, the combat effectiveness of an army that relies on bows and arrows to win is definitely not as good as that of elite soldiers who dare to fight bravely and see blood.

As the crossbowmen of the two armies retreated, the soldiers of the two armies finally collided with each other, and then the shouts of killing shook the sky, and the long front line was full of soldiers fighting bravely.

Sun Ce's tactics of "avoiding his vigor and attacking his lazy return" seem to be very subtle and profound in terms of military tactics.

In fact, in layman's terms, it is to defend and counterattack. The infantry stands on the defensive. At dusk, the morale of the enemy army has dropped, and the surprise soldiers launch a surprise attack.

And Sun Ce has more than one soldier in his hands.

The two armies were fighting fiercely, and every time Liu Yao delayed to defeat the main force of Sun Ce's army, his chances of defeat increased by one point.

Liu Yao was also well aware of this situation. With a stern face, he scolded: "I have sent additional reinforcements twice, why is there still no progress on the front line?"

Shi Yi sighed deeply, most of the generals at the front line are great generals because of their fame, they are not brave and brave, how can they compete with the tiger and wolf division on the battlefield?
Liu Yao turned his head and said to the people around him: "You are all from Beihai, follow me to Jiangdong to stabilize the country, and we will prosper and lose together with me. Let's talk about how we should defeat the enemy now."

One of his jobs, Teng Zhou, stepped forward. Although Teng Zhou was fair-skinned and beautiful, he was majestic and talented, and said: "General, although our army is large and powerful, its combat power is not as strong as that of military soldiers. With [-] people, there are only a limited number of people who can confront the enemy. It seems almost impossible to penetrate the enemy's formation head-on."

Liu Yao nodded in approval and asked, "What should I do?"

Teng Zhou took a step forward and said, "At this moment, it's going to be a desperate game. Put all the main force of the army on the two wings, continue to spread to the two wings, and expand the front."

Xu Shao immediately said: "Shengli, you can't. This is the opinion of a scholar! The formation is set, how can we turn to flying geese? Besides, as stated in "Sun Bin's Art of War", the formation of flying geese has strong bows and crossbows. , and then divide the merits and win."

Liu Yao pondered, the current situation of the Chinese army is that the two armies are in a stately formation, thousands of people line up, the brave will not be the first, and the timid will not be behind.It is impossible to defeat the breakthrough at all, and such a stalemate will not be able to exert any advantage of the army.Spreading to the left and right wings is the most reasonable deployment.

Besides, after the crossbowmen finished shooting, it was not uncommon for them to form an formation and then go forward to fight.

So Liu Yao said: "The sages said that if you listen to both, you will be bright, and if you believe it, you will be dark. Both of your proposals can be implemented. Let the archers spread out to the two wings, and use the formation of geese. The strong bows and crossbows tend to shoot, killing and wounding the enemy. Then let Qu'a's elite troops dispatched to attack its flanks! The large army encircled the enemy's flanks, forming a sweeping momentum."

(End of this chapter)