His eyes gazed blankly at the people in front, then suddenly turned to give him a cold sideways glance.
Just then, a gust of cold wind blew past. Gongsun Yin wasn’t sure if it was the wind or that look that sent a chill down his spine.
He quickly shifted his gaze towards the distant city wall, waving his feather fan a couple of times to change the subject: “The rebels on the city wall have been subdued by our crossbowmen. We can begin the assault now!”
Xie Zheng also withdrew his gaze, once again looking towards the city wall of Kang City, which appeared somewhat diminished under the pressure of the thunderclouds. His thin lips uttered two words: “Begin assault.”
The herald officer beside him, having received his instruction, climbed onto a temporary platform erected in the middle of the formation and shouted: “Begin assault—”
The sprawling military formation extended to the open fields outside Kang City’s gate. The command couldn’t be relayed by shouting alone to such a distance. Over a hundred flag officers, upon hearing the order from the front, raised their command flags and rode their horses along a small path left open in the formation for horses and men to pass. They galloped towards the various square formations neatly arranged at the rear, shouting: “Begin assault—”
In an instant, beneath the city wall of Kang City, the black iron army could be seen advancing like a tidal wave with an overwhelming force. In the dark mass of troops, scarlet command flags rolled like swimming dragons in the black sea waves. The battle cries shook the low-hanging thunderclouds in the sky, making them seem to sag even further. In the distance, the city wall of Kang City appeared like a fragile small boat that could be capsized by a single wave in this surging black military tide.
The defenders on the city wall, already demoralized by the earlier rain of arrows that had swept through like a plague of locusts, now saw the Yanzhou army charging towards them like hungry wolves and tigers. Their faces turned pale with fright.
Even though the Yanzhou army had entered the range of the city wall’s archers, not a single person on the wall reacted to loose arrows.
Everyone had only one thought in mind: It’s over.
There was no point in continuing this battle!
Sui Yuanqing, enraged, drew his sword and struck down the nearest archer, shouting: “What are you doing standing there? Loose arrows!”
The defenders on the city wall finally started to nock arrows and draw their bows with trembling hands, but they were shaking so badly they could barely draw the bows. The few arrows they managed to lose barely flew a few zhang before falling, causing no damage at all.
The deputy commander, though having seen a few major battles, still felt his soul tremble at the sight of the Yanzhou army surging forward like a sea tide below the city wall.
The end of that military formation seemed to merge with the dark thunderclouds pressing down from above, making it feel as if all of Kang City had been enveloped by this blackness.
Let alone the common soldiers, even he felt his calves weakening, unable to muster any fighting spirit.
He pushed past several archers trembling as they loosed arrows at the battlements, found Sui Yuanqing, and said anxiously: “Young Master, Kang City is surely lost. Let me cover your retreat. As long as the green hills remain, one need not worry about firewood!”
Sui Yuanqing coldly turned his dark, gloomy eyes to stare at the deputy commander like a dead object: “Retreat? Where can we retreat to?”
The deputy commander’s beard twitched, his eyes darting about, not daring to meet Sui Yuanqing’s gaze. Of course, he knew that besides Chongzhou, Kang City was the Sui family’s only retreat.
Covering Sui Yuanqing’s retreat was a pretense; he simply didn’t want to throw away his life in this inevitably lost battle.
Sui Yuanqing, perhaps seeing through his thoughts, suddenly placed the sword he had just used to cut down the archer against the deputy commander’s neck.
The cold blade, still sticky with fresh blood, pressed against the skin of his neck. The deputy commander’s neck instantly broke out in goosebumps, his eyes revealing terror.
Sui Yuanqing had been pleased by his reaction. Looking at him, he smiled and said in a voice both gentle and sinister: “If General Ma speaks such words that demoralize our troops again, this Young Master will surely take your head.”
The deputy commander knew Sui Yuanqing’s capabilities well. Even if he couldn’t hold Kang City, taking his life before the city fell would be more than easy. He immediately professed his loyalty: “Even if this subordinate dies, he will die on this city wall. This subordinate was only concerned for the Young Master’s safety!”
His words were high-sounding, and Sui Yuanqing didn’t bother to scrutinize their truth. He just looked at him with a mix of mockery and indifference: “General Ma’s loyalty and bravery comfort me greatly. Go command the soldiers to defend the city.”
The deputy commander, having escaped death by a hair’s breadth, felt immensely relieved and quickly saluted before hurrying away.
When Sui Yuanqing turned back to look at the battlefield below, his face could no longer maintain even that cold smile. The hand propped on the stone brick of the wall’s battlement showed bulging veins, his jaw clenched tight.
