“If we break through the encirclement at this time, we may have a chance to fight. But if we delay, once the Liang army crosses the Huai River and moves south, we’ll have no chance of survival!”

Li Xiu appeared scholarly and weak, but at this moment he stared fiercely at Chen Mingsheng, insisting on his view and yielding not an inch.

“The twenty thousand cavalry led by Xu Mingzhen have competed with the Liang army’s iron cavalry for many years in Huainan and Huaibei. Although we have over sixteen thousand troops, remnant soldiers account for thirty percent. At this time we still don’t know clearly what the situation is to the south—how can we break out?” Chen Mingsheng endured the piercing pain in his right arm and left ribs, earnestly advising, “At this time, if we defend the city, His Majesty and the Duke will certainly send troops to receive us!”

Chen Mingsheng’s left ribs and right arm had been stabbed by Gao Long. Fortunately, at the time when Li Qi was looking for Chen Mingsheng to discuss matters, when Chen Mingsheng was caught off guard and wounded by Gao Long, he reacted extremely quickly, dodged the assassination attempts by Gao Long’s subordinate generals, and even drew his blade to kill Gao Long.

After driving back the three subordinate generals beside Gao Long, Li Qi then led the guards in the courtyard—suddenly attacked and reduced to less than ten survivors—to hold firm in the narrow courtyard until Li Xiu led reinforcements. They killed all dozens of Gao Long’s trusted followers who were besieging the command tent, thus preserving Chen Mingsheng’s life and preventing major chaos from erupting in the city.

When Xu Mingzhen previously led twenty thousand cavalry to suddenly penetrate south of Biezi Peak and Yandun Mountain, Li Xiu and Li Qi had been somewhat bewildered. Seeing they could not resist by force, they could only lead over a thousand cavalry wandering outside to hastily withdraw back to Zhongli city to rendezvous with the main Right Divine Martial Army force.

However, after Gao Long’s failed assassination attempt last night, Li Qi, Xu Jing, Wei Huang and other generals all determined there was a larger conspiracy targeting Great Chu behind it. If they grimly defended Zhongli city, they might very likely not be able to wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Zhongli city was dilapidated. Even after the Jinling incident, when the Shouzhou army took over Haozhou, they had only hastily repaired Zhongli city. The fortifications were far from solid and could not be compared with fortified cities like Chaozhou and Shouzhou.

More critically, when Chen Mingsheng and the others captured Zhongli city, the grain in the city had been burned by the garrison. Even though after recovering Zhongli city they immediately transferred a batch of grain from Chuzhou, setting aside the over ten thousand civilians in the city, this batch of grain was only enough for their sixteen thousand men to eat for half a month.

Of course, as the core elite force that Deputy Privy Council Commissioner and Imperial Uncle had devoted all efforts to building, the Right Divine Martial Guard Army, aside from having three thousand elite cavalry under Li Xiu and Li Qi, also had over four thousand infantry and cavalry. This meant the entire army had over seven thousand warhorses.

Even if the finest warhorses had to be preserved, nearly four thousand riding horses could still be slaughtered and preserved, supporting them for quite a long period.

This was also key to why Chen Mingsheng, Wei Huang and other generals advocated firmly defending Zhongli.

Wen Bo led the Chaozhou garrison and, under siege by seventy to eighty thousand elite Forbidden Army troops in Huaixi, had held firm for over half a year. Why couldn’t they hold out for two months until the Huai River ice thawed?

In Chen Mingsheng’s view, even if the Liang army might cross the river south at any time, based on past experience, once the Huai River ice unsealed, the Liang army had never failed to withdraw.

Defending the city would always have much better odds of success than leading sixteen to seventeen thousand weak troops out of the city for field battle against twenty thousand Shouzhou cavalry.

Li Xiu strongly advocated breaking out, attacking through Zhongli city’s east and south gates. To the south was Longyou Lake, nearly ten li in circumference, and southwest of Longyou Lake was the northern mountain ridge of the Wujian Mountain Range.

