Chapter 873: The wind and snow slaughter blade breaks the camp tent

The Helan Clan's camp was pitched on the wind-sheltered side of a wide river valley.

Low hills on three sides blocked the north wind, withered yellow alkali grass grew on the frozen soil at the bottom of the river valley, and the tents were more than two circles newer than the Chen Yan Clan's.

The outermost circle of tents was where the herdsmen lived, the inner circle was for the generals and managers, and the large tent in the middle, sewn with double-layered ox hide, hung three strings of copper bells; the clappers were frozen, and they didn't ring even when the wind blew past.

The third day of the White Disaster.

The Helan Clan was also injured, but not as deeply as the Chen Yan Clan.

Twenty percent of the cattle and sheep were frozen to death, the grain stored in the granary tents was enough to last for a month, dozens of warhorses were lost, and the rest were enough to pull out three routes of patrol cavalry.

As for the sentinels, in this ghostly weather, only two of the six sentinel positions were guarded, and the sentinels of the other four had all shrunk into the nearest tents, hugging wine jars and fire pits to keep warm.

Guarding the sentinel position in the northeast corner was a young herdsman, seventeen or eighteen years old, his lips frozen purple, clutching a long spear in his hand, the spear tip pointing down into the snow, his body curled in the wind-sheltered corner behind the sentinel platform.

The wind and snow poured onto his face, the crushed ice particles wrinkling his facial features into a ball.

He squinted and glanced outside the camp.

Nothing could be seen.

A vast expanse of white.

He shrunk his face back into the wind-sheltered corner, rubbing his fingers on the wooden pole of the long spear a few times, rubbing out a little heat.

He did not notice that behind the ridge line of the low hills, a large row of white shadows was moving downward silently.

Chen Yan squatted behind the last rock on the ridge line, half of his body buried in the snow nest, with only two eyes exposed outside the white cloth.

His breathing leaked out from the gap in the white cloth, and the white gas was pulled into a thin line when taken away by the wind.

The distance to the outermost tent of the Helan Clan was only about eighty steps.

The wind and snow swallowed all sounds.

Chen Yan turned his head and glanced at the long snake lying in the snow behind him.

One hundred death warriors holding horizontal blades and nine hundred young and strong men lined up in a tight column, lying on the hillside, wrapped in white felt, almost merging with the snow.

No one made a sound, only the wind howling endlessly in his ears.

Chen Yan pulled out the horizontal blade at his waist.

The blade edge refracted a bit of cold light in the gray snow light, and that bit of light was crushed by the wind and snow.

His mouth was close to the ear of Tu Lan, who was lying beside him.

"Wait for my first roar, and follow me to charge."

Tu Lan gripped the horizontal blade and nodded.

Chen Yan glanced toward the southwest direction.

That direction was the granary tent.

Amu Ri should have arrived.

His gaze swept toward the east again.

That direction was Tu Hai and his fifty men.

It was about time.

Chen Yan took a deep breath of the bone-chilling cold air, the cold air pouring into his lungs, bringing ice dregs that cut his throat with pain.

He stood up from the snow nest, his two legs stepping out two deep pits on the frozen snow surface.

The horizontal blade was raised above his head.

His lips parted.

A shrill wolf howl rolled up from the bottom of his throat, piercing through the wind and snow, and hitting three times back and forth between the low hills on both sides of the river valley.

While the howl was still echoing in the air, the southwest direction lit up first.

Firelight.

Amu Ri's side had started.

The first jar of fuel oil smashed onto the ox-hide top of the Helan Clan's granary tent, the oil flowing down the tent surface, and the fire arrow followed closely and shot in, the tent top instantly bursting into a ball of yellow-red flames, the tongues of fire rolling with thick smoke and twisting wildly in the blizzard.

The second jar, the third jar, the fuel oil smashed onto the other two granary tents one after another.

All three granary tents burned up in less than ten breaths, the firelight illuminating the snow ground within fifty steps into a dazzling orange-red.

