69novels Chapter 924: Using yourself as bait for your subordinates’ ambush!
Chapter 924: Using yourself as bait for your subordinates’ ambush!
Yi Xiaochuan looked at the mess and corpses on the ground with a heavy heart. He walked to the strange long sword that Gao Yao had lost and pulled it out. The sword was cold, reflecting his complicated face. He knew that Gao Yao's escape back to Xianyang meant that the battle was over.
That night, corpses were scattered all over the ground at Luoma Slope, and blood flowed everywhere. Gao Yao, with less than a thousand defeated soldiers, finally managed to reach Xianyang by following the escape route he had prepared in advance.
Gao Yao stood before a makeshift camp, his gaze anxiously fixed on the dust rising in the distance. When he saw the familiar "Ying" banner, still stubbornly erect despite being stained by the smoke of war, and the bear-like general riding a black warhorse, his nerves, which had been taut as iron strings, finally relaxed slightly. Almost subconsciously, he let out a long, deep sigh that had been pent up in his chest.
"General!" Ying Bu galloped up, dismounted swiftly, and saluted. His armor was covered with sword scratches, and his face was weary, but his eyes were still as sharp as a hawk, revealing the bravery of a veteran of countless battles. "I have fulfilled my mission and have escaped the pursuers as planned, and am here to rejoin you!"
"Good! Good! Good!" Gao Yao uttered three "good"s in quick succession, stepped forward, and patted Ying Bu's sturdy arm armor vigorously. Ying Bu's safe arrival, despite heavy casualties among his men, but the survival of his main force, was the best news he could have heard at that moment. Faced with the absolute disparity in power, any strategy seemed futile. His meticulously planned tactics of dividing his forces into deceptive formations and escaping from the enemy's shells, while successfully disrupting Xiang Yu and Yi Xiaochuan's judgment and stalling, ultimately failed to overcome the infantry's fatal weakness in mobility compared to cavalry.
Being caught up was inevitable. Gao knew this better than anyone. His purpose in dividing his forces had never been to completely escape pursuit; that was a foolish dream. His true intention was to exploit the information gap and time lag to force Xiang Yu and Yi Xiaochuan's massive cavalry into a passive position.
Aren't you a formidable force? Are you not swift to come and go? Then I will break up the ranks, transforming them into streams flowing in different directions, leaving you, the fierce tiger, unsure where to pounce. Each path could harbor the main force, or simply a decoy, forcing you to split your forces to explore and pursue. This way, at least you can avoid being surrounded in open territory by enemy cavalry many times your size, resulting in a surefire massacre.
His deeper plan was to "break the whole into parts and then reunite the parts into the whole." At the appointed time and place, these scattered forces would reunite. The key was the time difference between the order of troop assembly. While Xiang Yu and Yi Xiaochuan were still hesitating over which group to pursue, or while their detachments were still searching, Gao Yao's main force had already reorganized at a secret location. While still at a disadvantage, they could at least concentrate their forces, leverage the terrain, and organize an effective defense, conducting a dignified blocking battle that would inflict maximum damage on the enemy, rather than a one-sided rout.
Of course, Gao Yao's heart was clearer than a mirror. Even if his tactics were ingenious, in the age of cold weapons, facing Xiang Yu's bravery, the potential volatility posed by Yi Xiaochuan, and the overwhelming superiority of the Chu cavalry, defeat was almost inevitable. Unless Gao Yao could conjure up machine guns and cannons out of thin air, a mortal's fate against a torrent of cavalry was highly probable. All he could do was make this inevitable defeat more valuable, inflict a greater price on the enemy, and secure a slim chance of survival for subsequent strategic planning.
A brutal blocking battle finally erupted, unfolding much as Gao Yao had anticipated. Like a tidal wave, the Chu cavalry charged the defensive lines, built upon the advantageous terrain. Gao Yao and Ying Bu commanded their troops in a resolute resistance, their attacks raining arrows and tumbling logs and rocks. The bodies of both sides piled like mountains, their blood staining the hillsides and valleys red. The battle was brutal, and the Southern Border Army displayed remarkable resilience, but the gap in strength was ultimately unbridgeable.
With Xiang Yu personally leading the charge, like a god of war, he tore through the core of the defenses, and Gao Yao barely escaping with his life, relying on the lives of his personal guards, the Southern Border Army finally collapsed. The remnants of the defeated army, following Gao Yao and Ying Bu, abandoned their armor and weapons and fled for their lives towards Xianyang.
In the eyes of Xiang Yu and Yi Xiaochuan, this large-scale and tortuous pursuit and blocking battle has come to an end.
Although the initial strategic goal of capturing and killing Gao Yao and crushing his main force was not achieved, the victory still appeared to be "brilliant": Gao Yao's main force suffered heavy losses and fled back to Xianyang in disarray, unable to fight again in the short term. The Chu army also paid an extremely heavy price to achieve this result.
The 80,000 elite cavalrymen who had set out on the expedition had suffered nearly 50,000 casualties after repeated pursuits and battles, especially the bloody final offensive. This was a figure that would make any commander's heart bleed. The training and equipment costs of cavalry were far higher than those of infantry, and the loss of 50,000 cavalrymen was a devastating loss.
The Southern Border Army suffered even greater losses, exceeding 60,000 men. Xiang Yu and Yi Xiaochuan considered their strategic objectives incomplete, but at least they were not a complete failure. The Southern Border Army, suffering such heavy losses, would be unable to advance northward for a considerable period. Furthermore, Xiang Yu had to digest and pacify the vast territories he had just annexed, guard against Wei Bao's forces to the west, and the potentially threatening Yi Xiaochuan, a mysterious figure who always offered unexpected surprises. Continuing the long expedition and besieging the fortified city of Xianyang was becoming increasingly risky and unprofitable.
Their only puzzlement was this: Gao Yao knew that leading his infantry out of the fortified city of Xianyang to rescue Xiang Yu's attacking troops in the wilderness was a near-life-threatening undertaking. Why did he still do it? What was his true purpose? Was it simply to support the remaining troops and boost morale? That didn't seem like a compelling reason to take such a huge risk.
But this mystery was temporarily shelved in the face of the enormous losses and the current predicament. The most urgent consensus at the moment was: return north immediately! Rest and regroup the troops, consolidate the newly conquered territory, digest the gains, and respond to any other threats that might arise. The idea of continuing the attack on Xianyang had been completely abandoned. Everyone understood that if the siege continued, Gaoyao, having recovered, would inevitably send reinforcements to harass the enemy, or even seek a decisive battle. At that point, the offensive and defensive situation could truly be reversed.