xymnovel 105: Camp Roar
105: Camp Roar
A Tibetan soldier said, "We haven't even reached Dunhuang yet, and over a thousand people have already died. This trip is practically suicide!"
One of them sighed, "Yes, the most pitiful ones are us soldiers. Even if we win the battle, all the credit goes to them!"
As the two men were carrying the body, they saw two brocade robes that had fallen to the ground. They quickly each hid one robe in their bosoms.
This scene was witnessed by many Tibetan soldiers.
Brocade robes are not cheap. An ordinary garment costs about thirty or forty coins, and a slightly better one costs about a hundred coins, but a brocade robe costs at least several hundred or a thousand coins. If it is Shu brocade, it costs several thousand coins.
There's even a saying that an inch of Shu brocade is worth a bushel of gold, which shows that for these Tibetan soldiers, this was practically equivalent to finding hundreds or even thousands of coins.
These Tibetan soldiers were afraid that their brocade robes would be discovered, so when no one was around, they would put them on and then put on an outer coat over them to avoid being discovered and having them confiscated.
In the blink of an eye, two hours had passed, and it was now the second quarter of the hour of Chou (1-3 AM).
The time for the change of guard arrived, and several Tibetan soldiers returned to their tents. Upon entering, they removed their outer coats, revealing brocade robes underneath, and admired them beautifully, exclaiming, "How beautiful!"
Someone shouted, "Hey, everyone get up and change shifts!"
One man, groggily waking up, saw the person dressed in brocade robes and immediately shouted, "The Tang army is attacking the camp!"
He got up from the ground, picked up his knife and rushed towards the man, stabbing him directly in the abdomen. At that moment, everyone was awakened from their dreams. A night patrol soldier lifted the tent flap and saw a soldier in brocade robes being killed.
At that moment, the man glanced over and saw that this person was also dressed in brocade robes. He shouted, "Get up! The Tang army is attacking the camp!"
When the night patrolmen saw him charging with a knife, they didn't hesitate for a moment. They raised their spears and stabbed the man to death. The rest of the men in the tent picked up their knives and attacked the night patrolmen.
In an instant, the entire vanguard camp descended into chaos. There was no friend or foe; people killed and hacked at anyone they saw.
To survive, one has no choice but to kill others!
A riot has broken out!
In the central army camp, the deputy general hurriedly entered the main camp, saluted, and said, "General, a mutiny has broken out in the vanguard camp!"
The Tibetan general took a deep breath, stood up, and said, "Order the troops to clear the tents and strictly guard the central camp. No one is allowed to enter without permission; those who disobey will be killed!"
"yes!"
At that moment, Zhang Yi and his men were waiting for news on the hillside when a scout came running and reported, "General, a mutiny has broken out in the vanguard of the Tibetan army, and they've started fighting amongst themselves!"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Yi smiled slightly and said, "Alright, you continue scouting. The brothers from the Fourth Regiment will follow Li Zhong, and the rest of the troops will come with me to Dunhuang County tonight to set up defenses!"
......
at the same time.
Linxiang Temple was now completely surrounded by constables. Su Wen, Xu Ge, Xiao Bi, Cui Lingyu, Qin Zhan, and some other constables were searching for secret passages and mechanisms inside the main hall.
Su Wen didn't believe in the idea of dying on the spot. Since it was a case of turning a person into a living being, there must be a secret passage!
What's even stranger is that all the monks of Linxiang Temple disappeared during the fight early in the morning; it couldn't have been that they escaped.
More importantly, Su Wen has not yet caught Yi Tian, and he doesn't even know if the old man from earlier was Yi Tian. But judging from his appearance, he shouldn't be Yi Tian!
In other words, the enemy is still lurking in Dunhuang County, waiting for the Tibetan army to arrive so that they can attack from both inside and outside. If they are not eliminated as soon as possible, things may get complicated!
Before long, a constable found the secret passage. As soon as he activated the mechanism, a secret passage appeared below the double-bodied Buddha statue. Su Wen glanced at it and wanted to go down.
