Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 89 Battle of the Qin River.

On October 6th, just as Wu Fei was attacking Changjun, the Wu family army's northern route army began its battle north of the Zhenshui River.

Before the battle began, Wu Hanluan, riding a winged tiger, parachuted into Wu Fei's main camp in the north. The various squad leaders then arrived to report their numbers to their commander.

At this time, 30,000 troops were gathered here. The grain and fodder that Wu Fei obtained from Yucheng were used to supply the army here. In addition, the world in the south was too chaotic, and many heroes joined the Wu family army. Therefore, the agricultural troops that were formed took turns training every day. The sound of the training echoed throughout the mountains and rivers. The military formation gathered a fierce aura and stabilized the mountains and rivers in the north of Zhenzhou.

To the south, where the army led by Wu Hanluan was facing off, the area where the five thousand Blood Soldiers had gathered was filled with a distorted and violent atmosphere. The rocks and soil were red, the roadside wildflowers had no leaves, the lonely flowers were red and white, and the patterns were like skulls, while some insects were flying, but they were all headless.

Wu Hanluan looked south through his binoculars. He asked a young man from a noble family who had fled north to join the army, "Is there no one left to advise the rebellious king?"

This scion of a noble family, who had fled from Lelang City three days ago, said: "This tyrant's cruelty is unprecedented; no one wants to be with him!"

Wu Hanluan nodded, but showed no joy. He thought to himself, "If no one is willing to go with him, why are these thousands of mad soldiers gathered here?"

…Green and red clash…

After leaving the city, King Lelang acted like a madman. His army needed only one kind of supply: human heads. As long as they cut off heads, hunger and pain would disappear, so they slaughtered their way through. In the villages they swept through, they didn't even loot.

What were villages like in those days when they were ravaged by bandits? The dead bodies were stripped naked. If they had the means, the bandits would find a depression, throw the body in, and cover it with a layer of soil. If they didn't have the means, they would drag the body to a corner where no one could see it and leave it face down. As for edible livestock like chickens and dogs, there was not a trace of them at all.

Where the Blood Army under King Lelang had slaughtered, corpses were beheaded and laid out haphazardly in conspicuous places like children playing with grasshoppers. Chickens and dogs were also smashed to death, their internal organs ruptured and scattered all over the ground. Even the most brutal bandits found the scene horrifying.

Bandits are used to seeing corpses and licking blood from the blade, but most are driven to this path by the need to survive. The ruthless ones who receive the "blessing" kill to gather "fighting power," much like players in a game who receive experience points for killing NPCs.

King Lelang's Blood Army only needed heads. They would hang the severed heads around their necks, and each day the heads would supply them with a blood-red power, keeping them from hunger and thirst and giving them endless fighting strength.

After collecting countless heads, King Lelang finally arrived in the north, facing the massive army that had invaded his territory.

King Lelang sat on his chariot, which was made of pure copper. On the left and right sides of the chariot, his attendants held long-handled golden maces, while eight blood-red warhorses pulled the chariot, their heads transformed into the shapes of lions, tigers, bears, leopards, and so on.

King Lelang felt Wu Hanluan watching him across the army formation, and a surge of anger rose in his heart. This anger was something he hadn't felt when he went to kill other noble families before. He had been looking forward to this battle for a long time and had deliberately put it aside.

As the drums began to beat, the Blood Army charged forward, and behind them, five crocodile turtles carrying red cannons launched head-shaped projectiles that crashed into the Wu Family Army's ranks.

The perspective shifts to the other side.

The junior officers around Wu Hanluan were also waving the flags in an orderly manner.

Since the officers brought by Wu Fei were paired with members of the Wu family, Wu Hanluan was very lenient with them before the battle: the shooting practice was conducted as during drills. The armored soldiers lined up, and the crossbowmen filed out from the gaps in the square formation, following the flag bearers' guidance.

Meanwhile, the artillerymen of the Wu family army at the rear of the column attached soul paper runes to their bullets and fired them toward the other side.

As the red and incendiary projectiles clashed in the air, the malevolent energy between the two formations collided, exploded, and shoved each other like ocean waves. The battle raging on the ground, the tit-for-tat military formations, also affected the sky, creating a grayish-white, cloudless band.

The Skull Cannonball landed on the Wu Family Army's position, and a large number of people were blown away by the shockwave. Moreover, in addition to the shockwave that could spread for more than ten steps, the Skull Cannonball also shot out cold phosphorus bone fire after landing. This fire covered a range of two steps from the point of impact. Those unlucky ones who were contaminated by this poisonous flame trembled and turned into withered bones.

