Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 245: Victory and Loss: Life and Death

Even though they had used so many tricks, even though they had won a great victory, even though they had already exhausted the Jin army with their camps.

However, once the Wuxing Army decided to send the regular army to attack head-on regardless of casualties, the Zhongyi Army still fell into a disadvantage.

The soldiers gathered by the Loyal Army basically have certain fighting experience.

There is no way. This broken place of Shandong has been full of bandits since the Song Dynasty and has been in chaos for decades. Even according to the theory of evolution, survival of the fittest, it would be difficult for Shandong athletes to survive without learning martial arts.

In general, there is no problem with the quality of the soldiers, and under the incentive of land distribution, the subjective initiative of the soldiers is also not low.

However, the shortcoming of the Loyal Army is that it was formed too recently.

Even though they had experienced several battles of varying sizes and had developed their combat effectiveness through drill training, and even most of the grassroots officers were veterans with combat experience, when it came time to deploy a large formation to face a powerful enemy, the coordination between the armies was still not good enough.

To put it bluntly, if the terrain had not restricted the performance of the Jin cavalry, the two wings of the Loyal Army might have been in a tough battle.

In the defensive battle, the God Arm Crossbow finally played a huge role.

All the crossbowmen of the Loyal Army were at the front line at this time, with a total of about one thousand people, almost evenly distributed in the left, middle and right parts.

The tactics they used were simple and easy to understand. In later times, it was called a three-row formation, or in today's terms, a garrisoned arrow team.

With one hundred men in a row, three hundred men were divided into three rows. The first row fired, the second row prepared, and the third row loaded the bow, thus maintaining a continuous supply of firepower.

Don't think that the ancients were fools. In fact, this tactic was invented by Wu Jie, the general of Xichuan. In the Battle of Heshangyuan, he killed a large number of Jin's regular troops and beat the veteran general of Jin, Wanyan Salihe, into tears.

Later, this guy was simply called "Crying Prince" by the world.

And today, the Arrow Squadron was like the nemesis of the Jin army, and was once again lined up in front.

"Look carefully at the flag! Whoever loses his balance and shoots the first arrow will be chopped off!"

An officer raised a small flag and shouted loudly.

The first three rows of armored soldiers with spears and axes squatted on the ground, lowered their heads to prevent being shot by the Jin army's arrows, and raised their long weapons diagonally forward, forming a hedgehog-like defense system with the antler-armed chevaux de frise in front of the formation.
Behind them were three rows of crossbowmen.

Among them, the crossbowmen in the front row had already raised the crossbows seized from the Linyi treasury and pointed the crossbow arrows at the Jin army marching in formation.

The Jin army also knew that the Shenbi crossbow was powerful. In the front row, there were armored soldiers carrying large shields to defend against it. Behind them were archers holding iron-rimmed hard bows in a scattered formation, and then armored soldiers holding various long weapons.

Because both sides were heavily armored, especially the front lines, which were stacked densely, the basic tactics of ranged units were close-range fire. While long-range projectiles could certainly cause confusion, today's situation showed both sides fighting tooth and nail, and their formations didn't seem susceptible to being easily shaken by light arrows.

Therefore, the Jin army had to concentrate its firepower by shooting heavy arrows at close range and shooting at the area from five steps away to open a gap in the formation of the loyal army.

The reason why the Loyal Army did this was even simpler.

Although the Shenbi crossbow is simple to operate, the crossbow operators are newly recruited and cannot shoot wherever they point, let alone hit the target accurately from a hundred paces away.

In order to ensure the hit rate, just get closer and shoot.

"Fifty steps!"

"Twenty steps!"

"Ten steps!"

"Get ready, let go!"

One hundred crossbow bolts were fired, and then the front row of crossbowmen quickly retreated to the back row, bent over and rewound their arrows. The second row stepped forward and, at the officer's command, released arrows again, and this cycle continued.

When the first round of crossbow arrows came, the heavily armored Jin soldiers quickly raised their huge shields for defense.

But the distance was too close, and the wooden shield covered with cowhide was pierced almost like a piece of paper. The crossbow arrow still had the force and pierced the soldier behind the shield.

In a short period of time, more than 20 people were killed or injured. They fell to the ground, wailing and rolling, causing the entire offensive formation to stagnate, and the shield formation that protected the front formation also became messy.

The second and third rounds of crossbow arrows caused greater casualties. Without the protection of the large shields in the front row, the crossbow arrows shot into the formation of the Jin army archers with almost no hindrance.

Even though the distance between the archers was relatively large, the arrows flying in all directions at close range still caused great casualties.

The Jin army archers were originally supposed to cover the infantry as they moved forward to remove the barricades, but now they didn't care about much and directly fought on their own, shooting at the loyal and righteous army. Then the loyal and righteous army fell into the same situation as the Jin army.

