The final preparations of the Han army included 2,000 Youzhou assault cavalry, 800 Changshui captain Hu cavalry, and 3,000 Zhao Guo infantry, slowly descending along the desolate frozen soil slope.
Among them, Youzhou Tuqi is in the middle, with Changshui Colonel Hu Qibu on the left and Zhao Guo's infantry on the right.
They pressed forward in their respective square formations, their armor shining brightly, their breath forming clouds, and their flags standing erect in the wind, looking arrogant.
At this time, those who stayed behind the formation and those who walked with the formation, the trumpeters and drummers, all worked hard to play exciting vocal music.
On the opposite side, Zhang Rao's tribe of the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans, except for the last two thousand-man phalanx, were still holding on, and the rest had been defeated.
As for Xu He's tribe, they were completely out of line. Each tribe could only fight independently in the Han army's attack. Even Xu He himself was coerced and retreated to the Jinan Yellow Turban behind.
Therefore, on the battlefield now, the only three 8,000-man formations formed by Sun Ji are the mainstays.
Facing the Han soldiers on the opposite side, chasing the defeated Yellow Turban troops in front, Jinan Yellow Turbans were still motionless when they were about two hundred paces away.
Suddenly, groups of archers appeared from behind the fence in front of the formation. They were all Shanliao archers accumulated by the Jinan Yellow Turbans. They were also holding Han Army standard hard bows from Jinan's arsenal.
Therefore, when the Han army on the opposite side rushed to between 150 and 100 steps, the Jinan Yellow Turban archers waved their flags and ordered each team to miss.
For a time, the Jinan Yellow Turbans' broad front was filled with arrows like locusts, venting their anger towards the Han army's charging formation.
It is indeed a turn of events. Just before, the Han army defeated Zhang Rao's formation with a dense and terrifying arrow attack. Now they were about to face the revenge of the Jinan Yellow Turbans.
Pingyuan Yellow Turbans, Jinan Yellow Turbans, and Le'an Yellow Turbans. Although the three units are all Qingzhou Yellow Turbans, their main arms and combat capabilities are different.
Pingyuan County is a plain land with a large population and is good at forming formations. It is also a stronger branch among the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans.
Le'an is close to the sea, and the people eat a lot of good water from the sea, and they often use boats to carry grain. They are the most mobile among the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans.
But neither of them can compare with Jinan, because Jinan alone has an army of three thousand archers.
Because Jinan is backed by mountains, and only Shanliao is good at shooting.
So at this moment, three thousand archers fired arrows desperately, completely covering the leading troops of the Han army.
Although their arrows were not as fierce as those of the Han archers, they were more numerous and denser. Therefore, the Han army also suffered a huge blow.
Among them, the one who was shot the hardest was the remaining armored personnel officer led by Infantry Colonel Wei Duan.
It turned out that with the support of Yue Qi, they penetrated Xu He's formation and were chasing the defeated troops of the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans and rolled back to the Jinan Yellow Turban formation behind them.
It was also at this time that they were attacked by the Jinan Yellow Turbans.
They were about a hundred steps away from the Jinan Yellow Turbans and were covered by arrows from three directions almost at the same time.
Most of the officers of the Infantry School Command had their armor in ruins due to the intensity of the previous confrontation with Xu He's troops.
At this time, he was suddenly hit by the rain of arrows covered by Jinan Yellow Turban, and he couldn't bear it at once.
The air was filled with screams and the sound of missing arrows, and countless Han army officials fell to the ground like wheat in the rain of arrows.
There were dead and wounded Han soldiers everywhere. They were lying on the piles of corpses of the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans who had died in the battle, and the piles were getting higher and higher.
After being covered with arrow feathers, the Jinan Yellow Turban's plaque was pulled open, revealing rows of riflemen and armored warriors behind it.
They missed the arrows on their heads and began to charge towards the infantry captain's headquarters.
The sound of the charging trumpet drowned out the pitiful howls of the Han army. They had already finished recharging their energy, and the Jinan armored infantry, filled with anger, began to crash into the crooked Han army infantry camp.
When these Han troops arrived here, they already felt like they were at the end of their battles, and they suffered a strong wave of arrows. Then they were rushed by the Jinan armored soldiers, and they were immediately killed in a daze, and they retreated steadily.
In this way, the charging Jinan armored soldiers were like destroying the last courage of the Han army.
Infantry Colonel Wei Duan, who was organizing troops in the rear formation, saw his own flag falling to the ground or retreating in front of him, and he immediately realized that something was wrong.
He quickly ordered his soldiers to hoist flags and summoned the cavalry cruising nearby to respond.
