Bi Shiduo was caught off guard and only had time to raise his spear horizontally before the mace fell on the spear shaft. With a "crack", the spear shaft broke directly. Fortunately, Bi Shiduo reacted very quickly. With the help of the buffering moment of the spear shaft, he kicked the horse's belly with his right foot, tilted his body, and dodged from the horse's back.
"Plop"
The extremely heavy mace hit Bi Shiduo's mount directly, smashing the entire horse's head into pieces. Seeing this scene, Bi Shiduo was horrified and his eyes jumped. If his reaction had been a little slower, he and his horse would have been smashed into a meat pie by this Western Rong barbarian.
This Liang Zun was indeed an unrivaled warrior as Qin Yan said, and Bi Shiduo was secretly shocked that he was no match for him.
Although he avoided the attack from the man with the stick, the sound of wind suddenly rose again behind Bi Shiduo. It turned out that Chen Gong took the opportunity to attack him and swung his knife directly at his neck.
At the critical moment, his experience of following Huang Chao in hundreds of battles in the south and his agile skills saved him. Hearing the wind, Bi Shiduo swung the half-broken gun in his hand behind him without even looking. Lying on the ground, he took the opportunity to lunge forward and narrowly avoided the fate of having his head severed.
The Western Rong generals Liang Zun and Chen Gong attacked from the front and back, but Bi Shiduo narrowly avoided them. When the two men crossed their horses, Bi Shiduo jumped up and kicked a guard behind Liang Zun off his horse. Bi Shiduo took the opportunity to seize the opponent's horse and shouted to Qin Yan: "General Qin, retreat quickly. This man is Liang Zun. We are being attacked again."
After shouting this, Bi Shiduo rode his horse and fled out of the camp and to the bank of the Xiang River without looking back. He didn't even care about the soldiers under his command. The only thing he had in mind now was escaping, so he didn't care about anything else.
On the bank of the Xiang River, at the waterside camp, with the arrival of Liang Zun in person, the battle immediately took a turn.
The Jingzhou army, which was originally besieged in the big village, immediately became more motivated when they saw the reinforcements. They even used all their strength to fight desperately.
The Cao army, which had been besieging the Jingzhou army, saw that the enemy had arrived with countless troops and their morale dropped sharply. Some people saw their leader, Bi Shiduo, fleeing southward in panic, and without caring about killing the Jingzhou army, they immediately rushed towards the direction where Bi Shiduo fled.
After Bi Shiduo, Qin Yan did not delay either. He immediately swung his sword and rode his horse to chase after Bi Shiduo. Both generals had fled, let alone the other Cao soldiers. The anxious Cao army guards desperately killed the reinforcements brought by Liang Zun and chased after their general.
Although some people fought their way out, some were still trapped, and some Cao soldiers were intercepted on the north side of the stronghold. When these Cao soldiers saw that the situation was hopeless, they immediately ran away in panic. Now it was not about who was braver, but who ran faster. It didn't need to be the fastest, just faster than others. Most of the old soldiers held this idea and ran non-stop.
Among these people, there were three young men, who were none other than the three brothers Zhang Guiba, Zhang Guihou and Zhang Guimou.
Zhang Guiba joined the regular guards early on. He was defeated in both battles. No one knew how this passionate young man felt now. When Bi Shiduo reorganized the army, he had been promoted to the position of fire chief, so he asked his two younger brothers to join the fire under his command for easier care.
Seeing that Bi Shiduo and Qin Yan were fleeing southward, Zhang Guiba also wanted to break out to the south and follow Bi Shiduo. At this time, Zhang Guiba seemed to have thought of something and suddenly became anxious.
Di shouted, "Brother, let's flee to the north."
At this time, this voice made Zhang Guiba, the fire captain, have no time to think about it, let alone ask why. Out of trust in his brother, he immediately gave up the plan to go south, turned around and led the remaining defeated soldiers of his fire to flee north.
Most of the Cao army still followed Bi Shiduo and Qin Yan, so the number of Cao army fleeing south was far greater than those fleeing. Even so, there were still two or three thousand people fleeing north.
Liang Zun was unwilling to watch these people escape, so he immediately ordered: "Chen Gong, you follow me to pursue Bi Shiduo; Zhang, you lead your men to pursue northward and try to eliminate the other scum."
"Yes." Chen Gong immediately responded and hurriedly followed Liang Zun with his men.
"Yes." Zhang had no choice but to obey the order. He didn't care about the miscellaneous fish that fled north without any big fish. However, as a deputy general, he had to obey Liang Zun's orders. He had to lead his troops and chase northward listlessly.
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Around nine or ten o'clock, defeated soldiers gradually fled to the place where Wu Diao, Zhu Li and others were stationed. Wu Diao led Pang Xun's former subordinates, with neat formations and a mighty army, standing proudly in the sun. Many of the defeated soldiers recognized Wu Diao, and they automatically came closer to them without Wu Diao going to greet them.
"Captain Wu, why are you here?" A captain who escaped here asked in surprise.
"Shouldn't I be here?" Wu Diao didn't even look at him, and said slowly: "If I wasn't here, could you escape Tanzhou alive?"
