Chapter 2: The Stormy Weather of Yan and Zhao Section 14

  Tian Jing closed her eyes contentedly.

  He was carried to the Deer Tower by Tian. He saw Liu Yu, Governor of Youzhou, and Liu Zheng, Governor of Right Beiping, leading three thousand troops rapidly passing through the New Moon Building, gathering in formation on the square. He heard the thunderous sound of war drums. He knew that the Lulong Pass would not fall, and was about to return to the hands of the great Han people again.

  The city gate of Lulong Tower is fully open.

  Thousands of torches were lit on the square opposite, illuminating the dark night as bright as day. The square was packed with fully armed soldiers. At the very front of the formation, in the center of the city gate, stood an old man wearing a linen robe, looking extremely haggard but in high spirits. He had a long sword hanging from his waist and held a large banner in his hand.

  The soldiers of the Huihe coalition army stopped in their tracks. They were stunned. They couldn't believe what was happening before their eyes. They didn't understand how the reinforcements from the Great Han Empire could suddenly appear at Lulong Pass.

  On the city wall, Queji and his soldiers were still cheering wildly. Under the city wall, Wuyan sat on the ground, discussing with Xiong Chao how to capture Lulong Tower. On the square of Lulong Pass, the soldiers who were squeezed behind were still shouting and screaming wildly.

  On the top of Wangri Building, the sound of ox horn echoes through the clouds. On the top of Ludragon Building, the war drum shakes heaven and earth.

  Liu Yu raised the war flag in his hand and shouted loudly: "Children, follow me to retake Lulong Pass, kill..."

  The soldiers behind shouted in unison: "Kill... ah..."

  Liu Yu was the first to charge into the square of Lulong Pass. The soldiers behind him were like fierce tigers descending a mountain, holding high their weapons and roaring like thunder, sweeping forward with an irresistible momentum, killing their way into the enemy's formation without hesitation.

  Li Hong knelt on the ground, staring blankly at everything in front of him, unable to believe it was true. Liu Yu kicked him hard, "Kid, get up, retake Lulong Pass, kill..."

  Li Hong struggled to get up from the ground, but was immediately swept away by the flood behind him and involuntarily rushed towards the enemy.

  The sound of the horn on the watchtower suddenly disappeared from the air. Queji and the soldiers were stunned, unable to believe it. For a moment, they couldn't wake up from the great joy of victory. Wu Yan and Xiong Ba stumbled up the stone steps, their eyes wide open. So close yet so far, so close yet so far.

  "Retreat! Retreat at once!" Yuma bellowed.

  "No." Wu Yan glared with a pair of bloodshot eyes, madly shouting like a demon: "Let's go all out, let's fight them to the end!"

  "Your Majesty, we've exhausted our manpower, what's the point of occupying this stone castle? Let's retreat." Xiong Ba shouted urgently.

  The commander on the city wall ordered his men to retreat without hesitation, blowing the horn of retreat. The soldiers woke up from their shock and retreated from the city wall like a tide.

  Liu Yu held the war flag high, walking steadily in the middle of the troops. Although he didn't know martial arts and couldn't fight on the front lines, he felt that his actions could inspire the brave warriors around him, motivating them to fight fearlessly and valiantly against the enemy.

  The surrounding warriors instinctively surrounded him in the middle, not letting a single enemy get close to their Lord Liu. Long arrows shot out from the darkness from time to time. The warrior walking in front of Liu Yu did not dodge or yield, and would rather fall down himself than let an arrow hit Liu Yu's side. Liu Yu looked at the warriors falling one after another, his heart bleeding, he waved the war flag, mustering all his strength to shout loudly: "Children, for the great Han country, kill..."

  More and more soldiers poured through the Loulong Tower, surging into the Loulong Pass Square, killing the enemy in a frenzy.