Launching an assault before a thunderstorm, and with such a grand display – throughout history, perhaps only Xie Zheng had ever done this.
Anyone who had read even a bit of military strategy knew not to engage in large-scale siege warfare during a rainstorm. The gale and rain would greatly reduce the range and damage of arrows.
Yet Xie Zheng did the opposite and succeeded.
The range of bows and arrows would be limited by the strong winds before a storm, so he used crossbows with greater range and power than regular bows.
Dark clouds pressed down on the city, and the Yanzhou army’s formation spread out like a black ocean. A man borrowed the power of nature – the visual impact alone was enough to terrify the defenders of Kang City.
The highest strategy in the art of war had always been to attack the enemy’s mind.
Before this battle, he had never imagined that someone could use psychological warfare in such a simple, direct, yet brilliantly effective manner.
In the past, he had always refused to acknowledge Xie Zheng, thinking that he was merely a few years older, with the reputation his father Xie Linshan had left in the army, and some lucky breaks on the battlefield that had allowed him to establish his military achievements.
He thought that if it were him, he wouldn’t do any worse than Xie Zheng.
But after several encounters, the sense of predestined defeat in his heart grew stronger and stronger.
In this life, he could never become Xie Zheng.
He had reached his current position by studying military strategies and stratagems, but Xie Zheng was someone who could create new military strategies and stratagems.
In this world, what makes people most envious and most powerless is that one-tenth of natural talent can’t be matched even with ten-tenths of effort.
The Yanzhou army had reached the base of the wall. Scaling ladders were set against the city wall, and the defenders on the wall frantically shot arrows and threw rolling stones, only to be blocked by the round shields made of fine steel carried by the Yanzhou soldiers climbing the ladders.
At the city gate, dozens of men carrying a battering ram were shouting their cadence as they rammed the gate. The defenders above lifted logs and stones to throw down, but Yanzhou soldiers joined their round shields to form a large, semi-circular iron shell protecting those carrying the battering ram.
The stones and boulders thrown from the city wall fell onto the shields and rolled to the ground. The Yanzhou army at the base of the wall suffered almost no casualties.
Sui Yuanqing watched all this coldly, like an outsider. Stripping away all emotions of jealousy, anger, and unwillingness, looking at this siege battle, he almost wanted to praise it as perfect.
A general on horseback should die on the battlefield. If he were to die in such a grand battle, Sui Yuanqing even felt a sense of relief and liberation in his heart.
After a tremendous crash, the city gate was finally broken open. The deputy commander, his face covered in blood, pushed through the panicked defenders scurrying on the wall to find Sui Yuanqing. He knelt before him and said, “Young Master, the gate has been breached. Kang City truly cannot be held!”
The fine rain was falling more densely now. Sui Yuanqing turned his head slightly, looking at him with a casual smile, and uttered just two words: “Get lost.”
The deputy commander didn’t understand his meaning, but Sui Yuanqing had already taken his weapon from a guard and was walking towards the base of the city wall, his steps leisurely and casual, against the flow of defenders scattering like headless flies.
The deputy commander watched his retreating figure, secretly sighing that this man must have gone mad.
With the gate breached, the city’s defenders fled in panic.
The fine drizzle that had been falling like cow hair gradually turned into raindrops the size of soybeans, falling very sparsely from the black clouds in the sky.
Xie Zheng rode in with a dozen members of his guard, encountering Sui Yuanqing in the barbican.
Sui Yuanqing stood there alone on horseback, with the corpses of over a dozen Yanzhou soldiers lying beneath his horse’s hooves. His long spear dripped with fresh blood as he looked at Xie Zheng provocatively and said, “Xie upstart, do you dare come forward to die?”
The personal guards on either side of Xie Zheng showed anger on their faces and immediately wanted to spur their horses forward, but were stopped by Xie Zheng’s halberd held across their path.
He said calmly, “Fall back.”
The dozens of personal guards looked at each other and retreated several zhang.
Seeing this, the bloodlust and excitement in Sui Yuanqing’s eyes grew even stronger. He gripped his long spear, forcefully squeezed his horse’s belly, and with a great shout, charged towards Xie Zheng to kill.
This attack, with man and horse as one, was almost unstoppable.
But Xie Zheng sat motionless on his horse, not moving an inch. His Ferghana warhorse, having accompanied him on battlefields for many years, showed no fear at this sight.
Only when Sui Yuanqing’s weapon was almost at his face did Xie Zheng raise his halberd to block?
With a sharp clang that set one’s teeth on edge, the crescent-shaped blade below the tip of the halberd firmly caught Sui Yuanqing’s spearhead. The collision of two immense forces sent Sui Yuanqing and his horse staggering back half a step.
