Chapter 32: Defeat
The tide of battle changed surprisingly quickly.
Li Zuoche didn't expect that in the short moment of his hesitation, the situation he was about to face had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
A black hurricane and a black torrent rushed straight from the southwest to Li Zuoche's central army, which was sitting north and facing south, and now Li Zuoche's Chinese army only had more than 1,000 personal guards, and Li Zuoche was less than 100 steps away from the two Jiuyuan armies.
Behind the two black tides were the Zhao Army's foot soldiers, archers, and the remaining hundred or so chariots.
As early as when he heard the sound of war drums in Meng Tian's army, Li Zuoche felt bad. Sure enough, in the blink of an eye, Meng Tian's more than 10,000 foot soldiers opened the encirclement that had been barely maintained until the end.
Immediately afterwards, more than 8,000 Jiuyuan Jing rode in just a dozen breaths and used their bodies and war horses to rush out of the two hundred chariots, which completely made Li Zuoche's heart sink heavily.
"Lord Sangkoku, let's go!" The elder guard who spoke before couldn't care much, and as soon as he grabbed Li Zuoche, he was about to drive this special command chariot in Li Zuoche and prepare to escape.
At this moment, behind the Zhao army, who was closely chasing Meng Tian's infantry phalanx, a black line appeared, and then the thunderous roar of horses' hooves came from afar.
When the large number of cavalry that suddenly appeared saw the countless soldiers in this wilderness, their speed suddenly increased a little faster. In just a few breaths, the large number of cavalry, which was originally only faintly visible, had become extremely clear.
Black-armored cavalry! Great Qin cavalry! At least tens of thousands of Great Qin cavalry!
Tens of thousands of Zhao soldiers who were originally desperately chasing Meng Tian's army, when they returned to see the more than 30,000 Jiuyuan cavalry coming straight to the sky, their faces turned pale, and more than 100,000 people besieged less than 20,000 Daqin infantry casualties, and now there are tens of thousands of Daqin elite cavalry, how can this battle be fought?
The Meng Tian infantry phalanx and the remaining Jiuyuan elite cavalry, who were rushing towards Li Zuoche, obviously also discovered the arrival of tens of thousands of cavalry of the previous army, and cheered in unison, and suddenly rushed to kill more bravely.
Witnessing tens of thousands of black-armored elites riding at high speed in the wilderness, the shock that brought these seventy or eighty thousand Zhao troops was huge!
The earth is trembling, the sky is trembling!
The whole earth seemed to be covered in black! Everywhere you look, it's a palpitating black!
Finally, the soldiers of Zhao Jun could no longer bear the fear in their hearts, threw down the weapons in their hands, turned around and fled to the other side.
With the first, there is the second, and then there is the third...... More and more Zhao soldiers began to throw down the weapons that Li Zuoche had equipped them with great difficulty and escaped.
In an instant, when Zhang Wu Qianliang's 30,000 elite cavalry was still hundreds of steps away from the battlefield, Li Zuoche's tens of thousands of foot soldiers had collapsed and fled in all directions.
Li Zuoche, who originally had a glimmer of hope, was immediately cold when he saw this scene.
"No need to run away. There is no escape today! Li Zuoche broke free from the big hand of the elder guard who grabbed his arm and said lightly.
"Childe! ......," the elder guard shouted in a hurry.
"Elder Li, now that tens of thousands of Great Qin's elite horsemen have arrived here, and the more than 100,000 troops of my Zhao State have all been dispersed, can we still escape? Where to flee? Li Zuoche interrupted Li Lao's words and asked urgently.
"The old slave sacrificed his life and will definitely take his son to escape from here." The elder guard, who was called Li Lao by Li Zuoche, said loudly.
"Buzz"
There was a strange tremor, followed by a sharp whistling!
The eight thousand Great Qin Jing cavalry that had been blocked by more than two hundred chariots were only less than six thousand at the moment, and at that time, Meng Tian's infantry formation did not break through the encirclement of Li Zuoche's foot soldiers, so the eight thousand nine original elite cavalry took the fastest and most tragic charge.
More than 2,000 Jiuyuan elite cavalry who acted as the vanguard were the pioneers, and they used their bodies and war horses to fight their way out of the last 200 chariots formed in front of Li Zuo's chariot formation.
It didn't waste much time to chisel through the chariot, but the chiseled passage was paved with the blood of the Nine Plains Essence Rider!
The more than 2,000 cavalry in the vanguard, including the cavalry captain Liu Xin, were all killed on the spot!
In the Jiuyuan Army, except for Meng Tian as the commander-in-chief general, the rest of the generals from the commander to the captain and the general will be on the front line in person during the war and lead the army to kill the enemy. This is the unchanging tradition of the Jiuyuan Army.
Liu Xin is not the first captain-level general of the Jiuyuan Army to die in battle, and obviously will not be the last.
Liu Xin, who led the army, was killed, and naturally there was a captain on top. After breaking through the defensive line formed by the chariots, the remaining 6,000 Nine Yuan cavalry had already reloaded their crossbow arrows in the gallop.
At this moment, this sharp whistling sound was the sound of more than 6,000 crossbow arrows breaking through the air.
"Not good!" The elder guard named Li Lao was stunned for a moment when he heard this voice, and then reacted and hugged Li Zuoche and wanted to use his body to cover the crossbow arrow that was about to fall.
But obviously his action was in vain, the crossbow arrows were thrown instead of level, not to mention more than 6,000 crossbow arrows!
The continuous sound of "aggressiveness" was mixed with the sound of crossbow arrows entering the body tearing flesh and blood.
