Fifteen to twenty-five paces is the best shooting distance for a crossbow in hand. In front of this web of death woven by 2,000 tailless iron arrows, the nearly 200 Khitan cavalry who rushed to the front of the queue had no way to dodge or avoid, and the armor on their bodies was even more powerless to resist the tailless iron arrows with stronger penetration at close range than the long arrows dodged by the cavalry bow. So, almost in the blink of an eye, the sharpest head of the Khitan cavalry charge formation disappeared, and the original extremely impactful pointed wedge formation became a flat-headed trapezoidal formation with no penetration. Then, without waiting for the Khitan cavalry, which had fallen into a short panic, to change their formation under the order of their own commander, the cavalry on both sides had already "boom!" They crashed together. At this time, the cavalry of the Zhou army, which also put on a wedge-shaped charging formation, stabbed into the array of the Khitan army, easily passing through the formation like a hot knife cutting butter, and took away the lives of hundreds of Khitan cavalry.

From the beginning of the two sides to the time when the cavalry of the Zhou army passed through the formation, in just two or three minutes, the 1,000-man cavalry on the left wing of the Khitan front army, which was responsible for attacking the right flank of the Zhou army, had lost nearly half, and the same scene was repeated on the 1,000-man Khitan right-wing cavalry who was responsible for attacking the left flank of the Zhou army. In other words, in just two or three minutes, Yelu Huge's front army lost nearly 1,000 men and horses, while the casualties of the cavalry on the left and right flanks of the Zhou army were only more than 100 people. In this way, they not only removed the threat of their left and right flanks as quickly as possible, but also formed a local superiority over the cavalry on both flanks of the Khitan army.

For such a form, Yelu Hugo naturally couldn't ignore it. Otherwise, once the cavalry of the Zhou army defeated their own cavalry, their own wings would be exposed in front of the other party. If the two cavalry of the other side rushed to the left and right, even if the remaining 3,000 soldiers and horses under his command were not completely destroyed, I am afraid that they would completely collapse and flee in the wilderness. When the time comes, it is said that he will use this battle to make a name for himself, but he is afraid that he will not even be able to raise his head in front of the civil and military forces in the DPRK and China. Therefore, despite his great reluctance, Yelu Hugo had to temporarily change his formation, first dividing his 1,000-man troops into two ways to support the flank cavalry that had suffered heavy losses, and then using the remaining 2,000 troops and horses to storm the Zhou army that was already in battle on the small hill.

Yan Shiyong's Chinese army, which had been prepared for an attack with 3,000 soldiers and horses, no longer had much chance of winning, and now it had a third of its troops, and in the face of a circular defensive position formed by nearly 500 cavalry of the "Security Army" and nearly 200 infantry of the "Flying Dragon Army" relying on improvised fortifications, it was almost a fool's dream for Yelu Xiuge to win. Therefore, after several strong attacks, Yelu Huge's headquarters not only failed to approach within 30 steps of the improvised fortifications of the Zhou army, but lost 5 or 600 men, and the forces that could continue the attack were even more insufficient. On the other hand, the Zhou army at the top of the hill suffered no more than twenty or thirty casualties, and most of them were "security army" cavalry acting as archers and grenadiers. The casualties of the infantry of the "Flying Dragon Army," which was the backbone of the defense, were negligible, and the actual combat effectiveness of the defensive positions of the Chinese army was basically not affected.

For Yelu Hugo, the best choice in the face of this situation should be to immediately stop the attack, withdraw the troops and horses from the battlefield, and hand over the next attack to the Yelu Xianshi Department behind him, who is fully organized and has good morale. In this way, there will be more opportunities to complete the task of annihilating the Zhou army, and the strength of the former army can be preserved to the greatest extent, so that it will not be defeated in a battle. But the problem is that before the battle began, what he was thinking about was to use this battle to make a name for himself and shock the battlefield. The actual situation now is that he has lost more than half of his troops and suffered more than half of the casualties, and he has not even been able to approach the fortifications of the Zhou army. If he goes back like this, he will inevitably be ridiculed by his colleagues, and how can the arrogant Jeruxiu accept such humiliation and swallow this mouthful. Therefore, despite the heavy losses of his soldiers and horses and the lack of morale, he still attacked at any cost, in a vain attempt to use human lives to pave the way for his own battle.

