Han official!

Chapter 178 Battle
This is made of newly forged steel rings from the Shaofu, and when the pieces of armor hit each other, there is a clear sound like a jade chime.

"Cone formation!" Guo Jie pointed his sword forward, and the military officers charged forward using hooks as shields.

The bronze shield was deliberately polished to a high shine, and the reflected sunlight dazzled the Hun cavalry so much that they could not open their eyes.

Wei Guang led the archers to guard the ice hill. The three-edged arrows penetrated the grass bags and stabbed into the horses' hooves. The fallen horses became natural roadblocks.

The moment the two armies met, spider-web-like cracks appeared on the ice surface.

Guo Jie ducked to avoid the scimitar, and used his ring-handled sword to rip open the leather armor of the Xiongnu captain from bottom to top.

The warm blood, before it could even spill, had already been frozen into beads by the cold air. He rolled over, the back of his knife slamming into the ice, shattering the hidden salt bag.

Salt mixed with blood eroded hideous grooves on the ice, and three Hun war horses stumbled one after another.

King Xiutu's golden sword split the salt mist, and the wind from the sword stirred up the strands of hair on Guo Jie's forehead.

He spun around to block with his scabbard, but the carved dragon pattern on the scabbard was actually shaved off in half.

Wei Guang's whistling arrow came through the air at this moment. King Xiutu turned his head to avoid it. The arrow brushed against the golden earring and sank into the ice. The exploding ice chips blinded the warhorse's eyes.

"Han dogs only know how to attack people from behind!" King Xiutu roared and used the corpse of his personal guard as a shield.

Guo Jie suddenly jumped up, and his ring-handled sword pierced through two layers of leather armor. At the moment when the tip of the sword touched the opponent's heart guard, a muffled thunder-like roar came from under the ice.

The undercurrent of the Yellow River finally tore through the ice, and huge ice floes crashed into the fighting crowd like chariots.

The battle dragged on, the Han and Xiongnu armies engaged in a desperate struggle on the broken ice. The roar of the Yellow River drowned out the sound of metal clashing, and the dice of fate continued to spin in the air.
The roar of the Yellow River, wrapped in the roar of ice floes colliding, tore the battlefield into pieces.

Guo Jie stepped on the floating ice and leaped towards the nearest ice hill. He used his ring-handled sword to chop the Xiongnu cavalry charging towards him. When the blade got stuck in the opponent's collarbone, the ice surface under his feet suddenly tilted.

The entire piece of ice was pushed by the undercurrent and crashed into the river bank. The broken ice revealed the remnants of Han army armor that had been soaked for many years. The rusty "Li" flag wrapped in salt crystals sank to the bottom of the river.

"Turn into a formation like geese!" Guo Jie kicked the dying Xiongnu soldier away and slammed his scabbard against the ice to warn him.

The timber officers quickly connected the ice with hooks and built a temporary trestle between the ice floes.

Wei Guang led the archers to occupy the commanding heights, and their poisonous arrows penetrated the ice fog, nailing the Xiongnu soldiers who were trying to ignite the fish fat to the icicles.

When the burning bundles of grass fell into the river, the melted ice water wrapped in saltpeter burst into blue flames, and actually burned a winding fire path on the river surface.

King Xiutu's golden sword shattered the floating ice, and the wind from the sword stirred up waves that were ten feet high.

Guo Jie ducked down and slid across the ice crevice, slashing his ring-handled sword from bottom to top towards the horse's belly.

The warhorse neighed in shock and the man stood still. The bag of salt that had rolled out of the secret compartment of the saddle was pierced by the tip of the knife. The highly poisonous malachite powder mixed with the gunpowder and instantly exploded into a bluish-purple poisonous mist.

Wei Guang's arrow came through the fog at this moment. The barb on the arrowhead tore half of King Xiu Tu's earlobe, and the golden earring made a tinkling sound when it fell on the ice.

"Han family running dog!" King Xiu Tu laughed wildly while wiping the blood, and suddenly the golden knife slashed towards the ice.

Spider-web-like cracks spread instantly, and the ice mound where Wei Guang was located collapsed.

Guo Jie threw out a hook and locked it to the willow tree on the opposite bank. When he swung the hemp rope across the ice crevice, he caught a glimpse of the bronze halberd floating on the bottom of the river.

The halberd shaft is wrapped with the broken flag of the soldiers who died in the Yuanguang period, and the salt-eroded words "Xi Liu" are faintly visible in the undercurrent.

Three hundred Xiongnu cavalry suddenly rushed out from behind the salt dunes on the north bank. Their horses were covered with felt soaked in river water, and their horseshoes dug deep grooves in the ice.

Guo Jie pulled open the rhinoceros armor strap with his backhand, revealing the chain steel ring lining it.

