The Three Kingdoms Voyage

Chapter 263 Pirate Empire War Elephant
"Woo--" the war elephant neighed and swung its long trunk. The sharp knives tied to the two huge ivory sliced ​​across the chest of a Wu army soldier. The Wu army soldier was wearing heavy armor, and the sharp knife only cut through him. His arm did not penetrate the heavy armor, but the huge force knocked him upside down, and when he flew up in the air, the Funan soldier on his back shot a long arrow and pierced a long spear. The spear, the long arrow hit his thigh, and the spear accurately pierced his throat.The soldiers of the Wu army fell to the ground with a bang, mouthfuls of blood foamed out of their mouths, their hands and feet twitched a few times, and they died out of breath. Blood gurgled out, soaking the ground under them.

"Kill!" The eyes of the comrade-in-arms behind him turned red, and the long halberd pierced the elephant's front leg. The elephant was in pain and shook its head violently. The long nose and tusks rolled over again, and Wu Jun was killed. The soldier was knocked sideways a few steps, unable to dodge in time, was stepped on by another war elephant, immediately vomited blood, fell to the ground and died.

The fifty war elephants were divided into two rows, front and back, like two rows of indestructible bulldozers, rampaging. Although the Wu army was very brave, they were unable to cope with the powerful attacks of the elephants and the crossbows and spears of the Funan soldiers on their backs. They retreated steadily, and in just a quarter of an hour, the front line retreated [-] steps, and the corpses of soldiers of the Wu army were scattered all over the ground, some were hit by the sharp knife on the elephant's ivory, and some were trampled to death by the elephant. , Some were shot to death by crossbows or stabbed to death by spears, and the worst were trampled to death by elephants. Their hands and legs were broken, or their chests and abdomen were crushed flat, and their internal organs spilled all over the ground.

Facing the attack of the elephant soldiers, the soldiers of the Wu army were unable to cope with it, and their morale was greatly frustrated.

Sun Deng held on to the railing, looked at the defeated front, and then at the elephant soldiers who were still watching the battle in the distance, his face was pale.

"Prince, we can't wait any longer, immediately order the Qiangnuying to shoot." Xie Jing reminded anxiously.

"Yeah." Sun Deng nodded and stretched out his hand to signal.The drums sounded loudly, and the soldiers in front quickly retreated immediately. The strong crossbowmen deployed on the second line of defense raised their strong bows. With an order, the long arrows left the strings, making a heart-pounding muffled sound.

"Shua!" Nearly a thousand long arrows leaped into the sky and rushed towards the fifty war elephants.When the Funan soldiers on the elephants heard the sound of Wu Jun's drums and saw Wu Jun retreating, they knew that Wu Jun was going to counterattack with bows and crossbows. Raised the big shield.As soon as the big shield was lifted up, the long arrows arrived, hitting the shield with a bang, some arrows passed through the gap between the big shields, and hit the soldiers on the elephant's back, and the soldiers who were hit by the arrows let out screams , fell down, they rolled and crawled, avoiding the elephants in the back row, so as not to be stepped on, some were seriously injured when they landed, although they struggled hard, they were still stepped on by the running elephants, and some died on the spot Yes, some were rolling desperately on the ground in pain, which seriously hindered the soldiers behind the elephants, and the offensive was stalled.

"Shoot the rocket!" Zhuge Ke shouted loudly.

The flag soldiers glanced at Sun Deng, who had a gloomy face, and Sun Deng nodded. There was another drumbeat, and a dozen strong crossbowmen hit the kindling on the long arrows on the torches nearby, aiming at the five arrows in front of them. At a distance of ten steps, behind them, a hundred-sword player clenched the weapon in his hand, ready to fight back.

"Shoot!" Captain Qiangnu gave an order, and more than a dozen ignited arrows whizzed away. The fire on the arrow shaft was blown by the strong wind, and the distance of fifty steps was reached in a blink of an eye. On the ground, the oil-soaked withered grass that had been laid long ago was ignited.

