Book 51: Chapter 13: Fighting Everywhere Over A Thousand Miles
Book 51: Chapter 13: Fighting Everywhere Over A Thousand Miles
Book 51 Chapter 13 – Fighting Everywhere Over A Thousand Miles[1]
The three, as swift as an arrow or a dart, rushed along the river bank toward the region of forest. Li Shimin’s method in sealing off the river was really beyond their expectation; previously they thought that by crashing their way through the barrier, they would have the hope of escaping. Who would have thought that they were thoroughly crushed by sharp wooden stake formation hidden in the river course?
Based on the speed of their legs’ power, in a short range they could beat a fast horse, but in staking everything over a long-distance race, sooner or later the horse would overtake them. The worst part was that in a long-distance dash without any rest like this, the wear and tear to the true energy was substantial, hence it would weaken their fighting power. Translated by foxs
If there was no falcon pursuing them from the sky, they could still fully use all kinds of tactics to confuse the enemy, to break away from the enemy, but now their escaping route was fully exposed, they were unable to find a solution, the situation was extremely unfavorable to them.
They did not dare to leave the Luo River, because if necessary, they wanted to be able to jump back into the river to temporarily avoid the enemy.
The forest region was still about a li away.
The pursuing troops along both banks of the river maintained their speed; they were still following them precisely at a distance of about one li, which brought about a huge threat to them, just like an amulet [religious object conferring blessing] hounding them to death.
Suddenly Xu Ziling cried in low voice, “There are enemies inside the forest ahead!”
Kou Zhong and Ba Fenghan were shocked. If there was no way going forward, there were only two options remaining: one was to turn west and go back to Luoyang, the other was to jump into the Luo River. Naturally returning to Luoyang would not be feasible, jumping into the river might not necessarily work either, because the enemy, who seemed to lie in wait ahead since they could predict without being a clairvoyant – definitely would not forget the river course.
Ba Fenghan sighed and said, “I finally admit that Li Shimin’s means is formidable.”
“This way!” Xu Ziling shouted. He changed direction toward the northwest, hoping to circumvent the place where the enemy was lying in wait ahead, and run to the extended-continuously mountain and fields behind the forest.
The sound of battle drums arose, several hundred riders rushed out of the forest, the sound of shouting shook the sky as they charged to kill them.
The three sighed inwardly, but they knew that at least they avoided the disaster of having arrows and darts piercing their body, otherwise, if they entered the range of the enemy’s arrows, with the bare plain outside the forest and several hundred archers shot at the same target, even with their skill, it would be difficult to be lucky.
The two sides were really racing against each other with everything they got; the enemy riders were striving to intercept them before they escaped to the distant mountains, while they, by all means, had to rush ahead of the enemy and flee to the distance. Translated by foxs
The pursuing riders behind left the Luo River, chipping away at the task and not abandoning it [idiom: persevering] wildly chasing from the back.
Momentarily the sound of battle cry sprang up everywhere, the sound of hoof beats rumbled, shaking the earth. The falcon hovered in high altitude above the three men, marking their correct position for the enemies in the distant.
Seeing the unfavorable tendency, Xu Ziling, who was leading in the front, speculated inwardly that even if they could rush one step ahead to be in front of the enemy, it would still be impossible to throw off the other side, if the enemy on horseback bent their bows and put on the arrows, then they could release the dart toward their back. If that happened, they would be too busy to block the arrows to continue to run, sooner or later the enemy would be able to catch up.
Thinking to this point, he hardened his heart and shouted, “We break through this side!” He changed direction to cut across, to go back toward the region of forest where the enemy lay in wait for them earlier, straight toward the enemy’s tail.
The enemy riders’ general shouted his order, the enemy riders reined their horse to change direction, hence their formation also changed, now it became like spreading wings to close in toward them, but the disposition of troops was not chaotic, still as flexible as the gods’ praises, fully displaying the Tang Army’s superior training. This team of soldiers numbered around five hundred, they were the one-in-a-hundred choice troops within the Tang Army, their reaction and their riding skill, none was not of the best quality.
The enemy riders changed formation again to become half-moon shape, coming to envelope them from the northwest, while their target, the region of forest, was directly to the north.
