Helu used a large iron spear, which was also extremely heavy. The two of them didn't waste any time and just rode on horseback to kill. Their spears were ruthless and every move was fatal. In less than three moves, Helu followed in the footsteps of Zhuxie Shengzan and had his head cut off by Zhu Li's spear.
Once again, the morale of the Yue cavalry on Zhu Li's side was raised to the peak, while the morale of the Shatuo army on the opposite side dropped quietly. Using the same trick again, Zhu Li raised Helu's head to provoke the opponent.
A Shatuo general named Zhuye Shijue rushed out again. This man was even weaker. Zhu Li pierced his throat with a single strike on his horse, and then chopped off his head. He held his head and shouted loudly to the other side: "Is there no one left in Shatuo? They are all such villains."
It was a slap in the face. This sentence really stirred up a hornet's nest. People from the opposite side kept riding their horses and brandishing their weapons, as if they wanted to cut Zhu Li into pieces. Now even if Fu Wenda wanted to stop him, it was useless. Zhu Li accepted everyone who came. In less than half an hour, in this small place of Zhainangou, Zhu Li challenged thirteen of Fu Wenda's generals in one breath, and almost no one could last ten rounds against him.
At this point, even if the other party is dumb, he will know that he has been fooled.
The morale of the Shatuo army continued to decline, and now they had no intention of fighting. They were only afraid of Zhu Li, and no Shatuo general came out to fight. Zhu Li saw that the situation was almost right, and looked at the other side with disdain and said, "Hey, Shatuo barbarians, why are you hiding like a turtle?"
Zhu Li's provocation caused the more than a thousand Yue cavalrymen behind him to join in the fun. Their morale was now at its highest point, and they were fearless. They followed Zhu Li in shouting, "Shatuo barbarians, cowards; Shatuo barbarians, cowards; Shatuo barbarians, cowards..."
Hearing this, Fu Wenda frowned slightly and tried to calm everyone down. He turned a deaf ear to Zhu Li and the others' provocations. He drew his sword with a clang and shouted, "My men, there are only a thousand cavalrymen on the other side, but we have tens of thousands of warriors. Why can't we crush them in one fell swoop? Let's charge together and crush them."
"Go ahead and crush them."
"Go ahead and kill Zhu Li."
"Kill!"
... ... .
At Fu Wenda's command, the Shatuo army completely erupted, and countless figures rushed towards Zhu Li and the others like waves.
This situation was exactly what Zhu Li wanted. At this moment, he suddenly turned his horse's head, dragged his double-edged spear, and shouted loudly to the Yueqi soldiers: "Brothers, the wind is strong, hurry up."
"The wind is strong, pull it out"
... ...
The plan had been made long ago, and now that the captain had given the order to retreat, how could the Yue cavalrymen dare to neglect it? They responded with a rush of voices, turned their horses’ heads, and fled rapidly towards Weizhou.
From afar, the Shatuo army was like a raging flood, everywhere, chasing and besieging Zhu Li and others; while the Beikou Yue cavalry was like a group of people fleeing for their lives, they fled so fast that even an anxious rabbit could not catch up.
When the Shatuo people chased into a deep ditch covered with lush dry grass, they suddenly smelled a scent of fireworks. They saw that the dry grass that was everywhere around them had been set on fire somehow. Although this fire had little effect on the army, the smoke and fire greatly affected their vision.
Behind the fireworks, another group of cavalry appeared there. Fu Wenda saw this.
The cavalrymen were suddenly startled, but they soon realized that such a small number of people should not be able to shake his army.
What he never expected was that this group of cavalrymen were chasing the fireworks while shooting arrows at his army. Although there were only a few thousand people, the army was charging and the personnel were scattered, with almost no formation to speak of. Even with the worst archery skills, it was still possible for a blind cat to catch a dead mouse, and every shot was accurate. After a wave of arrows, hundreds of elite soldiers under his command were killed.
The other side kept shooting, firing five or six waves in a row. A rough estimate is that at least two or three thousand elite Shatuo soldiers were shot and killed by them.
Fu Wenda was furious and immediately ordered several generals to lead the troops to deal with the archers who suddenly appeared. However, without waiting for them to move forward, the other side swarmed towards Zhu Li and others and chased after them, disappearing in an instant.
Zhu Li and the others all had horses, so it was very difficult for Fu Wenda to catch up with them. Although the Shatuo army also had Yue cavalry, in these barren mountains and wildernesses, who knew where an ambush might be hiding. Fu Wenda did not dare to take the risk.
In this battle, the Shatuo army lost thirteen generals and two to three thousand elite soldiers, while Fu Wenda didn't even touch the enemy's hair. You can imagine how bad his mood is now, as disgusted as if he had eaten a fly while eating.
However, what he didn't expect was that this was not the end, and even more disgusting things were still to come. It seemed that the good show had just begun.
From then on, whenever Fu Wenda was ready to stop and rest, Zhu Li would lead the Yue cavalry to run over and challenge him. If the Shatuo army refused to fight, the other side would use all kinds of dirty words and even beat drums and gongs to publicize the glorious deeds of Fu Wenda's eighteen generations of ancestors.
Whenever he ordered the entire army to pursue the enemy, Zhu Li would flee like a frightened sparrow with more than a thousand Yue cavalry. At this time, another group of archers led by Zhang Guiba would appear, shoot indiscriminately, and after killing thousands of people, they would also disappear without a trace.
