My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 355: Execute Zang Ba and Punish Sun Guan

To be fair, Xiahou Yuan's final words to Guan Yu in defense of his position could not be considered wrong.

As of now, Guan Yu's "reputation" in this life is indeed very limited.

In the original history, because Liu Bei surrendered to Cao Cao for several years after losing Xuzhou, Guan Yu also accumulated a lot of records of fighting against Lu Bu's army and Yuan Shao's army. He also killed Yan Liang, and his reputation spread very loudly in the circle of Xudu, "Cheng Yu and others all said that Guan Yu and Fei were enemies of ten thousand people."

As for Guan Yu today, although he has been doing well since Zhuge Jin helped Liu Bei turn the tide in Guangling, he has also found the right route and is intent on finding a stable rear base.

In the past six years, he first destroyed Zuo Rong, then subdued Zu Lang, and then fought with Yuan Shu, Huang Zu, Zhang Xian, and Sun Ce, defeating them one by one. Guan Yu also made great achievements in this process, but these enemies were all princes in the south without exception. Among them, Yuan Shu was the most powerful, but he was stupid enough to claim to be emperor and was beaten to death by the heroes of the world, so it cannot be attributed entirely to Liu Bei's camp.

Therefore, the value of Guan Yu's military achievements is still questionable for those northern princes who claim to be the strongest in the Central Plains.

So far, Guan Yu has only personally commanded five battles with more than 10,000 people, defeating the larger force with a smaller force:
Six years ago in the Battle of Guangling, he and Liu Bei led more than 8,000 people and defeated more than 20,000 people of Ji Ling and Liu Xun.

In the Battle of Yuzhang five and a half years ago, thousands of regular troops defeated the tens of thousands of Danyang bandits led by Zuo Rong. Then, thousands of troops were used to defeat the tens of thousands of Danyang bandits led by Zu Lang.

Five years ago, in the Battle of Chungu, which was a naval battle on the Yangtze River, he joined forces with Gan Ning and Taishi Ci, commanded an army of more than 10,000 and defeated the 30,000 troops of Liu Xun and Qiao Rui.

Three years ago in the Battle of Jiangyin, he joined forces with Taishi Ci and Lu Yi, commanded an army of 20,000 and defeated more than 30,000 troops of Sun Ce and Zhou Yu - but Taishi Ci was the main contributor in that battle, while Guan Yu was only credited with command.

In addition, Guan Yu also commanded three large-scale siege battles, but none of them could be considered as defeating the larger force with the smaller one.

They were the battle of attacking Hefei and killing Liu Xun five years ago, and the battle of attacking Xiakou and destroying Huang Zu four years ago.

There was also the Battle of Moling-Jurong two years ago, which ultimately annihilated Sun Ce. But Guan Yu was not the first to achieve success in that battle either, and his contribution was not as great as that of Zhang Liao and Zhao Yun.

Therefore, Guan Yu's life experience so far is five field battles, water battles, and mountain battles in which he defeated more troops with a small force of more than 10,000 people, plus three battles of equal strength against more than 10,000 people.

As for his struggles over the past decade or so, even if he won battles, the size of the troops he commanded was too small and is no longer of reference value.

Xiahou Yuan was a little wary of Guan Yu's "five victories over a larger force with a smaller one". The only psychological advantage he could rely on was that these five victories were won by defeating southerners.

It remains to be seen whether today's battle can create history and achieve Guan Yu's first victory over the northern princes with a smaller force.

……

Xiahou Yuan was impatient and shouted "If you want to fight, then fight" in an attempt to provoke Guan Yu to take the initiative to attack.

But Guan Yu remained very calm. Before today's battle, he had fully deduced various situations with Zhuge Jin in the rear. He had a much better grasp of the possible changes in the battle situation than Xiahou Yuan.

Guan Yu was well aware that Xiahou Yuan had the advantage of cavalry, and if he took the initiative to attack, he still could not ensure the maximization of his chances of victory.

If Xiahou Yuan found that the situation was not right and wanted to retreat, his cavalry troops would definitely be able to escape, and he would at most leave behind a part of the enemy's infantry troops.

Therefore, it is necessary to provoke Xiahou Yuan to take the initiative to attack, to create a situation where Xiahou Yuan has to attack, and to make Xiahou Yuan's army stuck first.

Then, Guan Yu took out his final trump card of cursing. He waved his Qinglong sword and signaled the cursing fighters to shout out the lines that had been explained long ago:
"Listen up, Cao's bandit army! General Fubo has long seen through the scheme of Xiahou and Guo Jia. The reason you have been able to hold out until today must be that Xiahou Yuan promised you that after you capture the city, you will not stop fighting and will slaughter everyone in Qu County and plunder all the wealth that the Lord of the Prefecture has bestowed upon our soldiers.

