Chapter 65: A Critical Moment

This was the most brutal fight Zhang Zhao had experienced since transmigrating!

Blood poured freely down the slope near the city wall, severed limbs and mangled corpses lying everywhere in tangled heaps.

One armored soldier had his belly slashed open, his intestines spilling out, yet he still fought on desperately.

A Zhongyun warrior already lay on the ground a bloody pulp, but with a short blade in his hand he was still frantically stabbing at any leg he could reach, no matter whose it was.

Man Xiong, charging at the very front, had taken the most wounds; his lamellar armor was broken into pieces, small armor plates constantly falling to the ground.

The round-bladed axe in his hand had long since been traded for a thick-backed saber with a blade full of nicks, and with every step forward, a Zhongyun warrior was sure to be cut down or shoved off the wall.

Zhang Zhao's cavalry lance was gone too; in his hand he held his hengdao saber, and this divine weapon forged of tool steel had also been chipped with many small notches.

Only the mingguang armor on his body still held strong; fighting until now, relying on this suit of golden armor, Zhang Zhao had astonishingly taken almost no penetrating wounds.

"Thud!" An iron hammer came down on Zhang Zhao's head, and his mind instantly swam with dizziness.

Although his head was wrapped in hemp cloth and his phoenix-wing helmet had shock-absorbing design from a later era, the one swinging this iron hammer was a burly Zhongyun man, and the blow came with tremendous force; had Zhang Zhao's phoenix-wing helmet not been of such sturdy quality, this strike would likely have caved in his skull.

Seeing the second blow about to come down, Zhang Zhao drew a deep breath, threw all his strength into charging at the burly Zhongyun man, and swept his hengdao saber through like a whirlwind.

'Crack! Squelch!' The hengdao saber first sheared through the shaft of the burly man's iron hammer, then cut through his lamellar armor, and blood mixed with gaudy, colorful things gushed out of the breach like a burst dam.

"The Left Chief Commander! The Left Chief Commander is dead!" As the burly man fell, the Zhongyun palace-tent warriors across from them fell into panic; it seemed this Left Chief Commander must have been the bravest warrior among them.

Seizing this once-in-a-lifetime chance, Zhang Zhao leaped onto the city wall and laid about wildly with his hengdao saber once more.

One palace-tent warrior who retreated a bit too slowly was slashed until blood sprayed from his whole body, while the rest shielded the Zhongyun King, Sanpoba, as they fell back toward another platform resembling a beacon tower, making their final defense.

Zhang Zhao had wanted to press the pursuit, but suddenly his heart went weak; after fighting for nearly half a watch, he was already somewhat exhausted.

Taking the chance to catch his breath, Zhang Zhao looked back: from the bombed-out left gate to this stretch of wall, over a hundred corpses lay strewn across the road, and behind him, Yan Jin and the others had already caught up.

The losses were somewhat heavy! Zhang Zhao could see at least a dozen of his own men down, but the Zhongyun warriors' losses were far more horrifying; of the nearly two hundred men around Sanpoba, close to a hundred were gone.

To hell with this! Zhang Zhao spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. Wasn't it said that ancient armies lost most of their fighting strength at ten percent casualties and collapsed at fifteen percent?

These casualties were damn near half, so why the hell hadn't the other side knelt and surrendered?

He could not understand why the Zhongyun warriors across from him still had not broken. The Zhongyun King, Sanpoba, likewise could not figure out where these ruthless men had come from.

The fighting power of these sixty or seventy armored soldiers far exceeded his imagination.

Although the great neighboring states — the Golden Kingdom of Khotan, the Gaochang Uyghurs, and the Guiyi Army — each had at least a thousand such armored soldiers, ones that fought so stubbornly, so fiercely, so recklessly in spirit, were absolutely rare.

