12dz Chapter 278 Avoiding Oversights
Chapter 278 Avoiding Oversights
On the night of February 28, the Chinese army launched another attack on the first and second river crossing points, creating the illusion for the defenders of Xichuan that the Chinese army was about to launch a strong attack from these two locations. The defenders at both points exchanged arrow fire with the Chinese soldiers while simultaneously launching rocket signals to notify Chen Er.
This time, Chen Er was prevented from going to the front line due to Palau's obstruction. He only ordered 2 cavalry to go to support the Chinese army and prevent them from crossing the river easily.
This time, the Chinese cavalry first wrapped their horses' hooves with a thick layer of hemp cloth to increase their resistance to punctures. When crossing the river, they did not try to cross from the shallowest part of the river, but instead dispersed to both sides and crossed from the side where the water was deeper but would not drown the men and horses.
The people of Xichuan, after all, did not have the powerful steel production capacity of the Chinese Empire. The iron they had was all saved from the raw materials used by the army to repair weapons. More than 10,000 iron caltrops were scattered across five crossing points, each of which was one or two hundred meters wide. Three thousand iron caltrops could not really cover the riverbed, and many were inevitably left out at the edges.
Thus, a large number of Chinese cavalry braved the rain of arrows and successfully charged across the river from the edges of both sides of the crossing point. Although they were stopped by the Western Sichuan people using sheer numbers, they failed to achieve a real breakthrough.
However, the tense garrison commander urgently sent out a signal that the situation was urgent and that rescue was needed. So Chen Er sent 5,000 cavalry to each of the two critical crossing points, leaving him with only 20,000 cavalry as a mobile force.
Palau frowned upon seeing the second signal in the distant sky urging the cavalry to come to his aid. The current Chinese Empire army not only boasts powerful soldiers but also employs innovative tactics and strategies. The Chinese army, with its staff system, is highly flexible and adaptable; it would never recklessly launch a forced attack on an impregnable territory, causing unnecessary losses.
It's important to understand that China is not like other countries. Soldiers who die or are wounded receive compensation. If too many soldiers are killed or wounded, the military expenditure will be too high.
Thinking of this, Palau's eyes lit up, and the Chinese idiom "feint to the east while attacking in the west" popped into his mind. Palau's expression changed drastically, and he said to Chen Er, who had already ordered reinforcements to the first and second crossing points, "General, the Chinese army may be feinting to the east while attacking in the west, and is about to cross the river from other places. Immediately send the remaining 20,000 cavalry to reinforce various places in the west, so as not to give the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of the situation."
Upon hearing Palau's words, Chen Er was also taken aback. He immediately ordered his cavalry to reinforce the western river sections and prepared to lead his personal guard to the west.
Before Chen Er could even set off, an urgent signal came from between the fourth and fifth crossing points in the west, signaling a major enemy offensive. The Chinese had indeed devised a way to launch a river-crossing operation from a point where a direct crossing was impossible. Chen Er silently patted Palau on the shoulder, ordering him to guard the Third Camp, while he personally led 20,000 cavalry to reinforce the west.
Under the cover of night, the Chinese engineers quietly swam across the river, then, enduring the cold, hammered the steel posts used to secure the pontoon bridge ropes into the riverbank. A hundred patrolling soldiers from the Wuxi Flying Army heard the sound of the steel posts being hammered and rushed over from about 100 meters to their left, shouting. More than twenty main force soldiers who had swum across the river with them drew their broadswords and met them in their wake.
They were locked in battle with the Xichuan soldiers. The engineering battalion soldiers worked quickly to drive three steel pillars into the ground, and then tightened the ropes brought from the opposite bank. In less than ten minutes, the highly efficient Chinese engineers had tied more than ten thick ropes into tight knots, and a "rope bridge" appeared between the fourth and fifth crossing points of the Xichuan River.
The shouts of battle from the riverbank alerted a cavalry patrol of the Wuxi Flying Army, who charged from more than 500 meters away on the right. The dozen or so engineers who had already laid the groundwork immediately grabbed their crossbows and fired at the cavalry.
The Chinese engineers on the opposite bank, who were already prepared, immediately laid the planks one by one on the rope bridge. Two iron buckles were fastened at the bottom of each plank to secure it in place. The planks were passed from the rear, extending methodically to the opposite bank, and in no time, more than ten meters had been laid.
The Xichuan cavalry on the opposite bank dodged the crossbow bolts and rushed forward. They saw a rope bridge spanning the Xichuan River. Countless Chinese soldiers on the opposite bank were passing planks to lay the bridge deck. Seeing that the Chinese army was about to attack and cross the river, they became extremely anxious.
The crossbows of the dozen or so engineers were no match for the rain of arrows from the Sichuan cavalry. With the cavalry about to reach the riverbank, a few swift cuts on the ropes would render their efforts futile. Le Jin, who was directing the construction of the pontoon bridge from the riverbank, made a decisive move. Disregarding the safety of the remaining engineers, he ordered the soldiers on the riverbank to fire crossbow bolts at the opposite bank.
Then, thousands of crossbow bolts were fired, covering an area of dozens of meters behind the steel pillars on the shore, and seventy or eighty of the Xichuan cavalrymen were killed instantly.
Upon hearing their comrades' shouts, the engineers turned around and saw thousands of crossbow bolts already flying over the river. They immediately dropped all their weapons, turned around, and scrambled into the icy river.
Although one soldier was hit in the arm by an arrow due to a slightly slower reaction, Yue Jin was overjoyed that none of his soldiers had been killed. He ordered his soldiers to increase the crossbow fire coverage, and the engineers sped up the construction of the pontoon bridge.
When the Xichuan cavalry centurion saw that he could not break through the crossbow fire of the Chinese army, he knew that the situation was urgent. He immediately ordered the soldier next to him who was responsible for firing the signal to light the fuse and launch the rockets into the sky, thus stopping the Chinese army's attack.
Fiery red fireworks exploded and spread in the air one after another, forming countless sparks in the night sky like flowers scattered by the heavens in anger. This was the distress signal that Chen Er and Palau saw.
After sending out the signal, the cavalry centurion led his troops to attack dozens of Chinese soldiers who were still fighting with the Xichuan infantry. The dozens of Chinese soldiers fought hard for a while, but some were killed or wounded, and they had to retreat to the riverbank. Under the cover of crossbow bolts from their comrades on the opposite bank, they swam back to the north bank.
However, more than a dozen people were still killed or wounded by arrows from the people of Xichuan in the river. By this time, the engineers had laid the pontoon bridge to the middle of the river.
The Sichuan cavalry centurion was sweating profusely with anxiety, ordering his soldiers to fire arrows at the pontoon bridge from the side in an attempt to stop the Chinese soldiers from crossing the river. However, the Sichuanese arrows only had a range of seventy or eighty meters.
However, the crossbows standard issue for Chinese soldiers had a range of over 100 meters. As a result, under the fire of several thousand Chinese infantrymen on the north bank, the defending troops in Xichuan were forced to retreat repeatedly, to a distance of more than 50 meters from the riverbank, where the arrows could no longer reach the engineers who were laying the pontoon bridge.
Several patrol teams of the Wuxi Flying Army, located a kilometer away on the south bank of the Xichuan River, rushed towards the scene after seeing the distress signal sent by the cavalry centurion, in order to prevent the Chinese army from crossing the river.
Several patrol teams of the Wuxi Flying Army, totaling more than a thousand men, along with several hundred cavalry, surrounded the area where the pontoon bridge was being built, creating a very critical situation.