Chapter 713: Using Himself as Bait

He couldn't make sense of it.

Meng Shanming had been carried up the mountain together with his wheelchair, all the way to the foremost edge of the encirclement. He personally observed Chen Shaotong's troop formations inside the pocket, yet still could not see anything suspicious.

There was one point, however, that made him give a slight nod of approval. "His troop dispositions are quite methodical. A son-in-law whom Zi Pingxiu singled out from among Song's officers is indeed no mediocre man."

Su Qitong said, "There is a rumor that Chen Shaotong was made by Zi Pingxiu and held back by Zi Pingxiu as well. They say his ability back then was actually no weaker than Luo Zhao's, but he never had Luo Zhao's luck. Supposedly he suffered humiliation over certain matters and paid the price for having no background or patronage. His ambitions went nowhere, and that was why he finally agreed to become Zi Pingxiu's son-in-law."

"There is another version with more to it. They say Zi Pingxiu took a liking to him as a prospective son-in-law, but Chen Shaotong refused. Afterward, the humiliations he suffered were actually arranged by Zi Pingxiu in secret to force him to bow to reality."

"According to that story, after Chen Shaotong first refused, Zi Pingxiu listened to an adviser beside him and let the matter drop. But when Zi Pingxiu's daughter heard that the man chosen for her had actually refused to marry her, she could not swallow the insult and secretly went looking for trouble. Then she fell for him at first sight, captivated by his extraordinary martial bearing. The young lady made such a scene of wanting to live or die depending on whether she could marry Chen Shaotong that Zi Pingxiu was finally left with no choice. He had to use methods to force Chen Shaotong to submit."

Zhang Hu, standing nearby, looked astonished. "Old Su, you actually pay attention to this kind of bullshit gossip?"

Su Qitong chuckled. "I only had people look into him after hearing that he was leading troops into the field. We couldn't go in blind, so this came up along the way. In any case, whether the rumors are true or false, once Chen Shaotong climbed Zi Pingxiu's great tree, both advantages and disadvantages followed. His rank rose, but they say he was heavily ostracized within the army. The Song emperor did not want Zi Pingxiu's hand reaching too deeply into the military, so for all these years Chen Shaotong has mostly been left in idle posts, with strength but nowhere to use it. I hear that if we had not invaded this time, Chen Shaotong still would not have had his chance to emerge."

Zhang Hu gazed into the distance. "His formations do have some discipline to them, but the spirit and bearing of his men cannot compare with the river-defense troops. One glance is enough to see that they are not of the same caliber."

Su Qitong cupped his hands toward Meng Shanming. "Marshal, my men are ready. We can move at any time. Shall we test his depth now?"

Meng Shanming hesitated slightly, but in the end he nodded. "Be careful."

There was no avoiding it. They had to test him sooner or later. They could not possibly let themselves be frightened off by a deliberate show of mystery. This stumbling block had to be kicked aside somehow.

"Marshal, rest assured. This is only a probe. If I discover he is truly bluffing, I will take advantage of the momentum and wipe him out!" With that, Su Qitong immediately turned and said to his deputy in a deep voice, "Pass down the order. Launch the attack according to plan!"

"Yes!" The deputy accepted the order and left.

Before long, a force came threading through the mountain forest.

The Song army was not blind. It immediately noticed the abnormal movement, and low horns began to sound.

The Song troops inside Bulao Mountain stirred at once when they heard the alarm and rapidly took up the defensive positions prepared in advance.

Chen Shaotong, who had been inside his command tent, rushed out as soon as he heard the warning. A general came running up to report. "Great General, the Yan army has launched an attack."

Chen Shaotong followed the direction of his pointing hand and saw a body of troops emerging.

Once Su Qitong saw that the Song forces had discovered them, he swept out one hand.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

War drums thundered through the forest.

"Kill!"

A force of fifty thousand men charged out with a deafening battle cry.

