Chapter 342: Despair

The torrent of iron cavalry began to thunder forward.

The last time cavalry armies on this scale had collided head-on was when the Marquis of Jingnan and the Marquis of Zhenbei opened the Jin campaign and shattered the Helian and Wenren clans one after another.

Now, across the lands of the Three Jin, that vast spectacle of iron hooves roaring like thunder unfolded once more.

In truth, the Marquis of Jingnan did not know exactly what had happened in the savages’ rear.

When he first sent Zheng Fan’s force deep behind enemy lines, his original intention had been for Zheng Fan to sever the connection between Yupan City and Chu while also creating a diversion. As for how much Zheng Fan could accomplish, what sort of results he might achieve, and how greatly he might influence the overall campaign, the Marquis of Jingnan had expectations—but he would never place all his genuine hopes inside the basket named Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan was a disciple he had personally instructed and cultivated. Tian Wujing trusted his ability to lead troops, and Zheng Fan had almost never disappointed him.

But what happened on the main battlefield still had to be settled on the main battlefield.

No matter how complicated or profound a stratagem might be, it could never make the savages obediently stretch out their necks and wait to be slaughtered. In the end, everything still had to be decided in a real clash of formations.

No matter how elaborate the arrangements or how perfect the groundwork, their purpose was ultimately nothing more than to make the wind at the final decisive battle blow slightly more in your favor.

The constant rotations and redeployments of various forces over the past several days had not merely been field exercises. They had also been a great sleight of hand—a matter of switching the flowers and grafting the wood.

The armor and banners of the Jingnan and Zhenbei armies had been exchanged with those of Yan’s regional troops, the Imperial Guards, and the Dacheng army.

The key to the entire deception had been one thing: secrecy.

Why had so many former Dacheng officials, military officers, and Lieutenant Commanders been beheaded at the slightest misstep during this period? Why had military law become so savage that no one dared cross the line even half a step?

To outsiders, it looked as though the Marquis of Jingnan were establishing his authority through blood.

In reality, those executions were merely the outward consequence of his need to isolate information.

To put it coldly, when rooting out spies and maintaining secrecy, he truly preferred to kill a thousand by mistake rather than let one guilty man slip through.

Perhaps, in all of Great Yan, only the Marquis of Jingnan possessed enough absolute control over so many separate armies to wage war in this manner and force such a plan through.

The original scheme had therefore been to use this “switching the flowers and grafting the wood” deception to create an opportunity for Yan’s true elites to meet the main savage army in a direct battle.

If General Zheng had been here, he would undoubtedly have applauded the Marquis of Jingnan and shouted, “Six-six-six!”

You like using the old “Tian Ji’s horse race” trick, Savage King?

Fine.

Then I will simply switch the horses beforehand and give you Tian Ji’s horse race in reverse.

Of course, the original arrangement had not been intended to be quite this aggressive. More groundwork should have been laid first, slowly guiding the savages into the trap.

But as Tian Wujing shifted his own troops and watched the savages reposition in response, he sharply sensed that something seemed to have gone wrong in their rear.

The Savage King had once lamented that he would rather not have known about Snow Sea Pass at all.

Because the moment he knew, every troop movement he made afterward—no matter how carefully disguised—would inevitably carry a trace of deliberate intent.

The Marquis of Jingnan did not know that Snow Sea Pass had already fallen into Shengle Army hands, much less that the defense there remained in excellent shape.

He had even considered whether some major tribe in the snowfields had suddenly rebelled, forcing the Savage King to worry about his rear.

But the true reason did not matter.

All Tian Wujing needed to understand was that, in addition to “lacking grain,” the savages had suddenly gained another layer of urgency.

If your enemy was in a hurry, then why not help him hurry a little more?

So other troops wearing Jingnan and Zhenbei armor and carrying Jingnan and Zhenbei banners crossed the river overnight. Siege equipment was pushed across as well. The entire move relied upon one judgment: the Savage King would not willingly come beneath Yupan City to relieve the Chu army.

Battlefield stratagems, when stripped to their bones, were also contests of psychology between opposing commanders.

You studied the enemy commander’s habits and style, predicted how he would react, then arranged your pieces upon that prediction.