After Sun Meng, a lieutenant of the Tun Cavalry School, launched the first wave of attacks and knocked out a corner of Xu He's formation, he has been cruising around the periphery of the battlefield.
At this time, Wei Duan in the formation asked for help, and Shi Sunmeng divided the 800 cavalry into three teams. Except for his own 300 cavalry, the other two groups had 250 cavalry each.
One of them was led by Sima Suze from the left, and the other was led by Sima Yang Qiu from the right. They attacked the Jinan armored soldiers from both sides.
As for the scholar Sun Meng, he raised his eagle and falcon cavalry high and charged straight into the middle of Jinan's armored soldiers. For a while, horses' hooves were flying and red flags were rolling.
The Jinan Jingjia who charged from the large formation were roughly in two groups, with about a thousand people.
The leading generals are Li Xun and Gao Ao.
They led their troops to kill the exhausted Han army wantonly, never expecting that the Han army's cavalry could actually have the ability and courage to rush over within a small space.
Although the Jinan Yellow Turbans were trained in the tactics of Sun Yibei's army and in large formations by the Taishan Army's operational trainers, they lacked experienced military officials and sufficient experience in riding.
As a result, he was directly stunned by Shi Sunmeng's garrison.
One of the central generals, Li Xun, wanted to kill Sun Meng, but in the end he was killed by a tiger general next to Sun Meng.
This person is Ma Teng, a fellow of Shi Sun Meng and a member of the Fufeng Ma clan in the same county.
Ma Teng is a member of the Ma family in Fufeng, but he is not the main lineage, so his family's wealth has little to do with Ma Teng. Later, he lost his relationship with Sun Meng, a county scholar, and joined the Tunqi army as a minor official.
After that, he went on expeditions with Lu Zhi, and he has been there until now.
Originally, in history, the Yellow Turbans were destroyed long ago, and he returned to his hometown with success. Later, when the Qiang Beigong Boyu invaded Chang'an, he was recruited by Geng Bi, the governor of Liangzhou, to participate in the Battle of Ping Qiang, and became an anti-Han rebel in this battle.
As a member of the Ma clan, he started his military career in Liangzhou.
But unfortunately, history has changed beyond recognition until now. At this time, he is still fighting bravely in the army and is still an ordinary and inconspicuous captain.
After killing the moth thief general who overestimated his capabilities, Ma Teng was about to dismount and chop off the thief general's head.
Over there, a man bent down and cut off Li Xun's head with his hands, and then tied it to his horse pocket.
When Ma Teng saw that his trophy had been robbed, he was furious. He was about to chop it with a knife, but saw the man clearly, and then he froze completely.
It turned out that the person who snatched his head was none other than Ma Teng's countryman, the captain of the garrison, Sun Ying, the guard officer of Shi Sunmeng, the son of a famous scholar.
When he saw the soldier Sun Ying snatching his head, Ma Tengzui tried his best to smile and said with difficulty:
"General Qu, I was about to chop this piece off and give it to you, why bother doing it yourself?"
Shi Sunying laughed and said contemptuously:
"Some things are useless even if you try hard. They are all doomed. Huang Yan'er, listen to my advice. Don't think about doing anything on this battlefield. You should go back to your hometown in Fufeng to chop firewood. Oh, by the way, I forgot about it." Oh, your hometown is not from Fufeng, but from Longxi, haha."
After saying that, Shi Sunying ignored Ma Teng who was stiff and flushed, and instead led the guards to continue chasing the Jinan Yellow Turbans.
Over there, Ma Teng looked at the back of the scholar Sun Ying, holding the ring knife several times to restrain his murderous intention. But in the end, he held it back, and he faced a military officer next to him who was taller than him. He smiled miserably and said:
"Ling Ming, after all I'm making you laugh."
Yes, can you not be embarrassed?
In what Sun Ying said just now, what made Ma Teng most embarrassed was not that he went back to chop wood, or that he was robbed of his credit, but that sentence:
"Yellow eyes!"
"Your hometown is not from Fufeng, but from Longxi."
This sentence directly revealed Ma Teng's most embarrassing scar, and also clarified why Shi Sunying wanted to suppress and humiliate Ma Teng.
It turns out that Ma Teng is indeed a member of the Ma family in Fufeng. As the family of the emperor and empress, the Ma family in Fufeng is the prestige of the entire Fufeng noble family. It stands to reason that Ma Teng's fate will not be bad.
But just as the number of people in the family increases, the situation of each person is naturally different. Ma Teng's father Ma Ping was an upright official. When he later served as a county lieutenant in Longxi, he couldn't give any gifts, so he and a Qiang man came together. The chief's daughter got married and gave birth to Ma Teng.
