The atmosphere on the high ground remained heavy.
Zhu Zhanjun rose to his feet, brushed the bloodstains from his clothes, and put on that same cheeky grin again.
"Grandfather, you're not doing so well. How'd you end up in such a sorry state?"
He leaned over beside Zhu Di and muttered, "You set out with an army of three hundred thousand, and now only this handful are left?"
"If word gets out, where will that leave your God of War reputation?"
"You little rascal! Is that any way to speak to your grandfather?"
Zhu Di was so furious his beard bristled and his eyes bulged. But when he saw Zhu Zhanjun's face spattered with blood, his anger vanished in an instant, leaving only lingering fear and relief.
He examined Zhu Zhanjun from head to toe, then looked at the three thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders standing like upright spears in the distance. Confusion all but spilled from his eyes.
"Y-you... where did you get these three thousand soldiers?"
Zhu Di finally asked the question on everyone's mind.
"My household guards."
Zhu Zhanjun spread his hands, as if it were only natural. "I've been saving my private funds for years to support them."
"What do you think? Not bad, right?"
"Not bad?"
Zhu Di nearly choked.
This was what he called not bad?
An army that had pierced through the camp of thirty thousand elite Mongol cavalry in a single charge, and he called that not bad?
Zhang Fu, Zhu Yong, and the others standing nearby all twitched at the corners of their mouths.
They finally understood why His Highness the Crown Prince had used words like "inconceivable" and "beyond description" in the secret report he had sent.
"Why can your horses ignore the wind and snow and travel hundreds of li in a day?"
Zhu Di pointed at the Wuzhui Horses, which were lowering their heads to chew something, and asked in a solemn voice.
In weather like this, an ordinary warhorse was lucky to stay standing without freezing to death.
"Oh, that?"
Zhu Zhanjun pulled a small cloth pouch from his robes and poured out a few dark beans. "I had someone make special feed for them. We added a little cooking wine and medicinal herbs. It restores their strength and keeps their blood flowing so they can fight off the cold."
Zhu Di took the beans and held them beneath his nose. A rich scent of beans and liquor wafted toward him.
Zhu Zhanji, the eldest son of Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi and the future Xuan De Emperor, also stepped forward.
He looked at Zhu Zhanjun, his eyes full of complicated emotions.
As the emperor's eldest grandson, Zhu Zhanji had been raised from childhood to be the Heir Apparent. He excelled in both civil and military arts.
He had always believed himself to be the most outstanding of the younger generation.
But today, his second younger brother—whom he had always looked down on—had given him an enormous "surprise" in a way he couldn't begin to understand.
Three thousand privately maintained troops, wealth rivaling a nation, Divine Soldiers descending from heaven, and a rescue in the moment of crisis.
Any one of these things would have sent shockwaves through the entire Great Ming court.
And now, they had all happened to the same person.
"Absurd!"
Zhu Zhanji finally couldn't hold back. He pointed at the strange short crossbows hanging from the waists of the Great Snow Dragon Riders and frowned. "Cavalry wins through charges and close combat. Equipping them with short crossbows whose range is less than a hundred paces—isn't that crippling their own strength?"
"This is sheer nonsense!"
His words also voiced the doubt in Zhu Di's heart.
The short crossbows looked strange. They were much smaller than ordinary crossbows, and they didn't look very powerful.
"Elder Brother, you don't know the whole story."
Zhu Zhanjun chuckled and beckoned to a guard in the distance.
A Great Snow Dragon Rider immediately rode over, dismounted, and handed him the Shenbi Crossbow.
Zhu Zhanjun took it, worked it with practiced ease, then passed it to Zhu Di. "Grandfather, give it a try."
Zhu Di took the Shenbi Crossbow. It felt heavy in his hands, and it was made entirely of refined iron.
He followed Zhu Zhanjun's example and gently turned a handle at the end of the crossbow mechanism.
Click! Clack!
The mechanism rattled. The bowstring cocked itself, and a crossbow bolt automatically loaded from the magazine beneath the bow.
"This..."
Zhu Di's eyes widened in an instant.
It cocked itself?
It loaded itself?
He turned the handle again. Another series of crisp clicks followed, the spent bolt was ejected, and a fresh one slid into place.
The entire process flowed like water, unbelievably fast!
"Th-this is a repeating crossbow?"
Zhang Fu cried out in astonishment.
"Something like that."
Zhu Zhanjun said proudly, "I had someone modify it. Turn the handle once, and it cocks the bowstring, loads a bolt, and fires."
"A well-trained soldier can shoot thirty bolts in a minute."
"That's more than ten times faster than the firearms in the Shenji Camp, isn't it?"
Hiss—
A chorus of sharp breaths swept through the group.
The Shenji Camp's three-rank volley fire was already a revolutionary tactic.
But the slow loading speed of firearms had always been a weakness of the Great Ming army.
This thing had solved the problem completely!
Thirty shots a minute!
Three thousand soldiers could fire ninety thousand bolts!
This was no longer a tactic. It was a rain of arrows!
A storm of steel!
Zhu Di stroked the cold body of the crossbow, feeling its intricate mechanism as a storm raged in his heart.
He finally understood why those thirty thousand Mongol cavalry had suffered such a crushing defeat.
Under such a dense barrage, any flesh-and-blood body was so fragile and powerless.
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