Chapter 53: First Victory: The Bloody Dance of Wild Horse Creek and the Tula River

Once a hungry wolf is out of its cage, there is no driving it back.

Fan Tong's vanguard camp was a pack of ravenous wolves that had just tasted blood. Like a piece of iron glowing red-hot in a furnace, they seared mercilessly into the tender flesh of the Mobei grassland. Wherever they passed, the tribes marked on the map met with no exception.

"Quick, quick, quick! Be snappy with your hands and feet! Carry that chest of gold out! And those furs, don't go ruining them!" Wu Mang holstered in his raucous voice, barking orders at his subordinates with the practiced ease of men moving furniture in their own backyard.

On the other side, Bao Nianfeng had already led his men to pen up the fat, sturdy cattle and sheep of the tribe. As he drove them along, he wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and muttered in a muffled voice, "These little lambs are well-fatted; sprinkled with a bit of salt and roasted, they'd undoubtedly be fragrant..."

The entire vanguard camp, with its clear division of labor, had effectively transformed into a highly efficient grassland demolition squad.

Fan Tong stood akimbo atop a small earthen mound, looking with satisfaction upon the bustling, feverish scene of "harvest." Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, he quietly unfastened the mouth of the palm-sized, gray rice pouch hanging at his waist.

The next second, the chest of gold and several bolts of fine silk that Wu Mang and his men had just carried out from a tent seemed to be seized by an invisible, massive hand. Instantly vanishing from where they stood, they were sucked right into that tiny pouch.

"Boss, everything's been cleared out!" Wu Mang trotted over to claim credit, reporting the accounts with crystal-clear precision, leaving not a hint of suspicion that anything had vanished into thin air.

This Wu Mang actually possessed considerable talent in bookkeeping; no matter what went missing, the ledgers remained flawlessly clear without a single flaw.

"Hn, well done. You really are a goddamn accounting genius." Fan Tong patted his increasingly protruding belly, blooming with joy inside.

This rice pouch was simply a divine artifact tailored specifically for him!

However, while Fan Tong and his men were eating until their mouths shone with grease, the entire Mobei grassland had completely boiled over.

"Lanyu, you wretched scoundrel! Stripping corpses and humiliating the dead—heaven and earth will not tolerate this!"

"Kill Lanyu! Avenge our fallen warriors!"

"If this blood debt is not avenged, we swear we are no men!"

The fires of fury rapidly united the various tribes. Temporarily setting aside their mutual grievances, they assembled an allied force of tens of thousands, laying an ambush around the Wild Horse River and the Tula River. Whetting their blades, they waited only for that primary culprit, Lanyu, to walk right into the trap.

Inside the vanguard army's grand tent, Lanyu had just received the scout's report.

"Report! General, a massive force of Northern Yuan troops has been spotted gathering around the Wild Horse River and Tula River. Banners stretch across the fields, and their numbers are likely no fewer than thirty thousand!"

Upon hearing this, far from being alarmed, Lanyu was overjoyed. He slammed his palm onto the desk and burst into hearty laughter. "Good! They've come at the right time! I was afraid they'd turn into cowards hiding in their shells! Pass down the order to the whole army: accelerate the advance! Today, let these Tatars know who truly rules the grassland!"

The army broke camp, its sharp edge pointing straight toward the Wild Horse River.

When Lanyu led the vanguard force to the front lines, he saw a burly general wearing a wolf-skin hat gallop out from the opposing Yuan battle formation.

Pointing a finger at Lanyu from afar without even bothering to announce his name, the general opened his mouth and unleashed a heaven-shaking, ghost-weeping torrent of abuse.

"Lanyu, you wretched scoundrel! You son of a bitch whose sons are born blind and whose daughters are ridden by ten thousand men! Your ancestors for eighteen generations must have had their brains kicked by a donkey to have spawned trash like you who goes around pulling down other men's trousers! Today, I'm going to hack you to pieces and feed you to the dogs!"

The venom of that cursing and the novelty of the phrasing left even the battle-hardened Ming soldiers dumbfounded.

Lanyu himself was left utterly dazed by the scolding.

He had campaigned for half a lifetime; what kind of scenes had he not witnessed? But to be pointed at and cursed with such boundless creativity—that was truly a first.

Pulling down people's trousers? What in the world was that?

He froze for a moment, and then his peripheral vision swept over the formation to where Fan Tong was desperately trying to shrink his bulky body behind someone else's back.

Seeing Fan Tong's guilty conscience and his sheepish, ingratiating smile, Lanyu understood everything in an instant!

A surge of blazing fury shot straight from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head!

"Fan! Tong!"

Lanyu ground his teeth, every single word seemingly squeezed out through a crack between them.

"Yes... yes! This subordinate is here!" Fan Tong gave a start, hastily bracing his posture.

