Chapter 448: Easy to Invite the Gods, Hard to Send Them Away

Wheeling around a formation in a herringbone pattern — that was truly not a good idea.

Within the Liang army, this method of using infantry against cavalry was called scraping off fat.

It meant that every time cavalry passed through the flanks of such an infantry formation, a layer of "fat" would be scraped off them.

The Gaochang Uyghur cavalry came howling in, but did not dare charge head-on into several hundred silver lances; they circled around the flanks of Wu Jixing's unit instead.

The two sides were basically within five paces of each other. The cavalry used the lances and sabers in their hands, borrowing the impact speed of their warhorses, to thrust and slash at the infantry.

Besides firing crossbows and bows in volleys, the silver-lance soldiers holding formation shouted as they thrust outward in wave after wave.

Throughout the Five Dynasties, there were plenty of armies that would cut people down for money, yet the Silver Lance Effectives managed to leave their name in history and become representative of Five Dynasties armies. Their lance training had a uniquely distinctive side to it.

These silver-lance soldiers' long lances were accurate and vicious, and with their heavy armor, the Gaochang Uyghur cavalry — whether with lances, sabers, or bowshots — found it very hard to seriously wound them.

But the moment a cavalryman was stabbed by a soldier of the Silver Lance Command, blood immediately sprayed out.

For a time, warhorses and cavalrymen fell to the ground in an unending chorus of shrieks.

And because the cavalry were in the middle of a charge, they could not stop; even if they took losses, they could only keep pressing forward.

After circling past Wu Jixing's unit, what they faced next were Dunzhu's and Man Xiong's six hundred men each. The herringbone-charging cavalry formation was split here into a "zhong" character shape.

The cavalrymen who had just taken losses at Wu Jixing's position figured these infantry, who had only dared to stay in the rear, ought to be easier to fight — even if they did look rather big.

But they quickly realized they had thought too much. This was the Hanshan Command.

Although Man Xiong's official rank had already reached the point of holding a nominal prefectship in a distant prefecture, in reality he was still the same fierce general who had once charged into battle shoulder to shoulder with Zhang Zhao.

He was different from Dunzhu and Wang Tongxin. Wang Tongxin had wanted to transform into a commander, but after trying, he had helplessly given up.

The brain is a strange thing. If you have it, you have it; if you don't, you don't.

For those without the talent of a commander, even if you fight battles your whole life, what you accumulate is still only the killing techniques of charging in alongside your brothers — you can never become someone like Li Weigong.

Wang Tongxin tried and ultimately failed. Man Xiong was too lazy to even try, because he knew he was not that kind of material.

It wasn't just him — his son didn't have that talent either. So Man Xiong had already cut the several tutors his wife had found for their son down to just one, and began focusing on pushing him to train in martial arts.

In the space of a few breaths, the cavalry reached Man Xiong's square formation.

The six hundred men under him belonged to the leaping skirmishers of the Hanshan Command, whose main means of attack in ordinary times were iron hammers and great axes.

Now, with cavalry attacking, they swapped the short-handled axes they used for leaping assaults and breaking formations for broad-bladed, long-handled mountain-cleaving axes.

"Watch only the horses' legs! No looking at the riders! Anyone who raises his head — military law will not spare him!"

Man Xiong roared furiously. The requirement was simple: just keep your eyes on the horses' legs and chop.

As for whether the rider on the horse was shooting arrows or thrusting a lance at you — one, you relied on your bow-and-crossbow-wielding comrades to protect you; two, you relied on your armor to tough it out.

Man Xiong's strategy had been summed up continuously from war, and it had to be said it was very effective.

However, it was not something ordinary soldiers could pull off, because after chopping a horse's leg, there was a certain probability of being crushed by the falling warhorse — and that basically meant you were finished.

So when chopping horses' legs, you had to rush in all together, and after chopping, you had to run back in good order.

Besides choosing the right moment, swinging a seven- or eight-jin great axe back and forth while wearing several dozen jin of armor was not something an ordinary man could do.

Li Ponu gripped his long-handled great axe, head lowered, his whole body brimming with eager excitement.

He had originally been a soldier of the Datong Army in Yunzhou, and had once followed the Administrative Assistant Wu Luan in resisting the Khitan.

The year before last, the Khitan had besieged Datong for seven or eight months, and Li Ponu had thought he would not escape disaster.

But later things changed. After Great King Zhang and Yelu Deguang met at Shahukou, they had been brought from Datong to Xiazhou to be resettled.

Li Ponu's elder brother had been slashed in the thigh while defending the city, leaving him with a limp, and one of his hands was not very nimble either.

In this era, a man with crippled hands and feet often met a very miserable end.

But after arriving in Xiazhou, the officials of the Liang army's Bureau of Military Personnel who reviewed battle merits found them. After learning that his elder brother had shot dead one Khitan soldier and cut down two more with a great saber during the city's defense, they immediately reported the merits upward.

Within a few days, the rewards came down. Li Ponu's elder brother was allotted a mule, five bolts of white cotton cloth, and eighty mu of land.

He also shared an ox with another wounded soldier from the Datong Army.

With land came hope of survival. A mule and half an ox ensured there would be no shortage of labor at plowing time.

A few days later, the officials sent his elder brother a widow.

The widow brought three children with her — two older and one young. The older boy was already around ten and could help the family with work.

And with a woman and children, Li Ponu's brother's disability could be offset to a great degree.

After all, he was only lame, not crippled. He could still do a certain amount of farm work; it was just that daily life was inconvenient.

