Chapter 517: - The Stars

While this side was still chatting, imagining stories about seven Calabash Brothers or seven Snow Whites, over there, the battle had already entered a new phase.

No.

More precisely, it had entered a new phase of filling pits.

The muddy hollows across the outer area had already been filled.

The stretch closer to the camp, which was also the most important section, could no longer be handled quite so brazenly.

They had to give the Chu on the opposite side at least a little face.

What came next was a cavalry charge.

Once the riders closed enough distance, they used the momentum of their horses, raised their bows, nocked arrows, and loosed.

Most of the shots were arcing volleys.

The Chu formation inside the military camp took a round of arrows.

The damage was not especially deadly because the distance remained fairly long, but quite a few unlucky Chu soldiers were still hit.

The spearmen in front wore less armor and protection, so a fair number were struck and fell.

The shield soldiers behind them had relaxed somewhat because of the Yan’s earlier pit-filling work. Their shields were no longer held as densely or neatly as before, allowing some arrows to slip through.

But those troops in the rear wore rattan armor, so the injuries were generally not severe.

The Rattan-Armored formation loosened slightly.

Of course, loosening was not the same as collapsing.

An unexpected rain of arrows had fallen on them, and comrades were dropping wounded around them.

Some confusion was inevitable.

The Bai Clan’s soldiers were not that fragile.

After their first volley, the Yan cavalry immediately wheeled away.

Their comrades behind them continued bringing sacks of earth forward and filling the ground.

Because the distance between both sides had now closed to something “dangerous,” Chi Mingyi also ordered his archers to fire.

“Raise—shoot!”

Thrum!

Arrows rose from the Chu formation.

But first, the Chu were shooting from a standstill, which placed them at an inherent disadvantage in range.

Second, even when scattered arrows fell among the Yan riders, the cavalry remained in motion and wore excellent armor.

The shafts struck their armor with sharp metallic cracks, then glanced away, leaving only dents or pale scrape marks.

Snow Sea Iron Cavalry.

Snow Sea Iron Cavalry.

Without a few jin of iron on your body, how could you still have the face to call yourself iron cavalry?

Count Pingye had put real care into feeding and equipping the armored troops beneath him.

If he truly wanted to drag out a mob of peasant soldiers, would that have been difficult?

Of course not.

But first, such an army might look grand and impressive while actually being pitifully weak.

Second, it offended Count Pingye’s and the Demon Kings’ sense of aesthetics.

Imagine it.

The army marches out.

The command banner rises.

Behind it stands a pile of servant soldiers wrapped in sheepskins.

Tsk, tsk.

Far too shabby to put on a proper stage.

The Yan continued advancing in this rhythm: one volley of arrows, one round of earth filling.

As the distance closed further, the effects of both sides’ arrows gradually became more apparent.

At last, Chi Mingyi ordered the first two rows of spearmen to withdraw into the formation.

The shield soldiers stepped forward to cover the archers and crossbowmen behind them as they returned fire.

The three thousand Savage riders under the Savage King stopped participating in the earth-filling operation.

They remained in the rear.

All three thousand dismounted and sat cross-legged on the ground.

The Savage King sat at the very front.

Then he began to sing and dance the Dance of the Stars.

To outsiders, his movements looked somewhat bizarre.

To the Savages, however, he truly carried the bearing of a Guide of Stars.

His voice was extremely hoarse.

Yet somehow it matched the mood of this moment perfectly.

Ahead, hoofbeats continued to thunder.

But every Savage fixed his gaze on the Savage King.

The Blind Man had once said that Gou Moli’s greatest gift lay in his terrifying ability to learn.

To study the cavalry tactics of the Zhenbei Army, he had spent years serving beneath them as an auxiliary.

And as for certain closely guarded skills of the snowfield priests... he knew those too.

He would not waste any opportunity, any sliver of time, to add even the faintest trace of killing spirit to the three thousand riders he had brought out this time.

Because this battle was his wager with death.

In this battle, he needed to prove his value to the Count standing behind him.

Strictly speaking, he had proven his value long ago.

It had simply been negative value.

Even that immensely ambitious and capable Emperor Yan had merely imprisoned “him” in Yanjing.

