Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 328 Few people see light in despair.
Zhou Chengming pulled the feathered arrow from his shoulder and couldn't help but sigh as he looked at the iron arrowhead.

During the reign of King Huo, the Guifang people did not produce iron. After King Huo was buried in his tomb, merchants flocked to the Qingshui Plateau, and from then on, the Han Dynasty and the Guifang people began to exchange goods.

Although trade was prohibited three hundred years ago because the Guifang attacked Tiewei Pass, more than a hundred years of mutual exchange had left the Han Dynasty with few secrets about the Guifang.

Such iron arrows were not enough to pierce his fine armor, but many of the three thousand brothers who followed him in the raid on the Guifang army were still wounded by these iron arrows.

He threw away the broken arrow in his hand, picked up the wine flask and took a sip of wine. As the wine went down, tears streamed down his face. In just one night raid, his three thousand cavalrymen had lost two hundred and twenty-seven men.

The general believed that the Gui Fang army was formidable and should be avoided. Instead, a surprise attack should be launched against the Gui Fang civilians accompanying the army. As long as the cavalry charge could panic the civilians, the cavalry could drive them away into the wilderness. If they were driven far enough and scattered enough, these people who lacked food and clothing would die on the Black Stone Plain.

Looking down at the clear teeth mark on his hand, even Zhou Chengming, who was usually a ruthless killer with a heart of stone, couldn't help but feel a little scared.

The teeth marks on his hand were from a woman. Just as he pierced a Guifang cavalryman with his lance and spurred his horse forward, preparing to use the same lance to pierce the enemy's corpse and then pierce an axe-wielding man behind him, a woman sitting on top of a carriage suddenly jumped down, grabbed his left arm holding the lance, and even opened her mouth to bite his hand...

The pain in his hand caused his spear to slip, preventing him from killing the axe-wielding ghost man immediately. Only after he plunged the short knife in his right hand into the woman's chin, the blade piercing her head, did the woman weakly release her grip.

Then, the old people, women, and children sitting in the carriage rushed towards the attacking Han cavalry like rain.

This resulted in the first raider getting stuck in the mud as soon as he reached the convoy.

Whether in the Han Dynasty or in the Guifang, civilians without the protection of an army are no different from sheep, the kind that can be slaughtered at will. Unfortunately, this time is different. The Guifang people have clearly become stronger and more reckless.

The seven or eight-year-old child, whose belly had been trampled by a horse's hoof, clung tightly to the hoof and even tried to bite the horse's calf.

The axe-wielding man, with blood flowing like a fountain from his severed arm, was still able to use his remaining arm to wield the axe and kill a cavalryman who was being held back by an old man.

The battle he had just experienced made Zhou Chengming, a fierce general on the battlefield, feel a sense of dread for the first time.

He stared at the long, slowly creeping army of the Ghost Fang forces in his line of sight, and then at his fallen comrades who had just been buried. Zhou Chengming squatted on the high slope, his hands tucked into the back of his knees, his body swaying violently. As he swayed, he said in a trembling voice full of frustration, "What—what—can—we—do—we—do—we—?"

Zhou Chengming knew that the Guifang army was always fierce. This time, even the elderly, women and children of the Guifang had truly become part of the fighting force, which was completely unbearable for Zhou Chengming.

Zhou Chengming understood what it meant that the common people spontaneously and consciously joined the war. It meant that the Guifang's southward invasion was no longer the usual pattern of raiding and plundering before leaving, but a war in which the will of the people had been unified from top to bottom. Such a war was one that would not end in a fight to the death.

Iron Enclosure Pass is only 500 li away. This group of Guifang people is also targeting Guifang people. There are as many as twelve large armies like Zhou Chengming's, which are responsible for harassment, raids, and destroying the enemy's supply lines.

Zhou Chengming now only hoped that the other eleven cavalry units wouldn't be as unlucky as he was.

"Captain, a group of Guifang barbarian cavalry, numbering three hundred men each, has been spotted twelve miles to the southeast. The general has ordered our troops to intercept and kill these barbarians."

The scout brought the general's orders.

Zhou Chengming glanced at the military order, stood up from the ground, and said to the scouts: "Replenish water and food as soon as possible. Water to six-tenths full, food to five-tenths full. Feed the warhorses bean fodder. Assemble in a quarter of an hour."

The Han cavalry behind the hill immediately got busy, feeding their warhorses beans to prolong their stamina. They also fed the men until they were half full, for the same purpose.

A quarter of an hour later, Zhou Chengming mounted a Thunder Smoke Beast, looked back at the neatly arranged cavalry behind him, and shouted: "The savage bulls move slowly. In this battle, we will not engage them head-on. The army will be divided into three groups, using mounted archery to disrupt the enemy formation and using armor-piercing short spears to kill them!"

At Zhou Chengming's command, the mounted cavalry immediately put away their lances, took out their bows, and set up their quivers. The armored cavalry in the middle placed short, armor-piercing spears, no more than 1.5 meters long, on their backs, each holding two in their hands. The crossbowmen at the back completely abandoned their weapons, their right hands holding the bowstring above their heads, their left hands holding the crossbows, which were already strung. At the same time, three tailless crossbow bolts were already in place. When the time came, all it would take was a gentle pull of the trigger, and the three bolts would be launched.