The two sentinels standing guard next to the granary were blinded by the firelight, and before they could shout to report the alarm, Amu Ri's men had already rushed to the front.

The horizontal blade slashed an arc from the firelight.

The first sentinel's long spear wasn't even raised, the skin on his neck was cut horizontally by the blade edge, blood sprayed from the gap, pulling out a dark red parabola in the firelight.

The second sentinel turned and wanted to run, Amu Ri chased from the side, kicked his waist and kicked him down into the snow, the horizontal blade inserted backhanded, the blade tip piercing through the chest from the back, nailing him to the frozen soil.

"Burn! Burn to death!"

When Amu Ri pulled out the horizontal blade, it brought a piece of white broken bone; he didn't look much, his voice tearing as he roared at the brothers behind him.

Several Chen Yan Clan young and strong men rushed up, smashing the last five jars of fuel oil into the granary tent, the millet and dried fodder piled inside meeting the oil and fire, the flames leaping more than three zhang high, which even the blizzard could not suppress.

The east side of the camp also lit up.

Tu Hai's fifty men lit a row of torches there, the torches blown crooked by the wind, but the firelight flickered in the rolling snow curtain, looking from afar like dozens of fire points moving, matched with the clamorous roaring sound made by fifty mouths at the same time, the commotion was so large that the Helan Clan herdsmen thought thousands of troops had come.

Fire on three sides, commotion on three sides.

The Helan Clan was raided in the blizzard of the White Disaster.

People in the tents were awakened by the roaring sound and firelight.

Someone rushed out of the tent barefoot, the soles of their feet stepped on the frozen snow surface and were cut by ice dregs until they bled.

Someone ran out wearing leather armor, the armor strap not tied well and dragging on the ground, tripping themselves and falling into the snow nest.

Someone carried a curved blade and ran toward the granary direction where the firelight was brightest, their mouth shouting intermittent words.

"Where did the people come from?"

"How many routes?"

"Where are the horses, where are the horses?"

The camp fell into complete chaos.

And at this time, Chen Yan had already led the main force to rush into the tent group on the periphery of the camp.

The first Helan Clan herdsman who rushed out of the tent held a curved blade that had rusted on half of its side, seeing a group of white-felt-wrapped figures in front of him, the curved blade slashed forward.

Chen Yan's horizontal blade greeted it from bottom to top.

The two blades collided.

The curved blade snapped into two pieces from the middle.

The metal cutting surface at the break shone with a layer of coarse gray under the alternating illumination of firelight and snow light, the iron quality of the blade edge so loose that it was almost crisp.

The herdsman looked at the half-blade handle remaining in his hand, his eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets in the darkness.

Chen Yan's blade didn't stop.

The horizontal blade brought half an inch downward along the force of the curved blade's fracture, the blade edge cutting in from the herdsman's left shoulder, slashing obliquely across the chest cavity, and piercing out from under the right rib.

The sound of fresh blood and broken bones gushing out from the cut was dull and heavy.

The herdsman's body tilted to both sides, and when he fell on the snow, the blood stained the accumulated snow into an irregular deep red patch, the temperature of the blood causing the snow at the edge of the patch to melt rapidly, and then frozen again by the cold wind, forming a thin layer of red ice.

Chen Yan stepped on the red ice and rushed forward.

Behind him, one hundred horizontal blades shone out from under the white felt.

The blade light flickered in the blizzard, the cold light pulled into intermittent arcs by the wind and snow.

The Helan Clan's guards poured out from various tents, curved blades slashing toward the white figures that rushed in.

The sound of metal collision rang out in the wind and snow.

But every time they collided, it was the Helan Clan's curved blades that broke.

A Helan Clan centurion held the curved blade with both hands and slashed with all his might from top to bottom, the blade edge hitting the horizontal blade in the hand of a young warrior of the Chen Yan Clan.

