Chapter Sixteen: The Cavalry's Majesty

  In the fruit forest, Gong Sun Ce once again entered the conscious starry sky. The land here had already reached eight acres in circumference. What he didn't expect was that the eight acres of wasteland were no longer desolate, with streams crisscrossing and green grass reaching his knees. Dai Ji, dressed in a white robe, was feeding a small red horse, and when she saw his figure condense, the little horse stopped eating grass and ran over to him happily.

  Four hooves trampled, head held high, the little horse had an inexplicable aura of spirit. Licking Gong Sun Ce's outstretched palm, it was extremely dependent on him. Upon touching the little horse, Gong Sun Ce only felt a stream of information transmitted from its body, with very few messages, only a part of which were about the experience of riding into battle, and the rest of which introduced the little horse itself, very simple, just two words: Red Hare!

  Daiji dropped the green grass in her hand and washed her hands by the small stream. She complained to Gong Sun Ce who was walking over: "Ungrateful little thing, I pulled out the grass to feed you, and after eating your fill, you don't even give me a reaction, now you're trying to sell cute to me..." Gong Sun Ce sat down by the small stream, knowing that these shallow ditches were dug by Daiji, he just smiled.

  "How did my brother come back so quickly?" Daisy asked, wiping her hands and turning around. Since the five virtues gathered, the consciousness of the starry sky had a concept of space and time, although it was not synchronized with the outside world, but she could observe that the outside world was only in the afternoon at this time. Because the fireball transformed by the fire virtue on top of the consciousness starry sky burned very vigorously, the Big Dipper appeared vaguely.

  Gongsun Zhan had many questions, all of which needed to be explained by Daiji. He asked her directly: "Sister, how much do you know about the Tiger Token and the Symbol Soldiers? I want to dig out more functions of the Tiger Token now, but I don't understand it at all." Then he asked about the upgrade and job transfer of the Symbol Soldiers, as well as the production of the Symbol Horses. Daiji naturally knew a lot about the Tiger Token - after all, she was the one who had been suppressed by it and fallen.

  Daji explained to Gong Sunzhan in a few words, and the upgrade of the Tiger Symbol cannot be separated from killing and military merit. The symbol soldier is also like this, the symbol soldier can level up and change jobs by killing enemies, and the symbol soldier can also obtain military merit. The symbol soldier can also have a title, but these titles can only give them command ability and command knowledge. The title of the symbol soldier can only be upgraded by killing enemy soldiers and generals.

  What is called a "jue shi", is the same as the jue shi in Shang Yang's reform. It is not an enemy soldier wearing armor, but an officer! A Qin army does not promote a soldier to the rank of Gong Shi just by killing one enemy soldier, but rather by killing an enemy officer! Otherwise, no matter how much land Qin has, it would not be enough to reward all the Gong Shi.

  An officer is the core of an army, and only by killing enemy officers can one truly weaken the combat effectiveness of the enemy's army. To know that before the Warring States period in the Spring and Autumn era, fighting was a privilege of the aristocracy, ordinary people did not have the qualifications to participate in this kind of game, let alone slaves.

  The battles between the warriors were governed by rules and fairness, similar to duels between Western knights. Cunning plots were not allowed, as this was considered a despicable tactic at the time. If one could not win in battle, they could retreat, and there were two famous stories about this that were told to Gongsun Zan by Diaochan, which Gongsun Zan found hard to believe.

  The first is the fifty-step laughing hundred steps, where both sides fight, and one side cannot win can escape, but cannot beg for mercy, begging for mercy is a very shameful thing. As long as they open up a distance of fifty steps from the pursuing soldiers, the other side will not be able to pursue them again. At that time, the battles between warriors were generally rare in killing, and most were captured by the opponent, exchanged for ransom and reputation. Therefore, on the battlefield, when one side is defeated, the warriors will all run away to avoid being captured

  One ran fifty steps, the other ran a hundred steps. The former laughed at the latter, which is understandable. Because he was familiar with the rules, he calculated the distance between himself and the pursuing soldiers while running, and stopped after opening up a distance of fifty steps. The one who ran a hundred steps was simply scared out of his wits, running recklessly without regard for anything, even possibly taking the comrade who had run fifty steps as one of the pursuers. Only when he saw the other stop did he stop himself, with about fifty steps in between. This is why the soldier who ran fifty steps could mock the soldier who ran a hundred steps for being cowardly.

