Chapter 133: Angrily Rebuking Cao Cao

It was now the first watch of the night. A slender crescent moon hung high in the sky, casting down clear, unclouded moonlight that illuminated the pale blue firmament and dyed the edges of the murky earth in a layer of white frost.

On such a night, visibility remained quite extensive. At least within a radius of one or two hundred meters, one could clearly distinguish the surrounding scenery even without the aid of torches.

Shen Chen's mood had plummeted to rock bottom. He truly had not expected Cao Cao to counter-maneuver against his strategy this time.

During the incident with Zhang Xiu, Cao Cao had personally led the main force to cover the rear, and only after repelling Zhang Xiu did he leave behind a detachment to block the pursuers. This time, however, Cao Cao had first sent three weaker detachments to hold the rear. Only after Shen Chen assumed this constituted the entirety of the Cao forces' deployment did he finally unleash his masterstroke.

This stratagem was known as luring the enemy deep into the trap. No matter how cautious one might be, one still ultimately fell victim to it.

Presumably, the reason Cao Cao had deployed those three ambush parties was largely to exhaust Shen Chen's scouting outriders. With the scouts mostly killed or wounded, by the time they reached the decisive battlefield, it would naturally be impossible to investigate the actual situation.

Yet even after falling into the trap, Shen Chen did not panic. He calmly issued his tactical commands: "Pass the order to seize the Cao army's supply carts!"

He intended to use the supply wagons as temporary cover while awaiting Gan Ning's reinforcements.

However, the moment they made their move, the soldiers driving the supply carts in Cao Cao's rear guard began frantically severing the pulling ropes, overturning torches onto the vehicles, and fleeing on horseback.

These supply carts were actually empty, filled merely with hollow wooden crates designed to deceive Shen Chen. Cao Cao certainly would not grant him the opportunity to seize them.

Yet even Cao Cao had his miscalculations.

Woodlands caught fire easily for two reasons: first, the accumulation of withered grass tended to trap marsh gas; second, trees secreted resin. Once a fire started in dry weather amidst such flammable forest materials, it tended to spread rapidly.

However, even with torches thrown upon them, wooden crates could not catch fire quickly unless doused with fish oil or animal fat.

At present, Cao Cao had taken virtually all supplies with him to Guandu; even household cooking oil in Xuchang was scarce, let alone fish oil to waste on such ruses.

Consequently, when the soldiers of Huangmenting rushed forward, most of the baggage carts remained unignited. At most, small flames flickered briefly before being immediately extinguished, and they swiftly captured several hundred baggage wagons.

"Quick, quick, quick!"

"Line up the carts!"

"Archers and crossbowmen, prepare!"

In the dark of night, the original position of Cao Cao's rear guard had been seized by the Huangmenting soldiers, and figures bustled among the wagons.

Well-trained, the soldiers quickly stacked the vehicles to form a defensive barricade.

At that moment, the ambushers in the mountains also rushed down, launching a ferocious assault upon the wagon-encircled defense perimeter, closing in to less than fifty meters.

"Kill!"

Amidst this thunderous roar, the foremost Cao soldiers heard a rapid, intense series of bowstring and crossbow-arm vibrations snap through the air from near and far, followed by dozens of bolts raining down relentlessly.

Immediately afterward, countless soldiers of Shen Chen's army leaped out from behind the wagon boxes, charging forward with battle cries. With volleys of arrows, flashing swords, and thrusting spears, the Cao soldiers were mowed down in an instant.

"Set fire! Burn them!"

"It's no use! Those carts aren't burning fast enough, and their archery is too fierce!"

"Charge inward! Charge inward! The Excellency has given his command: whoever takes Shen Chen's head or captures him alive shall be promoted to general, awarded a hundred catties of gold, and enfeoffed as a marquis!"

"Charge!"

"Quick, quick, quick! Move swiftly, don't let them establish a defense!"

Cao forces swarmed from all directions. Throughout the night, shouts, battle cries, drumbeats, and the thunder of hooves shook the earth, making it seem as though the entire night sky was trembling incessantly.

Shen Chen was currently organizing the counterattack on the western side. At least two squads consisting of over a hundred Cao soldiers were pressing toward his sector, while he had fewer than thirty personal guards by his side.