With a sound of "boom", the flames kicked up to two feet high. When the rushing war elephant saw the wall of fire suddenly kicked up, it was startled, and stopped abruptly, trying to turn around, but they were far away. Not so sensitive, but still rushed forward involuntarily, and was bumped by the war elephant behind, suddenly stumbling around and making a mess.

When the war elephant was in chaos, the Funan soldiers on the elephant's back couldn't sit still and fell to the ground one after another. Wu Jun shot a batch of long arrows in time, hiding and killing these soldiers one by one in front of the formation. The rough-skinned war elephant They were also hit by a lot of arrows. The pain and fear of the fire made them even more nervous. Forty or fifty elephants spun around in front of the wall of fire. He rushed towards the Wu soldiers.

"Kill it!" Sun Deng yelled angrily, raised his arm and slashed down.

The sword player jumped out, they spread out, let the elephant rushing past, and rushed to kill the soldiers following the elephant.Without the cover of the battle elephants, these Funan soldiers were no match for the Wu soldiers, and they were killed immediately, in a panic.

The sword players who succeeded in the counterattack immediately turned to deal with the war elephants that had run over their heads. They chased after the war elephants, raised their special long halberds, and aimed at the Funan soldiers on the backs of the elephants with hooks and thorns.More than a dozen sword players rushed to the sides of the elephant's hind legs, swung their sabers at the elephant's legs and slashed at the elephant's legs. Unbearable for them to chop like this, they were quickly chopped open, exposing bright red flesh and white bones.

The Funan soldiers fought back with bows, arrows and spears, while driving the war elephants to turn around.They also knew that although a war elephant was very powerful, once it was alone and surrounded by Wu soldiers using this tactic, and attacked like a swarm of ants, the war elephant would probably be maimed in all likelihood.Wu Jun used this tactic to destroy at least fifty of their war elephants in the past few months. Of course, they also paid a great sacrifice. Nearly a thousand Wu Jun warriors died in front of the battle.

The wounded war elephant let out a shrill howl, and they no longer listened to the command of the elephant soldiers. They rushed madly in front of the formation, turned around, and knocked down the soldiers of the Wu army who were standing in front of it. Stamped hard.

"Bowmen, shoot!" Zhuge Ke gave the order again in time.

The crossbowmen shot at the war elephants in front of the formation, and they ignored the robes trapped in the formation, because they knew that when these robes rushed up, they were already sentenced to death, and they could survive the crazy battle elephants. Very few survived.They couldn't bear it either, but now there was only this way to deal with these elephant soldiers. It was this kind of tactics that stopped the Funan people from attacking and kept them firmly on the west side of Changshan.

The crazy war elephant was quickly shot into a huge hedgehog, and finally couldn't support it, let out a long whine, and fell to the ground, the heavy body shaking the ground trembling.

The war elephants stopped by the fire wall had already withdrawn, and there were only corpses left in front of the fierce battle, arrow feathers like weeds, and too much bloody smell mixed in the extremely humid air. People want to vomit.

Fan Chang watched from a distance, this time he lost two more war elephants, but almost 200 soldiers of the Wu army fell in front of the formation, and everyone lost about the same, and he still had more than 100 war elephants and more than 2 troops. Give him a certain amount of time, and he is still confident enough to defeat the Wu army and attack Nichinan. As long as he can enter Nichinan, the Wu army will have no ready-made fortress to rely on, and the battle may go much smoother.

More importantly, the season of rice ripening will soon be reached, and they will be able to get food locally without long-distance transportation if they attack Nichinan.Transporting grain from Funan for thousands of miles would cost too much. Fan Chang knew that now that his father, Fan Man, was competing with Sun Shao for the hearts of the people, he couldn't just increase the tax. The grain still had to be counted.