Li Ponu still remembered it now. When the widow and the three children were led before his elder brother, his brother wept bitterly, wailing that in his next life he would still be a soldier for the Great King.

This scene deeply shook Li Ponu. For the first time he felt the allure of battle merit. Kill just three men, and land, a house, a wife, oxen and horses would all be complete.

So he immediately bid farewell to his elder brother, who could now live on his own, and signed up for the expedition to Gaochang. What his elder brother had, he wanted too.

Hmm! Although his sister-in-law had already borne three children, she was still quite pretty.

What mattered was that she was sturdy. She could work no worse than he could, and even if she bore three or five more, there'd be no fear of her dying.

"Chop!"

A thunderous roar exploded beside Li Ponu's ear. He shuddered violently, driving all the messy thoughts out of his head.

With that roar, Li Ponu felt he had no idea how many blows landed on his head and shoulders. Pain fell on him like raindrops.

Although he wore thick iron lamellar armor, the blows still hurt quite a bit.

In particular, something very thick slammed heavily onto his head, leaving him dizzy and seeing stars.

But he paid none of it any mind. The only thing he cared about in his eyes was a pair of galloping horse legs — so sturdy, clearly full of meat at a glance.

A peculiar livestock stench wafted over. Li Ponu raised his great axe at an angle and chopped down swift and fierce.

Blood spurted out at once. A panicked shout came from overhead. Li Ponu turned and ran. He heard a boom — a sturdy horse crashed to the ground with a shriek.

When Li Ponu looked again, the horse was still struggling to stand, its blood-soaked broken leg scrabbling wildly in the yellow sand.

The rider on the horse had his thigh pinned beneath it. His face covered in blood from the fall, he roared, as if trying to scare Li Ponu away from coming closer.

But it was no use. Comrades wielding black iron hammers had already gone up and smashed one right into his head, sending a spray of red and white bursting out.

Those Uyghurs not pinned under the horses didn't escape either. Hook-sickle spearmen had long since caught their leather or mail armor with the curved hooks and dragged them straight over.

The riders howled and kicked wildly, their fingers sliced open by the hooks of the hook-sickle spears, but they couldn't break free. When they got close to the battle formation, the great-club wielders raised their clubs high, and one blow silenced them.

Once most of the riders who had fallen were dealt with, it was Li Ponu and his men's turn to go up again.

Carrying long-handled axes, they stepped over the blood and corpses covering the ground, searching for their next target.

Scraping off the fat—this tactic truly lived up to its name.

After the Gaochang Uyghur cavalry, driven by momentum, passed through the Hanshan and Silver Spear units in a scattered wedge formation.

Of seven or eight thousand cavalry, five or six hundred were gone—and that didn't even count those shot down by bows and crossbows.

They couldn't withstand such casualties. Before Guo Guangcheng's and Chen Huiming's cavalry had even moved, these horsemen fled back in panic.

Feng Hui was somewhat stunned. He wondered whether using the Hanshan and Silver Spear units against cavalry of this fighting quality was a bit too ruthless.

Would it scare them off?

Xieli Pijia was stunned too. My cavalry! All that cavalry just now! And now only this few left?

In less than half a shichen, over a thousand wiped out?

The Left Minister Xieli Mixian watched and grew increasingly uneasy. He hurried to Xieli Pijia's side and said:

"Heavenly King, I have heard that the guards beside the Liang bandit Zhang are called the Hanshan Unit—elite troops from when the Zhang bandit first rose to power, clad in iron armor and each worth ten men.

In years past, it was they who defeated Satuq. This must be the Hanshan Unit arrived here. The Zhang bandit cannot be far from this place."

Hearing this, Xieli Pijia's heart wavered somewhat. But surely they couldn't just withdraw because of this?

"If the Zhang bandit's Hanshan Unit has indeed reached this place, what clever plan does the Left Minister have?"

Xieli Mixian thought for a while. "If the Zhang bandit's Hanshan Unit has come, his main force must be behind them. He excels at infantry, and we must not use our weakness to strike at his strength.

Better to open the road and let them in, then use roving cavalry to cut their supply lines. This will also prevent the Zhang bandit's vanguard from joining with his main force, and then we can find a way to defeat them one by one."

"Sound reasoning!" Xieli Pijia nodded.

"But if we do that, our forces will be somewhat insufficient. To fortify and clear the field and cut their supply lines, no fewer than sixty or seventy thousand riders are needed."

"Then open the pass fortress on the Baishui Creek road and invite Bughra Khan's army into Gaochang to aid the fight," Xieli Mixian said in a low voice.

Hearing his Left Minister say this, Xieli Pijia's brows furrowed deeply.

"I fear inviting a god in is easy, but sending him away is hard! In years past, the Great Dynasty's emperor invited our ancestors into the Central Plains to quell the rebellion of the two bandits An and Shi—that lesson is not far behind us."

Unexpectedly, Xieli Pijia was quite knowledgeable. And rightly so—"inviting a god in is easy, sending him away is hard" was originally a comment about the Uyghurs helping the Tang dynasty put down the rebellion.

Xieli Mixian slowly shook his head. "Heavenly King, Bughra Khan merely wants to gain some benefits, and that can be slowly negotiated. But the Zhang bandit has come to destroy our state and our homes."

This was the truth. Even if Satuq entered Gaochang, he couldn't swallow the Kingdom of Gaochang whole. But Zhang Zhao could. Who was the greater threat was obvious at a glance.

"Very well!" Xieli Pijia slowly nodded. "Then send a messenger to Pugu Cheng at the Baishui Creek road fortress, and have him summon Bughra Khan into Gaochang."

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