At this moment, time seemed to stop as a tempest blew in Zhou An's mind. An aberration had appeared in his plans.
The previous scout had reported that the Great Tang cavalrymen were preparing food. Hu Lang and Chang Dao seemed to have chosen to act outside of the agreed plan due to that.
If that was the case, it would indeed be an ideal window for Hu Lang and Chang Dao's platoon to strike. Even Zhou An would have nothing to say about that.
"Let me ask you, when you were scouting ahead, did you smell the scent of food?" Zhou An suddenly asked.
"Ah?" Not expecting the military advisor to ask such a bizarre question, the highwayman scout was stunned for an instant.
"That... I didn't dare to get too near, so that could be why I didn't smell anything at all..."
"Damn it! That brat is too cunning. Hu Lang and Chang Dao have fallen for his ploy!" Hearing those words, Zhou An's face turned livid with rage.
"Chief, we have to bring our brothers over right now, or else we might be too late to save Hu Lang and the others! As for the rest, attack those cavalrymen on the slope with your full might!" Zhou An commanded authoritatively. A hint of panic had surfaced on his usually composed face.
"What?" Hearing those words, the highwaymen gathered around the boulder were shocked. Even Iron Cloak Li was taken aback by Zhou An's sudden commands.
Chapter 352: Ambush!
Chapter 352: Ambush!
Iron Cloak Li had never doubted Zhou An's judgement before. And more important than that, those men were the elites under his commands, most of them being at True Martial realm.
It wasn't easy for him to get these experts to join his wing.
Jya!
Without any hesitation, Iron Cloak Li leaped from the boulder he was standing on and landed on the back of his crimson Ferghana steed. Pulling the reins, he immediately galloped forward.
"Those from Deadly Serpent and Fiery Drudge will follow me. As for the others, crush the cavalrymen on the slope with all your might!" A resounding voice reminiscent of thunder boomed across the forest, leaving Xu Gan, Huang Yongtu, and the other Great Tang cavalrymen on the slope dumbfounded.
There weren't sure what had happened, but it did seem like a major problem had cropped up for the Iron Cloak Highwaymen.
"What in the world happened?" Huang Yongtu widened his eyes in shock.
"Shove that aside, the enemy is about to attack. Everyone, prepare yourselves!" Zhang Lin bellowed in alarm.
Being at a huge numerical disadvantage, there was very little they could do other than holding firmly onto their defense line.
Weng!
With the command from Iron Cloak Li, the bandits began to charge furiously toward the twenty-six Great Tang cavalrymen once more.
By this moment, the Great Tang cavalrymen had already swiftly returned to their formation. Through the previous clashes, they had already learned several tactics that would allow them to effectively curb the bandits and the highwaymen. While the battle was still likely to ultimately end in their defeat, they were determined to inflict heavy losses upon their enemy as well.
On the other hand, the elites forces which Iron Cloak Li had named also swiftly organized their forces and galloped down the main road with him.
Zhou An's instincts were rarely wrong, so Iron Cloak Li moved as fast as he could.
It was a competition of wits between two camps just several hundred zhang away, but it seemed like they weren't going to be the final winner.
Right after Iron Cloak Li turned around the bend in the main road, he suddenly heard deafening shouts in the distance.
"Kill them!" A forceful voice bellowed from the right side of the forest. A powerful gale blew across the area, and tree branches and leaves bent in the face of its might.
Hong long long!
The ground shook, and countless birds darted out from the forest in shock. In that instant, the highwaymen felt as if a huge landslide was sweeping across the forest.
"Shit!" Hearing the deafening roar, Iron Cloak Li's face darkened. He struck the bottom of his steed heavily to urge it to hasten its pace toward the center of where everything seemed to have started turning awry.
Hu Lang, Chang Dao, and the others had already reached the bottom slope by now, so the ones who were charging at the moment couldn't possibly be them.
And since it wasn't them, it had to be the troops of the Great Tang cavalrymen.
