The outpost camp of the Right Division of the Helian Royal Court, located sixty li from Zhenbei City.
Tonight, send another team of light cavalry to harass the perimeter of Zhenbei City.
Chen Changfeng's tone was flat.
There is no need to get too close. Just roam five li outside the city, blow the conch horns, and shoot flaming arrows. Simply make a racket until dawn, then withdraw the troops back to camp.
Huyan Ba was squatting in the corner of the felt tent.
Hearing this, he spat out the meat scraps in his mouth onto the dirt floor with a pah, slapped his thigh, stood up, and squeezed out a somewhat ferocious smile.
Mr. Chen's plan is brilliant! Without shedding a single drop of blood, just this soul-shaking horn sound is enough to exhaust those southern barbarians of the Great Qian! After staying up for seven or eight nights in a row, even men forged of iron will be reduced to walking corpses. How can they even talk about defending the city then?
Huyan Ba grinned widely.
Speaking of which, the Great Qian people are best at dealing with the Great Qian people. This saying is truly accurate! Although Mr. Chen is of Han descent, the twists and turns in your mind are a hundred times smarter than those thick-lipped old shamans in our Royal Court!
These words carried a vulgar compliment, yet they also hid a few probing thorns.
I am no longer a Han.
He placed the iron skewer horizontally on the bluestone by the fire pit and slowly dusted off the ashes that had stained his cuffs.
I eat the meat of Helian, drink the blood wine of Helian, and scheme for the world on behalf of the Great Khan of Helian. Since the Great Khan has bestowed upon me the surname of Helian, I am a wolf of the prairie in life, and a ghost of the Eternal Blue Sky in death.
These words revealed a resolute ruthlessness, entirely blocking Huyan Ba's room to continue making an issue of his origins.
Huyan Ba smiled awkwardly, stroked the stubble on his chin, and quickly changed the subject, Mr. Chen just mentioned that after tonight's matter is finished, you will set off for a trip to the Royal Court?
Yes. Chen Changfeng stood up from the thick felt blanket, walked to the rough wooden desk in the tent, and put a roll of silk cloth densely written with the defense layout of the Great Qian military towns into the leather pouch he carried with him.
The Great Khan urgently summoned me back to discuss matters. I will leave early tomorrow morning.
Huyan Ba's eyes rolled around a few times, and the smile on his face immediately changed into another appearance, three points more attentive than the compliment just now.
He took two steps forward, rubbed his calloused hands together, and leaned close to Chen Changfeng, Mr. Chen, um... when you return to the Royal Court to meet the Great Khan this time, could you put in a few good words for me? Just say that I, Huyan Ba, have been doing a good job at the outpost camp, harassing them day and night, and haven't lost a bit of face for the Great Khan.
Chen Changfeng neither promised nor refused, but just tightened the opening of the leather pouch and tied it firmly around his waist.
Seeing that he did not respond, Huyan Ba quickly added more fuel to the fire, I do not ask for anything else, just hoping that the Great Khan can award me the title of a Thousand-Man Commander! My father was a Hundred-Man Commander all his life, herding sheep in the wind and sand all his life. I, Huyan Ba, do not want to follow his old path!
Chen Changfeng put a fox-fur felt hat on his head, turned around, and looked deeply at Huyan Ba.
You do have some ambition. Chen Changfeng paused, his tone softening slightly, In front of the Great Khan, I will naturally report your merits truthfully. As long as you follow my plan and trap Zhenbei City to death, the position of a Thousand-Man Commander is as easy as reaching into a bag to take something.
Huyan Ba was overjoyed, grinning and thanking him repeatedly, and then changed the subject to ask about the matter he cared about most.
Mr. Chen, I have always wanted to ask, when exactly will the Great Khan order a full-scale siege? We have been roaming this Gobi Desert for so long, the brothers' scimitars are almost rusting.
If we can trample Zhenbei City in one fell swoop and snatch those twenty thousand shi of military rations, that would be a truly unparalleled achievement!
Chen Changfeng sneered and asked him back, Do you know what the Great Khan is busy with right now?
Huyan Ba scratched the back of his head and laughed roughly, I have heard something about this.
I heard that the Great Khan is dealing with those old shamans in the Royal Court. Those old things mutter all day... saying that the Eternal Blue Sky has sent down an oracle forbidding the southern expedition. The Great Khan has long found them to be an eyesore.
Mentioning the word Great Khan, Huyan Ba's tone changed. The vulgarity and slickness faded mostly, leaving only a kind of fanatical devotion and reverence coming from his chest.
Although he had never met the Great Khan himself, everyone in the Right Division of the Helian Royal Court, from the Noyan who commanded ten thousand troops to the lowliest horse slave, knew the Great Khan's illustrious prestige.
In his early thirties, starting as an unfavored illegitimate son, he successively quelled the rebellions in the Left Division and the Southern Division, trampling those old tribal leaders who held heavy troops one by one under his feet.
