The north wind blew bleak and cold, carrying powder smoke and the souls of the dead away into the distance.

Under the cover of the cannon and the catapults, the musket battalion had already fought its way in at the gate.

Bang! Bang! Bang!!!

With a sound like a peal of thunder, bullets went out thick as rain.

The troops holding the gate went down like wheat under the sickle.

The gate tunnel was only so wide. They had nowhere to run and made perfect targets.

Blood sprayed, and the dead were heaped in mounds.

The musket battalion and the infantry charged forward over the bodies, their boots dyed red with blood, leaving a bloody print at every step.

“Lay down your weapons and surrender, or be cut down where you stand!”

Ning Chen bellowed.

The runners passed Ning Chen’s order on without a break.

The enemy troops holding the gate threw down their weapons.

Men had already begun to surrender.

They were all the Great Xuan’s own people. They had been driven to this and had never wanted to go over to the enemy and betray their country, never wanted to die a stranger’s death far from home with their souls left nowhere to rest and their families pointed at behind their backs afterward.

And besides, there was no standing against the muskets in the other side’s hands.

What was more, a good many of the men on the two sides knew one another — men from the same villages, friends, boys who had grown up together and enlisted together and only ended up in different camps.

Most of the men on both sides had no wish to fight this battle at all, but a military order is a mountain.

There were the fighters among them too, of course, and the Grand Tutor’s own guard.

The Grand Tutor had promised them rank and riches.

If this battle were won, they would live out their days in silk and delicacies.

But for any man who put his back to the wall and fought on, what waited was a bullet. Ning Chen’s men would not indulge them.

The musket battalion charged hardest of all. They counted as Ning Chen’s own guard, and they were not going to shame him.

The gunfire never let up.

They rolled straight over everything and through the gate.

The stairs up onto the wall had originally been on the inside of the city. They had been moved to the outside.

Once the musket battalion was through, it split at once into several parties, laid down suppressing fire with the muskets, and led the infantry up the various stairways toward the top of the wall.

They killed their way up, and the stairs were piled with bodies, and blood ran down the steps.

Ning Chen’s men reached the top of the wall.

Bang! Bang! Bang!!!

In that storm of shot, the enemy troops charging at them went down in swathes.

“Surrender and live!”

“Surrender and live!”

“Surrender and live!”

Ning Chen’s heralds shouted it at the wall without stopping.

Zhao Bokang’s old face was iron-gray and his eyes were bloodshot, and he shouted himself raw. “Kill! Kill every one of them for me! Any man who shrinks from the fight, behead him! Any man who runs from the fight, behead him!”

The supervisors’ battalion drove the soldiers forward.

Blood dyed the wall, and the noise of the killing shook the sky.

The cannon and the catapults had both stopped.

Their own men were up on the wall now, and firing again would only hit them.

The wall was only so wide, and the enemy came swarming.

The musket battalion no longer had time to reload.

They put up their muskets, drew their long blades, and it was hand-to-hand.

In a situation like that, it comes down to whose life is tough enough.

“Mu Anbang takes the archer battalion out of the city to guard against Wu reinforcements.”

“Lei An, get the cannon battalion outside the walls for me and find their armory and their grain stores. Wait for my order!”

“Everyone else, charge with me!”

Ning Chen put his horse through the gate.

Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng stayed close on either side of him.

Up on the wall, Ning Chen laid about him with his blade.

On a battlefield the men are packed together and there is hardly room for technique at all. It comes down to one thing — cutting.

Cutting for your life, cutting whatever it costs. Kill the enemy and you get to live.

Ning Chen gripped his blade and hacked like a madman.

The sword Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng had given him was indeed uncommonly sharp.

One stroke of it would open a man’s armor.

Warm blood sprayed and dyed his face and his clothes red.

Ning Chen, Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng carried everything before them.

Their objective was plain enough: to take the bandits, take their king first. Take Zhao Bokang and the war could be brought to a stop.

Before he ever climbed the wall, Ning Chen had fixed Zhao Bokang’s position.

The three of them swung their blades and drove forward like men possessed.

But there were simply too many men, and the three of them were soon separated.

