Xia Chanyi squinted slightly, watching Qu Su race recklessly toward the wasteland. She pulled the trigger, and the arrow shot out like lightning.
Thud.
The arrow pierced Qu Su’s neck, spraying a mist of blood.
The horse galloped a few more steps before Qu Su tumbled from its back.
The deputy general behind him cried out in panic: “General!”
Bang.
The horse stepped into a pit trap that Xia Chanyi and her men had dug earlier, and the deputy general was thrown off.
Lady Luck did not favor him this time. He landed headfirst, hearing a faint crack. He knew—his neck was broken.
His last gaze lingered forever on another warhorse falling into a pit trap nearby, and on the collapsing Qu Zhao soldiers…
In a single morning, Xia Chanyi and her team hadn’t been idle. They had long anticipated that the Qu Zhao army would try to break out through the wasteland.
So they had dug many pit traps in advance and camouflaged them, waiting for the enemy to retreat this way, hoping to catch as many as they could.
Of course, killing by traps was secondary. The main point was that with these pits, the Qu Zhao cavalry would inevitably slow down.
That gave the Dragon Shadow Guards more than enough time to shoot. Their crossbows had an impressive range.
Just as Xia Chanyi had predicted, the retreating Qu Zhao cavalry, after watching their comrades fall into pits one after another, had no choice but to slow their pace.
Chaos reigned on the battlefield—screams, shouts, the neighing of horses…
For the Dragon Shadow Guards, the battle wasn’t particularly intense. They had mainly used Dragon Feather Crossbows and hardly fought in close combat.
But for the Qu Zhao cavalry, it was a bloody nightmare. Behind them came deadly arrows; ahead lay hidden traps, risking both horses and men with every step.
Half an hour later, Xia Chanyi watched the few dozen Qu Zhao riders escape and said triumphantly: “Come on, let’s collect our spoils!”
Their lord had said that total annihilation wasn’t necessary; letting the enemy send back word might not be a bad thing.
The Dragon Shadow Guards cheered. Their contributions this time would be significant—they had wiped out over a thousand elite cavalry and would capture nearly a thousand warhorses.
Unfortunately, many horses had bolted or died.
The troops worked swiftly—some finished off the wounded enemies, others chased down the scattered horses.
Xia Chanyi felt a pang of regret for the dead horses. They had no time now to process the meat, so they had to abandon it.
Less than a quarter of an hour after the Dragon Shadow Guards drove the herd of horses away, the Zhou County infantry, along with the cavalry that had fled earlier, arrived at Sanhe Ridge.
Seeing the battlefield littered with corpses and rivers of blood, Deng Feng was stunned, overwhelmed with grief and fury.
Earlier, he hadn’t believed the fleeing cavalry when they said they had been ambushed. But a thousand elite cavalry—now this?
Suppressing his sorrow and rage, he shouted: “Hurry! Find our general!”
The soldiers scattered. Soon, one cried out: “Over here!”
Deng Feng scrambled over, and when he saw Qu Su, already dead beyond hope, his heart turned to ice. His lips trembled, unable to form words.
After a long moment, a hesitant officer asked: “What now? Do we still go to Shanguan County for support?”
Deng Feng gritted his teeth: “Support? Shanguan County has likely already fallen. Otherwise, where would the Jinyang Army have gotten the troops to ambush our general?”
He pounded the ground in fury: “Jinyang Army, I swear we are irreconcilable. One day, I’ll grind your bones to dust!”
The officer’s eyes reddened as he looked at Qu Su’s horribly mutilated body, consumed by grief and hatred.
Deng Feng took a deep breath and ordered: “Let’s go. Carry the general back. Take the bodies of the soldiers and the horses too.”
Ze’a Commandery.
Sheng Chi stood on the city wall, gazing into the distance at the encampment of the Qu Zhao army.
The ground below the wall had turned red. The air was thick with the stench of blood and the rotten smell of corpses.
Though both sides had dealt with the dead, bits of flesh and blood still clung to the ground, soaked into the mud, seeped into the cracks of the wall…
“No word yet from Gefeng?”
Though his tone was calm, Kong Yi, who knew him well, could still detect the anxiety and concern beneath.
Kong Yi shook his head: “As agreed, Gefeng was supposed to strike today. Even riding post-haste from Shanguan County, the fastest he’d arrive is tomorrow.”
Zhang Tinghan, head of the Zhang family, frowned slightly: “I hope Princess Jinyang keeps her word.”
Since they had already accepted the grain, if Jiang Jin broke her promise, there was nothing they could do.
The truce negotiations, a delaying tactic, might not hold much longer.
Thinking of the grain, he snorted again: “That Princess Jinyang… As a princess, she lacks any sense of the bigger picture. If Ze’a Commandery falls, it won’t do her any good either. Truly, a woman’s shortsightedness.”
Kong Yi’s lips twitched. A woman’s shortsightedness?
It was just that all of them—fully grown men—had been completely outmaneuvered by this “woman,” Jiang Jin, and had no choice but to follow the path she had laid out.
Zhang Tinghan knew this too, but resentment still burned in his heart.
Sheng Chi did not respond to his words. Instead, he asked: “Have our men been deployed?”
Kong Yi nodded: “Rest assured, Patriarch. They’ve been sent out. Any news will be reported back immediately.”
The afternoon sun grew fiercer, scorching hearts with impatience—much like Tang Tishou’s mood at that moment.
Gazing from afar at the dark red flag flying over the Shanguan County watchtower, his heart roiled with bitterness, beyond words.
He had swiftly assembled his troops for a cavalry strike, but he was too late.
Had his judgment failed, or had the world itself changed?
In just over half a day, Shanguan County had fallen?
Not only had it fallen, but the damaged sections of the wall, attacked and breached, had already been fully repaired.
When had siege warfare become so simple?
Shanguan County had at least two thousand defenders. Even with twenty thousand Jinyang troops, they only outnumbered them ten to one—standard odds for a siege.
During the Battle of Dingyang back then, the State of Yan had held out for an entire month and a half with just three thousand men against sixty thousand.
What had Qu Tianshi been doing?
Zhu Dian exclaimed in disbelief: “Shanguan County has changed hands? How is that possible? So fast?”
Tang Tishou did not answer. His eyes, dark and brooding, stared fixedly at the flag. The words “Jinyang” on it seemed to mock Qu Zhao’s incompetence.
Two thousand cavalry stood in dead silence, all staring at the serene wall of Shanguan County.
The faint smell of blood in the air whispered of the fierce battle that had just taken place and the brutal fate of the Qu Zhao soldiers.
Once again, after Gefeng, Qu Zhao had lost another city.
“General, what do we do? Do we still fight?” Zhu Dian asked, his face grim.