He did not rely on brute force, but on a set of dividing and co-opting tactics even more refined than those of the Han people. He first promised heavy profits, then cut off their claws and teeth, and finally struck like a thunderbolt, leaving no survivors.
Within three years, the entire Helian Royal Court was forcibly forged by him from a pile of loose sand about to take shape into a blood-drinking sharp blade, the tip of the blade pointing straight at the heart of the Great Qian.
Huyan Ba involuntarily raised his right hand, placed it on his left chest, and following the oldest rules on the prairie, muttered a prayer in a low voice toward the direction of the northern Royal Court.
May the Eternal Blue Sky bless the Great Khan. Helian's scimitars will one day drink all the river water of the Central Plains.
Chen Changfeng watched Huyan Ba's pious actions, and after he finished speaking:
Get tonight's matter done properly, and then wait for news with peace of mind. On the Great Khan's side, once the matter of the shamans is settled, the horn of the southern expedition will naturally resound across this wasteland.
Huyan Ba nodded heavily, sheathed the dagger back at his waist, and strode out of the tent to gather his men.
Chen Changfeng dropped the tent curtain and sat back down by the fire.
He took out a bronze token cast with a bleeding wolf head relief from his chest, and a sneer curled at the corner of his mouth.
...
The wasteland.
The crescent moon was like a hook, half-hidden by a few wisps of pale thin clouds, and a gray, chilling aura enveloped the world.
The north wind rolled up coarse yellow sand, and the muffled and dense hoofbeats of a hundred roaming cavalry echoed far away across the empty Gobi Desert.
This was the harassment team sent out overnight by Huyan Ba, led by a roaming cavalry leader named Batur.
Batur rode a magnificent jujube-red prairie horse, with a large ox-horn bow and a conch horn hanging at his waist, and three poisoned flaming arrows slung diagonally across his back.
He was Huyan Ba's trusted fierce general and had done this kind of harassing job no less than ten times. Every time he went, it was the same routine: rush to five li outside the city, blow the horn, shoot flaming arrows, and after the Great Qian defenders on the city walls were in a mess, swagger away.
It was just that the target had changed to Zhenbei City today.
Easy, satisfying, and completely risk-free, it was simply like teasing a caged bird.
Brothers, the old rules tonight! Batur turned his head and shouted at the top of his lungs in the Helian language, Circle around to that sand dune north of the town, blow the horns from five li away, wake up those soft-footed shrimps of the Great Qian, and then retreat!
The riders behind him let out a burst of unbridled, roaring laughter, and some drew their snow-bright scimitars and waved them vigorously in the night sky.
Leader, how about we get closer tonight? Last time I took a piss right at the base of their city wall, and those cowardly turtles did not even dare to shoot a single arrow!
Batur threw his head back and laughed aloud. "You have got a lot of nerve, kid! But there is no need to take risks tonight. The royal court's orders are to stall them, not to throw our lives away! When the Great Khan orders the final assault, there will be plenty of time for you to risk your life charging into enemy lines!"
The troops moved like a gust of black wind. As they headed northeast of Laoya Spring, the jujube-red horse beneath Batur suddenly slowed its pace.
It snorted uneasily, its front hooves alternately pawing at the ground, exhaling heavy white breath.
An animal's instinct for death is far sharper than a human's.
Batur frowned and struck the horse's belly hard with the iron-studded heels of his boots.
"Hyah!"
The jujube-red horse let out a shrill neigh, but absolutely refused to step forward, its four hooves turning anxiously in place.
The mane on its neck stood on end, as if a bottomless abyss lay ahead.
"Beast, what are you going crazy for!" Batur flew into a rage. He pulled out his oil-soaked cowhide whip and lashed it fiercely against the horse's rump.
The red horse cried out in pain. Unable to withstand its master's tyranny, it lunged forward a few steps.
Seeing their leader urge his horse on, the riders behind also cracked their whips to follow, and the sound of hoofbeats abruptly grew dense.
The hundred cavalrymen surged defenselessly into the open dune area.
Under the moonlight, a few clusters of withered, yellow seabuckthorn grass were scattered across the ground. The wind blew past, rustling the leaves, making everything look perfectly normal.
The red horse's front hoof stepped heavily beneath a clump of withered seabuckthorn.
Beneath the seemingly flat yellow sand, a thin pressure plate was suddenly depressed by the immense weight of the horse's hoof.
Click.
The faint sound of a mechanism, like the click of an abacus bead moved by a judge of the underworld, was instantly swallowed by the chaotic hoofbeats of a hundred warhorses.
...
Chen Changfeng sat upright on a felt rug, holding a cup of warm mare's milk tea, just about to bring it to his lips to savor.
Suddenly, the hand holding the tea paused slightly.
A faint tremor seemed to ripple through the floor of the felt tent.
Before he could think it over, the tent flap was violently thrown open from the outside. A Helian ranger, covered in blood and barely recognizable as human, stumbled in and collapsed at Chen Changfeng's feet.
"Report... Report!"