  It's just that the behavior of both parties later on was not brave in battle, and they were nailed to the pillar of shame in history. They are completely two things from different eras and backgrounds, and there is no comparability at all. It seems that some past events are always difficult for us to understand, and when viewed with today's standards, it's inevitable to be misled by superficial similarities.

  Another story is simple, two countries are at war, one side loses and starts to flee. As a result, the charioteer's wheel gets stuck in the ditch by the road, and the pursuing soldiers catch up and surprisingly help the charioteer pry out the wheel. The two groups of soldiers chatted for a long time, discussing things like taxes in their respective countries, before waving goodbye to each other. The reason is that the fleeing soldier has already escaped the pursuit range of the pursuing soldiers.

  Unfortunately, after the Warring States period, the nature of warfare changed. Battles were no longer a game between gentlemen, but a matter of national destiny. Therefore, civilians were recruited, and even slaves were qualified to join the army in times of emergency. That's why the incident of Bai Qi killing 400,000 surrendered Zhao soldiers at the Battle of Changping could happen. If this had happened during the Spring and Autumn period, Bai Qi would have been put to death!

  Back to the topic, Daji told Gongsun Ce how to manufacture the symbol of the horse. The tiger symbol was made from the soul of soldiers, and the horse symbol needed corresponding materials, which were horses! Gongsun Ce knew that time was precious, so he bid farewell to Daji with a wave of his hand and woke up.

  First, the commander ordered the soldiers to dig a large pit and put in a large barrel. The barrel was surrounded by oilcloth, which was fortunately prepared by the Qin army beforehand. The barrel was originally used for storing rice, while the oilcloth was used to cover carts to keep out the rain. Liu Wei watched from the side, confused, but Gong Sunzhi only told him to use his imagination freely.

  Soon, Guo Liang drove back more than 600 war horses. He was somewhat saddened. There were many familiar faces in the horse farm who had done business with his family, but now they all turned into dry bones. He also recognized them by the clothes next to their bones. After handing over the horses to Gong Sun Ce, he went out alone to grieve.

  The commander ordered the soldiers to corral the horses, and Gong Sun Ce took out the tiger tally and threw it into a wooden bucket. He then pulled over a horse next to the bucket. Liu Wei had already guessed what Gong Sun Ce was going to do. Gong Sun Ce drew out a goose feather knife and with one slash, beheaded the horse. The horse collapsed to the ground, its severed neck spouting blood that flowed along the oilcloth into the wooden bucket. The tiger tally inside the bucket emitted a large amount of heat, causing the horse blood to start boiling.

  One by one, the horses were driven over by the soldiers and killed by Gong Sun Ce and Liu Wei beside the wooden bucket. The two men worked efficiently, their technique for killing the horses becoming more refined with each passing moment. Unlike Gong Sun Ce at first, they no longer needed to cut off the horse's head. One slash of the knife to let out the blood, then on to the next one, leaving the previous horse to thrash about on the ground.

  No matter how they killed, the horse blood in the wooden barrel never overflowed, and the horses that were killed early had already turned to dust. When Guo Liang returned, the six hundred horses were nowhere to be seen, and what was presented before him were Gong Sun Ce and Liu Wei, still bleeding all over their bodies, along with a hundred mounted halberdiers! The pungent smell of horse blood had already told him what had happened, as long as his original warhorses were still there.

  How could he kill his war horse, Gong Sun Ce? He left over a dozen good horses to be used as carriage pullers. The production of the Fu Ma was somewhat tricky, requiring two or three horses to produce one Fu Ma. Fortunately, the resulting horses came fully equipped with saddles, whips, stirrups and all; only lacking armor, otherwise they would have been perfect!

  Liu Wei was not good at riding, so he could only ride a symbol horse. The symbol horse was very obedient. Without mentioning the high-difficulty action of fighting on horseback, as long as he could hold onto the horse's neck and follow the main force, it would be enough. Gong Sun Ce was also a symbol horse, the most majestic one among all the symbol horses. When he rode the symbol horse, they were in perfect harmony, able to achieve a state of unity between man and horse! It was much more convenient than riding a warhorse.

  "Satisfied? Gan Ning can lead a hundred cavalry to raid Cao's camp, it's no problem for us to annihilate those low-intelligence soldiers!" Gong Sun Ce rode on his horse, facing the apple tree with a spear thrust, piercing an apple and taking it down, biting into it fiercely, sweet juice flowing everywhere. Guo Liang just nodded repeatedly, all cavalry! One hundred cavalry! What could be more exciting than this? The grief in his heart was gone by half, he flipped onto his horse, looking towards the county city direction, full of fighting spirit!

