Destroy Jin and conquer Song, and carry the Northern Expedition through to the end

Chapter 989 The Horse Gallops at Great Speed
Although Liu Si said he would hold out for 45 minutes, he actually overestimated himself.

The great war between the Han and Song dynasties was so rushed that neither side had time to mobilize their national strength, and the personal abilities of the generals became the dominant factor.

As for personal ability, given Xin Qiji's achievements over the years, let alone Liu Si, even his own uncle Liu Qi would be utterly overwhelmed.

When the Flying Tigers, numbering a thousand, gathered together and formed a large horizontal line, pressing forward in a wall-like charge, the routed troops became even more disorganized.

The routed troops on the left and right flanks could jump into the icy Yellow River or rush into the Lüliang Mountains to hide.

However, the two or three thousand routed soldiers in the middle had no way to avoid it. The rear pushed forward, and the routed soldiers at the front could only push aside the long spears of the Song army and squeeze past the large shields standing side by side, crying and begging their comrades to give them a way out.

Whether it was because the Song army couldn't bear to leave, or because they were truly frightened by so many fleeing soldiers, after a stalemate of fifteen minutes, when the spears of the Flying Tiger cavalry were almost touching the backs of the fleeing soldiers, Liu Si's Song army finally broke through the spear and shield formation, allowing the fleeing soldiers to retreat to the rear.

As expected, the Song army's originally orderly ranks were quickly overwhelmed by the fleeing troops, and those Song soldiers who had not yet engaged in battle were swept up by the fleeing troops and became part of the fleeing army in no time.

Liu Si covered his face and wept bitterly, but dared not linger any longer. He could only break the banner himself and flee in the rear.

However, before Liu Si's troops completely collapsed, his personal guards still managed to convey Liu Si's words to Li Ziyuan.

Arriving at the same time as Liu Si's personal guards was Shao Hongyuan's military envoy.

"Go back and tell Grand Commandant Shao that his orders cannot be carried out. If he is willing, he should come here and fight alongside me!"

Li Ziyuan, with a pout, came forward to answer.

His nearly four thousand troops had already deployed, forming seven small square formations, with a passage left in the middle for the fleeing soldiers.

The military envoy gripped the reins, seemingly about to erupt in anger, but seeing Li Ziyuan's personal guards also looking down at him disdainfully, he ultimately swallowed his curses: "General Li, are you going to disobey Grand Commandant Shao's orders? You must know that disobeying orders in battle is punishable by death!"

Li Ziyuan immediately flew into a rage, pointing to the dust-filled battlefield ahead: "Open your eyes and look! Liu Si is about to collapse! If I turn back now and join forces with Grand Commandant Shao's main force, who will stop the army's rout?!"

That giant blue rhinoceros is not easy to deal with. Do you believe that if it gets the chance, it will come charging straight at you?!
Tell Grand Commandant Shao everything I have said, and that the only way now is for him to immediately lead the central army forward to help me maintain the front line!
The Great Blue Rhinoceros isn't made of iron, and the Flying Tigers aren't cast in bronze. As long as we can hold out through this, although this battle has been humiliating, we still have a chance to fight!

The military envoy glanced at the blue rhinoceros banner that appeared and disappeared in the smoke and dust, and finally became somewhat flustered. After nodding with difficulty, he ran away.

"Send the order to all units: hold your ground and do not move!" Li Ziyuan shouted. "Let the routed troops bypass the formation from both sides! Anyone who dares to move, I'll rip their head off!"

The Song general who originally had the strongest desire to surrender has now become the one with the most resolute will to resist. It has to be said that God has a touch of dark humor in him.

Of course, at this point, Li Ziyuan had no time to think about these things, because Liu Si's troops had already collapsed before his eyes, and that blue rhinoceros banner was truly like a mad rhinoceros, rampaging through the Song army with unstoppable force.

On the surface, Li Ziyuan appeared to be in control, but in reality, he was panicking. When he saw Liu Si fleeing in a sorry state in front of him, he suddenly thought of the Battle of Chaoxian.

You can't force it if you don't want to.

The two generals fighting each other on the banks of the Yellow River, including Xin Qiji, Wei You, Liu Si, Li Ziyuan, Hou Gaolang in the rear, and even Li Xianzong, were almost all comrades-in-arms who fought side by side on the battlefield of Chaoxian.

On that day, Liu Si personally went into battle to stop Han Tang's elite troops and almost died under the swords of the Jin army. How could he have been defeated so quickly now?

I couldn't even last the agreed-upon 15 minutes!

But thinking back on his own wavering earlier, Li Ziyuan felt that he shouldn't be too harsh on Liu Si.

With the Song Dynasty in such chaos—the retired emperor usurping the throne, driving the emperor insane, and even killing a high-ranking official—it would be strange if the people weren't filled with fear and trepidation.

Didn't we see that even someone like Li Xianzong was completely bewildered and panicked? How much more so Liu Si?

Lost in thought, nearly ten thousand routed soldiers surged forward like a tide. After Liu Si reached the rear of the Song army's formation through the gaps, he immediately raised a large flag, attempting to rally the routed troops.

At the same time, Xin Qiji had already led his Flying Tiger Cavalry through the routed army and arrived in front of the Song army's formation. Upon seeing the banner with the character "Li," he burst into laughter under the banner of the Green Rhinoceros: "Li Huozi! It's been many years since we parted ways. After all, we've known each other for a while, so surrender!"

