si-mexico Chapter 2138 Tragic
Chapter 2138 Tragic
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she kept her eyes fixed on the figure in black robes—Su Tingmei remained seated on her white horse, gently waving her feather fan, seemingly oblivious to the bloody battle before her.
wrong.
It went so well.
Just then, Chu Xuan's loud laughter came from the flank: "Bald Husband! Look this way!"
A golden torrent cut in from the right wing.
Chu Xuan personally led three thousand heavy cavalry, launching a charge just as the main force of the Scorpion Clan was entangled with the Youzhou army.
These cavalrymen and their horses were fully armored, even their warhorses were covered in heavy leather armor inlaid with iron. When they charged, they were like moving iron walls, crashing heavily into the flanks of the Scorpion Clan's formation.
"Back up!" The bald man's eyes were bloodshot, but it was too late to turn around.
The heavy cavalry broke through the Scorpion Clan's formation, spears knocked away lightly armored steppe cavalry, and iron hooves trampled the wounded who had fallen to the ground.
The Youzhou army seized the opportunity to advance, and the crossbowmen regrouped, raining arrows over the chaotic area.
"Circular formation! Shrink the defenses!" Tuoba Lie roared, commanding his remaining troops, but the order was difficult to convey amidst the chaos.
An hour after sunset, it became a slaughterhouse.
The Scorpion Clan cavalry were divided into several groups, each fighting independently.
The Youzhou army's crossbows were specifically designed to shoot horses, while the Chu army's heavy cavalry were designed to charge into enemy lines.
Whenever a scorpion force rallies and launches a counterattack, a reserve force is always there to break it up at just the right moment.
The bald man was covered in blood, and his personal guards numbered less than a hundred.
He attempted to charge into the main camp of the Youzhou army three times to capture and kill Su Tingmei, but each time he was intercepted by Chu Xuan's heavy cavalry.
Chu Xuan and Su Tingmei worked together flawlessly; one was as steadfast as a rock, and the other as agile as lightning, rendering all his struggles futile.
"General! East! There's a gap in the east!" a centurion, his face covered in blood, screamed.
Looking around, the bald man indeed saw that there seemed to be a gap at the junction of the Youzhou army and the Chu army in the east, with sparse garrison troops.
“A trap,” he said through gritted teeth.
"But the brothers can't hold on any longer!" Tuoba Lie pointed around.
Nearly half of the eight thousand remaining soldiers had been killed, and the rest were all wounded. They were running out of arrows, and most of their horses had died.
As dusk settled completely, torches were lit one after another.
On the wasteland, firelight illuminated the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and the cries of the wounded drifted away on the wind.
Baldness knew he couldn't afford to waste any more time.
With each passing hour, the soldiers' strength waned, while the enemy's encirclement tightened.
"All those who can still ride horses, assemble!"
He made the decision: "We'll charge through the gap on the east side."
"If it's a trap..."
"Then let's break through the trap!"
A mad glint flashed in the bald man's bulging eyes: "Order: During the charge, there are no ranks. Charge as many as you can get out. Those who get out are not allowed to look back. Head straight for Blackstone Castle to report!"
This is a desperate measure to save lives, sacrificing the lives of most people to allow a small number of people to pass on the message.
The bugle sounds, its mournful melody like a funeral song.
The remaining Scorpion Clan cavalry launched a final charge, no longer in orderly formation, but as a desperate skirmish.
They rushed toward the alluring gap to the east, like moths to a flame.
Sure enough, as the vanguard rushed into the breach, the ambushing troops on both sides suddenly sprang into action.
They were neither Youzhou troops nor Chu troops, but crossbowmen camouflaged in gray-brown and lurking in the pit.
Arrows rained down from both sides, and the charging cavalry fell like straws.
At the same time, a roar came from behind—Chu Xuan's heavy cavalry began to crush the wounded and infantry left behind.
Tufa Hun led his personal guards at the forefront, his long sword flashing as he cut down several ambushers.
He saw that Su Tingmei had arrived on horseback behind the breach and was quietly watching him charge.
Their eyes met in the firelight.
Su Tingmei nodded slightly, as if to say hello, or perhaps to say goodbye.
