"Whoa. It's starting."
Floating up in midair like two VIP audience members with the best seats in the world, Cheng Xu and Xing Honglang watched the unfolding chaos below with undisguised satisfaction, like gamblers who had bet correctly on both sides of a fight.
The moment Wang Zuogua's vanguard charged forward, the government troops immediately began to crumble.
Wu Zimian had originally marched out with three thousand men to suppress bandits, but along the way he had happily accepted bribes and let off quite a number of officers. Those officers had not left alone either, they had taken their personal troops with them, which meant Wu Zimian's once respectable army had shrunk down to around two thousand.
Worse still, these remaining two thousand soldiers had morale so low it might as well have been buried underground. Every man was thinking about how not to fight rather than how to win.
So when several thousand bandits burst out of the forest with thunderous momentum, their numbers unclear and their intent murderous, Wu Zimian's troops instantly panicked.
The only group that could be considered elite, Wu Zimian's personal guards, did not charge forward to meet the enemy. Instead they clustered tightly around their lord like a protective shell, prioritizing his safety above all else.
At that point, calling it a battle was almost an insult.
Wang Zuogua's vanguard smashed into the outer formation and shattered it with barely any resistance. Before the government troops could even reorganize, shouts erupted from all directions at once.
"Yichuan Miao Mei is here!"
"Yichuan Fei Shanhu has arrived!"
"Yichuan Da Honglang joins the fray!"
Three of Wang Zuogua's generals burst out from three different directions, completing the encirclement with terrifying efficiency.
Wu Zimian took one look around and nearly lost his soul. "What the hell, why are there bandits in every direction?"
His attendant nearly cried on the spot. "General, this is bad. They've surrounded us without us even noticing."
Wu Zimian's mind, however, was still stuck on something else entirely. "Where are the horses? My five hundred fine warhorses. Those are worth tens of thousands of taels."
The attendant almost collapsed. "Forget the horses, General. Run first!"
Protected by a desperate cluster of guards, Wu Zimian and his entourage hacked their way toward the north, fleeing for their lives.
---
On the other side, Zao Ying found herself equally stunned.
She had just finished negotiating the price with Wu Zimian's attendant when this entire mess exploded out of nowhere.
She frowned. Fine. Forget the deal. She had not even brought silver with her anyway. This was never a planned transaction to begin with, just a chance encounter. If officials and bandits wanted to tear each other apart, she had no reason to stay and watch.
She immediately gave the order to retreat.
Her riders moved quickly. Their horses had been grazing around the village earlier, but once Wu Zimian's men arrived, they had already gathered them back and prepared for possible conflict. Now, at her command, everyone mounted in one smooth motion.
Zao Ying pulled her reins, ready to ride out.
A burly man suddenly stepped in front of her horse, grinning wide like a wolf that had just spotted fresh meat. "You're that Yichuan horse bandit, Zao Ying, right?"
Zao Ying narrowed her eyes. "That's me. And who are you?"
The man laughed loudly. "I'm Yichuan Da Honglang. Enough talk. Hand over all your horses."
Zao Ying froze for a split second, then fury surged up. "Damn it. You're planning to rob even me?"
Da Honglang's grin widened. "Not planning. Already doing it."
Without another word, he thrust his spear forward.
Zao Ying reacted instantly, drawing her saber and parrying with a sharp metallic clang. The force traveled straight up her arm, numbing it instantly. This man was no joke.
Her subordinates tried to rush forward to support her, but Da Honglang's troops surged in behind him, forming a dense wall of spears. The formation locked tight, sealing off any path forward.
Zao Ying jerked her horse around, trying to break out in another direction, only to find the same scene repeated everywhere. Spears, sharpened wooden poles, long bamboo shafts, all forming a suffocating cage.
It was obvious now.
This was never just about surrounding the government troops. From the beginning, Wang Zuogua had intended to trap every horse in sight.
Both the five hundred warhorses and her own mounts were targets.
"Damn it," she cursed under her breath, though her mind was already racing. Something was very wrong. Her force was small, just over a hundred riders, while Wang Zuogua had thousands. Worse, he had surrounded her from all sides, stripping away the mobility advantage that made cavalry so dangerous.
At this rate, she was trapped.
---
Up above, Xing Honglang spoke up. "Dao Xuan Tianzun, that female bandit. We should save her."
Li Dao Xuan paused.
Xing Honglang explained quickly, "Her name is Zao Ying. She operates in Yichuan, known among the Jianghu as a righteous outlaw. She only targets officials and never harms common folk. She is not like Wang Zuogua. Even he is attacking her now. She got dragged into this mess and walked straight into a trap. If she dies here, it would be a real loss."
Cheng Xu added from the side, "Wu Zimian's forces have already been routed. If we want to pull off a black eats black move, this is the perfect moment. Wang Zuogua's troops have just fought and have not had time to reorganize."
Li Dao Xuan lowered his hand slowly, placing both of them back down in front of their troops.
That single motion was as clear as any spoken command.
Move now.
Xing Honglang's eyes lit up. "Dao Xuan Tianzun agrees. We're saving her."
Cheng Xu grinned. "Dao Xuan Tianzun has always been kind. As long as someone is worth saving, help will come. Since we have the green light, no need to wait. We already saw the terrain and troop distribution from above."
Xing Honglang nodded. "Clear as day."
"Then let's go," Cheng Xu said, baring his teeth. "Grenadiers. Musketeers. Get ready."
After Xu Dafu completed the fuse grenade, production had immediately begun. Black powder craftsmen and apprentices worked together and had already produced twenty grenades. On the firearm side, there were ten three eyed fire lances, one flintlock musket, and one matchlock gun.
The numbers were not overwhelming, but they had something better than numbers.
They had Dao Xuan Tianzun watching from above.
Cheng Xu raised his hand and laughed. "Four enemy divisions. Two are chasing Wu Zimian for the horses, the other two are surrounding Zao Ying. We break the siege first."
---
Zao Ying was riding in tight circles.
Her riders still had their horses, and horses meant speed, but with spears hemming them in from every direction, that speed meant nothing. They could only circle helplessly within the shrinking enclosure.
From Li Dao Xuan's perspective above, it looked almost absurd. A group of riders trapped in a giant ring, spinning around and around like insects caught in a bowl.
With every lap, the ring tightened.
Her space grew smaller.
Soon, there would be no room left to move.
And when that happened, the end was obvious.
They would be dragged off their horses and speared one by one.
Li Dao Xuan could not help but sigh in admiration. Wang Zuogua had grown. The old version of him would have just shouted charge and rushed forward blindly. Now he understood coordinated encirclement and anti cavalry tactics.
Impressive.
Zao Ying felt her heart sink deeper with every passing second. It seemed that this was where her journey would end.
And then, at that exact moment, Cheng Xu's force arrived.
The first to strike were Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu.
They hurled their fuse grenades.
After improvements, even ordinary soldiers could throw them more than ten zhang, but those two monsters could easily reach over twenty.
Two grenades arced through the air and landed directly in Da Honglang's spear formation.
Boom. Boom.
Ming Context:
By this point in the Ming collapse, private horse-bands and mutinied troops frequently clashed for control of cavalry stock—the single most valuable military resource. Female bandit-leaders like Zao Ying appear in multiple regional accounts of the Yichuan uprisings.
Trivia:
"連老娘也想一併搶?"—literally "You even dare rob me?"—became a meme line among readers, turning Zao Ying into one of the fandom's favorite "big-sister bandit" characters.