Traveling the Heavens in Thunderbolt

Chapter 1066: The Battle of Liangmang (Additional chapters for monthly tickets)
Yang Shenxing led 40,000 veteran soldiers from Ji'nan and safely passed through the Qingyang Basin, where an ambush was most likely set up on the southern line.

He was ambushed by the army led by Xie Xichu, a new generation general of Western Chu.

First, he used 2,000 light cavalry to make Yang Shenxing underestimate the enemy and then used 1,000 elite armored heavy cavalry to directly destroy the Ji'nan infantry line.

Yang Shenxing did not expect that Western Chu still had elite troops, and his front line was broken.

In order to protect those playboys from the capital, Yang Shenxing had to divide his troops to protect them.

This move was exactly what Xie Xichui wanted. He used the mobility of his cavalry and forced Yang Shenxing to divide his troops by constantly killing the guards around the dandy young man.

As expected, Yang Shenxing had to divide his troops to protect the guards.
In the end, the Ji'nan infantry were once again penetrated by the heavy cavalry during their retreat, revealing a flaw.

At this time, the ambush troops that Xie Xichui had already arranged in the dark rushed out.

At some point, Xie Xichui had deployed 20,000 infantrymen on the route where General An Guo was withdrawing his troops.

The leader of this ambush was Pei

Pei Sui, the eldest grandson of Hongzhi.

Under the attack from both inside and outside, the army was defeated, 40,000 Ji'nan infantry were wiped out, and Yang Shenxing and his son were killed in the battle.

Only Sun Yang and Wen Qizi risked their lives to help the sons of princes and nobles from the capital and more than 2,000 guards escape.

When Lu Xiangsheng got the news and led his troops to the scene, all that was left was the cleaned-up battlefield.

Xie Xichui's troops had already gone to attack Yan Zhenchun's 30,000 cavalry.

Yan Zhenchun is another veteran who survived the Spring and Autumn War. Unlike Yang Shenxing, he was well prepared as no one would back him down.

Faced with the sudden appearance of the Western Chu cavalry, they reacted immediately.

The cavalry of both sides fought fiercely, and the blood flowed like a river.

The real trump card of Western Chu appeared on the battlefield. Kou Jianghuai led 8,000 crossbowmen to go around the rear of Yan Zhenchun's cavalry.

Eight thousand powerful crossbows fired at the same time, and arrows rained down from the sky.

Penetrate the cavalry's heavy armor and take the lives of those inside.

The improved Xi Chu crossbow can not only penetrate heavy armor, but also greatly reduces the firing time.

With the addition of Kou Jianghuai's vital force, the balance of victory and defeat officially tilted towards Western Chu.

With no time to react, the rear army collapsed under the continuous rain of arrows from the Jianghuai army.

Once the rear army was lost, Yan Zhenchun's cavalry, without any manpower, was in danger on the front line.

Xie Xichui invested his last manpower, 3,000 heavily armored cavalry, and defeated Yan Zhenchun's cavalry front line.

In the end, Li Yang's 30,000 elite cavalry were completely wiped out.

Commanding general Yan Zhenchun fought to the death and was killed by thousands of arrows pierced through the heart by the enemy's crossbow troops from Jianghuai.

In just two days, the two main forces were destroyed.

Although the Liyang royal family had long intended to let them die, their rapid annihilation was enough to horrify the Liyang government and the public.

Zhao Yi, the King of Guangling, who was located on the northern front and occupied half of the territory of the former Chu State, was confronting Pei Hongzhi, a veteran general of Western Chu, and was also having difficulty advancing.

Zhao Yi was fat, weighing more than 300 kilograms, and his son Zhao Piao also inherited his fat body.

He was a lustful man. In order to win the Queen of Western Chu, he gave 6,000 Wei soldiers under his command to Xu Xiao. Later, Xu Xiao ordered the Queen of Western Chu to be executed with a white silk ribbon.

Over the years, Zhao Yi and his son have been doing evil in the former territory of Da Chu, being cruel, murderous, and tyrannical.

When General Gu Jiantang was summoned to the capital, most of his old subordinates were disbanded by King Yan and him. Over the years, he has been committed to suppressing the rebellion that has continued to rebound, and his reputation is notorious.

