Chapter Nineteen: The Enemy Is Too Cunning

"Clang! Clang!" The sound of clashing metal rang out, piercingly sharp across the battlefield. As Sili Feshe spurred his horse away, the Turkic cavalrymen pulled their reins in unison, swiftly breaking off their engagement. They retreated while maintaining their formation, regrouping into orderly ranks after pulling back only a mile or so before continuing their slow withdrawal.

Standing atop the city walls, Yang Ze, the Administrator of Lingzhou, felt a secret chill. The Turkic soldiers were formidable indeed. Had they launched this assault on Lingzhou back in September, the city would surely have fallen long ago.

Although the Great Tang was not lacking in warhorses, the ratio of cavalry to infantry was heavily skewed. Generally, one Tang prefecture would only organize a single light cavalry regiment; ten prefectures made up an army, totaling only two thousand cavalrymen across ten regiments. In a standard military configuration, cavalry usually comprised one-fourth of the force. Even if your infantry were victorious in a hundred battles, you could never catch the enemy if they chose to run. Conversely, if your infantry were defeated, the enemy would pursue relentlessly, and a single battle could lead to the total annihilation of your army.

"Something is wrong!"

A blood-stained Guo Zihe stared at the now-distant Turkic army. "This is very wrong!"

"What is wrong about it?" Yang Ze asked, puzzled.

Guo Zihe replied, "We are holding on by a thread, as any clear-eyed person can see. Why would the Turks abandon such easy prey?"

"This..." Yang Ze pondered for a moment before suggesting, "Unless our reinforcements have already arrived!"

"That must be it!" Guo Zihe laughed. "We have prayed for the stars and the moon, and at last, the reinforcements have come!"

A soldier guarding Lingzhou called out, "General, where are the reinforcements?"

"Reinforcements!"

At that very moment, as if by magic, a massive force of cavalry suddenly appeared. In truth, they had not just appeared; they had been there all along while the Turks were attacking Lingzhou. This force was the pure cavalry unit organized by the light cavalry regiments of the Right Guard.

In fact, while the Turks were in the heat of their assault on Lingzhou, Luo Shixin had led his light cavalry in several harassing attacks. Though they caused no substantial damage, they provided intermittent relief to the city's defenders. If Sili Feshe had not diverted three thousand cavalry to monitor Luo Shixin’s unit, preventing him from concentrating his full strength on Lingzhou, the city might not have held out.

Seeing the Turks in full retreat, Luo Shixin discarded his camouflage cloak, revealing the standard armor of the Tang army. The sight left the Lingzhou defenders looking as if they had seen ghosts. However, after their initial shock at the sudden, phantom-like appearance of the Tang troops, they noticed the horses were sneezing and breathing white mist; these were clearly living men, not spirits.

A military banner, over eight feet long and six feet wide, snapped in the wind: "Count of Xiuwu, General Zhongwu, Right Guard."

Beneath the banner sat a man on a tall steed, gripping a pitch-black iron spear as thick as a child’s arm, its foot-long tip glinting with a cold light.

At that moment, the thousand cavalrymen outside the city roared in unison: "General Zhongwu, Right Guard of the Heir Apparent, Commander Chen, has arrived under imperial order to provide reinforcement!"

The soldiers and civilians of Lingzhou, who had been trapped and waiting for death, were overjoyed.

Guo Zihe ordered, "Open the gates and welcome our reinforcements!"

Yang Ze said with a grave expression, "General Guo, please be cautious!"

"There is no need for caution; the Turks have already given up!" As Guo Zihe commanded the gates to be opened, he also sent word of this news to Chen Ying.

Sixty miles south of Lingzhou, in Boguli City, Chen Ying had just lain down to rest in the main command tent of the Right Guard. Although the Right Guard had won quite easily, Chen Ying had remained on edge. With Boguli City now secure, a wave of exhaustion washed over him.

Before his active mind could drift into sleep, a flurry of hoofbeats shattered the silence. Fearing the Turks had returned to seize the city, Chen Ying rose immediately. Before he could even don his armor, he received the report that Luo Shixin’s cavalry had secured Lingzhou.

"The siege of Lingzhou is lifted without a fight," Chen Ying said excitedly upon hearing the news. "Announce this victory to the entire army!"

Before long, cheers echoed throughout Boguli City.

"Victory to the Great Tang!"
"Victory to the Great Tang!"
"The Great Tang is mighty!"
"Commander Chen is mighty!"

The officers of the Right Guard, who had also been resting, rose one after another to offer their congratulations. Their initial reaction was one of profound astonishment.

This battle had been shaped by too many coincidental factors to ever be replicated. Furthermore, the Right Guard was a very young force; while some officers had rich combat experience, the rank and file were newcomers to the battlefield.

In their first engagement, they had exceeded their objectives with minimal casualties. The Right Guard had lost only five hundred men, mostly suffering from light or heavy wounds, with the majority of fatalities occurring within the light cavalry. Even including the non-combatant laborers, the total death toll was barely three hundred.

Regardless of the circumstances, it was a glorious victory. Especially at a time when the Great Tang was beset by enemies on all sides, this battle was no less significant than Li Shimin’s campaign to annihilate Xue Renguo. In truth, Li Shimin had also relied heavily on luck in that campaign, facing no fierce resistance—everything had fallen into place as naturally as fruit ripening and dropping from the vine.

The morale of the Right Guard soared to its peak. The bitter, harsh weather could not dampen the high spirits of the troops; even if the Turks were to reappear before them now, the soldiers would draw their blades without a moment's hesitation.

Gao Yunquan looked at Chen Ying with a sour, inexplicable feeling in his heart. The mission to relieve Lingzhou had been daunting, yet Chen Ying had hardly fought a serious battle; the Turks were likely still baffled by how they had lost.

It was not just Gao Yunquan; every officer in the Right Guard envied Chen Ying’s luck.

While Chen Ying’s luck was indeed good, it was merely that—luck. To say he had done nothing would be a lie. Innovations like the snow sleds, snow-terrain camouflage, and the pitfalls dug into the snow were epoch-making changes. If not for Chen Ying, the "butterfly" from another world, even if the Great Tang’s god of war, Li Jing, had come to fight this battle, it would not have been so easy.

Chen Ying’s sleep was ruined. He spent the night drafting a memorial of victory to be sent to Chang'an.

Meanwhile, at Wild Boar Ridge, Sili Feshe fell into deep contemplation. As a Yegu with over thirty thousand troops under his command, Sili Feshe was not the strongest among the four Yegus and twelve Shes. With the loss of Boguli City, Sili had lost over fifteen thousand men, and the battles at Red Mountain Fort and Lingzhou had cost him another four thousand. He now had fewer than ten thousand men left.

Even of those ten thousand remnants, a significant portion were women who lacked combat capability. This defeat was devastating, not only leaving Sili Feshe’s strength shattered but also relegating him to the bottom tier among the four Yegus and twelve Shes.

Sili Feshe carefully recalled his series of engagements with Chen Ying and finally reached a conclusion.

It was not that he was incompetent, but that the enemy was far too cunning.