Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 163 A General of a Thousand Men?
Hiding powerful weapons on the battlefield is the most foolish thing to do. The meaning of war lies in winning at all costs.

Every battle is a hurdle in a samurai's life. Only by overcoming this hurdle can they survive; if they can't, they're dead, and there's no future for them.

Yun Ce himself didn't have many of these large bombs. Now, he only had about two hundred left. He gave one to Qin Shu and one to each member of the reserve team. The rest would be made into a large batch by Gouzi after the gunpowder raw materials from Lantian County arrived.

He Qingfang brought a group of female warriors to help Yun Ce set up a tent. Although he didn't understand why they were the ones who came, seeing that He Qingfang seemed to have something to say, Yun Ce simply pulled out another big bomb and gave it to He Qingfang.

This must have been told to He Qingfang by Qin Shu, and these two people must be in cahoots, yes, in the literal sense.

"This thing must be properly stored away from fire. Tomorrow when we fight the enemy, I will demonstrate one to show you its power. Remember, this thing is rare, so don't use it unless absolutely necessary. And when you do use it, be sure to calculate the distance carefully to avoid injuring yourself."

I don't know what kind of quirks women have, but the first thing they do after getting the bomb is to clean it. Even though there wasn't a speck of dust on the bomb that Yun Ce took out, He Qingfang still took out her handkerchief and breathed on it while diligently wiping it.

At night, the 800-strong force had spontaneously formed an independent camp outside the Iron Enclosure City. Yun Ce patrolled the camp twice, once at sunset and once at midnight.

Many people couldn't sleep, but Yun Ce didn't urge them to go to sleep. Instead, he sat by the fire and threw dough into the embers with them. Once the dough was cooked, they picked it out and ate it.

"General, are the Japanese soldiers easy to kill?"

"Good for killing them. Didn't you see that spoiled brat stuffing Japanese cavalry into a cow's rear end and showing off?"

"However, many of my predecessors said that the Japanese were not easy to kill, and that they were all heartless madmen."

"Hahaha, you're overthinking it. The Japanese are easy to kill. If you slash them with your sword, they'll scream in pain. When you encounter the Japanese tomorrow, you can follow behind me and learn how to kill them."

"it is good."

Qin Shu was a good deputy general, but not a good political commissar. Managing the army with military law was certainly the right thing to do, but in order to unite everyone in the army as one, spiritual unity was especially important. Therefore, Yun Ce had to sacrifice his sleep to complete the pre-battle reassurance work.

At daybreak, Qin Shu blew the horn, and the entire camp erupted in excitement. Even the walls of Iron Enclosure Pass were filled with onlookers.

Yun Ce figured that the people on the city wall wouldn't say anything to congratulate him, so after saying goodbye to the warriors in the camp with whom he had some common ground, he resolutely led his men away.

After leaving the camp, the eight hundred cavalrymen seemed quite lost. Fortunately, with Yun Ce leading the way at the front, Qin Shu, an acquaintance, bringing up the rear, and He Qingfang leading a thirty-nine-woman team in the middle, everyone's mood gradually improved.

The army arrived at the place where Yun Ce had killed the enemy yesterday, but did not see any corpses. They must have been taken away by the Gui Fang scouts. It was just unknown what they would think if they saw ten shriveled corpses.

Yun Ce asked Gouzi where the Japanese soldiers had gone, and Gouzi pointed north.

The further north he went, the darker the earth became. Yun Ce guessed that there should be a large coal mine here. Sure enough, after walking nearly thirty miles north, he saw a burning mountain.

It should be said that this is a spontaneously combusting coal mine. When Qin Shu saw Yun Ce leading the team to continue approaching Ghost King Mountain, he quickly came over and said, "General, we can't go any further. This is Ghost King Mountain."

Yun Ce asked, puzzled, "What happened to Ghost King Mountain?"

Qin Shu said, "People will die."

Yun Ce shook his head and said, "I won't die."

Qin Shu sighed and said, "Anyone who enters Ghost King Mountain, whether human or animal, never returns."

Yun Ce looked down at the direction Gouzi was pointing, shook his head and said, "That's burning coal, not some will-o'-the-wisp. Moreover, I've determined that the Japanese scouts we couldn't find earlier are hiding in Ghost King Mountain."

However, you're right, breathing in this air for too long can indeed make one dizzy. Order everyone to wet handkerchiefs and tie them around their mouths and noses; we'll continue.

Having finally gotten the chance to become the leader of a team, the chestnut horse was very excited. Yun Ce gently nudged its belly, and the horse quickly moved forward, showing no fear of the strange mountain landscape in front of it.

They walked another five li forward, and the scouts they had sent out returned. They were also very excited. About seven li ahead, they discovered a temporary Japanese camp with no fewer than three hundred Japanese soldiers inside.

However, the bad news is that war bulls were spotted in the camp, and there were no fewer than twenty of them.

