Chapter 350: The Great Mound of Skulls by the Lu River

"Commander, the Xia army has surrounded us! We must retreat now!" Sha Dingzhou's subordinate said.

At this moment, the left and right wings of the Great Xia new army had basically completed their encirclement, trapping over ten thousand Luoluo soldiers in a cramped space less than a li across. From the Xia army's left and right wings came the rising and falling command of "Raise muskets!", and the following "Fire!" was drowned out by thunderous gunfire. Unlike their scattered formation during the charge, the Luoluo soldiers had now been driven into a tight mass—packed shoulder to shoulder, face to face.

With each volley, almost no bullet missed its mark, and the outermost layer of Luoluo soldiers instantly collapsed in a thick heap of bodies.

The surviving outer-layer Luoluo soldiers, seeing their comrades' horrific fate, were scared witless and frantically pushed inward, making the already cramped space even tighter. The native chieftain Li Achu was at the very center, surrounded on all sides by walls of people. He was squeezed so tightly he could not move—unable to turn, unable to walk, and gradually finding it hard even to breathe. Even expending all his strength, he could not push the crowd around him back even a hair's breadth.

Then, outside the human tide, several more rounds of musket volleys rang out. The Luoluo formation was like a giant onion, peeled layer after layer, while the survivors desperately squeezed toward the middle, compressing and shrinking that circle even further.

By now Li Achu had been crushed until his face was bright red, even turning purple. His chest and back were covered with people; every time he opened his mouth, a lump of air was squeezed out of his lungs, and inhaling was a vain hope. Before long, Li Achu was literally squeezed to death.

At the center of the onion ring, who knew how many Luoluo soldiers died this way—many had faces swollen purple, long since crushed to death, their corpses merely held upright by the crowd, never falling.

On the outer edge of the Luoluo onion, Xu Chen also stood in the gaps between the musket lines. He was attached to the army from the Foreign Affairs Bureau, specifically tasked with urging the enemy to surrender. Whenever a volley ended, he would shout in both Chinese and the Luoluo tongue, asking whether the enemy would surrender.

But the battlefield was chaotic, and the Xia army's line stretched four or five li. The muskets beside Xu Chen fell silent, but the right wing's guns never stopped. After prolonged fighting, volley fire could no longer be maintained—everyone fired on their own, and the gunfire almost never ceased. Xu Chen's shouts were lost amid the gunfire, and it was unclear whether the Luoluo soldiers could even hear him. Moreover, both Pu Mingsheng and Sha Dingzhou had prior records of humiliating Xia envoys, and for the envoys' safety, the Foreign Affairs Bureau could not allow Xu Chen to approach and shout. In truth, it was all bitter fruit sown by Sha and Pu themselves.

Xu Chen shouted once with no response, shouted again with no response, and finally said to You Shunfa, the roaming general of the Fourth Battalion beside him: "These Luoluo are faithless and fickle! If we don't beat them bloody, even if they surrender they'll rebel again. We must strike hard!"

You Shunfa grinned savagely: "That's easy! Messenger, relay orders to all companies—increase the volley rate! We can't let the Fifth and Sixth Battalions outdo us!" "Yes, sir!" The messenger spurred his horse away to deliver the orders.

In Sha Dingzhou's eyes, the new army's left and right wings were like a giant pair of pincers, clamping the Luoluo soldiers in the middle and slaughtering them madly!

This slaughter was not like the Luoluo soldiers' rape and plunder of common folk to satisfy private lust—it was killing purely for the sake of killing. Twenty thousand Xia troops were cold, precise, and efficient; their volleys never stopped, and their hands never wavered.

Their killing efficiency was no different from farmers reaping wheat or butchers slaughtering pigs and sheep.

The southwestern native peoples lived by jungle law, revering the strong, and had always looked down on Han softness—accustomed to seeing corrupt civil officials and Ming troops who fled at the first contact.

When had they ever seen such a terrifying army, a killing machine?

Watching the new army peel the onion, Sha Dingzhou stood frozen on the spot. These Xia troops before him—aside from looking like Han people—were utterly unlike ordinary Han in every other way!

"Commander, Commander, we must go now!" his subordinate reminded him in a trembling voice.

