Ye Rongcheng's plan to lure the Zhenjiang army to charge into attack was seen through by Xu Youchang, and the Xuanjia rebels immediately adjusted their formation, changing the lure of the enemy into a full-scale charge, while the ironclad cavalry of the First Army of the Wind was-for-tat, and they did not give an inch to the top, cooperating with Du Jian's broken formation cluster to disrupt the opponent's deployment.

At this time, both sides are moving forward, and they can no longer maintain a tight formation system. Therefore, whoever can be more decisive and decisive will have the opportunity to gain a clear advantage in the chaos and then completely crush the other side.

Xu Youchang and Du Jian had the same idea, and immediately commanded the surrounding soldiers and horses to move closer to the position of the main force. They saw the direction and took the lead, and rushed quickly and fiercely through the enemy group as if they were in a no-man's land. After breaking through the rebels' two encirclement lines in succession, they finally successfully joined up with the large forces of the First Army.

The successful reception of Xu Shuai and General Du immediately raised the morale of the entire army, and the Hurricane soldiers quickly sorted out the formation and once again aimed at the enemy with a huge sharp formation.

While ordering people to give orders to the Second Army and the Sixth Army behind them to start advancing, Xu Youchang gave instructions to the First Army beside him to charge:

"Brothers, the rebels have launched an early attack, and the formation is out of order! Everyone aimed at the enemy's core main formation and the place where the handsome flag was, and began to chisel through the charge! ”

At the sound of an order, the whole army moved in unison.

The earth-shattering sound of horses' hooves sounded again, and this time, the Zhenjiang Storm Army rushed even more fiercely, and several rebel infantry phalanxes located in the path of the cavalry charge were torn to pieces almost in the blink of an eye.

Seeing this, Ye Rongcheng, who was immediately behind, couldn't help but sink secretly in his heart. Just now, he failed to intercept Du Jian's broken formation, but let Xu Youchang successfully seize the first move, and put the ironclad cavalry in a position very close to the Xuanjia army, and on his side, because of the rush to advance and intercept, the battalions and formations could no longer maintain the previous state of mutual defense, and a large number of infantry were in the embarrassment of not daring to advance and retreating.

Once Xu Youchang and them rush up at full speed, no number of phalanxes will be enough!

This kind of play, Ye Rongcheng is simply familiar and can't be more familiar, because this itself is the most favorite and most accustomed tactics of the Xuanjia Legion back then. Therefore, no one can be more sober than him at this time: he must desperately block the first army of Zhenjiang!

Ye Rongcheng took off the spear from the hook next to the saddle and waved it into the air: "Beat the drum and give the order!" The armies moved to the flanks, giving way to the middle. The main general's legion, face the enemy with his commander! ”

The 30,000 iron cavalry behind him shouted in unison, and at the same time urged their mounts one after another, rushing towards the Zhenjiang cavalry in the distance like a tidal wave.

Tens of thousands of war horses on both sides quickly approached, slamming together, the knights on the horses brandished their weapons, swords and swords galloped, and people kept being hit by the other side and falling off their horses, falling heavily to the ground, and then being ruthlessly trampled again.

In the end, the limited battlefield space was almost impossible to accommodate these cavalry galloping and fighting. More and more horses huddled together, like infantry, piled up in place and slashed and stabbed each other with knives and guns.

The masterful competition of horsemanship and martial arts soon transformed into the most primitive and savage hand-to-hand tearing of human nature. Everyone is no longer fighting who is better trained, who has better skills, and who has more courage, but who has better luck and whose life is harder.

With a single slash, whether you can kill the other party has become a matter of probability.

If a shot comes, whether it will pierce itself is also a matter of probability.

The battlefield of crazy grinding meat, guns like dense forests, knives like silverfish, and people have become consumables.

At the same time, the rebel infantry phalanxes that retreated to both sides also ushered in the fierce impact of the Second and Sixth Armies of Zhenjiang.

Especially the angry wave soldiers of the pure heavy army, when they were guarding, they were like iron pimples and iron turtles, and now when they attacked, they turned into stormy waves in an instant, and the rebel phalanx was in pain.

Ordinary bows, arrows, knives and guns are difficult to effectively kill the heavy armor of the Sixth Army. Despite their heavy loads and physical exertion, the First Army's cavalry had already disrupted the enemy's main formation, so it took little effort for the Sixth Army to rush to the front of the formation, and then break through the formation with all their might.

The big swords and axes kept flying up and down, and the rebel infantry couldn't resist them at all.

Soon, the phalanx battle on the two wings gradually became one-sided. The rebels were pushed back by the surging soldiers and horses, and almost collapsed on all fronts.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Xie Bao endured the pain and led his cavalry to attack the flank of the Second Army, which temporarily delayed the pace of the general attack of the Zhenjiang Army and seized the opportunity for the rebels as a whole.

Woo –

The clarion call for retreat finally sounded.

After a whole day of fierce fighting, the rebel positions were full of corpses and rivers of blood, and they could no longer hold on.

After Ye Rongcheng left some of his soldiers and horses in place to form a formation, the rest of the men quickly retreated and moved to the south.

The total strength of the rebels far exceeded that of the Zhenjiang army that crossed the river, so two defensive lines were set up behind them. Although the combat power of the troops stationed there is not strong enough, it is enough to form echelon cover and fight for the survival of the main force of Xuanjia.

