Cao Ren originally thought that although the enemy generals were good at commanding, but with the ability of the elite spearmen under his command, it should not be too difficult to deal with these infantry that looked like four or five thousand at most, but he didn't expect that he still thought too simple after all, although the enemy's infantry seemed to be very small, but the defense was extremely professional, and the cooperation between each other was impeccable, even with his vision, he couldn't find a flaw. Cao Ren commanded an army of 40,000 and launched an attack on the enemy army from four directions, although it also caused some casualties to the enemy, but the enemy's losses were very limited, an hour passed quickly, and it is estimated that only two or three hundred casualties were caused! The enemy forces remained intact in defensive formation.

However, the enemy's counterattack was extremely fierce, and when their spearmen approached the enemy's formation, the dismounted cavalry threw spears or bows and arrows from their hands, causing their own army to suffer a lot of losses, and they paid double the price to inflict such a small loss on the enemy.

Cao Ren estimated that if he wanted to break through the enemy's defenses, he would have to pay at least a thousand men.

This is the elite spearmen around Cao Ren, and many soldiers have been fighting with him for five or six years, and many of them have even been for nearly ten years, and these elites are his foothold, so even if he does not lack elite soldiers and excellent soldiers around him, he is not willing to pay such a big price to break the enemy's defense.

Therefore, Cao Ren decided to postpone the attack of the army, besiege the enemy army first, and wait until the enemy army was demoralized before launching an attack.

But in this way, it brought more problems, the first of which was naturally how to guard against the enemy cavalry!

Originally, Cao Ren was going to ambush and shoot the opponent's cavalry, and then take advantage of the opponent's panic to lead the army to launch a general attack, so as to break the enemy's army, so he was not well prepared for defense. However, they did not expect that the enemy's defense was so strong, and the damage of their own army was really insignificant to them, so in the process of besieging the enemy army, they could not but consider the problem of being broken through by the enemy cavalry or counterattacking.

Fortunately, Cao Ren was not completely unprepared, he stacked the antlers and other objects used to defend the cavalry on the north and south sides, and used the cavalry to guard the east and west wings, barely forming a defense. However, the biggest problem brought about by this is that once the enemy's cavalry tears a hole in the encirclement of your own cavalry, it will bring catastrophic damage to your own side!

In this way, Cao Ren's army, which was supposed to attack, turned to a comprehensive defense, and such a ridiculous scene actually happened. And it happened to a famous general like Cao Ren. In fact, this is not to blame Cao Ren, it is really because Hao Zhao's defensive tactics are really perverted, and Cao Ren, who has a lot of combat experience, even sighs in vain.

After thinking about it for a while, Cao Rennai decided to order a part to be divided from each of the two teams besieging the enemy head-on after dark. Intensify the production of antlers and other items so that the cavalry can have time to rest, and then go to the next morning to besiege the exhausted enemy army with a recharged army, so that the enemy can be severely damaged with fewer casualties.

Although Cao Ren's plan was not wrong, he ignored an important situation, that is, Ma Chao had already known that the team he sent would be in danger, and he did not expect that Ma Chao would lead the army to launch a night attack. In fact, he thought that since Hao Zhao had already commanded Ma Chao's main army. Even if Ma Chao came with all his might, he didn't have much strength. However, he didn't know that among the encircled enemy troops, due to the other party's false flags, the actual number of troops was less than half of what he expected, and he didn't expect that this qiē was a plan that Ma Chao had already set.

Therefore, at nightfall, Cao Ren had just taken advantage of the cover of night to extract some of the soldiers to step up the production of zuò antlers and other things. But suddenly I heard the sound of horses' hooves rumbling behind me.

Cao Ren's face couldn't help but change greatly, and now, how could he not know that he had fallen for the enemy's plan?

At this time, Cao Ren suddenly looked up to the sky and sighed: "It seems that I still underestimate Ma Chao, I didn't expect the other party to come up with such a clever strategy." In this way, there is indeed no shortage of masters in Ma Chao's camp, and I regret that I should not listen to the words of the military advisor. ”

Of course, Cao Ren didn't just sigh, but was also actively preparing for the contingency, that is, to recall the sergeants who made the antlers and other things, and then prepare a defense against the enemy's belly and back.

But in this way, his sergeant had to be divided into two parts, and defended the enemy on both sides of the belly and back, but fortunately, the sergeant in front of him was all piled up with antlers and other things, and the cavalry did not dare to approach for a while, so he only had to strengthen the defense on the flanks with all his might.

So he quietly mobilized two thousand infantry from each flank of the front, and asked them to build a tight defense like Hao Zhao's infantry.

But before his deployment was completed, he saw that the enemy suddenly launched an attack, and this time the enemy army turned out to be a cavalry directly attacking the flank.

What made Cao Ren even more shocked was that the besieged enemy cavalry also launched an attack at the same time, and the internal and external cavalry cooperated with each other, but in a short period of time, Cao Ren's army was divided into two sections, so that the two parts of the cavalry could not take care of each other.

