Chapter 840: Divine Troops Descend from Heaven

Old Fifth Han was completely stunned.

Under normal circumstances, with slopes that steep, terrain that easy to defend and difficult to attack, and defenses prepared so thoroughly in advance... forget dragging the fight out for several days.

Surely they could at least trade a few rounds?

Taking ten thousand steps back... could they not at least fight bitterly and stalemate for a little while?

How much time had passed?

It had truly been nothing more than: the Yan came.

The Yan climbed.

The Yan took the hill.

Xie Yu’an said:

“According to the scouts, the Yan force ahead should be Chen Yang’s troops from Sushan Camp. Sushan Camp is already carrying guilt, so naturally they have a powerful desire to earn merit. More importantly, when Prince Jingnan of Yan first trained the new Jingnan Army, Chen Yang, Luo Ling, and Ren Juan were the three great commanders of its earliest main camps. The troops beneath them were the oldest direct-line elites of the Jingnan Army. When Prince Jingnan went to war, he also frequently used Chen Yang’s force as his own central army. Put differently, the Li Fusheng force we buried earlier was the strongest Zhenbei Army formation stationed in Jin. The Chen Yang force before us now is the strongest surviving formation of the Jingnan Army.”

Xie Yu’an still remembered how his father had looked when he visited him in the military camp after the Battle of Wenxin Lake.

Old Fifth Han sighed.

At this point, there was little more he could say.

He could hardly point at the newly proclaimed Ruler of Zhao’s nose and curse all his soldiers as worthless trash.

Xie Yu’an reminded him:

“Your Majesty should reinforce the second hill camp.”

Only then did Guan Shantong recover.

He immediately said:

“This general will send my fiercest commander up there at once.”

In his daze, he had even stopped calling himself “this King.”

After Guan Shantong left the wall, Old Fifth Han finally could not hold himself back.

He said to Xie Yu’an:

“Now I’m no longer surprised Zhao’s capital fell to the Yan so easily. Zhao troops are truly useless beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

Xie Yu’an nodded in agreement.

“Indeed. So there really are soldiers in this world even worse than the Qian army of old.”

Old Fifth Han did not become angry.

Instead, he laughed along.

He and this Xie Clan Young Master had developed a decent private friendship. Some jokes could therefore remain between the two of them without instantly rising to the level of national hatred.

Old Fifth Han sat back down and sighed.

“What a waste of terrain this good. If Grand General Nian were here, how wonderful that would be.”

Back when Nian Yao had fought Prince Jingnan, he had remained on the defensive so stubbornly that people mocked him as “Old Turtle Nian.”

Xie Yu’an nodded.

“Sometimes being able to hold, and being patient enough to keep holding, is a skill in itself. Grand General Nian simply failed to endure once. One careless step sent him into the abyss. If Nian Yao had kept steadily defending beside the Wei River, Great Chu would not be as passive as it is today.”

Xie Yu’an reached into his clothing, took out an orange, and began peeling it.

“The Yan just took one hill. Do you think they’ll stop and rest?”

Commander Han answered:

“You know the principle of momentum surging like a rainbow.”

“But after climbing one hill, going down again, then climbing the next, while wearing armor that heavy... can a man endure it?”

Old Fifth Han replied:

“When morale is at its peak, men can turn into beasts.”

Then, quietly, he added:

“Beasts like the ones at Wenxin Lake... the Yan still have quite a few.”

...

Chen Yang was bandaging the wound on his right arm.

During the earlier charge, a Zhao soldier carrying an axe had managed to close on him.

The axe came down.

Chen Yang raised his armored right arm to block while simultaneously releasing blood qi to reinforce himself.

The problem was not especially serious.

But the burst of blood qi had torn open a fairly deep wound along his right arm.

Around Chen Yang, every soldier who had followed him in the first assault was currently lying on the ground taking a midday nap.

The first hill had fallen easily.

Zhao’s combat quality and morale were simply too poor.

But Chen Yang did not immediately race toward the next hill without stopping.

If this had been cavalry charging on open ground, he could have led his men through seven or eight consecutive charges without taking a breath.

But the sun was high now.

The weather was hot.

The soldiers had already consumed enormous amounts of strength.

More importantly, the rear troops still needed time to clear and secure the hill they had just taken.

If Chen Yang forced an immediate attack against the second hill and seized it in one blow, naturally there would be no problem.

But if the assault stalled even slightly while the rear remained unsecured, the Zhao could easily counterattack and retake the first hill.

Fan Li had already stripped off his armor.

He wore no underlayer beneath it.

