Although Xia Houyuan issued an order to retreat, it was still difficult for more than 400 cavalry to break through in front of tens of thousands of troops.
Everyone whipped their riding whips wildly and fled towards the rear.
The cavalry tried their best to escape very quickly, at least Gao Lan's infantry couldn't stop them.
Now we could only rely on the Wangmen's cavalry. As soon as the Wangmen gave the order, thousands of cavalry immediately galloped in pursuit.
Although the Yuan Army's cavalry has suffered some losses so far in the war, the overall number is still around 4,000, which is ten times that of the opponent.
So what if Cao Jun's cavalry was incredibly powerful? Faced with such a huge disparity in proportions, it would be impossible for them to do anything unnatural.
It can be said that the Wang Clan has lost a lot of face today, and now it can only hope to wipe out the other party in order to save its own face a little bit.
Wang Men's face looked ferocious at this time. Judging from his expression, it seemed as if he wished his head could grow hundreds of times larger and swallow all the four hundred cavalrymen in one bite.
Four thousand knights of Yuan's army pursued hard, unwilling to give Cao's cavalry a chance to widen the distance.
Although Cao Jun's cavalry was equipped with stirrups, horseshoes and other equipment, the quality of the horses in the Central Plains was indeed inferior to that in the north. Although Cao Jun's cavalry broke through and escaped, they could not escape the fierce pursuit of Yuan Jun's cavalry.
However, looking at the Yuan Jun cavalry tightly entangled behind him, Xia Houyuan did not show any panic. Instead, a sneer appeared at the corner of his mouth.
The scene that happened next was like a nightmare to everyone present at Yuan Shaofang.
More than 400 cavalrymen of Cao's army actually put away their weapons and bent their bows to set arrows. They turned around and shot arrows at the knights of Yuan's army who were following closely behind them and only a stone's throw away from them.
Mounted shooting!
How can it be!
How can the cavalry from the Central Plains know how to mount and shoot!
Wang Men's face suddenly turned green, then turned from green to purple, and then from purple to white.
Could it be that Cao Cao spent a lot of money to hire Huns or Xianbei to serve as knights in this cavalry team?
Otherwise, it would be impossible to practice riding and shooting.
If you are a fierce general, it is not a big deal to practice the skill of cavalry and archery, but the problem is that all of the more than 400 Cao Jun cavalry in front of you know this skill.
Wang Men only felt that he was dizzy and didn't know what to do.
Training on horseback archery is not particularly difficult. That is to say, foreign tribes outside the Great Wall, such as the Xiongnu and Xianbei, have lived on horseback since they were children. They have worked hard for more than ten or twenty years before they can create a few troops with excellent horseback archery abilities.
force.
As for the knights in the Central Plains, even if they want to practice riding and shooting, they don't have the conditions.
However, the fact before us is that the knights in front of Yuan Jun's cavalry were hit by arrows one after another, fell off their horses and fell to the ground dead.
The cavalry in the rear could not stop their horses from advancing in an instant just because the knight in front fell off their horses. They could only continue to charge forward. Only a few of the cavalry who fell off their horses were directly shot to death by arrows, and most of them were released from behind.
He was trampled to death by his horse. His condition was so miserable that it was very pitiful.
It is indeed difficult to practice mounted archery, because both hands must be used at the same time when bending the bow and setting an arrow. It is difficult to control the horse with both hands, and it is difficult to maintain body balance on horseback. Especially the previous knights of Cao's army had to make turning movements and body movements.
It is more likely to cause instability. However, the emergence of bilateral stirrups has changed everything. Knights can still use the power of the stirrups to keep their body's center of gravity from tilting to the greatest extent when bending their bows and setting arrows, making mounted archery a skill
The difficulty of skills has dropped a lot.
In the Yuan Army's cavalry formation, the knights in front were hit by arrows and fell to the ground one after another. Although there were not many in number, less than a hundred, their falling from their horses hindered the speed of all the cavalry. I saw that the distance between myself and Cao's hundreds of knights was gradually widening.
