Chapter 243: Hebei Beacon Fires

Just as Bianliangcheng fell into a sea of fire and carnage, Chen Wen fought bloody on the palace walls at the same time.

Hebei, fifty li south of Xing Prefecture, is an expansive tract known as Wild Wolf Hollow.

Acting Grand Commander Han Tong of the Rear Chen, together with Acting Minister of Works Zhang Yongde, led fifty thousand anti‑rebel troops, who here faced off against the thirty thousand rebel forces gathered by Chengde Army Military Commissioner Liu Yanzuo and part of the allied regional armies, forming a standoff.

Unlike the chaotic deceit inside Bianliangcheng, the atmosphere on the Hebei battlefield was another kind of solemn and oppressive lethality.

It was late at night, yet both camps were brightly lit, with bonfires stretching like dragons, illuminating the soldiers' tense and weary faces.

Scout cavalry crisscrossed the dark plain, and the occasional brief skirmishes sent up sparks that were instantly swallowed by the deeper darkness.

Inside the commander's tent, lights blazed.

Han Tong, dressed in military garb, pointed at a map spread on a simple wooden frame, his brows furrowed.

"That old fox Liu Yanzuo avoids battle, merely relying on terrain to entrench, constantly harassing our supply lines with small cavalry units—clearly he aims to wear us down."

His voice boomed, laced with suppressed fury.

"The imperial court is in troubled times; the emperor has just ascended the throne, the situation in Bian Liang is unclear, and we cannot afford to drag this out!"

Zhang Yongde was relatively steady; he stroked the short beard under his jaw and pondered:

"Brother Han, you are absolutely right."

"For Liu Yanzuo to dare openly rebel, he must have some backing."

"According to scout reports, within the rebel camp recently there have indeed appeared some suspicious‑looking units whose attire differs from the norm, exuding a chilling aura; they are very likely reinforcements sent by the Iron Crow Army."

"We must fight swiftly and decisively to break the stalemate; otherwise, if the rebels join forces with the possibly south‑moving Khitan or other ulterior‑motived parties, the situation will become even more difficult."

Han Tong slammed the map hard.

"Then let's fight!"

"At dawn tomorrow, that will be the time for our army to launch the general offensive!"

"I want to see what Liu Yanzuo can use to block my imperial army!"

He is rash and fierce in character, and in warfare he favors frontal breakthroughs, overwhelming the enemy with momentum.

Although Zhang Yongde thought it a bit risky, he knew the fleeting battle opportunity must not be missed, so he no longer objected and began with Han Tong to carefully work out the details of tomorrow's attack.

However, they did not anticipate that the counterattack by Liu Yanzuo and the Iron Crow Army would come faster and more strangely than expected.

The next dawn, the sky still dark, morning mist spread everywhere.

The mournful blast of horns shattered the dawn's silence; the gates of the Chen army's main camp swung open, and all units poured out according to plan like a tide, launching a fierce assault on the several low hills and fortifications held by the rebels!

Han Tong personally went to the front, waving the command flag, directing with steady resolve.

Zhang Yongde, meanwhile, held the central command, coordinating and dispatching reinforcements.

In the initial stage of the battle, progress went rather smoothly.

The Chen army's morale was high, its equipment excellent, and it was a veteran force; under Han Tong's command, the attack surged like a tide, quickly breaking through the rebels' first line of defense and beginning to squeeze their core fortifications.

The rebels seemed caught off guard, retreating step by step.

"Hmph! A rabble!"

Seeing this, Han Tong felt somewhat reassured and ordered the vanguard units to increase their attack strength, seeking to break through the enemy formation in one blow.

However, just as several thousand elite vanguard troops had penetrated deep into the rebel heartland and were about to reach the enemy's main camp——

Then—an abrupt change!

Inside the rebel camp, a sudden low, strange drumming sounded.

The drumbeat had no rhythm, like the heartbeat of a dying man—slow, heavy, and carrying a maddening, bewitching power.

Immediately after, the camp gates swung open and a unit of about five hundred infantry marched out in silence.

These men wore the same garb as ordinary rebels, but each had empty eyes, an unhealthy bluish‑gray complexion, slightly stiff movements, yet carried an unyielding resolve to press forward.

Their weapons were a motley mix of swords, spears, axes, and hammers, but without exception their edges were smeared with an eerie blue‑green glow that looked especially uncanny in the dawn's thin mist.

"Trickery! Archers, fire!"

The Chen army vanguard commander did not take these odd‑looking soldiers seriously and at once ordered a ranged strike.

A dense rain of arrows whistled as it covered them!

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The sound of arrows piercing flesh never ceased.

These strange rebel soldiers instantly had their bodies bristling with arrows, like porcupines.

However, what made all the Chen army soldiers' scalps go numb was——

Those struck by arrows died instantly only if hit in an absolute vital spot such as the brow or throat; otherwise, even if pierced by ten or more arrows and bleeding profusely, they seemed utterly insensible!