It's just that Yelu Hugo can continue to attack regardless of the life and death of his subordinates, but the Khitan monarchs and ministers in the city can't let him act arbitrarily, meaninglessly consuming the already small number of troops left, affecting the morale of his own army, which is not very strong. Therefore, when the situation was not right, he quickly abandoned the back road of retreating south of the city, and came to Chengguan to understand the battle situation, and the one in his hand that could be regarded as the only monocular in the entire Khitan court could not help but be both shocked and angry after carefully observing the battle shape of the two sides. What was surprising was that the two sides fought for more than half an hour, and when the enemy's firearms, especially artillery, were very limited, their own front troops, which were twice as large as the enemy, were unable to quickly deal with each other. Moreover, compared with the cavalry on the left and right flanks, although the casualties were not small, but at least for the time being, they were barely able to resist the cavalry of the Zhou army, leaving the two sides in a state of stalemate for the time being, the Chinese army responsible for besieging the Zhou army camp was now completely at a disadvantage; Angry, every attack on the small hill was a heavy loss and no achievement, but the former army commander Yelu Hugo was unmoved, still driving the remaining soldiers and horses, using tactics that had been proven wrong by hundreds of corpses, launching one futile attack after another with huge losses. If the fight continues like this, I am afraid that it will not be long before the entire front army will be buried on a small hill by Jeruxiugo. So, Jerod gave an order. On the one hand, Jeruxiu, who was doing useless work with a hot head, immediately led his men and horses out of the battle and withdrew to the city to rest. On the other hand, Yelu Xianshi, who ordered the battle under the city, immediately led his troops to go forward and take over the battle of Yelu Xiuge's troops, striving to eliminate the Zhou army in front of him in the shortest possible time.

Although Jeruxiu was arrogant, he did not dare to disobey the military order. Therefore, when the herald conveyed Yeluwu's order to him, no matter how unwilling he was in his heart, he could only swallow this mouthful, stop the meaningless attack, and lead the soldiers and horses in his headquarters to quickly retreat, and give up the offensive position to Yelu Xianshi's department.

I don't know if it was because his attack was forcibly terminated by Lord Yelu Wu and he was resentful, or because he was depressed because he missed a good opportunity to make a name for himself, or just to show the direction of convergence for his retreating soldiers and horses, in short, after receiving the order from Yelu Wu, Yelu Hugo became a little sluggish and unhappy, and his vigilance was greatly reduced, so that he forgot that he had carefully studied a large number of battle examples of the "Flying Dragon Army" and summed it up, and he must keep it in mind when fighting against the "Flying Dragon Army". It is imperative to firmly implement one of the responsibilities -- the "Flying Dragon Army" must not be allowed to discover the location of its own commander, commander-in-chief, or command center, so as to prevent a sneak attack by its artillery fire. As a result, after withdrawing from the dense woods where he was hiding, Jeruhuko not only raised his own banner to guide his subordinates, but also walked short distance from the herald who was carrying the command flag.

The generals and heralds, in the face of such obvious signs, if Yan Shiyong, who had carefully searched for the position of the enemy's front-line commander since the beginning of the war, could not judge that it was the former commander of the Khitan Army, then he would really be blind. So, in just a few moments, the position of Yelu Hugo was converted into a firing element by the gunner of one 82mm mortar and two 60mm mortars of the artillery platoon belonging to the reinforced infantry company of the "Flying Dragon Army" under his command, and adjusted the three mortars into place as quickly as possible. Then, with Yan Shiyong's order, the three mortars fired three rounds in a wave. In less than two breaths, the three rounds of 82mm** and the six rounds of 60mm** were sent to the left of the bright and eye-catching flag, and while the flag was blown down, it was also shrouded in thick smoke and dust in the range of four or five zhang around it.