Ten thousand iron-tipped spears gleamed under a leaden grey sky as the Great Yan Northern Expeditionary Army poured through the northern gate onto the frozen military road.
The departure was a huge, slow-moving iron reptile stretching three miles across the snowy plain.
At the vanguard rode two squadrons of heavy royal lancers on armored northern chargers, their black three-sided pennants stiff with frost. Behind them marched four regiments of country infantry, their boots churning the snow into a brown, icy slurry. Long trains of requisitioned farm wagons groaned under the weight of winter grain sacks, iron tent stakes, and siege artillery ropes, their wooden axles screeching in the sub-zero draft.
Yet three hundred paces ahead of the main column, marching directly into the teeth of the northern blizzard, was the 5th Shock Battalion.
Five hundred men formed into ten marching files of fifty.
Unlike the ragged, mutinous mob that had stood shivering in the parade ground mud four hours prior, the battalion was moving with unbending, clockwork rhythm.
Each man wore a quilted wool tunic lined with coarse hemp, secured by Pei Jing using forty gold coins from his prize chest. In their hands, sixty frontline shock troopers carried the newly hafted high-carbon steel broadaxes. Their cutting edges shone dull grey in the storm.
