My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 772: Guantao Battle, Dilemma
"Fire arrows!"

"Don't stop without orders! Send all the God Arm Archers to the front line!"

As Cao's army rushed up in a black mass, the defenders in the Guantao camp, under the command of grassroots officers, fired arrows frantically to stop them.

The rain of arrows came over like an overwhelming force, quickly causing shocking casualties to Cao's army and also halting the momentum of Cao's charge.

However, Cao's army had just charged in the first wave, and their morale was high. For a while, most of the soldiers could not immediately sense the change in the overall battlefield atmosphere, and just charged forward regardless of anything. The soldiers who fell one after another in front of the battle like wheat being cut could not stop the successors from rushing forward one after another.

Even a senior general like Zhou Yu had to personally patrol the camp to supervise the battle and give important instructions to deploy his own archers to the best possible combat capability.

His subordinate Xu Sheng even went to the front line in person, braving the arrows and stones, and rushed directly to the front of the village wall, waving his sword and giving orders.

Only a pillar of the country like Zhuge Jin did not have to go to the front line in person, but stayed in the central military tent, listening to reports from the frontline generals at any time and making adjustments when necessary.

After all, he had already become Si Tu, the head of the civil officials, so how could he take risks? If it was a battle to defend a city, it was possible for him to go up to the tower to inspect it in person, but it was unnecessary to fight so hard to defend an ordinary camp.

Even though he had 50,000 or 60,000 men under his command and it was almost impossible for him to lose, there was no need for Zhuge Jin to waste time. His central army headquarters was located in the northwest corner of the camp, and the Baigou River was not far from the northwest. Liu Bei's camp had Zhou Yu's warships downstream to support him, so it was very safe.

Cao's army did not go around to the northwest to attack, probably because they felt that the depth of the position there was too weak. It would be better to surround two sides and leave two sides open, which would also shake the morale of the defenders and make them choose to retreat by water when they cannot win, so that Cao's army could attack and kill them halfway across the river.

……

"The enemy's rain of arrows is indeed sharper than before. Is this the 'divine arm bow' that General Xiahou reported? Zhang He and Gao Lan were defeated by this sharp weapon, right?"

Generals Li Dian and Le Jin led the charge. Seeing that the enemy's rain of arrows caused serious casualties to their troops, they felt a little frightened, but they did not forget to grit their teeth and hold on.

At the same time, he was secretly thankful that Xiahou Dun had warned him before, so that he could be mentally prepared. He also tried his best to equip the soldiers charging in the front row with high-quality shields, which relatively reduced casualties.

Otherwise, if they were suddenly attacked by the enemy's new weapons like Zhang He and Gao Lan a few months ago, without any psychological preparation, the rain of arrows from the divine arm bow formation would have caused Cao's army to be defeated in their first charge. Even if they organized a new offensive later, their fighting spirit would probably be somewhat weakened.

At this moment, with the protection of a large number of shields, they can at least fight back.

"Don't be afraid! Charge forward with all your might! Otherwise, the comrades who died in the battle just now would have died in vain! Only by breaking through the enemy's formation in one go can we survive! The enemy's camp is not strong, and we can win if we reach the camp wall!"

As a famous general in Cao's army who was well-known for his ability to attack strongholds, Le Jin shouted at the top of his lungs to boost the morale of his subordinates. The soldiers under him were indeed inspired by his shouts, and their resilience on the battlefield was unprecedentedly high.

The generals who had a little bit of common sense understood what Le Jin said and observed the situation on the battlefield clearly:

The outer defensive fortifications of Zhuge Jin's camp were not strong. The camp was extremely long and wide, more than five miles long and wide, and was able to accommodate so many troops.

Such a large camp was built not long ago, and it was built after the enemy army began to attack Guantao County. Therefore, the outer wall must be relatively dilapidated and simple, otherwise Zhuge Jin would not have had enough manpower to complete it.

Who would spare no effort and expense in building a temporary camp for the siege troops to rest temporarily? Who could have expected that this temporary camp would be attacked by the enemy in a desperate counterattack?
The current status of the defensive fortifications indeed proved Cao Jun's guess. All these appearances finally made Cao Jun willing to fight to the death despite casualties.

Including the ordinary soldiers, they were not without fear in their hearts, but before going into battle today, they had been threatened by the generals in advance, so they were somewhat mentally prepared.