For hundreds of years before Gou Moli appeared, whether the Savages in the Tianduan Mountains or the Savages of the snowfields, Jin people had treated them like toys to be kneaded however they wished.

Then one Gou Moli appeared, and nearly changed the entire balance of the eastern Xia states.

What Gou Moli needed now was to make this Count see clearly that he could become a sharp blade in the Count’s hand.

Whether that blade might injure its owner as well, Gou Moli believed Count Pingye viewed that question more openly than Emperor Yan did.

Because this Count had indeed been preparing for something all this time.

One could even say that from the moment he first began laying foundations, everything had been moving toward that ultimate goal.

Yet he, and those gentlemen surrounding him, seemed strangely vague about the concept of “a family possessing all beneath Heaven.”

Gou Moli naturally did not believe they failed to understand it.

Rather, they genuinely seemed... not to care very much.

Sanghu watched the Savage King ahead of him, “singing and dancing.”

For a moment, tears began shining in his eyes.

It was as if everything had returned to the very beginning.

When they first met, Sanghu had tied up the Savage King and ordered him to perform the sacrificial dance of a Guide of Stars.

He had danced.

At that time, he had been Sanghu’s prisoner.

Later, Sanghu became his most loyal subordinate.

Sanghu did not understand the concept that fate was a circle.

But he felt something very close to it.

Unfortunately, when he looked up again, the sky overhead seemed to be the same sky as before, and yet somehow immeasurably farther away.

Sanghu felt no regretful longing to relive his life.

Instead, he felt gratitude that his life had continued this far.

Yes.

Gratitude.

“Raise—shoot!”

Inside Central Mountain Camp, the Chu volleys continued.

On the watchtower, after one arrow struck a pillar in front of Chi Mingyi, two guards immediately raised shields and moved in front of him.

The Yan earth-filling work was nearly complete.

Under normal circumstances, Chi Mingyi should have spent last night ordering two trenches dug across the front gate.

Against cavalry, trenches were often more reliable and useful than caltrops, chevaux-de-frise, or other obstacles.

Once the enemy appeared, Central Mountain Camp temporarily lost its function as a transport hub and shifted to full defense.

That meant the front entrance should have been blocked as quickly as possible to patch the camp’s weakest point.

Unfortunately, the Yan had harassed him throughout the entire night.

While the Yan were digging earth over there, he had been leading his personal guards in repeated inspections around every side of the camp.

It was not that he had lacked opportunities to act.

He had simply been too cautious.

Before the campaign, the elders of the Bai Clan, especially his father-in-law, had passed over their own eldest son, Chi Mingyi’s elder brother-in-law, and chosen Chi Mingyi to lead the Baipu Army precisely because they valued his steadiness.

Compared with the elder brother-in-law, who longed to kill enemies at the front and bring glory to the family, Chi Mingyi had suited his father-in-law’s tastes far better.

Yet now, Chi Mingyi felt some regret.

He regretted that he had once felt pleased with himself because of that very quality.

Because he was now swallowing the bitter fruit of his own steadiness.

The Yan’s calm, orderly, methodical preparation had been built entirely on top of his caution.

If he had moved more boldly last night, the situation absolutely would not have become what it was now, with the Yan slowly and methodically filling away every disadvantage before them.

Still, Chi Mingyi did not believe he had committed some enormous error.

Because he genuinely could not understand why several columns of warning smoke had already risen, and several groups of mounted messengers had already been sent out, yet the Yan had now remained before his camp for an entire night and half a day.

Where were the friendly troops?

Where were the friendly troops?

At last, after several more rounds of arrows exchanged between the two sides, the Yan began withdrawing.

The pit-filling operation was finished.

The broad muddy depression before Central Mountain Camp had not been leveled flat.

That would have been impossible.

But it had been filled enough to bear weight.

Tens of thousands of horse hooves trampling back and forth had compacted the ground perhaps even better than laborers pounding it with wooden rammers.

The battlefield once again fell into a brief calm.

Chi Mingyi licked his lips.

At his order, the spearmen moved forward and re-formed.

The officers beneath him went among their troops and began speaking to the men.

The Rattan-Armored Troops all came from Baipu.

They were not all members of the Bai Clan, but most were fellow townsmen connected through one relationship or another.

Commanders often disliked armies like this because such troops could easily defy orders.

