Chapter 32: The Battle of the Valley
The Hun cavalry rushed to the mountain pass, and the leading general looked up at the cliffs on both sides of the mountain pass, and couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart. At this time, he didn't know that the two hundred cavalry on the south bank of the Ludao River had been entangled in the bamboo sea by Mo Han and could not move. However, there are still more than a thousand cavalry in his hands, and it is enough to chase and kill two people.
Along the way, the general found only two people, Meda and Merton, and the flags on the mounds on the north bank of the river kept waving, indicating that the entire eastern front did not find the enemy. He didn't know that the one who was waving the flag was actually confused, and the little furball was so tired that his limbs were sore.
The Yan clan issued an order to capture Merton, and if the mission is not completed, the families of these Hun soldiers will not escape their fate. The general was ruthless and sounded the horn of an offensive on all fronts. The thousand cavalry rushed into the mountain pass, and the valley was suddenly covered with smoke and dust kicked up by the horses' hooves.
After all, the legs of men are not as fast as those of horses, and although Merton and Moda reached the mountain pass first, they were about to be caught up in a short time, which Mocha did not expect. By the time the original Xiongnu soldiers arrived at the mountain pass, they should have fled into Xiang Yu's defensive formation. However, the speed of the turtle crossing the river was too slow, which slowed down the speed of the two. Now I can't see the place where Xiang Yu is arranged, only looking at the fog ahead. Moda was anxious, if he was caught up, his efforts would be wasted, and he had no way to inform everyone, so he had to say to Morton while running
"Big brother, you are also learning to descend things, are you able to manipulate animals like Mo Han? Look at what is there around you that you can call and resist for us? ”
Merton replied with a wry smile
"Brother, I'm a learner. However, I was a specialist in cattle, sheep, horses, and camels from the steppes. The steppe people live on these animals, so I am a little ashamed to say that I specialize in these. ”
"Okay, then you can say some secret words to make the horses behind you stop moving forward, okay?"
Merton smiled wryly again
"Brother, this artifact must be communicated with the beasts slowly, and it must be agreed in advance, and the beasts can only be summoned when they agree. Our Lonely Bamboo Descending Secret Technique is equal to all beings, so the eldest brother is also powerless. ”
Mo Da thought that this lonely bamboo tribe was really equal and fraternal, and the animals did not force it. There was no way, the two of them had to speed up their pace and continue to run in the direction of Xiang Yu's formation, and Mo Dadu had already smelled the smell of dust raised by the hooves of the chasing soldiers.
At this moment, an iron spear suddenly flew in the distance!
Due to the excessive force of the spear thrower, when the iron spear flew over the top of Medda's head, he felt that the hair on the top of his head was going to be cut off by the wind caused by the iron spear cutting through the air. Only listening to the three sounds of "poof, poof, poof", the iron spear continuously penetrated the bodies of the three Hun cavalrymen, and pierced the three people through the sugar gourd. Then he penetrated the horse of the third Hun soldier and nailed the three men and one horse to the ground. The surrounding Hun soldiers were stunned and reined in their horses, and the Hun cavalry stopped abruptly. I don't know what happened in front of the road behind, and many people couldn't restrain their horses in a hurry, and because the speed was too fast, they collided with the cavalry in front of them and turned over on their backs.
This saved the lives of Murda and Merton, and the two of them didn't care about studying the source of the iron spear, and ran forward desperately. A person rushed over, and it turned out to be Xiang Yu. This iron spear was thrown by the heroes of Jiangdong who pulled out the mountains and conquered the world. Xiang Yu's strength and skill were so superb that Morton and Moda couldn't help but feel awe-inspiring in their hearts.
"Senior Brother Merton, Brother Merda, enter the battle quickly!"
Xiang Yu then shouted again
"Advance !!"
The two suddenly heard dozens of people responding in unison in the fog
"Hoo !!"
Then thirty-five people gradually rushed out of the fog, stopped behind Xiang Yu, and immediately set up a shield array. Only then did Moda see that this valley had reached its narrowest place, with a width of only a dozen meters, and the two sides of Xiang Yu's shield array were just stuck at the bottom of the cliffs on both sides of the valley. It is like an impermeable wall, merging with the cliffs and valleys. At this time, the Hun cavalry had already recovered and rushed to a place seventy or eighty meters in front of the shield array.
As soon as the two of them entered the battle, they heard Xiang Yu shout
"Put !!"
