轟轟轟轟轟——

The roar resonated with flames, blooming briefly beneath the sky.

Bodies were thrown aside, blood sprayed into the air, the heat of the flames singed faces, and shattered corpses landed on soldiers. The war drums continued to beat, some reacting by charging forward with shouts, while others were stunned by the sudden change. The unknown caused their hair to stand on end.

The explosion of twenty rocket propelled grenades formed an irregular curve, sweeping across the thirty-thousand-strong army.

Then came hoarse cries and the neighing of warhorses.

At the epicenter of the explosion, the scene was undeniably powerful, but as the flames erupted, the brittle cast-iron warheads sprayed outwards in all directions. In less than a breath, the story of the rockets was complete. Flames consumed the dismembered corpses nearby, while those further away were flung into the air, followed by the ripple effect of the shrapnel.

The soldiers still advancing were covered in a patchwork of bloodstains, some from the sprayed blood, others because shrapnel had pierced various parts of their bodies.

Once the laws of physics had wreaked their havoc, the laws of biology took over. Pain didn't erupt immediately upon impact. Because the explosion had been so rapid and bizarre, the soldiers, caught entirely unprepared, only realized the extent of their injuries moments later. Some sat up from the ground, the flames blackening the ruined right half of his body, the shrapnel destroying his hand, foot, hip, and abdomen. He used his left hand to pat the charred flesh in confusion, and then his internal organs spilled out… More people around him screamed in agony.

For these soldiers still on the march, these events were merely a matter of blinking. They were still two hundred *zhang* away from the front lines, and when the attack descended from the sky, some didn't even understand what had happened. This sense of bewilderment was the most unsettling of all.

The three thousand cavalry troops slowly flanking along the riverbank to the south reacted most violently. The rocket propelled grenades closed the distance in an instant, detonating six times within the ranks. After the introduction of cannons onto the battlefield, nearly all warhorses had undergone initial training to adapt to noise and explosions, but in this brief moment, as the flames billowed, the training proved useless. Small-scale chaos erupted in the cavalry, runaway warhorses colliding with nearby knights.

General Xi Lie led the five thousand-strong vanguard of the Yanshan Guard, already charging forward.

In this moment, the twenty explosions had yet to create massive chaos within the vast thirty-thousand-strong army. The Jurchen soldiers within the formation lacked the wide field of vision necessary to survey the battlefield. But for the battle-hardened generals within the army, the icy and unknown sensation had swept across the entire battlefield like a tide.

Xi Lie looked back and around, while Wanyan Gululu stood up on his slightly startled warhorse, his gaze sweeping the area. Xie Bao, beneath the banner, looked around and noticed the blossoming flowers on the battlefield—two of the explosions had occurred within a few *zhang* of him. Quick-witted bodyguards had already moved in close. His vision was filled first with yellow flames, then charred black corpses, and finally red blood. Further away, chaos was unfolding.

The icy touch gripped him, and at this moment, he experienced the most intense moment of his life.

Everything quieted down, his heart pounded, and the surge of blood kept count for him. Raising his telescope, he looked towards the rear, then turned to the front. In the distance, the long, tube-shaped objects were still being carried out by the Huaxia army and placed on stands. The furthest explosion behind the army was almost beyond the last soldier, the bridge at the far end behind him.

The Yanshan Guard vanguard was one hundred and fifty *zhang* away from the Huaxia army. He himself was two hundred *zhang* away from the strangely arrayed Huaxia army.

From the mountains over ten *li* away, the sounds of war echoed.

This year, Wanyan Xie Bao was thirty-five years old. He was not a man of luxury and dissipation. From his consistent performance on the battlefield, he had long lived up to the Wanyan clan's record and bloodline of looking down upon the world.

Therefore, the keen intuition of a wolf gave him countless results and almost the only way out in this moment.

"Order the entire army to charge."

Reining in his warhorse, he said this as he gazed ahead. A terrifying possibility boiled in his mind, to the point that he couldn't even hear his own voice. The next moment, he drew his war blade and issued a hysterical cry to those around him:

"Order the entire army—charge!"

At a distance of over two hundred *zhang*, if the armies were facing each other, charging at full speed would cause the army's momentum to decline sharply, but there was no other choice.

Beside the I-beam frame of the Huaxia army's position, ten technicians were rapidly writing down numbers in notebooks with charcoal pencils, calculating the angles needed to adjust for the next round of bombardment.

Further ahead, the cannons were being loaded. The soldiers watched the Jurchen soldiers rushing towards them and straightened the muzzles of their muskets. Some were breathing deeply, stabilizing their vision. A command rang out from the side: "Squad One, ready!"

In the ranks of the Jurchen vanguard, soldiers pushing iron cannons were also running with all their might, but their possibilities had been permanently lost.

