Chapter 341: Crush Them!

A night at war was destined to be long.

Ordinarily, when you were tired, you climbed into bed. If you slept well, your eyes closed, opened again, and the entire night had vanished. Dawn arrived before you had any real sense of time passing.

On a battlefield, however, very few people possessed hearts large enough to sleep truly soundly.

Even veteran soldiers who looked as though they were sleeping peacefully—snoring loudly enough to shake the tent—still had half an eye open.

Ran Min could not sleep either.

Not because he was nervous.

Not because he was afraid.

Because he was excited.

He suddenly felt that everything he had lived through before was terribly small.

Perhaps only here could he find the true vastness and turbulence that belonged to his life.

The Squad Leader was awake too.

His breathing had grown a little heavy.

He was probably crying.

The tent was pitch-black.

At least the darkness provided decent cover.

The two men who had died during the day had served under the Squad Leader longer than Ran Min.

They had all come out of Yanjing together.

All had originally been Imperial Guards.

Ran Min did not try to comfort him.

At a moment like this, everyone needed silence.

Everyone needed his own way of digesting things.

Ran Min had once watched blacksmiths forge iron.

The battlefield, he felt, was an enormous furnace.

Everything extraneous was melted away.

All that remained was the purest thing at the bottom.

Fine steel or slag?

Naturally, fine steel.

Because the slag was simply thrown onto the ground.

No one cared about it anymore.

Ran Min did not know whether the siege would continue tomorrow.

Yupan City stood there like a natural barrier.

Taking it by force would be extremely difficult.

Heaven alone knew how many lives would have to be poured into the attempt.

Ran Min did not feel wronged.

Nor was he frightened.

He did not believe his life was worth much.

From the moment he killed Monkey San in open court inside the yamen, every day he had lived afterward was already profit.

Besides—

Ran Min turned his head and looked toward the Squad Leader lying beside him.

It was not merely his own life that was cheap.

The Squad Leader’s life was cheap too.

So were the lives of the brothers lying in all the tents outside.

All their lives, in truth, were cheap.

Unable to sleep, Ran Min sat up.

He pulled the armor toward himself and began wiping it again with a strip of cloth.

He had already cleaned it after returning from the battlefield.

But right now, he wanted to clean it once more.

The Squad Leader yawned and stretched.

Pretending Ran Min had just awakened him, he said:

“What are you doing?

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Cleaning it again.”

Ran Min ran his fingers over a dent in the breastplate.

It truly was good armor.

Otherwise, the arrow shot down from Yupan City’s walls during the day would have taken his life.

“Look at you.

“Heh.”

“I hate to part with it.

“Need to touch it a little more,” Ran Min said.

The Squad Leader sighed.

“Then touch it more.”

Suddenly a distant roar rolled across the darkness.

The Squad Leader bolted upright.

He had slept in his armor, so all he needed to do was throw aside the blanket and grab his saber.

Shouts immediately rose outside the tent as well.

Clearly, the distant disturbance had awakened the entire camp.

“Hoo...”

Ran Min breathed onto the armor.

Then kept wiping.

The Squad Leader stared at him in surprise and cursed:

“What the hell are you doing?

“At a time like this, why aren’t you putting your armor on and waiting with me for the Lieutenant Commander’s summons?”

Ran Min shook his head.

Calmly, he said:

“It has nothing to do with us.”

“You...”

Ran Min lowered his head and continued wiping the armor.

Then he suddenly smiled.

“Tell me.

“If I put this armor on, does that make me Jingnan Army or Zhenbei Army?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Ran Min paused.

Then said:

“But we’ll know soon enough.”

...

At dawn, the savage army divided into three routes and began crossing the Wang River upstream!

The thunder of hooves rolled like thunder itself, smashing apart the final scraps of silence left by the night.

It was as though a vicious beast that had lain hidden for a long time had finally bared its fangs and begun searching for flesh.

