Chapter 212: Silver Horn Meets His End
Silver Horn’s furious vanguard squad arrived at the battlefield. Xuan Chong rode the peacock into the sky, commanding the overall situation. One bamboo token after another turned into messenger bluebirds that flew out from the peacock.
The peacock was extremely massive in size, but it had activated a concealment spell. From six hundred paces away, the peacock looked as small as a sparrow.
Facing the Horned People’s reliance on Triceratops Giant Beasts, Xuan Chong chuckled. He immediately ordered the cavalry to charge.
On the earthen fortress, ten Yao Person light cavalry received the order and charged straight at the Triceratops Giant Beasts. This was just as Ka Wu opened his mouth wide, unsure how the Yao Person warriors would challenge such colossal creatures.
These cavalry collectively hurled lime bags, smashing them directly at the Triceratops’ eyes.
This thing was called a “noisy bomb” in the Wu Family Army, compared to pure lime bags. It contained a five percent proportion of caustic soda mixed inside.
Because the Wu Family Army had now found an alkali lake in Chong Land, they now had caustic soda. Caustic soda has higher solubility compared to quicklime, and greater corrosiveness to skin. After quicklime causes tearing, caustic soda dissolves easily in sweat and tears, better destroying the skin.
As this wave of “noisy bombs” was thrown out, the Triceratops Giant Beasts in the formation immediately went mad with a “roar.” They then began running wildly. The Horned People hiding behind them had no time to flee for the moment.
Meanwhile, the artillery on the earthen barrier had already coordinated. After the light cavalry scattered, from three hundred paces away, the artillery officers saw through telescopes that the Horned Beasts had gone mad and created an opening, exposing the clustered Horned People behind. They excitedly shouted: Fire!
Fifteen two-inch caliber infantry cannons fired projectiles. The projectiles were like fists smashing strawberries, separating the Horned People’s buttocks from their upper bodies, with organ fragments splattering. After this volley, over a hundred severed limbs and arms were left on the ground.
The Horned People were forced to charge, but immediately after, on the rammed earth barrier, thirty hand cannons were set up at the battlements. With a whistle, a volley was fired. Silver Horn was hit on the spot, but his killing intent was strong, and the projectiles merely struck him heavily.
Twenty breaths later, close combat began. After the Horned People line withstood the cannon and hand cannon strikes, they made frontal contact with the Wu Family Army’s spearman formation.
The Yao Army’s thin two ranks of spearmen blocked the Horned People’s charge like a dam. Clusters of spears were as flexible as venomous snakes flicking their tongues.
Although the spear shafts appeared to shake, the spearheads rigidly pierced through flesh and skin, then slickly withdrew with blood, flicked upward, stepped back two paces, and with the second wave of attack, the stored energy shaking on the white wax shafts fell again for a second penetration.
This 125-man spear group remained immovable during the three cups of tea of engagement. Pierce, flick spear, then pierce again.
On the side of the spears, in a small rank of troops, short-statured soldiers holding knives and revolver firearms maneuvered under the spear shafts, firing crackling shots, picking off one by one the Horned People trying to sneak through the crotch. But most of the time, these covering soldiers had no chance to fire; the spearmen casually slashed downward, nailing most who tried to exploit gaps to the ground in advance.
Nowadays, with firearms as the main anti-infantry output on the battlefield, spears remain far from obsolete, because all sorts of “ghosts and monsters” on the current battlefield cannot be solved by bullets. For example, when a Guiche flaps toward firearm soldiers in a dive, most bullets are deflected by killing intent and fly off wildly.
Xuan Chong’s southward force at this time had been considerably streamlined in numbers. Among the remaining personal soldiers, each now had specialties, and many could wield two-zhang great spears. Several among them wielded great spears to the realm of “a thousand trees and ten thousand trees of pear blossoms blooming,” impenetrable.
The meaning of “one inch long, one inch strong” is that others holding weapons simply cannot reach the long weapon user. In attempting to close in, they are already pierced in vital spots by the spearhead. This is equivalent to being unarmed.
At this moment on the battlefield, the Horned People were being unilaterally slaughtered. Unless the spearmen exhausted their martial qi, these Horned People could not break the defense at all.
