Chapter 323: The Age of the War Madman

On the eighth day, at the beginning of the mao hour, everyone was still asleep.

Garrison Commander Wang was sleeping soundly with his beautiful concubine in his arms. He planned to send his eldest son out of the city the next day to meet that Hexi Military Governor, Zhang the Minister of Works.

If the man was not a tyrant, then he would ignore Sun the Squad General and begin negotiating terms directly.

As long as Minister Zhang was willing to raise his share of the spoils to fifty percent, Garrison Commander Wang was resolved to tie up Sun the Squad General and his men and defect to the Guiyi Army.

Sun the Squad General was asleep too, though only after drinking a round of wine.

Sun the Squad General knew He Chuan's character very well. Leaving aside the fact that dozens of his Sun clan members, including his most valiant cousin Sun Xiaoguo, served under He Chuan, the man's vengeful temperament alone filled Sun the Squad General with dread.

The Guiyi Army from Hexi numbered around ten thousand, but He Chuan also had ten thousand.

No! By now it might be even more. After joining up with the several thousand yabing guards of the Jingnan Army under the Binning Military Governor, their numbers might be even greater.

In his heart, he was certain the Hexi army could not defeat He Chuan and his allies. If these spoils were lost, when He Chuan returned, he would never spare those left behind to guard them.

But the fast riders he had sent out had brought no word for so many days. What else could he do?

Wu Guo'er woke with a start from a nightmare. He had dreamed of Murong Xinzhang.

In the dream, Minister Zhang's precious son rode a white heavenly horse, toying with him and beating him back and forth, while he himself rode a short donkey and could not dodge no matter how he tried.

Startled awake from the nightmare, Wu Guo'er sat on the edge of the bed and stared blankly for a moment. He remembered the black horse with white socks that Minister Zhang had promised to reward him once the deed was done.

That was truly a fine horse! Glossy coat, powerful muscles, strong loins and haunches, lively eyes. Wu Guo'er had been utterly captivated the moment he saw it.

He wondered whether Minister Zhang would still keep his word now that the ten-day deadline had passed.

Outside the west gate, the men of Cao Shisi's Thunderbolt Office and the Gold-Splitting Unit first swam across the moat, then began digging holes by the west gate to bury the thunderbolts.

At the same time, the assault team's braves were ready. They carried ladders and planks to lay across the moat for crossing.

Though the Thunderbolt Office and Gold-Splitting Unit men had been extremely careful, in the silent night air, faint rustling sounds inevitably leaked out.

And what was worse, the moonlight tonight was a little too good. Though it was already the beginning of the mao hour, the moon was still shining bright.

On the wall west of the city, these sounds alerted one man: Fire Chief Li.

This fire chief in his thirties was a seasoned veteran. He had taken up blade and spear to kill at fourteen, following his uncle, and had been killing for over twenty years. Though not particularly brave or mighty, he was rich in experience.

When he slept, he would press his ear against the city wall, and he could usually hear any small disturbance.

For instance, right now, he sensed something was wrong.

Scrambling nimbly to his feet, Fire Chief Li peered through the ghastly pale moonlight and dimly made out many men in black digging at something beneath the west gate.

Trouble!

Fire Chief Li was about to shout and strike the bronze alarm bell, but he suddenly felt as if someone were beside him. He whipped his head around in terror and saw the fool standing right next to him.

In the moonlight, that usually dull-witted idiot was looking at him with an expression Fire Chief Li had never seen before: part cruelty, part cold indifference.

The fool's right hand was thrust into the hem of his robe and had not been withdrawn. His body stood ramrod straight, so his right hand must have been gripping the hilt of a blade hidden in his robe.

Fire Chief Li swallowed hard. In his tension, the swallow felt rough, scraping his throat raw with pain.

He also suddenly realized that the fool was very powerfully built. If it came to a fight, he would very likely be stabbed to death by the fool before the other soldiers could wake.

