Chapter 71: Life and Death Complement Each Other

  The endless Brazilian army finally broke through Liu Zhang's weak but tenacious defense line, and more than 10,000 soldiers poured in from both wings like a flood to surround Liu Zhang. More than 1,000 troops were like willows in the wind before them. Although these people were newly recruited soldiers, they also had red eyes when they saw that their great achievement was within sight.

  "Good general."

  "The end will be there."

  "Commanding five hundred cavalry to guard the outer perimeter, galloping back and forth among the enemy infantry, disrupting their formation. No matter what happens here, you don't need to come to our rescue."

  "Yes."

  He was so powerful that he suddenly stopped his horse and led 500 cavalrymen out of their formation.

  Liu Zhang let out a deep breath and said to Wang Xiu: "The rest is up to you."

  "I will surely die for loyalty."

  Wang Xie turned to face the thousand elite soldiers selected by Zhang Ren from among the 20,000 troops of Dongzhou. They were the cream of the crop, and after months of training under Zhang Ren, they had undergone a complete transformation, becoming a truly formidable iron-blooded army. Facing the tens of thousands of enemy troops, their expressions remained calm and composed, without a single hint of fear.

  "Circular formation, column formation."

  The soldiers moved quickly and in an orderly manner, soon forming a circular defensive formation of one thousand elite troops, arrayed in seven concentric circles. Each soldier wore bright armor, without long spears, with short swords at their waists and iron-tipped wooden pikes in hand, calmly watching the Brazilian army approach.

  Awesome, leading five hundred cavalry charging into the overwhelming Brazilian army, big hammers flying, blood filling the air, awesome cavalry like sand grains in a whirlpool rolling into the flood, Dongzhou's elite soldiers stood still and nailed to the spot, their line of sight piercing through the bloody flowers calmly gazing at everything in front of them, emitting silent killing intent.

  "He finally made it past." Pang Xi let out a long sigh, the tension on his face finally easing up, while Qu Tian's eyebrows were furrowed beside him.

  "Huang Niang, I have already said that Pang Tong will go to war. If Liu Zhang is unable to defend himself, there's nothing I can do about it."

  The sun hides, dark clouds fill the sky.

  The Brazilian army finally broke into the Dongzhou Bingben array.

  "Arrow!" Wang Xie's steel knife was raised high, stabbing straight into the sky.

  The outer three layers of soldiers immediately crouched down, holding out the bows and arrows behind their backs, with a cluster of arrows pointing towards the sky. The inner layer of soldiers took out simple double-shot crossbows, aiming at the Brazilian soldiers. When the Brazilian army approached within fifty steps, Wang Xie's steel knife swung down, "Fire!"

  Hundreds of crossbow arrows shot towards the Brazilian soldiers, who hastily took out their round shields to block them, but were shocked to find that the crossbow arrows split into three routes: upper, middle and lower. The light infantry's shields were completely ineffective, and the Brazilian army suffered heavy casualties.

  Suddenly encountered difficulties, those new recruits were slightly stunned, but in the face of the temptation to kill the enemy commander, they still charged forward fearlessly.

  The soldiers who were shot to death were nothing but a drop in the bucket for the Brazilian army. The general who led these new recruits saw the waves of arrows flying towards them from the Eastern State, causing shocking casualties, and immediately organized thousands of archers to counterattack, with thousands of arrows shooting towards the elite troops of the Eastern State at once.

  The Eastern State elite soldiers also raised their shields, which were small shields, but not like the Brazilian army's shield in front of them, but on top of their heads. One thousand people simultaneously raised their shields, plus the first layer of long shields, the entire formation was tightly sealed, and only a few arrows shot through the gaps.

  But the number of Brazilian soldiers was too great, wave after wave of arrows rained down, and even the tightest formation would reveal gaps. Many Eastern State soldiers were hit by arrows, using their steel knives to protect their vital organs as much as possible. Some soldiers who were shot in critical areas chose to withdraw from the formation and fell on the road charging towards the Brazilian army. The soldiers behind quickly filled their positions without looking at the fallen comrades.