The whole flatland was now covered with fleeing Luoluo troops, and they could still slip away amid the chaos. But once Qin Liangyu finished devouring that Luoluo onion, escaping would become far more difficult.

Sha Dingzhou raised his head to the sky, let out a long sigh, and said: "We go!"

With that, Sha Dingzhou wheeled his horse and led his men retreating northward. Along the way, over mountains and fields, fleeing Pu soldiers covered the land.

These deserters had lost all their nerve—at the sound of Sha cavalry hoofbeats, they almost immediately knelt and kowtowed, begging to surrender.

Sha Dingzhou ignored those soldiers and fled straight north.

On the battlefield south of Ami Prefecture, that Luoluo onion had been peeled layer after layer. The Xia army's eastern and western wings were nearly face to face now, and fearing friendly fire, they finally stopped.

Xu Chen shouted again: "Will you surrender or not?"

The surviving Luoluo soldiers finally heard him clearly. Weeping and wailing, they all knelt and begged to surrender, kowtowing like pestles pounding garlic, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

A rough count of the surviving captives numbered several thousand. After they were led away in batches, a massive mountain of corpses had piled up in the central battlefield—its slope extremely gentle, its footprint enormous, its highest point even twice a man's height.

Seen from afar, it was an utterly oversized mound of skulls!

By now Sha Dingzhou and most of the Luoluo remnants had fled, and the entire battlefield lay in ruins.

From south of Ami Prefecture's city wall to the dry fields northwest of the Lu River, corpses covered the ground—stretching nearly ten li lengthwise and four or five li across. Standing among them and gazing in every direction, the bodies lay layer upon layer, stretching beyond sight.

The Lu River was also choked with corpses. Longtan Shoal was completely blocked by bodies, forcibly dammed into a water barrier. The river's flow was impeded, and water spilled over the banks north of the dam, forming a small barrier lake.

From time to time, corpses on the dam shifted loose and were swept downstream by the Lu River.

Seeing this, Qin Liangyu ordered: "Send Ma Xianglin's troops to take Ami Prefecture city. Wei Wenkui's cavalry will pursue the remaining enemy.

Bian Xiao is responsible for clearing corpses from the river channel, the Fifth Battalion will clean up the battlefield, and the remaining troops will return to camp to rest!"

The messenger acknowledged the order with a cupped fist salute and galloped away.

Soon each unit carried out its orders in an orderly fashion.

Bian Xiao's five thousand garrison troops all carried white-shafted spears, trained by Qin Liangyu using the White Spear Troops' methods. They were originally the secret weapon for the Yunnan campaign, and Bian Xiao and his men had expected to distinguish themselves on the battlefield.

Unexpectedly, his secret weapon never got the chance to see combat. Luo Daoqi, defending Phoenix Ridge, had at least slain several hundred enemy cavalry—only his five thousand garrison troops, guarding the pontoon bridge, stayed from start to finish.

Bian Xiao was filled with helpless frustration. He could only vent his anger on the corpse dam blocking the Luoluo soldiers, stabbing at it with his white-shafted spear for a long while until the corpse dam finally collapsed. Meanwhile, chaos had erupted inside Ami Prefecture city—the garrison and civilians had all witnessed how disastrously the army outside had been defeated.

Sha Dingzhou had fled, Wu Bikui was dead, and Bai Cha, Li Achu, Huang Zaiqing, and all the other great native chieftains of the Pu clan had not returned—utterly shattering the defenders' morale. Ignoring all orders, they ran rampant through the city, looting and plundering.

Inside the native chieftain's residence, Pu Zuoyong looked at everything before him and burst into tears. In his raspy, crowing voice he shouted: "Bring me a blade! Bring me a blade! I'll go out myself and slaughter these Xia dogs!"

The others in the residence paid him no heed at all—they were either packing belongings or stealing valuables to flee.

A loyal servant stepped forward and tugged at Pu Zuoyong: "Young master, we've lost. The mistress has ordered that we withdraw to—"

"Silence! We haven't lost! We haven't! Let me out of the city—I'll kill them all!" Pu Zuoyong wailed loudly.