Only a pair of large shorts remained.

He sat there drinking water without pause.

The heavy armor of the soldiers sleeping around him had been handed to newly arrived Assault Battalion troops, who covered it with branches, leaves, and vines for shade.

Every so often, they poured water over the armor to cool it.

Just as bitter medicine cured illness, armor capable of greatly increasing your protection and saving your life was guaranteed to be freezing in winter and blazing in summer.

Prince Pingxi’s Black Qilin Battle Armor had been bestowed by the Emperor and counted among the treasures kept at the bottom of Great Yan’s imperial chest.

But except when attending particularly grand occasions, the Prince almost never wore it.

Most of the time he used the python robe Siniang had modified.

There was no other reason.

The armor looked heroic.

It was also genuinely uncomfortable.

Farther outside, soldiers had begun bringing food.

The men who had been napping rose and started eating.

The weather was so hot that few possessed much appetite.

They still wolfed the food down.

Once they finished, bowls and chopsticks were set aside and large numbers of men went off to empty their bowels and bladders.

This function of the human body could be trained.

The simplest example was becoming accustomed to visiting the latrine immediately after waking every morning.

After being tempered through enough life-and-death crises, a soldier could learn to take care of the matter whenever he knew he ought to.

Prince Pingxi had the same habit.

Before battle, everyone concentrated eating and latrine use into a very short period.

Then they could throw themselves completely into the fighting.

You could hardly stop in the middle of combat and tell the enemy:

My stomach feels bad and I can’t hold it. Give me a moment to finish before we continue.

Even if you belonged to the central or rear army and your formation had not yet been ordered forward, everyone around you would still be standing ready.

If you suddenly told your Lieutenant Commander that you needed to go relieve yourself, there was a very real chance you would be treated as a deserter in the face of the enemy and beheaded on the spot to steady morale.

Fan Li held an enormous bowl and continued eating.

His appetite was excellent at all times.

Chen Yang looked at him.

“You can still charge?”

This iron-tower-like man had spent the previous assault almost entirely in front of Chen Yang.

When they finally broke into the hill camp, Fan Li had practically used himself as a battering ram to smash open the breach.

A fierce general of the age indeed.

Chen Yang was a veteran commander.

He understood perfectly well what kind of effect a warrior like this could produce in a grinding melee.

Fan Li nodded.

“So long as I’m full.”

...

By afternoon, the sun had passed its fiercest point.

At Chen Yang’s command, the replenished Assault Battalion put its armor back on.

Terrain that was “easy to defend and difficult to attack” was not completely favorable to the defender.

The prerequisite was that the attackers themselves had to be elite enough.

The terrain limited how many soldiers either side could actually commit to direct combat.

That meant the weaker side could not easily compensate for inferior quality through overwhelming numbers.

So although Chen Yang knew the Zhao would certainly reinforce and strengthen the second hill after losing the first, he had still chosen to rest.

The Zhao reinforcements could not exactly fly into the sky and fight from there.

Once Chen Yang had put his armor back on, he rolled his neck.

Then he glanced toward Fan Li.

Not only had the giant already climbed smoothly back into his iron can, he had also looped a ring of flatbread around his neck and was still chewing from it.

Chen Yang reminded him:

“You need to lower the faceplate.”

Fan Li grinned and nodded.

There was no speech before this assault.

Taking the first hill so easily had already proven one fact: the Zhao were pigs.

Morale was high.

A general should never underestimate the enemy.

But when it came to ordinary soldiers, every commander under Heaven wished his men would regard the enemy as chickens and dogs while believing themselves gods descended from Heaven.

When two brave men met on a narrow road, the braver one won.

In the end, it came down to that one shiver before the clash.

The familiar process began again that afternoon.

Chen Yang led the Assault Battalion uphill.

The troops behind prepared to follow.

Once they had climbed some distance, Zhao arrows began falling again.

Even with the terrain advantage, the Zhao arrows remained weak and inaccurate.

Just as they had that morning, the Yan soldiers tried to avoid the shafts without disrupting the steady rhythm of their climb.

Those who were hit and lost the ability to move simply lay down where they were.

Those struck in vital areas lay there groaning quietly and waiting to die.

Their comrades looked at them once.

Then looked away.

In jianghu fighting or a clash between bandits, someone might fall with an arrow in him and a companion might rush over, cradle his head, and exchange a few final words.

In a true battle formation, there was no room for that kind of sentimentality.

After the battle, there would be plenty of time to mourn dead comrades.

Perhaps you yourself would be joining them soon enough.

Then even the mourning could be skipped.

