Chapter 170: Rout and Stealing Credit!

Li Fusheng served as the spearhead.

Behind him, the thousand riders of the Formation-Breaking Camp followed close.

Their entry into the enemy lines was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

The forward Qian formation, a hardened battle array built around the Zu Clan Army as its core, was forcibly split open.

And the breach continued widening.

The armor worn by Qian soldiers looked like paper before horse lances carrying the momentum of a full cavalry charge.

Body after body was pierced straight through.

For a moment time itself seemed frozen.

Yet slaughter blossomed at an almost unimaginable speed.

For most of the Qian soldiers inside the formation, that was exactly how it felt.

Those in front watched their own bodies being pierced.

Watched themselves lifted from the ground.

Watched themselves hurled down.

Watched themselves smashed aside.

Those farther back watched the comrades before them being swept away trampled crushed.

None of them had ever seen anything like this in all the years they had lived.

They forgot to run.

Forgot to shout.

Some even forgot how to think.

Their minds turned blank.

Until a Yan general let out a long howl.

He first threw aside his horse lance, which now had four men hanging from it.

Then, he drew his saber.

The warhorse beneath him crashed into the shield line.

And Li Fusheng leapt from the saddle straight into the formation.

The Formation-Breaking Camp followed without hesitation.

They used their horses as battering rams.

Used their own bodies to smash forward.

Everything was done to create better conditions for the riders behind.

Shieldman after shieldman was knocked flying.

Some crashed to the ground.

Some coughed blood.

And finally the shield line collapsed.

The cavalry's momentum continued.

The archers and crossbowmen behind the shields suddenly found themselves completely exposed.

"HA!"

Li Fusheng's saber never stopped.

Every Qian soldier who entered his sight was cut down.

And he savored it the warm blood bursting from their bodies and splashing across him.

If only the whole world were red.

Thick.

Sticky.

Wouldn't that be beautiful?

Once a battle reached the point where archers and crossbowmen had to face enemy cavalry directly the result had already been decided.

And at that same moment, the cavalry units that had spent so long circling the formation, probing and applying pressure finally launched their true charge.

No more wheeling.

No more feints.

No more turning aside.

They drove directly into the formation with the brutal force of cavalry!

Zu Dongcheng felt his hands and feet go cold.

Something in his mind began to shatter.

Since childhood, he had watched his father return victorious again and again.

After entering the army, he had followed his father through victory after victory.

And all of it had built one belief inside him the Zu Clan Army was one of the finest armies beneath Heaven.

That faith shattered.

Collapsed.

Caved in.

They could not beat them.

They truly could not beat them.

Once a man's deepest belief collapsed, he often became incredibly fragile.

With the pillar inside him gone another emotion began filling the hollow space.

Fear.

Fear swept through the heart of the Zu Clan Army's Young General.

How were you supposed to fight Yan troops like this?

How could anyone possibly defeat them?

They were madmen.

A pack of lunatics who seemed not to understand pain who did not fear death!

And worse these lunatics were terrifying in both tactics and individual quality!

"Brother Dongcheng!

"Go!

"Go quickly!"

Zhong Mao shouted madly beside him.

But in Zu Dongcheng's world, it felt as though some invisible membrane had sealed everything away.

Nothing around him seemed real anymore.

Nothing seemed to possess meaning.

Smack!

Zhong Mao slapped the flat of his saber against Zu Dongcheng's horse.

The startled animal bolted.

The violent jolting beneath him and sudden loss of balance dragged Zu Dongcheng's awareness back into his body.

"Where there's life, there's hope!

"Brother Dongcheng, this defeat is not your fault!

"Run!

"Get out alive!"

Zu Dongcheng's pupils slowly regained focus.

Yes.

Run.

He needed to run.

He could not die.

Absolutely could not die!

No one knew whether Zu Dongcheng truly believed he needed to preserve himself for future use or whether he was simply terrified of death.

Not even Zu Dongcheng himself knew.

But right now he was like a drowning man who had suddenly grabbed hold of a pole.

Instinctively desperately he clung to it and climbed.