  The Han army soldiers were in high spirits, their battle cries shaking the heavens. The Xiongnu coalition forces' soldiers had been through a rollercoaster of emotions and were now disheartened and demoralized. With the Han army's fierce resistance and their own retreat horns sounding throughout the night, they ultimately suffered a complete rout.

  Xiong Ba led fifty soldiers to the top floor of the corridor to carry out a blocking operation, covering the main force's rapid withdrawal from the city wall. The world is indeed unpredictable. Just now, it was the Han army soldiers who were blocking them downstairs under the leadership of Chai Ting. In the blink of an eye, it became Xiong Ba leading the Xianbei soldiers to block the Han army upstairs.

  The gate of Ludongze was filled with earth bags by the Han army soldiers from inside to outside, a solid three-zhang-thick earth bag, even if they were carried out, it would take half a day. At first, they also thought of this, so they didn't attack the city gate at all, not only in vain but also causing heavy losses. But now how much they hope that door can be opened. Now they have only one way to escape, which is to climb over the city wall and then climb down from the cloud ladder. Due to the darkness, many people, the soldiers were panicked, disorganized, and chaotic on the city tower, many soldiers fell to their deaths or injuries.

  The soldiers were all crowded under the stone steps, unable to go up for a while. The Han army soldiers who rushed to the front opened a bloody battle with the enemy's blocking troops. Often, in order to compete for a small step, ten or more soldiers had to pay their lives. Liu Yu's war flag was taken over by his subordinates. The overall situation of Lulong Pass has been decided, and he wants to take a look at the people who survived the battle to defend Lulong Pass.

  Li Hong was the first to rush up onto the city wall. His battle knife danced around Xiong Ba, forcing him back step by step. Xiong Ba's sweat mixed with blood, soaking his entire body. Li Hong quickly forced him to the edge of the city wall. Beyond the city wall was the cloud ladder. The surrounding enemy soldiers were crazily shouting, all wanting to rush forward and occupy this position for escape. A large number of Han army soldiers trampled over their comrades' corpses and had already rushed up onto the city wall.

  Li Hong suddenly turned around, shouting loudly and wielding his sword to meet the surrounding enemies, no longer caring about Xiong Ba behind him. Xiong Ba suddenly came to a realization, flipped over and jumped onto the city wall, quickly escaping. Li Hong immediately leaned against the city wall, firmly occupying the advantageous position, not letting go of a single enemy.

  He couldn't bring himself to do it to Xiong Ba. Xiong Ba was the trusted aide of Da Shuai, and a good friend of Tie Lang's; he couldn't bear to take his life. If he killed Xiong Ba, Tie Lang would definitely curse him as an ungrateful scoundrel. Without Tie Lang, there wouldn't be his present self. Li Hong decided to let Xiong Ba go. This way, even if Tie Lang found out in the afterlife, he wouldn't curse him as a fool either.

  Kuang Ji stood at the foot of the city, continuously ordering the horn blowers to gather the troops. At this time, they couldn't afford to be in disarray, they had to steady themselves and give the soldiers confidence. It wasn't as if they had failed to take the city, nor was it that their entire tribe had been slaughtered by others, so what was there to panic about?

  It wasn't long before the soldiers, who had been in a state of panic, slowly regained their confidence and were no longer gripped by the same sense of impending doom as before. The soldiers who had fled to the foot of the city began to regroup under the command of the horn. On the city wall, more and more soldiers escaped down the cloud ladder.

  Wu Yan lay on the ground, his face pale. Li Hong's one knife was really too overbearing, and he was seriously injured. Xiong Ba's mood was low, extremely disappointed. The troops attacking Lulong Fortress had reached 11,000 people, but after losing 8,000 to 9,000 people, they hadn't even gotten a single brick from Lulong Fortress. He didn't know how things had turned out this way. He didn't know how he would face Murong Feng.

  The commander ordered the troops to prepare for archery.