This was cast by the Shaofu using the Hun gold captured in the battle of Henan. The clear sound made when the armor plates collided was in tune with the chime bells in the Weiyang Palace.

The timber officers used hooks as stakes to fix the ice floes into a temporary barrier. Poisoned crossbow arrows pierced through the ice wall and shot holes, turning the Xiongnu vanguard's horses into hedgehogs.

"Switch to fire arrows!" Wei Guang's roar was tinged with blood. The crossbowmen tore off strips of brown cloth and dipped them in fish fat. The arrows flew across the ice, igniting the pre-buried sulfur.

In the flames rising into the sky, Guo Jie saw the black battle robes of Dou's death squad flash past the salt pile on the opposite bank.

The remnants who were supposed to be executed in Wuyuan County now appeared in the Huns' formation.

He roared and threw out the ring-handled knife. The blade spun and split the salt pile. The saltpeter hidden in it exploded when it came into contact with fire, throwing the twenty dead soldiers into the glacier.

The icy fog was suddenly torn apart by the sound of a horn, and the golden face of the Xiongnu shaman emerged in the firelight.

The twelve divine drums were beaten at the same time, and the salt particles leaking from the cracks in the drum skins gathered on the ice to form strange totems.

Guo Jie suddenly felt a sharp pain in his palm, and the dragon pattern on the ring-handled hilt actually oozed out a blue-black poisonous liquid.

This sword, which had been with him for ten years, had long been soaked in a deadly poison mixed with malachite and aconite by the remnants of the Dou family.

"Discard your sword!" Wei Guang's whistling arrow shot through the scabbard's straps. Guo Jie rolled over and picked up the rusted halberd lying beside the remains of the Han soldiers on the riverbank.

The sharp sound of the halberd blade scraping across the ice startled the crows. He suddenly remembered that this was the "mountain-splitting halberd method" that Li Guang used in Yanmen that year. The inscription "Li, the captain in the third year of Yuanguang" could be vaguely seen between the dark red bloodstains on the halberd shaft.

King Xiutu's heavy cavalry crushed the ice barrier, and the eight-foot-long lances pierced through the two officers.

Guo Jie spun around and swung his halberd, the rusty crescent blade hooked onto the spear shaft and pulled it hard.

This was the move he saw when he watched the wrestling between the shepherd slaves in the North Sea.

With the crisp sound of the spear shaft breaking, Wei Guang's poisonous arrow pierced through King Xiu Tu's neck guard, and the barb on the arrow flew out with half of the larynx.

When the Xiongnu king's flag fell to the ground, a snowstorm mixed with salt suddenly rolled up on the river surface. The only sounds left between heaven and earth were the sound of metal clashing and the gasps of the dying.
The ice on the river surface groaned in agony under the heavy hooves. Guo Jie stepped on the floating ice and leaped towards King Xiutu's golden wolf flag. The rusty tip of the halberd scraped across the ice, stirring up a string of sparks.

Wei Guang's whistling arrows chased his flying rhinoceros armor, and the three-edged arrows pierced the throats of two Xiongnu archers. The salt powder exploded from the arrow shafts and misted the shaman's golden mask.

The drumbeats suddenly became chaotic, and the totem on the ice surface cracked into spider-web-like cracks. The remains of the Han army that had been soaked for a hundred years surged up from the bottom of the river. The rusty ring-handled swords and broken halberds floated in the undercurrent, like the ghosts of the fallen soldiers returning.

"Come on!" Guo Jie shouted and threw the bronze halberd at Wei Guang.

The halberd shaft spun in the air, knocking away two cold arrows. Wei Guang took advantage of the situation and grabbed the tail of the halberd and swept it across. The crescent blade hooked and cut the bowstrings of the three Zhang Bo crossbows.

The broken tendon lashed the Xiongnu crossbowman's face, freezing into ice before blood even formed. Guo Jie seized the opportunity to snatch the Xiongnu centurion's scimitar, and the copper ring on the back of the blade was engraved with the words "Supervised by the Wuyuan Dou family."

This was the weapon Dou Ying had privately forged back then. The poisoned green light on the blade was exactly the same as the arrow that was used to kill at Baqiao ten years ago.

The undercurrent beneath the ice suddenly surged, and the entire ice floe, carrying the Golden Wolf Flag, soared into the sky.

Guo Jie grabbed the flagpole and took advantage of the momentum to fly into the air. He caught a glimpse of a dark figure flashing behind the salt dunes on the north bank.

Dou's assassins were throwing bundles of white silk into the bonfire, and the cinnabar route that became visible when heated pointed clearly to the key point of the grain transport in Chang'an.

Wei Guang's whistling arrow pierced through the burning silk, and the flaming arrow pierced into the ice. The flames followed the traces of fish fat to the rear of the Xiongnu and ignited the hidden saltpeter cart.