"Why did the enemy know so clearly about the disposition of our army, so they made such a targeted attack? Could it be that our army has a spy? But how is this possible? For a whole day, I didn't find a single suspicious figure outside the battlefield, and even if there were really spies, how did they get the news out? ”

Cao Ren naturally didn't know, in order to communicate and exchange information between the two sides in a timely manner, Ma Chao ordered Hao Zhao to take a carrier pigeon before leaving, and not long after being surrounded, Hao Zhao told Ma Chao about the enemy's military deployment and the terrain of the battlefield, so Ma Chao was like walking into his own backyard, leading his cavalry to launch an attack on the cavalry on both flanks of Cao Ren.

And that Hao Zhao is also a confidant of Guogan, after learning the news of the arrival of his main force, he immediately led the cavalry on both wings to launch an attack, and together with the outer layer of his own army, launched a flanking attack on the cavalry of the Cao army.

At the same time, the three thousand infantry also picked up the crossbows they had prepared in advance and launched an attack on Cao Ren's spearmen.

Under the cover of night, the crossbow arrows fired by the 3,000 infantry were silent, and it was not until they came to the front that Cao Ren's infantry realized that although they had prepared their defenses in advance, it was simply difficult to resist the pervasive iron crossbows, and in an instant, nearly a thousand people were killed by the crossbows, and the defense line in the front row of them was torn open.

Although it was in the silent night, it was difficult to hide the murderous intent of the Chu army, countless crossbow arrows did not know when they would come out, and they did not know where they would come out, and those crossbow arrows were like devils hidden in the dark night, and they could kill them at any time. This made Cao Jun, who was already a little flustered because of the scheme, fall into even greater fear.

As a result, even Cao Ren's army in front was caught by the enemy's belly and back at the same time, and the defensive formation that Cao Ren had painstakingly laid down finally began to collapse.

All of a sudden, only the sound of horses' hooves could be heard, and the enemy launched attacks on Cao Jun again and again, the offensive was more fierce than one wave, and it was also in the dark night, I don't know how many people and horses the enemy army had, even with Cao Ren's elite infantry, these elite soldiers who were accustomed to countless life and death battles couldn't help but feel worried in their hearts, and they no longer had the courage to resist.

And at this moment, Cao Ren suddenly heard the sergeant's report: "General, it's not good, General Gao Qian on the right wing was sniped by the enemy, and now the cavalry on the right wing has retreated on the whole line, the fleeing meat has fled, the surrender has surrendered, and there is not one in ten thousand cavalry, if there is no enemy army in front of the general today, our army still has a way to live, and the general will not make a decision, I am afraid that we will all follow in the footsteps of General Bugao." ”

After Cao Ren heard this, his heart couldn't help but tighten, knowing that in the current situation, it would not be possible to make a decision earlier, so he had to grit his teeth and order the cymbal to retreat.

However, at the time of life and death, after hearing Mingjin's order to retreat, these Cao army officers and soldiers had already ignored the military order, and retreated like a tide, and for a while they saw the sergeants trampling on each other, clashing back and forth, and the sound of people shouting and screaming endlessly, coupled with the interception and killing of the Xiliang cavalry, there were less than 20,000 people left in the 40,000-strong army.

Due to the high migration of the right wing was assassinated by Jiang Jian with a shot, the cavalry on the right wing were all scattered, and there were less than 1,000 people left in the 10,000 army, and the 10,000 infantry led by Chang Diao in the rear was also completely routed after being attacked by the enemy's crossbow and cavalry, and one or two thousand people were killed, and there were four or five thousand people who scattered and fled, and only more than 3,000 people barely gathered around Cao Ren.

Only Niu Jin on the left flank, although he was attacked by Jiang Jian and Yin Feng's two cavalry, finally he said that his experience in commanding the army was not bad, and he relied on his personal courage to lead the army to kill a bloody road, led more than 6,000 cavalry to gather beside Cao Ren, and took the initiative to cover the retreat of Cao Ren and Chang Diao's army.

However, he said that Cao Ren led less than 20,000 defeated soldiers to retreat to Tongguan, and his heart could be described as sad and sad, he originally thought that he could easily break Ma Chao, rescue Liu Bei, and even take Zuo Fengyi lightly, but he didn't expect to fall into Ma Chao's plan and become the prey of the other party.

"Hmph, it's all that unknown young general, if it weren't for his command so wonderful, I'm afraid we would have broken the enemy army a long time ago, give me all my strength, and I will definitely find out the identity of that young general."

Cao Ren's heart was full of unwillingness, and he said to Niu Jin and Chang Diao beside him.

"No." Chang Diao and Niu Jin glanced at each other, and said respectfully at the same time.

However, after hesitating for a moment, Chang Diao said again: "General, what should Liu Bei do?" Can we still save it? ”

But Cao Ren snorted coldly: "Is there still a need to save?" Now it seems obvious that Liu Bei is just a bait used by Liu Qi to attract us to the bait, if we rescue Liu Bei's idea again, I'm afraid that even Tongguan will be lost, and we can't save Liu Bei, the lord will not blame, but once Tongguan is lost, even if the lord is not to blame, what face do we have to meet the generals in the army? The order went down, and the army quickly returned to Tongguan. ”

"No." The herald Cao Yong listened to Cao Ren's order and hurriedly prepared to deliver the order, but suddenly heard the rumbling of horses' hooves and the sound of war drums behind him, and couldn't help but be shocked.

At this time, he heard a loud shout: "Cao Renxiu is leaving, Xiliang Ma Chao is here." (To be continued......)