But placed in the right situation, they possessed one exceptional quality: they were resilient.

They did not collapse easily.

The real contest was about to begin.

Chi Mingyi turned his head and looked toward the six cloth-covered blocks standing in the center of his formation.

The two trebuchets that had originally been sitting inside the camp had already been sent away the day before yesterday.

After the rain, Chi Mingyi had sent men out to inspect the distance.

They said one mounted scout had probably been smashed to death.

Only the horse’s shattered carcass remained.

But if the horse had been crushed, how could the rider possibly have survived?

The other Yan scouts had presumably collected the corpse.

Even so, Chi Mingyi had still handed those two trebuchets away.

In return, he had received three giant crossbows.

Combined with the three already inside the camp, that gave him six.

In Chi Mingyi’s view, giant crossbows suited his camp far better.

Trebuchets fired too slowly, and when one was defending a military camp, their usefulness was limited.

But giant crossbows placed directly behind the gate and inside the formation could become nightmares for any enemy charging straight toward them.

Earlier, while the Yan were filling the ground, Chi Mingyi had restrained himself and refused to use the giant crossbows.

Doing so might have inflicted some casualties.

But it was better to wait until the Yan truly charged.

Then he could guarantee them an enormous surprise.

Chi Mingyi stared toward the Yan force in the distance as it began forming ranks again.

His fingers dug fiercely into the boards of the watchtower.

Come.

I refuse to believe that no matter how invincible you Yan claim your iron cavalry to be, you can truly stop fearing death!

...

“The enemy is wearing rattan armor. Why not use fire?”

A’Ming, already waiting to refill his waterskin with “wine,” asked from the side.

The Sword Saint looked puzzled.

“Fire?”

Count Pingye smiled.

“Would fire actually work?”

A’Ming said, “Wasn’t there a story about Zhuge Liang burning the Rattan-Armored Troops?”

“Who is Zhuge Liang?” the Sword Saint asked. “A member of the Zhuge Clan?”

The surname Zhuge was uncommon, but not especially rare.

Count Pingye shook his head.

“You think we’re making stir-fried pork kidney over a roaring flame?”

“This subordinate was only asking.”

“Rattan armor is not that easy to burn. Besides, do you really think the Chu would fail to understand something that obvious? If they wanted fire resistance, they could simply cover the rattan armor with a layer of fish skin. Zhuge Liang burning Rattan-Armored Troops was never recorded in the official histories anyway. And here’s another bit of common sense: in a major fire, most people die from the smoke choking them, not from being burned alive. Besides, if we are comparing fire resistance, our own armor may actually be worse. Iron conducts heat far more readily. Start a proper fire beneath a man in iron armor, sprinkle a little cumin on top, and you can barbecue him directly.”

“Oh. So that’s how it is. I was thinking too simply.”

The Sword Saint nodded slightly.

So there were this many details even in something like this.

Then he asked:

“The Chu formation still looks very steady to me. Breaking it next will not be easy.”

“Since ancient times, the fierce fear the reckless, and the reckless fear men who don’t care whether they live. No matter how good a formation is, it still fears people who are ready to die.”

Count Pingye’s gaze shifted toward the Savage formation ahead.

He raised one hand and waved forward.

Behind him, one mounted standard-bearer handed his current flagpole to a comrade, then picked up another banner and rode forward.

“The Count bestows a banner!”

Gou Moli raised his head and looked toward the newly delivered flag.

It was the Snow-Wolf-Pelt King’s Banner Sanghu had made when he first led his tribe into submission.

The Count’s Residence had stored it afterward.

Now, it was being returned to its original owner.

“Thank the Count for me.”

Gou Moli reached out and accepted the King’s Banner.

He raised it high.

Behind him, the Savage riders lifted their cavalry lances and roared.

Once, under this banner, the Savage King had ridden across the snowfields, gathering tribes beneath him.

He had broken through the passes and invaded the Three Jin lands.

Beside the Wang River, he had even driven tens of thousands of Yan soldiers into the water and turned them into drowned ghosts.

Now, that King’s Banner had returned to Gou Moli’s hand and was allowed to fly once more.

The Sword Saint let out a long breath.

“When it comes to sending men to die, you are no worse than he is.”

“Feeling sorry for them?”

