Jinting Han people

July Bingshen, this is the agreed day for the decisive battle.

As the saying goes, the scorching heat of July, the daylight still comes early in Guanzhong. Before the morning, the night of Chenmayuan has already gone. Only a pale golden halo flickers in the sky, turning the clouds above into golden threads. The nearby Chenma River and the distant Wei River are also sparkling, with endless golden fragments, illuminating the shadows of the willow forest on the shore cleanly and brightly.

Some chrysanthemums have already bloomed, though only in small groups, their fragrance is intense. The dogwoods have also produced small, bright red fruits, attracting equally small quail to peck at them amidst the still-green autumn grass. Further north, on the plateau, a lush jujube forest stretches like a waterfall of green leaves, and amidst the abundant, unripe fruits, the branches are bent with weight, a truly refreshing sight.

In peaceful times, this would have been a great place for an outing, but now, war and death were approaching.

After Meng Guan set up camp in Chenmayuan, more than 4,000 rebels circled around. When they saw the Shanggu camp, they were frightened by its magnificent military appearance and did not dare to attack. They monitored it from a distance and quickly reported to Qi Wannian.

On the morning of that day, the Jin army scouts who arrived at Hengshuiyuan discovered that a large number of people appeared on the plain in the east, and walked towards Chenmayuan like a flood, and then to the south, west... The footsteps of the Hu people stepped on the dust on the ground, causing a thin layer of yellow mist to float in the air. It seemed endless and overwhelming, and combined with the various endless flags waving by the Hu people, it was extremely spectacular.

Meng Guan also witnessed this scene, but fear did not creep into his face. He rode on horseback, sword in hand, and inspected the scene. He seemed to be strolling leisurely in the garden, and said to his followers with considerable leisure:
"There are quite a few Qi bandits, but I don't know how many of them are strong enough to fight."

Under his calm aura, the knights under his command also revealed a relaxed demeanor. The soldiers of the Shanggu Camp had already prepared for battle. Their armor was already donned, their horses were clad in horse armor, and their formations were already in place. However, most of them had not yet mounted their horses. This was to conserve their mounts' energy as much as possible, building up a final reserve for the upcoming battle.

However, as time went on, the rebel army on the horizon grew larger and larger, and Zhang Lin, the deputy cavalry commander, became somewhat worried. He was a descendant of Zhang Yan, the general of Wei Pingbei, and was chosen by Meng Guan for his considerable military prowess. But now, he couldn't help but ask Meng Guan:

"Marshal, will the two military commanders arrive as scheduled? The last time we contacted them, the northern route seemed to be still in Meiyang, and there was no news from the southern route. The Qi bandits are so powerful, and we have been cut off from all communication. If reinforcements don't arrive, isn't it all over?"

"Whether Zhang Shiyan, Liu Huaichong and the others came is not a difficult question to judge."

Faced with this question, Meng Guan chuckled, continued to watch the enemy, and replied:

"You'll know by looking at the movements of the Qi thief."

"trend?"

Zhang Lin was puzzled by this question. He followed Meng Guan's example to observe the enemy situation and found that the rebels were deploying their battle formations on three sides. This was obviously a move towards a joint battle. Was there something wrong?

Meng Guan explained, "If there were no threat from the rear, they should have dug trenches first, cutting off our cavalry's escape potential and trapping them in a trap. But now they're rushing to engage in battle, which means they can't afford to lose time and that our reinforcements aren't far behind."

Zhang Lin suddenly realized that he had never thought that such a mystery could be hidden in just one tactical move taken by the enemy.

This is indeed the case. After arriving at Chenmayuan, Qi Wannian's first order was:
"The Jin army is less than twenty miles away from us. There's no time to lose, prepare for battle immediately! Behead Meng Guan first, then kill Zhang Gui and Liu Xian later!"

Qi Wannian's order wasn't an exaggeration, as Chenmayuan wasn't a terrain like Emeiyuan or Liangyuan. While it was called a plateau, it was actually a slope between the Weishui Plain and the Beiyuan. Aside from a plateau at its back, the east, south, and west sides were all flat grasslands, ideal for horse racing. It was said that in ancient times, it was a natural horse ranch.

This kind of terrain makes it very easy to take advantage of manpower. Qi Wannian thought that no matter how great the losses were, as long as Meng Guan's troops were annihilated first, the morale of the main force of the Jin army would be completely destroyed without their commander. By then, it would be impossible for the Hu people to replicate the scene of the Fufeng decisive battle.
In fact, it was not only Qi Wannian who thought so. Almost all the Hu people who participated in the battle thought so.