Seeing this, Xu Ge and Qin Zhan hurriedly stopped him: "Imperial Envoy Su, you can't go down! If something happens to you inside, the sandbar will be leaderless!"
As he spoke, Qin Zhan looked at several armored soldiers and said, "Men, form the battle formation!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the fifteen-man squad, composed of three groups, clad in heavy armor, went down one after another. Cui Lingyu also wanted to go down, but Su Wen stopped her, saying, "Lingyu, it's getting late. You and Xiao Bi should go back and rest!"
Cui Lingyu wanted to retort, but Su Wen just stared at her without saying another word. Seeing this, Cui Lingyu had no choice but to nod and say, "Then this servant will wait here for Su Lang!"
Su Wen nodded and followed the soldiers down.
The so-called "three-five squad" is a three-talent assault formation, consisting of a first row of swordsmen and shieldmen, a second row of crossbowmen, a third row of long spearmen, and a fourth row of soldiers.
This means that the first row of five men were sword and shield bearers, the second row of five men were archers and crossbowmen, the third row of men were long spearmen, and the fourth row of men were the commanders, who were also the squad leaders of the three groups.
Everyone here was dressed in heavy armor, with only a slit in their helmets for the eyes to see through. The heavy armor consisted of gaiters, arm guards, skirt armor, breastplate, armpit guards, shoulder guards, secondary weapons, arm guards, throat guards, and iron helmets to protect the face. Underneath, they wore a cloth armor, making them armed to the teeth!
The three corporals carried golden melon hammers, which were one meter long, with round hammer-shaped heads, about the size of a fist, and weighed eight pounds and six ounces!
The first rank of swordsmen and shieldmen each carried a large sword and a rattan shield.
The second rank of crossbowmen carried one of the seven types of official crossbows of the Tang Dynasty, the infantry standard crossbow, with a range of two hundred paces and the ability to penetrate heavy armor within thirty paces.
The third row of long swords comes in different lengths, generally over eight feet long. In order to effectively protect the swordsmen from being caught in close combat, the swordsmen in this row are wielding swords that are eight feet and two inches long.
Swords and shields are placed in front to prevent surprise attacks.
Going down, you'll see a passage leading directly to a wooden door in front of you, which is now closed.
As the army approached the gate, two swordsmen and shieldmen quickly pushed open the wooden door, while three others raised their shields to block.
*Whoosh!*
Several arrows struck the shields, and the swordsmen and shieldmen crouched down while the crossbowmen raised their crossbows and fired. Their aiming speed was extremely fast, almost a fraction of a second. The crossbows hit several people, and they fell to the ground and died on the spot.
The swordsmen and shieldmen rose and advanced, shields raised.
Upon entering, one sees that the space inside is not very large, and apart from the few people killed by crossbow bolts, there is no one else. On the other side, there is a passage.
The swordsman and shieldman stepped forward to investigate and found that there was only one passage that could be passed by one person at a time.
After the swordsmen went out to investigate, they returned and reported, "Reporting to the superior, they have likely escaped into the alley leading to Chang Le Fang!"
Su Wen nodded, not expecting that Yi Tian had still managed to escape, or rather, that Yi Tian had never been here at all!
After carefully examining the room, Su Wen said, "Search this place!"
A moment later, the soldiers and constables looted twenty or thirty boxes of gold coins from the hidden compartments in the area.
Such a large gold ingot, when converted into currency, would be worth at least tens of millions of coins, almost three-fifths of the entire Tang Dynasty's annual tax revenue—it's simply astonishing.
Su Wen and Qin Zhan dared not imagine that if such a large sum of money fell into the hands of the Tibetans, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Su Wen knew that this was all the savings that Yi Tian had accumulated over the years of setting up the flower shop. Now that Su Wen had confiscated it, even the most composed person behind the scenes would be furious and might even show up to confront Su Wen directly!
Of course, let alone Yi Tian, anyone would go completely insane if someone took so much money from them, and even the emperor would be no exception!