Zhou Chengming took a piece of dried meat from the leather bag, put it in his mouth, moistened it with his saliva, and closed his eyes slightly to feel the oil and salt flavor slowly seeping out of the dried meat.

As the bull rider huffed and puffed his way into the hilly area ahead, Zhou Chengming suddenly remembered that the jerky he had just eaten came from Yun Family Manor. The jerky was made by steaming and drying pork.

One hundred thousand people may sound like a lot, but when placed in the vast expanse north of the Great Wall, it's like a pinch of salt sprinkled into a huge soup pot. The reason why the area north of the Great Wall is called a desolate place is not due to natural causes, but rather because it was a deliberate isolation zone created after Huo Qubing failed to completely eliminate the Guifang people in his six northern expeditions.

"Unlike the common people of the Han Dynasty, the reason why the emperor of the Han Dynasty was close to the Guifang people was that their bloodline was not noble enough and they did not belong to the orthodox bloodline of the ancestral land of the Han Dynasty. The reason why they were able to become emperors of the Han Dynasty was entirely due to Huo Qubing's support."

Without a proper name, words cannot be proper, which has led to the Han people having limited respect for the imperial family for more than a thousand years. Although Huo Qubing eliminated the Yellow Emperor's bloodline, the Yellow Emperor's bloodline is still the most noble bloodline on this land.

The knowledge brought by Huo Qubing states that the emperor should receive his mandate from Heaven.

The Han imperial family was not even close to being considered.

This explains why the Han imperial family favored women from the Guifang tribe. They wanted to obtain the bloodline of the Yellow Emperor through marriage with Guifang women, thereby proving their own nobility.

"My lord, does the ancestral land now also favor noble bloodlines?"

Wu Tong went on and on about the ills of the Han Dynasty to Yun Ce, and then asked Yun Ce hopefully that since he was chosen from his ancestral land to come to the Han Dynasty, his bloodline must be noble.

Yun Ce glanced at Wu Tong, then at Feng An and Liang Kun, who were looking on expectantly, and sneered, "In our ancestral land today, we only appoint people based on their talents. Whoever makes the greatest contribution to the country is the leader."

As for bloodline and lineage, in our ancestral land, only horses and dogs are considered to have lineage. To apply this concept to humans is a great desecration of humanity.

We have long proven that the saying "like begets like" is blatant slander.

Moreover, our long history has long proven that the practice of fathers dying and sons succeeding each other has brought no benefit other than causing chaos.

"The concept of 'rule by family' doesn't refer to the rule of one family, but rather to viewing all people in the world as one family, and selecting leaders from within this large family as our recognized leaders."

Honestly, Yun Ce sometimes really wanted to gouge out the brains of the people present and replace them with new ones. Although Feng An and Liang Kun had followed him the longest and knew him the best, they were the two most inflexible. Yun Ce knew very well that their ultimate goal in life was to elevate him to the throne and create a large family for him, so that they could continue to rule a vast empire together with the Yun royal family.

Moreover, their intentions are very popular in Yun Family Manor. Among them, Eji and Zhang Min are their biggest supporters. Whenever Yun Ce reprimands these two for this matter, Eji and Zhang Min will definitely plead for them.

Yun Ce came to the Great Han as a pathfinder, a modifier, and a promoter. If the Great Han cannot complete its self-modification and improve its technological level and self-awareness before the arrival of the ancestral land's spaceship, this group of people will be of no use to the fleet from the ancestral land. At that time, even their understanding will be different, and it will be absolutely impossible to expect the people of the ancestral land to treat them equally.

This is very unfair to the people of their ancestral homeland; they should not be given the same national treatment just because they are cousins.

When Yun Ce returned home, his two sons rushed into his arms like cannonballs. It has to be said that the power of bloodline is indeed very strong. When these two rascals rushed into his arms, every cell in Yun Ce's body was chirping with joy, simply because these two chubby little guys had the same blood flowing through their bodies as him.

During dinner that evening, Zhang Min sighed, took out a secret report, and handed it to Yun Ce, saying, "A secret letter from Zhou Chengming."

Yun Ce didn't look at it and continued eating, saying, "Didn't he stop contacting you guys?"

Zhang Min shook his head and said, "He's truly an old brother; he's still thinking of us in times of crisis."

After finishing the sour soup in his bowl, Yun Ce smacked his lips and asked, "What did he say?"

Zhang Min said, "In his secret letter, Zhou Chengming said that he led his army to launch a surprise attack on the Guifang civilian convoy. He attacked three times and only killed more than a thousand Guifang people. His cavalry suffered 227 casualties."

He led three thousand cavalry in a surprise attack on three hundred-man squads of the Ghost Fang's Bull Riders. In the ensuing battle, fourteen thousand of the three thousand cavalry were killed, while six of the three hundred Bull Riders managed to break through the encirclement.

Yun Ce chuckled and said, "I know the Gui Fang people who went south much better than he does. His bad luck in battle is due to his incompetence. He thinks that just by casually mentioning his miserable situation, we can pack up and flee Yun Clan Manor."

Honestly, he's a complete and utter loser.

(End of this chapter)