Behind Su Zhen's scouts were a hundred patrol officers with outstanding martial prowess. Although they didn't participate in the first wave of battle, they quickly bumped into Nan Baoyu. The patrol officers of the two counties were very careless with the grand task of suppressing the bandits. Su Zhen already disliked them for being a hindrance. Since these patrol officers with high official ranks felt that battle merits were at their fingertips, Su Zhen allowed them to explore. Su Zhen himself also wanted to know how many troublesome experts these bandits had. After all, it was never a bad thing to know one's own strength and the enemy's strength. At this moment, Nan Baoyu, who was the third in command of Mount Talisman, was sitting on a mountain rock. He let two nimble scouts do a headcount. Out of thirty brothers, nine had left. The key point was that they didn't even get a single advantage. This caused Nan Baoyu to angrily bang his hammers together. The sound was as loud as the ringing of a temple bell. He didn't care about exposing his hiding place. However, the battle didn't give Nan Baoyu, a third rank expert who was not far from the threshold of Master, much time to breathe. Soon, a scout reported that a large group of soldiers had arrived. Nan Baoyu asked how many people there were, but the scout wasn't a proper scout. When he saw a dozen or so patrol officers appear in his line of sight, he was so scared that he immediately turned around and ran. How could he give an accurate number? As the master of Mount Talisman, Nan Baoyu knew his own strength. He snorted coldly and didn't argue with him. He strode forward and took the lead to crash into the thick line of patrol officers. Did they really think that just because he wasn't a Master, he could crush him as he wished?
There were more than a hundred patrol officers led by four experienced guards. They didn't know the essence of battle formations, but they knew a little bit about it. Formations might seem like a mess in the eyes of experts, but at least there was something for show. For the four leaders to be able to stand out in a county and dare to personally take risks, they definitely had some martial arts skills. The patrol officers beside them were the elites of Qingan County and Yanzhi County. They often participated in street battles, so the gap between them and Lin Zhan was much smaller than the gap between them and the cavalry battle. The combination of sabermen and archers was still quite suitable. Therefore, when they saw the burly old man carrying a pair of sledgehammers charging out like a wild horse, after the guards gave the order, the bows and arrows shot out in an orderly manner from the gaps between the trees like ladles of water splashing down on his head, Nan Baoyu laughed unscrupulously. Relying on his sturdy physique as a third-pin martial artist, he wildly swung his gilded sledgehammers, which flashed with golden light. He didn't even bother to dodge some of the weak arrows, so they only scraped his body, causing him to bleed. His eyes were bloodshot as he ran forward with his head lowered.
Two bandits who had never experienced such a battle before were immediately shot out like hedgehogs. When they fell to the ground, the front half of their bodies were full of arrows. Under the command of a young martial art master from Talisman Mountain, they hastily split into two groups and rapidly advanced from the left and right sides. They were bound to scatter the arrow formation first. Some of the bandits who practiced lightness skill were especially nimble. Every time they swept forward, they would land behind a thick tree trunk between the gaps of the arrow rain. With this kind of advance, their losses were not great. In addition, with Nan Baoyu drawing the enemy's attention, even if victory was not in their grasp, they were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers. In any case, they were far from being defeated like a landslide.
That young master was none other than Liu Yu, the disciple of the immortal master from Mountain of Talismans, Wei Jin. He was the number one contributor to the prison break in Bishan County. He was the only bandit who charged forward from the front. Since his master was Wei Jin, who was proficient in talismans, Liu Yu, who carried an ancient mahogany sword on his back, naturally knew many secret techniques of Taoism. Piece after piece of yellow paper flew out of his sleeve, "planting" Xuantong talismans that he had painstakingly crafted on the tree trunks. He softly spat out a "tut" word, and with a twist of his wrists, two large trees suddenly fell toward the Patrolling Officers. Not a single person was crushed to death, but it somewhat disrupted the originally tight formation. Liu Yu continuously threw out yellow paper talismans from his sleeve and chanted incantations. As if possessed by spirits, the trees collapsed wantonly. As a result, the bandits who were running on both sides became increasingly relaxed. A few of them who were proficient in lightness skills even whistled contentedly. Since it was a matter of life and death that they could not escape from, those who were afraid of death would die faster. This was a principle that the bandits of Mountain of Talismans understood more deeply than the Patrolling Officers. Moreover, one side was here to gain military merit, while the other side was forced to do something desperate. Putting the overall situation aside, just based on the mental strength of both sides, the difference in strength was obvious.