The moment the Formation-Breaking Camp cut the Qian forward formation into two halves, the entire structure of the battle line disintegrated.

Then the cavalry formations around it slammed inward.

At last, the formation collapsed completely.

Back when Green Willow Fortress's cavalry faced the Wolf Native Troops who had chased them beyond Mianzhou City, that battle had been extraordinarily satisfying.

The Wolf Native Troops simply had no education in how true cavalry warfare worked.

The Qian force before them, however, did understand cavalry.

They understood how terrifying it could be.

They had made the correct decisions.

Chosen the correct response.

But it still did not matter.

First the numbers were not far enough apart.

Thirty thousand infantry against twenty thousand cavalry already placed the infantry at a disadvantage.

Second the army before them was the strongest iron cavalry force in the world!

Zheng Fan could not help sighing inwardly.

Li Fusheng might genuinely be mentally ill but his eye for battle was viciously sharp.

He had not chosen the eastern Qian formation, the easiest-looking section, as his breakthrough point.

He had gone straight for the hardest bone.

And it had not been some warrior's childish obsession with pride.

Nor had it been an urge to seek challenge for challenge's sake.

Because the result had already proven the logic.

The instant the front Qian formation collapsed the eastern formation, which had remained shaky but still intact, exploded immediately.

Then, the western formation, which had remained stable and had not suffered nearly as much pressure collapsed as well.

People possessed herd instinct.

On a battlefield, when emotion had already been raised to an extreme state of tension and excitement, it became very difficult to maintain clear thought.

Eventually instinct took over.

Others are running?

Then what should I do?

Run too!

The chain reaction was complete.

Those who did not want to flee were swept along by those already fleeing.

They had no choice but to run with them.

The entire Qian army collapsed!

In truth, from the beginning of the battle until now, Qian's casualties had only numbered a few thousand.

Yet that was already enough to destroy an army of thirty thousand.

Once infantry collapsed and lost formation they were effectively lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Liang Cheng had once told Zheng Fan in many wars, the casualties suffered during the actual head-on clash were only a very small part of the total.

The real killing began once one side broke and the other pursued.

And now, the hunt belonged to the Zhenbei Army.

This genuinely was hunting.

First drive the prey.

Then harass it.

Wear it down.

And finally shatter its courage in one blow.

This was Zhenbei Army tactics.

And at the same time an art of war.

Humans and animals were very different.

Of course they were.

But sometimes they truly were not all that different.

The central force containing Zheng Fan began moving too.

Earlier, Garrison Commander Zheng had pretended not to notice the personal guard offering him a horse lance.

But at this point remaining behind and continuing to watch would be far too conspicuous.

More importantly it was finally time for Zheng Fan's favorite part of war.

Stealing heads!

The central cavalry did not follow directly behind the troops already breaking the enemy.

Instead, it surged around the flank.

Huge numbers of Qian soldiers had begun fleeing south.

The central Zhenbei cavalry then charged directly across the middle of the fleeing mass cutting diagonally through!

In an instant—

Qian soldiers were killed, trampled, and thrown everywhere.

It was like striking a snake at its seventh inch.

That one move completely destroyed any possibility of the Qian army gathering itself again.

Whatever unit structure remained was shattered.

"Holy shit!"

Zheng Fan had attended university.

But at a moment like this those two words were still the only thing that could express how he felt.

This did not feel like fighting a battle.

It felt like elegantly cutting a steak at a Western dinner.

Precise.

Refined.

When those two qualities reached an extreme they became a kind of beauty.

The beauty of war.

Of course, beauty was beauty.

Shock was shock.

But when the Zhenbei riders around him began seeing red and desperately hacking apart any fleeing Qian soldier within sight—

Zheng Fan deliberately pulled himself out of that feverish atmosphere.

As a senior professional kill-stealer—

Garrison Commander Zheng understood perfectly well.

The heads of ordinary Qian soldiers were not worth much.

It was not that Garrison Commander Zheng had become too important to care about small scraps of merit.

The problem was Green Willow Fortress's cavalry had not come out with him.

