Chapter 3: Midnight Raid

  Tong Dashuai heard the stroking of his beard and chuckled, saying: "A precious sword is matched with a hero, this knife can still be used to its greatest effect in your hands. Next time there's an opportunity, get one for me to play with."

  Although this Tang knife has little effect on Thunder, and it's clear that Commander Tong won't want it, but when there are no other handy weapons, losing it would be very inconvenient, so he really took care of it. Hearing Commander Tong's words, he also let out a small sigh of relief, praising: "The commander is thoughtful. If I have the chance, I will definitely find one for the commander." After finishing speaking, in his heart, he secretly decided to take the opportunity to forge one for the commander, and if others want it, they can look for a blacksmith, the method of forging can still be made public in a small range.

  "Haha ~, good! Next time remember to get one for Ben Shuai!" Tong Da Shuai heard this and smiled with satisfaction: Lei Meng is a loyal and considerate person.

  Mr. Wen also nodded frequently on one side.

  "Everyone scatter! Do what you need to do!" Tong Da Shuai dispersed the crowd and laughed loudly by himself, "Haha~".

  Everyone left without mentioning it.

  Sun Mingzhong was about to return and pack his bags when he finally heard about Yang Tian's glorious deeds at the gate last night - previously, the entire vanguard army had gone to ambush Huo Tian, but Huo Tian didn't come - couldn't help but feel lucky, not being beaten to vomit blood...

  The next afternoon, Tong Shuai ordered the whole army to bury their pots and cook rice, emphasizing that they should eat more! They would go into battle at night! So they busied themselves cooking and preparing their gear.

  At this time, Sun Ming had already led the 500 scouts to spread out and set up a network of eyes and ears. They encountered a few Heavenly Sky scouts and killed them off. As the sun set, one or two mournful cries could be heard in the mountains, which were the Heavenly Sky scouts being surrounded and killed. Qin Hao, Yang Tian, Song Yi, and Zhang Shan had all eaten dinner and took advantage of the evening sun to follow behind the scouting party, rushing through the dense forest on a small path. When Yang Tian heard the mournful cries, he couldn't help but shake his head, feeling a bit sympathetic, and also regretted that their communication was not well-developed. In short, his emotions were complex.

  Qin Hao wore a copper helmet and stood in the middle of the troops, turned his head to see Yang Tian shaking his head beside him, and hastily asked: "What's wrong? Is there anything inappropriate?"

  "This cry is too loud, won't it be discovered by Emperor Heaven?" Yang Tian frowned and asked. Qin Hao was startled, standing still in his original position, and broke out in a cold sweat: If he's discovered, that's the end! A direct charge..."

  "Hehe, don't worry, the Huāng Tiān army won't find out." Sun Ming's voice came from the front. Sun Ming was walking towards them, seeing Qin Hao and the other person looking puzzled, he continued: "Scouts often kill each other, it's common to hear miserable cries, as long as they're not too frequent, there's no problem. The recent battles have been intense, both sides suffered heavy losses, probably three or four hundred dead. We have General Qin's reinforcements, but they didn't... so today's cleanup was very smooth, we outnumbered them and killed more of their scouts! Not a single one escaped!" Sun Ming became increasingly excited as he spoke.

  "Alright, alright! Got it!" Qin Hao calmed down and ordered: "Lead the way ahead!"

  "Yes!" Sun Ming turned around and led the crowd forward.

  The sun had set, and the sky was filled with a brilliant array of stars. The troops had advanced in the dark for over an hour, until they were within 800 meters of the enemy's camp. It was unclear whether it was due to the incompetence of the enemy commander or Sun Ming's cleverness that they hadn't sent out scouts, but fortunately, they managed to sneak up close without being detected. Looking at the scattered, peaceful bonfires in the distance, Yang Tian couldn't help but feel a sense of wonder: this was truly an unexpected stroke of luck, encountering such an incompetent general. But he didn't think about it for long, as after many battles, both sides had already figured out each other's tactics, and Hua Tian knew that Tong Wen Zheng, the great general, wouldn't take unnecessary risks - it was the addition of these two men that tipped the scales.

