With a human head still dripping blood hanging from the waist, and the head's hair tied on the belt, the Zhi soldiers looked ferocious. It was hard for the Chu soldiers not to feel frightened in their hearts when facing such an opponent.
Why did the soldiers of Zhi's new army fight for heads, and why did they tie the enemy's heads around their waists? Because the new law promulgated by Zhi Yao included a provision that recorded merit with the enemy's heads.
Kill an enemy one level and be promoted to "Corporal". As a "Corporal", you will be rewarded with houses and acres. Starting from the second enemy's head, you can add more acres and exchange for slaves. Accumulate to get five enemy heads.
level and then promoted to "sergeant", etc.
In fact, becoming a "corporal" is equivalent to gaining privileges. To be promoted further, you do not necessarily need to accumulate five enemy heads. You can also participate in three battles with a certain number of participants on both sides to get promoted.
Does it look familiar? Zhiyao used part of Shang Yang's reform in his own reforms.
What is more sad is that Zhiyao does not have the qualifications to designate a title, so someone in the Zhi family does not obtain a title for meritorious service, but only receives material rewards and some privileges for rising levels within the Zhi family.
In fact, the power of this set of reforms may not be obvious yet. It only shows that the Zhishi soldiers participating in the war are hardworking or cruel. Waiting for more and more people to know the charm of privileges, by then Zhiyao will not even want to expand his intelligence.
The people below will also push Zhiyao to expand their fiefdom, just because they want to increase the territory where they can exercise their privileges!
Now, what do the Zhishi soldiers who participated in the ambush look at the enemy? They only see the achievements of the enemy who are still alive. What they want is to kill the enemy and cut off their heads in exchange for the rewards they want.
.
When the Chu soldiers saw the Zhi soldiers with human heads hanging from their waists, it was almost as if they were looking at evil spirits walking in the human world.
Zhiyao shot the commander of the Chu army to death, and the Chu army, which had lost its command, was completely in chaos. Next came the hunting time for the Zhishi soldiers. The difference was that they were hunting people, not animals.
In fact, hunting people is much easier than hunting animals, especially a group of people who have lost their command and are heartbroken.
Zigong came to Zhiyao and said, "Beheading is too much!"
For "Confucianism", the behavior of the Zhi soldiers was too brutal.
Zhiyao said: "These are enemy soldiers."
It is not too much to be cruel to the enemy. Most of the time, choosing to be kind to the enemy is cruel to one's own people.
Zigong said instead: "The enemy has lost their will to fight. Why don't you accept the surrender?"
Zhiyao said calmly: "That's it, order the enemy troops to surrender."
In this narrow terrain, there is no military formation to think about, but the coordinated operations of the team formulated by Zhiyao played its due role.
The words to persuade the enemy to surrender were shouted out, but not all the Chu soldiers wanted to surrender, and they needed to kill a wave of people efficiently, so that the Chu soldiers who were persuaded to surrender completely lost their courage, and the next attempt to persuade them to surrender would have the greatest effect.
The air was filled with a strong smell of blood. The long and narrow passage after the battle was filled with corpses and injured soldiers lying on the ground. Traces of the battle could also be seen in the surrounding mountains and forests.
Because too many people were bleeding, the red and smelly blood merged, forming a long red line, and then turned into pools of blood in low-lying areas.
"About two thousand enemy troops fled." Zhi Xuwu had just participated in the battle and had blood stains on his body.
Zhiyao just nodded.
Three thousand against eight thousand, even though it was an ambush, the Chu army lost their command and ran around in all kinds of chaos. The terrain is complicated and it is difficult to completely wipe out the enemy troops. It is necessary to escape some.
Zhixuwu did not ask if we should pursue him, but said: "Soldiers are killing enemy wounded soldiers privately. Should we stop them?"
Zhiyao raised his eyebrows, showed a serious expression, and said: "The new army is not an army of beasts. Warn them first, and kill those who offend again."
