I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 742: The White Horse Volunteers break the enemy's formation, Su Yao returns to Beijing to hold the ceremony

In the afternoon, beside the official road of Runan County.

The sound of dense rain of arrows broke the tranquility of the forest.

Faced with the sudden division of troops and the pursuit of scouts sent into the forest, Yuan Shu was forced to launch a trap in advance.

The timing is a bit bad.

The vanguard sent by Su Yao to pursue the troops was not large in number, only three or four thousand cavalry. According to Yuan Shu's plan, he wanted to use his rear army to lure these people into a feigned defeat, lure them deep into the woods, and then launch an attack together, in an effort to capture all the pursuers in one fell swoop and completely eliminate the threat of the pursuers.

Without the highly mobile cavalry units, the infantry, relying only on two legs, would naturally no longer pose any threat to him.

However, Yuan Shu obviously underestimated his opponent.

In addition to more than a thousand of Yuan Shao's cavalry, the remaining nearly three thousand people in this vanguard knight were the White Horse Volunteers led by Gongsun Zan himself.

These people were brave and good at shooting, and were the famous elite of Liaodong. They had rich experience in fighting against Goguryeo and Buyeo people between the Baishan and Heishui regions, or against Xianbei and Wuhuan riders on the prairie.

The Hu people were good at ambushes, and the White Horse Volunteers were even better at counter-ambushes. Not to mention that Yuan Shao himself was from Runan and was no stranger to the dangerous terrain here. It was obviously a pipe dream for Yuan Shu to eliminate his opponent with a simple ambush.

"kill!"

"Let this young man see the power of our Liaodong warriors!"

Gongsun Zan shouted loudly. Although there were only a thousand cavalrymen who entered the woods, he was not afraid of the sudden attack from Lei Bo and Chen Lan's thousands of ambush troops.

The White Horse Volunteers were armed with spears and bows and arrows, and had superb riding skills. They moved freely in the dense forest like white lightning. After launching a round of rain of arrows, they immediately rushed straight towards Yuan Shu's ambush.

Lei Bo and Chen Lan's faces changed drastically when they saw this. They thought that they could easily deal with the pursuers by relying on the advantages of terrain and numbers, but they did not expect that the other side would be so brave and their counterattack would be so fierce.

"Don't panic, keep your composure!" Lei Bo shouted loudly, trying to stabilize the morale of the troops.

However, under the fierce attack of the White Horse Volunteers, his voice was soon drowned out by the noise on the battlefield.

It was not until this moment that Lei Bo clearly realized how huge the gap was between the elite Baima Yicong and the militiamen under his command.

Listening to the whistling rain of arrows and the wailing and screams of the soldiers around him, Chen Lan shouted loudly, waved the sword in his hand, and rushed straight towards Gongsun Zan with his personal soldiers.

There is no suspense in the soldiers' battle. The only way to turn defeat into victory is to capture the thief and the leader.

In the battle just now, Chen Lan had discovered that Gongsun Zan was the leader of the White Horse Volunteers. As long as he was killed, the pursuing troops would be defeated.

However, is Gongsun Zan someone who can be easily dealt with?
As a famous general in Liaodong, he was highly skilled in martial arts and had rich experience.

Seeing Chen Lan and his men suddenly charging out from the shadows of the forest, he was not afraid but laughed instead. He whistled and immediately led his personal soldiers to meet them.

In this chaotic battlefield, the generals of both sides inadvertently triggered a duel.

I saw two horses fighting each other, spears and swords flying, and the battle was difficult to determine.

Gongsun Zan's spear skills were sharp, and each of his spears was aimed directly at Chen Lan's vital points, while Chen Lan's sword skills were steady, and each of his swords were powerful and powerful, trying to suppress Gongsun Zan's offensive.

Time flew by, and soon the two had fought for more than ten rounds with swords flashing and sabers flying, but there was still no winner.

However, as time went on, Gongsun Zan had completely seen through Chen Lan's true intentions.

"Humph, you dare to come and die with just this little ability!"

Gongsun Zan snorted coldly, and when the time was right, he thrust his spear out, hitting Chen Lan in the shoulder. Chen Lan screamed, and nearly fell off his horse. He gritted his teeth and endured the pain, trying to turn around and run away, calling for his personal soldiers to come to the rescue.

However, Gongsun Zan did not give him any chance.

Gongsun Zan spurred his horse to catch up, turned his head to avoid the spear tip that was intercepted by Chen Lan's personal soldiers, and raised his spear to attack again. This time the spear tip directly pierced Chen Lan's chest.

Chen Lan opened her eyes wide, fell off her horse unwillingly and fell to the ground, paying the price of blood for her foolish speculation.

His death also completely crushed the morale of Yuan Shu's ambush troops.

Seeing Chen Lan killed in battle, Lei Bo became frightened and dared not fight anymore, so he quickly sounded the horn to withdraw his troops.

The sound of golden gongs resounded throughout the battlefield, and the morale of Yuan Shu's soldiers suddenly collapsed. They fled in all directions, trying to escape this land of death.

At this moment, the situation on the battlefield immediately entered the stage of pursuit and killing that the White Horse Volunteers loved most.

Gongsun Zan shouted loudly, and immediately his entire army pressed forward, personally leading the White Horse Volunteers in a joyful chase.

Under the leadership of Gongsun Zan, the White Horse Volunteers acted like a force to be reckoned with. Wherever they went, Yuan Shu's soldiers fell one after another.

They were either stabbed to death by spears or shot by bows and arrows, and the entire battlefield turned into a sea of ​​blood.

In the end, it was Generals Ji Ling and Zhang Xun who led Yuan Shu's troops to attack, and relied on their large numbers to stop Gongsun Zan's pursuit.

But after this battle, Yuan Shu ended up losing more than he gained.

Not only did it kill more than 2,000 soldiers, but it also resulted in the death of a great general, Chen Lan, and made the already unstable morale of the army even more depressed.

Yuan Shu looked at the corpses scattered on the battlefield, his face so gloomy that water seemed to drip out.

He didn't expect that his carefully planned ambush would be so easily discovered by Gongsun Zan and he would suffer heavy losses in return.

If it were any other time, the useless guy Lei Bo who deserted the battlefield would have been beheaded by him as a warning to others.

However, Yuan Shu now did not dare to impose severe punishment, for fear that people would lose morale and those who had surrendered to him would flee.

Therefore, Yuan Shu had no choice but to put on an act of magnanimity, appease everyone, and then run away overnight without saying a word.

After this battle, Yuan Shu no longer dared to carry out any ambush or counterattack. He just acted like a coward and only focused on defending against the White Horse Volunteers who were chasing and harassing him, and no longer took any proactive action.

At this point, Gongsun Zan had no better solution.

After all, Yuan Shu's troops were numerous and powerful. Although they could kill 100 to 300 people every day with their cavalry and archery harassment, they were unable to inflict any serious damage to Yuan Shu, who still had tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, and it was difficult to inflict a fatal blow on him.

Fortunately, their mission was not to annihilate Yuan Shu.

Behind Gongsun Zan's White Horse Volunteers, there were nearly 10,000 Yuan Shao troops and Taishi Ci's Qingzhou soldiers supporting them.

The presence of these people made Yuan Shu dare not stay in Runan for long. He fled eastward in a hurry, was chased farther and farther away, and left the heartland of the Central Plains.

In the city of Luoyang, the core of the Central Plains, Su Yao and the civil and military officials who had moved back from the east also arrived one after another.

An extraordinary coronation ceremony for the empress has also begun with intensive preparations.

(End of this chapter)