Chapter 389: The Battle of the Salween River
The next day, the fighting resumed again.
The two sides were still fighting fiercely on the banks of the Salween River, and the Xia army adopted a relatively conservative posture this time, forming a tight military formation to resist the offensive of the Qin army, and the Qin army launched a continuous fierce offensive on the Xia army's front with the power of victory, but were repelled by the Xia army.
Although the Qin army was slightly superior, the quality of the soldiers was slightly inferior to that of the Xia army, and seeing that the infantry could not open the situation several times, Sun Kewang could only order the elephant army to be dispatched.
In the dull sound of the horn of attack, the Qin army war elephants roared and killed from the rear, and they rushed towards the Xia army formation with an unstoppable momentum, and the Qin army infantry in front of them gave way one after another.
The Xia army was not afraid, they quickly stepped forward with bird guns, intending to shoot at the Qin army's war elephants with three hits, but the Qin army had already prepared, seeing that the Xia army's bird guns stepped forward, the Qin army fired ten thousand arrows in unison, and the arrow rain instantly covered the Xia army's long military formation, shooting the Xia army's bird guns to heavy losses.
Because of the disturbance of the Qin army, the Xia army's firearm salvo method was forced to go bankrupt, and the bird gunners who suffered heavy losses had to withdraw to the shield array behind them to cover the shield array.
Seeing the war elephant killing, Wang Fuchen, the governor of the left capital who was personally sitting on the front line, snatched the war bow in the hands of his own soldiers, stepped forward, took the bow and arrows, and shot several arrows at the leading war elephant in a row, the arrow accurately hit the knee of the war elephant, and the war elephant let out a long mournful roar, and then fell down wounded, and the naturalized Tusi general standing on the war tower fell down with several Tusi soldiers, and then was killed by Wang Fuchen with an arrow.
The Tusi general died, the rest of the Qin army soldiers were frightened, the morale of the Xia army was greatly boosted, Wang Fuchen immediately raised his war bow and shouted: "Now deep into the enemy's territory, the only way to fight with the enemy without fear of life and death, victory is life, defeat is death, all the soldiers will charge with me, and fight for my emperor's long live to the death!"
"Fight to the death!"
The Xia army roared loudly and followed Wang Fuchen to take the initiative to meet the Qin army, and the Qin army reacted quickly, and attacked the Xia army with the elephant soldiers under the order of the Han generals, and the two sides immediately collided head-on and fell into a tragic battle.
According to the instructions of the previous night, the Xia soldiers lit torches after the elephant soldiers came, surrounded the elephant soldiers with torches, and frightened these huge beasts, and the Tusi soldiers on the back of the war elephants resisted desperately, they either threw javelins or picked short lances to kill the Xia soldiers who were close to the war elephants.
However, the Xia army was numerous, and how the Tusi soldiers could kill it, the torch waved by the Xia army quickly caused the war elephants to panic, they hissed and waved their trunks indiscriminately, slapping the approaching Xia army away, and then clumsily turned around, intending to flee from here, no matter how the elephant rider maneuvered.
Wang Fuchen laughed when he saw that the elephant army was really out of control, but he was not idle, and kept shooting the Qin army with a bow, and at this moment, a Han general of the Qin army appeared in his sight, and the Han general held his sword high and shouted to order the surrounding soldiers to attack.
Seeing this, Wang Fuchen aimed the arrow cluster at the general of the Qin army, and before the latter could react, the arrow shot out as quickly as lightning, passing through a distance of nearly 100 meters, and accurately hit the face of the general of the Qin army, and the arrow cluster penetrated deep into the eye socket.
The general of the Qin army let out a long scream after being hit by the arrow, and fell from his horse on his back with the arrow in his hand, seeing the general being shot, the morale of the Qin army was suddenly in chaos, and the morale of the Qin army fell sharply after the war elephant turned around, and they turned around and fled.
Wang Fuchen immediately ordered the whole army to pursue and expand the results of the battle, and the Xia army under his command fought out one after another, chasing behind the fleeing Qin army, and Sun Kewang saw that the flank was actually the first to retreat, and he was furious in his heart, so that the 2,000 cavalry in the army who had not participated in the battle for a long time participated in the battle, and charged the pursuing Xia army from the flank.
