Yao Changgeng, Mu Yachi, and Zhao Guizhou.
Three formidable experts who had sought to capture the king to rout his army, charging the formation as lone riders, had never imagined that the Prince of Zhenxi's camp possessed Qianqian—an enchantress of the Demonic Cult—nor that Wang Yu's martial arts were far superior to anything they had anticipated.
And so they were dead.
Ma Bojun impaled Yao Changgeng straight through the chest with a single spear thrust, flung the corpse aside, and wheeled his mount around to plunge back into the battlefield.
Standing atop the small sand dune, Li Yunxiu held a black flag in one hand and a red in the other, signaling with a flurry of semaphore commands.
These were the tactical signal flags of the Iron Eagle Cavalry. Having worked in the Prince of Zhenxi's Manor for over half a year and taken part in military administration, Li Yunxiu had long since mastered this system. Now, under her command in the field, three companies of the Iron Eagle Cavalry darted back and forth across the formation like three giant serpents, slicing and weaving until they split the four hundred Black Qiang horsemen into over a dozen small pockets, isolated from one another and forced into separate stands.
Ma Bojun had not understood it on his initial charge, but the three Iron Eagle centurions were utterly astounded.
When had they ever witnessed such precise tactical coordination? When had they ever fought such an effortless battle against an enemy of equal strength?
Naturally, Yao Changgeng's demise also took its toll on the Black Qiang cavalry.
He was, after all, the foremost disciple of Shi Mo, the supreme expert of the Black Qiang. A Xiantian master, he was regarded as virtually a demigod in their eyes—a warrior capable of matching ten thousand men on the battlefield. Yet here he was, slain by an enemy cavalry general!
Consequently, the Black Qiang ranks fell into sheer disarray. Several centurions tried desperately to rally their lines, but with the three companies of the Iron Eagle Cavalry constantly weaving and cutting through them, the chaos only deepened until it became wholly uncontrollable.
Battered by three volleys of arrow fire, Ma Bojun's devastating charge, and the surgical dissection of the Iron Eagle Cavalry, the Black Qiang cavalry suffered over fifty percent casualties in a matter of moments. Less than two hundred riders remained. With a clamorous roar, they scattered in complete disarray, fleeing northward in blind panic.
On the other side, the cavalry besieging the wagon fortress had achieved a breakthrough. At the cost of dozens of casualties, they forced an opening in the wagon perimeter and were poised to burst inside on a slaughtering rampage when they realized that the other half of their cavalry, sent to intercept the Iron Eagle Cavalry, had already collapsed.
The Black Qiang chiliarch raised his long lance, barking sternly at the fleeing soldiers, "Where is Master Yao?"
"Killed by the Central Plainsmen!"
"What?" Before the chiliarch could press further, he saw one of the heavy wagons inside the barricade shatter, spilling gold, silver, and jewels across the ground.
In an instant, the eyes of many Black Qiang riders turned bloodshot with greed. Seeing the breach wide open, they jostled and shoved against one another, surging through the gap in a frenzied mass.
To their eyes, the breached barricade and the soldiers trapped within were meat on the chopping block. They could plunder at will; so long as they grabbed enough loot quickly, they could flee with their fortune even if the Iron Eagle Cavalry pursued them from behind.
Greed had thoroughly blinded them.
Even the Black Qiang chiliarch momentarily wavered. Though shaken to the core by news of Yao Changgeng's death, the treasure spilling before his eyes made his mind go blank with indecision.
Zhao Guizhou had brought Yao Changgeng along to deal with the Prince of Zhenxi, but the riders had come to seize the Loulan treasure.
Now Yao Changgeng was dead and nearly half the thousand-man cavalry had perished. If they failed to bring back a substantial haul of treasure, he would likely face the wrath of both the Black Qiang King and Shi Mo.
He was merely a lowly chiliarch; there was no way he could endure such an interrogation!
Thus, after only a heartbeat's hesitation, he led his men in a charge into the wagon barricade, determined to snatch at least a portion of the Loulan treasure to account for their losses.
Inside the perimeter, Zhao Lü shielded Niu Zilian, unable to keep from asking, "Why did the strategist open a breach in the wagon fort? Had you kept it closed, they might have fled altogether."
Standing atop a heavy wagon in the center of the formation, Niu Zilian looked toward the scattered cavalry fleeing northward from the south and said in a heavy voice, "We agreed with the Prince of Zhenxi to stand together against the Black Qiang cavalry.
