Chapter 76: True to Its Reputation

Yan Duo was speechless. He could hardly continue obstructing Xiang Wuren from carrying out his mission. If the general later shifted responsibility onto him, Yan Duo would be the one unable to bear the consequences.

What Yan Duo did not know was that before coming here, Xiang Wuren had already given Zhou Shouxian a military pledge that he would accomplish the task. There was no room for further argument.

Xiang Wuren's troops were already assembling at speed. The warhorses hidden farther away in the mountains had been brought out as soon as the order arrived.

The four cultivator scouts rapidly glided back and reported, "There are troops lying in ambush in the mountains. We don't know their exact numbers, but there should be many!"

There truly was an ambush?

Feng Ruonan was startled. She seized her long spear, and her entire presence changed.

With a sweep of the weapon, she shouted, "Form ranks!"

The cavalry and infantry traveling with her immediately shifted into battle formation. Shields rose. Archers pulled arrows from their quivers and set them to their bowstrings, ready to loose. Shang Chaozong gave a hand signal. His own cavalry rapidly readied their weapons as well. Bai Yao glanced toward the fellow disciples on either side of him. They understood and prepared themselves. Before long, masses of men began emerging from the forest ahead. Anyone with even a little battlefield experience could estimate the scale at a glance.

No fewer than ten thousand. Xiang Wuren rode from the forest with a spear in hand and reached the front of his formation. Yan Duo and the other cultivators followed slowly on horseback behind him.

"As expected. They didn't flee!"

Xiang Wuren laughed loudly. Then his spear snapped forward.

"Cavalry charge! Infantry follow behind! Whatever happens, tie them down!"

A man beside him immediately raised an ox-horn bugle and blew. A deep, mournful call rolled out, signaling the attack.

"Kill!"

The cavalry commander swung his long spear and roared. In an instant, more than a thousand warhorses surged forward. The cavalry formed into a wedge and charged with battle cries, the ground trembling beneath the thunder of hooves. Behind the cavalry formation, Xiang Wuren rode forward at an unhurried pace, keeping control of the advance. Nine thousand infantry formed an assault formation and pressed forward behind him. Seeing the enemy launch a direct charge, even those who had never experienced a battlefield could feel the impact of the sight.

Niu Youdao had seen his share of the world in his previous life, but even he had never witnessed more than ten thousand men fighting with cold weapons. Bai Yao and the other cultivators activated their Dharma Eyes and rapidly surveyed the enemy's charging formation. No one knew exactly what they were looking for. Feng Ruonan glanced sideways at Shang Chaozong.

"Your Highness, the people coming to arrest you are here. We're badly outnumbered. Surely you're not afraid? If you want to flee, do it now. It'll be too late once they're closer."

Shang Chaozong turned and glared at her. Feng Ruonan looked disdainful.

"I've long heard of Prince Ning's fame on campaign, but that has nothing to do with you. Your people won't accomplish much standing at the front either. Better move to the rear. Take your men back quickly and stop getting in the way. This general will protect you. No need to worry."

This time it was not only Shang Chaozong. Every one of his personal guards turned toward her with jaws clenched tight. In years past, the Yingyang and Wulie Guards had shaken the realm with their might. That was their pride. When had anyone ever looked down on them like this? And now they needed a woman to protect them? One look at their expressions told Niu Youdao something was wrong. He inwardly cursed. Then he hurried to advise Shang Chaozong.

"Your Highness, don't act out of wounded pride!"

Shang Chaozong ignored him. He looked back toward his younger sister, Shang Shuqing, then drew the Saber hanging diagonally from his saddle. Shang Shuqing raised a hand and removed her veiled hat. With a casual toss, she cast it aside, revealing her ugly face.

Then she reached into the baggage behind her saddle, pulled out a folded piece of cloth, and shook it open into the wind. A great red battle standard blazed like flame. Upon it, a golden eagle spread its wings as though it were a phoenix soaring reborn from fire. Several holes pierced the standard, apparently left by arrows. The eyes of hundreds of personal guards fixed on that battle flag. Chests rose and fell. Unspoken emotion moved through them. One guard handed over a long spear.

Shang Shuqing fitted the flag to it as a pole, hoisted the spear onto her shoulder, and raised the battle standard high into the wind. Feng Ruonan and the troops from Guangyi Commandery all turned toward the battered standard streaming in the air.