“Not at all.”

“Good.”

“Will you always treat the Savages like this?”

“Always send them off to die?”

“Yes.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“Forever?” the Sword Saint asked.

“Not necessarily.”

“When does it stop?”

“When you start feeling sorry for them.”

The Sword Saint fell silent for a moment.

“So my earlier sentence was correct.”

“Which sentence?”

“When it comes to sending men to die, you are no worse than he is.”

...

At Liang Cheng’s command, the true assault on the camp began!

The front rank was not the Savage cavalry.

Instead, more than two thousand Snow Sea veterans under Keyan Dongge led the way.

After charging to a certain distance, the riders raised their bows and loosed another arcing volley.

Then most dismounted.

Shield in one hand.

Saber in the other.

Under the arrows raining from Central Mountain Camp, they advanced and began clearing the obstacles outside the camp.

Fortunately, because the main army had arrived so suddenly and then maintained nonstop harassment, Central Mountain Camp had never been given the chance to establish too many obstacles outside its front gate.

After suffering some casualties while clearing a path, the Snow Sea troops looped ropes around the outer palisade and used horseflesh to drag sections down.

Then, amid one piercing roar, the Savage King raised the Snow-Wolf-Pelt King’s Banner and led the three thousand Savage riders behind him into the true charge!

This charge had no road back.

Only forward.

Forward.

Forward!

The real centerpiece had arrived.

Count Pingye held a fistful of his Pixiu’s mane as he spoke.

“Last night’s harassment, digging the earth, today’s advance while filling the ground, even Keyan Dongge’s men dismounting just now to clear the obstacles, all of that, and every casualty paid for it, was foreplay. It was all for Gou Moli’s one thrust.”

The Sword Saint nodded.

“Very vivid. Very graphic.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“Thank you.”

Count Pingye chuckled twice.

“Breaking a formation is actually like smashing a bowl. What matters is that first blow. As long as Gou Moli’s three thousand Savage riders can smash open the Chu formation inside, this battle is basically won.”

“And if they cannot?”

“Then we grind them down slowly. Wear them down piece by piece. I gave every cavalry lance in the army to Gou Moli’s three thousand riders. The rest of my men have none left. Even if they wanted to charge the formation a second time, it would be difficult to produce the same impact. Besides, the thing a formation fears most is letting the enemy build momentum and settle into a smooth rhythm. You have to smash it senseless with the first club. This is the opportunity I gave Gou Moli. Whether he can seize it depends on him.”

...

“Prepare—raise!”

“Thud-thud-thud-thud!”

The war drums inside Central Mountain Camp kept pounding, each rhythm carrying another order.

The spearmen in front raised their weapons once more.

Then the center of the formation began opening toward both wings.

Six giant crossbows were pushed forward.

Chi Mingyi had recently realized that he had made yet another mistake.

When the Yan were reforming their troops, he had ordered nearly all his men, apart from those handling the harassment on both wings, to abandon the camp’s outer defenses and concentrate around the main infantry formation.

But after the Yan finished reforming, they simply dismounted and began clearing the outside.

Not only had they removed the outer obstacles, they had even dragged down much of the palisade around both sides of the front gate.

The Chu archers had fired continuously.

They had killed and wounded a fair number of Yan armored troops.

But they had failed to stop the Yan from accomplishing their objective.

The eastern, western, and southern camp walls still stood.

Yet around the front gate, everything had been stripped clean.

When Yan cavalry finally charged, defending from within this military camp would feel almost no different from facing them in open country.

Chi Mingyi was beginning to panic.

Because he realized he had committed quite a few mistakes between yesterday and now.

The Yan had proceeded calmly and methodically through one task after another.

Meanwhile, he had been “calmly and methodically” regretting one decision after another.

He knew the reason.

He and his Baipu troops might have been undefeated while suppressing bandits in Changxi Commandery, but seriously, what water bandit had the courage to launch a frontal attack against the Baipu Army?

Even an ambush was normally abandoned the moment the bandits discovered their targets were prepared.

Most importantly, even if some water bandits possessed horses, where would they ever find a terrifying all-cavalry force like the one before him now?

The reason he kept making mistakes was inexperience.

But now, on a real battlefield, facing Great Yan’s iron cavalry, he could only learn through trial and error.