It was like a thousand-layer pastry.

He thought you stood on the third layer.

In reality, you were standing on the fifth and looking down at him.

Of course, calling this a “gamble” was not entirely accurate either.

Half the Savage King’s army belonged to his own direct line.

The other half came from various tribes.

Rather than a true army of one state, it was closer to an alliance of bandits.

They had come to steal.

And by now, they had already stolen an enormous amount.

Just as a man who had struggled for years eventually wanted to stop, enjoy himself, and savor the rewards of his labor, these tribes were the same.

Once they had eaten their fill, drank their fill, and stuffed their arms with loot, asking them to gamble away their own foundations in another desperate battle was extremely difficult.

And often it was not the “king” who controlled the will of the group.

Rather, the group’s collective interests demanded a “king” who represented them.

Differences in political structure and the nature of a state revealed enormous consequences at moments like this.

Profit available? Advance.

No profit? Withdraw.

Benefits ahead? Fight.

Nothing to gain? Hide.

The Savage King and those tribal headmen might speak every day about how their ancestral homeland could never be abandoned, but in their hearts they had all prepared to run back to the snowfields the moment the situation turned bad.

That stood in brutal contrast to the Eastern Expedition Army, where everyone from top to bottom had been choking on the need to avenge the comrades who died in the Battle of the Wang River and wash away the Yan army’s humiliation.

Why had the Marquis of Jingnan and Marquis of Zhenbei stood behind the Emperor of Yan and trampled the great clans beneath cavalry hooves?

To end precisely this kind of fragmentation inside Yan.

To allow the Emperor’s will to drive the will of the entire state.

There was a saying: no matter how many plans you made, they could never outrun one unexpected change.

Far to the east, at Snow Sea Pass, General Zheng had unknowingly delivered one magnificent divine assist.

Like the flap of a butterfly’s wings raising a monstrous wave, Zheng Fan’s action made every arrangement the Marquis of Jingnan had laid around the Wang River feel as though the enemy himself were feeding him moves one after another.

It was still that same Pixiu.

Still that same suit of gilded armor.

Still that same frost-cold Kunwu Saber.

Still that same man charging at the very front of the army.

And behind him rode the combined strength of the two finest and most battle-hardened iron cavalry forces in all of Great Yan.

A frontal charge.

A straightforward clash of blood and steel.

For the Yan army, that was where their advantage had always lain.

The people of Yan possessed that confidence.

Yan cavalry possessed that faith.

General Zheng had always envied the way the Marquis of Jingnan could charge at the very front beneath the eyes of tens of thousands.

It was probably a dream that had lived in the heart of nearly every boy.

But not every commander was Tian Wujing.

Tian Wujing dared do this because he was a terrifying Martial Artist who had personally defeated the Sword Saint in single combat.

If every commander imitated him and charged into the enemy at the front, only to have his head cut off in the first collision that would be an entirely different story.

At this moment, more than eighty thousand cavalrymen followed the Marquis of Jingnan eastward.

Every horse maintained the same general pace.

Rather than charging into battle, the army seemed to be warming itself up.

A strong army burned with passion before battle.

A terrifying army was utterly calm before battle.

The force riding behind Tian Wujing belonged to the latter kind.

As the savage host ahead became clearer and clearer, the Marquis of Jingnan began lowering his saber.

The Kunwu Saber swept north.

The leftmost ten thousand riders immediately peeled away from the main force and accelerated north to begin a wide flanking maneuver.

The Kunwu Saber swept south.

The rightmost ten thousand riders likewise broke away and accelerated south.

Each time the saber fell, another ten-thousand-man formation separated from the main body and entered its own axis of attack.

Back when Zheng Fan first followed Li Fusheng south into the State of Qian and encountered a Qian army, Li Fusheng had simply taken up his lance, joined the Assault Battalion, and gone off to enjoy himself without paying much attention to commanding the army.

Because the force he led was the Zhenbei Army.

This was an army capable of chasing barbarian cavalry across the desert.

Below its Chief Commanders, every Guerrilla General and Assistant General knew what he was supposed to do once battle began and where he was supposed to be.

