The sun was setting on the western horizon, with only the last glimmer of light remaining. The nearby mountains and land had already begun to darken.

The sound of horses neighed, and flickering flames could be seen burning among the hills and mudflats. The voices of fleeing soldiers echoed across the land as night approached, their distance difficult to discern.

An explosion erupted on the ridge, a burst of flame and smoke momentarily illuminating the darkening landscape. Chen Hai, covered in blood and traversing the battlefield, was nearly caught in the blast. Stumbling, he tripped over a Jin soldier's corpse, fell, and then pushed himself up, his hands covered in sticky blood.

"Geng Changqing! Watch my cannons! Keep count—"

Chen Hai shouted the name of his company commander, issuing orders.

The battle on what was once the Jin soldiers' iron cannon position was nearing its end.

Iron cannons, developed and promoted by the Huaxia Army, were revolutionary weapons, devastatingly effective against dense battlefield formations. However, with the advent of iron cannons and grenades, the Huaxia Army had already begun to phase out dense square formations. The Seventh Army still practiced marching in formation, primarily to instill discipline and a sense of unity, but actual combat drills emphasized dispersing the enemy with explosives and engaging in small-scale, coordinated skirmishes.

Pu Cha's vanguard of ten thousand men had brought over twenty iron cannons. While these could inflict massive casualties on tightly packed formations and the explosive sound would be intimidating to most, the veterans of the Huaxia Seventh Army were largely unaffected.

In a more modern battlefield, new recruits often fear cannons, while veterans fear gunfire. Twenty-odd cannons, even firing simultaneously, would struggle to target a specific individual. For a single soldier, the threat posed by twenty cannons was arguably less than that of twenty arrows, since at least an archer might aim at a particular person, while cannons fire indiscriminately.

Chen Hai organized his troops into squads and led them in a light flanking maneuver around the side of the hills. They launched attacks in waves, rendering the cannons largely ineffective. The two sides initially exchanged grenades and fire-bombs before engaging in close combat amidst the cannon positions. The Huaxia Army began a decapitation strategy, while the Jin soldiers mounted a tenacious defense.

As a force that had dominated the world for three decades, despite recent defeats and the loss of key generals, the Jin army's morale had not completely collapsed. The combination of past glory and present difficulties spurred some to flee in fear, while others were roused to fierce courage. At least in small-scale engagements, they performed admirably.

As a result, Chen Hai expended considerable effort to capture the position. Even as the battle neared its conclusion, Jurchen soldiers launched suicidal attacks with torches. An earlier explosion was caused by a Jurchen warrior who ignited an ammunition stockpile in the artillery position, destroying two nearby cannons.

"Treat the wounded!"

"Establish defenses—"

"Test the cannons—"

Chen Hai moved through the position, issuing orders. Someone approached from afar, carrying a head: "Regimental Commander, killed a Mouke."

"Throw it to the dogs!"

He ordered. Below, the routed soldiers continued to flee, while in the distance, the battle raged on the banks of the Jialing River. To the east, a commotion arose. Chen Hai raised his binoculars, and a line of fire appeared on the eastern horizon—the torches of a mounted unit on the hills across the mudflats.

"Saba is coming. Prepare the cannons!" Chen Hai calmly ordered. "Those with long spears, and the engineer corps, go down and support Brigade Commander Hou."

…

Wanyan Saba did not immediately join the battle.

The support force he led numbered twenty thousand, including over three thousand cavalry. His army was not far from Pu Cha's, and they should have been able to join the battle in half a day. The cavalry could have arrived even sooner. The timeline should have been sufficient, but they had not anticipated that the situation at Lüeyang would change so drastically.

On the way, he received five battlefield reports. The first two were normal, but the subsequent ones grew increasingly urgent. The last report was delivered by soldiers fleeing the battlefield. The Huaxia Army's offensive was terrifying, and Saba ordered his cavalry to halt as soon as they had a view of the battlefield.

The scene before them was one of chaotic retreat. Seeing the torches on the hills, some fleeing Jin soldiers headed towards them. Saba ordered his personal guards to round up the fleeing soldiers and gathered information. Soon, a series of reports came in.

Pu Cha's vanguard force of ten thousand men was on the verge of collapse. Many soldiers had been scattered by the Huaxia Army. He led his personal guards towards the Jialing River, intending to defend the riverbank and strike a desperate, last-ditch offensive.

According to the soldiers, Pu Cha was waiting for rescue on the banks of the Jialing River. In front of them, the cannon positions had already been captured by the Huaxia Army. The Jin soldiers were fleeing in disarray in the darkness, while the Huaxia Army's troops were forming into streams and rivers. In the midst of the chaos, they were instinctively gathering and regrouping. These groups were not large, but to the fleeing Jin soldiers, each one was a man-eating beast, devouring any remaining resistance.

