My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 727: Unifying the Southern Territory

"Zhuge Liang has indeed taken the initiative to march south to meet our army. This battle is inevitable."

At the mouth of a valley more than 30 miles south of Dianchi County, Shi Yi and his brothers, with more than 20,000 reinforcements from Jiaozhi, as well as the barbarian soldiers who were persuaded and coerced along the way, arrived here last night, then hastily set up camp and rested for half the night.

Unexpectedly, before dawn today, Zhuge Liang led the main force of the Han army besieging Dianchi County, abandoned the enemies in the city, and marched south to meet the reinforcements from Jiaozhi that came from afar.

Seeing this, the two brothers Shi Yi and Shi could only shake their heads and smile bitterly, and had no choice but to prepare for the battle.

According to their original intention, they must have hoped that Zhuge Liang would first attack the city, fight with Yong Kai until both sides were defeated, and then the third party force of Jiaozhi Army would come in and reap the benefits.

However, Yong Kai mentioned in his previous letters of request for assistance that the Jianning Army was in danger. He said that Zhuge Liang had built a variety of extremely powerful siege weapons during the siege of Dianchi County, and if he attacked the city again, the defenders would definitely not be able to withstand it.

The reinforcements of the Shi family were afraid that the situation would get out of hand, so they had to rush to the battlefield and take part in the decisive battle.

However, even so, Shi Yi, the commander of the support army, was still very cautious. The closer he got to the battlefield, the more steady he advanced. At first, he would set up camp after advancing fifty miles a day, and finally he slowed down to only advancing thirty miles a day before setting up camp.

The main point is to not give the enemy a chance to intercept or fight in the open field. This ensures that even if Zhuge Liang wants to "besiege and attack the reinforcements", he has to attack the Jiaozhi army's camp by force, and it is impossible to catch the Jiaozhi army on the plain.

Of course, the camps that Shi Yi had set up in the past few days were not very solid, because he could not predict at which step the enemy would come to attack him, and he could not waste resources indefinitely.

The camp he relied on today was hastily set up near midnight last night. At that time, only some tents were set up for officers and elite soldiers to rest. Most of the other ordinary cannon fodder soldiers even had to sleep in the open air, so there was no talk of building fortifications.

Thanks to the fact that the south has always been hot, especially the area near Kunming, which was later known as the City of Spring, it was not cold at all during the first month of the year, so it didn't matter if the soldiers slept in the open air without any shelter.

After most of the soldiers went to sleep, only a few soldiers on night patrol continued to simply reinforce the camp. Until this morning, they had just hastily built a crooked and sparse bamboo fence.

Because the fence was not dense enough, the bamboo stakes could only be connected with hastily tied straw ropes, so there was no defense at all, but it was better than a skirmish on the plains.

War can never proceed according to the plan of any party. No matter how good the plan is, the enemy will always find ways to seek a more favorable battlefield environment and opportunity for fighting.

What’s more, the opponent of the Shi brothers was Zhuge Liang.

……

Around the end of the morning hour, the Shijia army was well-rested and after hastily reinforcing the camp's defensive positions, they waited for the Han army to attack.

The county seat of Dianchi Lake was roughly in the urban area of Kunming in later generations, and the battlefield here was roughly located in the Jinning District of Kunming in later generations. This was a valley basin on the south bank of Dianchi Lake, and further south was the Yuxi City of later generations.

In later generations, many highways connecting Kunming and Yuzhou passed through these valleys, which shows that the terrain here is indeed suitable for marching over mountains. It is normal for the Shi family's army to choose to go here to reinforce Yong Kai.

The battlefield was surrounded by high mountains on both sides, and the troops could not deploy or make detours. The front of the battlefield was a trumpet-shaped area that was wide in the north and narrow in the south. The south side was the mouth of a valley, and the north side was close to the Dianchi Lake. The Han army rushed to the battlefield by following the east bank of the Dianchi Lake.

Gan Ning was in the center, Zhang Ren in the west, and Zhou Tai in the east. The Han army was divided into three arrows from a distance, forming a front that was wider and thinner than the Shijia army, and was ready to launch a full-scale attack right from the start.

"From the looks of it, could it be that Zhuge Liang is going to attack us directly without even answering us? He has stretched the front of the attack so wide, is he preparing to attack at the same time? Why doesn't he choose to focus on one point and tear open our camp defense first?"

Shi Yi stood on a high earthen platform on the east side of the camp. After observing the enemy situation for a while, he couldn't help but analyze the situation with his brother in a negotiating tone.

