Qiang Jin Jiu (Author : Tang Jiuqing 唐酒卿)

Chapter 134 : Mengzheng

All votes and comments are much appreciated :)

—————

Huhelu was known among the Changjiu Tribe as the person most likely to become the Hero. Although he was a cruel and savage man by nature, he was pretty skilled in fighting battles. His squad comprised the best from the various Biansha Tribes, and these cavalrymen only had fear and no reverence for Huhelu, but it was precisely because of this fear that the shock hit them like a ton of bricks.

In just a few blinks of an eye, Huhelu was cut down, and going down along with him was the Biansha Cavalry’s morale. Huhelu had hastily concluded that there were countless Libei reinforcements behind them, and this consequently snuffed out the determination of the now general-less Biansha Cavalry to fight on. They scattered in all directions, with Xiao Chiye as the center.  

Countless torches formed into a long line that pressed in towards them from behind, like a procession of a million valiant soldiers.

Within the Shasan Camp, Gu Jin was also launching a surprise attack. Bayin was trapped both on the inside and outside. Seeing how composed Xiao Chiye was, Bayin was also of the impression that Xiao Chiye was leading the main forces of Libei. The crux was that when Bayin cast a glance over, he could see the obscure dark shadows behind those torches that seemed to stretch all the way into the horizon. 

Bayin did not want to repeat the same mistake. Holding his horse by the reins, he took a few steps back and gave the command to abandon camp and flee. The Biansha Cavalry beat a retreat so hastily that they did not even collect Huhelu’s corpse before they faded into the night. Xiao Chiye stopped where he was. Tantai Hu led his men and put on a show, shouting and baying for blood as he chased after them for a few li. Only when Bayin dared not look back did he swiftly withdraw and returned to Shasan Camp.

Even by the time Bayin looked back, he could still see those torches extending into the distance. 

If Bayin had been willing to look a little more closely, or perhaps if he had been able to calm down, then he would have realized that tonight’s sudden assault was riddled with loopholes. Huhelu’s ability was a cut above the others, but as he had said himself, he was the commanding general in military field operations. Getting him to guard the camp and go on the defensive was to put the cart before the horse. If he had heeded Bayin’s advice and remained in Shasan Camp instead of heading out, he could have swiftly dealt with the small batch of Imperial Army Gu Jin had led in, and he would have then gained the upper hand. The Shasan Camp was an impenetrable fortress with its gates shut. Xiao Chiye had no supplies, and that meant he had no military weapons to launch an assault on the fortress, so there was no way he could forcefully storm his way in. But Huhelu had gotten complacent with his repeated victories after the start of spring this year and could not hold his own against trickery and deception. He thought it was a sudden raid by the Bianbo Camp when he saw Gu Jin scaling the walls, and he thought it was the Libei Armored Cavalry’s reinforcements when he saw all those uncountable torches. When he eventually saw Xiao Chiye, he had already been thrown into turmoil, and that was how he was defeated without ever fighting a battle. 

Xiao Chiye lifted Huhelu’s head and scrutinized that face with the stubbly beard for a moment, but he could not remember who this man was. He handed the head to Tantai Hu, who refused to take it, so he passed it over to Gu Jin and said, “Clean up all the bodies in the camp. Bury our brothers from Libei nearby, and bury the soldiers from Biansha far away. The weather is hot, so the corpses can’t be kept around for long. Let’s not start an epidemic.” 

Gu Jin took the head and recognized this to be Huhelu. He never expected Xiao Chiye to hack Huhelu dead at their very first encounter. Guo Weili had fought with this man for half of his lifetime, but in the end, the man was gone in just one night.