The reason why we didn't deal with that group of people was mainly because we didn't stop them before. Killing them was just killing them without teaching them.
Using the behead-level calculation as a function of evaluation is actually equivalent to releasing a beast, which will not only make the soldiers more brave in battle, but also make them very cruel.
The killing of wounded and wounded enemy soldiers is relatively minor. It is conceivable that civilians will be massacred to take credit in the future, and it will be difficult to prevent them.
"I should change the rewards and punishments again and increase the merit assessment of prisoners alive." Zhiyao thought to himself.
After the war, they only found out their own dead and wounded on both sides, and collected things that could be used on the battlefield. They did not arrange for the dead Chu soldiers.
After the army retreated, about an hour later, the coalition troops came to the site of the battle.
"Why are there so many headless corpses?" Liu Yang was shocked.
It should be said that the people who came over were shocked when they saw that the corpses at the battle site were all headless.
There are winners and losers in the war, and there have never been so many corpses without heads. Not only did the coalition forces that arrived later shock, but they also made them angry.
"The Jin army actually acted like this, how different it is from animals!" Young Master Lu got the news later, and his face turned green with anger.
By the way, cutting off ears, noses, etc. can also count for military merit, why didn’t Zhiyao choose it?
It’s not that Zhiyao deliberately pursues Shang Yang’s “original taste”, it must be that Zhiyao has his own considerations. Although he will be criticized, he will definitely get more, and even involve strategic value.
Liu Yang said with a look of disbelief on his face: "I heard it was the Zhi family who did it."
The vanguard of the coalition forces was not completely wiped out. Some of the defeated soldiers ran to meet up with most of them and told them about the battle. Naturally, no information about who the enemy was was lost.
The extremely angry Gongzi Lu certainly knew who did it, but from the bottom of his heart he didn't understand why Zhishi did it.
It is said that the Wu State was barbaric, but the Wu army was not that barbaric. At most, they used Yang Youji who was shot like a hedgehog to attack the Chu State, severely humiliating the Chu State.
The extremely angry Young Master Lu changed his plan. He was supposed to stop at the pass and continue marching the next day. However, regardless of the army's fatigue, he just dragged the army out of the pass and marched ten miles forward. Then he received a report that the front was at the front.
There are Jin troops waiting in formation in the wilderness.
The time has already reached three quarters in the afternoon. To be honest, night will fall in more than an hour, which is not really suitable for fighting.
Waiting in formation were three "divisions" from the combined forces of the Zhi family and the Wei family. The fish scale formation of the Jin army was unchanged for thousands of years, and three "Che" were divided into three.
This "Che" is what other countries call it, and in the Jin language it is "Xing", which is why the Xun family has the "Xing" of "Zhongxing family".
Looking at the flying flags, Zhishi is in the front formation, and Zhishi's flags can also be seen in the rear formation.
Now, Zhiyao and Wei Ju are both standing on the raised side of the chariot, watching the mighty coalition forces coming.
"There are about 50,000 enemy troops. The banner of Gongzi Lu has been revealed, and there is also the Liu family of the Fan family, but the Zheng army is missing." Wei Ju was trying to identify who was coming.
The arriving coalition army stopped about two miles away from the Jin army, and then a chariot broke away from the group and moved forward alone.
Look at the flag hanging on that chariot. It turns out to be Gongzi Lu riding a bicycle forward?
Zhiyao said to Wei Ju: "How about the whole army attacks now?"
Wei Ju was obviously stunned and said urgently: "No!"
What a pity!
The coalition forces were running forward when they were most exhausted, and Young Master Lu was still moving forward alone. If the army pressed forward to kill or capture him, the coalition forces would lose their commander in one fell swoop, and they would also be able to take advantage of waiting for work.
However, Zhiyao was just asking, not letting Wei Ju make up his mind.