By now Wan Cailian had emerged from the residence, flanked by her last few loyal Juke soldiers, maidservants, and confidants, all carrying large bundles. Seeing her son throwing a tantrum, she stepped forward, took his hand, and coaxed: "Yong'er, we haven't lost. We're just withdrawing to Kunming first, and then we'll—" Unexpectedly, Pu Zuoyong flung her hand away and roared: "I won't go! My surname is Pu, not Sha—I'm not that whoremonger's son!" At these words, Wan Cailian, stricken with guilt, staggered back three steps.

Pu Zuoyong stared at his mother with venomous hatred and spat: "Bitch!"

Wan Cailian's face went pale, then flushed red with rage. She raised her hand and slapped Pu Zuoyong hard across the face.

Then she ordered the Juke soldiers beside her: "Take the chieftain away!"

"Yes!" the Juke soldiers acknowledged. Without further ado, they hoisted Pu Zuoyong up, one clamping him under his arm by the chest and arms, another gripping his legs. No matter how Pu Zuoyong struggled and screamed with all his might, he could not break free by even a fraction.

The group soon reached outside the chieftain's residence, where a carriage was waiting.

A thin, dark-skinned Han man said: "We can't take the carriage. The city is surrounded by Xia cavalry now—a carriage will definitely be caught! We'll disguise ourselves as commoners!" This man was named Tang Jiabin. He had originally been Wan Cailian's brother-in-law; after her sister died of illness, Tang Jiabin threw in his lot with her and had since become her confidant. It was he who had delivered messages before and procured the aconite tubers.

Wan Cailian nodded: "Right. Everyone, take off your armor, hide your weapons—we'll disguise ourselves as civilians!"

Her subordinates obeyed. Wan Cailian crouched down, smeared dust on her hands, then wiped it across her face, and mussed up her hair bun. She had originally been a commoner herself, climbing through connections to reach her current position—now playing the part of a commoner again, there was not a single flaw in her disguise.

The group finished their disguises quickly and exited through the north gate, heading northward.

At this moment, Wei Wenkui, following Qin Liangyu's orders, was pursuing the enemy north of the city. He bothered with no battle formations—he simply scattered his five hundred cavalry across the area north of Ami Prefecture city. Wherever they went, Luoluo soldiers knelt and kowtowed, begging to surrender.

A few stubborn Luoluo still wanted to fight to the death, but they were too few and were all cut down by random blades.

The native chieftain Tian Zaiqing was fleeing through the forest when he suddenly heard hoofbeats behind him. By instinct he turned with his blade drawn—and a javelin came flying straight at his face. It struck through his brow, piercing clean through his skull.

The upper half of his head burst apart with a crisp crack like a watermelon, red and white matter splattering everywhere. Tian Zaiqing's face was frozen in shock, as if he hadn't yet registered what happened, but the light of life had already faded from his eyes. He toppled to the ground and lay still.

Wei Wenkui rode forward and retrieved the blood-soaked javelin. Just then, his subordinate pointed into the distance and said: "Chieftain, look at that group of people." Wei Wenkui followed his gaze and saw a line of travelers in the distant woods. At first glance they looked like refugees fleeing disaster—but on second thought, refugees would flee along the main road, wouldn't they? Who would dive into the woods?

Moreover, the group had both men and women, all of similar age—no elderly, no children—and their luggage was very simple, not like a family fleeing with dependents. Seeing this, Wei Wenkui ordered: "Surround them!"

He spurred his horse forward with his men and saw that among that group, several figures stood tall with broad backs and sturdy frames, sharp-featured faces, and the bearing of hardened soldiers. Wei Wenkui shouted at the sight: "Where do you think you're running?"

Startled by the shout, those Juke soldiers immediately pulled short knives from their bundles.

Wei Wenkui laughed with delight: "Haha, we've caught big fish indeed!" As he spoke, he raised his javelin and hurled it with the momentum of his charging horse. The javelin whistled through the air and pierced straight through one Juke soldier's chest.

Another Juke soldier shouted: "Mistress, flee!"

Then another javelin flew over, and this Juke soldier was also pinned dead on the spot.

The guoxia horses moved nimbly, most skilled at darting through the jungle, and in the blink of an eye they had surrounded Wan Cailian's group.

Seeing this, the remaining Juke soldiers knew there was no hope of escape and all laid down their weapons to surrender.

