My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 760: After three years of absence, you should look at him with new eyes

Zhang He's troops were stuck by Ma Chao and fell into an awkward situation where they could neither fight nor catch up with him, nor could they run away smoothly.

Faced with Zhuge Jin and Xu Sheng leading the main infantry force of the Youzhou Army slowly approaching, Zhang He had no choice but to choose to fight back on the spot and try to defeat them one by one.

This was not because Zhang He was arrogant, but because he knew that if the battle dragged on until Zhao Yun and Taishi Ci arrived in a few days, he would have no chance of winning.

One is a seven-death and a three-life chance, the other is a nine-death and a one-life chance, so it’s better to take a seven-death and a three-life chance.

Zhang He quickly returned to his army and formed a battle formation, ready to meet the attack of Ma Chao and Zhuge Jin and fight a life-and-death battle.

However, as the enemy got closer, Zhang He began to feel another hidden worry in his heart, because he found that the terrain of the battlefield was not very favorable to him. He was about to be caught in a pincer attack from Ma Chao and Zhuge Jin, and there was no way to change this.

It turned out that before Zhang He withdrew his troops, he needed to first gather all the troops to the southwest corner of Nanpi City and the upper reaches of the Zhang River, and then continue to retreat to the southwest along the frozen Zhang River valley.

When Ma Chao came up to harass, he cut in from the north and slightly west of Zhang He's army, pinning down Zhang He's right wing.

Zhuge Jin and Xu Sheng caught up, and in order to ensure an open battlefield, they went around Zhang He's army from the southeast, pinning down Zhang He's left wing.

Of course, this left and right is calculated based on Zhang He's previous withdrawal posture. Now Zhang He turned back to prepare for the battle and turned around on the spot, so the left and right were swapped, with Ma Chao on Zhang He's left wing and Zhuge Jin on Zhang He's right wing.

Zhang He was facing Nanpi City, a fortified city guarded by Zhou Yu. It seemed to divide the attacking enemy into two halves, but Zhang He had no way to defeat them one by one. Instead, he had to take the risk of being attacked from both sides by the enemy.

The reason is very simple, because Zhang He can only choose to charge Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Jin has a lot of infantry, Zhang He can't run away. If Zhang He chooses to charge Ma Chao, Ma Chao's 8,000 cavalry are too mobile and can pull him back at any time, so it will not work in the end.

So the final deduction means that Zhang He can only confront Zhuge Jin and Xu Sheng head-on, while enduring Ma Chao's cavalry appearing on his flank and threatening him at all times.

……

"There is no other way, I have to force it."

As the two armies approached, the fighting spirit became more and more tense. Zhang He clenched his teeth and thought to himself, ready to face the first wave of attacks.

However, at this moment, new unexpected events occurred on the battlefield.

Just when Zhang He and Zhuge Jin were less than two miles away and could engage in close combat in a few more cups of tea, the gate of Nanpi City in the northeast was unexpectedly opened, and a large number of soldiers from Liu Bei's camp rushed out to help attack Zhang He.

This army quickly passed the original siege camp that had been abandoned by Zhang He, occupied the ice wall of Zhang He's old camp, and then climbed out again, actively pursuing, running very fast.

When Zhang He saw this scene, his pupils couldn't help but shrink instantly. He looked closely and saw that the person coming was waving a banner with the word "Zhou". It turned out to be Zhou Yu, who had been besieged by him for more than two months and came out to fight back.

However, Zhou Yu did not have many soldiers and horses. He had been besieged in Nanpi for so long that his troops were also depleted. In particular, there were many temporary non-combat casualties and injuries, which resulted in Zhou Yu only having a few thousand men at most to fight back at this moment.

However, Zhou Yu's appearance also brought new changes to the battlefield situation. Originally, Zhang He did not have to worry about enemy attacks from the front, and only had to face Ma Chao and Zhuge Jin on the left and right wings.

After Zhou Yu appeared, Zhang He had to face enemies on the left, center and right, and Zhou Yu became the central army of Liu Bei's camp, while Ma Chao and Zhuge Jin came around the city from the left and right sides.

When Zhang He saw this scene, his mind raced and he was completely enraged.

"Zhou Yu has been suppressed for so long. Now that the reinforcements have arrived and I want to withdraw, he comes here in a show of force. He dares to chase me with thousands of people? Then I can just take a gamble and break through the center. I will defeat Zhou Yu first and cut the enemy army into two parts!"

Zhang He gritted his teeth and made a prompt decision to change the formation before the battle. He believed that Zhou Yu was the easiest to defeat among the three enemies.

In Zhang He's opinion, after Zhou Yu appeared, the total number of troops participating in the war on Liu Bei's side was a little more. But in terms of proportion, Zhuge Jin and Ma Chao both had 40,000 to 50,000 people, and the additional thousands of people would only increase the combat power by 10% or 20%.

