The place where everyone stopped at was a hill and ahead of the hill, was a dense forest. On both sides were very tall trees, that had a width of one arm's length. There was only a four meters wide dirt road which pa.s.sed by the forest and at the far end were two mountains in a distance.

Soon after Ren Baqian arrived, he met Zuo Chen and the rest.

"How are things? Was this trip successful? Where are the rest?" Ren Baqian asked.

"Thanks to Sir for these items, we were able to find out the intelligence of the other party from afar. We mainly investigate at night and with those night vision devices, we easily discovered the other party's secret sentries. Although we were detected by the other party twice, but we managed to withdraw ahead of them. We didn't even b.u.mp into each other." Zuo Cheng explained from what he heard. These binoculars and night vision devices were really useful.

In particular, the infrared night vision devices played an important role in the forest at night. Furthermore, they were also able to easily determine the approximate number of people when they got slightly nearer, which in turn reduced the danger of this investigation by a lot.

Coupled with the killing of the two Spirit Wheel experts by the empress, it could be said that practically no one met with any danger.

"As for the rest of the people, they are still over there keeping a watch on the other party's movements. We came back first to report to Sir."

"It's good that everything went without a hitch." Ren Baqian nodded, "What's going on in front?"

Zuo Cheng took out a hand-painted map with an abstract forest and two large mountains, and indicated the roads everywhere.

And on top of the mountains, there were dots marked out.

Zuo Cheng explained to Ren Baqian while holding the map,

"Sir, the other party didn't set up an ambush in the forest. They are at the top of the mountain ahead. To get around the mountain and reach w.a.n.g Estuary, we have to go through a mountainous road. This mountainous road is about six steps wide and there's also a steep incline on both sides. It will take a total of about 2600 steps for this road. After this section of road, we will pa.s.s through an interval between the two mountains. On the right is a steep slope and on the left is a cliff. The height is about three hundred meters and we will die horribly if we fall.

Also, along the entire road, the other party has piled up a lot of huge rocks and broken woods above the steep slopes. When our army pa.s.ses by, they would then push these huge rocks and broken woods down.

In addition, there were also eight thousand soldiers on the mountain and among them, many are archers.

There are more than 70 Earth Wheel and nearly one thousand Wheel pract.i.tioners from the different sects. As for the Spirit Wheel experts, we didn't see any of them.

If we take them by storm, I'm afraid that we will sustain a high number of casualties."

Ren Baqian muttered to himself as this was what he kind of expected. Such a method of using rolling logs and rocks could be thought by anyone as long they weren't brainless.

Mainly because facing south from the two mountains were gentle slopes, whereas facing the direction of everyone were steep slopes.

It was easy for the other party to go up the mountain from the other end and it was a ha.s.sle for everyone here to go up the mountain from this direction. Only the winged cavalry would be able to succeed. However, using majority of their energy to get up, the winged cavalry would probably face countless of Earth Wheel and Man Wheel pract.i.tioners as well as thousands of soldiers.

He was afraid that after fighting this battle, the winged cavalry would cease to exist except in name.

Ren Baqian pondered for a while and took the piece of map to look for the empress.

A moment later, Xi Wanya, Zong Shen, commanders from the Protectorate of the South as well as Gong Zheng received news and rushed to the vicinity of the empress.

Ren Baqian drew the details of the map he brought along on the ground. He then marked on all the significant positions and explained everything that he knew. Only then did the empress said, "Everyone, what are your thoughts?"

One great merit of the empress was that she always hand over the professional issues to others.

"Your loyal subject will take the experts among the army and go up the mountain to occupy a vacant s.p.a.ce first. The winged cavalry can then go up from there. Of course, with us to open up a path, we will only be able to hold up the other party. When the winged cavalry and other soldiers go up the mountain, they will then be able to drive the other party away." Xi Wanya spoke first.

Ren Baqian nodded slightly.

If this was the case on Earth, it would indeed be more difficult to handle. But at this time, it was in Dayao, and the biggest feature of this world was that the people here have superb martial arts skills. Although the aboriginals didn't have an advantage in military strength, but, they had an absolute advantage in the skills of the experts.

With Xi Wanya, Zong Shen, Qing Ping and other Cardinal Heaven experts going up the mountain first, they would be able to withstand the attack of the other party and clear up a piece of vacant land. After which, the winged cavalry and other soldiers from Protectorate of the South would then go up the mountain.

