The Sixth Section: The Hero's Indignant Glance

  When Dian Wei led the charge, bringing the Yellow Turban soldiers with him, and reached a distance of thirty paces from the Han army, they were met with another wave of strong crossbow arrows. Since Dian Wei was in the lead, at least six or seven crossbows were aimed directly at him.

  The "thud thud thud" sound of the arrow hitting the large shield, every hit made Tian Wei's heart beat faster. Fortunately, although one arrow pierced the door panel and hit Tian Wei's waist, it was blocked by the familiar cowhide armor and did not penetrate the flesh.

  "Fall back!"

  After this round of shooting, Han Jun ordered the crossbowmen to retreat.

  Only the long spear hands in the second row collectively shifted their bodies to one side, leaving a narrow retreat passage between two long spear hands. The strong crossbowmen were also well-trained, lowering the crossbows in their hands and sidestepping through the gaps left by the long spear hands, smoothly passing through to the rear of the formation.

  "Cheers!"

  When Tan Wei rushed to a distance of fifteen steps, the Han army's crossbowmen had already retreated. The Han army's commander gave another order, and all the armored long halberdiers moved in unison, restoring their formation. According to the command, they raised the long halberds in their hands, which were over one zhang (about 3 meters) long, with sharp blades facing outward, forming a shining wall of blades.

  Facing this sudden change, even the majestic and imposing General Yan Baihu slowed down his pace unconsciously. As a result, the large group of Yellow Turban warriors stopped about six or seven paces away from the Han army and surprisingly stood off against them.

  The Han army is overjoyed!

  Such a situation is most likely to wear down the morale of both sides.

  The Han army, which had the upper hand psychologically, could take advantage of the standoff to launch a barrage of arrows from behind their formation, effectively killing the enemy. It wouldn't take long, as soon as the strong crossbowmen in the rear quickly fired two rounds of arrows, it would be enough to throw these ignorant and reckless enemies into chaos!

  By then, the outcome of the entire battlefield will be decided in one move...

  But how could Zhang Kuang let the enemy have their way?

  He was initially dizzy and only managed to maintain the integrity of the formation. As a result, Dianwei's leading charge suddenly woke Zhang Crazy up.

  In such a small-scale battle, the formation's role is not particularly crucial. Leaving aside the two mighty generals who can defeat hundreds of enemies with their bare hands and instead pursuing formations that our side is not familiar with is truly a major blunder!

  So, as Dianwei led the charge forward, Zhang Fei also followed suit and let everyone rush up together. When Dianwei was wandering around outside the forest of halberds, Zhang Fei had already arrived at the front line. He shouted loudly:

  "Di Wei! Are you scared?!"

  Dian Wei felt his face burning with anger, and he couldn't calm down. He glared at Zhang Fei with a fierce gaze and shouted loudly:

  "Zhang's little boy, watch out for the broken array!"

  Zhang Fei saw the effect of his provocative words, and secretly smiled to himself. He turned around and signaled to Zhou Cang beside him to prepare for a charge. The two mighty generals simultaneously summoned their full strength, one green and one yellow, like two blazing fires, charging towards the strictly arrayed Han army's county soldiers!

  A fierce surge of Dou Qi caused Tian Wei's strength to increase by nearly a fold. He didn't play any fancy moves, propping up his large shield and dragging his iron rod, he charged straight at the Han army. Under the earthy yellow Dou Qi's enhancement, the originally brittle wooden shield had its durability greatly increased. Four or five long spear-wielding soldiers stabbed their spears into the wooden shield, but surprisingly couldn't pierce through!

  After the wooden shield, Dianwei's ugly face smiled hideously and charged forward with an undiminished speed. With a push of the big shield, he brushed aside several long spears stuck on the shield, and swung his heavy iron rod in reverse, hitting the chest of a man holding a long spear!

  The long spearman who was hit, without making a sound, had his entire chest sink in by half a foot, spewing out a mouthful of fresh blood, and was smashed into the air, pressing down on several comrades.

  With this, the Han army's formation was torn open. Zhang Jue swung his iron rod again, sending several long spears flying, and then charged into the dense Han army formation. Under his lead, the Yellow Turban soldiers, with a surge in morale, let out a loud shout and poured in through the opening, engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the Han army.

  "Thousand Man Break!"

  Several veteran Han soldiers, seeing Dianwei's breakthrough, couldn't help but shout out loud! Upon hearing this, the Han army's commander looked to the other side and saw Zhou Cang, who had also broken through the formation, covering his face with his hand in distress.

  Damn it! The Yellow Turbans actually have a "Thousand-Man Slayer" level general!

  And there are two of them!

  In the Han army, for hundreds of years, there has been a secretly circulating evaluation standard for fierce generals.

  An elite warrior, as long as his strength can clearly overwhelm other soldiers. Then, after this elite warrior has gone through many battles and beheaded about ten people, he will be called "Ten Man Killer".