Beside Wanyan Xie Bao, the soldier responsible for giving orders blew the massive horn with all his might. The roaring sound swept across the thirty-thousand-strong formation. The battle-hardened middle-ranking generals within the army also looked around. They realized the impact of the unusual explosion earlier, and therefore, the moment they heard the horn, they understood and agreed with Xie Bao's choice.

This was an extraordinary moment that exceeded everyone's imagination. The first thing the Jurchen army facing the arrival of cross-era technology on this land chose to do was to suppress the doubts and subconscious fear surging within them. By the third breath after the roaring horn swept through, the ground was shaking.

Wanyan Xie Bao, riding his warhorse, didn't charge at the very front. As he shouted hoarsely, soldiers swarmed past in his vision like ants.

People ran on the ground, the black mass of people like a tide, like a huge wave, pressing over from the distance in his vision. The cavalry on the riverbank slightly to the south quickly formed ranks and began their charge. The cavalry general on this side was named Wen Sa. He had faced Ning Yi in the Northwest. Wen Sa was watching below Yanzhou city when Ci Bushi was killed.

In the years before going to the battlefield, he could find many reasons to view the Han man in front of him with contempt or simply with equality. In the days before this, facing the arrogant act of six thousand men facing thirty thousand, he could also convince himself that this arrogant Han dog had finally gone mad. But the moment that exploding object crossed nearly three hundred *zhang* of the battlefield and landed in the cavalry, the Jurchen veteran with half his hair white clearly remembered the other's condescending and indifferent gaze on the Yanzhou city wall back then.

Ci Bushi, the Jurchen commander who had dominated for half his life, was held down by soldiers of the Huaxia army on the Yanzhou city wall. Commander Ci Bushi was even struggling. Ning Yi watched indifferently as the Zhong family soldier, holding a large blade, brought the blade down on the neck of that Jurchen hero. At that moment, they cut off Ci Bushi's head as a sacrifice to Zhong Lie, the Western Army general who had died rather than surrender.

At this moment, in the view of his telescope, Wen Sa could see that the indifferent gaze was looking over here.

The cavalry was still in chaos. The Huaxia army formation in front, holding *tuhuo qiang*, formed a semi-circular arc made up of straight lines of ranks. Some people were still facing the cavalry on this side, and on the iron racks further away, more long, steel objects were being placed. Wen Sa led the vanguard he could still command and began to run.

As the infantry front lines closed to within three hundred meters, approaching a range of two hundred meters, General Xi Lie, riding his warhorse on the flank, saw the Huaxia army soldiers dropping their torches. Flames erupted from the muzzles of the cannons, and cannonballs flew into the sky.

"May Heaven protect us!"

Xi Lie shouted loudly. The charging generals also shouted loudly. Amidst the roar, cannonballs fell into the crowd, and explosions sent bodies flying high into the air.

Since the large-scale use of cannons, the power of formations had been gradually weakened. The Jurchen's large-scale charge at this moment could not guarantee the compactness of the formation. Correspondingly, as long as they could reach close range, the Jurchen soldiers would also throw ignited fire thunderballs forward to ensure that the other side could not take advantage of the formation. As long as they crossed the distance of less than a hundred *zhang*, the attack of thirty thousand men would be able to engulf the six thousand Huaxia army in front.

Some soldiers were blown away while running, and some fell to the ground, tripping their rushing comrades. Even so, the soldiers whose charge was disrupted were still a minority.

As the distance continued to close, crossing two hundred meters, crossing one hundred and fifty meters, some people drew their bows and shot arrows while running. On this side, the Huaxia army officer holding the flag in the musket formation had not even wavered, and some soldiers even glanced to the side. Arrows rose into the sky, then flew over, and some people were hit and staggered and fell.

"Don't move—prepare!"

The shout contained a bloody, suppressed taste.

One hundred meters, and the command flag finally fell. People shouted, "Fire!"

The first row of soldiers pulled the triggers, and the flames of the muzzles rose with smoke. The soldiers facing the center, a total of one thousand two hundred people, four hundred iron bullets rushed out of the barrels, flying towards the oncoming Jurchen soldiers like a barrier.

Blood blossomed. A large number of soldiers rolled to the ground at high speed, but soldiers on the front lines still broke through the barrage. Cannonballs howled in. In front of them, the first team of Huaxia army soldiers was squatting down in the smoke, and another team raised the muskets in their hands.

"Second team! Aim—fire!"

Another four hundred bullets swept over, and more people fell while running, followed by another round.

A burly and well-built Jin veteran rolled to the ground while running. He could feel something whistling past over his head. This was a battle-hardened Jurchen veteran, who had followed Lou Shi on expeditions north and south, and even witnessed the destruction of the entire Liao kingdom. But at this moment in the battle of Wangyuan Bridge, he rolled to the ground with a sudden weakness in his right leg.