A shield formation led the way. Behind it, groups of soldiers carried crude wooden rafts overhead. Tens of thousands advanced behind the shields with large numbers of the rafts raised above them.

The Song front line had already dug trenches and filled them with sharpened wooden stakes. Behind the trenches stood rows of defensive chevaux-de-frise. A mass of Song archers appeared, and at the commander's shout of "Loose!" a rain of arrows instantly filled the sky, as though even the air were trembling.

Dense volleys came pouring down. Arrows struck the shields with a sudden, piercing clatter, while the wooden rafts erupted with rapid thudding impacts and were turned into porcupines almost at once.

Men emerged beneath the rafts. They too were archers. Drawing arrows, nocking strings, and bending their bows, they shot back even as they ran.

Charging while returning fire, shields, rafts, and archers working together with practiced precision. Whether troops were elite or not revealed itself at moments like this.

A fair number of soldiers who exposed themselves through gaps between the rafts were shot down by enemy arrows, but the losses did nothing to slow the Yan assault.

Seeing casualties already appearing among his men, Su Qitong's jaw tightened as he stared into the distance.

Atop the mountain, Chen Shaotong stood in armor with one hand gripping the hilt of his sword. His own jaw was equally tense as he stared fixedly at the battlefield.

He could see the enormous difference in fighting quality between his defending troops and the enemy. Under the incoming attack, the Yan formation did not fall into disorder at all. On his own side, despite being the defenders, the moment the enemy arrows began causing casualties, obvious panic appeared in the ranks.

The military-law enforcement troops had to kill several men on the spot before order was restored.

Once the Yan troops had crossed the plain between the two mountains and reached the trenches, the shield-bearers at the front immediately crouched low and opened a path. The soldiers carrying the wooden rafts behind them hurled the rafts forward together, laying them directly across the trenches.

Some rafts overshot, but that did not matter. The possibility had been anticipated. Vines had been tied to the rear of each raft, and soldiers behind them hauled on the ropes, pulling the back ends up until the rafts once again rested on the near bank.

The shield-bearers who had led the charge and then crouched aside immediately raised their shields and rushed onto the makeshift bridges, charging for the opposite bank.

"Not simple. These must be elite Yan troops!" Chen Shaotong forced the words through his teeth as he watched from afar.

The Song cultivators assisting at the front could hardly allow the enemy to succeed. Sword qi slashed out one wave after another. Some attacks sent charging men tumbling into the trenches; others simply severed the crude bridges. Groups of Yan soldiers fell into the pits and were impaled on the wooden stakes below, screaming miserably.

Yan cultivators refused to be outdone. They rushed forward as well. Some blasted soil into the trenches to fill them, while others flew out to engage the opposing cultivators, clearing a path for the army behind them.

The two forces were simply not comparable in quality. Before long, the Song defensive line was thrown into complete disorder, and large numbers of Yan troops broke into the defended area.

Watching this, Chen Shaotong's eyes nearly split with rage and his knuckles turned white. He had more men than the enemy and had been holding prepared defenses, yet a single enemy assault had broken through the line. He could not help grinding out a curse. "A pack of useless trash!"

His deputy beside him said urgently, "Great General, give the order!"

Chen Shaotong glanced toward the direction of the commander's great banner standing in the mountains ahead and snapped, "What is the hurry? Wait a little longer. Are you telling me several hundred thousand men cannot stop a few tens of thousands?"

The deputy said painfully, "Great General, to put it plainly, our men are a rabble. If we keep resisting head-on, all we will do is suffer enormous casualties. We could at least pretend to retreat!"

Chen Shaotong rounded on him. "Shut your damned mouth! The enemy has clearly surrounded us with heavy forces. They could launch a full assault at any time. Why did they send only a few tens of thousands? This is a probe. A probing attack, do you understand? Their commanders are staring at us right now, looking for anything suspicious. Feign defeat? If we pretend to lose under these circumstances, do you think the enemy commander is an idiot who cannot see through it? Fight back with everything we have. If we lose, then we lose for real in front of them. Otherwise, the moment we make the wrong move, we will scare them away!"