The son of a famous Han family unexpectedly married a Qiang girl and gave birth to a son. At this time, Ma Ping and his son directly became the shame of the Ma family in Fufeng, and also the shame of Fufeng as a whole.
Sun Meng, a scholar from all over the world, saw that Ma Teng was the most brave man in Xizhou, so he wanted to promote him. So he took Ma Teng into the camp together. Anyway, there were many barbarians in the Northern Army, and there were not many Ma Teng. .
But the people around Shisun Meng didn't think so. They instinctively disliked Ma Teng when they saw him.
This man was both a warrior from Xizhou and a descendant of the Hu people, and he was also capable of making military exploits. With these factors put together, one can imagine what happened to Ma Teng.
Here, Ma Teng was embarrassed by his fellow warriors, but over there, the Xizhou warrior named Ling Ming persuaded him boldly:
"Brother, these aristocratic families in Guan are used to being unruly. Their eyes are in the sky and they can't see us people in the dust. These are still Kansai people like us. We are in Kanto these days, haven't we been less angry with the people in Kanto? ?We Xizhou warriors are neither tolerated by the people of Guanxi nor welcomed by the people of Guandong. In my opinion, we should just go back to Liangzhou and avoid being subjected to these bad things."
This person named Ling Ming is none other than Ma Teng's companion Pang De, who is also a brave Xizhou warrior.
After hearing what Pang De said, Ma Teng nodded in agreement, but thinking that he had already paid so much, he felt a little reluctant to part with it, so he replied:
"Let's take a look. Let's take a look after this battle is over. Besides, we are all in Hebei. If we really want to return to our hometown, it's not just for a while. It's better to make achievements here and return to our hometown in fine clothes."
Seeing that his eldest brother still valued Ronglu of the Han Dynasty so highly, Pang De didn't know what to say. He knew that family abandoned sons like Ma Teng made all their efforts to prove themselves and gain the family's approval.
Pound was not optimistic about Ma Teng's efforts. He, Pound, could see through these arrogant nobles. No matter how hard Ma Teng tried, it was all in vain.
But that’s fine, how can you start your own business without experiencing true despair?
Here, Ma Teng and Pang De were chatting on the battlefield, while the three-way attack by the cavalry over there also destroyed the Jinan Yellow Turban's warriors who stood up.
Thousands of soldiers charged, but in the end less than 600 people withdrew from the formation. Hundreds of them were trampled to death by the incoming Han cavalry, and were mixed together with the frozen soil.
Among the three major Jinan Yellow Turban formations, the leader of the right formation is He Huang, the deputy of Ji Sun.
This man was Paoze who was serving in the Northern Army when Ji Sun was in charge. He and Ji Sun could not stand the atmosphere in the Northern Army and left the army. Later, they joined Taiping Dao together and were assigned to preach in Jinan.
It can be said that the relationship between He Huang and Ji Sun is not that of father and son, but rather that of father and son.
He Huang is already forty-six years old this year. In this era, he is already a real octogenarian. But now, standing under the apricot-yellow banner, He Huang is still muscular and awe-inspiring.
At this time, He Huang saw that the thousands of armored soldiers he had just sent were defeated by the sudden Han cavalry. He was shocked and secretly thought that these former soldiers still maintained a high level of tactical ability.
He sent people to pick up the more than 500 armored soldiers who had retreated, and let them rest beside his banner. These soldiers still had fighting ability, but they were charged by cavalry and withdrew with inertia.
He Huang continued to look at the situation before the formation.
Thousands of thief troops galloped ahead. After chasing down the armored soldiers, they began to attack their own front formation. The sound of the ground shaking covered up the golden drums and the sound of fighting on the battlefield.
There are rows of gates and ravines in front of the front row of the military formation, and not many step formations have been established, so it looks very weak.
Those charging Yueqi also saw this battlefield situation, so they decided to charge towards his front.
But unfortunately, these Han cavalry underestimated them.
Facing the surging cavalry regiment, the Jinan Yellow Turbans retreated one after another, leaving the empty position to the Han cavalry on the opposite side.
The Jinan Yellow Turbans' escape in front of the formation further stimulated the charging Yue cavalry. The leading cavalry general led dozens of Han cavalry like a sharp arrow and rushed directly through the row of walls.
"Wow~coax"
It's just that the wooden rafters couldn't withstand the power of the galloping horse weighing nearly a thousand kilograms. So the entire couch was shattered and scattered all over the floor.
But the joy of the cross-country riders did not last long.
Due to the problem of vision, they could not see the two ravines behind the formation.
This caused the wall to rush forward, and they suddenly saw two ravines blocking the road. Both men and horses were shocked.
When sprinting to this speed, it was impossible to turn, so the leading soldier lay on the horse's back and stroked the horse's mustache, meaning to let the horse cross the ravine.
