Chapter 85 Chapter Eighteen

Brother Dongpo's "Journey to the Songfeng Pavilion" said: "Although the two battles are connected, the drums are like thunder, if you advance, you will die, and if you retreat, you will die. When you are like this, you might as well rest." That is to say, even if you are in On the battlefield, the attack has already begun, and if you advance, you will die at the hands of the enemy, and if you retreat, you will die under the military law. However, as long as the heart is free and unrestrained, you can still rest as you want, who cares about these and those! When writing this article, Dongpo was in an old temple deep in the mountains, and there was no one in the middle of the night. Naturally, he was easily distracted, and his writing was romantic and boundless.However, Dongpo has never served in the army in his life, let alone on the battlefield, so it is difficult to understand the situation and feelings of being an ordinary soldier.

The truth is, Brother Dongpo, once you are on the battlefield, you are no longer the genius Su Shi, you can only be Song Bingjia or Song Bingyi.You can no longer think rationally, and you no longer have free will. You have become a member of the army collective, and in you, more can only be reflected in the collective unconsciousness.The collective is like a huge magnetic field, which mercilessly magnetizes the individual in it. The individual is no longer himself, but becomes a tool that is not controlled by his own will. This is almost impossible for geniuses or idiots. escape from reality.

Therefore, it is impossible for you to rest. You can either rush with everyone, or retreat with everyone. As a special collective, the army is compulsively constituted. When soldiers join the army, they usually have no room for negotiation or freedom of choice.The stability of an army collective organized against the will of the individual is mainly dependent on two emotional ties, one is the soldier's affection for his leader, and the other is the soldier's affection for his fellow soldiers. Although there are millions of officers and soldiers of the new dynasty lingering in Kunyang, these two ties are extremely fragile.These soldiers were temporarily recruited from various states and counties of the empire. They were in a hurry, they were not trained, and they were extremely strange to each other. As for the commander Wang Yi, to these soldiers, he was so far away that he almost did not exist. .

To the surprise of Liu Xiu and others, the rumors they spread were far more lethal than their swords.In the face of such rumors, officers and soldiers, as a collective, have fully exposed their inferiority—the collective is always impatient and impulsive, easy to suggest and credulous, and contagious to each other, and then quickly transformed into action. The direct consequence of the spread of rumors was that the two emotional bonds that maintained the stability of the officers and soldiers were instantly broken, which caused great panic. The soldiers no longer obeyed any orders issued by their superiors. Every soldier began to care about his own interests and tried to Save your own life, and no longer consider the safety of your companions.

At the same time, the celestial phenomena changed suddenly on the battlefield.Wang Yi already knew that there would be rain today, but he never thought that it would be a torrential rain that had never happened in a hundred years.When the battle between the Han army and officers and soldiers was in full swing, God was not willing to be lonely, and started a Gothic performance in Kunyang: black clouds shrouded, thunderbolts thundered, strong winds, rain poured down, roof tiles, tents, Flags are flying all over the sky, and the space between the sky and the earth is dim, a scene of the end of the world.This undoubtedly further exacerbated the panic of the officers and soldiers. Everyone found that the whole world was against them, and they had only one last thought - to escape.

So they scrambled to be the first and collapsed.The transformation of officers and soldiers from a highly organized and powerful army into a fugitive collective was completed almost instantly.In the process of fleeing, the fear was further strengthened by the mutual infection, and finally turned into hysterical panic. According to daily experience, the crowd always chooses the most chaotic way to get along without a unified command, which is also consistent with the principle of entropy increase in the universe.When the officers and soldiers in Kunyang were suddenly defeated and scattered, they also chose the most chaotic way to escape.Like a group of frightened animals, they dropped everything and ran towards Luoyang, colliding and jostling each other. As long as one person unfortunately fell down on the way, he would be trampled into meat paste by the subsequent flow of people.

