The Human Emperor

Chapter 1845: Surround Three and Leave One Open!

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

“Release!”

In the distance, Su Hanshan’s face was cold and emotionless. Seizing the opportunity, he had his ballistae continue their harvest. One could see corpses pierced through by ballista bolts all over the battlefield.

“Retreat, retreat!”

The Arab soldiers had lost all will to fight. If this continued, there would be no survivors left of the two-hundred-thousand-strong vanguard. All of them would be wiped out by the Tang soldiers.

Bwoooom!

At this moment, a resounding blare came from the Arab base.

Khatabah had finally given the order to retreat, and all the Arab soldiers lost the will to fight. The Behemoth Army, the giant bird army, and the remaining sandworms began to retreat.

Amongst these armies, the Behemoth Army had the greatest harvest and was the only army to actually achieve its objective. They had advanced eight hundred meters deep into the center of the Tang defense line, destroying thousands of steel walls and even one of the giant ballistae. But the general rout of the main army forced the Behemoth Army to pull back.

Bang!

As the Arabs retreated and the mountainous figures of the Behemoths began to turn around, cheers exploded from the Tang army.

This first battle between the Great Tang and Arabia was extremely important. The Arabs had sent two hundred thousand soldiers, the Behemoth Army, the giant bird army, and even giant sandworms.

In this situation, the Great Tang had sent out only two of its major commanders and one-third of its soldiers. This was unquestionably a major victory.

“Kill!”

“Don’t let them run!”

The Great Tang forces continued to pursue the Arab cavalry and Behemoths, and even the master archers joined in, filling the sky with arrows.

“Milord, the Great Tang is continuing to pursue our men. If this continues, they will be completely wiped out. Should we send soldiers to receive them?” an Arab general standing behind Khatabah suddenly asked.

Khatabah said nothing, but as he stared into the distance, he slightly nodded.

At the same time, in the Tang army…

“Lord Zhangchou, Protector-General An, if all goes as expected, Arabia will send an army to receive their men. Surround three and leave one open! Leave them a path!” Wang Chong sent out a powerful mental wave toward Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun.

“Heh, I’ll do as you say and let them keep their dog lives!” Zhangchou Jianqiong said.

He and An Sishun had worked together to create a large net that trapped the entirety of the Arab vanguard. Zhangchou Jianqiong really had wanted to wipe out the Arabs completely, but a moment later, he gave up on the idea.

“嗯。”

“Mm.”

Wang Chong subtly nodded.

‘Surround three and leave one open’ was a basic principle of the art of war. Normally, when the battle was settled, a path would intentionally be left in the encirclement so that the enemy could escape. This was not out of kindness. On the contrary, it made it even easier to kill the enemy.

Completely surrounding the enemy might force them into a last-ditch struggle, and a determined counterattack could inflict heavy losses on the Great Tang. But if they were left a path, the enemy would lose all will to fight, making them die even faster. Meanwhile, the pursuers would suffer fewer losses.

“Run!”

When a crack appeared in the encirclement of the Annan Protectorate army and Beiting Protectorate army, the Arab cavalry who had been preparing to fight to the death saw a glimmer of hope and rushed for all they were worth toward that gap, ignoring the attacks coming in around them.

The Arab casualties continued to climb.

Khatabah, who had been preparing to send reinforcements, frowned. The soldiers were dying too quickly. Moreover, a significant number of soldiers had escaped through the gap, so there was no longer any need to send reinforcements.

“Pass on my order! All soldiers are to remain in their position! Do not send reinforcements!” Khatabah finally ordered.

“Kill!”

On the other side, after killing thousands more Arab cavalry, Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun called their armies back and retreated to the defense line.

With this, the gruesome battle was over.

All that was left on the battlefield were mountains of corpses and fallen steel walls, everything pervaded by the thick stench of blood. Caw! A shriek came from the distance. Even those vultures of Ü-Tsang thousands of meters away had smelled the blood and begun to flock over.

These were not trained birds, but wild vultures. They gathered above the battlefield and began to circle the skies.