Deng Zhao and Shen Zhen were each commanding their respective sectors. The sudden assault by the Cao army had clearly far exceeded their expectations, but amid life and death, they had managed to seize this batch of wagons, forming a defensive circle to repel the surrounding enemies.

Both sides engaged in fierce combat inside and outside the wagon-built perimeter. Shen Chen personally led his men to beat back the advancing hundred-odd Cao soldiers, leaving twenty or thirty corpses bristling with arrows right where they fell.

However, not long after, the arrows carried by Shen Chen's troop were exhausted. Out of the three thousand men, only about a fifth were archers, and when distributed among the various squads, the numbers were even smaller. The arrows carried on their persons numbered merely twenty or thirty, and they were depleted at an astonishing speed.

Before the second wave of attacks, Shen Tao said to Shen Chen, "General, I will go gather some arrows."

"Be careful," Shen Chen exhorted him.

"A squad, follow me!"

Shen Tao summoned ten men, nimbly vaulted over the wagon, and crept toward the nearby corpses of the Cao soldiers.

Instantly, however, the Cao army opened fire with a ceaseless storm of arrows. Aside from Shen Tao and three other relatively agile soldiers, the rest fell amidst the hail of darts.

A dull thud sounded beside him. Shen Chen turned his head to see Shen Tao vaulting back over the wagon box, losing his footing upon landing and tumbling to the ground. He looked quite disheveled, covered in mud, with an arrow wedged into his topknot.

Before Shen Chen could ask, he heard a rapid drumming of impacts against the wooden planks of the baggage carts, signifying that the exterior was likely bristling with arrows by now.

To deceive Shen Chen, Cao Cao had indeed gone to great lengths.

Fearing the baggage carts were too light and that wheel-track depth might betray the ruse, he had filled the wooden crates and hemp sacks on the wagons with stones. Arrows striking them produced a metallic clanging sound.

"How is it?" Shen Chen asked.

Wincing as he climbed up from the ground, Shen Tao replied, "I'm fine."

"Gather the arrows stuck in the wooden crates."

Seeing that he was unhurt, Shen Chen immediately issued the order.

This time, there was no need to venture outside; they could simply lean over the wagon boxes or pluck them from the gaps between the crates, making it much safer.

"The enemy is coming up again!" someone shouted.

"Kill!"

Shen Chen drew his bow, took a dozen arrows collected by a soldier, climbed onto the wagon bed, and exposed his upper body to look outward. He saw the enemy launching another assault after a few volleys of arrows.

As they closed the distance, the long spears and halberds of both sides clashed in a melee. Standing atop the wagon, Shen Chen fired his bow at close range into the throng.

"Swish!"

An arrow shot forth like a falling star in the night, felling a Cao soldier.

Just as he drew his bow for a second shot, a piercing sound rushed toward him. Instinctively dropping his head and crouching down, Shen Chen felt several arrows graze right past his scalp.

The terror of facing death head-on made his heart pound wildly, but while anyone else around him might show fear, he alone could not falter. Suppressing the discomfort, he stood up once more to draw his bow and loose his arrows.

Soon, however, a long halberd thrust toward him. Hurriedly, Shen Tao scrambled up from the ground to his side, parrying with his own halberd and locking shafts with the enemy.

Aside from ring-pommel sabers and crossbows, the mainstream weapons of the Han dynasty were the spear and the halberd. Although the lance had emerged by this time, soldiers rarely used it due to differences in the shafts.

Now, their halberds crossed and hooked together, and both sides began a test of raw strength. Shen Chen used his bow to shoot that Cao soldier dead at point-blank range, then continued firing like a stationary turret, quickly killing four or five attacking troopers.

The fierce battle raged for nearly half an hour. The crossbow bolts carried by the Huangmenting soldiers were almost completely exhausted, forcing them to rely solely on the wagons for desperate resistance, locked in a life-and-death struggle until every soldier was stained with blood.

"Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!"

At that very moment, the bronze gongs sounded within the Cao camp.

Upon hearing the signal, the surrounding encircling Cao forces immediately began to recede like the tide.