Unfortunately, you were all deceived! Lord Mi didn't leave so much treasure in Qu County. Most of his wealth was transported to the rear by Zhou Gongjin by sea before the war! As for those Cao thieves who were captured and then escaped, Lord Mi deliberately let them go according to the strategy given by General Fubo before the war!
The illusions they saw were what General Fubo had wanted them to see! Lord Mi was just following the plan and playing a trick! Even if the city was broken, Lord Mi would burn all the silk!
Throw all the gold, silver and money into the moat and the dry well. If you have the ability, you can slowly find it! If you want to fight for money, you will get nothing in the end! Today is the day you die!
Six years ago, when General Fubo came out of seclusion, his first strategy was to stabilize the morale of the Huaiyin army and help the General of Chariots and Cavalry defeat Ji Ling and Liu Xun. You rats, are you worthy of dying under General Fubo's famous strategy? You can brag about it to the Lord of Mount Tai after you die!"

These words from Guan Yu's army's abusive leader were particularly damaging to Xiahou Yuan's morale.

After all, the reason Xiahou Yuan's army had been holding on for the past ten days was because they hoped to rob a huge amount of wealth if they won the battle.

Now, suddenly, we hear that all this was fabricated from the beginning and a conspiracy, how can the army's morale not be shaken?
Moreover, the enemy's united momentum also severely suppressed the Cao army, which was originally showing off its might.

The enemy said, "Even if there are no reinforcements, we will destroy everything before the city is captured. We will destroy all the property that can be destroyed and will not spare any for you even if we die." This was a huge blow to some bandit armies, because they truly saw the victims' determination to fight to the death.

This is the truest portrayal of "the arrogant are afraid of the desperate."

Moreover, everyone had heard Xiahou Yuan's words to boost morale these days, and they knew that Xiahou Yuan was promoting it this way. The enemy's prediction was highly consistent with what Xiahou Yuan had done. Isn't this scary enough? Doesn't this mean that the enemy had calculated everything?
As the war is about to begin, the soldiers of one side are suddenly shrouded in the psychological shadow of "we have fallen into a trap", which in itself will greatly shake their morale.

Xiahou Yuan himself could no longer sit still after hearing the first three or four sentences of this speech. He knew that he must not let Guan Yu's cursing master finish his words.

So before Xiahou Yuan could even start talking about the plot of "singing and measuring sand, and destroying both jade and stone", he became furious and ordered Zang Ba and Sun Guan to immediately form the first echelon and launch a frontal charge!
It was a pity that the two armies were at least three or four hundred steps apart. Even if Zang Ba and Sun Guan charged immediately after receiving the order, the time it took the infantry to charge across the three hundred steps was enough for Guan Yu's army's cursers to finish their words to undermine the other side's morale.

The rest of Guan Yu's army was also on high alert. There were more than 15,000 troops, with Guan Yu himself leading more than 8,000 people in the center. Zhang Liao was on the left wing, with only 2,000 cavalry and more than 1,000 infantry to support, with the cavalry preparing to make a detour and outflanking. There was another 3,000-strong right wing, led by Han Dang, a reformed Jiangdong surrendered general.

In addition, Guan Yu's army actually has a team of reinforcements today, with a size of between three to four thousand people, led by Zhou Yu, and deputy generals are still Jiang Qin and Xu Sheng. However, at this moment they are still hiding in the sea northeast of Qu County and have not directly landed to participate in the battle.

Guan Yu knew that moving Zhou Yu's navy to the shore to participate in the decisive battle would not be very effective. It would be better to keep them on the sea and wait for Cao's army to waver on the front battlefield before landing on the flank to intercept and expand the results of the battle.

As for Mi Zhu and Tian Yu in Qu County, if they handed over the task of defending the city to the young and strong militiamen, they could gather more than 4,000 field soldiers to go out of the city and attack Cao's army at the right time.

Guan Yu's 14-year-old son Guan Ping also got his first chance to fight today. Guan Yu just kept him by his side to train him, but did not send him out. Guan Yu knew that such a decisive battle with tens of thousands of troops was very rare, so he let his son open his eyes a little, which would be good for his future growth.

The Xiahou Yuan army on the other side had more than 60,000 troops when they entered the country, but now they have lost more than 10,000, leaving only 46,000 to 7,000. There are also 3,000 to 4,000 wounded soldiers who cannot go to the battle and have to guard the camp, so there are only 42,000 people participating in the field battle.

Among them, the Langya bandits and Taishan bandits led by Zang Ba and Sun Guan had a total of more than 10,000 people, the cavalry led by Zhang He and Xiahou Yuan himself had 14,000 to 15,000 people, and there were more than 10,000 direct infantry of Cao's army led by generals such as Li Dian.

When the attack was hastily launched, Xiahou Yuan quickly sent Li Dian to the left wing to resist the offensive of Han Dang from Liu Bei's army.