Seeing the situation turning dangerous, Bai Yao said heavily, "Your Highness, you are the enemy's target. Do not act recklessly!"

Shang Chaozong ignored him too. His gaze went forward. The enemy cavalry had already closed much of the distance.

He raised the Saber in his hand and roared, "Who is willing to die?"

Behind him, the personal guards suddenly bellowed as one.

"Yingyang! Wulie!"

Horse-chopping sabers came free one after another. A fierce killing aura spread through the ranks. The collective roar came without warning and startled Feng Ruonan's troops.

Shang Chaozong roared again, "Who is willing to die?"

Hundreds of personal guards answered together.

"I am!"

Shang Shuqing threw her own voice into the cry.

"I am!"

At that moment, whether she was ugly or beautiful no longer mattered. No one paid attention to her appearance. Lan Ruoting, the man who looked every inch a scholar, shouted with them as well. He drew the sword at his waist.

Who is willing to die?

I am!

The call and response sent an inexplicable shock through every man and woman of Guangyi Commandery. Niu Youdao turned to look at the pack of madmen behind him. Yuan Fang and the other monks of Nanshan Temple stared in astonishment. Yuan Gang whipped his head around, jaw tight, and fixed his gaze on them.

"Your Highness..."

Niu Youdao tried one more time to stop him. Shang Chaozong had already hauled on the reins and made his warhorse rear. The instant its forehooves struck the ground, it shot forward like an arrow loosed from the string. Shang Chaozong rode alone at the very front, brandishing his Saber. There were no shouted battle cries. Hundreds of personal guards immediately spurred after him. Their killing intent seemed to erupt outward with the thunder of hooves. Behind Shang Chaozong, Shang Shuqing looked almost like a frail young woman.

Her slender figure carried the battle standard and followed close behind her elder brother. Lan Ruoting, normally the rational scholar, did the same. For dignity and honor, the small remnant of Prince Ning's old forces charged as one. It was as though they were giving a final, voiceless, hysterical cry for the living and the dead alike. Frail woman or scholar, not one sought an easier road. They went forward without hesitation, charging head-on into an enemy cavalry force more than twice their size.

Faced with this scene, every one of them seemed to have lost all reason. Niu Youdao swept his sheathed sword sideways and stopped Yuan Gang just as he was about to urge his horse after them. So many warhorses had already built up a violent charging formation. Amid the chaos of sabers and spears, even Niu Youdao would not dare claim he could protect himself. How could he let Yuan Gang throw himself into that danger?

The instant Shang Chaozong's people charged out, their numbers were plainly small, yet the force of spirit that gathered around them struck Feng Ruonan's heart like a hammer. She knew soldiers. Her gaze fixed on the man charging at the very front.

She twisted her mouth forcefully and said with apparent disdain, "As commanding general, he doesn't think about directing the battle and instead rushes ahead like a headless fly. Nothing but the courage of a common brute!"

Those were her words. But inwardly, she understood that with so few men attacking together under circumstances like these, there was little meaningful command to give.

"Princess Consort, this is no time for spite. Why haven't you sent in the troops?"

Bai Yao rebuked her heavily.

"No hurry," Feng Ruonan said. "Let him test the enemy's true strength first, then we'll respond. You only need to keep an eye on him."

Since she had spoken, Bai Yao said no more. Commanding troops on a battlefield was Feng Ruonan's expertise. He signaled with one hand. Two fellow disciples, both Golden Core Realm cultivators, immediately spurred their horses forward at speed. Their purpose was naturally to protect Shang Chaozong from any accident. Under ordinary circumstances, cultivators did not charge directly into the melee when two armies fought. A small number of cultivators were of limited use once they entered a battlefield.

Even if you were powerful enough to chase an army into retreat, how many men could you personally kill? And if an army did not retreat but charged straight at you, how much could one person stop? Once morale collapsed and defeat came like a landslide, personal strength was useless if no one listened to you. At most, a small group of cultivators joining battle could increase the enemy's casualties. The larger the scale of the battle, the less influence individual cultivators had on its outcome.