Shen Chen bore three wounds, his entire body drenched in blood as sweat and crimson mingled. After the Cao army retreated, he leaned against a wagon box and panted heavily.

"Quick, have everyone gather arrows."

He forced himself to his feet. Although a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old youth was half a man, his physical stamina was severely depleted, and he was nearly paralyzed with exhaustion.

The surrounding soldiers fared slightly better. Having been nourished on ample meat, eggs, and milk, a Huangmenting soldier vastly surpassed the Cao troops in physical strength and brawn, while their routine training made their endurance far superior as well.

Though numbering fewer than three thousand, they had contracted their defense into a tight circle. Each wagon was defended by at least a dozen men who rotated in combat, maintaining close coordination and narrowly holding off a Cao force several times their number.

Outside the wagons, the ground was strewn with Cao corpses, mostly slain by crossbow fire during the first two waves of assault, while casualties from the close-quarters melee were relatively few. Meanwhile, Huangmenting had suffered heavy losses; in the span of just half an hour, they had lost another two to three hundred comrades.

Taking advantage of this breathing space, Shen Chen immediately directed his men to gather arrows while closely observing the enemy's movements. Their position was compact—roughly two-thirds the size of a drill ground—making mutual support much easier.

"A-Chen! A-Chen!"

Just then, Deng Zhao hurried over and shouted to him, "Come this way!"

Shen Chen immediately rushed over to the eastern defense line.

The Cao forces on the eastern front were relatively sparse; the primary pressure lay upon the northern and western fronts—namely, the post road and the mountain ambush party to the left.

Cao Cao's cavalry was stationed in the east. Having charged up earlier only to halt, wary of storming the wagon barricade, they were now being watched by Deng Zhao and several hundred men. Some unusual movement seemed to be taking place there.

"Shen Chen!"

Amidst the darkness, a figure rode out from the cavalry formation to a distance of an arrow's flight away—about a hundred and twenty or thirty meters—and called out loudly toward them.

"Cao Cao!"

Shen Chen's eyes instantly turned bloodshot; he would never forget this man for as long as he lived.

The man was indeed Cao Cao.

Meeting for the second time, they were once again upon a battlefield, as if the two of them were destined never to encounter each other in any other setting.

Seated upon his horse, Cao Cao raised his voice: "If you are willing to surrender, all past transgressions shall be forgiven!"

"In your dreams!" Shen Chen retorted.

"The blood debt of the hundreds of kinsmen at Zengyang Settlement is a debt I will exact from you. And the blood debt of hundreds of thousands of souls in Xuzhou is something you cannot escape!"

"Ignorant!" Cao Cao said coldly. "I serve and uphold the Emperor. Do you know the consequences of opposing me?"

Shen Chen replied indifferently, "What kind of upholding of the Emperor is yours? You merely use the Emperor to command the lords. Can anyone accomplish great deeds in this world without righteousness? You are devoid of virtue; if Heaven does not execute you, I shall!"

"Devoid of virtue?" Cao Cao asked. "How am I devoid of virtue?"

Shen Chen shouted, "I have heard the teachings of our royal ancestors: the people may be drawn close, but not oppressed. The people are the foundation of the state; only when the foundation is secure is the realm at peace! When you were in Yanzhou, you indulged your greed and tyranny, corrupting morals and oppressing the people, slaughtering hundreds of thousands in Xuzhou. Is this true?"

Cao Cao remained silent.

Shen Chen continued, "It is said that an enlightened lord plans for crises to control change, while a loyal minister contemplates adversity to establish authority! In Xuchang, you挟天子以令诸侯 (wield the Emperor to command the lords), manipulated power, usurped offices, oppressed the state, and forged decrees, provoking the Emperor to issue the Girdle Decree. Is this true?"

Again, Cao Cao did not speak.

Shen Chen went on, "I have also heard that you established the offices of General of the Pacifying Tombs and Gold-Panning 校尉 (Colonel), laying waste to whatever you encountered, leaving bones exposed. Occupying the rank of one of the Three Excellencies, you acted with the cruelty of bandits, defiling the state and oppressing the people, bringing poison to both men and ghosts. Can this be called virtuous?"

Cao Cao merely watched quietly, unable to refute him.

