Xiao Yiqing rushed through the night to reach the southeast of Heishi’ao. The night was dark and heavy, all four directions covered in white snow. The snow glare scattered light, yet they could barely distinguish the dark shadows of Liang forces moving eastward in the distance.

Besides the terrifying cannons, the Taiyue Campaign Army was also equipped with large numbers of bed crossbows, scorpion crossbows, and various war chariots. Even with equal-sized forces in field combat, the Taiyue Campaign Army’s combat capability would be superior by a notch. Moreover, before nightfall, east of Elephant Trunk Ridge, the Taiyue Campaign Army held absolute numerical superiority.

Wusu Zongsu watched helplessly as the Heishi’ao fortifications fell, but he did not lead remnant troops fleeing north. Instead, he assembled nearly four thousand cavalry in an unnamed village camp southeast of Heishi’ao to await orders.

Although Liang’s new military equipment called “fire-subduing crossbows” had terrifying power, ultimately they were limited in number. Wusu Zongsu didn’t believe that when their main forces withdrew from the south, the Taiyue Campaign Army in absolute numerical inferiority could truly stand like an immovable rock wall across the open area east of Elephant Trunk Mountain, completely motionless.

Xiao Yiqing rushed over to first rendezvous with Wusu Zongsu. Additionally, with garrison forces at Yeren Peak and southwest of Changyuan Mountain, they had reassembled twenty thousand troops on the northern front by nightfall.

However, facing Liang’s new military equipment newly deployed on the battlefield, soldiers lacked necessary understanding, and war horses were easily startled by the thunder-like explosions. Launching night raids really had little chance of success.

“This is the lead pill refined and presented by the previous dynasty’s alchemist Qingxuzi…”

Having received scout reports several days ago, Xiao Yiqing had deduced that the new military equipment Liang forces were testing at their camps, with thunder-light and purple flames spraying from cast iron tube mouths, likely contained explosive materials similar to lead pills inside the iron tubes. At that time, when he and Wusu Dashi were in Huguan City, they had Wang Jingrong find craftsmen in Luzhou to attempt refining lead pills.

Lead pills were made by mixing saltpeter, sulfur, orpiment, and honey together. In contemporary times they were viewed as a greatly supplementing metallic-mineral medicine. Many medical texts recorded formulae, and some medical texts also recorded phenomena of explosive combustion and purple flames leaping skyward when ignited.

Saltpeter, sulfur, and orpiment were all relatively common medicinal materials. As long as the quantity wasn’t thousands or tens of thousands of jin, gathering materials in Luzhou City to refine dozens of finger-sized lead pills was more than sufficient.

In just a few days, Wang Jingrong had people make lead pills according to medical texts.

Wanting to imitate Liang’s new military equipment, iron tubes were difficult to cast. Wang Jingrong also specially had craftsmen make several small copper tubes sealed at one end, bringing them together to show Xiao Yiqing. He said: “Lead pill ground into powder, loaded into tubes and ignited—besides thunder sounds and flame light, there’s also airflow jetting out. I deduce Liang’s newly manufactured military equipment uses ignited lead pill spray jets to propel projectiles to injure people and animals. It’s just hard to imagine the power could be so terrifyingly great…”

In these years Xiao Yiqing had always secretly had people monitor Luoyang’s every move, especially in new learning development. They infiltrated and bribed by every means possible. But although many of the new learning and new techniques practiced in Luoyang seemed like they could grasp some of the keys, when they actually tried to imitate them, they found many aspects seemed similar but weren’t, or as the saying goes, a tiny difference leading to huge divergence.

The structure of spring-arm bed crossbows was not complex—mainly using multiple layers of refined iron strips connected to create bow arms of absolutely strong tension and toughness. But over more than two years, the spring-arm bed crossbows imitated by Taiyuan Craftsmen’s Institute could barely achieve an effective range of two hundred fifty paces, far short of Liang forces. This made them difficult to use on battlefields to contend with Liang forces.

Hearing scouts’ descriptions, Wang Jingrong had previously tried loading lead pill ground into powder into copper tubes and igniting them as experiments. At this time he took out the copper tubes and demonstrated before Xiao Yiqing, Zongsu, Nahe Yanzhen and other generals—loading powder, cotton fuse and stone pellets, then igniting. After a muffled sound, in a cloud of blue-purple smoke, the stone pellet was actually sprayed over ten paces away.