However, if Zhou Yu was defeated quickly by Zhang He as an independent force, the morale of Zhuge Jin and Ma Chao's troops would be greatly affected, after all, they would have to watch a friendly army being defeated by the enemy in front of their eyes. By then, the loss of Zhuge Jin and Ma Chao's combat power might not be compensated by these thousands of people.

As the saying goes, it is better to cut off one of the enemy's fingers than to hurt all ten of them, so let's focus on making a last gamble and cut off Zhou Yu's shortest finger first!
"Turn around in front! Charge Zhou Yu's army! All cavalrymen, speed up! Charge forward! While the three enemy armies haven't completely closed in, penetrate through the gaps between Zhou Yu and Ma Chao, and between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Jin's army formations!"

Zhang He issued orders in rapid succession, and the various units of Cao's army also urgently adjusted according to this deployment. Tens of thousands of Cao's infantry quickly launched a head-on charge, and the cavalry units also penetrated without hesitation.

At this moment, Zhou Yu had just left the city, and there was still some distance between his left side and Zhuge Jin's army formation, and they had not yet completely joined forces. Similarly, Zhou Yu's right side was also a little distance away from Ma Chao.

Zhang He wanted to seize these two distances and these two gaps, break through them directly, attack Zhou Yu from three sides, kill that part of the troops as soon as possible, and create a local advantage.

Moreover, Zhang He keenly discovered another advantage that this tactic could bring: before this battle, he and Gao Lan reviewed the lessons Gao Lan learned when he withdrew from Tianjin. Gao Lan also provided him with an important intelligence, that is, after three years of truce, Zhuge Jin seemed to have made a lot of upgrades and improvements in military equipment and armor, and gained some military technology, which made Liu Bei's army more sophisticated and complete.

What impressed Gao Lan the most was that Liu Bei's army had more powerful crossbows, with significantly improved range, accuracy and armor-piercing ability. Gao Lan had suffered this loss when retreating in Tianjin before.

Since Zhang He knew that the enemy's long-range firepower was stronger, when he engaged in battle with Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Jin would definitely take a defensive stance, for example, he would stop charging after getting one mile in front of you, and then all the archers in the army would set up their crossbows and be ready for battle, making Zhang He's side bear the disadvantages of a scattered formation and difficulty in long-range output during the charge, while Zhuge Jin would be able to cover you with several rounds of powerful arrow rain first.

Zhang He was originally prepared to bear this disadvantage, but the appearance of Zhou Yu changed everything. After thinking about it for a while, he felt that this would bring more benefits than disadvantages to Cao's army.

Since Zhou Yu had fewer people and was easier to kill, all Zhuge Jin had to do was rush forward and fight with Zhou Yu. In order to save Zhou Yu, Zhuge Jin would have to change from waiting for the enemy to rush forward to actively rushing towards the enemy. Zhuge Jin's bows and crossbows would not be as easy to use as when he was on the defensive.

With these thoughts in mind, Zhang He's vanguard naturally rushed forward and swarmed towards Zhou Yu, even though there were some loopholes on their own flanks, which they could not take care of for the time being.

……

Opposite Zhang He, a handsome scholar general was riding on a tall white horse. He was wearing shiny steel-forged armor and had a sword hanging from his waist. The scabbard was inlaid with gems and sparkled with pearls. It was Zhou Yu, who was 37 years old.

In history, Zhou Yu died of a relapse of his wound in the 15th year of Jian'an, at the age of 36. Today, Zhou Yu has lived one year longer than in the original time and space, and is no longer troubled by the arrow wound. Given his health condition, he can obviously live for many more years.

Over the past two months, he seemed to be surrounded by Zhang He, but in fact, he was completely at ease, and he was performing for Zhang He. Every time Zhang He seemed to be about to attack, Zhou Yu would show his remaining courage and barely resist.

As time went by, Zhang He also suspected that Zhou Yu was just playing him. When Zhuge Jin, Zhao Yun and other three armies launched a counterattack, Zhang He already knew that Zhou Yu was just pretending to be weak.

Unfortunately, even though Zhang He thought he had seen through Zhou Yu's pretense of weakness, he still couldn't fully see how weak Zhou Yu was pretending to be - or in other words, Zhang He still didn't see how many tricks Zhou Yu had up his sleeve.

At this moment, seeing Zhang He rushing up, Zhou Yu showed a hint of sneer on his face, but his emotions were extremely calm.

He calmly and grimly ordered the halberd soldiers to be ready for battle, and at the same time ordered the crossbowmen to move forward and fire several rounds of arrows. When the enemy approached, he ordered the crossbowmen to retreat to the back row through the corridor between the halberd formations.

