Chapter 241 Encounter in a Fores

Chapter 241 – Encounter in a Forest

February 1st, 183 A.D.

Zhongshan City.

A total of 20,000 Yellow Turban men gathered in front of the north wall, getting ready to sortie. Half of them wore blue clothes while the rest still had yellow clothes on. Tong, who also had yellow clothes, was part of the group, which he was organizing the logistic troops that would handle their supplies.

On top of the wall, 5,000 local garrison troops of Zhen Yi stood on top of the wall to send them off.

'In the end, Zhang Tong didn't take any daughter of the nobles.'

Zhen Yi stood there and pondered how he could bind this young lord with his family. He attempted to seduce Tong with his first and second daughter, but they failed.

A messenger rushed to Zhen Yi and knelt, "My lord, we've finished gathering information about young master Zhang Tong."

Zhen Yi turned to the spy. He had ordered his men to gather the records about Tong after the day he had declined his daughters.

The old fox took the scroll and read. Within the report, there were details about Tong's wife and concubines. It had the details about Hua Shi, Dong Bai, Xiao Wu, and He Xing.

As Zhen Yi continued reading, he was astonished by the details. Dong Bai's age was the same as Tong had told him, a six-year-old little girl. However, Tong also had a wife and two other concubines, which one of the concubines was actually the former Empress!

'Dong Bai was the granddaughter of Dong Zhuo. This little girl should have been given to Zhang Tong as a political marriage. Hua Shi should be his first wife, and Xiao Wu is Hua Shi's disguised bodyguard. But how has Her Majesty entered his family!? Did Zhang Tong force her?'

Zhen Yi read the report thrice. Still confused, he turned and asked the spy, "Do you know how He Xing becomes Zhang Tong's concubine?"

"Reporting, it seems a minister in Zhang Jiao's ranks wanted to refuge Her Majesty from the political strife, so he put her under Zhang Tong's wings."

"How is their nightlife? Has he done anything to her?"

"This … we don't know. Please forgive me."

"Never mind. You can go."

"Yes, my lord."

After the spy left, Zhen Yi sighed.

'My judgment wasn't wrong to join this force. The real ruler of this Yellow Turban is Zhang Tong, and he's a clever young fox at that. He's good in all fields, and he's matured enough not to fall for the simple seduction or a political trap.'

'He has a peculiar taste, or should I say, standard. Hua Shi and Xiao Wu are talented in battles, while Dong Bai and Her Majesty are aristocrats. All of his women are either talented or have a high social status. Does that mean my status is not worthy enough to get his attention?'

'Then, I'll have to make my daughters talented in different fields.'

The eyes of Zhen Yi glinted with ambition. To raise his family status in Tong's force, he would do anything.

'No, that won't work. Trying to get all grown daughters to learn something will be hard. I'll bet everything on Zhen Fu instead.'

Last month, his wife gave birth to a girl. Strangely, on the day that she was born, there was a falling star. His wife also had a dream that a dragon blessed her and her daughter with fortune and intelligence, which she was so happy that she told each of her neighbors about it.

With this promising omen, Zhen Yi had high hope on this girl.

…

If Tong heard about his youngest daughter's name, he might have realized why he was familiar with the Zhen surnames because this girl had a great future ahead of her.

In 196, at the age of 13, Zhen Fu was married to Yuan Xi, the second son of Yuan Shao. As Yuan Shao was a dominant figure during the time, Zhen Yi had no problem giving his under-aged daughter to a son of the ruler.

Later in the year 204, Cao Cao Army had occupied Ye City, which led by Cao Pi. He met Zhen Fu by chance and was impressed by her humbleness and her beauty. Thus, Cao Pi took her in as his wife.

After Cao Pi took over the throne and established the Kingdom of Wei, Zhen Fu became the Empress of Wei, after which she was called by the other name.

This youngest daughter of Zhen Yi, Zhen Fu, had another name in the historical records in Tong's world.

Zhen Shi.

…

…

Zhang Bao, Bo Cai, Tong, and their 20,000 elites departed from Zhongshan and headed north, moving toward the Ji City of Liu Yan.

Zhang Liang and 5,000 garrison force stayed behind to monitor Zhen Yi and his clan as Tong had not 100% trusted this old fox yet.

Zhang Bao and Bo Cai troops consisted of 5,000 men each, and they wore blue uniforms that Tong told them. On the other hand, the 10,000 soldiers under Tong were still wearing the old yellow uniform. In addition, only Tong's legion had a cavalry unit as he was not confident in Zhang Bao and Bo Cai's ability to lead horsemen.

One thousand light horsemen separated into one hundred groups as they were used as scouts. A team of ten men would travel ahead of the main army and report back what they could discover.

