Secret Records of the Leader of the Beichen Sword Sect
Chapter 88 Horse Riding

Chapter 88: Chapter 88 Horse Riding

Qiao Fa was not the type of brave man who knowingly ventured into danger. He was the shopkeeper of Qianshengtong, a merchant.

Merchants calculate risks and rewards. Not to mention that now, outside Weize Pass, is crowded with refugees; even if you force your way out, you’d run into the Kan Army coming south. Wouldn’t so much cargo be like a lamb entering a tiger’s den? Only a fool would do a loss-making business.

Thus, the convoy of Qianshengtong turned around on the spot, escorted by two injured Sword Sect disciples, and headed back home. While Qiao Fa took along Tie Dan and three Sword Sect disciples with amputations to scout beyond the pass.

Hmm, after all, apart from being a merchant, Qiao Fa was also a lay disciple of the Mystic Sect, a Golden Core cultivator. Theoretically, trading to make money was his sideline; reconnaissance was his main task. Now, encountering such a major event as a Vassal State war, of course, he needed to investigate thoroughly.

Of course, according to Qiao Fa’s intentions, he meant to quickly go and return alone. But Tie Dan refused to retreat to the mountain, and the other three disciples of the Sword Sect felt they had nothing to lose, with victory assured and the advantage on their side, they were unwilling to let Tie Dan go back alone.

So the five of them set off lightly equipped, riding fast horses through Weize Pass.

"Officer! Please have mercy and let us through!"

"Enough with the nonsense! By order of the King! Without a pass permit, none shall be allowed through!"

"Rubbish King! He himself was the first to flee to the Royal Capital! Leaving us to die here!"

"Insolent! How dare you slander the King! Shoot him!"

"Ahhh!" "Murder!"

"Heartless officials! When the Northern Da Lu arrived, you tucked your tails and fled! Cowards who only oppress our villagers!"

"Rascals! I think you must be spies sent by Kan Country! Attempting to sneak through! Guards, release the arrows! Release the arrows!"

"Ahhh!" "Help!"

The guards on Weize Pass shot arrows into the crowd, killing several, temporarily dispersing the people outside the pass. But the crowd didn’t dare go far and continued to gather outside the pass.

After all, if they could pass through and escape into Qianzhou, they would have a chance of survival. But from Weize Pass southwards to Ye Capital of Gen Kingdom, it’s several hundred miles with no place to defend, nowhere to hide, and the Kan Army with three horses per man pursuing relentlessly from behind—where could they escape to?

Therefore, these people clung to some hope, expecting the guard to have a change of heart and let them pass. Or perhaps, the guards might even abandon the pass and flee, which would mean an open path and a glimmer of hope for all.

"The guards won’t abandon the pass and flee."

"What?"

Qiao Fa spent some money to bribe a guard to let them out of the gate.

Tie Dan looked back at the imposing pass built against the mountains, glanced at the robust soldiers holding strong bows, and pointed to their military flag.

"These aren’t recruited vassal soldiers; they are the Immortal Army of the Beisu Guard. Fleeing without a fight, losing the pass, would be a death sentence, executed for the entire clan, with the family assets confiscated.

Moreover, this pass is strategically placed, overlooking from a height, with steep and narrow mountain paths and fortified defenses. Just defending the pass and holding out for a month wouldn’t be too difficult.

And since the Kan Soldiers came south to loot, this pass isn’t on the main road back north, so no one would waste effort attacking the city. At most, they might send a small detachment for reconnaissance, to monitor any movements from Jingxing."

The usually silent youth suddenly spoke so much, causing the disciples of the Sword Sect to look at each other in surprise.

Qiao Fa also noticed keenly,

"Fellow Daoist Tie, are you familiar with military affairs?"

Tie Dan didn’t answer, but rode forward, circling around the gathering of refugees before returning.

"There aren’t many women and children among the refugees, mostly new-defeated deserters. Probably a battle happened recently nearby, and they were defeated, hence abandoning weapons and dragging along nearby villagers as human shields as they fled. By this calculation, the pursuing soldiers might not be far behind."

Upon hearing that there might be pursuing soldiers nearby, Qiao Fa cautiously asked,

"Then what should we do now?"

