Chapter 20 Peaceful Settlement (1)
"Do you need me to help you with something?" asked Ah Feng more than once.
Meng Xingyuan would shake his head every time, he wanted his soldiers to accumulate experience in dealing with cavalry, rather than relying on external forces to win.
Meng Tian waved his hand, and the herald behind him immediately made a gesture as well. The flag soldier standing on the top of a tall wooden tower quickly waved the flag in his hand, and the ranks of the Qin army began to change.
The soldiers of the Qin army parted from the middle and slowly retreated towards the two wings, as if opening a floodgate. The Xiongnu's ten thousand men were overjoyed, thinking that the Qin army had been beaten and retreated, he seized this fighter and commanded the cavalry to advance quickly, pouring in like a flood.
Meng Tian waved his arm again and took out his killer trick - a chain horse - which Meng Xingyuan learned in "Water Margin", agreed with Meng Tian, and secretly trained. Although the chain horse has many drawbacks, even in "Water Margin", it was easily defeated by Xu Ning's hook and sickle gun, but at this time it was invincible, just like tanks had just begun to appear on the battlefield of "World War I".
The ten horses were chained together, and the head and body of the horse were covered with a thick layer of armor, advancing and retreating together, like a monster with ten heads and forty legs. The knights on the horses were all heavily armoured, with only two eyes exposed, some holding spears and some with bows and arrows. When dealing with an enemy from a distance, the archer will release his arrows, and when the enemy is closer, the spear will begin to show its might. Even if a Xiongnu's war horse collided with it, it was not certain that it would not move ten horses, and it could only be trampled to death.
Such a behemoth not only frightened the courage of the Hun soldiers, but even the soldiers of the Qin army were stunned, until the signal soldier gave the order several times, and then remembered that he was on the battlefield.
Of course, the commander of the Huns had never seen such a formation before. He first commanded his soldiers to fire arrows at the monster-like "chain horses". However, the arrows fired against the wind were weak and weak, and did no harm to the heavily armored knights and horses. Even if he happened to shoot several knights off his horse, he could not stop the ten horses from continuing to charge together. Seeing that this tactic was ineffective, the commander commanded his soldiers to launch a suicide attack - colliding with the "chain horses". The red-eyed Hun soldiers immediately urged their horses and rushed over. However, how could the impact of one horse be comparable to that of ten horses? The cavalry on the horse was either stabbed off the horse by the spears of the Qin soldiers, or knocked to the ground, trampled into flesh by dozens of horses' hooves.
Just like yesterday, the Qin army's squad of several hundred people had already ridden the fastest horse to outflank it, laying a dense layer of tripping nails on the two wings and rear of the Huns. In addition to the tripping nails, there are countless tripping ropes—two arm-thick iron rods stuck into the ground, and a tight iron chain in the middle, two palms high from the ground—that a fast-running horse is sure to trip to the ground. As long as he is tripped and falls to the ground, in addition to being crushed to death by his own war horse, being nailed by a tripping horse, or being stabbed to death by the spears of the soldiers of the Qin army, in short, it is a "death".
The infantry that had just withdrawn to the two flanks also quickly reached the rear of the Xiongnu and completed the encirclement of the Xiongnu. The Huns' cavalry lost speed due to tripping spikes and tripping horses, the power of bows and arrows was greatly reduced due to strong winds, and the melee weapons in their hands were far inferior to those of the Qin army, and they were still surrounded, so they could only be slaughtered.
Meng Tian gave the order for a general attack, and the soldiers of the Qin army could finally fight a happy battle with the Xiongnu, and they were still in an absolute advantage. They shouted excitedly, brandished spears and knives in their hands, and rushed towards the Huns.
For the first time, the Huns turned from wolves to sheep, and for the first time they felt hopeless. They were panicked, they were timid, they were riding on war horses with great might, wantonly slaughtering the people of the Qin Dynasty, and plundering the materials of the Qin Dynasty at will, did they think of this time?
Zhao Haide, who was beside Meng Tian, couldn't hold himself back for a long time. More than once he asked to go to war and capture alive the captain of the Huns. Meng Xingyuan never agreed, not because Meng Xingyuan didn't want to catch Captain Wan, but because he had more far-reaching plans. In the end, only the commander led less than 3,000 men and horses to flee in a hurry.
