Chapter 151: Blue Blood Stains the Yellow Sands (Three-in-One, Eight-Thousand-Character Chapter)

The sun was slanting westward. Shan Zhu'er opened his mouth and swallowed a large chunk of donkey meat stewed with plenty of oil and salt — or rather, calling it donkey meat was no longer accurate, because the meat had been almost completely stewed down, and it went into his mouth like minced meat. Across from them, green smoke was also drifting up from the Karakhanid positions; they too were cooking.

In front of the layered formation, many herders conscripted by the Karakhanids were dragging away corpse after corpse of men and horses, clearing the path of advance for the follow-up troops.

Some light cavalry who still had strength left kept galloping back and forth in front of the formation, provoking and harassing the Fengtian Army's rest. From time to time the sound of bowstrings vibrating rang out — the sharpshooters on both sides were trading shots with powerful bows.

Saktu drained a large bowl of horse-meat soup, his expression grim. He looked toward the officer who had just returned from scouting and had not yet caught his breath.

"Zhilishisi, how far are the Khotan troops from here now?"

Zhilishisi hurriedly dropped to one knee, took two more ragged breaths, and only then answered: "Reporting to the Great Khan, the Khotan army numbers twenty thousand horse and foot in all. They left Shule city after noon yesterday.

Their formation is strict and orderly, with front and rear covering each other in turns, and light cavalry screening the flanks. So although their marching speed is not fast, it is almost impossible for us to find a chance to launch a surprise attack. At their current speed, they will not arrive until around the end of the you hour tomorrow evening (seven o'clock at night)."

The end of the you hour tomorrow. Saktu waved Zhilishisi away and began calculating in his mind.

The Khotan army was clearly afraid of being ambushed by him, which was why they had chosen this more cautious way of marching. But this also freed up time for him. If he could destroy the enemy force facing him today, then he could leave at his leisure tomorrow morning.

Looking at the yellow earth around him already soaked through with blood, Saktu drew a deep breath and began walking toward the command tent. He had no choice now — he had to kill every last enemy soldier across from him.

Under the present circumstances, revenge and the secret of collapsing Shule city no longer mattered to him.

What mattered was this: having already lost more than a thousand riders in killed and wounded, if he still could not win even with superior numbers against a smaller force, then no one would ever follow him, Saktu, again.

Whether you call yourself Camel Khan or Lion Khan, if you cannot defeat the enemy, among the steppe peoples you are nothing at all!

What Saktu did not know, however, was that Li Shengtian was at this very moment also gathering his people in council. This wise ruler of Khotan could barely contain himself any longer.

"Uncle, Son of Heaven, after you leave the city, pretend to advance slowly and steadily. But on the morning of the second day, you must let the Shenwei Right Army and the Amozhi cavalry break away from the main force and ride day and night to come. Your nephew can certainly hold Saktu back. As long as two thousand riders can arrive on time, the Karakhanid Khanate is finished."

The expression on Zhang Zhao's face as he said this seemed still to be before his eyes. Li Shengtian gripped the horsewhip in his hand hard. This nephew of his could truly be said to be treating Khotan's affairs as his own.

"Pass the order to the whole army: the infantry will halt and set up camp on the spot!" Li Shengtian rose to his full height and made his decision.

"Prefect Pei, I am also giving you my four hundred palace-guard flying riders. Take another two thousand elite cavalry from the Shenwei Right Army, and go yourself to choose six hundred of the best riders among the noble sons of the Amozhi knights. Set out now, and ride north day and night.

If you can reach Lower Artush on time, I shall permit you to restore the ancestral temple of the Pei clan, kings of Shule, so that your Pei ancestors may once more enjoy the incense and blood offerings due to kings!"

The full-bearded Prefect Pei raised his head and looked at Li Shengtian, trembling all over with excitement. Restoring the ancestral temple of the Pei kings of Shule — this was the long-cherished wish of several generations of his family!

