Chapter 63: Iron Beast

After the Nanzhao army appeared below the earthen slope, Zhao Huai'an immediately ordered Zhao Liu to wave the military flag and command the entire army to charge.

No specific formation was needed; they simply needed to charge directly downward and capture or behead the enemy generals.

Just as the Nanzhao cavalryman Duan Zhongjian had judged, Zhao Huai'an also believed this battle was a guaranteed victory, though his reasoning was not based on abstract theories, but on a single point.

That was, after routing the Fengxiang army in the east, those Nanzhao troops had taken off their armor and placed it on the supply carts trailing behind for the march.

And what was the condition of the thousand-man Baoyi Contingent under his command?

Out of the seven hundred and eighty officers and soldiers in the entire army, four hundred and thirty were armored heavy infantry wearing iron armor, while the rest wore rhinoceros-hide armor, achieving a hundred percent armor-wearing rate.

At this moment, except for Sun Tai and Zhao Hu, who remained behind the standard with a portion of the elite guards as reserves, all the remaining fourteen squads plunged like tigers descending the mountain straight into the bewildered Nanzhao supply convoy.

This was the first time Zhao Huai'an did not lead the charge in person, remaining instead at a high vantage point to oversee the overall situation. Thus, despite his great confidence, he could not help but tightly grip the hilt of his saber.

This time, they had to win!

...

As Zhao Huai'an stood upon the slope overseeing the battlefield, the first to charge into the Nanzhao supply convoy was a squad of elite armored guards. Among them, one warrior was particularly fierce and valorous, thrusting forward like a wild boar.

This man wore triple-layered armor: underneath was an iron lamellar skirt armor, within that a chain-mail hauberk, at his waist a leather-and-iron skirt armor, on both shoulders hanging chain-mail pauldrons, and protecting his front, chest, and back was a leather-and-iron cuirass.

Over all this, he wore an additional iron pauldron, leather-and-iron arm guards, and a flared-ear helmet. In his hands, he wielded a long-handled iron mace, charging into the ranks of the Nanzhao army like an iron beast.

He was Han Qiong, also known as Han the Harrier, who had previously been knocked unconscious by Zhao Huai'an.

Through the slits of his iron helmet's visor, Han Qiong stared fixedly at the armored Nanzhao general not far away. The octagonal helmet upon the man's head, adorned with precious feathers, clearly revealed his status.

Han Qiong's eyes burned with determination as he thought to himself:

"That man must be the enemy commander. I must capture and behead him to present to the commander."

After his bout with Zhao Huai'an, Han Qiong had been completely subdued.

Now, he simply wanted to distinguish himself among the elite guards and secure the rank of squad leader, so as not to waste his martial prowess. That enemy general was precisely Han the Harrier's stepping stone to advancement.

After casually crushing the skulls of two oblivious Nanzhao enemy soldiers, he charged straight toward the Nanzhao commander.

...

At this very moment, although Wumeng Long's forces were in disarray, he quickly organized a defense.

He ordered the archers and crossbowmen in his army to form three ranks and fire upon the Tang troops charging down the hillside, while also organizing the pikemen and halberdiers to form a defensive array along the dirt road. As for the remaining swordsmen and shield-bearers, they immediately seized the moment to don their armor.

Wumeng Long himself drew a man-tall longbow. Renowned as the premier archer among the thirty-six tribes of eastern Dian, he had established his dominance precisely by relying on this longbow.

Others strung their bows only when facing battle and slackened the bowstrings at all times, but Wumeng Long was different. No matter the occasion, he always carried a strung longbow with him, regardless of whether it would damage the bowstring.

This was a habit he had cultivated while hunting in the deep forests, for one never knew what beast might be encountered next.

It was precisely this habit that proved useful now.

Wumeng Long raised his longbow, his left hand receiving five armor-piercing arrows handed over by his bodyguard, while his right hand nocked an arrow. Drawing the bow more than halfway, he loosed an armor-piercing arrow.

Immediately afterward, Wumeng Long drew another arrow from his left hand and repeated the action, loosing five arrows in rapid succession.

Because the Baoyi Contingent was charging down the hillside in a dense formation, although Wumeng Long had not deliberately aimed, he still struck four men.

