Chapter 632: Battle without Blades (Please vote and subscribe)

Two rangers under Maodun were cruising on the trade route that the Han tribe often passed. At first, they thought it was unlikely to encounter them. After all, the Han tribe was not stupid. Perhaps they had already known that they were going to rob them, and they might take a detour at that time. But now, Youzhi appeared here as if he had no idea.

This situation made the two rangers extremely excited. They had been cruising in this area for several days, and finally waited for the Han tribe's caravan to arrive. Seeing that there was indeed a long caravan behind them with more than 100 people, the two immediately determined the target, and then immediately blew the horn to inform the chief not far away that their target had arrived.

At this time, Maodun, who was eating mutton in a tent not far away, was suddenly stunned. It seemed that he heard the sound of the horn. He listened attentively, but before he could hear it, someone had already broken in from outside the tent.

"Chief, the cavalry outside blew the horn. They should have discovered the caravan. Let's chase them now?" A strong man with two braids, bare upper body, and only felt shorts asked.

"Are they here? Hahahaha, let's go, blow the horn, gather everyone, they are finally here, tell the warriors, if we take this batch of white salt, everyone will be rewarded, and the livestock will be divided equally." Maodun put down the silver bowl of mare's milk in his hand with a bang, wiped his mouth randomly, and ordered while rushing out.

"Yes." The man who came to report also left quickly.

At the same time, the herdsmen who were grazing everywhere also heard the horn sound here, and began to urge their horses to gallop over here. After a while, they gathered into a team of thousands of people.

These temporary cavalrymen were all young and strong, most of them had three horses. Although there were less than 4,000 people, the number of horses had exceeded 10,000. The movement of thousands of horses galloping on the grassland was like a thunder that was not yet fired, and the dull sound made people feel very depressed.

The rumbling sound of horse hooves coming from behind made everyone in the caravan feel a little nervous. Although everyone had made sufficient preparations this time and knew that they might encounter an enemy attack, they were still a little nervous now that they really encountered it.

"Heavy cavalry, pay attention to cover, the caravan speeds up, and be careful not to be surrounded by the enemy."

You Zhi knew that the enemy was coming the moment he heard the horn, but he was very calm and calmly commanded everyone according to his plan. Before Maodun's army gathered, he had already run to the front.

"Snap."

The long whip snapped, and with the driver's shout, the four horses pulling the cart also began to run wildly, but the load on the cart still limited the speed, giving the enemy behind the opportunity to keep approaching.

"Quick, outflanking from both sides, don't let them run."

Maodun had just gathered thousands of troops and horses when someone said that the caravan had passed their camp. This made him very angry, and he quickly led his army to chase after them.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—the cavalrymen chasing behind hurried and finally caught up with the range of the bows and arrows, and launched the first round of attacks. Countless bamboo pole arrows carrying bronze arrowheads flew up, but they shot from the back to the front, and the target in front was still moving forward, so very few arrows could hit the target, and only a few of them pierced the sacks behind the cart.

However, such a critical situation still frightened many drivers, and one of them immediately shouted, "Captain You, our cart is too heavy, the enemy is catching up, what should we do?"

You Zhi was riding in front and running the fastest. He slowed down his horse a little when he heard someone shouting behind him. He looked back and saw that the grassland cavalry had already reached dozens of steps behind the cart. Some were shooting arrows forward, and others were swinging their arms to throw flying stones, hitting the sacks on the cart and making crackling sounds. He hurriedly shouted to the driver behind the cart.

"All the carriages, follow the plan, throw away the sacks to reduce the weight."

The drivers had been waiting for You Zhi to say this. The enemy was getting closer and closer. If they didn't reduce the weight of the carriages, they would really catch up. However, You Zhi was not reluctant to throw away the salt bags, but did it on purpose. He was waiting for this opportunity. Only when the enemy was close enough, the plan would really work.

Sure enough, after he gave the order to discard the sacks, the drivers also took action. In one of the carriages, the driver squatted on the seat, pulling the reins that controlled the direction with one hand, and then turned back and suddenly pushed down a bag of sacks that were piled high behind him.

