Yang Wuyu was an extremely inconspicuous small village at the southeastern foot of Jinquan Mountain. Before the war, twenty to thirty households of the Yang surname had lived and multiplied here, hence the name Yang Wuyu.

Besides being backed against Elephant Trunk Ridge—a spur extending over seven li at the southeastern foot of Jinquan Mountain—to the north, Yang Wuyu had the Changyuan Mountain to the south stretching over twenty li. This determined that the valley where Yang Wuyu was located served as a shortcut for penetrating from the various valleys at the southern foot of Jinquan Mountain into the region east of Jinquan Mountain.

When the Taiyue Campaign Army advanced to the Jinquan Mountain line, they established a military camp here.

The Mongol main forces needed to enter northern Zezhou before they could receive and escort their hundred thousand-plus military and civilians from Jincheng withdrawing north.

Seeing the Taiyue Campaign Army voluntarily contract toward the southern foot of Jinquan Mountain west of Changyuan Mountain, adopting a posture of inviting them into a trap, Wusu Dashi and Xiao Yiqing had no illusions about turning the tables and first devouring the Taiyue Campaign Army.

They mainly hoped that during the withdrawal of Jincheng’s military and civilians, they could consistently seal off Liang’s Taiyue Campaign Army in the region west of Changyuan Mountain. This way they could focus their main energy on dealing with Liang’s First and Second Central Campaign Armies following like shadows and clinging like maggots to bone in pursuit.

This determined that Yang Wuyu and two small camps on the southern side of Changyuan Mountain were strategic points that the Mongol main forces must first capture before advancing south, then hold to construct a defensive line against the Taiyue Campaign Army contracted to the southern foot of Jinquan Mountain and Gaoping City.

After the disastrous defeat at Zhiguan Pass, many Mongol commanders harbored resentment in their hearts.

Climate factors causing dramatic battlefield reversals had occurred throughout history. Many Mongol commanders still believed that the disastrous defeat at Zhiguan Pass was just bad luck on their part.

They hoped this battle could reestablish the Mongol people’s supreme military prestige.

The Nahe clan had only formally merged into the Mongols thirty years ago. Over these years, countless Nahe youth had followed the Wusu clan in campaigns north and south, and had long considered themselves part of the Mongols.

In recent years, the great desert had been extremely harsh and cold. Every winter, countless cattle and horses froze to death, and tens of thousands of tribespeople struggled to survive. Now they had finally migrated into Jin territory with abundant water, grass, and temperate climate—who would want to be driven out again?

Nahe Yanzhen accepted the mission to capture Yang Wuyu and construct a defensive line for defense. On the first day of the twelfth month, he and his clan brothers Yan Jiang and Yan Yun led over eight thousand Yan-Yun Han troops and over four thousand cavalry from their own tribe, arriving before Yang Wuyu. Facing defensive fortifications pre-constructed by Liang forces, the Yan-Yun Han army placed double-layered cast iron shields horizontally on war chariots, clustering together as they pressed forward, launching wave after wave of charges surging like mad waves.

Although spring-arm bed crossbows had extremely strong penetrating power and could shatter cast iron heavy shields at three hundred paces, their rate of fire was slow and they could only be positioned in the front formation.

Yanzhen believed that by placing many heavy shields in the front formation and advancing with multiple rows and layers of shield formations, they could still effectively suppress the heavy shooting of Liang’s heavy crossbows.

At this time, with severe cold across heaven and earth and mountains covered in ice and snow, the effectiveness of fire oil jars launched by Liang forces using scorpion crossbows was also limited.

Although approaching Liang’s defensive fortifications inevitably meant suffering certain casualties, as long as soldiers were not afraid of casualties and could endure until the two armies engaged in close combat or even mixed battle, the so-called excellent military equipment of Liang forces would be restricted to the greatest degree.

Yanzhen was fully prepared for this. Besides the heavy shields and shield chariots equipped by his troops, he also ordered the wooden doors of village houses on both sides dismantled to strengthen protection for the front formation.

After half a day of fierce battle, ultimately it was the Liang forces defending Yang Wuyu who could not withstand the Mongol army’s attacks that completely disregarded casualties. Unwilling to fight a war of attrition at Yang Wuyu, they were forced to withdraw from Yang Wuyu and retreat to a low ridge four to five li to the west, reorganizing and establishing a new defensive line.

Learning that Yanzhen had successfully captured Yang Wuyu, Xiao Yiqing rushed over immediately.

Whether they could subsequently establish a solid defensive line at Yang Wuyu directly related to the flank security of the southward-advancing forces.

