Chapter 116 - Operation Dawn
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
On the 9th of May, the military operation codenamed “Dawn” officially kicked off.
After 5 days of preparations, the city defense unit from Qiushui Town and Friendship Town, along with the main base infantry’s 2nd unit are all in position. At the same time, Qiushui Town’s only cavalry squadron and Friendship Town’s 2 cavalry squadrons have joined the cavalry unit and started the joint training.
In order to prevent startling the snake by beating the bush, the joint training location is not located in Friendship Town but on an open field on the west side of Shanhai Town, near the infantry unit camp.
Originally, Lin Yi proposed that before joining the infantry unit for the joint training, they should wipe out one or two bandit camps outside of the border for the purpose of training the forces for actual combat experience, but it was turned down by Ouyang Shuo.
There were several reasons. First of all, the armies that were dispatched now were all cavalries. The main force would be the cavalries if an attack were launched, so there would be not much of a problem in terms of their cooperation. Second, launching any attacks on any factions right now and causing extra casualties would be unnecessary before operation “Dawn”. Ouyang Shuo was not taking it lightly and he didn’t wish to start a war with an exhausted army, as the operation is extremely crucial.
In order not to attract attention from the Tian Feng tribe, this military operation was preparing to cross the Friendship river from Shanhai Town, and march straight into the west of the central area among the small tribes. This was to ensure that victory would be achieved in one killing blow.
At 4 PM, the navy unit garrisoned at Beihai Town travelled upstream with the Meng Chong warship and docked at the Friendship river bank located towards the south of the small tribes.
Meanwhile, the 800 cavalrymen in the operation “Dawn” set up their camping site on the other side of the river.
At 4 AM before daybreak, the entire force started to prepare food.
At 5 AM, the cavalry, along with the war horses, boarded the warships and sailed across the Friendship river. After a short break, in order to maintain their stealth, every cavalryman covered up his mouth. The horses’ mouths were also covered up, and their hooves were wrapped with thick linen to mute the sound of their footsteps. After that, they started marching forward like an army of spectres, in dead silence.
They marched slowly for 5 kilometers and began to split into 4.
The front wing was of course the cavalry unit that was responsible for the main attack. Equipped with the Qingfu warhorse, the first squadron would be the vanguards. The first team in the first squadron, consisting of 50 cavalrymen equipped with Mingguang armor, would run ahead of the entire force under the lead of Li Mingliang. In order to prevent reflection from their armors and thus attracting the attention of the enemies, the armors are all fully covered with linen.
The back wing was Qiushui Town’s cavalry squadron. With their leader, Zhang Daniu, they detoured to the back of the enemies. They were responsible for cutting away the nomadic tribe’s escape path to the north. The north side was the direction towards the Tian Qi tribe, which was the most likely escape path for the enemies. Therefore, the responsibility carried by Zhang Daniu and his cavalry squadron was very heavy.
The right wing of Friendship Town’s 1st cavalry squadron, with their leader, Hu Yibiao, marched towards the east. The east side was the direction towards Tian Feng tribe. Although the chances of the deserters fleeing towards the east were quite low, but the wing still carried a great responsibility to prevent the enemies from fleeing towards the east. This was because if not taken seriously, the fleeing soldiers might attract the attention of the Tian Feng tribe, and thus cause unwanted outcomes.
The left wing forces were also from Friendship Town. They were the 2nd cavalry squadron, which was also a newly formed cavalry squadron and they headed towards the west. As they were just newly formed, they were dispatched to the west side as there were no tribes around there, so the responsibility was not so heavy. Their purpose there was one of precaution only.
Other than that, at least 1 military intelligence personnel was arranged to each of the front, back, right and left wing forces. They were there to be guides for the army as these intelligence personnel has acquired all the detailed information, such as the terrain of the area, quite some time before the operation. At the same time, in order to facilitate communication at any time, they also carried one messenger bird each.
At half past 6, all forces had reached their designated location as planned.
This time as well, Ouyang Shuo personally lead the army expedition as usual. He was seen riding an elite Qingfu warhorse, wearing a Mingguang armor specially designed for generals, looking sharp and handsome. Beside him was Lin Yi, riding another elite Qingfu warhorse, wearing a Mingguang armor designed for officers.
“Report!” A messenger from the front shouted.
“Speak!”
“My lord, the vanguard has approached the enemy camp as planned. There is nothing unusual for now. Your orders, my lord?”
“All units, move forward!”
“Yes, my lord!”
Twenty minutes later, the main forces met up with the vanguard.
Li Mingliang rode towards Ouyang Shuo and said, “Everything is according to plan, my lord.”
Ouyang Shuo nodded and then looked far away. These nomadic tribes, other than the large tribes, the medium to small sized tribes generally did not have fixed settlements. It was summer right now, when it was a perfect time for herding. Wherever the sheep herd went, the tribal people would just follow.
Therefore, as a temporary settlement, this nomadic tribe in front of Ouyang Shuo had no city walls like the big cities. They didn’t even build a proper fence, just hundreds of tents set up around each other in a circular shape. These tents had various sizes, from small to big, The deeper it went into the middle, the bigger the tents were. In the center, the biggest tents among them all must have been the tribal chief’s tent.
“Have you found the Qingfu stallions?” asked Ouyang Shuo. This was his most concerning issue for now.
