My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 14: Defeat Liu Xun
Guan Yu and his comrades rushed to a hundred steps outside the camp gate, and even took advantage of the gap when the infantry patrol team passed by the camp to assign some of their subordinates to use hooks and ropes to grab a few chevaux de frise and deer horns.

Then with a loud shout, he violently pulled the chevaux de frise and deer horns to the ground, and even pulled down several wooden stakes buried in the rammed earth that served as the camp wall.

"Kill!" Guan Yu shouted, and jumped into the gap in the camp wall where the sharp stakes of the wooden fence had been pulled over.
"Kill!" The cavalry behind him were also in high spirits and swarmed in from the position that had just been destroyed.

The infantry team patrolling in the camp finally reacted and immediately rushed towards the source of the shouting.

But they had no idea how many enemies were coming. Guan Yu wielded the Qinglong Sword left and right, and immediately killed seven or eight enemies in a row.

"Set the fire! Grab the thief Yuan's torch and set it on fire!"

Guan Yu was hacking and killing while shouting with a very quick mind.

He noticed that the torches carried by his cavalry might have been damp because they had not been lit all the way, but the Yuan army infantry patrols that had just been killed were patrolling the camp walls with torches.

In this case, we should seize the torches from Yuan’s army on the spot, burn down their camp, and create even greater chaos!

Inspired by Guan Yu's order, the cavalrymen immediately followed his instructions, charging and shouting while setting fire.

……

"What's the noise? Why is there a commotion in the army?"

Liu Xun woke up from his sleep in a daze and shouted loudly with authority.

Until this moment, he still had no idea that he had been attacked.

But this cannot be blamed on him, as he was originally a civil servant, and had worked his way up from county magistrate to prefect. Now Yuan Shu gave him the main official position of "Lujiang Taishou".

Liu Xun's battlefield sense is naturally much worse than that of a full-time military general like Ji Ling.

But after he arrived at Huaiyin, he didn't need to consider the problem of strong attack for the time being, so he only planned to besiege the city. Therefore, the location of his camp and the distance from Huaiyin City were farther away from the city than Ji Ling's camp.

After all, when Ji Ling set up the camp, he still considered deploying a strong attack. The camp was too far away from the city, and it would be too troublesome to build the siege weapons and transport them to the front line.

Liu Xun couldn't understand why the enemy would go far away instead of near. Even if they wanted to rob the camp, they should have chosen the Ji Ling camp which was easier to rob, right?

But this is what happened.

As the noise and shouting of killing were accompanied by the flickering of flames, a faint light gradually appeared on the curtain of the central army tent, and Liu Xun finally woke up completely.

"Where is Chen Lan? Why didn't they patrol and discover the enemy attack! All battalions quickly line up to meet the enemy!"

Liu Xun angrily scolded the attendants around him and asked them to put on his armor for him. Then, while he was putting on his armor, he issued several contradictory and confusing military orders in a row.

For a moment he asked all the battalions to assemble in battle array, but then he remembered that doing so would take too much time and it would be better for each battalion to resist on the spot.

All I can say is that if you force yourself to get up suddenly when you are still half asleep, your mind will be confused for a while.

While Liu Xun's troops were fighting on their own, Guan Yu had already set fires everywhere. When Liu Xun hastily put on his armor and left the tent, he saw more than a dozen fires rising. In the darkness, he had no idea how many enemy troops were attacking.

"Why is there so much commotion everywhere? How many soldiers does Liu Bei have?"

Liu Xun felt a rush of blood to his head and was just as he was frightened. Suddenly, among the many noisy sounds, there was a particularly obvious rumbling sound of iron hooves, which was getting louder and louder as it came closer and closer.

After all, he still had some common sense in leading troops, and he immediately realized that a large group of cavalry was rushing towards his central camp.

"Archers and crossbowmen, use carts and sticks to resist the enemy! Fight to the death and do not retreat!" Liu Xun roared loudly, ordering all the archers around him to be on high alert, and even drew out his sword to kill two who were running around.

He had realized that this was his last hope to prevent the collapse of the entire battalion.

There was no formal wall separating the central military camp from the outer tents.

