Chapter 372: Possessed
The frontier army camp south of Jutie Mountain has now become the Iron Buddha camp. After lunch, in the central army tent, You Bingjun was listening to a report from an Iron Buddha general.
"...The timber at Jutie Mountain should last only one more day, but by then they will have frozen to death."
After the Iron Buddha general finished his report, he did not hear any response from You Bingjun. He looked up and saw the old man sitting there with his head down, sleeping, drooling.
He didn't dare to say anything. He left the tent and said to another general waiting outside, "General You...fell asleep again."
The general said, "Although General You is a trusted confidant of our master, he's over sixty years old. Age makes him less energetic, and there's nothing we can do about it if he's prone to sleepiness. We just need to hold this place and prevent the Jutie Mountain army from getting through. If they chop all the firewood on the mountain in a day, they'll all freeze to death. There's no point in sending troops to attack them."
"My dear brother, you are right... General Jiao's reinforcements should have reached Your Majesty by now, right?"
"It's been a day and a night, the fighting should have already begun... Your Majesty originally had 70,000 men, and with the addition of those 50,000, he can win even if he just uses a bunch of men."
As the two men were talking in low voices, an unarmored Iron Pagoda soldier hurried over and said, "Two commanders, quickly report to General You that the enemy troops are descending the mountain and forming their battle array!"
Everyone hurried in to wake up You Bingjun and inform him of the situation at Jutie Mountain.
You Bingjun yawned, stood up and said, "Formation? Are they desperate and decided to fight to the death? Let's go and take a look."
He left the tent and climbed the watchtower. He saw a large number of border troops rushing out of Jutie Mountain Pass. There were 12,000 of them, a black mass, and they were forming a battle line. His old eyes were blurry and he could not see clearly. He pulled the general next to him and said:
"Check for me. Are they not wearing armor? Are they carrying wooden poles on their backs?"
The general craned his neck to take a closer look, nodding repeatedly. "That's right, General You. These soldiers have no armor or weapons. Some seem to be carrying wooden spears... and some are holding something black... what look like iron ingots?"
This was the first time anyone had seen this scene, and all the Iron Buddha generals present couldn't help but burst out laughing.
This person laughed so hard that he couldn't breathe. He said, "This is totally unheard of. They don't have any weapons, but they actually come out to fight with wooden spears and iron ingots?"
The one who laughed so hard his stomach hurt said, "If we fight without armor or weapons, the enemy will probably surrender, right?"
It was the first time You Bingjun had seen such a scene. He laughed so hard that his beard trembled. He waved his hands and said, "We don't accept surrender. The enemy has 40,000 soldiers. We can't take so many prisoners. Send the Iron Buddha out of the camp immediately and kill them all."
He was worried that if he took in the prisoners, if 40,000 people started a riot in the camp, his soldiers would be unable to suppress it. The Iron Pagoda soldiers could not wear armor all day, and without the protection of armor, the Iron Pagoda soldiers would not be much more powerful than the enemy soldiers.
An Iron Pagoda general said, "General You, there are currently two thousand Iron Pagoda soldiers in armor, and the rest are resting. Can we let these soldiers go?"
You Bingjun said, "Our Iron Buddha soldiers are worth a hundred to one, so even these two thousand soldiers are enough. Send out."
As the low horn sounded, the camp gate slowly opened to both sides. The Iron Pagoda soldiers in black armor, holding long spears in their hands, rushed out of the camp on their horses, like a black snake covered with spikes, swimming towards the border troops in formation.
The hooves of the Iron Pagoda's war horses were particularly heavy. The combined rumbling sounds of the two thousand horses made the ground tremble slightly.
Shen Yuexi rode her horse through the border troops' formation and arrived in front of them. The pebbles on the ground beneath her feet bounced back and forth, making her feel nervous and uneasy. This battle was crucial. If they couldn't defeat the Iron Pagoda, all the firewood on the mountain would be cut down by tonight. No one could survive such a cold winter in the wild.
She looked up at the Iron Pagodas standing in formation across from her, turned her horse around, and galloped past the long line of border troops, shouting as she ran, "Soldiers, have you all remembered my orders?"
"Hit them hard," the two thousand frontier soldiers at the front shouted, "turn around and run."
These border guards were all strong men, led by Wei Liang. With the exception of Wei Liang, who rode on horseback, all wore cotton-padded jackets and trousers, their heads bare. Each carried a five-jin (1500-pound) iron ingot. The front line consisted of four rows of five hundred men, each standing two meters apart.
Shen Yuexi nodded and shouted to Wei Liang, "General Wei, everyone must maintain formation and not crowd together."
Wei Liang raised his hand, patted his chest, and shouted, "Leave it to me!"
Seeing the high morale of the troops, Shen Yuexi was satisfied and walked around the front army holding the iron ingots. He rode his horse in a circle and came to the rear army carrying wooden spears.
The rear army consisted of 10,000 men, also without armor or helmets, led by General Qi Shengjue. Each soldier carried two sharpened wooden spears. They did not stand scattered like the 2,000 soldiers in the front, but formed 500 square formations with 20 men in each.
"Soldiers, do you understand what you should do?" Shen Yuexi rode his horse past the phalanx of soldiers.
"clear!"
The shouts of ten thousand people were so loud that the sound was carried directly to the Iron Pagoda camp by the wind.
You Bingjun squinted his old eyes and looked at Shen Yuexi, who was riding a white horse opposite him with her hair flying, and said to himself, "What is this girl yelling about? What is she smashing?"