Four armored soldiers of the Baoyi Contingent cried out in agony and collapsed to the ground, pierced by arrows.

At this moment, the bodyguards surrounding Wumeng Long saw their military lord display such divine archery and let out rousing cheers, their morale instantly soaring.

Yet it was precisely this conspicuous display that drew the attention of the squad leaders of the Baoyi Contingent.

Those closer by, such as Sun Chuanwei, Han Tong, and Qian Tiefu, upon seeing the enemy general adorned with feathers, roared in excitement and led their respective squads charging toward this direction.

However, the Nanzhao army's supply carts were jammed all along the dirt road, and the space in between was tightly packed with Nanzhao soldiers holding their halberdiers outward. Even with all their will, Sun Chuanwei and the others could only lament in frustration, entirely unable to break through for the moment.

...

On the contrary, this crowded and congested environment became a playground for Wumeng Long to display his prowess. Shielded by bodyguards holding tall shields, he wielded his longbow to shoot down the armored soldiers of the Baoyi army.

Meanwhile, other Nanzhao soldiers also unhooked crossbows from their waists, cranked the strings, and fired back.

For a moment, the nearly collapsing situation was actually stabilized by the Nanzhao army.

Pity that Wumeng Long and his bodyguards, entirely preoccupied with holding shields to block all directions, failed to notice that a squad of Tang elite iron-clad guards was churning up a trail of blood as they drew ever closer.

...

Three more souls perished beneath Han Qiong's iron mace.

He could not help but marvel that comrades were indeed different from comrades.

Previously, the men in his old squad would only scramble to snatch enemy heads from behind him. Now, having joined the elite guards, these companions wholeheartedly covered his flanks, allowing him to charge and kill without distraction.

At this moment, he grew even more eager to establish military merit and win glory and bounties for his companions.

Yet the miscellaneous soldiers ahead were simply too obstructive. Crowded together though they were, none of them wore iron armor, and beneath his iron mace, every single one was a one-hit kill.

Yet there were simply too many of these people.

At that moment, Han Qiong saw a squad of comrades charging in from the flank and shouted hastily:

"Quickly clear out these rabble!"

Without waiting to see the ugly expression on the face of the squad leader leading that detachment, Han Qiong squeezed past them with the elite guards trailing behind, leaving the battlefield to those men.

With the joining of their comrades, Han Qiong and his men closed in step by step.

A long spear swept horizontally, but Han Qiong did not evade at all, relying on his armor to take the blow head-on before backhanding his iron mace straight into the man's lower abdomen, sending him vomiting blood and collapsing to the ground.

Without breaking stride, Han Qiong's squad pressed forward bravely, shouting at the top of their lungs until their voices grew hoarse.

Just as they were about to approach the enemy commander, Han Qiong suddenly spotted a detachment of enemy armored troops approaching from the side.

Covered by other Nanzhao troops, those men had been donning their armor in the rear. Now, having finally finished, they immediately converged toward their commander.

At this, Han Qiong could no longer hold back. He shouted to the six elite guard warriors behind him:

"You bastards, in this wave we must slaughter that fellow! Otherwise, once those armored troops come up and surround us, we'll all die. Fight it out with me!"

With that, Han Qiong directly unfastened his outermost leather-and-iron cuirass. Wearing only his chain mail, he took a large axe handed over by a companion and lunged forward with a fierce roar.

The six elite guards behind him were also fired up by Han Qiong's spirit. One after another, they cast off their outermost iron armor, grasped sabers, axes, maces, and hammers, and surged forward like madmen in Han Qiong's wake.

Han Qiong and his men trampled over piles upon piles of corpses. Along the way, one warrior tripped, but quickly leapt back up with the help of a companion and caught up.

At this moment, the Nanzhao army and the Baoyi Contingent were completely interlocked in a chaotic melee, devoid of any formation.

The situation was intensely critical.

...

Standing upon the hillside, Zhao Huai'an took in the entire battlefield at a glance. He never expected the battle to turn out this way.

Clearly lacking armor entirely, those Nanzhao soldiers had relied on halberdiers, bows, and crossbows, seizing favorable terrain to withstand the charge of the Baoyi elite armored soldiers.