Seeing this scene, Xiao Yiqing guessed that the principle of the fire-subduing crossbows Liang forces manufactured might lie here. But spraying a tiny stone pellet over ten paces versus bombarding iron projectiles weighing over twenty to thirty jin out to two thousand paces, while also devastatingly tearing through heavy armor and penetrating walls—the gap here was astonishingly huge!

He had no idea when Luoyang had secretly developed such terrifying military equipment, nor did he know what mindset Han Qian had that he only brought them out at this moment.

Neither side lacked people of outstanding talent and wisdom, and brutal warfare was the most direct and most efficient catalyst for military technology development.

Based on hundreds of years of experience summarizing metallic-mineral medicine fire-subduing and lead pill refining, the emergence of fire tube and cannon prototypes no longer faced any obstacles. Even in the late previous dynasty, people had ground up lead pills to load into tubes firing flame arrows.

Although when he had just arrived at Tangyi in early years, Han Qian had craftsmen’s academies develop prototypes of cannons and gunpowder rifles, the first generation of cannons and gunpowder rifles had far too limited power.

Cannons loaded with stone shot had a range of only three hundred paces. And the power of gunpowder rifles was even far inferior to pre-improved arm-drawn crossbows. Of course, there was also an extremely fatal problem—saltpeter preparation was extremely backward, and production scale was extremely limited. Even saltpeter and the more common Glauber’s salt were often confused by people and extremely difficult to differentiate.

Deploying cannons and gunpowder rifles that were technologically immature and not very powerful on battlefields too early would, besides causing hostile forces to compete in imitation, have little significance. Therefore, before cannon technology developed to sufficient advancement while ensuring hostile forces would find it difficult to successfully imitate in a short time, internally only an extremely limited number of people knew of this technology’s existence, let alone deploying it in actual combat too early.

Of course, utilizing the research and development system established on the foundation of new learning, with continuous improvements to gunpowder and cannon technology over more than a decade, the magnitude of progress here was beyond what Xiao Yiqing and his people could imagine.

If Luoyang hadn’t formed a rudimentary chemistry system in these years, just the identification, refining, and purification of saltpeter might have required hundreds of years of experiential exploration.

The gunpowder Luoyang deployed in actual combat at this time, speaking of physical properties, was already nearly approaching the limits of black powder. Explosive power was roughly ten-plus times that of simply grinding lead pills into powder. This was why they could raise the range of long-barreled heavy smoothbore cannons to the terrifyingly great distance of three thousand paces.

Besides gunpowder performance, cannon power was also directly related to cannon casting level and precision.

The casting of heavy smoothbore cannons was even more a microcosm of results from Han Qian’s promotion of smelting and casting development over more than twenty years.

Of course, for Xiao Yiqing at this critical juncture, having Wang Jingrong and craftsmen publicly demonstrate lead pill powder shooting stones was not about investigating the principles of fire-subduing crossbows at this time. His main purpose was still to have all generals see that the new military equipment Liang forces used was not some ghostly supernatural force—there was no need for inner terror.

If all generals could not overcome inner terror, this battle truly could not be fought, let alone successfully breaking out north under the Taiyue Campaign Army’s interception.

This was destined to be a sleepless night.

Wang Jingrong brought craftsmen continuously to various temporary camps, demonstrating lead pill powder launching stone pellets to commanders and officers. Simultaneously, new troops continuously withdrew from the south through the night. At dawn, Wusu Dashi, clustered by over a thousand escort cavalry, rushed over to rendezvous with Xiao Yiqing.

Outside Yang Wuyu, after the small path west of Heishi’ao enemy camp was opened, tens of thousands of Liang troops also continuously passed through Heishi’ao during this night, extending into the wilderness east of Elephant Trunk Ridge.

Between Elephant Trunk Ridge and Doucheng Ridge, the relatively flat gap was about seventeen li wide.

Besides Wen Yuan’s unit contracting to west of Yang Wuyu, covering Yang Wuyu’s eastern exit, Li Xiu also deployed over twenty thousand combat soldiers, over ten thousand able-bodied laborers, and five thousand supply troops through the night to four high grounds extending east from Elephant Trunk Ridge and nearby areas.

The so-called high grounds had limited height—ranging from several zhang to over ten zhang, with circumferences of about a hundred-plus paces. They were more like small earthen mounds. But they could perfectly serve as cannon positions for operational deployment.

