But soon, he realized he was wrong.
For the Sheng cavalry charging at the front, was actually pointing their dark muzzles toward them.
Moreover, there were three muzzles!
At this time, the three-barreled guns had become the standard equipment of the elite cavalry. Although these guns were a lot more primitive compared to the matchlock guns of General Deng Yuanjing’s era, they were still the most suitable weapons for combat on horseback.
In the intense and changing situation of a cavalry charge, it was nearly impossible to properly reload.
The three-barreled gun could fire three shots consecutively and did not need to be reloaded after being emptied, it could be swung as a weapon to penetrate armor. For centuries thereafter, it remained highly favored by the Sheng army.
As the matchlock guns of the front-row Sheng cavalry emitted gunsmoke, the charging heavy cavalry of the Northern Barbarians hadn’t even truly engaged the enemy and were already hit by bullets and fell from their horses.
Following that, two streams of iron cavalry merged into a raging torrent and collided thunderously!
In a narrow passage, no amount of strategy held any meaning any longer. At this moment, inspired by their emperor’s personal charge, the morale of this elite unit of the Sheng army had reached its peak. Having waited at the foot of the mountain for the opportunity to strike, they now unleashed their ferocity like a freshly forged sword blade, unstoppable!
The two forces were comparably matched in strength.
But in battle, victory often hinged on certain details.
For instance, the Sheng army’s elite cavalry’s heavy armor, three-barreled guns, and the indomitable confidence inspired by Emperor Taizu of Sheng.
In the chaotic battle, the heavy cavalry of the Sheng army began to break through layer by layer.
From the base of the mountain to the mid-slope, and then from the mid-slope to the mountain peak.
Countless Northern Barbarians cavalry were devoured, split apart, and torn to pieces. The present Sheng army resembled a vast guillotine, no matter how many cavalry were fed into it, it was never sated.
Amidst the neighing of horses and the clouds of dust, Mahari spotted a streak of bright yellow.
The founder of the Great Sheng Dynasty, clad in golden armor, charged past all the Northern Barbarians cavalry like a god descending to earth, his spear aimed directly at Mahari.
In that seemingly frozen moment behind this founding emperor, countless elite cavalrymen of the Sheng army desperately tried to keep up his pace, but throughout Mahari’s field of vision, though filled with his own soldiers, he felt they couldn’t save him.
For the streak of bright yellow kept expanding until the fearsome tip of the spear pierced his chest the next moment.
An immense force transmitted from the tip of the spear.
Mahari even had the illusion that the force wasn’t solely from the charging horse.
It seemed to also carry... the distance traversed from within the pass to the outside border, the pent-up rage from two months of a long march, or perhaps, the humiliation of Huaxia being trampled underfoot by foreign races for hundreds of years.
The Northern barrier, the Yun region, had been lost for over four hundred years.
But Emperor Taizu of Sheng had retaken it in just one year.
Now, the Sheng army had crossed Yun, returning to this land that had bred countless enemies but they had never known.
It had been six to seven hundred years since the last Central Plains army expeditioned into the Desert North and struck the enemy there.
This thrust seemed a culmination of hundreds of years and countless Central Plains people’s "tears in barbarian dust."
And this time, the Northern Barbarians’ proud blades were ultimately shattered by the sharper blades of the Sheng army!
Mahari’s body soared briefly before crashing heavily.
The impact force of the warhorse remained unabated, dragging Mahari’s body across the dry grass for several meters before finally stopping.
Zhao Haiping suddenly exerted force with both hands, utilizing the charge of the horse to firmly pin Mahari’s body into the ground.
Then, he watched as the elite cavalry of the Sheng army galloped past him like a whirlwind, continuing to chase down the surviving Northern Barbarians cavalry.
The sun was already tilting westward, the remaining light bloody.
In the immensely chaotic battlefield, Zhao Haiping looked towards the distant horizon where the sun lingered, a strange feeling emerging in his heart.
Although centuries had passed, the culture and heritage of a nation, of a civilization, connected distant souls as one.
For a moment, he couldn’t quite discern who he truly was.
Until a system notification appeared in his view.
[Trial Illusion: Embracing the Heroic Spirit of the Wilderness]