Most importantly, they did not fear death.

That did not mean every man regarded death as home.

But they understood one principle: on a battlefield, there were moments when you truly had to choose to sacrifice yourself for the greater situation.

In fact, the single greatest reason for the decline of the desert barbarians had been the destruction of the Golden Clan and most of its direct line during the old Barbarian King’s western campaign. Afterward, the desert tribes fell into a state without a true leader.

It was not that the barbarians had forgotten how to fight.

It was not that their horsemanship, archery, or cavalry skills had deteriorated.

Otherwise General Zheng would never have loved absorbing barbarian soldiers into his own forces so much.

What they had fundamentally lost was the ability to bind themselves into one whole.

Even when alliances formed, each faction still carried its own private calculations.

The newly risen savages were suffering from exactly the same problem now.

The reason the Marquis of Zhenbei’s Residence had suppressed the desert barbarians for a hundred years lay here.

Across generations, every Marquis of Zhenbei had been the absolute master of Beifeng Commandery. Even successive Emperors of Yan found it difficult to interfere directly there. They had even needed to send imperial princes to grow up alongside the next Marquis of Zhenbei in every generation so the two houses could build personal bonds.

That was why the three hundred thousand troops of the Zhenbei Army had always understood themselves as one whole.

They might be divided among six commands, but every man knew he belonged to one great military bloc.

Naturally, this system carried disadvantages too.

Back when the Emperor of Yan and Marquis of Zhenbei staged their grand performance, the Zhenbei Army had genuinely considered marching straight into Yanjing and placing their own Marquis on the throne.

The center kept shedding formations.

More than eighty thousand iron cavalry, accelerating all the while, divided into nine separate forces.

Which one was the central army?

It no longer mattered.

Which one was the main attack?

There was no need to distinguish it.

Every route was the main force.

Every route was the main attack.

When General Zheng had still been a complete military novice, his understanding of cavalry warfare had come mostly from movies and television: both sides spread their horsemen across a broad front, the camera pulled back, and then everyone charged at once.

Later he finally understood that this was done because it looked spectacular on screen.

No cavalry commander with a functioning brain would actually command that way.

A battlefield only contained so much space.

If everyone surged forward in one mass, the front ranks would become tangled in combat while a huge crowd behind them had nowhere to go and could only stand there watching.

Dividing the cavalry into nine routes was like releasing nine incomparably sharp steel blades.

Their purpose was to cut apart and dismember the savage main force from multiple directions.

The art of war required generals and soldiers to complete it together.

Only outstanding commanders combined with the finest riders could create truly terrifying combat power.

Here stood a man universally acknowledged by Great Yan as a God of War.

Behind him rode Great Yan’s two finest cavalry armies.

At this moment, their spirit, morale, and killing intent had all risen to their absolute peak.

And toward the savages ahead, they bared their fangs.

Li Fusheng roared:

“THE WILL TO BREAK THE ENEMY LINE!”

Ten thousand riders behind him answered as one:

“DEATH BEFORE RETREAT!”

...

The savage army’s crossing had gone very smoothly.

Afterward, the reactions of the various Yan and Dacheng forces had also largely matched the Savage King’s predictions.

Yet that very smoothness made him uneasy.

It was too smooth.

Yes, he was gambling on a dangerous move.

But instinct told him that the Southern Marquis of Yan should not be this incompetent.

If nothing else, after so many days, surely the man had prepared *something* in his rear.

Fortunately, when scout riders returned to report that large bodies of Yan cavalry had appeared ahead and were charging toward them, the Savage King finally relaxed slightly.

That made more sense.

There was no possibility the Southern Marquis had done absolutely nothing these past days.

He had to have gathered the forces left behind and made at least some appearance of preparation.

And indeed, compared with the Left-Wing Army of Yan during the last Battle of the Wang River, the various Yan and Dacheng formations responding to his sudden crossing had reacted far more quickly and efficiently.

But that was all.

“Warriors of the Holy Race! Swing your sabers! Let out your roars! Show them who the true rulers of this land are!”

The Savage King did everything he could to stir morale.

Truthfully, with so many troops crossing together, he himself was already no more than a drop of water inside an ocean.