Cao's army had harsh military laws, and the families of soldiers were all kept in a centralized place for custody. If they deserted, their families would be treated badly. They had been told in advance that if they failed to break through the enemy camp today, they would be forced to break through again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

So since we knew in advance that the enemy's long-range firepower was fierce, we had to fight to the death and not let the casualties just now go to waste. Otherwise, if we retreated and fought again tomorrow, wouldn't we have to endure the rain of arrows from the approaching bows and crossbows again?
You must not suffer twice!
Judging from these pre-war mobilization arrangements, Cao's army has also done its best for today's battle, and all the encouragement work that could be done during the pre-war mobilization has been done to the utmost.

As they charged forward fearlessly and without fear of death, rows of Cao's soldiers fell in the trenches in front of the camp, and some trenches were even filled with corpses.

There were also several sections of the wall where the corpses of Cao's army were piled up along the wooden fences, gradually allowing the soldiers behind to almost climb over the fences by stepping on the corpses.

The huge amount of blood that flowed out formed a blood channel at the bottom of the trench, which was indescribably tragic and weird.

However, after just a quarter of an hour of fierce fighting, Cao's army suffered at least four-digit casualties and countless casualties. Finally, relying on the heap of lives, they broke through the outer wall of the village in several places.

The soldiers under Zhou Yu also fought desperately, but the outer wall of the stockade was too dilapidated. It was just an ordinary wooden fence and a low rammed earth foundation, plus a trench several feet deep. Soon more and more wooden fences were smashed, pushed down, and climbed over.

Seeing that the situation was critical, Xu Sheng personally led a group of heavily armored soldiers wielding horse-slashing swords to the most critical place to block the entrance.

Zhou Yu also dispatched a large number of soldiers armed with steel-filled halberds in advance. He arranged a semicircular formation on the inside of the gap where the outer camp wall was about to be breached, waiting for the enemy to break through the fence and then engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy from three sides.

Zhou Yu held a copper telescope in his hand, looking down from a high place at the battlefield, and had a very accurate grasp of the situation on the entire battlefield. Basically, he could observe in advance any sign that Cao's army could break through the wall, and then respond immediately.

As a result, Cao's army fought for a long time but could not find any opportunities to take advantage of.

Sometimes, even though they had broken through the enemy camp wall in several places almost at the same time, the front-line generals of Cao's army still secretly thought that they might be able to take advantage of the chaos when the enemy was unable to return to defend in time or lost their command, and expand the results of the battle to further tear apart the enemy's formation.

But after each breakthrough, they were met with a large group of halberd soldiers waiting in formation to block the gap. The Cao army's sword and shield soldiers who rushed in often had to pay extremely heavy casualties before they could gain a foothold and allow the Cao army's spearmen in the rear to rush in and line up to fight.

This situation seemed inconceivable to Cao's generals, because in previous sieges where the front line stretched for several miles, as long as the enemy camp's fences were breached at many locations, the enemy would always be distracted and miss a lot, leaving a few gaps for the attackers to seize and beat.

How is it possible in the world that there are people who are so watertight and have such a long line of defense with leaks everywhere?

This unscientific!

Fortunately, Le Jin and Li Dian's fierce attack finally paid off.

While Xu Sheng was struggling to hold out on the front line, Zhou Yu, who was in charge of the overall situation in the rear, finally made a judgment after a long period of careful observation and calm evaluation: it was time to abandon the first line of defense.

"Let the God's Arm Archers retreat to the second line of defense! The Archers will also begin to retreat in half an hour, and the Cavalry Swords will cover the rear. If necessary, use the cavalry to counterattack in the camp to delay the enemy's pursuit."

When Zhou Yu's order was just issued, several generals, staff members and those who tried to persuade him moved their lips slightly, but finally gave up and directly carried out Zhou Yu's order.

In the eyes of these generals, it is entirely possible to hold off Cao's army for a longer period of time on the first line of defense. However, if the entire Shenbi bow team is withdrawn, the density of the supporting firepower on the front line will be greatly reduced, and the remaining melee soldiers will definitely not be able to hold out for too long.

But everyone can fully understand the intention of Zhou Yu's order. Because if they blindly pursue the density of firepower and let the Shenbi Archery Team drag on to the end, once the first line of defense is completely lost, the long-range troops will definitely be pursued and killed on the way back to redeploy defense, and they will not be able to retreat in an orderly manner.

Soon, the archers who were relying on the first camp wall began to retreat in batches according to their types of soldiers. During the process, Zhou Yu added another order, asking the soldiers to set fire to the wall sections that could no longer hold on and had to retreat and abandon, and burn as much of the wooden fence as possible.

This can not only delay the enemy with fire, but also prevent these fortifications from becoming enemy cover after being captured by the enemy.

This order was quickly and efficiently executed. The outer wooden fence of Zhuge Jin's camp was not made of relatively fire-resistant wood. Many of the woods were not much different from dry firewood, and some were even very loose and porous, making them very flammable.

