Chapter 40: First Battle
“The enemy is still thirty li away from us!”
[Translator’s Notes: Li : An ancient Chinese unit of distance, roughly equivalent to 500 meters or about a third of a mile.]
In the main tent, Wen Ning’an and a group of generals were gathered around a round table, discussing strategy. A vast map, dotted with markers, was spread out on the wooden table.
Wen Ning’an pointed to a spot on the map. “I will lead the Left Army in a frontal attack. General Gao and the Fengzhou garrison will remain at the fortress. General Li will lead the Li family’s army in a surprise attack from this spot to prevent any unforeseen circumstances. How does that sound?”
The “spot” Wen Ning’an was referring to was behind a hidden sand dune, perfect for concealment.
Gao Lan said, “We will follow General Wen’s arrangements.”
Li Huaisheng also nodded, indicating no objections.
Wen Ning’an looked at the sundial outside the tent and thought to himself, One hour… If we can hold out for one hour, then the heavens will be on our side, and it will be an effortless victory.
Qin Zhaohuang smiled. “I have done a divination, and it is no different from your predictions. At the earliest, in one hour, at the latest, in an hour and a half, there will definitely be a sandstorm!”
“This battle, we will definitely win!”
On the vast and boundless desert, countless wrinkles of sand and stone stretched out like waves, seemingly without end. A gust of wind blew, and the sand flew. Thousands of horses left a trail of prints on the solemn and magnificent yellow carpet, which were then slowly covered up.
Wen Ning’an, riding Wuying, stood before the thousands of troops armed with spears and shields. His silver-white soft armor and the long sword in his hand glinted in the sun, majestic and imposing.
One of the soldiers, who was lying prostrate on the sand with his ear to the ground, shouted, “General, less than five li.”
“Giddy-up!” Wen Ning’an’s eyes narrowed. He spurred his horse and whipped Wuying, charging towards the enemy, leading the way.
“Attack—”
The north wind blew, and the war drums beat. The scorching heat seeped through the skin and into the heart, but it could not stop the soldiers’ high morale and their soaring roars and long howls.
The two armies clashed like waves, and the sound of fighting and clashing swords was incessant. The Left Army instantly deployed a double-wing formation, with the brave and skilled adjutants leading the left and right wings to slowly encircle the enemy. Wen Ning’an, on the other hand, led the elites in a frontal assault, heading straight for the enemy’s heartland.
The enemy general, Duolong, made a gesture for his adjutant to unfurl the banner. The You King’s army also orderly formed an iron fan formation, attempting to disrupt the Left Army’s formation with a fan-shaped attack.
A volley of arrows flew over. Some missed their mark and fell into the yellow sand, while others hit their targets. Wen Ning’an, holding his long sword, swung at the enemy formation and shouted, “Feiyang! Cover me!”
“Yes!” Ren Feiyang’s eyes were bloodshot. He let out an excited roar and followed Wen Ning’an, covering his rear and sweeping away all the arrows.
Wen Ning’an trusted all his adjutants, so he paid no more attention to the rain of arrows coming at him, just focusing on breaking through the enemy’s layers of defense and approaching Duolong.
“General! Take the enemy general’s head!”
Their formation was torn open with one gash after another. Ren Feiyang was so excited his eyes were bloodshot and his whole body trembled.
Wen Ning’an spun again, cutting down the three enemy soldiers who were blocking them in front, taking three heads with one strike.
Duolong was no pushover either. Seeing Wen Ning’an’s fierce advance, he sneered and charged at him with his large saber. Wen Ning’an bent down and dodged Duolong’s saber, feeling a gust of wind mixed with sand and dust pass over him.
Duolong came at him with another strike, parrying Wen Ning’an’s slender sword with a smile. “Wen the God of War, I have long admired your great name!”
Wen Ning’an frowned. A long sword was no match for a large saber in terms of sturdiness. Besides, his sword was just a casually forged one from an iron shop, no match for Duolong’s. So, he simply abandoned his sword to avoid having his movements restricted and, with his bare hands, leaped from his horse, landing behind Duolong.
Duolong’s horse was startled, its front hooves rearing up. Duolong felt himself sway back, losing his balance unexpectedly.
Wen Ning’an took the opportunity to snatch Duolong’s large saber and slash at him. Duolong reacted quickly and narrowly dodged the fatal blow, saving his head, but his arm was cut off.
“Likewise, Prince Duolong.”
The adjutants beside Duolong were all aghast, in a state of chaos for a moment. But they were entangled by the elites Wen Ning’an had brought and were too busy to help.
Duolong had lost an arm. The excessive blood loss and pain made him unable to move for a moment. Just as Wen Ning’an was about to swing his saber and take his head, he heard a deep, muffled sound. He looked up and saw yellow sand suddenly erupting into the sky. The sand layer under his feet also trembled slightly, as if some monster had awakened and was struggling to break out from under the sand.
After the muffled sound, the blasted yellow sand scattered. The wind blew, and it flew everywhere, and for a moment, the entire world was a hazy yellow. The sand hit their faces and bodies with great force. The ground shook violently, as if some monster had awakened and was about to crawl out of the sand.
Ren Feiyang, at the side, was hit by the sand and narrowed his eyes. Tears instantly welled up. He lowered his head and shook it hard, then tried to open his still-sore eyes, staring intently in the direction of the explosion, wanting to know…
“Ah—”
The sound of a horse falling came from the distance. Wen Ning’an’s heart skipped a beat, and his eyes widened. The thing he had feared most had indeed happened. The calm surface of the sand was rippling like water. Wherever it passed, the sand sank as if it were being drained away. The amplitude was not large, but it was terrifying.
Duolong gasped and looked at Wen Ning’an. “Kill me, and there will be more explosions.”
