The beginning of the Three Kingdoms Cheng Yuanzhi

Chapter 55 Death and Life in War
Three battles and three victories, one hundred thousand Wuhuan soldiers stagnated, their spirit was frustrated, and the situation temporarily stalemate.

But the calm won't last long.

Outside the city, the Wuhuan people's siege equipment became more and more visible to the naked eye. In the open space not far from the city, one after another, densely packed.

Cheng Yuanzhi knew that this was only the second day of the siege, and the victory or defeat would eventually return to a frontal confrontation.

Since the [-] Wuhuan people are all cavalry, the usual tactic of burning food and grass when confronting the enemy can disrupt the opponent's army's morale, and it will not work.

Even if Wuhuan's food and grass can be burned, people will slap the horse quickly and slip back to Beidi in an instant. Along the way, they can also loot Taiyuan County in a Sanguang style to fund military supplies.

Therefore, the key to victory or defeat is people and horses, not food and grass.

What's more, the food and grass of the Wuhuan tribe could not be burned at all.

Because the difficult building has cleared all hidden dangers.

After suffering fire attacks one after another, Nanlou imposed his anger on Tiandi.

Then a fire broke out in the mountains and fields of Shangdang County.

The southeast wind was blowing, and the fire spread all the way to the northwest.

After the raging fire burned, the area ten miles around the Wuhuan barracks instantly became safe.

The burned ground was dark and clean, and there was nothing alive left, including vegetation and insects, and even if there were, they were all cooked.

Green smoke billowed, filling the entire sky, and the fire didn't stop, spreading to all directions.

As a result, there was a sea of ​​fire between the sky and the earth, the earth was burning, the mountains were smoking, and even the peaks on both sides of the Huguan Canyon, which was thirty miles away, were on fire.

This is a man-made ecological disaster.

However, on the land covered by the fire, there is a twenty-mile-long emerald green belt with no fire on it.

That's Shili River Beach.

Wuhuan is the place where hundreds of thousands of horses drink water.

Originally it was called Shili River Beach, the river channel was very narrow, the grass beside the river was green, the stream flowed quietly, the scenery was very reserved and beautiful, like a virgin girl.

The previous time when Wuhuan was flooded, the flood violently washed away the narrow road and swept away the grass, so it turned into the ugly and unrestrained twenty-mile river beach.

So this place became the horse drinking pool for the Wuhuan people.

This is also the key to Cheng Yuanzhi's desire to destroy the Wuhuan people.

At this moment, he was debating whether to send a disaster to the Wuhuan people and completely make the Wuhuan people in the northern part of Bingzhou disappear in the long river of history.

Zhang Yang didn't understand why the commander-in-chief looked at the river belt thirty miles away and burst into tears, his eyes were full of pity, so sad.

Heshan has not fallen, Shangdang City is still there, and [-] soldiers immediately united, why did the commander cry?
He said cautiously: "Commander, I don't have much reading, but I know what loyalty is. Don't worry, even if I am the last person left in Shangdang County, I will definitely defend the commander to the death!"

Sugai tightened the black knife in his hand, and said nothing, his firm eyes showed his inner attitude at the moment.

Cheng Yuanzhi raised his head, wiped his eye sockets, raised the torch, and lit the beacon tower on the tower with his own hands.

Huguan Canyon.

The cave, which was originally level with the dam, now hangs in the air at a height of more than 20 feet.

Two soldiers covered their hoods with only their eyes exposed, slid down the rope from the top of the mountain and entered the cave.

After a while, the two of them worked together to lift out a huge horse carcass that was rotten by water from the cave, and pushed it down the cliff.
With a bang, the horse corpse fell into the reservoir where a small section of the dam remained.

The fish and shrimps in the reservoir quickly gathered and covered the horse corpse densely.

In just a moment, the horse corpse was eaten clean, leaving only a skeleton.

The two looked at each other, then pushed another horse corpse down...

By the time the two pushed the fifth horse, the reservoir below was already covered in white flowers.

All the fish and shrimps are facing the sky, floating on the water, moving with the waves...

They're not full, and they're not basking in the sun.

They are dead.

.........

Day four of the siege of the Firstborn.

Nanlou was in a rare good mood, and had a small bonfire banquet with his subordinates at Ershili River Beach - because the city was about to be sieged tomorrow.

The roast leg of lamb is very fat, and the water in the river beach is also very clear and cold.Because it flows from the mountain stream, it still retains its sweetness.

Nanlou raised his eyelids and looked far away.

Countless Wuhuan warriors sit and eat on the upper reaches of the Shili River Beach, while countless horses are downstream, drinking water and grazing contentedly.

The long horse tails ruthlessly drive away the mosquitoes and flies that land on them.

Mosquitoes?Nanlou frowned.

Did this thing appear a little earlier?
Although the weather is warm now, there is still some time before summer, and it is not yet time for mosquitoes to appear.

Unless... a large number of corpses appeared.

Nanlou quickly left the barbecue platform by the pool and climbed up to look at it.

At the same time, there was an extremely absurd sense of fear spreading in my heart.