The four high ground positions were staggered front to back, but the distance between any two high grounds did not exceed six li.

Considering that Liang forces would not completely turtle up near the high grounds in fixed defense, but could at any time deploy combat operations to both flanks relying on high ground camps, and this area also had intermittent dense forests that made passage difficult for men and horses even after winter leaf fall, Liang forces had actually preliminarily completed “closing and sealing the door” on the northern side.

Liang forces, relying on temporary high ground camps and dense forests, worked through the night extending in both directions, digging trenches and constructing palisade walls. Xiao Yiqing knew that breaking out now was somewhat hasty, but they had little time left. There was fundamentally no time for thorough preparation. He advised Wusu Dashi to commit all forces that could be assembled on the northern front before noon, launching attacks at any cost.

Even just successfully capturing one of Liang’s high ground positions could ensure the Mongol people’s vitality would not be severed in this battle!

Although between Jincheng and Jinquan Mountain they possessed one hundred thirty thousand cavalry and infantry, Liang forces in the south had sixty to seventy thousand elite troops gradually pressing over. They still had to leave sufficient rear guard forces on the southern front. Even so, they could still commit a total of over eighty thousand elite troops to northern breakout operations.

But could eighty thousand elite troops necessarily tear through the Taiyue Campaign Army’s blockade?

Heavy smoothbore cannons, with cast iron barrels alone weighing over five thousand jin, plus cannon carriages—even towed by four to six horses, were quite inconvenient to move on bumpy battlefields.

Fortunately, heavy smoothbore cannons had sufficient range. Even fixed deployed on small high grounds at the core of defensive formations, they could provide powerful fire support to cavalry and infantry fighting over two thousand paces away.

Accompanying cavalry and infantry directly entering the battlefield, conducting mobile interception operations to both flanks, were forty-eight light smoothbore cannons divided into eight combat groups.

It must be said that Mongol cavalry had extremely rich combat experience and were sufficiently seasoned.

The offensive Mongol cavalry launched in the afternoon advanced gradually north in loose formations when at greater distances. Even though solid shot fired at ultra-long range frequently triggered ricochets, the tragic scene of devastation from one cannon shot wouldn’t occur. Only when the distance closed would Mongol cavalry raise horse speed while rapidly concentrating during the assault process to launch concentrated attacks on some point of Liang forces.

During this process, they would also try as much as possible to circumvent Liang cannons’ firing directions.

However, when drawing near, what greeted them were chain shot and canister shot that hadn’t appeared yesterday.

Compared to solid shot, chain shot had somewhat shorter range, but two solid shots connected by iron chains shot out spinning at high speed into enemy formations, with coverage area absolutely incomparable to single solid shots.

Although chain shot had complex construction and fired even more slowly, they were much more effective than solid shot against dispersed enemy troops.

And canister shot had even shorter range, mainly used to shoot and kill enemy forces entering within three hundred paces. But one canister shot from a light smoothbore cannon contained two hundred small projectiles. Four to six smoothbore cannons firing together formed a fan-shaped barrage in an instant sufficient to devastate enemy forces charging forward.

Six light smoothbore cannons at close range had bombardment power actually comparable to over a thousand super-strong war crossbows. How could this battle even be fought?

Of course, more importantly, after years of campaigns north and south, Liang’s elite forces had forged iron-like will. Even with only original military equipment, they had absolutely no fear of frontally encountering Mongol cavalry in field combat.

Even if Mongol cavalry could avoid cannon firing angles to entangle them, Liang’s battle-hardened elite forces fearlessly engaged them, entangling with enemy forces in close quarters hand-to-hand combat, then having cannon units calmly and unhurriedly seek firing opportunities amid the melee…

After half a day of slaughter, watching wounded and exhausted soldiers successively withdraw to southern temporary camps as night fell, watching these soldiers’ faces filled with such anxiety and despair, even irritably whipping beloved war horses beneath them—Xiao Yiqing’s heart went cold.

In just half a day, over seven thousand soldiers’ corpses were left among the ice and snow of the wilderness, without even defeating any of Liang’s interception formations extending from high grounds to the perimeter.

Meanwhile, Liang’s First and Second Central Campaign Armies not only completely occupied Jincheng today, but their main forces also advanced north over ten li from Jincheng, compressing their activity space between Jincheng and Jinquan Mountain to less than seventy li in depth.