The Right Divine Martial Army had excellent weapons and equipment, and the officers and soldiers were all robust and brave. Having just been surrounded, morale was still not weak. While the enemy cavalry had not yet advanced to below the city to build fortifications, as long as they fought through less than twenty li of open terrain and entered the hill region of the Wujian Mountain Range, the threat from Xu Mingzhen’s twenty thousand cavalry would greatly diminish.

Aside from tactical considerations worth fighting for, more importantly, Li Xiu recognized that the enemy army’s schemes were enormous.

Gao Long had originally been a Tanzhou general, persuaded by Wen Ruilin to surrender and pledge allegiance to Great Chu, accumulating merit to become Deputy Commander of the Right Divine Martial Army. If Gao Long assassinated Chen Mingsheng attempting to create chaos for the enemy army to exploit, then did Wen Ruilin have problems?

Did the Miao warriors persuaded by Wen Ruilin, and other generals and military officers who had pledged allegiance with Gao Long and Miao Yong, have problems?

Were these people connected to the previous destruction of Great Chu’s navy at Hongze Lake?

If all of this was connected, it indicated the Shouzhou army and the Liang army behind them had enormous schemes, and the forces they jointly mobilized would far exceed their imagination.

The most direct consequence was that the main Forbidden Army force below Chaozhou city might very likely suffer severe damage in the enemy army’s upcoming attack. Then their defense of Zhongli would simultaneously be meaningless, ultimately unable to escape the tragic outcome of defeat and death.

Alternatively, if the main Forbidden Army force became alert in time and withdrew into Chuzhou or Shuzhou, but the enemy army’s one hundred thousand or even over two hundred thousand troops moved south, they would inevitably first attack the northernmost Zhongli city before attacking cities south of Zhongli, ensuring that the Huaixi region fell back into their hands.

Under the enemy army’s full-force assault, lacking necessary defensive supplies in the city, could they truly hold out until the court assembled reinforcements from various prefectures and counties?

Although Chen Mingsheng was the Commander, and Xu Jing, Wei Huang and other officers followed his orders, aside from Li Chong being relatively close to Chen Mingsheng, Li Qi and other Li family youth all stood on the side of Deputy Commander Li Xiu.

And undoubtedly, the Right Divine Martial Army, evolved from the Right Guangde Army, had primarily developed on the foundation of Li family youth absorbing capital region aristocratic youth, then merging with Xuanzhou troops.

In this process, Li family youth played a leading role, while Li Xiu’s outstanding command ability and Li Qi’s martial prowess were deeply recognized by the officers and soldiers.

With Li Xiu insisting on breaking out, Chen Mingsheng could only earnestly advise him not to take such risks.

“My father often said that hesitating in danger and forgetting one’s life when seeing profit are great taboos for soldiers,” Li Xiu did not appreciate this, saying heatedly, “If you are greedy for life and fear death, Li Qi and I will serve as vanguard, killing a bloody path south for all officers and soldiers.”

“What do you mean by this?” No matter how good Chen Mingsheng’s temper was, seeing Li Xiu use his father Eastern Zhe Prince Li Yu’s reputation to mock him as greedy for life and afraid of death, at this moment he became furiously angry, slapping the table and glaring at Li Xiu demanding an answer.

“We should break out as soon as possible. Once the Liang army’s infantry crosses the Huai, it will be too late to break out,” Gao Chengyuan said in a low voice from behind his desk.

Although Gao Chengyuan ultimately led less than three thousand navy troops to abandon ships and land, as one of Yang Yuanpu’s most trusted generals, his status and prestige were still a notch higher than Chen Mingsheng’s.

Besides being a Commander-level general of the same rank as Chen Mingsheng in the army, his military officer scattered rank was actually higher than Chen Mingsheng’s.