In fact, when attacking the camp just now, Cao's army also fired rockets to cover the attack, and the rockets did indeed set a lot of wooden fences and camp gates on fire, which played a significant role in Cao's army breaking through the first line of defense. Zhou Yu let his men set fire in an organized and orderly manner, which made the fire spread more efficiently.

Some soldiers even simply collected the hay and other discarded flammable materials scattered in the camp, piled them at the base of the fence that was about to be abandoned, lit a big fire, and then took advantage of the fire to stop the enemy from retreating quickly.

"Zhuge Jin and Zhou Yu actually set the fire? Is this a trick?"

Le Jin and Li Dian on the front line were fighting and were about to break through the enemy's first line of defense when they suddenly saw fires breaking out in more and more areas along the line. They couldn't help but become a little suspicious and even slowed down their offensive, fearing that they might fail to detect some trap and rush in too quickly and fall into the enemy's trap.

After Le Jin and Li Dian were in doubt, within a cup of tea, Cao Cao, who was supervising the battle in the rear army, and several important Cao army staff members who came to the Hebei battlefield also noticed this situation. Even Cao Cao was slightly frightened at first, thinking that the enemy was cheating.

"Why did Zhou Yu's camp catch fire? Was it set on fire by the rockets fired by our crossbowmen? Rockets can't set so many places on fire at once, right? From a distance, I'm afraid there must be at least five or six fires. No, I'm afraid there must be seven or eight!"

When Cao Cao saw this scene, he was so shocked and suspicious that he had a slight nervous breakdown. The main reason was that the enemies were Zhuge Jin and Zhou Yu. Once the fire started, he always felt that there was some conspiracy.

Fortunately, there are still some knowledgeable people around Cao Cao, such as Xun You, who has been following Xiahou Dun in Hebei. Today, he also accompanied Cao Cao to the battlefield to observe the enemy situation.

After Xun You read it, he calmed down and carefully considered the details before comforting Cao Cao:
"Don't worry, Prime Minister! The fire doesn't seem to be very fierce. Besides, those positions were fought and contested for a long time by both sides. Our army had already fired many rounds of arrows and also used rockets.

If the enemy had deliberately set up traps and arranged a large number of flammable objects, why didn't our rockets ignite them when we first attacked? So Zhou Yu must have been unable to withstand the fire and had to retreat to the inner camp, so he set a fire before leaving to temporarily delay and block our pursuit!

Please, Prime Minister, give orders immediately to calm the morale of the generals and not let them be shaken or frightened by these small incidents!"

After being enlightened by Xun You's words, Cao Cao came to his senses and quickly slapped his thigh to make a decision to do as Xun You instructed.

The messengers rode fast horses across the battlefield and soon arrived in front of the army. They found generals such as Le Jin and Li Dian and told them the prime minister's judgment.

Le Jin and Li Dian were encouraged, their initial doubts gradually dissipated, and their offensive became fierce again.

However, after just a few cups of tea, Zhou Yu had managed to successfully retreat all the archers and most of the halberd soldiers to the second line of defense of the camp.

Only the mobile rear guard team of horse-killing swordsmen and several thousand others were fighting and retreating, setting fire wherever they could as they went. In addition to the wooden fences, the tents that had not been evacuated in time were also set on fire. There were fires everywhere. For a while, Cao's army was unable to form a stable formation to chase them down, and could only fight on their own in the chaos.

In the hand-to-hand combat, the combat effectiveness of Cao's army was obviously no match for Liu Bei's elite army with horse-killing swords. In the chaos of the battle, Cao's army could not gain any advantage at all, and the ratio of casualties exchanged was very favorable to Liu Bei's side.

On the battle front that stretched for several miles, most of Liu Bei's troops retreated without encountering fatal ambushes.

Only in two or three places, perhaps because the retreat road was too flat and open, there was nothing to burn along the way to delay the enemy, so the remaining horse-cutting sword teams were generally chased and killed by the large group of spear and halberd soldiers of Cao's army.

Because the remaining troops were small in number and outnumbered, they were suddenly surrounded and in danger.

However, even with this level of opportunity, Le Jin and Li Dian were unable to fully seize it.

They had just identified their target and were chasing him for a short distance when suddenly the rumbling sound of horse hooves was heard on the battlefield.

It turned out that several small cavalry units under Zhao Yun suddenly rushed out from Zhuge Jin's second-line camp to support their own rear-end sword-killing team.

Isn't it just that the battlefield is relatively open and it is not convenient to set fire to delay the enemy? What's the big deal?
If we can't set fire, then use cavalry. The open terrain is conducive to cavalry charges.