They merely twitched their bodies slightly, then continued forward with stiff, determined steps, charging the Chen army line!

Their speed did not diminish in the slightest!

"What… what kind of monsters are these?!"

"Don't they fear death?!"

From the ranks rose the frightened murmurs of Chen army soldiers.

The formation began to show a hint of disturbance.

"Hold steady! No retreat! Spearmen forward! Sword‑and‑shield troops cover!"

The vanguard commander, forcing himself to stay calm, shouted loudly, trying to steady the footing.

However, at the moment the two torrents collided violently, something even more horrifying occurred.

These "monsters" that feared no arrows possessed astonishing strength!

They could often bear the spear's thrust, letting the spearhead pierce through their bodies, then close in to hack and slash fiercely with their weapons smeared in that eerie blue‑green glow!

What's worse, they seemed to feel no pain at all and had no fear!

Even with hands or feet severed, they kept crawling forward, biting with their teeth!

Intestines pierced, stomach rotted, yet they could still brandish their weapons, until the last drop of blood was exhausted!

That eerie blue blade light seemed to carry some corrosive or strange poison; upon contact, the armor and weapons of the Chen army soldiers would emit a faint 'hiss' and show obvious damage!

This was not a battle at all, but a one‑sided, frenzied slaughter and attrition!

The elite of the Chen army's vanguard—when have they ever seen such a bizarre and terrifying scene?

They could face the ferocious Khitan cavalry without fear, could charge through arrow storms, but facing these undead monsters that seemed to crawl out of hell, their courage and discipline quickly collapsed.

"We can't hold! Retreat! Quick retreat!"

Who knows who shouted first, the once‑orderly line collapsed in an instant, soldiers fled in terror, exposing their backs to the death warriors still madly pursuing.

Defeat collapses like a mountain!

"Damn it!"

Han Tong, the battle supervisor at the rear, saw the scene of the vanguard's defeat, his eyes nearly splitting.

He saw clearly that those bizarre death warriors were not many, only a few hundred, yet it was precisely these few hundred, relying on their fearlessness of death and indifference to pain, that utterly crushed his several thousand elite vanguard.

"It's the demonic means of the Iron Crow Army!"

Zhang Yongde rode up beside Han Tong, his expression equally grim.

"We must stop them, otherwise the routed troops will crash into our main formation, the consequences unimaginable!"

Han Tong roared, personally leading his personal guard cavalry like a red‑hot spear, charging against the flow of routed troops, slamming hard into the death warrior unit that kept advancing.

"Kill!"

Han Tong brandished his lance with tremendous force, directly lifting a death warrior, armor and all, into the air and tearing him in two!

His personal guard were all picked braves, fighting courageously to cut down the enemy.

The cavalry's impact did have some effect, temporarily checking the advance of the death warrior unit.

But those death warriors utterly ignored casualties, immediately swarming like bone‑eating lice, using their bodies to block the horses' momentum and striking the horses' legs and riders with their eerie blue blades.

The battle was extraordinarily brutal.

Although Han Tong was valiant, felling several death warriors in succession, his mount was wounded and he was thrown off.

Had it not been for the personal guard's desperate rescue, he would have been hacked to pieces by several death warriors.

Even so, his arm was also sliced by a strand of eerie blue blade light, his armor shattered, the wound bringing a piercing chill and numbness, far beyond an ordinary blade wound.

"Brother Han!"

Seeing this, Zhang Yongde hurriedly commanded the following troops to advance, using a dense barrage of arrows and a spear formation, barely managing to block this frenzied death warrior horde before the line.

After nearly half an hour of fierce fighting, those five hundred death warriors were finally wiped out.

But where their corpses piled up, an invisible line of death seemed to form, awe‑inspiring to behold.

Thus the price the Chen army paid was that several thousand elite vanguard were nearly crippled, Han Tong was wounded, and morale suffered a heavy blow.

In the rebel camp, that eerie drumming had long ceased, while Liu Yanzu's great banner still fluttered above the encampment, as if silently mocking.

Han Tong, helped up by his personal guard, stood and looked upon the battlefield littered with corpses, especially those Iron Crow Army death warriors who, though dead in various poses, still retained their attacking stance, his face dark as iron, his chest heaving violently.

He violently slammed his lance into the ground, emitting a dull thud.

"Withdraw the troops!"

"Reinforce the camp, switch to the defensive!"

"Immediately send an urgent report six hundred li away, presenting this battlefield report to His Majesty!"

He knew that this meticulously planned dawn offensive had utterly failed.

The Hebei theater, because of the Iron Crow Army's deployment of these bizarre death warriors, instantly fell into a highly disadvantageous passive stalemate.

And this battle report, bearing defeat and heavy loss, is speeding toward Bianliangcheng, which likewise lies at the storm's center.