Chapter 101: Interception and Slaughter

Not only were Xiong Sen and his party cursing their bad luck under their breath — even Oboi, the man tasked with intercepting and killing them, was far from pleased himself, and was in fact also inwardly swearing nonstop.

First, they had been outmaneuvered by those old foxes from the Embroidered Uniform Guard; the party disguised as a family-visit convoy, led by Wanyan Yuzhuo, had indeed managed to avoid arousing suspicion.

It was only after Oboi led his troops in combing the area before Shenyang again and again that he realized something was amiss.

The clue ultimately lay with those Embroidered Uniform Guard officers. Every man wore a leather hat — which could be explained away as protection against the cold, yet it still caught Oboi's attention.

Combined with the Xibe cavalrymen mixed into the convoy, the group's identity became all but obvious.

Feeling he had been made a fool of, Oboi flew into a towering rage, immediately pulled his forces together, and gave chase southward.

Benefiting from the fact that the Eight Banners' Jianzhou barbarian cavalry had not yet degenerated into the "two-gun soldiers" of later ages, and doubly aided by the arrangement of two horses per man, their speed was all the greater.

By the time they reached Liaoyang, they had already caught the tail of Wanyan Yuzhuo's party from a distance.

Even so, Oboi, ever cautious in his use of troops, still divided his pursuing force into several columns. To prevent the Embroidered Uniform Guard from playing any more tricks of misdirection on him, he personally took command of one column and pursued in this most likely direction.

As they drew near the spot where that Embroidered Uniform Guard officer had met his death last time, Oboi's expression grew increasingly dark.

These damned barbarians, challenging the limits of Lord Oboi's patience time and again — it seemed they had not been killed ruthlessly enough. This time, he would slaughter these barbarians until their courage broke and they never dared come cause trouble in Liaodong again!

Watching the sun sink westward, Oboi's heart grew ever more restless. It was not until he spotted some twenty riders halted not far ahead that a flicker of unease stirred within him.

Last time, the situation had been much the same — and it had ended with those accursed Ming barbarians abducting Mr. Fan, for which the Great Khan had given him a thorough dressing-down. Now these barbarians were pulling the same stunt again.

If he failed once more, what face would he have left to see the Great Khan?

His mood growing fouler by the moment, Oboi barked at the personal guards beside him: "Notify the other columns to converge on this position."

After the guards wheeled their horses around the main formation to relay the order to the other pursuing columns, Oboi gave his horse a sharp kick in the belly, uttered a soft "Hyah!", and picked up the pace a few notches more.

Only when he was roughly one li distant from the Embroidered Uniform Guard and Xibe cavalry did Oboi gently tug the reins and slowly come to a halt. The mass of cavalrymen behind him, seeing their commander stop, likewise reined in their horses one after another and clustered behind Oboi.

Seeing the pursuers halt at a distance, Xiong Sen, intent on stalling for more time, kicked his horse's belly, rode out a few dozen paces ahead of the formation, and shouted: "Who's the Jianzhou barbarian in charge? Come out and answer to your lord here!"

Oboi, hearing this, was enraged, yet still spurred his horse out from the formation and cursed back: "Damned barbarian dog! Your grandpa is right here!"

Xiong Sen, seeing that Oboi was not yet twenty, laughed scornfully and jeered: "Little whelp, how old are you? Scramble back to your mama's bosom and suckle!" His words were deliberately meant to provoke Oboi while buying time.

Oboi, after all, was young and hot-blooded; though he had seen his share of battle, he could not withstand such abuse from an old capital slicker like Xiong Sen. He immediately roared back: "Fuck your mother!

Don't get cocky, you barbarian dog — your grandpa will surely hack off your dog head and use it as a drinking vessel, just like the last barbarian!

Oh, right, I ought to tell you, you dog barbarian — the last barbarian had his head chopped off by your grandpa right around here too!"

Xiong Sen's head buzzed with a roar. In an instant, he understood — the beardless whelp of a Jianzhou dog across from him was talking about Wang Xuanji.

