Chapter 306: Big Trouble

The reward was two thousand taels of white silver, plus the position of congregation master. The followers of the Fragrance Sect all knew the weight of this promise, and over a thousand of them were shouting in excitement.

"Take me to find Liu Cheng. Are his several hundred cavalry riders useless now or what!" After Xu Hongju said this, he took his men and left.

Over on that side, the brothers Luo Yu and Luo Pei were issuing orders, glancing from time to time at Hou Wu and Xia Zhongjin, their eyes and expressions thoroughly provocative. Hou Wu and Xia Zhongjin each stood surrounded by a dozen or so trusted guards, watching as Xu Hongju walked off into the distance. Only then did Xia Zhongjin let out an angry snort. Hou Wu said in a low voice, "He Weiyuan's whole family was wiped out — that's always been Second Master's heartache. Our Second Master is fine in every way, it's just that this jianghu streak of his runs a bit too deep."

The trusted men on the outer ring tactfully moved farther away. Xia Zhongjin sneered and said, "What can those Luo brothers, a pair of deserters from Ji Garrison, possibly accomplish? You think they can turn the tables? This mob of refugees is just a single surge of momentum — once it breaks, it's useless. Honestly, I just hope they don't end up unable to get away when the time comes."

"Why say so much? He's not going to the front himself anyway. When the time comes, he'll be taken away no matter what," Hou Wu said quietly.

The advancing Zhao Camp naturally had no idea what was happening over there. The Zhao Camp main unit and the two mixed units could barely kill anyone now. All they could see were the enemy's backs. Even the archers within the formation had stopped shooting, because most of the refugees were fleeing and scattering beyond bow range. Only the occasional few, utterly broken by despair, simply sat or lay on the ground, pleading for mercy in the faintest of voices — such targets were truly a waste of arrows.

The various local militia and trained bands following behind were spreading out on a large scale. At this point, only they could still kill refugees, because out of this force of several thousand, aside from the twelve hundred at the front, the rest had all fanned out to the wings. The line was simply too wide. Jostling against each other, the refugees fleeing in chaos had no way to avoid them.

That said, even these trained bands could not kill very many. The refugees were all running — no one was stupid enough to go over and fight to the death.

"Master Jin is truly the best in all of Xuzhou!"

"... When we were coming here, we thought it would be a mountain of blades and a sea of flames. Never imagined it'd be a bunch of trash like this..."

"... If Master Jin weren't leading us, you think we could have won?"

Excited chatter could already be heard. Those trained bands from various places and the Xuzhou warriors who had come with the mindset of embracing a righteous death were all brimming with excitement. Several thousand against tens of thousands — beforehand, every single one of them had thought it would be an agonizingly bitter fight. No one had imagined it would turn into such an easy victory.

"Don't let the drumbeat falter — keep advancing!" Zhao Jin, however, was not that agitated and kept calling out reminders.

The refugees were a human sea, a human wave. Zhao Jin remained calm, but the drummer behind him was somewhat worked up. The drumbeat went wrong several times, and with it the marching pace fell into disorder, the formation growing rather ragged.

Just like that, Zhao Camp made its way all the way to the edge of the moat. This place could truly be called a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Beneath the city wall, bodies were everywhere. The wall bricks had already changed color, covered entirely in bloodstains. On both sides of that slope leading straight up to the top of the wall lay corpses and severed limbs — the slope itself was formed from bodies and earth.

"What smells so fragrant?" someone muttered, and then immediately realized, retching violently. The fragrance came from the refugees killed by boiling oil and scalding water.

The reinforcements from various places, who had come so eagerly, finally fell silent. But atop the city wall, an enormous cheer erupted — cheers mixed with the wailing sobs of those who had survived the calamity.

"Xuzhou is saved!"

"Xuzhou is safe!"

"Heaven be praised!"

All kinds of shouting, along with wild laughter and unrestrained weeping. Everyone was venting their emotions. Such wild joy stirred the reinforcements below the wall to excitement as well; they could not help but wave their weapons toward the wall top in salute. Zhao Jin drew a deep breath and shouted, "Formation — left turn!"

The order was given. The first man on the left of the Zhao Camp main unit's front row began marking time, and the entire formation wheeled to the left. The bulk of the refugees were on the left side of the city wall — that is, in the direction facing north.

"They just turned like that?"

"Motherless thieves, they turned and still didn't break formation!"

Most of the people atop the wall were too busy cheering to think much of what they saw below. But Squad Commander Wang and Squad Commander Liang, who were lying there watching, were stunned. They had not expected Zhao Camp to be capable of such a formation change. It was not that the Great Ming's official army could not do this, but any unit that could was among the very finest elite crack troops.

"They say General Qi's troops could do this, but who's ever seen it with their own eyes?" Squad Commander Wang murmured.

In truth, after the Zhao Camp main unit below the wall completed its turn, its formation was somewhat skewed, and the two mixed units no longer looked like proper formations at all — yet they still maintained a semblance of order. As for those volunteer trained bands behind them, they were a complete mess, just following along in a noisy, chaotic rush. Fortunately, with Zhao Camp screening the front, they did not have to worry about being ambushed or anything of the sort.

"Dress ranks! Align the formation!" Zhao Jin ordered. The suona horn sounded the command, the drumbeat quickened, and every unit swiftly reorganized its formation. The archers, too, had more or less learned some discipline by now; during formation changes, they did their best to stay in the rear, and at this moment they were hugging the two flanks.