He understood too why the fool had been lowering himself over the wall these past two days to eat and drink with the Hexi soldiers, sometimes even returning with wine and meat.

Because he had already gone over to the Hexi army!

After weighing the combat strength of both sides, and thinking of his wife who had died of illness long ago without leaving him a single child, Fire Chief Li slowly crouched down.

He watched the fool's right hand, then slowly lay down on the ground, closed his eyes, and even let out a faint snore.

"Boom!" A heaven-shaking explosion rang out. Six thunderbolts detonated at once, blinding sparks shot into the air, and the entire west gate of Weizhou seemed to shudder.

The blast wave hurled several Gold-Splitting Unit men who had not run far enough into the moat.

The Weizhou troops on duty west of the city were nearly driven mad by the enormous sound. Countless men scrambled up from the ground and began running and shouting blindly.

The thick city gate had been blown open with a huge breach. Before the echo of the explosion had faded, most of the city's residents had been jolted awake, and the wailing of dogs rose and fell across the city.

Most of the Guiyi Army, however, did not so much as frown, because the charge this time was only thirty percent of what had been used at Shule. In many men's eyes, this was mere child's play.

"Bridge it! Cross the river!" Zhang Zhao roared, and was the first to throw his long ladder across the moat.

Splash after splash sounded as hundreds of soldiers leaped into the river like dumplings into a pot. They would use their own bodies to steady the makeshift wooden bridge.

Manxiong was the first to reach the gate. With his massive battle-axe, he hacked the already shattered gate into an even larger opening in just a few strokes.

"Li Ruotai, take a hundred men to the armory!

Shanzhu'er and Lu Sanlang, take a hundred men to the prefectural office!

Huguang, take fifty men and hold the gate so the main army can enter!

The rest of you, follow me — straight for the barracks!" Zhang Zhao gripped his hengdao saber and broke into a sprint.

Weizhou was not a large city, but running in armor was no easy task. Now it was a race against time. He had to smash the Weizhou army before it could assemble.

With the explosion, the Guiyi Army soldiers outside the city who had not been chosen to assault with Zhang Zhao began rapidly filling in the moat. The drawbridge blocking the front of the gate also had to be destroyed quickly, so the main army could enter.

The first obstacle the sprinting Zhang Zhao encountered was the barbican. If the west gate was blown open but they were trapped inside the barbican, that would be a joke.

Fortunately, people of this era were not yet accustomed to such violent explosions. The fifty soldiers of the company guarding the barbican were howling and shouting in terror from the blast.

Only the company commander and a few trusted men had the presence of mind to realize that the Guiyi Army outside the city was very likely attacking.

The shouting company commander, with a few trusted men, rushed to lower the barbican's portcullis first.

But Dunzhu was faster. The Tibetan, whose arm length could rival Liu Bei's, howled and hurled four javelins like a whirlwind.

The company commander and his two trusted men were pinned dead almost simultaneously on the road to the barbican gate.

Sun the Squad General slept directly inside the barracks, because the situation had grown critical lately and he did not trust Garrison Commander Wang.

For when He Chuan, the Troop Commander of the Governor's Front, was still present, Garrison Commander Wang had in fact been kept down by their faction.

To put it nicely, he was a man of long-standing prestige; to put it bluntly, he was an old veteran slicker.

The spoils He Chuan and the others had plundered from Binzhou, Ningzhou, Yizhou, and other places, and sent back, amounted to at least fifty thousand strings of cash.

With such a great fortune, Sun the Squad General had to keep a close eye on it, so he simply moved into the barracks with the remaining yabing guards.

The explosion at the west gate was very loud, but the military camp was still some distance away. Squad General Sun heard the enormous blast and instinctively assumed it was merely thunder; besides, he had drunk quite a bit of wine before bed, and his mind was not all that clear.

It was not until the yabing guards quartered in the front courtyard came running in frantically and began shoving him, the squad general in charge, that he realized something was terribly wrong.