The blast tore through a ten-foot-thick layer of ice. As Guo Jie plunged into the icy water, his fingertips touched a bronze tiger talisman that had sunk to the bottom. The characters "Xiliu" (Xiliu) on the talisman were etched with salt, revealing it to be Li Guang's lost military mobilization token.

He kicked the water hard and broke through the ice. The tiger talisman hit the ring-handled sword, and a blue fire burst out, which actually ignited the fish oil floating on the river.

Wei Guang took the opportunity to shoot rockets, and the burning river forced the Xiongnu cavalry into the preset ice trap. The muffled sound of the armored horses falling into the ice cave and the sound of bones breaking intertwined into the sound of hell.

The remaining troops of King Xiutu retreated to the salt hill and piled the salt bags into a temporary fortress.

Guo Jie led the military officers to push out twenty Wugang carts. The salt powder that was ejected from the secret compartments of the cart shafts turned into frost mist in the wind.

Wei Guang's poison arrows passed through the salt mist, and the aconitine on the arrowheads ignited when it came into contact with the salt, turning the Xiongnu position into a continuous sea of fire.

A team of black-armored cavalry suddenly rushed out from the firelight. The chain mail patterns revealed through the gaps in their horse armor were exactly the same as the uniforms worn by the Northern Army of Weiyang Palace three years ago.

"Tian Zhong!" Guo Jie's eyes were bloodshot. The leader of the Dou clan remnants still had the tattoo on his collarbone, but the eight-foot-long lance in his hand was a newly minted "Yuan Shuo" model from the Shaofu.

The ice surface cracked under the iron hooves. Guo Jie slashed the rope of the Wugang cart with his sword, and the baggage cart loaded with salt bricks rushed down the slope into the enemy camp.

The moment Tian Zhong lifted the salt cart away, Wei Guang's whistling arrow pierced through the iron ring protecting its neck, and the whistle from the hollow arrow shaft awakened the blind snake lurking under the ice.

These poisonous creatures from the North Sea followed the smell of blood, drilled out of the ice cracks, and entangled the mouths and noses of the Hun war horses.

During the melee, a timber officer chopped over a pile of salt, revealing a bronze quiver buried underneath.

Guo Jie split the rusty lock and found neatly stacked inside the box the armor-piercing spikes stolen from the armory during the Jianyuan period. The vermilion lacquer on the arrow shafts, which had been inscribed with "Shaofu Supervisor", had been corroded by salt and turned dark red.

He grabbed the arrowhead and wrote quickly on the ice. The aconitine and malachite powder solidified into the bloody words "Dou is collaborating with the enemy" under the low temperature, and seeped into the waves of the Yellow River as the ice melted.

Suddenly, a Han army horn blew across the other bank. Wei Qing's main force's banners swept across the horizon, only to be met by Dou's loyalists lighting a signal smoke signal. The turbid smoke column twisted into a map of the secret passageway leading to the Bingjing Terrace in the Weiyang Palace.
The smoke on the river surface was torn into wisps by the north wind. Guo Jie wiped the ice from between his brows and eyelashes, and pointed his ring-handled sword at the newly erected Aries King flag on the north bank.

Wei Guang's whistling arrows flew across the burning ice surface, and the arrowheads pierced the ox horn carried by the Xiongnu messenger, cutting off the "wailing" alarm sound in the cold wind.

Suddenly, the sound of hooves like thunder was heard from the opposite bank. Three thousand Xiongnu cavalrymen were like a black tide flooding over the salt dunes. The straw bags hanging on both sides of the saddles leaked millet as they galloped.

This is a common tactic used by grassland tribes to lure the enemy.

"Switch and draw the crossbows!" Guo Jie kicked open the secret compartment of the Wugang chariot, and three hundred copper-clad heavy crossbows were set up on the ice.

The force of the officers' steps on the crossbow arms shattered the thin ice, and the specially made three-edged arrowheads glowed bluish-gray in the sunlight.

This arrow was made by the Shaofu using the newly refined hundred-fold steel from Henan County. The red lacquer on the arrow shaft with the inscription "Yuanshuo 2nd Year" has not yet dried.

When the Hun cavalry rushed to the center of the river, spider-web-like cracks suddenly appeared on the ice.

The centurion who was rushing in the front had his pupils shrink suddenly, and the reins were tightened so that his horse stood up.

Unexpectedly, rows of barbed caltrops were buried beneath the ice. The poisoned spikes pierced through the grass, causing such severe pain that the warhorse threw its rider into the ice cave.

Wei Guang's bowstring shook off the frost on his shoulder armor, and the whistling arrows with burning hemp balls swept across the ice, igniting the pre-buried fish oil grooves. The bluish-purple flames instantly cut the Xiongnu cavalry in half.