The blade edge of the curved blade collapsed a piece of iron the size of a copper coin at the contact point.

The iron piece spun and flew out, hitting the ox-hide surface of the tent nearby and bouncing.

The young warrior sent it forward, the horizontal blade cutting in from the centurion's wrist, the palm still gripping the curved blade handle and flying out, rolling twice on the snow ground.

The centurion stared at the blood spraying from his broken wrist, his mouth open, the sound stuck in his throat.

The horizontal blade came again, obliquely cutting across his neck, the head tilted to one side, the body falling forward into the pool of blood.

"This blade is like cutting cow oil."

The young warrior turned back and roared at his companion, his voice carrying a kind of madness stimulated by the slaughter.

"Hack them, hack their broken iron pieces to pieces."

The tents in the camp were flipped over one after another, not by the wind, but by the Chen Yan Clan young and strong men who rushed in from the tent entrance.

Someone was dragged up from the bed in the tent, dragged to the snow ground outside the tent, and hacked to the ground by the blade before they even had time to react.

Someone carried a child and ran toward the south of the camp, kicked down by the Chen Yan Clan herdsman who chased up, the horizontal blade held against their neck and ordered not to move.

In the center of the Helan Clan camp, the sound of urgent horns came from the direction of the large tent.

The horn sound was crushed intermittently by the blizzard, dragging out a broken tail sound in the wind.

Chen Yan heard the horn sound, his footsteps quickened.

He led the forty most elite men behind him and rushed through the second circle of tent areas in the camp, in front of which was the large tent of the Helan Clan leader Wu Da.

On the open space in front of the large tent stood more than twenty personal guards, fully armed, leather armor tied tightly, the curved blades in their hands two grades better than ordinary herdsmen, with iron wire wrapped around the blade surface for reinforcement.

The leading personal guard chief was a strong man with a scarred face, shoulders two steps wide, holding a curved blade half a foot longer than others, seeing the white figures rushing over, the personal guard chief slapped a blade on the shield in front of him, his voice piercing through the wind and snow.

"Stop them."

More than twenty personal guards lined up in an arc, curved blades forward, greeting the rushing Chen Yan Clan death warriors.

Blade hits blade.

The curved blade shattered.

The Chen Yan Clan's horizontal blade slashed onto the personal guard's curved blade, collapsing the reinforcing iron wire together with the blade body, the shattered iron pieces splashing out and hitting the personal guard's face, cutting out several blood marks.

The personal guard chief reacted quickly, dodging sideways immediately after the first blade was bounced away, his voice changing tone.

"Their blades are different."

"Don't block hard, detour to the side."

Before the words fell, Chen Yan had already rushed in front of him.

The horizontal blade slashed obliquely from the right, the personal guard chief raised his blade to block, and the moment the two blades collided, the personal guard chief's curved blade cracked a gap the width of a finger at the blade edge.

The personal guard chief's tiger mouth was shaken until it was numb, his fingers loosened, and the curved blade almost slipped out of his hand.

Chen Yan didn't give him a chance to adjust, his left foot stepped forward half a step, the blade head of the horizontal blade entered from the gap, twisted and pushed, and the curved blade was snapped from the middle.

The personal guard chief lowered his head and glanced at the half-blade handle remaining in his hand.

Chen Yan's second blade had already arrived.

The horizontal blade slashed in from the root of the personal guard chief's left neck, the force of the blade bringing the whole body to tilt by half a foot, the blade edge obliquely cutting across the collarbone and the leather armor on the chest, and piercing out from under the right armpit.

Blood gushed out from both sides of the cut, the heat steaming into a thin mist in the cold wind.

The personal guard chief knelt on the snow ground, his body leaning forward, hitting the horse-tying stake in front of the large tent.

Chen Yan stepped over his body and kicked open the tent curtain of the large tent.

The fire basin in the tent was still bright, the red light reflecting the tent wall into a layer of dark bronze.