But Liu Xun did have some experience in leading troops, so when setting up camp, he knew to use baggage vehicles to circle around the central military area. In another time and space, when Gan Ning's hundred cavalrymen raided Cao's camp, they were unable to break through to Cao Cao's central army. It was precisely because Cao Cao used the same trick and surrounded the central army tent densely with carts and sticks when setting up camp.

The obstacles formed by these vehicles prevented the cavalry from rushing in quickly, and they could only break through from a few dedicated entrances and exits.

There are usually a few barricades at those intersections, but barricades are lighter than large carts and can be easily moved away when passing.

Liu Xun also knew where his weaknesses were, so he ordered the archers to stand guard on the chariot sticks and shoot freely, and then gathered all the spearmen and swordsmen in the central army to the gaps where there were no chariot sticks and only chevaux de frise, hoping to hold them.

As for the outer camps, he could not take care of them for the time being, so he just let the countless Liu Bei troops rush in. Only by stabilizing the central army could there be hope.

However, the enemy on the opposite side obviously did not intend to let Liu Xun get his wish.

In the dark night, Liu Xun ordered his soldiers to line up to block the entrance, but he was unable to do so. Many soldiers were simply driven to the battlefields where the entrances were blocked, but they could not find their comrades at all. The generals did not know their soldiers, and the soldiers did not know their generals. They just stood there holding their spears, not knowing what to do. Because there was no leader, the soldiers had just been woken up, everyone was incomplete in armor and weapons, and they did not know the people next to them. Who would not want to push others to the front to resist damage and hide behind to take advantage?

Yuan Shu had always used power over virtue in his military management, and the soldiers fought for him out of fear and fear of resistance against a noble family that had been in power for four generations. Now that the threat of the officers who usually directly suppressed the soldiers was gone, the soldiers were simply unwilling to fight for him.

It was this brief moment of chaos that gave the enemy a chance to break through.

……

"That's enough! Gather the troops on both wings and follow me to attack Liu Xun's central army tent! There is a gap in the chariot formation ahead, follow me to break through the barricades and attack Liu Xun!"

After randomly setting a half circle of fire in the outer camp and charging for about two cups of tea to ensure that the enemy troops were completely in chaos,
Guan Yu had a very keen sense of battlefield and noticed that there was a very tightly defended area in the middle of the enemy camp, which was almost surrounded by chariots. He knew that Liu Xun must be inside.

So he ordered the hundreds of cavalrymen following him to adjust their tactical goals in time, to gather the fighting forces that were charging indiscriminately, and to seize the opportunity to attack the heart of the enemy.

The flames, charging and trampling just now have already caused enough chaos to prevent Liu Xun's left and right camps from organizing a rescue of the central army tent. In this case, it is enough to achieve this level, and there is no need to charge and kill further.

He had only a thousand cavalrymen under his command, while Liu Xun had more than 13,000 men. He could not defeat them all by just hacking and charging, and being entangled would be even more dangerous.

To encircle and annihilate the main force is the task of the eldest brother's 10,000 infantry main force.

Guan Yu had always been kind and considerate to his subordinates, and the soldiers were also quite grateful for his kindness and loyal to him. Once they rushed to the gap in the chariot formation, they used grappling hooks to entangle the chevaux de frise, and then pulled them with all their might, using the pulling force of their war horses to knock the chevaux de frise to the ground, thus clearing a path.

However, in the darkness, there were only a few elite soldiers who could use the grappling hooks to entangle firmly from a distance. Most of the grappling hook cavalrymen could not tie them firmly after swinging them several times, so they could only dismount and rush forward to push, tie and break the obstacles.

Seeing this, the archers of Liu Xun's army on both sides immediately fired cross-shots at the gap in the chariot formation. The spearmen and swordsmen in the gap also shouted and rushed forward, stabbing and slashing randomly in an attempt to scare off the barrier breakers.
In an instant, three or four Guan Yu cavalrymen who had broken through the obstacles were stabbed and fell to the ground, and more than ten people were shot and injured by bows and crossbows.

Guan Yu's eyes turned red and he was furious, but fortunately, after sacrificing about twenty lives, the obstacles blocking the road were finally completely removed.

