Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

Chapter 259 Thunderclap of the Nine Heavens

At dawn the next day, a fiery red sun rose above the horizon. Wu Yi's army, which was encamped in Xin County, had already set off. The scouts sent to Jingzhou had reported back that there was nothing unusual in Jingzhou. The two guest elders, Qingxuan and Wu Yan, were waiting for the army to arrive outside Jingzhou City with the city lord.

Originally intending to personally lead the campaign, Wu Yi changed his mind at the last minute due to the order from the Feather Palace to attack Wu Ji. He decided to remain at the Marquis's residence to observe the other five marquises' actions in their campaign against Da Chi. Before raising the army, he handed over military power to his brother-in-law, Dong Wei, allowing him to lead the troops in this campaign.

Wu Yi had long ago sent spies to investigate the strength and defenses of the Great Xia, hoping to find out why Wu Ji had suffered repeated defeats at Zhongyuan City. It was said that nearly 200,000 troops were annihilated at Zhongyuan City. Upon hearing this, Wu Yi was highly suspicious.

However, according to intelligence, the Great Xia's military strength was severely insufficient, with fewer than 40,000 soldiers. Each pass was guarded by only a few thousand soldiers, with only 3,000 soldiers guarding the Linxiang pass bordering Zhongyuan City and Jingzhou, and only 3,000 soldiers guarding the Wangxiang pass of Shangyuan City. The heavy weapon used to defend each pass was a primitive wooden frame mechanism that could throw stones, rather than magic crystal cannons and powerful crossbows.

This result was quite unexpected for Wu Yi. An army capable of defeating Wu Ji's 200,000-strong force must have numbered close to 200,000! Winning against overwhelming odds is not impossible, but the difference in troop strength between the two sides was too great.

Wu Yi believed that the Central Plains War was not as exaggerated as the outside world had made it out to be, and that there was definitely some exaggeration involved.

It's highly likely that Wu Ji underestimated her enemy and suffered a defeat, but deliberately exaggerated the situation to prevent other surrounding states from seizing Zhongyuan City. She planned to reclaim it later. She naively believed that by infinitely exaggerating Zhongyuan City's strength, the surrounding states wouldn't easily annex it. But how could Wu Yi, who had long coveted the lucrative Zhongyuan Prefecture, let this opportunity slip by?

After his spies roughly ascertained the military strength of the Great Xia Empire, Wu Yi could no longer contain himself. Upon hearing that Wu Ji was likely to be punished by the Feather Palace, he began planning this western expedition. However, he did not expect the Feather Palace to react so quickly, almost disrupting his plans. But the arrow was already on the bowstring and had to be released, so he had no choice but to change the leadership to Dong Wei before the expedition.

Dong Wei was arrogant and domineering, and was a notorious tyrannical general in Zhenglan Kingdom.

He fought like a bloodthirsty beast, with no concept of surrender in his battles, only life and death. He would not retreat until every last enemy soldier was wiped out. Sometimes, he was so ruthless that he would even kill his own soldiers. Thus, he earned the nickname "Butcher Dong" in the army.

Dong Wei hadn't led troops into battle for several years, and he was so excited about receiving such a big mission that he couldn't sleep well.

He ordered the army to break camp and set off early in the morning. The vast army moved through the jungle like a giant blue dragon. The armor and robes of the Blue Kingdom's army were all designed in a similar blue color.

Leading the army were the light infantry, clad in dark blue light armor, carrying blue-hilted sabers and iron-framed bows on their backs. They galloped forward swiftly. Next came the heavy cavalry, each clad in thick armor and wielding a long halberd. Even their warhorses were clad in armor.

Although cavalry moves very quickly, a force of nearly 80,000 to 90,000 cavalrymen, when lined up, would stretch for dozens of miles.

The light cavalry ahead were almost at the post station at the crossroads, while the heavy cavalry behind had only been there a short time.

This was the first post station from Xin County to Jingzhou. In order to receive the troops behind, the advancing light cavalry took a short rest here.

Just as the leader of the vanguard was about to dismount and enter the post station, suddenly, with a 'whoosh,' a lightning-fast arrow shot out from nowhere and struck him directly in the neck. The minor leader didn't even have time to groan before he lost his life.

Before the soldiers following behind could react, they all fell off their horses after another series of soft 'whoosh' sounds.

After a large number of them died, the advancing cavalry finally realized what was happening.

"Enemy attack!" At this moment, the team was thrown into chaos, and the soldiers drew their weapons to search for the attackers.

"There are ambushes in the houses near the forward post station!"

"Charge! Kill those enemy soldiers!"

The range of the Wind Chaser Arrow was half that of ordinary arrows, and the arrows of the light cavalry could not reach it at all. The commander had no choice but to order his soldiers to charge in and fight hand to hand in a fit of anger.

The cavalrymen also picked up their bows and arrows to exchange fire, but ordinary arrows were no match for the swift arrows. At this time, the cavalrymen were still more than a hundred feet away from the houses next to the post station, and the arrows they shot could not even reach the edge of the houses.

