Chapter 225: Tiger Mountain Breaks the Pass, a Surprise Strike Crushes the Enemy

The setting sun was like blood, and after the great battle, corpses littered the battlefield.

The Uqiyet tribe, which had once followed Genghis Khan on his eastern and western campaigns and was regarded as the pride of the grasslands, had already seen most of its chieftains flee before this battle; after this battle, even the last three chieftains were all killed in action.

Nearly all of the tribe's men had died in battle—the heaviest blow a Mongol tribe could suffer. Khartai watched the Han soldiers clearing the battlefield, tossed the bloodied head in his hand to a niru behind him, and sneered:

"The Uqiyet are finished. This bit of advancement is yours. What this Commander wants is not such a paltry advancement."

The head of the Uqiyet chieftain might not be worth much in the eyes of Commander Khartai, but to this minor niru of the Plain White Banner, it was of utmost importance. Having been away on campaign for many years, he was precisely in need of this advancement to be transferred back to Liaodong and reunite with his kinsmen.

Immediately, this niru called out gratefully: "Thank you, Commander!"

"Run! Run! The Jianzhou barbarians are chasing us!"

While the remaining Uqiyet elders, women, and children were panicking, a Mongol man came riding from behind on horseback, his face covered in blood. Not bothering to say more than a few words to his father and mother, he shouted in terror:

"They're all dead, all of them dead! Run! Run!!"

"Wuuha—"

Just then, the ground began to tremble. From behind the Uqiyet refugees' main column, wave after wave of Jianzhou cavalry wearing Plain White Banner armor suddenly appeared, drawing closer and closer, each horse bearing heads with familiar faces hanging from its side.

"The chieftains were all killed by those Jianzhou men! I won't live either—let's fight them to the death!"

"That's my father!" A Uqiyet woman kept pointing at the head hanging from the side of the bayara niru's horse and screaming. The sound was so heart-wrenching it was as if the very sky had collapsed.

"Heavens! Eternal Heaven, where are you!"

None of the Uqiyet people had expected that even mustering the strength of all their tribe's men would only hold off the Jianzhou cavalry for less than two hours. The moment the battle ended, Khartai had led the bayara cavalry in pursuit ahead of everyone else.

In his eyes, these elders, women, children, and the herds of cattle, sheep, and baggage were the true priceless treasures.

"Hahaha, kill! Not sealing the blade for a single day—slaughter them all clean for this Commander!"

Watching the Mongols scatter in fear before him, Khartai grinned savagely, licked the blood that had splattered onto the corner of his mouth, and shouted: "From this day forth, there will be no more Uqiyet on the grasslands! Let the other tribes and those southern barbarians see what happens when you oppose the Great Qing!"

"Even if Urmai runs behind the passes, our Manchu iron cavalry can still charge in and slaughter him to the last man! The southern barbarians dare not block us, and they cannot block us!!"

Countless Jianzhou cavalrymen, as if they had spotted treasures scattered everywhere, charged into the panic-stricken Uqiyet crowd, hacking and slaughtering madly. The loud laughter of the Jianzhou barbarians, mingled with the anguished screams of the grassland men and women, resounded across half the sky.

Having sated their bloodlust, the Jianzhou barbarians saw that the Uqiyet people had no strength to resist, and they even dismounted from their horses, leaping down to grab the better-looking Uqiyet women and defile them on the spot.

The arm cannot twist past the thigh. Though grassland women were not as delicate as Han ladies, they still could not match the thick-limbed Manchu soldiers in strength. In a few moments they were stripped bare and violated...

Before long, a cavalry force of around a thousand arrived in the distance. Looking at the scene before them, every one of them had reddened eyes and clenched fists—this was simply a hell on earth.

Unexpectedly, this cavalry that had suddenly arrived was not any one of the branches of the Uriankhai tribes—every single one was Han Chinese, flying the great black-bird banner of the Ming. At their head was none other than Huang Degong, Regional Commander of the Ji Garrison of the Great Ming.

"Commander, what do we do? The court ordered us to rendezvous with Urmai. Coming here on our own already breaks the rules. If we rashly start a fight with the Tartars, this little bit of strength the Ji Garrison has just built up will all be lost."