How could the cost of such lessons not terrify him?

Fortunately, the six giant crossbows gave him enormous reassurance.

“Raise—shoot!”

“Raise—shoot!”

The archers and crossbowmen inside the formation continued firing.

Ahead, Yan riders charging forward fell from their horses from time to time.

The six giant crossbows were ready.

At Chi Mingyi’s order, they fired together!

Thrum!

The bolts launched from the giant crossbows were like six spears.

Six streaks of light tore into the charging Yan cavalry.

At once, six trails of blood mist erupted among the riders.

Every giant bolt punched through at least four or five Savage cavalrymen, stringing men together like candied hawthorn on a stick.

The Chu were very pleased with the killing power and effect of the giant crossbows.

But what astonished Chi Mingyi was that this terrible slaughter failed to slow the charge at the front.

The riders showed no panic at all.

They would rather trample their comrades who fell ahead of them than reduce their horses’ speed.

It was as though they feared neither death nor crossbow bolts.

They continued driving straight toward the Chu position.

And Chi Mingyi noticed something else.

Although the riders at the very front carried cavalry lances, expensive long weapons for mounted troops, only half of them even wore leather armor.

A smaller portion wore nothing more than sheepskin clothing!

These were absolutely not regular Yan troops.

They were...

Savages.

Servant troops.

Yet the courage with which these servants charged toward death was so magnificent, so fearless.

And because the first volley of giant bolts had failed to slow them, by the time the six weapons finished loading fresh bolts, the front edge of the Yan charge had already arrived!

The muddy hollows were gone.

The obstacles outside the camp were gone.

The Yan cavalry’s speed was far greater than Chi Mingyi had expected.

Especially because those vanguard riders showed no fear of death whatsoever.

And at that moment, Chi Mingyi realized he had committed the most serious mistake of all.

He had placed the giant crossbows directly in the center of his battle line.

To make room for them, he had deliberately pushed the center formation out toward both wings.

But after a single volley, the Yan came too quickly.

Before the giant crossbows could deliver a second round of killing, the cavalry had already smashed into his spearmen.

Now, firing the giant crossbows was wrong.

Not firing them was also wrong.

If he fired, the first men struck would be his own soldiers standing in front.

If he did not fire, then six enormous machines stood uselessly in the very center of the formation, which was effectively the same as digging a pit directly into what should have been the strongest core of his own line.

And that position was exactly where the Yan charge was concentrated!

“Kill!”

The Savage King could no longer remember the last time he had personally charged in the first rank.

When he first began his rise, he had still needed to fight at the front himself to drive morale.

But as his foundation expanded and the number of troops beneath him grew, his own way of commanding increasingly resembled Count Pingye’s.

He preferred remaining behind, overseeing the entire battlefield.

But this time, there was no choice.

He had to charge in the first line.

The giant crossbows suddenly fired from the Chu camp earlier, and even the Savage King’s heart had lurched.

One massive bolt had passed almost directly beside him.

A Savage rider who had been charging at his side was pierced straight through.

Hot, sticky blood splashed across the Savage King’s back and hair.

Fortunately, he had already succeeded in making these Savage riders temporarily forget life and death.

They were willing to throw everything away.

So the momentum of the charge did not slow.

Even though bright spearpoints glittered ahead, the Savage riders continued driving their horses directly into them!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The first line of Chu spearmen did not retreat.

Their spears pierced the bodies of Savage horses.

Some struck the riders instead and ripped them from the saddle.

But the terrifying inertia of charging warhorses and the mass of their bodies snapped spear shafts apart in an instant and hurled horseflesh forward.

The spearmen were using their own bodies as the first line of attrition.

Yet the Savage riders did not care.

Comrades ahead falling from horse or saddle did nothing to stop them from driving forward.

The sabermen and axemen waiting behind the shields had prepared to leave the shield line and rush forward to kill once the first rank of spearmen met the Yan charge.

Then they discovered there was no room for them to act.

Because the Yan cavalry...

No.

More precisely, the Yan riders had not come here to fight.

They had come here to die!

They drove their horses forward without caring about anything beside them and used mount and rider together as living cannonballs, smashing into the Chu shield wall.

Some Savage riders with better horsemanship even forced their mounts to leap a step early, clearing the shields and crashing directly into the ranks behind them.

