Chapter 202: The Fierce Probe

The morning wind scattered the thick smoke over the battlefield. Several large trebuchets were aimed at a fortress that was not very tall, hurling polished boulders at it. With every impact, the walls of the castle opposite seemed to tremble.

Boom! A tremendous crash rang out. Under the trebuchets' ceaseless bombardment, a corner of the castle wall finally collapsed.

Excited howls rose up. Countless figures in the Khotan army cheered and leaped about, raising their weapons and shaking them ceaselessly.

Some impatient soldiers wanted to rush forward, but they were all held in check by officers standing around with wooden clubs.

Beside each officer was planted an arrow with a colored tail feather. Whoever dared come near that arrow was certain to be mercilessly lashed by the officers.

Creak! Creak! The trebuchet crews began inspecting the various parts, preparing for the next bombardment. The breach smashed open this time was a bit small? Rushing in would not mean much.

But just then, a clamor of men shouting and horses neighing came from within the fortress. Several dozen cavalry burst out through the breach in a single leap and fled along the river toward Kesh.

At this sight, a drum sounded from the army surrounding the castle. A white banner bearing a large character "Ma" waved, and over a hundred cavalry in black leather armor rode out from the formation.

Every man held a longbow, shouting as they shot. In no time they had entangled the cavalry fleeing through the castle breach.

Dong! Dong! A deeper, fuller drumbeat sounded. The officers in front of the formation swiftly pulled up the colored-tail-feather arrows planted in the ground, then drew the hengdao sabers at their waists and pointed toward the fortress.

At once, boundless numbers of tribesmen holding short blades and wearing leather robes howled and charged in the direction the officers pointed.

They were like wild horses that had thrown off their reins, or vicious dogs that had caught sight of bones — no formation, no discipline. Even village militia brawling in the Central Plains countryside were more disciplined than they were.

"Damn it, useless mixed-blood Hu!" Shan Zhu'er cursed bitterly.

These wretches were mostly tribesmen from various places who had recently come to submit. They had drilled once every three days for over a month, and they still were little better than a rabble — everything they did was a mob rush.

Still, they were enough to serve as cannon fodder. Shan Zhu'er reconsidered, and at once felt much better about it.

While the Khotan army surrounded and assaulted Fort Qadir, in the direction of Kesh, two armies of over a thousand men each were probing one another.

One side wore black robes of a uniform style, though under some of the black robes there were bulges, clearly armor worn beneath, while the majority wore nothing more than a single black robe.

On the other side, the soldiers wore neater blue-green armor. Perhaps to distinguish themselves from the enemy, their helmets were of a rather peculiar style — round-topped with red tassels, looking as though they had two layers.

But compared with their helmets, their armor was even stranger. Perhaps it should not be called armor at all, for apart from some round-based copper studs on the surface, almost no iron armor plates could be seen. It looked as though it offered little protection!

Both armies held infantry bows and advanced slowly under the direction of drums and horns. This showed that both armies were elite troops, because on a battlefield, those who dared take up bows first were almost always men with real skill.

And as the two armies closed on each other, curses and screams already rang out from all around.

These were the light cavalry of both sides covering the infantry's advance, already engaged ahead of them — three hundred against three hundred, pulling back and forth ceaselessly.

Neither side's cavalry wore armor, so they were exceptionally nimble. They did not truly close for hand-to-hand combat, but kept thirty or forty paces apart, constantly adjusting their formations and pouring wave after wave of arrows at each other. The fighting was lively, but casualties were not high, and for the moment neither side could gain the upper hand.

Sixty paces. With a thud of the drum, the infantry of both sides almost simultaneously began shrieking like apes — oo-wa, oo-wa — and as they shrieked, they deftly drew arrows from the quivers at their sides.

Almost at the same instant, arrow storms filled the sky. The twang of bowstrings and the whistle of arrows tearing through the air made one's scalp crawl, and then the wet thud-thud of arrows sinking into flesh made the heart shudder all the more.

Four hundred Hanshandu armored soldiers against eleven hundred elite heavy infantry of Kesh — the balance of strength was decided almost in an instant.

Although the enemy loosed twice as many arrows in their volley, on the Hanshandu side only a few men toppled over, scattered here and there. The rest, though their bodies bristled with arrow shafts, had suffered no real harm.

The Kesh side fared terribly. Some thirty or forty men collapsed straight to the ground. The screams, together with the blood spreading across the ground, immediately shattered the morale of the Kesh infantry.

Amid the screams, the second exchange of arrows began. The result was no surprise: the Hanshandu remained almost entirely unharmed, while several dozen more fell on the Kesh side.

"Advance! Advance! Arrows cannot pierce armor! We have the numbers — close in and thrust with long spears!" A Kesh officer in lamellar armor bellowed.

At his command, the Kesh infantry, already having lost sixty or seventy men, put away their bows, drew their long spears, swiftly formed a dense formation, and charged at the Hanshandu armored soldiers.

"Switch to modao glaive glaive glaives!" Yan Jin roared. Almost without needing the order, the Hanshandu armored soldiers automatically began to concentrate and formed a perfectly orderly square formation.

The Hanshandu armored soldiers were now fully equipped with modao glaive glaive glaives. For elite troops like them, the modao glaive glaive was more useful than the long spear, because the modao glaive glaive's cleaving blows could strike terror into the enemy far more quickly — much faster than the spear.

