Chapter 246 Cornering Zou Jing (1/2)
Chapter 246 – Cornering Zou Jing
At noon, Tong secured the camp, and the garrison troops had surrendered. Because of fear, they confessed about Zou Jing's scheme and his whereabouts.
'He's determined, but he's going to keep running at this rate. We've already secured the majority of their logistic convoys so they should run out of food soon.'
Tong looked back at his troops. They did not have a casualty as the enemies were too panic to harm them. All 4,000 soldiers were safe and sound.
”Get ready to move. Zou Jing's men should not be too far, we'll forced-march again.”
”My lord, what about the prisoners?”
Tong glanced at the 500 surrendered soldiers, ”Send a messenger to Bo Cai. Have him escort these men back. I want him to retreat back to Zhongshan after this.”
…
…
March 1st, 183 A.D.
A game of cat and mouse went on for over a week. Zou Jing had escaped outside of the forest with his remaining men.
Looking back at his troops, only four thousand remained. The rest of them either deserted or captured by Tong Army, which was chasing them at a distance of five kilometers away.
Zou Jing did not try to fight Tong again after the burning camp tactic had failed thrice. Moreover, most of his supplies lagged behind and were captured by the chasing troops.
'I'm two days away from the city. I'll return to Ji and gather more troops. I'll also send a message to the volunteer forces to help me! When I have more soldiers, these mongrels won't have a chance.'
…
Meanwhile, Tong and his 4,000 men continued their journey at a fixed pace. Though the quest time limit was short, Tong did not rush his troops to catch Zou Jing or pressured this coward general at night. Since he could not confirm the location of Yan Yan and Liu Yan's missing soldiers, he did not let his guard down as his infantry soldiers were vulnerable to ambushes.
'We're a couple days away from Ji City. If Zou Jing returns to the city, everything will be a lot easier. But if he chooses to run another way, it will be a headache.'
>
A clan message notification sound rang.
'It's been a while. I wonder how's everybody is doing.'
Tong opened the clan chat after weeks of a chasing game with Zou Jing.
A development occurred at Zhongshan as Zhang Liang sent a clan message.
”Tong, Liu Yan's 30,000-men army 20 kilometers northeast from Zhongshan city! We need reinforcement!”
Tong clicked his tongue as he finally understood what Liu Yan was doing. His army was lured out of the city by the bait, Zou Jing.
Jia Xu: Our hands are full. We won't send reinforcement from Julu.
Jia Xu: Fight to the death if you have to.
Jia Xu: If you can't, just withdraw the troops back and abandon the Zhen clan.
Jia Xu: Young master Tong will be fine on his own even if he's isolated.
Jia Xu: You can leave him behind. He'll find his way home like a trained dog.
Jia Xu: I meant an alpha wolf.
Everyone: …
As always, Jia Xu had high expectation of all generals in this force. His strategies were cruel to the allies, especially Tong, but all tactics and placements were efficient.
Tong: Has second uncle returned?
Zhang Bao: I'm in the city.
Zhang Bao: Bo Cai and his gangs are a couple days away from here.
Tong: How many soldiers are in the city?
Zhang Liang: 15,000. I'm telling Zhen Yi to hire some militias.
Tong: Use the woods we gathered to construct trebuchets and ballistae.
Tong: Place them on top of the wall.
Tong: Do you still have the blueprints I gave you?
Zhang Liang: I have. We'll do it.
Zhang Liang: What about you?
Tong: I'm chasing Zou Jing. While I'm at it, I'm sieging Ji.
Tong: You three will have to defend the city on your own.
Zhang Bao: Wait, you are sieging Ji with 4,000 men?
Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang wanted Tong to retreat back to Zhongshan, but Tong refused. Both of them pestered Tong to the point that he got annoyed. Tong disabled the notification and closed the system menu.
There were backlogs of the conversation between the others and the situation in the other cities. However, Tong did not want to interfere or be worried about something that he could not help, so he decided not to touch them until his fight was over.
As long as nothing required his attention, Tong trusted that they would be fine on their own.
'No time to worry about others. I only have less than a month to kill Zou Jing. If I can't kill him in time, I'm screwed.'
Tong glared toward the direction of the exit of the forest. Since he had confirmed the location of the missing soldiers, he did not have to worry about a hidden ambush force of Liu Yan.
'The only worry I have left is Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. They should gather in Ji next year as in history. I hope that they won't show up this year. '
Though he knew that Liu Bei and his sworn brothers pledged their brotherhood in the year 184, he was not confident that they would do so in this world as in the historical records.
…
Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Jiang Man had gather 1,000 militias, and they had their personal weapons.
Everyone had the same weapon as in the description in the historical record. Jiang Man had a Japanese katana as his weapon since he did not like the usual Chinese double-edge swords.