The Ning'an Army charged in relays, each rank firing in its turn.

These little runts of Zhaohe watched their own fellows go down like wheat under the sickle, and were struck stupid on the spot.

Before they could take it in, hand grenades were raining out of the sky and landing among them.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!

Great pits were blown in the ground and powder smoke rolled across the field.

Severed limbs flew through the air and the screaming rang against the sky!

The blasts were loud enough to make the deaf hear. They left the Zhaohe soldiers with their heads ringing and their faces white.

After that one baptism of hand grenades, the Ning'an Army closed hand-to-hand with the Zhaohe army.

"Kill! The General's order is to leave no one alive! Kill them hard!"

Yuan Long led the way himself, his rebar shrieking down through the air. A Zhaohe soldier's long thin sword snapped in that instant, and the rebar smashed the man's head to pulp.

The Ning'an Army formed up in a single long line like a snake and drove into the enemy's belly like a keen sword.

The man in front opened the way with his rebar and the man behind shot at long range with a compound bow, the two of them working without a word between them.

The Ning'an Army's terrible fighting strength left the Zhaohe army stunned.

Those strange weapons in their hands had only to come down, and the sword was broken and the man who held it dead.

The noise of the killing shook the sky, and blood ran like a river.

Ning Chen sat his horse and watched the field through the spyglass.

Meanwhile, inside the valley.

Mu Anbang had three thousand-odd officers and men with him, all of them dull-eyed and worn past bearing.

Three days now they had gone short of clothing and short of food, so hungry their hands and feet had gone weak.

The musket fire outside and the noise of the killing brought them all upright at once.

"General Mu, that is the sound of muskets!…