Chapter 774: When the Great Wind Rises, How Can One Avoid Heads Rolling (Part 1)

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Author: Fenghuo Xizhu Hou

Category: Fantasy

Yesterday, without any warning, Xu Fengnian swooped onto the city wall from the south, single-handedly entering Tiger Head City where a fierce battle was raging. Not only were the Northern Mang army confused upon hearing the news, but even Northern Liang generals like Liu Jinu looked at each other in bewilderment after learning of it. At that time, after Xu Fengnian swept from Huaiyang Pass all the way to Tiger Head City, a Northern Mang martial arts master, who was temporarily serving as a horse stable boy in the south of Tiger Head City, simply abandoned his horse and frantically ran towards the main army camp. Subsequently, Northern Mang's siege momentum immediately stalled, receding like a tide.

That night, Xu Fengnian stood on the blood-stained northern wall of Tiger Head City. Two faces were missing from the Tiger Head City general and captain he had last drunk with: the boisterous Ma Jili was dead, and the refined Chu Hanqing was also dead. Both had passed away in the prime of their lives. In Liu Jinu's calm, emotionless, and hoarse narration, Xu Fengnian learned that the city's three thousand elite cavalry, capable of fighting as heavy cavalry in full armor, and the six thousand light cavalry were still intact. However, eight thousand of the twenty-four thousand regular infantry and nearly ten thousand auxiliary troops had already died in battle. Xu Fengnian then asked about the number of wounded, to which Liu Jinu simply replied that there weren't many injured soldiers. Xu Fengnian fell silent, having already known the cruel answer from Huaiyang Pass. On the northern, northeastern, and northwestern sides of Tiger Head City—Northern Mang's three main attack fronts—Liu Jinu had precisely divided the defenses into thirty-two distinct line formations. Each commandant led their own troops in defense. If the Northern Mang barbarians breached the city wall and could not be repelled within the time it took for an incense stick to burn, requiring Liu Jinu to deploy other forces, the commanding officer would be immediately demoted to a common soldier, replaced by the deputy, and so on. In nearly two months, a full seven commandants and their entire contingents had died in battle.

Captain Chu Hanqing died because three commandants under his command, defending adjacent positions, had fallen one after another within a single hour. This was the first time that as many as six hundred enemies had poured into a connected area on Tiger Head City's wall, and crucially, the defensive line threatened to tear wider and wider. An enraged Liu Jinu sent a scout to the blood-soaked Chu Hanqing with a message: "If you, Chu, truly cannot hold, just say the word, and I, Liu Jinu, will personally lead men to assist." Having finally found a breakthrough, Northern Mang began frantically deploying troops. By the time Liu Jinu arrived on the battlefield with eight hundred personal guards to repel the Northern Mang barbarians, Chu Hanqing, surrounded by countless corpses, was sitting in a pool of blood at the base of the wall, his face disfigured by sword cuts. Had it not been for the distinctive armor he had been personally gifted by the Grand General years ago for his military achievements, no one would have recognized the body as Captain Chu, whose twin daughters were famously beautiful, and who had once been urged multiple times by the Grand General to go to Tai'an City to pursue an official career, a promising scholar among Northern Liang's ranks.

As dawn approached, Xu Fengnian turned his head and gazed along what the Northern Liang border army affectionately called the "city wall patrol path." The bodies from both sides had been cleared away last night, so everyone currently on the city wall was alive. This might sound like a platitude, but it was not. Ordinary people, free from illness or misfortune, might only lie in a coffin after forty or fifty years, but here, one could cross from the living world to the underworld in an instant, and there would not be many coffins available.

Xu Fengnian retracted his gaze and spoke to Liu Jinu, who was about to return to the city's high tower to constantly monitor the frontline situation: "General Liu, currently, based on a rough assessment by the Guanyin Sect qi practitioners, I know that Tuoba Pusa is moving south from Xijing and will likely reach the border region between Gusai Province and Liuzhou in about half a day. Therefore, Dong Zhuo abruptly halted his offensive to allow scouts to relay military intelligence to Tuoba Pusa. The grandmaster of qi practitioners, Tantai Pingjing, is not in Northern Liang at this moment, so I cannot accurately ascertain Tuoba Pusa's precise whereabouts. Thus, I can stay in Tiger Head City for a maximum of two days and one night. To be frank, my chances against Tuoba Pusa are fifty-fifty; whoever makes their move later will have the definitive advantage. Therefore, I cannot allow Tuoba Pusa to detect my unleashed qi too early. In the initial stage, I can only fight with restrained power, roughly at the Finger Profound realm, at most at the Celestial Phenomenon threshold. At the very least, I must wait until Dong Zhuo's scouts deliver the intelligence to Tuoba Pusa; only then can I kill the most enemies."

Liu Jinu hesitated for a moment. "Actually, Your Highness only needs to appear in Tiger Head City; there's no need to risk taking action yourself."