Ning Chen hacked his way along, closing on Zhao Bokang.

Zhao Bokang had seen him too.

When enemies meet, their eyes turn red.

The Empress’s brother had been cut down by Ning Chen with one stroke, and his daughter had been given the poisoned cup because of Ning Chen.

Zhao Bokang drew his blade and came at Ning Chen, brushing aside the men guarding him.

His thinking was the same as Ning Chen’s.

Cut down the commander first and the other side’s spirit would break.

At present Ning Chen’s men had the upper hand outright.

After that battle outside Mangzhou, the Grand Tutor’s troops had been broken past holding, and Ning Chen’s men were a shadow on their minds now. Their spirit was not what it should be.

Kill Ning Chen and all of it would be solved.

Ning Chen cut down the enemy nearest him and charged straight at the Grand Tutor.

There was nothing fancy about it. Both of them swung at the other’s head at the same moment.

Clang!!!

The scream of metal on metal, and sparks flew.

Both men were driven staggering backward by the other’s strength.

Ning Chen was startled. He had not expected an old man of that age to have such force in him.

When two meet on a narrow road the bolder man wins.

To flinch at a moment like that is to die.

Blades flashed, and fists and feet went with them.

Zhao Bokang’s skill was formidable, and his strength was not what a man of his years should have had.

Perhaps the sight of his enemy had brought out something in him he had never had before.

Clang!!!

The two blades slammed together.

The shock split the web of Ning Chen’s hand, and the blade nearly went out of his grip.

Zhao Bokang had come off no better. Blood was running down his own hand.

“Ning Chen, you destroyed my son and my daughter. Today this old man will cut you into ten thousand pieces.”

Ning Chen’s eyes were full of murder. “They deserved to die, and so do you!”

“Zhao Bokang, even if you win this battle you will be the Great Xuan’s criminal for all time. You will be nailed to the pillar of shame in the histories and stink for ten thousand years.”

Zhao Bokang swung at him and roared, “The winner is a king and the loser is a bandit. History is written by the men who win. When this old man has cut you into ten thousand pieces and led an army into the capital, I’d like to see who dares set down one word against him in the histories.”

Ning Chen swung and knocked the other man’s blade aside.

He said nothing more, because Zhao Bokang was right.

History is written by the winners.

Zhao Bokang was ferocious past belief, hacking at Ning Chen like a madman, every stroke heavy and driving.

As Ning Chen went to strike back, a body underfoot caught at him, and in the emergency all he could do was throw the blade up to block.

Clang! Clang! Clang!!!

Three strokes from Zhao Bokang, one after another, every one of them with all his strength behind it.

The third came down and left Ning Chen’s arm numb with the shock.

Zhao Bokang put every ounce of strength he had into a sudden press, and the edge went into Ning Chen’s shoulder.

Zhao Bokang let out a snarling laugh.

“Little bastard with the milk not dry on you — today you die on this wall.”

Ning Chen roared, dropped low, and rolled along the ground.

Zhao Bokang gave a muffled grunt and staggered backward. There was a dagger buried in his thigh.

Ning Chen took the chance to swing the long blade and cut savagely at him.

Zhao Bokang brought his own blade across to hold the stroke off.

Ning Chen roared, put his whole body into it, and drove Zhao Bokang steadily backward.

Zhao Bokang glanced behind him. Another step back and he would go off the wall.

He put everything he had into holding Ning Chen off — but with the wound in his leg, and his years on him after all, he could not hold him.

“Die!”

Ning Chen drove a foot into his belly, meaning to kick him off the wall.

Zhao Bokang was a hard man in his own right. He simply let go of his blade, and Ning Chen’s edge went into his shoulder.

And Zhao Bokang took the chance to lock his arms around the leg Ning Chen had not had time to pull back — and the two of them went off the top of the wall together and fell.

The wall was in chaos, with men going off it constantly, so nobody noticed it happen at all.

Thud! Thud!!!

Ning Chen and Zhao Bokang struck the ground below the wall.

How Zhao Bokang came out of it, nobody knew.

But Ning Chen was knocked out cold on the spot.

(End of Chapter 275)