In the distance, a large number of people and flags were surging, and they gradually spread over. Some people stopped where they were, while some in front continued to move forward. The cavalry on both wings were also moving. On the hillside farther away, the infantry and cavalry were also moving in a certain pattern. A sea of 100,000 people, like a huge war machine, was moving slowly and making a huge noise.
In this backward era dominated by small peasant economy and nomadism, countless people demonstrated the highest level of organization of the era on the battlefield and concentrated a large amount of resources within the reach of productivity.
Guo Shao stood on the hillside, observing every area deep in the mist without saying a word. It can be seen that the coalition forces' attack rhythm is very leisurely. They deployed a cavalry force on the flank between the front and rear of the Daxu Army to monitor Cao Bin's troops, and concentrated their forces in this ravine to bite the front army's more than 40,000 Xu Army infantry and cavalry. It seems that the situation is indeed good.
Guo Shao observed the wooden stakes on the battlefield. About 1,200 feet away from the front line of Xu's army, the coalition forces had gathered more than 50,000 infantrymen and lined up there. There were hundreds of square formations alone, forming a large formation with a wide horizontal surface and great depth.
The main force of the enemy cavalry was still farther behind. The cavalry on both wings of the advancing infantry had different clothes and armor and looked tattered. They did not look like the elite cavalry of the Liao army.
After a while, the allied vanguard infantry continued to advance up the hill without stopping. There were about 4,000 soldiers, or maybe 5,000. At the bottom of the hill, there was a loud drumbeat.
The powerful horns sounded in unison, passing through the noisy crowd in the wind and leaping into countless valleys.
On the hillside, a row of messengers waved two-color flags in their left and right hands, with the left hand holding a red heart with a red border, and the right hand holding a black heart with a red border. The red flags were waving backwards, and the black flags were waving forwards, alternating and waving repeatedly.
Loud shouts and curses were immediately heard from the frontal formations of Xu's army. Soldiers from all the divisions immediately crossed each other. The four rows of infantry holding long spears in the front turned around and passed through the gaps between the lines of divine arms in the back. Then the heavy infantry in the back, wearing plate armor, steel helmets, and holding swords and shields, moved to the front.
The enemy soldiers, armed with all kinds of weapons, had already come up the gentle hillside. Countless of them trampled the loess until it became filled with dust, and made strange noises, as if a large group of wild beasts had rushed out of the mountains.
The soldiers of Xu's army all stared with wide eyes, staring at the crowd with red eyes who were getting closer and closer, like savages, covered with iron sheets, holding swords, guns, sticks, and shields.
A general in the crowd above shouted: Daxu will win
The shouts of "Long live the army" suppressed the noise on the battlefield. The heavy infantry in neat formation raised their finely crafted iron-clad wooden shields and placed their one-handed swords on the shields.
A group of enemy soldiers in the middle rushed over first, shouting, within a hundred steps. No one knew what their shouting meant, but their voices were filled with tension, fear, and angry roars.
Get ready, get ready, the commanders drew their swords and shouted.
There was a clang of a gong, and the commander in the middle raised his bow and arrow. There was no need to aim. The string started to crackle, and a black rain of arrows filled the sky.
Release
In an instant, enemy soldiers from all directions rushed forward, arrows flew up and down in the air. The falling arrows hit Xu Jun's iron armor and made a clanging sound, and screams were heard from time to time.
In the middle, close combat began. There were many people in the crowd, so only swords were swung. In fact, people swung their weapons very slowly, and every swing was a waste of effort because the force was too weak. Both sides held shields, and Xu Jun was wearing heavy armor.
A Dangxiang man yelled and directly hit Xu Jun's shield with his wooden shield, and the impact made the soldier retreat half a step and stand still. The Dangxiang man immediately swung his mace down, and the first clang hit the shoulder armor, making the soldier yell and his shield fall off, but he immediately picked up the iron sword and stabbed it into the gap of the Dangxiang wooden shield, and blood immediately spurted out of his face.
A soldier of Xu's army next to him was stabbed by a knife into his breastplate and screamed in pain.
In front of Xu's army, the ranks were in turmoil, the sound of killing was deafening, and the sparks from the collision of iron weapons shone like Venus in the yellow dust. The contact area of the fight was very limited, but the divine arms on the hillside shot at the approaching Dangxiang infantry, killing and wounding many. The most terrifying place to fight in front, but the most casualties were caused by the bows and arrows shooting in depth.
The heavy infantry in front fought bloody battles. In front of them were frantic enemy soldiers, and behind them were densely packed ranks of their own troops. There was no way forward, so they could only fight desperately.
The general shouted not far away: Anyone who takes a step back will be killed.
The military band played passionate music with horizontal drums and trumpets, and the clerks who served as messengers in each hundred men were also loudly boosting morale. The generals were shouting and cursing, and the clerks were using all kinds of noble words to praise the soldiers for their fearlessness in facing death, but none of these could eliminate the soldiers' fear of bloodshed, pain and death.
The crowd on the main hillside was connected to each other, and the screams and shouts of killing were louder than the sound of drums and music.
