My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 737: Destroy Two Enemies in One Battle
As Jueji was shot and fell off his horse in the chaos, the last elite cavalry of the Liaoxi Xianbei who were still resisting stubbornly soon fell into chaos.

The ordinary cavalry on the periphery had already been unable to hold on after the fierce battle with Zhao Yun's troops, and fled in all directions.

The only ones who persisted in fighting to the death were the several thousand confidants around Jueji. After Jueji's flag fell, these people only lasted less than a cup of tea before they completely collapsed.

Zhao Yun personally held a spear forged of fine steel and killed his way through the elite Xianbei cavalry. As his weapon flew, he killed countless people.

The blade of Zhao Yun's spear was longer than that of a horse lance, and it was obviously a newly made one.

From this, we can also see that Liu Bei's camp's steelmaking technology has improved in the past two years. This can ensure that after the spear blade is extended, it will not affect the overall structural strength due to its thickness being too thin.

Zhao Yun's new spear was made by Pu Yuanxin after his brother-in-law Zhuge Liang made steel in a fire well in Qianwei County last year. At that time, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and others were also given new weapons.

However, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei care more about the feel, so the new weapons have not changed much in shape, but the material has become tougher and sharper.

Zhao Yun was not so particular about the shape of his spear, and could use any shape. Zhuge Liang took this into consideration and made the blade of his spear longer, almost the same as that of a halberd or a spear, so that it could be used for stabbing as well as for slashing with a small amount of force.

In this way, although Zhao Yun in this life was unable to obtain Cao Cao's Qinggang Sword as in the parallel universe, when he rushed into the group of cavalry, he was still able to use the light and agile spear skills that made "blood all over the body fall like falling snow" and also to produce the mighty effect of "clothes and armor flattened and blood gushing like a spring".

The "gun and sword dual-wielding" effect that originally required two weapons to achieve can now be achieved with just one weapon.

Especially in this battle, they were facing the Xianbei cavalry who lacked heavy armor. Even if the elite cavalry who only had leather armor were brave in their personal martial arts, they could not avoid the shortcoming of defense.

Zhao Yun fiercely killed his way through the already chaotic enemy formation, and finally came to the place where Jue Ji died. He stabbed to death the guards who were still numbly guarding the body with a few shots.
Then, with a precise swing, he used the slender blade like a halberd to cut off the head directly from the place where the helmet was not covering the neck.

Then, like a toothpick piercing an apple, he pierced the cheek of the head of the gun accurately, avoiding the jawbone, entering from the left palm and exiting from the right palm. With a light poke, the head was picked up on the gun tip, and blood splattered like the syrup coating on a candied haws.

All the movements were done in one go, clean and neat, quite beautiful. However, it also made the remaining Xianbei soldiers who witnessed this process even more frightened, and they almost felt that they were not fighting against humans.

It's too brutal, too crushing, why are we still fighting?
The last of the Xianbei guards also dismounted and surrendered. Those who had time to escape fled in all directions, and only surrendered when they were surrounded. The entire battlefield gradually became orderly again within half a quarter of an hour.

Zhao Yun had not had time to count the number of prisoners, but a quick glance at the battlefield made him a little dissatisfied with the results of the battle - before the war, he and Suli had reached a gentleman's agreement in private that the prisoners would be divided into 30% and 70%, with 70% for the imperial court and 30% for the Yuyang Xianbei.

But in the fierce battle just now, Suli did not fight desperately at all. He only chased the enemy northward to take advantage and fight a favorable battle after the enemy's morale had collapsed. The first round of hard battles were all fought by Zhao Yun himself.

And Suli's ability to preserve his strength also meant that after Jue Ji's death, the scale of the Liaoxi Xianbei cavalry being encircled and annihilated and captured was not as large as expected.

After all, what Zhao Yun was expecting was that Shi Suli would make a detour from the side and rear and completely surround Jueji, leaving his defeated army no chance to escape in an organized manner.

But Suli was slow in action. He only chased after the enemy and slightly cut off their waist, but did not stop their head. How could he possibly encircle and annihilate the prisoners in an organized manner?
Of course, Suli also has reasons to excuse himself. He can say that for the sake of the confidentiality of the operation, he did not dare to pass on the news of his own defection to ordinary soldiers in advance. Only senior generals could know about it before the war, so the defection at the last minute was a bit chaotic.

But no matter what, in this situation, how can Suli have the nerve to take 30%?

Fortunately, now was not the time to discuss the division of spoils. Although Zhao Yun was dissatisfied, he could only suppress it temporarily and wait until the battle was completely over before going back to discuss it with Su Li.

Because when Zhao Yun made a hasty landing and collected the prisoners, the scouts he had sent to the right side of the battle line had already come back on horseback to report that the armies of Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai were within ten miles of them, and their vanguard was even only six or seven miles away from the battlefield.