Trying to control the whole battlefield in detail was basically impossible.

All he could do now was pour a little more murderous spirit into the warriors surrounding him.

He believed the generals beneath him and those tribal headmen understood perfectly well that this was a genuine military gamble.

From the instant they crossed the river, they had no road left except forward, forward, and forward again.

They had to smash through Yan’s camps.

The Savage King was not worried those chiefs and generals would preserve their own strength at a moment like this.

Some might already be satisfied.

Some might have grown complacent.

Some might be unable to wait any longer to return to their tents on the snowfields and enjoy everything they had looted.

But they were not idiots.

They understood what had to be done right now.

Army morale was sound.

Fighting spirit was sound.

There was only one flaw.

The Savage King had issued the order too urgently.

To bind the tribal headmen to himself and force them into this military gamble before they had time to reconsider, he had practically used threats and relentless pressure.

The excessive speed of the river crossing created no small amount of confusion.

Once the savage warriors who had crossed by three separate routes gathered together, many chiefs who had originally commanded three thousand men could gather fewer than two thousand around their own banners.

Different tribes became mixed together.

Unit organization had begun to break down.

The Savage King regarded this as only a minor flaw.

He had originally intended to spend some time reorganizing the troops after crossing, but several Yan formations assembled with astonishing speed and came charging toward him, leaving him no leisurely opportunity to sort things out.

But so what?

Tear them apart.

Break them.

Kill them.

Every savage warrior was moving forward.

Every savage warrior was charging.

With momentum like this, the Savage King believed no Dacheng force, Yan regional army, or Imperial Guard formation could possibly withstand the roar of more than a hundred thousand savage hooves.

Sanghu remained close beside the King.

The force he commanded was the direct line within the direct line—the best equipped, strongest, and most loyal formation in the entire savage army.

Then a scout rider brought back the newest report.

The calm expression on Sanghu’s face changed instantly.

He spurred his horse toward the royal banner and shouted:

“King! The Yan have divided into nine routes!”

The Savage King bit down hard on his own lip.

Blood appeared instantly.

Years ago, in order to study the Yan way of war, the Savage King had taken his two most loyal companions and willingly spent years serving as auxiliaries in Beifeng Commandery.

No one had ever questioned his command ability during his return to the snowfields, his rise to power, his consolidation of strength, or his later war against the Situ Clan.

Even the great victory at the previous Battle of the Wang River had been achieved through his arrangements.

The Savage King knew how to fight.

That was precisely why Sanghu’s report immediately told him something was wrong.

A mob was called a mob because it fought on nothing more than a burst of bloody courage.

It was no different from street thugs brawling in an alley.

In the old days, when the Qian frontier armies suffered terribly from officers drawing pay for nonexistent soldiers, a general assigned three thousand men might pocket the salary of one thousand, carefully maintain five hundred personal retainers, then make up the remaining fifteen hundred with men who were neither true laborers nor proper auxiliaries.

In a real battle, the retainers charged first.

The rest followed behind to make up the numbers.

When the battle went well, the problem was hard to see.

But the moment the wind turned against them, defeat usually collapsed like a mountain.

That was why Li Bao and Li Fusheng had once been able to fight all the way to Shangjing.

One charge smashed the most elite part of a Qian formation.

After that, all that remained was chasing people across the countryside and collecting heads.

Calling Dacheng troops, Yan regional forces, and Imperial Guards a “mob” might be somewhat unfair.

Still, when such a mixture was suddenly confronted by more than a hundred thousand cavalrymen, the fact that they dared gather and attempt to resist at all was already impressive.

But after gathering, they had actually dared divide themselves into multiple attack routes and spread out?

There were only two possibilities.

The first: the enemy commander was an idiot.

Of course, the Savage King did not know whether the Marquis of Jingnan was currently east or west of the river.

But he was not naïve enough to believe the Yan commander left behind would be a fool.

That left only the second possibility.

They possessed the foundation to do this.

They possessed the confidence to do this.

And they dared.

The thought abruptly reminded the Savage King of his years in Beifeng Commandery, when he had watched the Zhenbei Army fight desert barbarians again and again.

