Chapter 151: Total Annihilation

The officer who had barely escaped from the melee was lucky to have kept his life, but his back bore a bloody wound, and the horse's back was stained a deep crimson.

This soldier seemed to know he did not have long to live, so he paid no attention to the increasingly severe wound on his back, thinking only of delivering the message.

However, before he had ridden far, he suddenly felt his spirit grow faint, his breath coming in short gasps, and even his grip on the reins began to loosen.

Before long, the officer's vision went black, and he finally tumbled from his horse.

Two scout riders galloping not far away saw a man fall from his mount. They hesitated at first, but when they saw he wore an officer's armor, they exchanged a glance and quickly spurred their horses forward.

"Brother, have some water." One scout took a waterskin from his horse, while the other dismounted and supported the gravely wounded man, asking earnestly: "What happened up ahead? Why is there the sound of fighting?"

"Don't... don't go." By now, the escaped household retainer was at his last breath. The water only moistened his throat, and half of it came coughing back out.

"Don't go where?" The scout furrowed his brow, clearly not understanding.

"The Supreme Commander has ordered an encirclement from the Guguan city tower... there are... there are..." The retainer used the last of his strength to tightly grip the scout's hand, but before he could finish speaking, his neck tilted to one side — he had clearly breathed his last.

"Sigh, what do we do?"

"What else can we do? Hurry back and report!"

After hearing the scouts' report, that Vice Regional Commander of the rear camp pondered briefly and could understand from the fragmented words that Chen Qiyu did not want him to go straight back along the same route to provide support.

"Assistant Regional Commander Chen, what do we do? Hurry up and make a decision!"

"Shut up!" Assistant Regional Commander Chen Dong, irritated by the noise, stood in place lost in thought.

Two officials of Governor-General rank were besieged by bandit troops up ahead. He had already seen the signs and was about to go reinforce them, but suddenly he received orders not to reinforce but to take a long detour for an encirclement?

He simply could not understand what this Supreme Commander intended. The situation was perfectly obvious — even the lowliest soldier in the army could see it. With the rear camp's forces, the government troops outnumbered the roving bandits by a wide margin, and Guguan could be taken in a single battle. Why go to such trouble?

"Assistant Regional Commander Chen?"

"What are we going to do?"

"I'll take my men and reinforce from the front along the original route. You follow the Supreme Commander's orders and encircle from the rear mountain of Guguan. It's settled!" Chen Dong felt that not going himself was no solution, but disobeying the Supreme Commander's orders was also unacceptable. It seemed he could only do both by splitting his forces.

"Assistant Regional Commander Chen, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Stop wasting words. Go encircle them now."

Winds surged and clouds rolled, flames swept the plains, shouts and screams interwove, bloodlight answered the cold gleam of blades — together they formed a true hellish battlefield before the gates of Guguan.

The soldiers of the Dashun army and the Ming troops under Chen Qiyu fought their final desperate struggle here. At this moment, both sides understood clearly: whoever won this battle would seize the initiative in the Zhending and Baoding theaters for the coming months, even years.

Against the Ming army's desperate counterattack like cornered dogs leaping a wall, Liu Fangliang naturally had his response. He raised his long blade high and charged forward, locking in combat with several Ming officers, and for a short time he was not at a disadvantage at all.

Seeing this, the morale of the other Dashun soldiers surged at once, and they brandished their blades and spears in a chaotic charge forward.

"Kill these dog officers!"

Above the battlefield, arrows ceaselessly crisscrossed through the air. By now everyone was thoroughly tangled together, and even the Dashun archers remaining on the city wall found it hard to loose their arrows, for they could no longer tell friend from foe.

Every single person had murder in their eyes. The Dashun army seemed to know Chen Qiyu's intentions and launched a frenzied assault. The Ming battle line kept contracting, like a lone boat adrift on the sea, as if it might capsize at any moment.

"Protect the Supreme Commander!"

"For the Great Ming! For the Emperor!!"

As a military officer, Dong Qi naturally could not cower in the rear. After shouting these words, he led his last household retainers forward to fill the gap, rallying the camp soldiers to shore up the trembling defense line.

"Brothers, kill the bandits!"

Dong Qi charged out of the formation swinging his great blade, cutting down two bandit soldiers beside him in succession. He swung his blade wildly, and the remaining three or five bandits, wounded by his cuts, dared not advance, unable to get near him for a time.

Seeing this court military officer whose entire suit of armor had been dyed red with blood, the surrounding Dashun soldiers exchanged wary glances and none dared charge too quickly.

To be honest, this was the first time they had seen such ferocious government troops.

Liu Fangliang was accustomed to using his veteran camps, and he had not expected the troops left to guard Guguan to be so useless. He had regretted his decision not long after charging down from the city.

He turned his head and saw the man in the very center calmly arranging his formations. He felt a flicker of familiarity, but in his haste he could not remember who it was.

Seeing Dong Qi charging left and right through the crowd, Liu Fangliang's eyes turned even redder with rage. At this point, if he could kill this commander, he would still have a chance!

Dong Qi kicked forward fiercely, sending a charging refugee soldier tumbling backward to the ground. His hands were not idle either — he dashed forward a few steps, turned his blade point downward, and stabbed hard.

That refugee soldier had no strength to resist and could only watch helplessly as the steel blade came down.

In truth, it was not just him — many refugee soldiers were filled with regret in the final second of their lives. They regretted why they had followed this so-called Dashun army to seek death, most of them having left wives and children behind.

The Dashun army now under Liu Fangliang's command actually had very few veteran camps. Most were refugee soldiers left to guard Guguan. In reality, the core strength of the army Li Zicheng relied upon to sweep through the Central Plains was not the old camps — it was these refugee soldiers.

Several hours had passed since the two sides first made contact. Though part of the rear camp's reinforcements had arrived, they were insufficient in number and firmly pinned down by Liu Fangliang's divided forces.

Many in the Ming army's camp had once been vicious criminals, and in a scene like this, they released the demons in their hearts.

In contrast, the Dashun troops who had sallied out to lay in ambush were growing increasingly weaker.

The soldiers on the battlefield — whether they belonged to the roving bandits or the government troops — all swung their blades at the enemy with reddened, furious eyes. Even if they could not cut off the enemy's head, they would at least drive their blade into his body.

There was no cavalry on the battlefield outside Guguan. At this point, the two sides were completely tangled together, and all that remained was madness — there was no longer any room for tactics.

What had started outside the pass as skirmishing had become a life-and-death slaughter. People had turned from men into demons, and at every moment countless nameless souls fell into pools of blood.

War is just like this — inhuman, cruel.

But there was not no difference at all. When Ming soldiers fell, they shouted the slogans 'For the Great Ming' and 'For the Emperor.' Under the Chongzhen Emperor's comprehensive system of safeguards, many fought without any worries for what lay behind them.

The refugee soldiers were different, however. Most of them could shout nothing at all as they fell, and their slogans were all the same, utterly devoid of conviction.

They had no idea what kind of life their wives and daughters would live after they died, and they had even less idea what they were fighting for.

"For the Great Ming!!"

The setting sun was like blood. Just as the two sides were locked in an indecisive struggle, resounding slogans rose simultaneously from the walls of Guguan and from behind the roving bandits — it was Chen Dong, who had arrived in time with the encircling Ming troops.

At the same time, the bandits remaining on the city wall fell screaming like raindrops. Countless Ming soldiers charged out from every direction, and some, in their excitement, had already torn down the so-called Dashun banner and replaced it with the Great Ming's Black Bird banner.

No matter how Liu Fangliang fought, the refugee soldiers around him surrendered one after another, until in the end only he himself remained.