Wait, please don't call me Emperor Zhaolie

Chapter 277: Lord Yuan, retreat quickly!

Yuan Shao, who was observing the movement of the entire army from a high platform, saw from afar that his elite cavalry, led by Chunyu Qiong, one of the eight commanders of Xiyuan in the past, was so easily defeated by Liu Xuande's rear army.

These are 3,600 light cavalry that were trained through years of fighting with Gongsun Zan, and 800 armored cavalry that were carefully selected in Hebei to specifically restrain Liu Bei's Huben Cavalry!

This is not something that could be compared to the situation when Wen Chou was defeated by Lu Bu and the newly formed cavalry he led.

When Yuan Shao thought of this, he couldn't help but glare and almost vomit blood in his chest. Jizhou had far fewer horses than the barbarian tribes such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Wuhuan. In particular, the number of good horses and war horses was bred very slowly, and arable land had to be abandoned to raise horses.

The reason why he could have so many war horses was that he married the daughter of the Yuan family of Runan to the Wuhuan, which enabled him to buy a large number of good horses.

Unexpectedly, all the hard work of the Yuan family over the years was wasted by Chunyu Qiong, a mediocre and foolish idiot.

Seeing that the enemy's Tiger and Ben cavalry retreated a mile or two, he did not know how to make decisions on the battlefield. He first strangled the enemy cavalry and then launched a sneak attack to disrupt the rear formation, causing chaos in the rear of the Qingzhou army.

He actually left an equal number of cavalry to defend against the enemy cavalry, and led his army directly to attack the enemy's rear formation.

Don't you think about the crossbowmen under Liu Xuande's command? When they saw the large number of cavalry charging, they did not panic and dropped their heavy crossbows and fled in all directions. They must have something to rely on.

Why did he continue to charge into the battle formation, exposing his back and allowing the enemy's Tiger Cavalry to quickly press forward?

Yuan Shao watched helplessly from the high platform as his cavalry were galloping towards them from two miles away. The enemy cavalry easily tore their formation apart. After chasing them for only a few hundred steps, they changed horses and weapons and rushed straight towards the direction of the flag of General Chunyu Qiong.

Soon they could vaguely see that Chunyu Qiong's flag was no longer raised, and then the cavalry's formation was in chaos and the morale of the army collapsed. Especially the armored cavalry, which had been built at great expense. After their horses were exhausted, it was impossible for them to change horses individually, so the Qingzhou cavalry caught up with them and killed them all.

You have to know that maintaining these 4,400-plus cavalrymen, each equipped with two horses, a war horse and a follower horse, costs much more than maintaining 50,000 infantrymen.

Letting Chunyu Qiong sacrifice thousands of cavalrymen was more painful to him than destroying an army of 50,000.

Yuan Shao could not help but stroke his chest and cry out to the sky, lamenting and angrily saying: "If Qu Yi were here, why would the cavalry under my command be blindly destroyed by a fool like Chunyu Qiong? It really hurts me!"

Guo Tu and Xun Chen quickly surrounded Yuan Shao and tried to comfort him by citing classics. One official even said bluntly, "Mr. Yuan, as long as we can defeat Liu Xuande in this battle, it doesn't matter if we lose all our cavalry. At least the enemy's Tiger Cavalry will be unable to fight again."

"Look, Lord Yuan, the halberd soldiers are now engaged in a battle with the enemy's armored soldiers. The 70,000-strong army is surrounding Liu Bei's 5,000-plus infantry from three sides, waiting for them to tire themselves out and charging in turn. Starting at noon, we expect that by dawn, we will be able to completely break through Liu Xuande's elite armored infantry, which is Liu Xuande's pride and dominance throughout the world."

"This place is flat and a few miles away from the Qingzhou army camp. If we are defeated, our entire army will be wiped out. Lord Yuan, our army can win this battle!"

The official from Hebei with a three-pronged beard stood on the high platform, looking at the two armies still fighting below, shaking his head unconsciously and commenting confidently.

At that moment, the sound of galloping horses from the north shook the sky. Fifteen hundred Han cavalrymen, whose horses were bloody, suddenly attacked from behind Yuan's army.