Soon, at least a thousand new-style individual crossbows, which Liu Bei's army did not even have three years ago, were pulled to the front line, and then the strings were drawn and aimed, ready to fire.

This new type of powerful crossbow was available in Zhuge Jin's army, and of course in Zhou Yu's army as well. It was just that Zhou Yu had kept it in reserve and had not used it when he was defending the city.

This crossbow is nothing special. It is roughly equivalent to the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty in later generations, but the details are definitely slightly different. It can be regarded as another improvement and innovation of Zhuge Jin during the three years when Liu Bei's army was on a truce and farming. Since Zhuge Jin mastered the rhythm of Liu Bei's camp's armament improvement, the technology of individual crossbow weapons has been improving. With the technical strength of Liu Bei's camp under the blessing of Zhuge brothers, it is not a rare thing to create a Shenbi bow or even a single-soldier crossbow that is stronger than the Shenbi bow in history, and it is not difficult to say.

In history, the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty was said to have a range of 240 steps and could pierce armor within 50 steps. Such power and range were not unattainable among the crossbow weapons of the Han and Tang dynasties.

However, in order for traditional Han and Tang dynasty crossbowmen to achieve such power and range, the firing rate would be much slower, and it was mostly operated by two people, who would even need to lie down to string the crossbow, using both hands and feet at the same time, which is called waist-drawing the crossbow.

Historically, the greatest advantage of the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty was that it used a structure in which a single soldier could step on and draw the crossbow, yet achieved a range and power similar to that of the waist-drawn crossbow of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

Although Zhuge Jin did not quite understand how the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty was made, he had understood its functional requirements over the years and speculated that it was nothing more than optimizing the mechanical structure of the string, so that the arm strength or foot force required for stringing the bow could be reduced and the travel could be longer.

In short, Zhuge Jin figured out some labor-saving structures. The specific principles may not be exactly the same as the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty in history, but it achieved equivalent or even stronger combat power - of course, Zhuge Liang and Huang Yueying also contributed to this. After all, Zhuge Jin was not good at hands-on work, he could only explain the principles in the air and inspire those around him.

Finally, this lightweight and powerful individual crossbow, which was similar to the Shenbi bow, was successfully developed and trial-produced at the end of the 14th year of Jian'an. After improvements and adjustments, mass production began in the 15th year of Jian'an. Now when Cao and Liu fought again, Liu Bei's army had at least tens of thousands of these new individual crossbows, and production would continue to be expanded in the future.

This time, the Hebei battlefield was the main attack direction of Liu Bei's side, which required the greatest suddenness, so this kind of new weapons were basically equipped to the war zone led by Zhuge Jin. Before the war, two thousand new crossbows were distributed to Zhou Yu and hidden in Nanpi City as a trump card.

However, Zhou Yu was a skilled fighter and had good command over the city defense, so he didn't even have to use this weapon and was able to repel Zhang He's powerful attack.

Zhou Yu was also very clear that when Zhang He first attacked the city, he seldom sent the most heavily armored soldiers to the fortress first, because such soldiers were not light enough, so they did not need new powerful crossbows to ensure the penetration rate.

At the same time, when defending a city, one only needs to cross-fire at the enemies approaching the city wall, which can increase the hit rate. There is no need to waste firepower shooting at the enemy two or three hundred steps away without shooting at the close-combat enemies. Therefore, the range advantage of the new crossbow is useless when defending a city, and there is no need to expose it.

On the contrary, in the field battle at this moment, the range advantage of a single soldier's powerful crossbow is very much needed, and it can also catch the enemy off guard.

"Shoot!" As Zhang He's army rushed within 250 steps, more than a thousand individual crossbows under Zhou Yu's command burst out together and began to output fierce firepower.

The crossbow arrow was very powerful and had a relatively straight trajectory, and it flew straight towards Zhang He's army.

The soldiers on the other side hadn't reacted yet, and were a little confused when they saw the enemy starting to shoot arrows from such a long distance. But soon, a brutal storm of blood and gore made them forget about being confused.

A series of screams broke out in the Cao army formation. Soldiers kept falling to the ground wailing. Some were shot in the arms and thighs, and some were even pierced through. The arrows went through their backs, and some were even nailed to the ground after being pierced through their calves.

"What kind of powerful crossbow is this? It's so powerful and powerful? And how come Zhou Yu has it? Hasn't he been under siege for several months? This is impossible!"

After discovering the situation, the senior generals of Cao's army, represented by Zhang He, suddenly felt cold all over, and subconsciously thought that they might have fallen into a larger conspiracy network.

Zhang He had long guessed that Zhou Yu was playing a trick on him, but he still didn't expect it to be so thorough.

