Bang! Bang! Bang!!!

The muskets spat tongues of fire, and countless sharp arrows flew at the enemy along with them.

The Tuoluo had never seen a musket in their lives. All they knew was that after the thing let out its thunderclap, men of theirs went down.

In a few short minutes several hundred of them were lying in pools of blood.

The Tuoluo were afraid.

They fell back in a panic.

“Fire! Don’t spare the bullets!”

Ning Chen roared it.

With every thunderclap, more Tuoluo soldiers went down.

The two thousand on the outer ring — in the blink of an eye, how many of them were left?

The King of the Left Court came up with men to support them.

Before he could even make out how many of the enemy there were, the noise of the muskets drove a stabbing pain through his eardrums and set his head humming.

The soldiers in front of him went down in great swaths.

The King of the Left Court was not some useless creature who cared for nothing but his pleasures. In fact he had real ability.

He had held the North Royal Court for better than ten years, and gone raiding the Great Xuan border year after year, and the soldiers of the Great Xuan had never found any answer to him.

This year the snow had not let up and food and supplies were desperately short, so he had decided to pull off something big.

Small raids no longer satisfied him. He wanted to draw Liang Jingwu out, take him, and then ride the momentum of it and bring down Beilin Pass.

In his eyes the soldiers of the Great Xuan were worthless, every one of them.

Set against the savagery and blood-thirst of the Tuoluo soldiers, the Great Xuan soldiers really were far behind in what their bodies could do. If the Great Xuan soldiers went without their machines and fought it out in earnest, blade against blade, it commonly went two for one.

But never in his dreams had he imagined that the moment his army left, while his own strength was hollowed out, soldiers of the Great Xuan would appear at his North Royal Court like ghosts.

Where had these men sprung from?

And what were those things in their hands? Every time the great noise came, his soldiers fell.

Besides muskets, there were crossbows.

Used together, the two worked better still.

Whip!

A soldier standing beside the King of the Left Court took an arrow between the eyes.

The King of the Left Court shuddered and came to himself all at once.

Just then Ning Chen shouted, “Lay down your weapons and your lives will be spared… Any man who resists will be cut down where he stands!”

Having shouted it, Ning Chen turned his head and asked Pan Yucheng, “You think they can understand a word I’m saying?”

Before Pan Yucheng could open his mouth, a voice came from the other side: “May I ask who you are, sir?”

“Well, well… That man speaks pretty good Great Xuan!”

Ning Chen muttered it, and was about to answer, when Yuan Long bellowed at the top of his voice:

“This is our Great Xuan’s immortal of poetry, a silver coat of the Inspectorate, the General of the Northern Expedition appointed by the Emperor of the Great Xuan himself — Ning Chen.”

“You are advised to lay down your weapons and surrender at once… Fail in that, and you’ll be killed where you stand!”

Ning Chen shot Yuan Long a sour look. Silver coat of the Inspectorate, General of the Northern Expedition appointed by His Majesty — those he’d admit to… but immortal of poetry was pure nonsense.

Every poem he had was freeloaded off somebody else. Every time a man called him an immortal of poetry his face burned.

A voice came back from the other side. “Ning Chen? Never heard of him.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. He smiled coldly and said, “Never heard of me? That’s easily fixed. I’ll introduce myself properly.”

With that he swept his hand out.

“Fire. Give it to them hard.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!!!

In that terrible crash of noise the bullets flew out like rain, and the Tuoluo soldiers went down in swaths.

The King of the Left Court roared, “Fall back!”

Ning Chen gave the order to run them down.

The Tuoluo soldiers pulled back.

There were felt tents everywhere, and in ground like that muskets and crossbow bolts were badly hampered.

“All of you, hear the order. Use the musket if you can use the musket, use the bolt if you can use the bolt… Nobody fights hand to hand unless there’s no other way left.”

“Yes!”

The thousand soldiers carried everything before them.