The leading knight raised his arm and held high a red flag with the word "Liu" on it. Amid the screams of the Wuhuan cavalry, he charged into the Hu cavalry formation under a barrage of arrows, and charged at the middle with his horses' bellies tightly around him, while the left and right wings attacked from the sides to prevent the Wuhuan from escaping.

When the Wuhuan leaders, their chieftains and their nobles saw the Han army charging, they wanted to use their natural instincts as they always had on the grasslands. Since the enemy was coming aggressively, they should retreat first to avoid the sharp edge, so as to consume the enemy cavalry's strength, and then use arrows to slowly wear down the Han army.

But the Wuhuan leaders thought of the instructions of Chanyu Tadun and decided to protect Lord Yuan. If they were not standing in front, the other party would definitely go straight to the command platform to kill.

Now they could only grit their teeth, have someone blow the horn, and lead the cavalry to meet the Han army head-on. Fortunately, Lord Yuan also gave them a lot of Han-style armor, which was much stronger than the previous leather armor.

They should be able to engage in hand-to-hand combat, and when the infantry and cavalry under Yuan Gong's command react, they can move away and harass them by shooting arrows.

The leader of the Wuhuan tribe and the cavalry he led were summoned by Yuan Shao to guard the central army after the Yuan cavalry was destroyed. So they had no chance to see how the more than 4,000 cavalry were beaten to tears by the Huben cavalry and how they were chased for several miles.

The messenger did not tell them that their own cavalry had several times the advantage in numbers and was defeated by the Qingzhou army.

Therefore, after pondering, Lord Wuhuan believed that the present was different from the past. Compared with the previous situation where they had a lot of leather armor that could not effectively defend against the arrows of the Han army, the Wuhuan cavalry with armor had a stronger ability to attack the enemy. Even in hand-to-hand combat, they could still be better with the riding skills they had practiced since childhood.

The Wuhuan leader thought to himself, "If he can come all the way, I can also go all the way back. The Wuhuan cavalry is not inferior to the Han army in combat."

As he expected, the Wuhuan cavalry, after being shot a few rounds of arrows, dropped their bows and drew their swords, riding their horses bravely forward to fight.

When they finally saw clearly within a hundred steps that the enemy's body was almost completely covered in blood, all the Wuhuan cavalry couldn't help but feel a chill in their hearts, and a bad premonition came to their minds.

But it was not easy to stop the horses that had already started charging, so even if the Wuhuan people wanted to retreat, they could not.

On the plain, the cavalry of Liu and Yuan's armies collided and fought fiercely again.

"kill!"

“Kill the enemy!!”

The shouts of Qingzhou dialect and the shouts of Wuhuan language merged together, and the two armies suddenly became a mess. The Hu Ben cavalry soldiers galloped on their horses, holding long-bladed and thick sabers and slashing left and right like a storm, killing Wuhuan people and horses, and there was a bloody storm wherever they passed.

The eight-foot-long spears easily pierced their armor, and the sharp sabers behind them chopped down at their heads, followed by long, angular hammers that were swung up to smash at their heads.

The Han army swung their weapons with inertia and hit people with such force that their heads split open instantly and their brains splashed out.

Lord Wuhuan witnessed with his own eyes that the follower beside him dodged the saber of the Han cavalry, but was smashed to pieces by the long hammer whizzing from behind, and the whole person fell off the horse like mud.

It made the blood in his body seem to flow backwards and he immediately felt a chill down his spine.

Under the heavy attacks of the three Huben cavalry divisions, the Wuhuan cavalry completely collapsed. The arrogant attitude they had when they were given armor by the Han army disappeared in an instant, and their will to fight was gone.

The Wuhuan tribe could no longer hold on even without the Huben cavalry turning their reins and charging again.

The Wuhuan cavalry immediately scattered like birds and beasts, spurring their horses to flee in a panic. They were already accustomed to this kind of thing in their life on the grassland.

In order to reduce the weight of the horse, he threw away his helmet and armor while running. Even in his fear, his movements were very skillful, as if he had practiced them countless times.