Seeing that the enemy had fully retreated again, Xu Youchang could only cry out in vain. After six or seven hours of fierce fighting, the officers and men of the three armies had reached their limit at this moment, and they could no longer take advantage of the victory to pursue. He grabbed the reins, looked around, and when he saw Du Jian's figure, he hurriedly shouted: "Old Du, collect the troops!" Can't chase anymore! ”

Du Jian nodded when he heard this, rode his horse to him, and sighed depressedly: "Let Ye Rongcheng run away again!" ”

"He just brought up the most elite soldiers and horses under his command, and fought to the death of the queen of the palace, regardless of the cost." Xu Youchang took off his iron helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead: "It's dark, maybe the enemy will derive a force to counterattack, which is very unfavorable to us." ”

Du Jian glanced at the rebels who were running farther and farther away, and snorted coldly: "I guess they don't have the guts, but the brothers are indeed too tired and must take a rest." ”

Xu Youchang bowed slightly, also looked into the distance and said: "The other party has at least 300,000 men and horses, and has set up four defense lines in the north of Xuancheng. Although the strength of the army will be greatly diluted as a result, it will also be very difficult for us to kill them one by one. ”

Du Jianying said: "Before, most of the protectors asked Jigriz to bring a message over, saying that if the battle situation was not good, he would give up attacking Xuancheng and withdraw to Jiangbei. Xu Shuai, what do you think? ”

"How many days have we been crossing the river?" Xu Youchang suddenly asked.

"Count today...... Seven days. Du Jian said: "There have been five battles, big and small, and the battle line has been moving forward, and now you can already see the head of Xuancheng." ”

Xu Youchang muttered to himself: "It's still too slow, four days later than the originally planned siege time." Ye Rongcheng seems to have seen through our thoughts, so he will adopt the strategy of slowing down step by step. The enemy still has two lines of defense, and then rely on fortifications to defend the city, I estimate that without two or three days of work, it will be difficult for us to reach the city of Xuanzhou, and the siege will take longer. ”

He thought for a moment, then turned his head and said, "I originally planned to concentrate my forces today and completely defeat Ye Rongcheng, but now it seems that there is no way to do it. The enemy was more clever and prepared than I thought. Lao Du, we will withdraw to Jiangbei tonight and return to safety. ”

Du Jian promised: "Okay, I'll deploy immediately, and the second army will be cut off for the brothers." ”

"No, let the Sixth Army set up a blocking position and be responsible for covering the whole army," Xu Youchang ordered: "When you hit the front, the losses were already very large, and you have been fighting continuously for the past few days, and you are very tired up and down. Following my orders, the Second Army boarded the ship first and returned. ”

Du Jian was about to fight again, when a herald suddenly rode his horse from a distance and ran in front of the two: "Xu Shuai, most of the military orders are protected!" With that, he took out an order from the letterbox behind his back and presented it to Xu Youchang with both hands.

Xu Youchang opened the order letter and looked at it, and then said to the herald: "Go back and report to the capital, we will act immediately." ”

Du Jian asked casually, "Is it for us to retreat?" ”

Xu Youchang shook his head: "No, there is a new task." ”

"New mission?" Du Jian was suddenly curious: "Aren't you going back to Jiangbei?" Attacking other targets? ”

Xu Youchang turned his head to look at the rebel defense line in the distance, and said in a deep voice: "Yes, Daduhu ordered us to go downstream and attack Jinling. ”

Seeing that Du Jian was confused, he then explained: "A few days ago, the rebel Jinling fleet came to intercept our troop carriers, but they were attacked by Nie Xianzeng and their 10th Army, and suffered heavy losses. Therefore, Daduhu decided to let us cooperate with the naval army and take advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Jinling and destroy the enemy there in one fell swoop. ”

Du Jian thought for a while, nodded and said: "Well, the main forces of the rebels are all concentrated in the Xuancheng area, and the army and navy on the Jinling side are empty, so it is indeed an opportunity." ”

Xu Youchang said with a smile: "Then go and prepare, and set off overnight!" ”

-

The emergency movement of the Zhenjiang Army immediately attracted Ye Rongcheng's attention.

Originally, he thought that Xu Youchang was going to lead his troops to retreat back to Jiangbei, but he didn't expect that with the repeated reports of the scouts, a clearer intention of action was completely displayed in front of him: the three armies of Zhenjiang did not march in the direction of the river bank, but turned to the northeast, and the goal was directly aimed at Jinling, an important town in the south of the Yangtze River!

This sudden situation was a bit unexpected by Ye Rongcheng. Although Xu Youchang went deep alone, such an action was quite risky, but not long ago, the Jinling Navy Division had just suffered a defeat and suffered a big loss, and it was indeed reasonable for the Zhenjiang army to attack Jinling at this time.

He pondered for a moment, and immediately called Feng Tuo, the general under his command, and asked him to gather 40,000 soldiers and horses under his command, take a shortcut and rush to the downstream, and quickly gallop to the aid of Jinling City.

According to Ye Rongcheng's assumption, Xuancheng is about 240 miles away from Jinling, as long as Feng Tuo can arrive in Jinling before Xu Youchang and defend for three days, his main force will be able to take the Zhenjiang army from the direction of Xuancheng and attack Xu Youchang by surprise.

The other party is far away from Jiangbei, lacking baggage and soldier replenishment, once it falls into a heavy siege under Jinling City, it will inevitably be difficult to escape death!