Late Tang Dynasty: Descendants of the Imperial Clan

In an instant, the official road was filled with the clanging and clattering of weapons, as swords, spears, and shields were scattered everywhere.

The armor plates were haphazardly torn off and thrown into the tall grass by the roadside, at the edge of the woods, and on the gentle slopes, looking from a distance like abandoned cicada shells.

The surrendered soldiers, stripped of their armor and wearing only their undergarments stained with sweat and blood, knelt on either side of the road, not daring to raise their heads.

A narrow passage gradually opened up in the middle of the official road.

Li Cenji didn't stand on ceremony. He knelt on the horse's flanks and took the lead through the passage.

The yellow horse's four hooves creaked and crunched as they trod on the armor and weapons scattered on the ground.

Behind them, Zhou Ping and his generals, along with over a hundred soldiers, followed closely. The thunderous sound of their hooves swept past the kneeling surrendered soldiers, kicking up dust that covered their heads and faces, yet none of them dared to raise their heads.

They sped along, issuing orders at every turn, and the routed soldiers obeyed without question, clearing a path through the official road without hindrance.

Li Cenji led a hundred cavalrymen eastward for another two or three miles. The number of defeated soldiers on the official road gradually decreased, but the number of corpses lying abandoned by the roadside became increasingly dense.

The setting sun had peeked out from behind the ridge of Qishan Mountain, painting the distant and nearby mountains in a bluish-green hue.

He reined in his yellow horse and glanced back at the riders behind him.

They charged down from the high ridge of Longweibei, chased after Lin Yan, and drove away the fleeing soldiers. No one had a moment to catch their breath.

Although the yellow horse under his crotch was a fine animal, its mane was now completely soaked, its breath was burning hot, and its four hooves were pawing the ground incessantly, clearly indicating that it was extremely exhausted.

Behind them, the three generals Zhou Ping, Xu Tai, and Wu Kang, along with over a hundred soldiers, were all drenched in sweat, and the white breath exhaled from their horses' mouths was clearly visible in the warm sunlight.

"Commander, the horses are tired."

Zhou Ping rode forward, wiped the sweat from his face, and whispered,

"We have about a hundred men, all heavily armored. Even the strongest horses can't withstand this kind of running. If we keep chasing, the horses will probably collapse from exhaustion by the time we reach our destination. Maybe we should stop chasing..."

Li Cenji patted the yellow horse's neck, and the horse snorted and nudged his palm with its nose, as if complaining or being affectionate.

Li Cenji looked back at Longwei Weir, then at the east, and said:

"We must pursue them, otherwise what about Commander Cheng and Commander Qiu? They are leading troops ahead to block the rebels' retreat, the pressure is immense. But what you said makes sense, there's no need to rush. Let the horses walk slowly, take longer strides, as long as they can outrun people. We are deep in enemy territory, it is extremely dangerous."

Upon hearing the order, the riders breathed a sigh of relief, slowed their horses down, and let their warhorses swirl their tails as they moved forward slowly.

The horses' hooves pounded on the loose soil of the official road, making a dull thud, much quieter than the deafening rumble that had just followed.

After traveling for about a milliliter, the sun grew even stronger.

The poplar trees on both sides of the official road rustled in the evening breeze, their shadows swaying and cutting the road surface into fragments.

As Li Cenji was gazing intently ahead, he suddenly saw several figures of riders appearing indistinctly at the bend in the official road in the distance.

The riders arrived quickly, and the riders seemed to have noticed the dust rising from this side. They all turned their horses around and fled eastward.

Li Cenji's gaze sharpened, and he shielded his eyes from the sunlight with his hand, looking carefully.

The riders were only wearing light leather armor, which only protected their chest and abdomen, leaving their arms and legs exposed. Their horses were also lightly equipped and not wearing horse armor.

Their attire is neither that of defeated soldiers nor that of regular combatants; rather, they resemble scouts sent out.

But if they were scouts, they wouldn't have waited until they were this close to spot them.

These rebel scouts were not professionals.

A thought flashed through Li Cenji's mind, and he immediately shouted:

"Don't let them leave!"

Upon hearing the order, the soldiers behind him spurred their horses to give chase.

But they were clad in heavy armor, and their horses were exhausted; how could they possibly catch up with those lightly armed and swift steeds?

Seeing that the few rebel scouts had turned their horses around and started to accelerate eastward, the distance between the two sides was about to widen.

Just then, the sound of bowstrings suddenly rang out from the soldiers.

It turned out that several soldiers who carried bows and arrows saw that they could not catch up, so they urged their horses on while drawing their bows and nocking arrows.

However, the horse was jolted and bumpy, and twenty or thirty arrows were sparsely shot out, most of them missing their mark and hitting the tree trunks on both sides of the road with a thud. Only two or three arrows were lucky enough to land at the back and shoot down the last scout.

