Magical Water Margin: They all call me brother

Page 112

"Ha! The instructor of the 800,000 Imperial Guards is nothing special!"

Zhang Qing spurred her horse and rode off, intending to return to Gaotang with the cavalry. She had already reached the city gate and was just three seconds away from entering the city. However, two seconds later, Xu Ning got up from the ground—she had only been knocked off her horse by the immense impact; her chainmail hadn't been breached at all. With a sweep of her golden hook-and-sickle spear, it suddenly grew to a length of thirty meters. With a single hook, she precisely severed Zhang Qing's horse's leg, causing Zhang Qing to fall off the saddle in surprise and crash heavily to the ground, feeling dizzy and disoriented!

"Commander-in-Chief! Come in quickly!"

The soldiers inside the city gate rushed to the rescue, hiding behind the gate and reaching out to pull Zhang Qing up. Zhang Qing also quickly got up and reached out to grab him.

"Even a petty thief who uses hidden weapons can hurt me?"

Xu Ning snorted coldly. Just as they were about to shake hands, he once again swung his hook-and-sickle spear, hooking it into a gap in Zhang Qing's armor. With a sudden yank, the thirty-meter-long spear instantly shrank back to three meters in length, pulling Zhang Qing back to his side from the entrance of Gaotang County. He then swung his fist, the size of a sandbag, and slammed it heavily onto Zhang Qing's nose, knocking her to the ground for the second time and avenging the time he had been hit in the face by the iron ball!

However, even after being knocked down, Zhang Qing was still able to throw an iron ball while lying down, achieving a perfect golden spin. Xu Ning couldn't understand where such a small iron ball could generate such a huge impact. Even though she couldn't break through the armor, the impact force, which was no less than that of a battering ram, once again forced Xu Ning to retreat dozens of steps before he could regain his balance and steady his feet.

Chapter 309: Flying Divine Soldiers of Gaotang County

"Quick! Move all the sharpshooters to the city wall to cover Zhang Qing!"

On the city wall, Gao Lian shouted angrily, while the archers, with mournful faces, reported back to the county magistrate.

"Your Excellency! We've tried our best! Look! We've driven back the cavalry under the command of that golden-armored female general!"

"Then why can't you shoot down this golden-armored female general? Useless! Let me do it!"

Gao Lian roared as he snatched a crossbow, loaded it himself, aimed, and fired a steel arrow at Xu Ning. However, Xu Ning didn't even bother to look at Gao Lian. This fatal blow, which was enough to pierce through the armor of an infantryman, couldn't even leave a white mark on Xu Ning's armor. She continued to swing her hook-and-sickle spear, forcing Zhang Qing to retreat step by step!

Having no other choice, Gao Lian took out the three-bow crossbow that the Song Dynasty had used to kill the Liao general Xiao Talin and fired another arrow at Xu Ning! The arrow was a full three meters long and as thick as an adult man's arm, but Xu Ning didn't even bother to look at Gao Lian. He took the crossbow shot to his face without retreating, his mind solely focused on killing Zhang Qing!

After dozens of rounds, Xu Ning, relying on his almost superhuman defensive power, withstood five of Zhang Qing's Golden Spinning Shots and finally found Zhang Qing's weakness—she was very weak in close combat, and because her projectiles relied solely on physical strength to launch, their range was very short. Not to mention the two hundred-meter range of a musket, it was even less than the eighty-meter range of a powerful bow and crossbow, at most sixty meters.

More importantly, her iron balls are all in the embroidered pouch at her waist. There is a very obvious hand-raising and forward-swinging motion when she touches the iron balls. As long as my shooting skills are fast enough and the distance is close enough, I can interrupt her!

Just then, Zhang Qing stepped back with his gun, his right hand leaving the gun barrel to reach for the iron ball at his waist.

Xu Ning seized the opportunity, his hook-and-sickle spear lashing out like a dragon, precisely striking Zhang Qing's right wrist. Although it didn't break through her armor, it made her palm numb, her right arm tremble, and she even lost her grip on the half-empty iron ball, causing the deadly object to fall back into the bag.