“WOOOOOOOOOO!”

“WOOOOOOOOOO!”

Savage war cries rose one after another.

The riders could already see the Yan cavalry charging from the distance.

They were excited.

They could hardly wait to defeat them.

But the Savage King’s heart had turned unbearably heavy.

The saber in his hand lowered almost unconsciously.

A possibility had appeared in his mind.

An absurd possibility.

Yet at this point, whether that possibility was true or false no longer mattered.

Whatever Yan army stood in front of him, it was already too late to order the entire force to stop its charge or retreat.

To issue such an order now would simply mean sitting still and waiting for the enemy to smash into them.

And not far behind them lay the Wang River.

There was nowhere to retreat.

Only forward.

Even if that absurd possibility were true in a direct clash of steel and blood, who won and who lost had not yet been decided!

A moment later, the Savage King roared:

“THE STARS PROTECT US! KILL!”

*If I win this battle—*

*I swear I will become a true believer in the stars.*

...

Beneath Yupan City’s walls, the three Chu formations had already stood outside for quite some time.

The Yan forces opposite them remained calm.

Each of the three city gates had one Yan formation positioned outside it.

That was precisely what made the situation so strange.

As time passed, Qu Tiannan’s earlier confidence atop the gate tower gradually disappeared.

He was Pillar of State of Chu.

A representative figure of the Qu Clan.

A man entrusted with leading a great army this far north.

There was no possibility his reputation had been earned through empty fame.

The Yan refusing to attack was one thing.

But the savage main force upstream had already crossed west long ago.

And yet the supposed Zhenbei and Jingnan armies beneath Yupan City simply stood there doing nothing.

Not one force showed any intention of withdrawing to reinforce the western bank.

Both sides merely stared at each other.

Quietly.

Far too quietly.

The Swordsmith remained beside Qu Tiannan.

For a while he looked down at the two armies beneath the walls.

Then he looked at Qu Tiannan’s expression.

At last, Qu Tiannan laughed.

He reached out and slapped the battlement.

“Well played, Marquis of Jingnan.

“Well played, Tian Wujing!”

“Pillar of State, has something gone wrong?” the Swordsmith asked.

“You can see it too, Sir?”

The Swordsmith shook his head.

“No.

“But I play chess often.

“When I am losing, I first compliment my opponent.

“That way, the loss does not look quite so embarrassing.”

“Sir is mocking me?”

“I would not dare. I would not dare.”

“You are right.

“But this game was not laid for me.

“It was laid for the savages.

“Sir, look at those Zhenbei and Jingnan troops below.

“Look at these elites of Great Yan.

“When they attacked the city yesterday, I was actually puzzled.

“That Southern Marquis was truly willing to spend.

“He made these elite cavalrymen dismount and assault walls.

“Now—

I finally understand.

“If he let them dismount to attack a city, even if they suffered some losses, what of it?

“The entire world already knows the Yan are poor at siege warfare.

“No matter how badly the assault went, everyone would regard it as natural.

“And because of that, no one could see through their true identities.”

“I see.

“Thank you for resolving my confusion, Pillar of State.

“It is like a sword hidden inside an ornate scabbard.”

A sword hidden in a beautiful scabbard might be a famed blade.

Or it might be a rusted, chipped piece of scrap metal.

“Exactly.

“That is why those Yan troops below learned long ago that the savage main force had crossed upstream, yet still chose to remain motionless.

“They know perfectly well who is waiting for the savages on the western bank.”

“Then the savages are certain to lose?”

“Not necessarily.

“Battle, in the end, still depends on spirit and momentum.

“In a direct clash, the savages are not completely without a chance.”

The Swordsmith smiled.

“If they truly had a good chance of winning a frontal battle, why did both sides stare at each other for so long?

“Why did the savages need Great Chu to help them hold Yupan City?”

Was that not precisely because they feared they could not defeat Yan’s iron cavalry in a head-on clash?

For a moment, Qu Tiannan had no answer.

The Swordsmith turned and began walking down the wall.

“Where are you going, Sir?”

“To find Eighth Highness.

“Pillar of State, take care of yourself.”

“Sir intends to...?”