  One step further, and one can easily defeat "Ten Man Slayers", those who have the ability to take on ten ordinary soldiers at once are called "Hundred Man Slashers".

  If a fierce general can easily tear apart the enemy's tight formation with his own strength, then such a fierce general is already enough to kill dozens of ordinary soldiers with his own strength.

  In a battle of thousands, if one side has such a brave general, it is enough to decide the victory or defeat of both sides. This level of brave general is also called "thousand-man breaker".

  Like Fan Kuai in the early Han Dynasty and Li Guang during Emperor Wu's reign, they are typical of this level of strongmen.

  Of course, Li Guang's divine shooting skills far surpass his charging and breaking array skills. Therefore, not many people would think that Li Guang's strength is only "thousand-man-breaking".

  If we have a "thousand-man breaker" on our side, that would be a great thing. However, if the "thousand-man breaker" belongs to the enemy, even if Sun Wu were reborn or Wu Qi were resurrected, facing this situation would still require a lot of brain power.

  "It's all over..."

  The Han army commander looked at the formation pierced by the enemy's "thousand-man break" and muttered these words. The defeat was already settled, now he had to consider how to bring back as many of his men as possible, intact, to the main camp.

  However, this goal must first be asked of those two "thousand-man breaker" level fierce generals.

  Dian Wei wielded his massive iron club with ease, smashing four or five Han soldiers who were not in top condition to the point of broken bones and torn tendons. Just as he was about to strike down a sixth Han soldier carrying a short sword, crushing his skull and splattering white brain matter everywhere, the space in front of him suddenly became empty, devoid of any enemy.

  Dian Wei nodded his head and looked around, only to find that he had already broken through the enemy's line of defense and arrived at the rear of the enemy army. He secretly assessed himself and found that the "war qi" in his body had only consumed three-tenths, and he was greatly pleased with himself, thinking: His martial arts skills seemed to have improved again.

  At this time, another line of the Han army also began to waver.

  A Han soldier was suddenly cut in two at the waist. Zhou Cang kicked one half of the body flying with one foot and rushed out in big strides, having already broken through the enemy's lines.

  The two armies clash, morale is most important.

  In tactics, if one side's formation is pierced by the enemy, then the enemy can infiltrate troops into the rear of the formation through this gap.

  No matter what formation it is, the rear is always weak. In the case of being attacked from both front and back, there are not many troops that can maintain the line of defense.

  So on the battlefield, when one side's line is breached, it usually means that this side has lost. To say nothing of other things, just hearing this bad news is enough to make the morale of the soldiers drop sharply!

  This battle is no exception either.

  The Han army's county soldiers, without the determination to fight to the death, as soon as they saw their formation being pierced, immediately became disheartened. Then, from disheartenment to chaos, and from chaos to collapse, it can be said that from start to finish, it was only a short moment of time.

  The Han army collapsed.

  The Han army fled in defeat.

  However, the fleeing Han army was soon surrounded again.

  Zhang Kuang's subordinates can organize a cavalry of up to fifty men.

  Although among the horses of these "cavalrymen", less than ten were qualified warhorses, the rest were originally used as draft horses for carts and farming; although the riding skills of these Yellow Turban rebels' "cavalry" were quite poor, truly qualified ones did not exceed one-fifth.

  However, cavalry is cavalry, and even if it's not suitable for direct charging, it can still be used to intercept these demoralized provincial soldiers.

  The remaining fifty or sixty Han troops, hastily dismounting their horses from the carts and forming a "cavalry" under the harassment of the Yellow Turbans, were surrounded by the Yellow Turbans in an open field, cowering together in terror, waiting for their unknown fate.

  "Your Excellency! How shall we deal with these men?"

  Zhou Cang's body was covered in bloodstains, panting heavily with his mouth agape, yet his spirit was unusually exhilarated, grinning as he asked Zhang Kuang.

  He killed no less than ten armored Han soldiers with a single slash of his blade, venting the frustration that had been building up since their defeat at the hands of the county troops. With such a victory, Zhou Cang was deeply impressed by Zhang Kuang's "brilliant" leadership.

  Things in the army are like this - as long as you can lead everyone to victory, you're a good general.

  Facing these remaining defeated soldiers, Zhang Kuang had no intention of killing them all. After all, they were all Han people, and it was possible that they might still have some kind of kinship, so there was no need to fight to the death. Zhang Kuang thought for a moment, then said to Zhou Cang:

  "Dafeng, you go and persuade them to surrender first, just say that I have promised them, those who surrender will not be killed!"

  "Promise!"

  Zhou Cang happily accepted the order and came near the enemy's position. Using a changed voice, he loudly began to persuade them to surrender in a fake tone:

  "Our general has given orders: those who surrender will not be killed! You'd better surrender quickly!"

  The Yellow Turban warriors around him were also excited, shouting and cheering all around.

  "Spare those who surrender! Spare those who surrender!......"