Three Kingdoms: The Kingdom Cannot Be Partial

Chapter 61 Tianshui Jiang Boyue

The sound of ivory horns echoed through the valley.

Zhang He and more than forty elite riders around him reined in their horses and looked back, shocked and confused.

"Right General, how many ambushes do the Shu invaders have?!" Zhang He's personal guard Sima began to panic.

On a hillside about half a mile away from the river valley road, there were Shu ambushes all over the mountain. Each of them was wearing strange armor and holding strange crossbows. They pushed aside the half-man-high grass to the left and right and rushed down.

"Right General, should we go east or west?!" Sima shouted and asked.

At this moment, the ambush troops in Hexi had not yet completely descended the mountain. Zhang He forced himself to remain calm and looked towards Hedong, then a feeling of helplessness arose spontaneously.

The number of Wei soldiers who were still fleeing south in panic was probably far more than two thousand.

The reason why this group of defeated soldiers were ambushed by the Shu invaders in the southern section was that they were inferior to their opponents in both physical strength and morale.

After a long march of more than ten miles, they fell behind the vanguard by one or two miles. When they were exhausted and unable to continue, they were suddenly attacked by the enemy. What else could they do except to lose their fear and be terrified?

It was just a matter of three or four hundred Shu bandits who were driven away and shot at for just two quarters of an hour. The entire team of two thousand people could hardly organize any decent resistance. At this moment, they were scattered and stretched out over two or three miles.

To the north of this defeated army, there were only four or five hundred soldiers gathered under two school flags.

Perhaps they saw his flag moving south and knew his intention to gather the defeated soldiers, so they were actively attracting the soldiers who were fleeing south in panic to join the formation.

But to the north of the two school flags and to the south of the three or four hundred crossbowmen of the Shu invaders, there were only about five or six hundred soldiers between the two.

He now faced the choice of going east to gather the defeated soldiers or heading west to attack the five or six hundred Shu invaders who were ambushing him.

Looking towards the northernmost part of the valley, the personal guard commander Zhang Yu had probably gathered more than 2,000 elite soldiers and was heading towards the hillside.

It was obvious that they wanted to occupy the advantageous terrain from a high position and block the retreat of the Shu invaders who were still driving out the defeated soldiers under the road.

"Didn't I order Zhang Yu to wait there for Niu Jin to drive out the Shu bandits? Why is he going up the mountain?!" Zhang He suddenly became a little angry.

Assuming that each crossbowman carries thirty crossbow arrows, the Shu invaders should have run out of arrows by now.

Once they lost their crossbows, the lightly armored Shu bandits would be nothing but lambs to be slaughtered in front of the Wei's iron armor and long spears.

And in order to eliminate a mere thousand crossbowmen, they actually let go of four thousand elite Shu invaders who were attacking the camp. Isn't that a loss?!
"Right General, could it be... could it be that the thousands of Shu bandits who attacked the camp no longer fled to the mouth of the valley, but turned to flee eastward?" Sima, the personal soldier, suddenly thought of something.

Zhang He, who was originally angry and scolded Zhang Yu for being a fool, was stunned when he heard this.

He had been thinking about blocking the river valley entrance to kill the Shu bandits, but he forgot that the Shu bandits could still escape to the east.

If he really abandoned his armor and soldiers and fled, delaying time, how could Niu Jin catch up with him?

However, just as he thought of this, the right general's heart suddenly shook, and a strange and bizarre idea came to his mind.

What if Niu Jin's pursuers were also ambushed?
"Let's go to the west bank first!" Without thinking too much, Zhang He reined in his horse and headed west.

Otherwise, they would be blocked by the Shu crossbowmen in the river, and their horses would not be able to speed up, so they would just become sitting ducks.

Fortunately, the place where the Shu crossbowmen ambushed was far away from the river valley road, and the river valley road was more than half a mile wide, so Zhang He did not have to worry about being completely blocked in the river for the time being.

"I'll wait until I've slaughtered all the rats in Hexi, then I'll march eastward!

"We will surely be able to wipe out the Shu invaders' elite forces in this battle. Let's see if that Ge thief dares to act so recklessly again!"

Zhang He's eyes were wide open with anger, but even at this moment he still did not think he would be defeated.

Seven or eight thousand elite soldiers, half of the elite 50,000-strong army entering Long, gathered here. How could they be defeated by a small ambush?!
Isn't this a joke!

As for Niu Jin, his army of 50,000 only had 4,000 crossbows.

How many crossbows can the Shu invaders still have?!
Therefore, the idea that Niu Jin might be attacked is probably just groundless worry.

