Chapter 53: The Battle Cavalry

As mentioned last time, the scouts reported that a large group of cavalry approached Liu Hou's camp, and Guo Youzhi's analysis was likely to be Cao Cao's ace army, the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry. The truth is, he guessed right.

Time went back to a day ago, and it was said that Xu Huang saw Lu Jian's wolf smoke message and knew that they had found the main force of the Shu army, and he couldn't help but be overjoyed. He immediately ordered to change the direction of the march, went straight to the direction of the wolf smoke at full speed, and at the same time, reported the situation to Sima Yi in the Chinese army at an expedited speed of 800 miles.

The Chinese army led by Sima Yi was actually not far away, and during this time Liu Hou and Xu Huang had been entangled in this place for too long, so that the Chinese army of the Wei army had time to approach a very short distance.

Sima Yi received Xu Huang's information but was not optimistic, after analysis, he believed that something was wrong, and it was impossible for the Shu army to expose the main force so lightly and fight a decisive battle with Xu Huang's army. Therefore, he also urgently informed Xu Huang to be cautious, and at the same time immediately ordered Cao Zhen to lead his three thousand tigers and leopards to support Xu Huang.

However, the war between the Shu army and Xu Huang's army ended quickly beyond everyone's expectations. By the time Cao Zhen and his 3,000 tiger and leopard horsemen arrived at the place where the two sides were fighting, the Shu army had already fled. When Cao Zhen was about to send the tracking masters in the army to track the whereabouts of the Shu army, there was a scout conflict between the two sides.

The scouts of the tiger and leopard rode all the way to chase and kill the scout team of the Shu army, in fact, they were released with water, they didn't have the opportunity to leave them all, but they just wanted to find someone to lead the way to find the camp of the Shu army, so they kept the last person and did not kill, but followed him all the way, watching him return to the camp of the Shu army from afar.

Therefore, now Cao Zhen has determined the location of the Shu army camp and is leading the tiger and leopard cavalry to come at full speed.

"What about the tiger and leopard riding, it's not the same as fighting, there are musketeers, even if the emperor Lao Tzu comes, we will kill as many as we want." Zhang Bao said disapprerovingly. It seems that after yesterday's battle, he was confident in the fighting power of the musketeers.

"Second brother, don't underestimate the enemy, the tiger and leopard cavalry can be said to be the most elite army in the world today, they are not only well-equipped, but also well-trained, all of them are superb in riding, and their riding and archery skills are a must. We need to be careful. Guan Xing said.

"Tiger and leopard riding is really powerful, others will be afraid of tiger and leopard riding, but we are not afraid. But I am not afraid of the tiger and leopard rides, but the enemy's Chinese army. There were 20,000 people in the enemy's forward, so you can imagine how many people there were in the middle and rear armies. The tigers and leopards are cavalry and have great mobility, and if we can't kill them all at once, they will entangle us in a guerrilla way, and wait for their Chinese army to arrive when we are destroyed. Liu Houdao.

Hearing Liu Hou say this, everyone was silent.

"Then let's just run, can't we hide if we can't afford to provoke?" Zhang Bao said.

"I really can't hide, although our soldiers often train for long-distance marching, and the marching speed is much faster than that of ordinary troops, but that is only relative to the infantry, how can it be compared to the cavalry? How do you outrun three legs with two legs? Liu Hou said with a wry smile.

"A hasty retreat is not the way to go, and if we are caught up by the tiger and leopard riders during the retreat, the consequences will be unimaginable. Against cavalry, it is only possible to work in a dense formation, and if it is a marching formation like a long snake, we will only be slaughtered. "Guo Youzhi.

"But staying and forming a formation to confront them head-on will not be possible, the longer it drags on, the more likely it is that Cao's army will arrive, and the more dangerous we are." Liu Houdao.

"It would be nice to be able to destroy this cavalry once and for all." Guo Youzhi.

"If we had enough time and we had made some careful arrangements, it might not have been possible, but not right now. I don't think it will be more than half an hour before we are attacked, and in such a short period of time, we don't even have enough time to complete normal defensive preparations, let alone make any special arrangements. Liu Hou said helplessly.

"Then we have to pray that we can beat the tiger and leopard rider at once, so that they will not dare to continue pestering us, and then we will quickly retreat." Guo Youzhi.

"So how should we arrange our troops this time? Mr. Guo, do you have any good opinions? Liu Houdao.

"The Hawpanzers are fast and powerful, and we really can't fight them the way we used to with our infantry. I built yì to swap the 3-dan strike for the 5-dan hit, while applying pikemen in the first row and using the rejection horse in front of the first row. This should prevent them from breaking through our defenses.

Also, we have to be careful not to attack us from enemy forces coming around our flanks and behind. After all, they are very mobile, and they are likely to move around us, and they will give us a fatal blow when they see the opportunity. "Guo Youzhi.