The shield in his hand flew far away, and his body rolled on the ground—he tried not to let the steel knife in his hand hurt himself—after rolling two circles, he gritted his teeth and tried to stand up, but his entire lower right leg fed back pain and powerlessness. He grabbed his thigh, trying to see the injury on his lower leg. A body fell to the ground in his vision. It was a companion who had charged with him, half of his face blown open, the red and yellow colors splashing on his head.

The Huaxia army's cannonballs were still flying past. The veteran then remembered to look at the surrounding situation. In the chaotic figures, countless people were falling, rolling, and corpses or wounded soldiers were spreading across the entire grassland. Only a few vanguard soldiers had closed to within ten *zhang* of the Huaxia army's human wall, and that human wall was still raising *tuhuo qiang*.

At the same moment, something even more terrifying flew over his head.

This time, the entire earth blossomed with dense roars.

It was still the third quarter of *wu shi*, and the feeling of fear that had been briefly suppressed finally bloomed in the hearts of some Jurchen soldiers.

…

The second round of rocket propelled grenades that was loaded first were on the three launching racks facing the direction of the cavalry led by Wen Sa. This time it was a full load of fifteen rockets. At the same time, the other seven launching racks marked different distance areas in the middle of the thirty thousand Jurchen army at intervals of thirty *zhang*.

At this time, the distance between the cavalry trying to bypass the Huaxia army's front line and the Huaxia army's position had been shortened to one hundred and fifty *zhang*, but in a short period of time, they had not been able to widen the distance between each other. Fifteen rockets successively streaked across the sky and landed in the cavalry charge that was protruding diagonally forward.

Flames and shockwaves swept across the ground, and smoke and dust rose with a bang. Warhorses were larger than humans, and when the shrapnel from the bombs swept out, six or seven nearby warhorses rolled to the ground as if they had been harvested. On the warhorses near the explosions, the blood holes from the shrapnel strikes were as dense as flowers. The moment the fifteen rockets landed, about fifty cavalrymen fell immediately. However, the area where the rockets landed was like a barrier. In the blink of an eye, over a hundred cavalrymen formed a chain reaction of rolling and trampling. Countless warhorses neighed and ran wildly on the battlefield. Some warhorses collided with their companions, and chaos spread in the huge cloud of smoke and dust.

In the direction of the infantry, more, black masses of soldiers surged towards the distance of two hundred meters, and countless shouts shook the heavens. At the same time, thirty-five rocket propelled grenades named "Dijiang" were saturation-fired into the Jurchen infantry ranks. This was the first round of saturation fire. Almost all the Huaxia army technicians were sweating profusely. The crisscrossing shockwaves of the flames and smoke made it almost impossible for them to open their eyes.

The thirty-five streaks of light, like fireworks rising densely in later generations, rushed towards the bloodthirsty tide composed of Jurchens, and everyone saw what happened next in their eyes.

Thirty thousand people charged while shouting hysterically. The black mass and the deafening shouts were so clamorous that the back of their heads were swelling. Ning Yi had participated in many battles, but after the establishment of the Huaxia army, it was actually the first time to conduct such a large-scale clash on the plains.

What flashed through his mind was the battle he had experienced outside Bianliang many years ago. The Jurchens charged over, and hundreds of thousands of royalist troops retreated like a tide in the wilderness outside Bianliang. No matter where they went, they could see their own people fleeing for their lives, and no matter where they went, no army had caused any trouble for the Jurchens.

Now, it was thirty thousand such Jurchen elites, pouncing over hysterically in front of him.

"... What do you think they are shouting so loudly?"

"Kill your whole family."

"... Oh," Ning Yi nodded. "After this round of firing, let the two launching racks aim at Wanyan Xie Bao's banner. If he wants to leave, kill him."

The shockwaves of the explosions were spreading across the ground. In this formation of an all-out charge, each rocket could take away the combat power of more than ten Jurchen soldiers—they either died on the spot, or were seriously injured and rolled on the ground screaming—and the simultaneous launch of thirty-five rockets formed one blood-fire vacuum after another in the sea of Jurchens.

Wanyan Xie Bao had completely understood what the objects streaking past in front of his eyes meant. He didn't understand why the other side's second round of firing hadn't come towards his own banner, but he didn't choose to run away.

Just as the entire vanguard of the thirty thousand troops entered the hundred-meter range, and the Huaxia army's guns and cannons rang out completely, Wanyan Xie Bao prepared for a desperate gamble.

He was the son of the Jurchens, a hero. He would seize a glimmer of life from this world, like his fathers.

At this time, on the mountain battlefield called Shiling, more than ten *li* away, Wanyan Zonghan was waiting for the first round of battle reports to come from the direction of Wangyuan Bridge…

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