Chapter 648: Defeated! Defeated!

The weather was cold and the wind biting, so few were willing to get up.

Murong Yanzhao led several master archers and was the first to enter the Chu army camp outside Little Ferry Town; in the hands of these master archers, the accuracy and killing power of the divine-arm crossbows were amplified to the utmost.

Anyone still wandering outside the town and able to stand, whether soldier or laborer, was basically shot down to the ground.

Only the young laborer pinning down Zhou the Second's head escaped disaster, because he too was lying flat on the ground.

The cold had dulled people's perception of the outside world, and it was not until seven or eight yabing guards had been killed in succession that they realized something was wrong.

By this time, Guo Rong had already fought his way to the edge of the town.

In an instant, the Zhou soldiers in black padded armor, with Buddhist guardian deities embroidered on their armor and vajra masks covering their faces, scared the wits out of these outer-ring members, who were mostly laborers with a few yabing guards.

Among them, not a single laborer or yabing guard shouted, "The Zhou army is coming!"

Without exception, they all screamed, "Ghosts!" and then exploded on the spot like bombs.

The camp that had just been silent instantly fell into chaos, as countless laborers and soldiers wailed shrilly and scattered in all directions, with tattered bedding and pots and pans strewn everywhere.

The charging warriors split into three groups and began to move as previously arranged: Guo Rong led his men straight ahead, while Zhao Kuangyin, Murong Yanzhao, and the others went left and right respectively.

The earthen wall of Little Ferry Town was not high at all, and in many places there was no earthen wall at all, only wooden palisades, so they broke in easily.

Zhao Chang and Wang Jingcun stood shoulder to shoulder, their hook-scythe spears leveled forward; anyone blocking their path, whether laborer or Chu soldier, was mercilessly stabbed to death.

This was no time for mercy; although many laborers had run in front of them because terror had robbed them of their senses, Wang Jingcun and the others still did not soften their blows.

Xue Cunyuan, carrying a mace, prowled to the left and right of his shoulder-to-shoulder comrades; any who charged at the formation from the side met his merciless hammer blows.

Panic and chaos spread like a plague, swiftly moving from outside the town toward the inside.

When the laborers and Chu soldiers inside the town saw the Zhou assault troops emerge from the darkness like ghosts and demons,

they would usually first freeze and stare at each other for a moment, then suddenly wail loudly in unison, throw down the swords, clubs, and even pots and pans in their hands, and run frantically toward the rear.

As they ran, they screamed, "The ghosts and demons are coming! The ghosts and demons are coming!"

The laborers and soldiers along the way did not understand what was happening; hearing countless people screaming that ghosts and demons were coming and seeing people fleeing, they all scrambled to their feet and ran along.

Some who were still asleep woke with a start and could not react for a moment; rising in bewilderment and seeing the panicked scene before them, they stood there like stunned geese, at a loss.

Only when the blood from the slaughter began to spread in all directions and they smelled its scent did they come to their senses as if waking from a dream and run wildly after the others.

Because Guo Rong had attacked from three sides and was deliberately creating chaos, for a time the laborers and soldiers all around discovered in terror a great number of ghosts and demons in black armor and vajra masks.

This made them even more panicked, and people kept repeating the shrill cry that the ghosts and demons had come.

Some were startled awake from sleep and ran several hundred paces with the crowd before even opening their eyes; though they had seen nothing at all, this nightmare-like experience immediately clouded their minds.

They were even more terrified than those who had actually seen the Zhou soldiers, as their minds kept conjuring up terrifying scenes embellished by their own imaginations.

This made them even more panicked, scurrying about like rats and spreading fear even faster into the distance.

Soon, the ordinary soldiers all around also began to break camp in panic, and the chaos immediately spread to the barbarian camp in the middle ring.

As Langzhou barbarians deeply bound to Ma Xi'e, the Xiang, Tian, and other barbarian chieftains had far greater control over their barbarian troops and far higher morale than the laborers and Chu soldiers on the periphery.

