Chapter 601: Fighting in Formation

Yu Wenming led his troops to attack the corner of the phalanx on the far left. It must be said that his vision was very sharp and his purpose was quite clear. This was indeed the biggest weakness of the phalanx without cavalry cover on the flank. Seeing the other side rushing towards this point, Sun Xiao sneered at first, and then frowned tightly. The Donghu people responded in this way, which only showed that they had obvious countermeasures against the heavy infantry phalanx of the Central Plains troops.  This was not a good thing for the Eastern Expedition Army.

The cavalry of the Eastern Expedition Army was quite high compared to the proportion of the various armies in the Central Plains, but for the Donghu people, this little cavalry was nothing at all and was not worth mentioning at all.

The Eastern Expedition Army did not worry about the source of war horses, but it was worried about the source of cavalry. There were countless Xiongnu tribes on the prairie waiting and watching. Not every tribe was optimistic about Gao Yuan, fearing that if Gao Yuan failed after joining him, they would also suffer. On the other hand, Gao Yuan was unwilling to let his cavalry be completely controlled by the Xiongnu generals. How to build a cavalry led by the people of the Central Plains was what Gao Yuan had been thinking about day and night.

This was also the meaning of Gao Yuan transferring the infantry to Ye Zhen's command. The infantry was the only Yan cavalry general under Gao Yuan's command. Gao Yuan hoped that he would train a cavalry for him in the Central Field Army. Privately, he gave the infantry three years. Give him people and horses.

Sun Xiao knew this, but he was still worried about the infantry. Three years was too hasty for an excellent cavalry. Just training them to have a certain level of horsemanship would probably take a year and a half before they could talk about fighting. And the cavalry combat techniques accumulated by the Eastern Expedition Army over the years were not easy to learn one by one.

The shouts of the Donghu people were getting closer and closer, drawing Sun Xiao's attention back to the battlefield. Staring at the left corner square, he thought to himself: "It's time!" Sure enough, as soon as this thought flashed through his mind, the general of the left corner square had already issued an order to shoot. The soldiers hidden behind the spearmen raised the crossbows in their hands and threw them into the air at a forty-five-degree angle.

About a hundred soldiers shot the crossbows in their hands, and there were suddenly countless black feathers buzzing in the sky, but that was not all. After shooting the crossbows in their hands, the soldiers threw down the crossbows in their hands, reached out and picked up another crossbow arrow on the ground. At the same time, the sword and shield soldiers behind them sat on the ground, picked up the empty crossbows, stepped on them, and another crossbow arrow was strung.

Although there were only a hundred people. But the crossbow rain was wave after wave, continuous.

A distance of one hundred and fifty steps is not enough for ordinary bows and arrows to effectively kill. But for the crossbow, it is more than enough. At this distance, even if you are wearing iron armor. It can penetrate in one fell swoop. Even if it is not fatal, it can make you lose a certain amount of combat effectiveness. And within a hundred steps. The lethality rate of the arm-drawn crossbow has increased to a terrifying 80%.

Seeing the crossbows shot out in waves in the square formation,

seeing the forwards who rushed out fell to the ground one after another a hundred steps away, Yuwen Chui, who was watching the formation from behind, could not help but change color.

The Zhengdong Army did not use the arm-drawn crossbow much in the battle against the Donghu, and the earliest application was when Gao Yuan led his troops to raid Yulin. On the banks of the Tuotuo River, a round of arm-drawn crossbow arrows made Alundai suffer a lot. When Gao Yuan followed the Yan Army to the expedition to the Donghu, he did not use the arm-drawn crossbow on a large scale. The several victories against the Donghu were either sneak attacks or hard attacks, and they were won by force.

This made Yuwen Ke have no intuitive feeling about the achievements of the Donghu in military equipment until today.

The Donghu cavalrymen, who were wielding heavy weapons such as chain hammers, iron bones, and big sticks, trying to knock open the turtle shells of the Eastern Expedition Army, did not expect to be attacked so intensively at a distance of 100 steps. In their impression, only the crossbows with a shrill and soul-breaking sound could cause fatal blows to the cavalry at a distance of 100 steps. The ordinary bows and arrows would have lost their power when shot at this distance.

They did not hear the sound of the crossbows, but only saw dense crossbow arrows, and then there was the pain that penetrated into the bones. The Donghu cavalrymen who fell off their horses one after another made the subsequent troops involuntarily pull apart to the two wings. The attack line of the original column had already spread into a fan when it advanced within 100 steps.

"Oops!" Yuwen Chui only had time to scream in his heart, and then he saw crossbows flying out from the other phalanx. The moment the cavalry dispersed, the two phalanxes formed a pincer attack surface. The Donghu cavalrymen within this attack range were thrown to the ground.

The follow-up troops pulled away from the front, and the cavalry that had entered the attack range had no way to retreat except forward. When the waves of arrow rain finally stopped, only a few dozen Donghu cavalry emerged from the rain of arrows. Seeing the square formation in front of them, these panicked cavalry were overjoyed. The joy of surviving the disaster made them more powerful. They beat their horses fiercely, waved their heavy weapons in their hands, and rushed towards the square formation in front of them.

