The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  “Ready!”

  A resounding shout came from up ahead, and Zhang Que turned to see Huang Botian mounted on a brown horse, gathering the elite scouts for a sortie.

  The army began to march faster and faster as Talas got closer and closer. Everyone knew that not much time was left for the army, and all of them were nervous to the extreme.

  At thirty li, all the Arab scouts on the perimeter were wiped out, buying the last bit of time for Wang Chong and his army of more than one hundred thousand.

  Twenty li!

  Fifteen li!

  Thirteen li!

  The army could be discovered at any moment, and all of them were racing against time, striving for every second. All of them understood that each extra meter the army could advance increased the chances of victory by just that little more. They silently and grimly advanced, making no sound other than the marching of their feet and the rolling of the wheels.

  Only the final step remains!

  In the rear of the army, Wang Chong sat upon the White-hoofed Shadow, gazing at the numerous banners ahead with his sharp eyes, encircled by experts and generals. Whether it was Zhang Que’s eagle team or Huang Botian’s sortie of scouts, he had a grasp of the entire situation.

  For an army of one hundred thousand to remain undiscovered was an impossibility, but he could at least push his army to get as close as possible, winning for it the largest advantage possible.

  Wang Chong had used the model to carefully examine the terrain around Talas. Although Talas itself was ringed by plains, there was a range of low hills to its northeast. If he could reach that hill before being discovered by the Arabs, he could catch them unawares.

  A small boat could easily change course, and while a squad of ten-some people could easily alter its tactics, a vast army of hundreds of thousands fully invested in attacking Talas would not find it so easy a task to alter the direction of its assaults. This was the chance that Wang Chong and his army could exploit.

  Rumble!

  At this moment, the earth began to sway and shudder as the air was suddenly filled with the rumbling of hooves.

  “Reporting!” A scout dismounted and kneeled on the ground, his expression nervous. “A force of seven or eight thousand Arab soldiers is heading our way! Lord Protector-General, how should we handle them?”

  Wang Chong only faintly smiled as he looked ahead. A cloud of dust was rising from behind the hills, and atop them, a steel wave of seven or eight thousand Arabs appeared.

  “We were still discovered in the end!”

  Wang Chong’s faint smile turned into a careless grin. The Arabs were not weaklings, and though he had done his best to remain hidden and let the din of battle cover his advance, the Arabs had still noticed something strange and sent soldiers to sweep the area.

  “But just seven or eight thousand is far from enough!”

  His tactics of muffling the animals and forbidding any chatter amongst the soldiers had proved effective. The only sound he had no means of suppressing was that of the carriages, but the paths Wang Chong’s army traversed were part of the bustling Silk Road, crisscrossed by endless streams of caravans, making such a sound extremely normal. In addition, since the scouts had not reported back on their approach, the noise had not engendered much suspicion.

  Wang Chong had thought very carefully over these measures, and they were now bearing fruit.

  The Arabs had heard the noise, but they clearly believed that the number wasn’t very large and had sent only seven or eight thousand cavalry to see what was going on.

  Clang!

  Wang Chong unsheathed his sword. This four-feet-long Wootz Steel sword seemed to even block out the light of the sun, its edge gleaming with cold light.

  “All soldiers, hear my order! Advance at full speed!”

  Before he had even finished speaking, his sword had swung down toward that distant band of hills.

  With this order, the army of more than one hundred thousand seemed to shed its disguise, stirring up a massive cloud of dust as it charged. Although the Arab force of seven or eight thousand cavalry had appeared and discovered them, it was already too late. Their discovery would have no effect on the overall situation.

  Chapter 873 - Arrival at the Battlefield!

  Chapter 873: Arrival at the Battlefield!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  Rumble! The charge of the Tang army caused a hint of turmoil to run through the distant Arab army.

  “Bastard! How could there be this many Tang soldiers? Why didn’t we get any reports about this!!!”

