Chapter 335: Smash You Till Your Head Is Covered in Bumps

"Stones flung like fists" was the Song army's assessment of the Western Xia's Poxi Army. In Western Xia history, the Poxi Army made its name in the era of Li Yuanhao, and it is also mostly recorded in that era. It was the enemy that the Song army, heavily armored and mostly infantry, least wanted to meet.

But the Poxi Army was not large in Western Xia, and Zhang Zhao estimated that apart from the factor of national strength, it also had to do with Western Xia's complex composition of power.

Li Yuanhao must have been thinking of some kind of balance, unwilling to expand the Poxi Army's scale, lest the royal house, or even anyone other than himself, gain control of such a devastating weapon.

Zhang Zhao, however, certainly had no such concerns as Li Yuanhao. The thinking of a pathological narcissist was never something ordinary people could understand.

Still, the Guiyi Army did not have many whirlwind catapult operators either, because manufacturing them was indeed somewhat troublesome, and the quality and requirements for the operators were also quite high.

He Chuan rubbed his nose somewhat anxiously. After he sounded the gong to withdraw, the Guiyi Army had actually also pulled back. What were these Hexi people trying to do? Why had they not attacked yet?

Just as he was puzzling over this, more than a hundred camels came out braying "en-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh." What was the meaning of this? Camel cavalry? He Chuan could not make sense of it no matter how he thought.

"What are those camels carrying on their backs? It looks like... hmm... like..."

Beside He Chuan, Defense Commissioner Wu narrowed his eyes and tried to recall. He felt the things on the camels' backs were somewhat familiar, but he could not remember what they were.

"Direction right of center, up five, right nine." A whirlwind catapult flag-team captain, squinting as he observed, loudly reported the data.

At his report, the central army's signal flagman raised the black banner signifying the right side, and two junior signal flagmen with small flags on their backs ran past each whirlwind catapult.

The signal flagman in front carried five red triangular pennants on his back, while the one behind carried one large yellow square flag and four small yellow triangular pennants.

Once the signal flagmen passed, the camel handlers specially assigned to tend the camels and the assistant catapult operators who adjusted the firing angle and direction went to work — one driving the camel, the other adjusting the markings on the whirlwind catapult — completing the adjustment in the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea.

"Not good! Those are trebuchets! The Hexi people have mounted trebuchets on the camels' backs!" Defense Commissioner Wu suddenly roared, having finally recognized what was on the camels' backs.

Trebuchets? Were there trebuchets this small? The thought had just turned over in He Chuan's mind when his soul nearly fled his body in terror. Not good — the Hexi people were going to smash his crossbowmen.

"Left three and left four crossbow formations to the right, concentrate fire on those camels opposite! Right two, three, four, and six, advance!"

He Chuan made a snap decision, ordering the crossbowmen of each formation forward, and also dispatched the only few hundred cavalry he had to charge ahead, attempting to scare off Zhang Zhao's camel-borne whirlwind catapults.

At this time, small trebuchets had a range of about one hundred paces, and large ones less than three hundred paces.

Zhang Zhao's whirlwind catapults, because the stones were carefully polished and the trebuchets themselves were more finely crafted, though small, could still reach an effective range of about two hundred paces.

But this was a very dangerous distance, because the large wooden single-bow crossbows and Fuyuan crossbows then in use also had this range, or even exceeded it, and ordinary crossbows at around one hundred fifty paces could also inflict damage.

That was why He Chuan ordered the crossbowmen out, but it was already somewhat late. The order had just reached the left and right crossbowmen when a terrifying "wuuu-wuuu" sound rose up.

Eighty whirlwind catapults hurled fist-sized polished round stones, raining them down upon the rebel army's crossbow formations.

The captain of the rebel army's right-two crossbowmen had just issued the order for his soldiers to advance when the round stones came whistling down. The captain's mouth was still open shouting the order, his leg still stepping forward, but his entire skull had already caved in.

The iron helmet offered not the slightest protection. White brain matter, dyed pink by blood, splattered everywhere like soft tofu.

A crossbowman beside the captain suddenly felt his stomach convulse. He doubled over violently and vomited loudly.

And it was that very bending over that saved his life. The stone meant to hit him instead struck the crossbowman behind him.

That crossbowman wore a leather armor with a small-sized ring-mail hauberk over it, but it was equally useless.

He did not even manage a grunt. The stone drove the iron rings of the hauberk straight into the crossbowman's chest, and the immense impact force even squeezed his internal organs out through the breach with a "spurt."

Several sword-and-shield men, urged on by their officers, probably intended to come shield the crossbowmen, but these shields, not even covered with iron plate, were equally useless against the stones.

One sword-and-shield man had just raised his long shield when it was smashed with two gaps, and half the sword-and-shield soldier's head was sheared away.

The rain-like stones came arcing over one after another. "Rain-like" here was not a figure of speech but a description. The reason it was called the whirlwind catapult was that its striking speed was like a whirlwind.

As the catapult operators kept taking stones from the leather pouches on the camels' backs, the whirlwind catapults' strikes came faster and faster.

Fist-sized round stones hurled with such force — no matter what armor you wore, if one touched you, it was as good as nothing, the same as wearing none at all.

The advancing rebel right-two crossbow formation simply ceased to exist after three rounds of this storm-like pounding.

