Although the army of the Great Snowmountain now had more than 10000 soldiers, Gu Shenwei did not feel that their strength had improved. The original troop, of about 1500 or 1600, were still the ones that he could rely on.
After defeating the reinforcements hired by the nobles, the men from the Great Snowmountain managed to find a substantial number of healthy slaves both in and outside of the capital. With the addition of the tribal soldiers who had surrendered and the few nobles who had survived the forest, their army had expanded, but the newly joined were either weak-willed or cowardly. They were like a big group of children which constantly required supervision, ultimately draining a considerable amount of energy from the veterans.
The battle before them was a major test for the 8000 or so new recruits. Not only did they need to prove their combat power, they also had to show the extent of their loyalty to Dragon King.
It was already coming to a month since the army of the Great Snowmountain had left the capital of the Land of Fragrance. Throughout this time, they had travelled across mountains and rivers and even trampled out small paths hidden amongst the wilderness into a road that was able to accommodate horses and carriages. They had left a few soldiers behind at certain locations to ensure that there would be a smooth passage through this route in the future so that supplies could be transported from the Land of Fragrance.
Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus pushed on with their journey without a stop and caught up with the main body in just a few days’ time.
There were three to four hundred volumes of books left behind by the high priest which were, surprisingly, not thrown out by the illiterate soldiers. Still, it took considerable effort to dig them all out, and it would be much more difficult to piece together the entire text of the eighth chapter of the Wayless Book together from the books.
The texts had originally been arranged in order and matched with each sentence of the incantation, but their sequence had been jumbled up by the late high priest. If anyone wished to cross-check the texts with the incantation, he or she would have to read through the books at least once to match them back into the correct order again.
Gu Shenwei had no energy to perform such a task.
Maid Lotus used spare time over the next few days to read through dozens of the books. Once she noticed sentences that were similar to the incantation, she would reread the paragraph in great detail. Utilizing such a tedious method, she somehow managed to piece together some words that seemed to be a Kung Fu manual. This proved that Shangguan Ru’s deduction was possibly correct.
As they drew nearer to the Western Region, her role as Dragon King’s protector grew increasingly important and she had to set the books aside.
Gu Shenwei ordered men to take proper care of the books and decided to turn his attention to them once things had somewhat settled down. After all, the most important wa to secure dominance over the Western Region was not extraordinary Kung Fu but a strong, loyal and dependable army.
The opposing army was already in formation as they stood on an undulating mountain slope. They looked like rows and rows of trimmed trees.
These were the coalition forces made up of the Wushan tribes from the south of the Xiaoyao Lake and they guarded the main route through the mountain, blocking the exit for the army of the Great Snowmountain.
There were a total of five kingdoms surrounding the Xiaoyao Lake: the Stone, Kang, Sha, and Hui Kingdoms were on the northern shore of the lake; only the An Kingdom sat on its southern shore. Further south of the An Kingdom was the Wushan mountains. This endless mountain range contained the best iron ores as well as the most chaotic tribes in the entire Western Region.
No one knew exactly how many tribes there were in the Wushan region; conservative estimates pegged them over more than a hundred. In their struggle to gain control over the profitable ore lodes, the tribes engaged in battle with one another and sometimes joined forces for alliances. Likewise, no one could understand the relationship between these tribes.
To the southwest of the mountains stood a small, barren hill. Very little vegetation grew on it and it did not contain rich iron ores; it was an area disliked by all tribes. As such, it became a natural barrier for the Land of Fragrance.
Every year, the nobles from the Land of Fragrance would send out a small merchant caravan to cross the mountain range and trade their native products with anything except the precious ores from the Wushan tribes.
For centuries, these small merchant caravans did not attract any attention from any tribe; the tribes could not even tell the difference between them and the other merchants from the Western Region.
Therefore, when the seven sons of the Shili family came looking for reinforcements, the merchants who knew them were shocked.
