Chapter 525: Smash the Foreign-Slaughtering Beast

In the mountain valley road of Gulang Gorge, soldiers were running all over the hills and slopes.

Bai Guang'en's army had been repelled by Zhang Tianlin's rocket fire. The first retreat point the soldiers thought of was Yingpan Ridge by the Gulang River, where Ding Shaoyin was garrisoned.

Ding Shaoyin, the Assistant Commander of Liangzhou Guard, truly experienced in a single day what it means for the battlefield to shift in the blink of an eye.

Liu Chengzong selected the best trash-talkers from his army and had them curse at Ding Shaoyin below the mountain for three whole days. They cursed until Ding Shaoyin's soldiers on the mountain couldn't even talk back. In the end, Ding Shaoyin was cursed at so badly he nearly lost control of his army — the soldiers were all seething with rage, begging to go down the mountain and beat the hell out of those Shaanxi bastards.

Ding Shaoyin thought to himself, if I really let you go down the mountain, wouldn't that be playing right into Liu Chengzong's hands? He could only cast aside personal honor and disgrace, desperately holding his soldiers back on the mountain to endure the abuse.

But then, at noon on the third day of the seventh month, Bai Guang'en sent word: native scouts reported spotting enemy troops in the eastern section of Huangyangchuan. He was going to intercept this enemy force, then return with his army to attack Liu Chengzong together.

Ding Shaoyin's anxious heart finally relaxed, because he had seen Liu Chengzong's hidden move. As long as this hidden move was pulled out, holding Yingpan Ridge wouldn't be much of a problem.

Who could have imagined — just one double-hour after Bai Guang'en's message, merely one double-hour — another urgent report from the east was delivered into Ding Shaoyin's hands. It was Bai Guang'en again, saying he had been defeated and was gathering his scattered troops to fall back to Yingpan Ridge.

Holding this dispatch, Ding Shaoyin felt as if his head had been struck by lightning. He stood stunned for a full half a beat, unable to come back to his senses.

He pondered for a long time before it hit him. At this time, at this speed — factoring in the time to send word, advance, retreat, and send word again — this could no longer be called fighting hard but unable to hold. This was, fucking hell, collapsing at the very first touch!

Before Ding Shaoyin could even react, horns and gongs and drums on the mountain suddenly all sounded at once. The camp instantly fell into chaos. Officers were running wildly all over, asking those soldiers who had been cursing Liu Chengzong exactly what they had said. How come they hadn't attacked for days, and now suddenly they were launching an assault?

Liu Chengzong stood in the camp below the mountain. He didn't care at all about the soldiers on the mountain cursing him. It was only because the outpost soldiers at the fork of the Gulang River and Huangyangchuan to the east reported that the Ming army over there was fleeing in disarray that he gave the order for the Tiger Guard Battalion and the Second Gansu Battalion to attack the mountain stronghold.

He used the Tiger Guard Battalion's squads as the assault force, carrying light portable cannons like the "Rolling Pearl" and "Barbarian-Slayer" as they advanced toward the mountainside. Squad after squad pushed forward along the mountain paths in overlapping waves, covering each other in attack and defense, using the well-trained units to clear the way for the follow-up forces.

Then the thousand-jin cannon batteries at the various positions below the mountain opened fire on the earthen ramparts, arrow towers, and camp palisades on the mountain. Amid the booming thunder of cannon fire, the Ganzhou Battalion soldiers advanced in succession, laying down a curtain of shot with their bird guns and three-eyed guns, pushing upward layer by layer.

Liu Chengzong's army had been preparing for this assault for three full days. Every unit had their firing targets memorized by heart. There was almost no need for high-ranking officers to give commands — the low-level officers led their soldiers and acted on their own, pinning Ding Shaoyin's army on Yingpan Ridge so they couldn't leave their camp or lift their heads.

Liu Chengzong had become very familiar with the terrain of Yingpan Ridge over these past few days. He knew in his heart that this mountain ridge where the Ming army was stationed would be hard to take by storm, but precisely because of that, he was all the more determined to swallow this army whole... because he didn't have the energy to gnaw through stronghold after stronghold one at a time.

Take down this Ming army, and the other Ming troops stationed at positions with less favorable terrain than Yingpan Ridge would flee at the mere sight of him.