"Your subject! Prostrates himself in thanks to the Son of Heaven!" With that, Prefect Pei swung directly into the saddle.

"Have Pei Shengyuan come see me. Within a quarter hour, clear away the Karakhanid roving cavalry around us!"

Clang! This was the eleventh chest full of gold and silver that Zhang Zhao had kicked over — though not in front of the soldiers this time, but in front of the logistics laborers.

These conscripted laborers now all had wooden spears in their hands and hunting bows they had brought themselves.

"Even if I don't say it, you all know: if we lose today, I have a fine horse and can save my own life, but you lot are dead for sure! So this isn't fighting for me — it's fighting for your own lives.

And I won't treat you badly either. Step onto the battlefield and you get one handful. Kill a man and you get five more coins. Wounded, you get two handfuls of silver. Killed in battle, I'll give three handfuls. Whether you get rich depends on whether you've got the guts."

With that, Zhang Zhao swept his hand out grandly. "Kill the horses and drink the blood wine — one bowl each. When you've drunk it, go fight it out with those bastards across the way!"

Woooooo! The deep sound of ox-horn trumpets rang out. The Karakhanid great formation began to move — light cavalry of the various tribes in front, and behind them the heavy-armored cavalry of the iqta and ghulam.

A lilting chanting arose — the imams accompanying the army were intoning the scriptures of the Heavenly Square faith, and some Karakhanids who had memorized the melody joined in.

At the same time, a stirring, majestic song rose from within the Fengtian Army.

"The imperial wind of the four seas spreads wide, the virtuous waters of a thousand years run clear; armor is worn no more, today we proclaim our deeds complete. Looking back, the Qin passes lie low as horses; gradually the Yellow River comes into view, flowing straight north. Heaven's might sweeps straight through the Jade Gate Pass; for ten thousand li, the barbarians all sing Han songs!"

Shan Zhu'er drained his own bowl of horse-blood wine, then began beating on the lamellar armor over his chest and singing the "Qin Wang Breaks the Formations" along with his comrades around him. Everyone understood: this time would be the final decisive battle.

"Warriors of the Karakhanids! Eagles of Bulaq Khan! Charge!" Duomishi, the thousand-man commander of the Karakhanid ghulam guard horse-archers, drew his long saber and roared.

The blood on the blade's edge had not yet dried. This thousand-man commander, famed as a master archer, was the first to spur his horse forward. He could no longer wait to avenge his family!

"Strong bowmen, Jia squad to the left! Yi squad to the right!" Seeing the enemy begin their charge, Shan Zhu'er immediately howled out.

This time the Karakhanid light cavalry had come out in full force and were spread very wide, so they had to choose the denser directions for concentrated volleys, leaving the sparse formations to the spearmen to hold.

"Ao! Wa!" A sharp sound rang out. A tall, powerfully built sharpshooter loosed a whistling arrow, and right behind that whistling arrow flew the arrows released from more than a hundred bows of the Jia squad.

Following the dense sound of massed bowfire came wave after wave of screams and the sounds of collision. The first group of Karakhanid light cavalry to be struck went tumbling to the ground in heaps.

Another whistling arrow flew out, and the strong bowmen of the Yi squad shot toward the same direction as well. The Karakhanid light cavalry charging at full gallop collapsed in another great swath, like falling stones.

"Regular bowmen! Prepare to shoot!" Only after the front-rank strong bowmen had loosed two volleys in arcs did the regular bowmen behind them begin aiming with their hard bows.

The so-called regular bowmen sounded decent enough, but in reality they were just bowmen who could only draw bows of six or seven dou. They lacked the skill to follow the whistling arrows in coordinated volleys, and their marksmanship was relatively poor, so they could only wait until the enemy drew near before releasing their arrows.

The Karakhanid cavalry charge was not a shoulder-to-shoulder, horse-packed formation charge — they could not pull off that kind of high-level tactic. Instead they charged in a dispersed, honeycomb-like pattern.