How could anyone willingly charge alone into the heart of the enemy, only to be surrounded by an enemy force dozens of times their size? This was utterly illogical from a military perspective. The only possible explanation was that the Jin commander inherently despised the Hu people and believed this was enough to ensure success. This infuriated the Hu people, who were determined to make them pay for their mistakes with unwavering conviction.

There are now nearly 100,000 Hu people on the battlefield, and more than 30 tribes have gathered on this small battlefield to form a battle array. They are just waiting for the formation to be completed before they launch a general attack on the 3,000 Jin people in the center of the battlefield.

It can be imagined that the scene of such a battle would be like a mountain pressing down on one's head, with hardly even a wave splashing, and the Jin army in the center would be crushed to death like a bug.

While they were forming their battle array, the Shanggu camp began to move.

The Jin army's camp was built at the foot of a cliff on a hillside. The Jin knights had previously hidden in the shadows, making it difficult for the Hu people to see them clearly. But when they stepped out of the shadows and slowly marched out of the camp to form a battle array, everyone's attention was drawn to them.

As mentioned earlier, the Shanggu Camp was a rare heavy cavalry unit, rivaled only by Qi Wannian's Red Crow Army. However, in terms of troop quality, the Shanggu Camp was far superior. When Meng Guan established the Shanggu Camp, his recruitment criteria were extremely stringent. Each soldier must be at least eight feet (1.84 meters) tall, able to sustain armored combat for two days and nights, and capable of firing a three-stone bow.

Their equipment was equally luxurious, not to mention the ornate armor. Unable to import horses from Liang Province, Meng Guan opted to purchase "celestial horses" at high prices from the Tuoba and Murong Xianbei. These horses, each standing at least six feet five inches (1.49 meters) at the shoulder, were truly magnificent. Meng Guan also equipped each soldier with a ten-foot-long spear and two short crossbows. The cost of the crossbow mechanism alone was exorbitant, but a single spear cost nearly ten times as much as a ring-handled sword. In ordinary armies, only officers were equipped with them. During Liu Xian's bloody battle at Gumuyuan, Zhang Guang's army had only amassed a little over eight hundred spears, which successfully stopped the initial attack of Hao Sanqi's army. Meanwhile, the Shanggu camp possessed nearly four thousand spears, with a number held in reserve. This was unimaginable to ordinary Hu people.

At this moment, the fully armed Shanggu knights appeared in the sunlight, their armor and armor reflecting each other, gleaming brilliantly, like a golden lake appearing out of thin air on Chenma Plain. The knights raised their lances high, creating a forest of iron thorns. Combined with their armored, towering horses, resembling monstrous beasts, the scene was truly awe-inspiring and majestic.

The Hu people had never seen such cavalry. They were fascinated by it and felt a sense of admiration and worship in their hearts. Anyone who had been to the battlefield could not help but yearn for such a brilliant cavalry.

And now, this army is about to be launched.

Facing a vastly superior force, Meng Guan divided his twenty divisions into five sections: six in the center, four on the left, four on the right, and four in the front, with two remaining at the rear. This formed an arrowhead pointing forward, or something like an inward-curving circle. This formation could be folded into a circle for defense, or driven into the enemy like a wedge in attack, a classic dual-purpose formation. A gust of wind swept up, scattering the dandelions from the ground. Countless white seeds drifted in the wind, resembling a flurry of snow. With a wave of his hand, Meng Guan's attendants raised the yellow dragon flag, symbolizing the Imperial Guard Battalion, and blew their horns.

The vast sound of horns resounded between heaven and earth, and the war horses of Shanggu Camp began to march forward.

As the first step sounded, the entire earth shook, as if a thunder had exploded on the ground. Then came the second step, the third step... The fierce sound of horse hooves turned from thunder into an endless wave, spreading towards the direction of their attack.

The first attack direction of Shanggu Camp was the west, because the number of rebels in the west was the smallest and their formation was the weakest.

The leader of the Hu people in charge of this area was Pu Yuan, a Di people. He was facing the rising sun and saw the Jin cavalry galloping towards him. The morning light and the radiance of their armor combined to create a dazzling sight that was impossible to look at directly. The Hu people who had just formed their battle array were filled with fear, feeling as if they were fighting a celestial being descended from the earth. Their sword-wielding hands trembled uncontrollably from the exhaustion.

Pu Yuan knew things were bad, but he also knew that if he lost heart and retreated, he would become a lamb to the slaughter. So he mustered up his courage and shouted to his people, "Don't be afraid! Shoot them when they come! We have many people, and we can always kill them!"

These words make sense, but even Pu Yuan's voice became strangely hoarse when he spoke them. No matter how people claim to be indifferent to death, when death really comes to them, how many people can remain calm?

