Chapter 163: Thousand-man General?
Hiding a weapon with enormous power on the battlefield and not using it is the most stupid behavior possible. The very meaning of war is to win at all costs.
Every battle is a hurdle in a warrior’s life. Only by passing this hurdle is there a chance of being alive; failing to pass it means death, so where would the future come from?
Yun Ce himself doesn’t have many of these large bombs left—now only about two hundred. He gave one to Qin Shu, one to each member of the reserve team, and the rest would be made into a large batch by Doggy once the gunpowder raw materials from Lantian County arrive.
He Qingfang brought a group of female warriors to set up a tent for Yun Ce. Although she didn’t understand why it was them coming, seeing He Qingfang fidgeting as if she had something to say, Yun Ce simply took out another big bomb and gave it to her.
This must have been told to He Qingfang by Qin Shu, and moreover, these two people definitely have a connection—yes, a literal connection.
“This thing must be placed properly and kept away from any fire source. Tomorrow when killing the enemy, I will demonstrate one first to show you its power. Remember, this thing is scarce in quantity. Do not use it unless absolutely necessary, and when using it, be sure to calculate the distance accurately to avoid self-injury.”
Who knows what quirk women have, but the first priority after getting the bomb was actually to wipe it. Despite the bomb Yun Ce took out being free of even a speck of dust, He Qingfang still pulled out a handkerchief, breathed on the bomb, and diligently wiped it.
In the evening, the eight-hundred-man team had spontaneously formed an independent camp outside Iron Enclosure Pass. Yun Ce conducted two patrols: one at sunset and one at midnight.
Many people couldn’t sleep, and Yun Ce didn’t urge them to go to bed. Instead, he sat by the fire, throwing dough into the charcoal fire with them. Once the dough was cooked, they picked it out and ate it.
“General, are the devils easy to kill?”
1 “Easy to kill. Didn’t you see that playboy stuff a ghost cow cavalryman into a cow’s buttocks to show off?”
1 “But many seniors say the devils are hard to kill, and that they are all heartless madmen.”
1 “Hahaha, overthinking it. The devils are very easy to kill. When you slash them with a knife, they will cry out in pain too. When we encounter the devils tomorrow, just follow behind me and learn how I kill them.”
1 “Good.”
1 Qin Shu is a very good deputy general but not a very good political commissar. Managing the army with military law is certainly correct, but to twist everyone in the army into a single rope, spiritual unity is especially important. Therefore, Yun Ce had no choice but to sacrifice sleep time to carry out pre-battle morale boosting.
1 At dawn, Qin Shu blew the horn. After the horn sounded, the entire camp boiled over, and even the walls of Iron Enclosure Pass were filled with spectators.
1 Yun Ce felt that those people on the city wall probably wouldn’t say anything congratulatory to him. After bidding farewell to the warriors in the camp with whom he shared some common language, he stubbornly led his men away.
1 Once they left the camp, the eight hundred cavalrymen seemed very disoriented. Fortunately, with Yun Ce leading the way at the forefront, Qin Shu as a familiar face holding the rear, and He Qingfang leading her team of thirty-nine women in the middle, everyone’s mood gradually improved.
1 The army arrived at the place where Yun Ce had killed the enemy yesterday. No remains were visible—they must have been taken away by Gui Fang scouts. He wondered what they would think upon seeing the ten shriveled corpses.
1 Yun Ce asked Doggy where the devils had gone, and Doggy pointed north.
2 The further north they went, the darker the color of the ground became. Yun Ce guessed there should be a large coal mine here, and sure enough, after traveling nearly thirty li north, he saw a burning mountain.
2 It should be said to be a spontaneously combusting coal mine. Seeing Yun Ce leading the team closer to Ghost King Mountain, Qin Shu quickly caught up and said, “General, we cannot proceed further. This is Ghost King Mountain.”
2 Yun Ce asked puzzledly, “What’s wrong with Ghost King Mountain?”
2 Qin Shu said, “People die there.”
2 Yun Ce shook his head. “No one will die.”
2 Qin Shu sighed. “Anyone or any livestock that enters Ghost King Mountain never returns.”
2 Yun Ce looked down at the direction Doggy had pointed, shook his head, and said, “That’s coal burning, not some ghost fire. Moreover, I judge that the Gui Fang scouts we didn’t find earlier are hiding in Ghost King Mountain.”
2 “However, your reminder is right. Breathing too much of this air here does make one’s head dizzy and swollen. Order everyone to wet their handkerchiefs with water and tie them over their mouths and noses. We continue forward.”
2 Finally having the opportunity to become the leader of a team, the red date horse seemed extremely excited. Yun Ce lightly nudged its stomach, and the beast swiftly advanced, fearless of the eerie mountain terrain ahead.
2 After advancing another five li, the dispatched scouts returned. They were also excited: seven li ahead, they had discovered a temporary devil camp with no fewer than three hundred devils.