At this very instant, Iron Cloak Li felt flustered inside.
Having witnessed the commanding capability of that young commander, Iron Cloak Li could only pray for Hu Lang and Chang Dao to hold on for a little longer, at least until his arrival.
But Iron Cloak Li's prayer never came to be.
"Shit! We fell into their trap!" As soon as Hu Lang charged through the thin layer of smoke and tore through the "Great Tang cavalrymen" with his sabers, he immediately realized that he had fallen for the enemy's ploy.
Those figures who were shrouded in a thin layer of smoke were no Great Tang cavalrymen, but their brothers who had been killed previously.
Long spears made of wood, each impaling through both the horse and the rider, had them erected upright along the area.
The smoke drifting in the area was the byproduct of a few deserted campfires in the area, built for the sole purpose of luring them in.
"We have been fooled. Retreat! Retreat!!" At that instant, Hu Lang's heart turned cold. He had never expected the Great Tang cavalrymen to be so cunning. He thought that it was an ideal opportunity to destroy the Great Tang cavalrymen, but it turned out to be a detailed ploy prepared by the enemy.
Hong long long!
"Kill the Great Tang cavalrymen!"
Despite Hu Lang's shouting, it was already too late. One after another, the highwaymen charged into the smoke and sliced the "Great Tang cavalrymen" into pieces. Too excited by the prospect of victory, none of them could hear Hu Lang's command anymore.
And while they were excitedly slicing away at the corpses in the area, the incredible momentum that they had built up with great difficulty from the charge dissipated.
With this, the critical advantage that they held was nullified.
On top of that, in order to prevent the Great Tang cavalrymen from escaping, Hu Lang even sent thirty men to the back of the of the camp, and this had made them even more vulnerable to an attack at this moment.
Hong long long!
Just as Hu Lang was panicking within, he suddenly heard a loud rumble. He immediately yelled for the other highwaymen to escape, when all of a sudden, a spear harnessing destructive force pierced through the smoke from the right.
That spear was simply too fast. By the time Hu Lang caught sight of it, it was only inches away from him.
"HAH!"
In that critical moment, Hu Lang exerted his Stellar Energy, and the green Halo of Thorns within his body began spinning swiftly.
Boom! For this short instant, Hu Lang gained incomparable strength. With his immense might, he jolted the Great Tang cavalryman flying along with his steed.
But nevertheless, Hu Lang also suffered internal injuries from the clash, and his wrists were numbed from the encounter.
In a pure contest of strength, the Great Tang cavalrymen were nowhere near his match. But with the momentum from the charge behind his attack, the other party's might could no longer be gauged by mere cultivation realm.
"Damn it!"
Despite having sent a Great Tang cavalryman flying, Hu Lang didn't feel any joy at all. Instead, his heart further sank.
That was because the second spear was already coming his way like a streak of lightning.
The speed of this spear was so fast that it left a white afterimage in its wake.
"Accursed highwaymen, die!"
Amidst the light smoke, the silhouette of a Great Tang cavalryman came into view. The force behind his stab was so great that even Hu Lang's heart beat in fear.
They were all mounted troops, but the horsemanship
of Great Tang cavalrymen was truly on an entirely different level from the highwaymen!
Hong long!
Stellar Energy gathered around Hu Lang's fist to form a green wolf's head at the tip of his knuckle, and he struck out furiously. By exerting his full strength, he barely managed to deflect the attack from the second Great Tang cavalryman.
But very soon, the third and fourth spear appeared nearly simultaneously, and this time, Hu Lang failed to stand his ground.
Pu pu! Two spears stabbed into his chest from the right and the left, and crimson blood spurted into the air as they were drawn out.
The final sight that Hu Lang saw was the cold gleam of a sword descending from above.
"I'll be claiming this head! ——" The cold voice of a lady sounded by his ear before the final sliver of consciousness escaped from him.
Peng!