In the outer zone of the skull cannon's shockwave, a newly joined peasant soldier in the Wu family army fell to the ground coughing up blood after flying a few circles. He then struggled to his feet, feeling the pain in his body quickly subside, with only two blisters appearing on his skin. He then regrouped and formed a new formation.

Meanwhile, the Wu family army's catapults and cannons immediately retaliated against the giant alligator turtles dragging skull cannons.

Compared to the Skull Cannon, the Wu Family Army's artillery shells were a level more accurate. The cannons were aimed at the enormous crocodile turtle beast, while the catapults fired projectiles that covered the area where the Skull Cannon was located, blasting away a number of Blood Army soldiers who were trying to load the Skull Cannon.

However, the Berserkers' endurance was extraordinary. Those unlucky ones who were hit, apart from a few who were directly pierced, were mostly sent flying. The Blood Soldiers who were sent flying looked at their twisted and deformed limbs, straightened the fractures, and then snapped the dislocated joints back into place. As the red "fighting power" on their bodies flashed, they were restored once again.

One of the berserkers who recovered tried to operate the skull cannon again, but the Wu family army's projectiles fell accurately once more, this time blasting him to pieces. His hands, head, and arms were torn apart, just like a piece of porcelain that was already cracked, which shattered into pieces with a clang.

In the first round of shelling, the Wu family army successfully suppressed the skull cannons of the Lelang King's mad army using the projectiles from the Yellow Millet Drunken Talisman.

But the Mad Army also began to charge under the cover of the Skull Cannon. Faced with such a fanatical charge that was indifferent to death, the Wu Family Army's crossbows began to fire round after round of heavy arrows. Unlike in the Southern Frontier period, where a single round would kill a large number of people, these Blood Army soldiers, although they were riddled with arrows, were still running.

Upon closer inspection, the vanguard of the first squad was covered in skulls. Each time they were hit, the skulls on their bodies would shatter, essentially replacing the skulls with other skulls; as long as the skulls didn't shatter, they could still run.

The crossbows fired five rounds in succession. The officers from the Southern Frontier couldn't believe it. With such powerful firepower, they still couldn't stop these lunatics? This was a level of combat intensity that the Southern Frontier had never seen before. However, seeing that Wu Hanluan was still standing under the command flag, the officers didn't panic any longer. They quickly blew their whistles to order the archers and crossbowmen to retreat, and the armored warriors to step forward and hold the line.

Soldiers recruited from miners, along with elite warriors from the Northern Route Army, formed the first rank, while locally recruited laborers formed the rear, creating a nine-square formation. This arrangement ensured the width of the elite troops in the front ranks while allowing the weaker soldiers to bear appropriate pressure. Rows of long spears stretched outwards, as dense as thatch.

After the two armies clashed, the shouts of the Mad Army were like boiling water bubbling, while the shouts of the Wu Family Army's hundred men, all in unison, were like firecrackers exploding crisply.

The madmen charged forward, the first man riddled with holes, but then came the second, the third, and the fourth. Machetes and spiked clubs rained down relentlessly, and soon some in the Wu family army dropped their weapons. But the miners' shared sense of duty in the mines spurred the ranks forward, continuing their shouting and stabbing. Meanwhile, in the front ranks of the Wu family ranks, under the watchful eye of their commander, there was no sign of retreat. The dead were to be buried in the ancestral hall, and those who fled were to become wandering ghosts. No one on the battlefield was a coward.

After the first rank of elite soldiers held the line, the peasant phalanx, positioned relatively to the rear, watched as the soldiers in front of them fought on, their brains splattered out, yet they too had to grit their teeth and charge forward against the approaching berserkers. As the peasants killed the first berserker, the bloodthirsty vengeful spirits whose entire families had been slaughtered by the berserkers appeared, their eyes glowing red, and they began their slaughter.

Wu Hanluan clearly noticed this. He threw out his command flag, and as the drums sounded, the chests of all the laborers began to rise and fall. A surging sound, like the chirping of cicadas, echoed from within them. The bloodlust in the eyes of the laborers faded, replaced by memories of their families. The laborers gripped their spears tightly and decided to live.

Blood flowed as the two sides clashed, gradually converging into a small river.

…Just as the battle drums began, let's rewind to a day earlier…

On the eastern front, Wu Hengyu mounted his steed Wuzhui as he marched along the waterway, while chariots, horses, and armored soldiers walked along the shore.

Yu Li is using his knowledge of the waterways to mark the hidden reefs in the river. Rows of boats carrying supplies are moving forward with the convoy.