Xu Ning was overjoyed and pulled hard again—Zhang Qing, wielding the gun with both hands, was no match for Xu Ning. Now, with only his left hand holding the gun, he was caught off guard and Xu Ning snatched his weapon, disarming him on the battlefield.

Zhang Qing was also secretly alarmed. Of course she knew that her iron ball had a huge flaw, but it didn't matter. The advantage of the Golden Spin was its destructive and concealment. No one could catch her Golden Spin once. If someone could, then she would catch two!

Most generals couldn't withstand a single Golden Whirlwind attack; even a powerful warrior like Suo Chao was severely injured in one blow.

Even if they weren't killed by the first Golden Spin and lost their ability to fight, they would still be terrified and uneasy, afraid to fight themselves, and would have no chance to find their own weaknesses!

Xu Ning's defense was too exaggerated. Even the Golden Spin couldn't break through it and could only be pushed back. She actually took five of my Golden Spin attacks and found a weakness!

With no other option, Zhang Qing, unable to launch the iron ball and disarmed with his spear, had to retreat. Gao Lian, fearing for Zhang Qing's safety, personally led over thirty officers as a suicide squad out of the city gate! Pointing at Xu Ning, he cursed, "You bunch of reckless traitors, how dare you invade my city!"

Xu Ning remained silent, only charging forward relentlessly. Gao Lian was furious and dispatched two commanders, Yu Zhi and Wen Wenbao, to rescue Zhang Qing!

The two men spurred their horses and charged forward with their swords, their bells jingling and their jade pendants chiming. Two long spears shot out like dragons, and eight hooves kicked up dust as the two generals galloped forward to cover Zhang Qing's retreat.

Seeing that he was being intercepted, Xu Ning had no choice but to abandon Zhang Qing and fight the two commanders. In less than five rounds, Yu Zhi's horse was cut off by Xu Ning's hook-and-sickle spear. He screamed and fell off the horse. Xu Ning then pierced his heart with a spear and killed him instantly.

Wen Wenbao was taken aback. Seeing that Zhang Qing had already escaped back to Gao Lian's side, he dared not linger and spurred his horse to leave. However, Xu Ning's hook-and-sickle spear instantly grew to tens of meters long, and the scythe on the spear hooked onto his armor. With a single pull, he dragged Wen Wenbao off his horse and then thrust the spear into his back!

Seeing Xu Ning's fierce bravery, and having lost two generals himself, Gao Lian drew his Tai'a sword from his back, muttered incantations, and shouted, "Hurry!"

No sooner said than done, a black mist rose from Gao Lian's ranks. The mist dissipated into the air, causing sand and stones to fly, shaking the earth and sky, and whipping up a strange wind that swept across the battlefield! The entire world turned dark, so dark that one could not see their own hand in front of their face, terrifying the horses beneath them into a frenzy of rearing and roaring!

Gao Lian brandished his sword, pointing at the three hundred flying divine soldiers, who roared as they charged out of the formation!

It turns out that Gao Lian, relying on the immense power of his brother Gao Qiu, commanded three hundred private soldiers known as the Flying Divine Soldiers. These soldiers were all strong and capable men selected from Shanxi and Hedong. They were super soldiers created using nineteen secret techniques passed down through generations in Hebei. It is said that nine hundred years ago, super soldiers created using this technology had another name: Zhang Jiao's Yellow Turban Warriors, or Huang Tian's Thunder Warriors.

By the Song Dynasty, an improved version had emerged, incorporating the dragon blood of the Shatuo people. These three hundred super warriors all grew terrifying indigo dragon wings, enabling them to fly and fight!

Three hundred men were seen with disheveled hair, and smoke billowed behind their heads. Dragon wings sprouted from their ribs, and their wing bones concealed a thousand roars of thunder.

His yellow headband was neatly divided into eight trigrams, and his scale armor covered all four directions. In his right hand, he wielded a cold, sharp saw; in his left, a divine crossbow.

Armor concealing the heart, with two bronze shields standing upright at the front and back; banners gleaming in the eye, flanked by a thousand layers of black mist. They seem like divine soldiers departing from the heavens, or angels descending from the clouds!

With the assistance of government troops behind him, they launched a surprise attack. Seeing both Taoist magic and elite soldiers, Xu Ning's earlier thought of beheading Gao Lian and claiming the greatest credit vanished. He retreated and returned to the southern camp.