When Chen Mingsheng was forceful he could compel Li Xiu to obey orders, but with the two armies merged together, command authority should reasonably go to Gao Chengyuan.

Having previously been ashamed of his disastrous defeat, with only remnant soldiers saved by Chen Mingsheng and the others, Gao Chengyuan had been very low-key staying in Zhongli city. Even at councils he yielded the main seat.

However, not speaking before did not mean Gao Chengyuan’s words had no effect when he did speak.

“General Gao, what do you mean?” Chen Mingsheng looked at Gao Chengyuan in shock and asked.

“Great Chu’s navy has lost nine-tenths. I, Gao, must personally deliver my own head before His Majesty’s desk to plead guilty,” Gao Chengyuan said hoarsely, looking up at the roof beams.

“General…” Seeing everyone inclined toward breaking out, seeing that morale was still usable, Li Chong finally spoke out to advise Chen Mingsheng to follow the majority opinion.

“Fine, fine…” Chen Mingsheng said resentfully.

……

……

The final breakout plan was decided. Li Xiu and Li Qi volunteered to lead elite cavalry out the west gate to fight, doing their best to block the main Shouzhou cavalry force from the west, creating more space for the cavalry-infantry and infantry to break out south from the south gate along the western shore of Longyou Lake.

The south gate also had Li Chong and Xu Jing leading the cavalry-infantry at the front, who would immediately advance to the southwest side of the city to serve as the junction between the two routes of troops. Gao Chengyuan led the navy remnants in the center, with Chen Mingsheng, Wei Huang and other generals slightly behind, withdrawing south leaning toward the northwest flank. The officers and soldiers from Gao Long’s unit were left at the very end.

After Gao Long and his directly loyal subordinate generals and guards were all eliminated, the morale of Gao Long’s unit was the worst and combat strength the weakest. This arrangement could even be said to abandon them and the over ten thousand civilians in the city at Zhongli city, preventing enemy cavalry from recklessly attacking their flanks and rear.

The breakout was chosen for just before dawn the next day, just when the eastern horizon showed a hint of morning light, the city gates opened.

Enemy sentry cavalry wandering outside the city discovered the incident at the first moment. The alarm sounded loudly. Several hundred reconnaissance cavalry assembled at the first moment, howling as they surrounded to intercept.

Li Xiu and Li Qi led cavalry pouring continuously from the west gate like a black tide. Strong bows and powerful crossbows fired arrows whistling through the air like wind. Warhorses neighed and screamed in the true cold wind. Soon blades, halberds, spears and shields clashed together, splashing sprays of blood. Living flesh fell struggling to the ground, or gasped their last breath like fish in a dried-up pond.

The enemy sentry cavalry’s role was merely reconnaissance and to delay the garrison’s breakout at the first moment.

Seeing the situation was unfavorable, they withdrew backward.

The Shouzhou cavalry camped several li away, unable to advance directly below the city but constantly guarding against the garrison breaking out, reacted in almost the fastest time. Squads of elite cavalry charged killing from crude camp gates, even directly pushing down crude wooden palisade walls, like mountain torrents rushing head-on.

Dark tides collided in the dawn light, splashing sparks of blood and flesh.

The cavalry led by Li Xiu and Li Qi, with Li family youth and Prince’s household guards as the core, based on clan youth, were as unbreakable as reef rocks.

People constantly fell around Li Xiu and Li Qi, but more officers and soldiers immediately replaced them, protecting their flanks.

Li Xiu wielded a lance, Li Qi wielded a great halberd. The two need not worry about their sides and rear, only knowing to parry, stab, sweep and strike enemies before them, single-mindedly killing a bloody path. Seeing arrows flying over like locusts, they only raised arms to block their faces.

The core generals all wore scale armor with one or two additional layers of leather armor. Although their vital points were difficult for arrows to wound, their mounts could not withstand arrows.