‘Swish! Swish!’ the darts rang, several hundreds of long arrows shot out of the powerful bows, raining down, hiding the sky and covering the earth, from straight ahead and from the left side.
The three suddenly raised a mouthful of true qi, they soared high to evade most of the powerful arrows, the remainders, while they continued running, were parried and knocked down to the ground by either the sword, the saber, or by bare hands.
Kou Zhong was on the left, the outermost of their formation, hence he bore the brunt. Although his hands and his saber moved together, his shoulder was tragically hit by an arrow; fortunately, just when the arrow dart entered his flesh, the true qi protecting his body reacted naturally, squeezing the arrowhead out of his flesh, but his blood was gushing, so that he must apply his power to stop the bleeding.
Suddenly, the three charged into the enemy’s original back of the line, all around were entirely the like-wolves-and-tigers enemy riders, sabers and lances were stabbing and hacking straight toward their faces.
Ba Fenghan accelerated forward, so that he became the front end of the triangular formation. The Stealing the Heaven Sword put the efficacy of the cultivation in the desert in full display, the sword moved like the wind, carrying cold and severe storm of the qi power, wherever the enemy met the sword, there was always someone fell off the horseback, any enemy rider entered the sword momentum would definitely splash his blood and fall to the ground. Translated by foxs
The enemy closed in from four sides, eight directions. The pursuing troops, which were originally running along the river, rushed to about twenty paces away. If they were surrounded by the enemy from two sides, which totaled about two thousand men, the consequences would really be too horrible to contemplate.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling gave everything they had; maintaining the triangular formation was really not an easy thing to do, but this was the only way to make Ba Fenghan not have any fears of trouble from the rear, and thus they would be able to go all-out to break the siege and run away to the mountain forest.
In such a close, physical combat, in the battlefield where saber light and lance shadow were everywhere, even their eyes were quite useless, they had to purely rely on their senses and their body and mind, and their exceptional, super-human responses to deal with the enemy’s assault and to strike back. Furthermore, they absolutely must not let the enemy entered their formation, otherwise, once they were separated and unable to move their hands and feet, it would be very difficult to deal with the other enemies’ attack, and then they would not be able to move even for a hairsbreadth.
Kou Zhong’s Moon in the Well moved up and down, turned over and flew. It was not clear whether the flowing blood was his own or the enemy’s, he only knew that he had to exhaust his capability to lighten the injury that the chopping and hacking enemies’ swords and axes brought about to his body. On the other hand, he was certain that his own saber would bring about the most effective fatal injury to the enemy.
Xu Ziling’s two hands were like transforming into thousand and hundred pairs of hands. Each punch blocked the enemy’s weapon, the spiraling energy was sent out with a nearly explosive power, none of the enemies did not spurt out blood, fall and fly out.
Where the triangular formation passed through, men fell face up, horses turned over, the dead and the injured were everywhere, blood were all over, shocking the eye, astonishing the heart.
Suddenly the sound of battle cry sprang up from all around behind them. Another team of pursuing troops finally arrived.
Even with his firm and persistent, not-pulling-out perseverance, Ba Fenghan was killing his way out until he was a bit heart-weary, strength-worn-out. While a dejected could-not-kill-them-all feeling was welling up in their heart, suddenly the pressure lightened; turned out they have broken out the enemy’s heavy siege.
Blood-soaked all over their bodies, the three silently cried, ‘Thank Heaven and thank the Earth!’ They quickly soared into the air, and threw themselves into the mountain forest, which was only about a hundred paces away.
The three fell to the ground at the same time, they lay down by a stream in the depth of the mountain forest. Translated by foxs
Kou Zhong looked up to the night sky. Panting heavily, he said, “Who can count how many wounds there are on me? Ay! I still have the saber on my back, why would I complain about my injury? However, we have not seen the worst battle yet.”
Smiling bitterly, Ba Fenghan said, “Being able to pick our little life back, we could be considered very lucky. If you don’t believe me, just look at the beast in the sky.”
The falcon reappeared high in the sky, circling around endlessly.
While circulating his qi to treat the nine wounds on his body, a burst of feeling of weakness powerfully attacked Xu Ziling’s heart and mind; he really wished he could give up everything and have a nice sleep. He sighed and said, “We must cross the Great River before dawn, otherwise tomorrow morning we might fall into the enemy’s heavy siege again.”
