Chapter 058: Hanging and beating the Hun King
Just as Mao Dun Shan Yu's army pressed on Li Xi Xintong in an orderly manner, it was already dark. Suddenly, the dense sound of Qin crossbows firing sounded in the west of the Xiongnu army, and countless crossbow arrows were shot towards the Xiongnu army. At this time, even Mao Dunshan Yu couldn't figure it out, could it be that the Qin army also set up a bigger ambush circle here? Mao Dun immediately ordered the army to stop going north, and first find out the situation before making plans.
When the Qin crossbow had shot more than ten rounds, an earth-shattering rush and killing sound sounded in the west. Mao Dun did not know the enemy's situation, and did not dare to lead the elite eagle shooters of the royal court headquarters to attack, thinking that there was a Qin army in the north to block the attack, and the west also shouted to kill the heavens, and the Great Wall of Great Qin in the east blocked the defenders, and ordered the 100,000 soldiers and horses in the royal court headquarters to quickly retreat and go south to leave the battlefield.
As soon as the 100,000 cavalry in the royal court headquarters were withdrawn, the 100,000 ordinary Hun soldiers and horses left behind instantly lost their courage and were defeated by the two Qin armies in the west and north. At dawn, the battle stopped, and the remaining 20,000 or so Hun cavalry raised their hands and surrendered.
The two Qin armies converged in one place and joined forces in victory. It turned out that the Qin army killed from the west was the 30,000 Jiuyuan cavalry led by Meng Tian. They took advantage of the time when Li Xi and Xin Tong blocked the Xiongnu army, went north to bypass the Xiongnu army, waited in the west for a day, and suddenly killed and attacked the 100,000 soldiers and horses in the middle of the Xiongnu.
After this battle, Li Xi and Xin Tong only had 3,000 soldiers and horses, and Meng Tian's 30,000 cavalry only had more than 10,000 soldiers and horses. Together, they carried the Xiongnu captives into the Great Wall, and quickly went north to Jiuyuan City.
After dawn, Mao Dundan, who had discovered the enemy's situation, was ashamed, and was played by Meng Tian's plan every time. Last night, he took advantage of his suspicion, if he dared to go north to kill, maybe he would have won a big victory, but he didn't regret taking the medicine.
"I'm going to turn the tables around!" Regardless of the consequences, Maudun ordered the army to kill the city of Jiuyuan in the north at full speed.
Let's say that Cheng Zhiyi and the Mongolian army led 20,000 cavalry and the 80,000 old troops of the Yue clan of Wang Kunyue of Xijun quickly went north along the straight road and joined Li Xin at Jiuyuan.
According to Meng Tian's general order, Li Xin placed the cavalry commander Qiang Diao who came from Xianyang to guard Jiuyuan City, and immediately led an army of 100,000 from Yanmen Pass out of Jiuyuan to the north of Yinshan, and killed Mao Dunshan in the temporary royal court where he was stationed.
This temporary royal court of the Huns also had 100,000 Hun cavalry, which was not elite, but more composed of herdsmen. They also detected that the Qin army was coming and attacked in formation.
Li Xin knew that the elite of the Jiuyuan army was far superior to the Hun soldiers, so he ordered Cheng Zhiyi and the Mongolian army to lead 20,000 cavalry to attack on the left flank, and Wang Kunyue of Xijun led 80,000 right flanks of the old army to attack and directly fight with the Hun cavalry.
The Jiuyuan cavalry on the left flank killed the Huns and retreated, and unexpectedly, the 80,000 Yueshi army on the right flank was actually killed by the Huns, pig-like teammates!
Li Xin had no choice but to personally lead 5,000 thousand Jiuyuan cavalry to help, so that he could barely kill the Huns. The two sides fought from noon until late at night, and the Xiongnu finally couldn't withstand the rush of the Jiuyuan army, and began to rout and flee north.
After the battle, the king of Xijun led the remaining more than 30,000 old members of the Yue clan to find their families and escorted the Xiongnu's families back to Jiuyuan.