  His subordinates suspected that they had misheard, turning their heads to look at their leader. Qiao Ji gave him a whip on the horse's head. Suddenly, the attacking cow horn sounded again under the black night sky of Lulong Castle.

  "Pass on the order, have all the arrows that can be shot here, shot at me." Qiao Ji said coldly.

  "There are still several hundred soldiers upstairs who haven't come down yet." His subordinates doubted their ears again, opening their mouths in shock.

  This time, Queji didn't hit him, but instead gazed at the brutal battlefield on the city wall where people were fleeing in all directions. He sighed sorrowfully and pointed to the hundreds of ladders leaning against the city wall, saying: "They can't escape." There wasn't a single person on the ladders.

  On the city wall, more than a thousand Han soldiers surrounded over three hundred enemies who had not escaped in time, and both sides were engaged in fierce fighting. Li Hong leaned against the base of the city wall, exhausted and weakly gazing at the bloody battlefield in front of him.

  "Fire... continuous salvo..."

  Almost two thousand soldiers who escaped, with an extremely strong hatred, stood in a neat row, and shot an arrow to vent their anger on the wall of Lulong Pass.

  The long arrow whizzed through the pitch-black night, flew into the darkness, flew up to the city wall, and shot into every place that could be pierced after contact.

  The city wall was suddenly thrown into chaos. The Han soldiers were fleeing in all directions, some rolling and crawling to hide at the foot of the city wall, others lying on the ground with their bodies pressed against their own, some frantically rushing towards the watchtower, preparing to escape into the fortress, while others were fighting to the death with the enemy.

  But the speed of escape was far from the speed of the long arrows. Batch after batch of long arrows poured down on the city tower of Lulong without any interval, like a sharp knife cutting down the scallions, row by row, falling one after another. No life could escape. The people on the city tower were like scallions cut down by a knife, row by row, falling down one after another.

  Li Hong looked at the terrible scene in front of him and burst out laughing. He thought he was going to die but didn't have the chance. He had always been killing people, how come this time he ended up sitting at the foot of the city wall, where the long arrows couldn't reach. He wanted to die with them, living was just killing, being killed, life had no meaning anymore. He struggled to prop himself up, ready to walk into the fierce arrow rain.

  Suddenly, he saw Ji Ming's sachet, which was stained red with Ji Ming's fresh blood. He was stunned for a moment.

  The Hui troops buried all the dead soldiers at the foot of Yunshan that night, and then took the wounded, a large number of siege engines, and supplies, and slowly withdrew.

  They suffered a crushing defeat after losing nearly nine thousand men.

  The final blow from the Huns dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the Han army. After ten days of defending the city, the entire army was reduced to only 1,800 people. However, the last blow from the fierce Huns resulted in several hundred casualties among the Han army, adding to the losses on the square, and more than 1,000 of the 3,000 reinforcements were lost in less than half an hour. The ferocity of the Wuhuan and Xianbei people deeply shocked the Han army.

  The Battle of Lugou Bridge has finally come to an end.

  The next day, Li Hong was pushed awake on the city wall by someone. He stared at that smiling but very unfamiliar face, and for a moment he didn't understand what had happened. He wanted to sleep.

  "Are you Li Junhou?" asked the middle-aged man with a sword.

  Li Hong shook his head. The big man in front of him was sturdy and strong, with a medium build, a square face, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and three strands of fine long whiskers, looking elegant yet not losing his majestic aura.

  That man saw Li Hong shaking his head and hesitated. He looked carefully, then pushed Li Hong's sleeping head again. Li Hong struggled to open his heavy eyelids and stared at him in confusion.

  "Are you General Li?"

  Li Hong shook his head firmly.

  "Are you Lord Li of Tun?"

  Li Hong's mind was a complete blank. He lowered his head and thought for a moment before remembering that Wu Fei, the military officer, had told him that he was now in charge of the garrison. Without any troops, he would have to lead people on patrol along the city walls at night.

  He smiled awkwardly at the man and nodded.