He clenched his jaw, his face contorted.
But before he could pull out his weapon, the shaft of the long halberd struck him heavily in the waist and abdomen.
In an instant, Sui Yuanqing felt as if his internal organs had been shattered. As he flew off his horse, he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
When he hit the ground, his vision went dark and he saw double.
Only the soybean-sized raindrops falling on his face still gave him some sense of coolness.
The “Sui” banner on the city wall was cut down by the Yanzhou soldiers who had climbed up, its pole severed. The wind wrapped around the banner, blowing it down to fall at Xie Zheng’s horse’s feet.
The horse’s hoof mercilessly trampled on it, and the halberd blade wrapped in dark gold dragon patterns was placed against Sui Yuanqing’s neck.
Xie Zheng held the halberd with one hand, looking down at him from horseback with the indifference of one looking at an ant: “Has Young Master Sui’s decade and more of martial arts training all been practiced on his tongue?”
Sui Yuanqing ignored this taunt. His mouth full of blood, he looked at the blurry figure before him, as unassailable as a mountain, and laughed with a sense of perverse joy, saying, “Kill me, make it quick.”
Xie Zheng looked at him coldly but withdrew his halberd, ordering his guards behind him: “Tie him up and take him back.”
As the guards came forward to drag Sui Yuanqing away, he shouted hoarsely, “Xie Zheng, if I’m to die, dying by your blade would be more satisfying. Those executioners are not worthy of taking my head!”
The raindrops were falling more densely now, leaving bean-sized watermarks on the city bricks on the ground.
Xie Zheng had already ridden his horse a few steps forward. Hearing this, he turned back to look at him and said coldly, “There’s someone Young Master Sui might see who could make him not so eager to die.”
Sui Yuanqing was soon bound and taken away by the guards.
Gongsun Yin arrived late, using his feather fan to shield his head from the increasingly dense raindrops. He clicked his tongue and said, “So it’s true that as soon as this thunderstorm started, Kang City fell?”
Xie Zheng ignored him and continued riding into the city, ordering his subordinate commanders: “Once the main army enters the city, do not harm the civilians.”
All the commanders saluted and agreed.
…
The thunderclouds that had gathered above Kang City eventually turned into a rainstorm that did not cease for a day and a night.
Inside the room, bright candles burned high. Xie Zheng was bare-chested, his taut muscles appearing even more defined in the dim candlelight.
On his back was a diagonal wound that stretched across his entire back. The ends of the wound had scabbed over, but the middle part had split open again, with black-brown scabs and bright red flesh mixed, looking particularly gruesome.
He hadn’t even applied medicine, simply wrapping clean white cloth around his body. Though the pain made cold sweat bead on his forehead, he didn’t even blink.
The discarded clothes were messily piled on a nearby low table. Among them, a crudely carved wooden figurine with proudly upturned eyes stood out conspicuously.
The door was suddenly pushed open, and Gongsun Yin came in excitedly to report: “I took that Zhao fellow to see Sui Yuanqing. You don’t know…”
His words came to an abrupt halt as he saw Xie Zheng’s bloodied and mangled back. He frowned and asked, “When did you receive such a serious injury?”
Xie Zheng’s expression was extremely cold. He quickly finished bandaging himself, tied a knot, and put on his outer robe, saying, “I was injured when capturing Zhao Xun.”
Gongsun Yin was very surprised: “The Zhao family could afford such formidable guards?”
Xie Zheng directly changed the subject: “How is Sui Yuanqing doing?”
Gongsun Yin had lost all his previous excitement and simply said, “He no longer wants to die, he only wants to kill his way back to Chongzhou to behead his false brother and save his mother.”
After speaking, he brought up Xie Zheng’s injury again. He glanced at the low table, not seeing any medicine bottle, and his brow furrowed even deeper. He asked Xie Zheng, “Your back wound has split open like that? You’re not applying any medicine?”
He asked suspiciously, “I’ve been thinking you’ve been acting strange since you came back. Could it be that you’ve had another quarrel with Miss Fan?”
Xie Zheng suddenly spoke coldly, dismissing him: “If there’s nothing else, leave.”
Gongsun Yin was startled, realizing he had guessed correctly. He rarely saw Xie Zheng looking so displeased and figured they must have had quite a serious conflict. He no longer felt like teasing.
From years of friendship, he knew the temperament of the man before him. It wasn’t good to say much at this time. As he was leaving the room, he glanced at the figurine on the low table again.
There wouldn’t be such an ugly ornament in Xie Zheng’s room. It must be something he brought back from Chongzhou this time.
After walking far from the room, Gongsun Yin called over a guard and whispered instructions: “Go to Chongzhou…”