  Gongsun Zan pointed his Green Dragon Halberd at the county city and shouted, "We must win! We must win! We must win!!!" as one hundred cavalrymen raised their spears in unison.

  The people in the county town have been forced by the Liang army to go to the park to cut wood or transport various materials into the park. The Liang army occupied the county town from dawn, cleared out the evil spirits and chaotic troops, and then began preparing to set up camp. Unfortunately, they didn't have time and didn't have the opportunity either.

  The Liang army was very large, with more than 3,000 people. One thousand of them were divided into two teams, each with 500 people, and they marched along the highway that passed through the county town to clear out the evil spirits in both directions. The remaining ones began to form groups of one hundred people within the county town, starting to patrol and clear out the remaining evil spirits.

  As they entered the county town, Gongsun Zan saw a group of Liang troops who had just passed by and shouted: "Follow me to kill!" He charged forward on horseback, with hundreds of riders closely following behind. Unexpectedly, Guo Liang's warhorse burst forth with great strength, overtaking Gongsun Zan and charging side by side with him. Liu Wei hugged the neck of his horse tightly, lying flat on its back and falling to the rear of the troops. The strengths of the Yuema horses were similar to those of the Yuema soldiers - they did not know fatigue, but lacked explosive power, yet excelled in endurance.

  The cool army of one hundred men saw a group of cavalry rushing over, and for a moment they didn't know how many there were. They abandoned their troops and ran away. The remaining soldiers had no command, either following the hundred men to escape or standing still in confusion. One hundred men was not too many nor too few, previously Gong Sun Ce and Liu Wei spent a lot of effort dealing with two groups of chaotic armies engaged in fierce fighting.

  This hundred-strong army was nothing in the face of the charging cavalry. The cavalry was like a red-hot branding iron, pressed down on the wax slab. Nearly half of the Liao soldiers were knocked flying by the galloping warhorses, and the rest were struck down by the flying souls of their comrades. The Liao army, which had never had any formation to begin with, instantly lost its ability to resist. Before they could even get back on their feet, they were killed by the cavalry's chaotic spear thrusts, trampled to death under the horses' hooves.

  The military soul, even if it is shattered by bullets and its physical body suffers a devastating blow, can still survive and revive. However, it can be trampled to death by the symbol horse, and after its physical body is destroyed, the scattered soul will be directly absorbed by the symbol horse and symbol soldiers. In less than two breaths, all of the cool army except for the hundred-man squad leader escaped, and their losses were negligible because as long as the symbol soldiers' and horses' physical bodies were still intact, they could consume the soul energy to repair themselves completely.

  That hundred-man had not escaped far when Gong Sun Ce commanded five silver three-stage cavalrymen to charge and kill him. One of the tall and slender spearman's horse was slightly faster, and he speared over the hundred-man's head, his spear aiming directly at the hundred-man's neck, and with one stroke, beheaded him. The hundred-man's head fell to the ground, rolled a few times, and was trampled into dust by the cavalry behind. The hundred-man's headless body ran forward for a few more steps before suddenly falling over and decaying into ash.

  Gongsun Zan led the cavalry to continuously annihilate the five branches of the Liao army, occasionally suffering losses. After the battle, he was replenished with a new batch of Tiger Tally soldiers, but unfortunately lost the original soul and experience forged by the symbol-bearing soldiers.

  The remaining cool troops in the county have already found them, and they are gathering at the North City Park. He can't let them get what they want, not even for a moment, and he will launch a charge as soon as he sees one or two hundred people, and even three hundred people will also launch a charge. Although the loss is a bit greater, the military soul gained after the war is always greater than the consumption of the symbol soldiers.

  Fighting to feed the war is the best thing, and in the end, the cool army only gathered six or seven hundred people in the park. At this time, the sky had already darkened, and by the time it was dark, Gong Sun Ce's vision would be greatly affected, so he directly launched a charge. As soon as the Yu cavalry suffered losses, the vacancies were immediately filled with tiger tokens.

  Following Guo Liang's suggestion, they never engaged in close combat with the Liang army, but instead employed a tactic of constant harassment and repeated charges. After nightfall, the last high-ranking officer of the Liang army was beheaded by a white-silver third-rank halberdier.

  Gongsun Ce let out a loud sigh on horseback, he was truly exhausted.