Big man: I am the Champion Marquis!

Chapter 181 Fighting
King Riju was full of confidence. His cavalrymen were ready and were about to launch a counterattack against the Han people.

It seemed like a minor defeat before, but that was nothing. There was no reason for no casualties in a war. It was just that we were not well prepared at the beginning, so there were some losses. That was nothing at all.

As long as he can win a great victory next time, no one will care about the previous minor losses. On the grassland, he will be the King of Riju with higher prestige and more respect from the tribes!

At the order of King Zhu that day, some slave soldiers were driven forward. They might be people from the Western Regions, civilians plundered from the Han Dynasty, or soldiers captured during the war between the Han and the Xiongnu.

But now they are just slave soldiers, and they have the swords and arrows of the Huns behind them. Even though they are extremely worried about the rain of arrows from the Han army in front of them, they can only move forward now.

Fortunately, this time it was not dozens or hundreds of people, but hundreds of people who were driven forward, and they wanted to remove those obstacles in one go.

Hearing the sound of horns and the neighing of people and horses ahead, Zhao Anguo knew that the opportunity had come.

"Arrange people to retreat first, and shoot arrows as they go!" Since we want to lure the enemy deep into our territory, we can't just run away in one breath, "Hurry up, we must not let the Huns notice!"

Since the Huns have already taken the initiative to bite the bait, we must not let them get what they want. We must give the Huns some illusions, let them think that our strategy has worked, so that they will not escape.

When the Huns are arrogant and full of confidence, we will give them the heaviest blow, so that they will be completely doomed!

The King of Riju was indeed excited, and the Han army's resistance was not strong, which was in line with expectations. It was possible to detect that the Han army was tired and relaxed before, and now the sudden large-scale attack was unexpected by the Han people.

The scout came on horseback and reported, "Grand Marshal, the general has retreated from the Marquis of Piao. The Xiongnu have already moved!"

Huo Xian, sitting on his horse, immediately gave the order, "All troops, prepare for battle, quickly leave the camp and prepare to follow me to kill the enemy!"

The army had actually made preparations. Those who needed to rest had rested, and those who needed to eat and drink had already eaten and drunk enough. Under the command of officers at all levels, the Han army was ready to go.

Naturally, there was nothing much to say. Everyone had already made sufficient preparations and were just waiting for the order from the Grand Marshal to start fighting the Huns.

The messengers kept going back and forth to convey military orders and also reported on the preparations for war of each unit. Huo Xian basically had an idea of ​​what was going on.

The army began to advance slowly and in an orderly manner. The speed was not fast and the momentum was not great. There was no need to give the Huns a head-on blow right away.

"Beat the drums!" Seeing the torches in the distance getting closer and closer, Huo Xian suddenly ordered, "Qimen Army and Yulin Army, move forward and follow me to meet the enemy!"

Suddenly, the drums sounded, and the Han army soldiers began to get excited. The war was about to begin, and when the drums sounded, it meant the real fighting was about to begin.

The sound of horse hooves in the distance was getting closer and closer, and there were Han soldiers running quickly.

These people seem to be fleeing in a panic, but they are of good quality. They are not the kind of people who throw away their weapons and weapons and only regret that their parents did not give them two more legs.

Although they were fleeing, their formation was not in disarray, and most importantly, they would not impact the formation behind them. If they really were to flee, they would most likely completely break up the assembled formation!

Huo Xian issued an order again, "All soldiers must remember to follow me closely and kill the enemy. You can only retreat after the horn is sounded! You are not allowed to harvest heads halfway. You can count your military achievements after you have killed all the enemies!"

Sounding the horn to call back the troops was a common order, and the soldiers knew it. But Huo Xian still had to remind them, otherwise who knew what would happen.

Zhao Anguo rode over excitedly, "Grand Marshal, the Huns are moving, and there are quite a few of them!"

Huo Xian, who had put down his armor, didn't waste any words. He kicked the horse's belly quickly, urging Dao Li to speed up. Since the Huns were already coming, their own cavalry also needed to have absolute speed.

When two brave men meet in a narrow road, the brave one wins. Now it is impossible to fully deploy our troops in this relatively narrow valley, so we can only launch the most direct and brutal head-on confrontation.

Zhao Anguo turned around gracefully and immediately ordered the light cavalry to follow up. The heavy cavalry was to accomplish the task of breaking the formation, but the light cavalry needed to be responsible for covering the enemy. The light cavalry's mounted archery could even kill more enemies.

King Riju was a little panicked. Everything was going well and his army had passed the Han army's defense line smoothly without suffering any serious threats.