The native products of the Land of Fragrance were various herbs. Normally, they would fetch a good price and the merchants would spend some of the money earned from the sale to purchase supplies that their country was lacking in before bringing the rest of the taels back.
Years of accumulation had allowed the Land of Fragrance to have a large reserve of valuable wealth. It was this reserve that the Shili family used to hire reinforcements in an attempt to save their country from invaders.
The 3000 reinforcement troops entered the Land of Fragrance and traveled without pause. They managed to cover a journey that usually took about 20 days in just half a month. They saw for themselves the legendary riches of the Land of Fragrance and even got to pack the taels into boxes personally. However, they ended up benefiting others instead: more than half of them died in the battle and the riches, which they had just gotten ahold of, fell into the Dragon King’s possession.
Not only was it a double loss to the tribes who had sent out their soldiers in response to the Shili family’s request, but it was also a huge embarrassment that was hard to forget.
Ha Chilie, the son of the Dongshan Mountain Tribe, ran back to his hometown barefooted. He had lost much weight and was dirty from the journey. He was treated as a savage who had lost his way and almost died at the hands of his own people.
He requested for his father to gather the neighboring tribes and conveyed the news of their annihilation.
Before they entered the Land of Fragrance, the Wushan tribes had been misguided by the Shili family into believing that they would be facing a bunch of bandits from the forest. They could never have imagined that their enemy would be Dragon King and the swordsmen from the Great Snowmountain who had disappeared for several months.
“The Great Snowmountain has already been destroyed, how could it…” The chiefs from the dozens of tribes had come over and were unable to believe Ha Chilie’s news.
However, the truth was right in front of them; only one of the 3000 soldiers had returned and they did not see any of the promised gold or silver.
The tribal chiefs were enraged and swore to seek revenge at all costs.
Initially, they wanted to gather more tribes but the army of the Great Snowmountain calculated their timing well; it was only three days after Ha Chilie had returned home before the army of ten thousand closed in on the border.
The tribes hastily prepared for battle and managed to gather 2000 soldiers. They had home ground advantage and high morale. Moreover, they were familiar with the geography of their own land.
However, once they saw the army of the Great Snowmountain covering the mountains, every one of them, from the tribal chief to the common soldier, began to panic.
Just like that, even before the fight began, each party already felt that the other was stronger.
There were more than a thousand soldiers in the army of the Great Snowmountain who had surrendured from the tribes. Dragon King had instructed them to get their weapons from the battlefield, so in essence, they were as good as hostages.
Gu Shenwei ordered them to stand behind the main body of his army on high areas so that their own people in the opposing army could see them.
Not too far from where they stood was the core of the army of the Great Snowmountain – the thousand or so veterans.
The thousands of slave soldiers from the Land of Fragrance were divided into three sections: the vanguard unit, the left flank, and the right flank.
Out of the hundreds of noble soldiers, half of them remained near to Dragon King, while the other half joined the vanguard unit.
Led by a hundred veterans, the vanguard unit of the Great Snowmountain army were less than a thousand soldiers. The opposing force sent out by the Wushan tribes was even smaller in comparison; only slightly more than 700 soldiers.
There was not enough flat ground in the mountains for a large scale battle. As such, both sides could only send out these few soldiers.
The spot chosen for the decisive battle was a slightly larger valley. The vanguard units from each army would charge down from a gentle slope and engage at the bottom of the valley.
Other than examining the combat power and loyalty of the new soldiers, there was not much purpose to this battle.
Initially, Gu Shenwei had no intention to fight this battle. Upon entering Wushan, he sent out a few soldiers to each tribe to express goodwill. However, not only was there no reply from them, none of his soldiers returned as well.
It was all within Gu Shenwei’s expectations. He hoped that through this battle, the Wushan tribes would acknowledge the strength of the Great Snowmountain, and even if they were not willing to ally themselves with him, he hoped that they would remain neutral and not lean toward Golden Roc Fort.
