Chapter 177 Battle of Liyang - Part 7

Chapter 177 – Battle of Liyang - Part 7

The chat did not end with the death flag.

"You haven't impregnated me yet. Until you give me 200 babies and inseminate me a million times, you don't have the permission to die!"

With the declaration of Dong Bai, the chat was killed. Zhang Jiao and his two brothers could only reply with "…" as they misunderstood Tong.

Dong Bai that they knew was a five-year-old girl. None of them knew that she was the sexy Friday or she could transform into Tong's ideal woman, Xiao Wu. However, with her speech, they thought that Tong and Dong Bai had gone all the way through already, which was sickening and immoral on many levels.

Zhang Jiao: "Son, don't degenerate too much, okay?"

Zhang Bao: "Nephew, doing it with a child is a bit …"

Zhang Liang: "I understand that you're in puberty, but there's a limit …"

Li Feihong: "Bro, you are so fierce ah. IIRC, she was just 5 this year?"

Ding Yuan: "WHAT!? FIVE!?"

Ding Yuan: "I only did a ten when I was at his age! Youngsters these days are so advanced!"

Dong Bai: "…"

Hua Shi: "…"

Li Feihong: "Where can I call the police in this world?"

Meanwhile, Tong facepalmed as he was also speechless by the thoughtless comment of Dong Bai.

'Damn pervert woman! Think before you chat!'

'My father and my uncles are in the chat room! You sick fOOk!'

'And, WTF DING YUAN!? You did a ten what!?'

"Oh, by the way, Tong, there's important news you should know." Dong Bai ignored the cringe atmosphere and continued chatting. "The former Empress, He Xing, and Lie Xie are living in your courtyard. That old coot Sima Fang announced to everyone without consulting us that she's your new wife and Liu Xie is your adopted child."

Tong coughed as he choked from swallowing his saliva.

Zhang Tong: "DAFUQ did you all do!? Why is she my wife and Liu Xie my son!?"

Dong Bai: "I'll explain to you later. It's a politic reason."

Dong Bai: "For now, win your fight and come home safely, darling."

Dong Bai: "Oh, one more thing. Don't FAP! Save up your seeds for me!"

Zhang Tong: "SCRAM!"

Hua Shi also spammed "LMAO" and a-hand-holding-a-banana-moving-up-and-down gif pictures in the chat, symbolizing a relieving action.

Tong shut down the chat room without bothering with these people anymore. If he stayed with these guys any longer, he felt like his [Corruption] would reach 100% in no time.

…

…

October 12th.

The forest fire started dying down as most burnable materials had been consumed. The firewall from the moat was also self-extinguished from the cold weather.

Inside the main tent, the atmosphere was tense.

Instead of being joyous of this event, Zhu Jun had a gloomy expression on his face. The scouts he sent with the boats two days ago neither returned nor sent back their report. Huangfu Song looked at the water level outside with a frown. Contrary to the two generals, Dong Zhuo, as usual, had a relaxed face.

"The scouts haven't come back." Zhu Jun had lost his patience.

"Those rebels must have gotten them. But it doesn't matter anymore. The forest fire is about to go down. We should get ready to resume our march right now."

Listened to Huangfu Song's suggestion, Zhu Jun nodded. They ignored Dong Zhuo and left the tent to prepare their men.

The fat man, who was left behind, touched his chin and pondered out loud.

"My grandson-in-law is pretty good. To be honest, I start to feel pity for him. Can we rescue him with us, Wenyou?"

Li Ru answered. "Impossible. He can either die or survive by himself. But he cannot come with us as long as Liu Ping is still alive."

"Bah, shame. Anyway, when will we retreat? It's not the time yet?"

"Not yet. At the very least, we should give Zhang Tong's main force a few weeks. The correct time to retreat is when we begin sieging Liyang City. For now, please be patience."

…

…

October 13th.

The fire was no more as the winter wind reached this area. The unimaginable temperature inside the former Huangfu Song camp disappeared like a dream.

"Finally! Men! We will resume our march! By the end of the day, I want to see Liyang City wall!" Huangfu Song roared.

"OOOOOHHHHHH!" The soldiers also shouted and cheered. They had enough to waiting and doing nothing. They wanted to avenge for their comrades who died in the fire.

"Yichen, what about the ships? Do we still need to use them?" Zhu Jun whispered to Huangfu Song. He was afraid that Dong Zhuo would use those boats to desert the army.

"Simple, we'll take them with us as well. We can still use them to scout or transport our troops, no?"

Zhu Jun smiled and breathed out a relieved sigh. With the boats in with them, Dong Zhuo could not easily desert before they reached Liyang City.

"Well, we can also have Dong Zhuo lead the march. We'll be the rearguards this time." Huangfu Song gave out an idea with a smile.

"Nice idea, HAHAHA!"

…

The order arrived at Dong Zhuo's hands. Despite his unwillingness, Li Ru advised him.

"Let them have it. We shall lead the march."

"Will it be dangerous? I doubt Zhang Tong will spare us since we haven't sent the reply letter to them yet."

