Chapter 549

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Liu Yanzhen's confidence was baffling, because he treated the highly difficult task of commanding nearly a hundred thousand men as if it were the small-time roughhousing of leading a few hundred thugs around.

He treated a matter of life and death as child's play.

In fact, before being appointed Northern March Chief Deployment Officer in command of this great army, Liu Yanzhen's only real experience leading troops was the half year he had served as commander of the Divine Might Army.

But although the Divine Might Army was the elite of the Southern Tang imperial guard, its numbers were not large, and its core members numbered only a few hundred.

With his fine horse, his strong bow, and his family background, Liu Yanzhen could command those men's obedience.

So this record could not provide him much experience for commanding seventy or eighty thousand men. It could be said that Liu Yanzhen had no experience in leading large-scale formations in battle.

Had he been born on Zhang Zhao's side, he would have been qualified to serve as a Chief Supervisor of the Left Feathered Forest Guard.

Liu Yanzhen should not have bragged so extravagantly that he came to believe himself an unparalleled famous general, nor let Li Jing, flattered by the "Five Ghosts" around him, treat Liu Yanzhen as a Great Wall.

Thus this emperor, who had always been a bit recklessly bold, immediately thought of Liu Yanzhen the moment he heard of sending out troops, and entrusted him with thirty thousand elite imperial guards.

However, no matter how baffling his confidence or how complete his ignorance, when Liu Yanzhen woke the next day at noon and still had not seen Zhang Yanhan's rear army, and the whole Mengzhu Marsh remained deathly silent, he immediately realized something was wrong.

He at once ordered that the provisions and equipment already unloaded from the ships be loaded back on board, and that all units prepare to move out.

Hmph! Still the same old dandy's way: arriving with great bluster, believing himself peerless under heaven, and at the slightest setback — before even verifying anything, at the mere rustle of wind in the grass — thinking only of escape.

Chai Kehong, Chief Supervisor of the Dragon Martial Army, seeing Liu Yanzhen issue another muddled order and wear out the troops, angrily moved forward to stop him.

But Zhang Quanyue, standing nearby, grabbed this officer known for his bravery and sighed, shaking his head.

"It's too late. The Zhou army must have gone to cut down our rear army. Zhang Yanhan is a mediocre man and surely cannot hold them off. Nothing we do now matters. You and I should prepare to fight to the death."

Sure enough, just as Zhang Quanyue finished speaking, a heaven-shaking din came from ahead, and Southern Tang mounted scouts in gray-black leather armor came galloping back in panic.

The Zhou army came from the east, north, and south, completely surrounding these twenty thousand or so Southern Tang imperial guards.

Liu Yanzhen was in the middle of his ant-like moving of supplies, but when he saw the Zhou army had arrived, he still knew enough to come forward and deploy his formation.

At this time, at the mouth where Mengzhu Marsh flowed out into the Bian River, the Southern Tang army had already built a simple water stockade as a place to moor their large ships.

The moment he saw the Zhou army coming overland, Liu Yanzhen immediately ordered several warships of the water force to go downstream, wanting to see whether they could break out.

But Zhang Zhao had long been prepared. He had chained together the captured warships with iron cables and laid them across the Bian River, so the Southern Tang army simply could not break through.

At this, Liu Yanzhen finally gave up hope. Yet Young Master Liu still kept his composure, because he had one more magic weapon.

That was the brilliant stratagem he had devised with his clever little brain after reading a few books on military strategy.

At once, Zhang Zhao ordered the Divine Machine Battalion to set up camel-mounted whirlwind catapults and drive the Southern Tang army away from the north bank, while he personally led the main force south to link up with Bai Congxin's division.

Liu Yanzhen likewise formed his battle array in the south with his back to the water stockade. Young Master Liu laid out chevaux-de-frise crosswise, and in front of his formation erected bizarre, green-faced, fanged wooden statues of lions and fierce tigers.

And they were quite lifelike at that — specially painted, and even fitted with animal fur made from silk thread and hide.

The strangest part was at the front. At the very front of his great formation, Liu Yanzhen placed all of the Southern Tang cavalry — a full four thousand horsemen.