The tribal chiefs on the opposing side were stirring their soldiers up with loud words of encouragement. He could not hear them clearlyand could see that the effects were effective; the 700 or so enemy soldiers brandished their various weapons roared toward the skies. Their voices reverberated throughout the valley. All in all, they were pretty impressive.
On the side of the Great Snowmountain, the vanguard formed largely by thousands of slaves and nobles weas much worse off. Even before the battle started, many of them were trembling and the weapons they held seemed less like tools in battle and mroe like burdens they carried. If the veterans had not been there to hold down the fort, some of them would very likely have discarded their weapons on the spot.
For the first time in their lives, many of them realised that there was a bigger world out there, and there were many other countries outside the borders of the Land of Fragrance. Furthermore, these people were the first in many generations of their families to have ventured more than 50 kilometers away from the capital.
The new soldiers were not only afraid of war and death but of the unfamiliar people and surroundings, not to mention their uncertain futures.
Gu Shenwei drew his Five Peaks Saber and glanced at his sides before taking the lead by marching forward, squeezing his way through the group of veterans.
A total of 20 men followed him; they were made up of swordsmen and machetemen with the best Kung Fu, including the three chiefs of the Great Snowmountain.
These people had all been handpicked by Gu Shenwei.
Now that he had let his new soldiers have a taste of the atmosphere of battle, it was time to lead them to victory.
The Dragon King and his 20 followers stood at the forefront of the formation.
He turned to look at the new soldiers who were standing in a state of shock. Most of them did not understand Central Plains Chinese and it was useless to encourage them with words. As such, he brandished the Five Peaks Saber high up in the air and swept his gaze across their faces before turning around to face the enemy, blowing the rawhide horn from the Great Snowmountain.
Not only were the new soldiers surprised, they could not believe what they had just seen. Even though the title of ‘slaves’ and ‘nobles’ had been abolished, they still had trouble changing their old views and naturally treated the veterans from the Great Snowmountain as their masters. To them, Dragon King was the master of their masters.
According to the centuries-old tradition of their native land, masters would never fight along with their slaves.
More deep sounding horn blasts rang out. The sounds merged together as they swept through the entire valley, engulfing the shouts of the opposing tribal soldiers entirely.
The residents of the Land of Fragrance, regardless of status, were extremely fearful of the horn blasts. Just two months ago, they had been shocked out of their wits by the blasts and as a result, surrendered to Dragon King.
But today, the blasts stirred up a surge of emotions in them. Suddenly, the blasts no longer sounded like the howls of beasts who came from the depths of hell but had become the growls of a holy dragon coming from the heavens itself.
A source of power, which the new soldiers neither experienced nor imagined before, flowed through their bodies, giving them an uncontrollable desire to charge forward.
Thus, the battle began.
The shouts of the combatants and the roars of encouragement from the spectators shook the entire valley into pieces.
As quickly as it began, the battle was over.
Both sides only wished to test each other’s strength and after a brief engagement, they quickly retreated back to their formations, taking their own dead with them. Each had dozens of casualties and it was hard to tell which side had won from the numbers.
In the eyes of the veterans, it was a battle not worth mentioning, but to the new soldiers, it was an experience they would never forget. Their hands which held their weapons had never felt as steady as they had now.
Gu Shenwei certainly felt that the Great Snowmountain was victorious as the new conscripts were turning into true soldiers.
He ordered half of the vanguard unit to fall out and replaced them with 500 of the new soldiers from his left flank. Since it was a training exercise for them, he wanted as many of them to participate as possible.
As the two waves of soldiers shifted, the opposing army also changed.
An unknown army had suddenly appeared from the mountaintop behind them and was charging toward the dozens of tribes which were preparing for the second round of battle.
The soldiers from the Great Snowmountain looked in surprise at the opposite side of the valley. Many of them even believed that it was an ambush planned by the Dragon King, but Gu Shenwei knew that he had absolutely nothing to do with it.