Chapter 1 Qingluan Army

The Qingluan Army's formation was extremely neat. The Great Chu emphasized heavy infantry because Chu, like Qian, faced the issue of a lack of horses. At the same time, one's opponents often determine one's development strategy.

For hundreds of years, the Yan people had to face the barbarians in the desert, so they had to have their own iron cavalry to compete with the barbarians.

The Chu people, on the other hand, had to fight with the mountain Yue people in the poor mountains and bad waters. Although the glorious era of the mountain Yue people had long passed, their resistance was still constant. In places with dangerous mountains and rivers, cavalry had little use, which gave rise to the Chu's heavily armored infantry and navy.

Right now,

The thousands of Yan soldiers who had just crossed the river basically had no warhorses. The First Prince's military gamble should have been successful, but he didn't expect that Yu Pan City had been hiding a Chu elite force all along.

Thinking about it, Situ Yi's newly established dynasty was like a spittoon, used and discarded by all forces without any pity.

"Qu has prepared wine in the city, and I hope the Yan First Prince will do me the honor of joining me."

The Chu was governed by a coalition of nobles, and the major nobles had their own fiefs, paying great attention to bloodlines and inheritance.

When Yao Zizhan was young, he liked to criticize current affairs. He once said: Qian emphasizes complicated etiquette, while Chu emphasizes ancient etiquette.

The meaning is that the Qian people's pursuit of etiquette is as cumbersome as possible, as formalized as possible, and as complicated as possible.

The Chu people, on the other hand, constantly pursued the traditions of their ancestors, paying attention to aligning everything with their ancestors. The most obvious point is that in Chu, there are still very ancient professions such as witch doctors. There is also a witch doctor supervisor in the Chu palace, who specializes in searching for and discovering the ancient sages' methods of treating diseases.

At the same time, there is another characteristic in Chu, that is, if there is a rebellion or war in the country, the soldiers can die, but if the nobles and generals of both sides are captured or surrendered, they must be treated with courtesy and returned, at most with a ransom.

Therefore, Qu Tiannan's invitation to the First Prince to enter the city, saying that he had prepared wine, was not a false statement.

The First Prince clenched the knife in his hand and smiled,

"History records that the Ji family has emperors who died in battle, but no descendants who surrendered to the enemy on the battlefield!"

Qu Tiannan was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

Everyone has different cultural concepts, so their thinking patterns are also different. In Qu Tiannan's view, the Yan prince's failure to cherish his noble bloodline was somewhat demeaning.

Qu Tiannan waved his hand forward,

The Qingluan Army began to press forward.

Li Bao took a deep breath and shouted:

"All of the Zhenbei Army!"

"Roar!"

"Roar!"

"Roar!"

All the Yan soldiers clenched their sabers, and the archers re-strung their bows and nocked their arrows.

Li Bao turned to look at the First Prince and said, "Please retreat, Your Highness, we will cover your retreat."

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"Death is easy, living is actually more difficult. After the war, someone has to take responsibility, face His Majesty, face the anger of the people. Please, Your Highness, live on and take responsibility.

"On the battlefield, you can't be indecisive.

"Besides, your head is more precious. This humble general doesn't want the Chu people to hang your head on a flagpole to show off their power."

The words were already very clear.

The plan to raid Yu Pan City had already been declared a failure when the Chu Qingluan Army appeared.

The Eastern Expedition Army's Wangjiang battle will end in heavy losses.

Right now, dying in battle seems to be a good end, because for hundreds of years, the Yan people have never experienced such a defeat, especially in recent years, with the series of great victories won by the Marquis of Zhenbei and the Marquis of Jingnan, the Yan people's morale has suddenly risen. From the court to the army, and even to the common people, it seems that under the Black Dragon flag, they are invincible, which is what the Great Yan should be.

"Your Highness, you know what kind of person Li Fusheng is. If you let him clean up the mess, if he gets sick, he dares to slaughter the entire Yingdu.

"You have to go back, reorganize the troops. We can't cross this river, but we can't let the Chu and the savages easily attack again."

The First Prince's expression twitched. Li Bao said what he was thinking. As a prince, and a military prince who had been cultivated by his father as a general since he was a child, he was defeated so badly that he simply didn't have the courage to face the blame in the future.

No matter how many reasons there are, a defeated general is incompetent!

"The Imperial Guards, escort His Highness across the river!"

Li Bao gave the order to the Imperial Guards,

Immediately,

He did not hide anything from his subordinates,

He roared:

"All of the Zhenbei Army, follow me to cover His Highness's retreat. We will just die in battle and become heroes, and the First Prince will live to clean up our mess!"

"Hahahaha!"

"Hahahaha!"

The whole army burst into laughter, without the sadness of being a rearguard, only heroism.

The First Prince bit his lip. At this moment, what he thought of was Tian Wujing. When that man decided to destroy his entire family, did he also decide to prepare himself to face the criticism of history and the world, just like himself now?

But in any case, he was the commander. Li Bao was right. Death was easy. A prince who died in battle would also be very tragic. At least, he could earn some tears from his father.