Wen Ning’an sneered and decisively cut off Duolong’s head. Fresh blood gushed out, and the head still wore a ferocious expression of disbelief.
He knew that even if he let Duolong go, these explosives would not stop, but would instead intensify.
“The general… the general is dead!”
With Duolong’s death, the morale of the You King’s army gradually collapsed. The Left Army, on the other hand, cheered, shouting, “General Wen is invincible.”
The adjutant, Baili Mu, immediately took the tiger tally, waved the banner, and shouted, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Avenge our general!”
“What’s there to be afraid of! We outnumber them four to one!”
Baili Mu was also a very prestigious person in the army, and he managed to rally the troops’ morale.
Wen Ning’an frowned. The collapse of the sand was getting worse…
With a “swoosh,” a signal flare shot into the sky, trailing a long tail, visible from hundreds of li away. It was Wen Ning’an’s signal for the Left Army to retreat, and also a notice for the Li family’s army and the garrison.
After receiving the signal, the Left Army retreated in an orderly manner. These sand caves were not terrifying monsters to the Left Army, which had been in the desert for years. On the contrary, the You King’s army had shot themselves in the foot.
Baili Mu roared, “The Left Army is retreating! They’re scared! Chase—”
Baili Mu felt that victory was in his grasp. Even after the damage from the explosions, they still outnumbered the Left Army three or four to one. And now, the Left Army was indeed no match, fleeing with their tails between their legs. Duolong was now dead. If he achieved great results in this battle, it would not be difficult to replace Duolong and become the cavalry general…
“Chase! Chase them for me—”
The wind and sand scraped their cheeks painfully. Wen Ning’an returned to Wuying’s back and retreated with the Left Army, with the You King’s army in hot pursuit.
In an instant, the sky and earth turned dark, and sand and stones flew. A patch of gray suddenly appeared in the blue sky in the distance, constantly extending and growing larger, like a black blanket blocking the sun and covering the sky. The sand under their feet kept rolling, blown by the wind into waves.
A sandstorm!
The visibility around them instantly became blurred, and their eyes could barely stay open from the wind. All they could see was the yellow of the sand. They couldn’t see the road, not even their own armor and legs. There was a strange illusion, as if the sand would drill into all the openings in their bodies.
Faintly, the Left Army seemed to have climbed a sand dune.
“Baili… General Baili, should we continue to chase!”
Baili Mu was hesitating when he saw his army’s distress signal flare in the dust and smoke.
“General! The rear wing has been ambushed by the Li family’s army!”
Baili Mu was furious. “To catch the thief, first catch the king. Shake off these Li family troops. We’ll charge in and attack the dog emperor’s fortress!”
“Yes!”
The You King’s army advanced at full speed. After chasing to the front, Baili Mu gradually realized something was wrong.
The sand under them was strangely soft. When he stopped, he found that his horse was slowly sinking. The sand under them was like a bottomless pit, slowly sucking them in…
Baili Mu was startled and whipped his horse, wanting to leave, but the deeper he sank, the harder it was to escape! The sand seemed to have a clamping force. The horse struggled desperately, but gradually lost its strength, its body slowly being submerged in the white sand…
“It’s quicksand! This whole area is mostly quicksand! General, what should we do!”
Baili Mu looked at the sand that was gradually swallowing his horse and was in great distress. Quicksand under them, sand and wind hitting them painfully, they had suffered a great deal, losing without any ability to fight back before the vast desert.
And Wen Ning’an and his men, because they understood this desert and were able to avoid the quicksand, had won so easily…
Someone shouted, “Don’t struggle! It will only make you sink faster!”
But everyone was already in a mess in this harsh environment. Who had the energy to calm down and save themselves?
Baili Mu slapped his adjutant and roared as if suppressing something, “Call for help!”
One after another, signal flares shot out from the You King’s army. For a moment, the entire gray sky was filled with faint, eerie blue fireworks.
Among them was also Li Huaisheng’s red signal flare.
“General Li? What’s going on…” Ren Feiyang, who was watching from the sand dune, hadn’t even had a chance to cheer before he saw the red and swallowed his shout back down.
Wen Ning’an frowned and said in a low voice, “There must have been a change…”
Ren Feiyang was stunned.
Wen Ning’an smiled. “It’s alright. We’ll deal with whatever comes.”
A short while later, they knew the answer. A new reinforcement army suddenly appeared not far away. Their armor was pitch black, and the banner had the King of Youzhou’s symbol, but even through the wind and sand, Wen Ning’an could see that these people, from their build, appearance, and the way they held their sabers, were not people of Youzhou at all.
Although they were not from Youzhou, they were the King of Youzhou’s helpers. It was just unknown who the King of Youzhou had colluded with this time.
Seeing the reinforcements launch an attack on the Li family’s army below, Ren Feiyang asked with some anxiety, “General! Should we go down and help? Those people, there are quite a lot of them… and the reinforcements from the imperial city haven’t arrived yet…”
“Who says?” Wen Ning’an crossed his arms and smiled. “Look closely.”
Ren Feiyang was taken aback. He turned and rubbed his eyes, which were sore from the wind and sand, and saw Bei Miao’s army closely following behind those black-armored soldiers not far away.
The dense army gradually changed the color of the sand, inch by inch. Like a dark cloud, it silently moved towards the You King’s reinforcements, slaughtering them, like a wolf baring its sharp claws and bloody mouth at its prey.
And Wen Ning’an on the sand dune was stunned. That person, riding his own horse at the forefront of the troops, high-spirited, as if unaffected by the wind and sand, his eyes flashing with glee and ruthlessness, said, “Kill these people!”
Feng Qi looked up at the sand dune and winked, a wild smile on his lips.
Wen Ning’an stood there in a daze, feeling that this smile, seen through the wind, sand, and dust, was like from another lifetime.
