Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan Volume 11 Chapter 3 part2

After checking Feng Ge's pulse, who was reclining on the chair, Kou Zhong let his hand down and said with a sigh of relief, "He is already able to regulate his own qi. Seems like his fainting is slightly better compared to when he is awake. Ay! That female demon is really formidable, I am afraid even Ning Daoqi won't be able to kill her.”

Leaning sideways, Xu Ziling said, "They died a very tragic death.”

Kou Zhong was silent for half a day. Cocking his head, he listened to the neighing of horses and the beating of the drums outside the tower. "I wonder if Flying Horse Ranch people manage to leave safely,” he said in a low voice.

Xu Ziling walked over to the long and narrow peek hole on the wall. Looking outside, he spoke with his back toward Kou Zhong, "There shouldn't be any problem, because Ol' Die Du deliberately leaves an opening, to give Jingling people a way out that direction to flee for their lives, and thus he's actually making things easier for them. Humph! Unless Ol' Die fought personally, with Shang Changzhu and Liang Zhi's martial art skill, they ought to be able to escort Luo Fang and Xu Yang to safety. Ay!”

Kou Zhong walked over to his side. He looked out from another window for shooting arrows, and saw that the Jianghuai Army was still sending wave after wave of attack. Suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness, he smiled wryly and said, "I wonder if previously we were too conceited, that's why today we receive grand, inevitable retribution. Now I feel so depressed that I feel like killing myself, yet I even hate my own incompetence.”

Xu Ziling was silent for half a day. Suddenly he laughed aloud and said, "Do you want to know why?”

Kou Zhong was stunned, "What are you talking about?” he asked.

Xu Ziling calmly replied, "I am talking about you losing your confidence. All because you have never thought that there exist in this world an opponent as vicious, powerful and cunning as Wanwan, you helplessly watched her killing our comrade-in-arms, and could do nothing to stop, thereupon you hated yourself, and blamed your own incompetence. If you cannot restore your fighting spirit, we can forget about leaving this place alive.”

Forcing a smile, Kou Zhong said, "Do you have fighting spirit?”

Xu Ziling's tiger eyes flashed sharply. Nodding, he said, "Of course! The worst thing that can happen is we die. Do you remember what Bai Laofuzi (see Book 1 Chapter 1) taught us, ‘Those who aspire to be great men must first labor their muscles and bones, must hungry their stomachs, must bring suffering to their will, must deplete their bodies, must brush away the confusion from their minds'?”

Kou Zhong immediately stuck out his chest, solemnly listening to him.

Xu Ziling's eyes flashed spiritedly as he fixed his gaze on Kou Zhong and continued, "Presently we are at the turning point of our life. Only if you, Zhong Shao, use your brain to think will we be able to contend with that number one female demon in the world with real swords, real spears in one hard battle …”

And then, pointing to the Jianghuai Army covering the mountains and the plains outside the peek hole, he said, "Outside is the Ol' Die, who has a chance to unify the world. We have the opportunity to stand off against this martial art master who look disdainfully at the world out of the corner of his eye, no longer the marketplace riffraff of the past, or perhaps low-level martial art players of Jianghu.”

Kou Zhong's eyes light up at once. "Ha!” he said in high spirit, "I got it now. Just by the fact that not only Wanwan failed to kill us, she ended up wounded and ran for her life, we are actually quite amazing. It's just that we achieved victory by superior number, so there's not much glory in it.”

Shaking his head, Xu Ziling said, "Vying over the world, how can you equate it with the fighting in Jianghu? There is no such thing as fairness! We have to create unfair situation with thousand ways, a hundred plans. Wanwan was trained at an early age, plus she received brilliant master's instruction, while we are only halfway out of our home, plus we have to grope about blindly. This is so unfair. Presently what we are fighting for is time. Before Wanwan kill us, we must kill her first. Do you understand?”

"Understand,” Kou Zhong replied; but then turning a little discouraged, he said, "It doesn't matter how much confidence we have, the fact is that our situation right now is the enemy strong, while we are weak. As soon as the news of Fang Zetao's death leaks out, Jingling will fall apart without the enemy attacking it. Ay! Tell me, what should I do?”

Frowning, Xu Ziling said, "You must drop this bad habit of easily get excited and easily get discouraged. Only then you will have the hope of accomplishing great things. For a man living in troubled time, worst come to worst, he will die in battle, among the carcasses of the horses. What are you afraid of?”

Kou Zhong was silent, but his pair of tiger eyes gradually lit up.

Xu Ziling reached out to grab his shoulder. He said, "On the battlefield, although thousands and tens of thousands people charging and breaking through the enemy lines, each one is actually alone. In death, he is even more incomparably alone! Think about the feeling loneliness while exerting yourself, fighting at close quarters in the middle of tens of thousands people, you won't be confused by the scene of magnificent army with thousands of men and horses outside. Zhong Shao, you still want to contend for hegemony over the world, right? What you see outside the city is actually the litmus test for you. I fight for the sake of the innocent people of Jingling, but you fight to pave a path of hegemony.”

Kou Zhong laughed aloud. "You are indeed my good brother,” he said, "Each sentence is like the evening drum and morning bell [Buddhist monastic practice] going straight into the bottom of my heart. But my compassion toward Jingling people is not different from yours.”

This moment, Feng Han stormed in like a whirlwind and cried out, "Not good! Qian Yun was rescued by his men. The news of Zhuangzhu's death can leak at any time.”

