Chapter 677: Earth’s Full Life

Two cavalry units began their straightforward, unadorned charge toward each other.

The terrain was flat and wide, ideal for cavalry to deploy their battle lines. If it was a perfect place for cavalry combat, it also meant it would be a place where death came swiftly and easily.

The Qiang cavalry were light cavalry through and through. Partly because they were too impoverished to afford heavier armor, and partly because each rider possessed arms as long and powerful as an ape’s, making them all superb archers on horseback. Ke E, the young Qiang chieftain who bore a deep grudge against the Xu family of Beiliang, finally ceased restraining his cavalry’s speed. With a sweep of his hand, he covered his horse’s eyes with a black cloth. The steed immediately quickened its pace. If there had been onlookers watching from the front line, they would have been awestruck by the muscular power displayed by these proud warhorses in full gallop. Covering a horse’s eyes during a charge was never a popular practice in Central Plains warfare, but it was an old tradition among the grasslands, originally meant to ensure the horses remained fearless when facing the pike formations of Central Plains infantry. It also intentionally startled the horses, enabling them to unleash greater speed and power during the brief, brutal clash of cavalry charges. The riders would whip their steeds mercilessly, enhancing their momentum and penetration. However, among the elite cavalry forces across the world, only the ironclad cavalry of Beiliang disdained such “tricks.” This was thanks to the rigorous training each Beiliang warhorse underwent, with countless efforts poured into breeding and training them, not to mention the immense sums of money invested. Behind every mature warhorse of Beiliang that eventually saw large-scale battle, there were often one or even several horses that had perished before it.

On the battlefield, only the 1,600 Qiang riders raised their deafening battle cries.

In contrast, the 3,000 Longxiang cavalry, also light cavalry, appeared particularly strange at this moment. Their collective silence before battle was one reason, but more importantly, they fought like reckless desperadoes, wielding light cavalry as if it were heavy cavalry.

After raising their lances and accelerating into a charge, the Longxiang light cavalry rushed straight at the enemy, even forsaking the usual initial barrage of light crossbow fire meant to wound the enemy’s formation!

The ironclad cavalry of Beiliang were renowned for their combat prowess and willingness to fight to the death.

In Central Plains warfare, cavalry and infantry were traditionally used in combination. Infantry occupied the center while cavalry guarded the flanks. The latter was rarely used for direct frontal assaults, partly due to the inherent disadvantage of cavalry bows compared to infantry bows, especially large crossbows, but more importantly because the cavalry’s greatest strength lay in its mobility. In a long series of classic battles during the Spring and Autumn period, this established military doctrine was perfected to a high degree. Any general who could be called a “master strategist,” even if primarily an infantry commander, could skillfully command a few thousand cavalry units, a result of long years of accumulated experience. At that time, the high-ranking military officials of the Liyang court who had endured the trials of war would have been too ashamed to greet their peers if they didn’t know how to employ or counter cavalry. However, once this cavalry-infantry combined tactic was transferred to areas with logistical difficulties, it inevitably struggled. After the current emperor ascended the throne and launched several major campaigns against the Northern Wei, many early promising situations were ruined by battles that occurred outside the main battlefield. Taking the Northern Wei’s Tuoba Pusa and Dong Zhuo as examples, both were famed for their long-range, deep-penetration raids by light cavalry, often covering thousands of miles, to strike directly behind the Liyang armies and destroy one or even several main supply lines. The Liyang court’s generals, especially the cavalry commanders, were greatly frustrated by this. Yet, for reasons unknown, no cavalry general emerged who could stand alone without infantry support and confront the Northern Wei cavalry head-on. Despite this, the idea of deploying cavalry independently and a series of related military treatises did appear. Lu Shengxiang, who was recruited by Zhao Yi to the banks of the Guangling River, and Xu Gong, who never had the opportunity to campaign beyond the frontier, both authored military treatises, though they remained secret and unpublished. However, they were highly praised within military circles. Xu Xiao greatly admired Xu Gong from the Gu Mu clan, believing that he could have surpassed Lu Shengxiang, who was renowned as the unrivaled cavalry commander of the southeast. Yet, back then, the high-ranking officials of the Liyang court all knew that if Chen Zhibao and Chu Lushan had been given the opportunity, they would have risen to become legendary figures on par with the Four Great Generals of the Spring and Autumn era. However, even if the new emperor had been willing to grant Chen Zhibao such an opportunity out of personal favor, the old guard of “founding heroes” would never have allowed the Xu family to continue its legacy.

