Chapter 131: Battle of the Hillside (Part VII)

Covering the short distance, the mounts stationed on the hillside practically leaped forward the moment they broke through the wagon barricade. Because Zhang Wu had failed to issue timely commands, his bandit soldiers were left entirely reactive. Led by Ding Li, over a dozen horsemen closed the distance in an instant, four sabers flashing through the air as gushing arcs of blood erupted.

Charging at a wild gallop, Zhang Wu's bandits did not dare to meet their sharp edge head-on. Especially since Zhang Wu himself was still cowering behind several shield-bearers, refusing to show his face to give orders. Deprived of leadership, the group of bandits seemed suddenly robbed of their souls. Relying merely on a dozen riders, Ding Li easily tore a gap through Zhang Wu's defensive line. After a single sweeping cycle of over a dozen sabers, at least twenty bandits broke rank and fled in panic, leaving seven or eight more corpses sprawled upon the ground.

"Hold them off! Will you lot hold them off!" Zhang Wu peeked his head out from behind the shields for a fleeting glance, only to find the thinly manned defensive line cleaved completely in two. He stamped his feet in exasperation and hurled curses, though his furious rants were already tinged with a whimper. Immediately afterward, he shrank back beneath the protection of the shield-bearers—he had no desire to be pierced through the throat by an elite archer behind the wagon barricade and meet his end here.

Yet, at this moment, the person Zhang Wu hated most was not Ding Li and his men who had broken out of the barricade, but Qin Mo, who was pinning down his elder brother, Scarface Zhang, in the rear. While Zhang Wu lacked the courage to stick his neck out and command his men, he dared to turn around and assess the situation behind him.

Qin Mo's situation was, in truth, far from comfortable. Including the cavalrymen belonging to Wang Qing whom he had just rallied, Qin Mo currently had barely more than a dozen riders by his side. Yet, instead of seizing the opportunity to flee, fueled by the fury of losing his fallen comrades, he pointed his spear directly at Scarface Zhang, the man who had stabbed them in the back.

Scarface Zhang had only a little over a dozen personal guard cavalrymen with him, while the remaining hundred-odd men were all on foot. Launching a sneak attack and raining arrows from behind Qin Mo’s cavalry had undoubtedly been devastatingly effective. However, the moment Qin Mo charged his troops straight into their midst, Scarface Zhang’s archers instantly cracked under pressure, forced to discard their bows and hastily draw blades and spears for self-defense.

Nonetheless, those who remained by Qin Mo's side had just narrowly cheated death, and their combat capabilities were far from weak. Combined with the sheer momentum of a cavalry charge, they carved completely through Scarface Zhang's ranks in the blink of an eye. This left Scarface Zhang wailing in anguish from atop his saddle, but it also forced him to quickly rally his remaining mounted guards and hastily cobble together a fresh squad of a dozen or so archers.

Outside the wagon barricade on the slope, Zhang Wu's bandits were not yet ready to completely collapse under the impact of Ding Li's charge, but Zhang Wu stubbornly refused to show himself and issue commands. Still, this proved to be an exceptionally sensible choice: Blackie, perched upon a cart, kept his short crossbow constantly trained on Zhang Wu's position. The moment Zhang Wu dared to rashly expose himself, death would be practically guaranteed.

"Quickly, break through!" Li Shan, behind the wagon barricade, rallied another squad of over a dozen men. Under the covering fire of a volley of bows and crossbows, they surged past the wagon barrier once more to launch a fresh breakout. This time, however, it was significantly easier. Through the gap previously torn open by Ding Li and his men, the weapons in the hands of the dozen-plus fighters swung with reckless abandon, widening the breach by several yards.

Following closely behind, a much larger breakout party finally completed its assembly, consisting of over thirty cart drivers and a sizable contingent of miscellaneous laborers. Naturally, the charge was spearheaded by a dozen Zhang family guards wielding cavalry lances. The method of the breakout mirrored the previous one precisely—surging forward under the suppression of the archers and crossbowmen against the bandits.

The combat effectiveness of this breakout group had not necessarily increased by much, but the sheer size of their numbers genuinely terrified Zhang Wu's bandit soldiers. It was a force comparable to their own in headcount, descending upon them in a cavalry charge from high ground. They had no way of knowing that the rank of shining, long-spear-wielding cavalrymen was followed merely by ordinary drivers and laborers. Almost instantly, the bandits, who were already struggling to hold their ground, completely cracked. The overwhelming pressure bearing down upon them crushed their ability to resist, causing their psychological defenses to shatter in a split second.

Even if Zhang Wu were to step forward and command them now, he would be utterly powerless to turn the tide, for even the shield-bearers in front of him had begun nervously shuffling their feet, highly likely to join the ranks of their fleeing comrades at any second.

"Brother Blackie! Let's move!" Behind the wagon wall, Li Shan, seated on his horse, watched the dart-throwers and Zhang family guards—having just loosed their final volley of crossbow bolts—leap onto their respective mounts. He hurriedly shouted to Blackie, who was still attempting to snipe Zhang Wu from atop the cart.

"Coming!" Blackie shouted back cheerfully, rising to his feet and making a mock-firing gesture with his short crossbow toward the spot where Zhang Wu was hiding. Glancing at the shield-bearers who kept peeking at him only to hastily retract their heads every time, Blackie smiled disdainfully. He turned, leaped down from the cart onto his mount, and nodded heavily toward the assembled group. "Alright! Let's charge out!"

Qin Mo, having already reached the foot of the hillside, had no intention of simply leading his men away. Scattered across the battlefield behind him lay over thirty life-and-death brothers who had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Though he could leave right now and escape unharmed, he did not know how to face the spirits of his fallen comrades, nor how to face the surviving brothers who still followed behind him.