"Yes, Commander. As long as the green mountains remain, there will be no shortage of firewood! You must think carefully."

Urmai knew well that the Jianzhou barbarians would send men to intercept. After the tribe's elders and children had left with Feng Quan, he had taken his able-bodied tribesmen to lie in ambush along the inevitable route—but what came was two thousand cavalry of the Ongniud tribe, and besides them, only one niru of Jianzhou cavalry.

Though the Ongniud were also one of the three great tribes among the Uriankhai, their strength had always been far inferior to that of the Hadai main branch. Urmai slew the Ongniud chieftain sent against him in battle and, in short order, routed the combined Ongniud and Jianzhou force that had come to intercept.

As a result, the Ji Garrison's Huang Degong force, which had come by imperial order to rendezvous, found nothing.

After Huang Degong and Urmai discussed the matter, Urmai decided to abandon the Uqiyet and enter the passes first. But Huang Degong did not want to do the same. Hearing that some Uqiyet tribesmen had not yet caught up, he parted ways with Urmai and hurriedly led his men to take a look.

The column of Ji Garrison cavalry had been riding for a long time. With their horses and their own strength both failing, they had been planning to return to Xifengkou—but who would have thought they would witness such a shocking scene.

Huang Degong's subordinates were all seasoned veterans, yet even they felt burning indignation at this utter massacre. These Jianzhou barbarians were truly savage—if they were ever allowed to rule the Central Plains, how many Han people would die at their hands?

Facing his subordinates' attempts to stop him, Huang Degong calmed his mind and held his breath, and then he noticed something.

The Jianzhou barbarians before him, after a bout of looting and slaughter, had long since fallen into complete disarray. At least four or five out of ten of their cavalrymen had dismounted and were engaged in debauchery—this was a perfect opportunity for a surprise attack.

Huang Degong glanced at the sky gradually darkening and said with absolute finality:

"We cannot go back like this. Wait just another hour!"

Though the other subordinates did not understand their commander's reasoning, no one had anything to say against it. These inhuman Jianzhou barbarians—any man with hot blood in his veins would not want to return in such a spineless, humiliating fashion.

That said, the Plain White Banner Commander Khartai was also feeling immensely satisfied. For so many years, he had been ordered by the Prince Regent to supervise these Uriankhai savages and had never been able to press them too hard—his temper had long since been pushed to its limit.

Now he had released it all at once, and it was truly exhilarating. By now Khartai had already received word of the Ongniud tribe's rout—which was, in fact, exactly what Ning Wanwo had anticipated.

What Ning Wanwo and Khartai wanted was for the Ongniud's interception to fail, so that they themselves could reap the advancement. Since that goal had been achieved, and no one would come to disturb them, naturally they would let the banner men enjoy themselves to the full.

an hour later, the sky had indeed gradually darkened.

But although darkness had fallen, because the Ongniud tribesmen had been numerous and the Jianzhou numbered only a little over a thousand, they had not yet finished defiling even half the people, and the baggage, cattle, and sheep were scattered everywhere, not yet gathered in.

The Jianzhou cavalry had dispersed. At this moment, three Plain White Banner soldiers sat around a campfire, chattering animatedly, while beside them were tied seven or eight Uqiyet women stripped completely bare. Next to these still-living women lay elders and children who had long since stopped breathing.

These few Jianzhou sat there jabbering away in the Manchu language, their faces alight with excitement, clearly in high spirits. Before long, one of them patted his full, well-fed belly, stood up, and went out to urinate.

The Jianzhou had not even finished urinating when a muffled grunt suddenly came—the sound of someone collapsing to the ground.

"Hahaha, Tulu's played with too many Mongol women and his legs went weak?" The other two Jianzhou initially paid it no mind, only laughing continuously.

But soon, they realized something was wrong.

Before they could react, two arrows shot out of the darkness, striking precisely at their throats and vital points. The two Jianzhou instantly went silent and toppled to the ground, following the fate of the one before them.

Suddenly, the thunderous sound of hoofbeats rose from every direction. The Jianzhou barbarians startled awake from their sleep and revelry—only when the blades fell upon their heads did they look at the men killing them with disbelief in their eyes.

They were actually Han Chinese!?