Chapter 366
Chapter 366
*CRASH!*
With a great roar, the two hundred people led by Shen Lang charged out, shouting at the top of their lungs.
“I am the great bandit, Gao Douhuan! Today, I have come to Zhenyuan City to carry out the will of heaven! You Western warriors are truly brave. I shall castrate you all! What is this disgraceful display, urinating wherever you please? You should all be drowned in a latrine! As for you shopkeepers, every one of you is fat to the brain, which means you must have amassed your wealth through unjust means. How much of the people’s blood and sweat have you exploited?
I, Gao Douhuan, am deeply grieved that scoundrels like you, who have built your fortunes on injustice, exist. Therefore, I will now burn down all your shops and seize the gold, silver, and jewels within to distribute among the people. Skin every shopkeeper alive and sentence them to the punishment of the human lantern! Kill them! Today, I, Gao Douhuan, act in the name of heaven to deliver justice! Kill them! Kill them all!”
At Shen Lang’s command, the two hundred valiant female warriors charged madly toward the shops on both sides of the street. Their slaughter was so great that the street began to run with rivers of blood.
The Western warriors outside the shops were momentarily stunned.
‘Damn it, this is too much. You should at least wait until nightfall, or a little later, to put on a mask and pretend to be Gao Douhuan. But to return to the Prefect's mansion and come right back out in broad daylight with a mask on… are you looking down on us? It’s like you’re insulting my intelligence. I haven’t even finished pissing yet.’
The Western warriors’ initial shock turned to anger, and finally, to glee.
‘You think you can take us on with just two hundred people? And they’re all women? You must be dreaming if you think you can win. Do you really believe that wearing Gao Douhuan’s mask makes you as mighty as him? What a pretty-boy son-in-law. With no proper army by his side, only these burly women, what damn good are they going to be?’
The Western warriors, whether they had finished urinating or not, quickly tucked themselves in, cinched their belts, and raised their scimitars.
“Die!”
Hundreds of Western warriors charged at them. The ones here in Zhenyuan City were all mercenaries seeking to make a fortune; there wasn’t a single one among them who hadn’t killed before. They outnumbered Shen Lang’s party several times over, and since they were fighting women, their faces showed no trace of fear.
“Kill them!”
The female general, Muyeol, led the two hundred formidable female warriors in a charge, and the two forces closed the distance in an instant.
“Fire the crossbows!”
At Muyeol’s command, the female warriors raised their crossbows.
*Thwip, thwip, thwip, thwip.*
A volley of sharp bolts flew through the air, instantly felling a swath of enemies. The Western warriors were aghast at the sudden turn of events.
‘What… what kind of crossbows are those? How can they be so small yet so powerful?’
The Jin Clan now controlled Jinshan Island, which produced a great quantity of steel. Furthermore, with the information from the computer in his mind, Shen Lang had advanced their steel-refining techniques, allowing them to forge low-carbon and high-carbon steel. With high-quality steel, they could create powerful, compact crossbows. Made with fine strings and superior steel, these crossbows were no more than half a chi long but packed a tremendous punch at short range. The arrowheads, forged from high-carbon steel, were incredibly hard and could pierce not only ordinary leather armor but even iron armor at close range.
After the first volley, the female warriors drew their second crossbows, which had been pre-loaded and drawn. They fired another relentless volley. The draw weight of these crossbows was so great that they couldn't be re-spanned in time without a tool.
*Thud, thud, thud, thud.*
In an instant, another volley of bolts rained down, reaping another harvest of lives. Only then did the two forces finally clash. The Western warriors were ecstatic.
‘We’ve already lost over a hundred men to those damn bolts, but now we can finally fight hand-to-hand. At this point, I don’t even need a sword; I could skewer you bitches with my own weapon. If you weren’t so ugly, I’d have already thrust it into you.’
But the moment they actually engaged, the Western warriors were met with a devastating shock. Their martial skills were certainly impressive; they brandished their scimitars so fast that the blades seemed to bloom like flowers. However, they were not an army, just a band of undisciplined, freewheeling mercenaries. In contrast, they were facing an army—an army clad head-to-toe in steel plate armor. To wear such heavy armor, the female warriors had even dismounted their horses.
“Kill! Kill!”
Following their orders, the two hundred female warriors swung their long, heavy sabers with all their might. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, as if they were a single entity. In an instant, enemies were cleaved in two, and crimson blood sprayed everywhere. With no wasted movements, a shield in one hand and a great saber in the other, they systematically cut down their foes. The forest of blades they raised looked like a dense thicket of trees, and with a single clash, the Western warriors lost all will to fight.
These men were shop guards, not elite warriors seasoned on the battlefield. They were formidable in one-on-one combat, but in a group battle, they were nothing but a disorganized mess. Their movements were swift, and they could continuously block the swords swung by the female warriors, but what damn good did that do? The women’s strength was overwhelming.
Half of them were former gladiators, and the other half were wrestling slaves. Not only were they powerful, but the greatswords they wielded were all high-quality steel blades provided by the Jin Clan, each weighing thirty to forty jin. When they swung such massive weapons, the Western warriors’ thin steel swords shattered on impact, and the men holding them were cut in two along with their blades.
