My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 738: South Wind Sweeps Away Hu Chenjing
"General Zuo, please forgive me! We were responsible for outflanking and encircling the Buyeo army, but we failed to prevent Wei Choutai from breaking out!"

With the death of Gongsun Kang, the Fuyu army collapsed, and the entire battlefield quickly entered the final stage of pursuit and pursuit. Large groups of Fuyu soldiers were surrounded and annihilated, and surrendered.

But Xu Sheng and Su Li searched and killed for a long time, until the battlefield gradually quieted down, they realized that they had not captured Wei Choutai, nor found Wei Choutai's body. After some questioning, it was estimated that Wei Choutai had escaped. He must have abandoned the king's ceremonial guards and clothes and armor, so he could ride away quietly.

Xu Sheng and Su Li felt a little embarrassed and came to report to Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun raised his hand to stop the generals from expressing their regrets, and said in a very open-minded manner: "It's okay. Fuyu is right there and can't escape. Its main force has been annihilated by our army, and the remaining people can't hide in the mountains. After this battle, Fuyu will surely be annexed by our Han Dynasty.

It was not a bad thing that he failed to kill Wei Choutai on the battlefield, but it was a pity that he was not captured alive. If he did not escape, he would send someone to send a message to show his goodwill. As long as he surrendered, he could ask the lord to make him a marquis and let the entire land of Buyeo submit to Han Chinese.

Gongsun Kang is dead anyway, and the Han and the Buyeo people don't have any irreconcilable conflicts. They should recognize the situation. Now, let's think about how to quickly restore the soldiers' energy and pursue the Goguryeo people. I think the Goguryeo people will definitely choose to flee when they know that the two friendly armies here have been completely defeated. "

After hearing this, the generals stopped hesitating and all understood the situation. They also sincerely accepted Zhao Yun's advice.

Gongsun Kang was a Han citizen, and in order to resist the rule of his homeland, he would rather flee to the wild. The Han rulers would certainly retain their strong claims to the land Gongsun Kang had set foot on, and would have reason to pursue him even to the ends of the earth.

But Wei Choutai was not originally a Han Chinese. He was born a barbarian. As long as such a person is willing to assimilate, he won't have much hatred. Once his brother-in-law died, the mess was solved. He should be able to see the comparison between his current strength and Zhao Yun's.

In addition, according to the original plan of the anti-Han coalition forces, today's battle should have been a three-way pincer attack on Zhao Yun, with the two arriving at the battlefield almost at the same time.

However, Zhao Yun took the initiative to go north to meet Jue Ji, and Jue Ji and Wei Choutai temporarily changed their tactics and began to move closer to each other, so from the results, the final battlefield was much further north than the enemy had initially expected.

As Wei Choutai moved closer to Jueji, he would naturally move further and further away from the Goguryeo army in the south. So at the end of the battle, the three-way attack turned into the Liaoxi Xianbei and Buyeo armies being sent one after another, and the Goguryeo army could not arrive today.

According to this timeline, within a few hours, the Goguryeo army would receive intelligence from fast scouts telling them that the Liaoxi Xianbei and Buyeo armies had collapsed. In this case, the Goguryeo army would definitely not offer to surrender for free, but would choose to retreat immediately.

If Zhao Yun wants to maximize his benefits, he has to think about how to pursue the enemy.

So after just a brief review of the current situation, the military adviser Xin Pi came up with an idea for Zhao Yun:
"Buyu is right there, it can't escape, and it won't be a problem to conquer it within ten days or half a month. But if the Goguryeo army doesn't chase them, they will retreat back into the mountains and dense forests in less than three to five days.

Therefore, the first priority is to quickly divide the troops to pursue the Goguryeo army, and then take over the Buyeo territory. Fortunately, the Goguryeo army has a lot of lightly armed infantry, and their movements are definitely not as fast as cavalry.

