Chapter 129 - The Black Flag is Defeated
Translated by Bloodfalcon, Edited by Krayto
“GO ON, PUT UP YOUR LAST STAND! AT LEAST NOW YOU CAN SAY YOU FOUGHT BACK BEFORE I SEND YOU AND YOUR URBAN ARMY TO HELL!!!”
Zhou Cheng is truly confident, he believed that victory is already on at hand. He is now smiling full of himself. He is already impatient, wanting to see His Highness, Prince of Shu kneeling on the ground; begging for his life.
“PUTTING UP A LAST STAND?! HAHAHAHA, IS THAT RIGHT?!” Liu Mang respond back.
“HAHAHAHAHAHA, All of your garbage soldiers already threw down your banner, your helmet and your armor. WITH WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BEAT ME DOWN?!!” Zhou Cheng laughing. These so-called Lu Bu’s army were already missing their banner, helmet and armor! With only long sword on hand, how can they break his Black Flag's defense?
“Of course, they will be the one to defeat you!” Liu Mang did not want to waste time speaking nonsense with this Zhou Cheng. He had laid a big net in order to destroy these elites.
Otherwise these 3,000 heavy infantries will sooner or later be big trouble. If they were allowed to gain experience and grow, in the future one division would trade their life in order to destroy them.
With what division will they trade their life with? Is it the Formation Breaker, or the Bing Province Heavy Cavalry or the Urban Army? They are Lu Bu’s army elites, they cannot afford to lose even one division. If one of them is destroyed, Lu Bu’s army will lose a big portion of its strength!!!
So Liu Mang decided that he would be the one to defeat them now.
Zhou Cheng now became fierce and exclaimed “ALL ARMY, KILL THEM FOR ME!!!”
In his eyes, Liu Mang is truly seeking death. He dared to fight himself with only armor less soldiers. If this is not looking down on him, then what is?
What Zhou Cheng now regretted is that these Urban Army was only one small part of Lu Bu’s army. Even though they can annihilate the Urban Army now, Lu Bu’s army is still lurking in North Gate and South Gate and will need double the forces to exterminate them all.
Along with that, when Zhou Cheng thought about the Liu clan who rebelled against his orders, he began emitting killing intent and swore to exterminate the Liu clan.
“You want to kill us right? With who are you going to kill us with?! Are you, yourself going to kill us all?!” Liu Mang teased with a smile.
“HUMPH, you can still smile eh? Of course, with the Black Flag, I will...!”
Zhou Cheng was unable to speak, because the Black Flag encountered a terrible problem.
“Oh, your heavy infantry? The Black Flag, huh?! Well, as of today, Black Flag will fade from this world!”
Liu Mang finally learned the name of this heavy infantry unit but that is not important now, as Liu Mang has determined to crush them from the face of the earth.
“WHATTT!!!!”
Zhou Cheng is shocked, immediately in denial. His elite army had already collapsed to the ground. Having lost all their stamina, their condition was similar to a dead dog.
“Brothers of the Urban Army! Since they did not answer our challenge, then we attack now! URBAN ARMY PREPARE TO ATTACK!!!!” Liu Mang just stated his order coldly while his gaze is fixated on Zhou Cheng.
Earlier, Liu Mang had deduced that these heavy infantries had strong a strong offense and defense. Currently his Urban Army’s potential is only 1/4 that of the Black Flag and he can only form a very small Phalanx Formation with these soldiers which comprised of 300 great shield soldiers along with 300 spearmen and 300 archers.
Liu Mang is not a stupid person, if he attacks them heads-on, then his Urban Army will definitely perished. Even if he somehow won, the Urban Army would be left with only 10% of its original roster and will be unable to form the Urban Army again. Liu Mang cannot afford this loss.
Therefore, he implemented a feign retreat. These heavy infantries' offense and defense are very good, but there is one fatal flaw to these heavy infantries. The burden on their armor is around 50 kg. Late Han Dynasty did not have a method to refine iron ore in order to make better and lighter armor, so they can only output a crude and heavy armor.
The fatal flaw of these heavy infantries lies on the stamina of their soldiers. They can attack and defend, but they cannot fight an endurance battle because of the weight of their armor.
