Chapter 1372 - 335: Damn!_5

Chapter 1372: Chapter 335: Damn!_5

Once the battle line stretches out, the two cavalry forces originally deployed on the periphery to guard against the Yan Army should be able to return in support, and around himself, he should also have mustered a contingent of troops.

By then, if our army grows greedy for merit and rashly presses forward, we may very well have our line cut off in turn, ground down by brute attrition between these two military forts.

This is also why this old man disagreed with your earlier proposal to thrust directly into the Yan Army’s camp.

At the very least,

East Mountain Fort’s walls are solid and can be relied upon. If we truly enter their camp and capture it, would that not be a muddle-headed act of trading a city for a stockade?

Our army at present is in the ascendant; he ought to retreat. Once he steps back, he still besieges his city, and our army remains on the defensive.

A commander must place the grand situation above all. This old man does not believe that the disciple of Tian Wujing would fail to understand this principle, that he would act on impulse and use..."

"Master Shi."

"What is it?"

"The Yan people’s command carriage has moved forward."

Shi Yuantang immediately rose to his feet,

gazing ahead.

His eyesight naturally could not compare to the divine archer Mu Yang’s; he could not see the precise position of the command carriage, but he could still see that the Yan Army soldiers who had previously routed were gathering again in the rear. Moreover, the Yan Army’s center and rear formations suddenly tightened, beginning to press forward toward his side in a great mass.

"Heh."

Shi Yuantang reached out and patted the side of the war chariot, saying:

"In the end he is young, in the end he is young indeed. Why suffer, why force it so? Is a reputation of never having lost a single battle truly so important?"

Mu Yang said, "It seems that Lord Pingye is unwilling to lose—unwilling to lose even one bout."

Shi Yuantang issued orders:

"Command the left and right armies to spread out; order the center to take this old man’s chariot and this Fire Phoenix banner as its point of direction and press forward!

For this old man,

shatter the Yan people’s center!

This is something the Yan people themselves have invited.

What Lord Pingye of the Yan people?

Now it appears,

he is just so-so.

With a temperament like this,

no matter how heavy, how broad, how refined his arts may be, in the end they will not attain the true way!"

With Shi Yuantang’s command, Chu’s left and right wings began rapidly spreading outward, their purpose precisely to give the center a chance to face the Yan people’s main formation head-on.

Since antiquity, the greatest headache for infantry fighting cavalry has been that even if you win, you cannot catch them. What Shi Yuantang had faced earlier was roughly this situation.

But once the Yan Army’s command carriage moved forward, forcing their troops to concentrate and press back, that situation ceased to exist.

This was sent to his door, truly sent to his door!

As long as the Yan people’s main body is crushed in one blow, the greater part of the Yan forces will be like dust whipped into the air: seemingly billowing across the sky, but in truth no longer forming any real threat.

Mu Yang set an arrow to the long bow in his hands,

his body slightly leaning.

Shi Yuantang silently sat back down in his chair,

patting his leg,

and began humming a little tune from a poem.

At the same time,

Chu’s imperial clan Guards were further cutting through all before them like a bamboo spear, and faced with Chu’s tidied battle lines like a forest of blades, the Yan people, in panic before this scene, could only resemble skiffs in a raging sea, being squeezed step by step outward.

That Chu holds rank among the four great eastern states—there must be reason behind it!

......

Guo Dong and Hui An were running to the rear; the sudden sortie of the Chu people had thrust these auxiliary troops into an utterly awkward situation. The squad leader did not know what to do, the Squad Leader did not know what to do, and even the captain who had been leading them seemed not to have grasped what was happening before them and was skewered to death by a great halberd of the Chu people.

So the auxiliary troops routed at the first moment—not a collapse of morale, but a kind of bewilderment.

For these past days, they had only been trained in raising their shields.

"Direct Thief, have these Chu people gone mad, to dare charge out on their own!"

Guo Dong shouted in confusion.

Clearly it was their side that was besieging the city, so how was it that in the midst of the assault, they were instead being driven out by the Chu people defending the walls?

Hui An suddenly grabbed Guo Dong’s shoulder and yanked him back.

Guo Dong did not understand at first, but very soon he saw, in the distance ahead, the command carriage moving this way, and in front of him the Snow Sea troops forming up with blades in hand.

A cluster of routed soldiers had already crashed into them, and those Snow Sea Pass troops simply raised their sabers and hacked away—this was truly cutting down their own people.

Yet in fact this was what ought to be done. The outer Yan forces had already been pushed back by the Chu army’s sudden counterattack, becoming routed soldiers in effect, and once such a situation continued to spread, a rolling-curtain effect would form: the routed troops would scatter the center and then throw the rear into chaos. In that case, there would be no point in fighting this battle at all.

Back then on the banks of Wang River, the Wild King’s main force was in fact defeated in just such a manner.

"Lord has ordered: Yan soldiers, fight to the death, do not retreat!"

"Lord has ordered: Yan soldiers, fight to the death, do not retreat!"

Gao Yi gripped a long saber, personally leading the troops among the Guard Battalion, advancing as he shouted the slogan.

Guo Dong was still bewildered, but Hui An slapped him awake at once, shouting:

"Didn’t you want to avenge your Ah Daddy? Now the chance has come!"

...

On the command carriage,

Lord Zheng still sat there, without changing his posture.

Accompanied by the roar of drums, accompanied by the Guard Battalion’s repeated cries of "Lord’s order," countless Yan Army soldiers had already gathered around him—some from his own main force, some under Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang, and some auxiliaries.

They had once been broken and routed, but passing by the command carriage or seeing the direction in which it advanced, they were gathered again like a snowball rolling downhill, turning around to charge toward the Chu army.

In truth,

the battlefield now was a mess, an utter chaos.