Chapter 1138: A Tiger Father Has No Dog Sons

Huyan Ding did not care whether they believed him.

He warned them that if they missed the opportunity for battle, they would all be treated as having deliberately allowed the rebels to escape and would become targets for Huyan Wuhen's million-man army to suppress along with the rebels.

He then appointed Huyan Wei as vanguard and ordered him to lead five thousand Valiant Cavalry in a rapid attack to coordinate with Huyan Wuhen's army in wiping out the enemy.

Leading five thousand riders, Huyan Wei's blood surged with excitement. Even so, he was somewhat dissatisfied. His position as vanguard was largely ornamental; actual command had been given to his deputy general.

There was no helping it. Huyan Wei had never been on a battlefield before. Huyan Ding did not trust him enough to hand over five thousand Valiant Cavalry outright, nor could he possibly do so recklessly. Making Huyan Wei the nominal vanguard commander was mainly for show, something the others could see...

A large force suddenly gathering beneath Qingmu Valley could not possibly escape the rebel scouts.

There really was something wrong along their necessary route of march. The rebels were badly frightened, especially Hao Qi.

They initially wanted to take another route, but by then it was too late. According to the reports, the enemy was entirely cavalry. If five hundred thousand troops tried to flee, they would have to abandon large numbers of infantry.

Report followed report from the scouts. In the end, they confirmed that the opposing force numbered only around thirty thousand.

Thirty thousand men trying to contend with an army of five hundred thousand was simply laughable.

The rebel commanders, with Hao Qi at their head, steadied somewhat. They immediately gathered the long marching column and formed battle ranks to await the enemy.

They waited.

At last, thirty thousand cavalry appeared in their field of vision in a vast formation.

Every one of them was dressed like a herdsman.

Some in the rebel ranks smiled in contempt. Hao Yunsheng was especially disdainful. "I wondered where the court had found another army. So they have gone so far as to round up herdsmen to block our road. Which general is willing to claim the first merit?"

"This general is willing!" One officer stepped forward and volunteered.

Hao Qi granted permission.

A corridor opened through the rebel formation. The rebel side likewise sent thirty thousand cavalry out to meet the attack.

Tens of thousands of horses thundered forward.

The two cavalry forces smashed together. In an instant, hoofbeats rolled like thunder, horses screamed, and cries of pain and death rose without end.

The result shocked the rebels.

In a single head-on clash, their thirty thousand cavalry were cut apart and sent fleeing, helmets and armor cast away. They were beaten so badly they could hardly offer any resistance at all.

The thirty thousand "herdsmen" cavalry, by contrast, crossed and interwove through one another with extraordinary discipline. Their offense and defense worked in seamless coordination.

How could a band of herdsmen gathered at the last minute possibly possess this level of collective combat discipline?

After one charge, rebel casualties covered the field. Those who survived fled in panic under pursuit. The entire thirty-thousand-man rebel cavalry force collapsed in a single encounter.

The officer who had volunteered for battle came back weeping to beg forgiveness. Had a group of cultivators not rescued him, he feared he would have lost his life.

The gap in the rebel battle line immediately closed again.

After that single clash, rebel morale plummeted. Hao Qi and the others stared uneasily at the approaching "herdsmen" cavalry, suspicion rising in their hearts.

The thirty thousand riders re-formed their battle array.

This time, they advanced toward the rebels in a triangular formation, holding the ranks steady and pressing forward at a measured pace.

When the distance was right, the grim-faced Huyan Bao drew his sword with a clang. Sunlight flashed coldly along the blade as he swept it forward and roared, "Wind!"

"Wind! Wind! Wind!"

Thirty thousand cavalry shouted as one, their voices seeming to shake the clouds.

With the roar of "Wind!" rolling across the field, the warhorses surged forward together into a full charge.

Wind?

The rebels were shocked. At last they understood why this cavalry force was so ferocious.

Huyan Wuhen's men had arrived.

The rebel army's morale immediately fell into chaos.

Hao Qi cried in alarm, "Valiant Cavalry! It's the Valiant Cavalry! Huyan Wuhen's Valiant Cavalry is here!"

"Grand General, don't shake the army's morale!" Hao Yunsheng erupted in anger and seized Hao Qi by the arm, forcing him to shut his mouth.

He had fought in wars when he was younger and understood battle far better than this nephew.