“Don’t have illusions about luring these Liang forces east of Changyuan Mountain to annihilate them with a two-pronged attack. Even if the Nahe clan’s brave warriors all sleep forever at the foot of Changyuan Mountain, you must not retreat half a step from here…” Xiao Yiqing was the military strategy teacher of Nahe clan members like Yanzhen, Yan Jiang, and Yan Yun. Unable to dispel the ominous premonition in his heart, he solemnly warned the Nahe clan commanders.

Xiao Yiqing warned them not to fear the harsh cold or the solidly frozen earth. He required them to send more scouts to search both mountain ranges, ensuring there were no gap terrains easily penetrated by Liang forces not under their control. He required them not to fear hardship in digging several deep trenches on the western side of the valley. The excavated earth could be piled up high. They could cut firewood to melt the ice and snow, pouring it layer by layer. In this freezing weather of ice and snow, it would freeze into interlocking layers of ice walls.

Xiao Yiqing told Yanzhen and the others that these deep trenches and ice walls need not connect continuously—they should deliberately leave many gaps for troops to enter and exit.

This way, when Liang forces launched offensives from the west, they could not only use these deep trenches and ice walls to maximally delay Liang’s attacks, making it difficult for Liang’s military equipment to function effectively, but the defenders could also constantly launch counterattacks through the gaps rather than passively defending.

Only after the Mongol army had basically controlled and established defenses around Changyuan Mountain southeast of Jinquan Mountain, and not until the sixth day of the twelfth month, did their seventy thousand main forces surge southward like a black flood tide through the gap between Jinquan Mountain and Doucheng Ridge.

From east of Jinquan Mountain to Jincheng was only one hundred ten li.

At such a short distance, normally a fast horse at full gallop could make two or three round trips in a day, and elite infantry could cross it in a day. But in the winter season, with the wilderness covered in thick ice and snow, the seemingly spacious post roads, when hundreds of thousands of old, weak, women and children surged onto them together, were destined to become narrow and extremely crowded, and movement was destined to become extremely slow.

Besides Jincheng’s original forty thousand garrison troops serving as rear guard forces responsible for pinning down Liang’s Han Donghu’s unit (First Central Campaign Army), and deploying ten thousand cavalry east of the Ze-Lu post road to guard against Liang forces penetrating into Lingchuan County territory to the east and attacking their flanks, Wusu Dashi and Xiao Yiqing personally led sixty thousand cavalry and infantry into Gaoping County territory, simultaneously watching Liang’s Kong Xirong’s unit (Second Central Campaign Army) to the southwest and portions of the Taiyue Campaign Army to the northwest.

This formed a safe passage from Jincheng to Huguan, facilitating the withdrawal north of one hundred thousand Mongol women and children remaining in Jincheng.

On the ninth day, heavy snow fell all day and the weather grew even colder, making the withdrawal of Jincheng’s military and civilians even slower. But in the Mongol army’s view, the same severe wind, snow and cold made the situation somewhat more favorable for them.

On one hand, their adaptability to harsh cold weather was stronger. On the other hand, they held absolute superiority in cavalry scale. The heavy snow weather and snow accumulation reaching thigh-deep would severely impede the mainly infantry-based Liang main forces from pursuing south to north.

Although Xiao Yiqing was beside Wusu Dashi in a camp at the southeastern corner of Gaoping County, his gaze still constantly focused on the Taiyue Campaign Army at the southern foot of Jinquan Mountain in northern Gaoping County. He also had scouts report the Taiyue Campaign Army’s movements every half day.

The thick snow accumulation would greatly delay the Liang main forces including the First and Second Central Campaign Armies from advancing north. If Yanzhen and others could smoothly seal off the thirty thousand elite Taiyue Campaign Army west of Changyuan Mountain, they could successfully receive and escort Jincheng’s hundred thousand-plus military and civilians into Luzhou territory to reorganize their footing there.

Before nightfall on the ninth day, elite troops from the Taiyue Campaign Army’s Su Lie, Chen Yuanchen, and Wen Yuan units, braving heavy snow weather, advanced from rear garrisons into defensive lines roughly parallel to Changyuan Mountain and only six to seven li away, assembling into two attack groups targeting Yang Wuyu and Yeren Peak on the southern side of Changyuan Mountain.

In response to this situation, Wusu Dashi also transferred five thousand cavalry from the southern front, approaching Yeren Peak from the south, so they could interfere from the flank with Liang forces attacking Yeren Peak when necessary.

On the unnamed low mountain west of Yang Wuyu, Li Xiu, Chen Kun, Su Lie and other generals all wore cold-resistant fur robes over their armor. The cold wind blew like knives, freezing soldiers’ faces bright red.