The general beside him said, "General You, no matter what tricks they play, they can't stop our Iron Pagoda's charge. Just watch from here... Look, General You, our Iron Pagoda has begun its charge."
On the field, two thousand Iron Pagoda soldiers formed two rows and began to charge towards the border troops on the opposite side with the sound of heavy hooves.
Wei Liang raised the iron ingot in his hand and shouted, "Kill!" Then he led the charge towards the Iron Pagoda. Behind him, two thousand border guards also raised iron ingots and shouted as they charged.
On the top of Jutie Mountain, Zhao Mu ignored his injuries, covered his abdominal wound and watched the two armies fighting below the mountain, muttering to himself: "It all depends on this battle."
On the flat ground below the mountain, the Iron Pagoda and the border troops drew closer. An Iron Pagoda soldier rushed to the front of the line, holding his halberd flat, the gleaming tip of the halberd pointed at the charging border soldier, intending to pierce him through the heart with one halberd.
The border guard soldier raised the iron ingot in his hand and threw it at him like a stone. As soon as the iron ingot was released from his hand, the border guard soldier turned around and started running back.
The iron ingot hadn't been aimed at all, and the Iron Pagoda soldier didn't even need to tilt his body for the ingot to hit him. He was just urging his horse forward with confidence when he found that the iron ingot had turned a corner in the air and stuck to his helmet, making his head buzz.
This iron ingot looks to weigh only five or six pounds, and seems to be used to make a sword. How could it be stuck to the helmet?
Five or six pounds wasn't considered heavy, but it wasn't light either, especially for someone like him who was already wearing fifty or sixty pounds of armor. If he didn't take it off quickly, his neck would be hurt. He just raised his hand to pick it up when another iron ingot flew towards him and hit his chest with a "snap."
Pah pah pah…
The warhorse neighed loudly, bent its legs and knelt on the ground, throwing off the Iron Pagoda soldier covered with iron ingots. It thought: It was already hard enough, and now my master has suddenly become so heavy, I can't hold on at all.
The Iron Pagoda soldier lying on the ground was covered in a pile of iron ingots, unable to even sit up. He tried to pick them up, but his palm was also sucked by the iron ingots.
In just one encounter, hundreds of Iron Pagodas in the front were crushed to the ground by the weight of the iron ingots.
At this moment, the border soldiers holding wooden spears passed the people throwing iron ingots and rushed up. Twenty people formed a square formation, holding sharpened wooden spears, and stabbed them at the gaps in the armor of the fallen iron pagoda.
Although the Iron Buddha's black armor provided tight protection, some areas were still unprotected. The eyes needed space for observation, and the wrists, waist, knees, and other areas that required bending and movement could not be armored, becoming targets for the wooden spears. Although the wooden spears were not iron, they could still cause serious damage if sharpened.
For a moment, the screams of people and the neighing of horses on the battlefield were intertwined, dust was flying, and chaos was rampant.
Doctor You, who was observing from the watchtower, saw the Iron Pagoda soldiers and horses falling to the ground, hundreds of them collapsing at once. Confused as to what had happened, he pointed anxiously at the battlefield and shouted, "What's going on? So many people fell at once?"
The Iron Buddha generals who were watching the battle were also at a loss. One of them said, "He was fine just now. Could he have been possessed by an evil spirit?"
"Hurry, let the people behind rush over to help!" You Bingjun slapped the railing and shouted.
The Iron Pagodas charging from behind on the battlefield saw that those in front had fallen to the ground, and they also didn't understand what had happened. They all rushed towards the border troops with their long spears. Someone rushed to the fallen Iron Pagoda, and with a snap, he and his horse fell on the fallen Iron Pagoda soldier and stuck together tightly, as if those Iron Pagodas had a huge suction force.
The border soldiers nearby would naturally not let them off easily. They pulled out their blood-stained wooden spears and continued stabbing.
You Bingjun was horrified and kept asking, "How could this happen? Is he really possessed? Why aren't their soldiers affected at all?"
Shen Yuexi watched from behind as two thousand Iron Pagodas on the battlefield fell to the ground with almost no power to fight back, and she couldn't help but beam with joy.
Big Bear transformed all the iron ingots into powerful magnets. Ten of these ingots weighed fifty kilograms, and the Iron Pagoda couldn't stand up, leaving it vulnerable to being torpedoed. The once rampant Iron Pagoda was finally subdued by her.
She turned around excitedly, waved to Zhao Mu on the top of the mountain, and shouted, "General, we won. Let's move on to the next step!"
Zhao Mu was overjoyed, almost forgetting the pain of his wound. He turned around and shouted to the ten thousand frontier soldiers in the valley, all decked out in armor and fully equipped with weapons, "Princess An succeeded. Men, go retake our camp!"
The border soldiers responded with a roar, pouring out of the mountain pass like a tide, bypassing the battlefield in front of them and charging towards the enemy camp.
From the watchtower, You Bingjun watched as his own Iron Pagoda army was completely annihilated, and another army from the opposite side burst out from the mountain pass and rushed towards him. He stamped his feet in anxiety and shouted, "Hurry, get the rest of the Iron Pagoda army to put on their armor, quickly..."
Wearing the Black Light Armor was extremely tiring and time-consuming. While the Iron Pagoda soldiers in the camp were still frantically putting on their armor, a large number of border troops had already broken through the camp gate and rushed in.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com