Jinting Han people

In any war, especially a large-scale battle, discipline is of paramount importance.

In warfare, discipline is paramount, manifested in two aspects: troop formation and military orders. Soldiers must act according to their commander's orders to avoid disrupting the commander's plans and to achieve the commander's objectives. Orders between generals are typically relayed through prior consultation and swift messengers, while orders between generals and soldiers require the use of gongs, drums, and bugles—both essential elements. Without these, warfare becomes a desperate gamble, a situation where actions are easily launched and cannot be controlled, making one highly vulnerable to counterattacks from a more flexible and adaptable enemy.

Therefore, in this deep, dawning moment, as the Han army and Shi Le's army silently faced each other in the darkness, soldiers on both sides awaited orders—orders from their own commanders and orders from the enemy commanders. Hearing their own orders meant knowing what they were to do, and hearing the enemy's orders meant knowing what they would face; this was something the veteran soldiers knew by heart.

The crisp, snowy air chilled everyone to the bone, yet kept them alert. But the offensive launched by Shi Le's army this time was utterly incomprehensible.

When the cavalry charged, there were no bugle calls, no drumbeats, and no shouts of encouragement. Looking around, the world was at the cusp of dawn and dusk; the sea of ​​clouds in the sky was already tinged with the glow of peach petals, while the human world, divided by the sea of ​​clouds, was still shrouded in darkness, as if shrouded in black mist. Apart from the vague formations and positions, neither side knew the other's troop deployment.

As the Han army, arrayed in formation, felt the earth tremble, they heard only a faint, rain-like sound of horses' hooves. In the dim light, the sound seemed both distant and close at hand, making it difficult to pinpoint its exact location. Moments later, the tremors intensified, as if a colossal peak were slowly rising from the Central Plains, or as if a meteorite were crashing to the ground—a truly earth-shattering event.

As the commander-in-chief of the entire army, Li Ju was extremely far from the enemy's attack location. He heard the sound and looked around, but could only see a dark stream branching off from the black wall of enemy troops. He couldn't discern the exact number of soldiers, nor did he know the location of the attack, or even whether the enemy was attacking at all. Because on the battlefield, it was perfectly normal for soldiers to desert or defect in the face of battle.

The enemy army has not moved most of its forces, which may be because they want to use a small number of troops to disrupt the Han army's formation. Considering this, Li Ju's only option now is to order all units to hold their positions and remain steadfast.

This presented a problem, because the right wing was currently under Guo Mo's command. Guo Mo's troops were primarily cavalry, and according to prior arrangements, Guo Mo had requested permission from Li Ju to be the vanguard in this battle, launching the first attack on the enemy. Therefore, Guo Mo placed his cavalry at the front of the right wing, intending to launch the attack at dawn.

This was a perfectly normal formation, but now that Shi Le's army was attacking in the dark, it created a huge opening—cavalry are meant to engage in direct combat against an enemy cavalry charge, not to form a defensive formation. Now, the right-wing knights, though sensing the enemy's imminent approach in the darkness, couldn't pinpoint their location accurately, let alone launch a charge.

But for the attacking side, there were no reservations. The Han army was still in a daze when they heard a command, and a volley of arrows flew into the ranks like hail. With a short, sharp whistling sound, the Han soldiers in front had no way to dodge; those hit died instantly, and those who missed were thrown into chaos. Before they could even react to what was happening, in an instant, the Jinyang cavalry had already charged into their ranks.

Caught off guard, Guo Mo's troops were instantly scattered by the enemy. The cavalry behind them also realized that something was wrong. Since they could not counterattack, in order to avoid greater casualties and preserve more strength, the knights turned their horses to the right.

As dawn broke and people's vision cleared slightly, the two sides began to fight and were very close together. The Han soldiers finally saw each other's faces clearly for the first time.

The Jinyang cavalry that entered the fray numbered at least several thousand. They were all heavily armored, each wielding a small, ochre-yellow flag with a purple Pixiu (a four-legged, horned, winged tiger-shaped auspicious beast) painted on the end of their long spears. They were clad in full iron armor, from helmets and neck guards to saddlecloths, skirts, leggings, and boots, and even had specially made breastplates—truly armed to the teeth. Their warhorses were also fully armored, their plates painted with strange and fantastical figures clashing and rubbing together in motion, creating bizarre patterns and producing a wave-like sound. To find an opening, one could only look for the eyes and mouths of the riders and horses, but the probability of striking them was extremely low.