"Cone formation, charge!" Guo Jie jumped onto his horse, and the scales of his rhinoceros armor rippled in the firelight.

Eight hundred Han cavalrymen rushed out from behind the salt dunes on the south bank. The tips of their horse lances were specially sharpened into serrated shapes. The sound of them tearing through leather armor mixed with the sharp sound of ice breaking.

Wei Guang led the archers to occupy the commanding heights, and the specially made whistling arrows exploded in the rear formation of the Xiongnu, scaring the spare war horses into charging into disorder in the main formation.

The Aries King's golden sword split the thick smoke, and the wind from the sword, carrying ice chips, rushed towards Guo Jie's face.

The moment the two horses crossed, the ring-handled sword slashed from bottom to top towards the opponent's armpit, and the moment the blade touched the chain mail, it suddenly changed its move and slashed horizontally.

This was a feint move that Guo Jie learned from watching wolves fighting each other in the North Sea. The copper ring on the back of the knife hit the heart-protecting mirror heavily.

The Aries King and his horse crashed into the ice hill, crushing the sulfur pottery jar hidden behind it. The dying neighing of the warhorse could be heard from the exploding poisonous smoke.

Twelve large cowhide banners were suddenly erected on the opposite bank, and the new troops of Zuo Xianwang charged forward, stepping on the corpses of their companions.

The Xiongnu cavalry used double stirrups to control their horses, and the curved-blade scimitars in their hands drew strange arcs.

This is a new weapon made by Yuezhi craftsmen, specially designed to break the hooks and inlays of the Han army.

Guo Jie roared and threw out his ring-handled sword. The blade spun and cut off the front hooves of three war horses. He then picked up the eight-foot-long spear of the fallen officer with his backhand.

The blood stains on the staff of the spear over the years felt sticky in his palm, reminding him of the time when he followed Li Guang to the frontier during the Yuanguang period.

Wei Guang's quiver was almost empty, but the last three arrows suddenly changed direction.

The burning arrows were driven into the salt piles on the river bank, and the salt crystals that exploded due to the heat blinded the Hun archers' vision.

The materials officials took the opportunity to launch the improved Wugang chariot. The raw cowhide covering the roof was soaked in salt water, so the heavy arrows of the Huns could not penetrate even an inch.

The hooks that shot out from the gaps in the chariot formation locked the horse's legs, and the Han army's newly equipped short ring-handled knives swept across the throat, and the blood mist condensed into a winding red snake on the ice.

As dusk fell, Zuo Xian Wang's white flag fell to the ground with a loud bang.

Guo Jie was gasping for breath while leaning on his long spear, when suddenly there was a slight tremor in the ice beneath his feet.

The spring flood, melting the ice upstream, was tearing the river surface apart. The surviving Xiongnu retreated to the salt mines on the north bank, piling salt bricks into arrow towers.

Wei Guang tore down the blood-stained banner, dipped it in malachite poison, and drew a topographical map of the Yinshan Pass on the ice. Burning arrows roasted the salt grains into a charred marching route.
The ice surface of the Yellow River shone with blood in the twilight. Guo Jie stepped on the floating ice and jumped onto the south bank. The scales on his rhinoceros armor jingled with icicles.

Wei Guang's whistling arrows flew over the remnants of the fleeing Xiongnu. The whistle sound from the hollow arrow shaft startled the crows behind the salt hill. The last three-edged arrow pierced the feathers of Zuo Xian Wang's golden helmet. The salt grains condensed on the arrowhead sparkled like stars in the twilight.

"Converge the cone formation!" Guo Jie swung his ring-handled sword and cut off the Xiongnu king's flag. The salt water soaked in the flag condensed into white frost on the blade.

Eight hundred timber officers quickly connected with each other using hooks and formed an iron wall on the riverbank.

The tune of the Hun horns on the other side of the river suddenly changed, and twelve white camels carrying gold-inlaid war drums rushed up the salt hill. The salt powder that burst out from the places where the drumsticks hit looked like blood mist in the setting sun.

Wei Guang tore off his robe and wrapped it around his bleeding knuckles. He pulled the ten-stone bowstring, tangled with ice, to its full length: "Northwest Salt Cave!"

Three whistling arrows flew off the bowstrings, and the burning arrows penetrated into the cracks in the cave.

The pre-buried saltpeter exploded when it came into contact with fire, and the collapsed salt dome buried all the Hun ambushes. The flying salt crystals reflected a colorful halo in the twilight, which looked like the aurora in the North Sea that year.

Guo Jie suddenly felt a sharp pain in his palm, and blood oozed from the dragon pattern on the ring-handled hilt.

This is an old wound on the tiger's mouth caused by seven days and nights of bloody battle.

He grabbed a handful of coarse salt from the riverbank and pressed it against the wound. The burning pain of the salt grains embedding into his flesh woke him up.

(End of this chapter)