In the chaos, the Xiang clan's junior chieftain immediately grabbed a blade and spear and charged out of the barracks; by this time, Zhao Kuangyin had also led his men charging in.

The Wuling barbarians were a group long active in Chinese history; when Liu Bei attacked Wu, the Wuxi barbarians recruited by White-Browed Ma Liang, and the barbarian king Shamoke who died in battle, were a branch of the Wuling barbarians.

Although these barbarians were poorly equipped, their fighting strength had always been quite good; twenty years ago Lei Man had relied on them to become a Military Governor of the Tang dynasty.

Now, answering Ma Xi'e's summons, the fifteen thousand barbarian troops encamped with Zhu Jinzhong at Little Ferry Town were the very same batch that had once sacked Tanzhou.

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They had enormous shared interests with Ma Xi'e, and were therefore far more reliable than the laborers or even the rebuilt Wu'an Army yabing guards.

The surroundings were already in utter chaos, yet the Xiang clan's barbarian troops did not even think of fleeing; they even began to assemble.

Although they had only blades and spears and were disheveled, they were numerous after all; if they truly managed to stand firm, Zhao Kuangyin had only two hundred men, and even if the barbarians stood still and let them kill, each man would have to kill seventy-five, which they could not do even if they dropped dead from exhaustion.

Thus, the fifty pear-blossom spears in Zhao Kuangyin's hands immediately found their use.

The Xiang clan's junior chieftain rode a warhorse, still shouting loudly as he galloped back and forth to boost morale.

Suddenly he saw bursts of thunder-fire flash before his eyes, and the next moment he was sprayed by that thunder-fire.

Intense pain and a foul smell struck him at once; his warhorse, having never seen anything like this, neighed and threw the Xiang junior chieftain to the ground.

Then the terrified warhorse, like a headless fly, turned and charged straight at the assembling Xiang barbarian troops.

The Xiang junior chieftain was thrown so hard he saw stars; he could no longer control his horse, for he felt only excruciating pain in his face, as if someone were stabbing him with countless steel needles.

The agony, magnified a hundredfold by terror, sent him rolling on the ground, letting out inhuman shrieks of misery.

At the same time, the barbarian troops whom the Xiang junior chieftain had already assembled were even more terrified.

Watching those Zhou soldiers in black armor, their faces like demons, suddenly appearing out of the night and roaring as they unleashed thunder-fire, and recalling the cries everywhere that ghosts and demons had come, these barbarian troops collapsed at once.

Brave as they were, compared to Han people they were far more inclined to believe in ghosts and spirits.

Moreover, living in the mountains, they were far more likely than the Han of the plains to connect all manner of strange phenomena to ghosts and spirits.

And at this time, among the Langzhou barbarians, a primitive shamanistic faith blended with Daoism was widely practiced.

The barbarian troops suddenly realized that these demons were so similar to the shamans and spirit-men who performed the Duangong rites in their tribes; how could they still summon the will to resist? Each one only wished his parents had given him two more legs, and with wails and howls they exploded into chaos.

In truth, it would have been better if the Xiang junior chieftain had not assembled them; after all, there were tens of thousands of men in this place, and fear and chaos could not possibly spread through the entire camp in a short time.

But now the Xiang junior chieftain had assembled them, and in an instant two or three thousand men personally witnessed this terrifying scene; moreover, they were barbarian troops, and unlike the laborers and Chu soldiers, they had no language barrier with the other barbarian troops.

Therefore their terrified wails directly ignited the entire barbarian camp!

Zhao Chang concentrated intently, using the faint moonlight to carefully identify obstacles on the ground to keep himself from tripping; falling in this situation would be very dangerous.

More than ten paces ahead, a group of barbarian troops suddenly burst out, howling as they charged straight at them; Zhao Chang could not see clearly whether they were carrying weapons, nor did he know whether they were coming to fight.