Wu Da stood beside the low platform in the deepest part of the tent, one hand supporting his lame leg, one hand holding a curved blade inlaid with silver flowers, his figure indeed fatter, his waist circumference more than a circle wider than Chen Yan's.

Wu Da saw Chen Yan rushing in, the flesh on his face trembling twice.

"Chen Yan, you are crazy."

Chen Yan stepped on the carpet in the tent and walked forward three steps, the blood on the horizontal blade dripping onto the carpet surface, seeping out deep red spots one by one.

"Crazy?"

His voice rolled out from under the roots of his teeth.

"Wu Da, when you let your dogs hit my people, did you think I would be crazy?"

Wu Da took a step back, his lame leg dragging on the carpet.

"That was your people who came to borrow grain first."

Chen Yan's footsteps didn't stop.

"What's wrong with borrowing grain? The people of the Chen Yan Clan are about to starve to death, you have grain, can you die if you share a little?"

Wu Da raised the curved blade in his hand.

"Don't come over, the Royal Court will not let you go."

Chen Yan stopped at a position five steps away from him.

"Has the Royal Court ever cared about the life and death of my Chen Yan Clan people?"

Wu Da's curved blade trembled in his hand.

"You hit me, the Royal Court will send a large army to grind the Chen Yan Clan into powder."

Chen Yan's horizontal blade pointed forward.

"Let's talk after the Royal Court's large army comes."

"Tonight, you leave your life behind first."

Wu Da screamed.

"Come here."

There was no response outside the tent.

His shouting was crushed into fragments by the wind and snow and the sound of fighting outside the tent.

Chen Yan took another step forward.

Wu Da slashed over with the blade.

The speed of the curved blade was not slow, but the angle was crooked, the lame leg causing his center of gravity to tilt to the right by three inches.

Qifugu sidestepped the blade's edge and delivered an upward strike with his horizontal saber.

Wu Da's right hand flew out together with the curved blade, turning two and a half circles in the air, hitting the tent wall and bouncing to the ground, the fingers still gripping the blade handle.

Wu Da stared at the blood spraying from his broken wrist, his mouth open, the sound stuck in his throat, turning into a confused scream.

Chen Yan raised his foot and kicked his chest, Wu Da's fat body flew backward and hit the low platform, the low platform flipped, the fire basin on the platform knocked on the ground, and the charcoal fire spilled all over the ground.

Chen Yan walked in front of him, the horizontal blade held against his neck.

"Wu Da, remember, the one hacking you is not your enemy."

"The one hacking you is your own mouth."

The horizontal blade fell.

The sound of Wu Da's head separating from his neck was muffled on the thick carpet in the tent.

The sound of killing outside the tent continued.

The Helan Clan's resistance became more and more scattered, losing their leader, and the firelight of the lost granary burned the last bit of organizational power into ash.

Chen Yan carried Wu Da's head out of the large tent and threw the head onto the open space in front of the tent.

"People of the Helan Clan, listen."

The voice traveled who knows how far in the blizzard.

"Your leader's head is here."

"Those who put down their blades will not be killed."

The sound of fighting between the tents began to thin out after this sentence, the dull sound of curved blades falling on the snow ground one after another.

Gao Jiong stood on the high slope on the south of the camp, the collar of his fur coat bulging into a bag by the wind.

Songqi ran back from the crossroads in the southeast, the white cloth on his face pulled down and hanging on his neck, a fresh blood mark on the corner of his mouth.

"Boss, six people ran toward the south, and we intercepted five of them."

Gao Jiong's gaze withdrew from the burning firelight of the Helan Clan camp.

"What about the sixth?"

Songqi swallowed his saliva.

"Chased for two li, his horse was faster than ours, and he drilled into a fork ditch."

Gao Jiong's fingers stopped on the firing lever of the sleeve crossbow for a breath.

"What was he wearing?"

Songqi's brows twisted.