“Yes.

“Run.”

The Swordsmith answered with extraordinary straightforwardness.

Then added:

“I must trouble Pillar of State to hold Yupan City firmly and cover our retreat.”

It was an astonishingly shameless and disloyal thing to say.

Yet the Swordsmith said it as though it were perfectly natural.

Because he understood.

If the savage main force on the western bank lost, the Yan army could advance east without obstruction and instantly turn Yupan City into an isolated fortress.

Without the savages outside restraining them, the Yan would not even need to storm the walls.

They could simply surround the city.

Even if they waited until spring even if they waited until the river thawed by then, even if the great Chu fleet sailed north, it would no longer be enough.

And yet Yupan City could not simply be abandoned right now.

Because the Yan troops outside, even if they were not the genuine Zhenbei and Jingnan elites, were still cavalry built from Yan riders and knights of the Three Jin.

The Azure Luan Army was mainly infantry.

Trying to retreat safely in front of so much cavalry?

That was the real dream.

At this moment, their only hope was that the savages, even if they could not defeat Yan outright, could at least fight to a draw.

Only then would Yupan City avoid falling into the most dangerous and embarrassing situation imaginable.

“Those beasts... don’t be so damned useless.”

...

At that very moment, on the western bank of the Wang River, the Yan army and the savage main force collided.

First, two Yan formations smashed directly into the savage tide from the front.

They accepted the casualties without hesitation and forcibly arrested the momentum of the entire savage charge.

Then the other Yan formations began cutting into the savages from different angles.

The battlefield was torn to pieces almost instantly.

Savage unit organization had already been chaotic before the clash.

Once nine separate Yan blades stabbed into them, that command structure collapsed completely.

At first, many savage warriors had regarded the Yan troops charging toward them with curiosity and contempt.

But as the fighting continued, more and more savages began discovering that something was wrong with the Yan soldiers in front of them.

In the age of cold weapons, equipment naturally mattered.

But what mattered most was still the men themselves.

The Yan riders moved in order.

Their roles complemented one another.

They pierced through.

Pierced through again.

And again.

The savages facing them found themselves almost unable to respond.

In close combat, savage courage could not stop a Yan cavalry saber from chopping directly toward a vital point.

Savage fearlessness could not stop an arrow loosed from horseback from punching through a throat.

Morale?

Who was afraid of whom?

For the Zhenbei Army, the previous Battle of the Wang River had indeed destroyed the Left-Wing Army most heavily.

But the Zhenbei Army had lost one of its Chief Commanders there too.

Thousands more comrades had died beneath Yupan City.

That debt had to be repaid.

For the Jingnan Army, their own Marquis was charging with them right now.

They could hardly shame him.

No matter what happened, they absolutely could not perform worse than those Zhenbei bastards.

At first, the savage generals and tribal chiefs did not think much of the collision either.

However the battle ended, victory would naturally require a period of hard fighting.

The Yan were not made of mud.

But after the clash remained locked for a time, those commanders began to panic.

The savage army had completely devolved into separate pockets fighting on their own.

A general or chief could command only the few hundred men directly around him.

And everywhere he looked front, rear, left, right—

Yan cavalry were riding through.

One man on an open battlefield could only see so far.

No one in this world possessed a true god’s-eye view.

Those savage commanders could not understand the overall situation.

They knew only one thing: there were Yan cavalry everywhere.

Every direction was filled with them.

As the chaos continued, different savage formations began drifting away from their original directions.

Losing the command structure meant losing their sense of direction as well.

The savage army had originally been a clenched fist.

Now, finger by finger, that fist began opening.

They simply could not withstand the Yan army’s vicious cutting attacks.

This was not a clash involving only a few thousand cavalrymen.

Together, both sides had thrown more than two hundred thousand troops into the battlefield.

Here and there, some savage commanders led their own men with extraordinary courage and fought very effectively.

But at the level of the entire field, none of those isolated successes could stop the collapse.

The Yan army was completely different.

After completing its first round of penetration and cutting, the different formations quickly wheeled, chose new points, and pierced through again.

This was a method normally used by cavalry against infantry formations.

Today, it was being used against savage cavalry.