By the time Li Qi, surrounded by left and right guards, changed to his third warhorse, his right leg unprotected by scale armor had been pierced by five arrows from top to bottom. Two arrows even penetrated through his leg skin, connecting him with the warhorse beneath him.

At this time they could already see a corner of the ridge peaks at the northern foot of the Wujian Mountain Range emerging through the morning mist.

To prevent falling from horseback, Li Qi had his attendants use rope to bind his waist and legs together with the saddle of the newly changed fourth warhorse.

“That dog thief Xu Mingzhen is nothing more than this!”

Li Qi looked at the Shouzhou cavalry on the flank who had been killed into some fear by them and dared not press close, couldn’t help but roar and shout, using this to boost morale.

The enemy cavalry could still attack in rotation to conserve strength, but they had to charge killing in one breath all the way to before the Wujian Mountains to possibly catch a slight breath.

The last remaining stretch of road would not allow them to slacken by half.

Li Qi, Li Xiu and the others led cavalry withstanding the greatest pressure to charge forward, but the cavalry’s speed was still faster than the infantry departing from the south gate, already pulling ahead by some distance to the south.

The cavalry-infantry led by Li Chong and Xu Jing could initially coordinate the junction between the cavalry and infantry breakout forces, intentionally holding back speed, even occasionally dividing out small groups of elite combat power to charge kill enemy troops coming around to the rear flank, generally maintaining parallel advance with Li Qi and Li Xiu.

However, through the morning mist, seeing Fang Mountain on the far northeast side of the Wujian Mountain Range right before their eyes, while in the gradually brightening dawn light seeing enemy cavalry assembled on their right forward flank dense as gloomy black clouds, Li Chong and Xu Jing could no longer care about much else. They began ordering their troops to pick up speed, spurring horses toward Fang Mountain with all their might, quickly surpassing Li Qi and Li Xiu overall.

“Hmph!”

Li Pu’s eldest son had died early. Li Chong was the second son and Li Qi the youngest, but Li Qi had been taken by his uncle Li Yu to Yuzhang for upbringing since childhood. His relationship with Li Chong was far less close than with Li Xiu.

Seeing Li Chong and Xu Jing act this way now, Li Qi snorted coldly, with both dissatisfaction and disdain, but said nothing. He raised his great halberd horizontally to his knee and led his troops to crash head-on into a group of enemy cavalry charging from the side front.

How could Li Chong at this time care about his own brother’s scorn? His heart was full of thoughts that once he reached the foot of Fang Mountain first and established a stable position, he might have spare capacity to divide troops to receive and support subsequent breakout forces.

He could not see that at the foot of Fang Mountain directly before them, within dense forest, over a thousand cavalry with both men and horses clad in black armor were at this moment following hand signals from their commander Pang Xiong, taking up weapons one after another, mounting horseback, pulling reins, and slowly stepping out of the forest at extremely slow speed.

On the fallen wild grass, the Dark Armored Cavalry were like death gods harvesting lives, waiting for the first wave of breakout garrison troops to deliver themselves before their eyes…

……

……

The greatest disadvantage of heavily armored cavalry was their lack of medium to long-distance mobility. However, the Central Plains warhorses selected by the Dark Armored Cavalry had robust physiques and tall horse bodies, to a certain extent overcoming the problem of insufficient short-range charge speed. In the short term they were even faster than the short-breed horses Great Chu imported from Sichuan, Yunnan and other places.

On the wilderness less than four to five li from the southeast shore of Longyou Lake to the foot of Fang Mountain, once over a thousand Dark Armored Cavalry pulled up their speed, they surged forward like a black angry tide, their hooves pounding the ground like thunderous shaking.

If Li Xiu and Li Qi led three thousand elite cavalry, perhaps on the vast plains they would dare to charge head-on against over a thousand Dark Armored Cavalry, but generally speaking, unless absolutely necessary, they would still choose to avoid, trying every method to open distance to exhaust enemy horse strength.