Why could his palace-tent warriors be so tenacious? Because his tiny Zhongyun state was in truth a state shared with these three hundred palace-tent warriors; the remaining nearly one hundred thousand tribesmen were in fact slaves of him and these three hundred palace-tent warriors.

In other words, these warriors were not protecting him, Sanpoba, but protecting their own lives, fortunes, and futures. Otherwise, how could Sanpoba, relying on just these three hundred warriors, have avoided being swallowed up by any of the surrounding powers?

But... but the armored soldiers across from him were clearly here for wealth! If you're here for wealth, why fight so desperately? You could name your price halfway through! Who treats a robbery like a war of annihilation?

Just as both sides were briefly regrouping, the Zhongyun warriors' residential quarter in the distance erupted with noise; it turned out the warriors in the northern city had finally put out the fire, and several dozen warriors, fully prepared, were now sprinting this way!

Seeing this, Sanpoba, who had been inclined to scatter his wealth, steadied his expression.

His three hundred palace-tent warriors were distributed with two hundred inside the palace tent and one hundred outside in the northern city.

That is to say, although the warriors inside his palace tent had already lost nearly a hundred men and been beaten almost to the breaking point, the hundred warriors in the northern city had not yet been frightened; their fighting strength was still intact!

"Eagles beneath the snow mountains! Hold this place! The Left and Rear Chief Ministers will be here soon. Wuni City is our home; only by fighting to the end can we protect our families!" Sanpoba, seizing the moment, began shouting encouragement.

"Once these bandits are scattered, this king will bring out half the treasury's riches and reward every man!"

"A tough bone to gnaw indeed! Sound the horn! Yan Jin, take men and hold off the warriors coming from the northern city. Dunzhu and Man Xiong, prepare to charge in with me and take that Zhongyun King's dog head!"

Zhang Zhao grabbed a still-bloody sesame flatbread and swallowed it down, then gulped a mouthful of barley ale. The 'wooo' of the ox horn was blown by Fan Quan — this was his final arrangement.

The Yangma City! Bai Congxin heard the ox horn and suddenly spurred his horse forward, cutting down the Zhongyun Left and Rear Chief Minister he had tied up with one stroke. The man had come to recruit the merchants of Yangma City and had been captured after Bai Congxin scattered his attendants.

After cutting down the Zhongyun Left and Rear Chief Ministers, Bai Congxin raised his cavalry lance high and looked at the merchants in Yangma City, who were buzzing with discussion.

There were five or six hundred people here; though armor was scarce, they at least had weapons, and some were not weak fighters.

"By order of the Commandant! I now conscript one hundred men! Just one hundred! After the Zhongyun King's palace tent is taken, cloth, grain, wine, and silk will be sold at half price — whoever goes, gets!"

The merchants of Yangma City looked left and right toward their leaders. They had all heard the great explosion just now, and some had even seen the city gate blown into the air; clearly these outsiders were close to success, but... the Zhongyun King still had several hundred armored soldiers!

"Spineless dog slaves! You're given a chance and you don't even know how to pull off a score?

The Zhongyun Left and Rear Chief Minister was killed right here in Yangma City — do you think the Zhongyun King will thank you afterward? Letting you leave in one piece would already be a mercy! Your best choice now is to follow me and go grab a fat haul!"

By the banks of the Ruoqiang River, Zhang Zhao's last reserve of twenty men was stationed here.

Yin Yaozi heard the wailing horn call and suddenly drew his hengdao saber at lightning speed, slashing fiercely at Aluoduo, whose face was full of unease.

So fast was the strike that even after the head flew into the air, the unease on Aluoduo's face had not yet faded.

As Yin Yaozi swung his blade, the rest of the Hanshandu soldiers struck with blade and spear together; the six Karluks who had been guiding them were instantly beheaded!

"Loyal old man! The young lord summons me — the matter is urgent! I leave you five men!"

With that, Yin Yaozi mounted his warhorse and galloped toward Wuni City with a dozen armored soldiers!

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