This allowed them to suffer less arrow damage while still far from the enemy infantry positions. After all, horse bows could not match foot bows in range or power, and charging cavalry were fated to endure several rounds of arrows first.

And when they closed in on their target, they would begin to converge again. Only then could they bring the power of their horse bows to bear, delivering saturation fire on a single area — far better than shooting wildly in all directions.

However, by the time they drew near, the regular bowmen in the second row of the layered formation were also just beginning to shoot at them. And so the two sides began trading fire across the spearmen of the layered formation.

Screams and roars of fury drowned out the rumbling of hooves. Although men in the regular bowmen ranks kept falling, the Karakhanid cavalry were falling in even greater numbers.

First, there was no comparison in the rate of armor coverage. Second, a man's body was smaller than a warhorse, so concentrated fire always gained the advantage. Warhorses were constantly in motion, and many light cavalrymen never even got off an arrow before being shot down by the formation's bowmen.

In the dense mass of Karakhanid cavalry, Zhang Zhao keenly spotted a sharpshooter. This was the fellow who had just loosed three arrows in succession and shot down three strong bowmen behind him.

Nocking an arrow and drawing, Zhang Zhao pulled his one-dan hard bow to full draw. From the Five Dynasties to the Northern Song period, the draw weight of a one-dan bow was roughly equivalent to one hundred twenty-five to one hundred thirty pounds in later times.

This was already an extremely powerful standard. Struck by such a strong bow, even a hit to the arm could snap the arm clean off; a hit to the throat could punch a bloody hole straight through the neck.

Zhang Zhao held his breath and searched. At last, he found a man wearing iron-studded leather armor and an iron helmet — clearly a senior Karakhanid officer.

In some unseen way, the strong always recognize one another. The moment Zhang Zhao locked onto this man, Duomishi locked onto Zhang Zhao as well. Both men's eyes lit up at the same instant, and they released their bowstrings almost simultaneously.

Ding! With a crisp sound, Zhang Zhao felt as if he had been punched square in the chest. He staggered backward several steps and nearly fell. A suffocating pain in his chest made his vision go black.

In a daze he looked down at his chest. An arrow, its fletching still quivering gently, had struck squarely on the solid breastplate over his chest. The arrowhead had penetrated two or three millimeters. It seemed the other side was also using a strong bow of eight dou or more.

Crack!

Zhang Zhao had nearly blacked out, but for Duomishi it was different. He only had time to make a motion of clutching his throat before he toppled rigidly from his horse.

The neck of this thousand-man commander of the ghulam guard light cavalry had been struck by the one-dan strong bow in Zhang Zhao's hands. The arrows loosed by such a terrifyingly powerful bow carried enormous destructive force. The arrow not only pierced through the neck but tore away a great chunk of flesh and blood. Duomishi went straight to meet his god.

The moment the thousand-man commander's body hit the ground, more than a dozen of his personal guards threw themselves toward it from all directions. They seized Duomishi's corpse and retreated, wailing.

As they fell back, the thousand-odd light cavalry who had charged forward, after trading fierce fire with the Fengtian Army in front of the layered formation for over ten minutes, swiftly withdrew as well.

"Boom!" A drumbeat of unusual force rang out, and a close guard of Satuq's, clad in golden armor, spurred his horse out from the rear formation.

In his hand he held a long Great Tang hengdao saber, and without the slightest hesitation he charged into the routing ranks and began hacking and slashing. Right after, the sharpshooters around Satuq also drew arrows and fired warning shots.

"Those who retreat die!" the close guard with the hengdao saber roared amid the screaming and groaning of the routed troops, then led the charge back toward the Fengtian Army.

"Those who retreat die! Those who advance live!" Under the roars of the Khagan's close-guard officers supervising the battle on all sides, the routed light cavalry turned and charged back in.

Yin Yaozi glanced back at the hornbow crossbowmen, who had barely moved. His heart pounding violently, he badly wanted to have those last two hundred crossbowmen begin shooting too, but reason told him no — the enemy armored cavalry had not yet begun their charge.

