Chapter 146: Let's See Whose Bow and Arrows Are Sharper

"Tata! Tata!" The urgent sound of hoofbeats came, and a great cloud of dust rose in the distance. Seen from where Shan Zhu'er stood, it was as if a host of thousands of horses and men was charging straight at them.

But Shan Zhu'er, long seasoned in battle, knew from the spacing of each rising dust plume that this was a feint.

The Khitan light cavalry opposite had deliberately stirred up sky-filling dust, hoping to frighten the jittery infantry formation into shooting their arrows.

One must understand that on a battlefield, a soldier in armor under extreme tension can only loose a limited number of arrows. An ordinary soldier using a hard bow of eight dou or more can shoot at most five arrows in succession before needing rest, and at the same time the bowstring loses power from being drawn rapidly in a short span.

Therefore, when cavalry fought infantry, unless they were in a particular hurry, they would generally choose to intimidate first, wasting the infantry's arrows and stamina.

But these Khitan cavalry were destined to be disappointed. Shan Zhu'er and the others had been specially drawn from the Hanshan Du armored troops on both flanks and moved to the front rank precisely to control the front-rank strong bowmen.

"Hold!" A great shout rang out. It was the commandant of the front-rank spearmen square calling.

"Hold!" The spearmen shouted in unison, sitting on the ground without moving a muscle.

"Do not shoot!" Shan Zhu'er also shouted.

"Do not shoot!" The second-rank strong bowmen also shouted in unison. Not a single one made ready to nock and shoot!

The enemy riders drew closer and closer. The thudding hoofbeats seemed to pound against the hearts of the soldiers on left and right. Many showed tense expressions, faces turning pale. The charging cavalry's momentum was utterly terrifying, as if they could pierce straight through the great formation at any moment.

"Whoa-whoa! Whoa-whoa!" At a hundred paces, Shan Zhu'er suddenly cried out like an ape, and even as he called, he drew an arrow from his hulu quiver.

With his strange cry, the same calls and the same motion of drawing arrows rose around him. Shan Zhu'er glanced sideways and saw that not one ordinary soldier had drawn an arrow. Those making the strange cries were all selected officers and sharpshooters.

Ninety paces! Shan Zhu'er drew a sharp breath and slowly pulled the bowstring to full draw, then gently released his right hand.

The bowstring drove the arrow forward with tremendous force. The straight shaft created the best conditions for the arrow's flight, reducing air resistance to a minimum, and the vibrating shaft did not waste most of its kinetic energy through unnatural bending!

"Thwip!" A short second or two later, the arrow found its target, a man riding on a warhorse and howling wildly. The slender, fine steel point easily pierced through the leather armor on his body.

The rider seemed to freeze in midair. The great force pushed him backward, and his outstretched hands clenched desperately, trying to grip the reins he had just released.

But a wave of weakness spread through his whole body. His loosened hand could never close again. From his wide-open mouth, which had been about to let out a scream, a gush of blood mixed with stomach fluid suddenly burst forth!

"Neigh!" The warhorse cried out for its rider. Losing control, it instinctively broke from the formation and began running to the side. After all, the horse had been forced to gallop madly, and now with no command, it still wanted to get away from the "madmen" around it.

A shocking trail of blood drew a horizontal line across the gray-yellow earth. The rider's foot was caught in the stirrup, and his bloodied head was dragged along the ground, bumping and knocking farther and farther away.

It was not only this rider who was struck, but seven or eight others as well. Moreover, Shan Zhu'er and the others' shooting was targeted: fifteen arrows were loosed toward eight or nine different directions.

For a moment, riders were shot off their horses everywhere. The Khitan cavalry, who had come to carry out an intimidation mission, truly believed that ten thousand arrows had been loosed at once from the layered formation. In their panic, they had no time to rein in and retreat, and could only be forced to split into a V-shape and sweep around the forest of long spears ahead to either side.

"Twang! Twang! Twang!" Just as they rounded the front formation, the dense sound of bowstrings rose at once. It was the Hanshan Du armored troops on both flanks shooting. They used divine-arm crossbows, which spared them any worry about stamina, so they could loose arrows without restraint.

Now the Khitan light cavalry circling the formation were in for disaster. They had not brought many men in the first place, because if there had been more, it would not have been intimidation but cannon fodder. They had to be few in number so that the Fengtian Army would shoot its arrows without inflicting real casualties.

Light cavalry meeting divine-arm crossbows — the carnage can well be imagined!

The galloping light cavalry swept past the Hanshan Du armored troops who had come out to meet them, and it was as if a layer of skin had been flayed from them. In that brief moment, at least twenty or thirty riders were lost. For a cavalry force that had only committed three or four hundred riders, that was no small loss.