Fan Chang was very excited. Fan Jinsheng, the elder brother with the greatest hope of succeeding to the throne, was accidentally captured alive by the Navy of Yue State. If we win this battle, take Nichinan, and regain Linyi, there will be no suspense about the position of the Crown Prince of Funan.

He was in a hurry, but not in a hurry. He had enough patience to continue entanglement with the Wuyue coalition forces. After more than a month of fighting, he felt that the more he fought, the smoother he was, and he had gradually grasped the Wu people's routine.The Wu people had better equipment than him, and their soldiers were more capable in combat than those in Funan, but they did not have weapons that could effectively restrain war elephants, so they could only use fire walls and counterattack tactics.The firewall needs to be arranged in advance, which means they can only passively defend instead of actively attacking. He has enough room to make adjustments.

Fan Chang is very sorry. If he could attack earlier, the Wu people would not have so much time to prepare in Changshan. In the past six months, Wu people have dug deep pits in several places that can be attacked in Changshan to prevent the passage of war elephants. , and used dense arrow rain to prevent the Funan soldiers from coming forward to fill the pit, so the two sides have been fighting for positions here, otherwise, with the impact of the war elephants, they would have rushed across the Changshan Mountain.

But what pleased Fan Chang was that Wu people's tactics were passive on the one hand, and was very costly on the other. He made a rough estimate and lost [-] war elephants, which cost at least the lives of three thousand soldiers of the state of Wu. The people of the country can't last long.

Fan Chang made a good guess. Sun Deng really couldn't hold on anymore. After more than a month of fighting, Lu Dai was injured, and more than half of his 8000 men lost more than half. After two trips, as soon as they saw the elephants, they turned around and ran away, almost disrupting the main formation of the Wu army. Now Sun Deng can only use them to guard the front line. He dare not send them to such difficult tasks as counterattacking the elephants. , It is useless to send it.

However, the large number of casualties of elite soldiers was a fatal blow to morale.

"Shufa, Yuanxun, if we continue to fight, we can't hold on anymore." Sun Deng sat down weakly, lowered his head, feeling like crying.He had already expected that Funan's attack would be very fierce, and he had already asked Sun Quan for reinforcements, but after the memorial was sent out for more than two months, he did not see any reinforcements, nor did Sun Quan receive any news, as if he did not know that he was there. Here, it is as if the Funan people are desperate.Sun Deng was very bitter in his heart. During the interval of the battle, he kept reflecting on his father Sun Quan's every move in the past two years, and gradually understood that his father cared more about him, but this kind of concern was just to get back from Sun Shao. His respect, from the bottom of his heart, his father is no longer the father he used to be.

Thinking of this, Sun Deng was startled. He kept thinking why the relationship between himself and his father came to this point, and when did it start, but he never found the answer.Is it Sun Li?It seems not. Although Sun Li is smart, he is not better than him. Is it because of Sun Shao?It seems to be and it seems not to be, he and Sun Shao have broken up, and his father knows it, why is that?Because of power?Sun Deng felt that he seemed to have found the answer, but he was unwilling to accept the answer.

He has been educated in Confucianism since he was a child, and he is a mild-tempered person. He has always been reluctant to think of his father in that direction.The sage said that the king and the minister, father and son, he and his father are both father and son, and they are also king and minister, and in his heart, he served his father with filial piety and served the king with loyalty. He has always followed the teachings of the sage. Would you still do this to him?
Whenever this time, Sun Deng thought of those father and sons who killed each other in the history of the country, and there was a burst of sadness in his heart.

"Prince, let's... ask Queen Yue for help." Zhuge Ke reminded carefully.

Sun Deng glanced at him, very unhappy.When he heard that Sun Shaoli left Guan Feng to help him defend the Changshan front, he felt a little uncomfortable.Sun Shao took the main force to Funan Bay by himself, leaving only Guan Feng and other 8000 people, and they were still led by two women, Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang.Since the start of the war, he has never asked Guan Feng for support, and Guan Feng has never asked to join the war, but only stationed on a hillside to the south.For some unknown reason, Fan Chang never divided his troops to attack that hillside, as if he and Wu Guopiao had gone up there.

