Chapter 193: The Great Tang Really Has Returned

The sun was about to set. Yang Shouli glanced at the distant sunset, now turning orange-red, and did not know what to feel.

Behind him followed over a hundred able-bodied men, and farther back were several hundred women, children, and the elderly. Once they broke through the mixed barbarians blocking the foot of the mountain, the people behind would carry wooden buckets and clay jars down to the river to fetch water.

"Xue Erlang, Sili, each of you take twenty men to the rear. Aim true when you sling stones. Those mixed barbarians have plenty of bows and arrows besides their swords and spears. I fear we may not be able to charge through."

Yang Shouli's heart was heavy. Although he wore a set of tattered lamellar armor, almost everyone else was completely unarmored.

Not just armor — at this point, few of them even had iron weapons. Because of the blockade over these years, they had been forced to melt down their iron weapons and forge them into iron farming tools.

So their most powerful offensive weapon was actually the sling — they would polish river cobblestones and hurl them with slings. Beyond that, they had no other threat to offer.

Yang Shouli sighed. Without iron weapons, wearing only thin clothes, if the enemy's arrows came in a volley, who knew how many would be killed or wounded. This was not fetching water — it was little different from going to their deaths.

"Elder Brother, look! What is that? What a tall horse!"

His younger brother Yang Sili suddenly shouted. Yang Shouli was about to scold him for making such a racket, but when he looked in the direction his brother was pointing, he too was stunned.

They were now halfway up a mountain. The mixed barbarians had pitched several camps at the end of the path leading down the mountain, and had blocked the road with branches and brushwood.

To the right of the barbarians' camp ran a small river — the destination where they meant to fetch water. Beyond the camp, in the distance, was a main road leading into the mountains.

At this moment, on that main road, under the orange-yellow sunlight, came the sound of hoofbeats. At least several dozen warhorses were galloping in from afar.

The riders on horseback were shooting arrows even as they rode. The black horse at the very front was exceptionally tall, and its rider wielded a long spear, now thrusting, now stabbing, cutting down the mixed barbarians until corpses lay strewn everywhere.

"Block this road! Pei Shengyuan, take men and seize the high ground to shoot! Everyone else, form squads of five — first we break their nerve!"

Ma Yaozi roared, scattering all the mixed barbarians who dared stand in his way, then dismounted and called for the armored soldiers beside him to quickly take armor from another riderless horse.

These horses were all rigorously trained. Even on a battlefield they would not run wild — they were excellent warhorses.

The twenty-odd men had just dismounted when the startled mixed barbarians came swarming out of their tents like disturbed wasps — a dense mass of them, a full several hundred, and their numbers were still growing.

Fortunately, these mixed barbarians were not highly organized. Though numerous, they were in disarray, able only to advance in groups of a few dozen under junior officers, slowly making their way over.

Many of them still looked bewildered or were shouting noisily, apparently not yet realizing the gravity of the situation.

Pei Tongyuan led a few men to seize the high ground. Seeing this, he could not help but be overjoyed. The men quickly divided up their fields of fire and began killing without mercy.

Every time they drew and loosed, someone fell — and most of those who fell were armored, men who looked like officers. The strength behind every draw was precious, so of course they shot at officers.

And when the several hundred men came surging over, shouting with no formation at all, the moment the foremost officers were killed, the soldiers around them immediately hesitated.

They were no elite troops — just rabble who had run over under their officers' leadership, utterly unprepared for a fight to the death.

At the first sight of blood, their forward rush slowed. Those strange men in padded robes across from them did not look easy to provoke! But while they hesitated, the men behind them did not.

Because the enemy seemed few, and unarmored at that. Several hundred or even a thousand against a dozen or two — such a fine chance to kick a drowning dog, with no danger and a chance to show off one's bravery — how could they miss it?

So once the men behind figured out what was going on, egged on by their officers, they began pressing forward.

But now there was trouble. The mixed barbarians in front, sensing something wrong, wanted to retreat, but the howling barbarians behind were already surging up. Pushed from behind, they had no choice but to keep walking forward.

