Chapter 567
Strange Movements at Guangning Mountain, Hou Bing's Unauthorized Actions
Chapter 567 Strange Movements at Guangning Mountain, Hou Bing's Unauthorized Actions
It was the fifth day of the first month of the thirteenth year of the Great Xia Dynasty, at night.
boom!
"Brothers, the Guangning Mountain camp has been breached! Follow me and fight the enemy!"
Fifteen kilometers north of Hegu Village, on the west side of the Caiqiu Guangning Mountain camp, the sounds of fighting were deafening. As the heavy gate on the west side collapsed with a crash, Hou Bing's loud command resounded through the sky.
Then, hordes of Xia soldiers surged through the collapsed gates like a tidal wave, charging in.
"Isn't the Xia army stationed in Hegu Village? Where did they come from?"
"They must have bypassed the attacking camp from somewhere else."
"No, no, the Xia army headquarters is in Hegu Village. I saw it with my own eyes. There are at least fifty or sixty thousand people in Hegu Village wearing the standard Xia armor. This is not the main force of the Xia army."
"Are you a pig-brain? Look at the golden armor those soldiers are wearing, isn't that the main force of the Xia army?"
...............
The sudden attack by Xia Jun was clearly unexpected by all the Caiqiu soldiers in the Guangning Mountain camp. Everyone's voices were filled with shock and horror, and some were so excited that they even started arguing.
"What's the panic? It's just a small group of Xia troops. The rest are all Caiqiu rebels. Prepare for battle and guard the east gate!"
Cai Qiu's response came quickly.
"It's the City Lord!"
"The city lord is here, everyone, there is no need to panic."
"There was really only a small group of Xia soldiers; those people outside the gate weren't even wearing armor."
…………
As Cai Yunzhou's command came from above, the soldiers of Caiqiu seemed to have found their anchor, and their panic subsided immediately.
As soon as the panic subsided, many of Caiqiu's soldiers realized something was amiss.
The Xia army that attacked the camp from the east was very imposing, but upon closer inspection, it could be seen that only the front row of more than 10,000 men were wearing armor, while the 30,000 to 40,000 men following behind were all wearing coarse linen clothes, which made it clear that they were rebels from Changqing Valley.
Therefore, just as Cai Yunzhou said, the attacking force consisted only of a small group of Xia soldiers; the rest were all rebels from Caiqiu.
What's there to be afraid of?
"All troops, halt! Fire!"
Just then, Cai Yunzhou, who was in mid-air, also gave the order.
The first batch of Caiqiu soldiers, numbering about 30,000 to 40,000, immediately drew their bows and nocked arrows upon hearing the sound. A large wave of silver arrows pierced the night sky and poured out towards the eastern gate of the stockade.
"Ten thousand Xia soldiers, leading thirty to forty thousand rebels, dare to attack our camp? The two major battles at the Bone-Eating Path have truly boosted the confidence of the Great Xia. Today, I will show you the strength of my Cai Qiu army!"
Having given the order in mid-air, Cai Yunzhou looked at the Xia army on the ground with a fierce expression, and the killing intent in his eyes was almost overflowing.
The two major battles at the Bone-Eating Road were both lost, and Caiqiu's 200,000-strong army was wiped out. Now, Linchu County has also lost a large part of its territory, and it looks like the whole area is about to fall into the hands of Chencang.
Cai Qiu has been a vassal state for hundreds of years. When has he ever suffered such a great loss?
The key point is that after the defeat on the north side, Xiao Fangbo, who escaped with his life, also known as his uncle Cai Qiuhu, intercepted his army, which was originally planning to go south to provide support, and gave him a severe scolding in front of the 70,000-strong army.
"The Great Xia quietly instigated hundreds of thousands of rebels in Changqing Valley, and you, the city lord of Qinghua City, didn't even notice?"
Hundreds of thousands of laborers colluded to rebel, and the officials sent by Qinghua City to manage them were all blind. The rebel army had already attacked before you set off with your army. If you weren't surnamed Cai, I would really think you were a spy for the Great Xia!