Hmm, cavalry in the center. Zhang Zhao thought Liu Yanzhen had lost his mind and intended to charge head-on against the Zhou army's iron cavalry.

But clearly, with the intellectual level of Sage Zhang, he could not possibly fathom Young Master Liu's "methods!"

Iron cavalry charging head-on? Too outdated!

Before everyone's dumbfounded stares, Liu Yanzhen had men tie the cavalry horses' legs together with ropes, then drove them to the front of the army to serve as a wall.

And he was especially meticulous, scattering a great number of leather bags filled with iron caltrops in front of the horses as traps.

In Young Master Liu's view, no matter how strong the Zhou army's iron cavalry was, they still rode horses, didn't they?

I imitate the old wisdom of Zhuge Wuning Wang in defeating the elephant army: carve lions and fierce tigers before the army. However fine your cavalry horses are, when they see lions and tigers right in front of them, how would they dare charge?

And tying the horses' legs together was even easier to understand. Liu Yanzhen draped armor over the warhorses and linked their legs so they could not run about — wasn't this a ready-made wagon fort?

When the time came, the soldiers would hide behind the horses shooting arrows and thrusting spears. When the Zhou army came, what they struck first would not be men but horses, so they certainly could not break through in one blow. Then he could counterattack while the Zhou army was exhausted — would that not make victory effortless?

Add to that the large quantity of iron caltrops he had scattered before the horses, which could also injure the Zhou army — it was simply victory in a hundred battles!

Sometimes, when the imagination runs too wild and unbridled, it is no good thing.

Young Master Liu had spent his whole life play-acting in military camps, and believed he had comprehended many wondrous tactics. But in reality, they were utterly useless — and very idiotic.

At least Zhang Zhao stood stunned in the distance, and the assembled Zhou army collectively fell into self-doubt for a full five minutes.

Murong Xinzhang had yanked out a great handful of his neatly trimmed beard. Finally he turned back to Zhang Zhao and said with certainty:

"My lord, this child truly cannot imagine the reason for such a formation. But I do know that with a single charge, the Wu army will surely collapse."

As he spoke, Murong Xinzhang could not help laughing aloud. His laughter was contagious, and in an instant the whole Zhou army, high and low, dissolved into laughter. Even Zhang Zhao could not help laughing too, and for a moment morale soared.

On the Southern Tang side, many men high and low felt this really was too idiotic.

They felt that following such a commander meant a bleak future, so even before the fighting began, they already seemed lifeless and dejected.

In the left formation, Zhang Quanyue roared furiously, ordering men to push the wooden lion and tiger statues out of the battle array. He could not control others, but around himself, he would not permit such intelligence-insulting things to appear.

Zhang Zhao gave a light wave of his hand, and the booming war drums sounded. The full thirty-four thousand elite troops he had drawn together had all arrived.

On the Southern Tang side, after their rear army had been devoured, only about twenty-one thousand men remained.

As usual, the Zhou army's center was formed by the elite armored soldiers of the Hanshan Capital, except this time, beside them were an additional one thousand men of the Silver Spear Capital trained by Feng Hui.

Man Xiong stood at the very center. His huge frame always drew enough enemy fire, while his mighty build also served as the most important reference point for his own soldiers.

Very often, as long as the soldiers saw Man Xiong still advancing, they knew the great army must still be advancing too.

Precisely because of this outstanding role, Zhang Zhao ordered Man Xiong to wear two layers of cloth-faced iron armor, and inside there was also a layer of steel-wire mail that offered extremely strong defense while being lighter in weight.

This mail had been painstakingly crafted by Cao Yanming as a gift to honor Zhang Zhao. But now that Zhang Zhao no longer needed to go into battle himself, he would generally bestow it on his subordinates. Whoever received it would be the mainstay of that battle.

Man Xiong held a great shield in one hand and a large banner in the other. To his left and right, the Zhou army now also employed shield-wall tactics, which were indeed advantageous for defending against bows and crossbows and for charging enemy formations.

Amid the officers' beating of war drums and the shouted cadence of "one, two, three, four," the Zhou army formed linked battle arrays and pressed toward the Southern Tang army like a wall.

