Chapter 539: - The Fort Falls

The Sword Saint had once sighed from personal experience that no matter how sharp the blades in the hands of jianghu fighters might be, they still could not stir the winds and clouds of the imperial court.

Especially on a battlefield filled with iron cavalry and clashing weapons, one man standing against an entire army was almost impossible.

Personal martial prowess, on a battlefield of that scale, was only a slightly larger splash in the water.

But when two armies faced one another in formation, there had never been any shortage of battles where one point was broken through by force and that single breach caused the entire front to collapse.

Find a crack.

Pry it open.

Then pour everything into it.

Often, that was enough to trigger an avalanche.

Count Pingye’s thousand-li rush to Snow Sea Pass had been one such example.

Today, Fan Li’s seizure of the gate should count as another.

Certainly, Fan Li’s personal strength and monstrous physique had played an enormous role during the charge.

Without them, he could never have run that fast while carrying such an exquisite and heavy coffin.

But the root cause did not lie in Fan Li’s individual martial strength.

The Yan army had no shortage of skilled fighters.

Even if Fan Li’s physique was one in ten thousand, what then?

If necessary, two strong generals could have carried the coffin instead.

What mattered was obvious:

Fan Li had not known in advance that the Chu defenders would open the gates and send out a force.

He had simply obeyed his own blockheaded nature to the fullest and done the kind of blockheaded thing only a blockhead would do.

Then, the Chu opened the gate.

Then, Fan Li seized the opportunity without hesitation.

The facts proved that being simple and being stupid were not actually the same thing.

Seven parts coincidence.

Two parts ability.

And the final part, Heaven’s will.

Together, they finally cracked open the West Mountain Fort that Li Fusheng had spent so many days attacking without success.

The Chu wanted desperately to close the gate.

They simply could not.

The Yan kept throwing themselves forward without fear of death, advancing beneath arrows from the walls and forcing their way inside.

A gate was the weakest point of any city.

A purely military fortress, stripped of all civilian function, could reduce that weakness greatly.

But unless the Chu could grow wings on every soldier and fly over their own walls, the point where people entered and left would always remain a vulnerable place.

Above the gate were grooves, murder holes, and dense firing apertures aimed directly downward.

Boiling oil poured continuously.

Fan Li, still struggling to hold the gate open, normally loved oil-splashed noodles.

Seasoning first.

Then a mound of chili.

Finally, scalding oil poured over the top.

Ssssss.

The fragrance rose instantly.

Now, many Yan soldiers around him were beginning to smell fragrant too.

The Yan who forced their way through the still-open gate did not merely face killing fire from above.

Inside, they also had to fight Chu troops who outnumbered them many times over.

Anyone charging in now had an excellent chance of never walking back out on his own feet.

The Yan still surged forward without hesitation.

This was endurance.

This was attrition.

This was a contest of who could keep throwing lives into the furnace.

During the repeated assaults on West Mountain Fort over the past several days, everyone from Li Fusheng down to the lowest soldier had been holding one breath of frustration inside.

The Chu were skilled defenders.

The Yan attacks had looked lively enough, yet they had never found a true opening.

During the earliest assault, the only “opening” had even been one the Chu deliberately exposed to lure them into a trap.

Today was already vastly better than those earlier days.

At the very least, hope was visible right in front of them.

...

On the high platform, Count Pingye watched the great battle ahead.

Inside, he was mostly worried that Fan Li, that idiot, might actually get himself killed at the front.

Li Fusheng repeatedly gripped the hilt of his saber.

Then repeatedly released it.

His eyes were already turning red.

He had been locked in a death struggle with West Mountain Fort for days.

The damned place was like the most experienced woman in a red tent, or the pimp standing outside it: constantly teasing you, constantly enticing you, yet never actually letting you enter the alley.

Even an ordinary man would find that intolerable.

How much worse must it be for Li Fusheng, a man the Blind Man had once diagnosed as mentally ill?

He desperately wanted Zheng Fan to say one sentence:

Brother, go charge at the front. I’ll command for you.

But Zheng Fan simply stood there.

His body remained at an almost perfect angle to the sunlight, making the reflected glow from his golden armor even more dazzling.

Count Pingye was not doing this deliberately.

It had simply become professional instinct.

And because Count Pingye refused to speak, Li Fusheng had to keep enduring the torment inside his own heart.

It was almost unbearable.

At last, Li Fusheng could take it no longer.

“Uh... Brother Zheng~”

Count Pingye came back to himself.

From that tone alone, anyone might have thought Li Fusheng had suddenly developed an urgent need to relieve himself.