Only Pu Zuoyong roared: "What are you all doing? Get up!"

Tang Jiabin sighed and urged: "Young Master, we've lost. Surrender."

Pu Zuoyong shouted back in his cracking falsetto voice: "We haven't lost!"

As he spoke, he broke free of Wan Cailian's restraint and went to pick up the fallen short knife on the ground. The moment his hand touched the hilt, a javelin flew over out of nowhere, piercing straight through Pu Zuoyong's chest and pinning him to the ground.

Pu Zuoyong looked down and saw blood gushing like a spring. Confusion crossed his face first, then shock, and finally utter terror and pleading. He looked at Wan Cailian, opened his mouth, but could only produce a leaking hiss like air escaping, while bubbling blood poured from his lips. Soon the light of life faded from his eyes, and he became a corpse. Wan Cailian let out a piercing shriek, tears and snot streaming wildly down her face.

Wei Wenkui sneered and waved his hand: "Take them back!"

By the time Wan Cailian's group returned to Ami Prefecture city, night had fully fallen. The Luoluo soldiers in the city had all vanished, and every city gate and tower was now guarded by Bian Xiao's garrison troops.

The city was in complete disarray. Many houses were still burning with great flames, and every few steps one could see commoners lying dead in the streets — all the spoils of the Luoluo soldiers' pillaging as they fled.

Bian Xiao's garrison troops were busy putting out fires everywhere, burying the dead, and military doctors were treating the wounded civilians.

Wan Cailian wailed without cease, indifferent to everything around her.

The group was taken to the Tusi Manor, which had now been converted into the central command tent.

Wei Wenkui strode into the hall, his face beaming with delight: "General, I've brought you a gift!" With that, he shoved Wan Cailian and the others into the hall. "This woman here is Pu Mingsheng's wife, Wan Cailian!"

"Oh." Ma Xianglin was fiddling with the Tusi Manor's implements and didn't even raise his head. "What use is catching a woman? Where's that little bastard?" "Right here!" Wei Wenkui said, taking a severed head from his subordinate and tossing it into the hall, splattering a few drops of crimson blood. It was Pu Zuoyong's head. Seeing it, Wan Cailian let out a piercing cry, rushed forward, snatched her son's head, and clutched it tightly to her bosom.

Wei Wenkui frowned: "What are you grabbing for? Let General Ma see it first! Let go!" He moved to snatch it back.

Zhang Fengyi, who stood nearby, could no longer bear to watch and rebuked: "Stop!"

Wei Wenkui said with an awkward smile: "The Luoluo headmen have already verified the head. There's no mistake."

Zhang Fengyi asked: "How did Pu Mingsheng die?"

Wan Cailian kept her head lowered, as if she hadn't heard.

But her trusted aide Tang Jiabin, standing beside her, spoke in a trembling voice: "To answer the general, this commoner knows the inside story. I only ask for a chance to live!"

Zhang Fengyi was pondering this.

But Wan Cailian spoke up calmly: "I killed him. He was no match for Great Xia, yet he wanted to drag the whole tribe to death with him. I had no choice but to act. I used aconite poison…"

Hearing this, Ma Xianglin raised his head and exchanged a glance with Zhang Fengyi. Both saw shock in each other's eyes.

Wan Cailian calmly recounted everything — before and after the poisoning, and how she had carried on adulterously with Sha Dingzhou. At this point, she had nothing left to lose, nor did she harbor any hope of living. She only asked that Tang Jiabin die with her too.

Tang Jiabin had served as Wan Cailian's black glove for many years and knew the Pu Tusi's secrets in great detail. He had planned to use this chance to save his own life, never expecting that everything he knew would be spilled out by Wan Cailian. His face grew worse and worse, and he said in a low voice: "Mistress, say a little less!"

Wan Cailian paid him no heed at all.

Tang Jiabin growled in a low voice: "If you want to die, die yourself. Why drag me along?"

Wan Cailian paused, then looked at Tang Jiabin with venomous hatred: "You will all be buried with my son!"

Tang Jiabin was startled by her gaze and muttered: "Mad. General, my lords, she's mad, this woman is mad!" "Heh." Wan Cailian let out a disdainful laugh.

