Chapter 698

"Armored riders! Armored riders! These Tang dogs have armored riders — we've been tricked!"

Shimi Li, pursued with no way out, could only choose to form ranks beside a hillock by the shore of Lake Manaizi, hoping for a decisive battle with the pursuers.

What made him want to vomit blood was that the moment these pursuers saw him form ranks, they simply sealed off all four sides, then did not advance.

When his men sortied, the enemy withdrew in an organized fashion; when they tried to leave, the enemy closed in again.

Thus they dragged on for about one double-hour, neither fighting nor leaving, when danger suddenly descended.

As the cry of "The Tang dogs have armored riders!" rang out, Shimi Li looked west in terror from the hillock, and his heart sank to the bottom of a valley.

In the distance, as the Tang dogs' distinctive conch horns sounded mournfully, Tang armored riders appeared — wearing white cloth-faced iron armor, double-layered composite iron helmets on their heads, and grasping lances over a zhang long.

Seen from afar, under the sunlight, the metal studs on those armored riders' silver-white armor flashed wave after wave of dazzling golden light.

The red tassels on their iron helmets danced in the wind, set off strikingly by the silver-white armor, like a tall thicket of shrubs with red blossoms atop their heads, rising and falling in the howling wind.

Though there were only two hundred riders opposite, Shimi Li knew his side was finished.

On the steppe, armored riders were not actually terrifying, because they had one flaw: though their burst power was outstanding, they lacked endurance and could not last.

In plain terms, when you encountered armored riders, you could not beat them but you could run — you could even run them to exhaustion.

But once armored riders had light-armored and unarmored cavalry supporting them, as the Tang dogs did today, they were the very embodiment of invincibility.

Shimi Li turned and looked at his own side — most were unarmored cavalry... er, perhaps "armed herders" would be more accurate. Never mind that he had only a little over four thousand riders; even with eight thousand, it would be hard to withstand the enemy's thunderbolt strike.

Clatter-clatter-clatter!

Three warhorses galloped toward Shimi Li and his men. On the middle horse sat not a heavy-armored cavalryman, but a monk in plain white robes, and in his hand was not a long lance or stiff bow, but a great banner of silver-white cloth embroidered with a golden swastika.

This silver-white banner with the golden swastika was the emblem of the Six Dharma Sect; only when an eminent monk of the rank of Great Virtue or above was present could such a banner be raised among the ranks.

The other two riders were escort cavalry in light armor.

The monk galloped to within a hundred paces of Shimi Li's frontmost cavalry before reining in.

Then he lifted both feet and stood upon the stirrups with extraordinary lightness; the horse did not stir, did not even neigh — man and horse worked in perfect harmony.

"The Supreme Great Wisdom Perfectly Accomplished Dharma King, holy, benevolent, virtuous, and compassionate, pities you who have strayed onto the wrong path. If you now cast down your weapons and dismount, turning back from your delusion, you may yet receive the salvation of the Supreme Heaven. Those who obstinately refuse to awaken shall surely enter the eighteen levels of the Unintermittent Hell!"

So it was a call to surrender — and a very effective one. Hearing this white-robed monk speak, the cavalry of the frontmost tribes looked at one another, and quite a few actually laid down their weapons, spurred their horses aside, and dismounted.

In an instant, Shimi Li's front ranks fell into chaos. Some who wished to surrender — or rather, to convert — had already begun dismounting, but their kin or clansmen were unwilling, and arguments broke out at once; those who had never gotten along seized the chance to curse each other out.

Amid the chaos, one of Shimi Li's trusted men suddenly spurred his horse forward, galloping thirty or forty paces straight at the white-robed monk, but the guards beside the monk were already prepared.

Before Shimi Li's trusted man could get close, the escort cavalry cut across at an angle to intercept him, drawing their bows and loosing two arrows, one of which struck true.

But the trusted man also wore armor. Using his superb horsemanship, he shook off the escort cavalry's interception and, enduring the searing pain, closed in on the white-robed monk.

The white-robed monk, unhurried, planted the silver-white golden-swastika banner in the ground, sat back onto the saddle as if to fumble for something. Shimi Li's trusted man seized the chance and loosed an arrow with a fierce snap.

Clang! Squelch!

The trusted man's arrow struck the white-robed monk, but the monk only roared angrily and swayed a few times — for beneath the monk's robe there was also armor. Blood stained the robe, but the wound was not serious.

Almost at the same moment, the white-robed monk, having finished his roar, pulled out something that looked like a crossbow.

With a twang, the mechanism sounded, and the trusted man was also struck squarely.