However, his main tactic against Yingpan Ridge was still encirclement. The fierce assault right now was merely a feint — to be precise, it was a show for the Ming troops fleeing in disarray from Huangyangchuan to the east.

At this very moment, Liu Chengzong did not know that the Ming troops fleeing from Huangyangchuan were Bai Guang'en's division. He had prepared for two scenarios. If the ones coming from the east were Cao Wenzhao's forces, he would besiege the stronghold and strike the reinforcements, using his more combat-effective Suzhou Battalion to tie down Cao Wenzhao.

If it was someone else, they would most likely ignore Ding Shaoyin. In that case, he would let them flee into the Zhuanglang River first. Once Zhang Tianlin arrived from the east, Gulang Gorge would effectively change hands. After the Ming army on the ridge was cut off from supplies, they would collapse on their own with just a little time.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Huangyangchuan, the fleeing Bai Guang'en was nearly going mad.

He couldn't understand it — how could he run all the way from Ganzhou to Huangyangchuan and still run into this rocket-launching bastard?

Bai Guang'en was absolutely certain: the Marshal's Army commander who had used rockets against him twice was the same person.

Because the reaction after both rocket strikes was cut from the exact same mold — one word: fast.

Hundreds of large rockets rained down in a frenzy on the position. Before the gunpowder smoke even cleared, swift horses came crashing out of the smoke with goose-quill sabers raised, cutting down anyone in sight. In the shortest possible time, they charged across the smoke-filled battlefield and trampled the blinded army into chaos.

This light cavalry tactic had a strong personal signature. Bai Guang'en had been bombed twice in five months and had been thoroughly, completely bombed into understanding.

How to put it — this was essentially a cavalry unit or household retainer squad of fifty to a hundred men, scaled up to three to five thousand.

Military technology had advanced in this era. You could say that on the battlefield, it was already very hard to see pure units at the scale of a thousand men — they were all mixed units. Mixed units meant infantry, cavalry, and artillery all together, and the weapons used by each branch were different too, with a stronger nature of specialized division of labor.

For example, Bai Guang'en's army was a mixed unit — they had the capability for independent operations. Zhang Tianlin's army, on the other hand, was basically a pure unit, and his tactics were the same.

Under normal circumstances, a cavalry unit could only play a decisive role in three phases: surprise attack, harassment, and breaking the formation. Once the enemy formed up in an imposing battle array, you'd have to encircle them. Charging a formation head-on against cannon fire cost far too much.

But Zhang Tianlin used large numbers of rockets to inflict massive damage in a short time, create smoke to block vision, and cut off the enemy's command. In effect, he used tools to replace the duties of the infantry and artillery in a mixed unit. Once the rockets finished blasting, the horse troops entered directly into the formation-breaking and pursuit phase.

Bai Guang'en felt he was being targeted.

Your boss Liu Chengzong fought for half a year in Gansu, and your army doesn't hit anyone else — you just hunt me down. Twice now. How deep is this grudge?

He really wanted to ask the enemy commander: Did I steal your family's millet or something?

But as Bai Guang'en fled all the way to the fork of the Gulang River and heard the booming cannon fire and earth-shaking battle cries from Yingpan Ridge to the west, he realized he wasn't the only one being targeted. Ding Shaoyin up on Yingpan Ridge was in even worse shape than him.

At least he could still run. And the officers in his army were all survivors of the first rocket attack — this time they reacted very quickly. Many of them turned their horses and fled at the very first moment. Although the army couldn't run faster than the rockets, at least they didn't stand there like idiots the way they did the first time they were bombed.

But they had been thoroughly terrified after all. Even fleeing all the way here, they didn't dare march in formation. The soldiers under a single squad leader didn't dare walk shoulder to shoulder, terrified that rockets would come blasting out from some mountain slope again.

Galloping all the way along Huangyangchuan to the fork of the Gulang River, the sturdy warhorses were exhausted to the point of foaming at the mouth. The moment Bai Guang'en reined in his horse, it collapsed to the ground.

Bai Guang'en tumbled off his horse, scrambled up from the ground, picked up his fallen helmet, and stared blankly in the direction of Yingpan Ridge.

In the fading light, thick leaden clouds pressed down upon the mountain peak. The booming cannon fire from beyond the mountain sounded like distant thunder rolling from the edge of the sky. The sound made the whiskers on his cheeks stand on end.