As they pressed forward, the main close-combat forces — the long-spearmen and the leaping assault troops with short axes and iron hammers — were instead placed in the very back ranks. Following close behind the sword-and-shield men were the crossbowmen, and behind the crossbowmen were the archers.

On the march, whenever the crossbowmen finished loading, they would fire their bolts through the gaps in the shields or over them, while the archers uniformly switched to heavy arrows and fired in volleys using arcing shots.

The sound was like thunder, and arrows fell like rain. Young Master Liu immediately discovered that his so-called tactic of tying horses' legs together to form a wall was complete nonsense.

Even a man under harsh laws and severe punishments will desert out of fear of death, let alone a warhorse.

The Hanshan and Yinqiang du advanced in formation, and the crossbowmen carried large numbers of divine-arm crossbows — not only was their power great, but they also loosed bolts extremely fast.

Warhorses draped in a thin layer of iron plate mixed with leather lamellar armor simply could not withstand the power of the crossbow bolts.

While the two sides were still in the crossbow-exchange phase, any horse that was hit would begin to gallop wildly in pain. The moment one horse tried to flee, it would immediately set off panic among the surrounding horses, and then they would all crash to the ground together.

Because their legs were bound with ropes, when one horse fell, all the rest of the damn horses fell too.

In an instant, before the battle had even truly reached its fiercest stage, the Southern Tang army's front was already in chaos comparable to hell itself.

Crossbow bolts streaking in, warhorses crashing to the ground and screaming, warhorses struggling desperately to rise, soldiers pinned beneath the horses and shrieking.

Man Xiong had fought wars for so many years, and the Southern Tang army's troop quality and equipment could both be counted as decent, but he had truly never seen them so wretched, so close to being shattered so quickly.

The giant bear let out a great roar, hurled his shield to the ground, and the leather bag filled with iron caltrops instantly lost its effect. The other soldiers followed suit, laying their shields directly on the ground, and Liu Yanzhen's caltrop formation immediately lost its effect.

Dunzhu ran even faster than Man Xiong. He quickly crossed the panicking mass of horses and, with a heaven-descending godlike charge, smashed straight into the Southern Tang formation.

The Southern Tang soldiers huddled together in wretched confusion, still trying to resist. Dunzhu roared, and the javelins in his hand flew out one after another in rapid succession, while the javelin throwers under his command behind him did the same.

The huddled Southern Tang soldiers were immediately skewered all along the line. Unable to bear such losses, they fled wailing to both sides and to the rear, and a gap opened up at once.

And so, through the gap Dunzhu had opened, the Zhou army surged in, vying to be first, hacking and slaughtering.

With such a stupid enemy, if you didn't hurry up and go into Musou mode to earn military merit, wouldn't that just be a loss?

At the same time the infantry charged, the Zhou army's cavalry split off from the left and right of the great formation and then hammered into the waist of the Southern Tang formation.

Because Liu Yanzhen had tied all the warhorses together, the Southern Tang army's only cavalry had all been turned into infantry. They had no ability whatsoever to counter the Zhou army's iron cavalry and could only attempt to resist with pure infantry.

Unfortunately, although they had many bows and crossbows, their frontal infantry collapsed too quickly, causing the two wings of the central army to fall into panic very soon as well.

Murong Xinzhang and Li Cunhui broke up their formations and each led mixed heavy and light cavalry in repeated ferocious charges. In only three passes they shattered the Southern Tang central army.

Only at this moment did Young Lord Liu finally have a flash of understanding: so this was not how war was fought. The military texts and tactics left by the ancients truly had their reasons. Surprise on the battlefield did not mean playing around with bizarre contraptions.

But he understood far too late. The twenty thousand Southern Tang troops — especially the nine thousand in his central army — had already collapsed!

In his despair, Liu Yanzhen still had a measure of heroic spirit. Perhaps the blood of his father Liu Xin, the bandit chieftain, had reawakened in him.

Liu Yanzhen swung onto his horse, bearing his family's treasured bow, wearing golden-crow mingguang armor, mounted on his Qilin Treads Snow, and galloped out with more than a hundred Huainan gallants who had followed him for years, charging fiercely toward the direction from which Murong Xinzhang and Li Cunhui were attacking.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

Liu Yanzhen, still on horseback, loosed three arrows in rapid succession.