The Crimson Shadow Guards standing on the rooftops were all handpicked archers, armed with powerful bows and arrows. These charging cavalrymen were nothing more than sitting ducks, falling one after another along the post road.

The commanding general was furious and ordered the cavalry to split into several groups and flank the enemy from the left and right. Within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, hundreds of cavalry corpses lay on the post road. Each body had been killed with a single arrow. Clearly, the enemy was a specially trained force of sharpshooters.

Just as the three cavalry forces were about to converge and close in, the enemy soldiers suddenly withdrew their bows and arrows, climbed down from the rooftops, and hid inside the post station. The encircling cavalry, seeing this, assumed the enemy had run out of arrows and had no choice but to retreat. Then someone shouted:

"Charge! The enemy has run out of arrows!"

Just as hundreds of warhorses gathered and galloped towards the post station, a row of crossbows suddenly appeared from the station's wall, 'Whoosh, whoosh,...'

Fifty crossbows fired simultaneously, each magic-piercing arrow accurately striking the enemy ranks.

Boom! Boom! Boom! ...

Fifty demon-slaying arrows exploded simultaneously, blasting hundreds of cavalrymen and their horses into pieces with the powerful force of the arrows.

The sudden explosion startled the cavalrymen behind, who hastily retreated. Terrified, they nearly cursed, "Who said the enemy had no arrows? Aren't the Demon-Slaying Arrows arrows?"

Just as the cavalry behind hesitated, fifty identical chestnut warhorses galloped out of the post station, charging towards them with lightning speed.

Just as the cavalry were preparing to engage, the warhorses suddenly turned around and fled, firing a volley of magic-piercing arrows at the enemy as they ran.

Amidst another barrage of bombardments, fifty Crimson Cloud Horses galloped away in a cloud of dust.

"It's the Crimson Cloud Horse! It's the Great Crimson Cloud Horse! How did the enemy get to our rear? Where are the scouts? Where are the spies? Where is Wu Yan? Where are the garrison troops of Jingzhou?... What's going on? Are they all fast asleep? So many troops, appearing so brazenly in front of us, what kind of nonsense is this?"

The commander of the light cavalry arrived at the scene of devastation and began to shout and curse hysterically.

"Chou Wen! Take two thousand cavalry and give chase! No matter where they run, pursue them and kill them!"

"Yes, sir!" A cavalry captain accepted the order and led two thousand cavalrymen in pursuit. Although the warhorses of the Zhenglan Kingdom's cavalry were of good quality, they were still considerably slower than Mingjun's. But there was no other way; orders had to be obeyed. Whether they could catch up was uncertain, but they could at least keep track.

After Qiu Wen led two thousand cavalry in pursuit, the commander ordered someone to send a talisman to the rear commander Dong Wei, reporting the attack.

"Clear the battlefield, then advance in combat formation."

After sending out the talisman, the light cavalry commander immediately ordered his troops to advance.

￥%

"Interesting! I didn't expect someone surnamed Su to pull this stunt! But in the face of absolute power, all those little tricks are futile. Just you wait and see! I, Dong Wei, will definitely give your whole family a quick death! Haha..."

Dong Wei paid no attention to the message sent by the light cavalry at the front. Instead, it fueled his bloodlust. His mind was filled with images of wielding a large sword and hacking wildly through a river of blood.

As the Grand Tutor of the Great Xia Empire, Su Yangyan outwardly appeared as the supreme leader of the Great Xia, leading those unaware of his true identity to believe he was a prince of the Great Xia. The powerful clans and princes, such as Wu Yi, thus judged Su Yangyan to be the king of the Great Xia Empire based on their ancestral rules.

……

Fifty red-cloud horses galloped swiftly along the post road toward Jingzhou City, with Qiu Wen leading two thousand light cavalry in hot pursuit. An hour later, they had already pulled far ahead of the main force. It was nearly noon, and the early autumn sun was growing increasingly intense.

Qiu Wen was already parched, and his mount was panting heavily, nearing exhaustion. Just as he was becoming increasingly agitated, his second-in-command said:

"Commander Qiu, the enemy ahead seems to have slowed down!"

Upon closer inspection, Qiu Wen confirmed it was true. Previously, he could only see the dust kicked up by their horses, but now he could see their silhouettes. The distance was at most a thousand feet.

Where are we now?

"I can't help but ask," Qiu Wen asked.

"The Xiajing Post Station is just down the hillside ahead. It will take about an hour to reach Jingzhou City after passing the post station."

Is there a fork in the road at the next post station?

“There is a side road that runs along the northern outskirts of Jingzhou and leads directly to Wangxiang Town in Zhongyuan County.”

"No matter which road they take, the general has surely already sent a message to Jingzhou City, and the garrison of Jingzhou must have set up ambushes on both roads. As long as they continue to flee along the official road, they will ultimately meet their demise!"

"I can't believe it," Qiu Wen said confidently.

"Keep speeding up the chase, they can't get much further!"

