Chapter 596: The Decisive Battle! The Plan to Break Elephants!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Haha, although a roar won’t be enough to kill them, this method is truly enough to destroy Mengshe Zhao’s White Elephant Corps.”
Wang Chong held his hands behind his back, smiling as he spoke. He turned to Zhao Hong behind him and asked, “General Zhao, is everything ready?”
“All that is needed is Young Master’s order.”
Zhao Hong took an arrow from his back and nocked it to his bow. At the same time, swishswishswish! The master archers behind him also took arrows from their quivers and nocked them to their bows.
“General Chen!”
Wang Chong’s gaze turned back to Chen Guanshun and the top-notch Annan generals. His expression was harsh, forbidding the smallest retort.
“Yes, Young Master!”
At this moment, these generals quickly chose the path of obedience.
Wang Chong was no noble scion prone to putting on airs. Even though he held Zhangchou Jianqiong’s token, Wang Chong had never treated himself like some Protector-General. However, after interacting with Wang Chong for a time, the gathered generals had gradually come to understand that Wang Chong was never someone to lightly make a decision, but once he made a decision, he allowed no objections.
In an instant, everyone’s gazes turned to slowly look down the mountain.
Crash! Dust rose from the impacts of wall after wall being pulled down. Wang Chong’s gaze flitted across the field, quickly locking onto the figures of several elephants that were currently approaching.
“Begin!”
Wang Chong’s eyes shone with a cold light as he suddenly swung down the arm that he held high in the air. Responding to this signal, the six or seven Annan Protectorate army generals immediately acted as one.
Roaaaarr!
A burst of furious roars like a peal of spring thunder blasted over the battlefield, intent on sundering the earth and splitting mountains. These top-notch generals had gathered the energy in their dantians into a massive sound that was aimed at the several elephants to the east. The might of their simultaneous roars was truly impossible to imagine.
Rumble!
Fierce gales swept over the land in a furious storm, blowing the dust and gravel ten-some zhang into the air. The Mengshe Zhao soldiers were so frightened that they began to slowly retreat. But the most surprising sight was taking place behind them.
Biaaaah!
With no warning whatsoever, those massive beasts with enough strength to easily pull walls weighing six or seven thousand jin suddenly reared up in fright and began to cry out in alarm.
Twangtwangtwang!
Bowstrings vibrated. Right when these elephants suddenly reared away from the protective range of the shields, arrow after arrow plunged into their eyes. A few of these arrows even completely vanished, sinking deep into the skulls of these elephants.
Rumble! As countless people watched in shock, the earth shattered as the massive bodies of the elephants toppled like mountains of flesh.
!!
Shock, endless shock!
As these elephants crashed to the ground, all the soldiers of Mengshe Zhao looked on in stupefaction.
“This is impossible!”
At this moment, the soldiers around the elephants were all flabbergasted, their minds completely blank. In the Six Zhao of Erhai, the elephants possessed a transcendental status.
All the soldiers of the White Elephant Corps treated these elephants like gods.
Their divine strength had left an indelible impression on the people of Mengshe Zhao.
No one had expected that even though these elephants were covered in that thick and hardy white armor, they would still be so easily killed by enemy arrows.
But these were far from the only deaths.
To some people, it might have been better if all the elephants had died after being shot. A few of the elephants had managed to block the arrows with their thick eyelids, but this was only the start of a tragedy…
“Ah!”
Trumpeting filled the air as a Mengshe Zhao soldier looked up in fright, his eyes widening as a massive foot quickly filled his field of view before smashing him into pulp.
Biaaah!
Their wounds had instantly caused the massive elephants to turn violent, entering a blind and fatal berserk state. No one could imagine that an elephant weighing more than ten thousand jin could move so nimbly and violently in this state.
Bangbangbang! In the blink of an eye, several hundred White Elephant Corps soldiers who were too slow to dodge were smashed into pulp by elephants, with those who were closest dying the fastest.
Those soldiers tasked with guarding the elephants now became their earliest victims.
“How could this be? These elephants really are afraid of loud noises!”
On the summit, Lin Wushou, Luo Ji, and Chen Guanshun were all in a state of extreme agitation, both shocked and surprised, none of them daring to believe their eyes.
“Hurry! Time is short. Seize this chance!”
An ice-cold voice roused them from their shock.
Everything was as Wang Chong had expected. The elephants had massive bodies, but their ability to tolerate loud noises was at the same level as regular elephants. Though his tactic had been effective, Wang Chong was utterly unmoved.
A commander always had to maintain a calm and rational mind that could never be allowed to be moved by external factors. Only by maintaining one’s rationality could one make the wisest decision at the critical moment.
Roaaaarr!