, obviously it is impossible to catch up.
Xia Houyuan took the remaining 400 cavalrymen of Cao's army, Guan Yu, and Zhao Yun, and finally successfully escaped from the battlefield.
When Wang Men saw this, he was very anxious. If he let these people escape like this, he might be blamed by Yuan Shao. In anger, Wang Men looked up to the sky and spit out a blood arrow, and then fell straight to the ground.
Yuan Shao stared blankly at the direction in which hundreds of Cao Jun's cavalry were retreating. In the end, his own army of more than 100,000 people failed to retain Cao Cao's cavalry. What a shame, a shame!
The depressed anger in Yuan Shao's heart now is no less than when he heard the news of Yan Liang and Wen Chou's death a few days ago.
But Yuan Shao was also surprised by the cavalry and shooting skills displayed by Cao Jun's knights.
After surprise, came anger.
"Cao A'ao's Central Plains cavalry can actually display such riding and shooting skills. Why don't we, the northern cavalry, have this ability? Although cavalry and archery are difficult, no matter what the skill, hard work will eventually pay off. We, the northern cavalry, won the battle in this battle
The performance is far inferior to that of the Central Plains cavalry, which must be due to the lack of ability of these two idiots Guo Yuan and Wang Clan!"
In his mind, his soldiers would definitely be no worse than Cao Cao's soldiers, especially the cavalry, and their quality would be even less likely to be inferior to the other's.
Since it is not a problem with the soldiers, it is obviously due to the incompetence of the generals who command the troops.
Poor Wang Men, I don't know how he would feel if he knew Yuan Shao's thoughts just now.
Although Guo Yuan was not a famous general in the Wang family, he was by no means a mediocre general. Guo Yuan had already performed well in history, but later fell into Zhong Yao's plan and was defeated. The first official of the Wang family, Gongsun Zan, and the later official Yuan Shao, were both responsible for commanding the cavalry.
, let alone its level, at least in terms of experience, it is absolutely indispensable.
No matter how you say it, Guo Yuan and Wang Men may indeed have some shortcomings in ability, but they will never be classified as incompetent generals.
It's a pity that in Yuan Shao's heart at this moment, these two people are worthless, especially one of them died in battle for Yuan Shao.
As for the other generals and advisors of the Yuan army present, they were all shocked by the Cao army's cavalry shooting just now.
Gao Lan touched his chin with an incredible expression.
It turned out to be cavalry and archery. The cavalry in the Central Plains actually had the ability to do cavalry and archery.
What a terrible thing!
There were only four hundred cavalry just now, what if there were four thousand cavalry? What about ten thousand cavalry?
It's scary to think about it. Ten thousand cavalry who can use mounted archery would be unbeatable even on the northern grasslands.
If these thousand cavalry showed their prowess in cavalry shooting as soon as they showed up, then the losses of our own cavalry would definitely be greater.
But this is not surprising. Although Cao Jun's cavalry can mount and shoot, there are only a thousand of them after all. If they use cavalry and archery from the beginning, although it will cause greater damage to Yuan's army, Yuan's army will definitely respond accordingly.
Regarding the method of dealing with it, it would be difficult to expect such a smooth retreat. As one of the Four Court Pillars of Hebei, Gao Lan quickly figured out the key.
We must completely wipe out Cao Cao's power in this battle, and we must not continue to give him the opportunity to gain power.
This is Gao Lan's idea, and also the idea of everyone in Yuan Junzhong.
"Oh, although Cao's army was defeated, they advanced and retreated well without damaging their roots. It's even more surprising that his cavalry knew how to ride and shoot. It seems that the next battle will be quite interesting." In the formation of Yuan's army, a man
The general with a square face was looking at the direction of Cao's army's retreat, thinking with a smile.
This person is the most famous of the Four Court Pillars in Hebei - Zhang He and Zhang Junyi.