Scarface Zhang was currently burning with anxiety. He could not fathom where his plan had gone wrong. He vividly remembered that everything from initially provoking Wang Qing into battle to ultimately luring Qin Mo into attacking the main wagon barricade had proceeded with extreme smoothness. Even his younger brother Zhang Wu's sneak attack on Wang Qing had gone off without a single hitch.

Yet now, he found himself forced to deal with Qin Mo's remnant force of barely a dozen men. Scarface Zhang dared not harbor the slightest bit of carelessness; he had witnessed the stellar performance of Qin Mo's cavalry unit during their primary assault on the slope. Compared to his own rabble of a mob, they could practically be called an elite, formidable troop. Furthermore, Qin Mo's earlier vengeful charge had claimed the lives of over twenty of his men, leaving more than ten others with light or heavy injuries. How could Scarface Zhang not feel heartbroken?

The battlefield had been thoroughly torn apart; neither Qin Mo nor Ding Li would afford Scarface Zhang the luxury of grief and introspection. It wasn't just the failure to annihilate Qin Mo in one stroke that shocked Scarface Zhang—the fact that Ding Li and his men had broken through the encirclement on the slope and suddenly appeared at his rear was the most unexpected blow of all.

The dozen-odd men he had just gathered to confront Qin Mo head-on had barely recovered from Scarface Zhang stabbing Qin Mo in the back, only for Scarface Zhang to now be stabbed in the back by Ding Li. A dozen charging, galloping warhorses rushed forward like a gale-force wind. Descending a slope was entirely different from climbing one; not only was there no need to worry about building momentum, but the top speed was actually slightly faster than charging uphill.

The distance of over a hundred paces offered Scarface Zhang's men no time to react. Led by Ding Li, the dozen-plus riders wielded their sabers, carving gleaming cold arcs through the air that were repaid with spurting fountains of blood. As bandit after bandit collapsed, those who still attempted to put up a resistance lost their nerve and dared not make a rash move. Facing the charging horses, they could only scramble desperately to the sides, lest they become ghosts beneath someone's blade.

"Charge! Charge! Block them! There are only a dozen of them!" Anxious to the point of desperation, Scarface Zhang continuously screamed orders, but his cries were not answered by his men fighting valiantly; instead, gripped by fear, they carved out a clear path for Ding Li's small cavalry detachment.

In the blink of an eye, Ding Li's mere dozen men once again cleaved Scarface Zhang's forces into two distinct halves. Although the casualties inflicted were not massive, the psychological deterrence dealt to the bandit army was immense. Especially when the troop that had closely followed Ding Li out of the wagon barricade arrived, the gap torn open by Ding Li's vanguard automatically widened at a rapid pace, miraculously without suffering any additional casualties.

"Hey, across the way! Having someone stab you in the back—doesn't feel too good, does it?" Ding Li brought his men to a halt not far from Qin Mo and his group, reined in his mount to turn around, tilted his chin toward Qin Mo at the lead, and then glanced off toward Scarface Zhang in the distance.

"Hmph!" Qin Mo and his subordinates shot Ding Li a fierce, baleful glare, letting out a cold snort without uttering a word. Instead, they redirected their gaze back toward Scarface Zhang, who was once again attempting to rally his men across the field.

Before Scarface Zhang could even finish reorganizing his forces, Li Shan and Blackie led over thirty riders charging down the slope once more. The sight startled Scarface Zhang so violently that he shuddered, flooding him with deep regret. He even cursed inwardly: *"Truly, one must never play the villain and stab others in the back! Now I'm caught in a pincer attack!"*

"Commander Zhang, this... what should we do now?" A personal guard by Scarface Zhang's side urged his horse forward with a trembling voice, staring at Li Shan and his men who would be upon them in the blink of an eye. Although many of the surrounding bandits had already drawn their bows and nocked arrows, he harbors little belief that Ding Li and Qin Mo—who had just arrived at their rear—would sit idly by and watch.

True to his thought, before Scarface Zhang could formulate a response, Ding Li had already merged the two squads together. Glancing at Qin Mo, who was standing nearby grinding his teeth with bloodshot eyes, Ding Li abruptly issued an invitation: "Brother over there! If you want revenge, let's charge together! Wipe them out, and I guarantee your safety!"

The sole reason Qin Mo had not dared to make a move earlier was entirely on account of Ding Li. Having just experienced being stabbed in the back, how could he possibly dare to rashly launch a charge against Scarface Zhang with Ding Li's faction lurking behind him? Upon hearing Ding Li's words, he whipped his head around to stare fixedly at him, his angry, sword-like brows twitching sharply as he asked in a deep voice, "Is that promise true?!"

"True as gold! A real man's word is worth nine tripods!" Ding Li did not hesitate, nodding heavily with a slight smile. He raised the Tang dao in his hand to gesture before turning back to Qin Mo. "Your men on the left, my men on the right. Encircle them—don't let a single one escape!"

"A man of his word indeed!" Qin Mo was remarkably straightforward, immediately repeating the phrase in a resonant voice. Even as he nodded, he spun his mount around, brandished his long spear toward the men behind him, and let out a resounding roar: "Brothers, charge with me! Avenge our fallen brothers!"

"Brothers, close the ring and join up with Chief Escort Li!" Beside them, Ding Li likewise whipped his mount to the side, shouted a booming order back to his men, and dug his heels into his horse's flanks to lead the charge himself.

"Kill them! Avenge the dead!"

"Charge!"

Though the two small cavalry squads were modest in number, their enraged roars were more than enough to strike terror into the hearts of Scarface Zhang's men. Especially Li Shan's thirty-odd riders thundering down the hillside—they possessed an unstoppable, razor-sharp momentum, shooting toward Scarface Zhang's formation like a bolt of lightning wreathed in rumbling thunder.