(Note: Cao's army's left corresponds to Liu Bei's army's right, and similarly Cao's army's right corresponds to Liu Bei's left)

The cavalry led by Zhang He was on the right, just in time to hold off Zhang Liao. The number of his cavalry was more than three times that of Zhang Liao, and this was also the direction in which Cao's army had the greatest advantage.

Xiahou Yuan himself commanded the central army and led the remaining reserve troops behind Zang Ba and Sun Guan.

At this time, all thinking becomes redundant. Everyone is driven by instinct, their brains are blank, and they only think about charging forward.

……

"Kill! Kill!"

Zang Ba, Sun Guan and other bandits were forced by the military order and became hot-headed, arousing their vicious and stubborn nature. They soon rushed to Guan Yu's central army.

In terms of numbers, the troops of Zang Ba and Sun Guan alone are actually larger than Guan Yu's central army, not to mention Xiahou Yuan's own reserve troops behind them.

But Guan Yu's side had already thought of a countermeasure. Today, they wanted to provoke the enemy to attack actively, so the front row was all spear and shield phalanxes, which had poor mobility but strong offense and defense. In normal field battles, in order to ensure the mobility of the troops, spear phalanxes were rarely equipped with large shields.

Because long-pole weapons need to be held with both hands in order to run relatively quickly. If one holds a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, the spear can only be held straight up to the sky to prevent the center of gravity from being unstable, and the soldier's weight is greatly increased, so he can only march slowly and carefully.

Guan Yu's side was confident that they could fight a defensive battle, so they assigned the front army in this way. Zang Ba and Sun Guan felt their scalps tingling as they rushed closer and closer, but they were unable to move.

The two armies collided violently, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and broken limbs and arms were scattered all over the ground as they were pierced through the air by spears and halberds.

The powerful steel-filled armor of the front-row soldiers of Guan Yu's army easily blocked the scattered arrows fired by Cao's army during the charge.

However, the long halberd forged from steel could easily pierce and peck through the leather armor of Cao's soldiers.

Xiahou Yuan had suffered heavy casualties in both manpower and weapons due to the repeated attacks in the past period of time. Tian Yu and Mi Zhu had the opportunity to clean up the battlefield. Cao's army's cast iron armor was reduced by one set, so that Zang Ba and other non-direct troops could hardly put together armor in the front row.

Originally, the halberd could only penetrate the seams of the iron armor by stabbing with all its might. However, the hooks and slashes of the horizontal blade were not powerful enough to slide into the seams of the armor, so they were basically ineffective when facing armored soldiers.

It was also because the rate of regular soldiers wearing armor in later generations became higher and higher that both sides gradually found that the cross-blade branches of halberd soldiers were a bit redundant and useless. By the Sui and Tang dynasties, halberds were gradually eliminated from the weapons of ordinary soldiers, and only spears were used to save costs.

But now Cao's army's armor rate has dropped due to continuous consumption, which just gives the halberd soldiers room to play. After all, they are dealing with unarmored soldiers. If they are stabbed, they will die, and if they are swept, they will also die.

With the increase in effective attack methods, Guan Yu’s army’s fighting efficiency increased dramatically.

The archers in the back row of Guan Yu's army, because they were on the defensive side, could fire arrows as much as they wanted without worrying about range and mobility, because the enemies would keep rushing up to kill them anyway.

"Kill the traitors! Kill the traitors!" The soldiers under Guan Yu shouted slogans that shook the earth, and with great momentum they drove back row after row of the vanguard troops of Zang Ba and Sun Guan.

The unstoppable coldness, the murderous aura of fighting with no selfish goals but only following orders, made Zang Ba and Sun Guanjun, who were born as thieves, feel more and more oppressed.

However, these troops that originated from bandit armies have the least resilience. All they like is to fight favorable battles, stand on the side of the strong, and share some benefits.

When the war is going well, their inner turmoil can be concealed, but once it goes unfavorably, the morale blow and turmoil just now will be magnified.

Guan Yu stood behind the formation, his expression remained unchanged, but his eyes narrowed tighter and tighter. Feeling that the time was almost right, he waved his hand to signal for the drums to be beaten more intensely, and asked the soldiers in the back row to shout in unison at a louder voice.

"The Han Dynasty will surely rise! The traitors will surely perish! The Han Dynasty will surely rise! The traitors will surely perish!"

As Guan Yu's central army shouted and fought, they began to push forward, no longer defending with shields and spears. Zang Ba and Sun Guan on the opposite side also became increasingly confused, and their positions began to loosen and retreat.

Seeing this from a distance, Xiahou Yuan also hurriedly sent the remaining infantry reserve troops around him to try to hold the front line. At the same time, he quickly ordered Zhang He to attack with his entire army, taking advantage of the opportunity when Zang Ba and Sun Guan were sticking to Guan Yu's front, to attack Guan Yu from the flank.

