Longzang

Chapter 70 Feng Shui Blessings
Before Wei Yuan arrived, Fang and Tong relied on the city walls to hold their ground, using powerful bows and crossbows to fire arrows from the shadows, forcing the Liao tribes to abandon their horses and enter the city for close combat. Without horses, the Liao tribes' fighting strength was halved. In addition, with the boost from the "Meritorious Service Technique" at crucial moments, the militia were able to quickly match the fighting strength of the regular border troops. Furthermore, everyone fought to the death, piling up lives to drive back the Liao tribes who had entered the village time and time again.

Tonight, Wei Yuan launched a surprise attack, killing seven or eight scouts in one fell swoop, and also accidentally killed the captain, which led to the complete annihilation of the enemy.

This is Wei Yuan's first real battle against an alien race. The mountain giants he faced during the preliminary exam were only incomplete versions, and with the sect elders guarding him, there was no danger to his life, so he didn't feel the pressure he is now.

Although the Taichu Palace had established a tight defense in the two prefectures, the Liao people were not puppets who would obediently follow orders. They came and went like the wind, attacking from wherever they pleased. The Taichu Palace's defense system could only prevent enemies at the Dharma Aspect level from rushing in and killing indiscriminately; those at the Foundation Establishment level could appear at any time, and there was even a possibility of encountering a powerful enemy at the late Foundation Establishment stage. If such an encounter did occur, they could only hold their ground and await reinforcements, sending out distress signals and waiting for the mobile cultivators within the palace to arrive and rescue them.

However, not all strongholds were like Wei Yuan's, where he was alone. Some frontline strongholds appeared weak but were actually extremely powerful; even a Liaoman at the late-stage Dao Foundation stage would be devoured if they came at him. The presence of hundreds of strongholds, some real and some fake, deterred the Liaoman from probing them recklessly.

As for a large army launching a surprise attack deep into enemy territory... with a True Lord overseeing heaven and earth, such a surprise attack by a large army is a joke.

Fang Hetong caught his breath, took out a bottle of pills, hesitated for a long time before finally pouring out one and swallowing it, his face contorted with pain. He called over several strong men with normal eyesight and ordered them to go out and drag back the corpses of the Liao scouts. Once the Liao warhorses lost their masters, they would return on their own, so there were only two horse carcasses outside the wall.

The militia carried the corpses back and forth, while Fang Hetong and Wei Yuan stood guard on the wall. Carrying corpses was actually a very dangerous job. If Liao scouts came out again, whether to shoot the guards on the wall first or kill the corpse carriers outside the city in a fit of rage depended on their mood at the time. However, the men Fang Hetong had chosen were all willing to leave the village, and not one of them complained.

It took eight people to carry the two warhorses back, and four people to move the Liao corpse. It took a dozen people a lot of effort to move all the corpses back to the village.

At this moment, the darkness in the distance ceased its churning and retreated silently, allowing Wei Yuan to see fifty miles away again.

Fang Hetong sensed something and said, "It seems the Liao people won't be coming tonight. I'll keep watch here, why don't you go and rest for a bit, my brother?"

Wei Yuan also remembered something: "I need to set up a formation, so I'll trouble Mr. Fang to do it."

Upon arriving in Shayang Village, Wei Yuan was immediately overwhelmed with matters, and he almost forgot that he still needed to set up a feng shui formation to pray for blessings.

After descending the city wall, Wei Yuan first walked around the village, looking at every corner, and then returned to the ancestral hall. Based on his knowledge of the theory of heaven and earth, he determined that this place was the feng shui node of the area surrounding Shayang Village.

The disciples of Taichu Palace have standard procedures for going into battle, and altering the feng shui of the battlefield and praying for blessings and disaster relief are among them.

Wei Yuan opened the incense table in the ancestral hall, rummaged through the military supply pack distributed before the battle, and took out a small box. From it, he took out several talismans and five-element spiritual objects. At the bottom of the box were several array plates, which, when pieced together, formed a miniature feng shui array. Wei Yuan arranged the array plates, placed the five-element spiritual objects in their respective positions according to what he had learned, then pasted the talismans in various places in the room. Finally, he infused his Dao power to activate it, and a miniature feng shui array was formed.