Between Ji City and Zhongshan City, a dense forest blocked their path, but there was a forest road that connected both cities. Though not many people used this road anymore, Tong decided to use this as a short-cut while they gathered woods for resources.

Using many too many horsemen in a scout team would not be efficient in this situation. As the forest was filled with bushes, obstacles, and bumpy tree roots, having a thousand horsemen galloping in this forest would do harm more than good.

Thus, a team of ten horsemen was sent to secure the road while the other teams slowly cleared the path on the side road, making rooms for the infantries.

The path toward the north was still partly covered in snow as it was in the season change period. The warm weather of spring had not completely arrived yet. The melted snow turned the soil into muddy swamps which made this journey harder than the usual.

Unlike the time when Tong forced-march to Ye, Tong Army took their time, slowly moving toward north while they were clearing the pathway.

Marching into the dense forest had a high risk of contracting unknown diseases, but Tong was undaunted. Water and food supplies were not their issues, and each soldier also carried anti-biotic medicines from Hua Shi with them, so they had necessary protection.

'Living without the system HUD map is inconvenient, but I have to overcome this. Bear with it for one more year, and I'll get them all back in a year or two.'

…

February 17th, 183 A.D.

The slow journey continued.

Despite the fact that the distance between cities were 150 to 160 kilometers, which could have taken them two days to travel on a clear road, Tong Army traveled only four to five kilometer a day as his men built several camps along the way, creating many check-points.

Today, the scouts finally detected Liu Yan Army.

"Report! We found Liu Yan camps 6 li north of here. They are cutting the forest to make a path toward us. Their number is roughly 20,000 men!"

Tong chuckled when he heard the report.

"Thank you. You can leave."

"Yes, sir!"

Tong had always faced overwhelming numbered enemies, but this time, they were fighting a force with the roughly same number. In addition, Liu Yan had no other promising general except Zou Jing, so the next fight would be a lot easier than the past.

Laughing in his heart for a minute, Tong reeled in his excitement as he remembered a troubling thing he might encounter in this force.

Liu Bei

Zhang Fei

Guan Yu

The three sworn brothers!

'I shouldn't look down on Liu Yan. The three troublemakers probably appear here earlier than the recorded history, so I have to prepare to face these three in the next battles.'

'There's also the missing number of Liu Yan troops. The previous Jia Xu's reports said that they have at least 50,000 men, but only 20,000 shows up here. An ambush or a trap is also possible.'

'Well, I won't underestimate them. I'll be careful.'

Tong turned to the boxes behind his back. Inside, handgun bullets were stored there. After the battle at Liyang and the accumulated bullets Tong had created each day, 150 bullets remained. The other 300 rounds had been stored in his [Inventory], but because Lilim disabled the skill, he could not use them.

'Ten magazines, that's not enough for sure. But I have [Homing Arrow], so I can do the hit-and-run by myself.'

'Welp! Assassin mode, here I go again.'

…

Nightfall.

Tong dressed in a black cloth and left the camp by himself. He carried a standard bow, quivers of arrows, his handgun, and a steel blade, but he only wore leather armor as he wanted mobility over the protection.

It was half-moon and cloudless sky that night, which the moonlight was enough for Tong to travel in this dark forest.

Moreover, Tong's demonic instinct heightened at night. He could faintly feel the surrounding while he was running northward. His red eyes glowed, and his vision had a tinge of green color which he could see clearer in the dark.

One hour later, Tong reached Liu Yan army campsite. As soon as he had reached the camp, he had to crouch down and hid behind a bush to observe the fortified camp.

As Tong had expected, the fortification of this camp was thorough. Three long lines of trenches had been dug, and a double-line of wooden fences covered the entire camps. Watchtowers had been built close to each other that there was a tower every ten meters.

Patrolling sentries were also plenty. A team of ten men with torches walked around the edge of the camp, and their eyes kept glancing at the darkness of the forest.

Tong peeked inside the trenches. Sure enough, there were several groups of soldiers sitting inside them.

'Are they copying my trench tactic from Anping?'

Tong pondered. It appeared that Liu Yan Army also used a similar strategy as Tong by digging through the forest while fortifying their camps. Furthermore, they should have detected Tong Army from the south as well. Had not they discovered Tong, they would not have been on a full-alert like this.

'This is Zou Jing's works. He is wary of me.'

'Ha! But if that's all he can do, then he'll fail miserably!'

Tong crawled back and kept the distance from the camp. He took the bow from his back and nocked an arrow, aiming at a guard on a watchtower.

*WOOSH*

*POEK*

An arrow penetrated the guard's forehead, and he collapsed without making a sound.

Tong did not use the magic arrow as the light arrow was too flashy. With his [Bow Mastery] and his hellish training experience with Medusa, he had no problem sniping someone with a normal bow.