  Qin Hao ordered Zhang Shan and Song Yi to command the troops to rest.

  After three and a half hours, Qin Hao shook his slightly dizzy head, straightened up, and asked Yang Tian: "Is it almost done?"

  Yang Tian nodded, woke up and refreshed his mind, and replied: "It's almost time." Although the soldiers were resting, they would soon go into battle and didn't know if they would return alive, so they couldn't really rest and were tense, just making themselves dizzy.

  Qin Hao gave a firm order to Zhang Shan and Song Yi beside him: "Pass the order to everyone, go forward and kill! No noise is allowed on the way!"

  Then, the crowd took advantage of the starlight and proceeded with a "sizzling" sound. Those who accidentally stepped on empty air and fell over didn't dare to make a sound, and just grunted softly to get over it.

  When he reached the outer fence of Haotian's camp, Yang Tian saw that the guards were either dozing off or on the verge of falling asleep. The surroundings of the camp, except for the crackling of torches, were filled with the sound of snoring, completely in a state of complacency and unguardedness.

  Qin Hao waved his hand back, and Zhang Shan and Song Yi behind him received the order to lead a few soldiers to sneak up behind the sentry, pounce on him, cover his mouth, cut his throat, and drag him away. The movement was swift and smooth, almost like flowing clouds and water. When the sentry was covered, he came to, then when his throat was cut, he stared wide-eyed, kicked his legs a few times, and stopped moving.

  Yang Tian looked at it under the night color and torches, secretly praising!

  Qin Hao saw that the guards nearby had been eliminated, so he bowed his head and climbed over the fence, leading his troops to sneak into the military camp. When they encountered soldiers of Huan Tian, they covered their mouths and cut their throats. Each barracks was home to about eight soldiers, with a total of 1,200 Jin Yuan soldiers divided into groups of five, making up more than 240 groups participating in the massacre. As each group swept through a barracks, some alert soldiers would discover the sudden small noise, get up to look, and find many soldiers in the distance of two barracks away. One of them suddenly reacted and shouted: "Jin Yuan has arrived!..." The voice stopped abruptly. This was because Yang Tian had just woken up from his vigilance and happened to be near a barracks behind him. Seeing a soldier coming out of the barracks, he rushed forward and chopped at the soldier's neck with one knife, but was half a beat too slow, allowing the soldier to utter those words.

  The entire camp was initially silent, then suddenly erupted. The sound of shouting and wailing filled the air, with cries of "father" and "mother" mingling with the officers' loud commands.

  "Jin Yuan is coming to kill!"

  "Run for your life!"

  "Mom..."

  "Assembly!"

  "Don't be chaotic!"

  "Take up arms and counterattack!"

  ……

  Yang Tian was anxious but unable to help.

  Qin Hao saw that he could no longer launch a surprise attack and that Haotian also had capable people, so he hastily shouted: "Set fire! Retreat!"

  The cries of "Fire! Withdraw!" spread, and soon the camp tents on Jin Yuan Road rose with flames, followed by a raging fire... Qin Hao led the troops to scatter and retreat. This sneak attack suffered minimal damage due to the early withdrawal, except for a few unlucky ones who were shot by Haw Tian's bow and arrow during the retreat, almost zero losses!

  Because they wanted to lure the enemy, the troops dispersed and slowed down. Just after leaving a hundred meters away, they heard a loud roar from the camp: "You damned Jin Yuan dog thief! Don't run!" "Follow me and kill!" This is Hao Tian's brave general Chu Fei! This man was born with divine bravery, his strength surpassing others, and in his early years he followed a famous master to learn a set of skills, making him an expert marksman. General Tong had been hesitant to launch this surprise attack precisely because of this capable person.

  A faint warning came: "Don't pursue it too closely, fearing there's a trap inside!"

  In a short while, the endless heavenly soldiers surged out of the camp, chasing after Qin Hao and others. Qin Hao and others saw the endless heavenly soldiers coming with the shouting voice of Xiang Tian, although they knew that there were their own ambushes ahead, but still couldn't help feeling a chill: if they were caught up, it would be death anyway! Hurry up and escape~！

  Luckily Qin Hao wasn't a fool, and as he ran, he shouted loudly: "Run towards the valley!"