This time, the armor he wore could not protect him, for this was a Divine Arm Crossbow, and the two sides were only thirty or forty paces apart — nothing short of three layers of armor could withstand it.

Blood sprayed along the way; the warhorse, its master's control lost, neighed in panic and gradually galloped off into the distance.

This startled everyone. Some tribal petty chiefs whose positions had not been firm realized in terror that if the Supreme Heaven's dharma-preaching monk had been shot dead like that, they would surely be buried with him.

And so the situation immediately took a dramatic turn: the mass of Shimi Li's cavalry, who had been chased with nowhere to run, actually came forward on their own initiative and surrounded the white-robed monk, to prevent anyone else from coming up to assassinate him.

The battlefield grew even more chaotic, until it no longer looked like a battle, but more like herders attending the Supreme Heaven's great village archery ceremony.

"Pei Tongyuan, go yourself, and lead the elite cavalry in a direct charge at the enemy's core on the hillock!"

Lu Sanlang fixed his baleful eyes on Shimi Li's great banner atop the hillock and continued issuing orders.

"The Yinli Left Wing Thousand-Household and the Vanguard Thousand-Household will envelop from both flanks and make sure they cannot escape.

The Basimi Anqi Personal Guard Thousand-Household will prepare for pursuit.

I'm taking the field myself — all the light cavalry will follow behind me. Once the elite cavalry opens a breach, we'll cut this Buddha-betrayer Shimi Li into mincemeat together!"

The commander of this cavalry force of nearly four thousand was none other than the down-on-his-luck Lu Sanlang — who could blame him, since he had once been a traitor.

Zhang Zhao himself did not feel particularly ill toward Lu Sanlang, but the other members of the East-Returning faction were unwilling to have contact with him, so Lu Sanlang could never get ahead.

Thus when Bai Congxin and Huang Yingda were commissioned to go to the steppe to "preach the dharma," Lu Sanlang begged Zhang Zhao and went along as well.

And in this cavalry force, the true Zhou army cavalry consisted only of the two hundred elite cavalry whom Shimi Li had mistaken for fully armored riders, and the four hundred light-armored light cavalry who had always served as the assault main force.

The remaining unarmored and light-armored cavalry were all steppe cavalry under the Nijue Yinli Khagan — that is, under me, Sage Zhang.

Of the twelve steppe ten-thousand-households Zhang Zhao planned to establish, five had now been completed: the Basimi, Yinli, Naiman, and Kyrgyz four ten-thousand-households in the west, and the Lower Khitan Four Tribes ten-thousand-household in the east.

Those they were now pursuing were the Meiliji — also called the Merkit — and the Zubu, two tribes' members who refused to submit.

These people were a major power on the steppe; historically, forty years later, the Khitan's Zubu Grand Administration Office would be built upon them.

And now they had become the tribes on the steppe most resolute in opposing the Six Dharma Sect.

Because before this, they had been devout believers in Buddhism — the same faith as the Khitan.

After Bai Congxin, Huang Yingda, and the others came to the steppe to help "preach the dharma," the fiercest resistance they encountered came not from herders still worshiping primitive animist spirits, nor from those who followed Nestorianism, Manichaeism, or other faiths.

Instead, it was those who had previously believed in the Buddha who were extremely hostile to the Six Dharma Sect's preaching, believing that they were distorting the scriptures.

Fine! Kafirs can convert, but heretics must die, right!

Lu Sanlang finished his dispositions and was about to set off, but the commander of the Basimi Anqi Personal Guard Thousand-Household beside him was not pleased.

As the steppe people who had first submitted to Zhang Zhao, the Basimi held the highest status among the steppe peoples in what could almost be called Zhang Zhao's dual-system empire.

Not only were there many Basimi guards, palace attendants, and even eunuchs around Zhang Zhao, but among the twelve ten-thousand-households, only the Basimi ten-thousand-household had been granted the title of Personal Guard Ten-Thousand-Household.

"Anqi" meant "hunter" in Old Turkic; it originated from this thousand-household's cavalry, who had won great merit as the army's roving scouts and pathfinder troops in Zhang Zhao's campaign against the Gaochang Uyghurs and in the great battle at Huangcao Lake where Saktu was routed, and so the honorific title had been added.

Even after that, the entire Anqi Personal Guard Thousand-Household had been granted a surname, and all officers above the rank of banner chief (chief of fifty households) had been granted the surname An.

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The other warriors who had rendered meritorious service were allowed to choose a surname from among the great Han surnames such as Liu, Li, and Wang.

