A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

The sound came from underground.

At first, it was very soft, like the muffled sound of frozen ground cracking in winter, but soon the sound became more and more frequent and heavier.

Finally, it all coalesced into an irresistible thunderous roar.

"Boom—Boom—Boom—"

Each blow was like a giant hammer, striking the hearts of every soldier in the rear of the Northern Rong army.

A centurion from the Northern Rong tribe, who was turning around and attempting to escape from behind, suddenly reined in his horse and looked back in alarm.

A black line appeared on the horizon.

The black line was rapidly widening and thickening, like a moving city wall, slowly crushing towards them.

Not cavalry.

The sound of cavalry charging was crisp and clear, like a thunderous storm of ten thousand horses galloping.

The sound before my eyes was muffled, the dull thud of steel rubbing against each other, a symphony of thousands of iron boots pounding through the frozen earth.

"What the hell is that thing?"

The centurion's personal guards were trembling, and their scimitars clattered to the ground.

It was a black steel forest.

Fifty thousand heavily armored soldiers, their entire bodies encased in black iron armor, even their faces covered with ferocious iron masks, revealing only pairs of emotionless eyes.

Each of them carried a heavy tower shield, taller than a person, and the shields fit together seamlessly, forming an endless steel wall.

From the gaps in the shield wall, protruding were numerous greatswords, each twelve feet long, capable of slaying horses.

The sword was thick and heavy, its blade gleaming with a cold, eerie blue light in the morning sun. It wasn't meant to cut people down; it was meant to cleave warhorses in two.

Huo Qingluan rode a warhorse also clad in heavy armor, leading the formation.

She wasn't wearing a helmet, her cool face was expressionless, and she held a battle flag painted with the Bagua diagram in her hand.

"The Eight Trigrams Formation, the Earth-borne Formation."

Her voice was soft, but through the waving of the battle flags, the orders were precisely transmitted to the ears of every squad leader and every platoon leader.

"First three rows, drop your shields!"

"boom!"

The three rows of heavily armored soldiers at the front slammed the iron spikes along the bottom edge of the tower shields into the frozen ground, instantly connecting the shields into one solid structure, as immovable as a mountain.

"Last five rows, charge with your horse-slaying swords!"

Tens of thousands of greatswords emerged obliquely from the gaps in the shield wall, forming a terrifying thicket of steel thorns.

"Proceed."

Huo Qingluan waved her battle flag gently.

The entire steel formation began to move forward in a slow but unstoppable manner.

The cavalry of the Northern Rong rear army went completely mad.

In front, there was the Wei family army's infantrymen trying to strangle them, and behind, this group of tin cans that appeared out of nowhere blocked the road.

There's no way to retreat!

"Charge! Break through their lines!"

A commander, his eyes bloodshot and roaring, brandished his scimitar and led the charge against Huo Qingluan's army.

Thousands of cavalrymen followed behind him, letting out desperate howls.

The sound of horses' hooves grew closer.

Huo Qingluan's face remained expressionless; she was simply counting the distance in her mind.

Three hundred steps, two hundred steps, one hundred steps.

"crossbow!"

The battle flags were waved again.

Behind the shield wall, the crossbowmen phalanx, which had been silent all along, finally roared.

Tens of thousands of heavy crossbow bolts, as thick as bowls, whistled through the air as they flew over the shield wall, raining down on the charging cavalry like a black storm.

"Pfft pfft pfft!"

People and horses were thrown into chaos.

The power of a heavy crossbow is simply too great for leather armor to withstand.

The arrows pierced the cavalrymen's chests, pinning them firmly to their horses. The immense momentum propelled the warhorses and their corpses forward for another dozen paces before they crashed to the ground.

With a volley of fire, the thousands of cavalrymen at the forefront fell like wheat cut by a sickle.

But the cavalry behind them couldn't stop.

