Chapter 668 No choice

Chapter 668 No choice

Chapter 668 No choice
The gates of the mighty city of Jinyang were wide open, and young men in various costumes filed out of the city, forming a thin formation behind simple chevaux de frise and vehicles.

With the war having reached this point, everyone is pessimistic.

Last year, the upper echelons of the Tuoba Dai Kingdom were fighting for power. Liu Zun, who was a hostage in Shengle, persuaded 30,000 families of Xianbei, Wuhuan and Jin to surrender and move south.

When these 30,000 households arrived, they directly devoured all the wealth that Jinyang had accumulated with great difficulty, and then people began to flee one after another.

This year, the locust plague broke out and more and more people fled. By August, only a few thousand households were left. Even these few thousand households were worried about where to go to survive all day long - there was really no way out without food.

Wei Xiong put an arrow in his mouth, but without stopping, he picked up the bow and arrow and aimed forward.

On his left and right, the soldiers held up spears, swords, shields, and bows, looking forward nervously and numbly.

Among them were Han people, Xianbei people, Wuhuan people, and Xiongnu people. They came from different ethnic groups and did not speak the same language, but at this moment, they had no choice but to gather together and fight to the death.

The east wind blew so hard that the bamboos and trees were almost bent, leaving behind a post road covered with weeds.

On the post road, more than ten riders were urging their horses to flee while turning sideways and shooting arrows at the back.

Behind them, dozens of riders were chasing closely and firing bows repeatedly.

The two sides, one chasing and one fleeing, soon arrived near Jinyang.

Behind them, the dense sound of horse hooves shook the ground, and the whistling sounds filled the air. The overwhelming number of cavalry passed through the post roads and fields and rushed towards Jinyang City.

Behind the knights, the unarmored or lightly armored infantry trotted along, eating the dust raised by the horses' hooves, with ferocious looks on their faces.

They are attacking! The Huns are attacking!

In a year of disaster, no one has an easy life. Since there is not enough food, cattle and sheep, we should go out to fight.

If you win, you can eat other people’s cattle, sheep, food, and even their corpses.

Even if we lose, we can still reduce the number of mouths that need to eat the food from the cattle and sheep, so we can't lose anyway.

Life is sometimes so cruel that many people have been walking on the edge of life and death since birth.

When the weather is favorable, you can give birth.

It's impossible to survive when disasters happen frequently.

If you want to struggle to move forward, you have to kill and rob, risking your own life to grab the precious resources for survival.

The desperate Huns began to attack the desperate isolated army in Jinyang.

At this point, it doesn't make sense to differentiate between nationalities or groups.

Two-thirds of the people defending Jinyang were Hu people, and half of the people attacking Jinyang were Hu people. What a huge battle!

"Open the barricades." Leping prefect Han Ju gave the order.

On the grassland, even if not everyone can ride a horse, everyone has seen a horse and is not afraid of horses, let alone horses charging at you. As a result, many strange tactics rarely seen in the Central Plains were born, such as the tactic of using infantry to resist cavalry.

Under Han Ju's command, several burly Xianbei men pulled the barricades to both sides.

The dozen or so cavalrymen on our side who were rushing in the front pulled up their reins and jumped up, passing quickly.

As for why they had to jump over the reins, the reason was that although the chevaux de frise was open, there was still a solid wooden stick across the middle. With this stick, the cavalry could not charge straight through and could only jump in.

This will result in a loss of speed.

This will reduce the frequency of passes.

Large groups of infantry gathered on both sides of the gap, stabbing with their spears, which would also reduce the number of enemy cavalry rushing in.

The Huns were of course well aware of this tactic, but they still rushed in without hesitation.

A bloody battle broke out near the gap.

The enemy cavalry who rode past used their spears and sabers to slash at the defending infantry on both sides.

The infantry gritted their teeth and stabbed with their spears.

Blood flew high and the warhorse neighed in pain.

Arrows flew around and the soldiers fell to the ground with a groan.

After letting in more than a hundred enemy cavalry, a group of infantrymen held up large shields, trying to block the incoming lances and flying arrows, and held up torches to light the wooden sticks across the gap.

The flames burned fiercely and the war horses retreated.

The Hun cavalry that rushed over were in chaos. They adjusted their postures in frustration and stabbed the infantry behind the baggage wagons with their lances.

The infantry bows and cavalry bows intertwined, and the rain of arrows was overwhelming. Both armies inside and outside the baggage carts suffered heavy casualties.

The more than one hundred Hun cavalrymen who were allowed in were surrounded by infantry.

There was no road ahead, only baggage carts or fences on both sides.

Having lost their speed, they engaged in a fierce battle with the Jinyang infantry that swarmed over. People kept falling off their horses with screams, and the scene was extremely bloody.

In fact, these Jinyang infantrymen who chopped down the cavalry were not very strong.

Most of them came from the grassland, but they were naturally not afraid of horses and were not very afraid of cavalry charges. They had seen it so many times that they were used to it.

But the Central Plains infantry had to train for a long time before they could suppress their fear of cavalry charges, because they rarely saw horses and were not used to them.

In the past, Wu Han often led 5,000 cavalry to charge. When fighting Gongsun Shu in Chengdu, the cavalry general Gao Wu directly broke into Shu's army and stabbed him, and it was extremely smooth.

In Hebei, Liu Xiu personally led the troops, but was defeated miserably when facing Youzhou native infantry such as You Lai who were familiar with cavalry tactics. He barely escaped with his life. Finally, he relied on Geng Yan to lead the cavalry archers to suppress the pursuing Youzhou infantry with long-range firepower, and was able to repel the pursuing Youzhou infantry.

These Hu and Han infantry under Liu Kun were vulnerable when facing regular Central Plains infantry, but when facing cavalry, they performed better than the Central Plains infantry, which was also an exception.