Zheng Fan turned toward him.

One look at Li Fusheng’s expression was enough to understand what he wanted.

Truthfully, there was no longer much need for brilliant command at this stage.

The entire struggle had converged on one point: the gate.

Everything else consisted of pushing the different troop types forward in the right order as quickly as possible, forcing the defenders to divide their attention and manpower so the pressure at the gate would lessen.

That, Count Pingye felt, was something he could probably handle.

But... how to put it?

After surviving Fan Li’s yangge performance and mad dash at the gate, Count Pingye had already calmed down somewhat.

If West Mountain Fort fell today, more than half the credit would inevitably land on his head.

The halo would settle on him too.

No matter what, he could not waste A’Li’s efforts.

Count Pingye smiled at Li Fusheng.

“Go ahead, Brother. I’m here.”

The instant he finished speaking, Zheng Fan turned his body back toward the battlefield and fixed his gaze straight ahead.

A pity he had no feather fan in his hand.

Otherwise, he would have dearly loved to create the image of a strategist in a feather fan and silk headcloth, laughing calmly while everything before him turned to ash.

“Good! Brother Zheng, I’m going!”

Li Fusheng truly could not hold himself back any longer.

With Zheng Fan’s words behind him, he immediately grabbed one of the support posts of the high platform with one hand and slid straight down.

“Motherfucker! Personal Guard Battalion! Follow me and charge!”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

Count Pingye remained atop the platform, both hands clasped behind his back.

Truthfully, his palms had already begun sweating.

Fortunately, he had seen enough great scenes and endured enough battles.

And a famous teacher truly could produce an excellent student.

Although Zheng Fan had not often received chances to personally practice command, the tension inside him now came far more from excitement than fear or lack of confidence.

Messenger soldiers stood beside him.

Signalmen and drummers occupied the platforms on either side.

The Prince of Jingnan’s military order stood behind his authority.

Li Fusheng’s explicit entrustment added another layer.

His own reputation and military record came before both.

And then there was the miraculous fact that simply by standing here, he had somehow caused a fortress that had resisted for days to suddenly reveal an opening.

All of that together meant Count Pingye now possessed both the authority and the prestige to issue commands to this Zhenbei Army force that was not his own.

And the officers below would not dare obey in public while resisting in private.

Count Pingye lowered his gaze toward the trebuchets below.

They looked nearly ready.

A little final adjustment remained.

That was why the signal had not yet come up.

“Pass the order! Trebuchets are to launch fire projectiles over the walls and into the fort!”

“Yes!”

“Pass the order! Trebuchets...”

Orders flew downward one after another.

Drums sounded.

Signalmen relayed flags.

Below, although the entire trebuchet line had not finished preparing, those machines already in position loaded the specially prepared stone projectiles and lit them.

Thrum!

Thrum!

Thrum!

Thrum!

Burning stones arced toward West Mountain Fort.

Because the range had been deliberately extended, all of them were meant to fall behind the walls.

Under circumstances like this, accuracy was no longer something anyone could seriously demand.

You could clearly see Chu troops packed along the walls.

You also knew there were densely packed Chu troops immediately behind those same walls.

But trebuchet accuracy was always approximate.

Better to throw too far and accomplish nothing in particular than drop one short onto your own men beneath the wall.

Films and television often loved scenes where some commander, for victory’s sake, ordered indiscriminate volleys that killed friend and foe alike.

Mm.

In reality, most of the time that was only something people said.

Unless it involved a very specific situation, or a death squad and vanguard that had been warned in advance and prepared itself accordingly, if you truly ordered indiscriminate fire onto your own front line, the soldiers below who were already red-eyed from killing might very well turn around with sabers in hand and come looking for you.

It would also deal an enormous blow to your own morale.

Still, watching “fire meteors” pass directly over their heads should be enough to make the Chu on the walls break into a cold sweat.

They understood perfectly well how dangerous their current position had become.

Anything that lowered their morale and added a little more pressure benefited the Yan.

“Pass the order! Sky-Ladders and arrow towers, advance at full speed and engage the walls!”

“Pass the order! Archers and crossbowmen, suppress the gatehouse!”

“Pass the order! Pull the battering ram back. Clear the road!”

“Pass the order! Have the Assault Battalion cavalry from the rear army enter the battlefield and form up!”

“Pass the order...”

As Count Pingye issued command after command, every branch of the army began moving rapidly.

The most important thing now was to expand the area where Yan and Chu troops were fighting at close quarters.

Force the defenders to divide attention and manpower.

Reduce the pressure around the gate.

Create room.