Zhang He's 6,000 cavalrymen started moving immediately, and Zhang Liao on the opposite side was not afraid at all. Although he had only 2,000 cavalrymen, only one-third of Zhang He's, he still detoured to a more flanking direction to intercept Zhang He.

Trying to hit Zhang He's flank when Zhang He was trying to hit Guan Yu's flank.

The cavalry of both sides soon joined together in the process of extending their flanks to each other, charging at each other and shooting with bows, creating a very chaotic scene.

Zhang Liao was even braver than Zhang He, and the cavalry under his command were also more determined, but they were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers and could only try to defend themselves.

It wouldn't be long before Zhang He was able to divide his troops to hold back Zhang Liao, and then use another part of the cavalry to flank Guan Yu.

However, just as Zhang He was trying to hold off and get rid of Zhang Liao, Guan Yu also made a move.

Guan Yu's central army was mostly infantry, with only a thousand cavalry, and that included the horses of officers and guards. He keenly noticed Zhang Liao's entanglement with Zhang He, and also noticed that Xiahou Yuan was going to send a reserve force to hold up Zang Ba and Sun Guan's back.

Guan Yu knew that time was running out. Once Xiahou Yuan's reinforcements arrived, or Zhang He got rid of Zhang Liao, the situation would become even more difficult.

So Guan Yu chose to go all out. He saw that Zang Ba and Sun Guan had become somewhat loose, and the soldiers in the front row were retreating more and more scattered, to the point that Zang Ba and Sun Guan themselves had to wield their swords and enforce military law, forcing the troops not to retreat.

"No unauthorized retreat is allowed! General Xiahou's reserve troops have arrived! Anyone who retreats without permission will be killed!" Zang Ba shouted at the top of his lungs to maintain military discipline, and even killed two deserters, but the soldiers around him were so terrified that they hid further and further away from him.

Even those soldiers who had no intention of fleeing and were still fighting were unwilling to stand beside a general who had maintained military law by killing his own people, for fear that the commander-in-chief might be emotionally unstable and use his head to establish his authority.

Guan Yu seized the opportunity and raised the military flag. The front formation consisting of long spears and large shields changed slightly, leaving a passage for Guan Yu and his direct cavalry team to charge.

This time, Guan Yu did not shout at all, and there was no extra beating of drums. Everything was normal. The moment he took out his most powerful killer move, it was eerily quiet, as if no accident was going to happen.

Guan Yu brandished his Qinglong sword, and the cavalrymen beside him also swung their swords and stabbed silently, killing people as easily as grass, with only the rhythm of horse hooves as accompaniment.

Zang Ba, who was maintaining the front line, suddenly felt a chill in his heart. When he looked ahead, although he did not see any particularly threatening enemies, his instinct had already made him realize that something was wrong, and he quickly organized the cavalry guards around him to gather and resist.

There were no double stirrups in this era. With Guan Yu's martial arts skills, he naturally could not hide in the stirrups, so he could only crouch down and hide most of his upper body behind the neck of the warhorse.

When Guan Yu encountered enemy cavalry soldiers along the way, he didn't even need to stand up. He just lay half-lying down and killed them one by one with one hand, finishing them off sharply.

And by lowering his body like this, Zang Ba could not see him at all when he was a hundred steps away. He did not kill him until he was forty or fifty steps away. Only then did Zang Ba notice that the oncoming enemy cavalry was extremely fierce and sharp. He was unstoppable, so he quickly gathered all his guards to fight with them.

There was no other way. After all, Guan Yu was now famous. Who wouldn't be on guard against him? It was impossible to launch a complete sneak attack.

Guan Yu didn't worry about his intention of a surprise attack being discovered. After all, he was close enough and could convert the sneak attack into a strong attack at any time. It was no big deal!
"Death, you thief!" After his identity was exposed, Guan Yu no longer crouched, but instead swung his sword with both arms. His moves also changed from dodging to sweeping and powerful. Naturally, no one could match him.

A sharp green light flashed by, and Zang Ba tried his best but couldn't even see it clearly. He just relied on muscle memory to block it.

After a loud noise, he felt dizzy and his arms were numb. Zang Ba's arms seemed to be out of his control, and he struggled to block the attack.

Not long after, Zang Ba was hit by a green light, and his head disappeared. However, his arms continued to dance wildly for a few seconds due to inertia and nerve reflex, and then relaxed and fell down.

Just like a frog in a biological laboratory that has been stabbed by a scalpel, its limbs can still twitch for a while in self-defense by relying on the unconditioned reflex of the spinal nerve bundles.

-

PS: I wrote a little slowly today, and it’s even later.

The main reason is that the war scenes are difficult to break up. There were 4,000 words in the morning and 5,000 words in this chapter, which is actually equivalent to three updates.

(End of this chapter)