Smoke filled the battlefield. The sound of battle roared on all sides.
Three thousand cavalry charged like a steel tide, sweeping aside everything in their path.
At that moment, Stone Zhan and the musketeers also rode out from the city. They quickly took advantage of the gap created by the cavalry charge to set up a defensive wagon formation.
Behind the wagons, the musketeers began firing at the barbarian defenders to cover Lu Fei’s cavalry.
As the cavalry reached the barbarian artillery position, facing fifty cannons, Lu Fei shouted, “Nail those cannons shut!”
On his order, several cavalrymen jumped off their horses, rushed the cannons, pulled out iron nails, and hammered them into the ignition ports with their knife hilts, rendering the cannons unusable.
Because the Qingzhou army’s attack had been so sudden, the barbarian cavalry at the west gate had only just realized what was happening. They quickly charged toward Lu Fei.
Over ten thousand cavalry roared down on them.
“Hahaha! Come at me, you barbarian dogs!” Lu Fei laughed wildly.
By now, all the cavalry who had dismounted had gotten back on their horses, and Lu Fei led them in a retreat.
Meanwhile, the wagon formation had been fully established. As the cavalry fell back, the wagons opened their chains, allowing the soldiers to slip back inside the defensive line.
The barbarian cavalry charging after them saw only a puff of white smoke—then the sky began to spin and darken as they were struck down.
In front of the Stone Zhan wagon fortress, the barbarian cavalry lost their advantage immediately. Qingzhou’s cannons and muskets tore through them relentlessly.
In just moments, the charging barbarians were left in ruins.
They remembered the cannons—but when they reached their artillery position, they discovered all the ignition ports had been jammed.
“Damn it!” a barbarian commander stomped his feet. “Those Qingzhou rats! Bring up the other cannons—I’ll kill them all!”
But before he finished yelling, the Qingzhou musketeers emerged from behind the wagons and began firing from the front.
At the same time, the wagons were re-hitched to horses and began rolling forward—soldiers firing as they advanced.
Inside the formation, Niu Ben calmly gave orders.
This was the power of the mobile wagon formation he and Xiao Ming had invented: the wagons protected the musketeers, and the musketeers protected the wagons.
“Push forward!”
Seeing the Qingzhou army making their way westward, the barbarian commander panicked. That direction led straight to Beishan Taiji’s silver tent—if it fell, it would be a massive humiliation.
The silver tent was the symbol of the Golden Horde’s leadership, like a royal flag to the Great Yu Empire.
Under pressure from the barbarian cavalry, their slave soldiers continued charging.
But the Qingzhou muskets fired in wave after wave, cutting them down like wheat. The slave soldiers had no armor, no speed—and they soon began to panic. Their morale crumbled.
“Keep moving forward!” Niu Ben ordered. Their goal was to pierce through the enemy’s heart and shatter their formation completely.
He saw Luo Quan’s signal flags—the front lines were under tremendous pressure. If they didn’t cause chaos soon, the Jinwu Guards might not hold.
So he pressed the attack.
Barbarian Silver Tent
Beishan quickly received word of the Qingzhou troops breaking through from the west gate.
His expression changed instantly. He had assumed the enemy would coordinate with the Jinwu Guards and strike from the north. That’s why he’d stationed his strongest troops there.
Now the west gate was broken, and the Qingzhou army was just three li away from his command tent—moving fast, with no one to stop them.
“You useless fools!”
He had been overseeing the northern battle lines himself, and now his main camp was exposed. If the Qingzhou army seized it, they’d lose their supplies and ammunition.
Even worse, the silver tent was a sacred symbol of his power. If it fell, his hopes of becoming the next Khan were finished.
Frantic, he shouted, “Chagatai! Come with me—we have to stop them!”
Chagatai, who had been about to reinforce the attack on the Jinwu Guards, immediately turned and led 20,000 cavalry toward the Qingzhou army. Meanwhile, their slave soldiers began pushing cannons toward the west.
Back in the balloon, Luo Quan’s blood surged at the sight.
Qingzhou’s army under Niu Ben was fierce—sometimes stopping to fire at approaching cavalry, sometimes advancing rapidly with infantry and wagons. They were getting closer and closer to Beishan’s tent.
“Beat the war drums!” Luo Quan shouted.
As the two barbarian cavalry regiments left the northern front, Luo Quan finally saw a sliver of hope for victory.
The flag signals changed.
Boom, boom, boom… War drums echoed across the battlefield.
Hearing the sound, the Jinwu Guards felt their spirits rise. It meant they had the upper hand. With renewed confidence, they fought even harder.
A shield-bearer sprang into action as a barbarian cavalryman charged at him—leaping straight into the rider and dragging them both to the ground.
Everywhere, soldiers of Great Yu and the barbarians were locked in bloody combat.
West Gate
The farther Niu Ben advanced, the tougher the resistance became. The barbarian cavalry were charging like madmen, completely disregarding their lives.
The Qingzhou army had to keep stopping, forming their wagons into defensive positions and wiping out surrounding enemies before moving again.
“General, the northern cannons are being redirected this way, and there are 20,000 barbarian cavalry coming too,” reported the signal officer, who had been watching the balloon’s signals.
Niu Ben nodded. He turned to Luo Xin and said, “Let’s see whose cannons are better—ours or theirs.”
“I believe in His Highness,” Luo Xin replied with a smile, and immediately ordered the cannons to face north.
As the barbarian cavalry kept charging like they had nothing to lose, Niu Ben ordered his troops to hold their ground.
After the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the barbarian cavalry suddenly opened a path—and their cannons rolled into view.
They were aiming directly at the wagon formation.
BOOM! BOOM!
The barbarian cannons opened fire—and Luo Xin’s artillery fired back.
KA-BOOM! A cannonball hit one of the wagons, flipping it over.
But the Qingzhou artillery hidden between the wagons remained untouched. The barbarian cannons weren’t so lucky—fully exposed, they were sitting ducks.
“Fire!” Luo Xin roared.
BOOM BOOM BOOM! Cannonballs rained down on the barbarian artillery.
The barbarian gunners, in the middle of reloading, were thrown into chaos by the bombardment.
Qingzhou’s artillery crews had far more training. Their aiming tools gave them deadly accuracy.
Earlier, the barbarian shots had been wild—powerful but poorly aimed.
Now under precision bombardment, they couldn’t fight back.
While the barbarians struggled to reload, Qingzhou’s gunners rearmed and launched another volley.
After one more barrage, the barbarian artillery fell silent—unable to return fire.
Then Luo Xin redirected his guns toward the charging barbarian cavalry.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Fifty cannons fired in unison. Cannonballs tore through the enemy like skewers, slicing through cavalrymen one after another.
One shot hit the final rider so hard it launched him into the air—straight toward Beishan, who had just arrived to take command.
“Taiji Beishan!” Chagatai cried in horror.