Impact after impact erupted.

Dense.

Continuous.

On the watchtower, Chi Mingyi’s mouth fell open when he saw it.

He was not putting on an exaggerated display.

He was not acting.

That was simply the expression on his face, and the state of his heart.

From the very first instant both sides touched, the battle struck him with one vicious club to the head.

How could this happen?

How was this possible?

How could anyone fight like this?

The questions roared over and over inside Chi Mingyi’s head.

These charging riders, when they used themselves and their horses like sacks of flesh and smashed straight into the Chu formation, already knew perfectly well that nine out of ten of them would die.

That kind of impact, that kind of collision, would leave them buried inside the Chu formation.

And that was not even the main danger.

Even if the Chu did not come over afterward to kill them, many would already be gravely wounded, crippled, or simply smashed to death by the impact itself.

Yet the effect they produced was enormous.

First, so long as luck was not too poor, every cavalry lance could carry away at least one Chu soldier, perhaps two, even three.

Second, each horse and rider crashing down together could smash open a small patch of the formation.

When a thousand, two thousand, more than two thousand men all hurled themselves in like this, the Chu battle line that had looked unbreakable began toppling from the front like a row of dominoes, or like wheat being cut down in broad swaths.

Both wings kept pulling outward.

The center and rear began retreating involuntarily.

It was like an egg cracked into a bowl, with a finger thrust straight through the yolk.

And because of the six giant crossbows, the gap in the Chu center had already been opened wider.

Before Jin Shuke’s second wave of cavalry even reached the line, some riders from the first Savage wave had actually broken into the opening in the Chu center!

In other words, they had done more than rip open a gap.

They had successfully stabbed through it.

And once that stab went in, the Chu formation could no longer speak of maneuvering or reorganizing.

The Savage King’s own mount also leaped high.

But Gou Moli played a small trick.

Halfway through, he jumped from the saddle.

The horse crashed forward.

He landed safely on the ground.

Almost immediately, a Chu axeman raised his weapon and chopped toward him.

Thrum!

A saber moved faster.

It cut off the axeman’s wrist.

Sanghu arrived in time and kicked the man over.

Then

Sanghu turned toward the Savage King.

A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

The Savage King had just escaped death and was about to smile back.

Then he saw Sanghu suddenly brace himself on his saber and drop to one knee before him.

Gou Moli’s gaze lowered.

A length of spear shaft protruded from Sanghu’s abdomen.

The rest had already been cut away by Sanghu himself.

Sanghu was a master.

But amid a charge of thousands upon thousands of soldiers, a master was nothing more than a slightly larger ant.

Even so, Sanghu still spoke.

“My King, I’ll protect you.”

The Savage King immediately shouted:

“Then get your ass up and kill a few more men for me before you die!”

“Heh-heh.”

...

“How is it?” Count Pingye asked the Sword Saint.

“Are we still comparing this with the battle beneath Snow Sea Pass?” the Sword Saint asked in return.

“Yes.”

“I’m tired of it. I don’t want to compare anymore.”

“You really don’t cooperate.”

Count Pingye shook his head and sighed.

“A long time ago, I actually thought cavalry charges were supposed to look exactly like this: point directly at the enemy army and slam straight into them.”

That fixed impression had come from films and television in his previous life.

“Later I learned cavalry is not normally used this way. I once followed the Zhenbei Army south into Qian. Qian troops are actually quite good at infantry formations too. At that time, the Zhenbei Army harassed them from outside, compressed them, intimidated them, pushed them little by little, step by step, until the Qian line first began showing signs of collapse. Only then did the cavalry deliver one hard blow and smash the whole thing apart. Infantry before cavalry are already lambs waiting for slaughter. Normally, cavalry do not simply begin by charging head-on. Do you know why?”

The Sword Saint shook his head.

“Because cavalry are expensive. It isn’t cost-effective. But that is only a question of cost. In truth, if you simply slam straight into the enemy’s forehead, charge directly, smash directly, the effect is absolutely excellent. Just like now. The result is very, very good. Of these three thousand Savage riders, fewer than one in ten will probably survive the battle. But this fight has already become simple.”

As he spoke, Count Pingye urged his Pixiu forward.