After all, before this battle, Jueji and Suli's idea was to "delay Zhao Yun and delay the moment of direct battle with Zhao Yun, and at the same time get closer to Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai in the central army as soon as possible."

So when Zhao Yun caught up with Jue Ji and started fighting just now, Jue Ji was not too far away from Gongsun Kang's army, only 20 to 30 miles at most, or even closer.

But they did not expect that Jueji would fail so quickly and completely, because Suli's defection at the last minute had a very severe and sudden psychological and morale shock on the Liaoxi Xianbei soldiers.

They didn't even have the time it took their friendly forces to march twenty miles before their entire army was defeated, which even gave Zhao Yun some time to clean up the battlefield and roughly receive prisoners.

As for Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai, they were still far away and the battlefield situation was changing rapidly and was too noisy, so they could not tell how Jue Ji and Su Li were fighting.

Gazing from afar, all you can see is the dust of battle covering the sky and the sound of killing shaking the heavens.

By the time they got to a closer distance and discovered that something was wrong, it was too late to withdraw.

Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai were fighting on their own soil to defend their homes, so their mobilization rate was very high and there were many temporarily recruited infantrymen in their army.

However, Zhao Yun was a pure cavalryman. If Gongsun Kang found out that something was wrong during the battle and wanted to turn around and withdraw his troops within a distance of five or six miles or even closer, he would definitely fall into chaos and be stabbed in the back by Zhao Yun, causing his entire army to collapse.

Of course, Gongsun Kang was not completely without the opportunity to cut off his arm, but his arm would be cut off more completely, even close to being cut in half. If Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai could make up their minds and immediately abandon all the infantry units as soon as they found that something was wrong, and serve as cannon fodder to cover the rear, and then lead all the cavalry to retreat, they could still withdraw.

But are they willing to do this? If they had the determination and courage to cut off their arms and almost cut them in half, they would have become rich long ago, and would not have endured so many years in the most remote and cold place in the Northeast.

Therefore, in such a hurry, even though they clearly realized that Jueji might have met with an accident and the friendly Xianbei army might have been severely damaged, the brother-in-law and brother-in-law had no choice but to go ahead.

"No matter! Even if Zhao Yun defeats Jueji and Suli, it will most likely be a tragic victory. We will take advantage of the fact that Zhao Yun's army is injured and exhausted and launch a full-scale attack. We will surely be able to turn the tables! By then, all the results of the battle will be ours, and we won't have to share them with the Xianbei people!"

After all, Gongsun Kang was still thinking about avenging his family, and he used all his eloquence to persuade his brother-in-law to take this big gamble.

After a brief thought, Wei Choutai gritted his teeth and decided to follow.

"It's a matter of life or death, it all depends on this battle! I can't just abandon my son and avoid the battle when I see Zhao Yun is so powerful!" Wei Qiutai muttered a few words in a low voice, trying to find some excuses to cheer himself up, and then he shouted loudly:
"All troops, line up! Spearmen, line up, leaving enough space between each formation! Archers, charge forward along the corridor and shoot arrows! Don't spread out too much! If Zhao Yun charges, all troops will have their archers retreat along the corridor immediately!"

Wei Qiutai simply issued a few orders, mainly temporarily delegating tactical command. He knew that in such a tense situation, if he hoped to defeat the enemy with micromanipulation, it would definitely be a suicidal act. It would be better to give each department more authority to respond to changes.

The 40,000 Buyeo soldiers and the 10,000 veterans of the Gongsun family quickly changed their formations in accordance with Yu Choutai's orders and prepared to fight back.

Zhao Yun on the opposite side had already prepared himself to be charged by Wei Choutai.

Zhao Yun couldn't help laughing when he saw that the opponent suddenly slowed down his pace. He didn't run away, but didn't dare to get too close or take the initiative to attack. He just lined up on the spot and waited for him to bump into him.

"He has no idea what to do, and he can't make a quick decision or react to the unexpected change. This thief deserves to die!"

When Zhao Yun was mocking the enemy, Xu Sheng, Zhang Zhuo and other generals were also summoned to the central army. Zhao Yun originally planned to give a few instructions before the battle and make some minor adjustments to the tactics. Seeing that the enemy was not to be feared, Zhao Yun immediately ordered Zhang Zhuo:
"Sima Zhang, you must immediately divide up 2,000 soldiers and guard the prisoners behind the battle formation, and collect the horses of the surrendered Xianbei troops from Liaoxi."

Zhang Zhuo was stunned when he heard this, because just now he learned that Gongsun Kang was approaching, and his army had already quickly regrouped. As for unimportant tasks such as dealing with prisoners, how could they have time to worry about it on the battlefield? At most, they would let the prisoners drop their weapons and retreat.