The Wuhuan cavalry on the outside fled as soon as the battle started, leaving the last 2,000 cavalry and 300 armored cavalry in the center of Yuan's army dumbfounded. Just as they were about to attack from both sides, the Hu cavalry fled in panic.

The speed of the collapse was unexpected.

In a trance, the Huben cavalry did not pursue the fleeing Wuhuan cavalry. Instead, without any rest, they turned their horses around and charged to the bottom with their poles, rushing to within 400 steps of Yuan's army's flag.

Like a sharp knife stabbing directly into the abdomen of the prey, stirring the intestines violently, and then pushing upwards with force to rip open the prey's belly, the goal is to achieve a powerful and lethal effect.

"Quick! Help Yuan Gong onto his horse and get away from the enemy first."

Xun Chen saw that the situation was not good. The Qingzhou cavalry came back and attacked the central army like a torrent of wind and rain. He was afraid that his own cavalry could not defeat the enemy, so he immediately ordered all the officials to work together to carry Yuan Gong off the high platform.

"I do not go!"

"This battle is at a critical juncture. If I retreat now, the soldiers in the front will lose their morale if they don't see our banner. The soldiers will become agitated and rumors will spread. The Yuan family will completely lose the battle for Hebei."

Yuan Shao ignored others' dissuasion, threw his helmet to the ground in anger, and was determined to fight the enemy cavalry to the death.

"Lord Yuan, almost all the infantry troops are now dispatched to attack Liu Xuande's Wugang Chariot Shield Formation. The enemy cavalry is coming fiercely. We have fought several times. Six thousand cavalry cannot stop them. As the ancients said: A son of a rich family should not sit in the hall. Moreover, how can the lord of Hebei ignore the great cause and put himself in danger at this moment?!"

"I hope that Lord Yuan will attach great importance to Ji and You, and Liu Xuande will rule the world with strict laws, restrain the nobles and the gentry, so that the heroes of each state have long been indignant. For several years, the grudges have long been in the hearts of the various families, but they have not yet expressed them."

"Even if we are defeated now, we can come back one day after recuperating and fight Liu Bei for the Central Plains again!"

"When Emperor Gaozu and Emperor Guangwu were fighting for the throne, they also suffered great defeats and fled. As long as they kept their useful bodies, they could regroup and attack again in an instant. Lord Yuan should learn from this."

Xun Chen bowed several times to Yuan Shao and said thoughtfully.

After hearing this, Yuan Shao froze and seemed still hesitating.

Seeing this, Guo Tu, who was standing beside him, also hurriedly advised: "Mr. Yuan, even if you retreat, the front army may not be defeated. This place is far away from the front army, and the soldiers can only see the flags."

"If you want to stabilize the morale of the army, you can let the central army continue to hold the big banner and defend this place, and then dispatch more than 10,000 infantry and crossbowmen to meet the enemy from the rear, which will surely intimidate the enemy cavalry."

"Mr. Yuan is a man of great status, so we should not take risks lightly. It is better to lead the thousand cavalry to retreat a few miles away. After the central army has driven away the Qingzhou cavalry, it will not be too late to return to the battle."

"We have been enjoying the Yuan family's salary for a long time. We are grateful and repay our kindness. We will help you to repel the enemy cavalry!"

When Guo Tu saw that Yuan Gong refused to move, he had an idea and immediately offered a plan and provided a suitable way out.

How could Yuan Shao not understand the implication of his words? He saw that the light cavalry and armored cavalry who went to fight were gradually being defeated.

He could not help shedding two lines of hot tears, and raised his head to cry out to the heavens: "How could Heaven be so unfaithful to my Yuan family, stopping the army several times and allowing the rebels to run rampant? When will I be able to rectify the country and save the world..."

In great grief, the officials hurriedly helped Yuan Gong down from the platform and helped him back onto the horse.

Guo Tu and the clerks who volunteered to stay bowed and bid farewell to Yuan Shao with tears in their eyes.

Xun Chen also climbed onto the horse's back, bowed to Guo Tu and sighed, "Gong Ze, take care!"

(End of this chapter)