  On a distant hill, a fully-armored Arab officer furiously cursed in Arabic, his eyes wide open in rage, his entire face contorted as he gazed at the vast and intimidating army before him.

  The order he had been given said that there might be an army of twenty to thirty thousand approaching Talas. Although it wasn’t certain if this was a Tang army, out of an abundance of caution, his superiors had decided to send a force of around seven thousand cavalry to check it out. The Abbasid Caliphate was a country of war. All of its people, from top to bottom, were practiced fighters. This force of cavalry was riding the mighty Arabian steeds. This was a force strong enough to deal with sixty to seventy thousand soldiers, but this enemy had even more soldiers than that.

  The Arabs did not shrink from battle, but this army clearly did not consist of ordinary soldiers. This forbidding and imposing momentum and sharp aura were clearly indicative of a veteran army, elites amongst elites.

  Only a madman would take seven thousand soldiers to contend against an army of more than one hundred thousand such soldiers.

  “Retreat! Hurry and withdraw!”

  “Someone! Report this to Lord Governor!”

  Screams and shouts filled the air as the seven thousand Arab cavalrymen panicked and began to retreat. Meanwhile, the vast army of reinforcements from Qixi seemed to swallow up the earth as it unstoppably surged forward.

  ……

  In a place around seven or eight li from Talas, a region of low hills, the cold winds blew and the grass swayed and trembled. Although the nearby Talas had long been drowned in blood and corpses, this place was silent as if frozen in time.

  “Kiiill!”

  But at this moment, a sharp cry tore through the skies, shattering the silence.

  “Run away!”

  “The Tang army is coming!”

  The Arab cavalry suddenly poured out from the hilltops, shouting in panic as they fled toward Talas. This sudden transformation quickly attracted the notice of the soldiers on the battlefield. The Arab forces stationed on the easternmost flank of the battlefield were the first to notice.

  “What’s going on?!”

  “Aren’t these Abdullah’s men? Didn’t they just leave? Why are they coming back!”

  “Bastards! They’re in such a mess. What in the world could frighten them so badly?”

  The sight of these panicked soldiers immediately had some of the Arab warriors furious with rebuke. Arabia was a country built on war, and they worshiped courage and ferocity. Those who fought unflinchingly at the front lines had always received their utmost respect, while those timid ones who fled in panic were always the first to be cast aside.

  “Hurry and inform Lord Governor! The Tang army has arrived!”

  “The Tang reinforcements are here!”

  One of the Arabian horsemen at the very front paid little attention to the rebukes of his comrades, using all his strength to crazily shout.

  “Absurd!”

  But those warnings only incurred further rebukes. The army split apart as a savage-faced Arab general rode out upon a mighty Arabian steed. His right hand rested on the scimitar at his waist while his body seethed with killing intent.

  “The most elite soldiers of the Great Tang are right here. What other formidable soldiers could Anxi possibly have?

  “Even if the Great Tang really did send reinforcements, what is there to be a
fraid of? We’ve gathered more than three hundred thousand soldiers here. Lord Governor has long ago ordered that any coward who flees on the battlefield will be immediately executed! Are these scoundrels seeking death?”

  As the strongest existence on the continent, the Abbasid Caliphate had subdued countless states on its periphery, big and small. For this war, the Abbasid Caliphate had even gathered an army of more than three hundred thousand elites in Talas’s vicinity. At a time like this, was there anything that could threaten them? What could possibly be worth fleeing in such panic?

  But the Arab general soon found it impossible to say any more. Behind those fleeing Arab cavalry, some invisible pair of hands was seemingly shaking the hills, causing them to shudder and tremble. While small at first, the trembling grew more and more intense, and even the battlefield around Talas seemed to be shaking.

  What is going on here?

  The Arab general slightly paled. No force of seven to eight thousand could cause this intense trembling. Only an army of at least one hundred thousand could do something like this.