Tie Dan glanced at him,

"What do you want to do? Weren’t you the one who wanted to scout beyond the pass?"

Qiao Fa scratched his head,

"I initially thought to find the refugees or visit nearby towns to inquire about the situation in Gen Kingdom and the military strength of Kan Country. But if there’s a large army nearby, it’d be too dangerous..."

Tie Dan said,

"It’s not dangerous. If you want to see, we can just go and take a look."

Qiao Fa was stunned,

"Just go and take a look? At the Kan Army? Is it really okay?"

Tie Dan replied,

"No problem, I’ve been scouting the Northern Soldiers’ posts since I was young."

Qiao Fa showed admiration,

"Fellow Daoist Tie turns out to have been a scout, truly hiding talents... Shall we go?"

Tie Dan,

"Do you have a map? I haven’t been to this area before, so I don’t know the roads."

"Hiss..."

Qiao Fa sucked in a breath of cold air,

"Even without knowing the roads, you can be a scout?"

Tie Dan,

"There are no roads on the grasslands; you follow the horse dung and water grass to find your way. Just mark the major cities and towns nearby and point out the general distance and direction for me."

Although somewhat doubtful, Tie Dan was at least more capable than the three raised in a mountain valley. Qiao Fa often did business and knew the surrounding terrain, so after simple inquiries with the refugees, they rode northeast. In less than forty miles, they encountered the Kan Army.

This was a scout squad of nine men and twenty-seven horses, probably scouting the perimeter, having just slaughtered a small village, killing all the men, women, and children, and stacking their heads into a mound at the entrance of the village. They cut off the left ears and packed them in bags on their horses’ tails.

Currently, three were on duty, three were relaxing inside, and three were cooking, using the dry rations scavenged from the village to make porridge, choosing some of the tender bits from the corpses and feeding them to the horses after mixing with grain and fodder.

Tie Dan lay prone on a hill and glanced, then coldly remarked,

"What are you doing?"

The three Sword Sect disciples ignored him, pinching the formula and sending out flying swords.

Being from the Sword Sect, they never needed a reason to kill; likely, they simply were unhappy seeing the slaughter of the village.

Tie Dan sneered,

"These are assault cavalry from the Tao Tu Plain, vassal guards born of Da Lu; when their horses run, they are as fast as the wind, and a single arrow can explode a wolf’s head. Even if you kill all nine in one breath with your flying swords,

if just one out of those twenty-seven horses escapes back, the entire Kan Army will know we have infiltrated. Within half an hour, they can gather a thousand riders to hunt us down."

The Sword Sect disciples remained silent, controlling their swords.

Qiao Fa quickly intervened,

"Junior disciples, we are merely here to probe the situation..."

"The armies of Kan and Gen have been fighting since last winter when Shuofang was broken until the complete annihilation at Liang City, it’s been about three months.

The Marquis Zhongshan wiped out an army of 130,000 in one go, likely due to a shortage of supplies. Now the troops are probably scattered to forage by themselves.

So now, in Genzhou territory, there are at least 100,000 soldiers scattering around reaping, and over a million heads have been chopped off and stacked into mounds."

Tie Dan, getting straight to the point, simply turned around and mounted his horse,

"The Kan Army’s Ao Bing horse riding forces are well trained; they set up a post every fifteen miles. Having just won a great victory, their vigilance might be lax now.

If you take advantage of the situation and sneak through this gap, at the latest by tonight, you’ll be able to see the main camp of the Kan Army."

The disciples of the Sword Sect weren’t fools, naturally understanding what he implied.

Shoot the horse before shooting the man; capture the thief before capturing the king.

Eliminate the ones who started the war, and the war will naturally end.

...If it doesn’t end, then go down the ranks, killing until it does.

After a brief silence, they retracted their flying swords and mounted their horses.

Qiao Fa, cold sweat pouring down, looked at this group from the mountains.

"You... you aren’t really going to assassinate Marquis Zhongshan, are you?"

No one spoke, just mounted their horses and galloped, bypassing the slaughtered empty village and moving forward.

As Tie Dan said, after just another fifteen miles, they reached a battlefield.