For many years, the most powerful army of the Guifang people was the ox cavalry, and among the ox cavalry, the most elite were the Mad Bull cavalry. Ordinary war oxen stood two meters tall at the shoulder and weighed over four thousand catties, while the Mad Bulls, specifically the Great Snow Mountain Mad Bulls from the snow-capped mountains, generally stood over three meters tall at the shoulder and weighed over ten thousand catties. Ordinary ox cavalry commanders were typically ten men each, while Mad Bull cavalry commanders started at a hundred men. Once these two types of cavalry were assembled into an army, they were invincible on the flat wastelands and Gobi Desert, charging and breaking through countless enemy formations. To this day, the Han Dynasty has yet to find a good way to counter them.

Yun Ce did not intend to lead his men in a direct raid on the Japanese camp. Doing so would not be very effective. Both sides were highly experienced in combat. Even if they were attacked and suffered some losses in the short term, in the long run, they would still need to fight face to face to determine the outcome.

Yun Ce planned to reveal his trump card at this time to boost morale and let everyone know that even though he was on enemy territory, he still had powerful and reliable means to deal with the enemy.

Therefore, after Qin Shu, He Qingfang, and Zuo Chong quietly eliminated the scouts, Yun Ce had a certain assessment of their skills.

In fact, He Qingfang was even more skilled than Zhang Min. Although she was a woman, she firmly held a leadership position in this group of men who outnumbered women.

Yun Ce led his men quietly to a high platform. The Gui Fang people's camp was in the valley below the platform. The coal smoke was very strong here, and it was unknown how the Japanese soldiers endured it.

However, on the other hand, building the camp in this location, which is closest to the Iron Enclosure Pass, does indeed bring many unexpected and significant advantages.

Looking at their camp, although it was temporary, it had everything they needed, including a water source.

Yun Ce calculated that if he wanted to drop the bomb from the high platform, it would have to be thrown at least 150 meters away. This distance wouldn't be a problem for him; it was just a 10-pound bomb.

Yun Ce was in charge of dropping bombs, while Qin Shu and Zuo Chong led the charge. After the main force had entered the camp, Yun Ce led He Qingfang and her female generals in the final assault, giving the enemy the feeling that they were surrounded by a large force.

When He Qingfang saw Yun Ce take out a bomb, she looked at the large, light green, pineapple-shaped bomb with a bit of regret. Just yesterday, Yun Ce had told her that the outer shell of the large bomb was made of melted green coins.

Yun Ce inserted a suitable time-delay fuse and said to He Qingfang, "When throwing fifty zhang, you should use a No. 4 fuse. You usually can't throw that far, so for safety reasons, it's best to use this No. 4 fuse as well. This way, you'll still have time to escape."

Under He Qingfang's watchful eye, Yun Ce lit the fuse and threw it with all his might. The large bomb left a beautiful parabola in the air and exploded two zhang above the Japanese camp.

"Boom"

A thunderclap suddenly exploded in the clear sky, and the huge sound waves echoed back and forth in the canyon. The sound waves knocked people off balance, and dark red flames suddenly appeared in mid-air, chasing the airflow pushed away by the explosion and spreading outward.

He Qingfang was horrified to discover that the massive and heavy war bulls had been overturned by the sound waves and then completely engulfed by dark red flames.

The flames touched the ground, creating a crater, and then the flames inside the crater scattered like water.

As the energy from the explosion was depleted, Yun Ce frowned, because Qin Shu and his men had not yet launched their first attack.

After the explosion, the world was silent for a few seconds, with only a loud buzzing sound ringing in everyone's ears.

The chestnut horse was the second to prick up its ears. Once Yun Ce jumped onto its back, the horse leaped down from the platform, which was seven or eight meters high, and was the first to charge into the camp that had just been ravaged by bombs. The moment the chestnut horse landed, Qin Shu also roared and charged into the camp.

A black-clad Japanese soldier had just gotten up from the ground when blood began to flow from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. He was shouting something incoherently when Yun Ce chopped off his head with his horse spear.

The camp of three hundred men was neither too big nor too small. The chestnut horse charged through the camp in one go, then quickly turned around and charged back.

After charging twice in succession, Yun Ce stopped fighting and instead sat on his horse watching Qin Shu, Zuo Chong, and He Qingfang clean up the remaining enemies in the camp.

The battle quickly escalated from intense fighting at the beginning to sporadic skirmishes. However, the duration of the battles was prolonged, which was not surprising, as the remaining skilled Japanese soldiers were likely still fighting like cornered beasts.

Yun Ce did not order them to give up individual combat and end the battle quickly. Instead, he allowed these men to draw courage from the trapped Japanese soldiers for the next battle.

But as the fighting continued, Yun Ce realized something was wrong. Why were all the men being beaten out of the crowd his subordinates? Several of them were flying through the air, coughing up blood.

"A thousand-man commander! A thousand-man commander of the Japanese devils!"

Someone shouted, and a straight gap appeared in the previously tightly surrounded battle circle, pointing directly at Yun Ce, who was drinking water.

　One more chapter

　　
　
(End of this chapter)