Two days, just two days, Fu Wenda almost collapsed. He hardly dared to close his eyes for two days and two nights. Although the army arrived at the territory of Weizhou, it suffered heavy losses. Of the more than 50,000 troops, at least seven or eight thousand were left on the road forever. The casualties in all the previous wars were not as great as those in the past two days. He couldn't believe that this was true.
He didn't know that this was the most classic sparrow tactic in later generations.
More than 40 miles away from Weizhou, Fu Wenda ordered his troops to set up camp and divided them into three waves, taking turns to stand guard, patrol and rest.
A sign of no war was hung above the military camp, but people were secretly sent to Daizhou to request support, with the main point being that Li Keyong be asked to send several powerful generals.
Zhu Li and Liu Rengong waited in Weizhou for a day before the army of Li Keju and Li Quanzhong arrived. Zhu Li wanted to meet Li Keju, but was rejected by Li Quanzhong on the grounds that he was tired from the journey and would talk about it tomorrow.
On that day, Helian Duo of Tuyuhun, Li Tao, the imperial envoy, Zhuge Shuang, the new envoy of Daibei, Zhu Mei, the governor of Daizhou, Wang Chongying, the governor of Fenning, Zheng Ting, the governor of Fengxiang, Li Xiaochang and Li Yuanli, the generals of Yanzhen, and other talents arrived one after another. Nearly 100,000 soldiers and horses gathered in Weizhou City in one day.
These big guys gathered together and held an emergency meeting the next day. Zhu Li finally had a legitimate reason to go to the temporary meeting hall to meet Li Keju.
In the temporary meeting hall, the people present were either local military commanders or local tyrants. They were urgently discussing something when suddenly a lieutenant came to report: "Report, the guards at the north entrance of Tanzhou are
Zhu Li, present thirteen heads of the enemy chieftains to Protector Li. "
Upon hearing this, everyone looked at Li Keju in surprise. Li Keju was also startled when he heard this, and then he said to the lieutenant in great joy: "Hahaha, hurry up, let him in."
"Yes," the lieutenant replied. After he withdrew, Li Keju looked around at everyone with some pride and said, "This is the Cloud Cavalry Captain under my command. At such a young age, he has killed more than ten generals. It's really a young man to be feared."
Looking at Li Keju's depressed look, the governors and other bigwigs present had different expressions. If there were anyone with an exception, they were Li Tao and Zheng Ting. Both of them were loyal and righteous men in the court.
"Congratulations, congratulations. Protector Li has such a beloved general. It is God's blessing to us. I think the end of Li Guochang and Li Keyong, father and son, is not far away." Li Tao, the Tang court's recruiting envoy, sincerely congratulated Li Keju.
"Yes, our coalition forces are lacking such decisive and courageous people." Zheng Ting agreed.
Li Tao spoke. The others could not just pretend nothing had happened, nor did they want to offend Li Keju, so they all spoke out their congratulations.
At this time, Zhu Li entered the tent carrying a cloth bag containing the head of a Shatuo general. He bowed to Li Keju and said, "Mr. Li, Zhu Li lived up to your trust. Although I failed to stop Fu Wenda this time, I killed 13 of his generals in battle and used a trick to kill more than 7,000 of his elite troops. I came here to hand over the order."
"Good, good, good, such a harvest is indeed a great victory. The bag contains the heads of the enemy chieftains. Quickly pour them out and let you see them." Li Keju was very happy. He had only been the Jiedushi of Lulong for more than two years and had no outstanding military achievements. Now his subordinates killed thirteen generals of the Shatuo people in battle, which was a great honor for him, so he was very enthusiastic.
"Yes," Zhu Li bowed his hands in response, then loosened the mouth of the cloth bag and stood upside down. There were sounds of "guluo, guluo, guluo..." and more than ten heads of Shatuo people with deep eyes and whiskers appeared in front of everyone. Some had their eyes closed and their faces were a little pale, some had their eyes wide open and died with their eyes open, and so on. Seeing this, everyone in the big tent sighed.
"Hahaha, these Shatuo barbarians have long received the grace of the emperor, but they have brought disaster to the region. Now seeing them surrender their heads in front of me, I am extremely happy." When Li Tao, the Tang court's military envoy, saw these Shatuo heads, he was not frightened at all, but laughed heartily. Then he began to praise Zhu Li, saying, "The Shatuo people are extremely fierce. I didn't expect that Captain Zhu Li could kill them with just a wave of his hand. This ability can be called that of a fierce general of the time. I will definitely report to His Majesty and ask for credit for Captain Zhu."
"Yes, many people claimed to be fierce, brave and powerful generals, but they were frightened by the Shatuo people, just like Yi Zhao, Zhang Yanqiu, Su Hongzhen and others in Taiyuan. They were boasted to be rare in the sky and unparalleled on the earth at that time, but what was the result? I think they were not even worthy of being a foil for Zhu Li." Zhuge Shuang agreed with Li Tao, but his words seemed to be a bit too much. No matter what, Yi Zhao, Zhang Yanqiu and Su Hongzhen died because of resisting the Shatuo people. It is a bit unfair to make a fuss about the dead.
However, at this moment, no one present said anything, and they all echoed the voice, which seemed to be a case of flattering Zhu Li. When someone praises, there is someone else stepping on him. As the saying goes, "There is no first in literature and no second in martial arts." Scholars look down on each other, and martial artists will also compete with each other and dislike each other.
Several generals present who were known for their bravery looked at Zhu Li with strange expressions, and some even looked very disdainful. However, these people could only hide their dissatisfaction in their hearts.