For assimilation, naturally the great Han surnames like Liu, Li, and Wang were more suitable. If they chose some minor surname, people would know at once where they came from, which would hurt the effect of assimilation.

Besides, these steppe peoples were all quite fond of taking the surnames Li or Liu.

Lu Sanlang snorted coldly. He knew what this Anqi Thousand-Household Commander was thinking — wasn't it just that he considered himself a trusted confidant of the Khagan and felt he shouldn't have to accept the command of a lower-ranking officer like Lu Sanlang?

Lu Sanlang said nothing more. He simply placed his hand on the imperial-gift hengdao saber at his waist, then fixed the Anqi Thousand-Household Commander with his hawk-glaring, wolf-watching stare, and began cursing inwardly as well.

'Damn you — Huang Yingda can order you around, but I can't? I am a descendant of the Four Garrisons of Anxi who returned east with the Sage!'

Being stared at like that by someone like Lu Sanlang put a man under enormous pressure. The Anqi Thousand-Household Commander hesitated for two or three breaths, glanced again at the Khagan-bestowed hengdao saber at Lu Sanlang's waist, and in the end lowered his head, cupped his hands in salute, and went off to carry out the order.

This sort of situation had occurred often ever since Bai Congxin and Huang Yingda had arrived on the steppe.

Because the tribes on the steppe acknowledged the signboard of the Nijueyinli Khagan, not the Great Zhou Shaoming Emperor.

And Zhang Zhao did not yet have enough benefits to offer or enough deterrence to make these steppe tribes submit to him the way they had submitted to Emperor Taizong of Tang.

Bai Congxin had said in a secret memorial to Zhang Zhao that without the Six Dharma Sect acting as the binding agent,

either Zhang Zhao would have to lead troops out beyond the frontier himself, or the Great Zhou cavalry would first have to beat the three tumens of the Basmyl, the Kyrgyz, and the Naiman into submission. Otherwise they would certainly never cooperate.

And now that the three tumens were cooperating so readily, the Six Dharma Sect had played an enormous part.

Because it had let the steppe tribes under Zhang Zhao's command find the greatest common denominator between themselves and the Han lands, so that psychologically they could barely count as one family.

Up on the hill, Shimili saw the several hundred men who had so swiftly switched sides, and his nose went crooked with fury.

He roared out orders for his personal guards to attack, determined to properly punish those traitors who had dared to change camps right before the battle lines.

It seemed like he couldn't tell the main issue from the secondary, but in fact there was no help for it.

These tribes of theirs, when the Khitan had been strong, had to a certain extent accepted Khitan leadership.

After the Khitan suffered repeated defeats in the Central Plains, they had stayed around the Khangai Mountains, waiting to receive the arrival of a new boss.

As for why they had to find a boss at all — couldn't they just make it on their own?

In fact, they couldn't. The steppe was bitter and cold, and apart from cattle and sheep, it had basically nothing.

From ordinary wheat and beans, iron pots, and cloth, to the more luxurious flour, refined salt, sugar, tea, and the even more luxurious brocade, porcelain, and all kinds of spices — all of these had to come from outside.

At the same time, the animal furs, various medicinal herbs, and even the live cattle, horses, and sheep they couldn't use up themselves all needed the Han lands to consume them.

So unless they were willing to live like primitives, they couldn't possibly cut themselves off and do nothing but herd.

In the past, when the Khitan were around, all of this had been monopolized by Khitan merchants and Han traveling merchants living in the Khitan state. With the Khitan gone, they had to pay homage to a new master themselves.

Of course, they could also go raiding, but if they couldn't win the fight, there was nothing to be done.

Only, no one had expected that along with the new master would come the Six Dharma Sect — and that was a matter of life and death!

Steppe men were generally rather stubborn. The sly, cunning sort belonged to a fairly small minority.

Sage Zhang had deep personal experience of this. The Mongols around Hohhot and Baotou were no different from Han people — swindlers and price-gougers, complete old hands, and there were quite a few of them.

But when you got to places like Arxan and Hailar, there were far more honest, straightforward people.

When you talked with them, you could feel a kind of simplicity and good-natured honesty. Their thinking ran in a completely straight line, so much so that you could quickly guess what was on their mind. But if you provoked them, they turned hostile and expressed it very strongly too.

Once these rather stubborn steppe nobles and commoners had become devout believers in the old Buddhist gate, when they encountered the present Six Dharma Sect, a sect that had indeed greatly altered the Buddhist scriptures, their resistance flared up at once.

They couldn't figure out the rest, but they could keenly sense: there's something wrong with your sutras!

But however stubborn a man may be, can he be more stubborn than swords and blades? So Shimili had to stop those tribes from defecting immediately.