But their misfortune was far from over. A horn sounded from within the layered formation, and the Youyi Army's yueqi riders, who had been screened behind the Hanshan Du armored troops on both flanks, rode straight out.

They were also light cavalry, but Zhang Zhao had equipped them with several hundred sets of jiapan-style ring-mail armor taken from the Khitan treasury and Li Shengtian's storehouses. This armor weighed only a dozen or so jin, yet offered quite good protection, making it the most suitable armor for light cavalry.

Ring-mail armor against beaten leather armor — the advantage showed at once. The Fengtian Army's yueqi riders who surged out immediately cut the fleeing Khitan light cavalry in half at the waist.

One side was fighting to kill and win merit; the other cared only about fleeing for their lives. In just a dozen or so minutes, the two hundred-plus Khitan light cavalry scattering in flight had lost a full third of their number.

In the distance, Saketu likewise sat his horse atop a small earthen mound. Watching the battle far off, the muscles of his cheek could not help but twitch.

In that single brief probing contact, he had lost nearly a hundred cavalry, while the other side — never mind deaths — damn it, he did not know whether they even had five wounded.

And before this, he had already ordered his light cavalry to sortie five times in succession, and not once had they succeeded in throwing the enemy formation into disorder.

"Send flag signals. Commit three thousand riders at once. Horse archers in front, circling the formation and shooting. Five hundred armored riders will test the front formation. They have only a dozen or so great shields. I refuse to believe spearmen can stand there and take the arrows!" Saketu waved his hand and issued the order for a second attack.

"Waa-woo! Waa-woo!" The chaotic howling rose again. This time it was clearly a proper attack, for the dust kicked up by the hooves was not the deliberately wild and menacing kind, but solid, real sheets of it.

"Crouch!" The spearmen's commandant quickly called for the spearmen sitting on the ground saving their strength to half-crouch. The signal flags behind him waved fiercely, and the hard bowmen behind the spearmen also drew arrows from their hulu quivers.

"Ninety paces!" With a great shout, the officer responsible for ranging loosed the final marker arrow. Where his arrow landed was seventy paces. According to the layered formation's tactics, the enemy cavalry had to enter this range before the hard bowmen would begin shooting.

The Khitan cavalry opposite of course also knew the danger of entering the range of that arrow, for the marker arrow was extremely conspicuous.

So when approaching the layered formation, following the custom of light cavalry, they began spreading into a V-shape before reaching seventy paces.

Using horse bows to trade shots with foot bows was absolutely unwise. The real killing would have to rely on the armored riders behind, because the armored riders' bows were different from the light cavalry's — they too used foot bows.

"Guard the flanks!" Zhang Zhao shouted.

The recognition banners of the Hanshan Du on both flanks began to sway slowly. The armored troops of the Hanshan Du drew their divine-arm crossbows and began shooting at the scattered Khitan light cavalry.

Brave officers such as Yan Jin simply drew their modao glaive glaive glaives and J-shaped long halberds to guard the flanks, guarding against a charge by the light cavalry. Though the probability was extremely small, they still had to be prepared.

Seventy paces! Just as the divine-arm crossbows on both flanks began shooting, Shan Zhu'er let out a howl, and the strong bowmen of the entire front formation released in unison. Hundreds of arrows left the formation.

The Khitan light cavalry were struck as if by lightning, collapsing in great numbers under the sky-filling rain of arrows. Most of them wore only leather armor, utterly unable to withstand concentrated fire from hard bows of eight dou or more.

But because they were numerous, they still loosed a batch of arrows while in motion, and this wave of damage fell almost entirely on the front-rank spearmen.

Amid the clanging and clattering sounds came screams. Although the front-rank spearmen were all equipped with various armor that Zhang Zhao had swindled and cheated out of others, most wearing two layers with thick clothing added on top, full-body protection was still impossible.

Besides, in any crowd there are always some especially unlucky wretches. At once, under the enemy light cavalry's arcing fire, seven or eight men in the spearmen's square still fell.

"Clang!" One spearman at the very front, watching the enemy light cavalry draw closer and closer and hearing the screams of his unlucky comrades beside him, could no longer hold. He threw down his long spear and lifted a leg to flee toward the rear ranks.

But as he ran, he suddenly found himself flying through the air. Then everything went black before his eyes. Before the pain even reached his brain, his vision darkened and he lost consciousness.

"Let me see which motherfucker dares to run! Run and you die! You wounded, crawl to the side for me, and shut your mouths!"

Shan Zhu'er stood with six or seven arrows stuck all over his body, his triangular pig-like eyes blazing with ferocity, the hengdao saber in his hand still dripping blood.

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