Atop Yupan City’s wall, Qu Tiannan had remained standing there the entire night.

The instant he saw the savages’ movement, he did not hesitate.

He immediately ordered the messenger beside him:

“Open the south, north, and west gates!

“Form ranks outside the city!”

The Swordsmith had stood beside Qu Tiannan through the entire night without saying much.

Only after the messenger left did he speak.

“The savages are crossing the river?”

Qu Tiannan nodded.

Then sighed.

“Once we return to Chu, I must personally meet Fourth Highness.

“I will tell him that under no circumstances can we allow those savages to continue developing.

“That Savage King is not simple.

“If he truly gains enough momentum, he will inevitably become a future calamity for Great Chu.”

“And now?”

“Later is later.

“Now is now.

“If the Savage King has the courage to cross the river directly and attack the Yan camps on the western bank and Yingdu, then I must be willing to spend some of my own capital and pin Yan’s finest Jingnan and Zhenbei armies here.

“If this battle succeeds, Yan will suffer another defeat at the Wang River.

“The greater part of the Three Jin already swallowed by Yan may change hands entirely.

“If Fourth Highness can consolidate the state sooner and send another army north, Great Chu may even have a chance to swallow half the Three Jin!”

“Oh.”

The Swordsmith, who only knew how to forge swords, nodded as though he had gained some understanding.

When it came to swordsmithing, he was a professional.

That was why he despised anyone standing in front of him and casually criticizing the swords he forged.

By the same logic, he knew he did not understand warfare.

So when Qu Tiannan, Pillar of State, spoke, the Swordsmith asked questions.

He listened.

He did not argue.

Qu Tiannan ran one hand across the battlement.

Below, he could already hear the city gates grinding open.

Slowly, he said:

“That Savage King has several times more nerve than I expected.

“Right now, I truly want to see what expression that Southern Marquis of Yan is wearing.

“Hahahaha.

“Didn’t you want to force the savages into a decisive battle in the open?

“Then this round— how will you break it?”

Qu Tiannan clenched his fist and thrust it forward.

“The fortunes of Yan should be reaching their end.”

...

Outside Yupan City, the Jingnan and Zhenbei armies began leaving camp and forming ranks.

Three separate forces were deployed, corresponding to the three open city gates.

Three Chu armies emerged.

Each numbered close to ten thousand.

They formed square formations containing saber-and-axe troops, spearmen, archers, crossbowmen, shield-bearers, and more, all using the walls behind them as support.

Chu’s heavy infantry excelled at formation warfare.

Even cavalry found formations like these difficult to break through quickly.

And the troops outside still benefited from support from the city walls.

Three gates stood open.

Three Chu formations had come outside.

It was an act of provocation.

And it also declared one thing openly:

At any moment, they might take the initiative and strike the Yan camps.

Yet the Zhenbei and Jingnan armies merely separated forces of their own opposite the three sections of wall.

They responded calmly.

The Chu did not advance.

The Yan did not let themselves be tempted by the open gates into attacking.

Beneath all three sections of wall, the opposing armies sank into an extremely strange silence.

Ran Min stood carrying his banner.

The Squad Leader was beside him.

The standoff had already continued for a long time.

The Squad Leader muttered under his breath:

“Why the hell haven’t we started fighting?”

Yesterday’s siege had been so lively.

Today, the enemy had opened the gates and marched out voluntarily.

Yet somehow, no one was fighting.

Ran Min looked at the Squad Leader.

He raised the Black Dragon Banner in his hands a little higher.

“What are you in such a hurry for?”

“How can I not be in a hurry?

“The savages over there are already crossing the river.”

“And then?” Ran Min asked.

“What do you mean, ‘and then’?”

The Squad Leader froze.

Then something seemed to click.

A smile actually appeared on his face.

“Right.

“No hurry.”

...

The savage army crossed the Wang River in three separate routes.

They moved quickly.

They simply ignored the risk of the frozen surface breaking.

