Chapter 362 The Weapon
The Tao of Heaven’s secret region had been opened, and Li Ye who was present had been sucked in. But Li Keyong, who was in Taiyuan City at that time, was not even “called”.
The Imperial Army’s crusade against Hedong was originally a four-army coalition, comprised of different vassal states and different minds. The reason why they were able to act in unison was Li Ye’s will. Now that Li Ye was absent, Liu Dazheng, who was capable of commanding Ping Lu Army with his prestige, was far from being enough to deter the other three armies.
The present was naturally the best time for the Hedong Army to counterattack the Imperial Army.
Looking at the camp that stretched out to the end of Li Keyong’s field of vision, he was determined, “Li Ye fought against the men and led the four rebel armies to attack me in Hedong. My troops and civilians in Hedong have suffered countless deaths and injuries. Fortunately, the Gods have opened their eyes. They made him disappear before everyone’s eyes during the critical period of the battle. The Gods have given me and Hedong the perfect opportunity to counter the rebels.”
Grand Guardian Fu Cunshen was full of concern. “Right now, the rebel army is powerful, with a force of 400,000 men. After a series of battles in Hedong, I don’t even have half that number. Wouldn’t it be unwise for me to attack the city now?”
Li Keyong sneered. “Although the rebel army has 400,000 men, however, the vassal states are not united. Our Hedong Army on the other hand is very united and only needs to storm the Pinglu army camp. As for the other three armies, send some soldiers and horses to restrain them. Currently, Li Ye is not in the army, the vassal states, Zhaoyi, Henghai, and Tianping states, although they would listen to Liu Dazheng’s order, but only superficially.”
“Unlike when Li Ye was here, the states desperately wanted to prove themselves then, so they all charged to attack. Now that Li Ye is nowhere to be seen, self-protection has become their priority. They no longer want to risk themselves!”
Fu Cunshen clasped his fist in salute and said, “Very wise，Your Highness!”
In fact, Li Keyong’s words were very clear. When Li Ye was in the army, he led the armies to consecutive victories and the states had confidence, so they won every battle. Now Li Ye is not there, the vassal states did not have the same confidence in Liu Dazheng, thus they were not willing to take any risks.
Li Keyong turned around and looked at everyone, whose eyes were like iron. “Taiyuan’s fate is tied to this battle! People of Hedong are strong and brave; we have terrific soldiers and brave warriors. Can we really not defeat the Pinglu army? The battle will be tomorrow, and we will defeat the Pinglu army!”
Inside the large tent of the Pinglu army camp, Liu Dazheng and several soldiers were discussing battle plans.
Although Li Ye had left the camp, the tent where the Central Government of the army was positioned had to continue to operate. Liu Dazheng temporarily assumed the role of commander, and naturally became the temporary leader.
But Liu Dazheng had never sat on the Host’s Seat of tent when he was dealing with various military affairs. He just moved the official documents to his usual position.
At midnight, Liu Dazheng had not gone to rest. Suddenly a sergeant rushed to report outside the tent. There was a change in Taiyuan City.
Liu Dazheng left the big tent and went to the watchtower. He surveyed Taiyuan City. As expected, he saw people everywhere. There seemed to be a large number of soldiers and horses moving. In order to facilitate the observation of the city, the watchtower of the Pinglu Army was built much higher than the Taiyuan city wall, but he still couldn’t see everything because of the angle it was built on.
After confirming the abnormality, Liu Dazheng didn’t hesitate. When he returned to the big tent, he instructed to convene a military meeting.
The generals soon arrived. Liu Dazheng first reported the situation, and then added, “Your Highness is not in the army, and the three armies lack a strong commander. This is the best time for Hedong to counterattack. Now it seems that Li Keyong is indeed ready to attack. Let’s get ready for tomorrow.”
After Li Ye, Feihong Bodhisattva and others entered the secret region. The Great Cultivators inside and outside Taiyuan City had all left. Without the impediment of Great Cultivators, now the two armies were back arguing and fighting among each other. No one was willing to take a step back.
The next day, Liu Dazheng gathered his troops early to prepare for the battle.
Before eleven o’clock, the gate of Taiyuan was wide open. First, thousands of elites stepped out amid the dust. They were separated into two flanks to control the terrain, and then rolled out thousands of infantry armored soldiers. They gathered in the middle of elites, set the formation, and formed a complete military formation.
This process repeated many times. Before noon, there were more than a dozen military formations outside the walls of Taiyuan City, most of which were placed in the direction of the Pinglu Army.
As soon as Liu Dazheng saw this situation, he knew that the Hedong Army was about to attack. It was impossible for Li Keyong to fool around at this time, so he too ordered the Pinglu army to leave the camp and set formation on the open space outside the camp to get ready for battle.
The Pinglu army would naturally not be afraid of the attack of the Hedong army. Even if their numbers were inferior, Liu Dazheng would take them head-on. The passive tactics of defending the army camps were the same as defending a city. They would only resort to defense when they were absolutely inferior and had no choice.
When the troops were out of the camp, Liu Dazheng rode his horse to the front of the formation and looked at the Hedong Army’s formation.
Amid the endless iron-armored wall, an extraordinary martial general was surrounded by dozens of soldiers in bright clothes. Behind him, a huge yellow flag fluttered in the wind, showing the identity of the commander. It was indeed Li Keyong.
Sun rays sprinkled on Li Keyong, who was wearing a golden helmet and armor, making him look like a God. Before the ministry formation, he roamed amongst the army and faced the Hedong solders. He gave a brief and passionate speech to inspire the morale of the army.