As for those whose cultivation was truly high enough to reverse the result of a war through personal force, they already stood at the top of the food chain. They only needed to sway certain people from above. What meaning was there in personally joining this sort of slaughter and taking on the karmic burden of so much killing? As Feng Ruonan had said, a commanding general's role was not to charge the battle line but to direct the army. The purpose of retainer cultivators was to protect that commander.

Boom!

The two bodies of cavalry smashed violently together. Shang Chaozong swung his saber with both arms and knocked aside the spear thrust at him by an enemy officer. In the instant their horses crossed, his blade whipped back and cut the officer from the saddle. The kill was clean and decisive. He was plainly very familiar with mounted combat. The two currents of men and horses interlocked and collided. Riders fell. Horses reared. Men roared. Shang Chaozong hacked left and right with the Saber as he drove forward.

Blood splashed across his face and body. The personal guards on his flanks and behind him followed at any cost, never allowing him to become isolated. Whenever one man was knocked from the saddle, another behind him immediately drove his horse forward and desperately filled the gap. They were maintaining both the rhythm of the charge and Shang Chaozong's protection. The cooperation among the remnants of the Yingyang and Wulie Guards was extraordinarily practiced.

Some were even willing to die simply to preserve the integrity of the charging formation and maintain its greatest possible force. Among so many men, Shang Shuqing's figure looked especially slender. Her teeth were clenched around the strain as she bore the battle standard on her shoulder.

She had seen much of military camps before, but this was the first time she had truly entered a battlefield and fought for her life. Unlike her elder brother, whom their father had forced onto battlefields while still in his youth, she had no such experience. To say she felt no fear or tension would have been a lie. But she had no choice. Severed limbs flew. Heads were cut away. Screams tore through the air. Sabers and spears flashed in every direction. Blood sprayed.

The smell of blood grew thick enough to choke on. Amid the continuous clash of metal, Shang Shuqing felt nausea rise as the sharp stench of blood struck her nose.

She forced it down, shook her head, blinked blood from her eyes, and gritted her teeth as she desperately kept close behind her brother. She almost hugged the flagpole against herself. With one hand she controlled the reins. With the other she drew a sword. Whenever some stray saber or spear thrust her way, she fought to knock it aside. Fortunately, most threats were intercepted by the personal guards on either side. Lan Ruoting knew swordsmanship, but there was no room for fancy technique here.

The sword in his hand simply hacked and slashed. His small amount of sword practice was enough to strengthen the body and provide basic self-defense under ordinary circumstances. On a battlefield, it was ornamental. Without the personal guards protecting him, it would not have been enough. The two cavalry forces soon killed straight through one another and separated. The cavalry flying the Wolf Fang Bandits' banner had plainly been thrown into complete disorder. After breaking through, riders scattered in every direction, no longer maintaining any coherent formation.

Shang Chaozong's force, by contrast, remained a single iron plate. Wherever the battle standard went, everyone followed. Fewer than five hundred cavalry had cut straight through a thousand enemy horsemen in a single charge. Most of those thrown from horses and left sprawled on the ground belonged to the force under the Wolf Fang banner. Two or three hundred had fallen in that one head-on clash alone. Shang Chaozong's losses were plainly much smaller.

Outnumbering them more than two to one, yet being beaten into this state in a single exchange? Xiang Wuren, advancing behind the charge with his infantry formation, was badly startled. By now he could make out the battle standard flying within Shang Chaozong's ranks. He sucked in a breath.

"The Yingyang and Wulie Guards? No wonder..."

Feng Ruonan, likewise advancing while maintaining her formation, held her breath. She bit lightly at her lip, shaken somewhere deep inside. So this was the legendary Yingyang and Wulie Guards under Prince Ning, said to conquer wherever they attacked and win every battle they fought? A trace of shame rose in her as well. On a battlefield, soldiers who raced one another toward death and advanced without hesitation could not be humiliated by anyone.

Bai Yao said slowly, "It is said that Prince Ning once led ten thousand men of the Yingyang and Wulie Guards to rescue the emperor, cutting through a hundred thousand troops of the State of Han as though no one stood before them. Seeing them today, I know their reputation was deserved!"

Ahead, Shang Chaozong was already leading his riders into a wheeling arc. He turned back toward the enemy cavalry, whose formation had been shattered, and once again charged at their head. Behind him, the slender figure carrying the battle standard hugged the flagpole tightly and followed without falling behind...

[End of Chapter 76]