Xu Fengnian shook his head. "Tiger Head City doesn't need me, Xu Fengnian, to wave flags and boost morale." Then Xu Fengnian smiled and said, "In that case, having come to Tiger Head City, if I don't kill barbarians, should I just stand on the city wall as an arrow target or constantly pretend to be a master? That would actually be far more exhausting than fighting barbarians on the battlefield."

Liu Jinu gripped his saber hilt, stared at Xu Fengnian, and laughed frankly, "With a great war imminent, perhaps it's inauspicious and improper to say this, but I can't help but state it: anyone can die, but Your Highness cannot. If Your Highness were to die, this war could no longer be fought."

Xu Fengnian chuckled, "Don't worry, General Liu, I'm quite afraid of death."

Liu Jinu looked at the young prince, who likely hadn't had time to don his armor, and said softly before turning away: "Ma Jili held the frontline on the city wall for over a month. He was originally a burly man weighing around 180 jin, but when he died, he was only about ten jin heavier than Your Highness. So the armor Your Highness wore outside Gourd Pass could only be worn after Old Ma died. We in Tiger Head City all say Old Ma made a great gain."

The Northern Mang siege army began to form ranks. Perhaps to "welcome" Xu Fengnian, the Prince of Northern Liang, all the trebuchets, which had been somewhat silent on the battlefield, were rolled forward. Liu Jinu exhaled heavily. "They're here!" Xu Fengnian chuckled softly, "Lend me a saber." Liu Jinu unfastened his saber and tossed it to Xu Fengnian, laughing heartily, "This humble general has no attachments in this life. This Liang saber used to be my daughter; no one was allowed to touch it. Today, consider it given away in marriage!" Liu Jinu strode away.

In the martial world, a dark and windy night is for murder. On the battlefield, especially at Northern Liang's Tiger Head City and the Long'an Plain where the Northern Mang army was stationed, such niceties did not apply. When Dong Zhuo, the Great King of the Southern Court, brought his arm down, a mighty horn blast suddenly resounded. A dark torrent of iron-clad soldiers slowly surged forward from both flanks of Dong Zhuo's personal army formation.

Due to being overloaded or overused, nearly a thousand Northern Mang trebuchets were now reduced to just over seven hundred. However, most of the large trebuchets were well-maintained, and their synchronized volley still presented an awe-inspiring sight, like a sky full of falling stars. Dong Zhuo subconsciously tapped his upper and lower teeth together, glancing around. Beside him, in addition to nearly a thousand elite cavalry guards from the Dong family, a contingent of top Northern Mang martial artists from the three major sects—Daode Sect, Qijian Leyu, and Princess's Tomb—were also hidden among his forces. On the periphery were forty massive ballistae, reputedly capable of shooting a bolt with the force of a Land Sword Immortal's strike within a hundred zhang, all operated by the strongest men in the army and overseen by the remaining dozen or so qi practitioners from the Southern Dynasty for accuracy. What was once a vibrant Northern Mang martial world, even before completely crushing Northern Liang, had been almost ruined, leaving only a meager remnant of its former glory. If Dong Zhuo had followed his original plan, he should have concentrated all the Northern Mang martial arts masters on the central line from the start, along with all the qi practitioners, forming a united force. Could anyone, even Xu Fengnian or Xu Yanbing, have stopped them? Unfortunately, even as the Great King of the Southern Court, he still had to consider various factions, resulting in the current fragmented and pitiful state. What was the point of bothering with infiltrating Youzhou to assassinate Yan Wenluan, only to suffer such heavy losses?

Dong Zhuo pursed his lips, raised his head, and his gaze followed a massive stone hurtling towards Tiger Head City, looking at the figure on the wall. He muttered to himself, "You, Xu, come and kill me! Aren't you tempted to take a high-ranking general's head from amidst a million soldiers? Anyway, Tuoba Pusa still has a long way to go to get here. If you've got the guts, unleash your full power... If you can dodge the rain of flying swords shot by these ballistae, I, Dong Zhuo, guarantee... I'll definitely run!"

Just as Dong Zhuo was muttering to himself, the man on the city wall shot up like a brilliant white rainbow. Dong Zhuo squinted his eyes and clicked his tongue, saying, "One man fighting a million, the Sword Emperor of Western Shu did something like that. What was the result? That fellow died under the hooves of your Xu family's iron cavalry. Be careful, you might face retribution today." Beside the stout man, a valiant young woman, mounted and armored, frowned and asked, "Can one kill with words?" Dong Zhuo straightened his face and solemnly replied, "If you keep thinking about it, there will surely be a response."

This stout Dong's second daughter-in-law was none other than the daughter of Fifth Mo, the Master of Tibing Mountain. Years ago, within Northern Mang territory, because of the little girl Tao Manwu, she, Dong Zhuo, and Xu Fengnian had met once. However, at that time, she never imagined her father would die at the hands of a young man, his head even taken back to Northern Liang.

Dong Zhuo suddenly chuckled, "My Dong family army was already on its way to Liuzhou last night. Killing his younger brother is more interesting than killing Xu Fengnian himself."