The other charging overriders also followed suit and prepared to jump.
The charge arrived in the blink of an eye, and dozens of war horses leaped into the air, creating a spectacular scene.
But after the spectacular comes the tragic.
The two gullies dug by the Yellow Turbans in Jinan were to prevent the cavalry from charging, and the distance between the two was relatively wide. When most of the Han army's horses jumped over the first gully, they slipped into the second before taking two steps.
In two ravines.
All of a sudden, the muscles and bones were broken, and the man fell on his back.
Even the Han cavalry general at the front was taken into the second ravine, and his neck was broken. But for a while, he didn't lose his breath, and he could only look at the sky in despair.
Not long after, he suddenly saw a familiar figure, leaping directly over his head, and then disappeared.
He whimpered, a tear falling from the corner of his eye.
Suddenly, the familiar person came back.
Looking into the yellow eyes that came into view, the man was moved to tears and moaned. Suddenly, a white light passed by, and then the world went dark.
The one with yellow eyes is Ma Teng.
The killed cavalryman was Sun Ying, the guard who had just mocked Ma Teng.
The world is changing, cause and effect take revenge, it is so fast.
After killing Sun Ying here, Ma Teng glanced at the people around him and said calmly:
"General Shisun Qu is in such pain, and you two and three sons just sit back and ignore him? Is there any sense of comradeship? If you don't relieve him, just leave him here to die, how miserable it is."
After saying this, the other knights bowed their heads in shame.
Ma Teng took his revenge and after training his men, he began to think about how to lead his brothers out of this death place.
Yes, they were already in a dead end.
It turned out that Ma Teng was charging behind with Pang De, but suddenly he saw the Paoze people charging in front flipping over. They immediately realized that something was wrong and reined in their horses one after another.
After that, we finally managed to jump over two ravines, but by this time our horses had lost their speed. There were ravines behind us that blocked our way back, and in front of us was a row of enemy infantrymen. It was a surefire place.
After thinking about it, Ma Teng gritted his teeth, jumped off his horse first, led the horse and walked towards the ravine.
Then Ma Teng pulled out his sword, stabbed it hard into the war horse's neck, and with one strong thrust, blood spurted out of Ma Teng like a bloody man.
The war horse fell weakly into the ravine, with tears in its eyes, as if asking Ma Teng why he wanted to kill it?
Ma Teng tried not to look at his beloved horse and shouted loudly:
"What are you still doing? Killing a horse!"
With this roar, the campers on the side woke up from a dream and realized Ma Teng's strategy, which was to fill the ravine behind with horse corpses so that they could turn back.
But which of these station cavalrymen would be willing to kill their own beloved horses? The cavalrymen and their mounts live together day and night. How can others understand the feelings they share?
Therefore, no one wanted to move for a while.
Pang De took his yellow puma and squeezed over. He killed his favorite horse neatly, and was sprayed like a bloody man like Ma Teng.
While Pang De was bleeding, he angrily yelled at Pao Ze who was still stunned:
"The horse will die and the man will live, or both the man and the horse will die. You choose one."
Ma Teng and Pang De were both mid-level military officers in the garrison and had their own subordinates.
When these subordinates saw that their chiefs had killed their beloved horses, they could only go forward and kill the horses to fill the ravine.
In this way, forty horses died, and Ma Teng and others filled in two short sections of the ravine in these two days.
Just stepping on Ai Ma Paoze's body, Ma Teng and his team returned to the Han army battlefield alive.
As for the rest of Yueqiu, it will be miserable.
Either they were not as decisive as Ma Teng, or they did not think of this strategy at all.
Losing their horse speed, they were quickly stabbed and thrown into the air by the Jinan Yellow Turban Bucha who surged up.
Even Sun Meng, the commander of the garrison, was stripped of his armor and hung on the military flag.
Shi Sunmeng was knocked to the ground by a fierce general from Jinan Yellow Turbans with a big stick. Originally, he was going to be beheaded like his own soldiers.
But the ribbon around his waist saved his life. The yellow scarf general obviously knew the ribbon that represented the rank of the Han family.
Therefore, we know that this person is a high official, and may even be the commander-in-chief of this wave of cavalry.
As a result, scholar Sun Meng saved his life.
But at this moment, Sun Meng, the scholar who was hung on the flagpole, looked hard at the battlefield below with his blood-stained eyes open.
Seeing the heads of his men being pushed into several mountains, Shisun Meng was ashamed to death. Looking in the direction of Kyoto, he thought of his father's teachings, tears streaming down his face, and silently thought that he would die to be a benevolent man.
In the end, Shi Sunmeng bit off his own tongue, then vomited blood and died.