This burst of cannon fire sobered up Bai Guang'en, whose courage had been shattered by the rockets.

Just then, seeing him thrown from his horse, Battalion Commander Bai Chaozai hurriedly dismounted, led his horse over, and said, "General, ride my horse. We shouldn't stay here long."

But Bai Guang'en did not accept Bai Chaozai's kindness. His eyes stared neurotically, his mouth slightly agape, as he slowly shook his head and said, "We can't keep running south. Liu Chengzong is attacking Ding Shaoyin."

Bai Chaozai couldn't understand. "Why worry about General Ding at a time like this? Let's just head to Zhuanglang Guard first."

Bai Guang'en still shook his head. It wasn't that he cared whether Ding Shaoyin lived or died — it was that, having narrowly escaped death and sobered up, his clever intellect had once again seized the high ground, and he realized they had already fallen into a death trap.

Bai Guang'en hadn't fought many hard battles, but he was still a seasoned veteran of a hundred fights. He had been relentlessly pursued and hammered by government troops across the vast battlefields of Shaanxi and Shanxi stretching over a thousand li deep, and he had also coordinated operations on the grand battlefield as a high-ranking government army general.

He was very familiar with the operational methods of large troop formations.

And the battlefield situation in Gulang Gorge right now was sending him an extremely dangerous signal: Liu Chengzong, who was attacking Ding Shaoyin, and the Marshal's Army that had routed him were operating in coordination.

Liu Chengzong had blocked the north. Zhang Tianlin was driving him from east to west. Bai Guang'en was absolutely certain that the enemy's objective was to make their two forces converge at Black Pine Post.

What's more, it was obvious — with him and Ding Shaoyin caught in the middle, the two enemy forces couldn't possibly be communicating tactics on the fly through outpost soldiers, scouts, or messengers. This meant that from the very start, Liu Chengzong had planned this.

Having fallen into a trap premeditated by the enemy, Bai Guang'en felt that imagining the worst possible battlefield scenario wouldn't be overstating it at all.

And so, in Bai Guang'en's mind, the answer was already on the tip of his tongue: on the battlefield of Gulang Gorge, Liu Chengzong had at least one more army corps under his command that had yet to reach its combat position.

That position should be to their south — very likely at the fork post station to the south.

Since the north was blocking, the east was driving, and once the driving and blocking were done, what awaited them next? They were all hell-raising demons who had fought their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of bone in Shaanxi. Liu Chengzong was no kind-hearted soul — would he go to all this trouble just to let them escape from the south?

Impossible.

"We're surrounded."

Bai Guang'en spoke with absolute conviction. He glanced toward Yingpan Ridge and shook his head. "Ding Shaoyin is done for. But we can still live. Pass Yingpan Ridge, run south, then after another ten li, silence the drums and lower the banners. Ambush them, fight our way through, and head back to Huangyangchuan. From Stone Gorge Pass, we'll run to Ningxia."

For Bai Guang'en's subordinates, once the general laid out this plan, whether or not there was a Marshal's Army ambush lying in wait to the south no longer mattered.

Because compared to Zhuanglang Guard, defended by only a thousand tribal soldiers under Lu Yunchang, fleeing toward Ningxia was a plan that could actually carve out a path to survival.

Even if they fled south, the fall of Zhuanglang Guard was only a matter of time.

Very quickly, Bai Guang'en's fewer than two thousand troops put on a full show of force, assembled their army to salute in the direction of Camp Ridge, then turned and fled south without looking back.

Zhang Tianlin's pursuit was very cautious, focused mainly on driving them off rather than eagerly chasing them down to kill. His mission in this battle was to drive the enemy westward to Black Pine Forest Post Station. As long as they reached the Gulang River fork and the two enemy forces did not merge, his mission was accomplished.

The Gulang River fork was like a signal. That the routed troops did not merge with Ding Shaoyin there, and showed no intention of attacking Liu Chengzong, meant they had already been scared out of their wits, utterly devoid of fighting spirit and posing no threat.

After all, by common reasoning, they had the chance to combine two thousand troops with three thousand to become five thousand, and they gave it up. If they didn't even have the courage to become five thousand men and fight to the death, what great deed could two thousand men possibly accomplish?