Over nearly twenty years of continuous warfare against the Northern Wei, the Beiliang cavalry developed a complete set of highly effective, targeted tactics. For example, the Northern Wei cavalry relied more on bows than crossbows. Except for elite soldiers with extraordinary strength, ordinary cavalry bows struggled to pierce armor beyond eighty paces. When two cavalry forces charged each other, the Beiliang cavalry, under Chen Zhibao’s influence, abandoned the traditional exchange of bow fire altogether, relying instead on superior armor to endure the enemy’s arrows while charging forward relentlessly. Thus, Chen Zhibao once made a shocking and arrogant claim that left outsiders astounded: “Given roughly equal numbers or even a slight disadvantage, the Northern Wei cavalry would only survive forty paces!”

Since outsiders could not witness this firsthand, they remained deeply skeptical.

But it could not be denied that the entire Liyang dynasty likely had no cavalry force with as much valuable experience in large-scale cavalry-on-cavalry engagements as the Beiliang border troops. Although the Zhao imperial court appeared blind to the affairs of the northwest frontier, every minor fluctuation was meticulously reported by Li Xifeng, the former director of the Jinlu Weaving Bureau, who sent secret memorials to the capital without fail. These reports were acquired by Prince Zhao Yi and Prince Yan Chi Zhao Bing through countless favors and connections, allowing their advisors to study them repeatedly.

At the same time, the Liyang court itself was not idle. It considered both the Northern Wei and Beiliang as potential enemies and sought ways to truly counter the iron hooves of their warhorses. The elite generals who had emerged from the smoke of the Spring and Autumn wars were not mere sycophants; they achieved remarkable results. The allocation of infantry formations and the pairing of weapons reached a peak of sophistication. In the imperial examination of the Yonghui Spring, there was even a thought-provoking question related to this topic. As a result, many imaginative ideas appeared in the candidates’ answers, though most were dismissed as naive and impractical. However, one argument, after years of silence, suddenly shone brightly: the idea of extreme countermeasures. A failed examinee proposed that resources should be concentrated to develop an extremely powerful, even deformed, heavy cavalry force, striving to surpass the threshold of ten thousand riders. Even if it meant selling everything they owned, they should cultivate one or several heavy cavalry units stationed in major strongholds near the border. His proposal was ignored by the Liyang court at the time. Yet, almost simultaneously, the Northern Wei royal court began pouring money into building heavy cavalry forces. It was only years later that the Liyang court realized, too late, that the two elite cavalry units now named after the royal family’s surname—Yelü Heavy Cavalry and Murong Heavy Cavalry—had just barely reached the threshold of ten thousand riders. Even the most ignorant civilian official knew that maintaining these two elite units was like cutting flesh from the nation’s body to feed two insatiable beasts. The real cost of heavy cavalry was not in its formation but in its upkeep. Under pressure from public opinion, especially from the Ministry of War’s Gu Lu and the eastern front’s border forces, the Liyang court reluctantly followed the Northern Wei’s example and formed the Duoyan Iron Cavalry and the Yamen Heavy Cavalry. The former numbered fewer than eight thousand riders, and the latter even less than five thousand.

As for why that unknown scholar from Jiangnan died mysteriously in an unnamed alleyway, who really cared?

But if someone had known this secret, they would surely have felt moved. A mere essay of less than a thousand characters, written by an obscure Jiangnan scholar, had actually influenced the lives of two million soldiers on the desert frontiers.

At a distance of eighty paces, the front line of the Qiang cavalry, spread out like a surging tide, expertly drew their bows and fired arrows.

