Warring States Odyssey

  The Qin army's thirty or forty chariots formed a line about two hundred meters long and twenty-odd meters wide, protecting Huanzi's chariot within it. The most were four war horses abreast, while the Zhao army's cavalry was divided into two columns, gradually pursuing from both sides of the Qin army, galloping in parallel at a distance of about fifty or sixty meters from the Qin army's chariots.

  At this time, soldiers on both sides also began shooting at each other with bows and arrows.

  Now Zhao Jun's cavalry can sit steadily on horseback, but after all, the training time is too short, so the bow and arrow are not very accurate. However, the Qin army on the chariot is even more bumpy, because the chariots of this era are all wooden wheels and have no shock-absorbing devices. If it's on a flat road, it's okay, but in the wilderness, the bumps received are not under the horseback. Therefore, in this aspect, both sides are basically at the same level.

  However, Zhao Jun's cavalry exceeded 200 riders, and a war chariot only had three armored soldiers, with one of them being the charioteer, so there were actually only two armored soldiers who could engage in combat. Therefore, the entire army had only more than 70 people who could engage in combat. In terms of numbers, the Qin army was far fewer than the Zhao army. Moreover, relatively speaking, the Qin army's war chariots were more densely packed, while the Zhao army's cavalry was more scattered. When both sides exchanged fire, the Zhao army would have a certain advantage.

  Both sides shot at each other for several rounds, with arrows flying back and forth between them, the sound of breaking through the air never stopping. In the Zhao army, seven or eight cavalrymen fell off their horses due to arrow wounds, while in the Qin army, six or seven soldiers were also hit by arrows and died.

  At this moment, a Qin army chariot horse was shot by an arrow. The horse let out a sad cry and its four legs went soft, making a "thud" sound as it fell to the ground. Although a war chariot is pulled by four horses, if one of them falls, the other three will also be dragged down by the dead horse and cannot pull the chariot again, causing the chariot to overturn naturally.

  And right behind this overturned chariot, there was another chariot that, due to the close distance and high speed, couldn't turn around in time to avoid it, so it crashed into it head-on and also overturned. Similarly, another chariot, trying to avoid the overturned vehicle in front of it, but turning too sharply, ended up tilting over sideways.

  After seeing this scene, Gao Yuan's heart moved and he immediately shouted loudly: "Shooting horses, all of them are shooting the war horses of the chariots."

  The cavalry on this side of Zhao's army heard that, and immediately changed their target one after another, all aiming at the war horses pulled by Qin's army. The cavalry of Zhao's army was a unity of human and horse, shooting people and horses were almost the same, but the horses pulled by Qin's army were an independent and obvious target, and they were bigger than the soldiers on the chariots, so after the transfer of Zhao's army's target, the hit rate also increased a lot.

  Although this was only a small change, it made a fundamental change in the pursuit war. The Qin army's chariots overturned one by one, some of which were shot dead by the pulling horses, and many chariots collided with other chariots while trying to avoid them. As a result, more than a dozen Qin army chariots were overturned in no time.

  Gao Yuan saw, immediately led more than a dozen cavalrymen, urging the war horses to run, surpassing the Qin army's chariot formation in front, then slantingly crossed from about 20-30 meters away from the Qin army's formation, while shooting arrows at the Qin army's formation in the direction of the positive front.

  Although Zhao Jun's cavalrymen were difficult to aim at while galloping at high speed, and they were also shooting sideways, the accuracy was not high. However, the chariots were pulled by four war horses in a row, with a large and concentrated target. As a result, after more than a dozen arrows were shot out, three or four of them still hit the target. Two chariots' traction war horses were separately shot, and these two chariots naturally immediately crashed to the ground.

  Moreover, since these two chariots were the first two in the entire Qin army formation, this overturning was like toppling a row of dominoes, triggering a chain reaction. The chariots behind them dodged too late and immediately charged forward, colliding with the chariots in front. In an instant, more than twenty chariots were involved in a chain collision, including the one on which Huan Chuang was riding.

  Although one or two chariots were desperately braking to stop, the ones behind them couldn't hold back and ended up colliding with each other. In an instant, horses fell and carriages overturned, people shouted and horses neighed, it was as if there was a multi-vehicle collision on the highway.

  Only the last five or six war chariots in the Qin army's formation managed to stop and escape. However, at this time, the Zhao cavalry also reined in their horses and surrounded them. The remaining Qin soldiers on the few war chariots saw that all was lost and could only surrender. This pursuit battle finally came to an end.

  Although the scale of this pursuit was not large, its significance was not small. In such a small-scale pursuit, the weaknesses of chariots were fully revealed. Although the frontal impact force of chariots was stronger than that of cavalry, once one of the horses pulling the chariot died from an arrow wound, the chariot would be rendered useless. Moreover, although the speed of chariots was not slower than that of cavalry, their attack route was too monotonous and could only advance in a straight line, lacking the ability to turn or change direction. As a result, as cavalry progressed and matured, chariots were destined to yield to cavalry, even if they had not been completely eliminated from warfare. This pursuit was a typical example of this phenomenon.

  Gao Yuan immediately ordered, on the one hand, to collect the weapons of the surrendered Qin soldiers, and on the other hand, to clean up the battlefield and search for Huan Yi. Because this pursuit was originally intended to capture Huan Yi, he must be found, alive or dead.