The Sword Saint asked curiously:

“If the battle is already won, why are you still going forward?”

“If the momentum were poor and the battle turned into a grinding melee, I’d have to go up and raise morale.”

“But even I can see the situation is overwhelmingly favorable now.”

“Then I need to go up even more!”

The Sword Saint understood.

He nodded.

“True.”

Immediately afterward, Count Pingye’s command banner began moving forward.

At that same time, Jin Shuke’s second wave of cavalry drove through the gap the Savage riders had smashed open and continued cutting deeper.

The wound that had previously been torn open with something no larger than a nail clipper was now being gouged apart with a dagger.

The Chu formation collapsed into complete disorder.

The Rattan-Armored Troops began fighting as scattered individuals.

Even if they wanted to reform, they no longer could.

They were incapable of stopping more Yan riders from entering the camp.

All they could do was almost instinctively attack whichever Yan cavalryman appeared in front of them, or be cut down by a Yan rider who suddenly came galloping in from behind.

Before Count Pingye’s command banner entered Central Mountain Camp, Liang Cheng’s third wave of cavalry had already charged inside.

But Liang Cheng did not continue driving his men directly toward the center.

Too many friendly riders were already packed there.

Throwing more firewood into that pile served no purpose.

So Liang Cheng immediately split the force in two.

One formation attacked each Chu wing.

Once the flanks were shaved away, the riders could wheel around and close the entire position.

The Snow Sea cavalry were already rich in battlefield experience.

After dividing to both sides, if they found an opening, they charged in and killed.

If there was no opening, or if their own comrades blocked the way, they raised bows and began shooting.

The Rattan-Armored Troops had always possessed a considerable reputation.

The reason was that in the water forts and marshes of Changxi Commandery, when facing vicious water bandits, they could move, leap, pursue, and march far more nimbly.

That had made them nearly unstoppable in their usual battles.

But once they faced Snow Sea veterans in excellent armor, the difference in equipment immediately revealed itself.

The water bandits’ equipment... what organized equipment could water bandits possibly possess?

The armor on Snow Sea cavalrymen, meanwhile, had been accumulated piece by piece from Count Pingye’s and the Demon Kings’ household foundation, then fed without hesitation into the foundries and hammered into real military gear.

If it turned out to be inferior even to so-called rattan armor, then fine.

Stop forging iron from now on.

Launch a universal vine-growing campaign at Snow Sea Pass and put everyone in rattan armor.

How cheap.

How convenient.

So once again, the principle that you got what you paid for proved itself perfectly universal.

Their formation had been broken.

In close combat, the enemy’s armor clearly protected better than theirs.

Whether mounted or fighting on foot, the enemy’s individual killing ability was at least equal and usually stronger.

And when they looked around, it seemed Yan riders were galloping everywhere.

At last, the Baipu Army broke.

In truth, the fact that they endured this long before collapsing already made them very good, even outstanding.

Back when the Yan invaded Qian, a Qian infantry formation facing the first Savage impact would probably have collapsed completely and lost its courage on the spot.

The Baipu Army had continued fighting for a long time.

In the end, they simply no longer possessed the strength to continue.

First panic.

Then clenching their teeth and enduring.

Then losing sight of any hope.

Then despair.

Numbness.

And finally... collapse.

Groups of soldiers began dropping their weapons and surrendering.

It was not that they did not want to flee.

They were inside their own military camp.

There was nowhere to run.

This time, the Yan did not kill prisoners.

When Yan soldiers saw Chu troops throw down their weapons and kneel, they did not simply hack them apart.

They passed by and searched for the next opponent still resisting.

That, in turn, caused even more Chu soldiers to abandon resistance and surrender.

Below the watchtower, several Yan riders threw hooked ropes around two support beams and used their horses to pull.

Before the tower collapsed, Chi Mingyi jumped down.

He wanted to rush forward with saber in hand and kill.

He had no intention of surrendering.

No intention of fleeing.

Whatever else one could say, the Bai Clan had entrusted an army to this son-in-law for a reason.

At this point, if nothing else, he still possessed backbone.

The battle had already collapsed.

As commander, he had no power left to reverse it.

He was even too lazy now to keep wondering why the friendly forces supposedly stationed nearby had never appeared.

