Chapter 563 - The Decisive Battle! The Whitestone Corps!
Chapter 563: The Decisive Battle! The Whitestone Corps!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Neigh!
Horses neighed in the roaring winds. Once the conversation between Xianyu Zhongtong and Dalun Ruozan concluded, the entire mountain was surrounded in turbulent air currents and an extremely tense atmosphere.
The neighing of warhorses, the thundering of war drums, and the blaring of horns all served to bring the tension to its peak.
Though the faces of the Mengshe Zhao soldiers were obscured under their helmets, the tightness with which they gripped their pikes revealed their true emotions.
Nearby, the Tibetan soldiers who were famed for their ferocity and courage were doing no better. Their constantly blinking eyes amply revealed the unease of these soldiers of the plateau.
The Great Tang at its full flourish had left an indelible impression on Ü-Tsang. When they were still children, they had heard tales about how the Great Tang soldiers had killed their way onto the plateau, even getting close to the Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple for a time.
But that was a matter from very long ago, and even the Emperor had been a different one.
The Tibetans had originally forgotten about these memories. Just yesterday, they had even been laughing at the Tang. But the fifty thousand deaths had made these eagles of the plateau remember their past sorrows.
Although no one believed that the Annan Protectorate army could defeat the five hundred thousand soldiers of the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army, there was no doubt that it was an opponent worthy of their respect.
“Move out!”
Dalun Ruozan, Huoshu Huicang, Duan Gequan, and Geluofeng, the four leaders of the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang army, lined up their horses and faced the mountain, swiftly issuing the order to attack.
“Kiiiill!”
Their cries shook the heavens as the earth quaked. Thousands of fully-armored soldiers, as vast as the sea, began to surge toward the final stronghold of the Great Tang. Surprisingly, however, the first wave of attackers did not consist of the pugnacious Tibetan cavalry, but the soldiers of Mengshe Zhao!
“Ready! Shields!”
With a set of sharp signals, massive steel shields were suddenly raised to the sky like countless fish scales. At the same time, there was a clattering of metal as war halos began to emerge from these large shields.
The Halo of Tenacity, the Halo of Defense, the Black Iron Halo, the Tempering Halo, the Charging Halo, the Attack Halo… thousands of halos began to resonate, their sounds mixing together.
In an instant, an enormous fighting intent exploded out of the Mengshe Zhao soldiers. And in the sky above the shield-bearing soldiers, space began to twist as the image of a massive stone began to manifest, shining with a milky-white light.
When this massive stone appeared, the Mengshe Zhao army took on a completely different tone. It seemed to become much steadier and weightier.
“The Whitestone Corps!”
As Wang Chong looked down from the summit and saw that white stone slowly manifest over the Mengshe Zhao soldiers on the front line, his expression instantly turned grave.
“Geluofeng is burning with ambition, and he’s truly been training quite the number of soldiers in these last few years! The quality of these soldiers is still lacking when compared to the Annan Protectorate army, but they’re already quite similar in a few aspects.”
The Whitestone Corps was one of the elite corps that Geluofeng had trained.
Although Wang Chong had never encountered it before, it had a thunderous reputation. These soldiers had played no small part in the battle of Erhai. The Whitestone Corps was also the largest of Mengshe Zhao’s army corps, numbering one hundred thousand.
Rumble! The world quaked as the tidy infantry ranks of the Whitestone Corps began to divide into squares. Through a slow but steady march, they began to approach the summit from all sides.
Upon seeing this, both Wang Chong and the other commanders on the mountain couldn’t help but widen their eyes.
In both their marching style and use of shields, Mengshe Zhao’s Whitestone Corps is acting almost exactly like an army of the Great Tang. Back then, the Sage Emperor in his kindness provided Mengshe Zhao with many things, including methods to train soldiers and knowledge of formations. But now, Geluofeng is using these things to deal with the Great Tang. This fellow has truly put a lot of thought into his schemes!
As Wang Chong’s sleeves flapped in the wind, his mind was buzzing with thoughts. With this similar style of army, Geluofeng’s understanding of the Great Tang, and the fact that the Tang were fighting on foreign territory, it was no wonder that the Annan Protectorate army had suffered such a devastating defeat.
Alas, Geluofeng, you encountered me!
As he looked down the mountain, Wang Chong’s eyes turned cold and hard. The art of war was about confusing the false and the true. If Geluofeng truly believed that just by defeating the Great Tang once, he could defeat them twice, then he was making a grave mistake.
“Get ready!”
Raising his right hand, Wang Chong swiftly gave his first order. With this order, the air began to rumble as halo after dazzling halo began to ripple out from the mountain.
The one hundred thousand Tang soldiers began to unleash their different halos. Their forces stretched from the summit to the base, all of them behind the layers of steel walls. In a flash, the original mountain disappeared, replaced by a mountain of steel formed from men and walls.
Killing intent and dangerous energies roiled around the mountain, and the Great Tang army exuded a dignified and somber air. All of these soldiers exuded the odor that could only come from well-trained soldiers who had experienced hundreds of battles, the smell of emotionless iron and blood.
Anyone who saw this army would be able to feel that hair-raising strength and demeanor. These thousands of soldiers stood like solemn statues, none of them making a noise, as if all of them were part of the same body.
The strength of thousands had fused into one. This sort of quality was not something an ordinary army could achieve.
At this moment, the one hundred thousand Tang soldiers on the summit were showing traces of that Great Tang which had once swept through the world without equal.
More than one hundred thousand soldiers of the Annan Protectorate army had died in the battle of Erhai, but the soldiers that remained had not only failed to crumble, they had grown even stronger.
“These people…”
At the base of the mountain, the Mengshe–Ü-Tsang commanders couldn’t help but widen their eyes at this sight.
Even though they stood on opposing sides, they had to admit that the Great Tang’s systematic training produced high-quality soldiers that probably not even the Tibetans could match.
If it weren’t for the fact that cavalry were naturally superior to infantry and the fact that Ü-Tsang possessed the most cavalry, the southwestern war might have ended with a completely different result.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
As they roared, the thousands of soldiers of the Whitestone Corps used the cover of their shields to slowly approach.
From the mountain came the creaking of countless mechanisms.
While the Mengshe Zhao army was rapidly advancing, the Tang army remained as unmoving as statues. Their cold and bright gazes continued to stare down the mountain.
This combination of movement and stillness only seemed to increase the pressure.
Fifty zhang!
Forty zhang!
Thirty zhang!
Twenty zhang!
……
The air was fraught with tension. Whether it was on the summit or at the base of the mountain, whether Tang, Mengshe, or Tibetan, all the commanders had focused their attention on the place where the lines of the army would first clash.
Finally…
Boom!
With a massive boom, the front ranks of the Whitestone Corp finally met with the Tang ranks and fell into a melee.
“Kiiiill!”
“Kiiiill!”
Soldiers on both sides bellowed. In the instant the two armies clashed, Mengshe Zhao and Great Tang soldiers were cut down like stalks of wheat.
Such was the harvest… From the very start, the battle had reached an extremely intense and callous state.