He could even repeatedly witness tribal soldiers armed only with short weapons charging out of the formation with utter disregard for death, launching desperate counter-charges against the iron troops of the Baoyi Contingent.

Such suicidal charges were made simply to buy time for their comrades in the rear to don their armor.

Only now did Zhao Huai'an realize he had miscalculated one point earlier.

Duan Zhongjian had previously told him that this Nanzhao army belonged to one of the thirty-six tribes of eastern Dian. Thus, these people inevitably all hailed from the same tribe, related either as brothers or uncles.

A team bound together by such blood ties possessed a truly formidable combat effectiveness when driven to desperation.

Seeing the enemy commander shoot down another of his own armored soldiers with his greatbow, Zhao Huai'an's gaze grew increasingly frigid. Seeing this, Wang Jin, standing beside him, volunteered:

"Commander, let this subordinate go down. I shall surely shoot down that scoundrel for you."

Wang Jin possessed the confidence to take the enemy commander's head from amidst a million soldiers.

However, Zhao Huai'an did not grant permission. He had to keep a reserve force to handle the worst-case scenario.

What was the worst-case scenario? It was that the Nanzhao army inside Tang'an City across the river might witness the slaughter here and dispatch reinforcements.

If he committed all his troops and enemy reinforcements arrived in the meantime, he would be doomed beyond redemption.

Such was the hardship of grassroots entrepreneurship like Zhao Huai'an's. He could win countless times, but if he lost even once in the early stages, he would be eliminated from this game of power.

Therefore, despite the intense deadlock of the battle, Zhao Huai'an still withheld his reserves. He maintained a firm conviction that victory would undoubtedly belong to him.

Although the enemy's armored troops were growing in number, they were still fewer than his own overall.

As Zhao Huai'an tried to reassure himself, he suddenly snapped.

Dammit, if the iron-clad troops he, Old Zhao, had struggled so hard to accumulate could not crush these unarmored Nanzhao tribal soldiers, they would be utterly useless.

At that moment, he finally roared toward the troops below:

"Whoever beheads the enemy general shall be promoted to squad leader and rewarded with a hundred strings of cash!"

The elite guards on the hillside roared in unison, their voices echoing across the entire field.

...

Han Qiong heard the commander's bounty shouted from the hillside, and at that moment, he finally reached the enemy general.

Yet now, there was no excitement in his heart; he only felt the blood throughout his body freezing over.

Before him, Wumeng Long was raising his greatbow, nocking an arrow aimed squarely at him.

The armor-piercing arrow in this man's hand had a arrowhead the size of a chisel, split apart at the tip, with the entire blade resembling a crescent moon, gleaming with a murderous chill.

With such a heavy arrow, let alone armor and iron, even a human calf would be snapped in two by a single shot.

The moment he was targeted by such an arrow, Han Qiong felt a tightness in his chest and absolute darkness before his eyes. At that instant, he thought of his great-grandmother who had passed away many years ago; perhaps he was about to go see her old self.

Yet no one expected that this arrow would never be loosed.

Because the bow in Wumeng Long's hands had remained strung for too long and had continuously fired so many arrows prior to this, it finally reached its breaking point.

The moment he drew the bowstring back with all his might, the bowstring snapped entirely, and the rebounding string lashed directly across Wumeng Long's eye, instantly blinding him.

A sharp, agonizing pain shot through his eye, but Wumeng Long no longer cared. Clutching his face, he screamed frantically to those around him:

"Quickly protect me!"

Naturally, he could not forget that just five paces away, the tiger-like warriors of the Tang army were pouncing upon him like starved beasts.

Yet the moment his words fell, Wumeng Long was knocked flat to the ground by a tremendous force. Before he could figure out what was happening, excruciating pain erupted from his neck, followed by absolute darkness.

The next instant, Han Qiong, drenched from head to toe in blood, hoisted Wumeng Long's disfigured and bloodless head and roared like a madman:

"The enemy general's head is right here! Will you surrender immediately?"

Every word and every scene was witnessed by Zhao Huai'an from the hillside not far away. He leaped up and shouted to Wang Jin beside him:

"That little Han is truly a match for ten thousand!"