As long as he could bypass the Tang cavalry and strike at their weakness, defeating the main force in the rear, then in the end, no matter how powerful this group of Tang cavalry was, the victory would still go to the Abbasid Caliphate.
And not only that, even though the Tang forces seemed to cover the earth, Umar understood that all he needed to do with his tactics was buy some time. The Arabs had gathered more than three hundred thousand elite soldiers at Talas, and once those three hundred thousand soldiers were fully mobilized, the only thing awaiting the Tang would be death.
Boom!
The earth swayed and trembled. Umar had barely spoken when a force of fifteen thousand Arab cavalry rode out from the rear, dividing into two halves that rode to the left and right, galloping past the shield wall like black whirlwinds. Black halos clanged and clattered under their feet as they rapidly accelerated to their maximum speeds.
Three hundred zhang went by in a flash!
The fifteen thousand cavalry had smoothly bypassed the Wushang Cavalry, as well as the forces led by Sun Zhiming, Chen Burang, and the others. They now had a clear path to the rear of the Qixi army.
Infantry!
In the face of charging cavalry, they had always been sheep waiting for the slaughter. In the history of infantry versus cavalry, the numbers of times that infantry had won was extremely small. A fully-armored cavalry force could charge down an infantry force five, six, even ten times its number, and the ferocious Arab cavalry had annihilated infantry forces beyond number.
“Kill them!”
“Crush their formation! Pulverize them!”
“For the Abbasid Caliphate! Kill these infidels!”
Hooves thundered along the ground as the fifteen thousand Arab cavalry and their black halos approached the Tang rear like a majestic hurricane. One hundred and fifty zhang, one hundred zhang, fifty zhang… the distance was rapidly decreasing, and they could now see the soldiers on the transport carriages getting off and taking up formation.
But this was already too late. Before these veteran and lighting-fast Arab cavalry, such efforts were pointless.
“Kill them!”
Vicious bellows filled the air as the fifteen thousand cavalry pushed themselves to cross that final stretch.
“Readyyy!”
At almost the same time, a loud order came from the Tang side. Silvery-white carts were suddenly pushed forward, five Tang infantry standing next to each one. And in front of these infantry, Chen Bin had unsheathed his Wootz Steel sword and pointed it forward.
His gaze was aloof, his back straight, his sword hand unmoving as if fixed in place.
Forty zhang!
Thirty zhang!
“Fire!”
At the final moment, Chen Bin swung down his sword. The hundreds of small carts instantly began to move. Boooom! For a moment, the world seemed silent, all other noise drowned out by a deafening explosion, the music of death itself.
Countless ballista bolts, each of them more than one zhang long and covered in inscriptions, were fired out of the small carts in a torrential rain.
“Careful!”
“Ballista bolts!”
The eyes of the Arab cavalry at the very front instantly widened at the sight of these bolts, and the breath in their lungs seemed to freeze as terror seized their bodies. They strenuously pulled on the reins of their horses to turn and flee, but it was already too late.
Bang! A horse shrieked as a thick ballista bolt blew through it, and then a second, a third… The renowned Arab warhorses, each of them wrapped in thick armor that was impervious to ordinary arrows, might as well have been made of paper in the face of the Great Tang’s mighty ballista bolts.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Hundreds upon thousands of ballista bolts were fired, each one piercing through four or five Arab cavalrymen, with the most powerful of them tearing through seven or eight. The whinnying of horses filled the air, and in this one clash, the Arabs had lost at least five thousand, perhaps even six thousand men.
But even though the Arab cavalry were being peppered by ballista fire, the powerful force of inertia carried them along for quite some distance, even up to the very first row of ballistae, though they were nothing more than corpses by that point.
“Release!”
Chen Bin’s eyes had remained fixed on the Arab cavalry, and his Wootz Steel sword swung down once more. Boooooom!Churning dust filled the air as a second volley was fired.
“Release!”
