RPAGF Chapter 279 Both sides suffer losses
Chapter 279 Both sides suffer losses
Just then, several ballistae were dragged to the riverbank by the logistics troops. The powerful crossbows, each over two meters long, were fired, creating a deterrent effect on the Wuxi Flying Army soldiers who were rushing towards the river. However, the number of crossbows fired by these few ballistae was too small, so the Wuxi Flying Army soldiers changed their route, took a small detour, and continued their charge towards the river.
Le Jin made a decisive move, ordering the professional engineering troops to withdraw and sending the main force of soldiers onto the pontoon bridge, where they laid the bridge surface while shooting arrows at the other side.
Among the patrol troops from both sides of the south bank, a centurion saw that the pontoon bridge laid by the Chinese army was less than 10 meters away from the south bank. He was extremely anxious and ordered more than 800 infantrymen to risk their lives to surround it and try to cut the ropes on the steel pillars, so that the Chinese army's pontoon bridge laying operation would fail.
Among the infantry of the Wuxi Flying Army, there were those who hesitated because they were afraid of death, and there were also brave warriors who dared to fight to the death. Holding up simple rattan shields, they charged forward at the cost of more than 300 people being shot dead and more than 200 people being wounded. Twenty warriors finally rushed to a position less than 10 meters away from the three steel pillars, and it looked like they were about to cut the ropes.
Just then, a young Chinese soldier squad leader who was laying the bridge deck suddenly shouted, threw down the wooden plank in his hand, and leaped nearly 10 meters across several thick ropes like an acrobat.
Staggering, they stepped onto the land on the south bank of the Wuxi Flying Army. Seeing their own men on the other side, to avoid friendly fire, the Chinese soldiers near the steel pillars stopped firing their crossbows and turned to fire at the other Xichuan patrol soldiers who were surrounding them.
As soon as the squad leader regained his footing, he drew his broadsword, shouted, and charged out, cutting several Sichuan soldiers, who were somewhat stunned by the Chinese army's cessation of crossbow fire, in half at the waist.
Although the remaining dozen or so Sichuan warriors were startled by the bravery of the Chinese army captain, they were also bloodthirsty and determined to cut the ropes of the Chinese army's pontoon bridge. They charged forward without any regard for the consequences, resulting in a mutually destructive attack.
The young Chinese army squad leader was named Ma Zhong, a native of Langzhong, Ba County, Yizhou. He came from a poor family and joined the army at the age of 16. He was assigned to the Second Brigade of the 113th Division of the Luoyang Military Region under Zhang Xiu, and became a squad leader in less than half a year.
Among the four major military regions of the Chinese Empire, although there were many young generals, they were all from wealthy families and had attended military academies from a young age, so they were naturally given important positions. Ma Zhong, on the other hand, came from a peasant background, was illiterate, and had never attended a military academy, yet at the young age of 16, he surpassed many veterans over 20 to become a captain, a feat unique in the entire army.
In the original history of the Three Kingdoms, this young general, who had no family background to support him and relied solely on his own efforts, captured Guan Yu and his son Guan Ping, personally killed Huang Zhong and Huang Hansheng, two of the Five Tiger Generals of Shu, and defeated Zhang Bao and Guan Xing, the generals of Shu's chariots and cavalry, achieving brilliant military exploits.
Unfortunately, he was unlucky throughout his life; no one recognized his talent or valued him as much as Liu Bei did, resulting in his obscurity in history. He was only occasionally mentioned when discussing the death of Guan Yu, the God of War. Such a brilliant record was something even Lu Bu, the legendary general known as the Flying General, could not achieve.
Seeing the dozen or so Wuxi Flying Army soldiers surrounding him, a ruthlessness completely out of a teenager appeared on Ma Zhong's youthful face. He wielded a steel saber, its blade flashing and twisting, a single strike with the left hand cleaving a mountain in two, a sweeping blow with the right, leaving blood and flesh splattering everywhere it passed. The remaining dozen or so Wuxi Flying Army warriors, who had resigned themselves to death, were killed on the spot by Ma Zhong in less than ten seconds.
The speed at which he could kill someone in less than a second on average was utterly astonishing and horrifying. In the firelight, a killing machine named Ma Zhong stood on the south bank of the Xichuan River, exuding a chilling aura. Against the backdrop of his body lay twenty mutilated corpses of the Wuxi Flying Army warriors.
Ma Zhong suddenly burst forth, stepping onto the rope bridge and rushing to the other side. Soldiers on both sides, who were exchanging arrows, couldn't help but turn their gazes to this seemingly neurotic Chinese soldier.
When he had slaughtered all twenty of the Wuxi Flying Army's elite soldiers who had finally reached the steel pillars of the pontoon bridge in less than twenty seconds, and stood imposingly on the riverbank, tens of thousands of troops on both sides of the river, including the president of the Hua Army Society and the centurion of the Wuxi Flying Army, stopped what they were doing and stared in disbelief at that small but exceptionally tall figure.
The commander of the Five Streams Flying Army, who had ordered his infantry to charge at the death, stood on the riverbank on his Akhal-Teke horse. His body, which should have been warm from the battle, was instead gripped by a chill, as if ice water at minus fifty degrees Celsius had poured over him from head to toe, causing him to tremble uncontrollably. His facial muscles twitched violently, and his teeth chattered incessantly.
The once deafening battlefield of Xichuan was suddenly plunged into a thirty-second period of utter silence. Even the horses of both armies were rendered docile by the stillness, daring not to make a single move.
Thirty seconds later, tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers suddenly erupted in a thunderous cheer, and dozens of excited soldiers jumped into the icy river and rushed towards the opposite bank.
The remaining two hundred or so Wuxi Flying Army cavalrymen suddenly dropped their swords and bows, turned their horses around, and fled for their lives, as if they would die without a burial place if they ran too slow.
Ma Zhong rose to fame in the Battle of Xichuan, his miraculous feat of killing twenty enemy soldiers in less than twenty seconds astonishing the entire army. When the news reached China, it caused a sensation throughout the country.
Because this was a miracle created by a 16-year-old boy, a miracle created by an ordinary squad leader, and a miracle of rising from a poor peasant's son to become famous throughout the country. Ma Zhong became an object of admiration and emulation for all young people in China.
Such a model should naturally be protected and its glorious achievements enhanced to encourage more ordinary soldiers to bravely and relentlessly contribute to the empire's global conquest.
Therefore, after the Central Asian war, the young Ma Zhong was sent to the Luoyang Military Academy for further study. The emperor made an exception and arranged for four top-level teachers to tutor him, allowing him to start his studies from elementary school again until he graduated from the military academy. Many years later, the highly anticipated Ma Zhong finally grew into a brave and resourceful general, making great contributions to the emperor's eastern and western campaigns.
Taking advantage of the Wuxi Flying Army cavalry's desertion and the fact that other reinforcements were still far away, the Chinese soldiers, bolstered by high morale, completed the remaining ten meters of the pontoon bridge in less than ten minutes. Several hundred elite infantrymen quickly crossed the one-meter-wide pontoon bridge and constructed blocking positions on the south bank, providing cover for the engineering battalion to build more pontoon bridges.
After the main infantry took more than ten minutes to form a dense infantry square on the south bank, the engineers carried dozens of steel pillars across the pontoon bridge and began to build more pontoon bridges on the riverbank behind the infantry square to allow the army to cross the river.