Even though Ren Baqian felt that the other party wouldn't have thought of this point, but, this was the most simple and practical method to use. Regardless of the other party's intention, they could only use their absolute power to crush them.

"We'll do it this way." The empress nodded her head.

That very night, just when Ren Baqian entered the tent to rest, someone came to report that movements were detected on the mountain.

Moments later, someone came to report that many pract.i.tioners from the other party's army had already left the mountain and were heading towards them.

"Only the pract.i.tioners from the sects?" Ren Baqian questioned. After getting a confirmation, he instructed a guard to inform Xi Wanya.

If his conjecture wasn't wrong, since there were only those pract.i.tioners from the sects, then it might not be a real night attack.

After thinking for awhile, Ren Baqian said to the guard, "If they really fought their way here, remember to take me to find Her Majesty. As long as you don't see the other party, you don't have to worry about me."

After finis.h.i.+ng the conversation, he found two pieces of rags and plugged them into his ears before he fell asleep.

Right after Ren Baqian fell asleep, yells could be heard from the forest when it was around midnight. There was an unknown number of figures das.h.i.+ng out of the forest and throwing all sorts of concealed weapons at their barracks. There were darts, flying knives, as well as gold and silver beads.

Before these people could even reach the front of the barracks, a few hundred burly men jumped out from behind the fence and gave them a good beating.

"Withdraw!" Seeing this situation, the other party immediately shouted, leaving hundreds of corpses outside the barracks while the others were retreated into the forest.

"Stop the chase." Gong Zheng stopped the winged cavalry.

After a while, peace resumed in their barracks.

In the forest, dozens of people gathered together, "They have already made preparations! It seems like their secret sentries are in the forest. What should we do now?"

"Let's go back. Since they have made preparations, we will lose many lives if we continue to fight." Someone said.

"No, we should attack again. They only know of our attack the previous time as there must be a secret sentry that provided them with news. If we attack again, I'm certain that it will take them by surprise.

"Yes, even if we can't hurt them, we will prevent them from resting so that they can't attack us tomorrow. For every day they delay, the greater the pressure on the amount of rations they have." Someone echoed from the side.

Thereafter, everyone's gaze landed on one person.

"Rest for two hours before we go back to disturb them."

Ren Baqian was sleeping very soundly when someone woke him up. In his dreams, he was whispering sweet nothings to the empress and was in a perturbed state of mind. However, he was woken up by someone at this point of time and was furious, "Have they fought over?"

"No. But there's news that they are currently resting in the forest." The guard said quickly.

"Inform General Xi. I'm afraid that there will still be another round of night attack." Ren Baqian mumbled,entered his dreams once again, and continued his lovey-dovey actions with the empress.

In this hour, the forest was silent, even the birds and beasts were quiet.

"It's time, set off. Remember, disturb but don't get close to them." Someone in the forest gave an order.

Soon after, a group of people dashed out of the forest and a burst of killing noises penetrated the barracks.

Hundreds of sleep deprived burly men jumped out from behind the fence and gave them a good wallop.

Once again, that group of people retreated into the forest with resentment and left around two hundred bodies behind.

"It's obvious that they are already prepared. There's no other opportunity tonight, let's go back."

"According to people from ancient times, that is, everything can only be done twice, but not for the third time. I presume that the other party thinks so too."

"I'm certain that the other party has planted secret sentries in the forest. If we continue to stay here, our each and every move will be detected by them."

"We can get some people to leave first and deliberately make it noisy, creating a facade that all of us have left. Since it's pitch dark in the forest, I don't believe that they will know if there are people over here."

A while later, around four hundred men noisily left the forest.

"Inform Sir Ren that there are still roughly about half of them in the forest. It seems that they are still harbouring evil intentions." Standing atop a tree branch faraway, a man said to his counterpart below while looking at a red spot in the distance with a night vision device.

...

Two hours later, hundreds of men rushed out of the forest. Darts, throwing knives, gold bullets, silver bullets and many concealed weapons were dished out towards the barracks ahead, as if they were in abundance.

Blood-curdling screeches were extremely loud. Also, fighting in the darkness of the night, there was no telling to how many people had actually invaded.

At this moment, hundreds of burly men leapt out from behind the fence and laughed heartily, "You bunch of bandits, have you come all the way to have gift your heads?"