Outside the camp, this garrison camp established within Weizhou city was built rather completely. There were chevaux-de-frise before the gate, watchtowers on all four sides, and archers standing guard in the towers.

But at this hour, still the mao hour, the archers above, being inside the city, were not very alert and had not risen to stand watch.

Only after hearing the enormous explosion did the archers in each watchtower rub their bleary eyes and begin looking around.

But by then it was somewhat too late, for in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Zhang Zhao had led the warriors of the Guiyi Army charging up outside the camp.

The brothers Fan Quan and Fan Shun, holding divine-arm crossbows, each led a dozen or so crack marksmen. Whenever a figure stirred in a watchtower, they raised their weapons and loosed an arrow.

The power of the divine-arm crossbow was far greater than that of an ordinary bow, and men like Fan Quan and Fan Shun were renowned for their marksmanship. Before long, the archers in the watchtowers had all been dealt with.

Below the camp's earthen wall, the men together lifted five wooden poles, each over ten feet long, with planks nailed to their tops.

Man Xiong, Dunzhu, and Wang Tongxin crouched on the planks as the men lifted them, steadily rising toward the top of the earthen wall.

The rumbling of footsteps approached. Although the camp was inside the city, with wartime conditions prevailing, Squad General Sun had still assigned two squads of soldiers to patrol.

Several hundred other soldiers even slept wearing their leather robes. When they heard the screams of the archers on the watchtowers outside the camp, they hurriedly scrambled to their feet.

Man Xiong was the first to be lifted onto the wall top, and the Weizhou soldiers on the wall arrived at just that moment.

These Weizhou soldiers had been startled awake from their sleep and were still somewhat dazed, running to the wall top purely on training instinct. Their swords and spears were not yet warm in their hands when they saw Man Xiong, who was like a giant bear.

Man Xiong took a deep breath and charged straight ahead, using himself as a weapon, slamming into the squad of soldiers opposite him.

He wore two layers of padded armor and a coat of interlocked ring mail, so he had no fear of swords, spears, or staves. Even iron hammers and great axes could do nothing to him for a good while.

The Weizhou soldiers watched this monstrous bear come crashing toward them like a landslide, and with a collective shout, led by their squad leader, they charged forward as well.

But Man Xiong's bulk was too great. Wearing several dozen jin of armor, his own weight approached two hundred fifty or sixty jin.

Such weight charging at extreme speed was simply not something they could stop.

The squad leader, before Man Xiong crashed into them, spread his legs, steadied himself in a horse stance, and thrust out his hengdao saber with lightning speed.

Clang! The long hengdao saber broke with the sound, and the squad leader's sword hand had a layer of skin scraped clean off.

At the same time, a long spear thrust out from his left, and an iron hammer smashed down from his right, both aimed at Man Xiong.

In the end, the spearman let out a shriek as the spear shaft was knocked flying from his hands.

The iron hammer did strike Man Xiong's shoulder, but unfortunately, only a dull thud sounded. Man Xiong showed no reaction at all, as if he had not been hit.

One saber, one spear, one hammer — none of them could do anything to Man Xiong. Now it was Man Xiong's turn to crash into them, and these dozen or so soldiers could not withstand even one collision from him.

Amid earth-shaking roars, the squad leader was sent flying by Man Xiong's impact, and the dozen or so soldiers were all knocked sprawling.

Some were struck by the impact, some were frightened into retreating and got shoved to the ground, and one unlucky fellow even missed his footing and fell from the earthen wall with a scream.

Having successfully smashed into the crowd, Man Xiong gripped his great axe with both hands and began hacking at the enemy at close range.

With his bulk and strength, the swinging great axe was terrifyingly lethal. The first blow caved in the interlocked ring mail plates on the squad leader's body.

