Late Ming Dynasty: From the Defeated Soldiers at Daling River to Ascending the Throne

Chen Feng waited until it got dark.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, there was no fog that night, allowing them to discern their direction without torches, but this also increased the risk of their exposure.

Chen Feng crouched in the shadows along the edge of the ditch, measuring the distance to the opposite slope and calculating the patrol interval between the torchbearing cavalry in the distance and the following cavalry.

The two groups of sentries were four kilometers apart and took about 20 minutes to pass each other. They had to cross a two-kilometer ravine within that time, so time was very tight.

"Listen up," he said in a low voice to the figures huddled behind him, "two people per group, no more than five steps apart. If you can't see clearly at night, hold onto the belt of the person in front of you and don't let go."

Because malnutrition was common in that era, there were more than one person in the group suffering from night blindness. He made sure everyone drank some of the oil from roasted deer liver during the day, but this temporary nutritional supplement didn't do much good.

"Let's go!" Chen Feng waved his hand and slid down the ditch with Zhao Sheng. Behind them, rustling footsteps sounded, accompanied by tense panting.

Meng Changgeng and Aji urged each other on in hushed tones at the back of the line, while Hao Dadao stood guard at the very back like an iron tower, warily looking back at the path they had come from.

The bottom of Nangou Valley was covered with pebbles, and the moonlight could only illuminate the protruding rocks, making the shadowy areas even darker.

People would trip and fall from time to time, only to be hurriedly pulled up by those around them, with suppressed groans and short gasps rising and falling.

After walking for a while, some people at the back of the group gradually fell behind.

Hao Dadao turned around and saw Liu Mancang squatting down again, frantically fiddling with his broken straw sandals.

Liu Mancang joined from the forest of Wuding Mountain; he was the young defeated soldier whom Chen Feng had taught how to wrap his legs during the daytime rest.

Chen Feng asked them to tie their legs, but they didn't understand and even thought it was too much trouble.

But after walking on mountain roads for two days, Liu Mancang found that after wrapping his calves tightly according to Chen Feng's method, the swelling and pain in his calves were much less, and he was more stable on his feet.

So during the day, Liu Mancang asked Chen Feng for the correct way to wrap his legs. Chen Feng taught him carefully, as he had never seen a captain treat a common soldier like this before.

Thinking of this, a faint smile appeared on his lips, and he secretly made up his mind to follow Qian Zong from now on.

"Are you courting death! Hurry up and follow!" Hao Dadao roared, his voice as muffled as thunder.

"It's...it's fine..." Liu Mancang's voice was anxious. His vision was blurry, and he couldn't tie the broken shoelaces in the dark.

Hao Dadao glanced anxiously at the receding figures of the group. In the moonlight, he could only see their blurry, wriggling outlines. He didn't want to wait too long; it would be troublesome if he fell behind now.

"Get it done and catch up yourself! Hurry!" he said, taking heavy steps to catch up with the group, the armor plates making a slight clattering sound.

Considering the possibility of encountering enemies while crossing the ditch, Chen Feng distributed several suits of iron armor to others, while he changed into the cloth armor that He Mingxiao had previously worn.

Liu Mancang became even more anxious, and the more anxious he became, the less obedient the slippery straw rope became.

Finally, he managed to tie a tight knot at the break and put the shoe on his foot.

He breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat from his forehead—whether it was cold sweat or night dew—and looked up to find a horse standing a few steps away.

Immediately, a figure appeared. Due to night blindness, he couldn't make out the details of the person's face, but he could see that the person was indeed wearing the cloth armor of a Ming army general that he recognized.

At this moment, the person was quietly watching him. He was overjoyed, thinking that Chen Feng had fallen behind and specially returned to find him.

"Boss...I...I'll be right there..." He tried to stand up, supporting himself on the ground.

Before he could finish speaking, several arrows whistled through the air and landed in his chest.

He looked down at the arrow in his chest in disbelief, opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a word.

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Just as Chen Feng and his group were crossing Nangou, six cavalrymen were patrolling leisurely under the moonlight.

They were all wearing uniforms or tattered armor stripped from the corpses of Ming soldiers, with leather robes haphazardly over them, and ropes and rough harnesses hanging beside their saddles.

This was a Mongol troop of hunters, under the command of a Taiji who had defected to the Later Jin dynasty.

In recent days, the Ming army that has been scattered near the Daling River is like rabbits all over the mountains and fields, and it is impossible to catch them all.

The squad leader, Arbanayan (a centurion), had captured nearly twenty men in the past two days, and the Taiji rewarded him with a considerable amount of livestock and women.

The moonlight was nice tonight, and Boshku thought it would be another boring patrol, until his best-eyed scout came over, his voice filled with the excitement of spotting prey: "Arban, there are more than a dozen fat sheep ahead, all on foot."

Alban looked in the direction indicated and, sure enough, a series of dark shadows were slowly moving at the bottom of the ravine under the moonlight.