The situation in front of the layered formation grew more and more brutal. More and more light cavalrymen, unable to endure the enormous casualties, chose to fall back.

But they did not go far. They withdrew beyond the range of the hardbowmen and began to regroup, waiting — waiting to follow up after the second wave of armored cavalry broke the formation.

Blood drenched the ground in front of the layered formation. The soil, originally grayish-yellow and dry, was soaked into a strange yellow-black, and under the ceaseless trampling of hooves it turned into a strip of black muck about half a meter wide. Only this muck was not made by rain or river water, but by human blood.

And around the great formation, what was most abundant was not blood, but countless arrow shafts, dense as withered branches growing from the earth. In just the last hour, the two sides had loosed at least fifty thousand arrows of every kind.

At last, the chaotic mass of horse legs before Zhang Zhao's eyes grew thinner and thinner. The fourth wave of cavalry fell back, but apart from heavy breathing and the sound of vomiting from overexertion, Zhang Zhao heard not a single cheer.

Because such routs had already happened four times, and that did not mean the Karakhanid cavalry would not come again.

"Lord! The Karakhanids can't hold on! These light cavalry have no ability to fight at close quarters for long, but they haven't withdrawn as far as last time either. I reckon next time, the enemy armored cavalry will come up!" Shanzhu'er, carrying a modao glaive glaive glaive, walked up beside Zhang Zhao and said in a muffled voice.

Zhang Zhao nodded. In his mind he now had a rough estimate of the Karakhanid army's fighting strength. Judging from these four charges, the Karakhanid cavalry were not particularly strong.

Their close-quarters fighting time in a single charge usually did not exceed fifteen minutes. A thousand-man cavalry unit would lose anywhere from a few dozen to about a hundred riders before it routed under the casualties.

This level of fighting strength — never mind the Great Tang at its height — they could not even beat the Western Army of the late Northern Song or the army of the late Western Xia. No wonder that decades later, even the Khitan's fringe tribes could give them a thorough beating.

Ah, this Great Song dynasty! Truly beyond words. No wonder the Emperor of Gaoliang River would be mocked by later generations for a thousand years.

With the fierce professional soldiers of the Five Dynasties, they actually could not defeat the Khitan, one of the weakest steppe peoples.

Back when the descendants of Li Shengtian could no longer hold on, if two or three thousand Western Army troops had really come, coordinating with Khotan's armored cavalry and the Gaochang Uyghurs' light cavalry — with the Karakhanids' fighting strength being what it was, how could they possibly have converted everything north and south of the Tianshan?

"Signal with flags! Have the Hanshan Du armored soldiers on both wings pull back to the front. The enemy armored cavalry number only a bit over a thousand. Apart from the front, our chevaux-de-frise are still basically intact. They won't dare attack from all sides; they'll surely storm the front. Smash this last wave of theirs, and this battle is over!"

Sure enough, Zhang Zhao's prediction was correct. The Hanshan Du armored soldiers had just pulled back from both wings to the front when the enemy again sounded the drawn-out wail of horns.

Under the slanting setting sun, over a thousand armored cavalry, surrounded by several thousand light cavalry, began slowly charging forward. In the very center, a figure in golden armor was extremely conspicuous — unmistakably Bughra Khan Satuq.

"Weng! Weng!" A terrifying hum like an oncoming swarm of wasps arose. The Karakhanid armored cavalry, beginning their forward trot, loosed their first — and last — volley of arrows.

Screams rose one after another in front of Zhang Zhao. Those who screamed the most were not the heavy-armored spearmen of the Three Teachings sworn followers, nor the Hanshan Du armored soldiers, but a group of civilian laborers who had taken Zhang Zhao's silver coins.

They had been stirred up by Zhang Zhao to come forward, thinking they were only here to assist. In truth, Zhang Zhao wanted them to absorb this volley of hardbow fire from the Karakhanid armored cavalry.