Behind the wooden anti-cavalry barricades hastily deployed at the front of the rebel formation, archers loosed a torrential rain of arrows, attempting to break the cavalry charge.

The thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry came forward in a triangular formation. The center held its speed while the two points on the left and right suddenly accelerated, spreading outward like a pair of opening arms and curving toward the two flanks of the rebel line.

In the center, the charging riders raised leather shields to block the arrows. Even so, men were constantly shot from their horses and trampled beneath the mounts coming behind them.

The two wings attacking the flanks suddenly changed formation again. The opened arms curved inward.

Every rider smoothly drew a bow from horseback. Every bow was strung. Every man nocked three arrows at once.

A rain of arrows answered the rebels.

They had bypassed the shields at the front of the rebel formation and were now shooting into the archers from both sides of the shield line.

The rebel archers were instantly thrown into disorder, screams erupting throughout their ranks.

The movement looked simple.

Only someone who truly understood cavalry warfare would know how difficult it was for such a large mounted force to coordinate so uniformly and respond to command as though it were one body.

The left and right wings thundered past each other before the rebel front. Some riders hurled chained hooks, caught the wooden anti-cavalry barricades, and hauled with all their strength.

The rebel barricades at the front were immediately dragged into chaos.

Then the central body of the Valiant Cavalry crashed forward, charging through the gaps in the disordered barricade line and plunging directly into the rebel ranks.

Large numbers of rebel cultivators rushed out to intercept them.

Under the cultivators' attacks, many Valiant Cavalry riders were knocked from their horses.

Faced with such a lethal threat, the Valiant Cavalry did not care. They did not stop for the men who fell ahead of them, nor for those falling to the left and right. Those still alive continued charging.

Against the impact of thousands upon thousands of mounted troops, the attacking cultivators among the rebels were like stones thrown into a raging flood. They could throw up splashes, but they could not stop the torrent.

The cultivators accompanying the Valiant Cavalry followed closely behind and joined the fight, suppressing the rebel cultivators.

At the rebel command position, Hao Yunsheng watched with his heart pounding as the front of the battle line was broken in a single clash.

The Valiant Cavalry poured into the formation with blades flashing, charging left and right and tearing the rebel ranks into disorder.

Hao Yunsheng had not expected this at all.

There had been no hidden ambush in the terrain most suited for one inside Qingmu Valley. The enemy had instead chosen to strike them head-on outside the valley.

What he had expected even less was that thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry would dare charge an army of five hundred thousand directly.

They simply did not take these five hundred thousand rebels seriously at all.

"Report! The court's suppression army behind us is advancing at full speed. A cavalry force is serving as vanguard and is already racing this way!"

An urgent military report arrived in the middle of the fighting.

The moment they heard that the suppression force which had been dawdling behind them had suddenly accelerated, the rebels understood.

These thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry were only trying to pin them in place and buy time for the army behind them to arrive.

"Retreat! We have to retreat now!" Hao Qi was extremely tense. He had been thoroughly frightened.

Hao Yunsheng snapped, "Retreat? How can we retreat now? The moment we turn and run, defeat will collapse like a mountain. No one will be able to stop the rout. Once the army scatters under pursuit, we will never gather it again! Without troops, what use are you and I to anyone?"

By "use," he naturally meant usefulness to Jin.

The rebel army had always been a rabble. Only about one hundred and fifty thousand were true fighting troops. The rest were able-bodied men coerced and swept into the force along the way.

Huyan Wuhen's Valiant Cavalry was famed beneath Heaven. The rebels' morale at this moment could easily be imagined. Once disorder began, the more men there were, the worse the disorder became.

Huyan Wuhen had spent a lifetime on campaign and understood these principles intimately. Everything else was decoration. Could thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry really fail to throw one hundred and fifty thousand rebels into chaos?

Sometimes what mattered in soldiers was quality, not quantity.

The more mixed and undisciplined men there were, the more disastrous the confusion once it started. And once that confusion began, it would become impossible to control.

Huyan Wuhen, who had spent his life mastering the command of armies and the slaughter of the battlefield, wanted exactly that.

He wanted the rebels to break into chaos.

That was why he dared send thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry into a frontal charge.

...

At first, the three-hundred-thousand-man suppression army rushing along the road did not believe Huyan Wuhen's great army had arrived.

Then scouts carried away by flying birds returned with confirmation: troops had indeed intercepted the rebels and battle had already begun.

