Guo Jia, who was secretly watching from a distance, was very restless, and he was happy that the scouts of the Central Army appeared, indicating that Zhao Yun's army was indeed coming here.

But the scouts of the Central Army were too cautious in their search and advance, and with their way of finding the way, their ambush would definitely be discovered.

According to his understanding of the Central Army, the reconnaissance units of the Central Army were accustomed to traveling 20 to 50 miles to reconnoitre.

If they found out, then it would be impossible to ambush Zhao Yun's large army at all.

Seeing that the reconnaissance unit of the Central Army was about to search the range within sight of the trench, although the trench was covered with weeds, it could still be seen through when it came closer.

Guo Jia's heart was in his throat, but he saw that the squads of the Central Army had gathered back to their own team, and they actually stopped searching and began to rest in place.

I saw a few heralds galloping away in the direction they came, while the rest of the reconnaissance troops rested in place and waited for the arrival of the army.

It took a long time before the rumbling sound of horses' hooves came from the direction of the post road in the northwest, from far and near.

Guo Jia has trained the cavalry for so long, and he can already judge the number of people coming from the sound of horses' hooves, which should be the movement of more than 30,000 cavalry.

Sure enough, in the dust, large groups of cavalry lined up in a neat march on the western horizon and rolled forward.

Knowing where Matthew's reconnaissance battalion was resting, he stopped his advance, and then quickly spread out to the left and right.

Just from the simple action of the cavalry of the Central Army from advancing to stationary, and then to spreading left and right, it can be seen that their training level is far above that of the cavalry of the Cao Army.

Guo Jia's subordinates would never be so uniform and so fast.

All the cavalry of the Central Army stopped their advance at a distance of two or three hundred feet from the trenches where Cao's army was hidden, and rested and adjusted.

The 30,000 cavalry spread out to the left and right, and the wide front was several miles wide, and in the front row of the cavalry of the Central Army, Guo Jia did not see their heavy cavalry.

Guo Jia heard that the heavy armored cavalry of the Central Army, when they were maneuvering in peacetime, people and horses were not wearing armor, but had special pack horses to carry them, and when they were fighting, special assistants helped them put on armor.

This is not the case with Cao Jun's tiger and leopard cavalry, so the armor of the tiger and leopard riders and horses is not as thick as the heavy armored cavalry of the Central Army, and the protection is slightly inferior.

Moreover, the heavy armored cavalry of the Central Army uses a horse lance, and the tiger and leopard cavalry uses a halberd, although Guo Jia inquired and understood what a horse lance was, he could not satisfy his own manufacturing technology and money.

However, the tiger and leopard rider has never fought against an opponent of the same type, and Cao Zhang is extremely looking forward to this battle.

After Ma Xiu reported the situation to Zhao Yun, he could see that the cavalry of the Central Army began to line up, with about 1,000 cavalry as a wide front, and dispatched ten rows and 10,000 cavalry, slowly moving forward.

Seeing that the Central Army had changed from a marching army to a battle formation, Guo Jia was very puzzled, could it be that the Central Army had discovered something? And then they still dare to attack forward?

However, because the terrain near here is not high, Guo Jia can't see the scene behind the front row of cavalry of the Central Army.

I saw that when these cavalry of the Central Army advanced to a distance of one hundred and fifty zhang from the ambush position, they stopped advancing one after another, not knowing what they were waiting for?

This distance was too far and beyond the range of Cao Jun's repeating crossbows, so Guo Jia did not order an attack, and he also wanted to know what the Central Army was waiting for?

After another quarter of an hour, a white smoke suddenly rose from behind the cavalry of the Central Army, and there was a faint flickering of fire, followed by a sound of "bang" and "bang".

It can be seen with the naked eye that from the place where the smoke rises behind the Han cavalry, dozens of black things are flying towards the Cao army's position.

As it got closer, a shrill screech grew louder and louder, followed by raindrops crashing into the trench.

These black guys landed very accurately, and they were all eight or nine miles away from the trench.

The moment they hit the ground, there was a loud noise, a deafening ear, a strong fire, and a thick smoke, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of gunsmoke.

Guo Jia saw the detonators fired by the Central Army with stone throwers and ballistas at the last moment, and after these detonators fell into the array of the Kwantung Coalition Army, the explosion scene was very similar to the current picture.

But I didn't hear that the cavalry unit of the Central Army was also equipped with a stone thrower, and it couldn't maneuver, and the ballista could only shoot directly, which was a projectile.

Besides, this distance is almost 200 zhang, and the Central Army has come up with some new weapons!

It seems that his ambush has long been seen through by the scouts of the Central Army, and he has been deliberately busy for a long time, he is deceiving himself!

Guo Jia's judgment was still accurate, but before he could come up with any countermeasures, there was a more intensive "bang" sound from the central army.

Immediately after that, more black dots flew towards the wider front of Cao's army, covering almost the entire trench area.

Violent explosions followed, and the mortar was extremely lethal to the trench, because its shells were fired in a curved manner, and when they finally fell, they attacked from the direction of the overhead.

The ones that are accurate even fall directly into the trench, and the flying shrapnel will kill and injure a large number of people in the trench.

Even if it falls to the edge of the ditch, a strong shock wave will shake the trench and stun the soldiers in the trench.

In fact, Matthew's scouts had already discovered the existence of the trench and the extent of the ambush, and quietly reported it to Matthew.

According to Zhao Yun's instructions, Ma Xiu did not startle the snake and pretended not to find it, but quietly reported to Zhao Yun.

Zhao Yun had long expected that Guo Jia would use the trick of digging a trench to ambush him, after all, the hills and plains could not be hidden.

So he used cavalry as a cover, ordered the artillery battalion to move forward to build an artillery position, and perfectly carried out a fraudulent artillery attack, which caught Guo Jia off guard.

The officers and men of the Cao army had never been subjected to artillery bombardment, and when a few accurate shells landed in the trench and caused huge casualties, the soldiers of the Cao army immediately crawled out of the trench and ran away.

The artillery of the Central Army had already anticipated this scene, so they added two more rounds of rapid fire with three rounds.

The sound of "bang bang" continued to sound, and the sound of explosions was endless, and the entire ambush position of the Cao army was plunged into the thick smoke and fire in the sky.

At this moment, the Central Army launched an attack, and all the cavalry threw themselves into the attack, rushing towards Cao's army like a sea of mountains.

Although Guo Jia desperately wanted to get Cao's infantry to line up in defensive formation, the artillery bombardment of the Central Army did not stop until the cavalry of the Central Army approached eighty zhang.

Eighty zhang entered the range of the crossbows of the Central Army, so tens of thousands of crossbow arrows covered the frightened Cao army infantry.

(End of chapter)