"... Pass on my order: Dong Bingfeng leads the cavalry unit to scatter and thoroughly drive off the refugees behind our main formation. All other units continue advancing — drive the refugees north!" Besides shooting arrows, Zhao Camp's own archers also served as signal runners.

Upon hearing this, archers immediately ran off in all directions. From the moment they first engaged the enemy until now, the nearly four hundred mounted troops had been following behind the main force the entire time, never once committing to action. Originally, these mounted men had thought they would be the main effort, but after seeing the results achieved by the infantry units ahead, they understood that even if the cavalry had led the charge, they might not have done this well. Moreover, with this vast sea of people, a few hundred cavalry — not even operating as a single block — could easily get bogged down and lost.

The moment the order came, the mounted men, who had been holding back all this time, grew excited. With shouts and hollers, weapons in hand, they urged their horses forward and wheeled around, following Dong Bingfeng and a few veteran cavalrymen.

Zhao Camp, this relief force, was a massive wedge driven into the tens of thousands of refugees beneath the city wall. After reaching the wall, using the western face of the Xuzhou city wall as a boundary, it had split the refugees into two sections. The northern side held the great majority; the southern side held only a minority.

Before coming, Zhao Jin had already made a plan. If the refugees were simply scattered completely, the Xuzhou countryside would still suffer. To render the refugees as harmless as possible, they had to be driven from beneath the wall northward. To the north was the Yellow River — that area had already been laid waste by the refugees, so there was nothing to worry about there. Moreover, the Yellow River itself was a barrier; they could trap the refugees there and then deal with them.

The refugees on the southern side were already fleeing and had no way to resist the cavalry unit that had been conserving its strength and not yet moved. What Dong Bingfeng and his men had to do was very simple: wherever there was a crowd, they would drive their horses charging toward it, thoroughly scattering the people and chasing them far away.

Zhao Jin drew a deep breath, only to be sent coughing by the dust and the acrid stench. Dust still swirled in the air. Though the sun was setting in the west, Zhao Jin, still wearing his armor, remained stiflingly hot; the armor's inner lining was already soaked through with sweat.

"Sound the order — beat the drums, advance!" Zhao Jin said in a muffled voice.

The shrill suona horn sounded, the drums beat, and the Zhao Camp main unit stepped forward. The two mixed units followed, and behind them the various other units surged forward with battle cries. The refugees ahead were already over a hundred paces away. It was not that they did not want to run farther, but with tens of thousands of people packed together, even trampling and killing each other, they could not scatter in a short time.

"Big Brother, we've won, right?" Shi Manqiang beside him spoke up. Though his voice was somewhat muffled by the helmet and face guard, his tone was still quite relaxed.

Today's battle had gone far too smoothly. They had set out before dawn, thrown themselves into the fight upon arrival, and from then on it had been a relentless, crushing advance — not a single obstacle before them.

Zhao Jin stared ahead, advancing step by step. He paused for a moment before speaking: "We haven't won yet. You heard the reports too, and you saw that slope leading straight to the top of the wall. If the refugees were truly a disorganized mob, how could they have fought to this extent? Look at how many have died beneath the wall. If they were just starving people, they would have scattered long ago..."

Hearing this, Shi Manqiang immediately fell silent. Having fought through all those bloody battles, Shi Manqiang of course understood what this meant. Casualties like these would have routed even the toughest bandit gangs. Yet the refugees had kept it up the entire time and even built that great slope of earth and flesh and blood. Either these refugees were fanatical and fierce enough — which the earlier engagement had proven they were not — or they still had not been broken.

"Big Brother, do you hear something?" Liu Yong beside him suddenly said.

Uproar, wailing, battle cries, even cheers. Footsteps, hoofbeats, shouts of kill. The drumming in their ears and the clanking of armor. It was very hard to make out any particular sound clearly. But Liu Yong would not speak recklessly. Zhao Jin paused — his ears indeed caught something.

It seemed the refugees up ahead were shouting something in unison. But it did not seem to be this disorganized mob in front of them shouting. These refugees before them seemed to be slowing their flight...

"... Maitreya..." A sound drifted faintly to his ears. Someone was indeed shouting.

The refugees within Zhao Camp's line of sight grew slower and slower. Some archers had already spotted the easy opportunity and were quickly stepping forward to shoot, felling swaths of people.

"... Maitreya... descend... homeland..." The voice grew louder, more and more distinct. The footsteps of the refugees ahead came to a halt. Now they could clearly see the refugees parting to the left and right, and some were even charging toward Zhao Camp.

The moat was not very deep, but it could still drown a person. Yet some refugees, heedless of everything, were jumping straight into it.

"Halt! Halt!" Zhao Jin bellowed. The drums and suona horn sounded separately. The main force still advanced two more steps before stopping. The archers had already gathered in front of the Zhao Camp main unit, excitedly drawing their bows and loosing arrows at the refugees ahead — they were nothing but targets.

"Stop shooting!" Zhao Jin roared. The household guards beside him roared as well. After a few shouts, the archers all turned back with puzzled looks.

"The enemy is about to come out — shoot at the enemy!" Zhao Jin roared again.

The archers were all baffled. Were the refugees not the enemy? Still, having followed Zhao Jin since entering the battlefield, they had at least grown accustomed to his orders, and each of them stopped.

"Draw bows and nock arrows — quickly!" Zhao Jin roared again. Big trouble was coming...