These two thousand cavalry are mainly composed of the old battalion of the Western Army who retreated south with Sun Kewang, and the war horses are all common mountain horses in the southwest region, and their quality may be higher than that of the high-headed horses in the north, but in terms of climbing mountains and mountains, the northern war horses cannot match them.
With Sun Kewang's order, the Qin cavalry deployed on the flank roared towards the pursuing Xia army, and with the participation of the Qin cavalry, the ground of the battlefield also began to tremble because of the galloping horses.
Seeing this, Liu Wenxiu gathered the artillery in the army to launch an artillery bombardment on the cavalry of the Qin army, and poured out all the cavalry in the general to confront the cavalry of the Qin army, and the cavalry under his command was 3,000, most of which were elite veterans of the war with the Qing army in Sichuan.
After receiving the order of the Duke of Shu, Qi Sansheng immediately led the cavalry to raise his gun.
Directly attacking the cavalry of the Qin army, the cavalry of the Qin army had to change their objectives and fight with the cavalry of the Xia army.
The cavalry of the Qin army fought with spears and spears and was proficient in close combat, but the horses under their crotch were short in size and could not wear heavy armor, and the number was smaller than that of the Xia cavalry.
Seeing that his cavalry was entangled, Sun Kewang couldn't sit still, he suddenly recalled the disastrous Battle of Guiyang a few years ago, he couldn't tolerate the disastrous defeat of Guiyang again, if he failed again this time, then he might even lose the Menggong Mansion.
As soon as he thought of this, Sun Kewang's hands and feet were cold, he decided to make a desperate bet, pulled out his saber, and shouted loudly to the thousands of elite soldiers guarding him: "Today's battle is related to the fortune of our Great Qin, if this battle is defeated, Meng Gong will be lost, and we will have no way to retreat, all the soldiers will join the battle with me and kill the Beikou!"
"I am willing to die for Your Majesty!"
The thousands of elite soldiers guarding Sun Kewang's surroundings were the Praetorian Guards of Sun Qin's regime, and they were also the most loyal soldiers to Sun Kewang, and they immediately killed the defeated flanks under the leadership of Sun Kewang.
Seeing that Sun Kewang was coming to kill him personally, Wang Fuchen hurriedly ordered to stop the pursuit, and the whole army lined up to meet the enemy with an army formation.
Since the Sun Qin forbidden army entered Meng Gen, they also learned the tactics of the local Tusi, each of them carried a number of javelins, and bid for guns before charging, the javelins rained, and immediately shot a large number of Xia soldiers, and then wielded a knife to kill, and the Xia army under the command of Wang Fuchen was forced to retreat for a while.
Not only that, Sun Kewang's imperial flag appeared on the front line, which was also like a domino effect, which greatly boosted the morale of the Qin army on the entire front.
The morale of the Qin army, which had been shaken by the delay in opening the breakthrough and the defeat of the flanks, regained their morale, and they also shouted long live under the loud encouragement of the generals in the army, and launched several fierce attacks on the Xia army again.
Liu Wenxiu, who was in control of the overall situation in the rear, saw that the morale of the Qin army was greatly boosted, and his own front was faintly defeated and retreated, and immediately realized that if Sun Kewang was not killed, this battle was likely to end in the defeat of the Xia army again.
Moreover, Sun Kewang personally went to the battlefield, if this battle failed today, the Xia army could only flee north in a hurry.
In order to prevent this from happening, he hurriedly ordered to concentrate the artillery in the army, turn the muzzle of the cannon to bombard the Sun Qin forbidden army on the flank, and send the last reserve around him to support Wang Fuchen on the flank.
At the same time, he sent a herald and ordered Qi Sansheng, who led the cavalry, to defeat the Qin army within half an hour, outflank Sun Qin's forbidden army, and kill Sun Kewang himself on the battlefield, otherwise he would be held accountable for his ineffective battle!