Chapter 119: Heaven's Timing Is With Me

Fist-sized cobblestones came howling down the hillside in sheets, shrieking with a strange whistle.

A heavily armored Askari centurion was suddenly struck in the face. His cheek instantly swelled at terrifying speed, several broken teeth mixed with blood spurting violently from his mouth, his whole face a sheet of red.

He swayed twice, about to signal that he was fine, when a second stone flew in — this one struck his calf.

Normally that was a safer spot than the chest or belly, but as luck would have it, he had no armor there.

The pain of a direct hit to the shinbone is excruciating — only slightly less intense than the agony of a blow to a man's most vital part.

At this, the centurion could no longer bother to steady his men. Clutching his legs, he rolled out of the marching column and screamed his heart out.

That wail was like a signal. More stones came spinning in from about a hundred paces away, swarming like bees at the charging Askari soldiers.

In an instant, the Karakhanid soldiers charging forward, hoping to use a wedge formation to pierce the waist of the Khotan army, were shrieking as miserably as their centurion. Not only did their charge slow, their formation fell into disorder.

Amid the awestruck gazes of a crowd of "dead weight," Manxiong rose to his feet.

This fierce warrior — one hundred eighty-six centimeters tall, arms thicker than an ordinary man's thighs, wearing two layers of Tibetan-style iron lamellar armor, a great axe gleaming with faint white light in his hand — would make anyone on a battlefield shudder.

Dunzhu was just a shade smaller than Manxiong in build, but more evenly proportioned, without Manxiong's clumsiness.

On his back he carried a wooden tube like a quiver, though not for arrows but for javelins. Besides the two javelins, Dunzhu also had two fine-steel short spears thrust at his sides.

These two were deliberately left here by Zhang Zhao. He needed warriors with exactly this kind of impact to defend against pincer attacks from left and right.

"Kill the barbarians!" Several Khotan palace guards with Scythian features shouted and charged at the Askari armored soldiers, who had been battered dizzy — utterly heedless that they themselves looked every bit the standard barbarian.

The Khotan palace guards, iron-faced shields in hand, crashed into the Askari spear-forest in what was nearly a suicidal charge.

In an instant, almost every one of them was stabbed bloody. But their mission was accomplished — the Askari armored soldiers' spear-forest had been smashed open with a gap.

What remained was Manxiong's moment. Like a true wild bear, he charged in through the gap.

Once inside, he needed no techniques, no skill. Gripping the great axe's haft with both hands, he simply began swinging in full circles, spinning like a top.

Uh! I'm an arms warrior — damage by electric fan. Cooldown a minute and a half, turn and keep turning.

This is a meat grinder!

With Manxiong's monstrous strength behind the ten-plus-jin great axe, no matter what armor you wore, no matter what weapon you used — except for those seven- or eight-chi-long pikes — nothing worked.

Unfortunately, the Askari charging in were assault troops, and they happened not to have brought any.

In moments, the dozens of armored soldiers at the tip of the wedge were sent staggering aside, dodging left and right under Manxiong's one-man charge.

That was exactly what they had been waiting for — because behind Manxiong, the Khotan palace guards, far better equipped than the Askari, surged forward wielding black-iron hammers and flanged maces ideal for close combat and armored fighting.

Disciplined and orderly, fighting in three-man base units, they easily battered the scattered Karakhanid Askari into howling misery.

On Dunzhu's side, the situation was much the same. The Askari armored soldiers at the front were slaughtered with heavy casualties by a volley of javelins from Dunzhu and several brawny Khotan palace guards.

Before the gap could be plugged, Dunzhu charged in with a fine-steel short spear in each hand. With a man leading from the front, the Khotan palace guards rallied around him — a few dozen men stubbornly holding back an assault by hundreds.

Zhang Zhao swept his hengdao saber, and a black banner of the Divine Warriors toppled with a crash.

He looked up. Before him, barely any Divine Warriors were left standing. The ground was planted full of corpses sprawled every which way. Blood streamed into the trenches with a rushing sound, like a river.

"Yan Jin, you take the left, I'll take the right! Cut off the Karakhanids' line of attack — today I'm going to devour them!"