After a lap, he didn't see anything, the horses and the crowd were normal.

But the panic in my heart became more and more vigorous, as if it was real.

Nanlou forced himself to calm down, thinking about the source of the panic one by one.

This is a plain river beach, surrounded by water and grassland. There are no ambushes, no fire attacks, and no floods.

It is easy to defend but difficult to attack, and there are abundant aquatic plants. If this city is occupied, it will be the best place to multiply the Wuhuan tribe.

There is no danger in such a place!

But he just didn't understand why the panic in his heart couldn't be suppressed.

Suddenly, he saw a Wuhuan warrior who was gnawing on a leg of lamb, sobbing and falling to the ground, rolling on the ground in pain, rubbing his body against the hard stone, and bumping his head against the ground frantically.

Even if the bleeding doesn't stop, it doesn't stop.

until death.

The eyes of the leaders were full of fear, and they quickly gathered together. A fat leader asked tremblingly, "Master Nanlou, have we been condemned by the gods?"

"Are we going to die?"

Nanlou finally knew where the panic came from.

He looked at the fat leader and said, "Yes, the gods have condemned us. The gods will not allow us to attack the big man, so we just need to retreat to the grassland and we will be fine."

All the leaders looked at each other, dubious.

There was no sign of a commotion starting, either that a certain horse had gone mad, or that a soldier had been terrified by the tragic death of his comrades.

At this time, the horses had stopped eating grass, and they ran away in all directions, neighing loudly, and their voices were full of panic and uneasiness.

They ran towards the mountains full of danger and fire, and they seemed to forget that they were just horses.

Until it was engulfed by wildfires, or fell off a cliff to pieces, or was exhausted and fell into the bushes.

The Wuhuan people were even more miserable, and the panic spread faster than people could have imagined.

It seemed that in just a split second, the [-] Wuhuan people gathered outside the city became a mess.

After losing their horses, they are no longer the invincible Wuhuan cavalry, they are like headless chickens bumping around at this moment.

But for them, it's not the worst.

The Han army in the city rushed out in three groups...

Outside Shangdang City, the sound of fighting resounded throughout the day and night.

At dawn the next day, the battle was over, and the world became quiet.

Cheng Yuanzhi looked at Xinyan at Huguan to the northeast, and said to Zhang Yang, "Don't chase anymore, let them go, gather all the corpses together, and burn them all."

Zhang Yang asked, "Does it include horses?"

Cheng Yuanzhi glanced at the stumped limbs and arms scattered all over the place, shook his head and said, "Including."

Su Gai came running from a distance on a horse, with joy in his voice: "Marshal, the prefect Zhu Jun has surrounded the [-] cavalry regiments besieging Huguan. time, run away."

This team of Wuhuan people ran quite fast. Cheng Yuanzhi was speechless.

This proves once again that on the battlefield, it doesn't matter if you can't outrun the enemy. You just need to outrun your teammates to avoid death.

Cheng Yuanzhi pointed in the direction of Huguan, and said to Zhang Yang, "Uncle Zhi, you should go and allow them to surrender."

In the evening, when Zhu Jun led the crowd to join the army, the casualty statistics of the battle were also sent to Cheng Yuanzhi.

The [-] Wuhuan people besieged by the city were almost wiped out, and Nanlou took only a few hundred people to flee in haste.

The [-] Wuhuan people who were in charge of the siege of Gaodu retreated completely. They were the first to slip away, even earlier than the [-] Wuhuan people who were defending Taiyuan.

The horses of the [-] Wuhuan were normal, so they retreated intact.

Zhu Jun didn't stay long and left. He had to go back to guard Hanoi and ask for credit.

When he left, his whole body was excited. As one of the three famous generals of the big man, he had almost never won such a big victory in a foreign war.

Not even Huangpu Song!

But today, he wiped out 6000 Wuhuan cavalry, and captured more than [-] horses alone.

He felt that this time he had firmly dominated Huangpusong, and all the princes inside and outside the court would be proud of him.

Even, the northwest rebels might be terrified after hearing his name.

.........

For several days, Shangdang County was operating at full capacity. Everyone was looking for the scattered corpses, limbs and arms, and then gathered them up for cremation.

Everyone was told not to drink raw water, not to eat raw meat, to wash hands before meals and after going to the toilet, to stay at home when there is nothing to do, and not to visit the house.

This ban will not be lifted until the end of this hot summer.

Cheng Yuanzhi leaned back on the tower, staring at the Ershili River Beach, motionless...the sadness in his heart could not be expressed.

He witnessed tens of thousands of living people die one by one in front of his eyes.

That's a little too much.

This caused him to have a vague illusion at this moment, that a pair of cold and ruthless eyes were silently watching him in the world, and the owner of these eyes possessed irresistible power...

As if he could be crushed to death at any time.

Cheng Yuanzhi sat there blankly for three days and three nights without eating or drinking.

When the sun rose on the fourth day, he came back to life, looked back at Zhang Xiaoyu who was by his side, and said softly:
"Go, go back to eat."

(End of this chapter)