The Three Kingdoms Voyage

Chapter 374
Awad was watching the battle in front of the horse-repelling formation, when he suddenly saw the cavalry on both sides of the opponent start to move out, he was surprised at first, and then overjoyed.He has never been worried about the opponent's cavalry. These cavalry are too few to be his opponents. The reason why he did not take the initiative to attack is because these cavalry are small in number, but they shrink behind the horse-repelling formation. If you want to attack them, you have to risk being pinched by the crossbowmen in the refusal formation and the crossbows on the warships on both sides of the river. For cavalry, it is extremely dangerous to be attacked from the side with bows and arrows.

Now that they rushed up to die, Awad certainly wished for it.From another point of view, the cavalry took the risk to attack, which also showed that the rejection of horses could not last much, and Sun Shao could only send out cavalry to harass him.

Yes, to Awad, it was nothing more than harassment.

Awad gave an order, and two thousand-man teams rushed out, while the other two thousand-man teams were ready to attack the Han Chinese cavalry for the second wave.Awad ordered that the less than 2000 Han Chinese cavalry must be beheaded in front of the formation, and deal a heavy blow to the Han who were still standing in the rejection of horses, boost the morale of their own side, and strive to break through the formation as soon as possible.If you can defeat Yue Wang Sun Shao, it will be a great encouragement to the morale of Taixi Fengcheng.

The Sassanid cavalry could no longer hold back. They were very disgusted with dismounting and attacking the repelling formation. They still hoped to gallop on horseback and defeat the opponent with powerful cavalry. This is their specialty. Now that they have finally waited for this opportunity, they are all eager to try , Those soldiers who did not get the order to attack looked at their companions galloping with envy in their eyes.

Guanqiu Jian took the lead, holding a halberd in his left hand and a knife in his right. He stepped on the stirrup and stood up, twisting his body to the back, raised his knife and shouted wildly: "Speed ​​up—"

The Liaodong iron cavalry who followed him roared loudly, with their legs clamped tightly on the saddle, and they sat on the saddle, controlling the horse with only their feet and lower abdomen. Under the armpit, the left hand held the hand crossbow tied to the saddle.

The chaotic horseshoes stepped on the dust, like two galloping dragons, and the two cavalrymen rolled past the two sides of the horse repelling formation like a gallop, and rushed straight at the oncoming Sasanian cavalry.

"Kill!" Guan Qiujian yelled loudly, the shiny head of the iron halberd in his left hand trembled, and he slashed across the Sasanian's chest rushing towards him, the sharp halberd beard easily scratched the Sasanian's skin There was a big cut in the armor, and blood sprayed out from the open wound, like a flower blooming in the wind, drenching Guanqiu Jian's head and face, but he didn't even look at it, and the long halberd stabbed immediately. into the chest of a Sasanian behind.

At this time, the screams of the Sassanid warrior who rushed to the front came out. He looked at the blood on his chest in horror, and all the strength in his body was suddenly exhausted. He let go of his hand, raised his sword and fell, he felt His body suddenly became lighter, and he flew up from the horse, watching helplessly as a Han cavalry rushed past him and chopped off his head with a knife.

Guanqiu Jian killed three people in a row, like an extremely sharp arrow, piercing into the Sassanian battle formation, the guards closely guarded him, using hand crossbows from far away, and crossbows from near It is unstoppable to slash and kill with long halberds and war knives.Most of the Sassanids held swords, some were skilled in archery and some fought with bows and arrows, but there were not many of them, and they were far less powerful than a dragoon with a continuous crossbow.They were often shot by short crossbows that let out death screams before they even touched the soldiers of the dragon riders. In a daze, the opponents came up to them with swords and halberds.Even if they escaped the crossbow, they may not be able to meet the soldiers of the dragon riders. The three or four foot long swords in their hands are of no benefit in front of the one foot five iron halberds. They often cut on the opponent's halberd, At most, the halberd shakes a little, but it is difficult to cut it off. However, the opponent's iron halberd is extremely sharp. Whether it is pierced by the sharp thorns in front or cut by the side blades, it will cause a lot of damage.

As soon as the two sides came into contact, they were divided. The dragon rider was like a double-edged giant sword, and it pushed in extremely arrogantly. The Sasanians fell off their horses one after another, like soup splashing snow, and the roar of excitement quickly turned into screams.The commander who was rushing in the ranks saw that the soldiers in front fell off their horses one after another, and their shouts were different from usual. He realized that something was wrong. The warrior and Awad sounded the alarm at the same time.

