Chapter 374 Kebinengs Mistake (2/2)

Pages and squares also had knight armors, but they only covered for their vital spots, such as the chest, head, and a portion of arms and shins.

The full plated knights were difficult to kill with slashing or thrusting weaponry, such as swords, arrows, spears, and lance. There was a record that a well-armored knight could take on a hundred light-armored soldiers if the men had only slashing and thrusting weapons.

Thus, many western soldiers wielded hammers, maces, and blunt weapons to counter these knights. The only way to kill these tanks were to smash them to internal bleeding or crippling them to submission.

Xu Huang's 10,000 heavy cavalries were sporting the expensive full plate mails. As a result, these arrows were a joke to the soldiers.

They stood still with their horses, tanking all the oncoming arrows as they fired theirs.

Ten minutes after the exchange, the defending archers were routed. All of them fled back into their camp to their horses.

Xu Huang did not follow up with the attack. Instead, he rearranged their horse formation.

All light cavalries covered his flanks while the heavy armored ones form a triple-line formation, getting ready to charge at the enemies.

Soon, 15,000 surviving riders got out of the camp with their horses. The Xianbei attempted to use their hit-and-run tactic with their horse archers as they ran around Xu Huang's formation in a circle.

”Whoops, this is troublesome. All light cavalries, charge into the camp and burn it down! As for knights, gather in a square formation and don't move. Reload your crossbows and keep firing at the enemies!”

Against moving targets, Xu Huang chose not to follow after their rhythms. Instead, he defined his paces and avoided unnecessary casualties.

By sending all light cavalries into the camp, it would pressure the Xianbei that they could not ignore their defense forces. Had they ignored it, their granaries, tents, and all supplies would be burnt to ashes.

Xu Huang used a mind game against the barbarians. He wanted to pressure them into returning to the camp, so they would be put in a defensive position. With this move, the pace of this fight would fall into his hands.

As if Xu Huang was playing chess, he predicted five scenarios that could happen after this move.

One, all enemies could return into the camp and focus on defending. In this scenario, Xu Huang could take his time to wither the enemy numbers before dusk.

Two, the enemies splitted into two groups. One would focus on defending while the other one would continue using the horse archer tactic on his heavy knights. Xu Huang believed that this scenario was likely to happen as it should be a standard protocol for the defenders.

Still, once they splitted themselves too thin, he would withdraw the light horsemen and concentrate on weeding out the troops on the outside.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

Third, the enemies could charge at the heavy horsemen. This would be a check-mate had the Xianbei rushed at Xu Huang as the knights had advantages in melee combats.

Fourth, the enemies would retreat with organized troops. They would reenter the camp to control the fire and chase the light unit out. Then, they would secure the granaries, supplies, and slowly withdraw back from this location.

And the last scenario, the Xianbei would chase the light cavalry unit inside the camp and seek to eliminate them. This could also benefit Xu Huang as he could use the light horsemen as baits. Then, branches of strategies would follow after this.

Still, it seemed he overestimated them. He did not know that Kebineng, the only talented general in this army, had gone out with the scout team.

The Xianbei horsemen ignored the camp and concentrated on fighting Xu Huang in the open, which was a tactical mistake. Without protection on the primary supply depots, they were asking Xu Huang indirectly as ”Please burn my granaries.”

Both sides continued to trade arrows for 30 minutes, which Xu Huang welcomed it with a sadistic smile.

The light horsemen did their job, burning down the entire camp and fled back to Xu Huang's position.

As for the useless Xianbei horse archers, they fled north after the flame devoured their entire encampment.

Looking at the retreating soldiers, Xu Huang had a complicated emotion. He was disappointed that the enemies were too weak, yet he was glad that he won.

”How dullard. Well, let's return.”

Xu Huang did not pursue. He led his men back to the camp.

.

At Dusk, all Kebineng soldiers gathered at Mount Dahei, the place that they used to hide and ambushed Zhang Bao.

From the initial 20,000 men, only 12,000 survived from the fight against Xu Huang.

The death of Xianbei's soldiers was nothing to Kebineng, but the loss of his assets, the granaries, and all weaponry pained him. Kebineng could feel his heart ached when he thought about the provision that he had lost.

”YOU MORONS! WHY DIDN'T YOU PROTECT THE BASE!?”

”T-The enemies are too tough! They were immobile, so we thought we could have killed them easily. But our arrows can't kill a single of them!”

”THAT IS NOT AN EXCUSE! WHY DIDN'T YOU DEFEND THE BASE!?”

A fist landed on the commander's face. Kebineng had lost it.

His rough breathing scared all of his followers. Fortunately, Kebineng was sane enough not to kill all of them.

”A loss is a loss. Since Xu Huang has journeyed this far, their rear should be weak. We'll detour and follow through with our old plan.”

His followers regained hope as they recalled their former plan that they had discarded. In this plan, they would seize Linyu County and steal their supplies. Then, they would flank Xu Huang from behind and take their weaponry.

”We'll adjust our schedules. Instead of flanking the Silver Axe, we'll take everything and return to our territories. We don't need to linger in Han's land anymore.”