As for committing cavalry into the battlefield, that was one of Count Pingye’s old tricks from the days when he was still building his career.

Truthfully, commanding the field at this stage did not feel especially difficult.

Everything that needed to go forward had already gone forward.

What Zheng Fan had to do was not discover some brilliant opportunity.

He merely had to keep pouring oil onto an already burning fire.

Naturally, that was easier.

The problem was that no one knew how long the brutal deadlock would continue.

Under ordinary circumstances, when a gate suffered a problem this severe, the defenders’ morale would likely already have collapsed.

And normally, once the attacking force had actually opened the gate, defenders would feel the greater situation was lost.

From there, they either fled or surrendered.

But today was different.

Everything here had begun with one yangge dance from Fan Li.

Li Fusheng’s Yan troops had attacked West Mountain Fort for days without shaking it.

If anything, each successful defense had made the Chu more confident.

This was not the final blow after an attacking army had already tortured exhausted defenders to the verge of collapse.

Instead, both sides had been caught completely unprepared and somehow stumbled directly into a decisive battle.

No warm-up.

No buildup.

The Yan had awakened expecting another ordinary day of siege warfare.

There was some extra anticipation because the famous Count Pingye had arrived.

And among many of them, there had also been a faint thought:

Heh. Let’s see how much real ability this Count Pingye actually has.

The Chu, meanwhile, had simply heard the horns inside the Yan camp and begun cooking their breakfast.

So in this situation, the Chu defenders’ will and endurance would naturally be much stronger than those of a garrison whose city had fallen after a prolonged final assault.

...

“LEVEL! UP!”

“LEVEL! UP!”

“LEVEL! UP!”

At last, beneath a roar from countless throats, the gate was forced fully open.

Yan soldiers went mad and surged inside.

But the Chu had already erected fences and other obstacles behind the gate.

Archers, crossbowmen, and spearmen stood ready in formation.

Thrum!

Thrum!

Thrum!

Thrum!

More than half of the first Yan soldiers charging through were killed or wounded almost immediately.

The men behind stepped over the bodies of their comrades and kept going.

Under a rain of arrows, they shoved at the obstacles.

When the Chu spear formation pressed forward, the Yan threw themselves straight onto it.

One man was stabbed down.

Another immediately filled the gap.

“ROAR!”

Fan Li’s axe had disappeared somewhere long ago.

At this point, he had no road of retreat anyway.

Behind him, Yan soldiers were surging forward like a flood.

Even if he wanted to withdraw, there was nowhere to go.

Even if a sea of fire lay ahead, he could only grit his teeth and keep charging.

Not that Fan Li had any intention of retreating.

Today, he had made up his mind to perform properly.

He was determined to protect the little rotating red pennant he had won in the previous round!

Fan Li grabbed two corpses from the ground and held them in front of himself as shields.

Then he charged again.

He was already exhausted.

But the Barbarian blood in his body gave him tremendous endurance.

BANG!

Like an enormous iron can, Fan Li smashed himself forward again.

He knocked down a whole cluster of enemies.

This time, however, two spears drove into his abdomen.

Fortunately, beneath his outer armor was padded armor.

Beneath that was the golden-thread soft armor the Fourth Lady had woven for all of them.

The spears did break through.

But after penetrating the outer defenses, they finally jammed inside.

Fan Li was unquestionably wounded and bleeding.

But he had not been run straight through.

He wrapped both hands around the spear shafts and yanked.

The two spearmen holding them were dragged off their feet with the weapons.

At once, other Chu spearmen around them surged forward.

Fortunately, Yan soldiers charged in at the same time.

The two sides immediately became tangled together.

Only a heartbeat separated Fan Li from becoming a genuine hedgehog.

...

“Pass the order! Cavalry, charge through the gate!”

From the high platform, Count Pingye issued the command.

It was dangerous.

More than that, the order looked almost like something a rookie who knew warfare only from books would give.

The ground around the gate was already packed with Yan infantry.

Everyone was trying to force his way inside.

Even if cavalry entered the battlefield, they should have been trapped on the outside by their own men.

If they charged through by force, they might trample their own soldiers.

But Count Pingye still issued the order.

Because Li Fusheng himself was at the front.

Because this army was built around veterans of the old Zhenbei Army.

The quality of the soldiers was high.

Their battlefield experience was rich.

That was exactly why they could do things other armies could not.

Years earlier, during the southern campaign into Qian, Li Fusheng himself had once charged into the Assault Battalion with a cavalry lance in hand and begun killing.

Yet every formation under him had continued operating under its own officers in perfect order: pressing, feinting, supporting, splitting the enemy battlefield.