"Ask them for help, can we solve the problem?" Sun Deng sighed in embarrassment: "Besides, we seven-foot men want to ask a woman for help, isn't it a bit..."

Zhuge Ke smiled: "Prince, you are wrong to regard her as a woman. The fact that the King of Yue entrusted so many people to her shows that he has confidence in her. Prince, do you know? In the army of Yue, Now at least one-third of the school lieutenants are from the Guan family army."

Sun Deng nodded, not knowing what it was like. Guan Feng was originally the object of his father's marriage proposal, and Sun Shao only went as an emissary. It was Sun Shao who never thought of getting married in the end.Now Guan Feng has become a great help to Sun Shao, and the elite Guan family she brought supported half of the sky in Yue Kingdom. Now he is going to ask Guan Feng for help, and these people should belong to him originally.

"What I'm worried about is that she...is too short of staff, can she be used when she comes?"

"There are a lot of people." Zhuge Ke shook his head and explained patiently.He still doesn't understand why Sun Deng has never asked Guan Feng for help. If he was replaced, he would ask Guan Feng to come as soon as the war started.It has been fighting for more than a month now, and the Vietnamese army as an allied army has not yet been on the battlefield. It is all supported by the Wu army alone. "What is the most elite army in the Yue Kingdom? It is the Five Thousand Destruction Front Battalion! The King of Yue left 4000 people, including General Zhechong Ding Feng, and He Da's two thousand auxiliary Yue Battalion, which is good at mountains and jungles. He Da relied on these 2000 elite troops to pacify Zhuya, and the King of Yue summoned him to Funan to use his strength. The weakest is probably Zhou Xun's Two Thousand Lujiang Battalion."

Sun Deng frowned, hesitating.

"More importantly, they still have ten war elephants." Zhuge Ke further said: "The king of Yue released Fan Jinsheng and replaced ten war elephants. Speaking a few words of Chinese, after arriving in Linyi, the King of Yue treated them very generously, and with these ten war elephants, they must have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of war elephants, and they will naturally be able to target them better when fighting."

"Yuan Xun is right." Lu Dai walked up slowly, just in time to hear Zhuge Ke's last words: "The biggest headache for us now is the war elephants. The effect of these few times is obviously not as good as the first few times, that Prince Funan must have a countermeasure."

Sun Deng got up and bowed to Lu Dai, and said politely: "Since the general thinks so, then I will immediately invite them to participate."

Lu Dai smiled, and was very satisfied with Sun Deng's respect and courtesy, but as Sun Quan's former minister, he could more or less guess some conflicts between the father and son. Now that the situation is unclear, he should not express too much.

"Yuan Xun, it's better for you to go."

"Here."

When Zhuge Ke arrived at the barracks, Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang were playing chess. Lu Ban was so anxious that she stared at the chess piece in Sun Shangxiang's hand, her eyes rolling wildly. If she didn't see that Sun Shangxiang was an elder, maybe she would have gone up and snatched the chess piece from her hand to act on her behalf.

"Queen, Zhuge Ke is here." Bai Yan called out from outside the tent.

"Zhuge Ke?" Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang glanced at each other, and smiled at the corners of their mouths.But Sun Luban jumped up, clapped his hands and shouted: "He must have come to ask for help, we have a battle to fight."

"How do you know there is a battle to fight? Maybe they have already won the battle and came to report." Guan Feng deliberately teased her with a straight face.

"Impossible." Sun Luban said with a smile: "Zigao can only read books, but can't fight, and their strength is not as good as Funan's. It's not so easy to win. Fight him with the more bullying the less, and the strong bullying the weak." He can barely fight, but he can't fight this kind of battle that wins more with less."