The lopped head fell to the ground as Bai Siling's valiant figure appeared behind Hu Lang's corpse. Her sword was still outstretched in the position from her previous attack.
Judging from how Hu Lang managed to knock a Great Tang cavalryman flying, she had little doubt that Hu Lang must be a commander of this platoon. Her cultivation was significantly higher than the other cavalrymen, so she decided to deal with Hu Lang personally.
Four Great Tang cavalrymen on a charge with Bai Siling; to have fallen to such a formation, Hu Lang could probably rest in peace.
"Siling, return to your horse! Don't fight with them on foot!" A figure suddenly flashed by Bai Siling, and Wang Chong's stern voice sounded.
Unlike the other cavalrymen, he wasn't equipped with a spear. Instead, he was shooting out incredibly compact sword qi ceaselessly by flicking his ten fingers one after another.
Wang Chong hadn't reached True Martial realm yet, but he wasn't dependent on his own cultivation to kill his enemies.
What he relied on were technique and experience.
For those two fields, there was not a single person here who could start to compare with him.
For one, Wang Chong had made full use of the smoke in the area to conceal his Sword Qi of Massacre. More often than not, the highwaymen whom he had targeted would be caught off guard by the sudden attack and sent flying from their steeds.
And in a battle between mounted troops, falling from one's steed spelled certain death.
"I got it!" Bai Siling stuck out her tongue. Even though she was old enough to be considered as Wang Chong's elder sister, she still found herself unconsciously revealing her coy side to him.
Regarding this assault, Bai Siling had nothing but awe for Wang Chong.
To think that the Iron Cloak Highwaymen, despite their decisive advantage in terms of numbers, would have actually prepared another hand. Had Wang Chong not astutely noticed it, they might have really just fallen to that.
Through the effective use of a cloak of smoke, not only did Wang Chong draw out those highwaymen from their hiding spots, he even managed to place them at a critical disadvantage.
Those who were intending to assault became the assaulted instead.
The Iron Cloak Highwaymen ended up suffering tragic losses in this assault.
Neighhhh!
Bai Siling grabbed onto the saddle and flipped herself onto the back of the saddle. This was a technique which she had learnt from the other cavalrymen over the days.
Jya!
Pulling on the reins, Bai Siling joined the fray with a sharp sword in her hand.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Halos shook as they collided heavily on one another, producing a reverberating metallic noise. Innumerable shockwaves rippled throughout the battlefield, creating ceaseless surges of heatwave that reached even ten zhang away. Ferocious war cries and tragic death throes; these resonated heavily on the battlefield.
The Iron Cloak Highwaymen had numbers above Wang Chong's side, but from the moment that they halted on the main road, this battle was already over.
Not a single one of the highwaymen was able to withstand the charge of the Great Tang cavalrymen.
In just the first wave, through exploiting the advantage in their momentum, Wang Chong and the others managed to kill more than thirty True Martial realm experts among the highwaymen while dispersing their formation at the same time.
Once the highwaymen are unable to band together, they would be mere preys to the Great Tang cavalrymen, who specialized in battle formations.
Chapter 353: Iron Cloak Li Makes a Move!
Chapter 353: Iron Cloak Li Makes a Move!
Hong long long!
After a few charges from the forty Great Tang cavalry, all that was left of the True Martial realm highwaymen were heaps of corpses on the ground.
The crux behind a charge wasn't the prowess of each individual, but the might of a collective group. To put it in other words, a highwayman standing in the face of a charge wouldn't be facing just a single cavalryman, but a ceaseless flow of them.
More often than not, the strength of an individual was negligible in the face of a group.
"Retreat! Retreat!" Chang Dao's despairing voice bellowed from the smoke. Slightly more fortunate than Hu Lang, he managed to survive the first charge of the cavalrymen.
However, after witnessing the furious momentum the forty cavalrymen harnessed, it suddenly dawned on Chang Dao that he had been underestimating his enemies right from the start. A huge gap did exist between mere highwaymen and trained military cavalrymen.