Then he waved his feather fan.
The ambush troops cleared the way.
The bald man was stunned.
This wasn't a plan to annihilate them—if they really wanted to wipe them out, the ambush troops should have completely sealed off the gaps, instead of leaving after inflicting heavy casualties.
They are driving them away.
Just like Eagle's Sorrow Gorge, just like this journey, every seemingly promising opportunity is actually pushing us into a deeper trap.
But there was no other choice at that moment.
"rush out!"
The bald-headed man roared and led his remaining troops out of the breach.
Looking back, at least two thousand people failed to keep up and were swallowed up by the ambushing and pursuing troops.
Fewer than a thousand horsemen broke through the encirclement.
Moreover, they charged not towards Blackrock Fortress, but towards a more open and indefensible area deeper into the wasteland.
"Stop!" Bald Hun reined in his horse, panting heavily.
The wound on his left abdomen completely ruptured, and warm blood soaked through his battle robe.
He counted the number of people, and there were only a few thousand riders following behind, all of them in a sorry state.
Behind them, the Chu army and the Youzhou army did not pursue with all their might, but slowly closed in, forming an encirclement again.
A smaller, denser ring of fire than before.
The hour is approaching.
In the cold wind, Bald Hun looked at his exhausted subordinates and the flickering firelight in the distance, and finally understood.
From the moment of the defeat at Jicheng, every step was within the enemy's calculations.
This fierce battle, which lasted for two hours, was nothing more than the final act of cat and mouse tormenting each other.
Now, the mouse is exhausted, and the cat has had enough fun.
The bugle call at midnight echoed softly across the wasteland.
The war drums and roars suddenly dissipated like the receding tide as midnight approached.
The bald man knelt on one knee, supporting himself with his knife, panting heavily.
The metallic scent of blood mingled with the chill of the desolate night, seeping into my lungs.
He looked around and saw that there were less than three thousand Scorpion Clan cavalrymen still standing, all of them wounded, and the defensive circle they had formed had been compressed to a radius of less than a hundred feet.
The corpses scattered everywhere cast long, distorted shadows in the flickering torchlight, many still in the poses they had been in during the battle.
Two hours.
From sunset to midnight, they were like stones placed on a millstone, crushed bit by bit under the combined crushing force of the Chu army and the Youzhou army.
Su Tingmei's Youzhou army maintained a disciplined formation, advancing with crossbow bolts and spears in alternating steps. Every step came at a cost, but every step was irreversible.
Chu Xuan's cavalry, like a pack of wolves, swarmed around them, each charge precisely tearing open their weak points, and then quickly disengaging when the Scorpion Clan counterattacked.
The most fatal flaw was the coordination between the two armies—when Tuoba Hun led his personal guards to attack the left flank of the Youzhou army in an attempt to open a breach, Chu Xuan's heavy cavalry happened to cut in from the right flank, forcing him to retreat and defend.
As he mobilized archers to suppress the Chu army's charge, the Youzhou army's crossbow formations unleashed a barrage of fire.
It was as if an invisible hand was simultaneously commanding two armies, rendering their every struggle futile.
"General, we've run out of arrows."
Tuoba Lie's left arm was severed at the elbow, and the bandage hastily applied by the military doctor was soaked in blood.
He still gripped the chipped blade tightly in his right hand, his voice hoarse like a broken bellows.
The bald man nodded, unable to utter a single word.
Three crossbow bolts were embedded in his armor, and the wound on his left abdomen had reopened, causing him excruciating pain with every breath.
Three thousand remaining soldiers, having exhausted their arrows and with almost all their horses fallen in their final counter-charge, are now infantry trapped on this blood-soaked mound.
However, just as he was about to give the order for the final charge, the Chu army ceased its attack.
It wasn't a rout or chaos, but a coordinated retreat.
The heavy infantry, shields raised, slowly retreated to a distance of a hundred paces, followed closely by spearmen, while cavalry maneuvered on both flanks.
The Youzhou army did the same; the crossbowmen put away their crossbows, and the heavy infantry formed defensive formations.
The two armies separated like the receding tide, yet still maintained a complete encirclement.