  Buzz!

  As the Arab general and his soldiers looked on, a black banner depicting a dragon was slowly raised over the hills, accompanied by a lofty and stalwart horseman.

  One was followed by another, a third… In the blink of an eye, the hills were covered by thousands of cavalry, filling the horizon. These cavalry simply stood atop the hills, not chasing after the fleeing Arab cavalry. They were silent, their eyes coldly observing the battlefield.

  As these cavalry stood in a distant stalemate with the countless Arabs, an indescribably oppressive air descended upon the battlefield. In a flash, the world was eerily still, with even the sounds of fighting seeming to dwindle.

  “The Tang…”

  The Arab general swallowed as he subconsciously took a step back, fear appearing in his eyes. He did not lack resolve, but the pressure exerted by this army was simply too great. These thousands of soldiers silently stood there, gazing at them with scorn and contempt, their eyes like mountains pressing down upon their chests and making it impossible to breathe.

  “Impossible! How could the Great Tang still have such a powerful army?”

  The Arab general’s eyes were wide open in disbelief. Buzz! At this moment, he felt a strange sensation as the army in the center of the hills parted and a massive silver-white dragon banner was thrust into the air.

  Beneath this banner, the Arab general finally set eyes on the commander of the Tang force. It was an apparently thin and frail youth, his horse a divine steed with hooves as white as snow. And yet his eyes glowed with contempt, blazed with the searing light of the sun. Powerful generals were arrayed around him like the stars shining around the moon.

  “We’ve finally arrived!!”

  Wang Chong looked into the distance from the top of the hill. After five days of marching, the army had finally arrived at Talas. From this vantage point, he could see blazing signal fires and earth covered with Arab soldiers and battle standards.

  This was the first time Wang Chong was setting eyes on such a large Arab army. The Arabs had much larger physiques than the people of Mengshe Zhao, and they were much more aggressive than the people of Ü-Tsang. When tens of thousands of them gathered into an army, they exuded an aura that no other power or army on the Great Tang’s border could match.

  Fire!

  A black flame that devoured all!

  This was the first impression Wang Chong got when he looked down upon the Arab army.

  This uncountable sea of Arab soldiers had completely surrounded Talas, forming layer after layer.

  This famous fortress of the Silk Road had long ago been deprived of its grandeur, its wall forced into an unbearable state of disrepair. Blood gushed down from the walls, imbuing them with a dark red luster. The sky seemed aflame as fires raged over the walls. On the distant hill, Wang Chong could already smell the pungent scent of blood carried along by the wind.

  In the rear of the Arab army, catapults were flinging massive rocks through the air and into the city. Meanwhile, under the cover of the catapults, countless Arab soldiers wielding scimitars were scaling the walls along siege ladders.

  The battle in the city was at a critical juncture.

  After two months, the Anxi Protectorate army in the city was at its limit. Wang Chong could see countless Arab soldiers mounting the walls. Meanwhile, several Arab soldiers outside the gate were madly crashing a massive, ten-some-zhang battering ram into the gates.

  The heavy steel gate was severely deformed, and he could tell at a glance that it wouldn’t last for long.

  “Feng Changqing was right. The Arabs really did launch an all-out offensive!”

  Wang Chong only slightly creased his brow at this sight, caring little about this fact. No matter what sort of plan the Arabs had, the moment he appeared, everything was set. He would make Talas the place where the Arabs suffered their most crushing and miserable defeat.

  With his mind buzzing, Wang Chong turned his gaze to the walls. At the most obvious place on the walls of Talas, Wang Chong finally spotted that majestic and renowned figure of the Western Regions. Standing atop the walls, he continued to slash at the Arab soldiers assaulting the walls while roaring out orders. His armor was so stained in blood that not a clean spot could be seen.

  Gao Xianzhi seemed to be rooted on the walls, his feet fused into it. He appeared like a giant, standing tall and steady. No matter how many Arab soldiers charged at him, they would all be stopped at his feet, forever unable to break through.