Only then did the generals believe Huyan Wuhen's men truly had arrived.

Huyan Ding had already made the consequences clear. Anyone who delayed the opportunity for battle would be treated as a rebel and suppressed together with the enemy.

Who would still dare drag his feet?

Now that they had also learned Huyan Wuhen's troops had appeared, their confidence surged. The suppression army increased its speed again and advanced at full pace.

Looking toward the battle raging ahead, the bearded Huyan Wei felt half his heart turn cold.

Where was the supposed million-man army?

He feared there were not even a million men if the rebels themselves were included.

He had been beside himself with excitement on the way here. But now that he was actually seeing a battlefield, unease began to drum in his chest.

This meant truly charging in with real blades and real spears.

Before he could think further, the deputy general beside him drew his sword and roared, "Wind!"

"Wind! Wind! Wind!"

The five thousand Valiant Cavalry who had rushed there at full speed immediately accelerated into the charge, howling as they surged forward.

No one shrank before the enemy's numbers. Every man charged without fear of death.

Caught in the middle, Huyan Wei had no control over himself. All he could do was shout blindly and charge with the others.

He could not slow down. He could not dodge left or right. If he did, the iron cavalry charging behind would smash straight into him and trample him to death.

He was forced to go only forward.

When this fresh force struck into the rebels from the rear, the rebel army, already in severe disorder, became even more chaotic.

More than thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry had already torn the five-hundred-thousand-man rebel army apart.

Now, within the confusion, men began ignoring orders and fleeing.

The rebels had always been a rabble. The moment one group took the lead in running, the entire formation lost control.

The rout became complete.

By the time Huyan Ding arrived with the three-hundred-thousand-man suppression force, the battlefield had already become a scene of units splitting apart to pursue and kill fugitives and sweep up the remnants.

The suppression army was extremely enthusiastic about beating a drowning dog.

There was little danger left, yet there was plenty of advantage to seize and plenty of final battle merit to claim.

...

"Eldest Brother!"

Across a devastated field thick with the smell of blood, Huyan Ding and Huyan Wei came forward together to greet their elder brother Huyan Bao.

The three brothers met on the battlefield.

Huyan Bao raised a hand, signaling that there was no need for ceremony. His eyes settled on Huyan Wei. "Third Brother, you're wounded?"

"Just a small wound. It's nothing!" Huyan Wei grinned foolishly, though part of the expression came from pain.

The armor across his back had been hacked apart, and the flesh beneath was a bloody mess. In the chaos, he did not even know who had struck him.

He knew perfectly well that if the accompanying cultivators had not been protecting him as a priority, he would already have died several times over.

Once, he had been knocked from his horse and surrounded by a storm of blades and spears. A cultivator had pulled him out at the last moment. Otherwise, a battlefield novice like him would already have been chopped into minced meat.

He also knew perfectly well that rewards and honors would be waiting when he returned. His imperial father-in-law would certainly not treat him poorly.

Right now, he was already looking forward to going back.

With this experience and these wounds, he would have enough material to boast about in front of his pack of dubious friends for a long time.

Of course, he was still deeply shaken. Even now, the muscles in his calves remained weak with lingering fear.

Huyan Bao said nothing more about it. He turned and looked into the distance, then sighed. "A pity. Hao Qi and Hao Yunsheng got away."

There had been no helping it.

The two still had some usefulness to Jin, and the Jin cultivators had never intended to fight to the death here. The moment the situation turned bad, they fled at once, taking Hao Qi and Hao Yunsheng with them.

They did not care whether anyone else lived or died.

Huyan Bao turned back. "Second Brother, Third Brother, I'll leave this place to you. I still need to hurry and join Father."

This had been the full extent of his mission here. Several tens of thousands of Valiant Cavalry could not completely exterminate the rebel force. The remaining work would be left to the suppression army.

"Yes!" The two brothers cupped their hands together and saw him off.

In this battle, thirty thousand Valiant Cavalry had routed five hundred thousand rebels.

The Valiant Cavalry's name once again shook all beneath Heaven.

And the tale of the Huyan family's three brothers joining hands, defeating a vastly larger force, routing five hundred thousand rebels in a single battle, and wiping out the rebellion became an even greater story celebrated throughout the realm.

People everywhere marveled:

A tiger father has no dog sons!

Most people beneath Heaven knew nothing of the true details of the battle.

They preferred the legend.

[End of Chapter 1138]