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Chapter 635: Where Are My Oxen?
🕑 Added 2024-09-28 06:43:28 +0000 UTC"Everything the enemy did earlier was to either latch onto us or make us latch onto them. Now, we can no longer retreat. Our forces are entangled with the enemy's, and Yanzhou's flat terrain is perfect for such a battle," Guo Jia said with a bitter smile.
"I don't understand what you're saying. How does this relate to us losing? You’re just spouting nonsense," Chen Xi replied.
"We don't have time for that now. If my guess is correct, the three to five thousand troops that seem to have disappeared on the enemy's side have likely gone to prepare war chariots. As for Tian Feng's camp, it only has an outer fence with nothing inside, making it a perfect stretch for several hundred paces of acceleration!" Guo Jia said with a pained expression.
Yanzhou was indeed too flat. In ancient times, during the Spring and Autumn Period, countless battles had taken place here, with war chariots as the primary weapons of warfare. Unfortunately, those days were long gone, and time had erased all traces of those battles. Even the wisest strategists had forgotten what once occurred on this land.
When it comes to war weapons, if heavily armored cavalry with saddles and stirrups are killing machines, then war chariots, despite their limitations, would certainly make those cavalrymen reconsider their might.
Of course, it’s undeniable that war chariots, due to their many limitations, had long since been phased out of history. But in a large-scale battle on flat terrain, once these chariots gain momentum, they can be deadly. In terms of impact force, even against heavily armored cavalry, five hundred war chariots would be enough to crush a thousand of them.
Generally speaking, the more limited a weapon's use, the greater its power. And war chariots were certainly among the most powerful.
"Slow down, slow down..." Chen Xi muttered, praying that Xu Chu would take his time. He hoped that his crossbowmen would have enough time to position themselves properly.
If the crossbowmen weren't ready and they had to face war chariots, even if Yuan Shao's chariots were inferior and could only charge three thousand meters, it would still be enough to deal a crushing defeat. This was simply not a battle on the same scale.
"Hurry, gather the rain clouds from all directions. The biggest weakness of war chariots is their wheels. Yanzhou is flat and perfect for large-scale battles, but for chariots, flat terrain is just the minimum requirement!" Guo Jia said, trying to steady himself.
As he spoke, Guo Jia began to take action. Whether he succeeded or not was uncertain, but doing nothing would only lead to a disastrous defeat. If they engaged the war chariots head-on, both infantry and cavalry would be doomed. However, chariots and cavalry were not immune to crossbow fire.
"Gather the rain clouds, but control it so that the rain doesn't fall," Chen Xi instructed, also starting to take action. In an instant, a strong wind began to blow, stirring up dust that caused Yuan Shao's troops to squint. In that brief moment, many of his soldiers were knocked down.
At this time, Yan Liang had already mounted his war chariot, ready to charge. When he first saw the five hundred chariots in the rear camp, he was startled but quickly realized that this was Jiang Qi's trump card. In this kind of battlefield and terrain, these chariots were enough to tear through tens of thousands of infantry.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, the power of a nation was measured not by its infantry or cavalry but by the number of war chariots it possessed. This wasn't a joke. On flat terrain, facing infantry and cavalry head-on, over a thousand chariots could decimate any opposition. Such battles were completely one-sided slaughters.
What Yan Liang regretted was that these chariots had been modified from supply wagons and couldn't withstand too much strain. After this battle, these five hundred supply wagons would likely be destroyed.
Because these were merely supply wagons, neither Lu Bu's scouts nor Guan Yu's scouts took them seriously. If they had been real war chariots, any knowledgeable person would have seen through the ruse immediately.
However, Jiang Qi had brought these wagons as part of a supply convoy, and the thousand oxen used to pull the inferior chariots had been mostly slaughtered as rations for the troops. Although Yan Liang knew about chariots, he wasn't deeply familiar with them.
Originally, each chariot should have been pulled by two oxen and three horses, carrying five combatants and a charioteer. But now, with half the oxen slaughtered, they had to make do with one ox and three horses per chariot. What more could they do, given that the oxen had been eaten?
Even so, with five hundred chariots and three thousand well-prepared soldiers, Yan Liang felt victory was within reach.
The more Yan Liang observed, the more confident he became. He couldn't help but feel a surge of joy—defeating Liu Bei's army in the first encounter was a good omen.
Soon, the chariots were fully equipped, and Yan Liang laughed wildly as he ordered the troops to prepare for battle.
While Yan Liang had only a superficial understanding of chariots, Jiang Qi knew better. However, Jiang Qi was still commanding the front lines and had only sent a deputy to relay instructions. After all, in a flat terrain battle against non-chariot forces, using chariots was usually a straightforward strategy—as long as they didn’t make any grave mistakes, victory was almost certain.
"Charge! Break through their lines!" Yan Liang shouted excitedly as he led the chariots to the center of the camp. Seeing that the battle was turning against them, he didn't wait for Jiang Qi's orders and impulsively gave the command.
Under Yan Liang's orders, all the chariots began to accelerate, quickly reaching the speed of ordinary cavalry and roaring past Jiang Qi.
"What the..." Jiang Qi was stunned to see Yan Liang charge ahead and nearly cursed aloud.
Jiang Qi's plan had been to wait until Liu Bei's forces were on the brink of collapse before unleashing the chariots. But seeing Yan Liang already in full charge, he swallowed his anger and focused on coordinating his infantry to follow and crush the enemy. Disobedience could be dealt with later—right now, victory was the priority.
"Where are my oxen?!" Jiang Qi nearly spat blood.
Before Jiang Qi could order his troops to follow, he noticed that all the chariots under Yan Liang's command were pulled by only one ox each, carrying six men and dragging a chariot. How could a single ox and three horses maintain high speed for ten miles?
Without two oxen, the horses' endurance was meaningless. Even with better horses than in the Spring and Autumn Period, they still had their limits!
It was also Jiang Qi's oversight. To maintain secrecy, he hadn’t informed anyone of his plans. The thousand oxen that came with the supply convoy were mistaken for rations by the quartermasters, who didn’t think twice about slaughtering them. After all, feeding soldiers with beef was common practice, especially when there were plenty of cattle near the northern borders.
Out of the original thousand oxen, only five hundred remained after nearly a month of rationing. This was already a testament to the quartermasters' frugality—if they had been less restrained, all the oxen would have been gone in just ten days...
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