Leading forty elite cavalrymen ashore, Zhang He immediately rode his horse north along the river. The captain of the unit, Cheng Gongbao, left the team and reined in his horse to meet him.

Zhang He looked at the Shu ambush troops at the foot of the hill and gave the order:
"Cheng Gongbao! Lead your troops to form a battle line with your backs to the water. No matter the cost, keep this small group of Shu bandits here!"

Cheng Gongbao was shocked when he heard this, and after a moment he spoke resolutely:
"Right General! I'm arrayed against the light, so the Shu invaders can't see me clearly. I have five hundred horn crossbows. We can lure the Shu invaders deeper into our territory and then shoot them!"

Zhang He nodded enthusiastically.

He had this intention originally. As for the five hundred horn crossbows, they were prepared here to prevent the Shu bandits from escaping by wading into the water, so that they could be killed without leaving a single one alive.

When the captain Cheng Gongbao received the order, he immediately summoned his troops with flags and drums.

The two thousand soldiers, who had maintained their complete organization and formation on the west bank and had rested for more than a quarter of an hour and recovered some of their combat effectiveness, began to change their formation and line up with their backs to the water.

The line was narrow and thick, and it was obvious that they were prepared to sacrifice human lives and then engage in hand-to-hand combat.

On the other side, four hundred Wudang flying soldiers wearing rattan armor and holding Yuanrong crossbows, led by the Lieutenant General Cuan Xi (cuàn), were at the front and advanced slowly, maintaining their strength.

Jiang Wei, the Sima of the Prime Minister's Cang Cao, led a hundred Yuanrong crossbowmen, and a hundred Jue Zhangshi armed with Cao Wei's horn crossbows followed closely behind.

"Bo Yue, something is wrong!" Jiang Wei's good friend Yin Shang, who had been protecting Jiang Wei, suddenly spoke at this moment, his voice trembling slightly.

"What's wrong?" Jiang Wei, who was slowly approaching with a crossbow in hand, seemed to have long been accustomed to Yin Shang's sudden surprise.

Yin Shang, holding a Wei horn crossbow, spoke quickly:

"Bo Yue, the east is turning bright, the Wei invaders are arrayed against the light, and the wind is blowing from the east, which is disadvantageous to us!

"I guess they might have horn crossbows in their hands, trying to lure us deeper!"

Jiang Wei was stunned at first, then he squinted hard and looked towards the enemy formation.

Just as Yin Shang said, the wind was blowing from the east at that time, and the Wei army had the advantage by forming their battle array against the light. It was also true that only the outlines of their first row of soldiers could be seen, but it was impossible to tell whether the soldiers in the back row were holding crossbows.

In front of his two hundred crossbowmen, the front led by Cuan Xi was only one hundred and twenty to thirty steps away from the front of the Wei army, and was still advancing slowly.

In order to increase the loading capacity and shorten the loading speed, the Yuanrong crossbow was designed with a shorter crossbow body, sacrificing some of its killing power. In order to penetrate iron armor, its effective killing range was about fifty steps.

The Wei people's horn crossbow was also a crossbow with a longer string and greater power. It could effectively penetrate iron armor and cause damage at about eighty steps.

"General Cuan, the Wei invaders may be ambushing!" Jiang Wei didn't think any more, snatched the horn crossbow from Yin Shang, shouted loudly to Cuan Xi, and quickly broke away from the front line and rushed forward.

The Han army was originally quiet. When Jiang Wei's voice came out, General Cuan Xi, who was from the south like Meng Yan and served in the Xiangfu Army, immediately waved his hands and ordered his men to stop.

"Bo Yue, where are the Wei invaders hiding?" Cuan Xi frowned.

"General Cuan, the Wei invaders here might also have horn crossbows!" Jiang Wei raised his Wei crossbow, his brows raised.

"General Cuan, our army is small, and the Wei invaders are clearly dispersed and surrounding us!
"At this moment, they are standing in dense formation without moving. I'm afraid their intention is to lure me deeper!"

Cuan Xi was startled at first, then turned his head to look at the densely arrayed Wei army opposite, but he could not see clearly whether they had crossbows.

But as Jiang Wei said, seeing that his ambush troops were still densely lined up with crossbows, something was indeed wrong.

Moreover, he was also feeling inexplicably nervous just now.

The Yuanrong crossbow had to be reloaded no matter how fast it was. Once the Wudang Flying Army came down the mountain, they not only lost the advantage of being high above, but the speed advantage brought by wearing light rattan armor was also greatly weakened.

