It was early in the afternoon of May 24.

Liu Wenxiu walked in the camp, looking at the soldiers sitting on both sides of the aisle with a heavy face, almost every soldier's body was full of filth, the blood stains on his armor had already coagulated, and he didn't know if it was their own or someone else's.

This is still the case in the barracks, not to mention the wounded barracks behind, before they enter the barracks, just standing outside, Liu Wenxiu and the others can hear the wailing, moaning and whimpering sounds coming from inside, and they can also smell the thick smell of blood and a foul smell in their noses.

Although less than an hour has passed, the strong smell has attracted a large number of flies, and there have always been many mosquitoes in the tropical regions of Southeast Asia, and Xia Jun has been suffering from it since he went south to Mengnai.

After entering the wounded barracks and visiting the wounded soldiers, Liu Wenxiu and his generals looked extremely ugly, although they were all veterans of a hundred battles and were accustomed to seeing all kinds of blood, but after entering the wounded barracks, they still left a deep psychological shadow.

They saw many soybean-sized flies circling around the wounded barracks, mainly around the wounds that had not yet had time to be bandaged, and the buzzing sound was annoying, and the wounded soldiers had no strength to drive away the flies, so they could only let the flies lay on their wounds.

Because there were too many wounded soldiers, the doctors who accompanied the army did not have time to take care of every wounded soldier, some of the seriously injured soldiers were not treated in time, lying on the bed and dying, flies were laying eggs on their wounds, and less than an hour later, some people's wounds could already see tiny milky maggots wriggling and struggling on them.

They saw the pain-stricken soldiers wailing their hearts, cursing loudly about the war, cursing Sun Kewang's army, or sobbing in low voices, telling the generals who had come to visit them that they wanted to go home, to go back to their hometowns to see their parents, wives and children one last time.

They also saw some desperate soldiers clutching the hands of their comrades and doctors, begging them in pain to end themselves and give them a good time, so that they would not have to be troubled by the pain any longer.

Liu Wenxiu saw all this in his eyes and felt pain in his heart, so he could only let those soldiers who were not injured help and take care of the wounded soldiers under the guidance of the army doctor.

The battle lasted from the morning to the end of the afternoon, when the two armies fought for their lives on the banks of the Salween River, during which the roar of artillery, the volley of birds, the neighing of war elephants, the galloping of horses' hooves, the clashing of iron weapons, and so on resounded all over the battlefield, and finally converged with the wails of human wounds and the whimpering sobs of dying and the sound of the turbulent waters of the Salween River, playing a magnificent war symphony.

In the daytime battle, the Xia army did not have an advantage, although the overall quality of the Xia army was a little better than the Qin army, but the Qin army had a large army of war elephants, and this force brought huge casualties to the Xia army.

In the melee, the Dai troops deployed by the Qin army on the flank were the first to be repelled by the Xia army, just when the Xia army was about to make progress from the flank, Sun Kewang put into the war elephants in time, dozens of war elephants let out a shocking roar, rushed towards the Xia army with an indomitable momentum, rushed into the Xia army formation and trampled on it, trampling many Xia soldiers under their feet, or rolling up with a long elephant's trunk and throwing it into the distance.

If it weren't for the Qin army's war elephant troops, Liu Wenxiu's Xia army might have been able to consolidate the partial victories on the battlefield and use this as a breakthrough point to defeat the Qin army in a battle.

It's a pity that there are no ifs in this world, the fact is that the Xia army under his command lost the first battle, and lost thousands of soldiers, and many soldiers were wounded, at least half of them died in the wounded barracks because of the poor medical environment.

After returning from the wounded barracks, Liu Wenxiu, with a gloomy face, ordered the generals to gather and hold a small military meeting to discuss how to deal with the onslaught of the Qin army.

At the meeting, Wang Fuchen raised the weakness of war elephants to fear firearms, and he listed the battle of Dingbian that occurred in the 21st year of Hongwu in the early Ming Dynasty, and Mu Ying, the Duke of Qianguo, defeated the elephant army of the Luchuan Kingdom with the tactics of three stages.

But

Wang Fuchen's proposal was refuted by Lu Mingchen, who said: "Sun Kewang is familiar with military books, cunning by nature, and will definitely be on guard, if the Qin army is really on guard, it will definitely not work, in the opinion of the last general, the war elephants are also afraid of flames, why don't the flames drive away the war elephants so that they do not dare to rush into the military formation?"

"But let the soldiers hold torches and surround the war elephants to frighten them?" Gao Chengen asked at this time.

"Exactly." Lu Mingchen nodded, he looked at Liu Wenxiu, clasped his fists and said, "General, the best way is to dig a trench on the ground in advance, dump flammable materials such as fire oil in it, and ignite it when the war elephant rushes in, so that the war elephant does not dare to move forward, but at present, our army cannot dig a trench, so the soldiers can only carry torches and risk death to frighten the war elephants."

Liu Wenxiu nodded, he glanced at Wang Fuchen, then at Lu Mingchen, and said: "Your two proposals are reasonable, we should make preparations with both hands, tomorrow's battle, if the Qin army uses war elephants to impact our army's formation, first respond with a three-stage attack, if it is ineffective, then light the torch to besiege the war elephants, try to make the war elephants frightened out of control, and turn around and attack the Qin army's main formation."

"Yes." The generals said in unison.

At the same time, although the Qin army camp was celebrating the victory of the first battle, Sun Kewang was not complacent, he also gathered the generals in the army, and ordered the generals to guard against the Xia army in tomorrow's battle to concentrate firepower against the war elephants, he naturally knew his righteous brother very well, Liu Wenxiu suffered a loss in the war elephants, and he would definitely be prepared and countered to this.

At the meeting, Sun Kewang also proposed the battle of Dingbian that took place between Mu Ying, the Duke of Qianguo, and the Luchuan Kingdom more than two hundred years ago, and ordered the generals to focus on guarding against firearms salvos such as three-stage strikes, because the war elephant troops were commanded by naturalized Tusi generals who were loyal to him, and he also specially explained to those Tusi generals not to dispatch war elephants easily.

In Sun Kewang's view, the elephant army is the finale that determines the final outcome of the battlefield, and if it is put into the battlefield at the beginning, it will lose its role, and the battle experience during the day is enough to show the wisdom of his idea.

Just imagine, you finally defeated the enemy army in front of you, full of joy and thought that you could use this to break the battle situation and win the victory, but behind the defeated enemy army actually killed dozens of behemoths, this huge psychological gap and powerlessness will cause a big blow to morale!