Chapter 272 Stream

Chapter 272 Stream
When the sky was getting light, the camp was already filled with the aroma of food.

Last year's old millet had long been eaten, and the flour the army was carrying now was ground with great effort from the three warehouses of Tanshan, Kinmen and Yunzhong.

Perhaps knowing that there would be a big battle today, the auxiliary soldiers made steamed cakes.

Steamed cakes are only delicious if they are made with pig fat. But when you are on the battlefield, how can you afford this? You can just make do with horse fat.

Of course, horses are generally lean and have very little fat. There is not much oil to be scraped out of two hundred dead horses, so let's just make do with it and let everyone smell the fragrance.

Each person had two steamed buns, a bowl of meat soup, and some pickles, and everyone enjoyed the meal very much.

Wang Chan looked around and watched the auxiliary soldiers deliver basket after basket of steamed cakes to the soldiers. Only then did he sit down and take a bite of steamed cake and a mouthful of pickles.

The war was imminent, but he no longer felt any tension.

Numb, really.

A few years ago, when I was in the Hebei Army, it was simply unimaginable to be surrounded by cavalry and running around in the wild.

Throughout the Jin Dynasty, it seemed that only Ma Long had achieved this.

The Duke of Luyang repeated Ma Xiping's feat more than once.

The Silver Spear Army is really good soldiers. The longest serving one has been in service for five or six years and has seen countless battles.

A most ordinary spear becomes extraordinary after you have refined it through thousands of trials and tribulations.

Holding it in the hand is like life. With a step, it can get to the armpits, knees, neck, face, anywhere that the armor cannot cover, as fast as lightning.

Some veterans of the Silver Spear Army would even show off their flaws when wielding their spears, and would perform very complicated and risky moves such as raising the spear high above their heads to assassinate.

They can also shoot arrows.

At close range, it is no problem to fill a pot with thirty arrows.

When the distance is a little further, shooting a dozen or so is no problem.

During battles, it was common for them to shoot three or five arrows with full draw of the rifle and then start fighting with their spears.

With the Silver Spear Army around, the Zhongwu Army and the Yicong Army will be obedient.

They are the cornerstone of Shaw Brothers and their ultimate strength.

Today, the four to five thousand most capable Silver Spear Army soldiers are all gathered here, along with five hundred soldiers from the Palace who are good at breaking through the enemy lines and more than a thousand brave cavalrymen, who are ready to engage in a decisive battle with the bandits who are several times their number. With such lofty ambitions, Wang Chan feels that he will die without regrets.

Even if I die today, I will die in a fair fight against an enemy army that is several times my size. Damn it!
"Boom boom boom..." The first drum beat sounded.

The auxiliary troops immediately took action, and several empty grain trucks were first pulled to the riverside by them.

With a shout, they dragged the grain cart directly into the riverbed. In the year of severe drought, the water level was shallow in winter, and the stream water could not completely submerge it.

Soon, the second car was towed over...

Some auxiliary soldiers filled the empty grain bags with sand and placed them inside the carriage to stabilize their position.

The Hun cavalry on the opposite side were stunned.

They were still thinking yesterday that although the stream was not wide or deep, it was not easy to build a floating bridge under their observation.

Moreover, the pontoon bridge is narrow and not many people can pass through it at one time. By then, they will have many ways to intercept them, such as charging on horseback, surrounding and shooting, etc., which will definitely cause the Jin people to pay a huge price in casualties.

More than a dozen crossbow carts were moved to the river bank by auxiliary soldiers who were shouting slogans.

The Hun cavalry on the other side of the river seemed to have seen the god of plague, and hurriedly turned their horses' heads and fled away.

The auxiliary soldiers looked at them with contempt and laughed.

"Woo——" the horn sounded.

Dozens of thick crossbow arrows were shot towards the opposite bank, and some Hun cavalry who had not had time to leave were thrown off their horses.

Some people were lucky and only their horses were pierced by crossbow arrows. After the people fell down, they were able to escape.

Some people were not so lucky and were carried away directly. Their miserable condition made more Xiongnu cavalrymen ride away and line up in the distance.

Truckloads of grain were being filled into the riverbed.

The interior of the carriage was filled with sandbags and earth bags, and the water flow was not strong, so it was very stable and there was no risk of being washed away.

Soon, most of the stream water was cut off, the water downstream became shallow, and the riverbed was exposed in many places.

More sandbags were brought in, as well as door panels, wood, reeds, etc. Whatever was available was used and directly laid out on the riverbed.

"Boom boom boom..." The second drum beat sounded.

Jin San, dressed in neat armor, led the first group of 600 Silver Spear Army members to wade across the river.

Following closely behind were the five hundred government soldiers led by Chang Can.

More than a thousand soldiers waded through the ankle-deep water and quickly formed a battle line on the east bank of the river.

"Ta-da..." The sound of dense horse hooves rang out. The Huns could not wait any longer. They charged forward anxiously, trying to drive away the group of people who had just crossed the river.

More than a thousand infantrymen formed an inverted V shape.

The large shield and long spear on the outside were raised.

The soldiers on the inside fired a volley of bows and crossbows.

Casualties occurred during the cavalry charge.

It was not a big deal if the knight fell off his horse, but the most troublesome thing was that the horses were hit by arrows, which created an obstacle, forcing the following cavalry to hastily bypass them, and the entire column became a little scattered.

Logically speaking, the Hun cavalry should not charge head-on. How could cavalry bows fight against infantry bows and crossbows?

During the charge, before entering the range of the cavalry bow, he had already received a round of arrows for free.

But there was nothing they could do.