If some unlucky bastard fell through, then perhaps the stars missed him and had summoned him early into their embrace.

The result of that attitude was tremendous crossing speed.

By midmorning, more than eighty thousand savage cavalrymen had already crossed the Wang River.

More continued coming behind them.

The Savage King had truly smashed the cauldrons and sunk the boats.

If he could win this battle, the entire situation would reverse completely.

The Yan force stubbornly holding Snow Sea Pass would no longer matter.

The situation in the Three Jin perhaps even the entire balance of power in the East would change beneath his feet.

Originally, the Savage King had intended to return to the snowfields first, integrate every tribal force there, and then search for another opportunity.

Now, he had no choice but to begin early.

*Stars...*

*I do not know whether you truly exist.*

*But so many children of the Holy Race believe in you and worship you.*

*For their sake—*

*please protect me.*

Savage scout riders from several directions began returning with fresh battlefield reports.

“King!

“A Dacheng force has marched out from Yingdu!

“Twenty thousand men!”

“King!

“The right wing of the Yan central camp is leaving camp!”

“King!

“The troops from Yan’s left-wing camp are coming out!”

“King!

“The Jingnan and Zhenbei armies beneath Yupan City have been pinned down by the Chu!”

One report after another arrived.

The Savage King’s eyes grew brighter with each one.

Yan’s elite forces were all across the river beneath Yupan City.

Even if they now ignored the threat of the Chu striking them from behind and turned back to reinforce the western bank, they would still be too late.

The Savage King had already dispatched one Ten-Thousand Household formation specifically to the opposite bank to block and delay them.

Next all he needed to do was concentrate his main force and crush the conglomeration formed from Yan’s regional armies, Imperial Guards, and Dacheng troops.

Once that happened the greater trend would be decided!

The Savage King raised the long saber in his hand.

He roared:

“Advance!

“Warriors of the Holy Race protected by the stars!

“For our future!

“For our homeland!

“KILL!”

...

Dacheng troops rapidly marched out from Yingdu.

At the same time, forces poured from Yan’s central camp and the flanking camps.

They quickly gathered upon the open plain in front of the central encampment.

Less than twenty li ahead stood the main savage army that had crossed the Wang River.

The force facing them was a great mixture.

Dacheng troops.

Yan regional troops.

Imperial Guards from Yanjing.

Different armor.

Different banners.

It seemed as though the catastrophic Battle of the Wang River was about to repeat itself.

Then, a roar from a Pixiu rolled across the battlefield.

Immediately afterward, a figure in gilded armor appeared at the front of the army.

Every cavalryman held his breath.

Every chest straightened.

Tian Wujing rode his Pixiu slowly before the ranks.

His gaze swept across the faces of the cavalrymen before him.

At last, Tian Wujing poured the qi and blood of a Martial Artist into his voice and roared:

“LET THIS MARQUIS SEE—

AFTER CHANGING OUT OF YOUR OLD ARMOR—

WHETHER YOU ARE STILL THE SAME MEN!”

Then Tian Wujing raised the Kunwu Saber.

He roared:

“WHERE IS THE JINGNAN ARMY?!”

*SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING!*

Forty thousand cavalrymen on the left raised their sabers in perfect unison.

Tian Wujing turned the Pixiu toward the right.

He roared:

“WHERE IS THE ZHENBEI ARMY?!”

*SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING! SHING!*

Under Li Fusheng’s command, more than forty thousand cavalrymen on the right raised their sabers high!

Tian Wujing turned the Pixiu once more.

He faced east.

He faced the rolling cloud of dust thrown up by the savage cavalry.

And roared:

“WHERE IS GREAT YAN’S IRON CAVALRY?!!!!!!!!”

“TIGER!”

“TIGER!”

“TIGER!”

The roar shook Heaven and Earth.

Killing intent surged straight into the clouds!

The Marquis of Jingnan pointed his blade east.

Then gave the order:

“Crush them.”

[End of Chapter 341]