"If we are preparing for defense on all sides, we will probably not have enough troops." Liu Houdao.

"Now there is no way to do it, I can only give up sending people to the rear of the enemy army to intercept the router. We are all together, huddled together and fought the enemy to the end. "Guo Youzhi.

"Well, without further ado, we don't have time to think of a better solution, so that's the only way to do it now. Everyone immediately moved, mobilized the troops, prepared for the war, and we were about to face a tough battle. Liu Houdao.

All the people were ordered to go down and make all kinds of preparations for war, transporting ammunition, transporting ammunition, maintaining guns, cooking and eating, and some people were responsible for arranging the defense line, such as laying the horses and digging horse pits, etc.

There were ready-made horses to be rejected, and they did a lot of them before they set up camp and placed them outside the camp to prevent the enemy cavalry from charging the camp. Now just take it and use it.

It is not easy to dig the trap pit, mainly because there is not enough time, Liu Hou stood in front of the formation, watching a group of prisoners holding the sapper shovel that they originally carried on the Shu army, digging a pit in front of the defense line. Liu Hou instructed them. You don't have to dig a big and deep pit, as long as you can hide just enough to hide a horse's hoof.

The main reason for this is that there is not enough time, and secondly, Liu Hou knows that such a small pit is enough to deal with the cavalry. The superiority of the cavalry comes entirely from the horses under their crotch. These small pits are easy to ignore, but it is very likely that a horse running at high speed will accidentally step into these small pits that are densely packed in front of the formation. And once they step on a small pit, the only fate of the horse is to break the leg under the impact of running at high speed.

As long as a calf is broken, the horse is considered useless, and the combat power of this cavalry will be immediately wiped out. So don't underestimate this kind of small trap pits, they are so simple and efficient to dig, but they are so vicious and ruthless to use.

At present, Liu Hou has a total of 2,000 prisoners on hand, all of whom have been stuffed with a sapper shovel, and they are required to dig at least three small pits in front of the battle. The size and depth of the pit were set, and each of them had a piece of paper on hand, on which a circle was drawn a little larger than the usual hooves.

They can rely on this circle to determine the size of the pit they are going to dig, and at the same time, they have a horizontal line drawn on the forearm of their hand. When they put their hands into the pit and the pit reaches this line, it proves that their pit is deep enough.

There must be brave men under heavy punishment, and these captives still cherish their heads even if they don't blush at that full meal. They dug a pit in front of the Shu army as if they were dying, and before the Wei army arrived, except for a few seriously wounded, everyone else completed the task, and many of them overfulfilled the task.

After all, this task can be said to be very light, just digging a small pit, digging on the soft soil with an iron sapper shovel, a normal person can dig one in just a few minutes, it is really not difficult.

Half an hour later, the tiger and leopard cavalry led by Cao Zhen had arrived, and what he saw was a Shu army waiting for him. Since he let go of the Shu army scout, Cao Zhen expected this situation, but he was very calm, with the bright moonlight, he roughly estimated that this Shu army had about 5,000 people.

His own 3,000 tigers and leopards ride, even if there are tens of thousands of horses, they dare to rush over, and even win a victory, these 5,000 Shu troops are really not enough, he believes that as long as he chisels back and forth, no matter how elite this army is, it will collapse. At that time, his sons and daughters can calmly pursue and kill these soldiers who fled all over the mountains.

When the infantry pursues the infantry, the damage that can be achieved is very limited, after all, one side is fleeing for its life, and the pursuing side will not use all its strength to pursue when there is no danger to life, so it is conceivable that several routs will be caught up and killed.

Unlike the infantry chasing the infantry, the cavalry runs much faster than the infantry, and the horsepower is much better than the manpower endurance.

When Cao Zhen arrived, the eastern sky was already white, and the cool breeze in the morning was refreshing. The two sides didn't say much nonsense, and as soon as Cao Zhen arrived, he assigned the task and gave the order to attack.

He asked five hundred cavalry to attack the left flank, five hundred cavalry to attack the right flank, and five hundred cavalry to go around the rear of the Shu army's array, intending to explode the chrysanthemums of the Shu army. The remaining fifteen hundred men attacked head-on.

Liu Hou's formation was not much different from the formation he had placed when he dealt with Xu Huang yesterday, but he did not send troops to the rear to pick up leaks. He arranged five hundred men on the left and right flanks and five hundred men in the rear to defend, and the remaining one thousand men in the middle army were mobile troops, and the rest; Two thousand five hundred men were in front to meet Cao Zhen's main attacking force.

The various fronts quickly assembled into a formation of five strikes, that is, they stood in five rows and five platoons, and then silently loaded their ammunition, ready to teach the invading enemy a lesson.

On the front front, Cao Zhen took the lead, leading 1,500 tigers and leopards to ride like thousands of horses galloping towards the Shu army's defense line.