The violent jolting of the galloping horses, the armor worn by the enemy riders, and the limited time for reloading during the rapid engagement were all reasons why cavalry archery could only serve as an embellishment rather than a decisive factor.

The Northern Wei’s regular border cavalry were fairly well-equipped with lances, especially the elite units of generals like Dong Zhuo, which reached the same level as Liyang’s elite border forces. However, the Qiang cavalry were far less fortunate. It wasn’t that the Northern Wei was unwilling to provide over ten thousand high-quality lances, but rather that giving them to the Qiang riders, who had their own established tactics, would only be counterproductive rather than helpful. Training warhorses was already a headache; how much more difficult was it to cultivate cavalry skills? The relationship between the weight, length, and balance of swords and lances and the riders’ arm strength required countless battles and countless lives to determine the optimal balance. The precise area to thrust a lance, the best angle for a sword slash, the appropriate weight of armor—all varied from person to person, all requiring deep expertise. If the Qiang riders were suddenly given lances that were too luxurious and unfamiliar, it would only hinder their usual speed and maneuverability. If this Qiang cavalry unit had arrived in Liuzhou, they might have been lucky enough to avoid encountering the Longxiang cavalry and simply enjoyed a pleasant journey. But if they were unlucky, like now, Wanfuzhang Jin Cheng wouldn’t even think twice—he would turn around and flee, hoping to sell those lances for enough money to escape.

The Spring and Autumn refugees who had fled southward and migrated north to the Hongjia region brought with them many secret forging techniques. However, the Northern Wei’s lack of iron left many southern artisans unable to work without raw materials.

Chen Zhibao once said: “The Northern Wei brutes, lacking lances, are nothing more than infantry on horseback!”

It could be said that Ye Baikui, the military sage of Xichu who excelled in combining different troop types, gradually escalated the brutality of large-scale warfare to its peak. Chen Zhibao, on the other hand, dissected and refined massive wars down to the level of each junior commander.

He not only remembered the names of every junior commander under his command but also understood their personalities, leadership styles, and their normal combat effectiveness and potential in unexpected situations. He had everything figured out.

“Military strategists of old liked to describe warfare as unpredictable and ever-changing. Chen Zhibao, however, had already mastered the ‘ten thousand changes’ inside and out. He is truly the greatest military mind since the Qin dynasty, surpassing both his predecessors and contemporaries.”

Such exaggerated praise was common among Jiangnan scholars who had read a few military treatises and admired the elegance of the White-Robed Military Sage.

Yet, the one who actually spoke these words was Cao Qingyi, the widely recognized Go master Cao Changqing.

In Liuzhou, there was no sound of horns wailing, no thunder of war drums.

The deaths came silently in the sudden skirmish.

The Qiang cavalry’s two volleys of long-range archery achieved expected results, but the scale of their success surprised them.

When an arrow struck a Longxiang light cavalryman in the face, the force of the shot yanked his head backward violently before he fell from his horse, lifeless.

The riderless horse continued its forward charge.

Many Qiang riders cheered loudly.

Another arrow struck a Longxiang rider’s chest plate, sparking a shower of sparks but failing to penetrate. However, the Beiliang soldier was extremely unlucky—another arrow, fired with immense force, struck the horse’s neck between its iron armor plates. The horse neighed and collapsed sideways into the earth.

The light cavalryman rolled to dissipate his momentum and quickly stood up. His arm, which had held the lance, was already broken. But without his lance, he swiftly drew his waist-mounted Liang Dao, facing the Qiang riders who were only twenty paces away, and began sprinting forward along the straight path!

Ke E felt a deep sense of helplessness—not only because the two volleys had only inflicted fewer than a hundred casualties on the Longxiang cavalry but also because these enemy riders, who could have used their lances to deflect incoming arrows, did not make a single such move that would have reduced the impact of their charges!

Not a single rider!

The two cavalry units charged forward, and the battlefield became a chaotic melee where friend and foe were indistinguishable.

The young chieftain’s recklessness brought a catastrophe upon himself and the 1,600 riders he had painstakingly gathered over twenty years.