It is rare that they were tricked into coming to the Weiling Highlands this time. The terrain within a radius of 200 miles is relatively flat. Our army must destroy the enemy before they escape from the Weiling Highlands and return to the mountainous area!
General, you might as well make use of all the cavalry guarding the camp, and then send the exhausted cavalry back to the camp to replace them, so that you can perhaps defeat the enemy faster."

Zhao Yun came to the decisive battle today, but he did not bring all his troops with him. He also left a few thousand people to guard his home.

After all, the army's food and supplies also need to be protected. If they are all abandoned when attacking the base, they will collapse if they are ambushed by the enemy from behind.

Therefore, the safest way to continue fighting now is to let the troops rotate and rest.

Zhao Yun immediately approved this suggestion and ordered the troops that had suffered the most damage in today's battle to return to the camp to rest immediately, and rotated out the troops guarding the home to be used for the attack.

In today's battle, we fought against the Liaoxi Xianbei in the morning and the Buyeo army in the afternoon. We fought for a whole day and traveled dozens of miles. The troops were really exhausted.

No matter what happens right now, all troops should prepare to return to the camp to rest, and we can deal with other things later.

……

After the army withdrew to the attack camp, the exhausted soldiers quickly returned to their tents and fell asleep.

The soldiers guarding the camp did prepare meals for the entire army in advance, so everyone could at least have something hot to eat before resting.

After the main force fell asleep, Zhao Yun ordered the captain Guan Tong, who had stayed behind in the camp, to take the three or four thousand light cavalry who were guarding the home to pursue and harass the Goguryeo army overnight.

"The Goguryeo army must have received the news and retreated, but they won't run too fast. Captain Guan, you take these 4,000 men and tie up the Goguryeo army, but don't seek a decisive battle. Just harass and delay them, and then slowly pursue them tomorrow when our main force arrives."

Guan Tong was once a general under Yuan Tan, and among the many generals Zhao Yun brought with him this time, he had the worst combat record. So in this decisive battle, Zhao Yun brought Xu Sheng and Zhang Zhao to attack, leaving Guan Tong alone to defend the home.

After Yuan Shao's death and before Yuan Tan surrendered to Liu Bei, Yuan Tan's army had several direct battles with Cao Cao. Whenever Guan Tong led his troops to fight, he was defeated almost every time he encountered Cao's generals. Yu Jin, Le Jin, and Li Dian all had experiences of bullying Yuan Tan, and they all took credit and official titles from Yuan Tan's Qingzhou army.

He was aware of his own resume, so when Zhao Yun asked him to stay at home, he did not dare to have any thoughts.

Now that he had gotten a rare opportunity, Guan Tong just felt pleasantly surprised and flattered.

Even though Zhao Yun asked him to only harass and delay the enemy and not to attack by force, he didn't think it was inappropriate.

Guan Tong was just being cautious and asked again, "How long will it take for our main force to catch up? How long do I need to delay the Goguryeo people?"

Zhao Yun thought for a moment and said, "The Weiling Highlands are 200 miles from east to west and more than 300 miles from north to south. If the Goguryeo people do not retreat along the way they came, but just want to get back to the mountains as quickly as possible and retreat to the east, they only need to travel more than 100 miles to get back to the mountains.

But if they retreat along the way they came, southeast by south, they will have to walk 200 miles to leave the plain. So your delay mainly forces the Goguryeo people to retreat in a certain direction, first go around to the east to block them, so that the Goguryeo people dare not retreat to the east.

Then, remember to report your movements to me three times a day, telling me the enemy's position and ours, as well as the enemy's current retreat direction. This way my army can follow closely when the time comes."

After understanding the details of these requirements, Commander Guan immediately nodded his head to express his absolute and strict implementation.

Then, he took the cavalry that had been guarding the camp and chased the Goguryeo people overnight.

As expected, the Goguryeo people also knew that their allies had been defeated and began to withdraw. However, they had many infantrymen and it was impossible for them to march without sleep at night. They walked until midnight and barely rested for two hours in an unknown field in the southeast of Weiling Terrace. They continued to run before dawn.

