My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 372: Yuan's army was wiped out in the midst of laughter and conversation
"Why would Taishi Ci come to attack us at this time? Could it be that our plan to retreat in batches during the night was discovered by Taishi Ci?"

It was late at night, and Lu Xiang was just preparing to have his soldiers board the ship in an orderly manner and withdraw from the enemy's interception range in a low-key manner. Hearing the shouting and killing in the distance, he was naturally surprised and a sense of fear rose in his heart.

He cursed countless stupid teammates in his heart. In his helpless rage, he thought of many possibilities: either Lü Kuang was not careful enough, or his own scouts were not strong enough and did not work hard to kill Taishi Ci's scouts, so the secret was leaked...

No matter what, this is definitely not his fault, but now he has to clean up the mess!
Fortunately, Lu Xiang still had some basic military qualities and professional ethics. After a brief moment of resentment and anger, he quickly responded and made deployments, ordering the rear troops to continue to hold the camp and fight to the death to delay the enemy.

He handed the task of organizing the boarding to his deputy general, and personally rode back to the front of the southern camp to supervise the battle and buy time. He also picked up his sword and killed three or four junior officers of the new recruits who were leading the fleeing, and shouted loudly:

"Don't panic! Taishi Ci only has two or three thousand cavalrymen. At most, he can break through one or two positions in our camp. The rest of the troops must hold on firmly and not move without permission! Anyone who leaves the camp without permission will be executed!"

Under normal circumstances, Lu Xiang's insight is not wrong, and can even be said to be knowledgeable about military affairs.

In a night battle, the side with more people is most afraid of fighting each other without distinguishing between friend and foe, or even trampling each other. Once a small group of enemy troops intervenes to disrupt the battle, the side with more people will suffer heavy losses.

This situation is especially obvious when the soldiers on the smaller side are elite, while the soldiers on the larger side are a mob.

Therefore, Lu Xiang determined that Taishi Ci was bluffing and that the total number of troops would not be too large. In this case, he was absolutely correct in ordering each camp to hold its ground, not to reinforce friendly forces without authorization, and not to go to the adjacent camps to fight without authorization.

Of course, fighting like this would have its disadvantages, that is, Yuan Shang's army could not take advantage of their absolute numerical advantage. Originally, 30,000 to 40,000 people could have ganged up on several thousand people, but now they had to stand still, ready to fight, passively waiting for Taishi Ci to kill them.

Only when Taishi Ci attacks a camp can the defenders of that camp counterattack on the spot, thus forming a tactic of rotation and replenishment.

Originally, if seven or eight weaklings surrounded and attacked a master at the same time, it was possible that the master could be killed without any casualties on their side, or with only one or two casualties at most.

Now, if seven or eight weaklings come up one by one in batches, then the first two or three weaklings who are targeted by the experts will definitely die, and the losses of the weaklings will inevitably increase greatly.

But Lu Xiang felt that it was worth it. In the event of a surprise attack at night, this was the best way to prevent the entire army from being blown up and thrown into chaos. In comparison, the loss of more lives in a war of attrition while defending a position was the lesser of two evils.

……

Lu Xiang did not immediately organize a reserve force to come to the rescue, but instead ordered each camp to defend on the spot. This style of play certainly made Taishi Ci's early breakthrough more smooth.

The first place he chose that night was a small camp in the southwest corner of Yuan’s Nanpi siege camp, because this direction was located on the side and rear of the upper reaches of the Zhang River. Attacking from here would be the most unexpected and the enemy’s defenses were not tight.

The fact that the soldiers guarding the camp did not receive reinforcements meant that they had been abandoned by Lu Xiang. Lu Xiang used the destruction of this camp to buy time for other camps to prepare.

In this case, Taishi Ci accepted it without hesitation.

Even though cavalry was not good for attacking, more than 2,000 cavalrymen charged at a camp that only had recruits and civilians, and quickly broke through the target.

The hooks and ropes of the vanguard cavalry were flying, and after hooking the chevaux de frise, they relied on the horsepower to pull out the horns of the chevaux de frise and drag them down, thus opening a path for the rear army to charge.

The surging cavalry rushed into the camp, killing anyone they saw. Soon the entire camp was completely destroyed, and those who were lucky enough to survive all knelt in the corner and begged for surrender.

The defeated soldiers fled uncontrollably to the friendly camps on the left and right sides, creating considerable chaos and causing the morale of the friendly forces to plummet again.

Taishi Ci was so excited about killing that after he broke through the first camp, he immediately rushed to the adjacent camps on both sides like mercury, expanding the gap. It was at this moment that he gradually had a glimmer of enlightenment in his heart:
"Could it be that Gongjin's prediction was correct? Previously, Lu Xiang had only dared to harass our army on land with a small group of cavalry, and had never sent the navy ashore or the entire infantry and cavalry to attack. So he thought that tonight it was just a small number of cavalry raiding the camp?
He thought that "letting each army hold its own camp, not to move without authorization, and not to reinforce friendly neighbors" was the most reliable tactic to deal with the cavalry raiding the camp, so he chose this passive tactic of taking the beating, but he didn't know that our army would have its own infantry battalion to launch a general attack later...

Gongjin's wisdom is indeed not to be underestimated. When he was under Sun Ce's command, he didn't achieve much. Could it be that he married Ziyu's sister, so his wisdom and strategy have improved?"

Taishi Ci couldn't help but think so in his heart.