Kou Zhong rolled over on the ground repeatedly several times, and tumbled into the water of the creek; he groaned, “Quickly come into the water, let us join hands to treat our injuries. We have not encountered the enemy’s real martial art masters, and already we are this useless. I cannot believe it.”
Ba Fenghan struggled hard to crawl into the stream, he said, “Don’t be unduly humble; we could escape here, it can be considered not bad at all. Just now we must have encountered the specially-selected elite troops of the Tang Army, their hands are amazingly really strong.”
‘Splosh!’
Ba Fenghan’s entire body sank to the bottom of the stream.
Swaying and staggering, Xu Ziling stood up and said, “Compared with Li Shimin’s Dark Armored Troops whose name shook the world, this bunch is at most the second-best elite troops. Aiyo!” Bumping against some random trees by the creek, Xu Ziling fell into the stream in a ‘lying down scallion’ style.
After going through numerous hard works, the three stood in the water with joined hands. The creek water reached between their chest and belly, dissolving the bloodstain and polluting the water rushing down the stream.
Kou Zhong said, “There are still more than two sichen away from daybreak, let’s not pay attention to anything, we’ll spend half a sichen to treat his Niang’s injury, and then rush at full speed to the Great River, we’ll bet on our luck.”
After several cycles, the true qi within the three bodies gradually condensed.
Actually, the three had ample experience in real combat, they had enough insight in using-the-few-to-fight-the-many tangled battle, they were rich in the knowledge of bloody battle technique to avoid the important and dwell on the trivial, so that they could successfully strike the enemy while keeping the injury on themselves to the minimum; therefore, although they were wounded and weary, there was not a single wound more serious than muscles and bones. It was just because they had been desperately running away plus the endless bloody battle that the wear and tear to their true energy was really substantial, that their body weary, their strength exhausted. Nothing more! Translated by foxs
This time, they joined hands to treat their injury was different from before, simply because each one of them had forged ahead vigorously and made break through, so that in the blink of an eye the three-way true qi blended like water and milk, as it cycled through the meridians and acupoints in their entire body.
Something unprecedented happened. The three streams of true qi unexpectedly succeeded in flowing together. Ba Fenghan’s true qi was in the middle, Kou Zhong’s cold qi and Xu Ziling’s hot qi wound around and rolled Ba Fenghan’s true qi as they traveled along, no longer like before where each qi was flowing individually as they cycled side by side. The rolled up true qi was everywhere; not only the meridians were expanding one step further, all the acupoints were swelling open in waves even more.
With each cycle, big or small, that the true qi took in their body, it surged faster and more abundant, just like the tide from one side of the shore rushing forth toward the opposite shore of the ocean, coming and going, back and forth, so unspeakably free and comfortable, all matter and self were entire forgotten.
After nobody knew how long, Xu Ziling was the first to come to his senses, he felt that the true qi in his entire body was surging and swelling until it nearly split apart; crying ‘Not good!’ inwardly, he knew that it was the sign that the qi power has flourished to the fire-deviation level. This moment, the true qi roaming around their bodies was entirely flowing into his system, while both Ba Fenghan and Kou Zhong were blushing scarlet to the tip of their ears, they were on the brink of having their meridians collapsing. A sudden inspiration appeared in his mind, he absorbed the true qi entirely into his dan tian, and then he sent it to the sole of his both feet.
‘Boom!’
Water column rose up from the stream, bringing the three men along shooting high into the sky.
Only this moment Kou Zhong and Ba Fenghan came to their senses. Together with Xu Ziling, they all fell heavily to the shore, stars were dancing in their eyes, they were dazed and disoriented.
Kou Zhong moaned as he crawled up, looked up to the sky first, and then cried out, “What a close call! It’s not daybreak yet, what’s going on here?”
From lying next to Xu Ziling, Ba Fenghan sat his tiger-body up, rubbed his eyes and said, “It was really dangerous, but it has nothing to do with whether the sky is bright or dark. Too far is as bad as not enough [idiom from the Analects]; because each of us has made progress, the meridians are expanded to the biggest limit. Were it not for Ziling is sharp-witted and promptly stopped the circulation, we would surely have breathed our last.”