On the ground, both sides began to collect the bodies of their fallen and prepare for the second battle.

Behind the steel walls, Wang Chong asked, “What are our losses?” With him were Zhangchou Jianqiong, An Sishun, Wang Zhongsi, Abusi, and Gao Xianzhi.

With the battle over, it was time to take stock of the losses.

“Our losses aren’t too bad. We lost three thousand men to the Behemoth Army, and when the Annan Protectorate army and Beiting Protectorate army were breaking through the flanks of the Arab army, they each lost around three thousand men. In total, we lost around nine thousand men in this battle!” Xue Qianjun reported to the six Great Generals. After the campaign in the Ten Eastern Islands, Xue Qianjun had been reborn into a veteran.

The Great Generals and King Song all nodded in approval. Nine thousand seemed like a rather bad loss, but it really wasn’t that large in the grand scheme of things.

“What of the Arabs?” Wang Zhongsi asked.

“We can’t get an exact count yet, but from the state of the battlefield, it should be more than two hundred thousand,” Zhang Que said.

Wang Chong’s scouts were all under the command of Zhang Que at this time. While he wasn’t a powerful martial artist, he excelled in observation and estimation.

The Great Generals and King Song nodded again.

Nine thousand to two hundred thousand was a 1:22 ratio, which was simply absurd. Even Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun were shocked by this number.

Everyone understood that this stark contrast was possible primarily because of Wang Chong’s steel defense line and Su Hanshan’s ballista army.

Without the steel defense line, Zhangchou Jianqiong and An Sishun would never have been able to so freely choose the moments for their attacks, which had allowed them to pierce the enemy flanks. Moreover, while the battle had seemed intense, everyone knew that the primary force had been Su Hanshan’s ballista army. The Annan Protectorate army and Beiting Protectorate army were not that powerful.

The bolts of the ballista army could blast large holes through men, instantly ending their lives. Thus, there were few Arab survivors, and the vast majority of Arab casualties were deaths.

Gao Xianzhi turned to Wang Chong and asked, “Wang Chong, what do we do next?”

“Even two hundred thousand losses is nothing for the Arabs, not even touching their foundation. They’ll keep coming, and the next battle will be even harder,” King Song declared.

Although King Song had not taken part in the battle, he was a leader in the military and a staunch member of the war faction. Thus, he had a certain mastery of the art of war.

Wang Chong said nothing, glancing at the sky. The two sides had fought for many hours. It was still around four hours until nightfall, but the size of both forces meant that four hours was not enough time for a large-scale battle.

“There’s no rush for now. After a defeat in the first battle, the Arabs will be in a greater rush than us.” Wang Chong looked into the distance as he ordered, “Harden the defenses and prepare for the next battle!”

……

“Of sixty-some Behemoths, more than forty were killed. This loss is rather large!”

Far in the distance, atop the back of the elephant Behemoth, the High Priest spoke with a faint tremor of emotion in his voice.

Forty-some Behemoths were enough to easily destroy an entire kingdom, but this many had died in the very first clash, and it had not been a particularly intense battle. The High Priest could raise more Behemoths given time and energy, but this was still a significant loss.

Only in the east had such losses ever occurred.

On the other side, while Khatabah appeared calm, his brows were ever so slightly creased.

The Temple led by the High Priest had worked with the empire for many years. Whenever Arabia encountered a powerful foe in its conquests, the Behemoth Army would always be mobilized. This was essentially a tacitly understood tradition. This tradition originated in his friendship with the High Priest.

For this eastern expedition, Khatabah had gathered vast amounts of information, absorbing the lessons taught by the previous defeat of the Behemoth Army in the east. He had armor forged from the best steel and strengthened with numerous formations and inscriptions for the Behemoths, even encasing their heads and underbellies in armor.

Khatabah had presumed that the Great Tang would be hard-pressed to deal with these defenses, allowing the Behemoth Army to be swift and effective. But unfortunately, Khatabah had underestimated the Great Tang’s giant ballistae and Behemoth Slayers.

“This eastern youth has prepared far more than we imagined!” the High Priest said, his voice tinged with a strange tone.