An ordinary soldier can run quite far before losing their stamina, an elite soldier can run even further. But when an elite soldiers puts on 50 kg of armor and helmet, can their stamina match with those of an ordinary soldier who has discarded their armor and helmet? Those elites can only endure at least 15-li and that is it.
These elites has been chasing the Urban Army across Wancheng city, from the West Gate to East Gate. The Black Flag's stamina had already been drained from the cat and mouse chase.
From the start were burdened with 50 kg of helmet and armor. Adding Cheng Yu’s earlier attack, further straining their bodies; the result can be seen now.
But Liu Mang's Urban Army is different. Only their great shield soldiers in frontline were heavy infantries. His cavalry squadron, although they are also heavy cavalry, they had horses and can move quickly.
At that time, Liu Mang made the great shield soldiers discard their great shields, helmet and armor in order to pick up the pace with the retreat. Therefore this 15-li distance was only regarded as warm-up to them and none of them are in condition like those of Black Flag.
Liu Mang looks at the opposite elites. Those Black Flags elites now one by one either fainted or their mouth started to foam. All of them were basically sitting down on the ground and doing nothing. Those who still had a little bit of stamina left, are leaning on their long sword, huffing and puffing.
It’s like running 5 miles with 150lb weights, then surviving the impact of falling from a one and a half story building. Instead of jogging 5 miles wearing sweats.
They may have been elites previously but so what? Now they are now defenseless! Perhaps if the Urban Army swung their sword, they would just resign to their fate.
“URBAN ARMY! NOW IS OUR CHANCE, DESTROY THEM ALL!!!” Liu Mang's Urban Army had been suppressing their anger in their bellies. They had been escaping and retreating all this time and even their rear was slashed by these Black Flag. Now, with Black Flag already almost motionless, it is their turn to destroy them. And true enough, those Urban Army soldiers were very excited screaming a few sentences.
“GIVE ME YOUR LIFE!!!”
“DIE FOR MY COMRADES!!!”
“SHAAAA!!!! DESTROY THESE ENEMIES!!!” All of the Urban Army were venting their anger towards the Black Flag.
“ALL OF YOU, GET UP, GET UP!!!!! FACE THE ENEMY, FACE THE ENEMY!!!!” Zhou Cheng is now panicking. The Black Flag that Zhou Cheng is most proud of, is now lying on the ground almost motionless. How can Zhou Cheng win this time? Maybe even just surviving will be a very good thing. Looking at those Urban Army who had turned into wolves, Zhou Cheng was very frightened.
“HAAAHHHH, HAAAHHHHH, HAAHHHH!!!” The Black Flag troops are huffing completely winded. They knew that they had to respond back. Even though the Urban Army in front is no match for Black Flag, they now however, lost their offensive power and can only defend themselves.
They needed to wait for a while until they can restore their stamina. So those who can fight just bought time until the Black Flag restored their stamina, as long as they had 300 or 500 who were able to restore their strength, this Urban Army will perish.
But these elites could not wait until that time, because their commander-in-chief had been scared witless. He was already incoherent and unable to think clearly.
Zhou Cheng is the Zhou clan's little lord. Since his childhood he had been involved in military matters, unlike Liu Mang who just was recently involved in the military. But Zhou Cheng is a person who only exceled in theory not in actual practice.
Originally he had a big ambition and wanted to show himself, but all of those sentiments disappeared; changing into fear in the battlefield.
“WILL I DIE HERE?! NO, NO, I CANNOT DIE HERE!!!” Zhou Cheng quickly covered his fear with anger.
“DOES HE DARE TO KILL ME? HE REALLY DOESN”T KNOW THAT KILLING ME, THE LITTLE LORD OF THE ZHOU CLAN WILL MAKE THE ENTIRE CLAN HIS ENEMY? I DARE HIM TO KILL ME!!!”
Zhou Cheng thought. He still thinks that his Zhou clan was in a neutral relationship with Lu Bu’s army, but the fact is, the Zhou clan is the one who clawed Lu Bu face!
Zhou Cheng looked again at those Urban Army wolves, he knows that when they reached him, it is the end.
