Chapter 253 Not Over Ye (2/2)
'But, doesn't he know that he's acting kind of gay!?'
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March 13th.
Zhongshan City, 500 meters in front of Zhongshan eastern wall.
Liu Yan Army, which was led by Yan Yan, stationed in twenty 1000-men square formations. Five hundred trebuchets and spike barricades were arranged in front of their formation. Twenty thousand men of their soldiers remained from the initial 30,000 after a month of the prolonged siege attempt.
Zhang Bao, Zhang Liang, Bo Cai, and Zhen Yi did their best to protect the city. As the Zhang brothers had baptized in the battle at Anping with Guo Dian force, they utilized the trebuchets and their repeating crossbows well.
With the newly recruited militias from the city and Zhen Yi's private army support, they did not worry about their number of archers.
As a result, Yan Yan and Liu Yan were intimidated by the solid defensive wall and archers. They decided to trade trebuchet projectiles instead of sieging directly to avoid the deadly repeating crossbow arrows.
The stalemate lasted until today as a piece of news changed everything.
”Zou Jing is dead?”
The scout of Yuan Shao reported their intelligence in place of Liu Yan's scouts as they were faster. However, that was not important. The critical news that shocked Liu Yan was the defeat of Zou Jing.
”How is Ji City?”
”Reporting, Zhang Tong didn't take the city. His army is withdrawing back to Zhongshan at the moment. We are expecting him to arrive here in a day or two.”
Liu Yan's face paled. Sweat droplets could be seen on his face as he got nervous after losing his close aide.
Yan Yan gazed at the wall of Zhongshan city and shook his head.
”Let's retreat, my lord. If Zou Jing can't handle Zhang Tong and a few thousand men, I doubt we can take the city with Zhang Tong defending it.”
”Retreat to Ji? Will it be safe? Now that Zou Jing is dead, I think most of my elites would have been dead. Our military power is crippled!”
”No, my lord. We will not go back to Ji. We should head back to our homeland and solidify our power while we hide from all conflicts.”
Liu Yan widened his eyes as he was enlightened, but he frowned in a few seconds after.
”Then, who will take care of Ji City? I don't have anyone I can entrust the governor role.”
”We don't have to. I think Gongsun Zan will move into the city sooner or later. Even if we send a letter to Liu Yu in the Capital to give this city to him, he will eventually fight with Gongsun Zan and lose the city regardless.”
”I see,” Liu Yan paused, ”Send my order. We're going to move to Chengdu! It's going to be a long journey so those who don't want to come with us, they can join forces with Yuan Shao. Messenger, I hope that Lord Yuan Shao can provide us some supplies in exchange for the service from some of our soldiers. Please deliver my message.”
The scout bowed and left.
Liu Yan gazed at Zhongshan City with complicated eyes.
He muttered, ”A pity. I've heard Zhen Yi's daughters are beautiful. I failed to make them my concubines.”
Yan Yan heard it, but he pretended not to hear it. He followed after his master and organized his men to leave the territory.
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March 14th.
Tong returned to the city with a paled face. Although Zhang Bao reported that Liu Yan canceled the siege in the clan chat, Tong still rushed back as soon as possible.
3,000 Men survived from the fight with Zou Jing and Liu Bei's brothers. Only a bit over a thousand men died in the battle.
As for the rest of the men, they had retreated back to Zhongshan long ago.
”Welcome back, young master Zhang.”
The bootlicker, Zhen Yi, stood in front of the north gate to welcome Tong.
”Thank you, Sir Zhen. Please provide my men with a place to rest and get me a fresh horse. I'll continue my journey to Julu.”
”Won't you rest in the city?” Zhen Yi was puzzled.
Tong had a wry smile on his face, ”No, I have to head back to Julu and help the others. I don't have time to rest.”
”Eh?”
The baffled Zhen Yi had a frown on his face as he did not understand why Tong was in a hurry.
Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang, who came out to receive Tong as well, nodded as they understood the reason.
In the clan chat, the situation in Julu was not optimistic. Despite having Lu Bu, Jia Xu, Zhang Liao, and Li Feihong together, they were facing tough foes like Wen Chou, Yan Liang, and Tian Feng.
Lu Bu's monstrous strength was countered by the duo, Wen Chou and Yan Liang.
The Gao family, Feng Ji, and an unknown strategist under Yuan Shao were keeping Li Feihong, Zhang Liao, and Gao Shun at bay.
Lu Zhi, Zhou Cang, Xu Huang, and Jia Xu were also in a stalemate with Yuan Shao's main army and Tian Feng.
In the detail reports in the clan chat, they had the disadvantage in both number and weaponry.
The reason for their inability to defeat Yuan Shao despite the quality of Tong's generals were Yuan Shao's new weapons.
Tian Feng's had copied Tong's repeating crossbows, which all of Yuan Shao troops were sporting these crossbows as well.
Moreover, they had something that Tong had planned to research, but he did not have enough time or manpower to do it.
They had gunpowders!</[diligence]></[humility]></[diligence]></[chastity]>