He grinned and smiled silently: another achievement.

He noticed that a Ming person seemed to have fallen behind, so he led his men slowly toward him.

The Ming man seemed to be a new recruit; they spotted them when they were only a dozen steps away.

Arban gave a low shout in Mongolian, ordering the Ming man to surrender. The Ming man hurriedly tried to get up, uttering a few words of Chinese that Arban couldn't understand, seemingly trying to call for help.

He frowned, losing all interest in capturing the man alive. He raised his hand and made a shooting gesture, and several of his men drew their bows and fired, the arrows piercing the Ming man's chest.

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"Capture the live soldiers!" Zhao Sheng's short, sharp shout broke the silence of the night.

He was a veteran night watchman, and he was particularly sensitive to the sound of horses' hooves at night.

Almost at the same time he spoke, the rapid, chaotic sound of horses' hooves approached from behind!

Under the moonlight, five or six riders dressed in haphazard Ming army armor were charging towards them, their rapid hooves seeming to pound on everyone's hearts.

The ranks were thrown into chaos! Several of the more nervous recruits had already begun to flee.

Seeing that the fleeing soldiers had lost their composure, the enemy cavalry behind them fired several whistling arrows into the crowd.

The sound was like a death warrant from the King of Hell, further exacerbating the chaos among the routed soldiers.

Chen Feng's heart skipped a beat. Although he had anticipated the possibility of being discovered by the Later Jin cavalry, he was still somewhat nervous when the matter actually happened to him.

He forced himself to calm down and quickly counted the number of people: six enemy cavalry, eleven of his own foot soldiers... wait, eleven?

He looked at Hao Dadao at the back of the line and roared, "Hao Dadao! Where's Mancang?!"

Hao Dadao was suppressing his running henchmen when he turned around and found no one behind him. He panicked a little, "I...I don't know!"

Before Chen Feng could ask any further questions, the severed head impaled on the enemy cavalry's spear had already given him the answer.

There was no time for Chen Feng to investigate Hao Dadao's responsibility, so Chen Feng began to think of a solution.

Escape? There were eleven of them with only three horses. He might be able to escape on horseback. But in the dim light of night, could he really escape successfully with his horsemanship? He might just fall off a small embankment and die.

Moreover, what about the remaining defeated soldiers who have lost their leader? They will only be hunted down and killed one by one by the Tartar cavalry.

He glanced back at the grove of trees on the gentle slope, which was only a hundred paces or so away.

War? The enemy consisted of patrols who all appeared to be lightly armored.

If they can form a defensive formation to withstand the enemy's first wave of attacks and retreat slowly into the gentle slope woodland without breaking up their formation, they will have a chance to survive!

There seem to be two choices, but in Chen Feng's view, there is only one choice in this situation.

"Form ranks! Retreat to the gentle slope!" Chen Feng's roar drowned out the chaos. He drew his sword and pointed it at the hazy, gentle slope under the moonlight.

Just then, the neighing of horses came from behind.

Zhao Sheng had somehow managed to seize an unattended warhorse, and he mounted it with astonishing speed.

"Chen Feng! Mount your horse!" Zhao Sheng stopped his horse about ten paces away from Chen Feng, his voice quick and urgent. "I know what you're planning! Taking this bunch of burdens with you is suicide! Come with me, and with our combined abilities and support each other, we might succeed! Leave them behind and go!"

Upon hearing Zhao Sheng's words, most of the people's attention was focused on Chen Feng.

Chen Feng glanced at Zhao Sheng, his eyes filled not with anger, but with resolve.

He shook his head, his voice soft but resolute: "My comrades haven't abandoned me, I can't leave first. Everyone has their own ambitions, I won't stop you."

"Idiot!" Zhao Sheng spat out the two words through gritted teeth, giving the chaotic crowd one last complex look before making no further hesitation.

He suddenly spurred his horse, and the warhorse neighed loudly, galloping towards the darkness opposite the gentle slope, disappearing into the shadows in the blink of an eye.

"You son of a bitch!" Meng Changgeng's face turned ashen as he nocked an arrow and aimed it at Zhao Sheng's back.

"Let him go." Chen Feng raised his hand and pressed down on the bow arm, his voice low and deep. "Those who survived have had it tough."

He knew that Zhao Shengcai might be right, but after spending the last two days together, these faces, whether young or slick, had left their mark on his memory, and their features somewhat overlapped with those of his old comrades-in-arms deep in his mind.

He had no time for emotion or anger; the enemy cavalry had already charged within fifty paces!

"Hao Dadao! You lead the spearmen and hold the front! Meng Changgeng, Aji, mount your horses! Provide cover with arrows! The rest of you, protect the flanks and retreat down the slope, quick!"

He took a deep breath of the cold night air, slammed He Mingxiao's scratched iron helmet onto his head, held his waist knife horizontally, and strode to the front of the formation.