Ma Xianglin rubbed his brow. Ami Prefecture was Pu Mingsheng's home base. Though they had taken it, stabilizing order, dealing with the remnants, and clearing out the bandits taking advantage of the chaos would still take a long while. He had no time to listen to this nonsense.

So he waved his hand and said: "Take all these people to General Qin."

South of Phoenix Ridge, in the Great Xia army camp.

Zheng Dawang, the Mobile Corps Commander of the Fifth Battalion, clasped his hands and reported: "General, according to our rough count, this battle has yielded over fifteen thousand kills and more than three thousand captives." Zheng Dawang deliberately stressed the word "rough," because the figure of fifteen thousand kills was indeed extremely rough.

The corpses on the battlefield lay in chaotic heaps, piled layer upon layer, impossible to count precisely. They could only estimate by the thickness of the corpses in each area. A great number of Luoluo soldier corpses had also been swept away by the Lujiang River, and many enemy soldiers had been blasted into bits of flesh by close-range grapeshot, which also weren't counted. Many wounded Luoluo soldiers had also fled, but since all Great Xia firearms used lead shot, anyone hit was almost certainly doomed — even Great Xia military doctors could hardly save them. These fleeing wounded should by rights have counted toward the kill tally, but there was no way to count them either.

Moreover, the Luoluo army's organizational structure was extremely loose. The only thing holding this scattered sand together was the personal prestige of the tusis.

Now two of the three great tusis — Pu, Sha, and Wu — were dead. The remaining Sha Dingzhou had lost men and prestige, and could no longer command the other minor tusis. Even calling this battle the complete annihilation of the forty-thousand-strong Sha-Pu allied army would not be an exaggeration.

The Yunnan expeditionary army lingered before the walls of Ami Prefecture for four days. The first two days were spent digging pits, the next day carrying and burying corpses, and the final day filling in the earth. To reward the soldiers for their hard work, meat was served daily without interruption in the camp, with all provisions purchased by Zheng Zhilong from Annan in an almost unending stream. After the great battle, the Great Xia soldiers were rewarded with fine food, their morale soared, and they soon marched north again, heading straight for Mile Prefecture.

Meanwhile, Ma Xianglin led a detached force to take Lin'an Prefecture.

These two cities had already learned of the battle at Ami Prefecture from the routed soldiers who arrived, and they opened their gates and surrendered almost without resistance.

Then Qin Liangyu led her troops straight northwest to take Chengjiang Prefecture, while Ma Xianglin marched north to take Tonghai County, Hexi County, and other places.

After these places had been taken by Pu Mingsheng, Sha Dingzhou, and their forces, they had killed the rotating officials and replaced them with native headmen.

Most of these places were predominantly Han Chinese. The native headmen had no foundation for rule whatsoever, relying entirely on military suppression. Now that the Sha-Pu allied army had suffered a crushing defeat…

The native headmen no longer had any will to resist. Either they abandoned their cities and fled, or the city gates were secretly opened by the common people.

Wherever the Yunnan expeditionary army went, there was almost no resistance at all. Large cities surrendered the moment troops arrived, small cities were pacified by proclamation alone. The army's speed of siege was limited only by its speed of march.

By early November of the second year of Zhongxuan, the area around Fuxian Lake had been completely taken.

By mid-November, all the prefectures and counties around Dian Lake had also surrendered, leaving only the solitary city of Kunming.

A few days later, Qin Liangyu and Ma Xianglin successfully joined forces beneath the walls of Kunming.

Because they had been taking cities and forts all along the way, with troops split off to garrison each one, the two of them now had only a little over ten thousand men combined.

According to civilians who had fled Kunming, after Sha Dingzhou escaped back to the city, he shut himself inside the Mu Prince's Manor and refused to come out, while his soldiers continued to desert one after another. Now the other tribes had mostly fled, leaving only his own core loyalists still following him — roughly a few hundred men at most, no more than a thousand. He was truly alone now.

The Great Xia army's ten thousand men were ten times the size of Sha Dingzhou's remnant forces!

And Mu Tianbo, who had accompanied the army the whole way, was now trembling with excitement, unable to sleep through the nights. Gazing at every blade of grass, every tree, every brick and tile of Kunming, memories surged before his eyes.

