Ming Dynasty: Gain one supernatural power every day

In the jungle, they resort to underhanded tactics, setting tripwires, poisoned arrows, and traps. These methods are somewhat effective against ordinary cavalry.

But their army was led by lions and rhinoceroses. A lion could snap a rope with one swipe of its paw, a rhinoceros could step on it without even feeling it, and an elephant was even less of a threat; it could break a tripwire as easily as stepping on straw.

These barbarians don't understand the situation.

It wasn't that the Annamese army wanted to use such outdated equipment; it was just that this was the only thing they could afford.

Annam is mountainous with little land and poor resources. With limited military funds, they had already exhausted their resources to scrape together tripwires and poison arrows. Where would they find specialized "lion tripwires," "rhinoceros tripwires," and "elephant tripwires"?

They'd never even heard of such a thing, let alone built it. Who could have imagined that the vanguard of the Ming army would be such ferocious beasts? They could never dream of such a spectacle.

The Annamese ambush troops who had fled earlier were now scrambling back to their own camp.

The captain, who was leading the charge, stumbled three times as he rushed into the camp gate. His legs were so weak that they were like noodles, and he was dragged into the central command tent by two soldiers.

His teammates behind him were in no better shape; some leaned against tent pillars, panting heavily, their chests heaving violently, as if something was choking them.

Some were squatting on the ground, chanting something in the Annamite dialect. Only those who listened carefully could discern that it was a local prayer, repeating the same few sentences over and over.

Some even collapsed at the camp gate, their legs still trembling, their eyes staring blankly northward.

"General! There are... there are immortals!" The captain was dragged before Ruan Wenzhong and fell to his knees with a thud, his voice trembling like a leaf, unable to form coherent sentences. "Immortals, bigger than mountains! Their heads reach to the sky! Golden-armored generals! Wielding such huge rakes, one sweep and the entire forest is gone!"

"General! It's true!"

"We saw it with our own eyes! That divine general grew bigger and bigger, taller than the highest mountain!"

"His head's practically reached the clouds! His rake's bigger than a city wall!"

"There really were immortals in the Ming Dynasty! It's not a lie! It's not a lie!"

The teammates next to them also chimed in with shouts.

Ruan Wenzhong raised his hand to stop the commotion and ordered his men to help the distraught soldiers back to their tents to rest.

He sat back in his command seat, tapping his fingers on the table. His face remained expressionless, but his heart was in turmoil, filled with immense fear.

If one or two people said they saw gods, he could just take it as hysteria. But everyone said the same thing, and even the spies he sent out all came back with the same news: a golden-armored general, taller than the sky, who flattened a forest of twenty or thirty miles with a single rake.

Even if he didn't believe it, he had no choice but to believe it.

There really were immortals in the Ming Dynasty, not the legendary immortals, but real immortals standing on the battlefield.

He picked up his teacup to take a sip, only to find it empty, and put it down heavily. He was in a terrible predicament, unsure of what to do next.

Retreat? If he retreats without fighting, he'll face severe military law upon returning; even if he isn't beheaded, he'll likely face imprisonment. Surrender? But how can he be sure the Ming army will let him go if he surrenders?

Although the Ming Dynasty had been relatively lenient towards Annam in the past, Annam had been fickle and unpredictable in recent years, surrendering and rebelling repeatedly. This was not the first or second time they had done such a thing, and he himself knew it best.

If he were the opposing commander, he would not hesitate to act ruthlessly against such a group of treacherous individuals who had surrendered and then rebelled. Therefore, he is currently very anxious and distressed, like a caged beast, knowing he cannot win but unable to escape.

The jungle was leveled, leaving no cover from the front of the pass to the foot of the stone fortress.

The Ming army advanced in a mighty and imposing manner, and the vanguard, the Lions, had already set foot on the open plain, only a few miles away from the pass.

The Annamese sentries standing on the gate initially only saw a dark mass of figures in the distance and mistook them for ordinary Ming cavalry.

As the group drew closer, the leading figure gradually emerged from the thin mist, and the sentries' eyes widened in surprise.

Those were not warhorses, but several lions with bushy manes, roaring as they strode forward. The Ming general on the lions' backs held the reins and surveyed the fortified wall ahead from his high vantage point.

Behind the lions were rows of rhinoceroses, their horns adorned with iron tips that gleamed eerily in the mist. Further back were war elephants carrying supplies, each one resembling a moving mountain, its trunk swaying gently, stirring up dust from the ground.

"Look, what's that? A lion?? And why is there a rhinoceros behind it...?" A sentry rubbed his eyes hard, his voice trembling so much that he couldn't believe it himself.

His companion beside him gripped his spear tightly, his knuckles turning white: "It really is a lion... a live lion... the Ming soldiers aren't riding horses, they're riding lions!"

There was a deathly silence on the wall, then a sudden, explosive buzzing sound erupted.

An old soldier leaned out and glanced at the distant sky, his bow and arrow falling to the ground with a thud onto the city bricks.

He pointed to the sky, his lips trembling for a long time before he managed to squeeze out two words: "Sky—sky!"

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that the clouds to the north were slowly dispersing, and several swirling white clouds were descending from the mist, with several figures standing on them.

The first man rode a fierce tiger with piercing eyes and a white forehead, a long sword at his waist, while another man carried a nine-toothed rake behind him. Their golden armor flashed briefly in the sunlight that pierced through the clouds.

Before this, when Zhu Bajie used his magic to clear a path, the Annamite army camp actually saw a blurry, huge black shadow.

The jungles of Annam were shrouded in miasma, the fog so thick it resembled a pot of boiling milk. From ten feet away, only outlines could be seen. The golden figure, taller than a mountain, appeared and disappeared in the fog, like a moving mountain hidden behind the clouds.

Furthermore, the jungle obscured their view, so the sentries could only see a vague, enormous shadow wielding a disproportionately large weapon in the distance.

They couldn't see what it was, only that the head of the shadow disappeared above the clouds, and the hairs on their bodies stood on end.

The few soldiers who had managed to escape the ambush entered the camp, and the news spread like wildfire. "There are immortals in the Ming Dynasty! We saw it with our own eyes! A golden-armored general, bigger than a mountain, leveled an entire forest with a single rake!"

The soldiers huddled together and whispered among themselves, their voices growing lower and lower, their faces growing paler and paler.

To bolster morale, Nguyen Van Trung personally went to the camp and stood on a high platform, shouting to the assembled soldiers, "Don't be afraid! That's not a Ming army deity. I just consulted a shaman, and it's our Annamite mountain god manifesting! The mountain god is angry and has unleashed his supernatural powers to help us drive away the Ming army! The shadow you just saw was our Annamite mountain god! The mountain god is on our side; the Ming dynasty is nothing to fear!"

Immediately, someone in the audience shouted, "What happened to the team that came back? Didn't they say they saw the Golden-Armored General? They said the Golden-Armored General was as tall as a mountain!"

"Yes, they even said someone on their team was killed by the Golden-Armored General with a single rake!"

He paused, then glanced at the skeptical faces below the stage: "As for the few squads that returned, it was because they hadn't taken proper precautions in the jungle, inhaled miasma, became confused, and started hallucinating, which allowed the Ming army to take advantage of the chaos and drive them back."

"All those golden-armored generals and things bigger than mountains are just hallucinations caused by miasma! You all know how dangerous the miasma is in the jungles of Annam!"

These words sounded reasonable and well-founded, and the commotion in the audience gradually subsided.

An old soldier stroked his stubble and nodded thoughtfully: "The mountain god has appeared? So it's our Annamite mountain god... I knew it! Where would the Ming army get their gods? If they really had gods, they would have taken this place long ago. Why wait until now?"

"That's right, even the shaman said it's the mountain god, how could it be fake?" The young soldier next to him chimed in, his tone softening.

"I knew it! Our Annamite mountain god has appeared! The mountain god is protecting us, the Ming army is nothing!" someone in the crowd shouted.

Immediately, the soldiers' emotions were like firecrackers with a lit fuse; the buzzing discussions quickly turned into excited shouts.

"Victory! Victory!" Someone shouted, and the soldiers below the stage shouted more and more enthusiastically. Those who had been paralyzed on the ground in fear just now also waved their fists, as if they were really standing under the protection of the mountain god.

Only one veteran, sitting silently in the corner chewing betel nut, remained completely silent.

He glanced at the commander-in-chief speaking eloquently on the high platform, then at the distant jungle that had just been razed to the ground. Why did the mountain god, with a single rake, level all of his own ambush and traps?

But he didn't say anything, he just spat the betel nut residue on the ground and crushed it with his foot, it seemed he had to prepare to run away.