He pointed at the deputy's nose. "I am using myself as bait. What I want is not these paltry tens of thousands of enemy troops! Make this pack of useless trash hold. Let them all see blood first. Let them fight until their eyes turn red. Only then will they have the courage to pursue and kill later. Otherwise they are all soft-legged cowards! Pass down the order: resist with everything you have. Anyone who disobeys is to be executed!"

"Yes!" The deputy gritted his teeth and accepted the order, turning to deliver this cruel command.

The one hundred thousand civilian laborers on the mountain trembled with fear at the sight. Chen Shaotong did not have enough troops, so he had conscripted one hundred thousand laborers to accompany the army as logistical support, helping to transport grain and perform similar work.

Watching large numbers of troops surge out from the mountains to surround the Yan force that had broken through the defensive line, Chen Shaotong stared toward the Yan command position for a while longer. Then he turned his head and asked, "You are certain it will not harm our own men?"

Beside him stood a general in armor whose appearance had been disguised. The man answered slowly, "Great General, rest assured. Over these past days, the medicine has already been secretly mixed into the army's food and drink. Its effects have seeped into the bodies of the men, causing them to give off a special scent. Those things will not attack the soldiers under your command. Great General, you already tested it on yourself. Why are you still worried?"

Chen Shaotong nodded slightly and drew a deep breath.

It was not that he did not trust the method. He simply needed to confirm it again and again. This was a battlefield, where no mistake could be afforded.

He had lain dormant for many years. Now that he had finally obtained an opportunity, he did not want the slightest error. Otherwise, he would have no way to answer either to his father-in-law or to himself.

After estimating the enemy's movements for a while, Zhang Hu stared at the battlefield and said, "Four hundred thousand troops, and it looks like he has already concentrated about half of them to resist our probing attack. This does not look like a trap. Chen Shaotong really may be putting on a mystifying bluff."

Su Qitong immediately cupped his hands toward Meng Shanming as well. "Marshal, even if there is a trap, there is nowhere left for it to hide. The enemy has concentrated large numbers here to resist us, leaving the surrounding defenses too thin. And this rabble fights no better than this. We can launch the full assault now and annihilate these four hundred thousand enemy troops in one stroke!"

He was getting anxious too. His few tens of thousands were facing several times their number. If they did not reinforce the assault soon, then even if they eventually won, those troops would suffer catastrophic losses.

They could hardly withdraw now. They had already tested the enemy's depth. Pulling back at this point would make all the earlier sacrifices meaningless.

Meng Shanming frowned.

Gong Lince, standing beside him, did not interrupt. He merely turned his head and watched Meng Shanming, realizing that the old marshal was showing a rare hesitation.

"Marshal, we can launch the full assault!" Zhang Hu added.

In the end, Meng Shanming nodded and gave way. "Attack."

He still had doubts, but after probing this far, he truly could not see what kind of trap the enemy could be hiding.

Su Qitong's face lit up. He immediately turned and ordered, "Have my forces launch the full assault at once!"

"Yes!" His deputy accepted the command and rushed away to pass it down.

Before long, the Haozhou troops waiting in reserve to the rear advanced together with the court forces. Altogether, roughly five hundred thousand men poured into the mountain forests from every direction.

War drums thundered around Bulao Mountain. Great masses of troops burst from the surrounding woods, crossed the open ground, and charged toward Bulao Mountain from all sides, their battle cries shaking the heavens.

"Great General, the Yan army has launched a full assault!" The deputy came running over to report again.

"I'm not blind. I can see it!" Chen Shaotong swept his gaze from side to side, a savage look rising on his face.

At the cost of heavy sacrifices, he had finally hooked large numbers of Yan troops.

He whipped around toward the disguised general beside him and barked, "Begin!"

[End of Chapter 713]