Shua! Almost at the same instant, three hundred modao glaive glaive glaives in the front rank rose upright, all in perfect unison, as if wielded by a single man.

At this moment there were still more than five meters before the two sides met, but nearly every Kesh infantryman's heart shuddered.

No damn way we can fight this — there's absolutely no winning. Two thoughts surged into their minds at once.

Sure enough, once they entered the three-meter range, before the Kesh infantry could even straighten their somewhat disordered formation, before their long spears were even raised to thrust, three hundred modao glaive glaive glaives came down almost as if from heaven itself.

Forged from fine iron from the Loyal Storehouse — or rather, modao glaive glaive glaives taken straight out of it — combined with the Hanshandu armored soldiers' long training, the three hundred modao glaive glaive glaives displayed tremendous power.

Not to say they shattered both man and horse, but a blow to the shoulder would shear off an arm, and a blow to the head would smash a man to pulp, helmet and all. That much they could do.

At once, the front ranks of the Kesh infantry fell into utter chaos. At least sixty or seventy of them went down in that single instant.

The casualties were greater than those from the two volleys of arrows just before, and even the officer who had ordered them forward was gravely wounded.

His fine lamellar armor had failed to block that thunderous blow. The armor plates on his chest were almost entirely smashed to pieces, and dark blood gushed out along the great wound channel left by the modao glaive glaive glaive.

This was Yan Jin's handiwork. He was not only the commandant of the Hanshandu, but also its modao glaive glaive instructor, and one of the foremost warriors in the unit.

Under his full-strength blow, even if the armor could not be pierced, the sheer striking force alone could cut an enemy down, one way or another.

Shua! Within two breaths of the first round of modao glaive glaive slashes ending, the second rank of Hanshandu modao glaive glaive wielders had already struck again, and several dozen more of the disordered Kesh infantry fell.

This was the Hanshandu's modao glaive glaive battle method: after the front rank finished its slash, it immediately turned aside, and the second rank passed through the gaps to deliver the second blow, then the first rank delivered the third.

In training, they could keep slashing for twenty-one consecutive rounds without pausing for breath. It was a true avalanche, wave upon wave without end — no army on earth could withstand it.

"Defeated! We're defeated!"

"Run! Run!"

Before the third round of modao glaive glaive blows could even be launched, the thousand-odd Kesh infantry collapsed in an instant.

Shouting to one another, they scattered in every direction. The cries of "Defeated! Defeated!" rang out everywhere — nearly every man was shouting it.

Collapsed, but not completely collapsed. "Defeated! Defeated!" was not shouted for nothing. It was the front ranks signaling to the rear, telling them the front line could no longer hold.

That way the rear ranks would not press forward, greatly reducing the chaos of a crush, so that most men could quickly break away from the battlefield. This was a life-saving trick of veteran soldiers.

But they were lucky, because the Hanshandu had no intention of pursuing them at all. Their objective was not Kesh, but the Persians coming from Khujand.

Atop the walls of Kesh, Yusuf closed his eyes, his face pale, then turned and walked down from the wall.

"Mahmud, have men block the four gates, strictly control the grain and fodder, and tell all the officers to prepare for a desperate defense!"

Zhang Zhao watched the cluster of richly dressed figures atop the walls of Kesh vanish from sight, and a cold sneer curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Tell all units: according to the established plan, take the fortresses outside Kesh one by one, speed up the collection and transport of army provisions, and focus on defending the south against the Persians advancing up the Yaxartes."

The clamorous day ended, and a cold, windy night arrived. Inside the Khotan army's tents, it was still comparatively warm.

Because Zhang Zhao had ordered men to collect large quantities of firewood and cold-weather clothing in advance, and the finest soldiers among them in particular each had a small padded jacket, the warmth was several levels better.

"Great King, our scouts have already got the Persians under watch, but they can only get within fifteen to twenty li of them.

Because some of the Persian roving cavalry are quite capable, and their warhorses in particular are better than ours. If they rely on their fortified camp and only make defensive screens, we can't beat them."

Zhang Zhao had not yet slept, because Bai Congxin and Ashina Sili had returned from the front line where they were watching the Persians.

These past days, Zhang Zhao's roving cavalry and the Basmyl horsemen had been locked in skirmishes with the Persian scouts. Both sides had taken casualties, only the Persians' were far heavier.

But recently, after the enemy began relying on their fortified camp to make defensive screens, the roving cavalry's casualties had also started to rise.

"If you can't infiltrate, don't force it. Let the brothers rest and refit more. Have the Persians still shown no sign of moving out?"

Zhang Zhao nodded in understanding. His own cavalry were fighting seventy or eighty li from the main camp, while the enemy could rely on their fortified camp, so they were bound to come off worse.

"They haven't moved out. That dog-slave Adular really can keep his nerve!

He's holding his position just over a hundred li away, sending cavalry up along the Yaxartes every day to probe. The moment we go to ambush them, they pull back. I don't think he has any intention of sending relief troops at all."

Hearing Zhang Zhao ask about this, Yan Jin was starting to lose his composure.

Zhang Zhao also sank into thought. He now had only sixteen thousand elite troops; the remaining thirty or forty thousand were a rabble.

With this much strength, taking Kesh would take months at the very least, and he didn't dare attack the city at full force either — if the Persians ambushed him while he was stuck in an indecisive assault, it would be serious trouble.

That old dog Adular really was hard to deal with. Would he have to use gunpowder again? Or could he use something to provoke the Persians?

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