A third volley filled the skies soon after the second, each ballista bolt like the scythe of the god of death, each one aimed at an Arab cavalryman. After three volleys, the fifteen thousand Arab cavalry were finished, their fate sealed. The vast battlefield was now carpeted with the bodies of horses and Arabs.
After three volleys, the thundering hooves and cries of war had all vanished. The gurgling of the new rivers of blood could be heard loud and clear.
Silence!
For a second, the entire battlefield was eerily still, even the sounds of fighting dying away. In the distance, the Arab soldiers stared in shock at the ground covered in corpses, dread and terror in their eyes. These fifteen thousand cavalry had all been excellent warriors who had participated in the conquest of many a kingdom, defeating foes many times their number, subduing all kinds of doughty adversaries. Each of them had been galloping at maximum speed and could contend against four or five infantry.
When they set out, each of the Arab soldiers had been confident that they could kill several times their number in Tang, that they could pierce straight through the Tang formation and utterly scatter them. None of them had imagined that three volleys of ballista bolts would be enough to put them into the earth.
In their history of wars, never had the Arabs encountered such a thing as this. All of them instantly felt an oppressive and stifling pressure.
Even Umar had grown much paler.
“Advance!”
Chen Bin’s eyes were unmoved by the gruesome scene wrought by the ballistae. He waved his sword down, and the three thousand silvery-white carts, the three thousand ballistae, were pushed over the corpses of the Arab cavalry.
Around them, the other Qixi soldiers also surged over the Arab corpses.
“Kill!”
“Ready!”
Meanwhile, in the rear of the Arab army, Umar had unsheathed his saber. Even though he had lost two batches of cavalry and suffered almost thirty thousand losses, Umar had still not given up, still hoped to buy time for the army of three hundred thousand. War did not solely depend on tactics, but on strategy as well. No matter how formidable this Tang army was, as long as the rest of the immense Arab army could turn around, the Tang would be doomed.
Rumble! The Tang army picked up speed, drawing closer and closer to the Arabs.
This time, with no more Arab cavalry, the more than one hundred thousand Tang reinforcements encountered no more obstacles. Finally…
Boom!
The earth quaked and the heavens swayed. If one looked down from the sky, one would see the dense ranks of the armies smashing into each other like two waves. All of Talas seemed to be shuddering at their clash, and the earth itself seemed about to sunder.
Fist against fist, flesh against flesh, warhorse against warhorse, weapon against weapon… all of it fiercely clashed on the battlefield. There were no skills or tricks in this kind of battle, only every soldier pouring out all their strength. This was the largest and most intense battle between the east and west.
“Hold!”
“For the Caliphate!”
“Stop these infidels!”
At the front lines of the eastern battlefield, the Arab shieldmen put their lives into stopping the Tang charge. Their teeth were clenched as they pushed their shoulders up against their seven-foot-high shields. Thudthudthud! Attacks rained down from the other side, causing the shields to shake and quiver, but the Arabs managed to hold.
They had a wealth of experience guarding against
such attacks. One of these enormous shields could block the attacks from four or five opponents of equal strength, a vital tool for the Arabs in dealing with the cavalry and infantry of other states.
In actual combat, even Arab cavalry found it very difficult to break through this barrier.
“Hold! General will definitely send orders! As long as we can hold for a while, then General can finish mobilizing the rest of the army and utterly crush these Tang!”
The Arab shieldmen roared and shouted as they leaned their bodies forward, planting their feet so deeply into the earth that they seemed ready to fuse with it.
But at this moment…
Boom!
The earth rumbled as invisible ripples swept out of the rear of the Tang army like a whirlwind, swiftly engulfing the Arab soldiers. Before any of the Arabs on the eastern front could react, they heard a metal clattering as if invisible chains had wrapped around their halos, and their strength instantly plunged three levels.
A fierce stalemate with the Tang was instantly transformed into a crumbling wall.
