Facial bandages covered his face, and he stepped on the bloated corpses as he began a full-scale advance. Xiaolin and Peng Jiu had already advanced deep into the valley. With their crossbow bolts and gunpowder rounds leading the way, they quickly broke through Nong Zhigao’s counterattacks four or five times in a short period of time. Meanwhile, Zhou Tong, Wu Ji, Sun Dazhi, and others dragged along the catapults were following closely behind.
Yundong, as he dodged a giant stone rolling down from the adjacent hillside, looked up to see that Xiaolin had already reached the hilltop. A spear flashed through the air rapidly, but no cries of the native people could be heard; all one saw was them tumbling down the slopes.
Compared to this, Peng Jiu’s advance wasn’t as swift. Yundong watched as his subordinates were struck by giant stones and their blood spewed over a meter high… those rocks had come from the left side of the valley that Peng Jiu was responsible for.
The hill wasn’t very tall; Peng Jiu was making an uphill attack, and rocks were raining down, pinning him to the ground. He could only shoot at the enemy troops there with crossbow bolts. Throwing gunpowder rounds up this way would be very inappropriate because they would roll back down…
After testing the distance, Wu Ji cut the fuse on the gunpowder rounds to an extremely dangerous length and placed them in his pouch himself. As soon as a soldier lit it, he used a mallet to strike the mechanism down, sending four "Death Witches" flying up the slope. A vividly colorful light enveloped them before green flames covered the hilltop. Peng Jiu leaped from behind a rock and bellowed as he advanced towards the top of the mountain. This time, no rocks fell down; only sporadic arrows flew sparingly.
Seeing that Peng Jiu had succeeded, Yundong’s troops continued advancing. As they climbed up to the high slope, Yundong noticed that his starting point was being cleaned by countless laborers while more Song soldiers were constantly pouring in from behind, with Di Qing's flag leading them.
Yundong laughed bitterly; this world never lacked opportunists, even Di Qing wasn’t an exception. He probably had already suspected Nong Zhigao of setting a trap and waited for him to arrive so that he could open up a bloody path for the Western army.
In his eyes, the Victory Army was merely a one-time expendable asset; unlike the Western army which could be used repeatedly, there would be no guilt in using it as the vanguard.
The valley wasn’t long—only about two li. The Victory Army had made significant sacrifices to capture this two-li-long section of the valley. The complex terrain and hilly environment greatly offset the effectiveness of the gunpowder rounds, forcing them into hand-to-hand combat for each node they took over. Fortunately, the native people were extremely afraid of gunpowder; as long as there was a gunpowder round exploding nearby, they would often break and flee.
"What? A giant beast? With a trunk?" Yundong saw Xiaolin's report from the front and immediately understood what he was facing. That’s why the advance had become so much easier—Nong Zhigao had actually found "war elephants."
War elephants, according to Yundong, were a specialized force in ancient warfare that functioned like modern tanks. Trained war elephants would charge into battle, fearlessly breaking through city gates, destroying camps, breaking weapons, trampling enemies, and causing great damage.