Li Daoxuan found the scene below both amusing and frustrating.
His deliberate choice to let Li Ying escape unhard earlier was to provide his militia a training dummy for grinding XP. Who could have guessed this Li Ying wasn’t even fit to be an XP dummy? Before the fight even started, he shed his armor and fled.
Dammit!
Was his grand training plan really going to fizzle out like this?
His little n were still untested amateurs, barely hardened in a real fight.
“Get back here!” he ntally commanded.
Li Daoxuan puffed out his cheeks, aid at Li Ying’s troops, and gave a mighty huff.
Li Ying was leading his soldiers in a frantic charge when an imnse wind, utterly unexpected, slamd into the front ranks. Soldiers staggered and fell backward. Those following close behind tripped over them in an instant, creating a chaotic pile-up.
Their fleeing speed plumted.
Li Ying was scared out of his wits: “Demon wind! The demon wind is back!”
The front ranks’ disarray instantly hampered the rear. Seeing the “rebel band in Guyuan” gaining ground rapidly from behind, several captains in the rear, without waiting for Li Ying’s orders, roared on their own: “Turn around! Shoot!”
The trailing hundred-man teams imdiately twisted back, drawing their bows and nocking arrows.
These weren’t elite troops. Their bows were small “Xiao Shao” bows – relatively weak soft bows. A shower of arrows flew, struck the militia’s cotton armor, and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Cheng Xu bellowed at that mont, “What are you gawking at? Are your hand crossbows for decoration?”
The militia soldiers snapped out of their stupor and frantically returned fire with their crossbows.
Every one of them had a crossbow, whereas not every soldier in Li Ying’s ranks had a bow.
In this exchange of projectiles, the militia’s volley was far more substantial. A thick cloud of bolts whistled over, thud-thud-thud-thud, piercing the officials’ ranks.
The officials had cloth armor, but not all wore it, and so wore only token vests, practically bare of protective plates. This wave of arrows was brutal; many soldiers scread as the bolts struck unprotected flesh.
Cheng Xu gauged the distance between the sides. Seeing it was only about twenty ters, he shouted, “Three-Eyed Divine Firearms! Light the fuses!”
Ten plaything Three-Eyed Divine Firearms within the militia were imdiately ignited.
Once the fuse caught, those nearby flinched and scrambled back. The soldiers holding the weapons gripped the wooden stocks with both hands, thrusting the muzzles forward desperately to avoid injuring their comrades.
The charging militia slowed. No one dared to run in front of the volatile Three-Eyed Divine Firearms…
Observing the absurd scene from above, Li Daoxuan chuckled inwardly. This is exactly why the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm is garbage. Too cumberso. Short range. Unimpressive power. Prone to injuring allies. And crucially… easy for the enemy to dodge!
Lighting the fuse less than twenty ters from the enemy? They were sure to notice.
The officials in front saw sparks jumping behind them and took action.
Several captains roared, “Drop! Hit the dirt! Three-Eyed Divine Firearms!”
Soldiers flung themselves to the ground, rolling over and craning their necks to look back.
They didn’t need to panic about fleeing now. While the enemy prepared these firearms, they wouldn’t dare charge closer.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The Three-Eyed Divine Firearms discharged. Ten weapons fired one after another, spitting out a hail of musket balls that flew forward in a wild, chaotic cluster. The firearm possessed zero accuracy – worse than a smoothbore gun. Hitting anything relied purely on the randomness of fate.
But the officials had already ducked down, so of course, they could only hit nothing.
A few captains of the officials shouted again: “The Three-Eyed Divine Firearms are all fired. Everyone up, keep running!”
In fact, even without their orders, the soldiers had already risen and were continuing to sprint wildly westward.
The militian were rather bewildered. They looked down at the Three-Eyed Divine Firearms in their hands and muttered dazedly: “Such powerful firearms, after firing one round, didn’t hit a single enemy?”
Li Daoxuan was greatly amused in his heart: Hahaha! Isn’t it fun? The Three-Eyed Divine Firearm is such trash. Letting you all try it firsthand shows that. In authoritative history, it never played much of a role; even minor troops didn’t fear it, let alone the border army and the Manchus.
This at least served a little training effect.
At least it let these n know the defects of the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm in actual combat.
By this point, the militian couldn’t possibly reload the Three-Eyed Divine Firearms. The ten n holding them had to just carry them as hamrs and kept pursuing forward.
The officials ahead continued fleeing, while the militia chased and shot with hand crossbows. The rearmost officials sotis twisted around to shoot an arrow back.
In this manner, one side chased and the other fled, fighting actively all the way.
Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu, being foolish sorts, ran and ran until they surged to the front of the group. Both had thick armor, so arrows clanged uselessly against them harmlessly, plus the two iron giants looked very scary.
The officials in front turned their heads, saw these two iron n, and were badly frightened. They didn’t dare engage in a fight at all, shouting while escaping: “Don’t let those two monsters get close! They must be fierce generals from the border army.”
Zheng Daniu said: “Hey? Don’t run away! Co back and fight!”
Fools would fight him, and hearing his shout made them even more frightened, running faster.
Li Daoxuan occasionally pressed the “West” button on the box, keeping the view following this group of people to enjoy a lively show.
Running and running…
Ahead, they were approaching the boundary of Li Daoxuan’s view.
He started to hesitate internally: Should he make a move now?
If he didn’t act soon, Li Ying’s group would run out of sight.
Just as he thought this, suddenly Li Ying’s forces exploded into multiple streams with a “boom,” scattering apart in a fan-shaped pattern.
It turned out the officials had finally realized that the rebel band in Guyuan was smaller, only five hundred n, and couldn’t possibly split up to pursue them. Given this, scattering to escape was naturally better.
Li Daoxuan looked left and right but surprisingly couldn’t find Li Ying anymore.
As it turned out, while that guy ran, he shed his armor and gear. His once eye-catching armor was stripped off entirely, and he blended into the crowd of soldiers, vanishing just like that.
The corner of Li Daoxuan’s mouth couldn’t help curling up slightly: Escaping like this was useless against him. No matter how many streams he split his defeated troops into, one smack per stream would crush them all, not a single one escaping.
But forget it!
What need was there to personally deal with such trash who fled at the sight of an enemy?
Could they pose even a hint of threat to Gaojia Village? Not at all!
Li Daoxuan withdrew his hand and sat watching Li Ying’s group flee to the edge of the box, vanishing with a “swish.”
Cheng Xu also followed in pursuit beyond the box…
However, Cheng Xu had kept the low cloud in the sky in the corner of his eye all along. As he chased, he suddenly noticed that the Deity’s cloud lingered in the sky behind him, no longer following.
Instantly, four grandmothers flickered into view before Cheng Xu’s eyes, holding red floral balls and twisting in a yangko dance mid-air, their movents uniform and quite graceful.
Cheng Xu roared: “Halt! Everyone, stop chasing!”
The militian stopped instantly, ceasing the pursuit.
Gao Chuwu turned back: “Sir… Captain Ghost… why aren’t we chasing?”
Cheng Xu said: “Don’t pursue a defeated enemy—it’s in the military manuals. We’ve chased far enough. Li Ying’s group will surely flee Chengcheng County and never dare return. We should also wrap it up.”
He imdiately retreated rapidly. After blinking thirteen tis, he backed into Li Daoxuan’s view, and the grandmothers vanished entirely with another “swish.”
Cheng Xu was rushing with pride: Heh, safe once more.
Reviews
All reviews (0)