Tiger Guards

Chapter 537 Lax Fighting Spirit

Yellow smoke rose from within the camp.

The Xianbei knights who stormed into the camp were full of energy and high morale.

In the simple defensive fortifications of the Crescent Moon Formation, which were spaced seventy or eighty paces apart, the defending troops who had retreated inside actively resisted from behind the fortifications.

Smaller crescent formations have two to three hundred people, while larger crescent formations have more than four hundred.

The dozen or so crescent-shaped battle positions formed the outer combat zone, much like a ring of ice cones slowing down the enemy outside the camp. Each crescent-shaped battle position could attract two or three times more Xianbei people.

They effectively divided the enemy ranks, and when the daredevils launched a counterattack, they were able to effectively defend against the mere ten thousand or so Xianbei infantry and cavalry.

As the suicide squad launched their counter-offensive, enough open space was cleared behind the makeshift defensive line.

On the right flank of the suicide squad, Han Shu led over a hundred men to observe the battle.

Seeing that the advancing suicide soldiers had cleared a wide enough space, Han Shu waved his arms and shouted, while more than two hundred reserve suicide soldiers dismantled the makeshift fortifications.

A cavalry unit of Xianbei charged in, and Han Shu's guards immediately dispatched half of them to meet them.

Han Shu preferred to use the Qiang people. This Qiang guard carried shields and spears. The dozen or so men at the front stopped abruptly and crouched down, forming a simple spear formation.

The next thirty-odd Qiang soldiers also carried long spears to reinforce the flanks of the spear formation. They were fearless and took the lead in establishing the spear formation. The spears were like a forest, forcing the Xianbei cavalry to slow down and bypass them from both sides.

Han Shu's remaining guards stood their shields and crossbows in place. The Xianbei cavalry attempted to charge, and when they got within twenty paces, the crossbow-wielding Qiang soldiers fired their crossbows one after another. Seven or eight Xianbei knights fell from their horses, while the rest turned their horses around and fled.

At this moment, Zhao Ji's core cavalry force began to drive and accelerate behind the makeshift defensive line. At the forefront of the charge were no longer the three hundred or so iron cavalry, but heavy snow sled war chariots.

Compared to traditional armored vehicles, sled armored vehicles possess unparalleled stability.

On icy and snowy roads, the snowmobile is not afraid of minor bumps; because it does not have a complicated hub structure, it is not afraid of bumps at all.

At the same time, the snowmobile has a lower center of gravity and no difference in synchronization between the left and right wheels, so it will not tip over even if it turns at a large angle!
On ice and snow, the impact of the sled vehicle is unparalleled.

The heavy sleds acting as the vanguard were deployed in groups of three to five, all in a diagonal attack formation.

Han Shu stood at the newly opened gap, watching the sled chariots rush out. After several chariots, it was finally the turn of the chariot carrying the Golden Eagle Banner.

He glanced at it casually, then turned his gaze to the white tiger-striped banner chariot behind him. In front of this chariot was the Grand Marshal's heavy chariot.

Han Shu gazed at Zhao Ji in the carriage. Zhao Ji held a bow in his left hand and an arrow in his right. Noticing Han Shu, he nodded slightly to him.

The two passed each other, and Zhao Ji squinted as he stared at the various battle formations of the Xianbei people ahead.

He intuitively sensed that, disregarding all the Xianbei warriors on foot, the true Xianbei nobles and leaders would never dismount and fight on foot.

They spotted a Xianbei cavalryman in relatively fine armor. He was a skilled rider with exceptional courage and was charging diagonally from the flank, intending to harass a group of daredevils.

Without a second thought, Zhao Ji drew and released the bow as unconsciously as breathing, almost without considering the results, and continued to look for the next target.

More than twenty heavy chariots charged forward, and the Xianbei infantry and cavalry on the northern left flank of the main camp were attacked from both sides and forced to retreat step by step.

When the golden eagle-patterned banner, the white tiger-patterned banner, and the stag-patterned banner moved forward together, the Han army, the Xiongnu volunteers, and a small number of Xianbei and Qiang volunteers who participated in the battle were greatly encouraged, and the Xianbei people were also greatly shocked.

"Guards! The Grand Marshal is charging into the enemy lines!"