Wei Yuan activated his Qi Observation Technique and saw a thin sliver of clear light shoot into the sky from the array plate. Invisible ripples spread outwards, and some invisible gray-black energy, illuminated by the light, slowly retreated. Wei Yuan nodded, knowing that the array was complete. If Wei Yuan's cultivation were higher, and he could look down from above with his Heavenly Eye, he would see hundreds of points of clear light rising throughout the Ganning and Bianning prefectures, like countless stars forming a unified whole, their starlight reflecting off each other, illuminating the surrounding world and causing the yellowish-brown and gray-black energy that had been lingering there to retreat dozens of miles away.

All the array plates, talismans, and spiritual items originated from the Heavenly Mystery Hall, and the initial requirement for setting up feng shui arrays also came from the Heavenly Mystery Hall. Feng shui arrays certainly have an effect on the battlefield, but how effective they are is hard to say. Initially, this was not a mandatory procedure for disciples of the Taichu Palace to go to the battlefield, but over time, the disciples discovered that if everyone around you had set up a feng shui array and you hadn't, then a feng shui depression would form in your area, which could potentially lead to bad things happening.

Taking Wei Yuan's current battlefield as an example, if he hadn't set up a feng shui formation, he might have encountered a powerful enemy. For instance, the enemy might not be a captain who had achieved Body Forging, but a centurion in the Foundation Establishment stage, or even a strong centurion. Although it's as if no one has set up a feng shui formation, as long as someone around him has, Wei Yuan has no choice but to set one up as well.

This conclusion was drawn by the true disciples of the Heavenly Mystery Hall from studying numerous battlefield cases. Therefore, they simply added the setting up of feng shui formations to the rules of battle, requiring every disciple to abide by them.

Shortly after this regulation was implemented, other sects discovered that their disciples' casualty rate increased significantly when fighting alongside the Taichu Palace. The sect leaders and elders were not to be underestimated; after some research, they discovered the mystery of the Taichu Palace's feng shui formation and thus also mandated that their disciples must set up feng shui formations when going to the battlefield.

Due to the widespread adoption of feng shui formations, the talismans, array plates, and spiritual items produced by the Tianji Hall of the Taichu Palace became increasingly scarce, causing prices to skyrocket. The Tianji Hall also became incredibly wealthy, its ability to make money rivaling that of the Zaohua Temple, whose orders were booked up for three hundred years in the future, thus significantly surpassing the Tiangong Hall.

Regardless, after setting up the feng shui formation, Wei Yuan felt much more at ease. It seems that the Liao scout squad encountered tonight was partly due to forgetting to set up the feng shui formation; otherwise, the Liao would have only sent seven or eight riders at most before, but this time they sent twenty riders in one go, plus a captain.

Of course, there were also exceptionally talented individuals who deliberately avoided setting up feng shui formations, hoping to attract fierce enemies to hone their skills. There used to be quite a few such people, until a number died in battle, and then this practice became much less common.

Wei Yuan leaped onto the city wall and looked north. After the feng shui formation was set up, the night had receded by another ten miles, and he could now see sixty miles ahead.

At this moment, torches were lit in the village, and many men were woken from their sleep to deal with the Liao barbarian corpses by the firelight. The armor and clothes of the corpses were stripped off, the bows and arrows were sorted and put away, and all the personal belongings were taken out. In the blink of an eye, only a pair of underwear remained for the nineteen Liao cavalry corpses.

The two warhorses were butchered and their tack and equipment were left aside. These two horses were enough to feed three hundred people for ten days.

Wei Yuan casually picked up a saddle and found it unusually heavy. The saddle was made of animal bone with iron lining, a thick animal hide seat, and two side armor plates, also made of animal hide with iron plates nailed to them. This saddle, including the armor, weighed three or four hundred pounds, too heavy for human warhorses to carry, but the Liao horses could.

This saddle is useless to the humans and isn't worth much; they can only be dismantled and sold for materials. Wei Yuan then picked up the quiver and took out the arrows inside for a closer look.

(End of this chapter)