Surrounded by his personal guards, Guanqiu Jian rushed towards him, and he saw the commander-in-chief with a distinctive armor at a glance. He shouted excitedly: "Kill that dog!" With a shake of the halberd, the flexible halberd trembled and hit the shoulder blade of a Sasanian knight rushing towards him. The sharp halberd beard cut off half of his arm. The Sasanian knight let out a scream and fell off his horse. .But Guanqiu Jian kicked the horse's belly fiercely, whipped the horse fast, and rushed towards the commander.

The personal guards also saw the commander, and one by one let out roars that did not sound like human voices, gripped the iron halberd more tightly, and successively assassinated several Sasanian cavalrymen who wanted to protect the commander, and rushed to the commander's gate. before.

The Sassanids saw the danger, and rushed towards Guanqiujian and the others one after another, slashing wildly with their knives. The commander also waved his knives, holding the reins tightly with one hand, and raised his knives high with the other, desperately Staring at Guanqiujian, let the horse go straight.

After more than ten steps, they arrived in the blink of an eye, the commander let out a roar, and the saber whizzed down.

Guanqiu Jian sneered, and exerted strength with both arms. The iron halberd seemed to have eyes. He bounced off the saber, and accurately hung on the commander's neck. With the force of the horse's hedging, the halberd and beard easily cut off the commander's neck. The head of the commander, the head of the commander was washed up in the air by the spring of blood.

A dragon knight flew past, caught the commander's head in the air, and put it in the rucksack on the saddle.

Guanqiu Jian killed the generals in the first battle, and his morale was greatly boosted. The dragon riders continued their efforts, like a tiger joining a pack of wolves, and slashed and killed wantonly.

The Sasanians fell one after another.

Awad was surprised when he heard the warning sound, and looked around, only to see the two sides fighting together, galloping horses, people shouting and neighing, and it was hard to tell you from me.However, after all, he has been through battles for a long time, and soon discovered that the contact point of the two sides was rapidly approaching his side, which showed that the opponent's striker had already killed half of the formation, and this speed was obviously beyond his expectations.

Awad subconsciously issued an order for the second wave of knights to attack immediately, and at the same time ordered the third wave of knights to prepare.

The two thousand-man teams began to accelerate one after another, rushing towards the dragonriders who had just broken through the first formation.

Without fear, Guanqiu Jian fought fiercely, and fought with the Sassanids again.

Awad stared at the cavalry battlefield, his face paled in shock. After the first thousand-man team intersected with the Han Chinese cavalry, he should have circled back not far away, ready to attack again, but what he saw was only a sparse crowd , Many battle horses have no soldiers, and the number of casualties is obviously much greater than he estimated.

Are the cavalry of the Han Chinese so powerful?Awad was a little confused about the situation for a while.Since the founding of the Sasanian state, cavalry has always dominated the roost. It can be said that the cavalry has never suffered in the confrontation. The Sasanian always wins when the number of people is not much different, but today this situation has never happened. of.

Awad shuddered, not daring to be negligent, and gave the order again, sending two thousand-man teams one after another to prepare for the battle.

The dragon riders broke through the blocking of two thousand-man teams one after another, and then encountered three thousand-man teams, but they showed no fear, continued to charge on horseback, and once again fought with the Sassanids.

Two thousand dragonriders forced Awad to dispatch 1 people to stabilize the situation. Relying on the advantage of the large number of people, they finally regained the upper hand and sandwiched the dragonriders in the middle.Although the dragonriders were ferocious, the number of them differed too much. Under the attack of the opponent's superior force, the casualties increased rapidly.Guanqiu Jian and Zhao Feng didn't dare to neglect, they blew the horn for help while trying to maintain the speed of their horses, hoping to break through the opponent's block as soon as possible and avoid being surrounded by the opponent.

Awad threw [-] elite soldiers into the cavalry battlefield, and the pressure on the horse-repelling formation in the middle was greatly reduced. Sun Shao immediately ordered the infantry of the Destroyer Battalion in the horse-rejecting formation to launch a countercharge.With an order, with Tu Hu leading the way, Dun Wu, Ao Lei and others rushed out together, beating the Sassanids in the refusal formation to retreat step by step.Awad was forced to have no choice but to put all the remaining [-] reserves around him into the battle, and had a final duel with Sun Shao.

Standing on the podium, Sun Shao had a clear view of the battle situation below. Seeing that there were almost no troops left around Awad, he sneered, waved his hand and said softly, "Notify General Cao to attack."