They stepped over the corpses of their comrades, their eyes bloodshot, and rammed into the wall of steel shields.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The sound of the warhorse crashing against the tower shield was so dull it made your teeth ache.

No horse could break through that shield wall.

At the moment of impact, their skulls either shattered or their chests were pierced by the iron spikes along the bottom edge of the shield.

What greeted the fallen cavalrymen was a greatsword thrust out from between their shields.

"Pfft—"

A Northern Rong cavalryman had just gotten up from the ground and hadn't even seen what was in front of him when a broad blade swept across his neck.

His head flew off, and blood spurted three feet high from his cavity.

This is not a battle.

This was a one-sided massacre.

Huo Qingluan's 50,000 heavily armored soldiers were like a huge and sophisticated meat grinder.

They crushed the Northern Rong army inch by inch from behind, leaving behind only pieces of flesh and limbs in their wake.

……

In the center of the battlefield, Shigeru Inuya heard screams coming from behind.

A blood-soaked guard scrambled to his horse, his voice completely distorted.

"Your Highness! Our retreat...our retreat has been cut off! It's the Wei family army's heavily armored troops! At least fifty thousand!"

Shigeru's one eye suddenly widened.

Heavy infantry?

Huo Qingluan?

Shouldn't that woman be staying in Calabash Valley?

His mind went blank for a moment, and the rationality that had been burned away by Wei Zhao's smile briefly returned.

trap!

This was a trap that was designed from beginning to end!

Cutting off supplies is bait, and being trapped is a feint, luring your entire army to press forward, then attacking from both sides and catching them like turtles in a jar!

A chill ran from the soles of my feet straight up to the top of my head.

He'd been tricked.

We were tricked by that Wei dog surnamed Chen, tricked by that sickly Wei Zhao, and tricked by the entire Wei family!

"Aaaaaaahh ...

Inuya Shigeru let out a roar that sounded inhuman, his last shred of reason completely consumed by the more violent humiliation and anger.

He didn't want to run anymore, and he couldn't run away anyway.

The 500,000-strong army was trapped in a small area outside Yanmen Pass, unable to advance or retreat.

"Let's fight them!"

Dogtooth Shigeru's scimitar pointed at Liu Jingshuang's white banner, which was getting closer and closer, and his single eye was spitting out crazy flames.

"Kill all these Wei dogs! Killing one is enough, killing two is a bonus!"

"Pass down the order! Anyone who dares to retreat will die!"

……

On the city wall, the north wind howled, carrying with it the stench of blood from the ground.

Wei Zhao stood behind the battlements, expressionless as he looked down at the vast hell on earth below.

Liu Jingshuang's 20,000 elite cavalry have completely breached the Northern Rong's central army and are repeatedly maneuvering and dividing them, throwing the Northern Rong's command system into chaos.

The 150,000 infantrymen, forming small square formations, divided the chaotic tide of troops like reefs, steadily advancing and constantly compressing the encirclement.

Huo Qingluan's heavily armored troops pressed in from the rear, completely extinguishing the Northern Rong army's last hope of escape.

Won.

Wei Zhao felt very calm.

The battle was won the moment Su Qingyun's supplies arrived.

He was calculating how much this battle would improve his attributes when a very soft sigh suddenly came from beside him.

Wei Zhao turned his head.

The old lady had somehow appeared beside him, also watching the battlefield outside the city.

Her wrinkled face was expressionless, showing neither the joy of victory nor the satisfaction of revenge.

Those cloudy old eyes simply watched quietly.

Watching those Northern Rong people fall under the swords and spears of the Wei family army, watching their blood stain every inch of land outside Yanmen Pass.

Wei Zhao saw a single, cloudy tear slide down her cheek.

The tear had barely left her eye when it was blown away by the biting north wind, leaving no trace.

It seemed so fast it was just an illusion, but Wei Zhao saw it clearly.

This tough old woman, who had never shed a tear at the funeral of her husband who died in battle and her nine sons who died one after another, cried.