Chapter 69 War Elephant

"Wow--" The war elephant let out a hisss and shook his long nose. Two sharp knives tied to the huge ivory cut the chest of a Wu soldier. The Wu soldier wore heavy armor. The sharp knife only cut his arm and did not penetrate the heavy armor, but the huge force hit him upside down and flew up. In mid-air, the Funan soldier on the elephant's back shot a long arrow and stabbed out a spear. The arrow hit his thigh, and the spear accurately pierced his throat. The soldier Wu fell to the ground and spit out a mouthful of blood foam. His hands and feet twitched a few times. He died of breath, and the blood splashed out and soaked the land under him.

"Kill!" The comrades behind him had red eyes, and the long halberd thorns hit the elephant's front legs. The elephant was in pain. He shook his head violently. His long nose and ivory rolled over again, and knocked the Wu soldier sideways for a few steps. He couldn't dodge. He was trampled by another war elephant. He immediately spit blood and fell to the ground and died.

Fifty war elephants were divided into front and back rows, like two rows of indestructible bulldozers, rampaging. Although the Wu army was very heroic, in the face of the strong attack of the war elephant and the crossbow and spear on the elephant's back of the elephant, they could not cope and retreated. In just a quarter of an hour, the front retreated 20 steps. The corpses of Wu soldiers were upside down on the ground. Some were hit by sharp knives on the elephant's ivory, some were trampled to death by elephants, some were killed by crossbows or spears. The worst was trampled to death by elephants. Either the hands and legs were broken, or the chest and abdomen were trampled flattened, and the internal organs flowed all over the ground, which was unbearable.

In the face of the attack of the elephant soldiers, the Wu soldiers were incompetent, and their morale was greatly frustrated.

Sun Deng put his hand on the railing, looked at the defeated front, and then looked at the elephant soldiers who were still watching the battle in the distance. His face turned pale.

"Prince, you can't wait any longer. Order the crossbow camp to shoot immediately." Xie Jing reminded anxiously.

"Hmm." Sun Deng nodded and stretched out his hand. The drums sounded loudly, and the soldiers in front of him immediately retreated quickly. The strong crossbowman deployed on the second line of defense raised the strong bow in his hand. With an order, the long arrow left the string and made a muffled sound.

"Wo!" Nearly a thousand long arrows jumped into the sky and rushed straight to fifty war elephants. The Funan soldiers on the war elephant heard the drums of the Wu army. When they saw the Wu army retreating, they knew that the Wu army was going to fight back with a crossbow. They urged the war elephant to run forward, chased the Wu army, and raised the big shield. As soon as the big shield was raised, the long arrows arrived and thuded in the shield. Some arrows passed through the gap between the big shields and hit the soldiers on the back of the elephant. The soldiers who hit the arrows made a scream and fell down. They rolled and crawled to avoid the war elephants in the back row to avoid being stepped on. Some of them were seriously injured when they landed, although They struggled hard, but they were still trampled by the running war elephant. Some died on the spot, and some rolled desperately on the ground in pain, which seriously hindered the soldiers behind the war elephant, and the offensive was stagnant.

"Shoot the rocket!" Zhuge Ke shouted loudly.

The flag soldier took a look at Sun Deng with a gloomy face. Sun Deng nodded, and there was another drum. More than a dozen strong crossbowmen hit the fuse on the long arrow on the torch next to them, aiming at a distance of 50 steps in front of them. Behind them, a hundred swords clenched the weapon in their hands and were ready to fight back.

"Shoot!" Under the order of the strong crossbow captain, more than a dozen ignited crossbow arrows roared away. The fire on the quiver was blown by the strong wind. Fifty steps away arrived in a blink of an eye. The long arrows shot on the ground, igniting the oil-soaked grass that had been laid on the ground.

With a "boom", the flame kicked up two feet high. As soon as the rushing war elephant saw the fire wall suddenly kicked up, he was shocked. He suddenly stopped his steps and tried his best to adjust his body, but they were far less sensitive, and they couldn't help rushing forward, and were hit by the war elephants behind him. Suddenly, they were crooked and confused. Make a ball.

