Nine dragons fight for the throne, I don't want to sit on this throne

The next day.

At three quarters past the hour of Mao, the sweltering heat, accompanied by a foul odor, had already poured into the Chu army camp.

Three hundred Tang army firemen pushed thirty baggage carts and set up fifty marching stoves outside the east gate of the Chu army.

The freshly chopped pine wood crackled under the iron pan, and the fat from the roasted whole lamb dripped onto the fire, the spicy aroma mixed with cinnamon and fennel actually overwhelmed the stench of corpses on the battlefield.

Inside the Chu army camp, a young man with a broken arm curled up in the arrow tower on the camp wall, his Adam's apple rolling up and down with the wafting fragrance.

He saw the Tang soldiers throwing a whole leg of pork into the boiling oil, and the golden pieces of meat drew arcs in the morning light.

Twenty newly opened jars of corn wine were placed in a cool place. The amber wine flowed down along the lines of the jars and formed a thin stream on the mud ground.

When Yuchi Gong rode out on his horse, the white cloth wrapped around his right shoulder was already oozing with blood.

The nine-foot-tall bearded general held the roasted leg of lamb in one hand, and the grease flowed down the iron wrist guard onto the horse's mane.

"Chun Ning kid!"

He suddenly roared at the Chu camp, scaring away the crows that were pecking at the corpses, "Are you satisfied with the surprise I gave you last night?"

The Tang army burst into thunderous laughter.

Thirty cowhide war drums responded by beating, and the drummers swung their drums shirtless, with beads of sweat splashing along the serpentine patterns on the drums.

Yuchi Gong's horse stood up and stomped heavily on a bloody Chu soldier's helmet, "Just wait and see!"

He took a bunch of dried human ears from his personal guard and said, "These are the ears of the elite soldiers of the Chu State. They are really crispy when eaten with wine!"

The leather door curtain of the Chu army's central tent suddenly shook, but was then held tightly by a pair of hands.

The bronze ice mirror inside the tent was emitting cold air, but it couldn't freeze the red face of Crown Prince Chu Ning.

Chu Ning was angry!

This was the first time in his life that he was ridiculed and provoked in public, but he could do nothing.

Suddenly, the aroma of steamed wheat cakes wafted over from outside the camp wall.

The Tang army's firemen brought out ten trays of freshly steamed sesame cakes and deliberately fanned them with banana leaves.

The aroma of flour mixed with meat penetrated into the Chu army camp. The military doctor who was changing the bandages for the wounded soldiers trembled and peeled off a piece of gauze with rotten flesh attached.

"Report——!"

When the messenger rushed into the central military tent, Chu Ning was standing inside the tent with a gloomy face, and Jia Yu was standing beside him, blocking his figure.

"Speak!" Chu Ning spat out a word coldly.

"The Tang army is cooking... cooking..." The soldier's Adam's apple rolled violently: "Cooking our war horses."

At this moment, Yuchi Gong was using a horsewhip to pick at the head of a centurion of the Chu army. There was a piece of roasted horse rib stuffed in the mouth of the head.

"The Chu army's chestnut horses are indeed very strong!"

He gulped down the liquor, which dripped down his beard onto his mail. "It's a pity that his teeth were too sharp. Before he died, he bit off the fingers of my three cooks!"

Suddenly, the sound of pottery jars breaking was heard in the Chu army's baggage camp.

The old soldier who was in charge of slaughtering the injured horse last night sat in a pool of blood, holding half a moldy bran cake in his hand - he had just secretly drunk the dirty water used to boil the bandages.

At noon, when the sun was at its hottest, the Tang army brought out twenty carts of chilled fruits and vegetables.

Yuchi Gong deliberately cut the watermelon into a lotus shape, and the bright red flesh was oozing with juice under the scorching sun.

Six Tang army strongmen carried ladders with their bare chests and carried the whole roasted pig to the watchtower only a hundred steps away from the Chu camp.

"The people of Chu are watching!"

Yuchi Gong suddenly ripped open his armor, revealing a bloody bandage: "This injury was inflicted by your Chu general Ran Ming!"

He threw the roasted pig's head towards the Chu camp, and the pig's head drew a charred arc in the air: "Sooner or later, I will pay you back for this with your Crown Prince Chu Ning!"

An arrow was shot from the Chu army's arrow tower, but it pierced the roasted pig's eye socket at an angle.

Yuchi Gong laughed loudly: "You Chu army only have this much ability. If you don't agree, come out and fight me!"

There was a sudden burst of laughter in the Tang army, and twenty soldiers sang folk songs while beating copper basins.