Wasteful, wasteful, wasteful! Where are your 70,000 troops now? Gather them all at Guangning Mountain. Great Xia has neither the ability nor the will to continue its northward advance. You stay at Guangning Mountain and keep an eye on them while we await news from the Shogunate!
I need to return to the shogunate to check on the situation of the regional governor and discuss further countermeasures.
His uncle cursed him as a good-for-nothing three times in a row. Even though Cai Yunzhou was almost a hundred years old, he was still ashamed and his face turned red. His hatred for the Great Xia Dynasty rose rapidly.
He wouldn't be so angry just from being scolded by his uncle; the problem is that Cai Qiu has suffered a really big loss this time.
When Cai Qiuhu escaped back from the entrance of the Bone-Eating Valley, news of the great defeat in Linchu County had already reached him.
After the fall of the county city, Fang Bo was unable to turn the tide after arriving at the capital. Moreover, he was ambushed by Chu Longteng and Chen Liwu, who led several people from Chencang who were at the Tribulation Realm. If it weren't for Wei Bo and Li Gangfeng taking timely action at the critical moment, Fang Bo would likely have died in Linchu County City.
"The reason Li Gangfeng arrived so promptly is because the Great Xia sent someone to Weibo to deliver a message. So, firstly, the cooperative relationship between the Great Xia and Chencang is not so solid, and secondly, perhaps seeing that Chencang has captured Linchu County, the Great Xia does not want Chencang to continue to grow stronger..."
Following this line of thought, Cai Yunzhou quickly understood his uncle's last words: Great Xia had neither the ability nor the will to continue fighting northward.
The reason for their lack of willingness is that they don't want to see Chencang continue to grow in power;
The reason they lacked the ability was that, although the Xia army won both battles at the valley entrances on either side of the Bone-Eating Path, they also suffered considerable losses. According to my uncle, the Xia army mobilized a total of 100,000 troops during the battle at the northern valley entrance, but by the end of the battle, they had at most 80,000 left.
The defeat at the northern valley entrance resulted in the loss of at least half of Cai Qiu's 150,000-strong army. Although there were no specific casualty figures, Cai Yunzhou could roughly deduce, based on intelligence provided by the stragglers he had taken in and messages relayed by scouts, that the Xia army now had at least 50,000 prisoners in its hands.
These prisoners alone will consume a large number of Xia's troops. This is probably what my uncle meant when he said he was incapable.
More than a day has passed since the start of the battle. Cai Yunzhou sent scouts to keep an eye on the Bone-Eating Road. Apart from small-scale personnel movements, there was no sign of reinforcements from the Great Xia. Therefore, Cai Yunzhou had long since concluded that the Great Xia truly did not intend to continue fighting further north.
Cai Yunzhou was a cautious man. Although he was 70-80% sure that the Xia army would not attack again, he still deployed a large number of scouts and sentries in the Guangning Mountain area, including the river valley village, to keep a close eye on the Xia army's movements.
Soon, the scouts sent back news.
The Xia army has a total of 90,000 men, with nearly 650,000 soldiers in the main force. They have all entered the river valley villages and taken no other action except to send out small-scale troops to clear the surrounding area, which coincides with his previous prediction.
In addition, he had spent the past day or so trying to gather up the defeated soldiers of Caiqiu, so he also received news that a general named Yuwen Yong was leading a Xia army of about 20,000 men to clear out and hunt them down in the area south of Hegu Village.
Besides these two groups, there was also a Xia army with 20,000 men, commanded by Hou Bing, who was the one Cai Yunzhou was most concerned about.
The reason for paying attention to Hou Bing's Xia army is that this Xia army was specifically responsible for escorting prisoners of war from Caiqiu.
In the Battle of Beigukou, more than 50,000 soldiers of Caiqiu were captured. Cai Yunzhou was constantly watching how Daxia would treat these people.