He only heard the squad general shouting loudly, and saw his comrades all around stabbing rapidly; he too hurriedly roared mechanically and thrust his hook-scythe spear out with sudden force.

The barbarian troops rushing toward them were not few in number; once they drew near, they were actually harder to see clearly than from a distance.

Zhao Chang felt as though he were stabbing and killing in empty air, yet the dark figures surging in the darkness were screaming loudly, one after another without cease.

After a moment, the dark figures before him seemed fewer; Zhao Chang suddenly felt the pressure ease, and saw the remaining barbarian troops wailing as they fled north into the darkness.

A strange thrill and impulse surged through his heart; the adrenaline pumping through him gave Zhao Chang a desire to charge out, and he wanted to leap forward and continue pursuing those dark figures.

Fortunately, at that moment, the squad general blew a sharp blast on the whistle in his mouth. That piercing sound jolted Zhao Chang awake and reminded him of the army's strict military discipline.

Startled fully awake, Zhao Chang suppressed the impulse in his heart. He tilted his head slightly and, from the corner of his eye, kept watch on the helmet spike above the squad general's head, which reflected a faint gleam, and the dark-red helmet tassel.

He quickly used the squad general as his center point and adjusted his pace and position.

His comrades said nothing, and some could not even see one another, but in the darkness they still closed ranks as one and pressed onward.

Xue Cunyuan was positioned to the side of his comrades' charge, and he could see far more clearly than Zhao Chang and the others.

There were many corpses on the ground, none of them killed by their own side. He could even see, in the distance, a considerable number of barbarian soldiers or Chu troops, stripped to the waist, madly slaughtering one another in the cold wind.

Flames soared into the sky. Pan Mei had ordered them lit to send a signal to Zhang Zhaojun on the north bank of the Li River.

They had not yet captured or killed Zhu Jinzhong — they had not even managed to find him — but having broken through to this depth, total chaos in the Chu army was now only a matter of time.

In the distance, bows and crossbows fired in volleys; when the enemy drew near, pear-blossom spears scattered them, then the ranks thrust together. There was nothing special about it — over and over, just those three moves.

Yet no army that threw itself at them could withstand those three simple moves.

The three columns advanced very quickly, and before long they had pushed straight through to the main camp of the Ma Chu army.

The core strength of Ma Chu was stationed here. Ma Xi'e had commanded the Wuping Army for seven or eight years as Military Governor of Wuping at Langzhou.

But by the time the Zhou army reached this place, the Wuping Army camp had long since been overrun by panicked, disordered troops.

The main camp was in utter chaos. The Zhou soldiers could only judge a rough direction and then charge straight at it.

Zhu Jinzhong had actually been awake for some time. He shoved two courtesans from Tanzhou off the bed, threw on a single robe, and began summoning his yabing guards to assemble.

But do not imagine that Zhu Jinzhong intended to resist. While gathering his yabing guards, he was also seeking out his most trusted bodyguards, preparing to have them escort him in an escape through the chaos.

Turning the tide — that was utterly out of the question. Zhu Jinzhong was a veteran who had fought and killed on battlefields for over a decade, and he knew very well that apart from the handful of men around him, everything outside had essentially exploded into panic. There was no possibility of saving it.

Well — not that it was impossible. It was that he, Zhu Jinzhong, did not have the ability. He could not step forward and turn the tide.

Five or six bodyguards were summoned in. One look from Zhu Jinzhong, and they knew what to do.

Together they set about stuffing their clothes with gold and silver. Ma Xi'e had rewarded Zhu Jinzhong with a batch of gold and silver ingots. They could leave everything else behind, but these had to come along.

Unfortunately, just as Zhu Jinzhong and the others were frantically stuffing gold and silver ingots into their robes, the neighing of warhorses came from the stables.

Zhu Jinzhong's heart seized with terror. The warhorses were the key to escape; without them he could not get far. At once, he and the bodyguards stopped loading themselves with gold and silver and dashed straight out.