And halfway through the killing, these spearmen untied gourds from their waists and gulped down a mouthful of sweet alcohol.
This alcohol was brewed from honey collected by bees from the flowering Thorn Ridge tree spirits. After gulping a small mouthful, the spearmen’s whole-body martial qi recovered.
…Bystanders…
In the sky, Ka Wu riding the griffin watched the Horned People come like a tide, yet it was as futile as a fish school in the sea facing a whale.
He circled in the sky for a long time, reluctantly accepting the reality that these Horned People were utterly helpless before the foreign people.
One must know that these rebellious Horned People had ravaged Eastern Region cities for a long time, robbing merchant caravans and breaking ship stations. They slaughtered many Feather Tribe residents. Their combat strength was undoubtedly strong, yet against this group of foreign people, they could not exert any force at all.
Ka Wu looked to the other side, where the Horned People’s eight giant beasts (originally twelve, with four lamed by cannon fire) still had not been committed to the battlefield. They were continuously pelted with lime bags by the cavalry, going mad and unable to stop. They were lured by the cavalry to constantly stray from the battlefield.
At this moment, he heard drumbeats from below. The Yao Army formation began shifting again. Ka Wu realized something—that the hero king riding the peacock had extraordinary battlefield command ability.
From the initial Sky Boat bombardment of the landing field, it seemed he had grasped the flow of battle, with one ring linking to the next. Driving these mad yet desperate Horned People toward death.
…Militarily advanced…
Roughly after the spearman corps had faced the enemy for two cups of tea, Xuan Chong had already completed mobilizing the firearms and cavalry to both flanks. This command was perfectly timed when the spearmen still had seventy percent stamina remaining.
Having fought so many years of battles, Xuan Chong knew his soldiers’ stamina bars intimately. Once engaged, Xuan Chong visualized small hourglasses of stamina consumption above these formations’ heads.
How long this battle line could hold, Xuan Chong had a precise measure, hence he could deploy calmly and unhurriedly.
If there is a realm for riding horses called “man-horse unity,” Xuan Chong now was united as one with the entire army.
With Xuan Chong’s flag order moving again, hand cannon men and crossbowmen ran to the Horned People’s flank.
Midway, Silver Horn noticed Xuan Chong’s deployment intent. Under his command, several war chariots assembled with wooden barrels as wheels charged forward.
But Xuan Chong had long prepared insurance. A Postnatal Ninth Layer squad leader from the Yao Army charged on horseback to meet them.
This Postnatal Ninth Layer military general was Wu Ling. From five meters away, he hurled a variable-length spear that snapped the war chariot’s axle.
Facing it, with one strike he scattered the wooden trash, laughed heartily, then sidestepped. At this moment, the hand cannon troops had aimed at these guys. After a burst of gunpowder smoke spread, they fired, and the Horned People groups fell dead one after another.
“Silver Horn” did not escape either. In his location, miscellaneous soldiers were hit by bullets with flesh and blood flying. Yet Silver Horn did not give up. He had barely used witchcraft to control a Triceratops and attempted a final strike on the Wu Family Army formation.
But he soon despaired. It was still Wu Ling, this young general. He circled to the Triceratops’ rear and executed a spear technique “Crane Pecks Moon,” instantly stabbing the massive war beast into howling. The war beast had no choice but to turn its head to bite him.
His long weapon’s extension reduced the giant beast’s size advantage. The giant beast only had health advantage left, far inferior in agility.
As the giant beast that had finally been called over ran off again, the Horned People holding the frontline lost their souls, their morale completely gone.
…Shock and Awe…
Xuan Chong’s peripheral vision glanced at Ka Wu and Mu Yun Hai Kuo. These two Feather Tribe members were one dazed, one craning their neck in disbelief.
Xuan Chong knew the reason for their shock. This 800-man Horned People corps had twice the Yao Army’s numbers, yet was easily crushed just like that.
What their side had just shown in combat was merely the basic operations of Da Yao military strategists. That is, the commander uses artillery and cavalry to peel away the enemy’s key units and fodder units, then through deploying part of the scout troops, splits the battlefield and annihilates them one by one.