The squad leader screamed. That axe blow had not only sheared through the plates of his ring mail but also broken his shoulder blade. Then warm blood splashed across the squad leader's face — it was Man Xiong hacking down the soldiers behind him.

Just then, another squad of soldiers arrived from the distance. Seeing that Man Xiong had already driven back most of the dozen or so men, this arriving squad immediately drew their foot bows and began shooting at Man Xiong.

Arrows whistled through the air, but after striking Man Xiong, most hung crookedly from his padded armor. The slight pain from the arrows only stirred up his ferocity further.

By now Dunzhu and Wang Tongxin had also scattered the Weizhou soldiers on the other side. Below the earthen wall, Zhang Zhao directed the men to send three more people up onto the wall, and Murong Xinzhang was among them.

The good eldest son threw his pair of iron maces to the ground, took up his hard bow, and loosed four arrows in rapid succession, killing three Weizhou soldiers on the spot. The bow in his hands was a one-dan-two-strong bow, and a single layer of armor could not withstand it at all.

At this point Dunzhu also hurled his last two javelins, and the Weizhou soldiers, who had only dared to shoot arrows from a distance, immediately scattered in all directions.

Zhang Zhao was in the third wave lifted onto the earthen wall, in this era when warriors were arrogant and frenzied.

What ordinary eras praised — devising strategies within the command tent and deciding victory a thousand li away, or directing a great army like Zhuge Liang sitting in a little four-wheeled cart and waving command flags — simply did not work in this era.

An age of war-madmen only revered war-madmen even madder than themselves.

Zhang Zhao had even considered a possibility: if a scholarly general like Yu Yunwen came to this era, what he received would probably not be soldiers serving him loyally, but the yabing guards and yabing officers below finding some way to cut him down with a single blade.

As for the reason, just look at the treatment our Grand Minister of Works Zhang received, and you will understand. As the commander of an army, the dignified Military Governor of Hexi, ruling over hundreds of thousands of subjects, his status could not be called low.

Yet when he demanded to be in the third wave scaling the wall, what he received was not dissuasion. Not a single person tried to persuade him with words like "a body worth ten thousand gold, why personally brave arrows and stones?" Instead, they looked at him with eyes of extreme admiration.

Then Zhang Zhao was hoisted high by Zhebu Jiashi, Cui Huxin, and the others, and pushed up onto the earthen wall.

In the eyes of the war-madmen, only the one who could draw his blade and cut men down alongside them — and cut men down the fiercest and maddest of all — was fit to be their lord.

"Take the gate! Go take the gate!" Zhang Zhao shouted loudly the moment he was up on the earthen wall.

The nine men who heard the order immediately ran with him toward the camp gate. As long as they opened the gate and the several hundred men outside entered the camp, the matter would be settled.

As the most important place in the camp, Squad General Sun had stationed a full hundred men at the camp gate, with another squad general commanding them in its defense.

By the time Zhang Zhao arrived, this squad general had already assembled his soldiers. Several dozen soldiers held long spears, forming a small square formation.

Behind the square formation were several dozen archers, and in the watchtowers above the left and right sides of the camp gate, archers also stood with bows drawn, ready to fire.

But even facing such a formation, Zhang Zhao did not hesitate in the slightest.

He shouted for the two best archers, Murong Xinzhang and Fan Shun, to take up hard bows and begin picking off the archers at the upper left and upper right of the camp gate.

The rest followed him as he charged fiercely at the spear formation opposite.

Since they had not brought long weapons such as infantry pikes on this sortie, and what they carried were all hengdao sabers, great axes, iron hammers, and the like, what actually suited Zhang Zhao and his men best was close-quarters melee, not fighting in formation.

Although nine men faced over a hundred, Zhang could see that the enemy did not have much of an advantage.

Because they had come too suddenly, the soldiers at the camp gate, though they had brought out bows and long spears, were basically all unarmored.

Armored against unarmored — as long as they charged in and hacked away, the enemy was finished!