The man was shot in the back with an arrow, screamed in agony, fell off his horse, rolled twice on the ground, and then lay still.

The other riders had already galloped a hundred paces away and were about to turn the corner and disappear from sight.

Seeing this, Li Cenji suddenly spurred his horse, and the yellow horse neighed and lurched forward.

As he galloped away, he grabbed the horn bow from the waist of a soldier beside him with his left hand, and with his right hand, he drew three or four arrows from the soldier's quiver and held them in his palm.

He took a deep breath on horseback, squeezed his legs against the horse's belly to steady himself, and nocked an arrow.

The original owner of this body had practiced martial arts since childhood and was skilled in archery and horsemanship. Although he would not dare to say that he could hit a target from a hundred paces, he was still very confident in shooting a fixed target from horseback.

He had been training every day these days, and his arm strength had increased significantly compared to before. Now, when he drew his bow and nocked an arrow, he felt the bowstring was taut between his fingers, yet it remained steady without the slightest tremor.

He doesn't shoot men, he only shoots horses.

The horses of those rebel scouts were not armored; their rumps and bellies were completely bare, revealing numerous vulnerabilities.

Li Cenji identified the last rider, released the bowstring, and the arrow flew out like a meteor, hitting the horse's rump squarely.

The horse, in pain, let out a long neigh and reared up, violently throwing its rider off its back. The rider fell to the ground and couldn't get up for a long time.

Li Cenji didn't stop, and fired the second and third arrows in quick succession.

His arm strength was already extraordinary, and now he was shooting with the wind at his back, the arrows whistling through the air.

The first two arrows hit two horses.

A horse, its neck pierced by an arrow, neighed mournfully and fell sideways, pinning its rider beneath it.

The other horse was shot in the front leg, staggered a few steps and fell to its knees. The rider was thrown far away by the inertia and fell with a bruised and swollen face.

Only the one rider at the very front remained.

The man lay on the horse's back, whipping it frantically, and they were about to turn the corner.

Li Cenji had only one arrow left in his hand. He held his breath, raised the arrowhead slightly, calculated the lead, and then released his finger.

The arrow drew an arc in mid-air, hitting the horse squarely in the back of its leg.

The warhorse suddenly lost its balance while galloping, tumbling to the ground with its leg crippled, raising a cloud of dust.

The soldiers behind him cheered and urged their horses to catch up.

The rebel scouts were thrown around in a daze and were dragged away by the soldiers by their collars.

Upon counting, there were still five survivors.

Li Cenji reined in his horse, threw the horn bow back to the soldier, dismounted, and walked up to the scouts.

The five men were bruised and battered, one of them even breaking his arm. He was wincing in pain, but he still glared at Li Cenji, looking like he wouldn't back down.

"Are you scouts sent out by Shang Rang?"

Li Cenji asked.

The five men looked at each other, none of them speaking. The one with the missing arm turned his head to the side and spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.

Li Cenji glanced at him, but didn't get angry. He simply turned and waved to Zhou Ping.

Zhou Ping spurred his horse forward, his round face and large ears bearing his usual smiling expression. He dismounted, clasped his hands in greeting, and said:

"What are your orders, Commander?"

"It's up to you now."

Li Cenji said calmly.

"I need to know everything that happened before, just enough for half a cup of tea."

Zhou Ping's smiling face remained unchanged, but a glint of shrewdness flashed in his eyes as he replied:

"Don't worry, Professor."

Having said that, he walked towards the scouts, untying a leather rope from his waist as he went, wrapping it twice around his hand, and then beckoning to the soldiers behind him.

"Brothers, drag two of the stubborn ones over there to the tree so they don't get splashed all over the colonel."

The soldiers responded with smiles, and like wolves and tigers, dragged two of the scouts to a crooked willow tree by the roadside.

Zhou Ping followed, walking slowly as he said:

"Please don't be afraid, everyone. I learned this skill from an old jailer in the Shence Army. That old jailer has served at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, prisoners, and none of them have ever survived the third round. However, I am still rusty and cannot compare to the old jailer. If I use too much force, please bear with me."

He spoke with a smile on his face, his tone as gentle as if he were chatting with a neighbor.

But the meaning behind those words sent a chill down the spines of the remaining scouts.

A moment later, several suppressed screams came from under the willow tree, but then something covered their mouths, leaving only indistinct sobs.

A moment later, Zhou Ping returned, shaking the blood droplets off his hands. He still had that round, smiling face, but there were a few dark red spots on his cuffs.

He walked up to the remaining three scouts, knelt down, and said gently:

"These gentlemen, I see you're all smart men. Smart men don't need to suffer like that, don't you think?"

Seeing Zhou Ping's appearance, one of the scouts trembled violently, his lips quivered, and finally he couldn't hold on any longer. He collapsed to the ground with a thud and vomited everything out.