Li Ziyuan waved for his guards to lower the crossbows, spurred his horse forward a few steps, and retorted loudly, "Great Blue Rhinoceros, you and Flying Tiger have caused quite a stir in the North, which I greatly envy! But if you want me to surrender, hmph... my head is right here, come and take it!"

Xin Qiji continued to laugh loudly: "Hahaha, Li Huozi! In the past few years, I have defeated more than 100,000 Jin bandits! Today, I have also routed tens of thousands of Song soldiers right before your eyes. Do you really think you can stop me?!"

"My great formation was not shaken in the slightest when Wanyan Liang himself came! If you are truly brave and strong, why not give it a try!"

Li Ziyuan boasted without batting an eye, as if he wasn't the one who was defeated by the Jin army's Hezhameng'an in Chaoxian that day.

Seeing that he could not persuade Li Ziyuan to surrender, Xin Qiji naturally did not continue to argue with him. Looking back at the Flying Tiger Cavalry, who had changed into new warhorses and were now in formation, he did not say another word and immediately turned and left.

After giving a speech at the front lines, Li Ziyuan became much calmer and immediately assessed the situation.

Xin Qiji appeared unstoppable, but he could only rely on his thousand-odd armored cavalry. Although the difference in troop strength between the two sides had narrowed somewhat after the front lines collapsed, it was impossible to close the gap immediately.

Therefore, the Han army's victories have always been based solely on offensive maneuvers. Despite the current formidable strength of the Han cavalry, once their offensive falters and the Song army capitalizes on its numerical superiority, the Han army will still be at a disadvantage. This battle is far from over!

Just as Li Ziyuan was encouraging himself, he heard a rumbling sound from the first formation to his left.

Before he could see clearly, he felt his warhorse rear up and then, out of control, neigh and flee backward.

Li Ziyuan tumbled off his horse, then got up in a disheveled state, shaking off the help of his guards. He ignored the fact that his assembled cavalry had all fled in terror due to the loud noise, and craned his neck to see what had happened.

All he saw was smoke and fire.

Could it be... could it be that Xin Qiji brought out that miraculous cannon?

Li Ziyuan's heart sank, but he immediately shook his head repeatedly.

He had also seen several cannons that Yu Yunwen had trial-cast, all of which were extremely heavy and could not possibly keep up with the cavalry's rapid march.

What is that? Explosives?

At this moment, the Song army's formation was already starting to stir, but Li Ziyuan couldn't care less about that now. He just stared wide-eyed, searching for his target.

Soon, he saw a cavalry unit of Flying Tiger armored riders break through the chaos of the routed army and arrive in front of the Song army's main formation.

"Fire the arrow! Fire the arrow!"

The Song army officer shouted the order, and the crossbowmen who were already prepared fired their crossbows to snipe at the enemy.

The Flying Tiger Armored Cavalry, on the other hand, easily defended against the sparse crossbow bolts thanks to their armor and superb horsemanship.

The lead knight lit a bundle of hemp straw tightly bound with iron chains, grabbed one end of the thin iron chain, wrapped it around his head twice, and then threw it into the Song army formation with the help of the horse's momentum.

boom……

Smoke and dust rose, and screams and limbs of flesh and blood flew everywhere.

The leader of the Flying Tiger Armored Cavalry burst into laughter, completely disregarding the crossbow bolts still stuck in his armor and horse armor, and charged directly at the chaotic Song army formation with his spear.

"boom!"

"boom!"

"boom!"

Explosions rang out one after another throughout the Song army's formation, and with each one, Li Ziyuan shuddered violently.

He finally realized something.

Although the Lianghuai army was one of the most elite forces in the Song army, it was nothing short of humiliation compared to the Han army, which fought every day.

The Han army, forged in the fierce Northern Expedition, completely overwhelmed the Song army in every aspect, from strategy and tactics to organization.

The military technology that the Han army developed amidst the flames of war left even fierce generals like Li Ziyuan feeling completely bewildered.

“We can’t stop them…” Li Ziyuan muttered to himself, then said to his personal guards, “Quickly, the whole army flee to the Lüliang Mountains! Don’t worry about anything else, this battle shouldn’t have been fought!”

Li Ziyuan roared to the sky, "This battle should never have been fought!"

Such a gesture by the commander-in-chief should have severely damaged morale, but now it was no longer up to Li Ziyuan to destroy the morale of the Song army.

Originally, the routed troops could retreat through the gaps in the Song army's formation, but when the Han army began to use explosives to clear a path, the routed troops panicked again and fled in disarray like headless flies.

After being bombarded with explosives and charged by armored cavalry, the Song army's formation was then attacked by the fleeing troops. They could not even exert one-tenth of their strength and were inexplicably swept up by the fleeing troops, becoming part of the fleeing army themselves.

After holding out for less than half an hour, both Liu Si's and Li Ziyuan's troops were completely routed.

The Song army's central army was like a walnut whose hard shell had been cracked open, with the plump flesh right in front of them!

"Fifth Brother! We've already won half the battle!"

Chen Wenben, panting heavily, burst into loud laughter.

Xin Qiji, however, remained calm and composed: "This battle is the first battle fought since the founding of the Han Dynasty. How can we say that we have only won half the battle?! Follow me, everyone, and fight to the death!"

(End of this chapter)