  Around him, Wang Chong could also see countless soldiers of the Anxi Protectorate army engaged in intense combat.

  After two months of battle, each of them was at their limits, all of them so exhausted that they seemed ready to fall at any moment. But a pride in their bones continued to support them, allowing them to fight to the death on the walls. No one could know how they had lasted for so long, but each of them had managed to struggle through it with their own methods.

  At this sight, even Wang Chong couldn’t help but be deeply moved.

  Chapter 874 - Charge, Battle Against the Arabs!

  Chapter 874: Charge, Battle Against the Arabs!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  Although Wang Chong had never seen the Anxi Protectorate army before, or even interacted with this most powerful army of the Western Regions, in this moment, it left an incredibly deep impression in his mind.

  This was the backbone of the Great Tang!

  Clang!

  Without the slightest hesitation, Wang Chong coldly unsheathed his sword and aimed it at the Arabs, its tip gleaming with cold light.

  “All soldiers, full-speed charge!”

  Boom!

  The earth quaked as the more than one hundred thousand soldiers standing on the hill suddenly transformed into a flood that surged down toward Talas.

  “Kiiill!”

  Battle cries resounded over the plains. The first to charge down from the hill was the Invincible Great General Li Siye and his five thousand disciplined Wushang Cavalry, all of them armed to the teeth. Clang! A dazzling war halo erupted from Li Siye’s body, rapidly expanding to the rest of his soldiers. This was followed by a second, a third, a fourth… In the blink of an eye, thousands of war halos had been unleashed, shrouding the Wushang Cavalry and rendering them into a moving fortress.

  Boom!

  The sheer momentum of this charge was enough to knock over mountains and cleave apart seas, and it seemed like no army could stand against it!

  “Kiiill!”

  Close behind the Wushang Cavalry, the cavalry of the Qixi Protectorate army and the Annan Protectorate army had formed the second echelon, their war halos expanding down the hills like rushing floodwaters. Behind them were thousands of chariots and military transport carriages, pulled along by warhorses into a fierce gallop.

  Despite the speed, all these chariots and carriages remained in tight form
ation, without the slightest hint of turmoil.

  “Charge!”

  At the same time, more than ten thousand troops, consisting of the regular soldiers from Greater and Lesser Balur, the Gangke, and the other mercenaries of the Western Regions, charged out from the left and right flanks with a roar. One wave, two waves, three waves… the more than one hundred thousand soldiers were like a vast sea, pouring over the hills to wash over the plains.

  “The Tang, it’s the Tang!”

  “Get ready! Adjust the formation!”

  “Directly to the east! Hurry and assemble! Infantry, raise shields! All cavalry, prepare to attack!”

  Sharp shouts rang out over the army. In the face of this army of more than one hundred thousand Tang soldiers, the Arabs that had been putting all their strength into a disciplined assault on Talas fell into disorder and turmoil. Wang Chong’s meticulous preparations were now showing their worth.

  It was essentially impossible for an army of three hundred thousand soldiers focused on besieging a city to turn around in such a short amount of time. A small boat could adjust its course, but not a large ship. The only effect of this string of orders was to make the three hundred thousand Arab soldiers descend into chaos.

  “Get ready! Assemble!”

  Just when the Qixi Protectorate army was about to make impact, a loud and dignified voice came from the easternmost flank. The sound of this voice instantly caused the turmoil to fade away. As if answering a summons, the Arab soldiers on the eastern flank suddenly calmed down and began to rapidly gather.

  “Second and third units, draw back! Tenth unit, advance!”

  Following these clear and precise orders, the Arab soldiers began to step forward, planting their large infantry shields in the ground. Each of these shields was taller than a man, both sturdy and thick. Countless of these shields being planted in the ground had essentially created a wall of steel on the eastern flank of the battlefield.