After this battle, the Qin army suffered heavy losses, the 20,000 cavalry of the Jiuyuan Army were reduced by half in the battle, and only 30,000 Yue's cavalry remained, and 80,000 Hun cavalry were killed. Three days later, they all returned to Jiuyuan City.
When Li Xin entered Jiuyuan City, Mao Dunshan Yu led an army of 100,000 Huns to Jiuyuan City, thirty miles away. Meng Tian made a decision immediately and decided not to wait for the Xiongnu to set up camp, and immediately attacked while his foothold was not stable.
So Meng Tian ordered: "Qiang Diao, Cheng Zhiyi and the Mongol army led the 30,000 new troops from Xianyang and the 30,000 army chariots of the Yue clan to form a large array to shoot the Xiongnu head-on; Li Xi and Xin Tong respectively led 10,000 elite cavalry to outflank the Xiongnu army from both flanks. ”
The generals threw up their hands and shouted, "No! Then he received orders and led his troops to set out.
The night was dark, and when Mao Dunshan saw that he had arrived at Jiuyuan City, he decided to rest the army for the night and start attacking the city tomorrow. However, when he was ordering to set up camp, he reported that the Qin army had come out of Jiuyuan City and had already rushed over at this moment!!
Mao Dunshan panicked, so he had to order a hasty battle.
As soon as the charioteers led by Qiang Diao, Cheng Zhiyi and the Mongol army saw that the vanguard of the Xiongnu had entered the range of the Qin crossbow, the lieutenant generals immediately ordered the army in front to shoot at the Xiongnu army.
The Hun soldiers, who had been frightened by crossbow arrows for more than half a year, heard the sound of Qin crossbow arrows buzzing in the air, and the vanguard of the Hun army suddenly appeared in confusion.
Cheng Zhiyi, who was on the right side of the Qin army, saw the chaos in the front army of the Xiongnu, and ordered the soldiers and horses of his headquarters to abandon the chariot and change it into cavalry to frantically kill the Xiongnu army in front of his army.
Cheng Zhiyi's army was killed in this battle, and after daring to rush and fight for more than an hour, he killed the side of the Xiongnu front army and fled backwards.
The Xiongnu front army on the right fled backwards, and happened to bump into the main army of Mao Dun Shan Yu, because it was night, it was difficult to distinguish between friend and foe with his eyes. Coupled with the thunderous sound of the horse's hooves shouting in front of the sky, the main army of the Huns thought that the Hun soldiers who fled back were the Qin army that had chased and killed, and killed them.
At this moment, the main army of the Xiongnu killed each other in chaos, and Cheng Zhiyi seized this golden opportunity to lead the army to cover the past.
After more than an hour of melee, the main force of the Xiongnu realized that it was killing each other and shouted injustice!
When the main force of the Xiongnu army gradually fell into chaos, the elite cavalry led by Li Xi and Xin Tong had completed the roundabout outflanking to the rear of the Xiongnu army.
Li Xi and Xin Tong coveted the fighter plane in front of them, so the positions of the left and right flanks roared almost at the same time, and ordered their troops and horses to kill the Hun army.
Li Xi and Xin Tong, the two newborn tigers, pounced on the Xiongnu army with a hungry pack of wolves, killing all the elite guards of Mao Dun Shan Yu and retreating one after another.
Mao Dunshan was extremely confident in his own elite guards, and was actually defeated by the two cavalry rushing from the rear, unwilling to fail, and shouted: "The most powerful warriors of the grassland, will you also be defeated?" ”
When the more than 7,000 pro-soldiers heard Shan Yu's encouragement, they also seemed to be unwilling, and they roared one after another, riding their horses to kill the Qin army that was surging like a tide.
Li Xi and Xin Tong both saw the retreating Hun army rising up to resist the elite cavalry, Li Xi and Xin Tong, the two young little tigers, suddenly came to the strength and ordered the army to specifically surround and kill the brave Hun cavalry.