"Boss asked a good question, that person was not wearing the clothes of the Helan Clan herdsmen."

He took out a piece of cloth from his bosom.

"When chasing him, the blade scraped a piece of cloth off his back, Boss, you look."

Gao Jiong took the cloth piece and sniffed it in front of his nose.

The texture of the fabric was finer than the textiles of any tribe on the grassland, and a faint scent of incense remained on it.

"People from the Royal Court."

Songqi's scar twitched.

"Damn, leaked a big one."

Gao Jiong folded the cloth piece and tucked it into his bosom, stood up and patted the snow on his legs.

"Running south."

His voice broke by half in the wind.

"The south is the direction of the Royal Court."

Songqi's face changed.

"Boss, if he brings the news to the Royal Court, Nuhe Ti will know that the blades Chen Yan used came from the Central Plains."

Gao Jiong did not answer.

His gaze crossed Songqi's shoulder and looked at the firelight that was burning larger and larger in the Helan Clan camp.

The firelight shone on the accumulated snow, reflecting half of the low hill into blood red.

In the distance came Chen Yan's rough voice, shattered into a few words in the wind.

"Surrender and you won't be killed."

Gao Jiong's fingers loosened from the sleeve crossbow and tucked into the bottom of his fur coat.

He whispered a sentence, the voice so small that only the wind heard it.

"If he ran, he ran."

"What's there to fear."

"Just adding another piece of firewood."

He turned and walked two steps toward the convoy, then stopped.

Songqi was still squatting on the spot.

"Boss, what should we do next?"

Gao Jiong turned his head and glanced at him.

"Wait."

"Wait for the Royal Court's reaction."

He pulled the collar of his fur coat up by another half inch.

"If Nuhe Ti sends troops to fight Chen Yan, he needs to draw troops from other tribes."

"The tribes that are drawn will be dissatisfied, and the drawn tribes are already hungry and paying double taxes. If they are drawn again to fight for the Royal Court, you guess if their leaders will dream of a Central Plains merchant selling wine and salt when they dream at night?"

Songqi grinned.

"Boss, with this hammer of yours, the cracks in the entire eastern grassland are all going to explode."

Gao Jiong did not laugh.

"This official's hammer is still early."

He turned around, stepped on the snow ground soaked red by blood, and walked into the darkness.

The fire in the Helan Clan camp burned until the second half of the night in the blizzard before it gradually weakened.

And among the charred tent remains and corpses everywhere, Chen Yan stood beside Wu Da's head, the horizontal blade leaning on the snow ground in front of his feet, the blade edge already soaked into dark brown by blood.

His hand pressed on the top of the blade hilt, his voice traveling toward the south.

"Where is the grain?"

Amu Ri ran over from beside the ruins of the granary tent, his face full of soot.

"Half burned, the other half was snatched out by the brothers, plus the scattered grain found in the tents, enough to eat for more than half a month."

Chen Yan exhaled a breath of white gas.

"What about the horses?"

"Snatched three hundred good horses, and more than one hundred pack horses."

Chen Yan's fingers loosened and tightened on the blade hilt.

Just as he was about to speak, a commotion came from the direction of the large tent.

"Leader, Leader, come quickly."

Tu Lan's voice came from behind the tent curtain of the large tent, carrying a trace of panic.

Chen Yan pulled up the horizontal blade and walked quickly to the front of the large tent.

Tu Lan lifted the tent curtain, his face looking wrong.

"There are people inside."

Chen Yan dodged sideways into the tent, the horizontal blade held horizontally in front of him.

Beside the fire basin, four people wearing clothes completely different from ordinary Helan Clan herdsmen were pressed to the ground by five Chen Yan Clan warriors.

Their armor was exquisite, inlaid with dark red copper pieces under the leather surface, the belt buckles at their waists were silver ornaments with dove bird patterns, and two short feathers were inserted on their helmets.

That was not the attire of the Helan Clan. ===== CHAPTER 874 =====