"Good! Very good!" Lanyu was so enraged he laughed. He pointed at the opposing Yuan general, who was still chattering away incessantly, and barked sternly, "You caused this mess, you clean it up for me! Later, your vanguard camp charges first! That loudmouth must be decapitated for me! If you let him live a moment longer, I'll make you pay dearly when I get back!"

"Ob... obey!" Fan Tong wore a face like a mourner's, cursing Wu Mang that wicked bastard a hundred times over in his heart.

"Whole army! Charge!"

At Lanyu's command, the sharp blade of the vanguard camp was unsheathed once more!

"Kill—!"

Fan Tong roared at the top of his lungs, and the Demon Ox beneath him surged forth first like a heavy tank.

"Javelins! Release!"

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!"

Hundreds of javelins left their hands like black sickles of death, instantly clearing a zone along the vanguard camp's charging path.

The Yuan battle formation fell into immediate chaos; they had not expected the Ming army to bypass words entirely and resort to something so ruthless right off the bat.

Before they could reform their lines, the black iron torrent of the vanguard camp slammed heavily into them!

"Splat!"

With a swing of his battle-axe, Bao Nianfeng cleaved a Yuan soldier and his horse into two halves. Scalding hot blood splattered across his face, but he paid it no heed. Instead, roaring with excitement, he brandished his giant axe like an unflagging meat grinder.

As for Zhu Di, he appeared calm and lethal. Every swing of the wolf-tooth mace in his hand struck precisely at the enemy's weak points, such as helmets or joints. His movements were clean and crisp, devoid of any excess motion, and his appalling efficiency was enough to make one's hair stand on end.

That Yuan general who had earlier shouted curses at the vanguard never even got the chance to display more of his linguistic repertoire before Fan Tong lopped off his head with a single slash.

The entire battle manifested as a one-sided massacre.

Though the Yuan coalition forces were numerous, their formations were chaotic and they fought each independent of the other. Facing the wolf-like, fiercely cooperative vanguard camp, they collapsed almost at the very first touch of contact.

Watching from the rear, Lanyu was overjoyed; any lingering displeasure from earlier was completely washed away by the sweetness of victory.

However, once the battle concluded, when Fan Tong and Zhu Di gathered together, neither of their faces held much joy.

"Zhu Hu, don't you feel like these Tatars are a bit strange?" Fan Tong nudged a dead Yuan soldier at his feet with his toe, frowning.

Zhu Di's gaze swept across the battlefield, his voice low. "Though they can be considered fierce, their discipline is far too chaotic, and their equipment is uneven. Look at these blades—the edges are rolled, and many of them are even holding bone knives. These don't look like elite troops under Köke Temür; they look more like a patchwork of hastily assembled tribal levies."

"I think so too," Fan Tong agreed deeply. "Compared to the tough bones we swept through before, these fellows are much weaker."

News of the opening victory's great success quickly spread back to the central army.

Hearing the report, Xu Da was greatly invigorated as well, the shred of caution in his heart swept away by this sudden, sweeping triumph. Concluding that the main Northern Yuan force had lost its nerve and dared not meet them in direct combat, he immediately ordered the entire army to accelerate and press straight toward Qara Qorum.

An optimistic mood of underestimating the enemy and advancing rashly pervaded the entire Ming army.

"General Lan," Fan Tong found Lanyu, who was drinking and celebrating inside the grand tent, and brought up the matter directly. "I think something is fishy. The Yuan troops collapsed far too quickly, and that isn't normal. I'm afraid this is a deliberate feint to lure us deep into the grassland!"

Flushed with wine, Lanyu burst into a hearty laugh upon hearing this. He heavily slapped Fan Tong on the shoulder. "Fatty Fan, you're just overthinking things! What schemes or plots could possibly stand against the fifteen thousand heavenly soldiers of Great Ming? Rest assured, just follow me and charge; your share of the merit won't be lacking!"

Looking at Lanyu, who had been addled by victory, Fan Tong opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed his words back down.

He knew that saying anything further at this point would be useless.

During the pursuit of the routed enemy, Zhu Di commanded his squad of vanguard troops with astonishing ruthlessness and efficiency.

"Leave none alive!"

His small team hunted like a pack of silent hounds, precisely tracking down every scattering fragment of the enemy and mercilessly wiping them out entirely, accepting no surrender and leaving no living captive.

Wu Mang watched with his heart in his throat, whispering to Fan Tong, "Boss, that kid Zhu Hu... isn't his murderous aura a bit too heavy?"

Fan Tong did not speak; he merely cast a deep, lingering look at Zhu Di's retreating back.

The vanguard camp's baggage train grew more massive by the day, with captured livestock and wealth piling up like mountains. The entire force was immersed in the joy of plundering the frontier.

Yet, the sense of unease in Zhu Di's heart grew stronger and stronger.

Standing atop a high ridge, he gazed out into the boundless depths of the grassland, where the sky seemed somehow gloomier than anywhere else.

He could sense that an invisible, massive net was quietly unfolding right ahead of them.