In Da Yao’s standard military system, there is a complex command structure. This structure allows the entire army to feel the general’s presence and hear the general’s orders in battle.
While the Horned People are still at the stage of leading charges. This is something learned from the Feathered People.
But Feather Tribe generals can fly. If the central army is scattered, they fly into the sky. Even in the battlefield’s most chaotic moments for Feathered People, the Feather Tribe commander is visible, and tactical deployments are made based on the commander’s gestures.
Of course, the Feather Tribe’s tactical level also remains at the state where hero generals ride powerful mounts, leading other nobles in group charges.
…Iron Hooves Trample…,
Pursuit of the fleeing began. Signal rockets rose into the sky. Sixty iron armored cavalry from the Wu Family Army appeared from the battlefield’s flank and began charging.
These cavalry, wearing only breastplates, advanced very slowly but maintained a very dense formation, pressing forward like a wall.
If Bo Prefecture Wu Hengyu’s knight battle tactic is a small hammer, now it is a slow large hammer. Of course, from a sky view, it lacks the beauty of ten thousand horses galloping, but rather all horses stepping in small trots, like gentlemen on a date moving forward.
The fleeing Horned People panicked at the dense hoof sounds from behind, turned their heads to look, and saw a wall pressing over.
Soon, three or four lances jointly impaled the foremost Horned Person, followed by the second, the third. Every Horned Person meeting the cavalry lances was directly sent flying.
Xuan Chong: Cavalry slowed speed, yet impact force became stronger—this is a highly counterintuitive phenomenon.
The reason lies in the process of cavalry charge transmitting impact force to the victim. Cavalry impact does not rely on the horse body colliding with the enemy, but on the lance and sabre making contact.
The contact frequency of sabres and lances is the key to increasing charge damage.
The lance’s impact force is already sufficient at low speed; higher speed is excess—for a 100-catty skinny person, a 200-catty burly man charging at you, whether in small slow jog collision or fast run collision, can send the skinny flying. Oh, no need to send flying; after the skinny falls, the fat one stomps down for explosive damage. Cavalry iron hooves trampling is bloodier than sabres.
For cavalry against infantry, wielding weapons is more difficult, and the rebound impact requires the rider to exert more effort to balance the body. While the rider adjusts balance, no matter how strong the horse’s impact, if the cavalry weapon does not contact the target, no damage is dealt.
Charge speed exceeds two hundred, three hundred, but arm endurance limit is still seventy; in impact, they must let go, wasting the impact force.
But once charge speed slows, sabres can more easily touch infantry bodies. Relying on the horse’s mass, the sabre slowly scrapes across the infantry, like a small car brushing against a person.
And when horses are densely lined up, unit area impact is enhanced.
Now Wu Family Army riders, when contacting Horned People, have speed similar to an ordinary person’s jog. The cavalryman’s lance after hitting one Horned Person can still hit a second, plus dense formation—often three or four lances hit one person simultaneously. Even if the Horned Person individual is fierce, they are directly overturned by this several-horse power. —Solidly releasing all impact force through spears and blades.
As the cavalry line advanced, sabres and lances constantly hit enemies, like the rotating blades of a combine harvester cutting wheat.
And in this process, the cavalry’s neat turns and synchronized steps came from countless training hours of sweat and grain consumption! Of course, the effect was superb.
The Horned People who had just escaped the spearman formation suddenly collapsed, trampling their own into a mess, dying and wounded under their own trampling and the horses’ trampling.
No one stood in the cavalry’s direct path ahead, like off-road vehicles crushing a wheat field, all toppled. After the cavalry and their own spearmen completed one round of crushing, the cavalry ran to block the Horned People’s escape route ahead, forcing the Horned People to turn back.
Xuan Chong issued military orders there. The spearmen began column formation, not wasting stamina to pursue, but maintaining formation and advancing slowly to maintain pressure.
After the spearman formation split, the waiting firearms troops emerged from the split columns, following with a volley.
After the Horned People suffered bullet sweeping, they suddenly found all teammates down on the ground. At this time, the jogging cavalry ahead completed their turn and pressed over like a wall again. The surviving Horned People did not know where to run.