The men rushed out the door to find the sky reddened by flames outside, screams rising from every direction. The assembled yabing guards were all staring at the suddenly appearing Zhu Jinzhong, awaiting his orders.

Perhaps from nervousness, one of Zhu Jinzhong's bodyguards tripped over something. He stumbled and suddenly tumbled to the ground, and all the gold and silver at his chest spilled out.

The several hundred yabing guards assembled at the gate stared in shock at Zhu Jinzhong. The distant wailing and roars seemed, for an instant, to be shut out entirely beyond them.

Zhu Jinzhong could have flayed that bodyguard with a thousand cuts. Looking at the yabing guards before him, their expressions shifting between dark and light, he suddenly gritted his teeth and shoved the two bodyguards beside him toward the yabing guards.

The gold and silver those bodyguards carried likewise spilled across the ground. Then, in two or three swift strides, Zhu Jinzhong vanished into the darkness.

The Wuping Army yabing guards erupted in fury. Some scrambled for the gold and silver on the ground, but more howled and gave chase after Zhu Jinzhong. The Wuping Army yabing guards, who might still have held the line, now collapsed into complete chaos.

By the time Guo Rong and the others arrived, the main hall of the Chu army's central camp was already engulfed in flames. Everywhere, soldiers were beating and killing one another, and figures ran wildly about.

The chaos of tens of thousands of men is a terrifying thing. Panic-stricken crowds surged and collided in every direction.

Guo Rong knew this was no time to keep hunting for Zhu Jinzhong. He immediately ordered his soldiers to fall back behind an earthen wall, point their spearheads outward, and hold formation to avoid being swept away by the disordered troops.

Zhang Zhaojun slept very soundly. Maintaining a good state of mind before a great battle was of the utmost importance.

One could even say it was something every seasoned commander down to the common soldier had to master. Only with sufficient rest would one have the strength to kill the enemy on the battlefield.

By this time, the Zhou army had long been prepared. The moment the great fire blazed up on the opposite bank, the Zhou troops, who had already eaten and drunk their fill, immediately began crossing the river.

The vanguard that crossed the Li River first was the cavalry of the Right Divine Might Guard. If they wanted to cut down more of the Chu army and prevent them from escaping back into the deep mountains of Langzhou, cavalry was the most effective branch.

At the same time, Zhang Zhaojun dispatched his most trusted bodyguards. The town of Xiaodukou had already fallen into chaos, but the ferry crossing was not necessarily in the same state, so a sharp strike force was needed to open the way.

But Zhang Zhaojun had worried needlessly. When the Zhou army began crossing the river with great fanfare and cheers that shook the sky, the more than three thousand elite Ma Chu troops at the crossing had long since been stunned into confusion by the sudden chaos in the main camp.

Pu Gongyi, the Front Army Crossing Formation Commissioner, still wanted to resist, but he did not guard against the young lord Commander and Deputy General Liao Yan, who suddenly shouted as the troops were assembling.

"Zhu Jinzhong has fled! Zhu Jinzhong has fled!" His personal followers also began shouting, "Defeat! Defeat!"

It turned out that Liao Kuangtu, the Ma Chu Sanjiangkou Land-Water Suppression Commissioner who had surrendered to Zhao Yanjin at Sanjiangkou, was Liao Yan's father.

Ma Xi'e and Zhu Jinzhong still did not know that Liao Kuangtu had gone over to Zhang Zhao, but Liao Yan did, because this was something the Liao father and son had planned long ago.

The Chu troops at the crossing were already in disarray, and now with Liao Yan's shout, their hearts collapsed in an instant. The soldiers scattered in a rush — some headed back to camp to loot supplies, others seized boats and drifted straight downstream.

Liao Yan, meanwhile, fixed his gaze on the Crossing Formation Commissioner Pu Gongyi. He intended to prepare a welcoming gift for the imperial army crossing the Li River.

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