When a person dies in battle, no matter how big the mistake, it will no longer be pursued. People are always particularly tolerant of the dead.

But on the other side of the river, there was still a large army waiting for him. He had to reorganize the situation, otherwise, once it collapsed…

Without the Imperial Guards holding him up, the First Prince began to run on his own. Go back, go back, go back…

And behind the First Prince,

Facing the approaching Qingluan Army,

Li Bao raised his knife with his only arm:

"The Will to Breach the Enemy!"

Thousands of armored soldiers of the Zhenbei Army shouted in unison:

"Death Before Retreat!"

………

The pleasure boat had approached the Shuizha City gate. The young man sighed with emotion:

"If I remember correctly, the other side's central army is the so-called Zhenbei Army, right?"

The swordsmith nodded and said,

"It's a sharp knife that the Yan people have honed with the barbarians."

"Alas, it's a pity that the Yan people only lost their left-wing army this time. It would be great if the Zhenbei Army had been lost."

Since such elites are from other countries, the more they die, the better.

The swordsmith said without any politeness:

"If it were the Zhenbei Army, would we dare to let them cross the river like their left-wing army?"

"That's true, but our Great Chu must also take advantage of this opportunity to purchase horses from the savages and form our own cavalry. I heard it's very expensive?"

"Quite expensive."

"Then please work harder, make more swords, and sell them."

"If you make too many, they won't be worth anything."

"Oh, tsk tsk."

The young man walked to the side of the boat,

And unbuckled his belt in an undignified manner.

He was scared to pee once when crossing the river, now, it was the third time.

At this time, some of the Yan corpses floating down from upstream had merged into the tributary, and the river water had also begun to turn red.

The young man did not have the joy of winning the bet,

Looking at the corpses on the river,

Even the originally pleasant urination suddenly became dull.

………

On the other side, as expected, Li Bao led his army to successfully intercept the Qingluan Army, and the First Prince was able to cross the river and return to the west bank.

The Qingluan Army had been hiding in the city beforehand, so naturally, they could not make flanking maneuvers in advance, for fear of being discovered beforehand, and it was impossible to set up a so-called inescapable net.

Most importantly, these thousands of Zhenbei Army soldiers burst out with an extremely strong fighting will.

The mountain Yue people are often fearless and don't take their own lives seriously, probably feeling that their lives are cheap anyway and it doesn't matter.

The Qingluan Army has been fighting the mountain Yue for many years and should be used to it.

But the Yan people in front of them were not only fearless, but their fighting experience and battle formation skills were far from what the so-called mountain Yue tribes could compare with.

The dismounted Zhenbei Army fought fiercely with the Qingluan Army, which was mainly composed of infantry. If the Qingluan Army's numerical advantage was not too obvious, it would be hard to say who could take down whom in the end.

The First Prince, who had crossed the river and returned, knelt on the earthen slope on the shore,

Looking at the Yan soldiers' corpses floating down from upstream,

Li Fusheng came back, and left again after receiving the First Prince's order to reorganize the troops and retreat thirty miles.

The First Prince knelt here until nightfall, and did not see Li Bao return, even after some of the Chu navy's warships sailed down from upstream.

Finally, he slowly stood up.

He,

Had to live.

He would become the sinner of Yan, the shame of the Ji family.

Tian Wujing's public reputation was not good, but what was bad was only the reputation. The Yan people valued military achievements, and they still trusted Tian Wujing's ability to win battles.

Even if there were many people in the court and the opposition who had a very bad impression of Tian Wujing, not many people tried to kick him when he was down. Even though Tian Wujing was confined to the Jingnan Marquis's mansion in Litian City and did not even accept imperial edicts, the officials in the court were more concerned with maintaining and covering it up.

There was no other reason. Tian Wujing could fight battles. With such a military god in the country, everyone could always have a sense of security in their hearts.

But now,

As a prince,

He was defeated.

Without military achievements and victories as a foundation,

The so-called title of prince,

Would instantly become worthless,

And even become a kind of original sin for him.

Even his father, who trusted him and sent him to lead the expedition, would be recorded in the history books by later generations:

The emperor favored his son, treated war as a child's play, and ultimately made a big mistake.

………

Several days later,

An extremely haggard Jin Shuke knelt in front of Zheng Fan and reported the situation of the Wangjiang battle.

Zheng Fan sat in the seat of honor,

The other Demon Kings sat below.

Zheng Fan had guessed right again. He guessed that the Barbarian King would bring him a surprise, and the Barbarian King did not disappoint him.

In the battle of Wangjiang, the main force of the Yan's left-wing army was almost wiped out. Wangjiang was full of Yan corpses.

A great defeat came so suddenly.

However,

There was no trace of smugness on Zheng Fan's face that he had guessed right about his "foresight".

Instead, he rubbed his eyebrows gently with his fingers in a somewhat tired manner,

And said slowly:

"Logically speaking, I should be happy to hear this news. But why do I feel a little sad?"