Finally, Shen Chen laughed and said, "I hear that last year you wrote a new poem containing the lines: 'White bones exposed across the wilds, a thousand miles without a cock crowing.' Are these things not all caused by you? Your inner cruelty, personal arrogance, extreme disposition, and vile literary style—you, who are without father or mother, sovereign or subject, with no thought for family, state, or common folk—are you truly fit to be called a man of virtue?"

"Beat the drums! Release arrows!"

Cao Cao spoke only these final words in a flat tone.

He had indeed committed these acts, leaving little room for refutation.

Yet Cao Cao had never believed in morality or benevolence; he believed solely in the power and troops held in his own hands.

Even if his methods were ruthless, lawless, and devoid of virtue, so what?

The victors were the strong!

At his command, the dull thud of war drums sounded once more.

Earlier, when the Cao army had suffered losses in the archer duel, it was because Shen Chen had cover while they did not.

Now, however, the arrows of Shen Chen's army were nearly spent. Countless arrows blotted out the sky as they rained down upon Shen Chen's forces.

Instant screams rang out, and the casualties among Shen Chen's men rapidly mounted.

Soon, the exterior protective barriers were bristling with arrows. Although Shen Chen's inner circle possessed swordsmen and shield-bearers, even shields could not block such dense volleys.

Though Cao Cao had transferred the majority of his forces to Guandu, he still carried tens of thousands of arrows with him. Unleashing them all was enough to turn these three thousand men into hedgehogs.

In the distance, Guan Yu's veins bulged with tension. He was not by Cao Cao's side at the moment, but rather commanding a detachment of cavalry from afar.

The reason Cao Cao had attempted to persuade Shen Chen to surrender earlier was twofold: first, the Cao army had paid a heavy price in consuming Shen Chen's arrows; second, he truly preferred Shen Chen's surrender to eliminate any worries in Nanyang's rear.

Now that Shen Chen had flatly refused, it was a fight to the death. Once the arrow storm ceased, the Cao army would undoubtedly launch a fresh assault, and by then Shen Chen's forces would surely be annihilated.

Guan Yu now realized Cao Cao had deceived him. Seeing Shen Chen in such desperate straits, he desperately wanted to charge over and cut Cao Cao down with a single stroke of his blade.

Yet what made him hesitate was the presence of Xu Chu and Xiahou Yuan by Cao Cao's side; success was not guaranteed.

More importantly, even if he slew Cao Cao, relying on the Red Hare horse, escaping would be easy. But Shen Chen would still not be able to get away—Li Tong, Xiahou Yuan, and Xu Chu would not let him go, not to mention his two esteemed sisters-in-law still in Xuchang...

For a time, Guan Yu was torn by agonizing indecision.

While he hesitated, Cao Cao's archery volleys drew to a close, and a new round of attacks commenced.

The Cao troops from all directions launched a final, ferocious assault upon Shen Chen's forces.

At that moment, the open ground occupied by Shen Chen's men was densely packed with arrows and the corpses of numerous soldiers.

Nevertheless, everyone had relied on the wagon boxes, utilizing the angles formed by the carts to barely dodge the missiles. Even those without positions curled up behind shields held by shield-bearers.

Thus, despite the countless arrows, the losses were limited to five or six hundred men, leaving two thousand soldiers barely clinging to survival.

As the Cao army charged anew, the defenders hoisted their blades, climbed atop the wagons, and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

The fierce battle dragged on for another half-hour.

Just then, the rumbling sound of heavy wagon wheels rolling over the ground suddenly echoed from the distant road.

At that moment, Shen Chen had taken an arrow to his left shoulder. Enduring the excruciating pain, he wielded a ring-pommel saber in his right hand to assist Shen Tao in combat, narrowly hacking down a Cao soldier who had climbed onto the wagon.

Fortunately, while they occupied favorable terrain, Cao Cao had inadvertently lent them a hand: because the wagon boxes were bristling with arrows, it made climbing difficult for the attacking Cao soldiers. Consequently, they found it hard to breach the position and could only stab blindly with halberds and spears. Yet the carts were filled with stones and could not be pierced, resulting in a stalemate.

Hearing the thunderous rumble of wheels, everyone instinctively looked toward the south.