If it was only himself and Liang Cheng collecting heads how many could they possibly cut down?

If he was going to take a head he wanted a big fish!

Prince Fu's head had been worth two thousand Wolf Native Troops all by itself.

The Blind Man had once privately told the other Demon Kings their Master was actually the kind of man who became calmer the more serious the situation grew.

And look he had managed to drag himself out of the battlefield frenzy and activate the internal radar for stealing merit.

Without a big heart that truly would not have been easy.

First rule look for men on horseback!

Infantry who were already fleeing were easy to kill.

Ride up behind them.

Swing once into the back.

Done.

If they did not die immediately, they still fell and rolled across the ground.

But Qian generals should be mounted!

So Zheng Fan's eyes constantly swept across the fleeing Qian cavalry.

He scanned the area.

No one seemed to be wearing the kind of flashy, arrogant armor Deng Ziliang once favored.

Fuck.

Were all these Qian generals cowards?

Not one dared wear a set of bright, eye-catching armor?

Still—

Garrison Commander Zheng had another method.

Look at the horses.

Zheng Fan had awakened in Beifeng Commandery.

From the very beginning of this life, he had spent most of his time around cavalry.

After so long immersed in that world he could judge a warhorse fairly well.

Find a good horse.

Find a fine mount.

Suddenly—

Zheng Fan saw a chestnut warhorse tearing across the field.

Big fish!

Zheng Fan immediately urged his horse after it.

The fleeing Qian infantry around him were completely ignored.

But as the gap narrowed—

Zheng Fan hesitated.

Because the Qian rider ahead was built far too heavily.

Especially those arms.

They looked like the limbs of a long-armed ape.

Ahead a Zhenbei rider had just cut down a Qian foot soldier.

He turned his saber and moved to intercept that "big fish."

Who would have expected the big fish swung once and knocked aside the Zhenbei rider's saber.

Then, kicked the other horse directly in the belly.

Bang!

Horse and rider were kicked off the ground together and sent flying sideways.

Gulp.

Zheng Fan swallowed unconsciously.

This big fish was dangerous.

Old Fifth Han seemed to sense the pursuit and turned to look at Zheng Fan.

He apparently intended to wait for Zheng Fan to charge in knock him aside then continue fleeing.

How could a man capable of becoming a Military Commissioner's favored son-in-law possibly be simple?

The Qian army might have lost but Old Fifth Han's personal skill had not disappeared!

Among all those pampered military heirs, if they compared only battlefield fighting skill perhaps that Yue Huan fellow with the long spear could trade dozens of moves with him.

The others?

Not worth mentioning.

But something baffled Old Fifth Han.

The Yan rider who had been chasing relentlessly from behind... stopped the instant he stopped.

Twenty meters separated them.

Then, instead of continuing toward him the Yan rider did not even look in his direction.

He simply began riding in little circles on the spot...

Old Fifth Han stared, bewildered.

But he also knew there was no time to waste.

He turned and fled again.

After riding some distance—

Old Fifth Han looked back.

The Yan rider was still standing where he had stopped.

When the man noticed Han looking at him he even waved impatiently.

Like shooing away a fly.

As though urging him to get lost faster.

Too arrogant!

Old Fifth Han instantly felt the fury of being despised.

Did the bastard think he was not worth killing?

For the briefest moment—

Old Fifth Han almost turned around and rode back to skewer that Yan dog who had looked down on him.

But seeing the larger Yan cavalry formation spreading outward in pursuit he gritted his teeth and kept fleeing.

Meanwhile, Zheng Fan had no idea he had just walked along the edge of the gates of Hell.

Once he confirmed that trying to cut down that big fish by himself carried a serious risk of being counter-killed—

Garrison Commander Zheng immediately began searching for a new target.

He did not consider himself cowardly.

The battle was already won.

If he took an unnecessary risk now and somehow died wouldn't that be the worst possible loss?

Just as Zheng Fan started scanning the battlefield again an arrow came flying from some unknown direction.

He did not even know whether it had been fired by a Qian soldier or some blind Zhenbei rider.

