Chapter 34: Final Destination

Page (1/3)
Outside the walls of Lingzhou, a magnificent grand imperial chariot drawn by six fine horses slowly approached. Banners fluttered in pairs, armor and weaponry gleamed with a stern and formidable luster, presenting an overwhelmingly majestic spectacle.

The imperial chariot was a conveyance fit solely for ancient sovereigns. Although Liang Shidu possessed mere prefectures and counties—his domain comprising no more than twenty-eight cities—his pretensions to imperial grandeur were immense. Not only did he employ over a thousand men as his ceremonial honor guard, but he had also hastily constructed a colossal elevated platform outside Lingzhou.

A wooden terrace was erected in short order, and Liang Shidu, supported by guards and eunuchs, ascended to the summit. The emperor stood in the center, while Liang's civil and military officials knelt in rows to his right. A ritual officer held a long ceremonial tablet and chanted incantations in archaic tones. Horns sounded a long, resonant note, and massive war drums beat a thunderous rhythm that shook the surrounding countryside.

"The city walls are breached, our footing is secured, and the reinforcing troops have entered!" Standing atop the high platform, Liang Shidu was so elated he nearly jumped for joy. The women, wealth, and silks within Lingzhou were mere trifles; capturing the city and wresting a whole prefecture from the hands of the House of Li was the true crowning achievement of statecraft!

The Tujue Princess Yicheng had decreed that anyone who captured a prefecture from the Li-Tang dynasty would be rewarded with ten thousand fine horses—a prize virtually equivalent to receiving a ready-made cavalry force of ten thousand men as a gift. Furthermore, winning Princess Yicheng's favor meant a steady and inexhaustible stream of support from the Tujue.

Liang Shidu even entertained the delusion that since he already controlled three prefectures and twenty-eight counties (Suizhou governing ten counties, Yanzhou seven, and Qingzhou eleven), if he could secure Lingzhou's five counties and acquire an additional ten thousand elite cavalry, he might well have a chance to unify the realm and establish a ten-thousand-generation dynasty for the Liang clan.

Just as Liang Shidu was daydreaming of charging into Chang'an, capturing Li Yuan alive, and ascending the dragon throne within the imperial city, his dream was shattered.

Earth-shattering battle cries erupted from within Lingzhou, and a massive horde of cavalry surged out from the city gates. By the scale of it, there were fewer than four or five thousand men—hardly enough to warrant grave concern—yet the momentum they generated was formidable indeed.

Seeing the Tang cavalry pour forth from the city, the Tujue scouts lying in ambush outside immediately blew their deep, sonorous ox-horn war bugles.

"Wuwu..."

Just as the Tujue forces began to mobilize, the Tang cavalry inside Lingzhou commenced their harvest of lives upon the battlefield.
Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)
Chen Ying personally led Zhang Shigui, Luo Shixin, and Yuguni—three generals commanding over four thousand cavalrymen, which included five regiments of hook-spear cavalry. These fifteen-hundred-odd horsemen formed a dense cavalry formation, their hooked spears angled forward like a forest of lances as they hurtled swiftly toward the Tujue forces outside the city.

Though a novice on the battlefield, Liu Tong was a natural military commander. His generalship was seasoned and mature, baring no resemblance to someone leading troops for the very first time.

Liu Tong occasionally employed unorthodox stratagems, but his marching and tactical deployments invariably leaned toward steadiness and rigor. Presiding over the central army, Liu Tong kept the main command standard stationed within the heavily fortified headquarters. Listening to the constant reports brought back by his subordinate officers, he adjusted his siege strategies in a timely manner. Yet it was a great pity that the vast majority of the elite troops from this heavily guarded center were currently deployed atop the city walls.

With merely five hundred soldiers remaining at his side, Liu Tong watched Chen Ying lead the cavalry charging toward him. Unflustered, Liu Tong deployed his meager force of five hundred into a triple-layered formation. Two hundred-odd swordsmen and shield-bearers crouched, bracing their shoulders against their shields to meet the cavalry charge head-on, while the spearmen rested their lances against the rear of the shields, and the remaining hundred-odd archers provided suppression from the back.