"How can the enemy start shooting arrows from such a distance? This is impossible!" The soldiers on the front line also panicked. Many of them who lacked courage and were dazed by the attack subconsciously stopped.

But with the army charging forward and the momentum being so overwhelming, how could anyone stop?
Some of the rebellious soldiers were trampled to death by their comrades in the rear, while some who caused obvious disruption to the army formation were even beheaded on the spot by their own officers in order to restore military discipline.

Most of Cao's soldiers still gritted their teeth and continued to charge forward. Fortunately, Zhou Yu's crossbows were not numerous, only about one or two thousand, and the reloading speed was not too fast, so they could still make it.

However, during the charge, they will be hit by two or three more rounds of enemy arrows.

As Cao's army rushed closer and closer, the power of the divine arm bows deployed by Zhou Yu became more and more obvious. In the last two rounds of arrows, even Cao's soldiers wearing iron armor could be shot directly through the chest armor, through the muscles, and into the internal organs.

Unless it hits the breastplate, it is possible to block this terrible crossbow arrow within a distance of fifty steps. Or if it hits the armor leaf and is directly blocked by the ribs, then maybe you can hope to block the fatal injury at the risk of breaking your ribs.

After suffering considerable casualties, Zhang He finally engaged in battle with Zhou Yu, and the two sides immediately engaged in a bloody hand-to-hand combat.

Zhou Yu's crossbowmen had retreated to the rear before the enemy approached, and were replaced by phalanx soldiers to fight with Zhang He.

Although Zhou Yu's soldiers were far outnumbered by Zhang He's in some areas, their morale was high because Zhou Yu had fully mobilized them before the battle and had told them that "as long as our army can hold on for a while, the friendly forces will attack Zhang He with all their strength, so there is no need to be afraid of temporarily outnumbering them."

The soldiers all knew that the situation could be reversed if they just gritted their teeth a little, so they were not so afraid.

In contrast, the soldiers on Zhang He's side had to bear the time pressure of winning the battle quickly and defeating each part of the enemy first. The longer they delayed, the less hope they had.

After being baptized by Zhou Yu's mysterious crossbow, the morale of Cao's army became even lower. It was not because of the direct physical damage of the crossbow, but because everyone felt that they had fallen into a trap again.

Zhou Yu was well aware of this, so while he was fighting, he had his back row soldiers shouting and cursing: "Zhang He, you bastard! You've fallen into my Situ's trap again! Situ has countless tricks up his sleeve waiting for you! I didn't even bother to use them before! Why use a butcher knife to kill a chicken!"

The more Zhou Yu shouted, the more Zhang He's soldiers' morale was suppressed. After a while, the fight between 40,000 and 8,000 men turned out to be evenly matched.

Soon after the two sides engaged in battle, Zhuge Jin on the flank gradually approached.

Zhuge Jin actually changed his hasty attitude of rushing up, and also let the crossbowmen provide support for the front team, swords, shields and halberds, and the cavalry on both wings to intercept the enemies that might rush up to harass.

After approaching to within 300 steps of Zhang He, Zhuge Jin slowed down further, reorganized his troops, and then used the Shenbi bow team to frantically pour firepower on Zhang He's flank.

The fierce and violent rain of arrows soon created waves of blood on Zhang He's flank.

When Zhang He was shot to death, he wanted to use his own cavalry to go around the rear and flanks to force back the enemy's crossbow formation.

But this hasty decision soon proved to be a stupid move.

Zhuge Jin's central army formation was very tightly defended. Not only was an ultra-long-range crossbow array deployed on the front, but the left and right wings also had strict long-range firepower preparations - that is to say, in the process of slowly approaching Zhang He and opening fire, Zhuge Jin did not try his best at all, nor did he pull all the new powerful crossbows to the front line. He always kept enough reserves.

When Zhang He thought that Zhuge Jin had done his best and let the cavalry go around to the flank and counterattack, he happened to step on a hedgehog.

The powerful arrows of the Shenbi crossbow fly through and penetrate. The hit rate against galloping cavalry may not be high, but for fat and tall war horses, the hit rate is obviously a level higher.

War horses are not only large targets that are easy to aim at, but also have much less armor protection than cavalry on horseback. Historically, the Shenbi bow of the Northern Song Dynasty was a considerable threat to the Liao and Jin cavalry, not to mention Zhang He's troops.

Zhang He soon paid a heavy price under the cross-fire of the crossbow array, even worse than when Gongsun Zan's White Horse Volunteers encountered Qu Yi's Vanguard Camp.

After Zhang He's cavalry's charge momentum was exhausted, Zhuge Jin finally forced his way to the front and began to charge with all his strength.

On the other side, Ma Chao seized the opportunity to rush forward towards Zhang He, who was already unable to take care of himself, and ruthlessly pierced through and cut off Zhang He's rear army.

(End of this chapter)