Chapter 285

What lay before his eyes, vast as mountains and seas, was the great army of Tile Hill Stronghold; they had half stationed at Luokou to defend, half went out of the city to fight offensively—this is also the proper way to defend a city. The biggest taboo in defending a city is to be trapped inside and make a last stand; it's best to have troops outside forming a pincer formation. Making a last stand means the enemy can leisurely prepare, dig tunnels to completely encircle the city, and then repeatedly attack—there will be no place they cannot take.

Once they were all trapped inside the city, the city's function became useless; the enemy could dig many tunnels to set up obstacles, and with only a small force could monitor the troops inside the city while the main force went elsewhere to fight in depth—the military strength inside the city would thus be rendered useless.

As for this knowledge, Bai Lang knows it without anyone telling him, though he doesn't need to worry about it. He only needs to utterly rout the army before him—if he has spare time, he can even scale the walls again when attacking the city. Although the walls of Luokou City happen to be five zhang high, completely ahistorical.

Bai Lang looked up at the sky; the sun hung high but it was not hot at all, and the wind was not strong either, while a layer of clouds on the horizon looked rather overcast. All in all, the weather gave a feeling of solemn lethality—indeed a fine day for carnage. Bai Lang urged his warhorse, moving left and right a few steps; he squeezed the horse's belly, let out a roar, raised his twin spears, and began his charge.

At this point the two armies' formations had not yet made contact; even the strongest bows, given their arcing range, could not reach the enemy. By common sense, they should have advanced a hundred paces first, exchanged arrow fire, and then begun fighting. Unexpectedly, Bai Lang charged out—this charge covered more than half a li. Although the warhorse could accelerate to its maximum speed, Bai Lang was not leading a full cavalry formation.

Opposite them likewise stood a forest of spears, with large shields planted into the ground and spears set up; an ordinary cavalry charge would be prepared to lose all of its front-rank horsemen. The rear-rank crossbowmen had rushed out to prepare to shoot arrows, and the one who should have been directing these crossbowmen was Wang Bodang—after all, Wang Bodang not only had formidable skill with the double-pointed soft spear, his archery was unmatched.

Unfortunately, Wang Bodang had already been slain by Bai Lang in battle, so the person directing the crossbowmen was a young man—Bai Lang had seen this young man before; he was one of the three who, together with the four great bandits, had tried to encircle and kill Bai Lang during their attack on the Flying Horse Ranch, and this man was also Li Mi's son, Li Tianfan.

Bai Lang had seen him but did not know he was Li Mi's son; Bai Lang didn't even know Li Mi himself—when they first fought, Li Mi fled quickly and Bai Lang never saw him. The county troops behind Bai Lang had no choice but to follow his charge, for the old soldiers had also said that this Prefect Bai conducted himself with vigor just like the Duke of Chu, Yang Su of old—this man had once, in battle, directly ordered two or three hundred men to charge the enemy formation, and if they failed to break it, they would all be beheaded.

The killing aura emanating from Bai Lang was felt most deeply by these county troops; they were naturally both fearful and respectful, but fear outweighed respect a little, for they dreaded being killed by Bai Lang— they would think that if Bai Lang slew them, even their souls would not find release, and though they did not know where this idea came from, they believed it firmly.

Thus they hurriedly followed Bai Lang's charge; as for Pei Renji's soldiers and officers, they were left dumbfounded. Luo Shixin and Qin Qiong knew Bai Lang was extremely reckless, but they never imagined that his recklessness would mean that the elite troops of Tile Hill Stronghold ahead were all dead men?!

At the command, a hail of arrows fell; thousands of bows and crossbows were aimed at Bai Lang—after all, he was in the very front, and the cavalry closest to him had been thrown twenty or thirty paces behind by him; if this man were shot dead, the troops charging behind him would surely die as well, and perhaps they could even be driven to countercharge the Sui army's battle line.

Bai Lang flicked both hands, and the two iron spears spun in his grasp like blossoms, clacking away many arrows with a crackling sound; the iron spears shielded the front two sides of his warhorse, and with Bai Lang's erupting true qi taking shape, it was as if two great shields had sprouted before him, joined together into a conical spearhead for the assault.

Bai Lang's Internal Force flowed into the horse's body, traveling through its chest, abdomen, and limbs; the horse also let out a roar like a lion's, stamped the ground with greater force, and its speed surged— a single horse exerted the momentum of a thousand cavalry charging— all thanks to the man on its back.

Bai Lang on horseback wore a polished, bright Ming light armor, his helmet unfurled like phoenix wings, his face lit by a brilliant black glow from his thick beard, and his dense, arched eyebrows; in his roar he truly was a tiger general of the age— the so‑called peerless warrior of the world must look just like this. 'This time I will make the Sui and Tang peerless!' Bai Lang thought, urging his warhorse to completely ignore the rain‑like arrows and crash straight into the enemy formation ahead.

At this point his twin iron clubs were no longer spinning; he gripped the rear end and extended the front two‑thirds. This length was ideal for Bai Lang to wield, chop, slash, and thrust, and he had already readied himself for slaughter— his heartbeat did not quicken, but the killing intent of a tiger's roar in his chest surged forth.

Such momentum was like a white tiger over ten zhang tall lunging into the formation; when Bai Lang arrived bearing his grim killing intent, the crossbowmen had already fled in panic to the rear of the spearmen, not a single one daring to loose another arrow. Meanwhile the spearmen facing Bai Lang were thrown into utter disarray; as Bai Lang's momentum had already formed and he launched his attack, someone had already dropped his spear and shield, stumbling backward, and this threw the whole line into chaos— the line facing Bai Lang became disordered and buckled backward.

Since the spear line had broken, Bai Lang laughed loudly and swung his twin iron clubs outward to left and right, while Snow‑Green Horse, under Bai Lang's true qi control, lifted all four hooves off the ground, ready to leap over the first rank of soldiers who were falling back and tumbling. Bai Lang's twin iron clubs traced a blood line in the air, blood spurting like a waterfall, and every soldier on those two lines was cut down.

This strike was extremely fierce in force, and added to the horse's speed, the killing line it drew in one breath turned every living person within the reach of Bai Lang's iron spears across three ranks into corpses. Just as before, those who fell within the blade's range died instantly, while those who only got the haft could only struggle slowly before expiring— if one's skull was smashed outright, that too was a matter of luck.

After the first slash, Bai Lang brought his arms together and struck again from rear to front— thus another batch of soldiers was slain. And the conjoined long spear's two tips cut straight through the entire cross‑rank of the spear formation— seven full ranks front to back, indeed; the small formation facing Bai Lang numbered over two hundred men, but Bai Lang needed only two breaths, two slashes and a thrust, and the survivors among the troops amounted to barely over seventy.

Such speed and ferocity in killing— none of the commanders present on either side had ever witnessed anything like it......