If Zhao Yun's troops and Gongsun Kang really start fighting with all their might, these Xianbei captives from Liaoxi will most likely find another opportunity to escape.

Of course, they certainly did not have the courage to fight back in battle, nor could they do so. Even if Zhao Yun was busy, he would force the enemy to drop their weapons when they surrendered. These Liaoxi Xianbei captives were now unarmed.

However, it was under such circumstances that Zhao Yun calmly asked Zhang Zhao to send out more troops to slowly collect the horses of the surrendered Xianbei soldiers. Wasn't this deliberately giving the enemy a flaw?

Zhang Zhao quickly whispered a reminder, hoping that the general would be cautious. But Zhao Yun made it clear that he had thought all this through and there was no need to worry.

"Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai are at a loss as to what to do. I want them to regret not charging at us straight away. Instead, they relied on his spearmen to form a dense formation and hoped that our cavalry would charge at him.

Therefore, I want to let the entire Buyeo army know that their general and king missed the opportunity to fight! This way, they will be even less motivated to fight!"

After Zhao Yun gave his orders to Zhang Zhuo, he turned to Xu Sheng and gave an order, "Also, Wen Xiang, you take two thousand light cavalry, carry Jue Ji's head, and cross the formation. Fire a rain of arrows to harass the Buyeo army from a distance, and at the same time shout that Jue Ji is dead and Suli has surrendered to the court. In this way, Gongsun Kang's morale will collapse." After giving his orders to his own troops, Zhao Yun sent someone to tell Suli to play the other wing of the attack, with Xu Sheng on the left and right, while Zhao Yun would lead the central army himself.

Suli also knew that her performance just now was not good, so she agreed immediately and did not dare to refuse at all.

Zhao Yun's decisiveness and swiftness in killing Jue Ji just now completely frightened Su Li. He was also worried about himself and was glad that he stood on Zhao Yun's side in advance.

This mentality is a bit like Lincoln’s prayer during the tense of the Civil War: I don’t dare hope that God is on my side, I hope that I am on God’s side.

After Zhao Yun finished his deployment, all his troops immediately took action according to his orders.

Then Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai soon witnessed a series of unbelievable changes.

"Buyu thieves! You have taken in the traitors of Gongsun Du's clan, and now you are still unwilling to give up, colluding with Cao Cao and the Liaoxi Xianbei! Now the Liaoxi Xianbei have been annihilated by our Han Dynasty. If you still don't surrender, you will only die!"

Xu Sheng held Jueji's head on a spear and had his men drag Jueji's broken banner across the front of the formation, firing arrows to harass them from a distance.

When the Buyeo army saw this scene, their morale immediately plummeted.

Although the power and range of the horse bows were not as good as those of the foot bows, let alone the strong crossbows, Xu Sheng's rain of arrows was not a threat at all. Many of them were thrown at large angles and barely reached the Buyeo people. The Buyeo army's archers also fired back in various ways, but again with almost no results.

But if we only talk about the spiritual shock and trauma, the Buyeo people were obviously far superior to the Han army.

"Gongsun Kang, you little brat! Wei Choutai, you coward! You don't want to fight, and you don't want to retreat. What else can you accomplish? What else do you dare to do?"

"The Yuyang Xianbei have surrendered to the Han Dynasty on the battlefield! Your death is imminent!"

As the shouting became more intense, Xu Sheng and Suli moved forward from two directions, encircling the Fuyu army's formation, as if looking for a flaw.

The Fuyu people were getting more and more nervous, their command and tactics were out of place, and their morale was visibly declining. Especially when they found out that the Yuyang Xianbei had surrendered to the enemy, some of the Fuyu soldiers even deserted the battlefield and took the opportunity to become deserters.

Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai saw this, one turned pale and the other turned green. They looked at each other anxiously, and both knew that they could not allow Zhao Yun to continue shouting and undermining their morale.

The enemy was pure cavalry, and had the initiative to choose whether to fight or not. We should have charged at full speed from the beginning before the enemy settled down! How could we slow down and hope to gain more tactical advantages just because we thought "the situation might be very bad"?

The result is that now, not only did they not gain any tactical advantage, but they also suffered an additional severe blow at the strategic and morale levels.

They had no choice but to change their mind at the last minute, abandon the advantage of infantry formation to meet the attack, and forcefully launch a wave of active charge.

However, once the anti-cavalry troops such as spearmen change from waiting for the cavalry to charge at them to actively charging at the cavalry, they will first suffer an additional huge disadvantage at the formation level.

When charging, spearmen cannot be arranged too densely, otherwise they will trample on each other and fall into chaos.

The biggest advantage of spearmen is that they can support each other in a dense formation, exerting a combat power that is greater than the sum of one and one. Once they become a scattered formation, the biggest advantage no longer exists.

But they had no choice.