In fact, Zhiyao had made a lot of preparations for this moment, which could not be changed by Wei Ju's refusal or opposition.
Seeing Gongzi Lu constantly calling over there, Zhiyao, who had been waiting for a long time, let the carriage descend.
"Yao?" Wei Ju didn't understand what Zhiyao was trying to do.
Zhiyao said: "Young Master Lu is coming, why doesn't Yao go?"
Wei Ju asked: "To Master?"
Zhiyao replied: "There is nothing wrong with me."
Over there, Gongzi Lu, who was about a hundred meters in front of the Jin army, was loudly asking Zhiyao to go out and answer.
Zhiyao's chariot appeared, and he was adjusting the bow, and he glanced at Gongzi Lu, aiming at the head, neck and heart.
"Xun Yao!" Young Master Lu continued to shout, looking furious, "Why did you humiliate Chu!"
"I would like to greet the Marquis of Chu on my behalf." Zhiyao looked very polite.
Seeing Zhiyao like that made Young Master Lu even more angry.
Young Master Lu pointed his sword at Zhiyao and shouted: "Answer me!"
"What did the young master say?" After Zhi Yao asked, before waiting for the young master's answer, he asked again: "Young Master behaves like this, is he inviting Yao to become his master?"
God specially invites Master.
However, the soldiers who were far away from the two armies only saw Young Master Lu drawing his sword towards Zhi Yao and could not hear the conversation between the two. They understood that Young Master Lu was also inviting Zhi Yao to fight in a duel.
Gongzilu is someone who knows Zhiyao's shooting skills, and he definitely doesn't want to become a stepping stone for Zhiyao to become famous.
Zhiyao, on his side, asked the chariot to move again, and then bowed to Young Master Lu, saying: Let's not talk nonsense, let's start the fight!
Young Master Lu didn't know the sentence "I have never seen such a shameless person", otherwise he would have screamed hoarse.
The coalition forces are here.
Liu Yang and a group of nobles knew that Young Master Lu was very angry. After thinking about it, they felt that it was quite reasonable for Young Master Lu to invite Zhi Yao to be his master in such anger.
On the side of the Jin army.
Wei Ju was completely confused and asked Zhi Xuwu, "Why is Young Master Lu so angry?"
What else could it be? I was completely stimulated by the nearly two thousand headless corpses of Chu soldiers.
However, Zhi Xuwu couldn't say anything and only gave Wei Ju a meaningful expression.
Under the watchful eyes of the two armies, Zhiyao saluted Gongzi Lu repeatedly with her bow. At first, she was so frightened that Gongzi Lu quickly started moving the chariot.
Considering that it is difficult for modern chariots to make small turns, Gongzi Lu waited until the chariot started to move before he regretted not having someone carry the chariot to turn the chariot. He continued to curse at Zhiyao.
In the eyes of the coalition forces, Zhiyao's behavior did not lose the aristocratic demeanor at all, that is, he did not shoot an arrow before the young master's chariot moved, and he saluted with a bow three times in a row.
The Jin army could faintly hear what Mr. Lu was cursing. If anyone felt anything, it was that all the soldiers of the Zhi family were angry.
The Lord humiliates his subjects and dies, right?
Although most people of the Zhi family are not qualified to be "ministers", Zhiyao is really their "lord"!
Zhiyao waited until he saw signs that the chariot where Young Master Lu was on turned around, then shot the first arrow, and then shot three more arrows in succession.
The first arrow shot was blocked by the right side of Gongzilu's car.
The second arrow hit the unprotected driver.
Because the driver fell down with an arrow in his neck, he pulled the reins to make the horse pull the cart turn, and the right side of the cart carrying the shield lost its balance.
The third arrow accurately hit Gongzi Lu, passing through the left cheek, while the arrowhead pierced through the right cheek.
Zhiyao put down the bow in his hand, drew out the sword from his waist, first raised it high and then slashed it down hard, shouting loudly: "The whole army attacks!"