Even when the Qiang riders realized the danger and attempted to veer their front line to the left to minimize direct combat losses by leveraging their speed,

The Qiang front line slightly veered left.

However, the Longxiang light cavalry reacted almost instantly, shifting their entire formation to the right, their thunderous hooves losing none of their power in the maneuver!

Though the rapid changes on the battlefield were minimal when viewed from the perspective of each pair of opposing riders,

The Longxiang and Qiang cavalry clashed head-on in their formations!

In the blink of an eye, over 300 Qiang riders were pierced through their armor by lances, their lives extinguished before they could even fully leave their saddles!

Dozens of Qiang riders were even impaled into the air by the Longxiang iron lances.

Along that line marking life and death, blood sprayed from the fallen Qiang riders.

Some Qiang riders managed to evade the initial lances of the Longxiang light cavalry, but were soon pierced by the following lances, holes torn through their bodies.

Some Qiang riders who were slightly luckier and lived a few moments longer, even survived the lances of the second row of Longxiang light cavalry, were instantly killed by the third row of light cavalry.

One Qiang rider had his shoulder pierced by a Longxiang light cavalryman from the front rank. As he swayed, unable to feel relieved, a third iron spear pierced his neck. His body tilted backward, sliding a short distance along the horseback before finally falling lifelessly onto the sandy ground.

Deputy General of the Longxiang Army, Wang Lingbao, pierced three Qiang riders with a single thrust of his spear, like skewering candied haws on a stick.

This charge…

The Longxiang light cavalry pierced through like a heavy hammer tearing through a paper window effortlessly.

Wang Lingbao, the scar-faced warrior, gently shook his wrist, sliding the three Qiang riders’ corpses off his spear. Without turning to observe the battlefield or even glancing at the corpses on the ground, he continued charging forward on horseback.

The second Qiang cavalry unit was not far away now.

Behind Wang Lingbao, the ground was littered with Qiang rider corpses, soaked in blood.

Many Qiang warhorses, after their riders were slain and fell from their saddles, ran a short distance before gradually coming to a stop.

Three hundred plus wounded Longxiang cavalry dismounted and repeatedly raised their sabers to kill the Qiang riders who had not yet died.

Some Qiang riders spoke in a language the Longxiang light cavalry could not understand, likely begging for mercy, but none of the Longxiang riders showed any compassion.

Ever since the great general led a hundred riders out of Liaodong forty years ago, the Xu family cavalry had never taken prisoners.

Except for the forty or so riders at both ends of the 1,600-strong Qiang vanguard, all other Qiang riders were killed in just one charge by the 3,000 Longxiang light cavalry.

The young chieftain of a thousand men, who had entered Liuzhou seeking revenge and glory, also died after killing one and injuring two.

One side killed with ruthless efficiency; the other side died without hesitation or delay.

Ke E’s original intention was certainly not to sacrifice the 1,600 riders painstakingly gathered by his tribe over twenty years, just to pave the way for Jin Cheng’s future rise in the Northern Desert court.

This Qiang warrior, accustomed to tasting victory on the border grasslands of the Northern Desert, remembered the blood feud from twenty years ago but forgot what kind of enemy he was seeking revenge against. Before leaving what was, in truth, just a foreign homeland, he had heard that the Longxiang cavalry had swept through half of Guse Province last year. Yet he also heard from many Southern Dynasty people that it was merely due to negligence by Guse’s military garrisons, and that as long as Zhuo Dong or any great general’s forces were deployed, those deep-penetrating Longxiang troops would never return alive, their severed heads tossed along the border between the two nations.

Ke E came for revenge, but unfortunately, his young son back on the grasslands, still waiting for his father to return home, would have to wait another twenty years before he could seek vengeance himself.

For the Qiang people, their century of exile has been a journey from one foreign land to another.

He lay in a pool of blood, the sunlight above blinding.

Then he noticed a shadow appearing overhead—a Longxiang light cavalryman whose shoulders were uneven from wounds. Ke E, in his dying struggle, tried to lift the sword bound to his arm.