A daredevil battalion commander, dressed in ordinary brass armor, stood behind the front line and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Charge! The Xianbei are about to be routed!"

According to his established understanding, as long as the Grand Marshal launched an attack, the enemy would collapse. Whether in Hedong, Taiyuan, Shangdang, Changshan, Zhongshan, or the Central Plains and Guandong battlefields, as long as the Grand Marshal went into battle, the enemy would crumble and disintegrate, and none could escape!
All the military officers who observed the movement of the three large banners and chariots began to encourage their troops to fight.

More than 5,000 daredevils charged in the opposite direction, pressing more than 10,000 Xianbei infantry and cavalry out of the camp.

The Han and Xiongnu soldiers stationed at various crescent-shaped battle positions fought bravely and actively, with archers from both sides firing at close range, resulting in a surge in casualties.

The Xianbei were also fierce fighters, and many were separated from their tribes during the battles. Unless they saw a large number of familiar corpses, the Xianbei's fighting spirit would not easily crumble before they were exhausted and their anger subsided.

The war chariots relentlessly charged and rammed the Xianbei infantry and cavalry, while the daredevil infantry also provided flanking support.

On the third floor of the watchtower, Zhang Hong watched the counterattack by the defending troops inside the camp and couldn't help but think of the plowshare.

The suicide soldiers who launched the counterattack were like wooden plows, while the chariot and cavalry charge formed a sharp edge, like iron plowshares nailed to the plow.

The Xianbei infantry and cavalry that stormed into the camp were gradually driven back from the northern battlefield towards the central region by a combined counterattack from the infantry and chariot troops. However, as the chariot and cavalry troops charged south and attacked, the Xianbei people in the north, who had a numerical advantage, stormed into the camp again and engaged in battle with the daredevils and the defenders in the crescent-shaped formation.

The suicide squad immediately revealed a problem: they preferred to leave the ranks and behead people rather than maintain organization and formation.

As a result, the daredevils on the northern battlefield were too busy collecting heads to respond quickly and had to engage in close combat with the Xianbei infantry and cavalry again.

Zhao Ji's cavalry force broke through the southern battlefield in one go, and he fired more than forty arrows throughout the process, still having energy to spare.

As the entire army turned around, Zhao Ji looked towards the southeast outside the camp, where the Yellow River flowed eastward.

Last night, some of the snow on the ice was blown away by the north wind, revealing a layer of ice as smooth as a mirror.

"It's so beautiful!"

Zhao Ji sighed, and at the end of his sight, the main force of the Han army's chariot troops finally appeared.

Each sled has two flags, one purple and one red, and at first glance, the outline of the sled is not visible.

Above the sled-riding troops charging the formation were purple and red flags; below them, ice chips and snowflakes flew up and burst forth, white ice and snow swirling and obscuring the outline of the sleds and the figures of the sled-riding troops.

Zhao Ji took out a refreshing yogurt curd from his waist pouch and put it in his mouth. Seeing that the convoy had turned around, he began to accelerate gradually.

He didn't give any instructions; he simply followed the chariot soldiers and was responsible for shooting down any figures that appeared to be Xianbei leaders.

Everyone has the inclination and instinct to slack off and coast through life, and the Xianbei people were no exception.

The Xianbei people were human beings, not beastmen or an army of undead. Although their lives were bitter, cold and impoverished, they were willing to die rather than live.
Without the supervision of their own noble tribes, ordinary Xianbei people would naturally prefer to run around aimlessly rather than rush to the front lines and fight to the death.

Besides, the lives of nobles matter too.

These people don't pay much attention to the deaths and injuries of their own troops on the battlefield; they focus on the other nobles.

When more and more nobles are assassinated, other Xianbei nobles will also learn to protect themselves.

Nobles are nobles wherever they go. Even when the Han dynasty ruled over the Xianbei, it did not do without the assistance of Xianbei nobles... So, the relationship is quite simple.

The relationship between the imperial court and powerful clans, and between the imperial court and the Xianbei nobles... is actually a similar one.

However, one is a confrontation in a cooperative state, while the other is a full-scale confrontation, and they cooperate when they can't win.

To put it bluntly, the powerful Han people and the nobles of the various Hu tribes were all contractors and middlemen between the central government and the common people and herdsmen.

(End of this chapter)