Chapter 704: Withdrawal

Seeing this, Su Zhi glanced at Zuo Xiao, then nodded sharply and ordered loudly: "The army will march slowly in formation. Soldiers, we just need to return to the camp and hold on for help. General Pingdong will definitely send a large army to rescue us. There is still a ray of hope if we return to the camp, but we will definitely die if we stay in the wild!"

Zuo Xiao and other generals also understood this truth. When Su Zhi's military order was issued, they immediately responded: "Kill, kill, kill..."

When the soldiers of the Sizhou Army heard this, it was indeed true. If they stayed in the wild, they would definitely die, but if they could return to the camp and hold on for help, the general would definitely lead the army to rescue them. As a result, the morale of the entire army was high, and the sound of killing and shouting was endless.

Then, the army slowly moved towards the camp again under the sound of military orders. This time, the soldiers' steps were much more determined than before.

And Zuo Xiao and other generals also asked for orders to leave the central army and come to various places in the military formation to lead the troops. Fortunately, when preparing to retreat at the beginning, Su Zhi had already considered the arrangement problem, so he arranged the two schools of soldiers in the front and back directions, and the ordinary soldiers were arranged on both sides, and the rest of the wounded and auxiliary soldiers were protected in the middle. Now, if they march in formation, the front and back directions with the greatest pressure are resisted by the soldiers, so there is no problem with the slow march in formation.

Seeing that the army continued to advance, the generals of Dong Zhuo's army immediately ordered the cavalry to charge. Afterwards, the five thousand cavalry drove their horses to rush towards the army again, so Su Zhi had to order the soldiers to stop again to prevent the cavalry from really rushing into the formation.

Unfortunately, the cavalry turned around and left again a hundred steps away, just like the previous time, but the army did stay for more than a quarter of an hour.

After the cavalry left again, Su Zhi had no choice but to order the army to advance again, but this time someone came up with an idea to throw the useless items in the formation behind the army. Although these things could not cause any harm to the infantry, they could cause some trouble for the cavalry.

However, after the cavalry charged twice, the 10,000 infantrymen in Yishi City were already two miles away and were now rushing here.

At this time, the army was still two miles away from the camp, but on the other side of the camp, dust could be vaguely seen rising up, which meant that another cavalry of the enemy was already close at hand.

Seeing this, the soldiers in the army seemed to be in a commotion again.

The generals in the army finally calmed down the commotion of the soldiers, and the army moved forward again.

Then, Dong Zhuo's cavalry was ready to charge again, but Su Zhi had to order the army to stop again and wait in a serious manner. Everyone knew what the result would be if the cavalry broke into the infantry formation, so neither Su Zuo nor the other officers in the army dared to take it lightly.

So, this back and forth, the army wasted more than half an hour.

At this time, whether it was the infantry chasing soldiers behind or most of the cavalry in front, they had basically arrived not far from the army formation.

At this time, Su Zhi knew that the most critical time had arrived. If his 20,000 troops can survive this, some soldiers can still withdraw to the camp smoothly. If not, with 20,000 cavalrymen watching from the sidelines, his 20,000 infantrymen will basically not escape.

Seeing that most of the cavalry were about to enter the charging distance, Su Zhi no longer hesitated and quickly asked the soldiers to tighten the formation. This time, the circular formation listed by Su Zhi was much denser than the previous formation. At this time, not only him, but also ordinary soldiers understood that the war had reached the most critical moment, so all the soldiers quickly adjusted the distance between themselves and the Zepao around them.

The sword and shield soldiers were arranged in three rows in front, stabbing their shields deeply into the ground, and then holding their bodies tightly against the shields. Behind them were three densely packed rows of spearmen, with the tails of their spears stuck in the ground, and the spear heads stretched out from the gaps between the sword and shield soldiers. The shining spear heads emitted a dazzling light under the sunlight.

Behind them were archers, who pulled out arrows from their quivers and inserted them beside them so that they could easily pull out arrows when the battle started.

Beside and behind them, a group of generals were screaming and commanding the soldiers who were not ready to get ready as soon as possible.

The soldiers inside the army were busy making final preparations, and the cavalry outside the army had already adjusted their formation. Su Zhi wanted to block the most fatal blow of the cavalry, while the generals of Dong Zhuo's army wanted to break through the defense of the infantry at once.

In order to achieve this goal, Fan Chou placed Dong Yue's 5,000 Feixiong troops at the front of the cavalry. The Feixiong troops were heavy armored cavalry. Although they could not be compared with the heavy infantry trained by Ji Ling and the heavy armored infantry such as the Xianzhen Camp, their defensive capabilities were higher than those of the Xiliang Iron Cavalry.

As the distance between the majority of the cavalry and the army formation got closer and closer, the entire battlefield suddenly fell into a strange atmosphere. There seemed to be no other sound between the heaven and earth except the roar of the cavalry charging the formation, and even the shouting in the army formation stopped.

"Boom boom..."

As the distance between the cavalry and the army formation got closer and closer, Su Zhi stood on the nest car, holding the guardrail with both hands, as if he wanted to crush the guardrail alive. In addition to the roar of the warhorse, he could also hear the increasingly heavy breathing.

"Archers, get ready, one hundred and fifty steps..."

Then, the sound of the archers in the formation pulling the bowstring was heard.

"One hundred and twenty steps..."

"Ninety steps, archers, three consecutive shots, shoot..."

"Buzz buzz..."

There was a dizzying sound of bowstrings, and then thousands of arrows flew out at a distance of eighty steps in front of the formation. Because it was against cavalry, the archers' shooting distance was eighty steps, but generally speaking, they started shooting arrows when the opponent's cavalry reached a distance of ninety to one hundred steps. In this way, when the arrows flew to the front of the formation, they almost landed on the cavalry.

The sound of "ding ding dang dang" rang out on the Feixiong Army. Because they were heavy cavalry, the cavalry soldiers were basically fine, but the war horses were different. In terms of the history of ancient Chinese wars, the real heavy armored cavalry appeared in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Iron Floating Figure was the real heavy armored cavalry. Not only the people, but also the war horses were fully armored.

Today's heavy cavalry is somewhat unworthy of its name. Although the cavalry soldiers are fully armored, the war horses are only armored in some important parts. However, compared with light cavalry, this is already a very strong defense.