In just three to five seconds, the screams turned into panicked wailing. Of the six or seven hundred laborers who had been tricked into coming up as cannon fodder, one or two hundred fell. With such a horrifying casualty rate, not even the Hanshan Du armored soldiers could have held, let alone them — and at once they scattered in every direction.

Satuq was thrilled. After fighting for a day and a night, he had finally seen the dawn of victory. The Bughra Khan, who had been all but driven into a dead end, suddenly drew the treasured sword at his waist.

"Eagles! The Khotan Tang dogs across from us have collapsed! Kill them all!"

"Hornbow crossbowmen, ready! Whole unit forward! Shoot only the armored horses! Three volleys, ready!"

At the same moment, Zhang Zhao also shouted. The scattering of the laborers had carried away large numbers of Three Teachings sworn-follower spearmen fleeing with them, and also carried away a certain number of regular bowmen. But the Hanshan Du armored soldiers beside him, and the Khotan palace-guard hornbow crossbowmen personally controlled by Liu Zaisheng, would not.

Fifty paces! The Karakhanid armored cavalry galloped faster and faster.

Thirty paces! Thunderous roars rang out. The Karakhanid armored cavalry began their charge at maximum speed.

Especially the roughly three hundred fully armored cavalry in the very center — some wore whole-body armor in the Arab-Persian style, others wore Tang-style full-body armor with horse armor — as if sealed inside iron cans, with only a pair of fierce gleaming eyes and the long spears and iron hammers in their hands exposed.

"Loose!" Yin Yaozi in the formation slashed the red flag in his hand downward. Two hundred hornbow crossbows shot forth!

At a distance of thirty paces, the power of hornbow crossbows with a draw weight of two shi seven to three shi needs no explanation.

With a "ding," the foremost armored rider fell at the sound. His sturdy lamellar armor was like paper. A jet of blood shot from his chest. The armored rider swayed, then crashed stiffly to the ground.

And his fall pulled the already-galloping warhorse off balance. With a weight of several hundred jin plus the speed of the charge, the horse could not hold up, and it too fell to the ground with a shriek.

Then the fallen horse became an obstacle for the charging armored cavalry behind. Two horses that could not swerve in time let out two startled neighs and fell to the ground after it, then began struggling desperately. Too heavy — once a horse falls, it cannot easily get back up.

At thirty paces, the warhorses should have arrived almost in an instant. If not for the constant obstruction of falling men and horses, they would have slammed straight into the infantry formation and unquestionably pierced the layered formation.

Never mind that warhorses fear bright spearheads and such — they do indeed fear them — but thirty paces is too close. By the time the horse reacts, it has already charged through.

Historically, the reason armored cavalry could successfully break into heavy infantry formations — apart from the heavy infantry having already been beaten down to their last shred of courage — was that they suddenly accelerated within thirty paces, giving the warhorses no time to react before charging straight in.

This was more effective than any horse-blinders. Of course, against non-elite infantry that could be frightened into collapse outright, it was even easier.

But this tactic required massive amounts of training and rapport between man and horse, even a deep bond between the two, to achieve.

Therefore, the greatest standard for judging whether armored cavalry were truly strong was whether they could suddenly accelerate within thirty paces and then charge into a heavy-infantry spear formation.

A cold sweat broke out all over Zhang Zhao's body. This Satuq had several times defeated the Persian Samanid dynasty with fewer troops against more — he really did have some ability. What he relied on was the elite of these thousand-odd armored cavalry: the no more than three hundred ghulam palace-guard fully armored cavalry.

These armored cavalry could actually charge into a spear square within thirty paces!

Fortunately, when they were within thirty paces, they took a volley from the hornbow crossbows, which shot down over thirty of the fully armored cavalry capable of this. With the added obstruction of fallen men and horses, no more than fifty riders actually broke through.

A familiar scream rang out. Shanzhu'er, right beside Zhang Zhao, was sent flying by a warhorse clad in fine lamellar armor.