After hearing this, the scholar made some suggestions: "Since my brother is worried that Zhuge Liang will advance together, why don't we take the initiative to attack, concentrate all our forces to attack northward, and directly reach the shore of Dianchi Lake to cut off the enemy?
The enemy's numbers don't seem to be as large as ours, and they dare to stretch the front so wide, so the thickness and depth of the enemy's formation must be inferior to ours, so it shouldn't be difficult to intercept them."

The total number of troops brought by Zhuge Liang this time is quite large, and Gan Ning's troops have only recently arrived at the front line quietly.

However, in today's battle, Zhuge Liang could not send all his troops out at once to fight against the Shijia Army. He had to leave a few thousand men to guard the camp and prevent the siege camp from being stolen by Yong Kai.

Along the way, the Shi Family Army also persuaded and bewitched many local barbarian kings and their armed forces to serve as vassal troops. So judging from the number of people on the front battlefield at this moment, the Shi Family Army still has a slight advantage, but it is hard to say how many cannon fodders there are among them.

From a military point of view, the width of the formation of the side with fewer people should be narrower than that of the side with more people, so that it is thicker. If the side with fewer people is still pulling too fast, the depth will be as thin as paper.

But Zhuge Liang did not play according to military common sense. He moved along the east and south banks of Dianchi Lake, preparing to encircle and attack from a wide front.

Even though the formation looked weak, as if the Shijia Army could cut off the Han army in half as long as they took the initiative to advance northward, Zhuge Liang did not care at all.

Shi Yi felt a strong temptation and was a little shaken by his brother's instigation, but he finally chose to remain calm.

"Zhuge Liang is full of tricks. Maybe this is his trick to lure the enemy! He wants to lure our army into losing their temper and turn from defense to offense, so that he won't have to storm our camp!
We must not fall for Zhuge Liang's tricks! No matter how arrogant the enemy may seem or how weak their formation is, we must remain unmoved, respond to all changes with the same attitude, and wait for Zhuge Liang to take the initiative to attack!"

Shi Yi had said so much, what else could his fourth brother say? He could only let things take their own course.

Therefore, the Han army moved boldly, crossing the enemy's formation along the southern bank of Dianchi Lake only two or three miles in front of the enemy's formation, fully maneuvering into position. After maneuvering into position, they were able to fine-tune the formation and prepare the troops to be in the best offensive posture.

Then, Gan Ning came out from the center, and Zhou Tai and Zhang Ren from the left and right wings also came out. When they were out of the range of the crossbows in front of the formation, Gan Ning brought his curses and sneered at the Shi brothers.

"Stupid fellow! You have fallen into the trap set by my Lord Zhuge again! General Gan Ning is here! You incompetent men, why don't you die soon!
It is so easy for my Lord to kill Yong Kai! If it were not for the fact that your clan is in a remote place and it is not easy to travel thousands of miles, we would not have to temporarily leave Yong Kai's life as bait and wait for you to die here!"

Many members of the Shijia Army had just vaguely seen the "Gan" flag in the distance, but it was not yet completely bright, and the view was poor from a distance. Moreover, even if they saw the "Gan" flag, they could not be sure who the other party was.

Now hearing Gan Ning introducing himself, and a bunch of people shouting and cursing, the Shi family army was indeed a little panicked.

Because the intelligence they had received before only said that Zhuge Liang brought more than 10,000 soldiers to Nanzhong, but did not say that Gan Ning's army was also coming.

Now that the battle is at its critical juncture, and hearing that the enemy's combat power has suddenly doubled, many officers can't help but feel timid and afraid of falling into a trap.

Especially when Gan Ning publicly exposed the fact that "you have fallen into a trap again", the Shijia Army was even more shaken. Because even if there were relatively calm people who could control themselves, they could not help but think "how many of those comrades and colleagues would be frightened by this".

Once this chain of suspicion spreads at the critical moment, the effect will be extremely deadly.

You may not be afraid yourself, but how can you guarantee that the people around you are not afraid either?
Gan Ning was obviously very good at controlling the rhythm. He did not launch a charge immediately after the verbal abuse. Instead, he continued to let each unit show off their power and verbal abuse for a full half incense stick of time before launching a full charge.

This is also what Zhuge Liang told him before the battle - if he charged right after cursing and talking about his own reliance, then the enemy would also be driven by passion and instinctive stress response, and would bite the bullet and do it first, without calming down and thinking.