Although the four Patrolling Officers tactfully chose to engage in a battle of attrition rather than overestimating their own strength, when faced with Nan Baoyu, whose battle prowess was comparable to that of an ordinary border army captain, it was inevitable that they would find it difficult to deal with him. Nan Baoyu took the risk of being rescued, slashed open his back with a saber, and struck out with two hammers, crushing the head of an old Patrolling Officer into pieces. Blood splattered all over his body, and he casually threw out a hammer, smashing a Patrolling Officer who was stunned for a moment and had no choice but to use a saber to block his chest, causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood. His body crashed into a tree and swayed uncontrollably. Just as he was about to stand up with difficulty, Liu Yu, who was behind Nan Baoyu, used a talisman as a weapon, cutting into his face. His face was badly mutilated, and he was on the verge of death. His end was particularly miserable. Liu Yu leapt high into the air, and the last dozen or so talismans he kept at the bottom of his sleeves flew out.
Nan Baoyu, who only had a gilded sledgehammer left, carelessly wiped away the blood on his face. He spat out a mouthful of saliva, glanced at the shadow above his head, and cursed, "Stinking brat, you liked to shit and pee on your Uncle Nan's neck when you were little. You don't wear open-crotch pants anymore, you still haven't changed your thieving nature!"
Liu Yu swept into the Patrolling Officers Formation. His unsheathed peach wood sword seemed to have no edge, but with a sweep of his sword, he chopped off the heads of two Patrolling Officers at the front. Liu Yu lowered his head and bent over, one hand supporting the corpses. He continued to charge forward, and the peach wood sword in his hand killed another Patrolling Officer at his side.
The two Patrolling Officers, who had luckily escaped death under Nan Baoyu's hammer, looked at each other and nodded. Neither of them retreated a single step. It was not that they were not afraid of death, but that they could not retreat, and were not willing to retreat.
The men of Beiliang, regardless of whether they were officials or bandits, might not usually show it, but when faced with death, they all had the same strength of character and courage.
A few days ago, most of the Beiliang natives who had been raised by the Zhong Men Court had gone to their deaths. They did not ask why. They did not ask why that bastard young King was so cold-blooded, nor did they ask whether they deserved to die, whether their deaths were worth it. They simply died in the midst of assassination. Those who dragged out an ignoble existence were often outsiders.
The hundred Patrolling Officers clearly did not anticipate that such a situation would occur. Attacked from three sides by the bandits of Mount Fuyao, how many of the hundred people would be left?
The answer came to light very quickly.
There were only six people standing in front of Commandant Su Zhen.
They were the faces of the six leaders, all of whom looked very young and immature.
This meant that in less than an hour, four out of four Patrolling Officers from the two counties had died, and they were all the most capable people!
County Magistrate Feng Kuang sucked in a breath of cold air, his timidity thick.
Su Zhen's face was expressionless. He raised his hand and waved. There was no need for this Commandant to say another word. Those Patrolling Officers did not dare to fight for merit and obediently fell behind the hundred armored soldiers.
Hsu Fengnian stood on the tall branch from beginning to end, but he turned his head and glanced back.
The movements at the front of the mountain had all entered his eyes. But if nothing unexpected happened, no matter how brave and skilled the soldiers led by the Commandant were, they would not be able to take down Mount Fuyao that was allied with the Immortal Coffin Cave.
But Huangfu Xi's troops had also arrived at the back of the mountain.
One hundred crossbowmen and one thousand elite infantries of Youzhou Province in the truest sense.
There were also one thousand light cavalry outside the mountain responsible for chasing down the fish that had escaped the net.
Hsu Fengnian smiled. Wang Shiwei had made him regain his confidence in the Youzhou officialdom, and that Commandant's mere twenty scouts had caused him to have a whole new level of respect for the Commandants of Youzhou.
Right now, he, Hsu Fengnian, could go to the Beimang Imperial Palace alone and start a massacre. He might even be more domineering than Cao Changqing going to Great Peace City.
But if he truly wanted to protect the door to the northwest, Hsu Fengnian needed something other than the three hundred thousand cavalry at the border.
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