The distance was too close, and their heavy armor could not withstand the heavy arrows shot directly at them.

Many soldiers of the Loyal Army also fell down instantly.

Heavy arrows rained down like rain, and the speed was much faster than that of the divine arm crossbow. The density of the projected firepower was also much greater and more massive. In just a few moments, nearly a hundred front-line soldiers were killed or wounded, and two small formations were directly defeated.

The Wuxing Army wanted to take advantage of the situation and attack, but was directly blocked by the Zhongyi Army's reserve troops, and the battle situation became tense again.

After withstanding the most deadly first wave of arrow rain, the crossbow arrows from the Loyal Army continued to flow, while the Jin Army was already exhausted.

Although the iron-framed hard bow has a much faster firing speed than the Shenbi crossbow, it relies entirely on the arms to pull the bowstring. After shooting ten arrows in a row, even the strongest Jin soldiers will feel sore in their arms and have to rest for a while before they can continue fighting.

With a crossbow like the Shenbi Bow, all the strength in the body is used, so the speed at which one tires will naturally be slower.

Witnessing this scene, Huitemiler, who was the first to engage in battle, was heartbroken.

Archers weren't easy to train; anyone who could master the art within two years was considered exceptionally gifted. The Loyal Army's spearmen and crossbowmen were quick-training units; as long as Shandong warriors joined the army and walked a few laps around the drill ground, they'd be ready for these positions.

Not to mention one for one, even if it’s one for ten, it’s still a huge loss!

Fortunately, after many casualties, the obstructive antler barricades were finally removed.

The Jin army quickly formed into a square formation with spears and pressed forward head-on.

Zhang Xiaoyi was equally unwilling to be outdone. On the one hand, he ordered the crossbowmen to occupy the slope and shoot from a high position, while on the other hand, he ordered the soldiers of the right army to form a battle line and began a head-on attack on the Wuxing army.

At the same time, fierce fighting broke out between the central army and the left wing, and fierce fighting broke out on the entire front.

Liu Huai stood on a high ground near the front line and looked around.

The Flying Tiger flag and the "Han" flag stood side by side behind him, fluttering in the west wind, standing tall.

At this time, the front battlefield has turned into a head-on collision between spearmen. Both sides hold eight-foot-long spears and begin stabbing and smashing each other.

This is a huge test of morale.

When people are close to each other and squeezed together in a dense square formation, the people in the formation have nowhere to hide. When facing the stabbing spears, they can only use the long spears in their hands to block them, or use the armor on their bodies to resist.

If the helmet was blown off and the spear was blocked, the soldier could only watch in despair as the spear head slowly enlarged in his sight until it pierced his body.

Moreover, fighting in armor makes it easier to get tired, and it is difficult to rotate when it is difficult to do so in a head-on attack.

The saying goes, "If you thrust spears at me, thrust spears back; if you chop swords at me, chop them back." Martial arts quickly lost their effectiveness; now the competition was about who was more resilient, who was more united, who could endure fatigue more, and who could endure casualties more.

These qualities that once shone brightly when the Jin army was founded, and which Yue's army once relied on to conquer the Central Plains from the north, now appeared again on this small battlefield in Shandong.

The Zhongyi Army and the Wuxing Army fought each other with almost astonishing perseverance.

Needless to say, the Loyal and Righteous Army was defeated, but what surprised Liu Huai was that even after their vanguard was ambushed and killed, and they were defeated by the strong camp, and they had just seen the captured flags and captured comrades with their own eyes, the army's morale was still maintained and they could still suppress the Loyal and Righteous Army. It was simply incredible.

Pang Rugui rode up from the rear, and when he reached the banner, he simply bowed and said, "Commander-in-Chief, Duke Wei sent me to ask if you need reinforcements."

Liu Huai took a deep breath and pointed at the battle situation ahead. "Although our army is currently at a disadvantage, we can still hold on. Tell my father that he can send reinforcements according to his plan, and I will wait for the right opportunity to break the current situation."

Pang Rugui looked around the battlefield, his face pale. When he turned his horse back, he remembered another important thing: "Lei Ben has arrived with 300 elite swordsmen from the central army."

Lei Ben is an old brother who followed Wei Sheng in the Northern Expedition from the beginning. At this time, he is already the commander of the central army. The swordsmen he leads are equivalent to Wei Sheng's personal soldiers. Now they are all sent to the front army to obey Liu Huai's orders.

Liu Huai nodded: "Let them sit on the ground and hide. We will have to rely on them later."

After saying that, Liu Huaifu focused all his energy on the battle in front of him.

Seeing that the other party had no other orders, Pang Rugui turned his horse back again and went to hand over the order to Wei Sheng.

(End of this chapter)