Had not a single thread of clarity remained in his mind, reminding him he needed to stall for time, he would likely have already charged forward to fight Oboi to the death.

Forcefully suppressing the fury in his heart, Xiong Sen demanded: "Where is the man?"

Oboi grinned savagely. "The man? Fed to the dogs! His head, your old man took to make a drinking vessel!"

Xiong Sen could no longer contain the rage in his heart. With a furious roar of "Fuck your mother!", he spurred his horse and charged at Oboi. The Embroidered Uniform Guard and the dozen-odd Xibe riders behind him, seeing this, likewise urged their warhorses forward and surged in together to attack.

Oboi, seeing this from the opposite side, gave a wave of his hand. The fifty Jianzhou barbarian cavalrymen behind him charged together toward Xiong Sen and his men.

Though Xiong Sen and the Embroidered Uniform Guard behind him were already incandescent with rage, they had not entirely lost their reason. First, they drew their hand cannons and aimed at Oboi.

Oboi, seeing this, merely sneered. At such close range, and fighting on horseback at that — they wanted to play with fire lances? Had these barbarians' brains gone bad?

Xiong Sen and his men, however, each aimed at a Jianzhou barbarian and pulled the firing mechanism of their hand cannons. A series of "Bang!

Bang!" reports rang out, and seven or eight Jianzhou cavalrymen on the opposite side tumbled from their horses. Oboi, at the critical moment, sensed the danger and bent low over his horse's back, escaping disaster.

When he straightened up and looked again, those Ming barbarian riders were still aiming at him and his men. For a moment, Oboi's heart pounded with fright.

The fire lances these Ming barbarians were using were absolutely not the same as any he had seen before. Not only could they fire without lighting a match, but it seemed they could also shoot repeatedly.

Sure enough, another series of "Bang! Bang!" rang out, and another five or six Jianzhou cavalrymen fell from their horses. This time, however, the Jianzhou cavalrymen had learned their lesson — many had bent low over their horses' backs at the last moment and thus evaded the shots.

After three volleys from the hand cannons, the Jianzhou cavalry had been reduced from over fifty riders to just over thirty — only a dozen or so more than the combined Embroidered Uniform Guard and Xibe cavalry.

Once cavalry charged, their speed was tremendous; in the blink of an eye, they would be locked in close combat. Oboi was just beginning to rejoice — once the distance closed, those Ming barbarians' fire lances would be useless, since reloading took considerable time.

But even as he was celebrating, he saw the Embroidered Uniform Guard across from him toss aside their hand cannons and, together with the Xibe cavalry, draw hand crossbows.

At this, Oboi was utterly horrified. At close range, the killing power of hand crossbows surpassed even that of fire lances. After the sound of a volley of crossbow bolts leaving their grooves, he turned to look back — on his side, fewer than twenty riders remained.

Only then did these Embroidered Uniform Guard and Xibe cavalrymen discard their hand crossbows, draw their Embroidered Spring sabers and horsemen's blades, and charge straight at them.

The moment the two sides clashed, a series of wet, squelching sounds of blades hacking into flesh rang out. Men on both sides were wounded, and men on both sides fell from their horses.

By the time the two forces had charged through each other, Oboi was so furious he could have spat blood. On his side, only seven or eight riders remained unscathed, while the accursed Ming barbarians and those Xibe bastards across from him still had fourteen or fifteen riders left.

Never mind that Oboi was at this moment so enraged he wanted to vomit blood — Xiong Sen and his men, after a brief regrouping, charged once more toward Oboi and the remaining Jianzhou barbarians.

Oboi truly lived up to his reputation as a fierce general; even in such dire straits, he still spurred his warhorse and led his remnant Jianzhou barbarians in a charge against Xiong Sen and his men.

My apologies, honored readers. Today is my wife's birthday, and it also happened that a client's website kept demanding revisions — I only just now managed to churn out this one chapter.

(End of chapter)