At least the Di people who faced the Gu army head-on could not do this, because they intuitively felt that they had no hope of winning.

When the Shanggu camp was still a hundred paces away, a Di man, overcome by fear, unleashed a shot forward. This ignited the fear of several rows of people around him, and a hail of arrows flew forward, only to land with a crackling sound on the grass, allowing the armored cavalry to trample through them, thus wasting their chance to fire a round of arrows.

When they shot the second round, everyone was horrified to find that the arrows hit the armored cavalry with a clanging sound just like raindrops. Except for a few unfortunate people who were shot in the head and fell off their horses, most of the armored cavalry were unharmed. Only a few arrows were stuck in the gaps between the armor, but they did not make the knights lose their combat effectiveness.

At this time, the knights raised their long lances with the tips pointing forward, forming a gloomy forest of death. The fierce horses under their command were already angry, and the knights on the horses were even more excited.

Finally, this cavalry, carrying the morning light, ran into the rebels.

Like a sharp knife cutting through paper, perhaps even more effortlessly, the Shanggu knights easily tore through a terrifying breach, and naturally pierced the entire western rebel force. Behind them lay a pile of indistinguishable corpses. First, they were sliced open by spears, then crushed by horses' hooves. Blood gushed from their flesh at breakneck speed, gathering into a bloody stream.

After just one charge at Shangguying, the rebels lost about 2,000 men, and the Di leader Pu Yuan was also killed in the battle.

But the Shanggu Camp hadn't stopped. After they had carved out a bloody path, the Yellow Dragon Banner drew an elegant semi-arc in the air, and the cavalry also ran in a large circular arc, reversing the direction of the entire attack. This time, they would face east with their backs to the west.

Meng Guan could see that the entire Hu army's formation had become disorganized, with no longer any neat horizontal lines. The rebel formations to the west had been broken up by them, while those to the east and south had been broken up by the Shanggu Camp's maneuvers.

Most people assumed Meng Guan was trying to escape with his cavalry through a vulnerable point, so they pursued him westward. However, their judgment was wrong for two reasons: first, the rebels to the west could not possibly stop Meng Guan, and second, Meng Guan had no intention of escaping.

His goal had never changed; he had always wanted to break through the entire rebel formation on the east side.

Meng Guan wants to use this blow to completely crush the rebels' fighting will!
After only a brief pause, the sound of the Shanggu Knights' hooves rang out again, and this time the charge was beyond everyone's expectations.

Horse hooves flew, dust billowed, and a yellow-red cloud rose from the ground, trailing behind the Shanggu cavalry. Before these iron-clad knights lay a boundless sea of flags and armies, many of them elite troops like the Red Crow Army, painstakingly trained for thousands of years.

But Meng Guan was not afraid at all, or rather, he felt boundless pleasure and enjoyment in the rumbling sound of horse hooves. This was exactly the life he was pursuing, and he was willing to accept it even if death was imminent.

In fact, the same thing happened to these galloping knights. They felt as if they were no longer in the human world, or rather, that the spirits of the gods had inhabited their armor and weapons. In such a grand and heroic charge, humans no longer needed to think, only to leave the outcome of the war to the judgment of heaven. They did not need to care who they killed or who killed them, but only knew that they had become messengers of destiny.

I don't know who started it, but the knights shouted loudly, and the shouts shook the sky. The neighing of the war horses sounded like cheers for justice, which made all the Hu people they met along the way change color.

After opening up a bloody path, another bloody path was opened up for it, and it continued to extend eastward. It was invincible along the way and no one could resist it.

After an unknown amount of time, Meng Guan's eyes became clear and he saw a vast expanse of land. He had forgotten the enemy's painful groans.

Meng Guan then noticed that some shaking black spots appeared on the plain in the distance. The number of black spots increased and they expanded towards him, gradually becoming clear: it was the White Tiger Flag of the Zhengxi Army, which was fluttering in the wind.

At this moment, Qi Wannian, who was in the center of the army, looked at the devastated battlefield in disbelief. He covered his forehead and closed his eyes, almost like a sleepwalker, trying to deceive himself that this was fake. But he had to painfully and soberly admit that his army of 100,000 was actually defeated by a mere 3,000 people.

Why did such a counterintuitive cavalry appear? The Red Crow Army, which he had been managing for so long, seemed like a joke. The difference in combat power between the two sides was simply a world of difference!

But Qi Wannian had to brace himself, because the battle wasn't over yet. This was the fire he had ignited, and now that it had burned, even if it meant he would perish in the flames and turn to ashes, he had to persevere to the end. (End of this chapter)