That was what an elite army looked like.

Sure enough, when the cavalry began gathering speed and entering the battlefield, the infantry at the front heard the hoofbeats behind them and did not even need an officer to give the order.

In truth, everything was already chaotic.

Most formations had lost their original organization.

It would have been difficult for commanding officers to relay detailed instructions anyway.

Yet the soldiers instinctively began moving aside.

Those on the outside shifted outward.

Those nearer the gate squeezed aside as well.

They opened a road for their own cavalry.

From the high vantage point where Count Pingye stood, the black mass beneath the wall visibly split apart like a tide, like Moses parting the waters.

At first the route remained clogged.

Then it widened.

Then it became clear.

The cavalry began accelerating to full speed.

Lances lowered.

“The resolve to break the formation!”

“Death, not life!”

“Death, not life!”

These riders wore heavy armor.

Even their warhorses were armored.

There were not many of them.

But they formed the spearpoint and led the riders behind them directly through the gate.

BOOM!

In one instant, the Chu formation behind the walls shattered.

The battlefield inside the fort suddenly opened.

Yan troops began flooding in like water through a broken dam.

“Hoo...”

Count Pingye released a long breath.

The battle was still far from over.

But the situation had completely opened.

What remained was clearing the Chu from inside the fort.

There would still be savage fighting.

There would still be casualties.

But the greater result had already been decided.

The outer region had long since been covered by other Yan formations and an enormous network of scouts and mounted patrols.

Unless Nian Yao intended to begin a full open-field decisive battle ahead of schedule, Chu reinforcements could not possibly reach West Mountain Fort.

Once the defenders inside lost the advantage of the walls, even if they continued fighting stubbornly, they would only struggle for a little longer.

Count Pingye issued several more orders in succession.

Most concerned deployments on the perimeter to prevent Chu soldiers from breaking out, as well as arrangements for the rear camps.

Once that was done, he left one of Li Fusheng’s Assistant Generals on the high platform to continue watching the situation.

Then Count Pingye descended.

A’Ming had been standing below the entire time.

He needed to be prepared in case Master once again became the target of some Chu trebuchet.

If Master had to jump from the platform, A’Ming needed to catch him.

If he failed to catch him, he could at least serve as a cushion.

The Pixiu was standing beside A’Ming.

It too was here to serve as a cushion.

Count Pingye mounted the Pixiu.

“Come with me. Let’s go inside and see how A’Li is doing.”

“Yes, Master.”

This section of wall had already fallen completely under Yan control.

Fighting still continued deeper inside the fort, but the area around the gate had quieted.

Count Pingye rode the Pixiu through the entrance.

“Heh.”

A’Ming gave a cold laugh.

Count Pingye turned his head.

A’Ming had stopped in front of the coffin.

Or what remained of it.

That had been his bed.

His nest.

Something he had designed personally and waited patiently for craftsmen to build.

Now, it was gone.

Zheng Fan knew A’Ming was furious.

He still could not resist teasing him.

“I never understood why you insisted on making a coffin from lightning-struck wood. Does lying inside produce some kind of electric-shock effect?”

Lightning-struck wood was supposed to suppress yin and evil things.

A’Ming shook his head.

“Think of it as electrotherapy. Tingly. Pretty comfortable.”

“When we go back, I’ll have them make you another one. This one earned military merit today anyway. Besides, Shi Yuantang already lay inside it. You wouldn’t want it anymore. Too dirty.”

Very soon, Count Pingye found Fan Li.

Fan Li was covered in blood and sitting against a wall.

Xue San, who had entered the fort ahead of them, was bandaging his wounds.

As Count Pingye rode over on the Pixiu, he vaguely saw Xue San leaning close to Fan Li with a delighted, malicious grin, clearly saying something full of schadenfreude.

Then, Fan Li, who had been sitting there quietly, suddenly raised one hand.

He reached out.

And grabbed Xue San’s third leg.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOW!”

Xue San, an assassin by profession, had been shamelessly ambushed.

And at the most important possible location.

He instantly released a piercing scream.

At that moment, Fan Li noticed Master approaching.

He immediately let go.

Then he resumed his usual honest, simple smile.

Xue San bent at the waist and clutched his crotch.

His expression looked like a chrysanthemum in full bloom.

Judging from the scene, Fan Li’s injuries were serious, but his life should not be in danger.

“Master.”

Fan Li called out with a broad, foolish grin.

Then he wiped his large palm against the ground.

Count Pingye nodded.

He waved one hand.

“I’ll go look farther ahead. You two continue.”

[End of Chapter 539]