The largest of these clusters had clearly spotted their arrival. They were gathering into a long line below the hillside with the cannon positions, with long spears forming a forest. A line of soldiers in front of the spear-line seemed to be frantically digging into the ground.

This infantry force was only two or three thousand strong, but they were immediately preparing to fight a defensive battle against the cavalry, trying to prevent them from reaching the Jialing River to rescue the others. Saba knew that such a quick and decisive force was extremely dangerous.

Even more alarming, the information that explained the rapid collapse of Pu Cha's forces was beginning to coalesce, making his teeth ache.

Ten years ago, he would have unhesitatingly committed his cavalry to the battlefield.

However, he didn't have much time to hesitate or wait.

He quickly issued several orders: first, his personal guards were to rally and reorganize the fleeing soldiers, restoring their fighting ability; second, messengers were to be sent to the Jialing River to tell Pu Cha to break out eastward and rendezvous with them as soon as possible. At the same time, he summoned his most trusted personal guard and ordered him to return to the main camp and report the situation and findings on this battlefield to Zong Han.

"Go quickly, and do not delay."

He said.

Looking back, the battlefield was scattered with flickering lights among the hills, trees, hollows, and mudflats. The sun had completely set, which wasn't ideal for a cavalry charge, but they had to charge, had to find an opening in the enemy's defenses while in motion.

It was the only way out—

…

Night fell.

Zong Han's main camp was established among the mountains, with warhorses galloping in and out, creating a lively atmosphere.

The war had begun relatively smoothly, in a manner that was unexpected. The fighting started in the afternoon, in the mountains toward Yangba, where skirmishes between scouts were escalating. However, neither side had clearly identified the other's main force. Soon after, reports came in from the Jialing River west of Lüeyang County, and Saba began to advance in support.

Wanyan Zong Han could mobilize roughly ninety thousand troops this time—virtually the last of the Western Route Army's resources. These ninety thousand were divided into five groups: Pu Cha led ten thousand, Saba twenty thousand, Gao Qingyi twenty thousand, She Yema ten thousand, and finally, Zong Han personally led over twenty thousand as the central force.

Pu Cha and Saba's forces advanced from the northern route, while Gao Qingyi was responsible for the area slightly to the south. She Yema's army came from the direction of Zhaohua, both to support Gao Qingyi and to block the Huaxia Seventh Army from advancing south to Jiange. The five armies were currently moving within a radius of a hundred *li*, separated by dozens of *li*, so support could be provided fairly quickly.

The Huaxia Army numbered only twenty thousand, but their fighting strength was formidable. On the Jurchen side, however, the commanders were all seasoned generals capable of independent command, with a good grasp of both offense and defense. As long as they were not too careless, the Huaxia Army should not be able to find an opening to swallow them whole.

Zong Han, Han Qixian, and others certainly thought so. From a military standpoint, there was no major problem.

After nightfall, intelligence was constantly being relayed. There had been no major breakthrough in the Yangba area, and Gao Qingyi's strategy was also conservative, focusing on expanding the search while guarding against surprise attacks—or the Huaxia Army's sudden push to Jiange. In the Jialing River direction, however, the battle had begun.

"...If I estimate correctly, Pu Cha will likely adopt a conservative approach to fighting on the banks of the Jialing River. He should have already tied up this Huaxia Army force. Saba should have arrived by now. What is unclear is whether the main force of the Huaxia Seventh Army, since the fighting at Yangba hasn't truly started, is concentrated entirely at Lüeyang, hoping to use superior forces to defeat our northern route."

That evening, Han Qixian analyzed this possibility with Zong Han in the main tent, and Zong Han agreed.

"The Huaxia Army should be most concerned about the situation at Jiange. Making the false seem true, and the true seem false, it is not impossible that Qin Shaoqian has simply placed his main force in the north," Zong Han said. "However, Saba has always been cautious in battle, good at assessing the situation. Even if Pu Cha cannot defeat the Huaxia Seventh Army, Saba should be able to hold his ground. We are not far away, and once we receive a report, we can start our troops at dawn and travel through the night, and we should be able to engage Qin Shaoqian tomorrow."

Campfires burned brightly in the camp. Dinner had just been eaten, and a new report arrived, confirming that the Huaxia Army force at Lüeyang numbered between seven and ten thousand, and that they were fiercely combative. Pu Cha planned to engage them conservatively.