At this moment, Guan Yu finally rushed in like an arrow, waving his Qinglong sword wildly, spinning left and right like flying, and killed Liu Xun's soldiers who were blocking the entrance one after another.

The personal guards behind Guan Yu were also in high spirits. Since the commander was so fearless, how could the soldiers not fight to the death? What's more, they were commanded by a commander like Guan Yu who was good at sharing weal and woe with the soldiers.

Originally, spearmen had a certain advantage over cavalry in narrow terrain. However, as Yuan's army pushed each other and exploited their neighbors, their formation was not in order and their spears were not in the same direction, so it was natural that Guan Yu broke through a gap.

"It's Guan Yu! Run! It's Guan Yu!"

The hundreds of melee soldiers gathered by Liu Xun to block the entrance finally collapsed completely after suffering more than a hundred casualties. The whole process did not even last for a cup of tea.

The cavalry of Guan Yu's army on the opposite side suffered heavy casualties in the hand-to-hand combat in such a narrow terrain, with forty or fifty people killed or wounded in a short period of time. However, the morale of Guan Yu's personal guards was able to withstand such casualties and live in the face of death.

"Shoot! Shoot! Don't worry about your own people, just shoot at the people in the gap in the chariot formation!" Liu Xun was anxiously watching from the rear. Seeing that the last line of defense was about to collapse, he angrily ordered the archers on the baggage carts on both wings to shoot indiscriminately.

"Your Excellency, you can't do this! There are more soldiers fighting in the gap than Guan Yu in our army. If we shoot arrows like this, more of our own people will be killed or injured!" Upon hearing this, a junior officer next to Liu Xun begged and dissuaded him.

Liu Xun knew that he could not be soft-hearted at this time. He kicked the person who advised him and shouted: "The troops that attacked Guan Yu's camp are all cavalry. How many people can they have? It is because my army is in chaos that we have become like this!
Exchange your life with Guan Yu! Even if it's two or three for one, it's worth it! Kill all the cavalrymen fighting over there, and Guan Yu will have to retreat!"

The archers of Liu Xun's army soon began to shoot arrows indiscriminately at the gap that was about to be lost, regardless of friend or foe. For a moment, the crowd howled in agony, and countless Yuan army soldiers were completely stunned by the arrows shot from behind and on both sides.

When Guan Yu saw this, he felt a chill in his heart and quickly realized Liu Xun's intention.

Now that things have come to this, the only thing to do is move forward!
Guan Yu shouted, "Liu Xun killed even his own people, why are you still working for him? Those who surrender will not be killed!"

The soldiers nearby were also shouting all sorts of nonsense, simply reminding the enemy that "if you keep fighting here, you will be shot in the back by your own people sooner or later."

After a very short and fierce battle, with dozens of people on both sides being shot down by indiscriminate bullets, the soldiers of Yuan's army who were blocking the entrance finally realized the situation. Their morale completely collapsed and they fled in all directions.

Liu Xun saw from the crowd that the situation was not good. Guan Yu seemed to have broken through the blockade and was rushing towards his tent.

He shamelessly threw away his conspicuous bronze helmet, changed into a non-reflective turban of an ordinary soldier, and wrapped a rag cloak around his armor, disguising himself as a small character and galloping backwards, trying to escape from other entrances and exits of the central army's chariot formation.

Guan Yu seemed to feel no pain as he killed dozens of people. Finally, he reached the outside of the central army tent. The cavalrymen next to him threw all the remaining torches over, and then rushed in and killed indiscriminately. Unfortunately, he did not see Liu Xun.

"Captain, Liu Xun ran away!" a personal lieutenant reminded Guan Yu.

Guan Yu gritted his teeth and said, "No problem! Burn down the central army tent and have the soldiers shout in unison that Liu Xun is dead! If the ordinary Yuan thieves can't tell the difference, the army's morale will collapse!"

The lieutenant couldn't help but wonder: "Captain, don't you need to arrange for someone to chase them?"

Guan Yu waved his hands in pain, "I was hit by two arrows when I charged into the chariot formation just now. Fortunately, I had armor on so I didn't get hurt and didn't make a sound. If Liu Xun runs away, it will be the same as if he died. I'll have to rely on my brother's main force to clean up the mess."

(End of this chapter)