3 However, the bad news was that war bulls were visible in the camp, and no fewer than twenty of them.
3 For many years, the Gui Fang people’s most formidable army has been the ox cavalrymen, and among them, the elite are the mad bull cavalrymen. Ordinary war bulls stand two meters at the shoulder and weigh over four thousand jin, while mad bulls—those from Great Snow Mountain on Snow Mountain—generally stand over three meters at the shoulder and weigh more than ten thousand jin.
3 Ordinary ox cavalrymen are all led by ten-man generals, while the starting point for mad bull cavalrymen is hundred-man generals. Once these two types of cavalry form an army, they are invincible on the flat wasteland Gobi Desert, having charged and broken countless formations. The Great Han still hasn’t found a very good countermeasure.
3 Yun Ce had no intention of leading his men to directly raid the devil camp. The effect of doing so certainly wouldn’t be great. Both sides are armies with extremely rich combat experience. Even if ambushed, they might suffer short-term losses, but in the end, it would still come down to face-to-face charge and kill to decide victory.
3 Yun Ce planned to reveal his trump card at this moment to boost morale, making everyone here know that although they were on enemy land, they still had powerful and reliable means to deal with the enemy.
3 So, while Qin Shu, He Qingfang, Zuo Chong, and the others silently eliminated the scout sentries, Yun Ce gained a certain judgment of their skills.
3 Speaking of which, He Qingfang’s skills were even stronger than Zhang Min’s. Though a woman, she firmly held a leader position in this team where men outnumbered women.
3 Yun Ce led the men quietly to a high platform. The Gui Fang camp was in the valley below the platform. The coal smoke here was very thick; no one knew how the devils endured it.
3 However, to be fair, building the camp in the place closest to Iron Enclosure Pass did allow them to take many advantages of surprise.
3 Looking at their camp, though temporary, it lacked nothing necessary, even having a water source.
4 Yun Ce calculated that to throw the bomb from the high platform down, it would need to be thrown at least 150 meters. This distance was no problem for him—a mere ten-jin bomb.
4 Yun Ce would be responsible for throwing the bombs, Qin Shu and Zuo Chong for leading the charge. After the main force killed into the camp, Yun Ce would lead He Qingfang and the female generals to kill in last, giving the enemy the feeling of being surrounded by a large army.
4 Seeing Yun Ce take out a bomb, He Qingfang looked at the pale green pineapple-shaped big bomb with some pity. Yesterday, Yun Ce had told her that the shell of the big bomb was made from melted green money.
4 Yun Ce inserted a suitable timed fuse and said to He Qingfang, “When throwing fifty zhang distance, use number four fuse. You generally can’t throw that far, so for safety, best to also use this number four fuse, giving you time to escape.”
4 Under He Qingfang’s gaze, Yun Ce lit the fuse and threw it out with all his strength. The big bomb traced a beautiful parabola in the air and exploded two zhang above the devil camp.
4 “Boom”
4 A peal of thunder suddenly exploded in the clear sky. The huge shockwave echoed back and forth in the gorge, knocking people over. Dark red flames suddenly appeared in midair, chasing the blast-pushed airflow outward.
4 He Qingfang horrifiedly discovered that those massive, heavy war bulls were actually flipped over by the soundwaves and then completely engulfed by the dark red flames.
4 When the flames touched the ground, they blasted a pit, and then the flames in the pit spread out like flowing water.
4 Seeing the explosion’s energy finally spent, Yun Ce frowned because Qin Shu and the others still hadn’t launched the first charge.
5 After the explosion, the world went quiet for a few seconds, with only a strong buzzing ringing wildly in everyone’s ears.
5 The red date horse was the second to perk up its ears. When Yun Ce jumped onto its back, the beast leaped down from the seven-to-eight-meter-high platform, the first to charge into the camp just ravaged by the bomb. The moment the red date horse landed, Qin Shu also howled as he charged in.
5 A pitch-black devil had just crawled up from the ground when blood flowed from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Not knowing what he was shouting from his mouth, his head was chopped off by Yun Ce’s horse spear.
5 The three-hundred-man camp was neither large nor small. The red date horse charged straight through it, then quickly turned and charged back.
5 After two consecutive charges, Yun Ce no longer took action himself. Instead, he sat on horseback watching Qin Shu, Zuo Chong, He Qingfang, and the others sweep up the remaining enemies in the camp.
5 The battle quickly went from initial intensity to sporadic fighting, but the duration of the battle was lengthening. This wasn’t strange; it should be the devils’ surviving experts still putting up a desperate last stand.
5 Yun Ce didn’t make them give up single combat to end the battle quickly. Instead, he let these people gain the courage needed for the next battle from these cornered devils.
5 But as they fought on, Yun Ce realized something was wrong. Why were all those being beaten out from the crowd his own subordinates? Several were spitting blood mid-air.
5 “Thousand-man General! The devils’ thousand-man general!”
5 Someone shouted out loud, and thus the originally watertight encirclement cracked open a straight gap, pointing directly at Yun Ce, who was drinking water.
6 One more chapter.