"Little girl, be careful if this word reaches Zigao's ears, you won't be able to go back." Sun Shangxiang pinched the corner of Sun Luban's mouth and said angrily.Sun Luban turned his head and said arrogantly: "Go back? I don't plan to go back. I want to stay in Yue Kingdom forever. I want to be a general and go back to Jianye. I can only stay at home and be a princess. It's boring. .”

Guan Feng stopped their joking and invited Zhuge Ke in.Zhuge Ke first talked about the progress of the war, and then explained the purpose of coming.Guan Feng pondered for a moment and said, "You can't hold on any longer?"

Zhuge Ke smiled: "Supporting is still possible, but Wu Yue is an ally and should fight against the enemy side by side. Isn't the queen stationed here by the order of His Royal Highness King Yue to support our army? If so, why wait until our army supports it?" If you don’t go down, then you make a move?”

Guan Feng glanced at Zhuge Ke unhappily. She didn't like Zhuge Ke's aggressiveness very much, but she didn't say anything, just nodded and said: "Please reply to Prince Wu, our army will arrive in two days, please prepare the camp and forage."

"Queen, don't worry, the camp and food and grass are all ready." Zhuge Ke thought for a moment, and then said: "Dare to ask the queen, is there a good way to deal with elephants? Although there are many soldiers in Funan, it is not me who are fighting in formation. The opponent of the army, the biggest problem now is the war elephant. Although we have come up with a fire attack method, judging from the current situation, the effect is not very obvious."

"Of course..." Sun Luban blurted out, but was interrupted by Guan Feng: "It's hard to say at the moment, let's talk about it before the battle."

Zhuge Ke glanced at them suspiciously, did not dare to say anything, and retreated politely. However, he guessed something from Sun Luban's expression, and he couldn't help feeling much more at ease.As long as you can deal with the war elephant, then this battle is sure.

"Sister-in-law, we clearly have a way to deal with war elephants, why don't you let me tell you?" Sun Luban looked at Guan Feng puzzled, "Don't tell me sister-in-law doesn't want to save my brother?"

"Stupid boy, tell them, they beat the Funan people away, why are you beating them?" Guan Feng gave her a look, and said with a smile.

"Oh?" Sun Luban was dubious, and glanced at the faces of Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang twice. Seeing that they were holding back their smiles, he immediately understood that they were making fun of him, so he pouted a little depressedly: " You don't tell people anything, you always treat them as children, and I'm already fifteen."

"Who treats you like a child?" Sun Shangxiang couldn't help but said with a smile: "You call for war every day, and now you have the opportunity, why are you unhappy? What are the Funan people afraid of? Aren't they just powerful war elephants? Well, if they know the way to deal with war elephants, they can hold Changshan without us taking action at all. In that case, what chance do you have? What chance does your husband have?"

As soon as Zhou Xun was mentioned, Sun Luban immediately changed his smile, and laughed repeatedly: "My aunt is right, my aunt is right, I can't tell them."

Guan Feng said to Bai Yan: "Fang Qing, call General Zhou, General He, General Ding and others, and we want to discuss how to fight."

"I'll go, I'll go." Sun Luban jumped up and rushed out of the big tent ahead of Bai Yan. The tent door was still shaking, and her excited voice was already ten steps away.

"Queen, how are you going to fight this battle?" Sun Shangxiang leaned forward.

"Play slowly." Guan Feng picked up the chess piece calmly, landed it on the board with a "snap", took a sip from the teacup on the side, and then said slowly: "We can't win even if we win the game." In the pursuit, we can only watch the defeated soldiers go back, in this case, attracting more than 3 people like Fan Chang to Changshan will be more helpful for the king to capture Temu City."

Sun Shangxiang nodded thoughtfully, turned her eyes back to the chessboard, and was about to re-arrange the chessboard when she suddenly saw the chess pieces in her hand and immediately exclaimed: "Hey, that's not right, Yinping, it's my turn now." Play chess, look, my bishop is still in my hand."

"To deal with elephants, you have to beat the slow with the fast." Guan Feng said with a pun and a smug smile.

(End of this chapter)