On the flat ground beneath your feet, it would only take three crossbow arrows for the enemy soldiers to rush in front of you.

In particular, the physical strength of this group of Wei invaders seemed to have recovered quite well, and their formation was in good order.

"General Cuan, my troops have a hundred crossbows here. Let us shoot them first!"
"If they chase us, we can retreat and shoot, and return to the advantageous terrain on the mountain!"

Cuan Xi thought for a moment and nodded vigorously.

The Han Dynasty brought a total of 3,600 Yuanrong crossbows with it during this northern expedition. 2,000 of them were distributed to the army in Xiegu to restrain the Wei rebels, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, and the remaining 1,600 were all here.

If Wei Yan had not seized nearly a thousand horn crossbows from the Wei invaders four days ago and sent them to the Prime Minister by express horse, it would have been difficult to set up ambushes everywhere today.

With the consent of the military officer Cuan Xi, Jiang Wei quickly summoned a hundred crossbowmen to the front and slowly pressed forward.

On the other side, Zhang He, who was hiding behind Cheng Gongbao's two thousand soldiers, narrowed his eyes while riding on horseback.

"Cheng Gongbao, can you see clearly? Why do I feel that the crossbows in the hands of the Shu bandits who just circled the front row don't seem to be their own strange crossbows, but rather look a bit like my Great Wei Horn Crossbows?"

Cheng Gongbao was young and sharp-eyed, and was even more frightened:

"Right General, it seems the Shu invaders are holding our Great Wei Horn Crossbow!"

Zhang He's expression suddenly turned stern:

"Where did the Shu invaders get our Great Wei horn crossbows? Could it be... Qishan Fort?"

He suddenly had a very bad premonition.

If the Great Wei horn crossbows were really obtained from You Chu and Fei Yao, based on the time and distance, this batch of horn crossbows should have been delivered from Qishan Fort at least three days ago.

You Chu and Fei Yao were defeated three or four days ago?

When was that?

Zhang He was so flustered that his head started to feel dizzy and he couldn't remember anything for a while.

At this moment, the Shu army moved!
"Shoot!" Jiang Wei shouted loudly while pulling the trigger of the crossbow.

At this moment, they were clearly within the killing range of the horn crossbows. Fifty or sixty Wei soldiers were hit by arrows! The metal clashing sound of arrows piercing the armor and the soldiers' screams of pain were heard at the same time. Six or seven people fell down!
"Charge!" Seeing that his plan to lure the enemy deep into his territory had failed, Cheng Gongbao no longer cared about anything else and directly ordered his men to charge forward.

Two thousand Wei soldiers instantly split into ten groups, with four groups charging forward from the front and the other three groups on the left and right, preparing to outflank the Han army from the flank.

The Han army crossbowmen began to shoot and retreat.

After shooting an arrow, the crossbowmen in the front row rushed straight to the end of the line. While their comrades in front were firing concentrated arrows to delay the enemy's attack, they loaded their crossbows again in the back row.

Zhang He looked at the Han army crossbowmen who were fleeing at a very fast speed and coordinating with each other very well, and his face looked very ugly.

After a moment, he reined in his horse and walked to the dead bodies, dismounted, and squatted down.

His eyes passed over the crossbow arrows stuck in the dead soldier's forehead and neck.

The crossbow arrows made by the Wei Dynasty are indeed good.

"Right General, are Lord You and General Fei really defeated?" Sima, a personal soldier, asked in surprise after seeing the crossbow arrow clearly.

Zhang He thought for a moment and shook his head slightly:
"Not necessarily. It's only a hundred horn crossbows, probably just a lucky capture."

In fact, Zhang He's heart was churning, far from being as calm as he appeared on the surface!

If it really was just a hundred horn crossbows, why would Wei Yan have to go to great lengths to send them to Zhuge Liang in such a hurry?!
And if there aren't just a hundred horn crossbows, then how many are there?!

Were You Chu and Fei Yao really defeated?!
Where are the remaining hundreds of photos?

Bull gold?

Or is he still lying in ambush on the mountain? !
Looking west, Cheng Gongbao was about to catch up to a hillside with more than a thousand soldiers, and two or three hundred people had fallen dead in the valley.

Most of them were Wei soldiers, with only less than a hundred Shu bandits wearing strange wooden armor.

It is not known whether he was caught up, chopped down and stabbed, or shot to death by the hundreds of crossbows of the Wei Dynasty.

Looking towards the battlefield in Hedong, three or four hundred Shu invaders were still chasing the defeated soldiers southward with crossbows.