By pure coincidence it struck his horse in the rump.

The horse instantly went mad.

Its body lurched sideways.

Then it charged diagonally forward.

Before it had gone far—

Zheng Fan saw a white horse coming toward him.

By another absurd coincidence the two mounts crashed into one another.

Bang!

Out of the corner of his eye, Zheng Fan saw the jade pendant hanging at the Qian rider's waist.

A long tassel hung beneath it.

Holy shit.

Big fish.

Another big fish!

And this man's expression was filled with panic.

A frightened big fish!

Zheng Fan did not hesitate.

Black light burst from his body.

He swung his saber directly at the man.

The two horses were pressed against each other.

Their bodies were practically colliding as well.

At that point there was almost nothing else he could do besides strike.

But Zu Dongcheng had followed his father onto battlefields since youth.

He had grown up immersed in war.

Even though his mind was unstable right now even though he was fleeing in panic those instincts carved into him over a lifetime were real.

When black light erupted around Zheng Fan white light burst from Zu Dongcheng as well.

Judging by the fluctuation of blood and qi—

Zheng Fan could tell the man's strength was roughly equal to his own.

Probably Eighth Grade.

Maybe barely Seventh Grade.

Yet although Liang Cheng, Xue San, and the others had constantly trained Zheng Fan through sparring over the past half year his genuine life-and-death experience remained far below this Young General's.

So when Zheng Fan's saber came down—

Zu Dongcheng did not even raise his own blade.

Instead, he leaned backward.

Zheng Fan's saber chopped into his armor.

Right across the chest where there was probably also a heart-protecting mirror.

The blade carved a deep groove.

It almost counted as breaking through the armor.

But it did not penetrate far enough to inflict serious damage.

At the same moment—

Zu Dongcheng seized Zheng Fan's arm.

Buzz!

Zheng Fan felt his entire body suddenly lifted.

Then, he was thrown from the horse.

When he hit the ground he braced himself with his left hand.

Sharp pain exploded through his palm.

The skin had been torn away badly.

And because so much force landed on that arm his wrist twisted painfully as well.

Zu Dongcheng did not take advantage of the moment to kill him.

Right now, he was simply a general trying to escape.

He could not waste time.

After throwing Zheng Fan from the saddle—

Zu Dongcheng planted both feet into the stirrups.

He stabilized himself.

Then urged the horse forward again.

Two big fish.

Both about to slip away right before his eyes?

And judging by that jade pendant this young man's status was definitely unusual.

Zheng Fan shoved a hand into his clothing.

He pulled out the stone containing the Demon Child.

Then hurled it directly toward Zu Dongcheng, who had only just begun riding again and had not yet opened much distance.

At the same time he shouted, "SON!"

Whoosh!

To an outsider—

Zheng Fan had merely thrown a rock.

But the speed of that rock... calling it an arrow from a bowstring would actually have been too conservative.

Zu Dongcheng suddenly heard a sharp tearing sound behind him.

A warning exploded inside his mind.

But before he could react the stone containing the Demon Child smashed directly into the armor on his back.

Bang!

It was as though someone had swung a giant hammer and struck him with everything they had.

Zu Dongcheng was blasted from the saddle.

He crashed violently onto the ground.

Garrison Commander Zheng immediately scrambled to his feet.

Ignoring the searing pain in his palm he sprinted over.

Zu Dongcheng struggled to rise.

But that strike had broken who knew how many bones.

Worse the blood and qi throughout his body had been scattered by the impact.

For the moment he could not circulate his strength at all.

Unwillingly he turned his head toward the side.

He saw the Yan rider he had thrown from the saddle earlier running rapidly toward him.

Closer.

Closer.

"I am—"

Zheng Fan kicked him directly in the head.

Bang!

Zu Dongcheng felt a violent impact inside his skull.

Then everything went black.

He fainted instantly.

Zheng Fan looked down at his own left palm, scraped into a bloody mess.

His wrist throbbed as well.

Probably a minor crack.

Then, he spat a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva onto the ground.

And cursed, "Your grandmother!"

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(End of Chapter)