"I doubt he will prepare an ambush after the forest fire. If I were him, I would have set up barricades to delay our advancement instead of raiding us again. This is the only choice he can do if he wants to defeat our massive army."

"But what can he do to defeat us? Delay us until we are out of provision? Does he forget about our supply line … Right, I forgot."

Dong Zhuo recalled the plan. With the secret intelligence about Tong's other troops moving toward Henei using the secret passage, he connected this with Li Ru's advice.

If Tong delayed their march again, all three armies would get stuck in the wilderness as the winter hit them. Their oil and food consumption would be double, and the supply line would be cut off from Henei. All of them would be stranded without other external help, and their supplies would run out before the spring arrived.

Tong wanted to use the prolonged-war tactic on Huangfu Song and the rest of them.

"Gah! This is sick! Won't we be in trouble if this continues?" Dong Zhuo complained.

"Don't worry, my lord. I have prepared everything since we got stuck here because of the fire. We have secured extra provisions from both of those two's granaries, and we give the impression that we cannot withdraw from the army. They are the one that will be in trouble."

…

In the end, Dong Zhuo played along with the two generals by leading the march with his own men. His 100,000 healthy men took the lead while Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun's remaining troops acted as rearguards.

3 PM.

The march was smooth as Li Ru predicted. Tong did not ambush them along the way. But they encountered a surprise turn of events after they crossed the burnt forest.

A 50-meter-width river blocked their path. Beyond the river, mud wall with a height of three meters trekked from the southern Yellow River toward the north. On top of the wall, flags of "Zhang" surname fluttered in the wind.

"I don't remember that there's a gate or a checkpoint in this area before." Dong Zhuo muttered in awe.

"My lord, those should be Zhang Tong's men. As I thought, they have barricaded themselves."

"What's next then?"

Li Ru looked at Dong Zhuo and smiled. "Normally, I will send scouts to survey the river to the north to check if we can take a detour. However, this time, we do nothing!"

With Li Ru's suggestion, Dong Zhuo arranged his men to fortify a camp one kilometer away from the barricaded river. The rest of his troops caught up with the lead platoons and ended up helping the rest of the soldiers making a new camp.

Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun also caught up. At first, they thought that Dong Zhuo was playing tricks on them and tried to delay the march. However, the sight of the wall and the new river shocked them.

"How in the Heaven!?"

"Since when!?"

They were flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of the unknown. From their memories and their direct experiences, there was neither any river crossing here nor a high mud wall.

If ones wanted to dig a river, it would have taken a thousand laborers and months of hard work. The same applied to the wall as well, which was harder to gather the materials and the construction workers.

Since the first scout group managed to reach Liyang City and obtained the information about the rebel's activities, the wall and the river should not have been here several days ago!

With them being here, it meant that everything had been constructed recently and they were finished in a few days when they got stuck by the forest fire!

"Inconceivable! Too despicable!" Zhu Jun could not explain this situation. He held his head with both hands in bafflement.

Huangfu Song also gritted his teeth in frustration. He knew exactly if they got trapped here for another week, the freezing wind from the north would reach here and the winter would hit Liyang County at full steam.

Once that happened, their food and oil supplies could face a crisis. Though they could get more if they sent messengers back to Henei to demand additional supply convoys, those were his last resort.

"Prepare to siege! We have to cross the river and the wall! As for the rest of the scouts, go and check to the north side. I want you to check how long this river is, and if there's a path toward the east!" Huangfu Song shouted.

The scout teams nodded and rushed to their perspective units. But a few soldiers behind Huangfu Song looked at their boss with reluctant.

"B-But sir, we have a problem…" His aide trembled as he spoke.

"What problem?"

"The forest was all burnt. We can't get more woods to construct siege weapons over here."

The old general gulped and looked at his surroundings. Indeed, the forest was burnt into charcoal. None of them was useable as siege weapon materials.

"Sent messenger to our logistic troops on the back. Have them harvest any useable woods. Also, go and tell that useless fatty Dong Zhuo, tell him to use his men to dig up the soil in advance! I want all the stones and mud to bury the river and make a bridge!"

"Y-Yes, my lord!"

Meanwhile, Zhu Jun also did not stay idle for long. He also gave his subordinates orders.

"Have our men board the ships and sail across the southern river to the other side! If we can't pass through here, we can march on the other side of the river!"

Huangfu Song heard Zhu Jun's order. His eyes brightened up as he was enlightened.

"As expected of you, brother Zhu. I haven't thought of that."

"Take it easy. Everything has a solution." Zhu Jun laughed. He managed to keep his head cool and came up with this idea. "How about this, both of our men will cross the river to the south. We will march along the river to bypass this obstacle to the south of Liyang. Then we will pick a landing point again once we are directly at the south of that city."

"Brilliant! But what about Dong Zhuo?"

Zhu Jun smiled. "It obvious that he's useless in this battle. We'll leave them here to keep those rebel's attention, so they can spread themselves too thin. When we attack the city, they will have less number."

"Hahaha! Good! Very good! Let's proceed with haste!"