As the Jinyang cavalry advanced deeper into the enemy lines, Guo Mo's cavalry did not inflict any damage on the enemy. They allowed these iron beasts to rampage through the enemy ranks, creating chaos and defeat wherever they went. Before long, this part of the Jinyang cavalry had broken through the Han army's cavalry formation and reached Meng Tao's troops behind Guo Mo.

The sudden rout of the Han cavalry left the Han halberdiers, instantly exposed to the enemy's powerful attack, unprepared for battle. They were also caught off guard by the earlier chaos, causing slight fluctuations in their formation. Such a disturbance shouldn't have been a weakness, but they were facing the Jinyang cavalry, who, after breaking through the enemy lines, showed no sign of stopping and relentlessly charged into the center.

The first to bear the brunt was the troops under Wei Zhan, the Commandant of Xinye. Facing the overwhelming force, Wei Zhan still tried his best to maintain the formation and ordered his soldiers to raise their long spears to try to block the charge. However, the enemy troops in front seized several gaps and used their tall bodies to force their way in. Some fell off their horses, but the Han army was in a worse situation. Two gaps were quickly breached, and heavy cavalry continued to surge forward, using their enormous impact to clear a path through the Han army.

If this momentum continues, the enemy's desperate, all-or-nothing charge in the darkness will directly sever the entire right flank of the Han army.

At this moment, Meng Tao was behind Wei Zhan. Seeing that the front line could not be resisted and he still had several hundred knights under his command, he immediately summoned Xue Yun, the Commandant of Nanxiang, and said to him: "The situation is critical. Commandant Xue is His Majesty's Hedong general and should shoulder heavy responsibilities. You must go and intercept this enemy army immediately. Even if you can't completely stop the bandits, you should at least slow down their advance!"

Xue Yun immediately accepted the order and led his cavalry to attack the enemy's flank from the left, relieving pressure on Wei Zhan's front. However, he had only just circled around when he landed in a suitable position to attack. At this moment, the sky was becoming increasingly clear, and the enemy, seeing the Han army attempting a counterattack, sent a small cavalry unit, only about thirty men, to break away from the main force and charge directly at Xue Yun's unit.

Xue Yun inwardly mocked the enemy's arrogance. As a member of the Xue clan of Hedong, although he wasn't particularly tall compared to his elder brothers, he was still far from ordinary. He was skilled in horsemanship and had served Liu Xian for nine years, making him a veteran general. In his view, the enemy's success was solely due to their night raid; in a proper battle, they could easily win. Therefore, he spurred his horse to the front, longbow in hand, and prepared to lead by example, inflicting casualties on the enemy to boost morale. Although his vision was still blurry, he spotted a tall, imposing knight at the enemy's head. The man was over eight feet tall, clad in dazzling, gleaming gold armor, and wielded a spear thicker and longer than an average person's—making him easy to aim at. With the distance between them only a few dozen paces, Xue Yun immediately released the bowstring, and the armor-piercing arrow pierced the enemy's armor.

To Xue Yun's surprise, after the arrow pierced the armor, the opponent didn't even glance at it, treating it like a mosquito bite, and continued galloping forward. This instantly made Xue Yun realize that the opponent was wearing two layers of thick armor, impenetrable only by crossbow bolts. At this distance, there was no turning back; the two were heading towards each other, and it seemed they were about to engage in close combat.

Seeing the large spear in his opponent's hand, Xue Yun knew that he was exceptionally skilled in martial arts and that he might be at a disadvantage if he fought him closely. Fortunately, he was wearing less armor, while his opponent was wearing two layers of thick armor and wielding a large spear, which would hinder his agility. Therefore, he planned to ride his horse to the left side of his opponent and then turn around to kill him after they crossed paths.

Xue Yun was highly skilled in horsemanship. With a slight nudge of the reins, his warhorse leaped gracefully from his opponent's right to his left, and the man was indeed unable to stop him with his spear. Just as the two passed each other, and Xue Yun was feeling triumphant, his eyes inadvertently glanced at his opponent and discovered that beneath the helmet was a young face full of mockery.

In that instant, the man's free left hand suddenly clenched into a fist and struck Xue Yun's chest with lightning speed. The blow was so powerful that before Xue Yun could even feel the pain, his entire chest caved in, and he didn't know how many ribs he had broken. He then tripped in the stirrups, fell off his horse, and collapsed onto the snow, coughing up blood. It was clear that he was not going to survive.