Soon after they set out on their journey, the Goguryeo people discovered that Guan Tong's 4,000 light cavalry had caught up with them.

The Goguryeo army commander was confused at first and could not tell the enemy's strength or numbers. He was afraid that this was Zhao Yun's main force, so he did not dare to move rashly, fearing that accelerating the withdrawal would lead to a stab in the back by the enemy and the collapse of the entire army.

So he chose to line up and wait very safely, keeping on guard with spears and bows and crossbows as the main force.

After it was completely light in the sky, the Goguryeo army finally got a rough idea of Guan Tong's military strength and realized that it was just a detachment sent by Zhao Yun to harass and contain them.

But learning the truth did not make the Goguryeo soldiers feel better. Instead, they fell into greater distress and fear.

"General! Zhao Yun is not going to let our army go. Although only the vanguard has come, Zhao Yun's main force will surely follow. How should our army retreat?"

Several generals asked the commander for instructions. The commander of the Goguryeo army was the crown prince of the country and the eldest son of the king. He was also at a loss and could only restrain the troops and try not to reveal any flaws, and just slowly retreat in formation.

Seeing that the enemy continued to retreat, Guan Tong also tried to harass them several times.

However, he brought only light cavalry with very thin armor. The Goguryeo people were good at archery, using bows and crossbows to shoot at them. After Guan Tong suffered some casualties, he did not dare to advance rashly.

Historically, from the Changbai Mountain area to the Three Korean Peninsula, the local Dongyi people were very good at shooting. Although they were not nomadic riders, they had been fishermen and hunters for generations.

During the Xia and Shang dynasties, the ancients first created characters, and the character "Yi" refers to people holding bows, referring to the fishing and hunting people in the eastern mountains and forests.

Even in modern times, when the Korean military was in disrepair during the Ming and Qing dynasties, their musket battalions were still quite capable, and they killed generals and princes of the Qing army during the Ming and Qing wars. In modern times, Koreans still perform well in archery.

It can be said that no matter how many generations of long-range weapons and equipment have been replaced, these barbarians still have a skill in this field, and they have reached the limit of specialization in a single skill.

If Guan Tong's troops were large enough to charge directly, they could have taken the initial casualties from long-range attacks and wiped out the enemy. But he was outnumbered and lightly armored, so he could only keep his distance.

Fortunately, as long as Guan Tong ran beside them, the Goguryeo army could not march quickly, and could only let the archers walk slowly on the outside with bows in hand, which would consume a lot of physical energy. In this way, they would be caught up by Zhao Yun in just one day.

Their attitude at this moment was just like when Liu Bang came out of Mount Baideng, Chen Ping advised Liu Bang to let all the Han army archers stay on the outside, holding bows, and once they saw any unusual movements of Maodun Chanyu's cavalry approaching, they would immediately shoot arrows.

But with this posture, the march was doomed to be slow, and Liu Bang had the help of the fog, but the Goguryeo people today do not have that.

Guan Tong outlasted the Goguryeo army for a whole day. When the sun rose again the next day, the Goguryeo army, which had not yet retreated back to the mountains and dense forests, finally gave up hope.

Because they saw Zhao Yun also rushed to the battlefield with light and heavy cavalry.

The Crown Prince of Goguryeo did not want to sit and wait for death, so he reluctantly deployed a vanguard formation with a small number of spearmen as the vanguard and flexible and mobile archers assisted in the corridors, trying to withstand Zhao Yun's pursuit.

If Zhao Yun does not charge forward, then use archers to shoot back. If he charges forward, then change the formation to let the archers retreat, and let the spearmen hold on.

When Zhao Yun saw this deployment, he immediately ordered the two wings to encircle the enemy, letting the cavalry pull and find a suitable gap, and then launch a powerful attack.

"These Goguryeo people don't have any armor, and their spear formations don't look very orderly. The soldiers' discipline is far inferior to that of the Han. It seems that the only thing to be feared is their archery. But our army is using the armored heavy cavalry as the vanguard to charge, which is enough to defeat the enemy's archery!"