The same silence.

The same pace.

The same rhythm.

The Zhao soldiers above now experienced almost exactly the same scalp-numbing sensation their comrades on the first hill had endured.

Finally... the range became close enough.

Chen Yang drew his bow.

Nocked a whistling arrow.

And fired.

Every Yan soldier immediately began returning fire.

At this distance, exchanging arrows was little different from the later age of men standing in ranks and shooting one another.

The first test was courage.

Unfortunately for the Zhao, Chen Yang’s men truly possessed morale surging like a rainbow.

As Xie Yu’an had said, they had come to wash away shame.

And beyond that... the gap in archery skill was complete.

This was not something a short period of drilling could repair.

Yan men were famous for riding and shooting.

For a very long time, their principal mortal enemy had been the Barbarians.

Barbarians grew up as natural hunters.

To fight them, Yan soldiers naturally depended upon armor and military discipline.

But their riding and archery could never be allowed to fall too far behind.

By comparison, not only Zhao but even the two great states of Qian and Chu had to spend far more time, effort, and money training soldiers simply to ensure their archery and horsemanship could manage a few exchanges against Yan troops.

An individual with talent might learn such skills quickly.

An entire army could not.

And so... the same familiar scene appeared again.

The Zhao soldiers quickly lost the courage to stand there watching comrades get shot while continuing to return fire.

Many simply crouched down and hugged their heads.

As one side weakened, the other strengthened.

The Yan naturally completed the suppression from below.

But just then, a Zhao commander personally led several hundred heavily armored soldiers charging downhill.

Nothing like this had appeared during the attack on the first camp.

Fan Li raised both axes and prepared to meet them.

Chen Yang grabbed him.

“Fall back three hundred paces!”

The Yan began withdrawing, avoiding the point of the Zhao charge.

Seeing that their side had beaten back the Yan assault, the Zhao troops above immediately erupted in cheers.

But very soon... the Yan, having just finished retreating, heard another one of Chen Yang’s whistling arrows.

The troops on both wings kept their bows.

The center threw down bows and crossbows, drew sabers, and launched a rapid charge.

Anyone who knew how to throw a punch understood that holding back a little strength at the end of one blow allowed you to chain the next strike harder and make it hurt more.

The same principle applied on a battlefield.

Yield half a step first.

Then, the instant the enemy’s burst of aggression faded, smash directly through him.

The archers on both wings focused entirely on suppressing the enemy center.

The armored soldiers in their own center concentrated on punching through as quickly as possible.

For the archers on the wings, this required overcoming profound fear.

They could no longer divide their attention.

They focused entirely on suppressing the enemy center and could not return fire against the men currently shooting directly at them.

The armored soldiers charging through the middle ignored everything else.

Their only task was to cut down whoever stood before them.

Trust between comrades.

Responsibility between comrades.

Both revealed themselves completely in that instant.

For victory...

I can die.

The world loved praising how Prince Jingnan had once fought across a thousand li in ten days and destroyed two of Jin’s three great houses.

How he shattered the main Savage army beside the Wangjiang River.

How, after another vast forced march, he burned Ying Capital in a single battle.

Perhaps because that white-haired God of War had shone too brightly, many people overlooked something.

The army he had commanded in those years... was the Jingnan Army he had personally spent more than a decade training.

The blood and bones of Jingnan still remained.

“Kill!”

...

“They beat them back. They beat them back.”

Guan Shantong wiped sweat from his forehead.

The signal flags ahead reported that the first Yan assault against the second hill had been repelled.

Xie Yu’an silently offered the orange segments he had just peeled to Guan Shantong’s mouth.

Flattered by the attention, Guan Shantong accepted them.

Old Fifth Han stretched his legs out.

At last, matters had returned to the proper track.

Unfortunately, the three men’s “quiet leisure” did not last very long.

New flags rose.

The half-eaten orange segment in Guan Shantong’s hand fell to the ground.

The second hill... was lost too.

Two hills gone in one day.

The newly proclaimed “Ruler of Zhao” fell into a profound crisis of self-doubt.

Originally, he believed that with Qian and Chu supporting him, proclaiming himself king gave him a real chance to counterattack, return to the capital, and genuinely sit upon the Dragon Throne.

Many of the small states in this region had been founded and survived only because larger states stood behind them.

The Yan were powerful.

But the Yan were not invincible.

Had Qian and Chu not already beaten them once at Wenxin Lake?

Guan Shantong believed the gamble was worth taking.

The reward for winning was simply too enormous.

But now... reality had slapped him twice in succession.