But it’s no use performing well at this point.

The Xiongnu cavalry gathered in front of the baggage carts gradually dispersed, and unarmored and lightly armored infantry swarmed in, flooding the Jinyang infantry camp like a tide.

Both sides were fighting for their lives, and were extremely crazy.

There was almost no command or formation. They were just fighting in a melee, using up every last bit of their strength, hacking left and right, and it was either you or me who would die.

The sound of horse hooves came from the side and rear, and Ji Dan, a cavalry general under Liu Kun's command, led more than a thousand cavalrymen to charge out.

The Xiongnu cavalry surrounded the enemy from both sides, and the two sides fought repeatedly in the long-abandoned farmland.

There were too many Huns, almost several times their number. After a few rounds of fighting, Ji Dan lost one third of his cavalry.

Some people began to disband, bypassing Jinyang and running northward.

"No retreat!" Ji Dan roared and gathered some people and continued to fight with the Huns.

But now that things have come to this, what's the use?

The troops he had managed to gather were surrounded and pelted with arrows by the Huns, and they immediately scattered like birds and beasts. Without morale and pessimism, even the bravest men were useless.

With tears in his eyes, Ji Dan ran away and found that Liu Kun, who was originally supervising the battle, had disappeared.

He sighed and thought, maybe this is a good thing.

Liu Yueshi is a loyal man after all.

Last year, when 30,000 families migrated south, he used his last bit of food to provide relief. The fall of Jinyang today was not unrelated to the need to feed more than 100,000 mouths.

And now it's all over.

Thirty thousand soldiers and civilians marched southward, and their prestige was unrivaled. Although food and grass were scarce, Liu Yueshi also ignored the opposition and marched out generously, although he was ultimately defeated by Liu Yao.

A year later, 30,000 families were scattered, Jinyang was without soldiers and food, and was on the verge of falling.

It was like a dream.

When we woke up from the dream, we said goodbye with tears, alas.

The Huns followed the fleeing Ji Dan, Liu Kun and others and rushed into Jinyang City, trying to find food.

The knights outside the city dismounted and began to clean up the battlefield.

Take off the clothes on the corpse first, they can still be used.

Pick up the weapon as well, it can be used as a backup.

Regardless of whether the corpses were friendly or enemy, their heads were all chopped off.

Some people were washing pots and pans by the river.

Someone took an iron brush and started brushing the meat slices.

Some people started arguing. One said, "The liver is fat and delicious. Give me more and I'll exchange it for your buttocks." The other refused to give in.

The broken limbs were also gathered up, put into a stone mortar, and pounded vigorously to make a paste, which was then cooked and eaten at will.

Han Ju was captured by the Huns and tied up. When he heard the quarreling of the Hun soldiers, he did not react much.

How can we blame others in times of disaster?

In fact, he also knows that liver is delicious, but people who have never eaten it would not know...

Suddenly, he was overcome with grief again and cried to the sky.

After following Liu Kun for more than ten years and experiencing many wars, he ended up being neither human nor ghost.

When he captured the enemy city, he slaughtered them indiscriminately and ate their meat jerky.

When he was defeated by the enemy, he abandoned the old and weak and let them ravage him.

Now that he has been defeated and captured, it seems that it is all his own fault.

But he was unwilling to accept it. In such troubled times, there was nothing he could do about it.

The Huns came over, holding sharp knives, and were going to cut open the abdomen and take out the internal organs to present to the leader.

In fact, this is a routine operation in times of troubled times.

It's just that people are not willing to spread such unspeakable things.

Being in such a torrent, even if you are not sick, you will get sick...

Some were more seriously ill, such as Han Ju and his Xiongnu enemies.

Some people's illnesses were less serious, such as Shao Xun and his subordinates.

Everybody is sick.

******
Ten days ago, Pan Tao and others were still wondering whether to fight the Huns.

In fact, you don't have to fight, they will attack you.

The tenth day of August, the weather is nice and the horses are fat.

In the wilderness, the sound of cow horns could be heard.

Countless Hun infantry and cavalry swarmed in, carrying a large number of refugees, and rushed straight towards Wen County.

Wen County Magistrate Jing Hong climbed up the city wall and looked out, and immediately took a breath of cold air.

He never knew that the Huns could mobilize so many people.

He also didn't know that the Huns were willing to fight siege warfare, which they were not good at.

The gray-haired old man and the snot-nosed teenager stood together, holding spears and moving slowly forward.

Even women rode on horseback and shot arrows with bows.

This is fucking life?!

If the women and boys die, how will the tribe develop in the future?

They slaughtered precious cattle and sheep on the spot, spared no effort in charging forward, was this an attempt to achieve the goal in one fell swoop?
Even if the battle is won, not all of them will be able to survive the coming winter.

This fall, countless people are destined to die.

All the soldiers, refugees, able-bodied men and healthy women in Wen County were mobilized, organized into battalions, and climbed to the top of the city walls, ready to fight a decisive battle with the enemy.

Even naughty children of seven or eight were given wooden sticks.

At a critical moment, even if you can consume one arrow of the enemy, it will be good.

The knights rushed out of Wen County in a panic and headed towards Heyang to convey military intelligence.

The Huns blocked the enemy from both sides, and the knights fought desperately. In the end, only two wounded men delivered the news to the north city of Heyang.

The Heilongjiang Army that returned to Heyang immediately sent out messengers to relay the message eastward, and it finally reached Bianliang on the early morning of August 14.

The Bianliang Shogunate was debating whether or not to march north to Hanoi. Some supported it, while others opposed it, and the argument was getting heated.

But now, all the arguments are over.

You are still debating whether to attack, but the enemy has already taken the initiative to attack.

There is actually no other choice.

(End of this chapter)