Through the dark night, eight hundred men clad in brocade robes came charging rapidly toward the battlefield. The leader, mounted on a horse, shouted furiously: "Gan Ning of Bajing is here! A-Chen, hold on a little longer, I have arrived!"

Behind him rolled over two thousand chariots and more than six thousand troops.

The battle had now lasted for over two hours. Because Shen Chen had fought through three successive delaying actions before arriving here, where he had fought for another half-hour, and because he had previously instructed Gan Ning to come to his rescue after half an hour, Gan Ning was actually an hour late.

The delay occurred because, after advancing, Gan Ning's scouting cavalry had discovered the situation, forcing him to return once more to Kunyang, fetch the chariots, and mobilize all the troops remaining in the city for the rescue.

Thus, he had arrived late.

Fortunately, combat efficiency in the era of cold weapons was low, and fierce battles could drag on for an entire day. Therefore, even being an hour late meant he had arrived just in time.

The rumbling chariots crashed toward the outer formations of the Cao army, forcing the Cao troops to scatter.

With torches blazing everywhere in the night, the Cao forces had no idea how many enemies had arrived. Struck by a charge of two thousand chariots, their original formations fell into disarray, making it difficult to organize a new offensive in the short term.

Seeing that Gan Ning had finally arrived, Shen Chen's spirits surged, and he shouted, "Reinforcements have arrived! Charge!"

"Charge!"

Mustering their remaining strength, the men of Huangmenting burst out from the wagon fortress and counterattacked into the fray.

Caught in a pincer attack from front and rear, the outer Cao forces plunged into chaos.

Too late to direct the battle on the spot, Cao Cao could only sound the gongs, ordering his men to retreat and regroup before plotting their next move.

Gan Ning, however, showed no intention of letting them go, continuing to press his assault into the Cao ranks. Cao Cao ordered his cavalry to loose arrows, dispersing a portion of Gan Ning's vanguard. Seeing the enemy's chariot formation bearing down upon them, Cao Cao had no choice but to wheel his horse about and order the cavalry to flee northward.

"Brother Shen!"

"Hmm!"

Shen Changqing walked along the path, occasionally nodding or exchanging greetings with familiar faces he happened to pass.

Yet regardless of who they were, no one wore any surplus expression on their faces, as if they remained utterly indifferent to everything around them.

To this, Shen Changqing had long since grown accustomed.

For this was the Demon Suppression Division, an institution charged with maintaining stability in the Great Qin Empire. Its primary duty was to slaughter fiends and ghosts, alongside a few other auxiliary operations.

One might say that every single person within the Demon Suppression Division had blood on their hands.

When a person grew accustomed to witnessing life and death, they naturally grew indifferent to many things.

Upon first arriving in this world, Shen Changqing had felt somewhat ill at ease, but as time passed, he had grown used to it.

The Demon Suppression Division was vast.

Those permitted to remain within its ranks were either formidable experts of immense strength or individuals possessing the potential to become such experts.

Shen Changqing belonged to the latter category.

Within the Demon Suppression Division, careers were divided into two distinct paths: Suppression Envoys and Demon Extermination Envoys.

Anyone entering the division started from the lowest tier—a Probationary Demon Extermination Envoy—and gradually promoted upward, with the ultimate hope of becoming a Suppression Envoy.

Shen Changqing's predecessor had been a probationary demon extermination envoy within the division, occupying the lowest rank among extermination envoys.

Armed with his predecessor's memories, he was thoroughly familiar with the environment of the Demon Suppression Division.

Without taking long, Shen Changqing halted before a multi-storied pavilion.

Unlike the rest of the Demon Suppression Division, which exuded an aura of stern slaughter, this pavilion stood out like a crane among chickens, radiating a tranquil serenity amidst the blood-soaked surroundings.

The doors of the pavilion stood open, and people occasionally walked in and out.

Hesitating for merely a moment, Shen Changqing stepped inside.

Upon entering, the atmosphere shifted abruptly.

A fragrance of ink mingled with a faint, metallic scent of blood washed over him, causing his brow to furrow instinctively before smoothing out just as quickly.

The scent of blood clinging to everyone in the Demon Suppression Division was a thing nearly impossible to wash away completely.