This report was sent to the main camp after Saba had been notified, so there was a significant delay. However, after hearing the description of the battlefield, both Zong Han and Han Qixian felt that Pu Cha had responded correctly, and they relaxed slightly. But shortly after, Saba's personal guard rode into the camp at high speed.

Zong Han and Gao Qingyi were in the main tent, listening as the guard described the scene when Saba arrived on the battlefield: shortly after noon, the fighting had just begun at Lüeyang, and by seven o'clock, Pu Cha's ten thousand strong army had been almost completely defeated, with only two thousand survivors forced to the banks of the Jialing River, in a so-called do-or-die situation. In other words, in about two hours, under Pu Cha's conservative approach, eight thousand men had been defeated.

"How is this possible—"

Zong Han slammed his hand on the table and stood up.

The guard knelt there: "...The General instructed me to report to the Marshal that the Huaxia Army is extremely skilled at decapitation tactics on the battlefield. The force fighting General Pu Cha is the 7,000-strong First Division of the Huaxia Seventh Army, where every soldier can fight independently. When the General entered the battlefield to rally the fleeing soldiers, the thousands of men under General Pu Cha were in complete disarray. The reason for this is that the Meng'an and Mouke in the army, all those who issued orders, were almost all identified and killed by the Huaxia Army soldiers. Our soldiers were leaderless and could only flee in all directions. And that Huaxia Army is almost fearless of decapitation tactics. Such tactics are... unprecedented. The General says that without a counter, our side... will be hard-pressed to win..."

The guard cried out in grief, expressing Saba's urgency and fear at the time. The first time he realized this characteristic, Saba faintly felt the terror of this matter.

When the Jurchen Western Route Army entered Jianmen Pass and fought towards Zizhou, the Huaxia Fifth Army still had to rely on the defenses of the pass, and also had some new recruits, so the pure decapitation tactics were not fully displayed. But now that Zong Han had taken the initiative to launch an offensive in the wild, and both sides were no longer holding back or playing tricks, all the cards were on the table.

The crushing advantage of modern military systems over ancient military systems had been directly presented to Zong Han and Han Qixian. Zong Han and Han Qixian slowly stood up, looking at the icons on the map. Their understanding of the battlefield had to be completely revised at this moment.

Goosebumps spread along with the coldness in their hearts.

…

On the banks of the Jialing River, Pu Cha, who was attacked by two brigades of the Huaxia Army's First Division, did not break out to rendezvous with Saba that night.

Brigade Commander Hou Lietang led two thousand men to block Saba's cavalry, along with Chen Hai on the side of the hillside, briefly preventing Saba from reaching Pu Cha during the retreat.

And Qi Xinyi's team fought with Pu Cha's personal guards. The Jin soldiers scattered in all directions, and the scene was chaotic. Saba's cavalry could not break into the Jin soldiers to save people. Where the two sides could see each other, the Huaxia Army forcefully beheaded Pu Cha and lit his standard flag.

The rescue failed, and Saba decisively retreated backward during the movement. His infantry was also gathering towards this side.

Including the gathered, scattered Jin soldiers, Saba had more than three times the enemy's strength. He even had a cavalry force, but at this moment, Saba hesitated about whether to take the initiative to attack.

In the darkness, he had gathered more than four thousand scattered Jin soldiers in the hour and a half since his arrival. Some soldiers had not lost their will to fight. They could even fight, but among these four thousand people, there were no middle or high-level generals...

From Meng'an to Mouke, the leaders of these four thousand troops were killed alive by the Huaxia Army in continuous combat impacts. Some soldiers were confused and scattered after not being able to find someone to issue orders. They didn't realize the terror of this thing, they felt willing to continue fighting...

In the night, the Huaxia Army on the opposite mountain fell into Saba's eyes, chilling his heart. It was like a demon knife drawn from its sheath, with a bloody aura, eager to try, ready to devour people at any time. He had fought for half his life and had never seen such an army.

Those seven thousand people must have been completely insane.

"Prepare to attack..." he said.

…

The night wind howled, extinguishing some flames and fanning others.

In the mountains toward Yangba, the operation was about to unfold.

"If Ning Yi came, he would say that we are profligates." Putting down the binoculars, Qin Shaoqian, located in the dark mountains, said with a low smile, "But generals die in a hundred battles... Brave men return after ten years..."

More than ten years since the death of his father and brother...

…

On April 19, a scene that the Jurchens had not expected appeared before them. Faced with the encirclement of more than 90,000 people, the Huaxia Seventh Army, with its final play, launched an uncompromising, head-on attack. The terrifying knife had already slashed down, cutting through the skin, severing the blood vessels, tearing the muscles. The strike went straight to the depths of the bone marrow—

This was the beginning of the final battle.

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