One arrow struck Zhao Kuangyin in the shoulder, making Zhao the Elder grimace in pain.

Two arrows struck Murong Xinzhang in the chest. The tremendous force made Murong Xinzhang feel as though he had been punched twice in the chest, a dull pain hard to bear.

Li Cunhui, beside Murong Xinzhang, went red-eyed. Gripping his cavalry lance, he threw himself at Liu Yanzhen.

"Wu barbarian, I'm going to cut you into eight pieces."

Li Cunhui certainly did not think Murong Xinzhang was finished — what a joke. The cloth-faced iron armor he and Murong Xinzhang wore was steel-plate precious armor bestowed by their foster father Zhang Zhao. Unless struck at close range by a crossbow bolt of two dan or more, it could not possibly be pierced.

What enraged him was: what did this Wu barbarian mean? The three of them were side by side — Murong Xinzhang took two arrows, and even Zhao Kuangyin took one.

But he, Li Cunhui, the grand Chief Commander of the Right Yulin Guard, did not even have the qualification to take a single arrow?

Liu Yanzhen had never imagined that shooting one fewer arrow would make Li Cunhui fly into such a rage.

And the curly-haired blue-gray horse beneath Li Cunhui was also a rare divine steed. By the time Liu Yanzhen drew his bow a second time, Li Cunhui had already charged right up to him.

Liu Yanzhen was just about to shoot when Li Cunhui swung his cavalry lance and roared like a fierce tiger descending a mountain. Liu Yanzhen's heart trembled, and the arrow failed to leave the string.

And in that single moment of hesitation, Li Cunhui arrived. The cavalry lance slashed viciously across Liu Yanzhen's chest. Sparks flashed on the armor plates, and Liu Yanzhen's chest went numb.

In that instant, as the two riders were about to pass each other, Li Cunhui held the lance in his left hand and drew his cavalry saber with his right, preparing to thrust.

At the critical moment, the Huainan gallants Liu Yanzhen had recruited swarmed forward, surrounding Li Cunhui and striking with blade and spear all at once.

Li Cunhui could only abandon Liu Yanzhen, fighting fiercely with lance in one hand and saber in the other, stabbing and slashing.

However, just as Liu Yanzhen recovered from his shock, the surrounding Zhou cavalry all spotted this big fish of his.

Because in the Southern Tang central army, which had almost no cavalry, his one or two hundred riders were simply too conspicuous.

At once Murong Xinzhang, Zhao Kuangyin, Wang Shenqi, Zhao Yanjin, and Zhebu Jiashi charged in from the west.

Huang Yingda, Han Tong, Gao Huaide, Fu Yanqing, and Yue Saonu came from the north.

Ma Shacai, Qiong Reduojin, Yao Yuanfu, Wang Quanbin, Hou Renbao, and others came from the south.

In an instant, more than thirty fierce generals of the Zhou army all attended upon Liu Yanzhen together — could such good fortune be considered small?

Young Lord Liu prided himself on his mounted archery, but under the combined assault of this group, who could be counted among the finest cavalry commanders of the age, before he could even loose an arrow he was struck by a dozen arrows in a single instant, and before he could swing his cavalry lance he was hit simultaneously by five or six pick hammers, bone maces, and long lances.

At once his body became like a tattered cloth sack, blood spurting out continuously, and the man was dead beyond any possibility of being more dead.

The battle against the Southern Tang central army and right army ended very quickly — in just a little over half a shichen, they lost their fighting capacity.

But what surprised Zhang Zhao was that on the Southern Tang left, the Left Jinwu Guard, the Left Shenwu Army, plus the two garrisons of Feng'an and Xiongwu — seven thousand men in all besieging these three thousand-odd Tang troops — had still not taken them.

In the fierce assault, the Rear Army Commander-in-Chief and Feng'an Garrison Commander-in-Chief, Shan Zhu'er Luo Shande, had even personally taken the field.

But the Southern Tang army shielded their formation with great shields, and spearmen stood interleaved behind the sword-and-shield troops, thrusting out through the gaps between shields.