In the waters where Yu Li was, several large carp leaped upstream and happened to pass by. One of the large carp seemed to sense Yu Li's call and jumped onto the bow of the boat with a splash. Yu Li then rode the waves to the boat, bent down, hugged the large fish, put her ear to its mouth to listen carefully, stuffed a piece of rice into its mouth, and released it back into the river.

After releasing the giant fish, Yu Li looked up at the sky. As she concentrated her magic power in her pupils, a red and green evil moon appeared in the sky, spinning rapidly and creating a vortex. The end of this vortex fell from the heavens, pointing directly at the battlefield ahead. Wu Hengyu received Yu Li's divination result: "The berserk army ahead has suddenly accelerated, rushing directly towards Wu Hanluan's camp."

Realizing the critical situation, Wu Hengyu immediately ordered the entire army to accelerate their advance, cross the river, and carry only one day's worth of dry rations.

After the entire army crossed the shore, Wu Hengyu ordered the ships carrying provisions to sail back, and raised his Xinghan Spear to lead the team towards the battlefield ahead.

…Let's go back to the present…

Just as Wu Hanluan's forces were engaged in battle, Wu Hengyu's reinforcements were rapidly arriving. After two hours of fierce fighting with the mad army, Wu Hanluan's main camp had suffered four to five hundred casualties on both sides. Weapons were extensively damaged in the clashes.

The Wu family army was still holding their breath, because if they didn't forcefully clash with their weapons, the enemy's weapons would hit their heads.

Due to the intense fighting, the army formations began to adjust, with some exhausted ranks retreating to replenish their food supplies before resuming the battle. The situation was no better for the Mad Army; their first rank, constantly felled in the bloody battle and riddled with crossbow bolts from the high ground, had all the skulls adorning their bodies shattered. Red smoke began to rise from their bodies, and the red marks on their skin gradually faded as the smoke dissipated, like incense about to burn out.

In this desperate situation, the Wu family army was on its last legs. The mad army had released its anger, and its howls were not as intense as they had been at the beginning.

Both armies are now on the verge of collapse, just one last breath away. Whoever holds on for that last breath will win. So far, the casualties of both armies represent only a small fraction of their total strength. But once they break down and enter the pursuit phase, it will be a winner-takes-all situation.

King Lelang personally joined the battle, sending his alligator snapping turtles into the fray. With this colossal beast on the battlefield, Wu Hanluan simultaneously deployed his Golden Bull. The wooden mechanical legs began to move, while the iron wheels on the alligator snapping turtles' bellies accelerated.

The two behemoths completed their first assault, the stench of excrement and blood mingling together, making the surrounding soldiers' eyes sting.

The alligator snapping turtle bit off a large amount of wood with its huge steel jaws, while Taurus took advantage of the snapping turtle's open mouth to spit out a mouthful of yellow liquid. As a result, after the battle, Taurus was left with a limp, the mechanical structure creaked and groaned, and the alligator snapping turtle kept gagging with its gaping maw, before the halberds that were fighting a guerrilla war nearby hooked its tongue in its mouth.

…Both sides fought to their last breath; whoever takes that last breath wins…

At the height of the battle, King Lelang charged directly at Wu Hanluan, who rode his steed to meet him beneath his great banner.

The two malevolent energies, like the shockwaves from a collision of large trucks, spread for hundreds of feet, covering a large part of the battlefield and drawing everyone's attention.

After clashing with King Lelang's long weapon, Wu Hanluan coughed up blood. The winged tiger staggered back more than ten steps, and King Lelang also retreated a few steps, but after shaking his head, he bared his teeth and started fighting again.

Wu Hanluan looked at his great banner. Then he handed over command to his own disciples. He gritted his teeth, piloted the Winged Tiger, jumped out of the main formation, and fought against King Lelang. After breaking away from the battle line, the two sides chased each other, circling the battlefield in an arc with a radius of several hundred meters.

This wasn't actually shameful; Wu Hanluan would occasionally turn back and strike King Lelang a few times, a kind of feint. What was truly shameful was rolling off his mount and abandoning his weapon to flee.

Wu Hanluan dodged several waves of Blood Army soldiers who tried to intercept him. But as the chase continued, the Winged Tiger's stamina also decreased, and he clashed with King Lelang more and more often.

Everyone on the battlefield could see that Wu Hanluan was slightly inferior in skill. The Kuangjun army boosted morale once again, resulting in many casualties in the Wu family army formation, which was on the verge of collapse.

…Another ominous aura was quietly approaching from the northwest, and the birds, startled, began to fly north…

Just as Wu Hanluan was about to feel so overwhelmed that he had to withdraw from the battle formation, colorful light suddenly appeared in the distance. Wu Hengyu had arrived, accompanied by twelve winged shadows in the sky. This was the Wu family army's most elite aerial war beast formation: the Ghost Chariot Group.