Several Chu army archers suddenly shot arrows frantically, trying to kill the Tang army, but the distance between the two sides was too far and they could only watch the Tang army's arrogance helplessly.

At three quarters after 3 p.m., Yuchi Gong drunkenly took off his battle robe.

Fifty heavily armored soldiers of the Tang army suddenly pushed out ten catapults, but they did not launch stones.

Hundreds of wine jars wrapped in fireworks smashed towards the Chu camp. Broken pottery pieces mixed with strong liquor flowed among the tents, and the air was suddenly filled with the disgusting smell of wine.

As dusk fell, hundreds of bonfires were lit in front of the Tang army.

Yuchi Gong's taunting had turned into a vague drunken roar: "Chu Ning...hiccup...at this time tomorrow...I'll use the thing in your crotch to drink..."

The pile of corpses to the west of the Chu army camp suddenly burst into a ghostly blue fire, which matched the bonfire of the Tang army banquet from afar and burned two bloody holes in the June night sky.

The hot wind at the hour of Xu, wrapped in the aroma of roasted horse meat, hit Ran Ming's iron armor and shattered into sparks.

Half an inch of sweat accumulated in the wrist guard of this fierce Chu general, and the wooden fence of the camp gate that his palm was pressing on was oozing resin - just like the throbbing blue veins in his temples.

In the distance, the bonfires of the Tang army illuminated half the sky red, and the folk songs mixed with the sound of gongs pierced the eardrums.

"Bring me my axe!"

Ran Ming suddenly kicked over the clay pot that was boiling grass roots, and the boiling water splashed on the festering instep of his personal soldier, but no one cried out in pain.

"Select three hundred light cavalrymen, and I will thread Yuchi Gong's tongue onto an arrow and shoot him back to Changchang'an!"

At this moment, the sound of chains rubbing suddenly came from the darkness of the camp gate.

Chu Ning's coiled dragon cloak swept across the arrows on the ground, and two eunuchs holding lamps held high the bronze palace lanterns.

"Your Highness!"

Ran Ming plunged his axe into the mud and said in a deep voice, "Listen!"

He pointed suddenly outside the camp, the red tassels on his wrist armor trembling in the hot wind: "The Tang dogs are using the skulls of their fallen brothers to serve wine!"

Chu Ning's face was gloomy: "Do you think it would be useful to go out now?"

There was a sudden burst of cheers outside the camp.

The Tang army used a long pole to lift up a piece of scale armor of a Chu army general. Yuchi Gong was pouring liquor into the armor. The amber liquor gushed out from the empty neck, and looked like a blood waterfall under the reflection of the campfire.

Ran Ming growled like a trapped beast: "I have fought with you in many battles, and I have never been subjected to such humiliation!"

"Three hundred cavalry! Only three hundred cavalry! I will definitely kill Yuchi Gong..."

"Do you think the Tang army's crossbows are made of paper?"

Chu Ning suddenly said in a stern voice: "If you take people out now, you will only fall into the trap of the Tang army and cause us to lose more soldiers!"

Ran Ming's teeth were chattering, and he suddenly knelt on one knee and tore off half of his battle robe: "I am willing to issue a military order! If I cannot..."

Before he finished speaking, Chu Ning's suede boots had already crushed his knee armor: "Do you want to use my cavalry to exchange for a sentence in history books about "the courage of a common man"?"

The aroma of roasted Hu cakes wafted from outside the camp. The Tang army deliberately spread honey on the cakes and roasted them.

A sweet and greasy aroma mixed with the stench of corpses penetrated into the nose. Several Chu army sentries suddenly lay on the parapet and vomited, spitting out a mixture of grass roots and blood.

Ran Ming suddenly stood up, and the iron armor knocked Chu Ning back three steps.

He grabbed the horn bow on the back of his personal soldier, and three wolf-tooth arrows were instantly nailed to the bamboo pole leading the Tang army.

Yuchi Gong's wild laughter was carried by the wind: "The Chu army boys are good at archery, why don't you shoot at my heart?"

As he said this he tore off his armor, revealing a chest covered with black hair.

"The arrow of the general..."

Chu Ning grabbed Ran Ming's hand as he was about to put the arrow on the target again, and his wrist bones made a teeth-grinding friction sound:

"I should have stabbed it down this guy's throat last night!"

Chu Ning's eyes suddenly turned cold: "No one is allowed to fight, otherwise you will be punished by military law and leave immediately!"

No matter how angry Ran Ming was, he dared not disobey Chu Ning's orders. In the end, he could only swallow his anger and turn around and leave unwillingly.