The Xiajing Post Station was built at the foot of a hill. About ten feet in front of the post station, there was a fork in the road. One fork extended northward along the foot of the mountain, and after seventy li, it bypassed the northern suburbs of Jingzhou and went directly to Wangxiang Town in the Central Plains City, a journey of more than one hundred and fifty li.

The other road leads west for less than a hundred miles to Jingzhou City. Because it is close to the Monster Mountain Range, the slopes on both sides of the post road are steeper than the previous one.

After galloping past the post station, the fifty red-clouded horses turned and ran towards the post road leading to Wangxiang Town.

"So you really want to escape back to the Central Plains! But do you think you can get away?"

Qiu Wen looked at the enemy troops rushing ahead from afar and sneered.

"Quick, chase them! Don't let them get too far!"

Two thousand light cavalrymen also left a long trail of dust on the post road as they chased after the Crimson Shadow Guards.

After passing the post station, the road ahead wound through mountain valleys, with more and more bends. Qiu Wen had no choice but to lead his troops to pursue faster, lest the enemy use the bends as cover to escape their pursuit.

Qiu Wen, who had been relentlessly pursuing the enemy, never expected that shortly after their cavalry passed the Xiajing post station, fifty chestnut horses would quietly emerge from the station, carrying the same Crimson Shadow Guard soldiers they were chasing. They were silently following behind them.

About ten li past Xiajing Post Station, there is a winding post road. After navigating ten bends, a flat canyon about three hundred zhang long appears ahead. Although the mountains on both sides of the canyon are not particularly steep, they are still extremely difficult to traverse.

Just as Qiu Wen led his cavalry to this location, they discovered that the fifty Crimson Shadow Guards were lined up in the middle of the post road at the exit of the Grand Canyon, blocking their path.

"Are these enemy bandits insane? Instead of continuing to flee, do they think they can challenge our two thousand men with just fifty of them? This is not the place we went before. There were houses and trees blocking the way, which is why you were able to launch a sneak attack and kill about five hundred of us. Here, you can kill at most a hundred of us, and then we can wipe you all out without a burial place."

Seeing that the enemy was no longer fleeing, Qiu Wen ordered all cavalry to spread out and advance in battle formation.

Just as the cavalry drew closer to the Crimson Shadow Guard, a commotion suddenly erupted behind them for no apparent reason. Qiu Wen turned around and was almost stunned.

Behind the two thousand cavalrymen, fifty more Crimson Shadow Guards, riding chestnut-red horses and wielding powerful black iron bows, appeared out of nowhere. They were using Wind-Chasing Arrows to shoot down the cavalrymen behind them from a distance. In the blink of an eye, dozens of them had been shot to the ground by the Wind-Chasing Arrows.

Qiu Wen hurriedly ordered the soldiers behind him to turn their horses around and form a battle formation, preparing to meet the enemy. Just then, the hundred Crimson Shadow Guards who had surrounded Qiu Wen's two thousand cavalrymen from the front and rear all shouldered a strange, three-foot-long iron cannon barrel.

'boom!……'

The hundred demon-slaying bullets were fired rapidly from the cannon barrels, flying over a distance of more than a hundred feet before landing in the cavalry ranks.

"Quickly, use your internal energy to defend!"

When Qiu Wen saw the Crimson Shadow Guards firing strange bullets into the ranks, he didn't know what they were, but his intuition told him that these egg-sized objects were definitely dangerous, so he hurriedly gave the order.

The projectiles initially fell without warning. But as the cavalrymen activated their defensive techniques, the hundred demon-piercing projectiles exploded almost simultaneously.

"Oh!"

A deep, muffled roar, like a thunderclap from the heavens, resounded through the canyon. After the initial thud, the entire canyon trembled.

A massive mushroom cloud, over a hundred feet high and several hundred feet in diameter, rose from the center of the more than three-hundred-foot-long canyon. Even the normally steadfast Crimson Cloud Horse was startled by the enormous explosion, neighing and leaping about. Had someone not been holding the reins, they would likely have scattered and fled.

The Crimson Cloud Guards were also badly shaken; their blood was churning and their hearts were pounding. Several of them were even thrown off their horses by the shockwave.

This was the first time they had ever fired so many anti-magic bullets at the same time. They hadn't expected that the explosion of a hundred anti-magic bullets together would have such great power. Fortunately, they were far enough apart, otherwise they themselves would have been injured.

When the dust settled in the canyon, a scene of utter carnage appeared before them: two thousand light cavalrymen of the Zhenglan Kingdom had been completely annihilated, and everywhere there were broken flesh and limbs, making it impossible to distinguish which were the remains of horses and which were the remains of men.

Of the two thousand cavalrymen in the canyon, only a hundred or so remained intact. This was because these men and women were on the edge of the explosion and were not directly hit by it. They were killed by the shockwave of the explosion. They all bled from their seven orifices and collapsed to the ground dead.

Even the Crimson Shadow Guards standing a hundred feet away were shaken by the shockwave during the explosion, causing their blood to churn. How much more so those within the blast radius!