Not that they broke — rather, their formation was too dense and they were mentally unprepared, so few even had time to flee before they were utterly wiped out. Of more than one hundred crossbowmen, seventy or eighty were gone in just over three minutes.

Now, on the ground where right-two had stood, there was only a field of severed limbs and red-and-white matter sprayed everywhere.

Some had been struck in the head and died without a sound; others had been hit in the abdomen, their guts pierced and ruptured, but had not died immediately and lay moaning low.

After right-two was finished came right-three. The whirlwind catapult operators adjusted their direction slightly, and again the rain of stones flew out. The right-three crossbow formation, which had been advancing, collapsed almost at the first sound.

Not only them — the right-four and right-six formations that He Chuan had ordered forward also collapsed at almost the same moment. No one wanted to use flesh and blood to resist stones.

At the same time, the left-three and left-four crossbow formations that were supposed to support them immediately slowed, almost like turtles crawling.

He Chuan cursed, and waved a hand at the personal guards beside him holding gleaming long sabers.

These personal guards holding long sabers were called Silver Saber Officers. When the commander went out, they served as ceremonial escorts to enhance his prestige; on the battlefield, they were generally used as execution squads.

Sure enough, a dozen or so Silver Saber Officers charged over and hacked furiously at the scattered crossbowmen. After cutting down three or four, the broken crossbowmen's emotions finally "calmed," and under their officers' direction, they began to reform their ranks.

Just as the whirlwind catapults were smashing the rebel crossbow formations, the three hundred-odd cavalry He Chuan had sent out came howling out of the formation, charging straight for the whirlwind catapult line.

The rebel cavalry captain at the very front felt a surge of joy. These Hexi people had actually not sent cavalry to intercept them.

"I'll charge straight to within sixty paces, loose a volley of arrows, and see how you keep throwing stones."

But while they were still a hundred paces out, they saw over a hundred men surge out around the camels, raising powerful crossbows and loosing a concentrated volley at the charging riders. The captain hastily let out a long cry, put his riding bow away, and took up his lance.

Exchanging fire between horse bows and crossbows — only if he were mad. The best option now was to charge through as fast as possible.

Thirty paces!

Twenty paces!

"Boom! Boom!" The captain only saw a blur before his eyes as a dozen or more brilliant fire dragons sprayed directly into his face.

First it seemed countless fragments stabbed into his face. The captain screamed — it felt as if his face were being pierced by countless steel needles.

Even as he screamed, the blazing gunpowder burned onto his face, and the searing pain made him drop the lance from his hand.

Next, a nauseating poison smell drifted into the captain's nostrils. He felt the world spinning, sick and wanting to vomit, and with another scream he toppled to the ground.

Almost at the same moment, the captain's warhorse was also sprayed by some of the pear-blossom gun's flames. Horses are timid by nature, and sprayed by flames it had never seen before, it cared for nothing else and turned and bolted.

The pitiful captain had not been killed by the pear-blossom gun, but as he fell, his foot was still caught in the stirrup.

The terrified warhorse dragged him off at a wild gallop, knocking his head against all kinds of stones along the way, and after a few blows he passed out.

The captain at the very front had been sprayed, and the several dozen riders behind him did not escape either. They had already lost twenty-odd riders to a volley of crossbow bolts during the charge, and now they were sprayed into utter chaos by the pear-blossom guns. Once the front ranks fell into disorder, those behind did not care about anything else and turned and fled back.

At that very moment, the Guiyi Army cavalry, which had not moved until now, finally moved. Murong Xinzhang raised his cavalry lance with a long cry, and several hundred riders charged out like the wind, directly cutting off the fleeing rebel horsemen and beating them down head-on. Of the three hundred-odd riders, it was uncertain whether even a hundred would escape back.

With the whirlwind catapults now completely out of danger, the foster troops, under their officers' orders, drove the camels onward again, heading to smash the crossbowmen who had just finished forming ranks.

"Commander, advance the whole army! We have the numbers—charge in for close combat. If we let them pound us for another quarter hour, morale will collapse!"

Defense Commissioner Wu watched with his heart and gall both shattered. With such nimble catapults, the enemy had no need to advance at all—if you dared hold still, they dared keep those whirlwind catapults hammering all day.

He Chuan's guts were churning with regret. Why had he left in such a rush and not brought those few Fuyuan crossbows along?

If he had a few Fuyuan crossbows here, he could at least keep the enemy's catapults from being so brazen.

"Commander! Give the order!" Seeing the enemy catapults about to open up again, Defense Commissioner Wu panicked and seized He Chuan's sleeve, shouting.

He Chuan's face was dark as water. He glanced at Defense Commissioner Wu. "Our yabing guards have only just begun donning their armor!"

Defense Commissioner Wu's face instantly went deathly pale. Moments ago the two of them had been mocking the Hexi Army commander across the way for making his soldiers put on armor early—only now did he realize the clown was himself.

"I will personally lead my guard in a death charge—Commander, quickly muster the main army!"

After a few breaths of silence, Defense Commissioner Wu gritted his teeth. His clansmen's fates were unknown; the only one he could rely on now was He Chuan.

If He Chuan could seize Guanzhong, he would still have a place to shelter. Otherwise, in all the vast world, he feared there would be no ground to bury his bones.

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