Chapter 467: Mounted Archery

467. Chapter 467: Mounted Archery

"Chief Zhang, the bandits are closing in on the left!" someone else shouted in panic, and another wave of commotion followed. Some of the jianghu men who wanted to flee spotted the enemy's movements from the left stockade wall. Li Dajin was leading the Feng family's private troops, pressing in on them.

Zhang Hubin drew a deep breath, tightened his grip on the long spear, and was about to speak, but his throat felt blocked.

On that section of the stockade wall where the slope had been piled up, the enemy squad that had appeared earlier still hadn't moved, but their archers were beginning to mount the wall, taking their positions one by one atop it.

Standing on the wall gave them the high ground, shooting arrows down into the stockade where there was almost no cover. Everyone would become a target. Even hiding in the shacks would mean waiting to be caught like turtles in a jar. The battle was already lost. Zhang Hubin felt an icy chill run through his entire body. The master had entrusted him with such a critical situation, and now it was finished, just like that. And he had been hoping to advance even further...

Even those who knew nothing of military strategy could see how hopeless the situation was. Some howled in despair, others began to wail. The last of the refugees' fighting spirit completely evaporated. Many threw away their bamboo spears, many turned and ran. The shacks could still offer some hiding. Hide, and then beg for mercy later.

A wretched life is still better than a good death. If they could survive, what did it matter if they had to toil like beasts of burden? A total collapse was imminent.

Zhang Hubin's face was ashen. He took a deep breath and suddenly bellowed, "Those willing to fight to the death, fight them to the death—!"

His words cut off abruptly mid-sentence. Zhang Hubin saw that the enemy on the stockade wall had not begun their attack. Instead, they were turning their heads to look outward. Shouts came from outside. Those archers who had already taken their positions on the wall and begun to draw their bows hastily jumped back down.

"... Horsemen... a mounted troop... a large force..." someone on the other side stammered, their voice so strained it had changed pitch.

Zhang Hubin's body trembled. Who was it? Reinforcements were unlikely—by any calculation, they still needed two more days to arrive! If it was the enemy, even a third-party enemy, the stockade couldn't hold. If both sides were in league, then it would be utter catastrophe!

"It's Zhao's Camp! It's Zhao's Camp!" someone shouted at the top of their lungs.

The stockade fell silent in an instant. Only that one man's shouting remained. The man's voice had gone hoarse, sounding like some wild beast howling—hideous beyond measure, especially with the sobbing mixed in.

"No one but Zhao's Camp wears that much iron! That's Zhao's Camp! That's Zhao's Camp!"

Frenzied shouts and howls erupted in an instant. Even louder mad laughter and wailing burst forth. Zhang Hubin roared at the sky. They had really come. Reinforcements had really come. How could they have arrived so fast!

After roaring, Zhang Hubin shouted again, "Form up! Get in order! We're charging back out! Archers, get over here, now!"

At that moment, few could actually form up or get in order. But the refugees, having spent several months in Xuzhou, knew perfectly well what Zhao's Camp was. This was a swing from utter despair to wild joy. No one had held any real hope for reinforcements, yet they had actually come!

The refugees shouted and yelled wildly, women even shrieking. Everyone seemed to have gone mad. Those who had thrown away their bamboo spears ran back to pick them up. Everyone began regrouping around Zhang Hubin once more.

The refugee stockade was on the verge of being completely taken, with no suspense left at all. Li He's mind was no longer really on it. He was calculating how much profit he could reap from this. All these outlaws would have to be silenced. The silver given to these outlaws would all become his, plus there would be reward silver and benefits from the Feng family. Li He was also thinking about how he would report a few extra casualties to his commanding officer—the Wolf Mountain Vice Regional Commander—to offset the vacancies in his own ranks and stop people from constantly eyeing him.

Right in the middle of his calculations, Li He sensed something. Years of military experience made him react instinctively: a large mounted force was approaching!

The horses around him grew restless. Some riders had already dismounted and pressed their ears to the ground. The moment their ears touched the earth, their faces changed.

"Five hundred. At least seven hundred!" Li He's trusted aide said, his voice trembling.

"Go find Big Li, quick! Ask him if the Feng family is sending anyone else!" Li He shouted urgently.

Before they could even send someone to ask, Li Dajin was already leading the Feng family's militia and private troops back around, his expression equally grim.

"It can't be the Feng family. They've already emptied their coffers for this operation!"

Even for a family as wealthy as the Fengs, the number of militia and private troops they could field was very limited. Some couldn't even be reassigned—the household guards and escorts at various properties, the overseers at the salt farms and estates, and the armed escorts for the salt convoys. None of these could be moved. Being able to produce nearly a thousand men at once was already staggering.

The Feng family wouldn't invest too heavily in this, either. After all, they relied on the salt trade to make their fortune, not on blades and spears. The private guards and troops were merely a means to earn even more money.

If they were to maintain another seven hundred cavalry, then the Feng family would no longer be about protecting salt and making money—they would have other designs. Besides, in the very heart of Yangzhou, if they dared such reckless behavior, the other salt merchants would certainly not let it slide.

"Could it be those grass-nest bandits? No—the pole-bearers of Huai'an Prefecture?"

"How is that possible? If the grass-nests had a pole-bearing gang that big, our Feng family would definitely know. Enough talk. Pull the troops together and prepare. That stockade is already broken—we can smash it anytime!" Li Dajin concluded.