The one-man tall iron shield in front of the shield array suddenly opened, and thirty-six iron spears were thrown out at once. The Hun cavalry in front immediately fell to pieces. After the gun was thrown, everyone immediately resumed their shield formation and waited silently. Everyone in the shield didn't let out a battle cry to cheer themselves up, because they didn't need to. They believe in their formation, their comrades-in-arms and Xiang Yu. There was no need to roar, for they did not pay any attention to the cavalry rushing in front of them, and waited quietly for the enemy to come and die. This silent momentum is the most terrifying thing about the Xiang family's soldiers.
When the Huns saw that Modon and Moda had fled into the shield array in front, they knew that the other party was prepared, and did not dare to advance rashly. The leading general carefully counted the number of people in the shield array, a contemptuous smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and ordered his subordinates to attack according to the deployment.
I saw that the military order flag of the Xiongnu shook to the left and to the right. A hundred cavalrymen finished arraying, and one by one drew their sabers and prepared to charge. Due to the narrowness of the gorge, the Hun cavalry discharged a dense phalanx. Seeing the order flag wave forward, two hundred war horses jumped out and rushed towards the shield array. The remaining Huns shot thousands of eagle arrows. In an instant, arrows rained down, and the rain of arrows was dense enough to block the sun.
Looking at the Xiang family's soldiers again, they were unmoved. This formation is an infantry formation researched by Xiang Yu combined with Wei Wushu, Qi Guo's technical attack and Chu State's shield formation, and this formation is a must-have both offensively and defensively. There were twelve sword and shield bearers in the first row, each holding a machete in his right hand and a rectangular shield one man high in his left hand. The shield is next to each other, and it is impermeable. In the second row of the formation, there were nine samurai armed with guns, each holding a spear in his left hand and a half-man-high shield in his right. Seeing the enemy's rain of arrows, they raised their round shields above their heads to protect themselves and the heads of the first row of sword and shield men. In the third row, six samurai were armed with maces with a three-inch-long iron cone at the top, and the handle was four or five meters long. Due to the long handle of the stick, the six samurai had to hold the stick in both hands. Each mace hand has an archer on the right side to protect them. When attacking, the archers use their bows and arrows to shoot the enemy from a distance, and now when the arrows rain, they use their round shields to protect themselves and the mace hands around them. At the back, there are three people who are responsible for commanding and responding to the left, center, and right of the formation. There were 36 people in the formation, each with seven or eight iron javelins stuck in their backs. It can be said that each has its own specialty, integrates attack and defense, cooperates freely, and commands flexibly.
The Hun soldiers did not hit a single person in this rain of arrows, leaving only the dense bows and arrows on the shields. After the rain of arrows, the enemy cavalry was approaching. Each of the 36 men in the formation threw a javelin and stabbed many Huns to death. When the enemy approached again, the mace hand of the army waved the stick from side to side, which immediately disrupted the cavalry formation. Then, the first row of square shields that were originally next to each other parted a gap half a person wide, and from the darkness of the gap burst out nine spears of more than two meters, and stabbed directly into the chests of the Hun horses who had disrupted the camp. Nine gunmen struck their wrists to the left and pulled out their iron spears. The Hun cavalry who was shot turned over and fell off their horses, and before they could get up, the first row of shieldmen used the shield edge as a blade to chop the Hun soldiers, and most of the fallen horsemen were killed on the spot. Before a few of them could struggle, they were cut off by the sword and shield hand, and their heads were cut off.
Just sweep it like this, with thorns, and chop it again. In less than ten minutes, only about 30 of the 200 Hun cavalry remained, and they fled back in a hurry. At this time, the six archers and shields of the army continued to release arrows, and about thirty deserters also became ghosts under the arrows. In the first battle, 200 Hun cavalry were killed, and no one was killed or injured in the Xiang family's array.
This scene stunned the Hun generals, and at the same time stunned Merton. He just knows that Xiang Yu, who he knows on weekdays, is a reckless man who never admits defeat. I didn't expect Xiang Yu to use troops so calmly today, and he didn't look like he was fighting bravely with people only with great strength on weekdays. At the same time, he felt that this family soldier formation was really both offensive and defensive. Murda was very familiar with the arrangement of the formation, but when he saw the actual battle today, he realized that the power of this formation was so huge.
The Huns did not wait for Xiang Yu to catch their breath and launched a second wave of attacks. This time they were smarter, and instead of making a dense charge in the front, they formed two wedge-shaped formations on the left and right. As soon as the command flag waved, two large wedges composed of two hundred cavalry rushed towards the Xiang family's army formation. At the same time, the remaining cavalry fired six consecutive salvos of bows and arrows. The Hun soldiers also knew that this rain of arrows had no effect on the shield array, but it could buy time for the cavalry to charge, at least the javelins of the Xiang family soldiers could not be thrown.