Zhang Tianlin judged the moment had come and ordered his army to launch a full pursuit and slaughter. They had galloped south no more than a few li when they ran into several squads of slow Ming troops. The forward scout cavalry immediately closed in to fight them, and the main troops behind gradually reinforced, launching a relentless, all-out assault.

The Ming troops fought as they retreated, shooting from their bows as they galloped and fleeing south for two li. Ming squads resting along the mountain paths and at the foot of the hills regrouped and merged into the column fleeing south.

Zhang Tianlin's cavalry rampaged unchecked, charging straight along the riverbank in two columns against the routed troops, charging all the way to the ambush ring near Black Pine Post. Suddenly, from every ridge came the signal shots of three-eyed guns, and ambushers from four directions rose up from the mountain paths, moving to intercept and cut down the pursuers from separate routes.

The scattered cavalry had been chasing with abandon when suddenly a few signal shots rang out and ambushers attacked from three sides, catching Zhang Tianlin's mounted column completely off guard. In the panic, men fell from their horses everywhere, and the scattered mounted units struggled to regroup amid the charge and slaughter.

Zhang Tianlin was furious.

He had indeed been careless, very careless, but the reason for his anger was not his own carelessness — it was rage born of humiliation.

In fact, this carelessness was something he should have been thankful for, because if not for it, as a commander who had risen from the rebel ranks, he would have been at the very front of the battle line right now and most likely already dead and dismembered in the ambush.

It was precisely because of his carelessness, never imagining that his subordinates pursuing the enemy ahead would be ambushed, that he had fallen behind to reflect on his own tactics and methods of warfare, thus escaping disaster and being able to reorganize his forces for a counterattack from the relative safety of the rear.

Zhang Tianlin had originally been extremely satisfied with his new tactic — rockets paired with cavalry. Even without the support of infantry and artillery, he could still rout the enemy army completely, twice!

He was filled with the feeling that the empire's government troops were nothing special. At this rate, once the Gansu campaign was over, he, Guo Tianxing, would at the very least have to contend for one of the five tiger generals of the Marshal's headquarters.

He had even been about to suggest that Liu Chengzong promote his tactic throughout the entire army. As long as they had enough rockets, they could blitz all the way to Guanzhong.

However, during the pursuit, captured Ming troops had already confessed: this routed battalion, just like the last one, had been under the command of a general named Bai Guang'en.

A bolt from the blue!

That simple name had filled Zhang Tianlin with a bellyful of rage.

It wasn't that Bai Guang'en had ever provoked him, but the fact that this man had been defeated twice infuriated Zhang Tianlin — "The empire's government troops are nothing special" versus "That bastard Bai Guang'en is nothing special" — the difference in the sense of accomplishment between those two was a thousandfold.

What kind of filthy thing was Bai Guang'en anyway? Even if he defeated Bai Guang'en ten thousand times, Zhang Tianlin would feel no sense of achievement. And yet, just when he was at the peak of his anger, he himself had been ambushed by Bai Guang'en.

Zhang Tianlin thought to himself, I'm not even a tiger fallen to the plains yet, just full and taking a nap, and I'm being bullied by a dog?

Seething with fury, Zhang Tianlin reorganized his formation and observed the battlefield while issuing the order to his subordinate generals to retreat and turn the tables.

In an instant, as the horn sounded, Zhang Tianlin's cavalry fighting fiercely with the ambushers on the front line all abandoned the enemies before them, wheeled their horses around, and as they retreated, drew their bows and shot backward.

In that split second, the tide of battle reversed. Seeing the ambush succeeding, Bai Guang'en's two thousand troops grew bolder and fought harder, every officer racing forward with desperate valor, their charge and slaughter growing ever fiercer.

As they galloped in retreat, Zhang Tianlin kept looking back while riding, reorganizing his ranks and observing the enemy's situation.

Seeing that the pursuing enemy had stretched their formation, with infantry and cavalry losing cohesion, and that his own mounted column was ready to wheel around and fight to the death, he suddenly let out a high-pitched cry. In an instant, the horses reared up as one, their hooves pawing the air. The veteran cavalrymen, all former border troops, reined in their mounts, raised their goose-quill sabers, and with trampling hooves and wild shouts, wheeled around and charged back into the enemy ranks.