However, under the efforts of a Horned Person implanted with a spirit training talisman in the army calling out, these Horned Person warriors who had been steadfastly blessed by the Evil Moon days ago all knelt, dropped their weapons, and awaited binding.
…Spear Formation…
In the final stage, at the battlefield’s end, it was like a “game” combat phase. Around the Triceratops enclosure, ranks of armored soldiers had surrounded a watertight circle in a hundred-zhang area. Inside this circle was the Horned Dragon Gate, with batches of Da Yao captains taking turns.
Always maintaining eight forming the encirclement, respectively occupying Open Gate, Rest Gate, Life Gate, Injury Gate, Block Gate, Scenic Gate, Alarm Gate, and Death Gate. Everyone used the same spear technique, but the “attack, defend, trap, harass” moves related to their gate, and with constant rotations of newcomers, each person’s occupied “gate” also changed.
That is, the first to come up, with the most abundant energy, often took Death Gate and Alarm Gate, while soldiers about to withdraw for rest took “Open Gate” and “Life Gate” to exit. Then those from Scenic Gate and Rest Gate filled in.
The Triceratops, in the back-and-forth shuttling of eight spears, was restrained. Step left leg, left leg tripped; right leg stabbed; tail swings left, exposing right underbelly stabbed with a big gash.
Neither its tail nor forelimbs could reach these two-zhang six directions great spears, and during charges, all wide-open gaps would suffer heart-piercing penetrations.
This eight-man spear formation was similar to those in the Martial World where sword wielders form things like “Big Dipper Sword Formation.” Those famous sect cultivators could use sword qi for similar long-range attack effects. Now the army’s spear formation could do the same. —The Wu Family Army developed this formation evidently to counter single giant monsters on the battlefield.
Although the Horned Dragon had a massive body, it cowered timidly, the eight around it like demons and gods.
Those who master fine martial arts sell to the emperor’s house. Currently surrounding and beating the Triceratops were Xuan Chong’s personal soldiers. Amid cheers from their comrades, they stabbed at the Triceratops’ lower ribs and other ticklish spots.
Because at this time, they knew Xuan Chong was also watching here.
Wu Ling shouted loudly to these blood-boiling men: Brothers, show your hand skills, capture alive.
This statement was obviously redundant; everyone knew capturing alive was better. Otherwise, they would have long stabbed vital spots like eye sockets, rear anus, tendons, etc. Now they were bleeding it bit by bit, while consuming the Triceratops’ strength and futile resistant ferocity.
Yes, all giant beasts have wildness, but once pained to a certain extent, they can be tamed, obediently implanted with spirit training runes.
A few minutes later, Xuan Chong saw the six Triceratops fall one by one, four of them still breathing, five-flowered bound on the ground. He nodded.
Xuan Chong did this intentionally to train his personal soldiers a bit.
Xuan Chong inwardly carefully compared the combat power between Da Yao’s military generals and Feather Tribe nobles. Under griffin and Dragon Horse mounts, the Feather Tribe’s dive advantage would be countered by spears; the faster the dive, the deeper the stab.
Thus, Feather Tribe’s impact close combat would not appear until the end. Both sides mainly competed in early “bow shooting.” The Feather Tribe’s “Wind-riding Arrows” and Da Yao’s “Silk-pattern Heavy Arrows” each had their strengths.
The peacock descended from the air. Xuan Chong: Hm, Feathered People in the air wear no iron armor, but bone armor coated with extra silver paint, so our side can shoot them down with light arrows.
When Xuan Chong landed, personal guard Zhou Zhong ran up thumping: Sir, they’ve caught that guy over there.
Xuan Chong turned his gaze to Silver Horn, bound five-flowered a hundred meters away.
Xuan Chong walked over. Silver Horn showed a weird smile, pinching his hand to release a bee swarm spell, but before halfway. From the peacock side, a red light swept, burning all the bee swarm clean.
Xuan Chong paused, looking at this guy—his mutated twisted one big one small eyes, and weird fangs, already deeply corrupted, brain unclear. He waved his hand: Behead and display the head.
