"The argument was never about which city gate."
Zhao Heng could no longer bear the oppressive momentum and strode two steps to the large desk.
"Imperial Commissioner Xu! Your words leave me utterly confused."
"According to this, besides the West Corner Embrasure and the North Horse Path, is there a third hidden opening in our Zhenbei Pass for that Helian dog to crawl through?"
Xu Chengguang also could not resist asking:
"Please, Lady Xu, point us to a clear path. Where exactly does Chen Changfeng intend to strike?"
Xu Qinghuan stood quietly before the map suspended on the wall, her gaze slowly sweeping across the crisscrossing vermilion ink lines.
After a moment, the hairpin in her bun shifted slightly as she shook her head.
"I cannot find a third fatal point."
As soon as these words left her mouth,
Zhao Heng's urgent expression froze, and Xu Chengguang was likewise startled.
Such candid admission was like an ice bead falling into a rolling cauldron of oil, startling all the generals as they shed their wild hopes. Even this woman, who had cut off the enemy's supply route at the White Sound Grasslands and cornered the Left Luli King to death, could now be stumped by an unfathomable puzzle.
Chen Changfeng, that venomous spider roaming beyond the pass, had woven a web too thick and dense, blocking the vision of all these assembled military experts.
Zhao Heng rubbed his iron palms anxiously:
"Then let us commit everything! Marshal, drag out all the crossbows from the East and West Camps—half to suppress the North Gate, half to fill the West Corner Embrasure!"
"No matter where he hits, we'll grind him down with our brothers' lives!"
"Absurd!"
Tie Lanshan slammed his palm onto the armrest.
The Old Marshal’s eyes blazed wide as he scolded harshly:
"Splitting forces to confront the enemy—that is the cardinal sin of warfare!"
"Zhenbei Pass barely has enough troops to fight with. If you cut our forces in half, the west side won't withstand heavy armor assault, and the north side won't survive a single charge."
"Before the rooster crows, the Helians' sword hilts will be slapping our faces!"
Xu Qinghuan was not angered. She waited for Tie Lanshan's outburst to subside, then calmly spoke:
"Marshal Tie is the backbone of Zhenbei Pass. No one knows this fortress's every brick and stone better than you. Forget the paper slips thrown out by Chen Changfeng. Instead, dig into the old foundations of this city."
Thinking about those abandoned underground channels, the blocked old horse paths, the waterproof side alleys beneath the granaries, and even the soldiers' tunnels dug beneath the beacon tower sixty years ago, go over them all from the start.
Upon hearing this, Tie Lanshan's expression turned solemn and cold.
He walked slowly to the map and pointed at the yellowed hemp paper.
"As for the North Gate, no need to elaborate. The three-thousand-jin steel portcullis is firmly locked in its grooves. Without an insider turning the iron wheel from within, even ten thousand Iron Pagodas charging against it would be wasted effort."
"Moreover, the Heavenly Palace wall defends it..."
He dragged his fingertip to the left:
"The West City is the same."
He then knocked his knuckles toward the right and bottom:
"The East Gate faces a sheer cliff carved by years of erosion; warhorses can't sprout wings to fly across it."
"The South Gate connects to the garrison town's inner street. Twelve watchtowers stand tall, guards change shift day and night, even a barn owl cannot evade the arrows of the hidden sentinels."
As Tie Lanshan spoke further, the furrow between his brows grew deeper. All conventional breaches on this fortress were blocked by him over the past five years with packed earth and rubble.
The entire Zhenbei Pass had grown spikes on its outer shell—even half a tael of wind couldn't seep through.
After listening, Xu Chengguang picked up the thread seamlessly. Having grown up in the northwestern border army, he was well-versed in the bloodstained methods of night raids on battlefields:
"Exactly as Marshal Tie said. Breaking a fortress with a night raid requires internal and external coordination. If the Helians beyond the pass want to trample over our threshold, there must be an insider inside to receive them."
He raised three fingers and pressed them down one by one:
"Light a signal fire to mark the real from the false, unlock the bolts and lower the drawbridge, move aside the gate-blocking chariots and thousands of catties of defensive spikes."
"These three steps are indispensable. None can be omitted."
"The few hundred old and weak soldiers under Zhao Cheng in the Western Pass are barely sufficient to receive and relay a few couriers carrying messages."
"Given their meager strength and abilities, if they truly tried to force open the thousand-catty gate or move the wood and stone, they could never escape the notice of the armored night patrols along the streets."
"Chen Changfeng's grand scheme, relying solely on a man like Zhao Cheng, cannot break the sky."
With the trail of clues fully examined, every lead had turned into a dead end that could not be extended.
Xu Qinghuan withdrew her gaze, her hands once again cupping the red copper hand warmer.
She did not force words to save face, nor did she pretend to have an infallible plan.
"Chen Changfeng's game—I cannot yet see its full shape," she said, looking at Tie Lanshan, speaking only of practical matters. "Rather than waste our energy here guessing blindly, it is better to keep our hands firmly on the sword hilt."