“The barbarian cavalry really are cautious! They haven’t even deliberately left openings to lure us east of Changyuan Mountain for annihilation!” Su Lie frowned and said.

This location was only about six li from Yang Wuyu. Under clear skies, the snow in the wilderness reflected blinding snow glare. Without needing copper telescopes, they could clearly see enemy defensive positions near Yang Wuyu.

Wen Yuan led his troops assembled on defensive lines seventeen to eighteen li to the south. While appearing to point the attack spearhead toward enemy forces along the Yeren Peak line, he was actually undertaking the role of covering the flank.

The true main attack direction of this battle was Yang Wuyu.

Besides needing to tear through the enemy’s defensive line at Yang Wuyu as quickly as possible, they also needed to rapidly pass through Yang Wuyu before the enemy could react and assemble in the open region east of Changyuan Mountain to form effective defense—only then could they truly achieve the action of “closing the door.”

Generals like Su Lie had all observed cannon test firings at close range and knew their power was tremendous. But cannons had not yet been deployed on a large scale in actual combat. Whether they could use cannons to rapidly capture Yang Wuyu—they were not particularly confident about this now.

Previously they had hoped more that the enemy’s ambitions would be greater, expecting the enemy to deliberately lure them east of Changyuan Mountain then attempt to annihilate them. This way they could save the critical step of forcefully attacking Yang Wuyu and opening the passage into the eastern side of Changyuan Mountain.

Who would have thought the Mongol people would become so cautious this time, truly just wanting to receive and take away Jincheng’s military and civilians from beginning to end, leaving a full twenty thousand-plus elite cavalry and infantry at Yang Wuyu and regions to the east.

To defeat these twenty thousand elite cavalry and infantry before the enemy main forces withdrew—not to mention generals like Su Lie and Li Yan, even Chen Kun and others who had organized volleys of over thirty cannons in the mountainous upper reaches of Yichuan River had no absolute confidence.

Of course, they had also prepared many contingency plans. If enemy main forces withdrew earlier than anticipated, the Taiyue Campaign Army’s goal would be to capture Yang Wuyu.

Even if ultimately some enemy forces escaped, there was no helping it. First they must ensure achievement of the overall strategic intent, rather than demanding excessively extreme battle results.

The snow between both sides’ positions had long been trampled solid.

The weather was too cold. After being trampled by humans and animals, the snow would not melt but freeze even more solidly, forming slippery ice paths among the bumps and hollows. They even needed to use knives and axes to chip out ice ridges or spread miscellaneous grass to prevent slipping.

Formations of Liang troops clustered around shield chariots and crossbow carts, swarming toward the west of Yang Wuyu. The soldiers at the forefront stopped and stood firm over five hundred paces outside the enemy defensive line, using war chariots to form simple and practical protection. Behind them, formations of soldiers spread out in succession, like layer upon layer of fish scales.

The battle formations all assembled in edge areas on both flanks, leaving a cannon firing corridor in the middle.

Explosive shells were still in the experimental stage. For heavy front-loading smoothbore cannons firing solid shot, they needed to shoot at as small an angle as possible, as close to a straight line as possible, to avoid having the impact force of solid shot absorbed by the soil upon first landing. Only by shooting at small angles could solid shot achieve multiple bouncing impacts within enemy formations, bringing power to its utmost.

This required frontline troops to leave considerable gaps along the solid shot firing paths.

To the Mongol army, all this made them believe that Liang forces were forming a large cone formation on both flanks before the Yang Wuyu defensive line, leaving such a large gap in the middle necessarily to facilitate pushing heavy equipment like whirlwind catapults through the middle to the front for attacking the camp.

The Mongol army would certainly not let Liang forces have their way. When constructing defensive lines, they left gaps between trenches and ice protective walls precisely to facilitate troops sallying out to counterattack Liang’s whirlwind catapult positions.

Standing on the Yang Wuyu camp wall behind several trench walls, Nahe Yanzhen also noticed the cannon positions three li away. But the pitch-black cast iron tubes made him think these were newly manufactured Liang equipment similar to spring-arm giant crossbows or whirlwind catapults, believing they needed to advance within five hundred paces of the trench walls to function.

The five hundred pace range happened to be the effective distance for cavalry charging at full speed.

Even knowing that charging cavalry over short distances while braving concentrated fire from Liang’s heavy crossbows would result in significant casualties, if they could assault Liang’s whirlwind catapult and other equipment positions and destroy as much Liang equipment as possible, even if one charge cost over a hundred elite lives, it was a necessary sacrifice.

