Chapter 1: The Perilous City of Yongqiu

  The scorching sun is like a fire, and the dry riverbed is covered with cracks.

  A gush of blood flowed from his mouth to his throat, moistening his smoky vocal cords. Li Yuan's tongue pressed hard against the torn lips, and fresh blood surged in his abdominal cavity like a burst dam, bringing his dizzy head back to clarity.

  Yong Qiu, the former capital of Qi people, is located on the banks of the Great River. The city wall is only a few meters high, and the outside is an open field with no obstacles. Li Yuan couldn't understand what military value this small city had without any danger to defend. In the distance, countless red dots were moving quickly, gradually connecting into a piece of fiery red waves.

  Another batch of rebel reinforcements has arrived!

  The red headscarf is the emblem of the Chu army. It must be Xiang Yu, the Overlord who won the greatest fame in history and was crowned as the bravest among all three armies.

  "Though Chu has only three households, the fall of Qin will be at the hands of Chu! The moment of life and death has finally arrived!" Li Yuan took a deep breath, his eyes revealing a resolute expression. He gripped the copper spear tightly in his hand, raised the round wooden shield on his left side to protect his vital areas.

  All around, the heavy breathing sounds, the clashing of metal weapons and the fluttering of flags in the wind intertwined together. The scorching sunlight roasted the armor of the Qin army officers and soldiers, their sweat flowing and drying repeatedly, forming a thin layer of salt frost on their backs and chest fronts.

  The great war is imminent, the tense atmosphere almost suffocates people. Under heavy pressure, many Qin army officers and soldiers, wearing the same black armor, holding bronze spears and swords, like Li Yuan, made their final preparations before the battle.

  On the city wall, a flag with the character "Qin" in official script and embroidered borders was raised high.

  Qin State

  That's right, it was the iron-blooded Great Qin that swallowed mountains and rivers, swept across the six directions. Li Yuan was a member of the renowned Great Qin military group, his identity being a Marquis.

  Junhou is a low-ranking military position in the Qin army, commanding 200 soldiers. After the unification of the Qin Empire, with its vast territory and numerous counties, the country had an astonishing number of 600,000 to 700,000 soldiers, making Junhou-level officers countless.

  Li Yuan had arrived in this unfamiliar yet familiar era three days ago. Before crossing over, his resume was simple: he had average grades in the college entrance exams and wasted three years at a third-rate comprehensive university. Afterwards, due to his excellent physical condition, he was selected for military service. In the two peaceful years in the People's Army, from private to corporal, Li Yuan's experiences were ordinary and unremarkable, with no opportunities for advancement or promotion coming his way.

  No matter how you look at it, Li Yuan is just a standard person who blends into the crowd and won't attract attention. But unexpectedly, on the eve of his demobilization, due to an accidental military exercise, Li Yuan, this impulsive old soldier who rushed to save people in the heat of the moment, crossed over into the turbulent era of Qin's end and Chu-Han contention!

  This is a reward for the sudden kindness of saving people. If it's true, Li Yuan can only sigh that good people like "Peng Yu" are really hard to live with.

  In 208 BC, the second year of Qin Er Shi.

  Two years ago, the great and powerful First Emperor, who was also a tyrant, died on his way to inspect his empire at Shaqiu.

  The previous year, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang had risen in Daze Township, formally opening the curtain on the magnificent Qin? peasant uprising. Thereafter, a storm of anti-Qin sentiment swept through the six nations of Guandong. Two men under thirty, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, who was nearly fifty years old, stepped onto the stage of history; they would be the main characters for the next few years.

  This is an era of heroes rising together and competing for the world, but also a chaotic age where lives are as cheap as grass and slaughter runs rampant.

  After discovering that he had crossed into this chaotic world, Li Yuan gave up the idea of living a peaceful and comfortable life as a wealthy gentleman or a local tyrant. In an era where people ate each other, individual strength was small and insignificant. Not killing others did not mean that others would not come to kill you, let alone the fact that this body's identity was that of a Qin army officer.

  Whether to become the guardian of the doomsday dynasty, or a nameless or famous passerby on the road of heroic struggle, whether to become a hero who can turn the tide, or a withered skeleton buried in the wilderness, this is the high difficulty setting of the cross-game.

  Following the trajectory of history, joining Liu Bang's team, counterattacking, and striving to become a founding king of the future Great Han Dynasty was not an idea that Li Yuan had never thought of. However, when he learned that his title as Marquis was obtained by killing Cai Ze, the Chancellor of State of Chen Sheng and Zhang Chu, he completely abandoned his intention of surrendering to Liu Bang.

  Cai Xi, a famous elder in the land of Chu, had thousands of disciples under his gate, and many of his acquaintances were also followers. In the armies of various lords in Guandong, there were not a few generals who were Cai Xi's disciples or grand-disciples.

