Chapter 62 Five The Battle of the Fishing Waves
The root of this change lies in Chengyun. Just as he decided to retreat, Cheng Yun made a bold guess and put it into practice, which created the subsequent changes.
Cheng Yun successfully deduced the pursuit of Gao Dingbian, and estimated that he would be caught up near Yubo, so he specially sent 4,000 elite men to delay the pace of the enemy at the cost of the death of the whole army, and finally succeeded in completing an almost impossible thing, that is, Cheng Yun made an emergency turn while fleeing and successfully turned to the west!
This was a huge risk, because Cheng Yun judged that Gao Ding's troops with both flanks would begin to retract while pursuing, so that no matter how fast his retreat was, some of his troops would be caught in the dilemma of being attacked from three sides, and to avoid this, it would be necessary to sacrifice a small force to slow down the enemy's pace. However, he felt that instead of being beaten like this, he should take a more active action, which was to escape from the side of the formation that looked like folded arms on the side of the Gao Ding. Since the high-end side will retract its "arms", why not give up all the way south and break through from one side? When the army of the country of silk was rapidly pursuing and retracting, it was definitely not expected that the Goryeo army would actually launch a counterattack, and Cheng Yun had an absolute numerical advantage over the forces on this arm, if the surprise attack was successful, he would definitely be able to catch the opponent off guard, and after successfully highlighting the encirclement, the situation would stop. Because if Gao Dingbian hadn't adjusted the direction of the pursuit in time, he would have crashed headlong into Lu Xuan, who had come to meet him, and at this time, his flank was exposed to himself - Cheng Yun actually thought of counterattacking when he retreated, which was worthy of his life.
Faced with the new situation on the battlefield, Gao Dingbian was indeed confused for a while. The news that the right flank troops had encountered the main force of the enemy made him think that the troops receiving from Goryeo had arrived, so his first reaction was to slow down. Gather your forces. From this point of view, Gao Dingbian's actions are much better than those generals who only know how to blindly pursue. At least he didn't rush into the flank of the enemy without recklessness; But he still made a mistake, he took Lu Xuanjun, who appeared in front of him, as Cheng Yun, and Cheng Yun as Lu Xuanbu. Therefore, he made a fatal mistake, he decided to concentrate his superior forces to deal with the Chengyun Division, which had been exhausted from fighting for many days, and divided a small number of troops to delay Lu Xuan's pace, relying on the advantage of the cavalry of the Silk Country in the field battle, it should be easy to make this army retreat, and then he used this time difference to turn back against Lu Xuan's troops, even if he could not win. It is also relatively easy to get rid of this unfavorable situation.
If Gao Dingbian's tactics are successful, it will probably be enough to leave a classic battle in the history of war, but unfortunately his misjudgment of the enemy army made his actions fall into a disadvantageous situation at the beginning, and it was the 30,000 fresh troops led by Lu Xuan who attacked with all his strength, and when Gao Dingbian realized his mistake, Chengyun's troops had tightly pressed his flank troops, and the situation began to fall to the side of the Goryeo army.
Gao Dingbian's troops are like a male lion being attacked by two tigers at the same time, Lu Xuan and Cheng Yun, two tigers, on either side have the same strength as Gao Dingbian's troops, and the command ability of the two is also in the middle of the best. In terms of combat experience, it is much richer than Gaodingbian, and the two cooperate with each other to continuously increase the casualties of Gaodingbian, and at the same time outflank it little by little, as long as the situation continues. The Gaoding side was either surrounded or in a rout.
At this time, a new force appeared on the battlefield, that is, the Thousand Tiger Guard Battalion led by Wang Hanxin.
After successfully defeating almost all of the peasant army, Wang Hanxin had planned to rest his troops. Then go back to Suzhou. But at this time, he got information that Cheng Yun had withdrawn from the army, and Gao Dingbian had launched a pursuit. After Wang Hanxin had a general understanding of the situation, he thought that Gao Dingbian's pursuit was not appropriate. Because Cheng Yun took the initiative to retreat, he didn't know what trap he would set. And Cheng Yun is not weak in terms of troops, once he strikes back, there may be variables. Therefore, he immediately canceled the order to rest and regroup, led his troops to the south quickly, and finally arrived at the battlefield at the most critical time in Gaodingbian.