Kou Zhong has fully returned to his old decisive and brimming-with-confidence self; he said coldly, "Have you accomplished your mission of appointing new leaders?”

Infected by his calm demeanor, Feng Han calmed down. "There's no problem in that regard,” he replied.

Throwing his head back, Kou Zhong let out a long laughter and said, "Very well! Let me give Ol' Die a good fight, let's see whose fist is harder.”

"Who's Ol' Die?” Feng Han asked in bewilderment.

"It's Du Fuwei,” Xu Ziling replied, "Feng Han, have your men escort your Dashu to the Ranch immediately, also dispatch your troops to evacuate women and children to a safe place out of town. If the city is broken, tell them to take refuge at the Flying Horse Ranch. Shang Xiuxun is definitely not someone who see people dying and not offer any help.”

And then he turned his eyes to Kou Zhong.

Looking up to heaven, Kou Zhong let out another long laugh, revealing his steely determination, fighting spirit and confidence, before taking the lead to leave the tower toward the city wall.

※ ※ ※

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling stood side-by-side on top of the city wall. Outside the city the battle was at its peak. Under the sea of fluttering banners was the Jianghuai Army, their number has increased to forty-thousand men.

Du Fuwei's main force stationed themselves on a small hill; it was dominated by cavalry, with heavily armored infantry as secondary.

The vanguard regiment was equipped with shields, arrows, hatchets, and accompanied by the construction battalion to build fortifications, outfitted with wooden logs, ‘cloud-ladders', towering vehicles, and other tools necessary to besiege a city.

The left and right flanks had fifty-thousand men each, purely cavalry.

Behind the main force there were two groups of army, both to defend their escape route and to act as reinforcement.

This moment the sun was already at its zenith. Its bright light illuminated the earth, the naked blades reflecting its light flickered dazzlingly, intensifying the already thick murderous aura in the atmosphere.

Battle drums sounded.

More than 70 armored vehicles with tower to shoot arrows began to move in the direction of Jingling. Each vehicle concealed more than a dozen archers. As soon as they reached the shooting distance, they would be able to shoot arrows from behind the iron panel elevated about two zhang above the carriage toward the top of the city wall, and thus providing cover to their comrades' attack.

Thinking about Jianghuai Army, which managed to conquer such a strong fortified city like Liyang, it was obvious that this seemingly aesthetically unpleasing, the tombstone-shaped armored vehicles, were definitely not just toys.

When the armored carts started to move, it looked like a tall, towering building, was moving toward the city.

Due to their elevated position, the soldiers on the carts were standing eye-to-eye with the soldiers standing on top of the city wall; therefore, not only they were able to cover the entire city wall within their arrow range, when the carts were positioned right next to the wall, the attackers would then be able to directly step over the wall and force their entrance into the city.

Bugle horns blasted.

Under the ministration of the several hundreds construction battalion soldiers, the catapult vehicles sent out several hundreds rocks. The rocks were shot later, but arrived sooner; they flew over the tower carts, overtaking the armored vehicles to block the arrows.

At the same time, forty thousand Jianghuai Army troops shouted and the warhorses neighed wildly, changing the atmosphere outside the city of Jingling.

After exchanging glances with Xu Ziling, Kou Zhong raised his voice to shout, "Kou Zhong is here! Du Fuwei, do you dare to have a one-on-one duel against me?”

His voice traveled far into the distance, the voices of several tens of thousands troops were still unable to drown it.

The civilians and military personnel inside the city of Jingling were cowered by the systematic and organized, tight large-scale attack of the enemy. Hearing the shout, their morale was greatly boosted; they all shouted in unison, their voices shook the heaven and the earth.

Even Xu Ziling, who only wished to live a simple life, also felt his heart was burning and his blood boiling.

Slapping the buttocks of his horse, Du Fuwei rode alone down the hill. He shouted coldly, "If Fang Zhuangzhu can guarantee that if you, Zhong'er, lose, the city of Jingling will be handed over to me, then this Ol' Du is prepared to answer your challenge. Ignorant children, unexpectedly you regard the tens of thousands troops facing each other in battlefield as children's playground. Ridiculous! Ridiculous, indeed!”

His voice was high, but not overbearing; it spread widely over the hills and the plains, outside and inside the city. The lingering sound rose up in spirals, thus it was clear that his power cultivation was exquisite; in fact, it was above Kou Zhong's.

The most formidable thing was that he seized this opportunity to use psychological tactics by emphasizing his ‘old ginger' characteristics, in contrast to Kou Zhong's shallow experience, painting him as an improbable opponent to him.

The Jianghuai Army immediately followed their Commander-in-Chief's bold, visionary words, by raising their voices, so that the shouts of Jingling people were pressed down.

His heart moved, Xu Ziling commented, "Female demon Wanwan's injury must be very heavy, hence she had to find a place nearby to recuperate that she did not even have time to notify Du Fuwei. If we can find her before she recovered, we might be able to eliminate her.”

Kou Zhong had his eyes on the distant Du Fuwei; as if he did not hear Xu Ziling, he said in a low voice, "This time we are in trouble. Xiao Ling, quickly think of something.”

Xu Ziling was stunned and was speechless for a moment. And then he understood.

The sound of footsteps was approaching; Feng Han with about a dozen of his personal guards came from behind. "Evacuation plan is accomplished,” Feng Han reported.

Sure enough, Du Fuwei's voice rang out, "Fang Zetao, are you dumb?”

Xu Ziling, Kou Zhong and Feng Han's countenance changed immediately.

Chapter end