Before the three hundred flying gods could rush over, the Liangshan troops in the position had already ended their state of chaos. Red-haired Devil Liu Tang and Nine-tailed Turtle Tao Zongwang, along with a large number of musketeers, deployed musket positions and launched three rounds of earth-shattering volleys of fire, shattering the flying gods' armor and flesh, leaving them all wounded, and intimidating Gao Lian.

He didn't know the details of Liangshan's situation. Seeing that he had already rescued Zhang Qing, he decided not to make any rash moves and instead led his troops back to Gaotang County, where he closed the gates tightly.

Chapter 310: The Exchange of Officials and Bandits at Liangshan Marsh

After learning about the small-scale battle that had taken place in the southern camp, Liu Hong remained noncommittal. He then gathered and summarized the intelligence, giving the entire Liangshan forces a basic understanding of Zhang Qing and Gao Lian. He then strengthened the defenses of the four major camps in the east, south, west, and north, and sent Suo Chao back to recover from his injuries. He urged them to seize the time to prepare for the capture of Gaotang and the rescue of Chai Jin.

However, at this very moment, the last few members of the anti-Liangshan alliance made their move. Zhang Shuye, the prefect of Jizhou, joined forces with Dong Ping, the military commander of Dongping Prefecture, and led all the troops of the prefecture and county to attack, with a total force of up to two thousand.

There was no other way. Jizhou and Dongping Prefecture were both adjacent to Liangshan Marsh, which was one of the first areas infiltrated by Liu Hong. Both prefectures had long been riddled with infiltration, and it was already good that they could still find two thousand loyalists.

With such a small force, it was naturally impossible to attack the main stronghold of Liangshan. Huyan Zhuo had already lost 100,000 men, so these 2,000 men were not even worthy of a glance at the Liangshan garrison.

So Zhang Shuye and Dong Ping changed their strategy and decided to intercept Liu Hong's supply lines: a large amount of grain was being transported from Liangshan Marsh to the front lines of Gaotang. By cutting off your supply lines, they would starve your 300,000-strong army at the front lines, causing them to collapse and disintegrate. At that time, the siege of Gaotang would naturally be resolved!

For a time, a very strange phenomenon occurred in Jeju: bandit armies were openly marching and transporting grain, while regular government troops hid in the deep forests and mountains, waiting for an opportunity to plunder and ambush.

Liu Hong was well aware of the vulnerability of his supply lines. Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle, and Mu Hong, the Unobstructed Guardian, were the chief and deputy chief stewards of Liangshan's finances and supplies, two very powerful generals, who were fully responsible for protecting the supply lines.

Although Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle, was a complete scoundrel, when Liangshan Marsh was fighting against the Zhu Family Village and both sides asked her to choose a side, she tore up the alliance in an extremely abstract way, chose the middle, and then quickly surrendered to Liangshan Marsh after the war ended.

But now, she's completely become a bandit, with no way out. Her last wish is for Liu Hong to keep promising her amnesty—brothers and sisters! The higher the bounty, the bigger the trouble we cause, the less the court can kill us, and the higher the official positions we'll get when we return to the court!

There was no other way; Li Ying only had this one option left. She couldn't just give up. Seeing Dong Ping and Zhang Shuye joining forces to attack, she had no choice but to focus on guarding the grain route.

At that very moment, Dong Ping launched the first attack, her body erupting with blinding golden beams of light, flesh and weapons all transforming into dazzling golden flashes! She roared and charged forward!

"boom!!!"

The first collision was a beam of golden light that swept across the battlefield, instantly cutting into the front lines! Speed ​​is power. Wherever Dong Ping passed, military tents, soldiers, and horses were like fragile sculptures of salt and sand. After she single-handedly smashed through them, people and horses fell, blood flowed like rivers, and the ground was plowed with deep, molten trenches. Only then did the shrill screams of cavalry tearing through the air come from afar.

The second strike, the beam of light, changed direction and attacked to the right, leaving a blazing white afterimage in the air, attempting to bypass the central army and head straight for the grain depot, with the force of thunder and the speed of lightning.