However, Wang Hanxin's strength was only 1,000 men, and this number was full of water, and although the process of fighting with the peasant army was very smooth, it was impossible to be completely free of casualties, plus the continuous march was left behind, and only 600 cavalry actually arrived on the battlefield. However, Wang Hanxin still resolutely and immediately threw himself into battle, because he keenly felt that it was impossible for the Goryeo army to immediately perceive his own reality and reality, and the psychological deterrent effect that these 600 cavalry could play at this time was far greater than its actual combat value.
Wang Hanxin took the lead, rushed to the front of the line, and used his shield to block the scattered arrows fired by the Goryeo army. From the density of the opponent's bow and arrows, he had already seen the weakness of the Goryeo army's configuration, and then urged the horse to slightly adjust the position of cutting into the Goryeo formation, and then threw off the shield, swinging the spear in his hand and killing the Goryeo army. Wherever the spear went, it was like a silver needle shuttling through the cloth, except that instead of threading the needle and threading the two pieces of cloth together, the silver needle paved the way with blood and tore the whole cloth to pieces.
In order not to be noticed by the Goryeo army's weak strength, after breaking into the Goryeo army's formation, Wang Hanxin did not continue to assault, but expanded horizontally, focusing on expanding the chaos on the back of the Goryeo army. According to historical records, the wind that day was blowing from the east, and the wind was very small, but at this moment, as if it came out of nowhere, a gust of northwest wind suddenly blew, and it blew so much that the Goryeo army facing Wang Hanxin could not open its eyes.
Seeing this, Wang Hanxin shouted "God help me", and immediately ordered his subordinates to set fire to the wind. Although there were not many things that set fire, but with the help of the wind, the fire quickly began to spread, and the billowing smoke expanded the chaos of the Goryeo army, Wang Hanxin took advantage of the situation to make trouble, while setting fire, but he didn't expect to succeed in setting fire to a large area, the flags and vehicles on fire burned to the surrounding soldiers, and even more frightened the cattle and horses pulling the carts, they were all over the fire and ran around to ignite more soldiers, and finally were burned to death and fell to the ground, and the soldiers on fire on their bodies wailed and rolled as if they were infected, He was then trampled to death by his chaotic companions, bringing the flames to those companions at the same time. By the time this strange northwest wind subsided, about half of Chengyun's rear team had been stirred up by the fire and turned into a pot of porridge.
Even the soldiers of Lu Xuan's department could see the smoke in the sky clearly, let alone Gao Dingbian. The chaos of Chengyun's department was undoubtedly a godsend for Gao Dingbian, he immediately organized forces to storm in this direction, and finally Chengyun's deployment was completely disrupted, Chengyun completely lost control of this part of the army, and Gao Dingbian took advantage of the situation to cover up and successfully disperse this part of the Goryeo army, which was an opportunity to bring the troops to the north of Yubo step by step to stabilize the position.
In this battle, Gao Dingbian lost nearly 10,000 men, and the Goryeo army had less than 2,000 if you did not count the casualties in the final chaos. It was originally a complete victory, but it was ruined by Wang Hanxin's troubles.
When Lu Xuan and Cheng Yun converged and wanted to attack again, the follow-up troops of the Silk Country were also coming in a steady stream, and finally Lu Xuan gave up the attack and retreated south.
From the beginning of the attack on Suzhou by the Chengyun tribe to the end of the Battle of Yubo, it became the first stage of the battle against Goryeo. In this stage, the greatest person is none other than Wang Hanxin, it is he who quickly leveled the Goryeo peasant army, relieved the crisis of the vanguard troops being encircled, and it is also he who fought continuously regardless of fatigue and successfully rescued the crisis of the vanguard troops of Gaodingbian, so as to save the lives of more than 20,000 soldiers, after this battle, Wang Hanxin returned to the camp and slept for two days and two nights, and the soldiers of the 1,000 Tiger Guard Battalion led by him were the same as him, which shows how they fought endlessly during this time. But when he woke up, what awaited him was not enthusiastic praise, but cold military law. (To be continued......)