Scouts who had infiltrated Mengzhou and Jiangzhou territory also rushed back to report that three days ago Liang forces had conducted comprehensive mobilization in Mengzhou, Jiangzhou, Hejin, Pingyang and other places. Roughly another thirty to forty thousand troops were continuously entering southern Shanxi from Taihang Pass and Qinshui River valley.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Xiao Yiqing turned to see Wusu Dashi walking over accompanied by Zhe’bie.

“We must make the worst preparations…” Xiao Yiqing lowered his voice.

If two hundred thousand military and civilians were all annihilated here, not only would Huguan and Luzhou to the north be impossible to hold, even Taiyuan Prefecture and even the three Hebei garrisons as well as the Yan-Yun prefectures to the north would fall—it was just a matter of time sooner or later.

Making the worst preparations meant that Wusu Dashi and some core commanders, protected by small elite forces, would cross over the perilous mountain ridges of the Taiyue Mountains, rush back to Taiyuan City to organize the largest scale and most thorough withdrawal since the southern invasions began.

Not only abandon Taiyuan, Ze-Lu, and the Hebei regions, but even Yan-Yun and even Liaodong must be abandoned, protecting the Mongol people’s final tribes in migrating into the deep desert to rest and recuperate.

Unless someday the Mongols mastered smelting, casting, and military equipment manufacturing technology equivalent to Liang forces, they should never again become enemies with Liang forces.

“It’s not yet time for despair—there will be no worst preparations!” Wusu Dashi decisively cut off Xiao Yiqing’s words, not letting him continue.

Looking at Wusu Dashi’s face cold and stern as mountain stone, Xiao Yiqing felt complete panic, knowing in his heart that Wusu Dashi might not truly believe there was still hope of successfully breaking out at this time. Perhaps he felt that even if he escaped back to Taiyuan, compared to dying in battle here, there wasn’t much difference?

The Mongol army rested for a day. Not until the third day did they again launch charges against the defensive positions Liang forces established east of Elephant Trunk Ridge, yet it was more like final desperate struggling.

Infantry conscripted from Yan-Yun and Liaodong, after two or three rounds of charges, had morale so low it was ridiculous. They tried every means to delay not deploying, or after deploying, after just taking two or three cannon strikes in their formations, scattered in all directions, retracting back to narrow departure zones in front of supervision squads.

Not wanting to trigger uncontrollable mutiny, Wusu Dashi also dared not supervise battle too urgently. At this time he mainly used tribal cavalry for assault charges. However, everything was futile and fruitless.

Because southern front Liang forces were also equipped with certain quantities of cannons, Mongol rear guard forces could not effectively intercept southern Liang forces.

Southern Liang forces still advanced north at a pace of ten to twenty li per day with unwavering determination.

By the fifth day, besides military and civilians who had been routed or fled in mutiny, Wusu Dashi and Xiao Yiqing, unable to withstand Liang forces’ north-south pincer attack, could only lead the final eighty thousand remnant troops, forced to withdraw into a valley at the eastern foot of Changyuan Mountain.

Meanwhile, Liang forces continuously mobilizing reinforcements from Mengzhou, Jiangzhou, Pingyang and other places had now assembled powerful forces of one hundred thirty thousand east of Changyuan Mountain.

Before this, not only were one hundred thousand women and children withdrawing from Jincheng dispersed—who knew how many died from hunger and cold in the ice and snow—but the Mongol army had also lost a total of seventy thousand soldiers, either killed in action, captured, or lucky to have fled into deep mountain forests…

Besides opening a narrow passage to accept Han troops from Yan-Yun and Liaodong as well as surrendering troops from Jin territory and Hebei, Kong Xirong commanded the army to tightly encircle Mongol remnants from three sides, conducting irregular bombardments daily, continuously compressing Mongol remnants deeper into the valley.

On the last day of the seventh year of Taihe, all units finally sent elite forces charging into enemy formations, completely crushing the Mongol army’s final remnant resistance.

Sima De and Cao Zhe, accompanied by Wen Ruilin, walked into the unbearable enemy camp. Seeing enemy generals like Xiao Siqing and Zhe’bie finally dying in battle before a large tent, only then did they learn that Wusu Dashi had been struck by scattered shot four days earlier and hadn’t survived past that night. His body had been kept in this large tent all along.

Sima De, Cao Zhe and Wen Ruilin entered the large tent. Besides seeing the coffin containing Wusu Dashi’s corpse, they also saw Xiao Yiqing who had already died from drinking poison…