"All troops, charge at Zhao Yun's heavy cavalry formation! Our cavalry can charge from both wings first, slightly advancing ahead, and the central army's spear formation and sword and shield soldiers will follow!

Zhao Yun's heavy cavalry is slow in movement and cannot possibly outrun our light cavalry. Our entire army must press forward against Zhao Yun's central heavy cavalry to prevent Zhao Yun from retreating and dragging down our army! "

Wei Choutai made what he thought was the most correct decision, and the second half of the sentence was just the explanation he whispered to his brother-in-law Gongsun Kang in a private conversation.

Gongsun Kang also agreed with this and felt that there was no better choice, so the two of them divided the work and each led their own troops to launch an offensive against Zhao Yun and Suli.

Zhao Yun saw that his strategy of continuously attacking the enemy's mind and scolding them had finally forced the enemy to become unable to sit still and change their formation to charge forward, which was naturally what he wanted.

Zhao Yun ordered the cavalry on both wings to continue to extend and deploy. Although his side had fewer people, only more than 30,000 in total, they were able to stretch their formation wider than the opponent's 50,000-man formation.

But Zhao Yun's army was composed of cavalry, and even the Xianbei people from Yuyang who had just switched sides were pure cavalry. Cavalry naturally had the advantage of mobility, and it was too easy to outflank the enemy army that was coordinated by infantry and cavalry.

Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai knew clearly that they would suffer losses by doing so, but they were powerless to stop it. They could only watch Zhao Yun complete his tactical moves, and then charge forward and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

The infantry formation in the process of charging could not shoot arrows at all, because if the archers stopped, it might cause chaos and trample each other.

The cavalry, on the other hand, can use horseback archery in mobile warfare.

In particular, Zhao Yun's cavalry was equipped with double-sided metal stirrups and high-bridge saddles, and their stability on horseback was far beyond that of the original Han cavalry, nor was it comparable to that of the Buyeo people.

Sharp arrows rained down continuously on the two wings of the Buyeo soldiers. The Buyeo soldiers who were charging were shot so hard that their formation was broken. The pace of the charge became increasingly out of sync, and it gradually became difficult to form a formation.

Zhao Yun seized the opportunity and launched a counterattack against the Fuyu army, which was already in disarray. He attacked from three directions and soon achieved a penetration and cutting momentum.

Several terrible cracks were torn between the various formations of the Fuyu army by the sharp Han cavalry, and the cracks in the formation continued to expand over time.

Groups of Buyeo soldiers waved their weapons in confusion, trying to stop the Han army that could come from any direction at any time, but the more they resisted, the more confused they became, and finally they began to flee in an organized manner.

At this moment, another major incident that caused the complete collapse of the Buyeo army also occurred on the south side of the battlefield.

On the other side of the battlefield, rolling dust was coming, and there seemed to be at least three or four thousand cavalrymen, which was definitely a force that should not be underestimated.

Gongsun Kang and Wei Choutai both knew that their main forces were here, and the reinforcements definitely could not be from Buyeo, so they could only be Zhao Yun's reinforcements.

Of course, theoretically, it could be the Goguryeo people who had not yet arrived at the battlefield. But the Goguryeo cavalry should not have such a magnificent momentum.

Gongsun Kang actually guessed correctly, because the support troops were none other than the heavy cavalry and iron cavalry under Zhao Yun's command.

As mentioned earlier, Zhao Yun sent a total of 28,000 cavalrymen to conquer Buyeo, of which 8,000 were unable to make it to the decisive battle this morning. This was because Zhao Yun initially went to attack the Xianbei Jueji, and his heavy cavalry lacked horsepower and endurance and could not make it to the battlefield.

But at this moment, almost half a day had passed since the morning battle against Jueji, and now it was already afternoon. The three thousand cavalrymen who were Zhao Yun's reinforcements also rushed to the battlefield under the leadership of their generals.

This Han cavalry that suddenly appeared on the flank certainly dealt a fatal blow to the Buyeo army, which was already on the verge of collapse.

Wei Choutai's central army was torn into two halves. The flags, formations, and banners were all scattered all over the ground.

In order to avoid being targeted, when the flag formation was broken, Wei Choutai even ignored his status as a king and simply threw away his bright red cloak made of fire fox fur. He also tore a piece of white cloth from the broken flag and wrapped it on his helmet, disguising himself as an ordinary minor character, and fled on his horse.

Gongsun Kang was burdened with family feud and knew that Zhao Yun would not let him go, so he fought stubbornly with the veteran soldiers and personal guards left to him by his father Gongsun Du.

However, his brother-in-law had abandoned the army and fled, so his resistance was of course meaningless.

Just a quarter of an hour later, Gongsun Kang was targeted by Xu Sheng and shot to death with a volley of arrows.

(End of this chapter)