Of course, to reduce casualties among sallying cavalry, Nahe Yanzhen would first arrange for some infantry to cluster around shield chariots and attack, pressing as hard as possible against Liang forces on the side flanks, as if counterattacking Liang forces.

At this moment, Nahe Yanzhen still did not clearly understand what tragic fate awaited him.

When the front-loading smoothbore cannons fired, Nahe Yanzhen first saw those cast iron tubes in Liang’s formations spray clusters of firelight. About five breaths later, he heard the deafening thunder-like roar, while earthquake-like trembling transmitted through the ground beneath his feet almost simultaneously.

Coming to his senses, he opened his eyes to see the outermost two ice-earth walls of mixed melted snow and mud had already collapsed with thunderous crashes, with chunks of frozen hard earth scattering toward the camp wall like broken bricks and stones.

Although most of the shattered frozen earth was blocked by ice-earth walls behind them, there were several hundred soldiers behind the first and second ice-earth walls prepared to counterattack. By now a large swath had been swept down—the scene was too horrible to witness.

What was happening?

What divine weapons had Liang forces deployed at fourteen to fifteen hundred paces that were so terrifyingly powerful!

Nahe Yanzhen instinctively felt his hands and feet go cold, his body go weak.

These ice-earth walls were not high. When soldiers mounted war horses, more than half their bodies would be exposed. But each ice-earth wall was nearly one zhang thick. In the freezing cold where water turned to ice, layer upon layer of melted snow water was poured on, frozen absolutely solid.

To construct the ice-earth walls and trenches, he had conscripted all able old, weak, women and children from surrounding areas. He didn’t know how many people he had whipped to death with iron lashes to complete what he considered a quite comprehensive defensive system in such a short time.

Nahe Yanzhen had previously conducted tests.

Using whirlwind catapults to hurl stone projectiles weighing over a hundred jin at three hundred paces could crack ice-earth walls, but to collapse one ice-earth wall would require at least one to two hundred strikes.

Of course, the accuracy of whirlwind catapults left something to be desired. Even with Liang’s well-trained trebuchet operators, hitting a one-zhang-high city wall at four hundred paces with one in three shots was already quite remarkable.

Yet looking at those black, seemingly iron projectiles, except for a few that flew overhead, nearly eight or nine out of ten struck the first and second ice-earth walls with pinpoint accuracy, destroying both ice-earth walls with devastating force. The flying and scattering hard earth chunks became deadly blades claiming the lives of soldiers waiting by the ice-earth walls.

However, the iron projectiles passing over their heads and landing in the camp destroyed several earthen houses like meteoric fireballs. One soldier was directly struck by an iron projectile—along with his armor, his body was torn to shreds by the iron projectile.

For a moment, the battlefield atmosphere fell into deathly silence.

Most Liang soldiers were also somewhat frightened. Previously they had dragged some cannons to various garrisons for test firing to let soldiers adapt. But test firing one or two light front-loading smoothbore cannons versus a volley from twenty-four heavy front-loading smoothbore cannons were completely different concepts, understood?

Fortunately, several cavalry units were all foresightedly deployed at more distant positions. Otherwise, if war horses panicked and shrieked, they would not be so easy to control.

Within the Yang Wuyu defensive line, all Mongol garrison soldiers were thinking one question: This was newly manufactured Liang equipment? Had the Mongol people offended the heavenly gods, causing Liang forces to produce such divinely powerful equipment to punish them?

Some individual soldiers even knelt on the ground at this moment praying to heaven.

As commanding general, Nahe Yanzhen was at least much calmer than the vast majority of his subordinate soldiers. He immediately had people rescue and treat the wounded and count casualties, and also had someone retrieve an iron projectile to bring before him.

He discovered that the iron projectiles fired by Liang’s new equipment were much smaller and much heavier than stone projectiles launched by whirlwind catapults. One weighed at most twenty jin, equivalent only to the weight of a medium-sized scatter stone projectile from a whirlwind catapult.

Yet speaking of power, such an iron projectile was ten times more powerful than a stone projectile weighing over a hundred jin launched by traditional whirlwind catapults.

Adding that terrifying accuracy—didn’t this mean one Liang new-style weapon could match twenty to thirty traditional whirlwind catapults?

Of course, what made Nahe Yanzhen even more desperate was that terrifying range.

If Liang’s equipment positions were at four to five hundred paces, perhaps he could still consider attacking regardless of casualties, fighting through elite Liang forces’ interception to force assault on and destroy Liang’s equipment. But now Liang’s new equipment was at fourteen to fifteen hundred paces away. Both flanks had thousands of Liang troops who could at any time fill into the middle gap, forming several or even over ten interception formations as solid as copper walls and iron arms—how could they possibly assault Liang’s equipment positions?