This fight was too satisfying for words. The enemy had nothing at all to answer with.

Up to this point not one of them had even been wounded.

Was this a battle? This was plainly one side crushing the other.

That musket General Ning had cobbled together was tremendously useful. The sound alone was enough to strike an enemy stupid.

“Yuan Long. Take two hundred men and attack from the left.”

“Old Feng. Take two hundred men and attack from the right.”

“Old Pan. Take two hundred men and go around behind for me. Don’t let the King of the Left Court get away.”

“All of you hear me. Don’t spare the powder or the bolts… If they won’t lay down their weapons, shoot them dead.”

“The rest of you, attack the front with me.”

Ning Chen drew his blade and pointed it forward.

“General Ning, the King of the Left Court’s royal tent is on the right. Your right is the front.”

The scout put the reminder in quickly.

Ning Chen’s face froze. He was a little embarrassed.

There were so many felt tents here that he had lost his sense of direction.

Ning Chen turned around and swiped a hand across the scout’s scalp. “You and your big mouth. You and your big mouth… Can’t you say it quietly? Shouting like that — don’t I have any face to keep?”

The scout covered his head, not daring to dodge, and looked thoroughly wronged.

Ning Chen pointed his blade to the right. “Attack. See an enemy, shoot him, don’t hesitate… The moment you’ve fired, get back, and the man behind you comes up.”

The thunderclaps went on rolling above the North Royal Court.

Four parties closed in on the King of the Left Court’s royal tent.

The Tuoluo soldiers had had the courage frightened out of them by the muskets. They had never seen anything so terrible in their lives.

They mounted several charges, and every time, before they could so much as get close, the muskets knocked them down.

Of the seven thousand and more Tuoluo soldiers, just about half were gone by now.

The rest closed around the King of the Left Court and were driven back step by step to the royal tent.

Ning Chen’s men surrounded the King of the Left Court’s royal tent.

The Tuoluo soldiers stared in terror at the black iron things in the Great Xuan soldiers’ hands, and at the crossbows.

Ning Chen strode forward and said sharply, “King of the Left Court. If you don’t want to watch the rest of your men die, have them lay down their weapons and kneel and surrender.”

“I’ll count to three. If they haven’t laid down their weapons by then, I’ll send every one of them to hell.”

“One.”

“Two.”

Just as Ning Chen was about to call three, the door curtain of the felt tent lifted and the King of the Left Court came out.

“So you’re the King of the Left Court?”

The King of the Left Court held his head up. “I am!”

“You’re the one who called out to me just now?”

The King of the Left Court nodded.

Ning Chen asked mildly, “And do you know now who I am?”

The King of the Left Court stared at Ning Chen, and a great deal was going on behind his eyes. He had been beaten by a boy.

“I want to know where you people sprang from.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Ever hear of soldiers sent down from heaven? We came down out of the sky.”

The King of the Left Court looked at Ning Chen for a while, then said:

“It seems you used the clothes on your backs to get past my scouts and my spies.”

Ning Chen gave a light smile. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you lost.”

“Ning Chen. I’ll remember you… I never once thought that soldiers of the Great Xuan would turn up at my North Royal Court.”

Ning Chen said coldly, “What you never thought was that the soldiers of my Great Xuan would have the nerve to attack your North Royal Court… I’ll say it one last time. Have your men lay down their weapons.”

“I can surrender. But you have to promise me you’ll treat my soldiers well.”

Ning Chen said heavily, “You’re the general of a beaten army. What standing do you have to make terms with me… Have them lay down their weapons, or I’ll kill you where you stand!”

The King of the Left Court’s face went livid. He looked coldly at Ning Chen.

Murder rose in Ning Chen’s eyes. He raised his hand slowly. The moment that hand came down, the muskets would speak.

“Lay down your weapons, all of you!”

The King of the Left Court did not dare hold out any longer, and shouted it loudly.

(End of Chapter 163)