The two school flags that had previously organized hundreds of people were now nowhere to be found.

The only ones who could maintain their organization were the less than 3,000 elite soldiers led by Zhang Yu, the commander of the personal guards. At this moment, all of them had climbed up the hillside near Hedong Avenue, maintaining the advantage of being high above and pressing southward.

It seemed that he wanted to block the Shu invaders' escape route to the hillside and force them into the river.

The nearly 1,000 Shu bandits on the road actually gave up chasing the defeated soldiers at this moment, began to wade across the river, and ran westward.

"Right General, why does it seem like the Shu invaders on the other side of the river are surrounding us?!" Sima, the personal soldier, noticed that something seemed amiss.

The Shu invaders on the other side of the river did not seem to be running away at all, but instead seemed to be surrounding the more than 2,000 people on their side!

"The Shu bandits are surrounding us? A thousand lightly armored Shu bandits without crossbow arrows are surrounding us?!" Zhang He glared at the Sima, thinking that this was nonsense.

However, before he could finish his words, a personal guard cavalryman shouted loudly in his ear:

"General Right, this is bad! There are ambushes on the mountain!"

Zhang He's expression suddenly changed and he turned his head sharply.

I saw a small east-west sloping hill in a valley half a mile away from the main road. Hundreds of Shu invaders were lying on the ground, crushing the green grass. It seemed that they were shooting at the Wei crossbowmen at the foot of the hill with crossbows.

At the foot of the hill, Captain Cheng Gongbao's eyes were bloodshot.

His two thousand men were divided into ten groups, with eight hundred men pursuing the Shu invaders directly from the center, and twelve hundred men encircling them from the left and right.

There were two to three hundred casualties along the way. After much difficulty, they were about to catch up with the Shu bandits on the hillside in front of them and were about to engage in close combat with them. Unexpectedly, the Shu bandits had hundreds of hidden crossbows!

With just this one blow, more than a hundred of the soldiers who were shooting at the mountain with horn crossbows at the foot of the mountain fell dead instantly!

Morale was greatly reduced.

"How the hell are we going to fight this guy!" Cheng Gongbao was shocked and angry. With red eyes, he grabbed a fleeing soldier and stabbed him in the throat.

Many soldiers, frightened by the repeated ambushes, began to flee, but were captured and executed by him and the military judges.

But more than a dozen people still managed to escape.

The six hundred soldiers he sent to encircle the mountain were now nowhere to be found, and he had no idea how long and wide the mountain was, or when they would be able to reach the battlefield.

More than half of his five hundred soldiers had been killed. Of the original two thousand soldiers, except for the six hundred Simas who made a roundabout move, there were only a little over a thousand left, and only a hundred of the Shu invaders had been killed!

This terrifying kill ratio of almost one to four made him, who had originally been determined to die, begin to feel a little timid and want to retreat!
"Woo——"

At this moment, a strange yet familiar horn suddenly sounded again on the other side of the valley!
Cheng Gongbao was shocked!
On the other side, Zhang He's eyes widened and his hair stood on end when he heard the sudden sound of the horn!
For a moment, I didn't know whether this was a strategy of the Shu invaders to scare the enemy, or if there really was an ambush!
Just as Zhang He was wondering, a sound of golden gongs suddenly came from Hedong, implying a withdrawal of troops!

Zhang He looked over when he heard the sound. Who else could it be but Zhang Yu's personal guards beating the golden gongs?!

"Right General, this is bad! There are still bandits from Shu!"

Zhang He was stunned at first when he heard the voice, then his scalp went numb and blood rushed to his body!
He suddenly looked in the direction pointed by the elite cavalry guards, and saw dozens of Shu soldiers holding spears maintaining their formation, suddenly walking out from a valley two miles to the south!

more and more!

More and more!!!

"How is this possible?!" Zhang He was completely mired in doubt about his life. "How many more ambushes does Zhuge Liang have?!"

It was clearly a sure-win ambush against the Shu invaders' elite troops, but how could they suddenly be ambushed, ambushed, and ambushed again?!
"Right General, let's run away before the Shu invaders surround us!" Even Zhang He's personal guard Sima had seen the situation clearly at this moment, but he didn't know why the Right General of Wei was so slow today!

Nearly a thousand crossbowmen were pressing westward in the river, an unknown number of spearmen were pressing northward in the south, and seven or eight hundred crossbowmen were occupying the hillside in the northwest, ready to defeat Cheng Gongbao's thousand-plus soldiers and then come over to encircle them.