“Help His Majesty down to rest,” Xie Yu’an said.

Guan Shantong was supported away.

Old Fifth Han turned toward Xie Yu’an.

“Do we feed more troops into it?”

Xie Yu’an spread his hands.

“Your soldiers. Your decision.”

Old Fifth Han’s force was currently stationed behind Sanshan Pass.

The original plan had been to let Zhao troops repeatedly delay the Yan here until they became exhausted.

Then Qian troops would surge out and strike the Yan by surprise.

But now...

Old Fifth Han clenched his teeth.

“The Yan fire is burning too fiercely right now. No matter how many men we feed into it, they’ll only become fuel.”

Xie Yu’an nodded.

“Fine. The higher-ups do not appear prepared to fight a decisive battle in Liang anyway. If we refuse battle here and allow the Yan to seize this position, Liang’s gateway opens wide. The Qian-Chu coalition will have only one option left: everyone goes home.”

Old Fifth Han cursed:

“That gives Prince Pingxi far too much advantage. He’ll receive this great victory for nothing, and afterward the world will say the Qian-Chu coalition was frightened into retreat merely by Prince Pingxi’s name. What they won’t know is that both courts were already watching and hesitating. And if you’re watching, that means you do not want to gamble everything here. Deep down, you were already thinking of taking the profit and leaving.”

Gambling required momentum.

The kind of momentum that charged forward without hesitation.

If neither court possessed it now, then naturally both would take what they had won and leave.

Xie Yu’an burst out laughing.

“That is truly shameless. I don’t think Prince Pingxi wanted this hollow victory at all. He wanted to bite a large piece of flesh off us.”

Old Fifth Han’s expression became slightly embarrassed.

Xie Yu’an continued:

“Three armies marched out at once. He abandoned even his own house behind him. That is the posture of a man who came to gamble his life from the beginning. Difficult. My Xie Clan Army is the foundation of the Xie Clan. And Great Qian has only barely trained a few presentable armies after all these years. Your other troops can defend cities, but you do not dare use them for field battles. Prince Pingxi may be a Yan man, but his true foundation lies in eastern Jin. If he trades Yan troops here, his heart does not ache. We were already at a disadvantage in this wager from the moment it began. Enough. Enough. Pass down the order. We withdraw the day after tomorrow.”

“So soon?” Old Fifth Han asked in surprise.

Xie Yu’an blinked.

“Too soon? I already think it’s too slow.”

...

Night fell.

Fire rose from the third hill.

After darkness, the Yan launched a night assault.

Zhao troops inside Sanshan Pass sallied out to reinforce the hill but failed.

Instead, the Yan smashed them back.

In a single day and night, the Yan army took all three hills in one breath.

Its edge now pressed directly against the throat of Sanshan Pass.

At dawn, the Qian troops stationed behind the pass chose to withdraw.

They left even earlier than planned.

There was simply no point continuing the battle.

As for the Zhao army... first, the Yan had descended upon them like divine troops from Heaven and shattered their morale.

Then they watched the Qian army withdraw with their own eyes.

Calling morale “scattered” no longer came close.

The army collapsed from top to bottom all by itself.

Several of Guan Shantong’s Assistant Generals still had family members trapped inside Zhao’s capital.

These were the very men he had only recently “enfeoffed” as Grand Generals Who Protect the State.

They led their personal guards, intercepted the newly proclaimed Ruler of Zhao, captured him alive, opened the pass, and surrendered.

...

That day...

Count Yishan Chen Yang of Great Yan stood atop the walls.

He personally swung his saber and cut off the head of this “Ruler of Zhao.”

In his other hand he held a fistful of roasted beans that one of his subordinates had found from who knew where.

He rolled the beans through blood.

Then tossed them into his mouth.

Crunch.

Crunch.

His Adam’s apple trembled violently.

His face twisted in pain.

At last... he simply could not endure it.

He spat everything out.

Then cursed:

“That old bastard Li Fusheng’s taste... this Count really cannot learn it.”

...

On that same day...

Prince Pingxi was leading his army through a furious wide flanking maneuver, eating Heaven knew how much dust along the way.

A scout arrived from the front.

A Qian force had just withdrawn eastward from the direction of Sanshan Pass.

Its rear guard was disciplined.

There was no opening.

Not long afterward, Prince Pingxi’s own scouts met Yan scouts coming out from Sanshan Pass.

They brought news of the great victory at the pass.

Seated upon his Pixiu...

Prince Pingxi stared at the victory report.

Then he hurled it onto the ground.

And cursed:

“Fuck!”

[End of Chapter 840]