Three Kingdoms: My Strategy Simulator

"No matter what, bite down on Li Ji's vanguard for me!"

Yuan Shu continuously issued orders, the command flags in his hands almost creating afterimages as he waved them.

At this moment, Yuan Shu deeply realized that if he failed to hold onto the Yangzhou army and gave Li Ji a chance to reorganize his troops,

then the combat power of those new recruits under Li Ji, who already demonstrated excellent discipline, after truly experiencing battlefield combat, would likely become even more troublesome.

How could Yuan Shu tolerate his hundreds of thousands of troops becoming sparring partners for Li Ji to train his soldiers, and possibly even have the battle situation reversed because of it?

Biting down on Li Ji's vanguard, even if the Yangzhou army managed to escape, would at least severely damage them, and perhaps even allow him to pursue and annihilate them all the way!

Moreover, no matter how amazing Li Ji's temporary command skills were, Yuan Shu didn't believe he wouldn't make mistakes under constant heavy pressure.

Just one mistake would be enough to doom the Yangzhou army's vanguard.

To continuously put heavy pressure on the Yangzhou army and force them to make mistakes in such a complex situation, Yuan Shu not only ordered the vanguard to bite down on the Yangzhou army, but also ordered the central and rear armies to follow closely and press forward.

He also ordered Chen Lan and Lei Bo to speed up their pursuit of the Yangzhou army and try to outflank the Yangzhou army's vanguard, threatening the flanks of Yangzhou.

In an instant, in the overhead view that Li Ji constructed in his mind, the vast military force of Yuzhou resembled a trident, with one large and two small prongs, constantly pressing forward.

One prong was to bite down on the Yangzhou army, delaying their retreat;

while the other two continued to try to have Chen Lan and Lei Bo lead their troops around the flanks to form a pincer attack and encirclement against the Yangzhou army.

However, Chen Lan and Lei Bo were also leading infantry, and their marching speed was faster than the Yangzhou army's staggered and covered retreat, but only by a limited amount.

This situation was very similar to the math problems Li Ji had learned as a child.

Student A runs forward, student B starts chasing from a certain distance behind A, question: How long will it take for B to catch up with A.

Unfortunately, reality is not a pure math problem, the battlefield is not a track and field competition, but a… prop competition.

Amidst the frequent orders Li Ji issued to the various units of the vanguard, several orders regarding archers were suddenly interspersed.

The Yangzhou army's archers, who had not yet taken action, were not positioned near the central army as one would expect, but were deployed by Li Ji on the flanks of the army.

As soon as Li Ji's military order was issued, the archers on both flanks began to launch volleys at Chen Lan and Lei Bo's troops, who were trying to bypass the vanguard and directly threaten the flanks.

Large swathes of arrows rose into the sky…

Chen Lan and Lei Bo's troops, marching hastily under Yuan Shu's orders, did not expect Li Ji to deploy archers on the flanks, which was contrary to common sense.

In addition, in order to speed up their march, Chen Lan and Lei Bo's troops did not carry shields at all.

This caused large patches of blood to erupt the moment the rain of arrows fell.

Nowhere to hide, nowhere to avoid!

Even though Yuan Shu could be described as extremely wealthy and generous, and even the lowest of his soldiers had leather armor, the area covered by the rain of arrows could not be withstood unless they were heavily armored soldiers covered from head to toe.

This caused Chen Lan and Lei Bo's marching speed to stagnate.

"Someone actually dares to deploy archers on the flanks?"

Chen Lan looked in disbelief at the hundreds of soldiers in front of him who were instantly turned into hedgehogs, and he was both shocked and angry.

The flanks have always been the weakest points of the Han army, and heavy troops are usually deployed for protection, and cavalry is also needed to cover them, to prevent the flanks from being attacked and causing chaos in the entire army.

Li Ji's approach of deploying the most vulnerable archers on the weak flanks was simply unheard of by Chen Lan.