The elite Jianghuai crossbowmen kept loosing arrows at every opportunity, and although the Zhou armored soldiers wore heavy armor, they still could not withstand the crossbow bolts, suffering heavy casualties.

At the same time, about five hundred Southern Tang strong bowmen crouched behind the shields, continuously loosing heavy arrows in arcing volleys, also posing a tremendous threat to the Zhou army.

Shan Zhu'er's eyes went red. Not only had his troops suffered heavy casualties, but every other unit was slaughtering pigs and butchering dogs, while he, with twice the enemy's numbers, was being beaten into such a wretched state — there was simply no explaining it away!

He put on two layers of armor and urged his armored soldiers to keep up the ferocious assault. The cavalry of the Left Jinwu Guard and Feng'an Garrison also circled around behind the Southern Tang army and launched wave after wave of forced charges.

Sure enough, under the commander's personal supervision and fierce assault, the Southern Tang army finally could not hold on and began retreating in droves — only, the Zhou army's left flank had also been poked open with a breach by the Southern Tang spearmen.

Shan Zhu'er was just about to send a du of the Left Shenwu Army to fill the gap when, at that very moment, a force of more than three hundred men in dark clothes, wearing no visible armor, iron helmets painted with black fierce tigers, and wielding greatswords, burst in through the gap.

The greatswords in these armored soldiers' hands were considerably larger than ordinary swords — their length was nearly seventy percent that of a modao glaive glaive glaive. Although the hilts were shorter than a modao glaive glaive's, the blades were longer, and for this era they could also be considered a kind of modao glaive glaive.

The gap they burst through also happened to be exactly where the Left Shenwu Army's archers and a small number of Lanzhou militia archers were massed.

This was dangerous in an instant. After charging in, the Southern Tang troops dispersed and attacked, then wielded their blades with both hands, using force to borrow force, advancing like a whirlwind!

In the blink of an eye, screams rose from all sides. The Left Shenwu Army and militia archers, after all, were not heavy-armored elites like the Hanshan and Yinqiang du.

They lacked the ability to shoot arrows while wielding modao glaive glaive glaives, and were equipped only with light armor and short blades, so they were immediately slaughtered until blood flowed like a river.

The furious Shan Zhu'er could only pull over some of the armored soldiers who were reinforcing the front, and only then barely held off the assault of this strange heavy-sword armored unit.

But because of this, the attacking armored soldiers became insufficient, and they were pushed back again by the Southern Tang army.

Zhang Zhao sat his horse on the high ground and saw Shan Zhu'er's unit beaten back several times, with casualties that seemed considerable.

He immediately made adjustments and sent dispatch riders to recall Man Xiong's several hundred men. At that very moment, the sixty camel-mounted whirlwind catapults of the Divine Machine Battalion, which had just crossed the river, also arrived.

Zhang Zhao led his personal guards and personally rode over to Shan Zhu'er's side.

When he saw the armored soldiers dressed in black and wielding greatswords resembling Western two-handed swords, a name instantly flashed through his mind.

The Black Cloud Longsword Capital Guard! These were the personal guards of Yang Xingmi of Huainan, the founder of the Southern Tang — the very foundation upon which the state of Yang Wu and the Southern Tang had been built.

At this moment, Shan Zhu'er's fourth assault had been beaten back. When he saw Zhang Zhao arrive, his face flushed red at once, and he dropped to one knee in the bloody water.

"Sage, grant your servant one more quarter hour, and I will surely crush the Wu army!"

Zhang Zhao waved his hand. "So you've run into the Black Cloud Longsword Capital Guard!

I didn't expect that of the thirty thousand Southern Wu imperial troops who came, the true elite would be here. The outcome is already decided — no need to let the soldiers bleed any further."

Having said this, Zhang Zhao spurred his horse forward to a point one hundred and fifty paces from the Southern Tang army. Rows of armored soldiers raised their shields to protect him, and Zhang Zhao shouted from horseback.

"Are you the personal followers of the Loyal and Martial King of Yang? Xu Zhigao has stolen the sacred vessel and is not your lord. Now that you are trapped in a desperate situation, why not surrender early?"