It is necessary to give the enemy a little time to suspect, think and react, so that the effect of psychological attack can ferment slightly, and then use a swift offensive to prove and expand the rationality of this fear, which is the most effective way to attack the heart.

The time difference of half an incense stick is the most reasonable fermentation time - this is the experience summarized and calculated by Zhuge Liang over many years.

"Kill! The thief who established himself as a traitor will be punished by heaven!"

"If you help Cao Cao to commit atrocities, you will be punished by heaven!"

"Those who surrender will not be killed!"

Gan Ning used his iron halberd to charge forward with hundreds of cavalrymen, as well as the sword and shield soldiers and axe and shield soldiers. Zhang Ren and Zhou Tai on both wings also rushed out at almost the same time.

The Han army marching south had almost no spearmen, only a small number of halberd soldiers, which was also to adapt to the mountain warfare environment in the south. Therefore, today's attack was mainly based on soldiers with swords, axes, hammers and shields. Fortunately, the defense facilities of the opposing camp were not very strong, and the enemy was mostly short-handed with shields, so neither side had the advantage or disadvantage of weapon length.

As the defending party, the Shijia Army could fire three or four volleys of arrows in battle, but the south was hot and humid, and the crossbow strings were not durable and easily lost their elasticity, so they also used bows as their main long-range weapons.

The soldiers of the Shi family were not good at poisoning, so it was really difficult to expect the physical kinetic energy of ordinary bows to penetrate the armor of the Han army.

Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and other troops bravely withstood these three rounds of arrow rain and quickly rushed to the front without suffering many casualties. The two sides immediately engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight.

The quality of weapons used by the Shijia soldiers is only slightly better than those of the southern barbarians, but it is definitely far from that of the two top forces today, Cao and Liu.

They had been forced to retreat to Jiaozhi for several years after being beaten by Liu Bei. The fierce military confrontation and military technology upgrades in the Central Plains had nothing to do with them.

The princes who have stayed in this "offline mode" for a long time will inevitably feel a little uncomfortable when they reconnect to the Central Plains hegemony mode.

Shi Yi relied mainly on the two fences built with hastily sharpened bamboos. With these defensive fortifications, he could barely fight against Gan Ning and Zhou Tai.

But as the Han soldiers rushed forward, they swung their heavy long-bladed battle axes forged with the sandwich steel method and chopped them violently. The bamboo fence and the Jiaozhi soldiers who were defending behind the fence were all chopped into pieces.

The bowl-thick bamboos were not easy to chop with the heavy steel-clad battle axes. Even the wooden and rattan shields held by the Jiaozhi soldiers could not withstand the heavy and sharp battle axes.

In just a cup of tea, Shi Yi was stunned by the three-pronged knife-like attack from the Han army.

It was not until this moment that he understood why Zhuge Liang dared to let Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and Zhang Ren stretch the front line so long and attack the three directions of the Shijia Army camp at the same time.

Because the Han army didn't care about the defensive fortifications of the Shijia Army's camps, nor did they care about the labor required to break through a few more fortifications.

This kind of bamboo fence can be chopped down with just a few axes, and no siege weapons are needed.

How could the soldiers of the Shi family resist seeing the enemy attacking so fiercely?
After being caught in the melee, Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and other fierce generals became more and more like fish in water. They brandished their weapons and led their personal cavalry to slash and kill wildly in the crowd.

In this Nanzhong Campaign, although the number of cavalry brought by Zhuge Liang was not large, generals such as Gan Ning were only allocated a few hundred cavalry each. The main reason was that cavalry were not suitable for the battlefield environment of Nanzhong, which was densely covered with hills and mountains.

However, the battlefield in the Dianchi Basin today is relatively open and flat, which is also suitable for cavalry to perform. And because the enemy rarely uses long spears, they are all short weapons with shields, which poses less threat to cavalry.

Gan Ning only led a few hundred cavalrymen, but he was able to exert a huge impact force just right. Almost no one could hurt him as he charged and hacked around.

The bloody mincing and chopping lasted only half an hour before the Shi family army, which had come from afar, could no longer hold on.

Although Zhou Tai suffered some minor injuries, he continued to slash and kill with his sword wildly, breaking through the core of the enemy's left formation and chopping off the enemy's deputy general with one blow.

Shi Yi watched Zhou Tai charge into his fourth brother's flag formation. Although he was unable to confirm whether his fourth brother was alive or dead due to the distance between them, he was still quite frightened when he saw the flag being chopped down. He immediately began to regret and wanted to run away.