Next, two of the world's most elite cavalry battled on horseback. After the elite cavalry of the Qin army and the most elite cavalry of the Xiongnu collided, the two sides mercilessly carried out a rapid slashing and slashing, and people kept flying and rolling down on the grassland with heads and arms, and the scene was extremely miserable and blood-boiling in the moonlight.
After more than an hour of tragic hedging and slashing, when the combat effectiveness of the two sides was almost the same, Li Xi and Xin Tong relied on the absolute superiority in the number of soldiers and horses to encircle and kill, and finally set the most elite Xiongnu Shan Yu personal guard cavalry on this grassland.
Having lost this most elite cavalry, Mao Dunshan had no confidence in his heart and lost the fighting spirit to resist. After a night of fighting, even though the 100,000 Hun cavalry were elite, the fatigue caused by several days of hurrying, and the fact that after dawn Meng Tian sent a large army of chariots to escort most of the Huns' families out.
The Xiongnu army saw that their temporary royal court had been attacked, their families had been captured, and the most elite cavalry around Shan Yu had also been cut down, and the army's heart was instantly disintegrated, and the battle ended after only half an hour after dawn, and Mao Dun was also captured.
Mao Dun asked Meng Tian about a lot of ambush strategies, but Meng Tian didn't tell him, and directly sent someone to escort him to Xianyang and imprisoned him for life. In fact, Meng Tian and the generals analyzed the two crossbow archers who were in ambush outside Yanmen Pass, those were herdsmen, and most of the sheep on the grassland were soldiers, but they hid far away so that the Xiongnu could not see clearly and could not distinguish.
The war on the grassland finally came to an end, and Meng Tian's prestige resounded throughout the grassland, and Meng Tian and other generals couldn't help but sigh at the cruelty of the war, and deployed a number of defenses, settled the wounded, and cared for the families of the fallen soldiers.
The Qin State paid a heavy price for fighting the Xiongnu, the Jiuyuan army from 300,000 before the war, less than 50,000 remained, the 30,000 troops who came to Longxi to reinforce less than 10,000 survived, and the Dayue clan even had less than 50,000 people. Of course, the millions of string-controlling men of the Huns were also wiped out.
In the early winter of 207 BC, after more than two months of post-war affairs, it was time for the winter truce. Meng Tian led the generals to return to Xianyang and accept the reward from Fusu.
Fusu was overjoyed, and issued a decree together: Meng Tian added the title of general to the position of general, commanded the soldiers and horses of the world, and gave the special marquis title of Marquis of Jiuyuan, which was above all the county marquis, in recognition of Meng Tian's immortal achievements in Jiuyuan.
Li Xin was crowned as the general of the second rank of the expedition to the north, and led the army to continue to guard Jiuyuan County, and the Yulu was distributed according to the first grade.
Xin Sheng is already the general of the second rank of Zhengxi and no longer sealed, and the army continues to guard Longxi County, and the Yulu is distributed according to the first product.
Qiang Diao added the great merit of unifying the six countries and the merit of this expedition, and added the title of general of Zhenbei of the second grade, and the Yu Lu was distributed according to the first grade.
Kunyue, the king of Xijun, was crowned the general of Sanpin Anyi, gave the name Yingxi, and led the Yue's cavalry to Xingyang to return to Han Xin's control.
Li Xi was crowned as the general of Sipin Zhenwei and led the army to guard the clouds. Xin Tong was crowned as the general of the four products and led the army to guard the Yanmen Pass
Cheng Zhiyi, Mengjun, Bai Long, Qiang Yi and Yang Hongxi, five young generals, unified the title of Wupinbian general and led the Anyi Protector and Fuyi Protector, these five generals went to Shangjun to lead the troops together, and used the cavalry training method taught by Wang Yingxi of Xijun to train the cavalry.
The rest of the generals who participated in the battle were rewarded one by one, including Zhao Sheng, who died in battle, and added a reward, so I won't list them in detail.