For Li Chong and Xu Jing at this time, behind them were all cavalry-infantry.

So-called cavalry-infantry’s main combat mode was to use horses, mules and other livestock to conserve strength during movement, maneuvering medium to long distances at relatively fast speed. When encountering enemies they would dismount to form battle arrays.

Officers and soldiers’ horseback riding and mounted combat training were all inferior to true cavalry. The weapons and armor they were equipped with, mainly shields, spears, and longbows inconvenient to wield on horseback, were also unsuitable for mounted combat, let alone charging head-on against heavy armored cavalry.

Seeing enemy cavalry all in black armor killing out from the forest at the foot of Fang Mountain, Li Chong’s heart instantly pounded like a drum, his face ashen, as if an invisible iron-cast giant hand tightly gripped his throat, making him unable to breathe.

To the left was Longyou Lake. Although frozen, Longyou Lake stretched over ten li wide. Whether the ice surface could withstand thousands of cavalry trampling on it together was still questionable.

More deadly was that Longyou Lake was extremely shallow, with large patches of reeds exposed on the ice layer. With fire arrows igniting them, one fire would spread across a wide area and could melt the lake ice.

To the right was the cavalry unit under Li Xiu and Li Qi.

Behind were the navy remnants under Gao Chengyuan.

They could not charge forward. With only three to four li remaining to the enemy heavy cavalry’s charge line, if they hastily dismounted to form battle array, could they withstand the first wave of heavy armored cavalry’s clustered charge crashing over like a huge wave?

“Go southeast!” Xu Jing shouted loudly.

The southeast direction was the gap between the southern end of Longyou Lake and Fang Mountain, about four li wide. The gap’s edge was seven hundred paces from them, just slightly farther than the enemy cavalry’s forward line. But calculating the time, if they galloped at full speed, they could reach that gap before engaging the enemy cavalry, then break out eastward along the lake shore edge. However, those who could make it through that gap in time might only be them and the several hundred close attendants beside them.

Forget about Gao Chengyuan’s troops behind—the over four thousand cavalry-infantry they led had at this time already pulled apart nearly three li distance.

Acting this way, they were actually diagonally pulling the entire cavalry-infantry battle formation to the southeast side, then directly exposing their flank to the enemy army’s heavy armored cavalry charge.

The only benefit was that they and their personal guards beside them might successfully escape disaster.

Xu Jing was a Chief Officer of the Privy Council’s Military Planning Department. Li Chong was the commanding general of these cavalry-infantry behind him. But he only hesitated for an instant before gritting his teeth and shouting: “Go!” leading the way toward the southeast side…

“Fools!” Seeing this scene, even Li Xiu couldn’t help but curse loudly.

With enemy forces hiding an ambush force below Fang Mountain, how could they possibly leave a gap on the southeast side?

Not daring to dismount and form battle array to resist the enemy, even stepping on the ice of Longyou Lake would have slightly higher odds of success!

However, with Li Chong unwilling to fight desperately, the situation was already spoiled and beyond his ability to change. Whether he, Li Qi and the men behind them could survive, and how many could survive, still depended on whether they could successfully cut through the enemy cavalry pressing down from the right forward like dark clouds.

Gao Chengyuan led the navy remnants positioned behind the cavalry-infantry. The terrain was slightly lower. People and horses on horseback, but with friendly cavalry galloping on the front and right sides, the field of vision was not open. With the various officers and soldiers, they just kept their heads down jogging forward.

Among the Vermilion Bird Army generals, Guo Liang had already been granted the position of Deputy Commander as a young brave general just past twenty years old over a decade ago. It was only because of the betrayal of the old Vermilion Bird Army’s main general that the old army suffered severe damage. Affected by this, he had guarded several hundred old soldiers of the old Vermilion Bird Army day in and day out for ten years.