When the war elephants were in chaos, the Funan soldiers on the elephant's back could not sit still and fell to the ground one after another. The Wu army shot a batch of long arrows in time and killed these soldiers one by one. The rough-skinned war elephants also hit a lot of arrows. The pain and fear of fire made them more nervous. The forty- or fifty-headed elephants turned in front of the fire wall. Several fast war elephants broke through the fire wall, spread their four hooves, and rushed towards the soldiers of the State of Wu.

"Kill it!" Sun Deng shouted angrily and raised his arm to split sharply.

The knife players jumped out, and they dispersed and let the rushing war elephants kill the soldiers who followed the war elephants. Without the cover of the war elephants, these Funan soldiers were not the opponents of the soldiers of the State of Wu. They were immediately killed and embarrassed.

The swordsmen who were good at the counterattack immediately turned around to deal with the war elephant. They chased behind the war elephant, raised the special halberd in their hands, and hooked and stabbed at the Funan soldiers on the elephant's back. In addition, more than a dozen knife players rushed to both sides of the elephant's hind legs, waved their swords and cut them at the elephant's legs. They cut them fiercely, cutting them in the same position with one knife at a time, and the thick elephant skin could not stand them cutting like this. Soon they were cut open, revealing bright red meat and white bones.

While fighting back with bows and arrows and spears, the Funan soldier turned around while controlling the war elephant. They also know that although the war elephant is very powerful, once left alone, it will be surrounded by Wu soldiers with this kind of tactics and attack like a group of ants. This war elephant will be disabled. Wu Jun has used this tactic in the past few months to abolish at least 50 of their war elephants. Of course, they have also made great sacrifices. About 1,000 Wu soldiers died in front of the battle.

The injured war elephant let out a sad howling. They no longer listened to the control of the elephant soldiers. They rushed crazily in front of the battle, turned around, knocked down the Wu soldiers in front of it, and trampled hard.

"The crossbowman, shoot!" Zhuge Ke gave the order again in time.

The archers shot at the war elephants in front of the battle. They ignored the robes trapped in the battle, because they knew that when these robes rushed up, they were already sentenced to death, and there were very few people who could survive the crazy war elephant conflict. They can't bear it, but now there is only this way to deal with these elephant soldiers. It has always been this tactic that has stopped the attack of the Funan people and stopped them on the west side of the Changshan Mountain.

The crazy war elephant was soon shot into a huge hedgehog, and finally couldn't hold it. It let out a long whine and fell to the ground. The heavy body shook the earth and trembled.

The war elephants stopped by the fire wall have been withdrawn. There is only one corpse left in front of the fierce battle, arrow feathers like weeds. There is too much blood in the humid air, which is disgusting.

Fan Chang looked at it from afar. This time, he lost two war elephants, but almost more than 200 Wu soldiers fell in front of the battle. The loss was almost the same, and he still had more than 100 war elephants and more than 20,000 troops. As long as he was given a certain amount of time, he still had enough confidence to defeat the Wu army and attack the south, as long as he could fight. Entering the south, the Wu army has no ready-made fortress to rely on, and the battle may be much smoother.

More importantly, it is the ripening season for rice soon. When they attack the south, they can eat on the spot without long-distance transportation. The loss of transporting grain from thousands of miles in Funan is too big. Fan Chang knows that now his father, Wang Fan Man, wants to compete with Sun Shao for the hearts of the people, and he can't add it casually. This grain still needs to be used.

Fan Chang was very excited. Fan Jin, the eldest brother who had hoped to succeed to the throne, was captured by the teachers and students of Yue Guoshui. Now he has lost his reputation. Otherwise, the opportunity to lead a large army expedition will certainly not fall on his head. If he can win this battle, take down the south and retake Linyi, there will be no more prince of Funan. Any suspense.

