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“Your Royal Highness, beware of trickery.”
Chen Wei looked at the 10,000 men with some uncertainty.
Xiao Han said displeasedly, “Imperial Father was right about you being too suspicious. Isn’t this army leaving the main camp a golden opportunity for us to make a merit?”
After a pause, he said, “Don’t hesitate any longer, attack!”
“But!” Chen Wei still hesitated.
“Hmm, are you the commander or am I the commander?” Xiao Han said angrily.
Chen Wei sighed heavily at this, having long heard that this Prince was self-willed and ignorant. Now he finally understood.
Now that Xiao Han had given the order, he had no choice but to obey, so he ordered the army outside the city to engage in battle.
At this time, Luo Hong’s musketeers and Chuzhou’s main army were only 200 meters apart, neatly arrayed. Looking at the densely packed Chuzhou soldiers, Luo Hong licked his dry lips and smiled at the new recruit beside him, “Boy, scared?”
The new recruit said, “Not scared, just a little nervous for my first time on the battlefield.”
“Hahahaha…” Luo Hong laughed heartily. “Our Southern Expeditionary Army fought bloody battles in Pengzhou City and Huaizhou City, and not a single soldier retreated a step. This is the spirit of our army: facing death bravely, pressing forward with courage.”
Luo Hong’s words made the new recruit’s blood boil, and his right hand holding the musket trembled slightly. “General, I will not disgrace the Southern Expeditionary Army.”
“Very good. However, today we are going to feign defeat. This is also a kind of bravery,” Luo Hong said, looking ahead.
The distance between the two sides grew shorter. Just then, the Chuzhou army suddenly shouted, “Kill!”
Instantly, the Chuzhou army, 100 meters away, suddenly charged madly towards the Southern Expeditionary Army.
At this moment, Luo Hong immediately ordered to fire.
“Bang, bang, bang…” Gunshots rang out. A batch of Chuzhou troops fell, but the remaining Chuzhou troops still charged forward fearlessly, and the archers behind them also drew their bows and prepared to shoot.
Lu Fei had been observing the battlefield situation. Seeing the Chuzhou army adopt this combat method, his heart suddenly sank by half. ‘This army is definitely an elite force! I wonder who trained them.’
Just as he was getting nervous, the two armies drew closer. Once within the archers’ firing range, the archers unleashed a volley of arrows towards the Southern Expeditionary Army.
When the arrow rain fell, many Southern Expeditionary Army soldiers immediately fell. At this moment, Luo Hong gave the order to retreat, and the soldiers, supporting the wounded, quickly fell back.
Seeing this scene, Xiao Han on the city wall burst into laughter, “The Southern Expeditionary Army is nothing more than that. The failures in Pengzhou City and Huaizhou City were merely due to your generals’ incompetence. Men, have the cavalry charge out of the city and kill the routed soldiers.”
“Yes.” The Chuzhou army’s morale greatly boosted.
After the order was given, the cavalry in the city immediately surged out like a steel torrent towards the scattered Southern Expeditionary Army.
This time, Chen Wei rode in the middle, charging forward. The Southern Expeditionary Army was already close, and in a blink of an eye, they could charge right up to them. At this moment, the cavalry raised their weapons. Although he was confused, he couldn’t retreat in the midst of tens of thousands of troops and could only charge forward. But the next moment, he suddenly saw the most terrifying scene of his life. The cavalry in front of him suddenly dropped as if dumplings falling into a pot. Instantly, the screams of men and warhorses echoed across the battlefield.
But this was only the first step. At this moment, the fleeing musketeers immediately turned around and fired rounds of shots at their cavalry. With traps and shooting combined, the Chuzhou cavalry suffered heavy casualties in an instant.
“We fell for it! Retreat, retreat!” Chen Wei desperately pulled on his reins, shouting the order to retreat at the top of his lungs, but the thousands of cavalry in front of him couldn’t stop their momentum and fell into the pits. The first pit was filled with horses and soldiers, and the cavalry behind continued to charge, then fell into the next pit, repeating endlessly.
Sweat instantly soaked his body. Chen Wei, with the remaining cavalry, retreated without looking back. An instinct told him he couldn’t continue charging.
But when he turned to flee, he despaired again. In his eyes appeared cavalry clad in silver cuirasses. These cavalry’s warhorses marched in neat strides, their thunderous sound like distant thunder, and the earth seemed to tremble.
Seeing this cavalry charging, he immediately directed a portion of his cavalry to intercept them, but the charging cavalry were directly dispersed by this group. These silver-armored cavalry were like gods of slaughter, fighting one against four.
Instantly, the cavalry he sent became disorganized. No one was willing to fight this group of cavalry anymore; they scattered, each fearing for their lives.
Bai Mu would not let this group of cavalry that had come out of the city escape. He led his cavalry, charging left and right through the fleeing Chuzhou cavalry, herding them like ducks, driving the remaining cavalry back into Chuzhou City.
And those Chuzhou infantry who had left the city were even more miserable, directly shattered by the cuirassiers, suffering heavy casualties.
“Hahahaha… these fools!” Bai Mu brandished his saber and laughed loudly at Xiao Han, who was standing on the city wall.
Xiao Han’s face turned red then green, then green then red. He never expected that, just as Chen Wei said, he had indeed fallen into a trap.
After laughing heartily, Bai Mu calmed down and said to his soldiers, “Don’t prolong the fight. Quickly clear the battlefield. These warhorses are good stuff.”
The Chuzhou cavalry retreated in disarray, with many soldiers eventually abandoning their horses and fleeing. The battlefield was now littered with abandoned warhorses, some left behind, some whose owners had died in battle, and many wounded warhorses lying on the ground, clearly beyond saving.
The cavalry, hearing this, formed a line and began to herd the warhorses. What Qingzhou lacked most right now were warhorses.
In the camp, Lu Fei smiled and handed the telescope to Luo Xin, “That fellow Bai Mu is just so worry-free!”
Luo Xin was also shocked. “As soon as Bai Mu made a move, the superiority of the cavalry became clear. The Chuzhou cavalry are completely no match for the Qingzhou cavalry.”
Lu Fei thought to himself, ‘That’s only natural. These cuirasses are thicker than their plate armor. Strictly speaking, this is heavy cavalry.’
With the Chuzhou army routed, the Southern Expeditionary Army began to clear the battlefield. Faced with the fierce Southern Expeditionary Army soldiers, most of the Chuzhou soldiers chose to surrender, while those who stubbornly resisted were shot dead by muskets.
Meanwhile, inside Chuzhou City, news of the initial battle’s failure quickly spread among the routed soldiers. This news caused panic among the supporting troops, as the fact once again proved the invincibility of the Southern Expeditionary Army.
On the city wall, Xiao Han’s face was ashen. He had witnessed a truly brutal war. Living in the wealthy Jinling City, he had never seen such a bloody battlefield.
Before, war was just a number of deaths to him, but now he understood what war truly was.
As Xiao Han trembled uncontrollably, Chen Wei, covered in blood, walked onto the city wall. He pointed at Xiao Han’s nose and cursed, “With Prince Wei like this, and the Crown Prince like this, Wei has no one with the demeanor of a virtuous ruler. How can Wei not perish?!”