Immediately, Chen Lan wanted to order the thousand cavalry that Yuan Shu had sent over, intending to order them to use the speed of their warhorses to crush the archers.

Archers without the protection of shields and spears would be easily routed by the iron hooves of cavalry with just a moment of contact.

However, when Chen Lan noticed Zhang Fei leading three thousand cavalrymen patrolling outside the flanks of the Yangzhou army, he forcibly calmed down and instantly dismissed the idea of letting a thousand cavalrymen rush over to their deaths.

Lei Bo on the other side was also in a similar predicament to Chen Lan.

With Tian Yu leading two thousand White Horse义从 covering them, Lei Bo didn't dare to let his mere thousand cavalrymen launch a surprise attack on the seemingly fragile archers.

The lack of cavalry, coupled with the Yangzhou army's occasional volleys of arrows to block them.

If the Yangzhou army had been stationary in formation, Chen Lan and Lei Bo were confident that they could lead their troops into the archers at the cost of casualties.

But the Yangzhou army was also slowly retreating, which suddenly made Chen Lan and Lei Bo realize that they seemed unable to touch the flanks of the Yangzhou army at all.

Li Ji only glanced at this expected result and then stopped paying attention.

The restraint between troop types is never absolute.

Adapting to the situation is the key.

During such advances and retreats, the archers' containment was enough to ensure that the Yuzhou army could not catch up and threaten the flanks.

The Yuzhou army's equally scarce cavalry made them helpless against the seemingly dangerous archers.

Now, Li Ji's energy was almost entirely focused on directing the various units of the vanguard to stagger and cover each other, a place where no errors in command could be tolerated.

Li Ji not only needed to synchronize the constantly changing "chessboard" in his mind, but also needed to issue various instructions almost every breath.

In order to command the vanguard to this extent, a full eight command flags were directing the various units of the vanguard.

Moreover, it wasn't just Li Ji constantly and quickly issuing orders, speaking until his mouth was dry and he couldn't stop; the flag bearers serving as the vanguard's command flags were even more exhausted, waving the flags so fast that they were almost sparking.

If these flag bearers hadn't been strongmen selected from the entire army, each with biceps larger than Li Xiang's head circumference, they would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago.

However, Li Ji dared not be negligent in the slightest, and even when sweat dripped from his forehead and across his eyes, causing considerable discomfort, he dared not reach out to wipe it away.

His eyes were fixed on the battlefield ahead, fearing that he would miss any changes, and his brain was constantly running at high speed to calculate the battle situation.

The chase-and-escape battle seemed to have fallen into a brief stalemate again.

At this moment, Li Ji was constantly persevering, waiting for…

Yuan Shu was constantly putting pressure on him, forcing Li Ji to reveal flaws or make mistakes, and completely establishing the battle situation.

The "spectators" around the battlefield were even more frightened by this unconventional battle situation, and while slowly following the battlefield on the periphery, most of them dared not blink, fearing that they would miss something.

As the two armies continued to fight, the battlefield was constantly shifting southward, and without realizing it, the Yangzhou army had already retreated more than two miles.

However, Yuan Shu was still constantly ordering them to bite down on the Yangzhou army, and he didn't worry about the possibility of an ambush.

Not to mention two miles, the terrain within ten miles of the area had already been thoroughly investigated by Yuan Shu, and there were no conditions for setting up an ambush at all.

"Just a dying struggle, what's the point of still persevering?!"

Yuan Shu stood on the battlefield, took a sip of honey water to moisten his throat, and stared at the direction of the Yangzhou army's central army, which had been constantly bitten down on.

Unknowingly, Yuan Shu felt that he could vaguely see Li Ji's chariot directly, and he could vaguely see Li Ji's sweaty and embarrassed appearance.

When Li Ji raised his eyes, he also vaguely noticed Yuan Shu's chariot.

However, the constant high-intensity calculations and commands did indeed make Li Ji sweat profusely, but he was not embarrassed, but rather had a smile on his face.

"It's about time."

(End of this chapter)