Just when he was full of heroic spirit and high spirits, he suddenly heard the sound of people and horses neighing in front of him. The Han army was moving out, and the number of these Han soldiers was definitely not small.

Chen Ju took out his crossbow and pulled the trigger without even aiming. Huo Xian did the same, firing a round of crossbows quickly and throwing them away.

The other heavy cavalry, on the other hand, treasured their weapons more. After shooting, they would hang the crossbow on the bag immediately, and then immediately hold the long spear horizontally. As the most elite soldiers, they naturally had good qualities, and they had not completely lost their riding and archery skills.

When Huo Xian and others were shooting arrows, there was a sound of bowstrings behind them. Zhao Anguo commanded the light cavalry to start shooting arrows. The rain of arrows flew over the heavy cavalry and greeted the Huns in front.

Although the Huns were in panic, they still had basic instincts and drew their bows and shot arrows. Judging from the density of the rain of arrows, they were in no way inferior to the Han army.

Everyone is fighting a battle they are confident of winning and has made sufficient preparations, so they naturally know what to do at this time.

"what!"

After knocking over a Xiongnu cavalryman, Huo Xian continued to hold the lance horizontally, and the tip of the lance pierced the Xiongnu's leather armor. With a strong thrust, he threw the Xiongnu man aside, and then swept him across!

Nearly a thousand heavy cavalry were like a tiger entering a flock of sheep. They didn't need to make too many fancy moves. At this time, they only needed to brutally tear open the middle of the Huns' formation and then continue to expand their results.

"Tell Anguo to shoot arrows quickly!" Huo Xian drew out his ring-handled sword and chopped down a Xiongnu man with his backhand, shouting, "It's too crowded!"

It was indeed too crowded. The Han army was continuously advancing forward, and the Huns actually also wanted to rush forward. This was not a few hundred people, but a total of more than 15,000 people on both sides.

Now the vanguards of both sides met directly and started fighting, while the soldiers in the rear were still advancing in an orderly manner, so it was naturally more crowded.

Chen Ju swung his sword and chopped continuously, but now he couldn't charge forward at all. It wasn't that the Han army's horses were tired, but that there were too many people on the other side, and it was really artificial that made the Han army's horses unable to charge forward.

It is necessary to "dilute" them and kill more Huns in order to create space for movement. The stopped cavalry means that a nightmare is about to come.

When Huo Xian gave the order, a Han soldier in front of him on the left was dragged off his horse by two Huns. He was wearing heavy armor so he could stand up, but there were horse legs and human legs all around him. It was difficult for him to stand up. Even if he was not killed by the Huns, he would be trampled to death by the horses or soldiers from both sides.

This is one of the dangers of fighting in a narrow area. Once you fall, you may be in great danger.

Huo Xian now felt that he was trapped in a quagmire, or in a sea of ​​people, because there were too many people on both sides. In addition, he had indeed killed many Xiongnu in the previous charge.

Now the air in the valley is filled with the smell of blood, and the corpses will become an obstacle to the actions of soldiers on both sides, making the actions of both sides more difficult at this time.

Just when Huo Xian was getting anxious, a small group of infantry suddenly emerged from both sides of the heavy cavalry team. These people rushed out by sticking to the valley wall or stepping on the small slope.

Zhang Anshi excitedly threw out a rope to lasso a Hun soldier, and then he and his comrades worked together to pull the Hun cavalryman off his horse.

The rain of arrows continued to greet the Huns, and the advantage of the Han army's sophisticated weapons was reflected. Most of the Han army had iron armor, while only a few of the Huns had iron armor.

The support came just in time, and the coordination between the infantry and cavalry was very tacit and in place. Now the Han army could completely rely on bows and crossbows to continuously shoot and kill the Huns, and could use the advantage of iron tools to inflict greater damage.

Huo Xian suddenly groaned, and the furious Feng Wu jumped up, leaped from the horse's back, hugged the Xiongnu cavalryman and threw him to the ground.

Huo Xian quickly made up for it, picking up his lance and stabbing, "Feng Wu, get up quickly!"

Feng Wu struggled to get up, grabbed the slippery horse lance pole, and was pulled up by Huo Xian. Chen Ju and others had red eyes, and stabbed with long spears and short spears, not giving other Xiongnu people a chance to finish off Feng Wu.

Huo Xian saw it clearly, Feng Wu was stabbed in the back. Fortunately, he was wearing armor, although it was not heavy armor, but such light armor could not be easily pierced. It was not easy to kill a soldier wearing armor.