Yan Jin wiped a handful of pale-red rainwater from his face, gave Zhang Zhao a complicated look, then nodded.

He had strongly disapproved of what Zhang Zhao had just done. On the battlefield, one should stop at nothing for victory — that was what an army commander ought to do. Letting the enemy fill in the trenches was womanish mercy, absolutely unacceptable.

Yet he had to admit Zhang Zhao's strategy had worked brilliantly. He had not only roused the army's morale, but with that soaring morale had shattered the several thousand Divine Warriors to the front.

One look at the armored soldiers behind him — still brimming with fighting spirit after nearly half a shichen of battle — told him that Zhang Erlang, precisely because of such conduct, had left a godlike mark in their hearts.

At least in the eyes of the common soldiers, following such a commander meant never having to fear being oppressed or deceived.

"Defeated! Defeated!"

When Zhang Zhao suddenly plunged into the midst of the still-attacking Askari army, the shrieking cries rang out.

This assault force was arranged with armored soldiers in front and lightly armored or unarmored soldiers behind.

They had intended to pierce Zhang Zhao's waist, but had not expected Zhang Zhao to have an "iron waist."

Even their elite armored vanguard could not break through, and instead they were pushed back by Zhang Zhao.

Moreover, the expendable Divine Warriors had collapsed far too quickly, and in their rout they had smashed through the defensive line of the Askari soldiers arrayed behind them.

On a battlefield drenched in blood, with severed limbs flying everywhere, fear takes root in men's hearts most easily.

The Askari who had first formed ranks could still hold, but once the whole field was full of fleeing men, the Askari behind could not help but break as well.

Once the great central formation collapsed, the flanks of the Askari armored soldiers tasked with piercing through on both wings were completely exposed.

Now it was Zhang Zhao's turn to pierce their waist. These Askari, second-rate troops even within the Karakhanid state, lacked the tenacity of Zhang Zhao's Hanshan Capital troops and the Khotan palace guards.

After being cut in half at the waist and losing a dozen or more men, someone let out a great shout — and the entire defensive line, like a rope stretched to its limit, simply snapped!

"Revenge! The time for revenge has come!" Monk Zhitong on the hillside had eyes gone red.

Everyone could see the Karakhanids had lost. Over three thousand Divine Warriors plus nearly three thousand Askari had failed to defeat a Khotan force of under a thousand.

If not now, when better to beat a drowning dog?

The hatred suppressed for years among the crowd erupted like a wildfire!

Countless "dead weight" wielding all manner of weapons came howling madly out of every corner.

Once they latched onto a Karakhanid soldier, a dozen or even dozens would swarm him. They beat with clubs, stabbed with rusted short knives; those with nothing used fists and teeth together. After the frenzy, they would often even strip the "victim's" clothes and armor.

A scene of hell on earth!

General Abudu was dragged along by the guards at his side, fleeing with the surging tide of men toward the city of Shule.

On the city wall, Yitihade was even more despairing. He understood now — whether the force outside was truly elite or falsely elite, he could not defeat them. Prepare to hold out to the death!

Rumble — the drawbridge was slowly raised. Some howling "dead weight" still in pursuit, along with the Divine Warriors and Askari they were chasing, had just neared the rising drawbridge when volleys of arrows rained down from the wall, felling a great swath of them.

And at that very moment, the thunder of hooves resounded across the northern corner of Shule. Just as the drizzle turned to heavy rain, the fifteen hundred cavalry Yitihade had sent out arrived.

Beneath the Three Stars banner, old Zhang Zhong laughed wildly as he waved the flag.

"Heaven bless the young lord! Heaven bless the Great Tang!"

Everyone cheered along with him. Had this cavalry arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, the outcome would truly have been hard to predict — but now! Too late!

"Form ranks before the stockade! Set out chevaux-de-frise and caltrops! Divine Arm crossbowmen, ready! Spearmen, forward! Deploy the anti-cavalry bow-and-crossbow grand formation!"

Zhang Zhao also laughed with particular delight. To have such fortune at his side — even Heaven itself stood with him!

All chapters have been cached for you. Download the APP to view them.