Just after the rain of arrows, before the cavalry arrived, Xiang Yu gave an order, and the Xiang family's army suddenly changed formations. Each team of twelve men consisted of four sword and shield men, three spearmen, two mace men, two archers and one commander. The two teams on either side were not facing the enemy forces, but leaned slightly. The formation of the middle team was slightly different from that of the two sides, and the four sword and shield men in front of them were in an inverted V shape. In this way, the three squads are put together in the shape of a W.
The two wedges of the Hun soldiers were like two V-shaped arrows coming in an instant, and they happened to fall into Xiang Yu's W-shaped formation. Mo Da, who was watching the battle, slapped his thigh and immediately understood the subtlety of this W-shaped formation. Wedge formations are known for their ability to penetrate enemy formations. Once wedged in, the cavalry behind can continue to tear the breakthrough hole bigger and bigger. However, when encountering the Xiang family's W formation, the enemy's two wedges, which were originally sharp, were completely buffered, and now every spearman was facing a Hun cavalry, but fell into the encirclement of the Xiang family's army formation.
Then Xiang Yu and the others used the same routine, first using a mace to disrupt the formation, and then stabbing with a spear, and chopping the sword and shield at the end. Although the Hun cavalry had the courage to go forward and succeed, they were in a restrained formation, and there were more than a dozen crooked armor left behind and fled back to their camp in embarrassment. The Hun general was annoyed and angry, and in less than half an hour, all the four hundred cavalry were finished. These hateful Central Plains people, with their own two thousand grassland powerhouses, can't get through this small valley. Just as he was transferring troops to prepare for another attack, Xiang Yu actually commanded the troops to press over.
The Huns hurriedly met the enemy in a hurry, and kept firing arrows at the formation. Unfortunately, the shield array was too strong to damage the opponent in the slightest. When there were still seventy or eighty meters away from the Hun soldiers, the shield array suddenly opened in full, and hundreds of javelins flew out of it, and Xiang Yu and the others threw out all the inventory in one go. The Hun cavalry screamed and were killed and wounded.
Xiang Yu roared
"Sword and Gun Attack !!"
The soldiers were neatly arranged and advanced at a uniform speed, and the swordsmen, shields, and spearmen chopped their stabs and belts like flowing water, as if the harvester was harvesting straw, and these Hun soldiers had no power to fight back. These steppe cavalry were not good at fighting in narrow valleys, and the first two formations had already lost their sharpness, and they were defeated in front of the Xiang family's soldiers. The Hun general commanded the remaining hundreds of cavalry to fight and retreat.
Mo Xin in the distance had already seen this scene from a distance in the mountain pass, and couldn't help but admire it in his heart. Xiang Yu is worthy of being a master of battle battles, I am afraid that neither he nor Moche are his opponents. Seeing that the Huns were pushed to the fork in the valley, this fork in the road was a wide depression. The Xiongnu general's eyes lit up, after all, he still had hundreds of battle-hardened cavalry, and Xiang Yu had a limited number. Now that he is in a wide area, he can outflank him in a roundabout way and turn defeat into victory.
But Xiang Yu's soldiers stopped abruptly at the intersection and did not move. The Xiongnu general was just about to counterattack, only to hear the sound of galloping horses in the distance. Before the Huns could react, they were swept to the ground by the rushing water from another fork in the road. It turned out that Mozi had led the seven steppe assassins who had just surrendered to push away the logs blocking the top of the waterfall, and the water was exactly what Moche had told them to prepare to entertain the remnants of the defeated army.
Hundreds of landlubbers were flooded by the flood, and most of them died in the belly of the fish. Only about 300 people were left who fled along the same route to the mountain pass. As soon as he arrived at the mountain pass, Mo Dian pushed the boulder down and killed more than a dozen Hun soldiers, and the valley mouth was sealed by these pouring boulders. The Huns had no choice but to abandon their horses and climb the boulder pile on foot.
Just as he was about to climb down the boulder pile and rush out of the mountain pass, the disciples who had been in ambush on both sides of the mountain pass for a long time were bowed like arrows under the command of Mo Xin and Mo Heng, and most of the exhausted and unmotivated deserters were shot and killed. Only about 50 Hun soldiers escorted the Hun general out of the mountain pass.
They didn't know what was going on, and what was waiting for them was the sabre of the ink cart.