Jiang Jin drew her sword. With blood flying in the air, she thrust out another strike. Before the square-faced soldier could recover from the shock of seeing the bloodstained blade tip, he was pierced right through.
At the same time, Yun Chengxuan slashed down with his blade, decapitating a Quzhao soldier.
The remaining Quzhao soldiers were terrified. They drew their weapons and shouted, Not good, enemy...
Before he could finish, Shuangjiang plunged a blade into his throat. With a flick of the wrist, the blade twisted, and the sickening sound of tearing flesh and breaking bone rang out.
Dozens of Quzhao soldiers were wiped out by Jiang Jin's people in the blink of an eye. She had brought over 300 men with her this time.
Originally, deploying the Dragon Shadow Guards would have been enough for this operation.
But considering that they needed manpower to transport the grain back, an additional company of soldiers was added.
However, before killing all the Quzhao soldiers, Jiang Jin left one alive to extract information about any secret signals before finishing him off.
Except for one clean corpse they needed to use, the rest of the bodies were dragged a short distance away and piled up.
Find a position and lie in ambush, Jiang Jin ordered.
Everyone moved quickly. Before long, the hillside fell quiet, presenting a peaceful scene.
The hillside here wasn't high, visually estimated to be only twenty or thirty meters.
The other side of the road was supposed to be a patch of weeds, but after being covered by heavy snow for an entire winter, the withered grass had long collapsed into the mud, becoming nutrients for the newly sprouted tender grass. It could no longer conceal anyone.
After an unknown amount of time, Yun Chengxuan whispered, Aunt, are they here?
Jiang Jin looked into the distance and sure enough, she saw a long grain transport convoy slowly moving this way.
Leading the way were several Quzhao soldiers, followed by the grain transport carts, which were flatbed handcarts. The carts were loaded with bags of grain, stacked neatly and fully.
Quzhao soldiers sparsely accompanied the grain carts on all sides.
The ones pushing the carts were Han Chinese men. In such a cold April, they were practically in rags, walking barefoot, with frostbite marks all over their bodies and faces.
Jiang Jin made a rough estimate: there were about 80 carts, over 200 Han men transporting the grain, and around three to four hundred Quzhao soldiers.
Jiang Jin glanced at Yun Chengxuan.
Yun Chengxuan understood. He grabbed the neck of the Quzhao soldier's corpse from behind, lifted its arm, and waved at the transport convoy.
Yes, the secret signal of the Quzhao people was that simple: waving at the transport convoy meant everything was fine, proceed.
Because the distance was still far and there was some obstruction from the trees, the convoy indeed noticed no issue and continued forward.
Soon, the convoy entered the ambush ring.
Kill! Jiang Jin commanded.
She took the lead and charged down, followed by Yun Chengxuan.
The soldiers were also fast, following closely behind.
Hearing the shout, the Quzhao soldiers' hearts all chilled. Turning toward the sound, they saw hundreds of Han people charging down the mountain, with a woman running at the very front.
The leader's brow twitched. Were these bandits?
Had all the Quzhao soldiers guarding this place been killed by these bandits?
He didn't have time to ponder why there were suddenly so many bandits in this territory. He drew the saber at his waist and shouted, Enemy attack! Kill them all!
The Quzhao soldiers moved quickly, drawing their sabers with a swoosh.
From a height of several dozen meters and running downhill, the speed was immense. In just a few breaths, Jiang Jin reached the leader, raised her blade, and slashed down fiercely.
The leader immediately raised his saber to meet the attack.
Clang.
Sparks seemed to flash as the leader's saber was directly chopped in half.
Thwack.
The long sword slashed into the leader's chest, splattering countless drops of blood.
This winter, she had not only trained the Dragon Shadow Guards but also trained herself. Her strength was already much greater than before winter set in.
The heavy blade danced in her hands with ferocious power.
She had considered using the Dragon Feather Crossbow, but its bolts were specially made.
Once used, even if the bolts were retrieved, experienced people could still discern clues from the wounds on the corpses, potentially guessing that it was the doing of the Jinyang Army.
So she didn't use the Dragon Feather Crossbow this time. Anyway, with the strength of their Jinyang Army, they could easily crush the Quzhao soldiers.