After the screams, the vicinity of Li Zuoche's chariot was completely covered by dense crossbow arrows, and the hundreds of guards closest to Li Zuoche, of course, including Li Zuoche, Li Lao and the unlucky chariot, were all filled with cute little crossbow arrows eight inches long, like a rice field after harvesting.
Li Zuoche's death suddenly made some Zhao soldiers who were still watching completely collapse in despair, and they threw down their weapons, flags and other things in their hands, and fled in all directions.
Originally, Chen Yu as the main general took Li Zuoche to resist Han Xin who went north to destroy Zhao, but Chen Yu, a fool, rushed into the army and was stolen by thousands of Han soldiers by Han Xin, the camp was kicked, more than 100,000 troops collapsed, Chen Yu died, and Li Zuoche was immediately caught by Han Xin.
Han Xin did not kill Li Zuoche, but treated him as a teacher, and then Li Zuoche assisted Han Xin to pacify Yan and Qi.
Later, Li Zuoche followed Han Xin to assist Liu Bang to fight the world, set up an ambush on ten sides in Jiuli Mountain, forced Xiang Yu Wujiang to kill himself, and made great achievements for the founding of the Western Han Dynasty. Just when Liu Bang was rewarding his merits, Li Zuoche quietly retreated, not knowing where to go.
And now, it should have died well and left in history "A wise man has a thousand thoughts, and there will be a mistake; A fool thinks a thousand times, and there will be a gain", but now on April 28, 209 B.C., on this day, dozens of arrows died in the wilderness between Handan and the giant deer.
Li Zuo's body died, and the Zhao army's more than 100,000 troops were scattered, representing that the Zhao State, which had just been restored for less than three days, had perished.
Zhang Wu and Qian Liang also rushed to the battlefield at this time, and there were nearly 50,000 soldiers of the Zhao army who had no time to escape or were driven back by Zhang Wu and others, and they all knelt on the ground and surrendered to the Qin army.
The reason why Zhang Wu and the others did not chase and kill the rest of the scattered Zhao army was because Meng Tian knew Hu Hai's wishes, these strong men were all the people of Daqin, and since the main culprit was dead, Meng Tian also took advantage of the situation to let go of these soldiers who only cared about fleeing.
Meng Tian ordered someone to simply take care of Li Zuoche's body, cut off the head of nitrate, and prepared to send it to Xianyang to be dedicated to Hu Hai.
Here, Zhang Wu and others have already counted the losses of the Jiuyuan Army in this battle.
In the battle, the Jiuyuan Army that followed Meng Tian to the north had more than 18,000 foot soldiers killed and more than 4,500 cavalry, including more than 10 captains and captains including Liu Xin, and hundreds of people below the captains.
It can be said that this is the heaviest loss of the Jiuyuan Army since it became an army, especially the loss of many middle and low-level generals, which will directly affect the combat strength of the Jiuyuan Army to a large extent.
After Meng Tian heard Zhang Wu's report, he seemed to be much older in an instant, but he knew that as a soldier of Great Qin, whether it was him and the rest of the generals, or ordinary soldiers, it could be said that everyone had already prepared in their hearts for dying on the battlefield and the horse leather shroud.
So he quickly collected his mood and gave the order neatly.
Leaving Zhang Wu to lead the remaining more than 17,000 cavalry and foot soldiers who had just fought fiercely to guard the surrendered Zhao army and take care of the injured Jiuyuan army and baggage, Meng Tian took the unscathed 30,000 elite cavalry and 10,000 foot soldiers straight to Julu.
The reason why Zhang Wu and others came so late was to chase and kill Peng Yue's army of 50,000, and in the end they beheaded 30,000, Peng Yue did not escape in the end, did not die in the hands of Lu Pheasant, but died in the hands of Zhang Wu in advance.
Meng Tian didn't blame Zhang Wu and the others for the killing, because he knew why Zhang Wu and the others did this, those rebels were all military merits in the eyes of the Jiuyuan Army! And if it hadn't been for Meng Tian to stop it just now, the more than 50,000 Zhao troops who surrendered would have also become the military merits of the Jiuyuan Army.
At this moment, Julu was already in a mess, and the defeated soldiers brought back the news that Li Zuoche's soldiers were defeated and died, which suddenly made the small court of Zhao Guo, which had just been restored for three days, into a mess.
Pang Xin has just been appointed as the right minister, if Li Zuoche is still alive, even if the army is defeated, as long as he is not dead, then he, the right minister, will still have a bit of a deterrent effect on these old Zhao relics. But now that Li Zuoche is dead, no one will buy his account.
There are even the old Zhao relics who proposed to kill Pang Xin directly to vent their anger!
Pang Xin stood silently in the main hall and looked at the noisy old Zhao relics, a sneer flashed at the corner of his mouth.
These old Zhao relics did not have the courage to resist Meng Tian's army at this moment, and it was true that Xiangguo Li Zuoche was defeated and killed by Meng Tian's soldiers in just three or four hours with nearly 200,000 elite soldiers, and no one thought that the more than 100,000 declining soldiers of Julu could resist the attack of Meng Tian's army.
They are arguing at the moment about whether to take Zhao Wangxi to the north and flee to the land of Yanyun or go east to the sea to avoid being pursued by Great Qin!
At this time, a strong man dressed as a house slave poked his head outside the main hall, and saw Pang Xin standing in the corner of the main hall, and a trace of joy flashed in his eyes.
Pang Xin had been paying attention to the outside of the main hall, and when he saw this strong man quietly slipping out of the corner of the main hall, no one from the old Zhao clan who was arguing fiercely in the main hall paid attention to him at all, so no one found that Pang Xin was no longer in the main hall.
The outside of the main hall was empty, and there was not a single guard at all.
Pang Xin slipped out of the hall to stop the strong man's salute and asked in a low voice, "Are you all ready?" ”
(To be continued)