GBP Chapter 513 Heavy losses
Chapter 513 Heavy losses
However, Lin Ping's words came too late. Just as the soldiers were preparing to retreat, a rain of arrows swept in like a dark cloud.
shhhhhh!
The sharp arrowheads scraped against the air, making a piercing sound.
Faced with the dense rain of arrows, the soldiers all showed fear.
If they were infantry, they could raise their shields to resist, but they were cavalry, with only a spear and a kukri in their hands.
To maintain their agility, they didn't even wear thick armor.
In an instant, everyone panicked, raising their spears high and wildly parrying the rain of arrows.
"Your Highness, be careful!" Pang Xingji rushed to Lin Ping's side immediately, shielding him from the dense rain of arrows.
Seeing his brothers being hit by arrows one after another, Lin Ping felt extremely guilty.
If he hadn't been in such a hurry to get into the mountains, he wouldn't have fallen into an ambush, nor would he have abandoned his warhorse and become a target for the enemy.
On the narrow mountain road, you can't even run away if you want to.
After a volley of arrows, more than a hundred were killed and more than a thousand were wounded.
Nearly half of the soldiers were covered in blood, and their eyes were filled with rage.
Lin Ping glanced at the steep terrain on both sides and gritted his teeth in frustration.
Climbing up the mountain from below is no easy task; it would give the enemy at least ten opportunities to fire arrows, and the casualties would be countless.
Even if they could get close, they wouldn't have the strength to fight the enemy.
Moreover, Lin Ping roughly calculated the number of enemies, which turned out to be as many as 10,000.
"Tens of thousands of Lotus Palace disciples?" Lin Ping shuddered.
When he was in Jiangcheng, he was kidnapped by disciples of the Lotus Palace. Even the most ordinary Yellow Lotus Realm cultivators were not comparable to ordinary soldiers.
These 10,000 men are definitely worth 50,000 soldiers.
Therefore, Lin Ping had no ability to fight his opponent; the only thing he could do was to escape as quickly as possible.
"My lord, I'll lead several thousand brothers to charge in and slaughter them without leaving a single one alive," Pang Xingji said, patting his chest.
He was a renowned commander of a thousand men, with few rivals in the army, so naturally he was unaware of the power of the Lotus Palace.
In his dictionary, there is only one word: do!
"On my command, everyone retreat!" Lin Ping shouted.
"Retreat? We finally found the Lotus Palace, how can we retreat?" Pang Xingji was full of confusion.
Not only him, but even the tens of thousands of soldiers didn't understand what Lin Ping was doing.
Although the enemy is lying in ambush, how can we know we are no match without a direct confrontation?
They were all elites from the Fifth Army Battalion and had never suffered such humiliation.
"Brothers, follow me and charge forward to kill all the enemies!" a commander shouted, ignoring Lin Ping's orders.
Under his leadership, a thousand soldiers climbed upwards with great momentum.
Strangely enough, the enemy did not fire any more arrows as they climbed upwards.
This gave them enough time, and soon after, the thousand men disappeared into the dense forest.
Next came the sounds of fighting, followed by a brief scream, after which the entire forest fell silent again.
"Did we win?" Pang Xingji murmured to himself, holding his breath.
He was fairly satisfied with the strength of these thousand men, which was equivalent to two thousand ordinary soldiers, and they could very well wipe out the enemy.
thump!
A corpse was thrown out of the forest and landed right among thousands of soldiers.
All eyes were on him. Although his face had been hacked beyond recognition, his identity could still be identified by his clothes. He was the same commander from before.
"Dead? Killed by the enemy?" Pang Xingji was stunned.
If all the thousand households are killed, then wouldn't all of these thousand people be wiped out?
"Retreat! Anyone who disobeys will be executed!" Lin Ping issued a death order.
He could already smell the scent of death. He had never imagined that the Lotus Palace would have ten thousand disciples.
This is enough to overthrow the Wu Kingdom, no wonder the king is uneasy about the existence of the Lotus Palace.
Clearly, he had become a pawn of the king, but he wasn't particularly angry. He had taken the initiative to attack the Lotus Palace, and he would have done so even without the king's decree.
A thousand men were wiped out in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea; the enemy was far too terrifying.
The thousands of soldiers were terrified, and even Pang Xingji sensed something unusual.
"Retreat! Everyone retreat!" Pang Xingji shouted with all his might, his loud voice echoing throughout the mountain stream.
However, just as the soldiers were about to retreat, another dense volley of arrows came down.
The soldiers were in a hurry to escape, their formation became somewhat chaotic, and their resistance was much less effective than before, with more than five hundred soldiers killed.
"Your Highness, let's charge over and fight them to the death!" Pang Xingji volunteered again.
He wasn't afraid of dying a glorious death in battle; he was only afraid of dying a miserable death.
Moreover, nearly two thousand brothers have lost their lives here, and as the commander-in-chief, I must avenge them.
"Pang Xingji, do you want to disobey military orders?" Lin Ping said sternly, his eyes filled with murderous intent.
"Continue the retreat, retreat at all costs!"
Others may not know the enemy's situation, but Lin Ping knows it perfectly well. Not to mention that there are experts like White Lotus and Black Lotus among these 10,000 people, even if they were all Yellow Lotus, they would still be a force that a cavalryman who has lost his horse could not handle.
Taking the initiative to attack will only lead to their complete annihilation; only retreat can offer a glimmer of hope.
Pang Xingji had never seen Lin Ping so angry, so he immediately shut his mouth and personally led his soldiers to flee.
Learning from their previous disastrous experience, they figured out a pattern: whenever the enemy fired arrows, they would focus all their efforts on dealing with the rain of arrows, and then quickly escape when the enemy had nocked their arrows.
This strategy was effective; each volley of arrows could only kill a little over a hundred people.
Just as Lin Ping had predicted, after ten rounds of arrows, they finally escaped the enemy's encirclement and their numbers had exceeded two thousand.
"Lotus Palace, you just wait! I, Lin Ping, will avenge this grudge sooner or later!" Lin Ping said through gritted teeth, gazing at Lotus Peak amidst the sea of clouds.
"Next time, I will use cannons to raze this place to the ground, and none of the people from Lotus Palace will escape!" Lin Ping made up his mind.
Currently, gunpowder is under research, and preliminary calculations suggest that a breakthrough can be achieved within three months.
The next step is to improve the steel and refine it into high-quality iron that can be used as cannon barrels. This may take as little as a month, or it may take eight or ten years.
Lin Ping was so eager to see Jiang Yunying that he didn't want to wait that long, which is why he fell into the ambush.
Faced with two thousand bloodied corpses, he calmed down. What did it matter if it took ten or eight years? He could wait, and he believed that Jiang Yunying could wait too.
"Go down the mountain!" Lin Ping shouted.
The thousands of soldiers all wore expressions of anger, but they knew they were no match for the enemy and could only leave in resentment.
"Sir, where are you going?" Just as Lin Ping was about to descend the mountain, a familiar figure blocked the path.