He was in a hurry, but he was not in a hurry. He had enough patience to entangle with Wu Yue's allied forces. After more than a month of war, he felt that he was getting more and more and more convenient, and had gradually touched the routines of the Wu people. The equipment of the Wu people is better than his, and the ability of the soldiers to fight is higher than that of the Funan soldiers, but they do not have weapons that can effectively restrain the war elephants, so they can only use fire walls and counterattack tactics. The firewall needs to be arranged in advance, which is destined to be that they can only defend passively, but not actively attack. He has enough space to adjust.

Fan Chang is very sorry. If he could attack early, the people of Wu would not have so much time to prepare in Changshan. In the past six months, the people of Wu have dug deep pits that can prevent the passage of war elephants in several places in Changshan, and used dense arrow rain to prevent the Funan soldiers from coming forward to fill the pit. Therefore, the two sides have been competing here. Otherwise, with the impact of war elephants, they would have crossed the long mountain.

But what made Fan Chang happy was that the tactics of the State of the State of Wu were passive and consumed a lot. He roughly estimated that he had lost fifty war elephants, at least the surname of the three thousand fine tax soldiers of the State of Wu. The people of Wu could not support it for long.

Fan Chang guessed it right. Sun Deng really couldn't stand it anymore. After more than a month of battle, Lv Dai was injured, and more than 8,000 of his men lost more than half of them. Although there were many county soldiers brought by Zhuge Ke, the level of hard battles was not enough. He had been there twice. As soon as he saw the war elephant, he turned around and ran away, and almost disrupted the Wu army's front. Now Sun Deng can only use them to defend the front. He dares not send them to such a difficult job as a counterattack, and it is in vain.

However, the large number of casualties of elite soldiers is a very fatal blow to morale.

"Uncle Fa, Yuan Xun, if we continue to fight, we can't stand it." Sun Deng sat down feebly and lowered his head, feeling that he wanted to cry. He had expected that Funan's attack would be very fierce, and he had already proposed reinforcements to Sun Quan, but the report was sent out for more than two months, and none of the reinforcements had been seen, and Sun Quan had no news, as if he knew that he was fighting with the Funan people here at all. Sun Deng's heart was very bitter. In the gap of the battle, he constantly reflected on his father Sun Quan's every move in the past two years, and gradually understood that his father cared much more about him, but this kind of concern was just to regain his respect from Sun Shao. From the bottom of his heart, his father was no longer the father before.

Thinking of this, Sun Deng was shocked. He kept thinking about why his relationship with his father came to this point and when it began, but he never found the answer. Is it Sun Xie? It seems not. Although Sun Lui is smart, he is not better than him. Is it because of Sun Shao? It seems to be or not. He and Sun Shao have broken up. My father knows it. What's the reason? Because of power? Sun Deng felt that he seemed to have found the answer, but he was unwilling to accept it.

He has received Confucian education since he was a child, and he is a relatively gentle person. He has always been unwilling to think about his father in that direction. The saint said that kings and ministers, fathers and sons, he and father are both fathers and sons, and monarchs and ministers, and in his heart, he is filial to the father and loyal to the king. He has always been done according to the teachings of the saints. Why does his father do this to him?

At this time, Sun Deng remembered those father and son who were crippled in the history of the country, and there were bursts of sadness in his heart.

"Prince, let's... ask Queen Yue for help." Zhuge Ke reminded cautiously.

Sun Deng took a look at him and was very unhappy. When he heard that Sun Shao had left Guan Feng to help him guard the Changshan Front, he felt a little uncomfortable. Sun Shao himself took the main force to Funan Bay, leaving only seven or eight thousand people including Guan Feng, and also led by two women, Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang, which was clearly a little perfunctory. Since the beginning of the war, he has not taken the initiative to ask Guan Feng for support, and Guan Feng has not taken the initiative to participate in the war, but has only been stationed on a hillside in the south. I don't know what kind of psychology it was, Fan Chang has never divided his troops to attack the hillside, as if he was on the State of Wu.