  "Run to the valley!" An echo came, and the soldiers didn't run wildly, but proceeded according to plan. - This isn't easy, you know? The plan can't be known by all the soldiers, and it's really a good commander who doesn't let them run wildly.

  The mountain valley is not far away, only about 2 kilometers away from the camp. Fleeing for their lives, they ran wildly and arrived in seven or eight minutes. The road in the mountain valley was not very wide, with a road surface of only four or five meters; but at this moment of fleeing for one's life, no one could care about the road surface, and wherever there was empty space, they would tread on it, trampling small branches underfoot, and forcibly widening the road surface by more than double. Everyone knew that once they passed through this mountain valley over a thousand meters long, they would be able to run another two kilometers to reach the Jin Yuan campsite. Some people were tripped up by tree branches and were actually trampled to death by the people behind them.

  Hao Tian's general, Chu Fei, chased to the mouth of the valley and hesitated for a moment. However, seeing that the Jin army was fleeing for their lives, and having soldiers report seeing Jin troops being trampled to death, he judged that the Jin would not have an ambush, or else they wouldn't be so panicked. Maybe if they pursued further, they could catch the Jin off guard, so he gave the order to attack!

  Just as they were about to catch up with the defeated Jin troops, they were only over a hundred meters away from the valley entrance. Just as Zhu Fei was about to order the charge, a thunderous shout came from the mountains on both sides: "Kill!" Immediately, two lines of fire appeared on the half-mountain on both sides, while the rear was still pitch black. If this fire were to spread down, nearly half of these 7,000-8,000 soldiers would be burned to death here.

  "Damn it! We've been ambushed!" Chu Fei cursed loudly: "Retreat!"

  "Retreat!"

  "Retreat!"

  It's easy to advance, but hard to retreat. A string of withdrawal sounds started, I don't know if it was an echo or a messenger sound, mixed with the curses and shouts that became a mess...

  The troops who fell down, were trampled or burned to death by the mountain fire, leaving only about a quarter of them, and in the end they all turned into flying ashes...

  The shouting and killing sounds of the two mountains lasted for a while before passing, everyone knew it was impossible to rush into the fire and fight with the enemy, so Wang Li and Li Feng led two small teams of archers in high places, shooting randomly. After shooting several arrows, they saw that the fire had started and then retreated with Lin Chong to take a detour to the Haotian military camp on the mountain.

  Chu Fei hastily led the troops to retreat from the valley, just as they were about to breathe a sigh of relief for escaping the fire unscathed, Liu Yi, Gao Fan, Chen Liu and Wang Tianyuan, who had been lying in ambush nearby, suddenly appeared with their well-organized troops, shouting and attacking from both sides!

  Chu Fei took a look and found that there was an ambush! This time they were done for, the Haotian Army would either be killed or scared off...

  "Fall back! Retreat at once!"

  The Heavenly Army, after being smoked by the mountain fire once, had already lost its morale. If they launched another charge like this, they would become startled birds, and without even waiting for Zhu Fei to shout, they would scatter in all directions, running wildly and chaotically, trampling and injuring countless people.

  Haotian's troops were killed and left a field of corpses, finally returning to the camp in exhaustion, but only one-third of the pursuers returned, the loss was not insignificant!

  At this time, the sky was already near dawn. Chu Fei returned to the commander's tent and vented his anger. He thought: "Old Tong is waiting for me on the other side of the mountain valley to be burned out by the fire, but I withdrew in time. Although the loss is heavy, I managed to save my life! Now there are few soldiers, and we must withdraw. There are more than 2,000 unattacked camp guards who can rest assured for a while. So he ordered the soldiers to scatter into each camp to pack up their things.

  But this move was stopped by an old general Huang Zhi: "General, let's drop these things and escape. If there is another ambush, we will all be destroyed!"

  This is truly divine, whatever he says comes true. As soon as he finished speaking, a thunderous battle cry came from outside the camp, "Kill! ~!"

  It turned out that Tong Dashuai's central army had also taken a detour and arrived outside the Hua Tian military camp.