If Zhou Yu knew this idea, he might be so angry that he would argue in public: I am very smart, that's just how it is! What does it have to do with marrying a woman from the Zhuge family! I didn't have the opportunity to make achievements in Jiangdong because my comrades were not strong enough and the enemy was too strong!
Unfortunately, Zhou Yu no longer had the opportunity to explain this problem. Who made the Zhuge family of this time and space debut and become famous much earlier than him? Since Zhou Yu married a woman from the Zhuge family, outsiders would definitely think that he had made progress after his second marriage.

Those thoughts only flashed through Taishi Ci's mind, but his men did not relax at all and continued to attack fiercely to tear open the gap.

The 5,000 or 6,000 infantrymen led by Zhou Yu, who were formed by the navy landing, also quickly joined the battlefield after Taishi Ci broke through the first camp, and continued to expand the victory on both sides along the gap torn open by the cavalry brothers. This style of play is actually somewhat similar to the "infantry-tank coordination" of later generations, "tanks break through, infantry occupy, and expand the pincer attack to both wings to create positions."

Taishi Ci was like a scalpel, drilling everywhere.

Zhou Yu was like surgical forceps, clamping the wound made by the scalpel and tearing it to both sides to make the wound bigger.

In this situation, there was nothing Lu Xiang could do except lose blood like crazy.

……

Lu Xiang was caught in a dilemma in the siege camp. He organized a resistance for a while, but the situation deteriorated rapidly. After a while, he saw the attacking troops rushing towards his main camp like a tsunami.

The Yuan army in other camps on the left and right were happy to carry out the commander's orders, "Hold your own camps, do not move rashly, and only defend on the spot", so when they saw Zhou Yu charging towards Lu Xiang's central camp, the friendly forces did not come to rescue.

It was the commander who didn't let us rescue him! If we go rashly, the commander will blame us for disturbing the morale of the troops in the dark!

"Oh no! We've fallen into a trap! It's not that Taishi Ci led a small number of cavalry to raid the camp! It's that the main force of the infantry has also pressed forward! How dare Zhou Yu, a coward like him, let the navy land and fight my Hebei warriors on foot? Aren't those Jiangdong rats unable to even run steadily?"

Lu Xiang watched the enemy infantry destroy the wooden fence and deer horns, rush into the main camp of the central army and fight with his trusted veterans, and finally realized that he had fallen into a trap. His hasty deployment was also full of mistakes, making Zhou Yu's breakthrough smoother.

Because most of Yuan Shang's 40,000-man army did not go into battle at all! Instead, they stayed in their camp and waited for the time being because the enemy situation was unclear at night.

This means that out of the 40,000 people, only 7,000 to 8,000 were fighting with Taishi Ci and Zhou Yu at the same time, and the others were at a loss.

After the bloody battles and personnel changes in the past few years, the combat effectiveness and quality of Yuan Shang's troops had already declined a lot. If the number of people fighting on the front line of both sides was similar, Yuan Shang's troops would definitely be crushed by Liu Bei's elite troops.

What's more, some of Lu Xiang's elite soldiers were originally preparing to board the ship and retreat. If you force them back to stop them at this time, will the other side agree?
As Taishi Ci and Zhou Yu charged into the main camp of the central army, Lu Xiang's main force soon fell into chaos.

Seeing that the opportunity to escape by boat was within reach, many soldiers rushed to the dock by the river of the camp like crazy, and countless people were pushed into the water.

The soldiers from Hebei were not used to swimming, and countless of them drowned or choked on water and fell unconscious.

People on the pier were pushed into the water in rows, and those who could swim were inevitably trampled and piled up on top of each other.

Or they may be pulled and dragged by other comrades who have fallen into the water and drown together - I believe that any reader who has seen a drowning person struggling will have no doubt about this. Think about how many people who think they are good at swimming go into the water to save others, but once they are entangled by the struggling drowning people, they are likely to be dragged and drowned together.

The soldiers who were already on board saw the chaotic situation. Some of them ignored the ship's load and draft and climbed up the ship frantically. Of course, they drew their knives without hesitation and chopped their arms and fingers. Soon, they were left with "a lot of fingers in the boat".

Lu Xiang completely lost control of the army, and only led hundreds of his trusted guards to fight left and right, trying to break out. But no one cared whether he was the commander at this time, and none of the Yuan Shang soldiers blocking the dock gave way to him. Even though Lu Xiang had started to kill his own people to maintain order, he still couldn't fight his way out.

Taishi Ci and Zhou Yu's troops arrived from behind and chased Lu Xiang towards the Zhang River. Both the infantry and cavalry of Liu Bei's army were full of fighting spirit, charging and shouting loudly. Lu Xiang was soon swallowed up by the crowd and died under the swords in the darkness.

It was a pity that it was too dark, and the main general's target was not obvious in the chaos, so Taishi Ci was unable to personally watch Lu Xiang and chase him.

The melee continued until dawn, when Lu Xiang's body was found, chopped into pieces. No one knew at whose hands he died in the chaos.

Yuan Shang's army lost as many as three to four thousand veteran soldiers in this battle, and almost the same number of new recruits and civilians were also killed, half of whom drowned or were trampled to death.

Of the 40,000-strong army, at least 20,000 to 30,000 did not participate in the battle at all, being pinned down by Lu Xiang's order to "hold their positions". Later, when they saw that the main general and the main camp of the central army had collapsed, these weak cannon fodder troops, who had no fighting spirit in the first place, naturally surrendered as a whole.

That night, less than 10,000 people fled the camp or successfully escaped by boat via the Zhangshui waterway, and there were 7,000 to 8,000 casualties.

When the prisoners were counted after the war, more than 26,000 people were captured, at least 20,000 of whom did not participate in the battle at all and surrendered as a whole army after the battle. Unfortunately, these 20,000 people were almost all new recruits and civilians.

(End of this chapter)