Chapter 877 - The Arabs, Defeated! (II)
Chapter 877: The Arabs, Defeated! (II)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“What’s going on here?”
All the Arabs paled in fright, none of them understanding what was going on. However, a decisive change had already taken place on the battlefield.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Like a breaching dam, the entire eastern part of the battlefield quickly crumbled. The three Bane of the Battlefield Halos had caused the strength of the Arab soldiers to drastically drop, rendering them no match for the Great Tang soldiers. Bang! Four Great Tang infantry combined their Stellar Energies together and fiercely smashed against one of the massive Arabian shields, and what was once an immovable wall was instantly sent flying, even knocking down the soldier behind it.
Squelch! Before that soldier could rise, a spear thrust forward like an agile snake, stabbing through the Arab’s throat and pinning him to the ground. The Tang soldiers stomped over his corpse they charged forward.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the battlefield, there was a burst of bloody light as a previously valiant and tenacious Arab captain was suddenly run through by a sword. This bearded Arab captain stared with eyes wide open at the sword hilt sticking out of his chest, his face filled with fear. His hands gripped the hilt as he slowly fell over like a wooden beam.
Even in death, he still did not understand why his strength had dropped so severely that he had been killed by a single sword!
What was one became two, then three… In a few short moments, thousands upon thousands of Arabs had been felled!
Boomboomboom! At the same time, Chen Bin was leading the ballista army, and hundreds of ballista bolts were tearing into the Arab army in volley after volley.
In order to defend against the Tang assault, all the Arabs on the eastern portion of the battlefield had packed closely together so that they could take up the defensive formations that they were so proud of. However, this made them an ideal target for the Tang ballista bolts. making them even more effective than they had been against the cavalry.
Thudthudthud! Each ballista bolt would pierce through at least a dozen Arab soldiers, some of them even leaving behind a line of carnage of thirty-some soldiers. It took only a few moments for the three thousand ballistae to produce an enormous killing field, with at least ten thousand Arab soldiers falling to their volleys.
In the face of this terrifying rain of death, of their comrades falling like so many dominoes, even the determined and natural fighters that were the Arabs could smell the stench of death, began to feel fear, and they began to retreat.
“Kill!”
“For the Great Tang!”
In a place deep within the Arab army, Li Siye was leading the five thousand Wushang Cavalry, wreaking havoc amongst the Arabs, charging in and out as they utilized the Ten Charges Ten Victories Formation to its maximum potential. They would disperse like flowers on the wind, and then in a short while, they would gather together like iron claws clutching around some unlucky prey. After several of these cycles, the surrounding Arab soldiers were in complete turmoil.
Clang clang clang!
Massive axes struck with thunderous strength from all around, cleaving at Li Siye. Umar’s elites, the seventh, ninth, and tenth infantry units, had made Li Siye their primary target, but all their attacks were repelled without exception.
Swish! Li Siye waved his massive sword, and golden helmets flew into the air, those Arab elites who had just lost their heads trembling a little before neatly falling to the ground.
“Everyone, follow me! Kill them all!”
Li Siye’s furious bellows were like thunder in the ears of the Wushang Cavalry. Bangbangbang! After a few charges, Umar’s elite infantry units had been swept away like fallen leaves blown by the autumn winds. Before the formidable strength of the Wushang Cavalry coupled with Wang Chong’s Bane of the Battlefield Halo, all of the Arab infantry could muster no resistance and could only be trampled under the hooves of the Wushang Cavalry.
While they had been fierce and steadfast at the start, the Wushang Cavalry’s overwhelming strength and the endless waves of assaults had shattered their morale!
“Run!”
Wave after wave of Arab soldiers had charged up, but each of them had been torn apart and pulverized by the Wushang Cavalry. The Arabs were finally beginning to lose their nerve and turn the other way.