During the previous Battle of the Wang River, the savages had exploited the Yan Left-Wing Army’s mixed composition and poor coordination, smashing it apart along the riverbank.

Now, under the Marquis of Jingnan, the true elites of Yan were returning the exact same medicine to its owner.

Compare quality?

Compare discipline?

Compare training?

Compare experience?

Compare coordination?

Come.

Compare.

These were the same two armies that had once faced enemies twice their number, fought a thousand li in ten days, and crushed the pride of the cavalrymen of the Three Jin.

And you savages what the hell were you supposed to be?

Back when the State of Jin still existed, had you forgotten how badly Jin cavalry bullied you?

That contempt came from their bones.

And because they had somehow lost to these same savages once before, the humiliation had been compressed inside their chests a hundredfold.

Now, at last, it could be released.

After the second penetration came the third.

After the third came the fourth.

Then the fifth...

Their armor was no longer as fine as before.

That was true.

But the resilience and pride rooted inside their bones had not changed in the slightest.

After repeated, relentless cutting attacks, the savage army had been shredded until it was full of holes.

Then, after too long spent wandering in confusion and disorder, the rout began.

It was not that they no longer wanted to fight.

It was not that they lacked courage.

The situation simply offered no hope.

And once hope disappeared, men became dazed.

Then someone nearby began to run.

The others could only follow.

Run together.

Even if they had never originally intended to flee.

The savage leaders had lost their unit organization and command systems.

There was nothing they could do.

Worse, one tribal headman raised his own banner and began actively fleeing east.

He kept the banner raised because he wanted to gather as many warriors of his own tribe as possible around him.

But that banner became the final straw that crushed the ox.

The entire situation collapsed.

The Savage King had already gone numb.

The moment Yan cavalry began repeatedly piercing through his formations, he understood.

The army before him was absolutely not some patchwork force made from Dacheng soldiers, regional troops, and Imperial Guards.

He had seen this style of warfare countless times while serving in Beifeng Commandery.

The Zhenbei Army had used it again and again.

This was cavalry warfare pushed to its extreme.

The most powerful expression of cavalry tactics.

A pack of wolves driving goats across an entire mountainside.

Gou Moli had originally hoped the warriors beneath him might create a miracle.

His side clearly possessed more men.

He had even begun praying for the stars to protect them.

Only when a man felt completely powerless before reality did he begin hoping something vague and intangible might offer comfort.

But now, it was daytime.

And in daytime, the stars could not be seen.

Sanghu personally led more than a thousand cavalrymen in a desperate effort to protect the Savage King.

A’Lai reached the King as well.

He removed his mask.

Beneath it was a face extremely similar to the Savage King’s own.

His meaning required no explanation.

Once before, facing the Marquis of Jingnan’s army, the Savage King had escaped while A’Lai remained behind as his double.

Now, as though fate had turned in a circle, the same scene appeared again.

And once again, the man facing them was the Marquis of Jingnan.

The Savage King blinked.

His eyes grew wet.

He did not wait for his followers to persuade him.

He did not waste time pretending reluctance.

He quickly stripped off the white wolfskin cloak from his body and handed it to A’Lai.

Then, together with Sanghu, he turned east and fled.

Broken.

Defeated.

Already beyond recovery.

In truth, even after all this fighting, the two sides had suffered only several tens of thousands of actual casualties.

On a battlefield involving more than two hundred thousand men, that truly was not very much.

But once one side collapsed, everything afterward became simple for the victors.

The different Yan formations began charging east almost instinctively.

They became a great plow.

Even as the savages fled, the Yan intended to plow through them once more.

Break them completely.

Scatter them completely.

Destroy even the possibility of gathering them again.

The routed savages reached the Wang River.

Without the slightest hesitation, they tried to return by the same places they had crossed earlier.

But their original crossing had already been rushed.

Unlike the Yan army’s carefully prepared crossing two nights earlier, they had done almost nothing to reinforce or secure the ice.

Even on the way over, the frozen surface had developed many cracks and collapses.

Quite a few savage warriors had fallen through before ever reaching the battlefield, departing early to seek the embrace of the stars.