"Now the Iron Eagle Cavalry has repelled half the enemy force, and Ma Bojun even slew one of their top experts. If we merely hunkered down on the defensive—to say nothing of whether that half might regroup and return—would you have the face to claim thirty percent of the treasure without contributing a single military merit?"
Zhao Lü possessed superb martial arts, and Niu Zilian was also trained in martial skills. Standing on elevated ground, they had a clear view of the chaotic clash between the Iron Eagle Cavalry and the Black Qiang riders, and they had naturally witnessed Yao Changgeng and his companions storming the small sand dune only to be struck down.
Though distance obscured the finest details, they knew beyond doubt that the Prince of Zhenxi's Manor harbored formidable experts. Without a solid contribution of their own, Wang Yu might very well renege on their agreement.
Song Yuanjing could not help interjecting, "What if they renege anyway?"
Niu Zilian sighed softly. "Then it only proves I misjudged the man. Though we might lose the wealth, at least our lives would be spared."
"Why is that?" Duan Rui asked helplessly.
"Because Zhao Yu is clearly not of one mind with the imperial court," Niu Zilian replied calmly. "Keeping us around to counterbalance the court works to his advantage."
With that, Niu Zilian turned to Zhao Lü. "The Black Qiang chiliarch has entered the perimeter. General Zhao, go strike him down. Once he falls, the Black Qiang cavalry will crumble on their own. We shall wipe out the cavalry trapped within the wagons, and the Iron Eagle Cavalry will mop up the rest."
"Understood!" Zhao Lü assented. With a sweep of his long spear, he leaped forward.
As one of the four great generals of the Shuntian Army, Zhao Lü had not reached the Xiantian realm, but he was nonetheless a first-rate expert, and his spear craft was uniquely honed for the battlefield. Furthermore, the Black Qiang riders who had charged into the wagon circle were now trapped within the Shuntian Army's infantry formation, unable to maneuver their steeds, and had instead stumbled straight into an encirclement.
Far from scattering in panic like ordinary infantry crushed by a cavalry charge, the Shuntian Army stood firm, anchoring their formation against the heavy wagons.
Robbed of their mobility and surrounded by infantry slashing with sabers and thrusting with spears, the cavalry turned into living targets and quickly fell into disarray. It was precisely at this moment that Zhao Lü broke through the ranks, arriving before the Black Qiang chiliarch in the span of a breath.
"Die!" The Black Qiang chiliarch spotted Zhao Lü and recognized him as an enemy commander, instantly reining his horse around to thrust with his lance.
Yet though he was a seasoned military commander adept at archery and horsemanship, he possessed no internal strength. He was not, in the end, a martial arts expert, relying entirely on raw physical force and external weaponry. After trading merely three or four exchanges, Zhao Lü parried the lance aside and ran him through with a single fatal thrust.
With their chiliarch dead and the Shuntian Army failing to collapse as expected, the Black Qiang cavalry descended into total panic. Seeing their comrades toppling from their saddles one after another, they hurriedly wheeled their mounts around, scrambling and shoving to escape through the opening.
Niu Zilian raised a hand in command. "Shut the gates!"
The gap in the wagon perimeter began to close, but the Black Qiang cavalry swarmed in desperation, clashing fiercely with the Shuntian soldiers at the opening and stalling their efforts to shut it completely.
Right then, Ma Bojun arrived in pursuit with the Iron Eagle Cavalry, cutting down and driving off the Black Qiang riders stranded outside the barricade. The Shuntian troops finally sealed the breach, trapping over a hundred Black Qiang horsemen within the perimeter to be picked off one by one.
Seeing that the Shuntian Army could handle the remainder, Ma Bojun led the Iron Eagle Cavalry around the wagons to pursue the fleeing Black Qiang cavalry, returning only after the remnants had vanished beyond the horizon.
During this time, although the Shuntian Army suffered grievous casualties, they ultimately finished off every Black Qiang cavalryman trapped within the wagon circle.
Wang Yu urged his mount forward alongside Li Yunxiu and Qianqian to approach the barricade, listening as the centurion of the Iron Eagle Cavalry's first company reported the casualty figures.
In this engagement, three hundred Iron Eagle Cavalry had faced five hundred Black Qiang cavalry in the open field, slaying three hundred. Thereafter, they cut down a hundred outside the wagon fortress and pursued and killed another hundred, wiping out nearly half of the entire Black Qiang cavalry force.
Coupled with the nearly two hundred riders slain by the Shuntian Army inside the wagons, of the one thousand Black Qiang cavalry who had arrived, nearly seven hundred corpses were left on the field, with only a little over three hundred routing riders fleeing north.