Xu Ziling crawled up, spat a small mouthful of blood, and said with a laugh, “This mouthful of blood is worth it; henceforth, we need not join hands in cultivating our power, otherwise Da Luo Jin Xian wouldn’t be able to save us.”
Concerned, Kou Zhong asked, “You didn’t suffer internal injuries, did you?”
Xu Ziling shook his head and said, “Not only no internal injury, my power is making another breakthrough. Look! Your eyes and Old Ba’s are sharper than before; furthermore, it’s that kind of sharpness that is hidden and not revealed.”
Ba Fenghan sprang up from the ground, fast as lightning he drew the Stealing the Heaven Sword, and slashed it three times in succession. Translated by foxs
Speechless, Kou Zhong said, “These three sword-strikes of yours are especially better than before, completely without any gap and flaw, they indeed carried a stealing-the-heaven flavor.”
Ba Fenghan returned the sword into its sheath, he said, “Not only our power was exhausted and then recovered, our meridians are expanded to the limit of human’s capability. Starting from tonight, we will continue to advance to the peak of the martial art way. Crossing the Great River will be the first lesson in the final stage of the self-cultivation.”
The two boys rose up to their full height, they all felt substantial improvement in their essence, qi and spirit, totally different from before.
Stretching his muscles and bones, Kou Zhong said, “After absorbing the different capability from the Jade Annulus of He Clan, all the way until today, it was only now that I realized the real success of accomplishment. The course of events within which, only the three of us knew; even if we tell it to the world, I am afraid no one can understand. Brothers! Let’s get moving!”
The three passed through the forest and crossed the field, they traveled at full speed, heading toward the north.
Surprisingly, they no longer saw any shadow of the falcon in the sky, but they knew in their heart that the falcon was only unable to find them for the time being, it could still reappear any moment. Before crossing the Great River, they were still in danger.
Out of the woods, a wide panorama suddenly opened up before their eyes. The Great River, like a giant dragon surging forward and whirling around, was raging through the mountains, over the mountain ridges, flowing from the west, straight across ahead. The water crashed against the rocky shore by the river, creating splashes of water that became droplets filling the air. The roaring sound of the waves was like the rumbling noise of ten thousand horses running wild, or like a giant dragon rousing the waves, making people gasping in amazement.
Kou Zhong pounced down to the shore in great delight, “We are finally here!” he cried in exultation.
Ba Fenghan and Xu Ziling were overcome with a hard-won sense of accomplishment. Under Li Shimin’s meticulous deployment, more than a hundred thousand main forces’ heavy siege, they could still break out the enclosure and reach this place.
Quite naturally, Kou Zhong looked up to the sky and sucked in a mouthful of cold air, saying, “My Niang! Here we go again!”
The falcon reappeared in the sky. Translated by foxs
Clenching his teeth, Ba Fenghan said, “Let’s cross the river first and talk about it later!”
Suddenly the left side of the Great River lit up, a huge ship with tall mast sailed speedily with the current. The three you looked at me I gazed at you, momentarily their troop disposition was thrown into chaos, without any room to advance or to retreat.
Li Shimin’s long laughter came from atop the giant ship, “Shaoshuai, Ziling Xiong, and Fenghan Xiong were able to break through to here, it is indeed very hard to come by. Why don’t you come on board for a moment, we all drink a cup of watered wine before fighting, to have peaceful measures before using force?”
Focusing their eyes to look, the three saw Li Shimin, sitting in an imperial tutor chair on the bridge on the bow, with a crowd of martial art masters and high-ranking military officers standing behind him, including Li Yuanji, Mei Xun, Kang Qiaoli, Li Shiji, Luo Shixin, Shi Wanbao, Li Shentong, Zhangsun Wuji, Yuchi Jingde, Xue Wanche, Li Nantian, Feng Liben, Pang Yu, and other seven or eight high-ranking military officers that they did not know their names, but they did not see Qin Shubao, Cheng Yaojin, or any high-ranking military officers who had friendly relationship with them. The guards on the ship were Li Shimin’s most elite Dark Armored Warriors.
Looking at this, the three men’s scalp went numb; how were they going to break through this barrier?
[1] Chapter title: idiom – constant fighting across the country/never-ending struggle.