"Can you solve the problem by asking them for help?" Sun Deng sighed in embarrassment: "Besides, we seven-foot men want to ask for help from a woman, isn't it a little..."

Zhuge Ke smiled and said, "Prince, if you regard her as a woman, that's wrong. The king of Yue's ability to hand over so many people to her shows that he has confidence in her. Prince, do you know? At least one-third of the captains in the Vietnamese army are from the Guan family army.

Sun Deng nodded and didn't know what it was like in his heart. Guan Feng was originally the object of his father's marriage proposal for him. Sun Shao only went as a messenger. He didn't think that it was Sun Shao who finally got married. Now Guan Feng has become a great help for Sun Shao. The elite of the Guan family she brought supports half of the sky of Yue. He is now going to ask Guan Feng for help, and these people should have been his.

"What I'm worried about is her... There are too few people. Can you use it when you come?"

"There are a lot of people." Zhuge Ke shook his head and explained patiently. He still doesn't understand why Sun Deng has not asked Guan Feng for help. If he wants to change him, he will invite Guan Feng to come as soon as the war begins. Now they have been fighting for more than a month. As an allied army, the Vietnamese army has not yet been on the battlefield. It is all supported by the Wu army alone. What are the most elite people in Vietnam? It's five thousand destroyers! The king of Yue left 4,000 people, and even Ding Feng, the general of Zhechong, left behind. In addition, there were He Da's 2,000 auxiliary Yue battalions, which were elite soldiers who were good at mountain jungle warfare. He Da calmed Zhu Ya with these two thousand people. The King of Yue summoned him to Funan to use his specialty. Although the strength of the fifth general was not as good as the former, but It's not easy to underestimate. The weakest one is probably Zhou Xun's 2,000 Lujiang Camp.

Sun Deng frowned and hesitated.

"More importantly, they still have ten war elephants." Zhuge Ke further said: "The king of Yue put back Fan Jinsheng and changed ten war elephants. The soldiers on these ten war elephants were all Funan natives, and they spoke a few Chinese words more or less. After arriving at Linyi, the king of Yue treated them very well. With these ten war elephants, they must have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the war elephants and fight. Naturally, it is more targeted.

"Yuan Xun's words are reasonable." Lv Dai slowly came up and happened to hear Zhuge Ke's last few words: "The most troublesome thing we have now is the war elephants. Although we can contain them with the method of fire attack, I find that the effect of these times is obviously not as good as the first few times. The prince of Funan must have had a solution."

Sun Deng got up and saluted Lv Dai and said politely, "Since the general also thinks so, I will immediately invite them to participate."

Lv Dai smiled and was very satisfied with Sun Deng's respect, but as Sun Quan's old minister, he could more or less guess some contradictions between the father and son. Now that the situation is not clear, he should not make too many statements.

"Yuan Xun, you'd better go."

"Oh."

When Zhuge Ke rushed to the barracks, Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang were playing a game. Their chess skills were similar, and they were killing inexplicable. Sun Shangxiang had an elephant in his hand and was taking the long-term exam. Guan Feng was not in a hurry, but she was very anxious about Sun Luban, who was watching chess. She stared at the chess pieces in Sun Shangxiang's hand, and her eyes were dripping around. If not Seeing that Sun Shangxiang is an elder, maybe she will go up and grab the chess pieces from her hand.

"Queen, Zhuge Ke is here." Bai ang shouted outside the tent.

"Zhuge Ke?" Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang looked at each other and smiled at the corners of their mouths. Sun Luban jumped up, clapped his hands and shouted, "He must have come to ask for help. We have a war to fight."

"How do you know there is a war to fight? Maybe they have won and come to report the news. Guan Feng deliberately teased her with a straight face.

"Impossible." Sun Luban said with a smile, "Zigao can only read and can't fight. Their strength is not as good as Funan's. It's not so easy to win. He can barely fight the battle of bullying the less and bullying the weak with more. He can't fight this kind of battle with less to win more.