The captain looked at Wu Diao with a complicated expression. His guards had experienced this great battle and fled again, and there were only a few people left. At this time, he didn't dare to argue with Wu Diao, the captain who was waiting for the opportunity and looked unharmed. He obediently ran behind Pang Xun's former subordinates like the other remnants and sat down to rest.
"Zhu Li, reorganize them separately. These people will be under your command from now on." Wu Diao looked back at Zhu Li and ordered in a deep voice.
"Yes," Zhu Li responded immediately. He knew his master's plan and agreed readily.
As the saying goes, when you live under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. The remnants of the army that fled here had the chance to rest and recuperate thanks to Wu Dao's military might.
Naturally, they did not dare to refute Zhu Li's reorganization. The reorganization of the remaining soldiers went very smoothly. Zhu Li just copied him and hastily incorporated them into the organization according to the military system of the Tang Dynasty.
If this deserter was a fire captain before, Zhu Li would not demote him without reason and would still appoint him as fire captain. If he was a team leader before, he would still be the team leader. But there is one thing. If this person was a captain before, I'm sorry, I can't take charge of you. You should report to Wu Dao.
Gradually, around noon, the two hundred people who went to get food had returned with the carts, and Zhu Li also searched for and gathered nearly nine hundred defeated soldiers.
What made him even happier was that Zhang Guiba and his three brothers also came over. So, together, the master and his disciples now had nearly two thousand elite soldiers under their command.
Now that he had people and food, Wu Dao did not plan to continue collecting the defeated soldiers. He immediately directed everyone to push the food carts onto rafts and transport them in batches to the east of the Xiang River. Later, he sent all the food carts to the east of the Xiang River in batches.
The elite troops were transported there.
After everything was ready, Wu Dao and Zhu Li led nearly two thousand elite troops, not taking the main road, but taking the small roads, and marched towards Jiangxi in a covert and sneaky manner.
On the way, Wu Dao personally trained more than 900 defeated soldiers of the Cao Army. During the training, Zhu Li not only had to learn, but also had to train with the soldiers. They almost ate and lived together without any exceptions.
In addition, Zhu Li had to receive individual training and instruction from Wu Dao, which included not only martial arts, but also military tactics, literacy, archery, etc. He was almost squeezed to the point where he had almost no time to rest.
However, Zhu Li's growth is also very gratifying. Among the people he is familiar with, Zhang Guihou and Zhang Guimou's martial arts were originally better than his. Now that they are together, it is inevitable that they will compete with each other. At the beginning, they could still abuse Zhu Li, but the good times did not last long. Gradually, the two of them together were no match for Zhu Li.
In desperation, Zhang Guihou and Zhang Guimou called their eldest brother to compete with Zhu Li.
Zhang Guiba's martial arts were very good, having reached the late stage of a second-rate general, which was rare among the more than 900 remnant soldiers. At the beginning, Zhang Guiba could still fight with Zhu Li for a while, and beat Zhu Li into a state of losing his temper, but not long after, he became unable to do so. In a simple contest, Zhang Guiba was no match for Zhu Li.
Zhu Li became stronger day by day, which completely stimulated the three brothers of the Zhang family. The three of them did not need anyone to urge them, and they spontaneously worked hard to train, hoping to be able to make rapid progress like Zhu Li. Now the three brothers combined could not even beat a child, so they had no reason to be lazy.
But they didn't know how well Zhu Li was treated. Not only was his body nourished by constant medicinal baths, but he also had the help of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". From time to time, some strange fruits would pop up to enhance his abilities. Coupled with Wu Dao's strict instruction, his martial arts improved by more than just a thousand miles a day. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was improving with each passing day.
In addition, Zhu Li got along very well with the remnant soldiers who gathered together. At the beginning, these old soldiers looked down on Zhu Li, a baby-faced kid, and only under the pressure from Wu Dao did they have to obey Zhu Li's command.
But as Zhu Li's martial arts skills improved, even the few captains who had managed to escape were no match for him. Only then did this group of remnant soldiers begin to respect this young commander from the bottom of their hearts.
Being in the military, respecting the strong is a subconscious consciousness. In the era of cold weapons, this consciousness is even more deeply rooted, and they have no choice but to change their attitude.
The army marched eastward along Xiushui River, but the movement was not very fast. Wu Dao did not seem to be in a hurry to march. He would stop and train the army after marching more than a hundred miles, and this training would last for more than ten days.
Then they broke camp and marched again for more than a hundred miles, and then set up camp again to train their troops. Sometimes they would organize their subordinates to hunt, fish, replenish food and fodder, etc.
Two months passed in such a hurry. They had set up camp three times and trained soldiers more than four times. However, Zhu Li made rapid progress in these two months. His martial arts had reached the middle stage of a second-rate general, but when it came to fighting, even Zhang Guiba, who was in the late stage of a second-rate general, was no match for him. His archery training was perfect, and he also knew a thing or two about military tactics.
On this day, the army marched for dozens of miles again and arrived at Yunju Mountain. Wu Dao once again ordered to set up a large camp, but he took Zhu Li and others to the mountain to worship at the temple.