"Damn it!" Huo Xian couldn't help but swear, "They're starting to use blunt instruments!"

In the past, soldiers from both sides fought with sharp weapons, and the sharper the weapons, the better they were at killing more enemies. But now the armor of the Han army was too thick, so some Huns had to consider other methods.

Although using some blunt instruments is not very convenient and requires a lot of strength from the soldiers, facing these Han soldiers who are covered in iron armor, sharp weapons really don't have much effect.

The soldiers on both sides were obviously blood-thirsty. Now, the soldiers in front died and the ones behind took their places. The two sides were deadlocked on the contact line and continued to fight.

"Grand Marshal!" A messenger came running over, "Grand Marshal, quickly lead your troops to retreat, we will make up for them!"

Huo Xian did not hesitate and said, "Tell Cong Biaohou to come forward in a quarter of an hour, and quickly order the knights in the rear to retreat so that we can pass!"

The battle lasted nearly half an hour, which was not too long but not too short either, and it was not the limit of the heavy cavalry. However, in the current stalemate, the heavy cavalry could not maximize their usefulness by continuing to stand at the forefront.

Although the infantry is slightly slower and seems to have a natural disadvantage when facing cavalry, once the cavalry can no longer run, they will be defeated by the infantry.

Naturally, there is no need to show off one's strength at this time. Now that the cavalry is not conducive to combat, we should decisively let the infantry be responsible for the harvest.

The heavy cavalry retreated in an orderly manner, and the infantry that came out from both sides also stabilized their formation after suffering some casualties.

The shields in the front row, the spears in the back row, plus the hooks, crossbows, etc., can make the Huns unable to move. The rain of arrows in the back row is still falling, and they are constantly shooting at the Huns.

Suddenly, ambushes appeared on both sides of the valley. The ambushers from high ground began to shoot arrows at the Huns in the valley, and rolled down boulders.

This was a bigger blow to the Huns. Their already shaky formation was now unstable, but escaping was by no means an easy task.

Zhao Anguo was overjoyed. He urged the cavalry to speed up their archery shooting and also ordered the infantry to continue advancing forward, further squeezing the Huns' space for movement and not giving them any chance to move.

Huo Xian shook his arms vigorously and said, "Let the heavy cavalry rest quickly, and let the Northern Army dispatch a thousand light cavalry to follow me and attack!"

Huo Xian continued to give orders, "Those men in the back row who cannot move forward should hurry up and throw the bodies of the Xiongnu to both sides, so as not to delay my army's advance and kill them."

There were so many corpses in the valley that it was hard for people to walk, not to mention the horses. If they were not careful, they would fall. If they did not clean up the corpses, it would not be good for the battle later.

Chen Ju was overjoyed and said to Huo Xian, "Sir, the Xiongnu are definitely trying to escape. But even if they want to escape, I'm afraid it will be difficult for them to do so!"

Huo Xian agreed with the statement, but he did not think it was absolutely optimistic. If King Riju wanted to escape, it basically meant that his army would be basically crippled and heavy losses were inevitable.

But it was not realistic to capture the Right Wise King in one fell swoop. Huo Xian's attack could only be carried out in this section of the valley, and he even had to be wary of the Right Wise King's troops coming to support him.

Huo Xian asked with concern, "How is Feng Wu?"

Feng Wu immediately said with a smile, "My Lord, I am worried about you. I am fine. But my Lord, I am afraid you will feel bad after being hit by the hammer."

Huo Xian looked ahead calmly. The snow was getting heavier. The Han army's shouts of killing were still passionate and loud, but the Huns had lost their initial morale.

King Riju will definitely have a hard time this time, because there is a high possibility that his army will be completely wiped out, and it will even be difficult for him to escape.

The Right Wise King was not having an easy time either. He led an army of tens of thousands to launch a surprise attack, but ended up losing one of the six corners. Such a major failure was bound to affect his authority within the Xiongnu.

The blood on Zhang Anshi's face had not yet dried, but he was very excited, "Grand Marshal, the Huns are retreating!"

"Retreat?" Huo Xian said in a cold voice, "The Huns are now crowded together, it's not easy to retreat! Tell the men in the front to work harder and hold on to the Huns!"

Chase and attack, don't give these Huns a chance to react, don't give them any room to adjust. Now is a good time to hit the drowning dog, we must seize these opportunities to continue to expand the results of the war.

If everything goes well, this will not be just a small victory, it will be a big victory, a major achievement of Huo Xian leading the army alone against the Huns!

(End of this chapter)