Nahe Yanzhen regretted not pulling his troops out before Yang Wuyu to adopt a fight-to-the-death posture with Liang forces. That way, he could have used cavalry to flank and assault Liang formations from three directions, rather than now being restricted by mountain terrain on both sides with only a narrow assault corridor of about three hundred paces remaining in the middle.

“Boom!” Again came thunder-like explosive roars. The already damaged outer ice-earth walls collapsed one after another, with hard earth chunks scattering in all directions.

Fortunately, those in front were all veteran soldiers. With lessons learned from the first bombardment, soldiers behind the outer ice-earth walls had all withdrawn and knew to use heavy shields to block flying debris. This time casualties were not as tragic as the first wave.

However, two iron projectiles flew overhead and landed in the camp. After hitting the ground they bounced up again. After four or five bounces they struck the eastern camp wall before embedding in the rammed earth wall. Along the path of these two iron projectiles, about ten-plus men and horses were either smashed to death on the spot with remains too horrible to witness, or had arms shattered and were critically wounded awaiting death.

“How many breaths passed from the first bombardment?” Nahe Yanzhen asked the adjutant beside him. He needed to understand the firing frequency and time intervals of Liang’s new equipment. This would directly determine tactical arrangements and rhythm for sallying from the camp to assault.

“One hundred forty breaths!” the adjutant replied.

The interval time was not much longer than firing scorpion crossbows or spring-arm bed crossbows. This was truly heart-chilling news, meaning that with coordinated infantry-cavalry charges to kill into Liang’s equipment positions without Liang forces intercepting at the front, they would very likely have to endure two bombardments.

Besides the twenty-four large iron tubes, Nahe Yanzhen noticed that on both flanks of Liang’s equipment formations, there were roughly double the number of smaller cast iron tubes.

These were very likely Liang’s shorter-range small-type new equipment.

Nahe Yanzhen secretly calculated: with coordinated infantry-cavalry charges taking one volley, with bad luck they might lose nearly two hundred men at once. More critically, the charging formation would be torn to shreds, making it very difficult to break through Liang’s interception formations. The only feasible combat plan was to send troops out to engage Liang’s front formation flanks in close combat!

As Nahe Yanzhen predicted, the range of light front-loading smoothbore cannons was indeed less than heavy front-loading smoothbore cannons, but still absolutely exceeded the distance between the cannon positions and Yang Wuyu’s western camp wall.

The reason they currently had not fired the double quantity of light front-loading smoothbore cannons was mainly that light smoothbore cannons had less powder charge. Firing solid shot had limited destructive effect on ice-earth walls and rammed earth walls. Except for two firing ranging shots, the forty-eight light smoothbore cannons remained in standby status.

When they observed Mongol forces inside Yang Wuyu assembling large-scale cavalry and infantry with signs of attacking both flanks of their forward defensive line from behind the defensive line, the forty-eight light smoothbore cannons finally found an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities.

At fifteen hundred paces, light smoothbore cannons had limited destructive power against ice-earth walls and rammed earth camp walls, but against the flesh and blood bodies of Mongol soldiers and war horses, their killing power was still terrifying.

Since Han Qian developed new learning twenty years ago, Luoyang Academy had inherited and continued this work, already forming a rigorous new learning development system. The smoothbore cannons researched and developed by Luoyang Academy were already quite mature technologically when deployed in actual combat.

The cast iron barrels and solid shot had extremely high precision, ensuring considerable air-tightness. Recoil buffers and reset mechanisms all effectively ensured ballistic stability.

Combined with aiming devices, plus gunners specially trained and drilled in actual combat for half a year, the forty-eight twelve-jin solid shots from one volley not only landed accurately into the dense enemy formations killing out of Yang Wuyu with eight or nine out of ten hitting, but also triggered ricochets at a high rate, sweeping down a large swath of enemy troops like a harvester.

Although direct deaths and injuries might only be one or two out of ten of the forces killing out of Yang Wuyu, watching large robust war horses directly penetrated by iron projectiles only slightly larger than fists, even three or four war horses consecutively penetrated by one iron projectile—even though Mongol people were renowned for their fierceness and ferocity, how much fighting will and courage remained among soldiers at this moment?

Not only was the enemy’s assault formation directly shattered with some soldiers fleeing in terror, but quite many enemy soldiers stood bewildered and confused on the battlefield. Even more knelt on the ground praying and confessing to heaven. Yet what greeted them were dense as locust swarms of crossbow bolts shot from Liang formations on both flanks of the forward line…