In the third charge, Dong Ping brandished her twin pistols, roaring as she fought fiercely. Using the speed of light, she shredded the heavily armored infantry who charged to block her path into a cloud of crimson blood mist! With devastating force, she smashed a massive carriage into dust! Her speed was simply too fast; at this moment, she had already reached the heart of the grain storage area! The scouts who discovered Dong Ping's arrival hadn't even had time to deliver the news to the granary!

Seeing Dong Ping's arrogance, the Liangshan army was also enraged. The elite soldiers, clad in heavy armor and wielding sharp blades, came to fight Dong Ping. However, the ability of this romantic Marquis of Ten Thousand Households was truly terrifying. Bullets shot at her and spears thrust at her were all pierced into nothingness, unable to harm Dong Ping in his beam form in the slightest!

She brandished two flashing short spears and fought fiercely, each strike burning like a supernova pulse. She either tossed the Liangshan soldiers dozens of meters away like trash, or melted steel and burned iron with high-temperature beams. The outer barrier of the grain supply was torn to shreds by her alone, and the defending army was terrified!

Seeing that he had finally broken through, Dong Ping prepared to burn down all the grain and fodder that Liangshan was transporting this time.

Just then, a primordial roc cry that pierced the soul suddenly resounded from the heavens!

"唳——!!!"

A colossal, gilded wing, obscuring half the battlefield, tore through the clouds, plunging the entire battlefield into darkness, extinguishing the sun and moon. The giant bird crashed down, like a falling star! Countless Vajra feathers, inscribed with Sanskrit mantras, descended from the sky, each feather shimmering with an immortal divine light like compressed stars! Under the weight of the giant wing, time itself seemed to freeze into amber!

Li Ying, who had been lying low and slacking off, was forced to take action and directly used his demonic power. He transformed into a golden eagle with wings like clouds hanging from the sky. His wings were so huge that they could cover the sky and protect all the carts, horses, and boats transporting grain!

"boom!!!"

Dong Ping frowned slightly, then transformed into a beam of light and charged forward once more. His twin pistols, gleaming with golden light, pierced the wings of the Sky-Soaring Eagle like a pair of golden meteors.

There was no explosion, no shockwave, only absolute silence that could eclipse the stars! The vast torrent of energy, powerful enough to tear apart an army formation, struck the golden eagle's wings, only to be dissected, absorbed, and transformed layer by layer by the countless golden wheels rotating on its endless Vajra feathers, as if it had fallen into a sea of ​​blood in a Buddhist paradise.

Moreover, the moment the destructive beam particles collided with the Immortal Buddha Feather, the entire sky was stirred up with superdimensional ripples as clear and transparent as glass! This golden eagle was enormous, its wings so large that they could protect an entire grain transport team. In front of Dong Ping, it was like a golden mountain.

Dong Ping looked astonished. How could Liangshan have so many fierce generals! Yang Zhi was able to transform into a giant dragon the size of a mountain, and with his size and weight, he could withstand Dong Ping's flashing charge.

And this Sky-Soaring Eagle Li Ying can also transform into a giant eagle the size of a mountain, relying on its size and weight to withstand the chaotic attacks of his twin guns!

Li Ying was also secretly shocked. What was this Dong Ping? My size is comparable to a mountain, but when she bumped into me, I almost lost my balance and fell to the ground?!

Am I moved by a mere mortal?

Li Ying roared, and the golden eagle's right wing spread out, barely stabilizing its massive, mountain-like form. Its pair of golden, vertical pupils, seemingly forged from the core of the sun, anxiously looked down—Dong Ping, blocked from the shadow of the giant wings, was still fiercely battling with his twin pistols. Golden beams of energy, like raging waves crashing against the walls of a Buddhist kingdom, sprayed waterfall-like fragments of energy at the edges of the wings before extinguishing.

Although Li Ying was forced to defend, a large amount of grain remained unharmed under the Pengyi Divine Light, and not even a single blade of grass was ignited by Dong Ping.

Chapter 311: The Dual-Gun Generals' Fierce Battle Day and Night (Bonus Chapter for 3450 Monthly Tickets!)

"Dong Ping! You go charge first! I'll handle things here!"