Therefore, the foreign troops under the command of Prince Guangling were also one of the few troops in Liyang that retained their combat effectiveness.

Otherwise, Zhao Yi would not dare to claim that he would challenge the Northern Liang Cavalry.

There was also an imperial censor who impeached him for his actions, but he was beaten to death in court by Zhao Yi.

All he got was verbal rebuke. Under his rule, the old land of Da Chu had long been in turmoil, and this was inseparable from Li Yang's tacit approval.

As Western Chu restored its country, countless volunteer armies in Guangling Road responded.

As Zhao Yi's fiefdom was under high-pressure rule, the uprising army was still surging.

Under the guidance and reorganization of special personnel sent by Western Chu, these rebel forces were not as powerful as regular troops, but their effectiveness was no less than that of the frontal battlefield.

They did not engage in a head-on attack on the troops sent by Zhao Yi, but instead adopted a roaming fighting tactic.

Today I will burn down one of your strongholds, tomorrow I will intercept one of your food supply troops, and the day after tomorrow I will cut off your key hub. With the help of the remnants of Western Chu, I will continue to weaken the King of Guangling.

Zhao Yi was very annoyed, but he could do nothing about it.

Even if we sent too many people, we couldn't find any trace of the enemy. With the help of the locals, they had already fled far away, and the food and supplies were wasted.

If we send too few troops, we will be ambushed and annihilated by the enemy's concentrated superior forces.

Zhao Yi also sent people to massacre the villages that had helped the rebels.

As a result, the action not only failed to suppress the wave of resistance in the former Chu territory, but instead attracted more people to join the rebel army, making the resistance even more powerful.

The captain who led the troops to massacre the village that day was ambushed by the rebels during a search mission later.

This captain who assisted the tyrant in his atrocities was handed over by the rebels to the villagers who survived the massacre and were beaten to death.

Zhao Yi didn't understand why those common people, who were usually bullied and killed by him at will, dared to attack him now.

Zhao Yi and Li Yang finally paid the price for what they had done over the years.

At the time when Western Chu was restoring its country, the battle between Liang and Mang in the north had reached its most critical moment.

After a series of battles, the Beimang army stopped at the city of Hutou.

Beimang paid the price of nearly 200,000 people and defeated one-third of Beiliang's military force.

After Chen Zhibao left, Qi Dangguo, the second-in-command of the Northern Liang army, was killed in a siege by Tuoba Bodhisattva, who suddenly attacked.

The other two Northern Mang armies, led by Hong Jingyan and Dong Zhuo, attacked the other two states of Northern Liang, even though they advanced slowly.

The situation of the battle changed with the joining of these two people.

First, Xu Fengnian returned to Beiliang.

He did not immediately go to the front line to boost morale.

Instead, he went to Liuzhou, tamed the 200,000 refugees there, and reorganized them into an army.

During this period, with the help of the reputation gained by Yi Ye Shu from defeating Wang Xianzhi, thousands of martial artists joined him.

With the addition of this group of manpower, Xu Fengnian met up with Xu Longxiang and his Dragon Elephant Army who had arrived.

The two brothers joined forces, relying on the 10,000 Dragon Elephant Army and 50,000 newly reorganized refugee troops as well as martial arts masters.

Defeated Dong Zhuo's army of nearly 200,000 troops from the three military garrisons of Rouxuan, Laohuai and Wuchuan.

The retreat of Dong Zhuo's troops relieved the pressure on Beiliang slightly.

After this battle, the Liuzhou Army incorporated under Xu Fengnian and the Longxiang Army of Xu Longxiang also suffered heavy casualties. Even the deputy general of the Longxiang Army, Wang Lingbao, was killed in the chaos.

It is difficult to allocate troops to support other fronts.

The Beimang army was defeated and the news was passed back to Beiliang.

At this time, Xu Xiao, who was rumored to be seriously ill, finally took action.

As soon as Xu Xiao made a move, he hit the lifeline of the Beimang army.

On that day, Xu Xiao personally led the elite cavalry of Beiliang, rushed thousands of miles, bypassed the front line, and captured Xiaguang City in one fell swoop.

(End of this chapter)