After the people crossed the river smoothly and established the forward position, could the generals survive after returning? They had to fight. After entering the range of the horse bows, the Xiongnu cavalry split into two groups from the middle, each circling around the Jin army infantry and shooting arrows.

Arrows flew through the air, some landed on the large shields held high in the front row, and some fell into the formation, making a tinkling sound.

The protective ability of iron armor is still very strong. Except for a very few unlucky people who were shot in uncovered parts and groaned in pain, most of the arrows were blocked by the helmet and breastplate.

The Jin army's counterattack soon came.

The crossbow's firing rate was too slow, so the Silver Spear Army's infantry fired another volley.

Nearly four hundred arrows shot from infantry bows landed far away among the Hun cavalry. Even though they were scattered far away and moving quickly, the screams were still heard and many people fell off their horses.

The Huns quickly turned their horses around, circled far away, and returned to their camp.

A second group of cavalry rushed towards them from the front, still riding and shooting in a circle.

Perhaps because he saw that the Huns did not send out close combat cavalry, or perhaps because he underestimated their fighting power, Jin San directly ordered a change of formation.

The infantrymen were spread out a little further away, no longer as densely packed as before, to reduce the damage from the horse bows.

After loading the crossbow, the palace soldiers fired a round of arrows from a distance, knocking the Xiongnu cavalry off their horses.

The archers followed closely behind, and their arrows flew like locusts, killing and wounding many.

As usual, the Huns circled around to the two wings of the inverted V formation and used their cavalry and archery.

Perhaps because they sent more people, their results this time were slightly greater, knocking down probably more than ten Jin soldiers, but their own losses also increased dramatically.

This kind of shooting is really disadvantageous!
So they retreated quickly, and the battlefield became quiet for a while.

The wounded soldiers lay on the ground, wailing.

The injured horse lay on its side with tears streaming from its eyes.

Another group of Silver Spear Army soldiers successfully crossed the river, and the auxiliary soldiers even brought some horses over.

Jin San once again ordered a change in formation, and threw some deer antlers brought by the auxiliary soldiers around the formation to prevent the Hun cavalry from directly rushing into the infantry formation.

They have never been afraid of shooting.

******
On the west bank of Jianshui River, the Huns, who were slow to realize the situation, finally launched an attack.

However, faced with a camp consisting of carriages, baggage carts and wooden fences, the cavalry could not charge and had to turn to the infantry.

Shao Xun, who was standing on a high place and watching the enemy's situation, was a little surprised. The Huns actually sent in infantry? Did they really want to capture him?
If he had known in advance that they had a large number of infantry, he would not have chosen to cross the river today, but instead relied on a simple camp on the west bank to fight a fierce battle with the Huns.

But it is not too late now. He ordered some auxiliary troops to find a way to tow some vehicles across the river to help consolidate the position on the other side.

If you have the chance, dig some more horse traps.

With vehicles, antlers, chevaux de frise and horse traps, there will be basically no problem reaching the other side.

Come on, let’s fight. Let me see if Liu Cong has any capable infantrymen.
The result left him somewhat disappointed.

The Han army's infantry were slack during the charge. After being shot several times by the crossbow carts, some of the soldiers hesitated while others continued to move forward, and the formation suddenly became loose.

"Buzz..." The Silver Spear Army infantrymen who remained on the west bank of the river fired a volley of shots.

Unfortunately, the Han infantry was poorly equipped.

The arrows shot from the bows were like a strong wind blowing through strong grass, instantly sweeping down a large area of ​​it.

Some people had already turned around and fled, but were quickly rushed upon by the Hun cavalry and hacked and killed, forcing them to continue moving forward.

Finally someone rushed to the camp.

"Kill!" Wang Que'er, deputy commander of the Silver Spear Army, jumped up and stabbed out with his spear like lightning, killing two people in succession.

The others followed suit, and without any warning, their spears moved as swiftly as dragons, and the Hun infantry outside the chariot formation fell one after another.

Occasionally, a few strong men would swing blunt weapons and hit the Silver Spear Army soldiers, causing them to spit blood from their mouths and noses, fall off the chariots, and be quickly stabbed to death on the ground.

Shao Xun got down from the platform, drew his bow, and strolled around leisurely.

The distance was too close, so there was no need to pull the bow fully. Just shooting an arrow would often result in a scream.

When the thirty arrows in a pot were shot out, the enemy army finally could not hold on any longer, and retreated in panic, leaving behind hundreds of corpses.

"Boom boom boom..." The drums sounded.

Three gaps were opened in the camp, and Duan Xiong rushed out with nearly a thousand cavalrymen to chase and kill the defeated enemy.

The Hun cavalry immediately took action and tried to block it.

Duan Liang immediately led more than a hundred armored cavalry out and attacked the Xiongnu light cavalry.

There was almost no suspense in the battle.

Shao Xun climbed up the platform again and turned his gaze to the east bank of the stream.

Amidst the endless smoke and dust, the Huns launched a new round of charge.

A part of the cavalry rushed to the front, displaying their best riding and archery skills, circling around the deer horns, enduring casualties, and shooting an arrow from time to time.

Behind them, a total of three thousand Hun cavalry dismounted, waving a variety of weapons, and rushed towards the deer horns and chevaux de frise formations.

It was obvious that they were unwilling to let Shao's army cross the river easily.

Yes, if the east and west banks attack from both sides, with both infantry and cavalry, and surround Shao Xun from all sides, and then let Shao Xun cross the river easily, where would the Han Dynasty put its face?

Without paying a bloody price, it is impossible for either side to stop.

The stream water flows quietly, as if what is flowing is not water but blood.

(End of this chapter)