All he wanted was to kill a few more Yan dogs before dying and recover some of the cost.

The Yan refused to satisfy even that wish.

Perhaps they knew he was an important Chu officer.

Riders around him immediately threw ropes and looped them around his body.

Chi Mingyi circulated his qi and blood and broke free.

Then two arrows struck him.

One pierced his knee.

The other struck his right arm, the arm holding his saber.

More ropes followed.

They wrapped around him.

“Aaaah!”

Chi Mingyi roared.

His left hand grabbed one rope and yanked violently toward himself.

The Yan rider holding the other end was dragged from his saddle.

Before Chi Mingyi could pull the man close enough to reach him, another rope looped around his neck.

The rider spurred his horse forward and ripped Chi Mingyi from his feet, dragging him backward across the ground.

Then two more riders rushed over and pinned him down.

One of them drove a locking hook through his shoulder blade.

That was a device Xue San had invented specifically for capturing targets who knew martial arts.

Chi Mingyi was locked down.

Subdued in an extraordinarily humiliating fashion.

By then, the fighting inside Central Mountain Camp had already entered its final phase.

Count Pingye rode in at last.

A’Ming on his left.

The Sword Saint on his right.

His command banner behind him.

Around what had once been Central Mountain Camp’s front gate, corpses lay everywhere, stacked several layers deep.

Dead horses.

Dead soldiers from both sides.

And many wounded men still lay on the ground, groaning and screaming.

“Keeping prisoners?” the Sword Saint asked.

“We’re short of manpower right now,” Count Pingye answered. “When we attack cities later, having them wear Chu armor and carry Chu banners during the assault will do even more to break Chu morale.”

“Tsk. Filthy,” the Sword Saint commented.

“You mean if I order the prisoners killed now, that becomes merciful?”

The Sword Saint did not answer.

He knew he could not out-argue this man.

Fan Li stood ahead, wrapped in a whole mass of iron armor.

He looked somewhat lonely.

In the past, when attacking cities or storming camps, he had usually been one of their main vanguards.

But this time the Savage riders had performed far too well.

Fan Li had the distinct feeling of a hero with no place to use his strength.

In this sweltering weather, he had worn armor all this time for nothing, sweating underneath it without getting to fight.

“Raise the warning smoke,” Count Pingye ordered one standard-bearer beside him.

“Yes!”

Warning smoke could be mixed to different colors.

One simply added the correct materials.

Count Pingye had brought those ingredients.

Very soon, three columns of red smoke rose into the sky.

They announced to every army across the field that the battle here was already over.

Sitting atop his Pixiu, Count Pingye stretched.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

The casualties were far lower than expected.

But only if the Savage losses were not included.

If the Savages were counted as well, then this battle had probably produced no fewer than five thousand killed and wounded.

And many of those wounded were gravely injured, or carried wounds that would leave them unable to mount a horse again even after recovery, forcing them into retirement.

Without the Savage cavalry as the vanguard, the sixteen thousand combat troops Snow Sea Pass had brought into the campaign would probably have lost a full third.

And the men most heavily consumed would have been the Barbarian soldiers, the troops with the greatest combat strength and the deepest loyalty to Count Pingye.

At that moment, the Savage King, who had earned the greatest merit in the entire battle, sat atop a mound of corpses with the dying Sanghu in his arms.

Sanghu’s mouth was filled with blood.

Yet he still managed to speak.

“My King... are there really Stars...? When I die... can I go to the Stars too...?”

Tears glimmered in the Savage King’s eyes.

He raised a hand and wiped them away.

Then he smiled and cursed:

“Stars, my ass.”

Sanghu smiled.

“Right... Stars... my ass...”

Then the final trace of life left Sanghu.

He died in the Savage King’s arms.

Gou Moli reached out, intending to close Sanghu’s eyelids.

But no matter how many times he tried, they would not stay shut.

He could not help cursing:

“What’s this supposed to mean? Dying with your eyes open just to make me feel guilty?”

He tried several more times.

Still no use.

At last, the Savage King gave up.

He wrapped Sanghu’s head in the Snow-Wolf-Pelt King’s Banner.

Then he continued holding Sanghu.

His body rocked gently back and forth.

“Actually... I also wish there really were Stars.”

[End of Chapter 517]