They are right in the middle of the triangle!
However, the Wei soldiers in Hexi had no intention of crossing the river to provide assistance!

"Why didn't Zhang Yu rescue us, but instead rang the golden gong?!" Zhang He was furious on horseback.

"Right General! There must be an ambush of Shu invaders to the west of Zhang Gong! Let's go quickly, or we won't be able to leave!" Sima, the personal soldier, was so frightened that he burst into tears.

There are many valleys along the way, and the Shu people have no cavalry, so they still have a chance to escape.

On the northwest low slope.

When Jiang Wei heard the second horn finally sounded, how could he not know that it was General Wu Ban leading two thousand Tiger Infantrymen to encircle them!
This time the elite troops of the Han Dynasty were sent out, not only to seize the baggage and food supplies of the Wei rebels in the central part, but also to lure out Zhang He's elite troops and annihilate them here!
"Bo Yue, the enemy leader is trying to escape!" Yin Shang, who was protecting Jiang Wei behind him, seemed to be ready to kill him and wanted to rush forward with the Yuanrong crossbow.

"Go!" Jiang Wei looked towards Zhang He's flag upon hearing the voice, and saw that Zhang He's more than forty elite cavalrymen seemed to be about to flee eastward from the valley. He immediately rushed down the mountain without caring about anything, holding a Wei State horn crossbow that had been drawn but not fired!

Almost at the moment when Jiang Wei rushed down the hillside, the hundreds of Wudang flying soldiers and more than 300 crossbowmen under Jiang Wei's command who reacted directly gave up the confrontation with the Wei army soldiers at the foot of the mountain and chose to follow!

The Wei soldiers led by Cheng Gongbao had already begun to think of retreating when they heard the strange horn and the sound of their own golden gongs to withdraw.

At this moment, seeing the Shu bandits on the mountain rushing down the hillside without caring about their lives, they immediately thought that there was another ambush and quickly retreated!

Trapped in a mountain valley and losing his vision, Captain Cheng Gongbao, who was about to retreat without knowing that Zhang He was already surrounded, was swept back by the fleeing soldiers.

However, for some reason, the Shu bandits not only did not catch up with them, but instead gave up on them and rushed up another hillside!
He was suddenly startled and looked behind him, only to find that the marshal who was supposed to be on the river bank was nowhere to be seen!

What made him even more horrified was that thousands of elite Shu pirates suddenly appeared from nowhere and ran towards the north with long spears in hand!

The nearly one thousand Shu invaders who should be in Hexi have also climbed onto the east bank from the river and are surrounding them!
"Oh no! The Right General is in trouble! Everyone follow me!"

Cheng Gongbao was terrified to death. He no longer cared about commanding his troops or whether anyone ran with him. He just put all his strength into following the Shu people up a hillside in the south to rescue his right general!

A valley somewhere where only two horses can run side by side.

Zhang He and forty elite cavalrymen fled on horseback!
At this point, these dozens of riders no longer cared whether there were ambushes in the valley. Even if there were, they could only accept their fate!

"General Right, be careful!" one of the riders shouted.

Zhang He took a look and saw a man in black without any armor suddenly appearing on the low slope more than a hundred steps in front of him on the right!

The man was holding a large Wei horn crossbow, and seemed to be here to take credit for killing the general!
"How dare you, you brat!" Zhang He gritted his teeth and gritting his teeth. He clamped his feet on the horse's belly and took out a large hardwood bow from behind. Then he bent the bow, put the arrow on it and aimed at the man!

At this moment, a man dressed in cloth appeared on the low slope.

"Bo Yue, shoot the horse!" Yin Shang, who had almost run away from death, shot an arrow down the mountain, roared loudly, and suddenly fell down the slope.

Jiang Wei reacted suddenly upon hearing the sound, and instantly lowered his sword, which was originally aimed at the head of the old general with white beard!
Stand still!

aim!

Shoot the arrow!

One arrow shot out!
Dozens of arrows are flying!!!
"Ah!" A scream that made the listener's hair stand on end resounded throughout the valley!
After a few breaths, the military officer Cuan Xi finally ran up the low slope following Jiang Wei and Yin Shang.

But they saw that Jiang Boyao from Tianshui, who had abandoned his armor and was chasing after him, had been hit by three or five arrows, and his right shoulder was completely pierced by a long arrow.

More than forty Wei cavalrymen carrying the flag with the word "Zhang" on it sped away.

"Are you okay, Boyue?!" Yin Shang looked up, his face pale with horror.

"What do you think?" Jiang Wei's face turned pale.

"I think... I shot him..."

(End of this chapter)