Before Zhao Yun made his deployment, he analyzed the situation to his generals in such a relaxed tone. The generals who followed him also agreed with his words. They were moved by General Zhao's demeanor and the morale of the army became more and more boosted.

There is nothing to elaborate on the subsequent process.

Under Zhao Yun's encirclement and pulling, the Goguryeo army soon fell into a state of loss of direction and fatigue in changing formations.

Finally, Zhao Yun spotted a flaw and decisively sent out the heavy cavalry in breastplate to charge with all their might.

The Goguryeo soldiers were unable to change their formation in time, and the spearmen did not immediately turn around and respond to Zhao Yun's charge in unison. However, the Goguryeo archers, who were always alert and vigilant, were still able to fire three or four rounds of arrows in battle.

However, a scene that these Goguryeo sharpshooters would never forget soon took place.

The dense rain of arrows seemed to be more accurate than any battle Zhao Yun had encountered before, but it was of no use.

Amid the sound of clanging, countless arrows were directly bounced off by the breastplate, shawl and armor skirt made of a whole piece of water-forged steel. Zhao Yun's heavily armored cavalry rushed forward with almost no casualties.

The Goguryeo people's spearmen were far inferior to the Han army in terms of fighting spirit and discipline. The only type of soldier they could rely on was archers.

When Zhao Yun's cavalry approached, they began to slaughter them like chopping melons and vegetables.

After several gaps were created in the Goguryeo spearmen's formation, the remaining soldiers became thrown into chaos when they saw that their comrades had been killed and their flanks were wide open.

Many soldiers scattered and retreated like a tide, disrupting the formation of friendly forces.

Zhao Yun defeated the Goguryeo army in front of him as easily as eating and drinking water.

The Crown Prince of Goguryeo, who was in the center of the army, was completely stunned to see his vanguard defeated so quickly and so thoroughly.

How could there be such a cavalry that was not afraid of the crossbow projectiles? Had I lived in the mountains and forests for too long that I was out of touch with the times?
Fortunately, he is aware of the current situation and has no burden of integrity or face.

Seeing that he was beaten so badly that he had no power to fight back and there was no possibility of even a theoretical comeback, the Crown Prince of Goguryeo made a decisive decision that went against his ancestors before Zhao Yun killed his second army formation.

"Order the entire army to surrender immediately! Don't kill General Zuo of Han! And don't retreat! You can't escape if you retreat, you will only be stabbed in the back by Zhao Yun, and more people will die!"

This order from the Crown Prince of Goguryeo shocked the surrounding generals who heard it for the first time.

But after a brief thought, they all came to their senses and realized that what the prince said was the truth.

Whether it is the Goguryeo army or the Goguryeo Kingdom, what they need is to stop the losses as soon as possible, otherwise with their small population, the entire country can be seriously damaged by this war.

"We are willing to surrender! We are willing to surrender!"

"Don't kill General Zhao!"

After a brief period of chaos, Zhao Yun watched as groups of Goguryeo soldiers voluntarily laid down their weapons and stopped fighting. It took him a long time to come to his senses and stop fighting in time, thus avoiding more unnecessary killings.

"Why are they so weak? But they are lucky. The casualties are much lower than those of the Liaoxi Xianbei and Buyeo people."

Zhao Yun thought to himself that these barbarians were really lucky to have managed to survive.

However, the necessary procedures still had to be followed. Zhao Yun wielded his spear and ordered his personal guards to tie up the main generals of the surrendered Goguryeo army, control the situation, and then slowly collect the weapons abandoned by the other side and clean up the battlefield.

In just over half an hour, the remaining Goguryeo troops of more than 10,000 to nearly 20,000 people were completely controlled by Zhao Yun.

The proportion of defeated soldiers who broke through and escaped was also much lower than that of the Xianbei and Buyeo armies in western Liao before. They were almost completely surrounded and annihilated and forced to surrender.

(End of this chapter)