On the one hand, these soldiers were Cai Qiu's core supporters, and Cai Yunzhou was well aware of their importance and genuinely cared about them; on the other hand, the Great Xia would most likely use these 50,000 prisoners of war to their advantage, either to demand ransom, to force them to defect to the Great Xia, or, in the worst-case scenario, if the Great Xia massacred them all. In that case, he would have to come up with a countermeasure in advance, no matter what the situation was.
Yesterday's scathing rebuke from his uncle Cai Qiuhu certainly made Cai Yunzhou lose face, but it also thoroughly woke him up.
The Great Xia is by no means a minor player.
If we continue to underestimate them, Caiqiu will lose more than just Changqing Valley. Moreover, Chencang in the west is pressing closer and closer, and we must deal with the situation in Daxia properly.
Such a cautious approach naturally yielded good results. Just as night fell, Cai Yunzhou received news from scouts that Hou Bing had also dispatched 10,000 troops, under the pretext of clearing the area surrounding the prisoner-of-war camp, to begin operations around Hegu Village.
This reason is actually not wrong.
The defeat of Cai Qiu's army in the Battle of Beigukou was truly devastating. The area south of Guangning Mountain was almost entirely filled with their routed soldiers, differing only in size. The smallest of these routed soldiers might have had fewer than ten men, while the largest numbered several hundred.
After the Xia army headquarters entered Hegu Village, they immediately set up seven or eight outposts around Guangning Mountain, each guarded by more than a thousand men. Except for the first batch of fleeing soldiers who escaped, the subsequent fleeing troops had difficulty breaking through the outposts. If they wanted to return to the Guangning Mountain camp, they either had to take a long detour or break into smaller groups and sneak across through the gaps in the Xia army's outposts.
Yuwen Yong's Xia army numbered 20,000. They only cared about large-scale fleeing troops, and completely ignored small-scale fleeing troops.
Therefore, it was entirely reasonable for Hou Bing to divide his troops into 10,000 to search for the routed troops of Caiqiu in the surrounding area for the safety of the prisoner-of-war camp.
Upon receiving this message, Cai Yunzhou initially didn't take it seriously.
However, as Hou Bing's 10,000-strong army intentionally or unintentionally moved closer to the Guangning Mountain area, and also sent out a large number of spies to observe closely, he immediately sensed that something was wrong.
After questioning a few prisoners, it turned out that, as expected, Hou Bing had somehow managed to unite nearly 40,000 rebels around Guangning Mountain, intending to use them in conjunction with his 10,000 Xia soldiers to attack the Guangning Mountain camp.
Ten thousand Xia soldiers, along with forty thousand rebels, attacked the Guangning Mountain camp, which was garrisoned by seventy thousand Cai Qiu troops.
If Cai Yunzhou hadn't witnessed the scene on the east side of the camp with his own eyes, and if it weren't for the intelligence reports, he would have thought that Hou Bing was just a decoy used by the Great Xia to distract them, and that the main force of the Xia army definitely had other plans.
The scouts have just reported that the main force of the Xia army has remained in Hegu Village without moving, and Yuwen Yong's 20,000 troops are still in the central area of Qingyugou, more than 30 kilometers away from Guangning Mountain.
Therefore, Hou Bing truly intended to use this small force to attack their Guangning Mountain.
Has the Great Xia Dynasty lost its mind?
The Battle of Beigukou truly boosted the confidence of the Great Xia Dynasty…
The anger that had been building in Cai Yunzhou's heart had now vanished, because he had slowly come to his senses and could roughly deduce what was going on from the calm and peaceful situation at Xia Jun's headquarters in Hegu Village.
This attack was most likely initiated by Hou Bing on his own initiative.
He did not communicate with Xia Jun's headquarters.
The situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, sometimes in an instant. It's not uncommon in Caiqiu for generals to lead their troops in attacks without the commander's order, but Cai Yunzhou is well aware that such situations generally fall into two categories:
The first reason is to seize an opportunity, out of public interest;
The second reason is to seize credit, driven by the selfishness of generals and soldiers.
My uncle's words have been confirmed by Xia Jun's actions over the past two days. Great Xia has neither the ability nor the will to continue fighting, so Hou Bing's situation is clearly the second one.
