Because of Tan Shihuai's actions, the battle between tens of thousands of troops was temporarily halted.
All the Han soldiers abandoned the fleeing enemy, turned their horses around, and went to protect their emperor.
On the vast battlefield, Tan Shihuai led 10,000 cavalrymen, speeding towards the high platform where Liu Hong was located. Lü Bu, Dian Wei, Cao Cao, Gongsun Zan, Wang Yue, and others also spurred their horses on, racing against time.
After escaping some distance, Li Ru looked around, then spurred his horse and headed straight for He Lian, who had fled back to his own camp.
On the city wall, Cao Song and others who were watching the battle were greatly alarmed when they saw Tan Shihuai leading his troops around the battlefield and heading straight for the emperor.
"Quickly, open the city gates and protect His Majesty!!"
As shouts rang out, the gates of Juyan City slowly opened.
The young men who had been guarding the city gate drew their swords and fearlessly filed out, heading straight for the high platform where the emperor was.
"What...what is that?"
The group of young people who rushed out of the city hadn't even taken two steps before they stopped in astonishment.
Before everyone's eyes, a thousand heavily armored cavalrymen were neatly arranged in two rows behind the high platform where the emperor was located.
These cavalrymen, along with their horses, were all clad in thick iron armor, standing there like two steel walls.
Under the sunlight, the armor gleamed with a chilling light, making it impossible to look directly at it.
Just looking at it from a distance gives one a sense of oppressive pressure that makes it hard to breathe.
If such a team were to go to the battlefield, who could defeat them?
These young men could not fathom when the emperor had trained such a terrifying cavalry force.
"Imperial Guards, move!!"
Tong Yuan, standing at the front of the column, raised his spear and shouted, then spurred his warhorse forward.
The two rows of heavily armored cavalry following behind also slowly began to move towards the front of the high platform.
Two rows of heavily armored cavalry, twenty paces apart, with each soldier spaced five paces apart.
From the sky, these two rows of moving heavy cavalrymen looked like two giant iron combs, grooming the tangled grassland.
"They're here!!"
As Liu Hong watched Tan Shihuai rush towards him, bypassing the right flank of the battlefield, a smile appeared on his face as he muttered to himself.
Tan Shihuai, the man known as the grassland warlord, ultimately could not resist his ambition and chose to make a final, desperate gamble.
Just as Tan Shihuai rushed to within a thousand paces, Tong Yuan led a thousand heavily armored cavalrymen to the front of the high platform.
These heavily armored cavalrymen, with their armor and spears, weighed about 80 jin (40 kg) in total. Adding the weight of the soldiers, the total weight was about 260 jin (130 kg).
Only the top-quality warhorses carefully bred by the Danyang Military Horse Farm could bear such weight and launch a powerful charge.
Upon seeing the armored cavalry blocking the high platform, Tan Shihuai didn't think too much. His only thought at that moment was to charge to the platform and capture the Han emperor alive.
"Tan Shihuai, from this day forward, this name will be forever erased from the grasslands!"
Looking at the approaching Tan Shihuai, Liu Hong calmly said something and then sat down on the dragon throne.
"Let the heavy cavalry charge straight in, and the auxiliary troops will follow up and finish them off!!"
In this final moment, Liu Hong issued a formal order to Huangfu Song for the first time.
After glancing at the young guards rushing out of the city to protect the emperor, Huangfu Gui did not object to Liu Hong's order.
Although the enemy force that charged in numbered ten thousand, it was clearly no match for a thousand Imperial Guards cavalry.
Moreover, he had four thousand heavy cavalry auxiliary troops behind him, who had been carefully trained by Tong Yuan and whose combat strength was comparable to that of the Imperial Guards.
With Lü Bu, Gongsun Zan, and others rapidly returning to reinforce from behind, it was virtually impossible for Tan Shihuai to get close to the emperor.
"Imperial Guards, charge!"
At Huangfu Song's command, Tong Yuan led the first rank of five hundred Imperial Guards cavalrymen, and they galloped forward, their Danyang warhorses slowly accelerating with small steps.
When they had run a hundred steps, they had already reached the speed of a charge, with the second row following closely behind.
Meanwhile, Tan Shihuai led 10,000 elite Gaoliu troops, forming a square formation with 2,000 men per row, preparing to use their numerical advantage to overwhelm these heavy cavalry behemoths.
As the strongest army on the grasslands, the Gaoliu Elite is a team skilled in mounted archery. Even in a high-speed charge, they can still draw their bows and shoot arrows.
Just as the two armies were a hundred paces apart, a dense rain of arrows suddenly flew out from the Xianbei army, heading straight for the Imperial Guards cavalry on the opposite side.
However, the arrows they fired were all deflected when they got close to the Imperial Guards, failing to cause any damage to the heavily armored and masked cavalry.
Under the horrified gazes of the Xianbei cavalry, the Imperial Guard heavy cavalry, like steel behemoths, roared in.
The heavy cavalry of the Imperial Guards, wielding their thick black spears, charged forward with such force that they easily pierced through the flesh and blood before them.
The spears of the elite Gaoliu soldiers that pierced the heavy cavalry only made a soft "ding" sound before they could not advance any further and were immediately pierced through the body by the black spears and died.
The first column of heavy cavalry, like a giant, rolling gear, swept directly through the five ranks of Takayanagi's elite troops without the slightest pause.
Before the Gaoliu cavalrymen who had narrowly escaped being pierced by the spears could even recover, the second rank of heavy cavalry arrived one after another.
Faced with two consecutive attacks from the Imperial Guards, Tan Shihuai's Gaoliu cavalry suffered a direct loss of nearly four thousand men.
The square formation composed of 10,000 Takayanagi cavalrymen was directly impacted and collapsed on the spot.
Faced with the overwhelming heavy cavalry, Tan Shihuai, who had narrowly escaped, was completely stunned. He simply couldn't imagine how there could be such a terrifying cavalry force in the world.
And yet, he foolishly chose to confront them head-on.
Tan Shihuai turned his head and glanced at the Gaoliu cavalry, which had been scattered and broken, and Lu Bu and his men who were surrounding them. A sense of despair rose in his heart.
Looking at the auxiliary troops gathered near the high platform and the densely packed Han youths, Tan Shihuai knew that he could no longer get close to the Han emperor.
In this battle, I have been utterly defeated!
After taking a deep look at the Han emperor sitting on the high platform, Tan Shihuai felt a surge of anger rush to his brain. Then, he felt a sweet taste in his throat, spat out a mouthful of blood, and fell to the ground.
With a "thud," Tan Shihuai fell heavily to the ground, his wide-open eyes still fixed on Liu Hong on the high platform, his gaze filled with resentment.
Tan Shihuai gritted his teeth and crawled two steps toward Liu Hong's platform with great difficulty before collapsing to the ground, unable to move any further.
This defeat was like the last straw that broke the camel's back, causing Tan Shihuai, whose life was already nearing its end, to die from a sudden attack of his vital energy and blood.
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