Seeing that one of them had spoken up, the other two stopped hiding their stories and told him everything that had happened.

It turns out that after Shang Rang's retreat, the remaining rebel forces had split into two groups.

A main force, personally led by Shang Rang, launched a fierce attack on the ambush of Cheng Zongchu and Qiu Gongyu on the north side of the official road, attempting to tear open a gap and open a way to retreat to the east.

Another force of about two thousand men, led by the military commander Wang Fan, gathered the defeated soldiers on the west side of the official road, reorganized them, and set up a chevaux-de-frise formation to deal with the Tang army's pursuers.

These few riders were not scouts; they were sent from the rebel army in the west. Their mission was to spread out to the west, informing the fleeing soldiers where to retreat, how to bypass the lines, and not to charge their own lines, lest they throw themselves into disarray.

After hearing this, Li Cenji exchanged a glance with Zhou Ping.

Xu Tai, who had been holding back for a while, finally couldn't help but speak up:

"Commander, sending a hundred or so cavalry to fight two thousand men, who are already in formation, is like throwing yourself against a wall!"

Li Cenji did not answer, but simply nodded slightly.

Seeing him nod, Xu Tai grew bolder and continued:

"It's not that I'm speaking ill of people behind their backs, but Commander Li shouldn't have attacked that hillside! The main force of the rebels was still fleeing east, and he wasted time on those stragglers. If we had taken advantage of the rebels' chaos to pursue them, how could Shang Rang have had time to divide his forces? They would have been scattered by us long ago!"

"Xu Tai".

Zhou Ping gave a low shout.

Xu Tai stopped talking, but still looked unconvinced.

Li Cenji remained silent for a moment, then slowly said:

"You're right. If the cavalry had pursued him all the way back then, Shang Rang's head would probably be hanging on a horse's neck by now."

He then changed the subject.

"But on the battlefield, there were chaotic and defeated soldiers all around. General Li is not a god. When he saw a large number of rebels retreating up the hillside, he naturally assumed that they were the main force of the rebels. If it were me, I might not have been able to tell the difference either. This is not his fault."

Didn't Li Cenji also lose his mind in the chaos of battle, take the wrong path, and end up chasing after Lin Yan?

Our eldest brother doesn't laugh at our second brother.

Xu Tai, though still somewhat unwilling, remained silent after hearing this.

Zhou Ping stepped forward and whispered:

"Commander, what should we do now? We only have a hundred or so men; a direct assault won't work. Perhaps we should wait here until the main force catches up and we can join forces?"

Li Cenji shook his head, his gaze falling on the scattered corpses of the rebels beside the official road, before looking towards the road ahead.

He pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked the rebel scouts:

"How many defeated soldiers have you encountered along the way?"

The rebel with the severed arm paused, wondering why he had suddenly asked this, but dared not refuse to answer, and said in a trembling voice:

"Reporting to the general, I have encountered three or five groups of people on my way west, some more and some less, in total... in total there should be about a thousand or eight hundred people."

Upon hearing this, Li Cenji nodded slightly, a smile appearing on his face, and said:

"A thousand or eight hundred people is enough."

He stood up and drew the sword from his waist.

Upon seeing this, the rebel scouts' expressions changed drastically, and they struggled to shrink back.

Li Cenji ignored their pleas for mercy, raised his knife, and killed them all quickly.

He sheathed his sword and said to Zhou Ping:

"Let them live; if they escape when we're not looking, it'll only cause trouble."

Zhou Ping nodded, showing no surprise.

Li Cenji mounted his horse, raised his hand and pointed eastward, a cold smile appearing on his blood-stained face:

"Aren't there two thousand rebels lined up ahead waiting for us? Let's give them a big gift. Pass down the order, spread out and push forward along both sides of the main road like a net, chase all the fleeing soldiers along the way, and drive them eastward."

Zhou Ping's eyes lit up:

"Is the commander going to use routed soldiers to charge their lines?"

"Exactly."

Li Cenji gripped the horse spear in his hand.

"What are two thousand men most afraid of when they are arrayed in formation? They are most afraid of their own routed soldiers charging into the formation. Once the formation is disrupted, we will have an opportunity to take advantage of it. Moreover, those routed soldiers do not know what awaits them ahead. When they see pursuers behind them, they will naturally run forward desperately. We only need to follow behind, make it look like we are pursuing them, and we don't need to actually fight. We can make them trample each other."

Zhou Ping and Wu Kang responded in unison and each spurred their horses to deliver the order.

Xu Tai scratched his head and said:

"Commander, what if those routed soldiers are all so terrified they can't even run, like the ones before?"

Li Cenji hardened his heart and said:

"Then let's draw our bows and shoot a few of those who aren't running away to embolden them."

Xu Tai was taken aback, then grinned:

"Understood!"