"Here." Sima Shi turned around and gave an order to the drummer.The drummer waved his arms and struck the big drum. The rapid war drums soared into the sky, adding a little more excitement to the already bloody battlefield.

Xun Yun jumped up, listened carefully, and shouted: "General, the king of Yue ordered us to attack."

Cao Zhang listened attentively, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, and he breathed a sigh of relief: "Finally we have the chance to fight. I thought the King of Yue had killed all the Sasanians." He shouted loudly: "Beat the drums, kill them all!" Those dumb dogs!"

The soldiers promised loudly: "Kill all the dogs!" Even those Wuhuan, Huns and Xianbei shouted loudly: "Kill all those dogs!"

Fifteen thousand iron cavalry of the Wei State started to move, and began to run faster along the river bank. The sound of horseshoes became more and more urgent and heavier, and gradually turned into a rapid and muffled thunder, which overwhelmed the thundering drums. The earth rolls forward.When they passed the horse-repelling formation, Cao Zhang raised the halberd in his hand, shook the energy of his dantian, and screamed: "The mighty man—"

Hao Zhao and his personal guards exhausted their strength and shouted wildly: "The mighty man—"

Fifteen thousand cavalrymen roared angrily: "The mighty man—"

The roar was earth-shattering, and the soldiers of the Destroyer Battalion who were fighting fiercely in the Juma formation were full of blood. They were full of strength, and their morale was even higher. Roaring in unison, they charged towards the Sassanids and killed them until they retreated steadily.

Awad's face was pale, cold sweat rolled down his forehead one by one, he knew that he had failed again, he had invested almost all his troops, and he had no way to deal with this cavalry rushing out of the darkness Even if he wanted to escape, he would not be able to evacuate the soldiers who had mixed with the Han people for a while, and the only thing waiting for him was death.

Awad glanced desperately at Taixifeng City in the distance in the night, drew out his saber, laid it on his neck, and shouted: "Your Majesty, I am incompetent. I am ashamed of your entrustment. I will go first!" He pulled the saber hard.

When he pulled out the saber, his personal guard felt that something was wrong. Seeing that he was going to commit suicide, he didn't care to say anything, so he quickly grabbed his arm and took the saber away. The other guard also reacted and stepped forward He just hugged Awad's waist and pulled him off the horse.Awad burst into tears and struggled: "You let me die!"

The personal guards ignored him at all, and ordered the two personal guards to hold Awad, turned around and left. It had nothing to do with him if he lost the battle, but if Awad died, all the personal guards would have to be buried with him. It is irreparable, all he can do now is to save Awad.

"Let's go, let's go!" The personal guards greeted repeatedly, and took the lead in galloping away.

The personal guards understood, held Awad hostage, and scattered like a bereaved dog.

Unfortunately, they left too late.Cao Zhang led [-] iron cavalry like wolves and tigers. Instead of directly killing the Sassanian iron cavalry, he ran along the river, copied to the back of the Sasanian, and then circled half a circle and killed them. It happened to block Awad's personal guard camp.Xun Yun took the lead and spotted Awad and the others first, picked up the hand crossbow on the saddle and shot, and shot emptied the twenty iron arrows in the box in one breath.

Iron arrows roared towards them, and several Sassanids who were busy fleeing for their lives were caught off guard and three or four were shot to death.

During the chaos of the Sassanians, the soldiers of the Huqi Battalion had already arrived. Adiguai swung his saber and chopped off Awad's head.

The morale of the Sasanians plummeted, and the situation reversed instantly. After hearing the news of Awad’s death, the Sasanians who were flanked by Cao Zhang and Sun Shao no longer had any fighting spirit. More than 1 soldiers put down their weapons and surrendered, and only a few rushed into the Fell into the big river next to him and jumped into the water to escape.

Sun Shao won a complete victory.

"How about it? I said I must cut off the dog's head." Cao Zhang was full of spirits, threw Awad's head in front of Sun Shao, sat down in front of Sun Shao, picked up the teapot on the desk, and poured it into his mouth He poured a big mouthful of tea into his cup, gulped it down, and laughed loudly with a touch of yellow beard: "Happy! Happy!"

Sun Shao chuckled: "General Cao is indeed a hero. The Sassanids were terrified when the tiger and leopard rode out. It's a pity that you were born at the wrong time. After returning to Dahan, there will be no more battles to fight. , the hero is old in bed."

"No, didn't I win your hundreds of acres of pasture, I want to graze horses there." Cao Zhang winked his eyes and laughed triumphantly.