The Southern Tang soldiers opposite saw Zhang Zhao's golden helmet and golden armor and roughly guessed who he was. A stir immediately ran through the ranks.

Zhang Quanyue saw that some of the men around him had wavering expressions, and at once shouted sternly in anger.

"We eat our lord's salary and share his burdens — how much more so today! Besides, all our families are in Jiangnan. Once we are taken captive to the Central Plains, when would we ever return home?"

Chief Inspector Chai Kehong also wiped the blood from his face and said in a clear voice: "Prefect Zhang is a man of noble station, yet he does not fear death. Why should we begrudge these bodies of ours? I am willing to die here in battle with the Prefect."

Although Chai Kehong was only a Chief Inspector, he commanded great respect within the Southern Tang imperial army, especially in the Dragon Martial Army.

Moreover, with the Central Plains in constant warfare, laws in chaos, and food scarce, being taken captive to the Central Plains was truly no good choice — sometimes worse than dying in battle.

Therefore, as soon as Chai Kehong finished speaking, Chief Inspector Zheng Zhaoye and others also responded in succession.

Zhang Quanyue immediately fixed his eyes on Chai Kehong. Chai Kehong instantly understood Zhang Quanyue's meaning, mounted Zhang Quanyue's warhorse, galloped out of the formation, and planted a white tiger banner — symbolizing a fight to the death — between the two armies.

Zhang Zhao's gaze turned cold. His original intent had been that since the Black Cloud Longsword Capital Guard had a famous reputation, he would spare their lives. Now that they refused the offer, then let battle be joined!

Hmph! It was time to let these people see that besides his Western Liang iron cavalry, Zhang Zhao also had the invincible Divine Machine Battalion.

The Southern Tang left army still had roughly two thousand five or six hundred men at this point, and their formation remained very orderly. However, they were now pressed on their front, left, and right by the Zhou army, and behind them was the surging Bian River — they could no longer move.

Infantry that has essentially lost its mobility is the Divine Machine Battalion's favorite target. At Zhang Zhao's command, flying stones fell like rain and hurtled stones the size of fists poured down upon the Southern Tang army.

Zhang Quanyue and the others had never imagined that Zhang Zhao still had camel-mounted whirlwind catapults. These things were terrifying — no matter what armor you wore or what great shield you carried, it was impossible to withstand the fist-sized, polished stones hurled by the catapults.

In just a few breaths, amid the creaking and clicking of the mechanisms, screams rang out across the Southern Tang formation, and a huge gap was immediately smashed into it.

Zhang Zhao then waved the silver-white gold banner in his hand. White belongs to metal and signifies attack. On this white banner was painted a black tiger, corresponding exactly to Li Ruotai's eight hundred armored cavalry.

Li Ruotai had long been accustomed to delivering the final blow against the enemy's elite. Seeing Zhang Zhao's gold banner wave, he immediately ordered the guards beside him to sound the horns.

The eight hundred armored cavalry also formed a boar's-head assault formation. The arrowhead was one hundred of the bravest armored riders; only after they broke through the formation would the remaining seven hundred riders charge into the enemy ranks and slaughter at will.

There was no suspense whatsoever. While the Zhou armored cavalry were still slowly trotting forward, desperate wails already rose from the Southern Tang formation.

They had just lost several hundred men killed or wounded under the sudden storm of catapult stones, and their formation was already in chaos. Even Chief Inspector Zheng Zhaoye had been struck in the thigh by a stone and knocked unconscious.

They no longer had the ability, nor the morale, to resist.

Amid the enemy's despair, Li Ruotai personally directed the troops and slammed headlong into the panicked Southern Tang formation.

Chai Kehong, long famed for his bravery, fought back with all his might, even trying to pull one of the Zhou armored cavalrymen from his horse.

But the soldiers, their hearts and courage shattered, no longer responded to him. The wall-charging method of the cavalry charge also left little room for individual valor to make a difference.

He was sent flying by a tall, powerful warhorse and hurled into the icy waters of the Bian River.

At the rear of the formation, Zhang Quanyue saw how utterly complete the defeat was. He let out a grief-stricken wail, then drew the short blade at his waist and violently thrust it into his own neck, dying for his country.

The Southern Tang grand army was officially annihilated.

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