Chapter Sixteen: I Have Already Prepared His Funeral Money

[Thanks to the two readers Drifting Thoughts and the Ethereal Immortal Elder for their rewards~ And thanks to Brother Chishen for the reward, the twenty update-urging votes, and the twelve-thousand-word update demand. Alexander... To eat or not to eat, that is the question...]

“Oh? One hundred thousand taels. Mm. Have you finished?” Zhu Cilang looked at Liu Kui, a faint smile on his face.

Hearing Zhu Cilang speak so calmly, Liu Kui was somewhat taken aback. In his mind, after discovering that Liu Zeqing had fled with his troops, Zhu Cilang should either have been panic-stricken or have already run away.

Liu Zeqing had firmly believed that Zhu Cilang would not flee, and indeed, Zhu Cilang had not. If that was the case, then Zhu Cilang ought to have been terrified and at his wits’ end.

Yet the man before him wore an utterly composed expression, as though everything remained under his control. Where was the panic?

This was far beyond Liu Kui’s expectations. For some reason, a deep fear began to rise within him.

It was almost as if... he had wagered his entire life’s savings on the wrong side.

Suppressing the turmoil in his heart, Liu Kui looked at Zhu Cilang and drew a deep breath.

“My lord... I have delivered General Liu’s message.”

Zhu Cilang nodded. “Then take my words back to Liu Zeqing as well. When I was at the Excise Tax Office, I remembered the figures very clearly. One golden nanmu log cost fourteen hundred taels. Go and tell Liu Zeqing that I have prepared twenty-eight hundred taels for him. That will be enough to buy two golden nanmu trunks and make him a coffin.”

Having said this, Zhu Cilang no longer paid Liu Kui any attention. Instead, he turned to Liu Quan and nodded.

“Open fire!”

Liu Kui stood there in astonishment. He had not even reacted in time to leave, much less answer the order.

The moment Zhu Cilang gave the command, the entire army sprang into motion like a wound-up mechanism. After the artillery battalion completed its inspections, Liu Quan suddenly waved his flag. One artilleryman after another lit the slow matches.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

A succession of thunderous explosions rang out.

Before Liu Kui could react, a deafening blast erupted beside his ears. Three tongues of flame leapt from three cannon mouths. Then... he could no longer hear anything at all.

Only then did Liu Kui realize that the explosions had left him deaf.

On the battlefield, the disorder caused by Liu Zeqing’s Shandong Garrison troops retreating in the face of the enemy had already plunged more than a thousand men under Liu Zhen on the right wing into a desperate struggle for survival. Li Zhen’s persistence had merely prolonged their inevitable defeat by a little while.

Their only remaining hope seemed to be the two thousand recruits.

At the same time, the two thousand infantry on the left wing had seen Liu Zeqing flee, but before chaos could break out, they saw Mad Xu carrying a great saber as tall as a man walk once around the formation.

Afterward, the long infantry line of two thousand men became even more steadfast. Though they still advanced slowly, they continued resolutely toward the central army.

To their south, three bodies of troops had already joined forces and were moving toward the two thousand infantry on the left. Strange cries, excited laughter, and furious roars rang out without pause. It seemed that these two thousand government soldiers had already become turtles trapped in a jar.

Then the cannon fire began.

Three iron shot flew across the distance. Their trajectories rose in great arcs, passing over the two thousand soldiers on the left before crashing down. One round struck the ground, gouging out a deep pit, then bounced violently into the air and sent sand spraying in every direction.

Before the rebels could cheer at the miss, the other two iron balls slammed into the three thousand rebel soldiers packed together in formation.

The impact carved two bloody paths through their ranks.

These were real roads of blood. Within the two tightly packed formations, along those two paths of death, countless severed limbs and shattered corpses gurgled as blood poured from them.

Some could not help recalling the sight of an iron ball striking a man’s head and bursting it apart, spraying pale brain matter and scarlet blood across the ground.

Perhaps the thought of those countless brutal scenes was too much. More than a hundred men suddenly bent over and began vomiting violently.

Qin Daluo was among them.

This hardened bandit of the outlaw world, who had killed countless men, vomited up every drop of fine wine and rich meat he had eaten that day. At the same time, terror surged through his heart.

“Government artillery? The government army actually has cannon that can shoot this far—and with such accuracy?”

“There’s an artillery unit behind the two thousand soldiers on the left!”

Before long, someone spotted the ten dark cannon mouths behind the two thousand infantry.

At that moment, under Mad Xu’s orders, the two thousand infantry had opened a gap and cleared the line of fire. They accelerated southward, clearly intending to rescue the government troops on the right wing, who were locked in a fierce melee with the Red Maiden.

In the distance, Li Yan wore a bitter smile, his thoughts slightly muddled.

“How could this happen... How did disorder break out so suddenly?”

Beside him, Li Nian said anxiously, “Big Brother! Give the order quickly! This is no time for hesitation!”

After hearing Li Nian, Li Yan slowly exhaled and swiftly regained his composure.

“Right. It is nothing more than a minor disturbance. What use can two thousand recruits possibly be? Very well... I will lead two hundred men as a military discipline squad and suppress Qin Daluo and the other three thousand soldiers. As for those few artillerymen, at such close range, how many shots can they fire?”

Coming back to himself, Li Yan quickly issued his orders.

“Li Nian, I order you to take one thousand elite soldiers from our own ranks and immediately break through and crush the remnants of the government army on the right wing!”

“Your subordinate obeys!”

Li Nian quickly selected a thousand men from beneath his command and charged southward.

However, when Li Nian led his thousand elite soldiers onto the battlefield, a roar suddenly rang out.

“Save our comrades! Brothers, follow me! Charge in and save our brothers from the Linqing Camp!”

Under the shock of the cannon fire, the two thousand infantry on the left had suddenly quickened their pace and were rapidly moving south.

At that moment, the rebel forces under Qin Daluo and the other two commanders were so intimidated by the artillery that they failed to engage the enemy. They actually allowed the two thousand infantry to pass unhindered and enter the battlefield.

The crescent blade Liu Zhen had held was nowhere to be seen. At some point, he had replaced it with a chipped saber.

His entire body drenched in blood, he looked at the barely twenty old comrades still beside him. Then he looked behind him, at the roughly two thousand survivors who remained nailed to the ground, refusing to retreat even half a step. Finally, he looked at the more than three thousand soldiers under the Red Maiden who had surrounded them on every side.

Suddenly, his eyes grew moist.

“Our brothers... there are only this many left...” Liu Zhen’s heart twisted with agony, and his spirit sank into utter despair. “Let me die here in battle!”

Just as this thought arose in his heart, he suddenly heard a great shout from outside.

“Save our comrades!”

“Save our brothers from the Linqing Camp!”

Liu Zhen froze.

A cavalryman beside him suddenly shouted, “Reinforcements are here!”

“Reinforcements are here! We’ll win! We’ll win!”

“Kill! We will not lose!”

To the south, the Red Maiden, who had withdrawn at some unknown point, silently watched the scene before her and sighed.

“How many battles have we fought today?”

The female commander of her personal guard beside her remained silent.

Pan Yong rose once more, but the Red Maiden stopped him with a glance.

“I’m not fighting anymore. My soldiers have suffered terribly as well. I’ll simply surround them and refuse to let them go.”

“We’ll wait for Li Nian to attack, then enter together with his troops. I have done what I said I would do. Now let’s see whether Li Yan will do what he himself promised.”