Bang -

the heavy sacks fell on the grass, which made the Maodun cavalry chasing behind stunned for a moment. They couldn't figure out what this meant. Did the Han tribe give up the white salt? Or did they think that throwing away a few bags of white salt would make them fight for it and stop chasing? How could this be possible? The Han tribe underestimated them too much. Couldn't they go back to pick it up after the fight?

But suddenly, an unexpected situation occurred. The sack that had just fallen was still connected. There was a hemp rope tied in the middle of the sack, and the other end was still connected to the carriage. The cavalry behind immediately looked along the rope. It was not a big deal, but it almost scared them to death.

After the sack fell to the ground, it was dragging a rope on the ground, but the carriage in front suddenly turned and ran diagonally to the left. When it ran a few dozen meters, another sack suddenly fell on the carriage. They only then realized that the rope tied to the sack just now was connected to this sack.

The two sacks fell on the road they were chasing, and there was a hemp rope tightly stretched in the middle, blocking their way like a tripwire.

The people running in the front suddenly widened their eyes, without even a word of cursing, and instantly controlled their mounts to jump over the ropes, but there were also unlucky people who fell down. They were not tripped by the ropes, but were thrown off the moment the horses jumped over the ropes.

Although Maodun obtained a lot of bronze stirrups from the Xin tribe, they were a minority after all, with only a few hundred people equipped. Most people still did not have saddles and stirrups. The people who had just rushed to the front were still bending their bows and shooting arrows, without holding the reins with both hands, and only relying on their legs to clamp the horse's belly. This sudden jump caused many people to be thrown off directly.

Many people in the first row were able to jump over the ropes because they saw them, but the people behind were miserable. They didn't see the trip ropes pulled up by the sacks on the ground, and more than a dozen riders were tripped and flew out with their horses, causing a commotion in the dense cavalry camp. Many people were unable to dodge and had a chain rear-end accident with the horses that fell in front of them, and even trampled the first horses and riders into a pile of rotten meat.

Maodun didn't rush to the front and luckily escaped. Seeing the tragic scene in front, he quickly directed everyone to bypass it. He looked at the mess of sacks and ropes on the ground, and couldn't help but burst into anger. He secretly thought that the people of the Han tribe were too cunning to use white salt to set such a trap for them.

However, he did not stop to check, but continued to chase. He knew very well that the Han tribe wanted them to stop on purpose, and wanted to use a few bags of white salt to induce them to stop chasing. How could this be possible?

You Zhi and others who were running wildly in front saw the tragic scene behind them and couldn't help laughing.

"Hahaha, it's down, tripping you guys to death, and you still want to steal our Han tribe's things, dream on."

"The captain is really amazing, I didn't expect this method to work, I thought it wouldn't work at first."

"Don't say anything, everyone keep running, don't stop throwing the sacks." You Zhi couldn't help laughing when he saw the scene behind.

That's right, the idea of ​​throwing sacks as a tripwire was proposed by You Zhi, but everyone was not optimistic about this plan at first. The tripwire is a good thing, but it's a pity that the sack is too flat, and the rope is not high enough, so the horse can easily jump over it, which is basically useless.

What no one expected was that such a simple tripwire had a very good effect when the enemy was chasing them frantically. It was indeed easy to dodge when the rope was pulled so low, but the people behind had limited vision and might not be able to see it. Moreover, even if they saw it, they might not be able to react in time at such a fast horse speed. As long as one unlucky person was tripped, the consequences in the dense cavalry formation could be imagined.

The carriages in front moved like crazy, dropping sacks while running, leaving a trail of tripwires on the road behind. The enemies chasing in the front were prepared this time, grabbing the horse's mane or holding the horse's neck and jumping over it. However, in this way, although these people were chasing fast, they could not free their hands to shoot arrows in front, which gave the Han tribe's convoy a great sense of security.