Upon learning this, Cai Yunzhou was undoubtedly even more furious.
"You really think I, Cai Qiu, am a pushover, someone anyone can take advantage of? You're even trying to steal credit from me, the city lord!"
His thoughts returned to the battlefield. Looking at the Xia soldiers who had all stormed into the camp, Cai Yunzhou could no longer suppress his anger. He drew his long sword and rushed to the ground. At the same time, he shouted to his soldiers, "The rear guard will shoot down the rebels, and the front guard will follow me to defend against the enemy. Kill all of these arrogant Xia soldiers!"
call out………
Cai Qiu's reputation as the Sword Saint is well-deserved.
Enraged, Cai Yunzhou unleashed the Heaven-Slaying Sword Technique even when facing only a group of soldiers at the Cold-Resistant level.
The longsword, like a hundred-meter-long white rainbow, pierced the night sky and fell to the ground in an instant. The dozen or so Xia army generals at the forefront were immediately forced to keep their eyes closed by the sword light.
The basic strength of the Manifestation Yang level is measured in jun (a unit of weight), with one jun equal to a hundred bristles. For the Cold Protection level, whose strength is measured in bristles, this is a clear case of dimensional reduction.
Moreover, Cai Yunzhou is not an ordinary Xianyang-level expert. His nickname is Cai Qiu Sword Saint. He is a renowned swordsman in Mo Aochuan and is listed on the Heavenly Ranking. His strength far exceeds that of ordinary Xianyang-level experts.
Among the generals leading Xia Jun, Lu Yin was ranked first. Although he had not broken through to the Xianyang level, there were many Xianyang-level experts in Great Xia. He could tell from Cai Yunzhou's aura that the sword attacking him at this moment had an impact force of at least 25 jun.
And that's not all!
"Stop them!"
Faced with this sword, he still did not choose to dodge. Instead, he raised his head and roared angrily, and three blood-red vertical cloud patterns suddenly appeared between his brows.
He wasn't the only one to unleash the Great Xia Sacred Rune; more than a dozen Xia army generals around him also unleashed their Sacred Runes at the same time, and after their weapons were fully charged, they all unleashed their strongest martial arts techniques.
There were sixteen Xia army generals, including Lu Yin. They knew very well that if they retreated in the face of Cai Yunzhou's sword, the ordinary soldiers following behind them would be the ones to suffer.
"With 51 mane strength, sacred runes, and martial arts, my strongest power is approaching 1 jun (a unit of weight). Furthermore, the Golden Body Pill enhances my defense. If I were alone, I definitely couldn't withstand this sword strike, but..."
The moment Lu Yin came into contact with the sword light, his pupils were filled with horror. But as more than a dozen weapons blocked the sword light, his pressure suddenly lessened and his mindset instantly became much more relaxed.
His abilities were not particularly outstanding among the generals of the Xia army.
At this moment, almost every one of the dozen or so Xia army generals standing beside him could unleash a force of more than 1 jun.
One person is nothing, but when a dozen or so people unite, the situation is completely different.
Clang...
Cai Yunzhou's sword light forced more than a dozen Xia army generals to retreat continuously.
However, it can only move backward and has no other function.
"Jun-level strength! The Great Xia has so many Cold-resistant level experts!"
His Heaven-Slaying Sword Technique was blocked by a dozen Cold-Resistant level experts working together?
Upon seeing this, Cai Yunzhou's expression instantly became somewhat flustered.
"Lord Cai, Guangning Mountain is about to change hands!"
A voice suddenly came from mid-air. Cai Yunzhou quickly suppressed his chaotic thoughts, looked up at Hou Bing in the sky, and sneered, his eyes full of mockery and contempt.
"You actually intend to fight head-on? It seems you're sure my Great Xia doesn't want to continue fighting north. You're wrong, terribly wrong!"
But soon, as a voice came from the north, the sneer on his face froze instantly, and the mockery and contempt in his eyes vanished in an instant, leaving only panic and horror.
(End of this chapter)