  Both sides exchanged several rounds of fire, with the Eastern State suffering minimal casualties, while the Brazilian army suffered heavy losses. After paying the price of over a thousand men, the Brazilian army finally clashed with the elite troops of the Eastern State in close combat.

  A few feet of long spear thrust, as long as the first spear thrust empty, the first layer of soldiers immediately stepped forward one step, a gun thrust towards Brazilian soldiers, while those Brazilian soldiers had no time to retrieve the long spear, fortunately able to resist Dongzhou's fine soldier's agile long gun, waiting for them was also a short waist knife.

  What is called a fierce battle was purely a one-sided massacre of the Eastern State's elite soldiers, while the soldiers in the formation were calmly shooting arrows and continuously reaping the lives of the Brazilian soldiers.

  Tens of thousands of Brazilian troops gnawed at the prickly iron lump like a mouthful of fresh blood, without leaving any teeth marks.

  Liu Zhang crouched under the four-sided shield, and the weather was already gloomy. Under the shield, the light was even weaker. He smiled at Fa Zheng beside him, who was also idle: "I didn't expect fighting to be so relaxing."

  Fa Zheng drew on the ground with his finger, saying: "General Zhang's military training is indeed fierce, but I don't know if we are waiting for victory or defeat now."

  "Defeat is death, but now we can't change the course of the war anyway. We might as well not think about it and take advantage of our leisure time to play another game of Go."

  Pang Tong gazed far away at Liu Zhang's main camp, but due to the large number of Ba-Shu troops, they completely surrounded Liu Zhang's main camp, and he couldn't see the situation clearly. He asked Qu Tian: "How is it? Has it been taken?"

  Qu Tan shook his head and said: "Liu Zhang's commander flag is still there, it should not have been taken down."

  Pang De angrily shouted: "This group of rice buckets, with so many people, even if they were piled up, Liu Zhang should have been crushed to death. Pass the order, infantry stop attacking, use cavalry to charge, I don't believe that a small handful of people can withstand the impact of the cavalry horses."

  The messenger took orders and left, Qu Tian gazed quietly at the battlefield, so sharp that it seemed Liu Zhang had indeed come prepared. The two thousand men surrounding Liu Zhang's main camp shot arrows that could bury a thousand Dongzhou soldiers alive, but even so, the casualties were extremely small. Although the two thousand men outside the small formation of a thousand people could not fully display their strength, the outcome was simply the greatest joke in history.

  Shu was not a place where cavalry could roam freely, and the entire Western Sichuan had few war horses. The cavalry in the new army of Bashu numbered about 1,000 men. The commanders concentrated them all in one place, striving to break through the Eastern State's defenses with one blow.

  The sound of horseshoes thundered, started, accelerated, and charged forward.

  The earth shook, and the Eastern State soldiers quietly gripped their long guns, shooting down horseback riders on three routes. The Brazilian army charged in a dense formation, and many horseback riders were killed or injured, while more riders chose to hide under their horses. Ten out of twelve arrows shot by the Eastern State's elite troops hit their targets.

  The killing of the knight was insignificant to the entire Brazilian army, but the horses without riders or those that lost control while trying to avoid arrows severely disrupted the dense charging formation of the Brazilian army, causing countless knights to fall off their horses and creating even greater chaos.

  But in any case, after three waves of arrows, the cavalry still collided heavily with the elite soldiers of Dongzhou.

  The cavalry charged towards the Dongzhou army with great force, and the Dongzhou army simultaneously raised their guns. The front row of soldiers rested the butts of their guns on the ground, using their bodies as a fulcrum to form a wall of guns, like a hedgehog's quills, to resist the advance of the cavalry. The second row of soldiers used one hand to hold up shields to support the first row of soldiers, so they wouldn't be knocked over by the powerful impact of the warhorses, and with their right hands simultaneously raised their guns to stab at the mounted knights. The rear rows of soldiers followed suit, each layer using shields to prop up the next, waiting for the moment when life and death would be decided.