Even his heart was leaping wildly in fear when he witnessed the astounding power of their charge, and thoughts of retaliating evaporated from his mind.
Even he had little doubt that he wouldn't hold on for too long in the face of such might.
"We have been overpowered, don't bother standing your ground anymore. Brothers, hurry up and retreat!" Chang Dao bellowed anxiously as drops of sweat trickled down his forehead.
But in truth, his commands were completely unneeded. After failing several attempts to fight back against the forty cavalrymen, the highwaymen had already realized the futility of their struggle and scattered like flustered animals.
Some of them headed in the direction where their main force was stationed, some of them headed to the east side of the main road where the thirty men Hu Lang dispatched were stationed, and some of them even charged up the slope by the two sides. All in all, they were like aimless flies; darting anxiously in every direction in sight!
This was how frightened they were of the cavalry's charge!
There was no stalemate or intense battle at all. With five cavalrymen in each group, they swept through all of the highwaymen that stood in their path.
In just a few moments, the eighty Iron Cloak Highwaymen had collapsed entirely!
"You bastard, I'll tear you apart!"
All of a sudden, a deafening roar sounded from the distance. The voice seemed to be imbued with such great power that the smoke and dust in the area were even blown away. In that instant, even the forest seemed to shake in fear before that enraged roar.
Wang Chong turned around and saw an 8 chi tall man riding on a crimson Ferghana steed two hundred zhang away. That figure was racing here in a frenzy, a white trail of air dragging behind him.
Beneath the hooves of the crimson Ferghana steed, five similar-colored and similar-sized halos were shaking intensely, emanating a resounding metallic call. All that was trampled beneath its hooves was reduced to dust, be it grass or pebbles.
It felt as if the figure on the steed would destroy everything that stood in his path. Even from several hundred zhang away, one could still sense the frightening disposition he exuded.
Bai Siling immediately turned to Wang Chong and asked, "How did they arrive so quickly? What do we do now?"
When they were planning this matter out, they had already anticipated the Iron Cloak Highwaymen sending in reinforcements to back up the detour group. However, they didn't think the bandits would arrive so quickly, and especially didn’t think Iron Cloak Li would lead the troops personally.
It was easy to overlook it back when they were in the midst of a battle, but focusing their attention, they could still hear some furious war cries and the clash of weapons in the direction of the slope.
Clearly, the Iron Cloak Highwaymen had decided to launch an attack on Xu Gan and Huang Yongtu simultaneously as well.
The enemy had reacted too quickly once the situation was slowly turning against them.
With the clopping of war steeds, Iron Cloak Li's group was swiftly nearing them. At this moment, Wang Chong and his steed were standing in the middle of the main road as he swiftly analyzed the situation.
Zhou An!
He was the only man among the Iron Cloak Highwaymen who could figure everything out so quickly and come up with swift countermeasures to his plan.
"Carry out the second plan!" Wang Chong instructed decisively.
"But what about Xu Gan, Huang Yongtu, and the others?" Ma Song asked anxiously.
"We have no choice, they will have to rely on themselves. From the very start, this was an impossible situation. At the very least, we have drawn the main forces of the Iron Cloak Highwaymen here. While there are still plenty of bandits and highwaymen left to attack the slope, they are considerably weaker, so the threat they face is already significantly lower than before.
"Given their strength, there is definitely a chance that they can escape the encirclement. Only those who seek to help themselves will be helped by the heavens. They can't possibly pin all of their hopes on us. Ma Song, release the arrow to signal Zhang Lin to break out of their encirclement," Wang Chong instructed.
Wang Chong's primary plan wasn't like that at all. However, there was nothing that was unchanging on the battlefield. True generals don't stick to plans, but adapt to their situation and find the most effective way to curb their enemy.
While there might be a little hiccup in their plans, Wang Chong still knew that he had room to maneuver around.
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 254