Now they were trying to cross again almost immediately.

Night had not yet passed to allow the damaged ice to freeze solid again.

Large and small holes began opening everywhere.

Savage riders plunged through with their horses and screamed desperately for passing warriors to save them.

But everyone was running for his own life.

Who still had time to rescue another man?

Other horses slipped on the ice.

Horse and rider crashed down.

The savage cavalrymen coming behind simply trampled straight across their bodies.

The original crossing had been chaotic only because the savages had pursued speed too aggressively.

This time, the crossing was pure disorder.

As the chaos continued, the river ice began splitting across larger areas.

Some cracks stretched more than twenty meters.

Once those major fractures began, smaller cracks rapidly spread like spiderwebs across the surrounding surface.

More and more savages plunged into the bone-chilling river.

Some riders saw the ice ahead breaking and tried to rein in their horses and shift toward another crossing point.

But the men behind them, unaware of what lay ahead, kept surging forward.

Men pressed men.

Horses shoved horses.

Shouting accomplished nothing.

Savages along the riverbank were squeezed directly into the water.

Some warriors, desperate not to be pushed in themselves, began swinging weapons at their own tribesmen.

That only created greater panic.

Behind them, the Yan pursuit never slowed.

And when the Yan riders saw entire stretches of river ice collapsing ahead, light seemed to ignite inside every pair of eyes.

Last time, tens of thousands of Yan sons from the Left-Wing Army had been forcibly “pushed” into this river by the savages.

Their corpses had covered the Wang River.

Today it was time for the savages themselves to taste what that day had been like.

...

Beneath Yupan City, Ran Min’s formation received new orders.

Fifteen thousand cavalrymen were transferred upstream.

The Chu saw Yan troops moving and appeared to stir slightly.

But very soon, they calmed again.

Because the force being withdrawn was simply too small.

The Yan army remaining outside the city still greatly outnumbered the Chu formations.

Atop the wall, Qu Tiannan sank weakly back into his commander’s chair.

The Yan had pulled fewer than twenty thousand cavalrymen north.

That could mean only one thing.

This many cavalrymen were already enough.

Because the force they were likely about to meet was not a savage army surging with momentum.

It was an enormous mass of routed savages.

“How long has it even been...?”

Qu Tiannan almost wanted to laugh.

In the end, all his anger and unwillingness could only become one sentence:

“Useless beasts after all.”

Then

Qu Tiannan raised one hand.

He ordered:

“Pass the command.

“All troops outside the city return inside.

“Archers and crossbowmen on the walls will cover them.”

Qu Tiannan was not worried about the three formations returning through the city gates.

He did not believe the Yan would choose to attack them now.

The Yan no longer possessed any reason to keep throwing lives into taking this city by force.

Some savage rout troops finally managed to cross the Wang River.

Before they could even breathe properly, they suddenly saw cavalry appearing from the south.

They looked at the armor.

They looked at the banners.

And the savages cried out in terror:

“THE ZHENBEI ARMY IS HERE!”

“THE JINGNAN ARMY IS HERE!”

The Savage King and a handful of senior commanders and experienced tribal headmen might have realized earlier that the terrifying force on the western bank could not possibly have been some mixture of regional troops and Dacheng soldiers.

Those had been Yan’s true elites wearing other armor.

But the ordinary savage riders had no idea.

They still believed they had been crushed in despair by a “rabble.”

Now, after barely escaping with their lives, they had encountered what they believed to be Yan’s even more terrifying trump-card cavalry.

There was no need to fight anymore.

The savages collapsed into total despair.

Some abandoned every restraint and scattered in every direction.

Others dismounted, threw away their weapons, dropped to their knees, and begged for mercy.

They were exhausted.

They surrendered.

At this point, no matter how brightly the stars shone, nothing could awaken their fighting spirit again.

But those savages kneeling in surrender received only one answer a cold slogan shouted again and again through the Yan ranks:

“THE MARQUIS HAS ORDERED—NO PRISONERS!”

“THE MARQUIS HAS ORDERED—NO PRISONERS!”

“THE MARQUIS HAS ORDERED—NO PRISONERS!”

[End of Chapter 342]