"Brave Warrior Lu, we're surrounded by Tartars. What if we alert them and get surrounded? No matter how skilled you are, Brave Warrior Lu..." Guo Zhen was the supervising eunuch. He lacked the ruthlessness of Lu Wenzhao and Shen Lian. He couldn't imagine what Lu Xuan could do alone.
But he dared not travel alone. Whenever he considered turning back, Lu Xuan's seemingly piercing eyes would look at him. Guo Zhen shuddered, no longer daring to entertain the thought of running away. He had a feeling that if he angered this hunter, he might die in this desolate wilderness.
I learned the location of their camp from two wounded Tartars. There was indeed a temporary camp, used by the cavalry who were cleaning up the battlefield to rest. The main Tartar force had already headed to their battlefield.
In this battle, the Ming army split into four routes, forming an encirclement. Nurhaci, however, understood the principle that it was better to cut off one finger than to injure all ten. In each engagement, he concentrated his superior forces to defeat the Ming army piecemeal. The difference in tactical command between the two sides was as vast as heaven and earth.
As I recall, after Du Song's forces collapsed, the overall battle situation was essentially beyond saving. But Lu Xuan still insisted on fighting. Not to salvage the inevitable defeat at the Battle of Sarhu. He simply wanted to kill as many Tartars as possible. A mere tens of thousands of men—every one killed was one less. Every one killed gave the future Ming Dynasty a glimmer of hope.
Whenever he thought of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, a flame of resentment burned within him. This flame needed to be extinguished with the blood of his enemies.
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Chapter 109 Where are our people? (Third update, please subscribe!)
With a whoosh, Shen Lian pulled his longsword from a corpse. Looking around, there were no more living Tartars. This was the third wave of Tartar cavalry they had ambushed.
The hunter appeared reckless, but he was exceptionally shrewd in his actions. Instead of directly attacking the Later Jin camp, he lingered around it, ambushing the returning squads of knights.
The opposing team fought fiercely all day yesterday, and started cleaning up the battlefield before dawn, already exhausted. Moreover, most of them returned in small teams of ten or fewer.
Whenever they encountered enemies, Lu Xuan would have Shen Lian and Lu Wenzhao act as bait to lure them away. He would then hide in the shadows and ambush them with his bow and arrow. He hadn't practiced archery in his early years. However, after being enfeoffed as the King of the Western Regions, he had a great deal of free time. He could practice swordsmanship, archery, horsemanship, and other skills at will. Over several decades, he mastered almost all the cold weapons of that era.
Unfortunately, in his previous life, he had a special bow and arrow crafted specifically to match his body, allowing him to unleash his power without restraint. But in this life, these scavenged bows and arrows are completely unable to withstand his power.
In three ambushes, Lu Xuan had destroyed three powerful bows. Fortunately, he managed to obtain two more powerful bows from the Tartars, which barely kept up with his losses. By this time, Lu Wenzhao and Shen Lian completely trusted Lu Xuan's skills. The tall, heavily armored Tartar cavalrymen were like young children in the hands of this 'hunter,' utterly powerless to fight back.
Shen Lian possessed family-inherited martial arts. Lu Wenzhao was a disciple of a renowned swordsman. Both were genuinely skilled soldiers. However, after witnessing Lu Xuan's fight, they could only admit that, apart from this valiant Lu Xuan, no one else in the world could be considered a true master.
After crushing the last Tartar, Lu Xuan looked up at the sky; the sun had already risen. A thin layer of mist hung over the entire battlefield. It was unclear whether it was the dissipation of moisture or the evaporation of blood.
"They fought all night, they should be resting now. Let's get ready, we're going to their camp."
Lu Xuan and his men had already scouted the camp beforehand. There were probably around a hundred soldiers, mostly cavalry, clearly left behind to clean up the battlefield. After being ambushed and killed several times by Lu Xuan and his men, the camp now had about forty men. The rest might not have returned to camp yet.
The Tartars were human too, and they were exhausted. They rested listlessly in the camp. Lu Xuan and his two companions stealthily approached from the edge. Shen Lian's crossbow bolts struck repeatedly, silently eliminating the four sentries at the edge.
In the nearby camp, one could clearly see the Tartars driving some Han women and children to cook for them. Nearby, some warhorses were tethered to horse posts.
Just as Lu Wenzhao and the others were looking at Lu Xuan, preparing to ask him how to proceed, Lu Xuan suddenly stood up and, without a second thought, openly and honestly shot an arrow out.
A Tartar who was serving food to the crowd suddenly had a trembling arrow stuck in his forehead. The surrounding Tartars were stunned for a moment, then erupted into a cacophony of shouts about an enemy attack as they grabbed their weapons in preparation. Lu Xuan made no attempt to conceal his intentions, unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of arrows.