Ma Yaozi was not nervous in the least. Shan Zhu'er was not nervous either, because the enemy was far too weak!

Just now, a mere twenty-odd riders had cut clean through them from south to north, and now they were in such a chaotic state.

Never mind comparing them to Saketu's army — even Ali Duraf's Mustafa troops would count as a force of tigers and wolves next to these men.

And now, dismounted and formed up, with padded armor against unarmored men, what was there to fear? Kill a few dozen and the enemy would collapse.

So Ma Yaozi did not dawdle. While the enemy was still shoving and jostling their way forward, they attacked on their own initiative.

hengdao sabers a meter long, double maces forged of refined copper, fine-steel maces and great axes, padded armor covering the whole body, powerful bodies fed daily on mutton chops and fat beef.

What sort of terrifying battle effect would such elite troops have against a mob with not even leather armor, armed with broken iron knives and rotten spears, short and sallow-faced, looking like rabble dragged straight from the fields and pastures?

Yang Shouli could answer that for you. In his shocked eyes, Ma Yaozi and his men charged in like giants storming a land of pygmies.

Blades flashed, shouts rang out. Whoever so much as touched them collapsed to the ground in swathes.

One mixed barbarian hacked at Ma Yaozi. Ma Yaozi was completely unharmed — and the barbarian's blade snapped clean in two.

Then Ma Yaozi returned the stroke. The barbarian's neck immediately lolled sideways, because the side that had been cut was severed through.

"Charge! Charge down! Kill them! Sili, get back up the mountain and bring everyone down — we're killing barbarians!"

After watching dumbstruck for half a minute, Yang Shouli came to his senses. Whoever these men were, as long as they were killing the mixed barbarians below, they were on his side.

What kind of people are the most savage? People pushed into a corner, wantonly humiliated, and driven past all endurance — those are the most savage.

Ma Yaozi and his men still killed only with their weapons, but Yang Shouli and the others charging down from the mountain looked truly terrifying.

Ma Yaozi watched with his own eyes as a wounded soldier too weak to walk was rushed by a crowd of women and children, pinned to the ground, and finally stoned alive into a pulp of flesh.

He also watched a half-grown boy latch onto a mixed barbarian's arm and, no matter how he was beaten, refuse to let go — biting a chunk of flesh clean off the barbarian.

Roars rose from all around. More and more people charged down from the mountain. In that moment they forgot thirst and hunger. Even the women took up all manner of weapons and fought.

Amid eerie howling cries, over a hundred slings loosed their polished stones. A single hit on a mixed barbarian was sure to split his head or draw blood, and not a few were knocked out cold on the spot.

Once these people arrived, the pressure on Ma Yaozi and his men instantly eased, and they could bring their fighting strength to bear all the more. Pei Shengyuan and the others also gave up shooting and took up their hengdao sabers to cut and kill directly.

"Run! The infidels have summoned heavenly soldiers!"

"Defeated! Defeated! Run for your lives!"

"Mother! It hurts! Don't kill me!"

In seven or eight minutes at most, the shoving, jostling thousand-odd mixed barbarians simply collapsed.

A senior officer in lamellar armor tried to rally the fleeing soldiers and put up some resistance. Shan Zhu'er flew over in a few great strides and smashed him into a lump of ruined flesh with one mace-blow.

Zheng Tong grinned. It seemed he had not been mistaken, and the few "tongues" they had captured had not lied. These infidels besieged on the mountain really were sons of Tang — because the shouts and cries all around were in Han speech.

Only after nearly a full hour did the battlefield finally fall quiet. The mixed barbarians had fled far away, leaving behind over a hundred corpses and a camp full of supplies.

Yang Tongyi and his son Yang Shouli looked at the twenty-odd killing gods across from them with gratitude mixed with wariness.

They did not know where these heavenly soldiers, these divine generals, had come from. Nor did they know what grudge they bore against the mixed barbarians below the mountain.

But they knew that these men had saved their entire clan, and they knew that these men were terrifying beyond measure.

"Dalang! Yang Dalang! Don't you recognize me? Shouli, look at me — see who I am! See who I am!"