  Apart from wearing this Qin army armor and fighting, Li Yuan couldn't think of any other options for himself.

  In Yongqiu City, there were less than 3,000 Qin state troops. The general guarding the city was named Li Yu, who shared the same surname as Li Yuan. He was a heroic figure with a background of being the son of Li Si, the prime minister of Qin State. However, what Li Yu didn't know was that a dramatic change had just occurred in Xianyang, Guanzhong.

  Qin Er Shi Hu Hai listened to the slander of Lang Zhongling Zhao Gao, and framed Li Si for conniving with his son Li You in secretly communicating with rebels. He put all members of Li's family in prison, and sent Wang Ming and Chen Zongzheng to Xingyang to capture Li You.

  The turmoil in the Qin state's imperial court could not have failed to reach the military, and Li You's branch of the Qin army had now become a lone force. Outside the city, a powerful enemy was about to attack, and reinforcements were unlikely to arrive. Shao Fu Zhang Han, who had always maintained close contact with the imperial court, delayed sending reinforcements after receiving an urgent message from Yongqiu, and must have been influenced by Li Si's imprisonment.

  Facing the predicament, Li You still insisted on guarding, he seemed to have decided to live and die with the city, using his death in battle to prove the error of Zhao Gao's slander. However, such a price was also too great. Li You did not understand that Second Emperor Hu Hai was a foolish ruler, not a wise one. Even if he proved that Zhao Gao's words were false, it would not change the fate of the Li family being exterminated.

  Li Yu only asked for death, and with him were three thousand brave and fearless Qin army officers and men who were willing to die with him. Perhaps the Qin generals and soldiers who had grown accustomed to following orders were willing to die in this way, but Li Yuan was not.

  "Here, if I don't make an effort, how can I be at peace? At least, I must experience the tactics of Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. When I return, I'll have something to brag about with those guys." Li Yuan was indignant, carrying this sense of injustice. In these three days, he had already forgotten how many battles he had participated in. In each fierce battle, his combat experience accumulated continuously. The close combat skills from the military of later generations, combined with the powerful strength that originally belonged to this body, allowed Li Yuan to rapidly grow into a butcher who made his opponents tremble with fear. Under his leadership, the city wall of Yongqiu, which he defended, was attacked several times by the enemy army, but it still stood unyieldingly.

  Getting closer and closer, the red tide is like a wave, surging forward.

  The loud drumbeats echoed, and the Chu army officers with red headscarves quickly formed their troops, replacing the allied forces that were unfavorable to the city attack. Compared to other anti-Qin armed forces that had just been assembled and had poor military discipline, the Chu army, which had experienced several battles, could be called elite.

  In front of the two armies, except for the sound of drums and the shouting of the messengers, no other sounds could be heard. The Qin army on the city wall was silent, and in the intervals between the drumbeats, Li Yuan heard the sound of his personal soldiers' teeth chattering beside him.

  This is a seventeen-year-old boy, the fluff on his mouth shows that he is just a half-grown child. Although he has undergone the most basic military training, it can be seen that he has never killed anyone and is extremely nervous in his heart. His hand tightly grasps a flag symbolizing the glory of the Qin army.

  After several fierce battles, Li Yuan's troops were less than half of the old soldiers, and the vacancies were filled by the temporary recruits from the city. The young man was one of them.

  "Are you scared? Don't wet your pants later!" Li Yuan's gaze swept across the young man's face, with a faintly sarcastic smile. How good it was to be young! At the age of seventeen or eighteen, he had just enlisted and was a new recruit in the army, and those old soldiers and instructors also looked at him with suspicious and disdainful eyes.

  "I, Luo Jia, want to kill the bandits and make a name for myself, then I won't be afraid of any rebels!" The young man's dark face flushed with a wave of redness. Luo Jia was also a descendant of the old Qin people from Guanzhong, his grandfather and father had both been members of the Qin army, and his uncle was still serving as a first-class military marquis in the Qin army that conquered Lingnan, just like Li Yuan.

  Qin Guo male Ding, yearning is on the battlefield with the enemy's head to win everything, this kind of blood courage that has penetrated into the bones makes Qin army officers and men fight to the death on the battlefield, fearless and unstoppable.

  "Good kid, if you want to make a name for yourself, follow me!" Li Yuan spat on the city wall, his eyes fixed tightly on the increasingly approaching Chu army.

  The enemy is powerful, while our army is already exhausted.

  In an unfavorable battle situation, the time to hold on depends on how much combat effectiveness new recruits can exert. The experience and skills of fighting cannot be grasped at once, and the only thing that can be stirred up is morale.

  Whether it is Xiang Yu or Liu Bang?

  Want to climb this city wall? Come and try your luck!