With his formidable arm strength, this powerful bow consumed very little of his energy. He could use it with complete impunity. A barrage of arrows, like a machine gun, whizzed out. The Tartars, a hundred paces away, fell in droves. By the time they noticed Lu Xuan, he had already killed more than ten men in just a few breaths.
Seeing that they were less than fifty meters away, most of the Tartars simply grabbed their swords and charged forward, shouting. A very few turned around and rode off on their horses.
With a snap, the powerful bow in his hand broke again. Lu Xuan casually tossed it aside and picked up another. By this time, the Tartars had already charged within thirty meters. But Lu Xuan seemed not to see them at all. He calmly drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and then unleashed another volley of shots.
A whooshing sound rang in his ears. Lu Xuan didn't even look up, merely shifting his body slightly. An arrow grazed past his ear. To be honest, the Later Jin, who had routed the Ming army in this era, were far from invincible. To those foreign tribes invading the Central Plains, the Later Jin were only of average ability. However, tragically, the Ming Dynasty in this era was truly awful.
Of the forty-odd Tartars, more than a dozen were felled by Lu Xuan during the charge. These Tartars were quite fierce, surprisingly not scattering. Perhaps they saw that Lu Xuan and his men numbered only four. They felt that if they got close, they could kill those four Han Chinese, just like they had done with the Han Chinese they had slaughtered before.
Unfortunately, they chose the wrong opponent this time. Within ten meters, Lu Xuan finally threw down his bow and instead gripped a thick-backed saber.
These Tartars were all very tall and strong. Their powerful physiques, combined with their fierce and ferocious appearances, made most of the Ming soldiers feel as if they were facing a pack of wild beasts. They were simply no match for them one-on-one.
But this situation finally turned around when he met Lu Xuan. Even describing Lu Xuan's actions as a wild beast is insufficient; only the term "primordial behemoth" suffices.
Beneath his feet, the scattered snowflakes and soil exploded as if struck by a sledgehammer. Lu Xuan's body, enveloped in a gust of wind, propelled him forward.
The Tartar soldier at the front only felt a blur before his eyes, and before he could even raise his sword, he was sent flying backwards, twisted and contorted, like a tattered rag doll.
The two Tartars behind him felt as if they had been hit by a chariot. Everything went black, and they lost consciousness. Only then did the other Tartars realize that Lu Xuan had appeared among them.
The heavy saber in his hand drew a chilling halo. Four heads flew into the air. At that moment, Shen Lian and Lu Wenzhao behind him also made their move. The two raised their hands, first firing a volley of crossbow bolts, felling the two men. Then they drew their swords and charged forward.
In a single exchange, the Tartars lost more than ten men. No matter how elite they were, they began to panic. Some fought bravely to the death, while others wanted to retreat.
They wanted to retreat, but Lu Xuan wouldn't allow it. He suddenly swung his right hand, and the thick-backed saber in his hand transformed into a steel whirlwind, slicing past the necks of the two Tartars who were trying to retreat.
Before the flying head even hit the ground, Lu Xuan had already drawn another willow-leaf dagger with his right hand, facing off against the other Tartars who had surrounded him. In that instant, Lu Xuan transformed into a human killing machine, ruthlessly reaping all the hostile lives before him.
The sound of hooves approached from not far away. Four Tartars closest to their horses had already mounted and were galloping towards the scene. But as they drew nearer, they realized... Where were our men?
Just now there was such a large group of people attacking a few Ming soldiers, how come they've all fallen now?
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Chapter 110 Suffocation? Intelligent Breath!
A quarter of an hour passed, and Lu Wenzhao, Shen Lian, and Guo Zhen were still somewhat incredulous. They had, with just four people, completely annihilated a Tartar camp, killing over a hundred Tartars.
For a moment, the two even felt that those ferocious Tartars were nothing special. However, they also knew in their hearts that the credit for all of this belonged to that 'hunter'. As for why a hunter was so arrogant, they said that hunters were supposed to be arrogant.
In fact, Lu Xuan couldn't bear to tell them that their combined performance in the entire Battle of Sarhu was probably among the top three. You see, on another front, there were even instances of tens of thousands of troops being routed by just twenty-five Tartar cavalrymen. And on yet another front, the Koreans betrayed them, binding Ming soldiers and handing them over to the Tartars… The entire battle was worse than any modern TV drama…
There were four Tartars on the ground, who were the camp's management, or rather, officers with some rank.
Lu Xuan randomly selected one of them, picked up a knife, and without thinking, plunged it directly into the man's groin. The Tartar, whose mouth was being covered, jerked violently, his eyes visibly turning bloodshot. His previously fierce and arrogant gaze instantly became... indescribable.
The other three Tartars shuddered as the other man did so, their bound bodies writhing desperately on the ground, trying to get away from Lu Xuan.
Lu Xuan turned to look at Guo Zhen. The supervising eunuch was looking at Lu Xuan with a complicated expression.
"Translate it to them. Don't omit a single word."