Wu Hengyu accelerated, charging straight at King Lelang. Meanwhile, the ghost chariots in the sky dispersed, flying towards various corners of the battlefield. The Wu family army soldiers below were initially startled when they saw the giant beast flying towards them, but after confirming that it was their own, their morale soared, and under the leadership of their respective squad leaders, they began a final battle against the mad army.

Upon seeing Wu Hengyu, King Lelang's chariot began to turn around, but Wu Hengyu attacked from the side. Under the impact of the intense killing intent, the chariot collided with the Star Han Spear and was immediately overturned. King Lelang tumbled off the chariot and quickly channeled his killing intent into his arms to flip it back over. The two guards on the chariot carrying golden maces were killed by Wu Hengyu. King Lelang hurriedly drew his iron hammer, but Wu Hengyu flicked it away, sending it flying like a cannonball, smashing into the path of the Mad Army's personal guards.

Wu Hengyu shouted, "Father, please return to the main force. Leave this to me." The sky chariots didn't hesitate either, their wings sweeping past Wu Hengyu and Wu Hanluan, flying towards the front of the battle formation.

Wu Hanluan didn't mince words and immediately returned to his own lines to take command. At this moment, the Winged Tiger, like a cat, spread its wings and flapped them sharply, leaping over twenty paces to avoid the blockade of a Blood Bull Knight clad in steel armor. After landing, it bounced up again, dodging a group of Blood Army halberdiers. It even mischievously flicked its iron tail in mid-air, smashing the head of an unlucky fellow, and glided back to its own lines unharmed.

As for King Lelang's attempt to give chase, he was stopped by Wu Hengyu. Wu Hengyu brandished his spear, shattering the chariot's brass canopy with each strike, then looked down at King Lelang with a "That's all?" "Stay here and practice!" gaze.

King Lelang was furious. Theoretically, anger should increase his fighting power, but even with the increase, he was still beaten. In just three moves, his other hammer was also knocked away. King Lelang then mounted a leopard-headed horse and quickly fled the battlefield.

Wu Hengyu was entangled with dozens of other Blood Army soldiers and couldn't catch up for a while, but while slashing those who blocked his way, he didn't forget to laugh and mock the false king.

On the other side, the ghost cars had all found their positions. Each ghost car had nine heads, one of which was a main head. The main head wore a red crown and was much more handsome than the other heads.

While the other eight heads began spewing brown toxic smoke, the main head, after the toxic smoke spread across the ground in a "ring-shaped shockwave," had a cluster of faster and more concentrated jets of flame hit this ring-shaped shockwave, igniting it.

The poisonous smoke had swept over the area where the berserkers were gathered, covering them perfectly, like egg wash being evenly spread on a pancake when a street vendor is making a multigrain pancake. The berserkers, who were already piled up together and on the verge of collapse, were preparing to fight back with all their might, but as the smoke spread, they instantly turned into red charcoal.

The breath of the twelve ghost chariots caused thousands of blood soldiers to fall dead. In an instant, the morale of the berserker army collapsed. After the explosion, the remaining berserker army was like faded paint. The red paint on their bodies turned into sludge and fell off. They began to flee like pigs and dogs.

At that moment, the thunderous sound of hooves echoed from the ground. Wu Hengyu's thousand cavalry had charged forward. Wu Hengyu's black steed descended from the sky, transforming into mounted combat mode and becoming the army's reference point, guiding the cavalry into the enemy formation. When the murderous aura gathered above his head into a twenty-foot-long hammer, it sent the already routing army into chaos.

When these thousand cavalry charged into the routed troops of King Lelang, they were like bulldozers, trampling everything in their path, turning them into writhing meat patties under their hooves. From high above, it didn't appear as if the cavalry were simply trampling over the enemy, as if they were on a carpet. Only a few who scattered managed to escape the cavalry's pursuit.

In this battle, less than one-tenth of the troops brought by King Lelang survived!

…This battle clarified the overall situation…

Of course, Wu Hanluan wanted to play dumb.

Unlike Wu Fei in the Yongzhou region, who had seized several cities as if they were easy targets, Wu Fei had already pacified the entire south bank of the Yong River with a simple proclamation.

The war in Zhendi is in a stalemate. Of course, this stalemate is under Wu Hanluan's control, because Wu Hanluan has another plan: great order requires great chaos first, and he needs to cleanse the area properly first.

There are too many prominent families in Zhenzhou.

(End of this chapter)