Zhang Shuye's Taoist robes fluttered, his headdress stood tall, and his beard and hair danced wildly like mad snakes! His hands formed hand seals as if tearing silk, and his roar shook the mountains and rivers, causing the entire sky to collapse inwards in an instant! Countless purple-gold lightning talismans condensed, intertwined, and piled up from the void! In an instant, countless bolts of lightning forged on the ground a giant god of the Thunder Department, his body wrapped in hundreds of lightning dragons! His form reached the sky and stood upright, his armor woven from trillions of leaping electric snakes, and his eyes spewed out pillars of annihilating lightning as thick as ten feet.

The colossus wielded a heavy mace forged from the Nine Heavens Thunder Pool in its left hand, and held aloft a spear that stirred the celestial calamity! Each breath of lightning crushed the vegetation within a hundred feet into scorched dust. With a swift movement, it hurled its thunderous spear. Before Li Ying could react, the left wing of the golden eagle he had transformed into was pierced by a bolt of purple lightning as thick as five people could encircle! The Vajra Buddha feathers peeled away, revealing a wound of molten, glass-like crimson flesh, the edges of which crackled with inextinguishable electric snakes.

The giant bird staggered backward, each time it spread its wings it splashed out scalding molten blood, which poured down like a waterfall onto the ground below, which had melted into a crimson lake, and steamed up a sky-covering, bloody mist.

"Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle? You were once a respectable wealthy man in Jizhou, why did you become a traitor?! You deserve to die!!!"

Hidden within the purple mansion between the eyebrows of the Thunder God, Zhang Shuye pressed down with a fierce hand seal! The Giant Thunder General violently stirred up a storm of thunder and lightning across the heavens! A purple-white world-destroying thunder slurry, ten feet in diameter and compressed to its extreme, struck down like a divine punishment spear, aiming once again at the heart of the Roc! The golden light protecting the Buddha's body instantly melted with a mournful cry upon being touched by the thunder slurry, and it seemed that his heart was about to be burned by the thunder and fire!

"Roar--!!!"

But at this critical moment, a ferocious roar filled with boundless hunger tore through the thunderclouds. A cavalryman charged in from the side, biting into the waist of the giant shadow of Thor even faster than the lightning!

Without any obstruction, Mu Hong.

With a flurry of gunfire and bursts of green light, the Thunder God's seemingly indestructible Thunder Talisman Armor, like a snowflake exposed to the core of the sun, silently decomposed and vaporized, disintegrating into the most primordial, disordered photon dust amidst beams of emerald green light!

Even more terrifying was that this collapse spread like a plague along the basic structure that constitutes matter! The lightning serpents flowing through the gaps in the armor wailed and stopped flowing, the divine patterns on the heavy mace dissipated inch by inch, and even the trident of lightning mace that was about to strike the roc had its tip silently crumble and disappear like a weathered sand tower! The laws and order that constituted the existence of the Thunder God collapsed one by one in the emerald green demonic light!

Zhang Shuye's expression froze. He had seen similar battle reports before, in which another general's outer defenses were breached instantly without any cover.

The abilities of the gods of thunder differ only slightly. Most of them summon thunder generals and hide within thunder giants to control these incredibly destructive divine bodies. They are extremely safe, and it is almost impossible for anyone to break through the thunder generals' thunder defenses.

However, with so many demons in the world, it's not surprising that a few occasionally appear who can ignore defenses. Mu Hong's ability is to annihilate everything into the smallest molecules. She is specifically designed to break through armor. She charged into Lei Jiang's body, wielding a twelve-foot steel spear, forcing Zhang Shuye to draw his Yin-Yang Twin Swords and engage in hand-to-hand combat with her.

To be fair, among the Thunder Generals, Zhang Shuye is among the strongest. However, his strength lies not in close combat, but in his thunder magic. He usually hides inside the Thunder God General and acts as a cannon emplacement, which is extremely powerful.

But now, with Mu Hong's unhindered entry into Lei Jiang's body and their close-quarters combat, she was finding it difficult to keep up. It was a battle of twin swords against a single spear; on one side, the Yin-Yang twin swords trailed two bolts of lightning, while on the other, the twelve-foot steel spear exploded with a burst of green light. Bolts of lightning were annihilated and disintegrated within the green light. Streaks of demonic light ionized and collapsed within the lightning. Zhang Shuye was being worn down here by Mu Hong, her nemesis!