Liu Dazheng was doing the same thing.
The inspirational speeches were quickly completed. After all, they had all sworn their oaths at the meeting. Thus there was not much morale boosting left to do.
The war drums were roaring, and the Hedong Army took the lead in launching an attack. The formation of infantry bulged out, and approached the Pinglu Army steadily.
The neat steps of tens of thousands of soldiers stomped on the ground, the smoke was rolling, the ground was shaking, and the sound of footsteps combined with the sound of drums, beating people’s hearts. Even the soldiers’ heartbeats could not help but follow the rhythm.
The formation of infantry in Pinglu Army matched up with them. The elites slowly walked on the two side flanks, the pace was the same as that of the infantry soldiers. Their mission was not to charge the formation, but guard either flank and defend the opposing cavalry.
A few miles away, the two armies walked for quite a long time.
The two sides were now only a few hundred steps apart. After reaching roughly the charging distance, the drums of the two sides suddenly became louder and denser. The iron armored formation that steadily moved forward gradually accelerated, and finally the soldiers roared and ran, assaulting the opposing formation.
The two groups intersected and the soldiers at the front were pushing their shields with their bodies and smashing it against the opponent.
During the fierce clash, some people stepped back and some fell down. And gaps began appearing in the tight formation. The weapons now had room for action. The soldiers who followed them stabbed with spears in their hands.
The dreaded yelling drowned everything.
The two armies were locked in a fierce battle, but Liu Dazheng was not in it. As the commander, what he needed to do now was to assume personal command in the middle of the town and make arrangements for all the fronts.
Liu Dazheng was confident that the military power of the Pinglu Army was not something the Hedong Army could currently match up to.
The opponent did have the numbers advantage, but only slightly. Before the numbers advantage could be in full effect, the Pinglu army could break through the opponent’s formation and defeat them.
Two hours passed, and the development was similar to what Liu Dazheng expected. The Pinglu Army gradually gained the upper hand and gained momentum.
“Although the Highness had left for a while, the military strength of the three armies was still apparent. How can the Hedong Army win so easily?” As Liu Dazheng thought so, a smile appeared on his face.
But just then, the formation of the Hedong Army changed.
The morale of several suppressed army formations suddenly rose sharply. At the top of the middle of the 3,000-person Military Formation, a stream of lights lit up as if they were a whole, forming an iron armored giant. After that, the Military Formation had greatly increased its attack power.
Liu Dazheng frowned slightly, of course he knew that it was warriors of the Hedong Army demonstrating their courage and power.
Thirteen Grand Guardians of the Hedong Army, although not all of them were warriors, and along the way he and Shangguan Qingcheng beheaded several of them, there were still three or four warriors left.
However, in the Pinglu army, only Liu Dazheng and Shangguan Qingcheng were military warriors of Militarism.
This was not surprising. Hedong Army was built on the Northern Border Army and Shatuo Army, both of whom were border troops. It was a matter of course that more warriors would appear in the successive years of war. The Pinglu Army on the other hand had just been through the Huang Chao Uprising.
“When they faced off against the Hedong Army warriors in the past, it was the Highness that dispatched the troops personally. He would focus his attack on just a single direction and build a formation-arrangement advantage. After defeating the opponent, he would turn to another direction and balance out the number of warriors on the other battle lines. The Hedong Army would not have placed all their warriors on the field, thus their disadvantage pertaining to the number of warriors were not as apparent, but now...” A chief of staff looked at Liu Dazheng with concern.
Of course, Liu Dazheng knew what he meant.
Right now, the whole army had come out and joined the fray. The Hedong Army had the warriors to command the army. The disadvantages would be offset and they had the upper hand. In order to win the battle, the Pinglu army must first kill the warriors of the opponents.
“General Shangguan, please cooperate with me to fight!” Liu Dazheng made a prompt decision.
The Hedong Army had three generals, and Shangguan Qingcheng was alone. Even if she could win, she would be exhausted after attacking them one by one, and not to mention that time was not on their side.
Soon, Liu Dazheng and Shangguan Qingcheng led the ministry to the formation, replacing the soldiers who had been suppressed by the Hedong Army, and launched a counterattack against the Hedong Army.
With the addition of Liu Dazheng and Shangguan Qingcheng, the situation immediately changed. It didn’t take long for the Hedong Army’s generals in front of the two to be overwhelmed. And the light from the formation gradually faded with the risk of breaking at any time.
There were only two warriors in the Pinglu Army, which was less than that of the Hedong Army and Xuanwu Army. But Liu Dazheng and Shangguan Qingcheng were not ordinary warriors.
The former was already a general as early as the Li Xian era. And he had always been the deputy commander of the Pinglu army. The latter was from a family of warriors. She grew up in the army thus had accumulated a lot of experience.
The two of them took the lead in charging the Formation and the Pinglu army was sure to win.
It could be seen that even though Li Ye was not in the army right now, his shaping of the Pinglu Army had already been very effective. And this result would not just disappear in a vacuum.
In this battle, it was not so easy for the Hedong Army to win against the Pinglu Army. At least they had to come up with an extraordinary weapon.
Did the Hedong Army have such a weapon?
They did.
Li Cunxiao, the senior general of Militarism, was just that.
But now Li Cunxiao was idle at home.
Was there anyone else in Hedong Army who could bear the burden of determining the result of the war when the two armies were locked in battle?
There was another person.
Famous since his tender youth, it was Li Keyong himself.
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