"Commander Tie, Deputy General Zhao."
"I suggest that we should take stock and register anew all available troops, crossbows, fire oil, rolling logs, and even the spare iron chains for the thousand-catty gate."
Tie Lanshan nodded in agreement. In times of life and death, keeping one's footing steady and not losing composure was the true principle for a commander of three armies.
"Zhao Heng, go spread my orders." Tie Lanshan's killing intent had all receded within. "Keep the matter of Zhao Cheng's detainment tightly sealed."
"Leak word that Brigade Commander Zhao bravely captured a spy from the Helian tribe, acting with integrity to put family duty aside. The Marshal has rewarded him with a hundred taels of silver and promoted him by one rank."
"Let those rats in the city who have not yet shown themselves believe that the Marshal's residence has already stepped into the trap and is now shifting troops toward the Northern Horse Path."
...
That night, the north wind cut to the bone, starless and moonless.
On the towering watchtower of the Northern Garrison Pass, the soldiers on duty shivered, huddled inside their armor.
Suddenly, the sound of hooves tore through the wind, growing nearer from afar.
"Enemy attack!"
The sentinel's piercing warning rang out. On the battlements, armor clattered in chaos, and dozens of heavy bows were drawn taut, all aimed into the darkness of the official road.
"Hold! It's a red-plumed urgent dispatch!" By the faint torchlight on the wall, the garrison captain recognized the tattered red flag on the galloping figure's back, a symbol of utmost urgency.
His pupils contracted. "Open the gate! Open the gate immediately!"
The iron portcullis had barely risen halfway when the fast horse, like a black bolt of lightning, swept in, barely grazing the frame, charging straight for the inner city.
No one had time—nor could they—stop this speeding steed. They simply let it thunder past.
...
By the time it reached the Marshal's residence gate, the horse was utterly spent.
With a pitiful whinny, foam bubbling at its mouth, its forelegs buckled. Man and beast crashed heavily onto the stone steps before the gate.
The rider flew three or four zhang away, his bones broken.
Guards rushed forward with lanterns, only to see the messenger covered in blood, three fletched arrows embedded deep in his back.
"Urgent... report from the Western Route!"
With the last breath of life, the messenger pulled from his chest a wax-sealed leather tube still warm from his body, stamped with bright red sealing wax.
Handing it straight out, his head lolled to the side, and he collapsed unconscious on the ground.
In the study of the Marshal's residence, lamplight flickered like a pea.
Tie Lanshan used a short knife to pry open the wax seal and drew out the thin piece of silk inside.
The moment he scanned the first few lines, this weathered old commander's face changed dramatically.
Xu Chengguang stepped forward. "Marshal Tie, what has happened?"
Tie Lanshan slammed the silk dispatch onto the long table, his voice laced with a bone-chilling frost:
"Ashina Gudu, the Helian King, is personally leading his main force of fifty thousand royal tentsmen in a detour to launch a fierce attack on the Western Route Prefecture!"
"They have employed the Huihui catapults shipped in from the Western Regions."
"Those siege engines can hurl massive boulders weighing hundreds of jin in a single shot."
"The old city wall of the Western Route Prefecture cannot withstand such blunt-force destruction—it has already been breached in three large gaps!"
The situation had shifted in an instant.
What had previously been only covert probing and secret scheming was now torn open by the brute, overbearing force of these city-breaking heavy weapons.
"The Western Route Prefecture?!" Xu Chengguang's mind exploded—those were his own veteran troops he had trained and led!
He lunged to the table, grabbed the dispatch, and read it: "The wall is breached?! Damn it, Helian even brought out the Huihui catapults!"
The light in Xu Chengguang's eyes dimmed instantly.
Huihui catapults... Helian's methods were ruthlessly deadly!
Ordinary stone-throwers relied on sheer manpower to pull and release, causing limited damage.
But these Huihui catapults suspended massive blocks of stone at their rear, using the tens of thousands of jin of descending force to hurl stone projectiles weighing several hundred jin across long distances.
Their sheer power and lethal accuracy were far beyond what human strength could achieve!
There had long been rumors in the military that many strategically vital passes and heavily fortified cities in the Western Regions, which had withstood sieges for years, did not ultimately fall because they ran out of food.
Instead, they were crushed into rubble by these flying boulders, their walls shattered until the cities and their defenders were utterly annihilated!
"Then how many days can the Western Route hold?" Xu Chengguang demanded harshly.
"At most two days." The muscles around Tie Lanshan's eyes twitched violently. "The dispatch makes it clear: the Western Route garrison commander has already thrown every death-willing soldier from the armory into the fray."
"If the Western Route falls, the Helian King's royal tentsmen will be able to cut straight into our flank, severing the retreat route of our Zhenbei Pass."
"By then, even if the central sector's defenses are flawless, it will become a lonely city with no way out—a city where we will find only death and no burial ground!"