In this battle, the Qin army fought heartily, and had never attacked the Xiongnu so happily before. This is not a war, it is almost a massacre.
The whole barracks was as happy as the New Year, and they cleaned up the battlefield with laughter and laughter. The people in the annex also spontaneously came to help, and after being bullied by the Huns for so long, they can finally let out a bad breath.
First, the captives were taken together, guarded by people, and the wounded were also treated; then the uninjured horses were taken away for registration, which were good horses bred by the Huns; in addition, there were tens of thousands of war horses that had been pricked with wounded hooves, and after a period of treatment and breeding, they could be equipped into their own cavalry battalions, which could greatly improve the strength of the cavalry battalions; the corpses of those dead war horses were also sent to the kitchen of the barracks by the soldiers and civilians, and they were again boiled horse meat; war materials such as hard bows and arrows were taken care of, counted, and stored by special personnel. The corpses of the Xiongnu soldiers were buried by the Xiongnu prisoners, and the burial place was the tunnel in front of the Qin army's position.
Meng Tian and Meng Xingyuan's happy mouths couldn't close, they wanted to check the situation on the battlefield. However, before he had taken a few steps, he was lifted up by the soldiers and thrown into the sky again and again. The two big men laughed and shed tears in unison.
After a few days of busyness, Meng Tian and Meng Xingyuan finally sorted out the things after the war, and sent out a good news for Qin Shi Huang. They immediately started the second step of the plan.
One night, Meng Xingyuan went to the prisoner camp to find a few Huns who knew Chinese, and went to the stable to get a few war horses captured a few days ago. He and the Huns rode north, and the destination was actually the Xiongnu military camp.
Originally, Meng Tian wanted to send someone to protect Meng Xingyuan, but Meng Xingyuan did not agree. The Xiongnu still had a few thousand men, and if they sent fewer people, they had no effect; if they sent more people, they would not protect them, but attack the camp. Besides, it's night, and the protection of many people can't compare to Ah Feng's.
As soon as they approached the Xiongnu's military camp, Meng Xingyuan and others were discovered. The Hun soldiers immediately surrounded them with bows and arrows ready to fire. Several Hun captives shouted in their dialects, probably saying that Meng Xingyuan had come to discuss things with Commander Wan, so don't hurt him or something.
A Hun centurion with a blue face pulled Meng Xingyuan off his horse, and immediately a group of soldiers surrounded him with bows and arrows. The few captives who came back with Meng Xingyuan explained for a long time.
Meng Xingyuan was escorted into the military tent of the commander by a group of gnashing teeth. The furnishings of the tent were very simple, except for a bed and a low table, which were a few animal skins placed on the floor as chairs.
Captain Nawan, who had also been wounded in the battle a few days earlier, had been hit by arrows in his left leg and back respectively, and was now resting on his bed. When he saw Meng Xingyuan coming in, he raised his head, his eyes were full of anger, and he said viciously: "You released a few of my warriors, so I won't kill you now." However, if you are here to persuade us to surrender, then you better go back quickly. Although we were defeated, the steppe warriors would never surrender. ”
"I'm not here to persuade you to surrender, I'm here to negotiate with you. Meng Xingyuan said as he took two steps towards Captain Wan.
A thousand-commander and several centurions drew their swords and raised their bows one after another, stopping in front of Meng Xingyuan. The captain stopped them and said, "We are enemies, and we were fighting to the death the other day, what do you want to talk to me about?"
"Negotiations are going to wait, what I'm going to do now is heal your wounds. As he spoke, he stepped forward.
Captain Wan pointed at Meng Xingyuan and said, "You have killed tens of thousands of grassland warriors, and we have also killed a lot of you people from the Central Plains. Will you be kind enough to heal me? I won't believe you. ”
"Hahahaha," Meng Xingyuan laughed, "You keep claiming to be grassland warriors, but how can you be so small-bellied? In the words of our Central Plains people, it is: to spend the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain." Besides, you and I are fighting on the battlefield for the sake of the national mission, and it is a personal act for me to heal your wounds now. ”