"Little girl, be careful that this word spreads to Zigao's ears, and you can't go back." Sun Shangxiang reached out and twisted the corners of Sun Luban's mouth and said an anger. Sun Luban turned his head and said proudly, "Go back? I don't plan to go back. I'm going to stay in Yue all the time. I want to be a general and go back to Jianye. I can only stay at home and be a princess. It's boring.

Guan Feng stopped their laughter and invited Zhuge Ke in. Zhuge Ke first talked about the progress of the war, and then explained the intention. Guan Feng pondered for a moment and said, "You can't stand it anymore?"

Zhuge Ke smiled: "Support can still be supported, but Wu Yue is an ally and should fight against the enemy side by side. Isn't the queen stationed here by the order of His Royal Highness the King of Yue just to support our army? In this case, why wait until our army can't support it before you take action?

Guan Feng glanced at Zhuge Ke unhappily. She didn't like Zhuge Ke's aggressiveness very much, but she didn't say anything. She just nodded and said, "Please reply to Prince Wu. Our army will arrive in two days. Please prepare the camp plate and food and fodder."

"Queen, don't worry, the camp and food and fodder are ready." Zhuge thought for a moment and then said, "Do you dare to ask the queen, is there a good way to deal with the war? Although there are many Funan soldiers, they are not the opponents of our army. The biggest problem now is the war elephant. Although we have come up with a method of fire attack, from the current situation, the effect is not very obvious.

"Of course..." Sun Luban blurted out, but was interrupted by Guan Feng: "It's hard to say at present. Let's talk about it before the battle."

Zhuge Ke glanced at them suspiciously and retreated politely. However, he guessed something from Sun Luban's look and couldn't help but feel much more at ease. As long as you can deal with war elephants, you will be sure of this battle.

"Sister-in-law, we clearly have a way to deal with war elephants. Why don't you let me say it?" Sun Luban looked at Guan Feng puzzledly: "Doesn't my sister-in-law want to save my brother Wang?"

"Stupid child, tell them that they beat the Funan people away. What else do you hit?" Guan Feng took a look at her and said with a smile.

"Oh?" Sun Luban was suspicious and glanced at Guan Feng and Sun Shangxiang's faces twice. Seeing that they were all laughing, he immediately understood that they were happy with themselves. He couldn't help but be a little depressed: "You don't tell them anything. You always think they are children. I'm fifteen years old."

"Who treats you like a child?" Sun Shangxiang couldn't help laughing and said, "You call for war every day. Now you have a chance to come. Why are you unhappy? What are the people afraid of in Funan? Aren't they just war elephants? If they know how to deal with war elephants, they don't need us to defend the Long Mountain at all. In that case, what other chances do you have? What other opportunities does your husband have?

As soon as he mentioned Zhou Xun, Sun Luban immediately changed his smiling face and said with a continuous smile, "My aunt is right. My aunt is right. I can't tell them."

Guan Feng said to Bai Yu, "Fangqing, bring General Zhou, General He and General Ding. We need to discuss how to fight."

"I'll go, I'll go." Sun Luban jumped up and rushed out of the big tent in front of Bai Yu. The door was still shaking, and her excited voice was already ten steps away.

"Queen, how are you going to fight this battle?" Sun Shangxiang leaned forward.

"Fly and play slowly." Guan Feng picked up the chess pieces quietly, fell on the chessboard with a "pop" sound, picked up the teacup beside her and took a sip, and then said slowly, "We can't chase if we win. We can only watch the defeated soldiers go back. In this case, attracting more than 30,000 Fan Chang in Chang's mountains is more helpful for the king to occupy Temu City. Help."

Sun Shangxiang nodded thoughtfully and withdrew his eyes to the chessboard. He was about to put the board again. Suddenly, when he saw the chess pieces in his hand, he immediately screamed: "Hey, no, silver screen, now it's my turn to play chess. Look, my elephant is still in my hand."

"If you want to deal with elephants, you have to slow down." Guan Feng smiled proudly and said with a pun.

(to be continued)