The ballista army, the Wushang Cavalry, the Bane of the Battlefield Halo, and the more than one hundred thousand Tang soldiers… this was a landslide of a rout. The thousands upon thousands of Arab soldiers falling on the battlefield with fear on their faces were causing an infectious panic to spread through the Arab ranks. For first time in the Arab history of conquest, they had encountered a power that they could not stand against.
This overwhelming strength made all the Arab soldiers feel a fear and dread deep within their souls. As panic and turmoil spread through the army, Umar’s control over the field decayed, and his men began to flee toward the three hundred thousand Arab soldiers in the rear.
“Bastards! Stop!
“Anyone who dares to escape will be handled according to military law!
“You cowards, you shame the Caliphate!”
Umar’s face was pale, his entire body trembling in rage. His original intention had been to stabilize the army and hold the line against this Tang army that had seemingly come out of nowhere. In Umar’s plans, only a little longer would be needed for the rest of the army to arrive and crush the Tang army. However, the army in the rear had not even finished adjusting and the soldiers on the eastern line had already crumbled and begun to run toward the rear. This was the exact opposite of what Umar wanted!
Bang!
Seeing that he had lost control of his army, Umar clenched his teeth and galloped forward. With a swing of his scimitar and a dazzling arc of light, he cleaved ten-some fleeing soldiers in two. Gallop! Umar turned and charged back into the fray, and another ten-some Arab soldiers were cut down like weeds.
After several charges, Umar was surrounded by blood and bodies, having executed more than one hundred Arab soldiers, but this act had not caused the Arabian Arrow to even lift an eyebrow, or the stern callousness upon his face to even twitch. This cruel method finally instilled some order in the crumbling army.
But before Umar could reassemble the army, the loud neigh of a horse rang in his ears. At the same moment, Umar sensed a storm of energy, one that was charging in his direction at astonishing speed.
“The Tang!”
Umar’s mind immediately went to the image of that Ferghana steed and its rider, a giant even more stalwart than the Arabs.
It was that leader of the Tang cavalry!
Buzz!
Umar’s eyes narrowed as he turned his head, and what greeted him was Li Siye, pressed against his horse, leaving behind a ray
of light as he galloped toward Umar. His strong hands were gripped around that massive sword as he vigorously slashed down.
“Foreign scoundrel, hand over your life!”
Li Siye’s eyes were wide with rage as he sent all the Stellar Energy he had condensed down through his sword.
Boom! In mere seconds, there was a flash of light, and then a dark and gloomy energy began to explode from Umar’s body. This Stellar Energy was suffused with the thick scent of blood and fire, and it fiercely blocked Li Siye’s full-strength blow.
“Ignorant heretic, I will personally end your life!”
Umar’s eyes exuded a chilling glow. As one of the elite generals under Governor of the East Abu Muslim, Umar was an extremely formidable warrior, his strength as famous as his cruelty and callousness. Although the army was crumbling, Umar had never feared a contest between generals.
He had slain countless enemy generals in the midst of fierce battles. His reputation as the Arabian Arrow had been forged from the blood of those generals he had slain.
The air trembled as a stentorian voice came from overhead.
“Bastard scoundrel with the thick beard, what are you babbling? Don’t! Under! Stand!”
Before the voice had even finished speaking, a massive fist made of stone smashed at Umar’s head. The enormous power behind this blow caused the Stellar Energy around Umar to shudder and ring, and even the Arabian steed beneath him sank a little into the earth.
The combined attacks of Li Siye and Huang Botian’s Stone General left even someone like Umar feeling an enormous pressure.
“It’s useless! None of you can kill me!”
Umar clenched his teeth, a vicious light in his eyes. Now that he had held fast against the attacks of these two Tang generals, it was his turn to attack. But just when Umar had rallied his Stellar Energy and raised his scimitar, the earth rumbled and the ground under his feet seemed to come alive. Under the influence of some external force, the previously firm earth suddenly caved in and cracked. Umar’s warhorse instantly lost its balance, and both it and Umar were thrown to the ground.
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 574