The monk Huitong, Zheng Tong, removed the one-piece helmet with its neck guard from his head. The man, with terrible scars on his forehead and face, wept, tears streaming down.

He choked with emotion as he looked at Yang Shouli and Zheng Shouli across from him. Nine years ago, it had been these two — then still young lads — who had come to Shule to find him, bringing him the last news of his clansmen.

"You... are you... are you Brother Huitong of Shule?" Zheng Shouli recognized Zheng Tong even faster than Yang Shouli did.

The ones who had stayed behind in Shule back then were branch lines of the Li and Zheng families. Zheng Tong was, in fact, his paternal cousin, so Zheng Shouli had always remembered Zheng Tong, who at the time had been dressed as a monk, very vividly.

"It is me! I am Huitong. Shouli, you've grown so much! Back then you clung to me and begged me to buy you cherry biluo pastries! Have you forgotten?"

Zheng Shouli froze on the spot. The scenes from nine years ago suddenly surfaced before his eyes.

At that time he had been only seventeen, brought along by his father Zheng Tongyi, traveling to Shule with Yang Shouli and the others, three of them in all. That monk cousin of his, who had looked both tall and fierce, had bought him the cherry biluo pastries that he had savored in his dreams countless times afterward.

"Brother, it really is Brother Huitong. Shouli Dalang, do you recognize him? It truly is Brother Huitong!"

Wild joy surged straight to the top of Zheng Shouli's head. Dizzy and not knowing what to do with himself, wave after wave of ecstasy washed over him. He could only violently shake the shoulders of Zheng Shouli beside him, howling and flailing his arms and legs.

Yang Shouli was a bit calmer than Zheng Shouli, who had long since collapsed emotionally. He walked toward Zheng Tong in a daze.

He knew about the Shule branch line — it had long since dwindled and was barely holding on. Nine years ago only a dozen or so of them had remained, mostly old women. Where had all these god-of-death figures come from today?

"Brother Huitong, who are they? Are they... are they..." Yang Shouli kept telling himself in his heart to stay calm, but when the words reached his lips, he simply could not get them out.

He did not dare speak the dream buried deep in his heart, because he feared receiving a negative answer.

Zheng Tong, his face streaming with tears, knew what Yang Shouli wanted to ask. He nodded heavily, unfastened his cloth-faced armor, and then from inside his close-fitting half-sleeve garment took out a crumpled, colorful great banner.

On a red field was a sun with black wave patterns; the sun enclosed a moon on a blue field; the moon in turn enclosed golden stars — it was none other than the Three Celestial Bodies Banner of the Great Tang.

Zheng Tong tore off the half-sleeve garment with a few rough yanks, then bared his torso and raised the Three Celestial Bodies Banner high above his head.

"By the command of the Great King Zhang Zhao, Deputy King of the Great Tang's Great Treasure Great Jin Kingdom! Ma Yaozi, squad general of the Left Second Squad of the Hanshan Unit of the Fengtian Battalion of the Fengtian Army, leads the warriors of the Left Second Squad to seek the descendants of the former Anxi Army! We ask the descendants of heroes to return home!"

Thud. The instant he saw the Three Celestial Bodies Banner, Yang Tongyi began trembling all over. By the time Zheng Tong had shouted these words, he had collapsed straight onto the ground.

"We ask the descendants of heroes to return home!" Ma Yaozi and the other twenty men removed their helmets in unison, held them in their hands, and roared.

"The Great Tang!" Yang Shouli wailed miserably, then suddenly squatted on the ground and broke into loud sobs.

"The court has not forgotten us! The court still remembers us! The heavenly troops have finally come! Return home! I want to return home! I want to go home!"

"Return home! Return home!"

"Go home! Go home!"

Piercing cries and wails instantly resounded across the entire battlefield. Amid the ground strewn with the corpses of assorted barbarians, hundreds upon thousands of men and women wept loudly beneath the Three Celestial Bodies Banner.

These tears were the best release for all the grievances they had suffered over the years. Returning home and going home had never been so clearly imprinted on their hearts.

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