If he didn't take a stand, these few thousand men who had only gathered because they refused to convert would scatter like stars in an instant.

However, he had only just given the order, and his trusted men beside him had not yet moved out, when from the distance came the sounding of horns in waves and drums that shook heaven and earth. Two hundred Tang armored riders in white armor with red tassels began forming ranks and advancing slowly.

Shimili didn't dare punish the betrayers at this moment. He hurriedly sent runners with orders for the horse archers spread across both wings to harass them and not let these armored riders get up to speed.

Although several hundred riders had defected, Shimili's control was still decent. On receiving his order, at least a thousand riders surged out from the front, spreading out like a great net and closing in on the armored riders who were now trotting forward.

Lu Sanlang snorted coldly. "Order the Anqi Personal Guard Thousand-Household Commander to send out three hundred light cavalry to drive off those annoying flies!"

The Anqi Thousand-Household Commander had been somewhat unwilling at heart, but this time, seeing that Lu Sanlang still had to rely on them to clear the way for the armored riders, he immediately grew happy again.

He drew a gleaming Persian-style curved blade and shouted loudly to the men behind him: "Disciples of the Supreme Heaven, bravest eagles of the Great Khan — attack!"

The soldiers behind him let out a strange howling like apes and wild wolves, and immediately lunged out.

These Basmyl people had accumulated a great quantity of equipment during the course of Zhang Zhao's rise.

They were currently the only one of the four tumens west of the desert to possess two thousand-households of light cavalry. The other tumens had at most two or three hundred-households of light cavalry.

What was called light cavalry were riders who wore neither lamellar armor nor cloth-faced armor, but only light ring-mail or oxhide armor. Their main method of fighting was to rely on the explosive power of their warhorses, charging in to fight with horse lances and horse sabers.

Therefore, the most critical equipment of the light cavalry was not the light armor on their bodies, but the warhorses beneath them.

These warhorses were third- and fourth-generation mixed-breed folded-ear horses bred at the military horse farms of Shandan, Guzang, and a few others in Hexi. Although their load-bearing capacity was somewhat lacking, their greatest advantage was an extremely good instantaneous burst of speed.

In the distance, Shimili's unarmored horse archers were still whooping as they surrounded the slowly trotting elite riders, provoking them back and forth — one moment loosing a few arrows, the next making as if to pounce.

Soon they too saw the three hundred Basmyl light cavalry closing in around them, but these Shimili horse archers were not nervous.

Because the two sides were still far apart. They even had the leisure to curse those fellows who had believed in the evil demon.

But before they had finished cursing, they suddenly heard a fierce thunder of hooves, and saw the opposing cavalry suddenly seem to take flight, rushing at them at extreme speed.

In an instant, the Basmyl light cavalry pushed their speed to the maximum, and at a distance of two or three hundred paces gave the opposing Shimili horse archers a little surprise.

Like cheetahs on the steppe chasing a herd of antelope, the Basmyl light cavalry had clear targets and caught up with them very quickly.

The arrows loosed by the panicked Shimili horse archers were almost all off target. And even when they were on target, the soft arrows shot from horse bows without the added speed of a charging horse could not penetrate the light armor on the Basmyl light cavalry.

With just one charge, more than a thousand Shimili horse archers were sent scattering in every direction.

And at that very moment, the two hundred elite riders also reached the position where they began to accelerate.

Arrows came at them in a sky-covering barrage, but did almost no damage. The cloth-faced iron armor lined with fine steel plates was simply not something a six- or seven-dou horse bow could pierce.

Eighty paces! The charge distance had arrived! Pei Tongyuan raised the great silver-white banner high to mark the direction of attack for his men, and at once a single unified war cry rang out as the two hundred armored riders surged forward in a wild charge.

Hooves kicked the earth up into the air, and the edges of the cavalry lances reflected a silver light that chilled the heart.

The Shimili cavalry who had been circling and shooting at them simply parted to both sides and withdrew, as if they had come not to block these two hundred Han iron riders, but to welcome them.

Shimili let out a shriek. He had a full two thousand cavalry before him! Yet not a single rider dared move to intercept, as if they were all waiting for these Tang men to kill him, so that they could then surrender without any psychological burden.

There was no time to issue any orders, and he had even less resolve to lead men charging at these armored riders. In that moment of not knowing what to do, the two hundred armored riders charged straight up the not-so-steep slope against them.

"Run!" someone shouted. Before the four hundred lancers led by Lu Sanlang had even begun their charge, the rabble under Shimili's command collapsed like a mountain.

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