Li Zhigao, Chai Jian, Zhou Shu and others were young generals who grew up in the army following Great Chu’s foremost famous general, Eastern Zhe Prince Li Yu. After Li Yu retired, Li Zhigao, Chai Jian, Zhou Shu and others became the backbone force of the Marquis of Xinchang’s household. Their abilities and insights were all extraordinary.

Gao Chengyuan had been selected by the Late Emperor as a Chongwen Hall guard due to his loyal bravery and love of learning. Afterward he was able to command guards at the Marquis of Linjiang’s household, then serve as Deputy Commander in the Vermilion Bird Army—only then did he gain true experience commanding forces of a thousand or more. Later, due to Emperor Yanyou’s trust, he was entrusted with the important task of training and organizing the naval camp.

He knew his own talents were mediocre, so when training officers and soldiers he absolutely did not dare have the slightest slack.

The over three thousand navy remnants jogged out of the city for over ten li, pulling apart from the cavalry-infantry by only five to six hundred paces. Actually, by the time the entire cavalry-infantry formation was pulled askew to the left side by Li Chong and Xu Jing at the front, clearing the forward field of vision, Gao Chengyuan discovered the forward line of over a thousand Dark Armored Cavalry was already less than three li from him.

At this moment Gao Chengyuan felt as if struck by lightning, instinctively reining in his warhorse, nearly falling from horseback.

“Run onto the lake surface!” left and right subordinate generals all shouted.

Gao Chengyuan dazedly turned his horse’s head, about to lead his left and right subordinates with the officers and soldiers turning toward the east, thinking to risk crossing the ice layer of Longyou Lake. But the next moment his mind suddenly awakened and he roared: “Don’t panic! All officers and soldiers charge forward. Those not afraid of death follow me to the left forward side to block the enemy’s edge!”

The left and right subordinate generals were all senior military officers Gao Chengyuan had brought over these past few years. Hearing Gao Chengyuan’s order, initially not understanding but habitually obeying his commands, they immediately each led household generals and close attendants riding crossbow horses and green mules—about nearly three hundred men total—assembling with Gao Chengyuan toward the left forward flank, clearing the passage on the right side for the remnant officers and soldiers behind to continue forward.

When Gao Chengyuan led them spurring horses toward the Dark Armored Cavalry’s flank on the left forward, the Dark Armored Cavalry’s forward section had already like a sharp knife, cut into the cavalry-infantry’s flank.

The entire cavalry-infantry formation’s flank had fundamentally no resistance power. Not a single military officer stood forward to pull out a squad of troops to block the Dark Armored Cavalry’s military edge. This caused the entire formation, when pulling to the left side, to already be compressed extremely tightly and chaotically against the lake shore due to cowardice and fear of death.

Actually, at the instant of contact with the Dark Armored Cavalry’s forward three hundred-plus cavalry, the cavalry-infantry formation had already collapsed. Even earlier, some had fled toward Longyou Lake located to their northeast.

If they had just chosen to flee toward Longyou Lake, they would have been blocked by the cavalry-infantry’s routed troops, thus completely scattering in disorder.

Because the cavalry-infantry formation diagonally pulled to the southeast side, to more conveniently attack the cavalry-infantry’s flank, during the charge process the Dark Armored Cavalry’s three waves of cavalry formations also all adjusted direction, moving toward the northeast direction.

The Dark Armored Cavalry’s forward had already killed into the cavalry-infantry formation. The second wave cavalry formation had less than two hundred paces remaining to the cavalry-infantry flank, speed also pulled to maximum. Not wanting self-chaos, it was impossible to hastily adjust direction. Only the third wave of over two hundred heavy armored cavalry were at a slightly farther distance, speed not yet pulled to maximum. They could still adjust their charge direction. At this moment the left and right subordinate generals all understood—Gao Chengyuan was leading them to fight to the death to hold down these two hundred heavy armored cavalry, killing open a thread of survival chance for other navy remnant soldiers to flee into Fang Mountain…