The earth shook and the wind blustered. Wang Chong didn’t need to give an order this time for Chen Guanshun’s group to swiftly act. The six or seven top-notch generals once more gathered their energy into a massive beam of air that enveloped the elephants to the southwest.
Biaaaah!
The elephants blared, half of them falling while the other half went berserk. If the elephants still had their eyes, they would have taken the orders of the White Elephant Corps soldiers.
But the stabbing pain and blindness had made all the elephants regard the humans closest to them as the enemies on which they could vent their ire. And when an elephant at the Profound Martial realm, wearing thick and heavy armor, went berserk, it had a terrifying strength that was difficult to imagine.
“Ah!”
“AAAAH!”
“AAAAAAAH!!!”
Screams echoed over the battlefield. When an elephant went berserk in the dense ranks of the army, the soldiers were naught but wheat in the field, and as they were cut down, their blood and flesh was squeezed out from their armor, their armor becoming crumpled cans.
The battlefield instantly became a living hell.
“Hurry! Stop them!”
While the soldiers panicked, a few of the soldiers attempted to work together to attack the charging elephants. But their spears, pikes, and long sabers barely tickled the thick hides of the elephants. Not only did they fail to kill the elephants, the knockback from their attacks sent their own bodies flying.
Biaaaah!
The trumpeting of elephants mixed into a single din in the chaos of the battlefield.
On the summit, Wang Chong, the top-notch generals, and Zhao Hong’s master archers continued to constantly change directions, seizing the moment to continue their attacks.
“The southeast!”
“Southwest!”
“Hurry!”
“Time is short! While they’re still in chaos, we have the best chance!”
……
In a few short moments, Wang Chong’s group had fired at least ten volleys of arrows, barely pausing between volleys and working with extreme efficiency. And the location Wang Chong had chosen for this battle once more amply showed its advantages.
The imposing wall of the mountain cut off vision of one side from the other, making it impossible to tell what was going on. The soldiers of the White Elephant Corps could only hear screams and the furious blaring of the elephants, and before they could react, they suffered the same fate.
It was the same plan and the same method of attack, but it succeeded in every attempt.
Biaaah!
The earth trembled. To the east, west, north, south, southwest, northwest… booms like mountains crashing down could be heard from all over, each boom signifying the death of an elephant.
In a few short moments, at least two hundred elephants had been killed!
Animals were still animals, and though they might be stronger than humans, they still could not be compared to humans. Once their weak point was exposed, these elephants that weighed more than ten thousand jin and were strong enough to pull down steel walls could easily be killed.
“Damn it! Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!”
Seated atop an elephant, Duan Yangyan was both shocked and furious, his entire person dumbstruck. Just a moment ago, he had been slowly dismantling the Tang defenses while the Tang were at a complete loss, but now, the arrows were raining down and his army had already lost more than two hundred elephants. The difference was simply too great.
“Hurry!”
This last word was spoken with all of Duan Yangyan’s power.
And even more shocked than Duan Yangyan were the gathered generals of Mengshe Zhao as well as Geluofeng, Fengjiayi, and Duan Gequan. The tragic cries of the elephants as they fell had stunned all of them.
None of them spoke, all of them oppressed by a stifling mood.
“Quickly, order General Duan to withdraw!”
The first to break the silence was Crown Prince Fengjiayi. It was no easy task to build up the White Elephant Corps, and the thousand-some elephants had consumed a great deal of Mengshe Zhao’s manpower and energy. Simply capturing them was hard enough, much less the decades of training.
If Wang Chong were allowed to continue firing, the entire White Elephant Corps would be wiped out to a man.
Roooaar!
Suddenly, a heaven-shaking roar rose from the southeast, promptly interrupting the roars of Chen Guanshun, Lin Wushou and the other generals.
At the same time, two other massive bellows, like the roars of primordial beasts, rose from the mountain and clashed against the roar from the southeast.
Huoshu Huicang, Wang Yan, and Xianyu Zhongtong had finally moved.
On the battlefield, the elephants were still restless, but now that Huoshu Huicang had intervened and Wang Yan and Xianyu Zhongtong had stepped in to stop him, the situation instantly improved.
“Okay, let’s leave it at this for now!”
On the summit, Wang Chong waved his hand as he watched the White Elephant Corps retreat in panic, bringing this offense to an end. Sound wave attacks were less effective the farther one was.
Moreover, the critical element of this kind of attack was surprise. If the enemy were prepared, the tactic would be much less effective.
“Mm?”
Upon giving this order, Wang Chong suddenly realized that he could hear only silence, with no response whatsoever. It was like there was no one around him, like the summit was deserted. Freezing for a moment, Wang Chong turned his head in surprise. With a glance, he could see that everyone was looking at him in stupefaction: Chen Guanshun, Lin Wushou, Luo Ji, and even Chen Shusun.
Wang Chong creased his brow and asked in surprise, “What’s wrong?”