After killing Xue Yun, the knight seemed to do it effortlessly. He then leisurely began to wield his spear. The spear, which he had gripped tightly just moments before, was now swung in his hand as easily as a tree branch, creating a flurry of spear flowers. The three Han army armored knights who were rushing towards him were stabbed six bloody holes in him in a single exchange! The three knights fell dead one after another.

Such a scene chilled almost every witness to the bone. The surrounding Han soldiers all realized that the man's martial prowess probably surpassed Guo Mo's, and could even be said to be comparable to the legendary charge of Wen Yang more than fifty years ago. No wonder he dared to charge an enemy ten times his size with only a few dozen riders; in the whole world, how many could rival him? This Han cavalry unit completely lost the courage to confront him and scattered in all directions.

At this point, the collapse of the Han army's right flank was an irreversible outcome.

Leading several thousand elite cavalry as the vanguard, the general of Zhao, Shi Hu, the Duke of Changshan and a Gentleman-in-Attendance, suddenly charged into the right flank of the Han army. Their entry into the fray at the break of dawn naturally caught the Han army off guard. However, Shi Le's army was already in battle array and had no plans to attack before daybreak; therefore, Shi Hu's move left all the generals of Shi Le's army dumbfounded.

The commander of Shi Le's left wing was Kong Chang, the governor of Youzhou, the commandant of the Eastern Barbarians, the general of the vanguard, and the marquis of Lingshou, who was the second of the eighteen cavalrymen. He was greatly alarmed to see that Shi Hu's troops, at the southernmost flank, had suddenly broken away from their formation and charged directly into the Han army's ranks without warning. He immediately summoned the prefect of Leping, General Kui An of Hengye, the prefect of Xinxing, and General Zhi Xiong of Zhonglei. Together they looked westward and saw billowing dust kicked up by horses' hooves rising slowly into the sky, following the first rays of sunlight.

Kui'an was momentarily bewildered and said to Kong Chang, "Has the Duke of Changshan gone mad? He suddenly broke away from the formation at this moment. Should our army follow him? The King has not yet given the order!"

Kong Chang was also in a dilemma. He nodded and said, "We cannot act rashly. His Majesty has concentrated the elite troops in the left army, intending for Liu Zhongdao of the right army to attack first and feign weakness, so that the enemy would be careless before launching a final attack to achieve victory. If we attack now, wouldn't that be going against His Majesty's orders? Let's go and ask for instructions first!"

So he quickly dispatched more messengers to the central army to inform Shi Le of the matter. Shi Le was drinking dairy milk at the time, and upon hearing this, he was furious. He threw the leather bag on the ground and angrily said to Zhang Bin beside him, "That brat is trying to ruin my plans! All I did was change his vanguard commander and let the Qi people move first. What kind of show is he putting on?"

Zhang Bin pondered for a moment, then cupped his hands and slowly said, "My lord, do not panic. Lord Changshan is bloodthirsty and courageous, but he is not without strategy. On the contrary, he possesses the body of a tiger, the gall of a bear, the venom of a snake, and the heart of a wolf. Although he disobeyed your orders, judging from the current situation, he has also chosen a very good opportunity! Let's observe the consequences first!"

Shi Le's anger subsided slightly, and he thought to himself, "Although my nephew often causes trouble, he is indeed talented and not the kind of fool who blindly charges into battle. Let's wait and see." So he ordered the left and right flanks to remain stationary, and went to the front of the formation to observe the situation in order to decide on the next move.

The morning sun shone through gaps in the sea of ​​clouds, illuminating the earth and revealing the dust kicked up by the horses' hooves gradually dissipating. The Han army's central and left flanks were arrayed in a single file, their crimson banners resembling rosy clouds, a truly magnificent sight. However, looking south, it was clear that the Han army's right flank had been completely routed and cut off from the central army. On the large open ground they had left behind, the gleaming iron of Shi Hu's army was resting, while beneath their feet lay the snow-covered grass, still churned with the grime of battle, and the remains of fallen soldiers and horses lay scattered about.

Shi Le was overjoyed at the sight and said to his generals, "Haha, he truly is my son! Li Ju's defeat is already evident. If we do not take advantage of this opportunity to launch a pincer attack on his central army, wouldn't we be suffering from the weakness of a woman's compassion?" He immediately ordered the entire army to move out, with cavalry in front and infantry following behind, determined to take advantage of the Han army's right flank collapse and completely defeat them in one fell swoop.

In an instant, drums thundered within Shi Le's army ranks, and cavalrymen surged forward wave after wave. Suddenly, countless yellow flags fluttered in the sky, like a turbulent sea of ​​clouds overhead. (End of Chapter)