Some fifteen thousand men had accompanied Guo Guangbi. They had expected the enemy to flee at the mere sight of them, only to find that not only had they stayed, they were waiting in full battle readiness.
Guo Guangbi reined in his horse. Xie Jian raised a hand to signal everyone to stop, then made a gesture, and the army formed square formations on the grassland.
Xiong Tianba sat astride a towering horse, with a man laid across its back before him. Dressed in Guo Shaoxiong's clothes and trussed up tightly, the man was none other than Hu Xiaotian in disguise.
Looking out of the corner of his eye, Hu Xiaotian noticed that Guo Guangbi's soldiers were distinctly sluggish in forming ranks. Compared with the Enke Tribe behind him, they were already well trained, but they fell far short of his own troops. After all, most of Guo Guangbi's recruits had taken up soldiering halfway through life. Their present tactical competence owed much to Xie Jian's training, but their foundations were simply too poor, and he had had too little time. Even with his abilities, Xie Jian could not turn them into a brave, battle-hardened army in such a short span.
Xiong Tianba rode to the front of the ranks and roared, "Hey! All of you, listen up! If you want Guo Shaoxiong alive, you'd better do as you're told, or I'll wrench his head off!" He grabbed Hu Xiaotian by the topknot and forced his head up. In truth, Hu Xiaotian's hair was so disheveled that he looked like a ghost from a distance.
The two armies were about five hundred feet apart, and the night was deep. No matter how sharp their eyesight, those on Guo Guangbi's side could not identify the man in Xiong Tianba's grip. Cunning