Meanwhile, Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle, was unable to capture Dong Ping, but he managed to protect the grain supplies with his towering eagle body. Moreover, reinforcements from Liangshan were arriving one after another to protect the grain.

With no other option, seeing that the sneak attack had failed, Zhang Shuye had no choice but to retreat in haste.

Unwilling to accept defeat, Dong Ping's beautiful face showed displeasure. She decided to use her incredible speed to harass the Liangshan grain transport team all by herself! Even if it meant damaging a single grain of rice or delaying their arrival at Liu Hong's place by a day, she was willing to do it!

At dawn, as the sun began to rise and a roar erupted, this valiant dual-wielder had transformed into an inexhaustible photon calamity! From the moment the first golden rays of dawn pierced the thin mist, she swept up a torrent of dazzling, ultra-high-energy particles, crashing into the vulnerable flank of the Liangshan rear army's grain transport convoy! The beams of her dual wielders danced wildly, even more blinding than the rising sun in the east.

Li Ying's protection of the grain wagons is indeed impressive, but with those wings acting as a shield, you can't move. As long as I keep your grain here, you still can't deliver it to Liu Hong's front line! I can still complete the mission!

Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle, was also getting impatient. "Fine, let's just keep at it like this. I want to see how long you, Dong Ping, can fight all by yourself! How long you can hold me off!"

At midday, under the blazing sun, Dong Ping's particle form resembled a distorted, boiling, incandescent phantom! His high-speed movement left behind dozens of afterimages of light whips! With each flick of the whip's tip, two or three armored soldiers were either incinerated by the pure, high-temperature light energy or pierced through the chest by two light spears! Yang Zhi arrived to provide support, cursing, but Dong Ping didn't linger! He burned one cart, killed ten men, and then exploded into a sky full of photon dust, merging into the scorching airflow, only to suddenly re-condense hundreds of feet away at the rear of another supply convoy! He was so fast that a volley of arrows could only futilely pierce the afterimage, and heavy hammers only splashed up charred ashes!

As the sun set, the scorched earth became a crucible, the land repeatedly plowed by the intense heat and flashes of light! Dong Ping, like a moving furnace core, charged across the battlefield, unstoppable. With a horizontal slash of his twin spears, a squad of heavily armored infantrymen with shields, along with their iron shields, melted like hot wax! The molten iron and boiling flesh sizzled and welded together on the scorched earth and rocks.

The stars and moon are high in the sky, and the light is as bright as day!

The golden light emanating from Dong Ping's body could even dim the stars and moon. She moved freely through the darkness, and no Liangshan leader could catch or intercept a beam of light that was unwilling to fight.

The trajectory of the twin pistols transformed into two intertwined chains of aurora, the ghastly firelight illuminating layers upon layers of gruesome corpses—there were molten iron warriors, half-welded into the earth and rocks; there were supply wagon soldiers, their entrails scalded by boiling grain, their abdomens ruptured; there were charred arms, neatly severed from their torsos, still twitching; and there were countless bizarre deaths, their leather armor intact but their mouths and noses smoking, their skulls a mushy mess! The stench of grease, half-cooked wheat grains, charred leather, and dark red blood mixed into a muddy slurry, the deep ruts in the bloody mud resembling whip marks etched on the gates of hell!

As the morning light pierced through the smoke of battle once more, Dong Ping, who had been fighting for a full twelve hours, finally felt somewhat exhausted. She licked her dry, cracked lips, which were also covered in blood and sulfurous soot. Her amber vertical pupils swept over this bloody inferno she had personally created before she was satisfied and transformed into a beam of light to disengage and escape.

At this moment, Li Ying, the Sky-Soaring Eagle, was almost going crazy. How could this guy have such good stamina? He really fought to the death for a whole day and night, delaying his departure by twelve hours!

