Chapter 856: Breakout

Jing Yuan wasn't foolish; as soon as Pan Yun looked northeast, he guessed the Emperor had changed course again.

More than a month since leaving Jingcheng, he had endured nothing but capricious, ever-shifting orders.

So he wasn't the least surprised when the Emperor suddenly turned northeast to retreat.

What did it matter why? What hadn't he seen?

He only wanted to find the Emperor as quickly as possible.

And in the northeast, the only place that could draw the Emperor was Huailai City.

Huailai City had Xuanfu as its defensive line; logically, it should be safe.

With Wang Zhen's meager military knowledge, he might truly have persuaded the Emperor to go south then north again, wasting time retracing his steps.

So Jing Yuan rode hard toward Huailai City.

Before reaching it, only thirty li from Tumu Fortress, he spotted a streak of imperial yellow amid thousands of troops.

His personal guards' eyes bulged; they pointed at the yellow figure on horseback and shouted: "Your Majesty is surrounded!"

Jing Yuan reined in his horse, gazing down from above—he was desperate too, but the enemy vastly outnumbered them; he had only a hundred or so personal guards.

"We need a plan…"

Jing Yuan's heart burned with anguish when he saw dust rising in the northwest.

His heart leapt: "Wala reinforcements?"

One of his guards was a scout with sharp eyes; after staring a long while, he said: "It's Ming troops! General, they're ours!"

Jing Yuan squinted—and realized they truly carried Great Ming banners.

Jing Yuan instantly rejoiced; he ordered the scout to meet them and have them pierce in from the northwest, then break out from the west to extract the Emperor.

He himself led the remaining men down the slope, charging into the enemy ranks…

Jing Yuan arrived just as the army faced its darkest hour; the Wala had chased them for a full day and night and lost patience.

Seeing them tightly guarding that streak of imperial yellow, enraged and humiliated, they ignored the Khan's order to capture him alive and immediately commanded archers to fire.

Arrows flew from all directions; Xia Zheng swung his blade, knocking them down; after a night of imagining his death, he now faced his fate squarely—his blade whirled with ferocious force, fearless, even shielding the Grand Secretary Cao Nai beside him.

Bayan Temür's face was stone; seeing Ming troops charging down the slope, he nocked an arrow and locked onto the Duke of Ying.

In his view, this Ming force had held out for a day and night solely because of the old man leading the front.

Without him, how could the Ming have broken their encirclement?

Yet they never expected reinforcements hidden in the south.

Yang Jun had failed to stop them.

Bayan Temür drew his great bow full; the arrow shot like a meteor toward the center of the crowd…

The Duke of Ying sensed it—he snapped his head up, swung his spear, barely brushing the arrow's feather; the next instant, the arrow trembled, then thudded into his left shoulder, narrowly missing the bone.

He grunted, face unchanged, swept his spear to knock down a Mongol, then clamped the spear with his arm, swiftly snapped off the arrowhead with his right hand, and kept fighting.

Jing Yuan watched from afar, heart aching—he deeply admired the Duke of Ying, yet the man was over seventy, and now, at an age meant for peace, he suffered such torment on the battlefield.

Jing Yuan swung his blade with greater force, charging toward the encirclement as if cutting down one man per stroke.

Meanwhile, the arriving cavalry surged to the outer perimeter; Bayan Temür turned and saw vast clouds of dust rising on the horizon—both west and southwest.

Unable to gauge the size of their reinforcements, he ordered: "Retreat—"

But he refused to leave without a final blow; he commanded all cavalry and archers to fire at that streak of imperial yellow, heedless of their own soldiers' lives.

As the Wala withdrew, they drew bows and shot; instantly, the sky filled with black lines of arrows, arcing upward then falling straight down.

Pan Yun arrived and saw this scene—she leapt from San Bao Ding, her sword sweeping horizontally; she reached the heads of the crowd faster than the arrows.

Her sword swept once, then zipped back to her feet; she stood upon it, formed a hand seal, and a thick stream of Yuan light spilled from her palm—whisk! —a half-circle shield materialized overhead, enclosing those trapped in the center.

The moment the Yuan shield formed, arrows rained down with a patter against it.

Pan Yun grunted, held for two breaths, then dropped; the falling arrows, like leaves drained of strength, drifted to the ground.

This supernatural sight stunned everyone—both Wala and Ming troops froze in place.

The Duke of Ying was first to recover; he pointed his spear at Bayan Temür and shouted to Pan Yun: "Kill him!"

An arrow slid past Pan Yun's hand; without hesitation, she snatched it, swung it, and hurled it—whizz!

Bayan Temür's eyes narrowed; he slashed with his long knife—but missed; the arrow thudded into his chest.

He toppled from his horse, eyes wide with fury.

Before falling, he snarled his final order: "Kill the Great Ming Emperor! At any cost—bring him to me!"

He would die dragging one of them down with him!

With their general fallen, the Wala army panicked; some scattered and fled, but more obeyed his final command, launching a desperate final assault.

Pan Yun snatched seven or eight arrows from midair, surged Yuan energy through them, and hurled them—each pierced a chest; simultaneously, she dropped from the sky, sweeping down seven or eight men, snatching a fallen horse saber, and yanking Cao Nai from beneath it, tossing him onto a horse.

Cao Nai thought he was dead—his limbs icy, slumped on the horse, yet he still remembered his duty; he pointed weakly at the imperial yellow. Pan Yun turned—just in time to see a blade pierce his back; her pupils contracted, she leapt upward, cleaving the blade aimed at his neck, swept her sword horizontally to pin the attacker before her, then held sword in one hand, reins in the other, and charged outward.

Human strength has limits; Pan Yun and the others were swallowed by the crowd; she couldn't even fly—every time she tried to seize the man before her and break out, seven or eight spears blocked her overhead, blades slashed upward from below, enemies surrounded her on all sides, not a single ally in sight.

Had Pan Yun not been powerful enough, had she not still possessed Yuan energy, the two of them would have been chopped into paste long ago.

Pan Xiaohei clung tightly to Pan Yun's lapel, waited for an opening, leapt out, raked his claws across the front—suddenly, the spear formation cracked; Pan Yun seized the chance, grabbed the man before her, pierced through the remaining spears, leapt upward—dozens of arrows flew after her; she gathered a ball of Yuan energy in her palm, hurled it backward, and ran without looking back—the arrows behind her were shattered.

Someone in the crowd shouted: "The Great Ming Emperor is dead! Retreat!"

The Wala army seized Bayan Temür's corpse and fled.

But the pursuing Ming reinforcements had no intention of letting them go—they pierced through, rescued over a dozen high-ranking civil and military officials, then swung eastward, cutting off their escape route and surrounding them for slaughter. (End of Chapter)