“Yes, my lord. They’re all kept in the stable.” Said Li Mingliang excitedly.
“Is that so? Then launch the attack.” Ouyang Shuo turned around, looked at Lin Yi and said to him coldly.
“Understood!” Lin Yi bent and drew his bow, lit a specially made arrow and shot it towards the enemy camp. The burning arrow travelled across the sky, like a meteor, directly landing on the distant chief tent, and instantly the tent could be seen covered with blazing fire.
Lin Yi’s fire arrow, just like a signal flare, upon seeing the arrow shot by him, the 500 cavalrymen swiftly shot their fire arrows towards the areas that they were asked to fire at according to the plan. In an instant, except for a few tents, all the other tents were lit with fire. The blazing fire skyrocketed high in the sky, and the scorching heat could be felt from afar.
Many of the enemies in the tents just died to the fire while they were still in their dreams. The others who were still alert during their sleep, jumped up from their beds and quickly ran outside. There were even the calm ones who unsheathed their weapons and headed outside of the tents.
Seeing this, Lin Yi put his bow away, picked up his spear, charged towards the enemy camp, and shouted “Cavalry, charge!”
“Kill them all!” Raising their weapons, the cavalries followed Lin Yi, and charged into the enemies. While the cavalries struck down and stampeded through the enemies, Ouyang Shuo, along with a few guards, stood at the same position, observing the entire battlefield calmly.
The cavalries patrolled around the tents and slaughtered enemies running out of the tents. The scene was extremely gory and horrible. Ouyang Shuo rode on his horse and stayed at the same position, because he did not participate in the slaughter. As a man from the modern age, even after going through the 5 years in the previous life, he was still unable to slaughter anyone emotionlessly, especially when the targets were just harmless ordinary people.
They said that power was poisonous. It could corrode any person and change them into a cold person with a heart as hard as steel. It was at this moment when Ouyang Shuo realized how great the differences were between adventurer-type players and lord-type players, realizing how much he had changed in this short period of time.
In order to suppress the provocation of Ji Feng Tribe and build his power around the surrounding tribes, he did not hesitate to send his army to Ji Feng Valley and launch his bloody oppression.
In order to obtain the Qingfu stallion to arm his cavalry regiment, he again did not hesitate to exterminate an entire tribe. Even though this time he did not get involved in the war, his hands were still covered with blood. The blood would stay there forever, unable to be washed away and would live with him for his entire life.
The only thing that was worthy of comforting Ouyang Shuo was that he constantly reminded himself mentally that this was just a game. These people in this massacre he caused were just NPCs. This was the only reason that he could use as an excuse.
That night was a nightmare. The night sky was lit up with the fire that was roaring among the tents, shrilling screams and helpless cries could be heard far away. All of this was a tragedy this night. As the fire kept burning vigorously, Ouyang Shuo’s face became more and more blurred.
However, if viewed from another point of view, as the cavalry saw their lord, Ouyang Shuo, standing at the main entrance looking at them, they felt power rushing through their veins as if his stare was something magical that could grant power to anyone. They knew that their lord was looking at them, looking at his men fighting for him.
Although the tribesmen tried to organize a few counter attack, but under the fierce attack of the vanguards, their resistance was completely futile and they were suppressed cruelly.
After half an hour, some of them started to crumble and started running towards the outside of the camp. Lin Yi then swiftly arranged the 5th squadron to chase them down.
There were also some of them who’d overestimated themselves. While they were running for their lives, they tried to capture Ouyang Shuo in order to threaten him. However, Ouyang Shuo was not the old him anymore. His prowess in combat had increased rapidly under intense training and those tribe warriors who tried to capture him were all killed with no mercy.
An hour later, the massacre had finally came to an end. All of the squadrons except for the 1st squadrons that were responsible in wrapping things up were sent out by Lin Yi to cooperate with the pre-arranged scouting troops to hunt down every escaped soldier.
“My lord, should we disguise the entire battlefield and frame the Tian Feng tribe?” asked Lin Yi.
Ouyang Shuo shook his head and said, “It is not needed. Just burn everything up and don’t leave a single trace or clue here. We’re not familiar with whatever these tribes are doing. Disguising the battlefield may have an opposite effect instead. The most appropriate thing to do is to just do nothing. In this way Tian Qi tribe will start to judge whomever that will gain the most benefits from this slaughter. They will think that whomever that gains from this will most probably be the ones who did it. And with this, they will think that their neighbor, Tian Feng tribe, is the mostly likely one that did this. With their capabilities, I am confident that they wouldn’t figure out that we were the ones who did this. There’s one thing that you have to know. We just completed our trading of the Qingfu warhorse with the Tian Feng tribe, so we do not have the motive for this.”
Lin Yi looked at Ouyang Shuo with admiration and said, “You’re indeed a wise man after all.”
Ouyang Shuo waved his hand and said, “Make it quick before anything happens. Time is gold.”
“Yes, my lord.”
At 10 AM in the morning, all the forces converged once again. This operation could be said to be going according to the plan perfectly. None of the enemies survived, and they went back to their base with the rewards seized in this battle.
The operation “Dawn” seized a total of a 100 young Qingfu stallions, 300 high-class Qingfu warhorses, and 4 elite-class Qingfu warhorses.
In addition, there were also more than a 1000 sheep and 3000 thousand pieces of sheepskins.