The Iron Eagle Cavalry, by contrast, suffered fewer than thirty casualties. Thanks to their overwhelming victory, they achieved an exchange ratio close to one against twenty, a feat largely attributable to Ma Bojun leading the charge from the front. On the other flank, the Shuntian Army took heavy losses; fighting cavalry as infantry, they lost well over half their three hundred men, and every survivor bore wounds. Only through such bloody resolve had they earned the right to stand tall before the Iron Eagle Cavalry without losing face.
"The Black Qiang made their first blunder by carelessly dividing their forces," Li Yunxiu analyzed. "Their second blunder was failing to realize our uncle was leading the charge. And their third blunder was stumbling into the wagon fortress by accident. Every move they made was a misstep, thoroughly throwing away their advantage."
"It was also thanks to the consort's calm and decisive command, which quickly seized the initiative and paved the way for the one-sided victory that followed," Niu Zilian said, stepping out of the wagon barricade with hands clasped in salute.
"The strategist opening the wagon fortress on his own initiative was also a masterstroke. I am deeply impressed," Li Yunxiu said with a faint smile.
Niu Zilian's eyelid twitched slightly. Forcing a smile, he looked toward Wang Yu. "Greetings, Prince of Zhenxi."
Wang Yu nodded, glancing at the heavy wagons inside the perimeter and the blood-soaked Shuntian soldiers. Under the tense gazes of Niu Zilian and Zhao Lü, he offered a leisurely smile. "Much obliged. Regarding our seventy percent of the treasure, roughly how much does it amount to?"
Niu Zilian and Zhao Lü let out a collective breath of relief.
Li Yunxiu smiled faintly, her eyes flickering with contemplation.
Qianqian slipped to Li Yunxiu's side and whispered with a chuckle, "These men are major thorns in the imperial court's side—a military strategist and a top general, no less. Don't you want to kill them?"
Li Yunxiu snorted softly. "Spare me your goading; I won't take the bait."
Qianqian giggled. "Do you also find Brother Yu's reasoning quite sensible?"
Li Yunxiu scoffed again. "They cannot stir up any major waves."
Niu Zilian directed his men to throw open the wagons one by one. The chests were laden with gold and silver coinage, lustrous pearls, and sparkling gems—truly fitting for the national treasury of a kingdom that had once dominated the Northwest trade route.
Wang Yu clicked his tongue, unable to resist asking, "There were no hidden traps or concealed arrows at the cache? No poisons smeared on the treasure? No mundane household goods mixed in? The treasure cavern wasn't buried under shifted sands?"
To acquire a fortune capable of rivaling a nation so smoothly and effortlessly was nothing like the novels and movies he used to read and watch!
Niu Zilian chuckled in amusement. "Back then, the King of Loulan evacuated the treasury in great haste. Finding a place to hide and bury it was already a feat in itself; where would he have found the time to set up intricate mechanisms? What's more, he intended to use this wealth to restore his fallen kingdom—why would he cut off his own retreat with lethal contraptions?"
With that, everyone set about divvying up the treasure, estimating the total value and dividing it into ten shares. Wang Yu took seven, while the Shuntian Army received three. Even that thirty percent came close to the five million Niu Zilian had sought.
"The Prince of Zhenxi is a man of his word; Niu is full of admiration," Niu Zilian said, cupping his fists. "Should Your Highness ever visit the Central Plains in the future, Niu will welcome you with open arms."
Wang Yu waved a dismissive hand, offering neither agreement nor refusal.
With the Iron Eagle Cavalry securing their seventy percent of the treasure, everyone joined in clearing the battlefield. Several palace guards laid out the corpses of Yao Changgeng, Mu Yachi, and Zhao Guizhou separately, preparing to reduce them to ashes with a bonfire.
Naturally, the looting of the corpses was an indispensable routine. Without waiting for Wang Yu to speak, the men eagerly got to work. After all, even a mosquito had meat; the rank-and-file soldiers of the Iron Eagle Cavalry and the Shuntian Army were not lofty martial artists, and every bit of salvage was welcome.
Several palace guards retrieved Yao Changgeng's and Mu Yachi's iron claws and iron bludgeons, while Zhao Shan and Zhao He hurried to Wang Yu's side with beaming faces, holding up two manuals. "Your Highness! A tremendous harvest!"
"What is it?" Wang Yu took the two books, and upon their covers, he saw three bold characters inscribed on each.
*Star-Plucking Hand*!
*Star-Chasing Steps*!
Chapter 66