Lu Meng was stunned. If his opponent had been the Xiliang Cavalry, he believed that he had a chance to win even if his soldiers had to fight with one hand because of all the smoke. Unfortunately, he had forgotten about the existence of the Black Flag Army. This was one of Zhang Liao’s tactic. He waved the banner of the Xiliang Cavalry everywhere while hiding the existence of the Black Flag Army. Now Lu Meng had fell for this and neglected the Black Flag Army.
As a result, Lu Meng’s Army had to fight against a superior army with only one hand. The moment the two armies came into contact, Lu Meng’s frontlines were immediately slaughtered.
The Black Flag Army did not have much problems moving forward. There may be a lot of trees initially but when they reached the enemy camp, they found more space to move. This is because the trees had to be cut down to set up camp. The open space quickly became a battlefield.
“Attack the enemy camp!” Zhang Liao ordered as he charged in together with the Black Flag Army. Xu Sheng and Wang Wei were also by his side.
The three powerful generals charged forward at an astonishing speed. Some of the soldiers around them heard this order while others did not. However, the order wasn’t needed as they would eventually fight their way towards the enemy camp either way.
The Chu Army found themselves at a disadvantage but were still relentless. Initially they fought with one hand but after hundreds of their brothers were killed, they changed tactics. Now, they held their breaths before clashing against their enemies and fought with two hands. After fighting, they once again held one hand to their face to breathe. Some of them killed the Black Flag soldiers and then took the cloth from the corpse to cover their face.
“Why are you two following me? Go and kill the enemy!” Zhang Liao said to the other two. The three of them charge closely to each other so a lot of the enemy soldiers escaped death.
“General Zhang Liao. Milord instructed us to protect you!” Wang Wei and Xu Sheng replied. Liu Mang had ordered the two to protect Zhang Liao with their lives because Zhang Liao was so talented that Liu Mang could not afford to lose him.
“Do I need you to protect me? Get lost! Go kill the enemy!” Zhang Liao replied angrily. While Zhang Liao understood Liu Mang’s good intentions, he also felt like his abilities was being questioned.
“But…” Xu Sheng wanted to say something else but he was stopped by Wang Wei.
“Right now, I am your General. Do you want to violate military orders?” Zhang Liao coldly asked as he pulled out his short sword from the enemy’s body. He left his long sword behind because he could not ride a horse inside the jungle.
“Understood. Take care, General!” Xu Sheng and Wang Wei replied.
“Black Flag Army! Charge!” Xu Sheng and Wang Wei spread out and attacked.
“Xu Sheng. Wang Wei. I want to see who can reach the enemy camp first. I want to see if the Little Lord’s subordinates could live up to the rumors.” Zhang Liao said again
“Of course I would reach the camp first.” Xu Sheng angrily thought to himself. He did not mind having his abilities questioned by Zhang Liao but he did not like the Black Flag Army and Liu Mang’s abilities being called into question.
“I am also here!” Wang Wei thought calmly. However he was still on the battlefield and did not want to lose out to others.
The three generals attacked the enemy at different points
“How hateful.” Lu Meng said in frustration. He was exhausted. He had spent too much energy playing with the Xiliang Cavalry. As a result of that, both his army and the Xiliang Cavalry exhausted themselves with neither coming out on top. Unfortunately for him, the Xiliang Cavalry was now resting outside the jungle while he had to deal with the Black Flag Army.
The exhausted Chu Army started to slow down. Some of them could barely raise their swords after clashing against their opponents. On top of that, it was even harder to cut past the heavy armor with their limited strength.
The only ones that could still persevere were the initial one thousand soldiers that wore damp cloths over their faces. Even then, they were already showing signs of collapsing.
As Zhang Liao and the others were no longer grouped together, the enemy were no longer able to just avoid them.
“Zhang Liao!” Lu Meng called out, recognizing Zhang Liao from his armor. He gnashed his teeth in anger. Despite ample preparations, he still fell for Zhang Liao’s ploy. As far as confrontations between generals go, the old general had won.
Lu Meng then shouted. “Men! That enemy at the front there is the enemy general Zhang Liao, Zhang Wenyuan! He is the one that caused our army to fall into this state! Once we capture this man, it would be our victory!” Lu Meng had already given up routing the enemy troops. He wanted to capture the enemy general to force the Black Flag Army to retreat.
“We will follow the General!” The Chu Army coldly said. If the battle had been fair, they could have been a match for the Black Flag Army. But at that moment they could only fight while being suppressed.
“Good! Follow me! Our target is the enemy general’s head!” Lu Meng declared heroically before charging towards the enemy with the Chu Army.
Zhang Liao heard this and understood that Lu Meng was now fighting to win or die. He decided it would be better to grant Lu Meng his wish.
“I, Zhang Liao, am here! Little whelp Lu Meng! I dare you to fight me!” Zhang Liao roared out. He was already a middle aged man. When he was younger, he charged into huge armies with Lu Bu to take the enemy general’s head. A duel with Lu Meng is nothing to fear.
Both generals understood that by taking the enemy general’s head, the battle would immediately be over. So, the two meet and fought.