"Advance!" the officer shouted loudly.

"Huh!" Two rows of spearmen stepped forward a few steps, their spears raised diagonally, and the spears of the second row poked out from the gaps between the first row. The sentinels of each team stared with wide eyes, looking at the cavalry getting closer and closer.

The huge shadows of the cavalry filled their pupils, and the sentinel raised his arm and shouted loudly: "Stab!"

The spears in the first row were raised and thrust forward steadily, with a continuous chi sound, the roar of people and the neigh of horses, which instantly resounded throughout the battlefield.

The horses fell, the spears broke, and the knights on horseback were either thrown high or pierced through the body by several spears. At this time, the neat square formation suddenly sank inward, and dozens of soldiers were knocked backward by the huge impact force and fell to the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices, and could no longer survive.

The sword and shield soldiers and crossbow soldiers immediately rushed forward and dragged their dead or injured companions into the formation. The spearmen in the back immediately thrust their spears to fill the gaps. Their movements were extremely skilled, and it was obvious that they had practiced many times.

More than a dozen cavalrymen died in front of the formation in an instant, and the price paid by the square formation was several times that of these cavalrymen, but including the Donghu cavalrymen who died on the road, the casualty ratio of both sides was still higher for the expeditionary army.

Yu Wenming, who thought that he could smash the opponent's defense line in the first wave of attack after choosing the right attack point, had red eyes. "Team 2, attack. Team 3, team 4, approach from left and right, shoot from the side, and cover team 2!"

With his roar, three cavalry teams rushed out. One team followed the previous attack route and rushed to the left and right square formations again. The other two teams, however, were in a scattered formation, approaching the two sides of the left army formation. The war horses were as fast as the wind and lightning, approaching the Donghu army formation within a hundred steps, drawing bows and shooting arrows at the army formation.

The square army formation stood here and would not move easily. For the Donghu soldiers who started with horseback shooting, there was no need to aim at all, just draw the bow and draw the arrow. Feather arrows fell into the army formation, and casualties began to occur, especially for those crossbowmen. In order to shoot the crossbow arrows in their hands, they could not hide behind the shield all the time. Often when they raised their arms to draw the crossbows and leaned out from under the shields, they were already shot by the feather arrows falling from outside. The sword and shield soldiers had to shield the arrows from falling on their heads for the crossbowmen, and they also had to string the crossbowmen. For a moment, they were in a state of confusion, and the rain of arrows inevitably became sparse.

The second team of Donghu cavalrymen rushed to the front of the formation this time, with as many as 30 riders. Chain hammers flew up and down, smashing the spear forest to the ground. The Donghu knights holding iron rods, iron bones, and maces rushed straight to the front. Before the horses hit the army formation, they shouted and jumped off their horses, waving the heavy weapons in their hands and fell from the air.

Either stab the horse or stab the person.

This time, the army formation was much more concave than the first time, and not at the same place. On the entire parallel line, the spearmen in the first row almost fell in front of the formation. The price paid by the Donghu people was that the second wave of attackers were completely wiped out.

The left corner army formation was completely reduced.

"Come again!" Yu Wenming roared, and the next wave of attack was launched again. This time, the number of soldiers rushing out was more than doubled compared to the previous two times.

The enemy's main attack direction was the square on the left. After several attacks, the square on the left was forced to shrink again. Sun Xiao finally gave an order, and the central army began to slowly advance to the left. At the same time, the cavalry scattered in the five squares slowly gathered into a group and approached the square on the left.

Yu Wenming led his personal soldiers to launch the most fierce attack. In his opinion, the square on the left could no longer support it. If it came again, it would definitely collapse.

"Kill in!" Waving the big knife in his hand, Yu Wenming shouted loudly. This time he rushed to the front, and the big knife in his hand danced like a windmill, blocking most of the arrows, and the occasional sporadic leaks fell on his special armor, causing almost no damage to him.

As he expected, the square on the left burst open, and he rushed into the enemy's previously defended army with almost no effort. Yu Wenming was stunned at first, then ecstatic, and then surprised. This was not normal, because the soldiers of the square that he led seemed to be scattered were running forward, while he continued to move forward by inertia. The two sides were actually running in opposite directions. Except for killing a few infantrymen who blocked his way, Yu Wenming gained nothing.

He replied in astonishment. The soldiers of the Eastern Expedition Army that seemed to have collapsed formed a three-row horizontal team behind him, holding spears and staring at them fiercely, while in front, hundreds of Eastern Expedition cavalrymen were whistling. Behind these cavalrymen, the Eastern Expedition Army square that had always been in the center had moved to a place only tens of meters away from this square.

"Falling in a trap!" These two words flashed through Yu Wenming's mind, and then he immediately turned his horse's head and shouted, retreat.

When Yu Wenming came over, Yu Wenchui also sent a cavalry of 1,000 men to rush towards the square formation. He had to rescue Yu Wenming, or, with the help of the inside and outside, it was not impossible to completely break up the square formation. (To be continued...)