The triple-layered formation was not an exceptionally clever tactical array; rather, the formation comprising swords, spears, bows, and shields was a precious experience forged by the Huaxia race. It was wisdom distilled through countless bloody battles fought by the nation against its malignant northern neighbors over thousands of years. Tested by countless lives, this invaluable formation was exceptionally effective against the charging light cavalry of nomadic peoples.

Though Liu Tong had a mere five hundred soldiers at his disposal, his triple-layered array was now complete. Unless Chen Ying was willing to suffer mutual destruction and pay the price of hundreds of casualties, he could not easily break Liu Tong's formation. Against this array, short of launching a suicidal, moth-to-a-flame assault, there was simply no other counter.

Chen Ying was certainly not foolish enough to crash headlong into Liu Tong's triple formation; indeed, he did not even deign to cast a second glance at it. When Chen Ying led his spear-cavalry to within a hundred paces of Liu Tong's lines, he suddenly pulled back on the reins. The horses swung in unison to the right, executing a sharp ninety-degree turn toward Liang Shidu's grand imperial chariot.

Chen Ying knew full well where his priorities lay: slaying a hundred Liu Tongs was not worth capturing Liang Shidu's grand imperial chariot. Whether it was the Yue cavalry or the Yushedeshubu cavalry under Yuguni's command, their horsemanship was remarkably proficient. In truth, when they had first departed Chang'an, the horsemanship of the Right Guard's four Yue cavalry regiments left much to be desired. Yet, following the grueling two-thousand-li march from Chang'an to Lingzhou, their equestrian skills were no longer what they used to be.

Over four thousand riders wheeled their horses around in a flurry and charged straight toward Liang Shidu. Liang Shidu was instantly seized with panic, shrieking repeatedly, "Protect the emperor! Protect the emperor! Protect the emperor!"

Liang Shidu's voice instantly pitched up by eight octaves, dripping with profound terror.

Thrown into utter chaos, Liang Shidu's soldiers scrambled desperately to intercept the charge. Liang's military units were structured similarly to the early organization of the Tang army—heavy on infantry and light on cavalry, with mounted troops accounting for less than a quarter of the total force. However, the Tang shock brigade led by Chen Ying was an entirely mounted force, and within a dozen breaths, they had surged right up before Liang Shidu's grand imperial chariot.
Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)
"Bright moon of Qin, frontier pass of Han..."

To their utter astonishment, the Tang spearmen shouted no slogans of "Long live the Great Tang!" Instead, in unison, they chanted the frontier poem composed by Chen Ying.

As the final syllable of the word "pass" faded away, the Tang spear-cavalry, led by Chen Ying, plunged straight into the chests of Liang's soldiers. Driven by the momentum of charging at high speed, the razor-sharp spearheads pierced unimpeded into the bodies of Liang's troops, the massive spear tips instantly destroying their internal organs.

The Liang soldiers blocking Chen Ying's path were cut down like stalks of wheat, falling in vast swaths.

"A myriad-li campaign, and none return!"

Those Liang soldiers who miraculously escaped the initial thrust of the hooked spears could by no means evade the sweeping hook-strikes that followed.

Much as Gu Long wrote in *The Seven Weapons*, whatever a hook catches results in parting. If it catches your hand, your hand must part from your wrist; if it catches your foot, your foot must part from your leg. If it catches your throat, you part from this world forever.

As the final word "return" echoed, Liang's entire vanguard camp collapsed instantly like an avalanche. To be fair, this was not entirely due to cowardice on the part of Liang's soldiers, but rather because the terrifying power of the hooked spears was simply too overwhelming. They cared nothing for whether one wore armor; whether fine steel plate or thick ox-hide, once caught by the hook, armor shattered and lives were snuffed out.

Such a weapon—one that meant certain death upon contact and instant demise upon grazing—became the very embodiment of the grim reaper in the eyes of Liang's soldiers. Watching the Tang spear-cavalry rout the Liang vanguard without the slightest hindrance, especially the Yushedeshubu cavalry led by Yuguni, spurred on by their commander, erupted into cheers like a roaring tidal wave.
Page (3/3)