  After moving away the damaged war chariots, they found more than a dozen dead bodies of Qin soldiers and several wounded but not yet dead Qin soldiers. Among them, one corpse wore armor that was very different from other Qin soldiers, obviously a high-ranking general. After being identified by other Qin soldiers, it turned out to be Huan Chu's body. He died when his chariot collided with others and was pierced through the body by sharp blades on other chariots.

  Although Huan Yi was dead, he was after all the commander-in-chief of the Qin army and one of the most senior generals in the state of Qin. Therefore, his body could not be abandoned in the wilderness. Accordingly, Gao Yue also ordered that Huan Yi's body be placed on a war chariot and returned to the battlefield.

  At this time, the battle on the battlefield was basically over. Li Mu was commanding the Zhao army to clean up the battlefield, bury the bodies, and collect the guns, spears, war chariots, and horses left behind by the Qin army. Seeing Gao Yuan and Li Yinghong return with the body of Huan Yi, Li Mu couldn't help but feel overjoyed. Although this battle did not annihilate the entire Qin army, it killed the main general of the Qin army, which was also a heavy blow to the State of Qin. After all, in nearly a hundred years, no great general of the Qin state had been defeated and killed on the battlefield.

  After a simple cleanup of the battlefield, Li Mu led his army back to camp and immediately ordered that on one hand, people be sent to report the victory to Handan quickly in order to calm the people's hearts. On the other hand, he also dispatched Yuan Xuan to lead 30,000 troops and 500 war chariots to hurry back and support Handan. As for himself, he led his troops to rush to Jingdian Dazhai to garrison.

  The process of Zhao Jun's capture of Jingdang Dazhai was very smooth. Although the Qin army left 30,000 troops to garrison in Jingdang Dazhai, they were all some auxiliary logistics soldiers, and their combat effectiveness was not strong. Moreover, the defensive surface was also very large, so the Zhao army did not take much effort to break through Jingdang Dazhai. The grain and material supplies left by the Qin army in Jingdang Dazhai were also seized by the Zhao army.

  Because the diameter of the Great Wall is the base of the Qin army's northern line, not only is its strategic position extremely important, but also the grain and material resources accumulated by the Qin army here are extremely rich. In addition to other materials captured on the battlefield, the Zhao army had more than 500,000 dan (one dan is 120 catties, about 40 kilograms) of grain alone, as well as hundreds of various vehicles, more than 20,000 horses, and thousands of heads of cattle and sheep. The number of spears, swords, helmets, armor, flags, and other equipment was countless. More than 20,000 Qin soldiers were captured. Therefore, after this battle, the Zhao army's gains were extremely great.

  Li Mu also ordered the slaughter of cattle and sheep, and the whole army celebrated the victory of the Battle of Fanwu. In this battle, Gao Yuan and his cavalry unit made great contributions again, almost playing a decisive role. Although Huan Gui died in a car accident and was not killed by any Zhao soldier, it was due to Gao Yuan's pursuit that Li Mu decided to reward Gao Yuan for his outstanding contribution in this battle. He awarded Gao Yuan 100 taels of gold, while awarding other cavalrymen one tael each.

  And the other generals did not object to this, after all, in these two consecutive battles, the cavalry of the plateau had been assigned the most important tasks, and their achievements were there for all to see. Moreover, among the cavalry troops formed by the plateau, Li Mu's adopted daughter served as the deputy commander, so who dared to compete with them for merit?

  On the second day, Li Mu immediately ordered a small group of Zhao troops to be divided into several routes to attack and continue pursuing the Qin army. At this time, the Qin army had just suffered a great defeat, the main general was killed in battle, and the morale of the soldiers was extremely low, so they were not willing to fight with the Zhao army. As a result, wherever the Zhao army went, the Qin army had no resistance at all, almost defeated as soon as they touched, and the Qin army retreated continuously, retreating more than 100 miles, completely withdrawing from Zhao territory.

  This time, the Qin army lost more than 80,000 soldiers, and its commander, Huan Yi, was killed in action. Nine generals above the rank of colonel were also killed. The total loss of the Zhao army was less than 10,000 men. Although Qin had suffered defeats before, with greater losses, there had been several instances where both sides had suffered heavy casualties, but a disparity in losses as great as this was extremely rare, perhaps only comparable to the Battle of Xiao some centuries earlier.

  At the same time, this is also after three years of the Battle of Fei, Li Mu again defeated the Qin army, and the results obtained are even greater, so Li Mu's reputation has also been pushed to a new high peak.

  While the main general of the Qin army on the southern front, Yang Duanhe, had already breached the Zhao army's Zhang River defense line and was about to attack Handan, he learned of the great defeat of the Qin army on the northern front. Yang Duanhe did not dare to continue advancing and immediately led the Qin army in a retreat. This time, the Qin state's two-pronged attack on Zhao also thoroughly ended in failure.

  More than 20 days later, Shi Chong, a senior official, was sent from Handan as an envoy, bringing large quantities of cattle, sheep, fine wine, gold and copper coins to reward the three armies. At the same time, he also brought a decree from King Jia of Zhao, which highly praised Li Mu and the generals of the Zhao army, especially praising Gao Yuan. Finally, the decree ordered Li Mu to bring Gao Yuan back to Handan to be rewarded by King Jia in person.