Gan Ning was already not far from him. Shi Yi could no longer control his inner fear and finally turned his horse and fled.

The Han army then launched a fierce attack.

More than 20,000 Jiaozhi soldiers marched for nearly a month and finally arrived at the battlefield in the Dianchi Basin. However, they were completely defeated after fighting for just over an hour.

The time cost comparison between traveling and performing on stage is even worse than that of the Chinese national football team.

When Gan Ning killed his way through the Jiaozhi army, he did not see Shi Yi, and wanted to continue to chase him. But Zhuge Liang, the rear army, sounded the horn, and Gan Ning suddenly woke up. He immediately stopped the attack and began to gather his troops and regroup.

Zhuge Liang quickly sent someone to explain the situation: "Yong Kai's main force has left Dianchi County and is marching south. They are approaching the battlefield. I order you to turn back immediately to fight and defeat Yong Kai.

We must seize Yong Kai before he knows that the Shijia Army has collapsed, and not give him the opportunity to regret and withdraw! The task of cleaning up the battlefield and capturing the remaining soldiers here will not be too late after defeating Yong Kai!"

Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and others certainly knew what to prioritize. At this time, capturing prisoners and expanding the results of the battle could be put aside until the front battlefield was resolved.

Anyway, a few hours won't make a difference. The scattered soldiers of the Shijia clan cannot escape back to Jiaozhi. It will take at least half a month to get there.

Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and Zhang Ren quickly gathered their troops and tried their best to form a battle array to meet the enemy.

Before they were fully prepared, Yong Kai, who came from behind to attack, had already launched a charge - there was nothing they could do about it. At any time, a war would not go exactly as planned by either side, and the enemy would always try to find ways to gain more advantages.

Zhuge Liang's plan was certainly good, first going south and then north, defeating one side before turning back to attack the other side, but in practice, it would definitely be slower than expected to withdraw the troops after they had fought hard.

Fortunately, when Zhuge Liang attacked the Shijia Army, he did not send all his troops forward. He also left some reserves, ready to deal with new unexpected threats at any time, so he was not taken advantage of by Yong Kai.

Yong Kai quickly led E Huan and Meng Huo, a total of more than 20,000 troops, and launched a charge towards the rear of the Han army, engaging in a fierce battle with the Han army that turned back to engage in battle.

The Han army also had no time to shout, no time to tell the enemy "you have fallen into a trap" to strike a blow to the enemy's morale and shake the enemy's military spirit in advance.

The two sides fought head-on without any fancy moves.

Swords, axes, and hammers chopped and smashed against each other in a bloody fight.

The Nanman soldiers' scimitars slashed at the cloth armor of the Han soldiers, completely tearing the cloth apart, but in the end they could only leave a scratch on the steel plate. Only the hammers could barely cause damage to the Han army's cloth armor soldiers by relying on the kinetic energy of the impact.

For the Southern Barbarian soldiers, the Han army's hacking moves were fatal and disabling as long as they hit hard.

Yong Kai, relying on his courage and the fierce attack of Meng Huo and others, was able to fight the Han army on equal terms at first.

However, as Gan Ning, Zhou Tai and Zhang Ren gradually shifted their forces to the northern battlefield and reorganized the battle formations and discipline, the impact of the southern barbarian soldiers was quickly eliminated.

The incompetent and frenzied attack of the southern barbarian soldiers eventually turned into the waves of the Yellow River, hitting the mainstay and then dissipating into nothingness.

"Shi Yi has been beheaded! The Jiaozhi army has been annihilated! Yong Kai, you bastard! This is just a trick of my master to lure you out of the city! You've fallen into his trap again!"

As the Han army gradually turned the situation around, Gan Ning and others gradually had time to organize shouting and attacking the enemies in the chaos.

Moreover, those southern barbarian soldiers who attacked fiercely could gradually discover that the Jiaozhi reinforcements who had been fighting bloody battles on the southern battlefield just now seemed to have stopped moving, and there seemed to be no more threats behind the enemy.

Facts speak louder than words. When more and more Nanman soldiers realized that the reinforcements of the Shi family were finished, their courage to rescue their allies and defeat Zhuge Liang together was completely gone.

Gan Ning and other generals fought bravely, cutting the troops of Yong Kai and Meng Huo into several pieces. Seeing that the situation was hopeless, large numbers of Nanman soldiers who were divided and surrounded had no choice but to collapse and surrender.

Yong Kai himself was killed in the chaos of the army in this humiliating defeat.

(End of this chapter)