  "By order of His Excellency, Duke Stabbing History, I request that General Military Candidate come to the Deer Dragon Building." The man bowed politely and said loudly.

  Li Hongyi was taken aback for a moment, looking at him blankly and asking: "Who are you?"

  "In the past, I was inferior to you in writing and calligraphy, but now I am superior to you." Xian Yu Fu replied very politely.

  Li Hong looked at him, feeling that he himself was very impolite, so he quickly stood up and returned a courtesy to the other person. "My name is Li Hong, style name Zimin. Everyone calls me Heizi."

  Xian Yu Fu smiled, and his eyes showed admiration for Li Hong. The two of them walked together towards the Lu Long Building, chatting casually along the way. Li Hong found Xian Yu Fu to be gentle in nature, humble and cautious in his interactions with others.

  On the main city wall, the remains of soldiers from both sides have been buried overnight, and many people are wiping away bloodstains on the ground and repairing damaged city towers. In the square, more soldiers are sweeping the battlefield. Last night's huge bonfire in the center of the square has burned a large area black.

  "Xian Yu, sir, do you know how many of us are left?" Li Hong asked softly.

  The entire Lulong border army is now left with only you as a battalion commander and above, 232 soldiers. Among them, more than 200 are seriously injured. The border army has been defeated." Xian Yu Fu said sorrowfully.

  Li Hong didn't make another sound.

  "Mr. Tada..."

  "He passed away last night. His injuries were too severe, nothing could be done."

  Li Hong knelt on the ground, his entire body covered in bloodstains, emitting a strong smell of gore. The two dignitaries hastily helped him up.

  Governor of You Beiping, Liu Zheng, looked very kind and first praised Li Hong before introducing him to Governor of Youzhou, Liu Yu. Li Hong was surprised to see that it was the old man who had kicked him yesterday. A high-ranking official wearing a black cotton robe and a pair of cloth shoes was truly an unthinkable thing.

  Li Hong re-kowtowed and paid his respects again.

  "Before Governor Tian left, he highly recommended you to us, saying that you are a versatile talent in both literature and martial arts, and will definitely become a pillar of my Great Han in the future. We have also heard about your many exploits, and indeed, you are a young hero. I think that even a small place like Youzhou has produced two heroes who are famous throughout the barbarian lands, which shows how abundant talent is flourishing."

  Seeing Li Hong's puzzled gaze, Liu Yu smiled and explained: "The chief historian of the Liao Dong Xiangguo, Bai Ma Gong Sun Zan, is also a hero who makes the Hu people tremble with fear, just like the young hero."

  "Your Excellency is overpraising. I, your humble servant, have merely done my duty and there's nothing remarkable about my military achievements." Li Hong said with a flushed face to Liu Yu.

  "You shouldn't be so humble. Governor Tian told us that you're the leopard who was captured by the Xianbei people with two black wooden warrants. Recently, your reputation in the north has been great, and your head is worth a city. I just didn't expect you to be so young."

  Liu Yu and Liu Zheng looked at each other and smiled.

  "Because you are more familiar with the situation in Ludang City than we are, and now that you are a military candidate, I'd like to ask, how many people should be stationed in Ludang City to be on the safe side?" Liu Zheng said with a smile.

  "Reporting to the two seniors, Wuyan has suffered heavy losses this time, with huge personnel and material losses. It will be difficult for them to make any moves in the short term. As for the Xianbei people, they have a heart of tigers and wolves, constantly thinking about invading our Great Han State. Within a certain period of time, there is still a possibility of attack. Therefore, I think three thousand men is a basic number."

  Liu Yu and Liu Zheng both looked uncomfortable and stopped talking.

  "But there is a way to make the Xianbei thoroughly abandon their idea of invading our Great Han from Lulong Pass."

  Liu Yu and Liu Zheng exchanged a surprised glance, almost simultaneously waving their hands to indicate that he should continue speaking.