The Dangxiang southern expedition army had been trapped in Clearwater Valley for two days.
In those two days, Li Jikui ordered Zhuoba to launch two more assaults on Clearwater Mountain, both repelled with over a thousand men lost.
Besides frontal attacks, he sent agile experts to climb the mountain from other routes, aiming to destroy the Iron Forest Army’s catapults and heavy crossbows.
But with veterans Zhong Wu and Zhao Lao present, these experts found no openings.
Most were killed before reaching the mountainside.
In the Dangxiang camp, morale plummeted to rock bottom.
“Commander, this can’t go on,” Zhuoba said, his face etched with worry. “The men haven’t eaten for two days. If we don’t find food, they’ll starve.”
“Tell the cooking camp to slaughter some warhorses for a proper meal,” Li Jikui ordered helplessly.
For cavalry, warhorses were like brothers, and slaughtering them was strictly forbidden.
But Li Jikui could no longer afford such concerns.
That night, the cooking camp killed a hundred warhorses.
A hundred horses sounded like a lot, but with nearly thirty thousand men in the Dangxiang expedition, including the grain convoy and artisans, it was barely enough to stave off hunger.
Worse, the Iron Forest Army had burned the horses’ fodder, and Clearwater Valley was surrounded by steep mountains, difficult even for seasoned hunters to climb, let alone horses.
Humans could eat horse meat, but what could the horses eat?
They could only starve.
Two days of hunger was manageable, but by the sixth day, the Dangxiang warhorses began dying in large numbers.
On the seventh and eighth days, the deaths mounted.
By the ninth day, ninety percent of the warhorses had starved to death.
The soldiers couldn’t finish the horse meat despite eating three meals a day.
It was late spring, and the weather was turning hot. With insufficient salt for preservation, the army could only watch the meat rot.
By the tenth day, aside from the main commanders’ mounts, nearly all the warhorses were dead.
Even Li Jikui’s mount had grown gaunt from hunger.
“Commander, the horse meat will spoil in a few days, and then we’ll have nothing left to eat,” Zhuoba said, approaching Li Jikui with a suggestion. “While the men still have strength, let’s attack Clearwater Mountain again.”
“Any chance of success?” Li Jikui asked.
“None,” Zhuoba admitted, shaking his head helplessly.
Over the past ten days, he had tried every tactic but still couldn’t set foot on Clearwater Mountain or escape the valley.
“Qinghuai is too cunning!” Li Jikui sighed, rubbing his brow.
He and Qinghuai were old rivals. In the past, Qinghuai had led him on a chase for days, but Li Jikui always held the upper hand.
This time, however, he had lost disastrously.
Everyone had said the Iron Forest Army’s grain was burned, and they wouldn’t last long.
Yet now, the Iron Forest Army was thriving, while his men faced starvation.
“Commander, no matter how cunning Qinghuai is, we must fight this battle. If we wait until the men are too weak from hunger, we’ll have no chance at all,” Zhuoba said. “The men are warriors. Dying in battle is better than starving, isn’t it?”
“Then let’s fight one more time,” Li Jikui nodded reluctantly.
That day, Clearwater Valley saw its fiercest battle yet.
Thousands of Dangxiang soldiers, fighting as if their lives depended on it, launched a ferocious assault on Clearwater Mountain.
Below the mountain path, bodies piled up like hills.
In the valley, stones rained down all day, and burned carts littered the ground.
In the end, the Dangxiang paid a horrific price of thousands of lives, yet the assault ended in crushing defeat.
This battle shattered the last of their pride.
On the eighteenth day, all the horse meat had rotted, leaving the Dangxiang expedition without food.
Atop Clearwater Mountain, Jin Feng stood on a boulder, hands behind his back, calmly observing the Dangxiang camp below.
The battlefield was indeed the fastest place to transform a man.
In less than a month, Jin Feng had changed profoundly, both outwardly and inwardly.
Before coming, he was an eighteen-year-old frail scholar, shaken for days after killing a thug.
Now, he had ordered the deaths of thousands, his heart unmoved.
“Sir, what are you thinking about so deeply?” Zhong Wu approached, curious.
“I’m wondering if it’s time to end this battle,” Jin Feng said calmly.
“Sir, is the moment here?” Zhong Wu’s eyes lit up with excitement.
Jin Feng didn’t answer, instead jumping off the boulder and writing a letter, which he handed over. “Get this to the Marquis as quickly as possible.”
At the base of Grey Wolf Mountain, on the other side of the flooded lake, Qinghuai was napping under a tree.
General Fan, sitting nearby, flipped through a military book, occasionally glancing toward Clearwater Valley with unconcealed anticipation.
Even after more than half a month, General Fan couldn’t forget the thrill of hearing Qinghuai explain the entire plan.
The next day, he had sent two thousand Fan family troops from the city to support the Iron Forest Army.
But they had waited here for over half a month without news from Clearwater Valley.
If not for scouts who swam across reporting that the Dangxiang had nearly slaughtered all their horses, General Fan would have thought the Iron Forest Army had failed to hold Clearwater Mountain.
As General Fan lowered his head to read, Zhong Wu and Liu Qiong rushed over.
“Marquis, Marquis, a letter from the master!” Liu Qiong, too excited to mind protocol, shook Qinghuai awake.
In his enthusiasm, he accidentally struck Qinghuai’s wound.
But Qinghuai seemed oblivious to the pain, grabbing and opening the letter.
General Fan leaned in eagerly.
After quickly reading the letter, Qinghuai’s eyes gleamed. “Liu Qiong, tell the second battalion to bring the boats! Dong Fei, order everyone to assemble!”
General Fan issued orders as well.
The Zhenxi Army camp by the lake buzzed with activity following these commands.
The Iron Forest Army’s second battalion swiftly carried small wooden boats and planks to the lake.
In just over half an hour, a simple pontoon bridge was built.
The first and third battalions, carrying bamboo and shields, crossed the bridge quickly, forming a Macedonian phalanx on the other side to guard against a Dangxiang sneak attack.
But even as the Iron Forest and Fan family armies crossed, no Dangxiang appeared.
“Brothers, the final battle is here. Master Jin has worn the Dangxiang down to exhaustion. Now it’s up to us,” Qinghuai shouted, turning to the troops. “Get yourselves ready, kill every Dangxiang, and this year, all your taxes will be halved!”
“Kill the Dangxiang!”
“Kill the Dangxiang!”
The Iron Forest and Fan family armies roared in unison.