Amid the shouting, the thick-skinned, three-layered-armored, tall and burly Man Xiong and Dunzhu were used by Zhang Zhao and the others directly as human tanks.

These two were pushed forward by Zhang Zhao and the others and began sprinting ahead. With a boom, Man Xiong and Dunzhu crashed into the spear formation like wild boars.

Several cries of pain rang out — it was Dunzhu yelling in pain. Although he wore three layers of armor, being jabbed wildly by more than a dozen long spears still hurt him enough to make him howl.

But even as he howled, Dunzhu gripped two short spears and whirled them like a cyclone. These unarmored soldiers, as long as he stabbed them, basically lost their fighting ability.

After Dunzhu and Man Xiong had charged in, Zhang Zhao followed right behind.

He was not wearing his extremely flashy gold armor right now, because that thing was simply too conspicuous, so Zhang Zhao had put on two layers of padded cotton armor instead.

Charging in wearing a full suit of heavy armor and wielding a hengdao saber, he simply hacked wildly through the crowd — with people on both sides, every swing was bound to hit someone.

Moreover, against unarmored targets, a hengdao saber was far more useful than a great axe or an iron hammer.

Because it was light and nimble, with a long blade, good for both slashing and thrusting; its killing power was slightly greater than a great axe or iron hammer, while its attack speed was several times faster.

In the bloody slaughter, Zhang Zhao was always charging at the very front; amid the howling, struggling crowd, he keenly spotted the squad general who was directing the enemy.

The squad general, protected by two personal guards, was holding a foot bow and continuously shooting at them.

Zhang Zhao let out a great shout, dipped his shoulder, and dragging his hengdao saber, forcibly plowed a bloody path through the crowd.

He ran up in front of the squad general, then with lightning speed slashed three times in succession at the squad general, who was just about to retreat.

Although caught by surprise, this squad general had still wrapped himself in a leather armor vest, but Zhang Zhao's hengdao saber was made of steel from a later era, exceptionally sharp, and his blade work was extremely precise — each of the three cuts landed in the exact same spot.

Such swift and accurate strikes directly hacked a huge gash into the squad general's leather armor, and blood surged wildly out through the opening.

Seeing their commander targeted, the squad general's personal guards hurried to shield him and withdraw to the left, but once the squad general — the man who steadied morale — moved, the infantry, who had no armor to begin with, grew even more panicked.

Zhang Zhao, meanwhile, fought more and more smoothly; he suddenly chased after them and delivered a flying kick to the squad general's back, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Then he drove the hengdao saber straight down — the blade entered through the back and pierced straight through the squad general's heart, killing the officer in command on the spot.

And only after he had finished off the squad general did the two personal guards react; wailing in despair, the two of them charged at Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Zhao stepped his right leg forward, settled into a horse stance, and the hengdao saber flashed down from above with lightning speed — the first guard to arrive was struck directly in the neck, and blood shot skyward.

Then Zhang Zhao twisted his waist, and the hengdao saber slashed hard to the right — the second guard to arrive erupted in a spray of blood from his abdomen, and multicolored intestines poured out through the gash at once.

By now, the mao hour had passed and it was already the chen hour; the sun was about to rise, and visibility had improved greatly.

The camp-gate soldiers, roused in haste, saw that the squad general had been killed and that the enemy before them looked like fiends and plague gods; unable to hold on any longer, they howled and scattered in an instant.

And the blood-soaked Man Xiong and the others, under Zhang Zhao's command, did not chase the fleeing soldiers, but instead used the great axes in their hands to split the wooden bar on the camp gate and open the doors.

Squad General Sun's head had finally stopped spinning, but the sight before him made his heart turn cold — he had no idea how many people had charged into their camp.

Tents were being set alight one after another; at this time, military tents were mostly made of hemp cloth, and the soldiers, for warmth, also liked to keep some personal furs inside their tents.

These things were the best kindling — once the fire caught, it simply could not be put out.