But the people behind were not so lucky. They had already known the tricks of the Han tribe, but the trip ropes were getting more and more numerous and dense. Although they used their best riding skills to dodge left and right, and move up and down, some people were still caught in the traps, and they were tripped and fell on the road with their horses, which immediately caused chaos. Some people were lucky enough not to die, but they were still trampled into a pile of rotten meat by their comrades who caught up with them from behind. Some people were directly tripped by the horses lying on the ground, and the horses immediately lost their hooves and rolled forward.

Maodun was chasing behind, anxious and angry, watching his soldiers fall one after another. Now he couldn't even catch up with them, and his loss was so great. But he was also wondering, could it be that the Han tribe really didn't want the white salt, and they were willing to throw it all away?

He was confused and quickly left the pursuit team and went around from the outermost part. However, he saw that the sacks on the carts of the Han tribe caravan were getting fewer and fewer. Some even dropped all the sacks. The lightened carts were running faster and faster. On the other hand, many of his own soldiers had suffered casualties.

Seeing this, he quickly yelled at his own people, "Stop, stop, stop chasing."

After hearing this, the soldiers who were close also hurriedly passed the message to the people around them while running, and then began to slow down their horses, and slowly all stopped. When all the cavalry stopped, Maodun looked forward from a distance. The Han tribe's caravan in front of him had now become bare carts, without a bag of salt on them. He came to rob salt, and now that they had dropped all the salt, why was he chasing them?

The Han tribe members who were still running for their lives in front saw that the enemy had stopped, and immediately shouted, "Captain, Maodun's people have stopped, they are not chasing us anymore."

You Zhi did not even turn his head, and shouted loudly, "Don't worry about them, let's keep running, everyone can change horses now, they will catch up soon."

This time You Zhi's strategy worked, and everyone in the caravan began to admire him. Hearing what he said now, they also hurriedly changed horses as required, and no one questioned his order.

At this time, all the people in Maodun's caravan had stopped, and many people got off their horses and began to carry the sacks, wanting to put the white salt discarded by the Han tribe on their horses and carry it away. Maodun was no exception. He urged the panting horse to walk towards a bag of white salt that had fallen behind, and then lay on the horse's back and reached out to grab it, but this time he failed to pick it up, and almost fell off the horse's back.

"Damn it, why is this salt so heavy?"

Maodun cursed suspiciously, turned over and dismounted, pulled out a bronze dagger from his waist, and stabbed the sack with a sword, but this time it felt very hard, as if it was stabbed into a stone. When he pulled out the dagger and looked at it, he almost spit out a mouthful of blood on the spot, only to see that these sacks that should have been filled with white salt were actually filled with a bag of loess.

"Chief, we have been deceived, those bags are filled with soil."

At this time, other people carrying sacks also found something unusual. The bags of salt were obviously much heavier than white salt. When they opened them and saw the loess inside, they realized that they were deceived by the Han tribe this time.

"Damn it, the Han tribe is too despicable, keep chasing and kill them all." Maodun cursed angrily.

However, one of Maodun's confidants stopped him immediately, "Wait, chief, don't chase them anymore."

Maodun immediately looked at the confidant with doubt, which frightened him. He quickly explained,

"Chief, think about it, since their cars are full of loess, and they deliberately took this road to deceive us, where would their white salt be? I guess either they have another team that went somewhere else, or they are still at the seaside and haven't transported it yet. We are not here to fight with the Han tribe this time, but to seize this batch of white salt. Please think twice."

Maodun thought about it and it was right. Now the most urgent task is not to chase this caravan, but to find that batch of white salt. His tribe needs this batch of white salt to maintain the stability of the alliance. This is the top priority, but he was unwilling to give up the caravan in front of him. He couldn't just be deceived and not express his opinion, so he gritted his teeth and made up his mind.

"The wounded will return to the camp, and the rest will be divided into three teams. One team will continue to pursue the caravan ahead, one team will rush to the hidden bridge in the bay as quickly as possible to see if the batch of white salt is still there, and the rest will search other roads. You must find this batch of white salt for me. Go quickly."

(End of this chapter)