As for Cao's army, it was impossible to use cavalry when attacking the camp before, and they had to rely on infantry to climb over fences, rammed earth foundations, and trenches. Now that they had just broken through the first camp wall and reached the relatively open area between the outer and inner camps, they could only bite the bullet and use infantry to fight off the cavalry.

Fortunately, many of Cao's soldiers also had spearmen, so if they really fought in formation, they would not be afraid of cavalry attacks.

Unfortunately, these Cao army spearmen were in a state of charging and chasing, and their formation was rather disorganized. They were attacked from the side by Zhao Yun's flexible cavalry, and immediately a large number of them fell to the ground.

As lances stabbed and sabers flew, hundreds of Cao's brave warriors were cut and destroyed, falling down in large numbers.

There were several fierce battles on the battlefield, and even Cao's soldiers who had just rushed in were directly killed and collapsed. They were pursuers a second ago, and became escapees a second later, trampling on each other in chaos.

"Hold your ground! Slow down! Fight in formation!" Seeing this scene, Le Jin was so angry that his eyes turned red. He quickly and decisively ordered his troops to slow down the pursuit in order to prioritize ensuring the stability of the formation.

For soldiers armed with spears and halberds, it is impossible to take both the speed of the charge and the strictness of the formation into consideration. To maintain a stable formation, speed must be sacrificed.

When the formation was in disarray just now, the soldiers often failed to react in time and were suddenly attacked from the flank by Zhao Yun's light cavalry. Many of them did not have time to turn around.

Even if some of the soldiers turned around, because their comrades next to them did not turn around in unison, their spears could not form a dense block, and it was easy for the cavalry to rush within close range and kill them, which caused huge casualties.

After a hasty adjustment, the pursuing spearmen quickly re-formed into a dense hedgehog-like formation, and Zhao Yun's cavalry was soon unable to break in.

But these cavalrymen quickly adjusted their tactics. After paying the price of dozens of riders being stabbed to death while charging into the battle formation, these cavalrymen quickly adjusted to a state of roaming fighting, archery and harassment, and shot arrows around the marching spearmen formation.

Many of these spearmen were not equipped with shields, and were shot at close range by horse archers. They were soon shot to the point of being in great pain, and many soldiers fell down wailing.

The archers of Cao's army were unable to be deployed to the front line immediately in this mobile warfare to break through the enemy camp, and thus could not shoot back at Liu Bei's army in time to suppress the roaming cavalry - otherwise, if there were more arrow rain coverage, even if they could not kill the armored cavalry, they could at least injure a large number of enemy horses, causing the cavalry to fall off their horses and lose their mobility.

But now, Cao's army could only hold on and withstand these waves of harassment from cavalry and archers.

In this process, Cao's army not only suffered some casualties, but also completely missed the opportunity to pursue the retreating enemy and take advantage of the chaos to attack the second layer of the enemy camp's protective wall.

The last group of horse swordsmen of Liu Bei's army were also safely retreated to the second level of the camp under the cover of the cavalry. They were given a chance to catch their breath and were redeployed. The injured soldiers were also carried down and received emergency treatment.

After the friendly forces had completely evacuated to a safe location, Zhao Yun's cavalry, who were responsible for harassing, saw that Cao's archers had also advanced to the first layer of the camp wall that had just been captured and began to provide fire support to Cao's soldiers who were charging on the front line. Zhao Yun's cavalry also quickly retreated as if they were using their own arms to move, out of the enemy's fire coverage.

Cao's army wanted to give the enemy another go, but how could the infantry chase the cavalry that came and went like the wind? Cao's own cavalry had no time to attack the camp, nor could they play a role immediately, so they just watched the enemy retreat unscathed.

As a result of the disruption caused by Zhao Yun's cavalry, Cao's army was unable to launch continuous waves of offensives, nor could they take advantage of the chaos to approach the subsequent defense lines.

Thousands of archers were ready behind the second line of defense. When Cao's army launched another offensive, they were hit by an even more violent rain of arrows than before.

Seeing that Cao's army's morale was declining and the fierce attack and bloody battle on the first day had consumed too much manpower and physical strength, Le Jin and Li Dian had to ask Cao Cao for permission to temporarily stop the offensive.

"Well, let the soldiers rely on the first layer of the outer camp that we just captured to surround Zhuge Jin! Reinforce the camp on the spot to prevent Zhuge Jin from breaking out. Once the soldiers have rested, we can continue the attack tomorrow."

Cao Cao had no choice but to issue such an order.

(End of this chapter)