So once a tent was lit, the flames quickly began to spread; terrified by the great fire, the soldiers, who had no idea how many attackers had come to raid the camp, fled for their lives in every direction.

Squad General Sun had wanted to organize some resistance, but looking around, there were routed soldiers everywhere, and no one paid any attention to his commands.

Apart from the hundred or so close followers behind him, in this camp of several thousand men, he could not muster a single person.

And very unfortunately for him, this attempt to rally the soldiers not only failed to gather many men, but instead drew the attention of Zhang Zhao and his people.

Zhang Zhao had never met Squad General Sun, but he knew there was such a man in the Weizhou army.

And according to what the soldiers who had secretly defected to him over the past few days had told him,

although Garrison Commander Wang held high rank and normally commanded respect among the soldiers, the one who truly held power was this petty squad general Sun Du, because he was a trusted confidant of He Chuan, the Front Army Troop Commander who had started the mutiny.

"Gather!" Zhang Zhao roared, and those around him who heard the shout roared along with him.

At the shout, the several hundred Guiyi Army warriors nearby who could still hear immediately ran toward Zhang Zhao.

They formed a small square formation with extreme speed, then drew foot bows from their backs.

Only then did Squad General Sun react; he too hurriedly reached for the bow on his back, and the hundred or so men around him began forming up almost at the same time as the Guiyi Army.

These yabing guards truly lived up to being war-crazed madmen of this insane age — in such chaos, their first thought was not to flee, but to face the enemy head-on!

In truth, in ancient warfare, what decided victory or defeat was always close-quarters combat, but the greatest number of kills still came from bows and crossbows.

Three hundred bows and crossbows against a hundred-odd — with three hundred on this side, and this side also having several dozen divine-arm crossbows, the advantage was absolutely, utterly mine.

The two sides exchanged three rapid, storm-like volleys, and Squad General Sun lost more than twenty men around him, yet at such close range, he was given no chance to flee or react.

After the exchange of volleys, both sides immediately brandished their weapons and charged; if Front Army Troop Commander He Chuan had been here, the hundred-odd yabing guards of the Zhangyi Army could indeed have clashed with Zhang Zhao's several hundred Guiyi Army men.

But Squad General Sun could not; a general is the courage of an army, and this squad general had a great appetite for amassing wealth but very little courage for killing. The two sides slammed into each other.

After only two or three minutes of fighting, Squad General Sun could no longer hold on and wanted to retreat.

But Zhang Zhao had long since been worked into a howling frenzy by this exhilarating battle; with adrenaline surging, Commissioner Zhang fought more and more fiercely.

In his hand he held a golden-melon hammer he had picked up from who knew where; gripping the hammer with both hands, he was the first to charge into the Weizhou army, and swinging the iron hammer, he simply smashed away wildly.

The Guiyi Army warriors behind, seeing how brave Zhang Zhao was, also howled and surged forward in waves.

Murong Da'er in particular, wielding a pair of iron rods, loyally guarded Zhang Zhao's side; the six- or seven-jin iron rods whirled like a whirlwind, and he soon struck down four or five men.

Squad General Sun desperately wanted to flee, but Zhang Zhao had already locked onto him; no matter what he did, he simply could not break free.

After several rounds of dodging left and right, Squad General Sun grew more and more panicked, and his arms grew more and more sore; the hengdao saber in his hand seemed almost too heavy to swing.

At last! Zhang Zhao roared furiously, and the golden-melon hammer raised high came smashing down onto Squad General Sun's forehead.

Squad General Sun shook as if struck by lightning, convulsing rigidly; his entire forehead, helmet included, was caved in. Without even a scream, he toppled stiffly to the ground.

And at this moment, shouts thundered inside and outside the city — the main force of the Guiyi Army, under Yan Jin's command, had entered the city.

——— Off-topic note ———

Two chapters combined; three more chapters coming today.

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