In strength, discipline, equipment, and even physical stature, the Women’s Army was overwhelmingly superior. The Western warriors had thought that with two or three times the numbers, they could easily eliminate these brawny women. They had even planned not just to kill them, but to have their way with them for a bit of fun. But to their horror, they were the ones being slaughtered.
In a short time, a third of the Western warriors were dead. Then, the thunderous sound of hooves echoed as dozens of Shen Lang’s fully armed warriors on warhorses moved to the rear of the Western warriors, intending to trap them in a pincer attack with the Women’s Army. The Western warriors’ situation instantly became even more desperate.
Just then, Shen Lang shouted loudly.
“Kneel and surrender! Lay down your swords, and I will spare your lives!”
Muyeol was startled to hear this, and many of the female warriors echoed the cry.
“Kneel and surrender! Lay down your swords, and I will spare your lives!”
“Don’t surrender! Don’t!” a Western shopkeeper shouted from inside his shop. But these men were just hired guards, not bound by a life-and-death contract; their own lives came first. The first Western warrior knelt, then a second, a third… and like a wave, group after group of Western warriors knelt in surrender, placing their swords beside them.
Shen Lang addressed them.
“All prisoners, untie your belts and drop them on the ground!”
The Western warriors were taken aback.
‘What is he planning?’
But having already knelt and laid down their swords, they couldn't resist. One by one, they undid their belts and threw them on the ground.
Shen Lang gestured and said, “Go and tie them all up.”
Dozens of nimble female gladiators went forward, gathered the discarded belts, and used them to bind the Western warriors.
Shen Lang said, “Everyone, stand up!”
The instantly bound Western warriors scrambled to their feet. Without their belts, their trousers fell to the ground, leaving them naked from the waist down.
“Sisters, each of you take your share.”
The two hundred female warriors rushed forward, each taking responsibility for two men. Shen Lang gave them the order.
“Castrate them all!”
Hearing this, the Western warriors nearly pissed themselves in terror.
‘Didn’t you say you wouldn’t kill us if we surrendered?! Being castrated is a fate worse than death!’
They struggled wildly, trying to escape, but with their hands and feet bound, where could they run?
*SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!*
The blades in the female warriors’ hands fell, and in an instant, hundreds of Western warriors were castrated. The scene was too gruesome to watch. The air filled with wails that sounded like the shrieking of ghosts.
Shen Lang said calmly, “Why are you crying? Who told you to relieve yourselves in the street? I have merely confiscated the tools used in the crime!”
“Aaaargh!”
The Western warriors screamed in agony. No words could express the depth of their regret. They never imagined the pretty-boy prefect would be so vicious. Had they known he was this ruthless, would they have dared to piss and shit in his face?
The smile vanished from Shen Lang’s face.
“You are all human scum. No matter where you are, in what country, you are scum. You use your modicum of martial skill to murder and commit arson, all of you seeking comfort and shunning work, committing the most heinous of acts. Why did you come to Zhenyuan City? Because it’s a good place to make money, and its people are easy to bully. That cunning bastard Su Nan has long harbored traitorous ambitions, which is why he went to great lengths to cultivate and give special treatment to you Westerners. Because of his malicious intentions, trashy Western mercenaries like you have been able to live in luxury, lording it over the people of our State of Yue. And yet, you deluded yourselves into thinking you held a high status?”
Shen Lang’s expression turned cold as he gave the order.
“Throw all this Western scum into the shit pits and drown them!”
Hearing this, the Western warriors were scared out of their wits.
‘You’ve already castrated us! Why are you killing us too? Didn’t you promise not to kill us if we surrendered?’
Shen Lang sneered.
“I am the great bandit, Gao Douhuan. With scum like you, there’s no need to abide by the codes of the martial world. Every word I said to you was no better than a fart.”
Like eagles snatching chicks, the female warriors each grabbed two Western warriors and stormed into the nearby shops.
“Where is the latrine in this house?”
And so, the Western warriors met the most humiliating deaths in the world.
***
A quarter of an hour later.
Dozens of Western shopkeepers knelt before Shen Lang. Most of them had faces so fat it seemed their brains were made of lard, though a few were gaunt with high, sharp noses. Every Western merchant who had established themselves in Zhenyuan City was backed by the Su Clan. They all dealt in illicit trade, handling the black markets between the states of Wu and Chu, or between the Western Regions and Chu. Moreover, their contraband was not limited to legal trade items like silk and spices. Their illicit goods could be broadly categorized into three types: iron, grain, and slaves.
Tianxi Province was vast, but its population was much smaller than that of Tianbei or Tiannan provinces. This was partly due to the harsher natural environment, but also because Tianxi Province was a lawless region where the slave trade, forbidden in the State of Yue, flourished. The great powers and the various nations of the Western Regions had a preference for slaves from the East. Of course, beautiful female slaves from the West were also welcome in the East. However, because the successive kings of Yue had strictly controlled the slave trade, it was difficult to find Western female slaves in the state. This meant that the Western merchants kneeling before him were all engaged in the forbidden slave trade; there was not a single innocent person among them.