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"Advance!"
Huang Cheng roared loudly, taking a step forward.
The towering, mountain-like modao battle formation moved forward in unison. The armor plates on their bodies clattered noisily. The enemy blood splattered all over them flowed down through the gaps in the scale armor, dripping onto the ground already dyed a deep crimson.
Shattered spearheads and broken war blades, scattered fingers and severed arms, exposed brains and marrow, and the vividly colored hearts, livers, and intestines strewn about—these elements outlined a zone of death around the modao formation. When the modao formation made its first appearance before the people of the Han Dynasty, it presented this terrifying tableau painted in flesh and blood.
In truth, Huang Cheng and his men's modao formation drills were not yet fully mastered. At the very least, they still dared not stand too close to each other, leaving some margin and gaps. Moreover, they could not yet achieve a wave-like, layered advance…
The "Wu weng, wu weng" sound persisted. The White Wave soldiers watched as these evil spirits slowly advanced step by step. The spinning blade-light seemed like the claws and fangs of demons, reaching out for them.
The pungent, nauseating stench of blood, the internal organs flung to the roadside by centrifugal force—all seemed to be saying the same thing:
You will be next to die!
The White Wave soldiers had seen life and death before; most were not like raw recruits, afraid of dying. But the thought of meeting the same fate as those piles of minced meat before them was something they simply could not accept in their hearts.
No one knew who started it. The White Wave soldiers let out a collective shout, turned around, and fled towards the city gate…
The utterly terrified White Wave soldiers pushed and shoved each other, jostling and crowding, frantically fighting for a path to escape. A few of Hu Cai's personal guards at the rear instinctively raised their blades, trying to drive the fleeing soldiers back, only to be immediately swarmed and hacked to death by the panicked mob!
The morale of the White Wave army plummeted to freezing point. Every soldier who had witnessed this brutal scene now thought only of escape. They only wanted to run faster, to be further ahead, to outrun the man next to them…
Anyone in the way was pushed aside; if pushing didn't work, they used their blades!
The fear of the demonic horde behind far outweighed their already extremely loose military discipline. At this moment, the ordinary White Wave soldiers no longer cared who stood before them. Anyone who dared obstruct their escape would die by their hand first!
Hu Cai finally snapped out of his daze. Seeing the rout was now irreversible, he wasted no words. He turned and fled with his remaining personal guards…
Hu Cai had just scrambled down from the city wall, not yet having time to mount his horse, when he felt an abnormal tremor in the earth. He looked around hastily and suddenly spotted a large force of cavalry emerging from somewhere east of Pingyang City. They had already formed a wedge-shaped assault formation and were driving straight into the chaotic, panicking White Wave army!
"Damn it all! Do you even let a man live?!" Hu Cai let out a shrill, despairing cry…
Even if Hu Cai had the intention to rally his troops and resist, it was already too late to make any adjustments to the formation. He could only watch helplessly as this cavalry unit plunged into the utterly disorganized White Wave ranks…
Ma Yue, upon receiving the beacon fire signal from Fei Qian, had rushed to Pingyang.
For a man, running over ten li might leave him gasping for breath. But for warhorses, a ten-li trot was merely loosening up the muscles and bones, just a warm-up. Only upon reaching the foot of Pingyang City did they unleash their full power for the charge!
The hundred-odd Bingzhou veterans charged in silence, not uttering a word. Relying on each other and the speed of their horses, they barely needed to swing their ring-pommel sabers with great force. They only needed to grip the hilts firmly, holding the blades horizontally alongside their mounts. The blade edge was positioned perfectly at the chest and neck height of the White Wave soldiers. Like farmers using rakes to gather grains spread on flat ground, they effortlessly ploughed furrows of flesh and blood.
As for the four hundred-plus Hu cavalrymen, they emitted various incomprehensible whoops and cries of "O yoyo," twisting and turning on their horses, swinging their blades in flourishes. Having spent the majority of their lives on horseback, they seemed utterly unconcerned about falling off. They casually slashed and cut at any White Wave soldier within reach. When their blood was up and their blades couldn't reach, some would even hang their sabers, grab their bows, and start shooting arrows.
If the White Wave army retreating from the city walls still retained some semblance of an organized force, then now, after being pierced through by Ma Yue's cavalry charge, they completely disintegrated into a scattered mess…
When Fei Qian, surrounded by Huang Cheng and his heavy-armored modao soldiers, stood atop the city wall, and when that unique three-colored commander's banner of the entire Han realm was raised high over the dilapidated Pingyang County town, both the Han soldiers originally under Fei Qian and the later-recruited Hu soldiers on and below the walls raised their weapons in unison. They erupted in cheers, paying tribute to Fei Qian!
Fei Qian himself let out a long sigh of relief, half from the pressure of the battle situation, half from the financial pressure.
This victory was less a product of clever planning and more a triumph achieved through sheer financial weight, like a later-era tall, rich, handsome man effortlessly crushing a short, poor, ugly one. This world was fundamentally unfair from the start.
Fei Qian had brought seventeen hundred men. Over a hundred were Bingzhou veterans, around five hundred were Hu cavalry, and the rest were infantry.
In terms of provisions alone, these men consumed about a hundred dan of grain per day. Adding in the hay, beans, and other supplements for the horses, the average daily expenditure exceeded forty thousand coins!
Furthermore, the thirty-odd sheep brought earlier had been eaten down to only about ten. Including salt, dried salted meat, and other such items, all these pure expenses added up. For Fei Qian's troops to be stationed in Pingyang for one day basically required spending nearly fifty thousand coins!
This money was eaten, gone.
Apart from the extra excrement and urine produced each day, nothing remained to prove this wealth had ever existed.
Huang Cheng's heavy-armored modao troops had stunned the entire battlefield the moment they appeared. But it must also be understood that the cost of equipping one such soldier from head to toe, on average, could equip fifteen armored regular infantrymen. If not providing iron armor, only giving a spearhead, then it could equip at least sixty to eighty men!
Was it worth it?
Yes.
A single heavy-armored modao soldier might not necessarily defeat twenty or thirty regular infantrymen. Because no matter the protection, there were still areas like arm joints, the back, and the soles of the feet that armor could not fully defend. Moreover, the heavy armor restricted mobility. If one fell, it would be a disaster.
But heavy-armored modao soldiers, once formed into a battle formation, could easily withstand ten or twenty times their number in ordinary soldiers. In specific terrain, they could even cut down thirty or forty times their number without issue, much like the Spartan warriors holding the pass at Thermopylae, rendering a hundred thousand troops powerless…
Greater numbers did indeed confer an advantage to a certain extent, but this advantage was not omnipotent. Just like the White Wave army below the city walls, they indeed outnumbered Fei Qian's own forces by two or three times. But now, they were like a panicked flock of sheep, driven into a corner with nowhere to run.
Money spent could not be spent in vain. Some profit had to be recouped; otherwise, one would inevitably grow poorer with each battle.
Now was precisely the time to reap the dividends of war. Fei Qian issued his command to Ma Yue below the city walls…