Zhou Cheng now reacted on impulse, Zhou Cheng lifted his horsewhip toward a nearby Black Flag soldier. Although heavy infantries covered their whole body with armor, their helmet still exposed a good amount of their face. Zhou Cheng's whip hit the Black Flag soldier on his face instantly making it bloody.
“GET UP, GET UP FOR ME!!!! ATTACK THE ENEMY, ATTACK THE ENEMY!!!!”
Whip after whip was unleashed at those Black Flag troops. This whip was only used on warhorses, even warhorses will feel extreme pain when whipped with this, let alone humans. The soldier’s faces were already full of blood, but they still did not respond because they needed to regain their stamina. Along with that, the one who lashes out the whip is their little lord, so they cannot rebel against him.
“AAAAHHHHH!” One of the Black Flag soldier is screaming. Zhou Cheng's whip hit one of his eyes. When he pulled out, that soldier's eye also fell out. His eyeball is falling out from his eye socket but fortunately, he is quickly killed by his comrades in order to prevent more suffering.
These Black Flag soldiers are usually scheming with each other, after all they are competitors. Even at that time, when their numbers still were 5,000 troops, they killed each other without mercy. But looking at the state of their freshly killed comrade, all of them gave Zhou Cheng an angry stare. All of them were already fed up with Zhou Cheng's attitude, so even those Black Flag troops whose stamina were already restored, they did not go to slaughter the Urban Army but instead just knelt down and dropped their weapons.
“DAMN ALL OF YOU, TRASH, GARBAGE!!!” Zhou Cheng insulted his subordinates who surrendered and quickly redirected his horse to escape. He cannot be captured, if he is captured, he will be unable to survive or show his face again in front of public.
A Warhorse is much quicker than a human. Coupled with those Black Flags securing Zhou Cheng's path of retreat, the Urban Army's speed suddenly slowed down.
“LIU MANG, WAIT FOR ME, WHEN I JOIN UP WITH MILORD SUN CE'S ARMY, I WILL CERTAINLY KILL YOU!!!”
Zhou Cheng spouted out his words fiercely. But unfortunately, right after his words came out, in front of him was the sounds of horses hissing
“Zhou Cheng, where do you want to run? Since you just came, do not leave immediately! Leave something behind in the meantime!” A young man with a cavalry squadron stopped Zhou Cheng. The cavalry squadron is the Urban Army's, but the young man is not part of Urban Army.
“Liu Neng?!!!” Zhou Cheng finally saw clearly the person who stopped him. Isn’t that the son of the Liu Clans patriarch? If Liu Neng did not inform Liu Mang earlier then this Wancheng city might be lost. Those 3,000 heavy infantries are big threat to the Urban Army.
“DAMNED REBELLIOUS TRAITOR!!!” Zhou Cheng's eyes are bulging from fury. If it were not for this Liu clan, how would he have been defeated like this? Without their interference, he would have already retaken Wancheng city.
“Rebellious traitor?! Hahaha. We, the Liu clan are Han Dynasty royalty and relatives. We are His Highness Prince of Shu’s relatives. Naturally we will help His Highness rather than help you right Mr. Zhou Cheng?!” Liu Neng quipped against Zhou Cheng.
“DAMN YOU!!!! I DON'T BELIEVE THAT YOU DID NOT KNOW HOW LU BU TREATED US NOBLES!!! AND YOU SEEK REFUGE WITH LU BU ARMY??? THAT’S THE SAME AS ALLYING YOURSELF WITH A HUNGRY TIGER?!” Zhou Cheng retorted fiercely.
“ALLYING OURSELVES WITH A HUNGRY TIGER? Is not that the same with all of you?!
My Liu clan are Han Dynasty royalties and relatives, we are Wancheng city's oldest nobles!!! But since Sun Ce came, the Zhou clan, Yu clan, He clan and even the Chen clan started leeching from our Liu clan continuously!!!
I ADVISE FOR YOU, MR. ZHOU CHENG TO SHUT YOUR MOUTH NOW!!”
What Zhou Cheng said, fortunately made Liu Neng vent out his anger. That anger had been bottled up since the other clans began their silent invasion against the Liu clan's influence.