People were panting, sweating and exhaling white steam in the cold air. Elite soldiers were first and foremost strong men, because they had to put in a lot of effort wearing armor weighing dozens of kilograms, and the force of the bow was often one stone, and they would feel exhausted after pulling it a few times.
A soldier with a divine arm heard the shout of preparation, so he drew his bow and arrow, took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. At this moment, he saw an infantry brother in front of him slashing at an enemy soldier next to him, and another enemy soldier in front of him picked up a spear and rushed over with all his strength. In an instant, the archer didn't think much, and immediately turned his bow and arrow and shot at him with a snap.
The infantryman of Xu army found that an arrow suddenly stuck in the forehead of the enemy soldier in front of him. He was frightened and looked back, but at this time, the strings in the Divine Arm Corps line sounded, and a large group of people were shooting arrows.
The central army's square flag had the word "Xu" written on it, fluttering in the wind. Guo Shao and his men stood motionless, watching the yellow dust and bloody rain ahead. The personal soldiers stood there without having to fight, but their bodies were tense, staring.
The drummers not far away, with their legs spread wide and their drums tightly grasped, looked as if they were ready to charge. The shouts on the hillside were all mixed together, forming a buzzing noise. From time to time, loud shouts could be heard not far away, and the voices of those who were receiving orders were short, powerful, and extremely tense.
At this time, a general turned his head, seemed to want to say something but hesitated, and finally said nothing.
Guo Shao had seen with his own eyes that the second group of enemy infantry was advancing in formation. This time there were more people, perhaps tens of thousands, and the fighting in front was still going on.
In this situation, the enemy will deploy new troops to replace the first batch of troops.
Wheel tactics.
The enemy troops on the battlefield, with their armor and weapons in disarray, looked like savages, but they were obviously not real primitive people, and their tactics should not be underestimated. The war in the northwest had been going on for thousands of years, and there were military advisers from the Liao Dynasty in the coalition, and they were not easy to deal with. The Liao Dynasty was a real powerful country, and its influence once exceeded that of the Central Plains. Many distant countries in the north regarded the Liao Dynasty as China.
Guo Shao looked at the signs of order in the chaos on the battlefield and finally said: Pass the order, use siege cannons to assist the front-line infantry.
Get the order
After a while, Wang Pu took the seal, stamped a piece of paper, and handed it to a clerk. Soon, the clerk and two messengers with yellow pennants on their backs rode out in a hurry.
The mortar with a large muzzle and a short body was half buried in the soil. A general took the order and handed it to the military staff beside him. He immediately drew his sword and shouted: "Your Majesty's decree, the iron artillery battalion is in action. Order all the iron artillery teams to prepare to fire."
Amid the shouting, the soldiers simply pulled out the straw paper blocking the muzzle of the gun, which had already been loaded with gunpowder and stone bullets.
Twenty or so black cannon muzzles were pointed diagonally toward the sky. A gong rang and a loud shout was heard: Fire!
Boom boom boom, loud sounds like thunder sounded one after another, and the earth was shaking.
On the gentle slope, white smoke rose in a row, and flames shot out in the smoke. The sound was huge, but the stone bullets did not fly very fast, and they were huge, flying into the air in a visible manner, and falling into the coalition army with their weight.
Nearly 100 kilograms of stones fell from the air, and below was the densely packed coalition infantry battalion, which was full of people. The stone cannons could easily hit people, and only a few of them hit the open space between the square formations.
The entire battalion fired a volley of cannon fire at the dense crowd of enemy soldiers, killing and wounding dozens of them.
The stone bullets fell between the dry and hard loess and sand, splashing the loess and dust like the smoke of an explosion. Some of them hit people directly, while others broke and stones flew up, and one or two people who were unlucky around would be injured.
However, the artillery bombardment did cause the Dangxiang soldiers to panic and be shocked. They were hit from hundreds of feet away, which was beyond the expectations of the ordinary soldiers.
The scene was horrific. On the loess, a soldier was lying on his back with his head shattered and blood and flesh splattered all over the ground. In another place, a bloody liver and intestines were in a pool of blood. A soldier was screaming in agony, covering his face that was injured by a rock.
In the large square formation that the Tanguts had just advanced, there was some confusion and disturbance everywhere, and the speed of advancement slowed down. People looked up at the sky.
However, Xu Jun's artillery fire only sounded for a while and then died down. The iron cannon was only carried by a battalion of 500 people. It was very troublesome to clean the barrel and load the gun after one round.
This was also effective. The second batch of enemy soldiers were shocked by the artillery fire for a while, disrupting the rhythm of the rotation attack. The front line of Xu's army repelled the enemy soldiers in front of them, winning a chance to breathe. The top ten generals of each city hurriedly commanded their troops to retreat in columns. The commanders of the second echelon above advanced in a horizontal column, with gaps between the commanders, allowing the front column to retreat.
Guo Shao still looked at the hilltop above the large group of cavalry on the opposite side, where people were standing. The two sides were far apart, but they were separated by a wide valley, as if they were facing each other.