“Turmoil”: Battle for the Han Empire sample -- TPMThorne.com

“Remember that I want them smashed,” Cao Cao said as the Xiongnu rebels and Bandits gathered for the battle.
“They will be,” Xun Gongda promised.
The Yan Province army was divided into 8 blocks of infantry with cavalry at front and rear and a large, elevated drum - with dual drummers - placed behind each unit. The Bandit-Xiongnu alliance was typically disordered; Yufuluo rode back and forth with his subordinate chieftains and bodyguards while the entire rebel force hurled insults and hollered at the government force.
“EVERYONE IS IN POSITION!” Dian Wei bellowed.
“…DO IT!” Cao Cao ordered.
Xun Gongda raised a small flag; the drummers started to beat out a rhythmic pattern, and the units shifted about to form groups of perpendicular human walls.
“The Han men dance for us!” Yufuluo heckled. “Charge them!”
The horde of Xiongnu rebels charged at the Yan array without fear or restraint; they picked a unit that looked vulnerable, but that was exactly what Xun Gongda had intended.
“I don’t like it!” Big Eyes said to Fixed Gaze. “Arrays are bad!”
“Yufuluo should know that, what with Xiongnu men being used in Han arrays so much!” Fixed Gaze replied. “He’s either arrogant or ignorant!”
“Both!” Big Eyes retorted. “What do we do?”
“…Pray…?” Fixed Gaze said as he watched his Xiongnu allies disappear into the maze of enemy soldiers; Xun Gongda signalled for a second time, and the drummers changed the beat that they were playing shortly afterward.
“Tricks! Stupid, weak tricks!” Yufuluo complained as he and his men realised that the shifting walls of men were now closing around them; the Yan cavalry moved freely, as they knew the carefully-rehearsed opening well, but the Xiongnu were confused as open spaces quickly became phalanxes and solid walls became enticing paths to they-knew-not-what. One by one, the Xiongnu men fell, but they were doing little damage in return.

“We’ll have to charge!” Fixed Gaze decided.
The Black Mountain Bandit force charged at the outside of the array; Xun Gongda raised another flag, whereupon signalmen carried further messages to the ends of the battle lines. Within seconds, Cao Xiu and Xiahou Dun led two forces forward from the flanks and Dian Wei charged from the centre, dealing demoralising savagery on the men that he encountered.
“Smash through! Get Yufuluo out!” Fixed Gaze ordered.
But the bandits were faltering in the face of the new attack, and some of the smaller groups within the confederacy were fleeing the battle to save themselves. Archers at the rear of the array fired at the charging bandits, and many were felled and killed.
“…Damn it, damn it!” Fixed Gaze cried as he broke off his attack and turned to flee. “Sorry, Chanyu! You’re on your own!”
Yufuluo and his dwindling cavalry darted through the gaps in the array while doing their best to avoid the spears, swords and pikes that jutted out of the human walls and the cavalrymen that awaited them at seemingly random points; Yufuluo was hurt several times before he decided that a suicidal charge at one part of the infantry wall would be his only chance, however slim. The gamble worked; Yufuluo was stabbed in the thigh, but he and his decimated force cut through and escaped the trap.
“Move, move!” Yufuluo ordered. “We have to go!”
The battlefield became a sea of death that was accompanied by a cacophony of orders, cheers, yelps and screams of pain and the sounds of feet, hooves and blades; Cao Cao’s head was pounding, and all that he could think of was the need to destroy his enemies.

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