Call of the Heroes of Chaos in Another World

Chapter 2710: Defeat the Qian general in one battle, Cunxiao cleverly captures Yueze City.

Chapter 2710 A single battle defeats the Qian general; Cunxiao cleverly captures Yueze City.

Yue Fei appointed generals like Li Cunxiao, Huang Mei, and Wu Changkong as the vanguard, but this did not mean that he had gathered all these strong generals together. Since it was a full-scale attack, it was impossible for there to be only one direction.

In fact, throughout Xingwu Road, Yue Fei divided his troops into five or six routes, which advanced towards Tianye Road from various directions.

Otherwise, gathering a million-strong army together would be a waste of their advantage of having many soldiers and generals.

If Yue Fei concentrates his troops in one direction, it means that Jiang Ziya can also concentrate his defense in one direction. However, if he divides his troops, the more troops he divides, the more Jiang Ziya will have to follow suit.

Only when the attacking side has an advantage in both generals and troops can it quickly gain the upper hand. Even if Jiang Ziya was incredibly powerful, he couldn't be in two places at once and couldn't possibly oversee every single aspect of the situation.

This is why Xingwu Road is so well-connected, linking the central plains of the Great Qian Dynasty to the south, directly connecting to the northern frontier to the north, and directly connecting to the wealthy eastern regions to the southeast. It can be said that it is a strategic location that military strategists must contend for.

This applies not only to Xingwu Road to the north of Tianye Road, but also to Yuanping Road to the south. However, if one is on the offensive, such areas are strategic locations that can be contested by military strategists, allowing for rapid advances in all directions. But if one is on the defensive, such a well-connected environment also means that it is easy to attack but difficult to defend.

It was precisely for this reason that, during the previous Great Qian era, the Southern Ping Road was guarded by the Kao Shan Wang lineage, which had the strongest foundation and power among the princes of the imperial clan, while the Northern Ping Road was guarded by Jiang Chaoyu, another powerful member of the imperial clan.

Of these several armies, the most important was not the one personally led by Yue Fei and Jiang Ziya, but the one led by Feng Yi.

The first and biggest obstacle that Feng Yi's group needed to overcome was the Yueshan Mountains. Unlike the Yunling Mountains, which are sprawling and vast, this mountain range could not serve as a barrier for Xingwu Dao, nor could it stop the entire Yue Fei army's attack.

However, if the Qian army were to maintain control of the mountain range, the enemy would have the advantage of a commanding position, and half of the flanks of Yue Fei's several armies would be under threat.

That is precisely why, if this thorn is not removed, half of these armies will not be able to advance with peace of mind, and thus will not be able to break through quickly.

In order to remove this thorn in his side, Yue Fei not only deployed 100,000 troops in Feng Yi's army, but also concentrated several strong generals under his command, such as Li Cunxiao, Zhang Guifang, and Ma Sui, in this army as well.

Li Cunxiao, who led 10,000 troops as the vanguard, was very bold. He personally led his 3,000 Flying Tiger Army directly towards Yueze City, which was located in front of the Yueshan Mountains. As for the remaining 7,000 troops, he handed them over to his deputy general An Xiuxiu to lead them straight to Yueshan.

Yueze City and Yueshan are interdependent and mutually supportive. With Yueze City present, Yueshan Camp can be considered both offensive and defensive, possessing the ability to launch a counterattack at any time, and is in a state where it can advance or retreat as needed.

However, without Yue Zecheng, even if Yue Shan remained a turtle shell, he could only passively take the beatings. Even if an opportunity arose, he would not be able to launch a counterattack immediately.

Li Cunxiao was a renowned and fierce general, ranking fourth on the entire Dragon and Tiger Ranking. Even Jiang Qianqiu, currently the highest-ranked general in the Great Qian Dynasty on the Dragon and Tiger Ranking, was slightly lower than him. After Li Cunxiao demonstrated his peak martial arts prowess, this one-rank difference represented a qualitative leap.

Ouyang Bozhao, the garrison commander of Yueze City, was no incompetent man. When Li Cunxiao personally led troops to attack, especially with elite troops like the Flying Tiger Battalion behind him, Ouyang Bozhao could not rashly engage in battle and instead chose to avoid the city altogether.

After all, setting aside Li Cunxiao's personal bravery and the elite Flying Tiger Battalion, he didn't have much of an advantage in terms of sheer numbers of troops.

A small town like Yueze simply couldn't accommodate too many troops; he only had a mere four thousand men capable of fighting. The vast majority of the thirty thousand troops in the entire Yueshan defense line were still within the Yueshan camp.

If Li Cunxiao were capable, he could send his cavalry to ram his city walls. Ouyang Bozhao wanted to see whether the flesh and blood of the Flying Tiger Camp were tougher or his city walls were tougher.

In response, Li Cunxiao ordered the Flying Tiger Battalion soldiers to divide into several teams and conduct rapid mounted archery around the city, both to kill the city's manpower and to test the city's defenses.

While mounted archers are indeed inferior to foot archers in terms of range, not to mention the superior position of the archers atop the city walls, the Flying Tiger Battalion consists of heavily armored cavalry, whose three layers of armor cannot be penetrated by ordinary arrows.

Furthermore, Li Cunxiao had his cavalry disperse and shoot from a distance, rather than cluster together. Coupled with the cavalry's mobility advantage, they were constantly moving while shooting from below the city walls, making it not so easy to hit them from above.

After constant harassment by mounted archers, the Flying Tiger Battalion was exhausted. Li Cunxiao ordered them to retreat back to camp to rest. Just then, the city gates of Yueze City suddenly opened wide, and the defending general Ouyang Bozhao led eight hundred light cavalrymen out of the city.

Heavy cavalry, especially armored cavalry, are indeed powerful. However, even with three layers of armor maximizing their combat and defensive capabilities, elite units like the Flying Tigers cannot sustain prolonged battles.

When Ouyang Bozhao saw Li Cunxiao divide all the Flying Tiger Battalions into multiple groups to harass them with cavalry and archery, he sighed inwardly. Li Cunxiao was indeed as rumored. Although he was braver than anyone else in the world, he was only brave and a pure brute.

It was precisely for this reason that, when the Flying Tiger Battalion was exhausted and preparing to return to camp to rest, Ouyang Bozhao decisively led light cavalry out of the city to pursue and kill them. If they could take the opportunity to severely damage such an elite force as the Flying Tiger Battalion, the value would be more than ten times that of killing ordinary Han soldiers.

The value of elite soldiers like the Flying Tigers is far greater than that of ten ordinary soldiers.

Even if the Flying Tigers were exhausted, what fighting strength would they have left?

After so many back-and-forths, constantly drawing their bows and arrows, and with the scorching sun, they were now so exhausted they could barely lift their weapons. If the enemy caught up, even an elite battalion would face slaughter.

But at that very moment, just as Ouyang Bozhao was leading eight hundred light cavalry to catch up with the retreating Flying Tiger Camp, more than a hundred riders came from behind a gentle slope on the side and charged straight at Ouyang Bozhao as he left the city.