Before the leader's corpse even fell, her blade was already slashing toward another Quzhao soldier as she shouted, Cart slaves, hold your heads, crouch down, and hide by the carts, or die!
Yun Chengxuan had just chopped off a Quzhao soldier's head and echoed the shout: Cart slaves, hold your heads, crouch down, and hide by the carts, or die!
The cart slaves were all terrified. Some followed the instructions, holding their heads and crouching by the flatbed carts, while others fled toward the wasteland by the road, terrified of being caught in the crossfire.
Luo A'man was running on the outermost edge, a wolf-like glint flashing in her eyes and a smile on her lips.
Haha, with so many Quzhao soldiers, no matter how unlucky she was, she should be able to earn some military merits, right?
Just as she was thinking this, her foot slipped into a small pothole, and her whole body tumbled down the hillside.
And she rolled faster and faster, thud, thud, thud...
Mu Ning was charging down the hillside to fight when, from the corner of her eye, she saw something rolling down beside her. Startled, she thought it was a boulder and hurriedly dodged to the side.
The boulder whizzed past her, accompanied by muffled groans.
Mu Ning finally saw clearly. Was this... Luo A'man?!
Wait, everyone was charging into battle, what was the meaning of rolling down? For speed? Damn, could it be to snatch military merits?
No, she suddenly remembered Luo A'man's special constitution. Damn it, was it acting up again?!
Thud.
Luo A'man, dizzy and disoriented, finally came to a stop. Looking up, she saw a Quzhao soldier staring at her in dumbfounded amazement.
He had just thought some massive hidden weapon was hurtling down the mountain to kill him, and his heart had panicked for a moment. He never expected it to be a woman!
What kind of new combat style was this?
The Quzhao soldier's face was full of question marks, but whatever style it was, he just needed to kill her.
His eyes turned ruthless, and he raised his saber, stabbing down viciously at Luo A'man.
Luo A'man was considered a veteran now. Facing the crisis without panic, she rolled on the spot, dodging the soldier's blade.
However, for some unknown reason, the soldier's hand suddenly cramped, and the saber aimed at Luo A'man plunged directly into his own foot.
Ah... A miserable scream echoed through the sky.
Luo A'man moved swiftly, doing a kip-up to get to her feet, and delivered a horizontal slash.
Thwack.
Blood sprayed all over her face.
Yet she broke into a wide grin. Her luck was good today, at least one guaranteed kill, it was in the bag!
Mu Ning swung her blade at a Quzhao soldier.
The Quzhao soldier reacted quickly, raising his saber to block.
Clang. The sound of metal colliding rang out.
Mu Ning felt a slight numbness in the webbing of her hand. This Quzhao soldier had immense strength.
She rotated the blade, and with a swish, the edge turned toward the soldier's neck.
The soldier leaned back to evade.
Mu Ning grasped her saber with both hands and pursued closely, slashing down. A scream rang out.
Within fifteen minutes, the Quzhao soldiers were completely wiped out.
Clean up the battlefield, quickly, Jiang Jin instructed.
Cleaning up the battlefield meant finishing off the wounded and collecting the Quzhao weapons. Everyone was experienced at this and moved fast.
Jiang Jin looked toward the cart slaves.
The cart slaves hiding by the flatbed carts watched the blood spraying and the severed limbs and heads flying, trembling in terror.
Seeing Jiang Jin look at them now, they all knelt down, not daring to meet her eyes.
Jiang Jin sighed inwardly and asked, Are you commoners from Zhou County?
Seeing her gentle attitude, the cart slaves finally relaxed their tense hearts a little.
One of the men, around forty years old, mustered his courage and said, No, no, we are slaves who were violently abducted.
They were all slaves captured alive by the Quzhao people, forced to do the most grueling labor every day. They received only enough food to barely stay alive and had to endure the constant insults and lashes of their captors.
Those who couldn't hold on had already perished; those who remained continued to suffer bitterly, just waiting for the day they too could no longer endure.
Jiang Jin looked at the long caravan of wooden carts. "Would you like to come with us? Where we live, you are paid wages for your labor. As long as you are hardworking, having a full stomach will never be a problem."
The man's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. Was there truly such a wonderful place in this world?