Chapter 312: Shi Wengong's Taunts on the Battlefield

Seeing that the supply of provisions was delayed by a day, Liu Hong was also a bit of a headache. The army had not moved yet, but the provisions had to go first. There were 80,000 people on the front line, and 80,000 mouths to feed. Let alone the provisions being delayed by a day, even half a day would not be acceptable. Who would dare to let 80,000 people risk their lives to do heavy physical work such as setting up camp and not eat for half a day?

Fortunately, Liu Hong's camp had some stored grain and fodder, which allowed them to hold out until Li Ying and Mu Hong arrived with the provisions. But the next time might not be so simple.

With no other option, Liu Hong temporarily suspended the siege and dispatched six generals—Xu Ning, Yang Xiong, Shi Xiu, Yan Shun, Wang Ying, and Zheng Tianshou—to raid local tyrants in the vicinity. In three days, they killed twenty-two wealthy families, striking fear into the hearts of the local tyrants in Gaotang County. All their accumulated grain and treasures were transported back to the Gaotang front lines, and all the land was distributed to the local people. Furthermore, a trading area was set aside in the main camp, where people in the vicinity could bring any surplus grain they had, which Liu Hong would buy at twice the market price. This was the only way they managed to get by.

The combination of Holy Light and Thunder, Dong Ping and Zhang Shuye, was merely a minor troublesome threat in terms of plundering supplies. The real threat was Zengtou City and Yuanbi Village.

Zengtou City was larger than the combined size of Zhujiazhuang, Hujiazhuang, and Lijiazhuang. While Yuanbi Village was small, it was a gathering of heroes, with at least eight generals from the Thunder Department, making it a formidable opponent. Now, the two villages had joined forces, and having learned from the experiences of Qin Ming and Huyan Zhuo's two failed attempts to attack Liangshan, they had reached a final conclusion.

Jeju Island is a ruined land, we can't go there. Every farmer and fisherman there is a scout for Liangshan. Fighting Liangshan in Jeju Island will not end well. Stationing troops under Liangshan Marsh is simply suicide! We can't get boats in the whole of Jeju Island, we can't cross the 800-mile-long waterway, and we don't have the support of the people. Even Huyan Zhuo's 500,000-strong army could be slowly worn down by Liangshan, let alone our two strongholds.

Therefore, considering only the two instructors Shi Wengong and Su Ding dispatched by Zengtou City, and the daughter Chen Liqing dispatched by Yuanbi Village with 1,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry, they headed straight for Mangdang Mountain to first eliminate the Liangshan Fourth Army led by Huyan Zhuo. Liangshan's influence in Xuzhou wasn't yet that terrifying!

Seeing the enemy army pressing in, Huyan Zhuo remained calm and composed, steadily deploying defenses and observing the enemy's situation.

As the large group of men emerged, seven heroes stood in a line: in the middle was the chief instructor Shi Wengong, above him was the deputy instructor Su Ding, below him was Zeng Tu, the eldest son of the Zeng family, to the left were Zeng Can and Zeng Kui, and to the right were Zeng Sheng and Zeng Suo, all clad in full gleaming armor.

Huyan Zhuo frowned slightly, noticing that the five Zeng family tigers were all golden figures with obvious bestial features. The eldest son, Zeng Tu, had nine fox tails growing from his buttocks. The second son, Zeng Shen, had a mouth like a weasel, spewing strange winds. Zeng Kui's body was covered with densely packed, meter-long steel spikes. Zeng Sheng's body was as long as a snake, weak and boneless. Zeng Suo, on the other hand, was hunched over, trembling violently like a rat, muttering "Yes, yes."

The renowned Shi Wengong rode a magnificent steed, the Jade Lion, capable of traveling a thousand miles a day. He wore a mithril dragon-scale armor that tightly hugged his ample breasts and hips, revealing a wasp waist and wolf-like back. His white Shu brocade battle robe and snow-white fox fur coat fluttered in the wind, like a solitary, cold moon.

Holding a halberd, carrying a carved ice bow, with a Qinggang sword at his waist and armor-piercing arrows in his scabbard, he was truly a heroic and awe-inspiring figure!

However, what puzzled Hu Yanzhuo was that, according to Lin Chong and Lu Zhisheng, Shi Wengong and Zhou Tong were of the same generation, so she was at least seventy years old. Why did she look so young?