His mother's final words, his sisters' miserable cries — they lingered in his ears at every moment.

He had thought he would never have a chance for revenge in this lifetime. Who would have known that in just four months — four months — he would stand again before his enemy! Now the only thing standing between him and Sha Dingzhou was this single city wall.

Mu Tianbo could neither eat nor sleep in peace, so he went straight to Qin Liangyu's tent to request battle. To his surprise, the moment he entered, he saw a man already kneeling on the ground, having knocked his head until it bled, pleading in a voice nearly torn from screaming: "General Qin, I don't want to command troops. I only ask to serve as an ordinary soldier and charge into the city with the army. I made a promise to that girl — I'm going to bring her home!"

Qin Liangyu said coldly, "No."

Ma Xianglin said, "His Majesty allowing you to join the army through the Foreign Affairs Bureau is already an extraordinary concession. Don't be ungrateful.

Do you think just anyone can set foot on a battlefield? Blades and spears have no eyes—if you go, you'll only end up dragging two people along to protect you."

Xu Chen cried out, "I need no one's protection! If Xu dies on the battlefield, that is Xu's fate, and I blame no one."

Zhang Fengyi was just about to offer words of persuasion when he looked up and saw Mu Tianbo standing at the door—his head immediately began to ache.

Mu Tianbo went straight to his knees and said, "General Qin, I..."

"No." Qin Liangyu cut him off directly.

Zhang Fengyi said, "Young Duke, please rise first and then speak."

Unexpectedly, Mu Tianbo stiffened his neck, kowtowed, and said, "General Qin, I am no Young Duke—the Ducal Manor is gone.

I only wish to slay my enemy with my own hands. Once that wish is fulfilled, I will leave the household and take up the monastic life. I beg the General to grant this!"

At these words, Qin Liangyu instead raised her head with a contemplative look.

Though Mu Tianbo was only thirteen, having weathered great rises and falls, his temperament had already matured considerably.

His saying "take up the monastic life" was partly seeing through the mortal world, but more than that, it was proactively eliminating hidden dangers for Great Xia.

From now on in Yunnan, no one would raise arms under the banner of the Mu family.

Because the last Duke of Qian still lived—one word from him would expose any rebel who fought under his banner for what they truly were.

Nor would anyone raise conspiracy theories claiming that Great Xia was restoring Mu Manor rule.

Because the last Duke of Qian had taken monastic vows—taking vows meant severing ties with the mortal world, leaving no descendants, and there would be no more princely manors or ducal manors. Moreover, the King of Xia would gain a fine reputation for treating the descendants of the loyal well.

It could be said that this was the best outcome for Great Xia, for Mu Manor, and for Mu Tianbo himself.

Of course, these words also carried an implicit note of transaction—Mu Tianbo had to be allowed to slay his enemy with his own hands first.

For Qin Liangyu, had this been the time of the Lujiang River decisive battle, she certainly would not have let her soldiers take such risks.

But what danger remained now?

According to the scouts' intelligence, Sha Dingzhou had lost all will to fight—spending his days drinking and carousing in the Mu Manor, finding ever new ways to toy with women. His troops were few to begin with, and their morale had sunk to rock bottom; the city walls could not even be fully manned.

And with so many civilians in Kunming city, Qin Liangyu had already planned to use fewer cannons, focusing instead on street fighting to mop up the enemy.

Among the garrison troops, Bian Xiao petitioned for battle day and night—his garrison soldiers trained in the white-rod spear formation were indeed the right choice for street fighting.

Arranging two men to protect Mu Tianbo behind the white-rod spear formation was not out of the question either.

So Qin Liangyu thought for a moment and said, "Let it be clear in advance—no reckless charging. You must obey the commanders' orders."

Mu Tianbo joyfully agreed.

Xu Chen looked at Qin Liangyu with eager eyes.

Qin Liangyu thought it over—since the door had already been opened, it would be hard to refuse again. Besides, Xu Chen's sincerity was plain to see, so she said, "The same goes for you." "Thank you, General Qin! Thank you, General Qin!" Xu Chen kowtowed in endless gratitude.

Qin Liangyu said, "The army attacks the city in three days. Go prepare."

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen