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Chapter 385: Facing Off

During the three days, the 3,000 soldiers of the Shili family’ army, who had come to the city with only their weapons, horses and dry food, plundered the city’s treasure and thus accumulated lots of money and slaves. Now, every soldier in the army owned some slaves and several parcels of valuable items.

The slaves in the city were still loyal to their masters, but the nobles declined to trust them. They accused them of doing nothing when the thousands of slave men had been compelled to join the army of the Great Snowmountain and began to take their revenge on the slaves in the city before the war.

This situation made soldiers of the Great Snowmountain somewhat anxious, as they always considered the wealth and slaves of the city as their spoils. Although the Dragon King forbade them from dividing these spoils of war, they still could not remain calm when seeing their loot and slaves fall into the hands of the enemy.

Groups of soldiers came to see the Dragon King one after another, demanding to wage war against the Shili family right now.

The Shili family’s army was eager to take their loot away, and the Great Snowmountain troops were in a hurry to obtain the loot back. As such, both of these two belligerent parties wished to fight to see who was the stronger as soon as possible. This was the backdrop for the battle.

The Shili family, who enjoyed numerical superiority in terms of troops, was the first one to issue the challenge. The sons of Shili Molo were confident, since they were well aware that there were only 1,500-1,600 professional soldiers in the Great Snowmountain troops and all the nobles in the city had promised them that the slave soldiers of the Great Snowmountain would change sides amid the war upon hearing their masters’ orders.

Gu Shenwei felt the same way about the slave soldiers as the nobles did. Given that, he decided to leave the slaves soldiers behind and assigned a small troop of veterans to supervise them.

The slave soldiers accepted this arrangement obediently and then calmly waited for the outcome of the war. They did not care much about the outcome. All they needed to do was to wait for their master to return with victory, as the winner of the war would surely belong to their master.

The site of the battle was also decided by the Shili family.

This place was not far away from the capital and used to be covered by a Flower Soul Forest, which had already been burnt to the ground by Tuo Nengya. As now there were no plants or trees hindering the soldiers’ movement, it was the best place for the two armies to fight a battle.

This place was a piece of low-lying land, and there were slopes on both its eastern and the western sides. As such, these slopes become natural stands for the nobles to watch the fight.

The nobles had never intended to fight against the Great Snowmountain troops by themselves. They had spent a lot to hire their reinforcements and now they only wanted to observe the battle at a safe distance from the slope on the eastern side of the battlefield.

The 1,000 or so noble men also invited their wives and children to watch the fight for a reason that only themselves could understand. These nobles came to the slope followed by a large group of slaves, who stayed by their side and held parasols open for them.

The nobles had been dishonest with the Dragon King from the very beginning, and all the population figures they had provided were incorrect. Every noble family had tried their best to hide many of their young slaves, and now they finally could let all of them out.

As for the two armies on the battleground, neither of them had dispatched all of its soldiers to take part in the battle.

The machetemen troop under the command of Tuo Nengya had been divided into two parts. One part of it stayed behind to supervise their slave soldiers, and the other part went to lie in ambush at a place designated by the Dragon King.

Yesterday, a small troop of swordsmen had launched a surprise attack on the tribal troops’ military camp. They killed no one but snatched some valuable items from the camp. This incident made the tribal troops believe that the Dragon King was coveting their wealth. They got nervous and decided to leave one third of their men to defend their camp before they left to fight against the Dragon King’s army.

Under such circumstances, the tribal troops still had 2,000 soldiers joining the fight and enjoyed numerical superiority over the Great Snowmountain troops who had only 1,300 soldiers.

Upon seeing that, the nobles of the Land of Fragrance were extremely excited, as it was going to be the first battle that happened in their nation after more than a century. None of the noblemen had seen a real battle, but they had read a lot about wars in the ancient books. Now they all began to show off their knowledge in front of their wives and children, and some of them even started to loudly recite some well-written paragraphs about wars from the books.

They firmly believed that it would be an easy victory for them as their tribal soldiers significantly outnumbered the Dragon King’s warriors. Besides, according to their ancient books, the Land of Fragrance had won every war that had happened here before. They were sure that this war was no exception.

They hated the Dragon King, for he had violated the greatest taboo in their culture. They would never accept slaves as their equals.

Before the war, the nobles had held a writing competition which had attracted more than 100 talented young writers to join. Every participant of this competition had to write an article to describe the upcoming battle and submit it to a jury consisting of tribal chiefs and some other elders.

The winner of this competition used metaphorical language to write an epic. In this work, which the author had spent two days and two nights to complete, the Dragon King was depicted as a fierce-looking dragon who led numerous demons to invade the peaceful and civilian Land of Fragrance, and the 7 sons of the Shili family were described as brave young men who rose to the challenge and waged war against the evil dragon. He also described the fighting scenes in detail through a great many pages.

At this moment, the author was reading this story out loud and passionately to his fellow countrymen and winning rapturous applause from his audience.

When he came to the part where the patron gods of the Land of Fragrance were moved by the 7 sons of the Shilli family and about to send troops from heaven to slay the evil dragon, the real battle in the low-lying land began.

The Shili family’s army launched an attack first.

Their army consisted of troops borrowed from a dozen tribes outside the Land of Fragrance, who did business with the Shili family; they agreed to join the sons of Shili Molo after being promised ample rewards.

The eldest son of Shili Molo, who was venerated as commander-in-chief of this army, did not know how to handle military affairs at all and even scorned to get involved in a battle, so he simply let the tribal troops stand in a line and allow them to decide when to start a charge and how fast they would charge toward the enemies. As a result, the Shili family’s army was just a loose coalition of forces.

As for the army of the Great Snowmountain, its commander-in-chief, the Dragon King, personally led the soldiers to the battlefield, and the soldiers were neatly aligned into three sections: the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain were placed on the flanks of the battle line, and the 300 conscripted savages who served as bowmen stood in a line in front of the swordsmen.

Due to the fact that neither side was good at fighting on horseback, no cavalrymen were involved in this battle. The swordsmen had once fought on horseback, but their performance could hardly compete with that of professional cavalrymen. In addition, their heavy swords were not suitable for this type of fighting.

At this moment, the Dragon King could not help thinking of his military counselor, Fang Wenshi. “If that scholar was here, he would be strongly against such an arrangement. He would say that a general should avoid joining the fight and he must focus on managing the overall process of the battle and acting according to circumstances. He has a point, but just like the Chief Priests of the Land of Fragrance, he’s somewhat bookish. My army still heavily relies on the soldiers’ fighting capacity to win battles. There aren’t very many soldiers in my army and they can’t work seamlessly and smoothly together. In this sense, there’s no ‘overall process’ that needed to be managed. More importantly, my soldiers all wish to see me fighting together with them.”

The Dragon King needed his soldiers to worship him. This was not out of the need to gratify his vanity. It was just a necessary way for him to better control his soldiers.

Besides, he also personally preferred killing enemies with his own saber to staying behind the battle line.

By now, the battle line of the tribal troops had already been twisted into an asymmetrical arch line, since both of its flanks had surpassed the troops in the middle and the left flank was a little bit ahead of the right flank.

The nobles of the Land of Fragrance had a certain responsibility for this mess, as all of them had followed the Shili family’s example and promised to pay a double bounty to the tribe who killed the most enemies.

On the other side of the battleground, the conscripted savages felt slightly nervous, because this was the first time for them to fight a battle on a plain. Although the Dragon King had ordered them to shoot together, some of them still shot their arrows ahead of the fixed time. As such, they failed to achieve the desired effect in the first round of shooting.

Fortunately, the conscripted savages’ excellent archery skills successfully remedied this fault. They preferred aiming at the targets before shooting to shooting randomly.

In the first round of shooting, many of their arrows missed their targets because of the long distance, but in the second round, almost every arrow hit its target. The right flank of the tribal troops suffered heavy casualties and soldiers kept falling down to the blackened ground one after another.

The noblemen on the slope all turned pale at the sight, and the noblewomen turned their heads away from the revolting scene.

The winner of the writing competition continued reading out his work, but his voice got weaker and weaker. In the meantime, his audience started to flee.

There were no bowmen in the tribal troops, and all the soldiers in the troops wore only crude leather armors and were even less armored than swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain. Therefore, the 300 conscripted savages easily kept the tribal soldiers at least 30 meters away from the Great Snowmountain troops with their bows and arrows.

The tribal soldiers swiftly retreated backward. After they got out of the range of the arrows, they stamped their feet with rage while loudly accusing the Dragon King of playing dirty tricks on them and criticizing that the Great Snowmountain soldiers were not real men.

Compared to the locals in the Land of Fragrance, these tribal soldiers were not so ignorant. Most of them had heard various kinds of rumors about the Dragon King before, but none of them had taken these stories seriously. They belittled the Dragon King’s achievements even more when they heard that he had been defeated by the Golden Roc Fort and abandoned his camp to flee southward.

Upon seeing the tribal soldiers’ reaction, Gu Shenwei ordered his army to get ready for a close combat. The savages immediately put their bows and arrows away and picked up their swords and machetes.

The tribal soldiers were thrilled to see their wish come true and could not wait to show off their power in front of their generous employers. Therefore, they repeated their mistake and acted independently again. After running only less than 20 meters forward, they lost their formation. When seen from afar, their battle line looked like an earthworm struggling on a dry ground.

Contrary to them, swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain were all seasoned warriors.

To maintain their formation, they started by walking.

Gu Shenwei walked in the middle and put most of his time and efforts marshalling his soldiers instead of observing his enemies, preventing his men from advancing rashly.

When he saw the tribal soldiers leading the charge come within 10 meters of his army and was even able to clearly see how many teeth the enemy soldiers had, he finally lifted up his Five Peaks Saber and blew his horn, which was tied to a shoulder strap he wore.

Thousands of soldiers from the Great Snowmountain instantly blew their horns to answer the Dragon King’s call.

The horn sound shook the ground and vibrated the air. This sound had conquered the Land of Fragrance before, and now it made the people of the Land of Fragrance start to tremble with fear once again.

The young writer stopped reading his story out and stood agape. His mouth dropped open, but words no longer came out of it.

Many nobles ordered their slaves to stay here until the battle ended and tell them the result after the battle, while they themselves stealthily left the place.

The tribal soldiers were also shocked by the horns, but they did not shrink back. Instead, they emitted various kinds of shouts, trying to psych their opponents out and build their own courage up.

When the Dragon King and his swordsmen put their horns away, the horn sounds were still reverberating. After the horn blowing, they all held their weapons high, making their formation now look like a giant hedgehog who suddenly erected all of its spines.

The two armies quickly got into a close combat.

No epic in the Land of Fragrance had described such a fighting scene before. The nobles, who were watching the fight from the slope, all got stressed out and escaped upon seeing the blood splattering over the battleground. Even the seven sons of Shili Molo, the nominal commanders of the tribal troops, also fled and left everything to their slaves who felt their legs getting weaker at this moment.

A professional general would dismiss the battle as a street brawl but he would definitely be astonished by the brutality exhibited in the latter half of the fight.

The tribal soldiers were evidently weaker than the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain in terms of kung fu and teamwork skills, and their numerical superiority could hardly make up for these disadvantages.

As such, the battle soon turned into a massacre. The swordsmen got all the bad emotions, which had been stored up all this while, out of themselves and began to slaughter the tribal soldiers.

Due to the large number of the tribal soldiers, this fight might have lasted for several hours, but someone’s screams suddenly interrupted the battle. “The Great Snowmountain troops are raiding our camp! They’re raiding the camp!”

When the tribal soldiers looked back at their military camp where they stored all their valuable items, they were surprised to see that it was engulfed by thick smoke.

Upon seeing that, they hurriedly ran toward their camp. As such, the first battle fought in the Land of Fragrance in this century had lasted for only less than half an hour until this moment.

However, the battle would not end here, as Gu Shenwei intended to annihilate all the enemy forces. He wanted to keep his army’s stay in the Land of Fragrance a secret for a longer time.