"Crack!" Almost at the same instant, the modao glaive glaive glaive in Shanzhu'er's hand plunged into the warhorse's neck. There was no armor there, so it directly opened a bloody gash across the horse's neck.

In its agony, the warhorse could think of nothing else. It instinctively stopped, trying to avoid the blade, but it also forgot that it was still charging forward.

Two opposing commands collided violently in the horse's small brain, just as it had violently collided with the modao glaive glaive's edge. The warhorse let out a piercing shriek, reared up like a lightning strike, then crashed to the ground with a thunderous boom.

The horse behind, blocked by the fallen horse on the ground, came smashing in almost sideways. The armored rider on its back had no time to swing his long spear before he flew off the saddle howling, then, very unluckily, landed headfirst — "crack" — and broke his neck.

The tremendous impact of the armored cavalry made the spear formation in front of the layered formation surge like waves. Even the Hanshan Du armored soldiers could not withstand the ferocity of the armored cavalry's charge.

Men were constantly sent flying, and others were pinned under horses that crashed in. But more numerous still were those gathered around Zhang Zhao, howling and fighting back desperately.

"Whole army forward! Hornbow crossbowmen, loose!" After issuing this order, Yin Yaozi leaped down from the command platform, long lance in hand, and charged forward.

Spurred on by him, the eminent monk Huitong and a group of hardbowmen whose arms could barely lift their bows also grabbed whatever weapons they had and charged forward howling.

It held!

The most brutal two minutes passed. The charge of the forty or fifty fully armored cavalry that broke through had failed to pierce the heavy-infantry formation led by Zhang Zhao.

Once that charge failed to break through, trouble immediately followed. The Karakhanid armored cavalry behind kept charging in, while Yin Yaozi also led his men forward. The two sides collided madly in front of the layered formation and fell into a savage melee.

Zhang Zhao was covered in blood. His vajra faceplate had been knocked off, a section of his skirt armor had been slashed open, and even the steel plate of his chest wall was dented.

There were people on all sides. The savage howling drowned out every other sound. What parrying, what blocking — none of it was of any use. All that mattered was swinging whatever was in your hand with all your strength, smashing and hacking.

Zhang Zhao, Man Xiong, and Yan Jin stood back to back. The weapon in his hand had changed from a long lance to a modao glaive glaive glaive, then to a great axe, and what he now held was a war hammer he had grabbed from who knew where.

He was in a wretched state now — his golden armor had been so smeared with blood that it had turned purple. But Man Xiong was even worse off. With a build like Man Xiong's, his draw on the battlefield was no weaker than Zhang Zhao's golden armor, and nearly every enemy hardbowman had aimed at him.

So Man Xiong was bristling with arrows all over his body, and a short-handled axe was even stuck in his chest plate — it looked as though it had chopped right in.

Yan Jin kept his lips pressed shut and said nothing, because an arrow had just pierced through his cheek. Blood was still gushing out, and his entire jaw was soaked in it. His gums and the roots of his teeth might well be beyond saving.

But no one had time to think about such things now. The three kept shifting their positions, like a spinning killing machine, gouging out one bloody path after another through the dense crowd.

Zhang Zhao was even beginning to feel afraid in his heart, because he could feel waves of weakness in his legs — the first sign of exhaustion. He did not know how much longer he could hold on.

Could they really lose this battle? This question, which he had never considered before, began to circle in his mind.

Thud! A tremendous force struck his shoulder, and the piercing agony made Zhang Zhao cry out despite himself. He looked up and saw an officer in Persian-style armor raising a great hammer, his face savage, about to strike him a second time.

There was no other choice. Zhang Zhao had to break away from the three-man formation and surge forward. With almost the last of his strength, he swung the war hammer in his hand and struck the enemy warhorse square on the forehead before the other man's hammer could land on him.