The officers and soldiers were like a flood, which was unstoppable for a hundred miles. Wang Yi and Yan You led the army to kill hundreds of people in an attempt to prevent the rout, but this deterrence was undoubtedly too slim, and the flood would always go where it wanted to go. The officers and soldiers fled to the shore of the Hushui River. The continuous heavy rain caused the water level of the Hushui to soar, and the waves were rolling, as wide as the ocean. Even boats could not cross, let alone people?However, the officers and soldiers turned a blind eye to the danger in front of them, and rushed into the river one after another, and were immediately swept away by the raging waves.It is unbelievable that the officers and soldiers still jumped into the raging water one after another, as if there is heaven and the safest place in the world.

Obviously, when these soldiers are alone, they must be able to think carefully about the situation at the moment, carefully weigh the pros and cons, and then draw a logical and most in line with their own interests: rather than being drowned in the river, it is better to turn around and The Han army fought with millions of people, how could it fail against eight or nine thousand people on the other side? However, when they were in the group, these soldiers could no longer think or question. The hysterical panic was like a whip in the hands of a giant, whipping them, so that they could only move forward numbly and obediently, even if there was a sea of ​​swords and fire ahead, It's safer than coming back.

The greatest fear is often fear itself.For these officers and soldiers, they are no longer even afraid of death, what makes them afraid is the fear itself. For example, if a high-rise building catches fire, once the residents start to panic, they don't even try to save themselves, or wait for the fire brigade to arrive, but open the windows and jump directly.From a rational point of view, the probability of surviving by jumping off a building may be lower. However, the intense panic has made them unable to think. Another example is that an army of dozens of people can often manage thousands of prisoners of war in a submissive manner.The prisoners of war did not think rationally: as long as they unite and resist, they will have a greater hope of survival.And a more extreme example is: Even if the prisoners of war knew that they would be slaughtered, they would still not choose to resist, but to accept it, like lambs, pitiful and tragic.

Facts like the above that can be explained by irrationality abound in history and reality.And the secret is to immerse the crowd in a collective unconscious, unable to wake up and think. The nobles of ancient Rome were well versed in this.Ancient Rome had a large number of slaves, and the total number even accounted for more than half of the country's population.It was suggested that slaves should wear a special kind of clothing for identification, but the Senate wisely rejected it, for the simple reason that if the slaves saw that they were outnumbered, they would run amok and even rebel.After the Manchus entered the customs, regardless of the huge reaction of the Han people, they forced to shave their heads and make obedience easier. Millions of Han people died as a result, and it had a similar effect unintentionally: Han people adopted the Manchu costumes, and Han and Manchu were so confused that it was impossible to distinguish , so it is difficult to realize that there is actually a disparity in power balance between the Han and Manchu.

Returning to the Kunyang battlefield, it was not only the officers and soldiers who collapsed in fear, but also animals.Thunderbolts from heaven and earth, torrential rain and thunder, under such ravaging power of heaven, the tigers, leopards, rhinoceros, elephants, and wolves brought by Wang Yi's army also began to panic, trembling, broke free from the cage desperately, and ran wildly.Suddenly, such a strange spectacle appeared on the battlefield: tigers, leopards, rhinos, and wolves ran wildly among the crowd, not for eating people, but for escape.When humans saw these ferocious beasts, instead of being afraid, they ran wildly with them, and once the beasts blocked the way of the crowd, the crowd even beat them. Yes, this is no longer a defeat, but a collapse.The situation could no longer be reversed, and with remorse and hesitation, Wang Yi lost all thoughts and drew his sword to kill himself. His subordinates hurriedly rescued him. Regardless of Wang Yi's resistance and insults, they forced Wang Yi onto his horse and retreated to Luoyang. Thousands of elite soldiers guarded Wang Yi, struggling to move forward in the chaotic ranks of officers and soldiers. No one was willing to give way to them, no one was willing to sacrifice himself to let the leader go first, and no one stopped to blame Wang Yi for his command mistakes, which caused everyone Take today's dead end.The officers and soldiers rushed forward in a swarm, and Wang Yi's guards could only hack and kill, cutting a bloody path through the dense crowd.