The lightly armored officer, dressed as a commander, seemed to notice Ke E’s futile resistance. Frowning slightly, he chopped off the young Qiang rider’s head. After a moment’s thought, he also severed the right hand of the corpse.

Then, just like many other still-capable Longxiang riders, the commander cleared the battlefield, searched for a suitable warhorse, mounted it, and charged again.

In many wealthy regions of Central Plains, no matter who kills whom, there is always a tangle of intricate plots and schemes. Even in deadly feuds between factions, there might be contests of government backing or secret manipulations by masterminds.

In the end, in those places, killing is never clean, and death is never satisfying.

But in the borderlands between Liang and Mang that followed, death would be simple—and as swift as the speed of bows and iron hooves.

After piercing through the 1,600 Qiang riders who had sought their own demise, under the leadership of Wang Lingbao and two lieutenants, the Longxiang light cavalry began to subtly adjust their horses’ pace—slowing and accelerating rhythmically.

This allowed the warhorses to fully unleash their second wave of momentum, ensuring effective pursuit and slaughter.

This is the invisible difference between a battlefield general and a mediocre one.

War, especially a localized battle, certainly needs those who can slay a thousand or ten thousand men, but it needs even more commanders like Wang Lingbao who thoroughly understand battlefield discipline.

Without the former, the battle becomes more arduous, but without the latter, there is only defeat.

About half a mile away, the ten-thousand-man commander Jin Cheng was completely stunned, but this middle-aged Qiang rider, who had more battlefield experience than Ke E, did not hesitate. Without a word, he led the Qiang cavalry in a curved retreat.

It was not a direct about-face and escape because the Longxiang light cavalry, whose strength had barely diminished, would not allow them even that brief moment of wasted time.

Wang Lingbao calculated the distance and the galloping speed of both sides, then squeezed his horse’s belly, wanting to ride to Xu Longxiang’s side to express his thoughts. But the young commander of the Longxiang army had already raised his arm, making the simple gesture known to every soldier of the Beiliang border forces.

Swift riders, intercept!

In the earlier charge, Xu Longxiang had not displayed any particularly impressive feats, merely killing three Qiang riders with his saber—each with a single blow that cleaved off their heads.

When Wang Lingbao saw the commander suddenly leap high into the air, abandoning his horse and beginning to run while dragging his saber behind him.

Wang Lingbao chuckled, half-laughing, half-sighing. Their commander really was something else.

After Xu Longxiang made that gesture, the previously disciplined Longxiang cavalry formation finally changed.

More than four hundred riders with greater explosive power instantly surged forward from the main force.

These elite riders resolutely followed their war-god commander to intercept the Qiang cavalry force still numbering over 7,000.

Noble families and aristocratic clans emphasize that a nation may be destroyed, but the ancestral lineage of a family must never be extinguished.

But for an army, the backbone upheld by countless martyrs must never be broken!

The backbone of the Beiliang iron cavalry.

Better to shatter than to bend.

As for whether the Northern Desert possesses the strength to break this backbone, that would require mutual slaughter to decide.

As Xu Longxiang ran faster and faster, a giant black tiger suddenly leapt to his side.

Then, the four hundred swift riders behind the black-clothed youth, and the more than two thousand Longxiang light cavalry following behind, witnessed an extremely bizarre sight.

Without slowing down, Xu Longxiang bent low, grabbed the two legs of the black tiger with both hands, twisted his body, and hurled the tiger straight into the heart of the Qiang cavalry formation!

The massive black tiger crashed down, rolling over and over.

Kicking up endless clouds of dust from the earth.

Numerous bodies were crushed like rotten mud, horses and riders alike thrown into chaos.

Scar-faced Wang Lingbao couldn’t help but twitch his lips.

Those who were hit would certainly be in excruciating pain.

As the four hundred swift riders were about to catch up to the rear of the Qiang cavalry, Wang Lingbao glanced back at the crater where the black tiger had landed. Amid the mangled corpses, large blossoms of blood began to bloom.