Thousands of troops were engaged in ferocious combat on the Genzhou Plain, the aura of blood reaching the sky, the sounds of battle deafening. The merchant and swordsmen, emerging from the mountains, clearly hadn’t seen such a scene before, and even the bravest warrior, faced with the shocking clash of thousands of soldiers and the heart-stopping assault and hundreds or thousands of deaths, turned pale and deeply frightened, cold sweat pouring.

Tie Dan remained expressionless, watching from a distance, pointing out the military flag to Qiao Fa,

"The Gen Army is losing, they were transferred from the south of Dizhou, bringing a lot of logistical supplies, probably didn’t make it to the battlefield before the King’s Army was defeated. So they hastily turned south, but the Kan Army came too fast and intercepted them outside the city.

The Gen Army Commander reacted swiftly, bringing elite troops with him, enabling him to set up an iron carriage formation on the spot, firing volleys of crossbows, holding on until now.

But the rest, they are a bunch of hastily recruited incompetents, and just three waves of cavalry assaults by the Kan Army scattered them like this. When the Ao Bing forces charge, they are doomed."

Qiao Fa, shaken by the military’s aura of lethal hostility, was speechless.

However, one of the Sword Sect disciples with an amputated arm was the first to recover, staring at Tie Dan.

"Ao Bing? Reqi?"

Tie Dan didn’t hide anything, honestly explaining,

"After Emperor Wu, the world rarely used troops, the military was deteriorating, rotational service more often not in time, guards gradually absconding. Consequently, the deterioration increased, and the guards couldn’t supply.

Thus Duke Kan cleaned up all recruits and guards, abolished the guards within the Capital and the Outer Territory, the military, and the commonfolk, replacing them with the long-term guards from Kan State, obtaining 200,000 men, called Long-term Guards, who rotated eight shifts a year, and then selected the brave and skilled in riding and archery, called ’Reqi’."

At this moment, the ground began to shake as if a mountain was collapsing or the earth splitting open. Large numbers of cavalry surrounded the iron carriage formation, galloping counterclockwise.

They arranged nine men per post, about a hundred men per flag, calculating nine flags constituting a battalion, commanding five battalions forming a formation, assembling three formations to charge the main army.

They charged up to within ten steps of the Gen Army formation to shoot, "Bang bang bang," the bowstrings vibrated sound like thunder, "whoosh whoosh whoosh," the heavy arrows cut through the wind like spears.

A rain of arrows poured down like thunder striking, piercing armor, shattering bones, and splitting flesh, while the assault cavalry swept through like a whirlwind, wheeling and galloping away.

This strike didn’t end with just one wave; it was one formation retreating, the second assaulting, the third preparing, round and round, repeating over and over. They sent javelin-like heavy arrows with Gang Qi empowerment, bombarding like hailstones.

"To be chosen as Reqi, one must at least draw twelve bowstrings consistently, ride and draw simultaneously, and charge the formation nine times, then switch horses and replenish Qi to qualify. In such a twenty-round successive charge, even mountain holds of guards would be trampled, then the Ao Bing forces would charge in."

Tie Dan looked around, pointing to the northeast, where the main formation of the Kan Army’s left wing stood, motionless as a mountain, like an iron curtain of heavy cavalry.

"Ao Bing speeds like the wind, Reqi flies forward; when the Reqi charge, scattering the enemy formation, the entrenched war soldiers surge like a flood, using iron cavalry, heavy hammers, war axes to crush the scattering fleeing remnants into meat paste, trample into a bloody mud. These men, whether on horseback or on foot, can wear Iron Armor and fight a whole day without stopping. With only 3,000, they are enough to drive through a hundred thousand."

Observing the army of Genzhou, they were indeed collapsing under the pressure of the Reqi, just as Tie Dan described. The dark line on the horizon, simultaneously like a bursting mountain flood, like iron rods or heavy hammers, swept in from the right wing, pushing them towards their inevitable demise.

Qiao Fa stood there dumbfounded, taking a long moment before swallowing hard, muttering,

"Such a formidable army... Perhaps only the Light Cavalry under the Great General’s command during Emperor Wu’s time, sweeping across Yin Mountain, could withstand them..."

Tie Dan cast him a sideways glance,

"They are the Light Cavalry brought out by the Great General."