This blow, unleashed by Zhang Zhao at the brink of life and death, carried such immense force that even though the horse's head was wrapped in a layer of iron lamellar armor, it still could not withstand the strike. The horse shuddered as if seized by rigidity, let out not even a whinny, and began swaying left and right, unable to keep its footing.

The rider on the horse's back was thrown off balance by the lurch. With a cry of alarm he tumbled from the horse's back, and before he could get up, Zhang Zhao pounced on him.

He pinned the rider's head down with his knee, then drew the sharp zhangdao saber from his waist and stabbed straight at the man's eye — the only place with no armor.

The rider screamed and grabbed with his hands, but how could he withstand the force of Zhang Zhao driving down with his entire body's strength? Amid a heaven-shaking shriek, several fingers fell to the ground, and blood shot up from the eye socket.

As this rider fell, the surrounding Karakhanid armored cavalry cried out in panic. Several armored riders behind, heedless of the danger of being targeted by crossbows, tried to rush forward and seize the man back.

Suddenly, several short spears flew out — Dunzhu had arrived. This Tibetan slave, his helmet knocked clean off, roared and charged over too, ready to shield Zhang Zhao with his own body.

Man Xiong, Yan Jin, and even Shan Zhu'er, who had been sent flying by a warhorse and had run back, all charged over as well. Around the two sides' commanders, an even more savage slaughter began.

"Bai Congxin! Strike!" Yin Yaozi did not charge over. Instead, he stepped back several paces, used a fire steel to light a specially made firecracker, and hurled it into the air.

At the very rear of the layered formation, Bai Congxin's tears had already streamed down to his chest. He knelt on the ground in anguish.

Just ahead, his lord, his comrades, his brothers were fighting to the death. Men kept falling, but he could not go up, because their moment had not yet come.

The bright flame of the firecracker was dazzlingly conspicuous in the dim yellow afternoon. In an instant, his tears turned into boundless drive, and Bai Congxin sprang up from the ground.

"General Li! It's my turn!"

"Aye!" Li Ruotai, long since shaken to the core, roared back. This was the most savage close combat he had ever witnessed, and the one he most desperately longed to join.

"Armor on! Mount up!" At his roar, the nearby auxiliaries hurriedly helped the dismounted riders back onto their horses, while the laborers heaved and hauled with rhythmic shouts, lifting the heavy cavalry lances and passing them into the hands of Li Ruotai and the others.

"Brave lads of the Fengtian Army! Herd these Karakhanid sheep together — fight to the death!"

Hu Cile also raised the hengdao saber in his hand. The Yueqi cavalry on the left and right flanks moved out. They burst forth suddenly, a few hundred men creating the illusion of several thousand riders arriving, driving and terrifying the exhausted, panicked Karakhanid light cavalry into fleeing toward the center.

"Hold! You must hold! Bayitash! Take my personal guards yourself — you must hold!"

The moment he saw a force of fully armored cavalry suddenly emerge from the enemy formation, Saktu knew things were about to turn bad.

Both sides were now utterly spent. Even if this armored cavalry force numbered only a little over a hundred riders, it would still deal a massive blow to the Karakhanid army.

Bayitash was Saktu's eldest son. Although Saktu had deposed his first wife, the queen, Prince Bayitash had very obediently converted to the Heavenly Square faith, so his standing had not been much affected.

Hearing his father the Khagan's order, Bayitash, long since brainwashed by the Heavenly Square faith, immediately prepared to move out with the last few hundred cavalry at his side.

Suddenly! A tidal wave of cries arose. In the distance, dust rose up and filled the sky. Saktu stared hard — his light cavalry on outer guard were fleeing back for their lives, and farther off, several swastika banners and Three Stars banners were drawing ever closer.

"The Khotanese are here! The Khotanese are here!" Everyone shouted, including the soldiers of Zhang Zhao's Fengtian Army.

The Karakhanid cavalrymen who had just been smashed through by Bai Congxin and Li Ruotai threw down their battle flags and weapons, wheeled their horses around, and began to flee. The final collapse had come!

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