"That's fine." Sun Shao couldn't help laughing, took a sip of tea, thought for a while and said: "The war here is over, do you want to continue playing chess with me here, or go back to the city to join the battle? I will send Awad's head back immediately, and Feng'er will attack the city tomorrow, and this time, Ardashir probably won't be spared."

"There is plenty of time to play chess, I'd better go back and fight first." Cao Zhang stood up, a little unsatisfied: "Awad is not a general, his command is messy, and there is no challenge at all. I'd better go back and compete with Ardashir." Come on."

"That's fine." Sun Shao nodded without forcing: "You should go back quickly. I received news that Zijian was injured during the siege in the afternoon. Although it was not fatal, he would have to lie down for a while. .”

Cao Zhang was taken aback, and he was no longer in the mood to chat with Sun Shao, so he turned around and left with others.He asked Xun Yun to go back with the army, and he and Hao Zhao led the guards to go first.It's five miles away, and it's there in a blink of an eye.Cao Zhang rushed into the camp and went straight to Cao Zhi's big tent.Cao Zhi was leaning on the quilt in the tent, reading by the light, and knew that Cao Zhang had come back when he heard the heavy footsteps. He raised his head to look at Cao Zhang, and said with a smile, "Win?"

"How is your injury?" Cao Zhang knew that Cao Zhi's injury was serious as soon as he smelled the strong smell of alcohol in the big tent. When the gauze was intertwined, he said angrily: "You are the general of the Wei State, not a centurion, how can you fight in person?"

Cao Zhi was a little embarrassed. He waved his hand and signaled Hao Zhao and others to go out. Just as he was about to speak, there was a sound of footsteps outside the door. The tent door was lifted, and Yang Xiu walked in with two Aryan nurses wearing boat-shaped caps. As soon as he saw Cao Zhang, he also smiled: "Looking at the general like this, I know that Awad must have been awarded the title."

Cao Zhang was embarrassed to be angry with Yang Xiu, and seeing Cao Zhi's complexion was good, he was relieved and briefly talked about the battle just now.After hearing this, Yang Xiu and Cao Zhi were overjoyed: "In this way, Ardashir has become a lone army, and he has a little more confidence in breaking the city."

"Brother killed Awad, and made another contribution." Cao Zhi said happily to Cao Zhang.

"What is this?" Cao Zhang disapproved: "It's the credit of Xun Changqian and A Diguai, and it has nothing to do with me. But I didn't do it for nothing. I won his [-]-acre pasture." Cao Zhang mentioned this Seeing his show off, Cao Zhi and Yang Xiu laughed too.

"Tell me, how did you win?" Cao Zhi put down the book, and while two Aryan nurses changed his dressing, he ordered someone to serve tea. Yang Xiu brought a lot of snacks from the supply camp, and he happened to be drinking tea while tasting. to chat with.

Cao Zhang was beaming with joy, and told the story of the chess game. Finally, he patted his thigh and said happily: "After this battle is over, I will find a chance to play two more games with him, and try to give him all the pastures on the east coast of the Caspian Sea. If you win, you don’t have to go back, it’s not bad to let the horses run here.”

Cao Zhi drank his tea, pondered for a while, felt something was wrong, but hadn't figured it out yet, but Yang Xiu laughed: "It's true, you'd better not go back, otherwise, I'm afraid your father will work hard The decades-old foundation is not enough to pay for it.”

"What are you talking about?" Cao Zhang said dissatisfiedly: "Although our country Wei is not as rich as Yue, we can still get the tens of thousands of shi of grain."

"Tens of thousands of stones?" Yang Xiu retorted: "I think you can't finish it in tens of thousands of years."

"Ah?" Cao Zhang was taken aback. Then he realized that something was wrong. He stared at Yang Xiu with wide eyes, and said in disbelief, "Dezu, this...is it?"

"Although I don't know exactly how many stone grains this is for the time being, I can guess that this number is definitely not a small amount. It may be a joke to ask you to pay back tens of thousands of years, but I can guarantee that even if the entire Wei State All the grain produced is used to repay the debt, and I’m afraid you won’t be able to finish it in your lifetime.” Yang Xiu curled his lips, put down his teacup gently, and said contemptuously in his tone: “I don’t know if you have Have you ever heard a word called astronomical numbers?"

Cao Zhang shook his head blankly, but Cao Zhi's face changed suddenly: he often reads the journals published by Funan College, and knows what astronomical numbers mean.

(End of this chapter)