By this point, no one cared about anything else. They immediately began calling back their forces.

They could see a large mounted force appearing to the west. The sun was setting in the west, its evening rays pouring over the riders, and they could clearly see reflected light gleaming. Nearly two hundred figures were reflecting the light, looking as if they were wrapped in radiance.

Among the Feng family's main force, those who understood what they were seeing all drew a sharp breath. That gleam could only be the reflection of armor. Who on earth was coming, to be clad in so much iron!

The large mounted force halted about three hundred paces from the Feng family's main force. Many riders dismounted directly, pulling their weapons from where they hung on their horses. Before long, three horizontal ranks had formed amid the grass. They could see long spears like a forest!

"Zhao's Camp!" Li Dajin practically ground the three words out through his teeth.

Such horizontal ranks, such armor, such long spears—in all the lands north of the Yangtze, only Zhao's Camp had them.

Just then, they heard the whistling shriek of arrows tearing through the air. Li Dajin immediately roared in fury, "At this distance? Who's loosing arrows without orders? Listen to my—"

He had assumed it was his own archers drawing and shooting. After shouting a couple of lines, he immediately realized he was wrong. The whistling shrieks were coming from behind the force, from the flank.

Chaos had already broken out behind and on the flank. From the grass in that direction, arrows kept whistling out in volleys. The troops under Li Dajin and Li He were both large formations, currently standing in rather dense ranks. Each volley from that direction loosed several dozen arrows at a time, and the rate of fire was quite intense. In that brief span, many men screamed and fell to the ground, while the rest scattered in disarray.

"Send the archers over there! Send the cavalry!" Li He barked orders in fury.

Before he even finished speaking, they saw several dozen figures emerge from the grass, sprinting rapidly into the distance. Only then did everyone notice that, about two hundred paces from the formation, several dozen horses had been waiting there, no one knew for how long.

"Chase them down!" Li Dajin shouted. Had Zhao's Camp lost their minds, sending archers over for a sneak attack? Whatever the case, they should cut down these archers first—it would give them an advantage when the real fighting started.

The Feng family's cavalry were already charging forward with battle cries. The Feng family's squad leaders were all vying to be first. Chasing foot soldiers on horseback was easy merit no matter how you looked at it. As for that horizontal rank of armored spearmen over there—though their numbers were far smaller, just looking at them made one's heart quail.

The several dozen figures over there had already mounted their horses. The Feng cavalry were still a few dozen paces from catching up. For those several dozen raiders, they were still outnumbered—the most sensible thing to do right now was flee.

No one expected that those several dozen men did not move. Instead, they once again drew their bows and nocked arrows from horseback. Whistling sounds rang out, arrows flew, and more men in the foremost ranks of the Feng cavalry screamed and fell from their horses. What happened next was even stranger. This group did not ride off into the distance. Instead, they wheeled in a circle and came around to the Feng cavalry's flank. As they drew closer and closer, the Feng cavalry roared in fury and drew their weapons, ready to fight.

At a distance of a dozen or so paces, those several dozen mounted raiders controlled their horses with their legs alone, drawing bows and loosing arrows from the saddle. At this range, their mounted archery was dead on target. Bowstrings twanged, and another wave of carnage followed.

"In the entire Southern Metropolitan Region, who has bow-and-horse skills like this..." Li He stared at Li Dajin in horror.

Li Dajin ignored Li He and simply bellowed, "Pull them back! Pull them back! Send the archers forward!"

Only after watching the messenger run off did Li Dajin say through gritted teeth, "Brigade Commander Zhou has a dozen or so. The commanding officer has thirty-some. The Central Capital has a few dozen. Nanjing has a few hundred. But none of those men would ever come here—they're the apple of their masters' eyes. Where in the hell did Zhao Jin find these men!"

For cavalry to even understand mounted archery was difficult enough; to have such accuracy marked them as elite troops. In the lands south of the Yangtze, only a few great nobles in Nanjing, the Grand Defender eunuch in Fengyang, and major commanders like the Wolf Mountain Vice Regional Commander and the Xuzhou Brigade Commander would have such men. But elite troops like these would absolutely never end up in Zhao Jin's hands.

The Feng family's mounted troop was already in panic and disarray. Some thought that if they closed the distance, they wouldn't have to fear the arrows and could fight hand-to-hand. But those squad leaders from the Feng family, watching the whistling arrows fly, no longer had the nerve to continue the pursuit. Hearts and gallbladders shattered with terror, they wheeled their horses around. Some jumped straight off their horses, clutching their heads and crouching in the grass.

Wheeling and halting at a full gallop, they crashed into one another, the chaos growing even worse. Those several dozen riders, superb in mounted archery, whooped and hollered from horseback, skirting the edge of the Feng family's main force as they circled back. Another few dozen men in the Feng force, too slow to dodge, were struck directly by arrows.

By the time the archers came running over, it was too late. They could only watch helplessly as those several dozen riders returned to Zhao Jin's formation.

That formation had shifted again. Besides the three square blocks of horizontal ranks, several dozen more men had dismounted and were scattered loosely among the units. The several dozen riders who had carried out the harassing mounted archery also dismounted upon returning to their main force and moved together with those several dozen others.